by Thomas Wood
Fortunately for me, the door had been open, and I would be able to at least make it inside the building before finding that it was stuffed to the rafters with waiting German soldiers.
Rounding the final corner, now only a matter of feet from the front door of the embassy, I noticed that the two men on the bench were still there, but they had swapped their interests, the newspaper now in the hands of the man who had been staring up and down the street around fifteen minutes before.
I sauntered into the building, trying to pretend that I knew exactly what I was doing, where I was met by the cheery smile of a young American man.
“Good morning, Sir,” he said, his voice, although completely different from hers, instantly making me think of Cécile, and how much I wanted her by my side right now.
“How can I help?”
“I was wondering if I would be able to speak to someone, about obtaining an identity certificate or passport?”
“You are not American, Sir.” He looked at me questioningly, but I couldn’t quite tell if he was asking for a response, or simply stating fact.
“I know, I know but…I was told you might be able to help.”
“Wait here, Sir.”
I waited for a few minutes, by the front desk that the young man had just abandoned, and I found myself staring up a rather grand staircase, the walls of which were littered with paintings of whom I supposed were the previous ambassadors that had, until recently, served in Paris.
The young man reappeared, ushering me into a room, where a smartly dressed man, old enough to be the first man’s father, stood with his hands in his pockets.
“Please, sit.”
I did as I was told, all the while staring at him as if he was my master.
“You are British?” he waited for an answer, which I was unwilling to give unless I had some sort of reassurance that I wasn’t about to be given up.
“We can help. On an unofficial level, of course. We’ve had several buddies of yours coming through those doors recently.”
“Yes, I am British,” I finally responded, not knowing whether it just made me look even more stupid than I already did.
“You see those two guys out on the bench there?” He asked, nodding in the general direction of the street. He didn’t let me finish, “Abwehr. Heard o’them? German military intelligence. Most of them aren’t exactly committed to the Nazi cause, but today might be the day they try to fill their quota. We gotta be careful.”
“Of course.”
“Tell me your story, buddy. Beginning to end. Don’t miss anything out.”
I gave him the full story, missing out small tidbits here and there that painted me in a less than favourable way. It seemed as though he was just killing time because, more or less as soon as I had finished my tale, his sidekick appeared clutching a piece of paper.
“This is all we can give you I’m afraid. But usually, the big ol’ USA stamp on the top just gets you waved through wherever you are.”
I clutched at the brown piece of paper he had handed me. It was true, the oversized ‘UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’ was enough to strike fear into me, never mind the person I presented it to, and if that wasn’t enough the subtitle of ‘Diplomatic Certificate’ was certain to do the job.
“Essentially all it says is that you are British and that we have identified you as such, but it seems to do the trick.”
He was right, the whole page was stuffed full of jargon, in the smallest print possible so that it deterred anyone except the most meticulous of people from reading it. Any mention of me being a British soldier was omitted, even going as far to spell the word ‘British’ without a capital letter. I did not know if that was the American’s sense of humour, or whether it had been done deliberately to avoid someone picking up on who I really was. Either way, I didn’t mind, I was incredibly grateful to the American government for this piece of paper.
“Jack here has some business in Lyon. He is driving there overnight tonight. You wanna go with him? From there you can get a train down south, that’s where most of you boys are heading, right?”
I jumped at the chance, especially as my new best friend informed me that it was the only realistic option I had right now, other than wait till dark to avoid the Abwehr men.
Sprawled out across the back seat later on in the evening, Jack began spewing out all sorts of stories about the various people that he and his boss Dennis, had helped to freedom over the last few months. I made various noises to suggest that I was still listening but, for the most part, I sat quietly with my own thoughts, sitting up every now and then to take in the scenery which soon became a victim to the darkness.
After a couple of hours, Jack slowed the car to a stop.
“Here,” he said, handing another wad of notes my way, “from your government. They haven’t completely forgotten you. Use the hotel at the end of this street, say Dennis Connor sent you. They’ll treat you alright. And this…” he said, fishing out some cigarettes and a slightly smaller collection of notes, “…is from Dennis and me. We try to help as much as possible.”
“Thanks,” was all I could utter from my stunned mouth. I must have been taking these men’s weekly wages and they hadn’t even batted so much as an eyelid. I only hoped that someday, I would be able to repay them, or one of their compatriots.
The hotel manager immediately took me into one of the plushest rooms I had ever seen in my life at the mere mention of this man’s name, and I enjoyed one of the most comfortable nights’ rest of my entire life.
Finding the American consulate, and the whole day, had been a total success from beginning to end, my prospects gradually rising and rising as the day went on. I had started the day sleeping in a barn, having cycled for miles the day before, and I finished it with more money than I had ever had in my entire life, drinking a small glass of wine, while languishing in the first hot bath that I had had in months.
But tomorrow was another day.
