The comrade gave them water which they chugged right from the pitcher, their chests heaving from their wild sprint. They had had to stop a few times and wait out in the shadows as fire brigades and black Citroëns flew past them, hoping to grab their victims red-handed. Invisible eyes watched the spectacle unravel from behind closed shutters; Paris barricaded itself in.
The apartment was cold, with the wind howling wildly through the cracks in the windowpanes, the peeling wallpaper stained with a pattern that was impossible to distinguish anymore. A bulb on a wire illuminated the room and a brass bed. There was food atop an underground newspaper which announced the Russians’ imminent victory in Stalingrad on its front page; a sour red wine warmed them up better than any centralized heating, and there were cigarettes in abundance.
They slept for only four hours, right there on the floor, and woke up stiff and cold. They quickly wolfed down whatever was left from their late-night dinner and exchanged firm handshakes with the owner. Their personal belongings – two small backpacks filled with water, very little food and some money – were already waiting for them thanks to the same comrade, just like the papers with new names on them. They had been neatly stacked away under the comrade’s floorboards.
“Remember not to go near train stations until you get as far as two hundred kilometers away from the city,” he reminded them at the door. “Train stations are one place for you to avoid now as they will be swarming with flics and Boches. If I were you, I’d ride my bicycle all the way to Lyon. And as for the nights, in every village, there will be a comrade who’ll take you in. Well, goodbye now. Bon courage.”
“Don’t say goodbye yet.” Philippe slapped his shoulder amicably. “Our fighting days are not over, and I do hope to do my share of shooting next to you once again, for old-times’-sake.”
“I’ll be waiting here,” the man promised with a sly, confident grin.
They rode for hours without stopping, and only paused when their legs started cramping from the constant pedaling. The comrade turned out to be right; villagers were more than glad to not only let them take their respite in the local inn without asking any unnecessary questions but informed them, in passing, where exactly the gendarmes were rounding people up for the labor service, and which route was the best to take to escape meeting them face to face. By the time they reached Dijon, they had met twelve comrades willing to join them; by the time they reached Lyon, over twenty-five. When Patrice opened his door to Marcel and Philippe, they had quite a few recruits in their midst. All the men needed papers, and all of them were keen on joining the Resistance rather than bending their backs in some German factory.
“Those Boches have no idea what a favor they did us,” Patrice remarked. “Soon, every second young man will take up arms under our flag. And then they’ll have to deal with the whole country which has gone underground.”
The communist clearly knew what he was talking about. In just a few days, what started as a quiet rumble of discontent turned into a veritable riot which had soon engulfed the whole country. Workers went on strikes threatening to stop production even in French factories, let alone German-controlled ones; blocked railway tracks prevented their countrymen from being taken to Germany and soon started actual fights with both gendarmes and the Germans. The latter threatened arrests and reprisals, which resulted in more men taking to the hills.
“Better for us,” Philippe agreed whole-heartedly with Patrice. “Now, we just have to arm them all.”
Etienne had just such a task for his two comrades, with whom he was more than glad to be reunited; both travelled to Anthéor under new aliases and in new disguises, and a few days later, after getting confirmation from one of their liaison agents in Cannes, they stood waist-deep in black water, sending the signals for the submarine which was loaded with guns, into the pitch-black night.
11
Lyon, January 1943
Giselle eyed her new boss with suspicion. Barbie arrived at work that day (although “arrived” would be too generous of a term for someone who wakes up on the second floor and makes his way up to the third, as all of the Gestapo staff actually lived in the same hotel where they had made their new headquarters) in a particularly good mood, whistling a Bavarian tune, flirting with the secretarial staff and genuinely acting quite contradictory to his usual, work-obsessed self.
“Sophie, my Sophie,” he addressed her in a sing-song voice and brushed her shoulder with his fingertips while passing Giselle by. “You look exceptionally pretty today. Such a shame you hate me so much.”
She shot him a mocking glare, to which he only laughed.
“If I start liking you, you won’t have time for your other lady-friends,” she retorted icily causing another delighted grin to appear on his face.
She knew of at least one such lady-friend – a pretty French girl, Odette, who he saw steadily, and two secretaries whom he was just as steadily sleeping with, right here, in the hotel. Barbie thought that Sophie was involved with the Sous-Préfet Delattre since the two met up almost daily after work, and spared her his attention, much to Giselle’s relief.
“I won’t have time for my lady-friends, as you call them, anymore any time soon anyway,” he remarked cryptically, a sly grin appearing on his face once again.
“How come? Are you being transferred somewhere?”
“Ha-ha, you would like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Not going to lie…”
“You know why I like you so much, Sophie? You aren’t afraid of me.”
“Why should I be afraid of you?”
“You see what I do with people.”
“Criminals.”
He raised his brow.
“I’m just a secretary.” Giselle finished her thought, shrugging.
“Ja, the man who we have just arrested vehemently assured us that he was just a lawyer too.”
Giselle willed her expression to remain as disinterested as was possible, not even bothering to lift her eyes from the papers on which she was working. “Someone important?”
