by Lou Cadle
Across the street was the building that housed the temporary Gestapo prison and now both local and German police. The Vichy and Nazi flags flew over its doorway. She had watched the comings and goings there, and there had been no sign of Will, no sign of any political prisoner’s transfer that she could tell. She had seen a drunk being pulled in one afternoon, and she had spent some time thinking about a plot where her getting in as a drunk might be used to get to Will. But she was not the planner Claude was. In any case, it could not be Antonia who tried such a ruse, for even if they arrested a drunken woman, she would be unlikely to be housed near the male prisoners.
Gendarmes went in and out of the building on no particular schedule, and she concluded there was no change of shift between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, the earliest and latest she had been at the café. It might have been her wishful thinking, but the Vichy police seemed disheartened and tired. If it was they who transferred Will to a car, two armed Résistance fighters might well be able to overcome them.
But there were Gestapo and SS men coming and going from the station as well, and she had seen the local head of the Gestapo, Meyer, walk in one day, and stay for hours, and she believed in any case that with a suspected agent, the Vichy police would not suffice as guards. She and Claude would be taking on dangerous men. Better to take them on out on a lonely road on their way out of town.
The man with the medical bag passed by, and her attention swung to him. Marie had been able to find out that Will had indeed been shot, but that the wound had not required an operation. This man, if he was a doctor, might be checking on Will. Or he might simply check prisoners at the jail daily for parasites or some other routine reason. But she had noted him entering two times now.
Again, her mind cast about for potential plots involving the doctor. She could pose as a nurse, seek employment with the man, and perhaps accompany him? The plan seemed too complicated, and was too long of a game to play, and she did not in any case have the right papers nor time to secure them. Claude knew from past experience that suspected spies did not often spend more than a week in the local jail before being transferred to a Gestapo prison in Marseilles or Paris.
If this was so, her time was running out, and she had devised no plan for rescuing Will from the hands of the Nazis here. She also had not been able to radio in at night to England. They did not yet know that “Bernard” had been captured. There was a code within the code to use for that. “Our cousin Bernard,” she would send, “has taken ill.” If she needed him—or any SOE agent—to be evacuated, she would send a message that the friend or cousin would go to hospital as soon as possible. The SOE would send back the time and location for his extraction.
But she was not to that point, not even two steps along in a plan to have Will sent back to England. Across the street, somewhere, he was being questioned. Tortured, more than likely. And she didn’t know on which floor with certainty, not where he slept, and not where he was questioned. She hoped against hope that he was holding on, not revealing anything. So far, at least, he had not told where he had been staying. The safe house where they had slept in the cellar was untouched by the Nazis.
She took heart from that. Stay strong, Will. She thought it with all her might, hoping there was some way of him hearing the thought.
A half-hour later, the doctor left. Antonia glanced over and saw the café owner giving her a look. She didn’t think he suspected her of anything, but she smiled at him and walked over to order another cup. “I’d pay half a month’s salary for a real café au lait,” she said to him.
“That’s about what it would cost you,” he said.
An offer of black market goods? “I’m only a secretary, so I cannot afford that. When the war is over, things will go back to normal,” she said.
He did not reply. She had no idea if his sympathies were with the Résistance or the Vichy, if he was friend or foe, and she would do nothing to try and find out. She was trying to pretend to be her cover identity to him, a young an apolitical shorthand secretary temporarily in a strange town, waiting for a business contact who had been delayed.
She sat again with her hot drink and took off her jacket. Spring was here, and the day was growing warmer. The wind was from the southwest. Sipping her drink, she looked around the street, and saw Genevieve across the street, almost in front of the jail. When the girl caught her eye, she turned and walked away.
Abandoning her coffee, Antonia gathered her valise, which had nothing more than pens and papers in it and the German-French dictionary. After purposefully dropping a pen and using the moment to glance around and make sure no one was taking special note of her, she walked purposefully after Genevieve, keeping a half block behind her. The girl turned down a side street and disappeared. Antonia followed. In a doorway, the girl waited. Antonia approached.
Genevieve handed her a piece of paper. “From Claude.”
It was a typed note with two lines. The transfer was to happen tonight at 11 p.m. A car to Marseilles. One guard, plus one driver. She imagined Will would be in handcuffs, and maybe leg restraints as well. “Thank you,” she said to the girl.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Genevieve said.
“If I wanted to be safe, I would have stayed where I was. Or fled elsewhere.” Despite her worry about Will, she managed a smile for the girl. “I care for you too.”
“I don’t care about you at all,” she said, stubborn as ever. “Our friend says to go back to where you are staying. He will be there within the hour.”
“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
Without another word, Genevieve ran off.
Antonia watched her go for a moment, hoping the girl would lead something near a normal life once this was all over. But maybe that had never been the girl’s fate.
