Welcome Home

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘We are not involved. We didn’t know any of this. We believed that she was my wife’s niece.’ If Leonie could stand such torture, then he would do no less, though he feared for Marthe.

  The two men regarded each other solemnly and Raoul could see that the younger man did not believe him. ‘Even so,’ Kurt said slowly, ‘I fear you would not be believed. Perhaps you and your wife, too, should go into hiding, if you can.’

  Raoul shrugged. ‘I have my farm to run. Your men need to be fed.’ Perhaps, he was thinking, he could get Marthe to go away, but he doubted it. If the Germans thought about it, they would lose so much by leaving the farm unattended. Perhaps that would save them both. But not Leonie. They must get her away as soon as possible. Thank goodness Emile had chosen this very night to visit. He was upstairs at this very moment. He had hidden in the attic when they heard Kurt’s knocking.

  ‘Perhaps you are right. I will see what I can do, but don’t count on it.’ Kurt smiled wryly. ‘I rather think I am going to be in some trouble myself after this night’s work.’

  Raoul was sure of it as he led the way to the back door and stood watching as the German officer climbed back into his car and drove away. Raoul believed that was the last time they would ever see Major Kurt Hartmann.

  The sound of the car’s engine faded into the night and, after a few minutes of complete silence save for the soft hooting of an owl, Raoul closed the back door and went back to Beth. She was lying hunched in his chair, her face deathly white, her eyes closed. He shook his head sadly and went to tell Emile that it was safe to come down. Marthe was waiting anxiously at the bedroom door, a shawl around her shoulders. Swiftly, Raoul explained what had happened.

  Marthe gave a soft cry and covered her mouth with a trembling hand. ‘I must go to her.’

  Whilst Marthe gently bathed Beth’s wounds and bandaged her foot, which was still oozing blood, Raoul and Emile discussed in soft voices what could be done. ‘I knew she’d been taken. Bruce told me. He risked everything by coming to our hideout.’

  ‘So he was genuine. He came here, but I didn’t know what to think.’

  Emile, his gaze never leaving Beth’s face, nodded. ‘He was – is – working with us but you weren’t to know. You did the right thing, Papa.’

  It had been a long time since Raoul had heard his son utter his name and a lump rose in his throat. He put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder and squeezed it. And he watched his son as he stood looking down at Beth. There was such a mixture of conflicting emotions on Emile’s face; anger against the perpetrators of such heinous treatment, anxiety at what might still happen to all of them, and love – yes, love – for this courageous girl.

  At last, Emile dragged his gaze away from Beth as he said, ‘I’ll take her with me.’

  ‘But she can’t walk.’

  ‘Then I’ll carry her as far as the motorcycle,’ Emile said fiercely, then, more gently, he added, ‘but what are you and Maman going to do?’

  Before Raoul could answer, Marthe said determinedly, ‘Stay here, of course. What else should we do? If we flee, we shall look guilty. If we stay, they might believe us that we were ignorant of what Leonie was doing.’

  ‘They might question you.’

  ‘Huh!’ Marthe gave an unladylike snort. ‘They think too much of their bellies to risk losing the provider of their food.’

  ‘There are other farms,’ Emile said, playing the Devil’s advocate.

  ‘Not as good as ours,’ Marthe declared vehemently.

  The two men smiled at each other, surprised at Marthe’s display of determination. She had always been such a gentle, reserved woman, but it seemed she possessed an inner strength that had not needed to show itself before this desperate hour.

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Raoul said. ‘You just take care of this poor girl here.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘What do you want me to do about the wireless?’

  Emile thought for a brief moment before saying, ‘Leave it where it is for the moment. If they come back and search more thoroughly, they may find it, but if they do, then they might believe that you genuinely knew nothing about what Leonie was doing. If you move it, it propounds your involvement.’

  Raoul nodded.

  ‘If nothing happens for a few days, I will bring two armed men with me one night and retrieve it.’