34
It was easy enough to make my way to the train station the next morning, having left a generous tip after the hotel manager refused to even mention the cost of the room that I had stayed in. It wasn’t out of a generosity that I left him the money on the sideboard in the room, but because I was worried that I might be arrested for the sheer quantity of notes that I had stuffed in to every available pocket, making me look like some sort of prolific bank robber.
The certificate that the Americans had produced for me worked a dream when asked for identifying papers at the train station and, within no time at all, I was sitting in a first-class carriage, waiting for the train to depart on the three or so hours of travel that we had ahead of us.
It surprised me how quickly the train would make it to Marseille, over the two hundred miles or so that we would have to cover to get to our destination. Previously, it had taken me days to walk and cycle that sort of distance but now, with my handy pass in my hand, I could travel with relative ease and within a few hours, I would be negotiating the final few hurdles before I could get back home.
I looked around the carriage and drank in the serenity and peace that I was experiencing compared to the last train that I had been on. In terms of my situation, not a lot had changed; I was still all on my own in a foreign country, I was worried about Cécile and what had happened to her and I was unsure as to what was going to happen at the end of this train journey. But, on the flip side to that, my situation had changed no end. I had more money than the King himself, I was in an unoccupied part of Europe and I finally had some freedom in the way that I could conduct myself.
As the train rocked gently from side to side, my eyes fell on a figure who had just fallen asleep, with his head bobbing around on the window. From his inside pocket, I could just about make out the top part of a brown piece of paper, the same piece of paper that I had used to get onto this train. For a moment, I thought I recognised him from the pub with Henri, but I quickly put the thought from my mind, in case I found myself wanting t
o go over and talk to him like some sort of long lost friend. I couldn’t help but imagine what he had been through though.
I wondered if he had been passed through the same chain of humans to get to where he was now, or whether he had taken an altogether different path. I debated whether he was experiencing the level of torment about who he had got killed and who he had been separated from. I very much doubted that he was dealing with the high levels of separation anxiety from a Franco-American nurse that he had fallen in love with over a number of weeks.
No matter what he had been through, I began to wonder if the French in this region had picked up on the sudden influx of ‘American Diplomats’ who were using their pieces of browning paper to board a train going to the coast. Maybe that’s why the Abwehr had been put there in the first place. As my head gently rocked from side to side and I began to fall asleep, I settled with myself that it was probably best that I didn’t know his story, as it would more than likely be totally unbelievable anyway.
*Break*
The port town of Marseille was heaving with people when I first hopped off the train and sauntered out of the station, it seemed like there were more people here than there had ever been in Paris. Everything in the town, the streets, the concentration of buildings and the people, all seemed to gravitate towards the port itself and I stood drinking in the environment for more than a couple of hours before deciding on what to do next.
I watched as people weaved their way around the medieval emplacements that stood protecting the port, seemingly disinterested in the history and the stories that they could tell. I ogled at a huge structure that spanned the port itself, a high tower that pulled people from one side of the port to the other, an aerial ferry of sorts.
Boats streamed in and out of the port in a chaotic manner, and I contemplated whether there was actually any order to the snaking boats that I could see. If there wasn’t, that would be good news for me because, in the few hours that I had been there, I had decided that getting myself on one of those boats was my way out of here.
The docks themselves were heavily secured, with a border fence around them guarded by two gendarmes who looked incredibly bored and ready to shoot themselves. My plan was to get in there by flashing my certificate at them and begin talking to various crew members of the ships, trying to find out their destination.
If I failed at the first hurdle, and they refused to let me in, I would have to wait till nightfall to break in and begin my little escapade.
One of the guards began nudging the other as I approached, and I immediately felt the nerves kick me in the stomach harder than Henri had done. I pushed my shoulders back and lifted my head, trying to recreate the confidence and determination that I imagined exuded from an American diplomatic official.
Handing my paper to them, I acted as if they were wasting my time.
“Your purpose here, Monsieur Lewis?”
I took great pleasure in trying to respond to them in French, but with a slight American accent, something that I was convinced would be the best thing to do, right up until the moment that I spoke.
“I have been instructed to inspect some of our ships, to check for anomalies.”
Surprisingly, they completely fell for my ill-conceived idea and my even worse accent and stepped aside and let me in to the harbour, without any kind of an escort or restrictions on my presence.
I immediately began scouting the area, looking at all the various types of boats that could be useful to me. My eyes fell on one in particular and as I approached it, the Captain began to take notice of me, throwing his cigarette into the sea and straightening his shirt out.
There was no point in messing about here.
“Where are you going to?”
“Canet-en-Roussillon.”
“Can you get me to Gibraltar?”
He began laughing, a throaty chortle, that set his whole belly off rippling away in delight.
“No,” he said as he began to calm down, “look at my boat.” He was right, it was quite a small vessel, but it would have to be a chance that I had to take, I couldn’t afford to get on a large boat and risk being found out by a real port official. This seemed like my best bet, even if the boat did sink a few miles away from the Gibraltarian shoreline.