Maybe it had not been Antonia’s fate either.
Taking only a few twists and turns to make sure she was not being followed, she made it back to the bakery and walked in the front door like a customer. Madame came out, saw her, and said, “There could have been someone here.”
“I looked in the window first.”
Madame led her to the back room. “Would you like tea?”
Antonia shook her head. “I’ve had too much already today.”
“Did you find anything you were looking for?” Madame did not know exactly what was happening, only that it was something important enough for Antonia to risk being out in the daylight day after day.
“Claude has new information. He will be here soon to meet me.”
“Then I will get wine. I have—”
Antonia said, “Thank you. Not today. We need to have our wits about us.”
“I see,” the old woman said. “Well, I will make myself scarce then. I’ll be in the front room.”
Antonia was happy the woman was keeping herself safe, including by learning as little as possible about the circuit’s operations. She needed to say her goodbyes again tonight, just in case things did not go well. If unsuccessful in her rescue attempt, she might be captured tonight. If successful, she would not bring Will back here. In fact, she did not know where she would bring him. Something else to discuss with Claude.
Madame passed through the room and said, “There are rolls in the kitchen, under a towel.” Then she took her cane and left her alone.
Twenty minutes later, Claude arrived. He carried a large canvas bag.
She pointed to it wordlessly.
“Explosives from our store of them. And this.” He reached in and pulled out heavy bolt cutters. “For handcuffs. I have a key as well, but if it doesn’t work, this will.”
“Good. I was wondering. He might be in leg irons as well.”
“He might not be in any condition to run, so perhaps not.”
“His gunshot wound?”
“Not that.”
Torture. She knew it was possible—probable, even—but she had been trying to avoid thinking about it in detail. She didn’t need the distractio
n of that. She pushed it from her mind. “Tell me what the plan is.”
“They are taking him to Baumettes. The road to Marseilles is to the south. There is a bridge on the road a few miles from town. Our best chance, I think, is to destroy the bridge as they pass over it.”
“Then we’ll destroy him too.”
“I plan to use not that large a charge. I want the bridge to collapse, not be blown sky-high.”
“Still, the car will plunge down.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“He may be killed.”
“It’s a chance worth taking. There will only be two of us. It is not possible to do anything more subtle or fussy. We have to stop their car. We could destroy it before they arrive, true, but we might hurt a civilian. It would be best if they were confused.”
“But not dead.”
“If there were any way of killing them and not him, I’d do that.”
“Do you have a car again for us to drive out there?”
“No, but I have a cart.”
“A cart?”
“A market cart, from an empty farm. If he cannot walk, you and I can pull him on it. It is small enough to pull off the road when a car approaches.”
It sounded like a very rough plan. And a very slow way to escape.
“I’m sorry. I could not get a car. Everything is difficult right now.”
“No matter. It is up to us two to make a plan that considers that. Or for you to plan and me to follow. What is the traffic on the road like?”
“At that hour? Sparse. Quite sparse.”
Then they had a chance. “You have plenty of munitions? A gun for me?”
“If you wish for one, I will bring you one. We have plenty of plastique and new detonators that came with you.”
“Perhaps we could do minor damage to the road before the bridge. Slow them down.”
“To what end?”
“It would help us be more precise in our timing at the bridge. And if they were going slowly at the bridge, the damage inside the vehicle might be less.”
“Meaning the guard and driver would not be hurt.”
“I’ll kill them once they emerge.” Happily. “Do you have the guns here on you now?”
“Only this.” He pulled out a gun, an American gun, a worn Colt.
“It is yours?”
“Since almost the beginning. From one of the first drops, years ago.”
“Will mine be the same?”
“Similar. Still, it would be better if we did not make too much noise out there.”
“Then I’ll take the driver with my knife. You kill the guard from very close if he survives the wreck.” She frowned. “And then what do we do with the car?”
“Leave it. If I had been able to secure a horse, we might have pulled it to the side. But I tried that too and failed. There are not many horses left. Conscripted or eaten.”
“Someone will come upon the wrecked car.”
“It might be a while before that happens. And it might not be a German. If someone sympathetic comes upon it, they will not notify any authorities. They will be happy to see a German car wrecked.”
“And two bodies.”
“We should perhaps pull those into the woods.”
“How high, how wide is the river there at the bridge?”
“It is still narrow but still rising at this time of year. Spring melts have it up.”
She nodded. “We can dump the dead Germans into the water. If we are lucky, they will be washed downstream.” She tried to work it out in her mind’s eye. “Will the water take the car? Is it that high and fast?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where will we take him?”
“I would like to get him to the place where you radioed. The empty house, far outside of town.”
“Past the barn and up that hill? I doubt very much that the two of us can drag him that far in a single night.”
