by James R Benn
They were trigger-happy, and beholden to no law when it came to shooting civilians in a city rising against them. I edged back to the corner of a building and surveyed the wide road. A few nervous Parisians, curiosity overcoming their common sense, did the same. Germans in front of us fired across the river as shots came from buildings on the far side of the Seine. Bullets chipped masonry over our heads, sprinkling the gathering with stone chips and a healthy dose of fear.
I moved back, away from the river. Within a block, life was almost normal except for the echoing gunfire. People sat in cafés, clustered in groups on the sidewalk, their newspapers open for the latest news. L’Humanité and Combat, two of the underground papers of the Resistance, now circulated openly. It was strange how the city contained so many things seemingly at odds. Death and struggle, along with a sunny morning at a neighborhood café.
I walked around the Louvre to the edge of the Tuileries gardens, trying to find a route to the Meurice. The rue de Rivoli was swarming with Germans, sandbagged emplacements at every corner, and armored vehicles clanking down the thoroughfare. No chance of strolling to the hotel lobby and asking for Colonel Remke.
The gardens were full of Krauts as well. A few officers sat on benches, smoking and enjoying the view while they could. Soldiers marched by, rifles shouldered, and not looking friendly. I did see a few civilians, but I didn’t trust they weren’t Jarnac’s men, or maybe even plainclothes Abwehr, in place to nab me once I showed my face. It didn’t seem likely, not if Jarnac was keeping his end of the bargain. But if little brother Paul had gotten to him, all bets were off.
I paced in the plaza by the west wing of the Louvre, spotting FFI men on the roof. They could have fired on any number of Germans, and vice versa, but maybe there was an informal art lover’s truce. The absence of flying lead was fine by me.
But I was starting to feel conspicuous. A Frenchman of military age hanging around the German commandant’s headquarters was bound to be noticed sooner or later, which could mean a bullet, a beating, or a ride on a boxcar full of slave laborers headed for the Reich. I needed to find a way in.
There he was. A gardener, going about his daily routine as if a battle wasn’t about to lap against the borders of his beautiful jardin. Dressed in the standard blue cotton worker’s jacket, he pushed a wheelbarrow along a row of shrubs while hoes, rakes, and other tools rattled as he moved. No one paid him any mind.
I trotted over, whistling to get his attention. He stopped, set his wheelbarrow down, and studied me through narrowed eyes. He had a couple of days’ gray stubble growing and wore a cloth cap pulled down over his eyes. He glanced around, suspicious, or maybe just careful. He studied the German officers on the bench for a moment, then gave me a sharp nod as they ignored us. I decided to take a chance.
“Américain,” I whispered. He drew on his cigarette as if Yanks strolling through the jardin was a routine event. Another nod.
I took the francs from my pocket and pointed to his jacket and tools. He looked at the money, then me. He waved away the cash, withdrew a crumpled blue pack of Gauloises from his pocket along with a small box of wooden matches, and removed his jacket. He handed it to me along with a hoe and a pair of shears. Apparently, he didn’t want to part with the wheelbarrow, which was okay. At least now I looked like I belonged.
I shoved my arms into the jacket, one hand still clutching the cash. He held up a finger as I went to stash it. He selected one note very carefully, looked around again, and made a drinking motion with his hand. We both laughed and went our separate ways. Me, toward the Meurice. Him, away from me.
Smart guy.
I put the hoe over my shoulder and walked with the amiable gait of a gardener who liked being paid by the hour. I inspected the plantings, which all looked a bit worse for wear in the August heat. I worked the hoe between the manicured shrubs, scraping away at the few weeds that dared invade this fancy garden. I eyed the route ahead as I smoothed out the soil. To my right I saw Kraut guards out in front of the Meurice. A couple of civilians on the sidewalk strolled along with a Kraut officer. Gestapo, maybe, or collaborators trying to figure out the best way out of town.