  Again, Raoul nodded.

  Emile turned and clasped his father’s hands and then embraced his mother. His voice was husky as he said, ‘You realize I may not be able to visit for some time. They may well be watching the farm from now on.’

  The three of them stood together for a moment before Marthe, ever practical, said, ‘Food. You must have some food before you go’, and she began to hurry towards her larder, but Emile put up his hand. ‘No time, Maman. I daren’t risk staying here any longer and there’s a long way to go.’

  His parents had no idea where Emile and his compatriots were hiding or how far away it was. It was better that they did not know.

  ‘What about taking my wheelbarrow? We can put blankets in the bottom to make it softer for her,’ Raoul suggested, but Emile shook his head. ‘No, I must take nothing that could lead them back here if they catch us. Now, we must go.’

  Beth roused sufficiently to understand that Emile was taking her away. Through swollen lips, she whispered her thanks to the elderly couple. Emile picked her up tenderly, but she winced and let out a little cry of pain.

  ‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ Emile murmured against her hair, and hearing his endearment his parents glanced at each other. In better times, how happy they would be to hear such words, but now . . .

  Thirty-Two

  ‘She’d have been better off stopping at home instead of gallivanting off to join the FANYs. She could have found herself a nice young feller, got married and had a barrowload of bairns of her own by now. Where can she be, Lil? We’ve not had word from her for ages. Not even so much as a postcard now. I’m worried sick, I don’t mind telling you. It’s not like Beth at all. Now, if it had been Shirley who’d gone off and never bothered to write home, I could have understood it, yet she writes regular as clockwork every week. And long, newsy letters too, just like the ones you’d expect to get from Beth.’

  ‘What about Reggie? Does he write?’

  Edie pulled a face. ‘Now and again, but you know what lads are like and, when he does, it’s all about how wonderful Mr and Mrs Schofield are.’

  ‘That’s better than him writing to say how miserable he is, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Edie said, fretfully. ‘Yes, of course it is. I’m being selfish, I know I am, and there’s only you I can talk to like this, Lil. I can’t even say this sort of thing to Archie, but you understand, don’t you? I just want them all back home.’

  ‘I know, Edie, I know, and so do I, but we’ve just got to be patient. We’re not alone in this, you know.’

  ‘Of course, I know, Lil. I’ve already lost one son and you think I don’t know? Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t snap at you of all people, but I’m so worried about all of them, to say nothing of Archie out at sea. It’s always been dangerous work – fishing – but it’s even worse now.’

  Lil knew that only too well, but she said nothing and changed the subject. ‘Have you got your floors done, Edie? Friday’s your floor day, isn’t it? Like me.’

  ‘Aye, I’d done ’em all by eight o’clock this morning, Lil. I’d nowt else to do.’

  ‘Right, then, we’ll go down to the WVS this afternoon, if you’ve nothing else on. I’m sure they could use an extra half a day from the two of us. There’s still a lot of folks who’ve been bombed out needing help. Jessie said the other day they were expecting a delivery of clothing. That will need sorting out, if nowt else.’

  Emile carried Beth for miles, over rough terrain and up and down hills, stopping every so often to rest and to listen for any sounds that might indicate a search party scouring the countryside for the missing prisoner. Perha
ps, with luck, her escape would not be discovered until the morning. But what, Emile, wondered, would happen to the German officer who had helped her?

  He carried her away from the Loire valley where the river flowed serenely on, unaware of the conflict close to its shores. As dawn spread across the fields, Emile reached a safe house a good distance away from his father’s farm. Still there was a long way to go. Luckily, he had left his motorcycle here the previous night and walked the rest of the way to see his parents. Some instinct had made him be extra cautious. Leaving Beth with the parents of one of the members of the resistance group, he roared off on his machine, coming at last to the wooded area. He negotiated the curving paths through the forest to where he and his friends had their hideout. They’d been fortunate in finding two deserted woodmen’s cottages, in the very middle of the wood, which they used as their base.