“You’ve probably heard of him. Jacques Renouvin, one of the local résistants. Imagine that, the idiot had a whole suitcase of intelligence papers on his person when we arrested him. Some of the lists with names weren’t even coded.”
A harsh, cruel expression appeared on his face as he spoke, no doubt betraying his future intentions concerning his newest victim. Giselle looked him square in the eyes, holding his gaze with desperate bravery. Did he know? Was her name on it? No, it couldn’t be; she was here under a new alias, and Etienne had never told anyone that she worked for him; that much he had assured her. What of Etienne himself though? Merde.
“What luck for you then,” she spoke in an even tone at last. “You have my congratulations.”
“I’ll have a word with your petit ami about it.”
Giselle froze in her place while he got busy shuffling through some files behind her back.
“What does he have to do with it?”
Barbie circled the desk and stood in front of her, looking at her as though she had asked him something incredibly idiotic. “Almost all of the names on those lists belong to people who currently reside in Lyon. They were operating right under his nose, and his gendarmes knew nothing of it?”
“You need to speak to Prefect Bouillon then.”
“Bouillon is too busy stuffing his pockets with our money to concern himself with city affairs. Tell Delattre I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow morning. You’re meeting with him today, aren’t you? And tell him to have his chief of police present too. I have a few questions for him as well.”
“Of course.”
Only after he left did Giselle heave a sigh of relief. Etienne was safe then; for now, at least.
Paris, March 1943
It was immersed in silence at first, their regular conspiracy apartment where they met. Jean Moulin, or Rex as he was known to everyone, the most hunted man as of now, smoked one cigarette after another, dejected and forlorn in
the furthest corner of the room. His handsome, youthful face betrayed all his emotions as invariably happened to honest people; despair, sadness, and anxiety appeared to follow him everywhere now, shadowing his form in the fog-shrouded Parisian streets.
“I can’t even trust my own men anymore,” he had complained to Etienne a few hours prior when the two shook hands after their long separation. “How can the Resistance possibly operate in such conditions?”
Etienne didn’t know. He was lucky to be alive himself after Frenay’s right hand had been arrested in Lyon and the whole suitcase containing the archives of the MUR and the Secret Army fell into the Gestapo’s hands. One-thirty-seven documents containing one-hundred and sixty-three names, many of them uncoded, including Frenay’s letter to the American OSS in which he, in the most thorough of details, described the functioning of the French Resistance.
“Now, because of one greedy connard, we’re all in danger,” Moulin grumbled under his breath, and rightfully so; Renouvin’s arrest was followed by Moulin’s right hand’s arrest – Henri Manhès, and that happened already in the northern zone. The Gestapo were creeping closer and closer.
The shutters were closed, but the lights of the city were seeping through them, painting intricate patterns on the men’s pensive faces. They sat in darkness as if feeling somewhat safer in this shadowy kingdom; as if the leather coats would not sniff them out as they did with their comrade if only they didn’t turn on the lights inside.
“Henri would never willingly offer them my name, even under torture. But I gave him some pictures so he could make a new identity card for me,” Moulin admitted after a long pause, working things out in his mind. Etienne noticed that his vigor, his usual liveliness was now absent from his gestures, replaced by a doomed apathy. “The Gestapo turned his whole apartment upside down. I don’t know if they found them or not. I heard they even cut the legs off chairs, looking for papers.”
Everyone in the room fell silent again.
“Maybe you should go to London for now?” the man who Etienne knew as Marc suggested. He had a slight accent which Etienne couldn’t quite place and an intense gaze of piercing blue eyes, which regarded others with a sort of sharp, authoritative tolerance. He could have been that very radio operator who Frenay was so envious of. Or an SOE agent, working together with Moulin in France. His proposal suggested as much.
Moulin considered for a long time but then shook his head. “No. I won’t run.”
“But it would be wise…”
“I said, no.”
They smoked some more and spoke of the Russians in the East and exchanged jokes, out of habit, solely for the gallows humor – the only kind that remained – didn’t amuse anyone anymore. They mocked “the unbeatable” German army that was now missing a good chunk of it after losing it rather stupidly in Stalingrad. They exchanged news from different cities and regions, marveled at the Italians who had unexpectedly started defying the Germans on the Jewish question and sometimes outright refused to send Jews from their territories to the North. They complimented the British RAF and their SOE, which was parachuting more and more agents to France, together with even more weapons and money. They grumbled about their contained approval for the communists, who finally decided that it would be only wise to join forces and had agreed to become temporary partners with the Secret Army. Things weren’t going too badly, considering. They almost sensed that the God of War had somehow changed his favor and would start frequenting their temple now. The only thing that was still not on their side was time. That, they didn’t have. And they so needed it to survive…
Then someone mentioned Renouvin again and the brutal treatment he was getting in the prison in Paris, to which he was transferred, and everyone suddenly became painfully aware of their own mortality.
“Maybe you should go to London after all,” Etienne spoke quietly, catching a grateful glance from the blue-eyed young man, whom he took for the British radio operator.
Moulin offered him a gentle smile and a resolute shake of the head. “No. It’s not an option. I’ll stay for as long as I can. You had two close calls yourself, and you didn’t run.”
He was right. Etienne didn’t run.