“We will have to hide in the woods one night, probably two, and move him at night. Rather, you will. I need to come back to town and act normally tomorrow, in case I have misjudged and they suspect me of anything. But that will give me another chance to find a car to borrow.”
“Yes, of course.” She had no idea what his regular job was, or if he had a job, and who might be keeping track of his presence or absence. And it was none of her business, just more information she should not know in case the Gestapo had a chance to torture her for it.
“You know about these new supplies? These detonators are new to me.” He took a packet out of his pocket and pushed it across the table.
She opened it and looked. “Yes, I was trained with these. They are not that different than the older ones. More accurate, they said.”
“There were instructions, in English. But I would rather have you set the charges if you have practiced it already.”
“I’ll have to see the bridge. Preferably in the light.”
“Then we don’t have much time. Come. We’ll have to make do with only my gun.”
“A moment. Or five minutes.” She wanted her radio. Everything she owned stayed with her. And she wanted to say goodbye to Madame again.
Quickly, she changed into her trousers, gathered her things, and carried them down from the attic. She found the boulangere sitting on a stool in the front room. “I’m going. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, and I wanted to thank you.”
Madame turned from the window, where she had been staring out. “No need, child. You are always welcome here.”
“If I survive this terrible war, I would like to come back after. To talk. To taste your bread when you have all the butter and eggs and fresh white flour you would like.”
“I’m old enough that I might not live to see such a day.”
And Antonia was unlikely to survive the war. But it was good to think of the best that the future might bring. “You will always be in my heart.”
“And you,” the old woman said. She made her way over and kissed Antonia on the cheek. “Be careful.”
“I will be,” she said. And then she carried her gear to the back room. “I’m ready.”
“As am I,” Claude said. “Let’s hurry.”
Chapter 25
The cart was a burden without anyone on it. She and Claude took turns pulling and pushing it along. A few cars passed them, but no one seemed to think anything of them. They could be any farm couple, she supposed, who had lost the horse that pulled the cart to the war or to hunger, and who took food into town every few days to sell it from the cart. In this scenario, they were on their way home, cart empty of everything but some straw.
Underneath the straw was her valise, the radio, and a moth-eaten blanket Claude had brought along. It was just a cart, not a piece of spy equipment. There were no secret compartments in it to hide the radio or a man.
The walk out to the bridge took over two hours. She strained a calf muscle at about the two-hour mark and felt every step beyond that, though she said nothing. Complaining wouldn’t ease it, and Claude couldn’t help her. She thought about the tin of aspirin in her first aid kit but pushed the thought away. Will might need it.
She hoped Will was in good enough shape to walk. Pulling him on the cart would take a long time, and should their luck turn bad and the Gestapo begin to hunt them this very night, they would all three surely be caught. Walking without the cart would be better, and no slower. Walking meant they could move through the woods, keep off the main road, and stay better hidden.
But could Will manage to walk? That was the question.
They pulled the cart into a culvert near the bridge. Brackish water stood in the ditch. Claude had them pull the cart around in a semi-circle so it was pointed back toward town. If they pulled it straight along the ditch toward town, the ground rose gradually, and it would take them out to the road again.
She left Claude in order to inspect the bridge, carrying her torch. It was a simple structure, pavement over double arches of concrete, a newer bu
ild than some in France were. The water swept by below, not dangerously swift, but she’d have to take care if she had to stand in it not to be knocked over by a floating limb. The bridge deck cleared the water by no more than four feet, so she might need to enter the water. There was a metal guard rail to the sides of the road, but were it not for that, if you came across it in the dark and weren’t familiar with the area, you wouldn’t know there even was a bridge. It barely climbed above the level of the main road.
She studied the bridge’s construction. It would be better to blow up both of the arches at once. Hard to time correctly, but not impossible. She climbed back up and told Claude what she thought about placing the charges.
The last light was leeching out of the sky, a bright star—or planet—showing through the treetops. She looked around for the moon, and saw the light of it on the eastern horizon, from behind the trees. “Full moon,” she said. A day or two past. Time was slipping away from her.
Claude said, “Let’s set the explosives.”
“I’ll do it all. You stay here. If something goes wrong with the plastique, you can keep him safer than I could.”
“If something goes wrong, who will send a message to England?”
“I’ll have to wait on triggering the detonator of course.”
He reached into her jacket and handed her a package. “Here they are, several detonators and the explosives.”
“I need light to attach the plastique.”
“I have my torch here.” He turned it on.
She used his light to study the detonators. There were ones of various timing delays, the numbers marked clearly, some of the newest they had. She had worked with these, and with older versions, because you never knew what your Résistance circuit might have on hand. This particular timer—a pencil, they were called—she knew well.