“How about now?” I said as I pulled out the packet of American cigarettes and a wad of French banknotes. He thought about it for a while, obviously not wanting to come across as a complete mercenary but at the same time not wanting me to take my offer elsewhere.
“Now, I have a way.”
Even though I was paying handsomely for my journey out of France, the Captain of this vessel deemed it appropriate that I was suddenly put to work and so, I was made busy by cleaning his boat, while he rapidly made his way through the cigarettes that I had given him. I hoped he hadn’t enjoyed them too much, as it wouldn’t exactly be easy for me to produce another packet for him to incessantly puff through.
As dusk fell, I began to get the impression from the few other crew he had, that it was time to go. No one seemed to say a word, apart from the Captain, and we all stood waiting for his permission to take up our positions inside the boat, after he had finished the last of his cigarettes.
The engine rumbled into life and I looked around nervously as I began to doubt myself that this boat would make it out of the harbour, never mind all the way to Gibraltar. Everyone else seemed to be having similar thoughts to me, and I became suspicious of the way in which none of the crew seemed to know what to do, and quite clearly a few of them had never been in more than a rowing boat before they embarked on this little escapade.
Curious, and slightly wary that I had been stitched up, I began fumbling around in my pockets, deliberately showing one piece of brown paper in particular, before hastily folding it back up into my pocket. As I did so, I caught the eye of a young man, sitting on the deck opposite me, who immediately produced an identical piece of paper to mine. The chain reaction this caused brought me both great comfort and distress, all in all, there were six of us sitting in this boat, all heading to an unknown destiny at the hands of the slightly porky French captain.
I was concerned that we had all used similar stories to gain entrance to the harbour and that, as a consequence, the authorities would block our route out of the port, but, as we passed the two medieval forts at the entry to the harbour, only the open sea would stop us from being free now.
We began to politely chat amongst ourselves, which seemed to worry the captain slightly that we had all found out each other’s nationality and could now be conspiring to stage a mutiny and take control of his ship.
But it was too dark for us, and we were growing increasingly concerned about the vessel’s ability to make it to Gibraltar.
Just as I plucked up enough courage to question the man about how on earth we would make it to Gibraltar, he began pointing out into the darkness, and spoke, almost prophetically.
“You cannot make it to Gibraltar. But Gibraltar can make it to you.”
At first, I couldn’t see anything but, as he finished speaking, I could make out the vague outline of another vessel, clearly anchored a way out to sea.
The outline grew larger in my vision until we came right alongside it, at which point I began to hear the weapons cocking and the machine guns on deck swing round to face us.
“Your names!” the captain shouted, “Give them your names!”
“Private Samuel Longden,” called the first voice, “Fourth Battalion Border Regiment!”
Several other voices began calling out, until it seemed like only me left.
“Second Lieutenant Alfred Lewis, Fourth Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment!”
I almost felt the tension suddenly dissipate as the weapons were trained away from us for the first time.
“Right then gentlemen,” called a voice from the darkness, “welcome to HMS Companion.”
With that, a series of wooden planks were pushed over the sides of the trawler and onto Captain C
hain-smoker’s deck. We all piled aboard and as I almost kissed the deck of the first bit of the British military that I had seen in months, a pistol was pushed into my forehead.
“Until we can verify who you are, I am afraid you are all, under arrest.”
With that, my brief moment of freedom was snapped up from me, and I was led down into the living quarters where we would stay until we made it back to Gibraltar. I didn’t care too much that my identity was being called into question now. As far as I was concerned, it was all a good opportunity to catch up on over three months’ worth of lost sleep. But, even if I was deemed to not be who I said I was, I determined that it was likely that I would spend the rest of the war in an internment camp, which would mean that I would be safe for the rest of the war, and that I could sleep and read to my heart’s content soon enough.
We were all treated as harmless prisoners on the way back to Gibraltar, but from Gib back to Blighty, we were treated as though we had insulted the Queen and the King was personally furious with us. We were locked in cells in a Navy destroyer, and we didn’t see the light of day until we docked some days later.
I used the time to think through what had happened, and to catch up on the debt of sleep that still lingered over me.
As I dreamt, I also thought. I thought again about Red and how he had simply disappeared in a red mist as a mortar had fallen on his position. I couldn’t help but feel sick at the thought of Clarkey lying face down in the bush as the German fired rounds into his back. The German himself kept staggering towards me as he cursed me and himself for not finding the pistol in my holster and instead taking my binoculars.
They all began occurring in my dreams without ceasing, along with all the other men and women that I had met along the way. Cécile told me that she was dead, she had been shot in her cell of a Gestapo headquarters after she refused to give my name up.
Monsieur Paquet had somehow survived, and appeared to me in his kitchen, to soothe me and calm me down, but quite quickly grew furiously angry with me and blamed me for the death of his young daughter.