To my left, a squad of Germans in their field gray trooped along the quay, headed for the shooting gallery a block away. But no one seemed to be watching me or watching for me. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes to go.
I left the hoe between some bushes and moved closer to the street, snipping at the greenery as I went. Two officers on a path came within a couple of yards, but they were too busy arguing to pay me any mind. Tempers were on edge everywhere.
I worked my way behind a hedge and gave it a trim, making my way to the road. I was almost opposite the entrance to the hotel and the sand-bagged guard posts in front of it. The door opened, and Colonel Remke walked out, glancing up and down the street. I ditched the shears, walked around the hedge, and checked the street. Remke gave a brief nod of recognition. I waited.
In a second, I spotted Jarnac. He was waving papers at a guard at the corner who finally relented and let him through the checkpoint. He wore a suit jacket and an open-necked shirt. Odd attire for a hot day, and I’d bet he had a pistol stuck in the waistband of his trousers. A sentry close to Remke eyed me and unslung his rifle, taking a couple of steps in my direction before Remke called him off.
The colonel set off across the road, Jarnac hustling to catch up with him.
“It is done,” Remke said to me in a low voice, his face turned away from Jarnac’s approach. I didn’t respond. After all, Jarnac wasn’t aware we knew each other, only that I was aware Remke controlled the Frenchman as his agent.
“Where is my brother?” Jarnac spat out at me as soon as he was close enough.
“He’s safe, and he’ll be with you soon,” I said. “Have you kept your side of the bargain?”
Jarnac looked to Remke, his mouth twisted in a hateful grimace. “Tell him. Then tell me how he knows of our connection.”
“Monsieur Jarnac has confirmed his original intelligence about the advance on Paris was wrong. Likely a deception by the enemy,” Remke said, his stern gaze fixed on Jarnac. “As for how an Allied agent knew of our work, I can only guess it was poor security on your end. The French are a vociferous people, after all.”
“It was not me,” Jarnac said, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Perhaps you were not careful enough during your visits to Paris,” Remke said. “Whatever the reason, it no longer matters.”
A pair of officers, two heavily perfumed women on their arms, walked by, chattering away as if the world was not quite ready to collapse around their ears. We kept silent for a minute, our only common language too dangerous to be overheard.
“What do you mean?” Jarnac said.
“You are compromised, and the front is moving quickly away from your base of operations,” Remke said. “It should be obvious.”
“We still have work to do,” Jarnac said, hands clenched at his sides, his voice shimmering with rage. “The Communists cannot be allowed to win. France must not become Red. You must crush them now that they are out in the open.”
“Do not lecture me, Jarnac,” Remke said. “Out of consideration for our past association, I have agreed to let this officer go so he may free your brother. Otherwise, I would hand him over to the Gestapo, gladly.”
“You want him to succeed?” Jarnac said, taking a step back as if he’d been punched.
“I don’t want the Reds to rule France any more than you do,” Remke said, stepping into the space Jarnac had vacated. “Don’t you see the best way to avoid that is a column of General Leclerc’s tanks?”
“You have betrayed me. Both of you. God help me, I swear on the soul of my wife I will kill both of you if Paul is not safe. Where is he?” Jarnac put his hand on one hip, pushing away his jacket like a gunslinger ready to slap leather.
“Do not,” Remke said.
“You will be shot in seconds. And Paul will die.”
“You should be attacking the Reds instead of protecting this agent,” Jarnac said, jutting his chin forward in aggressive anger. But he moved his hand off his hip. “Give him to me. I will keep him until Paul is returned.”
Remke paused, giving it some thought. Either he was a damn fine actor, or I was about to find myself face down in the Seine.
“No,” Remke finally said. “I will take him into custody and interrogate him. Telephone my aide at the Lutetia once you have Paul back.”
“And then you’ll let me go, right?” I said. I didn’t need to act worried. I was.