  Swiftly, he explained what had happened and said, ‘Pierre, she is with your parents but we must get her away as quickly as possible. The Germans will be scouring the countryside. They know she is an agent, but I don’t know what she has told them, if anything.

  Pierre looked anxious. ‘You’re going to bring her here?’

  ‘Where else can I take her?’

  ‘But if she has told them anything . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing she could tell them that could endanger us. She doesn’t know where our hideout is.’

  An older man touched Pierre’s arm. ‘She is a brave woman, Pierre, who has done much to help us. We can do no less than come to her aid now. Perhaps we can get a message to London somehow and they can pick her up.’

  Pierre capitulated at once. ‘I’m sorry, Antoine of course we must help her. I – I am just so afraid for our organization. It has worked so well – until now.’

  ‘Thanks to Leonie,’ Emile said softly and Pierre muttered, ‘Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.’

  Emile touched the man’s shoulder and said, ‘Would you drive the truck for me?’ He smiled. ‘You understand its temperamental ways much better than I do.’

  When the young men had taken to the forest, Pierre’s father had given them an old truck to take with them. Pierre was a good mechanic and he kept it in reasonable repair, but because of its age and the difficulty in getting new parts for it, it was unreliable. They set out, Pierre driving the noisy vehicle and two men sitting in the back armed with shotguns.

  ‘If we’re caught,’ Pierre muttered, ‘we’re done for.’

  Emile’s face was grim and he remained silent, for he knew that his friend was right. But when the three men with Emile saw the injuries inflicted on Beth, their resolve hardened and they forgot all about any concern for their own safety.

  ‘They will pay for this,’ Pierre murmured. ‘One day, we will make them pay.’

  ‘I agree, my friend, but for the moment we must get her to safety.’

  Luckily, there were two doctors amongst their number, Jewish men who had fled for their lives. Now, they cared for the resistance fighters and the Allied airmen who’d been shot down as well as rescuing their fellow Jews and sending them down the escape route whenever they could. Now the two young men tended Beth.

  ‘You say the Germans have discovered she’s an agent?’

  Emile nodded bleakly. ‘They found the cyanide pill hidden in the heel of her shoe.’

  ‘Do you think she told them anything?’

  ‘The German who took her back to the farm told my parents she had said nothing.’

  ‘And you trust him?’ the doctor asked sarcastically.

  Emile pulled a wry face.’

  ‘Have you heard from Bruce?’

  ‘Not since he came here to tell us about Leonie.’ Still Emile referred to her by her code name. It was safest that his men should know her only by that name.

  ‘If she has given anything away, it’ll be him they look for first and then probably you, Antoine.’ Even here, they all used each other’s code names.

  ‘The only information she could have given them was about my parents, of course, but the Germans already knew she was living there and they’d naturally suspect them. And Bruce, who was her contact in the town, Monsieur Lafarge and his bakery, where Bruce lodged, and the drop box in the tree. And me.’

  ‘And, of course,’ added Gaston, the elder of the two doctors, ‘the map references for our dropping zones.’

  ‘If she could remember them, yes, I suppose so.’ Emile sighed. ‘Well, we’ll soon know one way or another.’

  The members of the resistance group hiding in the woodland, twenty-three in all, kept watch for the next two days, curtailing their activities until they were sure that Beth had given nothing away. Her recovery was slow and painful but the doctors assured Emile that no lasting damage had been done.

  ‘There’s nothing broken,’ Gaston told him, ‘though she’s badly bruised from head to foot. The worst injury is where they’ve pulled all the toenails from her left foot. That must have been agony.’

  ‘Has she said much yet?’

  Gaston shook his head. ‘Manny’ – he referred to the other doctor – ‘and I decided to give her a sedative to help her sleep and keep her free from pain for a while.’

  ‘But we need to know if—’ he began, but Gaston interrupted ominously, ‘You’ll know soon enough, my friend.’

