‘We are all risking our lives. But you are risking your career.’
‘I’m not really. If we succeed, I think they’ll be happy enough. If we fail, I’ll be dead.’
She gave a little shiver. ‘You can speak of it so calmly.’
‘Aren’t you speaking calmly?’
‘I have nothing to live for. Only vengeance.’
‘You have everything to live for, Liane. Your family...’
‘My family? My family is destroyed. My parents are shattered wrecks. Oh, my brother is playing his part, but it can only be a matter of time before he is found out. Then he will be hanged. Amalie, she is a shell, containing only misery. Madeleine... you know about Madeleine?’
‘No.’
‘She’s married a German officer.’
‘Madeleine did that?’
‘Amalie says she claims it is because she wanted to protect the family. I don’t know what she thought she could do. Anyway, she’s now living in Berlin, moving in high society. Nazi society.’
James found it difficult to believe. Madeleine, if so rapidly overtaken, in his estimation, by her sister’s compulsive charm and vivacity, remained the most perfect woman he had ever met. ‘She must have had a reason.’
‘Of course. She accepted defeat. She is a traitor. When the time comes for settling up, or before then if she ever dares return to Paulliac, she will have to be executed. I will do it myself.’
*
They halted just before dawn. ‘Tonight we cross the frontier,’ Liane said.
‘Will that be a problem?’
‘Not going in. No one suspects that we exist. Coming back out, now, that may be more difficult. But we will make it.’
As they dared not light a fire, they ate cold meat and bread, and then settled down in a copse. From their position they overlooked a road, but there was very little traffic. ‘The border is four kilometres further,’ Liane said, sitting beside James. ‘These are marvellous weapons.’ She was carrying one of the tommy-guns.
‘Let’s hope you don’t have to use it.’
‘But I want to use it, one day.’ She settled down, her head on her arm.
James watched her for several minutes. But he too was exhausted, and soon slept, surprisingly deeply. There was so much he wanted to think about, but more than ever now the time for thinking was past. Only the task ahead mattered. Yet when he awoke, about noon, it was with a start of alarm as he realized that she was not there. Then he saw her, talking with her fellow guerillas.
She saw that he was awake, and brought him food and a cup of wine. ‘I have sent Etienne into the village to buy some more food.’
‘Is that safe?’
‘Oh, yes. He is from this neighbourhood. No one will interfere with him.’ She sat beside him as they ate. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘Indeed I did. Liane - ’
‘You are about to be serious.’
‘Yes. I am. Listen to me. When this is over, and we get back to the valley, I would like to take you out with me.’
‘Why? I am more useful here than I could ever be in England. Besides, these are my friends. My comrades. I could not desert them.’
‘And do you think I can desert you, having found you again?’
She regarded him for a few moments. ‘You are talking like a lover.’
‘Yes. I am a lover. Your lover.’
She lay down with her hands beneath her head. ‘You do not know me.’
‘I think I know enough about you to know you are the woman with whom I wish to spend the rest of my life.’
She made a moue, very reminiscent of Madeleine. ‘Because you once held me naked in your arms?’
‘Because I have held you naked in my arms in my dreams ever since.’
‘That is lust, not love.’
‘I have also dreamed of your face, your smile, your voice, your scent, of you, for all that time. Why else do you think I am here at all? I could have sent someone else. But the thought of regaining you...’
She sighed. ‘Do you know what has happened to me?’
‘Yes.’
‘How could you know?’
‘Joanna told me.’
Liane frowned, and rose on her elbow. ‘You have seen Joanna?’
‘We met in London. She told me about Auchamps.’
Liane stared at him for several seconds, then lay down again. ‘And you still want me?’
‘I want you more than ever. I want to make you forget what happened. I want you to laugh again.’
‘I will laugh again, when the war is over. When we have driven the Boche from France. But if you really came all this way, and risked all this much, to see me again, then I will be happy to make you happy once again.’