“We shall see,” Remke said, resting one hand on his shiny leather holster. Now it was his turn to hint at hardware being drawn. “Monsieur Jarnac, you know how to get in touch with me, and I believe you have received your final payment. Our business is concluded.”
“You wait, Remke. You wait until the Soviets are at your door. When they kill everyone you hold dear, then think of me. Think of what you could have done here in Paris to wipe out the Reds. Instead, you wait for the Americans and their pet Frenchmen to take you prisoner. You don’t deserve to live,” Jarnac said. With that, he turned on his heel, spat into the gutter, and strode off.
“Come, let us have a drink,” Remke said. “I don’t know how long I have left to enjoy the bar at the Meurice. Take off that jacket. I haven’t seen a man who’s done an honest day’s work in the Meurice bar for some time, except the barman, that is.” I removed the blue jacket and draped it over a neatly trimmed bush, hoping its owner would find it after his drink. My newly acquired white shirt was still presentable, even alongside the impeccably attired Colonel Remke.
“You were pretty convincing,” I said, as he clamped his hand on my arm and steered me across the street. In case Jarnac was looking, I told myself.
“Deception is a game that must be constantly played, Captain Boyle. Otherwise one forgets which lie is today’s truth.”
The fact that I understood him made me glad we were headed to the bar.
Inside the lobby, smartly uniformed officers scurried across the marble floor in their gleaming boots and fancy uniforms. Nothing like a Kraut in a dress uniform to put the doorman at the Copley Hotel to shame. Guards in more everyday field gray were positioned by the door, and at the head of the stairs was a full-scale machine-gun nest, sandbags and all.
The bar was less militaristic. Remke ordered champagne, and we took a small table by the window, but well away from the few others imbibing at this early hour. A solitary officer, a Wehrmacht leutnant, stood near the bar, hands clasped behind his back.
“Do you need to inform Miss Seaton?” Remke asked, glancing around the room and keeping his voice low. “For the release of Jarnac’s brother?”
“No, I don’t. He got away. Apparently, he wasn’t the meek violinist I thought he was,” I said, and told Remke about his escape.
“Mein Gott,” he said, shaking his head as a waiter brought the champagne in an ice bucket. When the flutes were filled, and we were alone, he raised his glass. “To your Irish luck, Captain Boyle. I assume you no longer carry that Irish passport. If you had it, I could arrange safe passage for you.”
“No, just a Milice identity card for Charles Guillemot, who bears a slight resemblance,” I said. When I’d last encountered Erich Remke in Rome, I’d been traveling as a priest from neutral Ireland. We clinked glasses and I drank the champagne. Cool and dry, it tasted like a velvet breeze on a spring day. A few streets away, people were killing one another, and here I sat drinking with my enemy.
“I will give you a pass,” Remke said, removing a document from his tunic. He filled in my phony name and handed it over. “It is good for twenty-four hours. Return to Diana and find a place to hide. It should not be long now.”
Diana? A minute ago it had been Miss Seaton.
“Does she need to hide?” I asked. “I thought the Gestapo had pulled out.”
“Administrative staff, yes. But there are several teams rounding up prisoners for a final transport out of Paris. They are looking for any high-ranking members of the Resistance among those who have been captured, and of course Allied agents would be quite important to them.”
Agents like me. Maybe he was planning on turning me over and keeping Diana to himself. No, that didn’t make sense. That had to be the Pervitin talking.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the pass, the paper fluttering in my hand. “I’ll tell her.”
“She should stay off the radio. There are still direction-finding vans driving through the city, at least in the areas where it is safe to do so. Tell her to wait and she can talk with her SOE handlers directly.”
“Sure. But that’s what you would want, isn’t it? As a German officer? For her to cease communicating with SOE?” Shut up, I told myself. You’re not making sense. All he did was call Diana by her name. But my brain wouldn’t stop thinking the worst.
“If I was acting purely as a German officer, I would have had her arrested, and the Gestapo would be knocking your teeth out right now. Instead, here we sit. Have some more champagne and calm yourself, Captain.” He poured another glass and I didn’t hesitate.