  After two days, Emile and the others began to feel that perhaps they were safe. Four nights after he had brought Beth away from the farm, he went back accompanied by two members of the group armed with rifles. Carefully, they approached the farm and tapped on the back door. It was opened in only a few moments; Raoul must have been waiting for them.

  ‘Has anything happened?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Not as far as the Germans are concerned. They’ve not even been back here. But I have an airman above the pigsty. Two nights ago, I heard a plane in the distance that sounded as if it was in trouble. When I went outside I saw a white parachute in the moonlight. Jasper found him.’ Raoul sighed. ‘He was the only one to get out. The plane crashed some miles away, so I don’t think they thought to look for anyone here.’

  ‘That was a bit dangerous, Papa, when the farm might be searched any minute.’

  Raoul shrugged with a typical Gallic gesture. ‘What could I do? He was lost and very afraid.’

  ‘We’ve come for the wireless set, but I’ve no wireless operator now. Leonie’s not well enough yet. Besides, we don’t want her transmitting from our hideout. Their detection equipment would soon track us down.’

  ‘The man who came here – Bruce, was it? – could he transmit from here if you leave it for a little longer?’

  Emile pondered the problem. He’d wanted to remove the wireless set, to get rid of any evidence that would implicate his parents, but there was the airman to think of now.

  ‘I’m surprised they’ve not found it,’ he murmured.

  ‘They nearly did one day when Leonie was transmitting, but she saw them and led them away. They were so busy chasing her that they didn’t think to check the barn. That was the same day they arrested her.’

  ‘If you’re sure you want to take the risk, Papa, I’ll get a message to him. Tell him to come here.’

  Raoul nodded. ‘I’ll show him where the wireless is – if he can operate it, that is – then he can come and go as he needs to. He won’t even need to come to the farm each time and we can deny all knowledge if he’s caught.’

  ‘Won’t you and Maman come with me? You’d be much safer. You’ve done enough already and I fear for Maman – for both of you.’

  Raoul shook his head. ‘If that lovely girl can take that sort of punishment and not say a word, then we can do no less.’ He smiled fondly. ‘Your mother is showing a courage that not even I knew she possessed. No, don’t worry about us, my son, just take care of yourself – and Leonie.’

  Rob came to the farm the following day. ‘I am a trained wireless operator,’ he told the farmer and his wife as he sat in their kitchen. He was about to tell them
that he and Beth had trained together and then he stopped himself. The less anyone knew, the better, as recent events had proved. They were all now sure that Beth had given no information away, though she had suffered terribly for her bravery. Rob, however, had other news from the town.

  ‘The German officer who helped Leonie escape has been arrested. He will be court martialled and most likely shot by firing squad as a traitor to his country.’

  ‘How did they find out it was him?’

  ‘Apparently, there was a sentry on duty when he took Leonie out to his car behind the Town Hall. He didn’t question it at the time and they didn’t find out she was missing until the next morning, which gave you time to get her to safety. But when the hullaballoo started, the sentry realized that Major Hartmann had not been acting under orders and he told his superiors what he knew. So, Hartmann most certainly saved her life at the expense of his own.’

  Quietly, Raoul said, ‘I think he was in love with her. That’s why he did it.’

  ‘Poor man,’ Marthe murmured. ‘I’ve always believed that the ordinary German people don’t want to be at war any more than we do. It’s just the Nazis.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Madame,’ Rob agreed as he got up. ‘And now, Monsieur, if you will show me where the wireless set is hidden, I won’t need to come to the farm any more. It would be safer.’

  Raoul led him up the field with Jasper at his heels. The dog was restless, looking around him as if searching for something or someone.

  ‘I think he’s missing Leonie,’ Raoul said. ‘We all are.’

  Rob said nothing, but he was thinking about the merry, clever girl he had known through training and more recently here as his wireless operator and courier and now she was lying hurt, viciously beaten by ruthless men. His resolve to continue the fight strengthened.