*
Beggars, James reflected, cannot be choosers. There was no way he was going to refuse her invitation, however grudgingly given, any more than he could have resisted her invitation in that bedroom at Chartres. There were enormous differences. Chartres had been a business of a soft mattress and pristine white sheets, not the hard ground and an unwashed blanket. Chartres had been a place of sweet scents and glowingly clean bodies, not sweat and earth. In Chartres they had been, for that hour, the only two people in the world; here, although they removed themselves further into the little wood, they could still hear the chatter of their companions, nor could there be any doubt that the men knew exactly what they were doing. But in Chartres, he at least had had too much to drink, the alcoholic haze shrouding both what had been happening at the time and his memory of it; here they were both absolutely sober. Perhaps that was why he now said, ‘There is something I have always wanted to ask you.’
‘Then ask it.’
‘Why were you expelled from Lucerne?’
‘Did Joanna not tell you that also?’
‘No.’
‘Did you sleep with her?’
‘No.’
‘Yet you seem to have exchanged a lot of confidences. We were expelled because we were discovered in bed together. Oh, we were guilty. What else did they expect? We were two good-looking girls. We were both passionate. And there were no men. The nuns did not see it that way. Does that shock you?’
‘No,’ he said, by no means certain he was telling the truth. ‘Are you still lovers?’
‘We have been, from time to time. But nowadays we only ever see each other from time to time. I don’t know that we shall ever see each other again. You say you met each other in England. Do you know where she went from there?’
Time for one of those decisions. To lie to Liane was almost unthinkable. But to tell Liane the truth about Joanna could only make her more unhappy and confused than she already was, and besides, it would be betraying his job. He stuck carefully to the truth. ‘I know she left England, but she did not tell me where she was going.’
*
They made love again before the evening, Liane with a desperation which revealed how nervous she was. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Should anything happen to me, you must take Amalie with you.’
‘If anything happens to you, it is going to happen to me as well.’
‘Promise me.’
It could do no harm. ‘I promise.’
They crossed the border, as Liane had assured him, without difficulty. They heard a German patrol, but the soldiers were bored and disinterested, and while their dogs barked, they were on leashes and their masters apparently did not take them seriously.
Once across, the guerillas made good time; both Liane and Jules clearly knew the country very well. By dawn they were in another little wood on a hillside overlooking the track, watching a train rumbling by beneath them. ‘That is a local,’ Jules said. ‘A milk train, eh?’
Liane translated while James studied the position through his binoculars. To the left the track bifurcated, and there was a large signal box. That could well be the key to their survival, he reckoned. ‘When does the express come through?’
‘It has been. It gets to Bordeaux Central at four.’
/>
‘So, another lazy day.’
But they did not make love. The tension was too great. James had to admit, at least to himself, that the tension was probably greater for him than anyone else because this was a new experience for him, while all of his companions, and certainly Liane, knew what it was like to be on the run, with death a daily hazard.
He had not supposed he would sleep, but he did, deeply, waking with a start when Liane squeezed his arm. ‘Is it time?’ The day was still bright.
‘It is time for you to tell us exactly what you wish of us. Look there.’ Coming slowly down the track was a motorized trolley manned by three soldiers. As with the border patrol, they were showing no great urgency or interest in their work, although they were obviously inspecting the track.
‘There have been four of those during the day,’ Jules said.
Liane translated, and James asked, ‘And at night?’
‘I do not know.’
James levelled his binoculars again. Obviously the trolley could not be used if there was an express or any other train approaching. But the fact that it was being used at all meant that the line was almost certainly patrolled during the night. Their great advantage was that as this would be the first such attack, after several months of peaceful occupation, the Germans would not be anticipating one; their relaxed attitude was obvious.
The trolley had reached the signal box, the lines had been switched, and it was moving down a siding. ‘That’s our target,’ James said. ‘Take out that box, and we cripple both the main line and the subsidiary. We also knock out their local communication centre. That box is linked to the telephone system.’
As always, Liane acted as interpreter. ‘You mean we must attack the box?’ Jules was aghast.
‘That’s what your weapons are for.’
‘But... those men will not surrender.’
‘Certainly they will not surrender. They will have to be killed. What is more, they will have to be killed before they can send a message.’
‘We can cut the telephone wires,’ Liane said, her eyes gleaming.
‘Agreed. But they may have a radio. The whole lot has to go - ’
‘I have never killed a man,’ Jules muttered.