“I’m a bit jumpy,” I admitted. “The Pervitin and lack of sleep.”
“Be careful,” he said. “It works best if you are well rested to begin with. It may take a while for the effects to wear off.”
Outside, a platoon of Remke’s pals ran through the street, headed for the river. The firing had grown more intense, and several officers stood on the sidewalk, watching their men and shaking their heads. Their world was upside down. I knew the feeling.
“Maybe the Gestapo will pick up Jarnac,” I said, half musing and half suggesting.
“No, it will be best for all of us if he is not caught. He has information to trade for his life. Information we both want kept quiet,” Remke said.
“Right, right,” I said, letting the bubbles slip down my throat. “Tell me, could you have delayed Leclerc with the information Jarnac gave you? I’m wondering if all this was worth it.”
“Delay? Certainly,” Remke said, draining his glass and smacking his lips. “As you well know, our anti-aircraft guns are also excellent anti-tank weapons. An armored dash along known roads would be susceptible to ambush by well-concealed 88mm guns. But stop the advance? No, not with all the air power at your disposal. All the delay would have accomplished was more time for the Communists to seize control. Or for General von Choltitz to be forced to implement the destruction of Paris, or be replaced by an SS general who would not hesitate.”
“And if the Communists won the battle for Paris, there’d be a civil war when de Gaulle and Leclerc’s tanks rolled in,” I said. Maybe it was worth it.
“It is a certainty. There are many among the Communist-led Resistance who are simply following the most effective Resistance leaders. But some are pure Stalinists, and they’d fight other Frenchman gladly to gain the upper hand and keep de Gaulle from power.”
“Like Jarnac’s Saint-Just Brigade,” I said. “He chose his cover well, running a hardline Red faction.”
“Yes, he is clever,” Remke said. “He never revealed to me his reason for collaborating, but he obviously hated the Soviets along with anyone calling themselves a Communist.”
“You know he fought in Spain?” I asked. Remke nodded. “His wife was an anarchist. She was executed by the NKVD. That was his motivation for revenge. A few days ago, he spotted the killer at a gathering of Resistance leaders.”
“The affair at General Patton’s headquarters?”
“He told you about that?” I said.
“Yes, he hoped to pick up new intelligence there, and succeeded,” he said. “But he told me nothing about his wife, or her killer.”
“He left a trail of bodies and took his revenge on the man who killed her. It wasn�
��t pretty.”
“He may be continuing his efforts here in Paris,” Remke said, with a glance at the officer who’d been standing by the bar. The other Fritz arrived at the table in a second, nodded as Remke whispered, and turned on his heel without a glance in my direction. “You may have answered a question that has puzzled me. My aide will return with some files in a moment. It is best that you not be seen upstairs. Too many bothersome questions.”
“Fine by me,” I said, helping myself to some more bubbly. A guy could get used to this. “What are your plans for when Leclerc arrives?”
“As I said, I prefer not to surrender to anyone. For now, my orders are to remain here at my post. Which I will do until the situation becomes untenable. I have a plan to escape along with my men, but it will have to wait until the last moment.”
“Colonel Harding would be happy to see you again if you decide otherwise,” I said, twirling my glass on the white tablecloth.
“Give him my regards. Perhaps another time,” Remke said, a not unpleasant smile gracing his expression. “Until then, it is my duty to defend my nation, from enemies within and without.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, as Remke’s aide laid a stack of file folders on the table, then retreated to his previous position.
“There has been a rash of killings throughout Paris,” Remke said. “Mostly known Communists. We thought at first it was the Gestapo, but this is not their style. They prefer to hide their corpses or ship their prisoners off to Germany.” He opened a folder and showed me the contents. I couldn’t make out the writing in German, but the photographs told the whole story. Closeups of hands bound behind the back with wire. Same for the feet, the thin wire cutting into the skin above the ankles.