“Maybe the danger will pass,” Etienne sighed, speaking more to himself than the people around him. “I heard from one of my people that the Gestapo in Lyon are making themselves busy with the newest SOE network that they discovered. Perhaps, they’ll forget all about us, at least for now.”
“Now that would be grand, wouldn’t it?” Moulin broke into mirthless laughter. “I highly doubt they’ll forget about us, but as long as they busy themselves elsewhere, we need to concentrate on more pressing matters. I heard that more and more young people flock to your mountains.”
Etienne nodded, listening attentively.
“They’re all on the run, hungry and in dire need of guidance. Why don’t you send some reliable people to teach them some basics; you know, how to shoot, how to sabotage some minor things; organize them into groups and give them food and weapons. I can guarantee you, they’ll be more than grateful to you, and will express their gratitude when the time comes, by joining our Army.”
“Will do,” Etienne promised. “When the time comes, we’ll need all the people we can get.”
“And, Delattre?”
“Yes?”
“Stay away from Frenay. He’s far too hot-headed and unreliable. He’ll get you killed one day.”
Lyon, April 1943
The fiery sunset dawned on the unsuspecting countryside. Spring was in the air, but the evening was cold, windy, and unsettled. Klaus sat in the passenger’s seat of the black Citroën with the collar of his warm coat pulled up, smoking and checking his watch from time to time. If his information was correct (it better be, or the man who gave it to him would end up dying a not so natural – nor easy – death), then a group of résistants should be getting ready to begin their escape route, established for them by one of their connections. Little did they know that Klaus had managed to “persuade” said connection to tell him everything about the network, and the escape route was being closely monitored by Barbie’s men this very minute.
Klaus checked his wristwatch one more time and opened the door, getting out as soon as he noticed one of his agents running toward him across the field, the ends of his long overcoat flying after him.
The abandoned factory, where the members of the network, consisting mostly of SOE agents and a couple of locals, had been under constant surveillance for the past three days. Klaus knew not only how many people were inside and how armed they were (they weren’t – if he didn’t take into consideration their radio transmitter and some pipe they might pick up once they realized that their cover was blown) but also who assisted them and where those “assistants” went. Those French weren’t as bright as they wanted to seem, Klaus thought to himself with smug satisfaction. And their British counterparts turned out to be not much brighter.
“We’re ready to move out, Herr Obersturmführer,” his agent reported, still slightly out of breath, frozen at attention, giving away his military training even though, just like the rest of the agents in the ambush, he was dressed in civilian clothes.
“They aren’t armed, so there’s no reason for anyone to shoot,” Klaus warned his men, some of whom, he knew, were far too trigger-happy for his liking. “I need them to talk, and in order for them to talk, they need to be alive. Is that understood?”
An echo of a loud collective “Jawohl” was his reply.
According to the informant, the group was staying on the second floor, which was much warmer than the first given the fact that the factory was unheated, and outside was still early spring. Right now, they should be finishing their evening meal, delivered to them by one of the sympathizers who was now also followed by the Gestapo. The driver pulled up to the entrance so quietly that even Klaus marveled at his skill. They left the doors to the car open so as not to startle anyone inside with unnecessary slamming and g
athered near the only entrance – another mistake of the group inside.
Nearly shivering with anticipation of the upcoming panic that would most certainly engulf the people inside, Klaus exchanged grins with his people, pulled out his gun, listening to the silence inside and, after savoring the last moment of peace, insolently knocked with the gun’s butt on the locked door.
“Hello, we are selling Belgian waffles; would you like to buy some?” he shouted in German, sending his men into a fit of chuckles.
Mere seconds later, he stepped aside, letting one of his agents kick the door in. The old, rusty frame gave in on a second half-hearted attempt.
“Oy, mates! Where are you running to, so fast?” Klaus’s second-in-command, Erich Bartelmus, shouted in immaculate English as they took the stairs two at a time, following the résistants up to the fourth floor. “One might think the whole Gestapo squad was chasing you!”
Three young men, dressed in sweaters and hiking boots, were finally caught under the roof. Klaus noticed two girls with them – “the locals,” who the informant was talking about. Very well then, he earned his reward, just like the chance to live a little longer. If his own kind doesn’t finish him off, Klaus thought. Despite the fact that they arrested Renouvin, his Groupes Francs were still in action, organizing their reprisals in response not only to the arrest of their leader but executing all of the “turned” résistants who were aiding the Gestapo. Oh well. Collateral damage, Klaus shrugged with indifference.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Klaus moved to stand in front of his men, savoring the moment of triumph. “You’re under arrest. You are charged with espionage and with aiding terrorist groups. Your sentence in both cases will be execution. I suggest you start talking immediately; only in the event of your absolute cooperation can I do something for you.”
They were quiet in the car; that much Klaus expected. One of them attempted to throw himself out of an open window while Klaus and his agents were escorting him to the interrogation room; that Klaus expected as well. A net, which he had strategically ordered to stretch all around the courtyard surrounding the second-floor level after the very first week that he had settled into his new headquarters, ensured that the man stayed alive. A fractured shoulder and a broken leg was simply more collateral damage.
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