‘If you intend to hurt the Germans, they have to be killed.’
Liane stroked Jules’ head. ‘I have killed a German. It is not so difficult.’
Jules swallowed, and made the sign of the cross.
‘You say the express gets into Bordeaux at four,’ James said. ‘Is it punctual?’
‘As a rule,’ Liane said.
‘That means it will pass this junction at a quarter to. Does it blow?’
She asked Jules. ‘He says yes. As it approaches the box.’ ‘Excellent. Now, I cannot be in two places at once. Jules will have to carry out the assault on the box. First we need to synchronize our watches. Ask him what time he has.’ Liane inquired. ‘He has no time. He does not have a watch.’
Little details which had not occurred to him. ‘But you have a watch,’ he reminded Liane. ‘Is it accurate?’
‘Of course. It is Cartier.’
‘Okay. Then we’ll use yours. Synchronize.’
‘Seventeen minutes to six.’
‘Right.’ He unstrapped his watch and handed it to Jules, who gazed at it with wide eyes. ‘Now, Liane, repeat to him exactly what I am going to say to you, and make sure he understands it.’
‘That will not work. He is not the brightest of men. Tell me what you wish, and I will see that it is done.’
‘I don’t want you to be involved in the attack on the box. I want you with me.’
‘Do you need me?’
‘I need you. I will keep my instructions as simple as possible.’
She gazed at him for several seconds, then said, ‘What must I tell them?’
‘They go in at twenty to four, or when they hear the whistle, whichever comes first; there is always the chance that the train might be ahead of schedule. They will approach the box five minutes before that, positioning themselves but taking care to remain concealed. They go in behind their grenades. They should hurl the grenades through the windows. They should use every one of them. Then they must carry out the assault with their tommy-guns and pistols. The box must be destroyed.’
‘And the people inside?’
‘Them too. I’m sorry.’
She nodded. ‘And after?’
‘As soon as they are satisfied that the box is completely out of action, they must withdraw and get back to the border as quickly as they can. They should have a start of several hours, owing to the confusion that will follow the destruction of the train.’
‘And us?’
‘We will join them, but they must not wait for us.’
‘Suppose some of them are hit?’
‘If they can move freely, they must be brought out. If they cannot - ’
‘You are sorry. Does this go for us as well?’ He did not reply, and she gave a little smile.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘We all thought you were such a nice, innocent, well-mannered boy. We never guessed what lay beneath.’
‘I’m a soldier. But Liane... please don’t get wounded.’
She kissed him.
*
James spent the last hour of daylight explaining exactly what they were going to do while the men fidgeted and fingered their weapons. None of them had ever fired a tommy-gun or thrown a grenade before. With Liane translating, he showed them how to handle their weapons, how to change their magazines, how to pull the pin on their grenades and count to four before hurling. But he did not suppose a less well-trained force had ever gone into battle.
Then it was a matter of waiting while night fell and the valley became shrouded in darkness. ‘What do you think about before a battle?’ Liane asked.
‘I’ve never been in a battle.’
‘You were at Dunkirk. And before then, in Flanders.’
‘Those weren’t battles in the old Great War sense that you knew in one hour’s time you would be encountering the enemy face to face.’
‘But the enemy was all around you. Were you afraid?’
‘I was too anxious to survive, to be afraid. Fear comes afterwards, when you realize that you have survived, where so many others, people you knew quite well, have not.’
‘Will we survive?’
‘If we don’t believe we will, we won’t.’
‘That is a simple philosophy,’ she remarked. ‘A soldier’s philosophy.’ Then she appeared to sleep.
But she was awake at three. A last check of the watches, and they moved down the hill, separating when they were about a hundred yards from the line. To their left the signal box glowed with light. James studied it through his binoculars; there were two men inside. This information he passed on to Jules via Liane. ‘Frenchmen?’ Jules asked.
‘They are wearing German uniforms. We shall see you back in the mountains.’ They shook hands, and James and Liane crawled away from them and made their way up the line for a quarter of a mile.
‘There will be Frenchmen on the train,’ Liane said. ‘Maybe women and children too.’
‘I thought movement is strictly controlled by the Germans?’
‘That is true. But there are some people who get permission to travel.’
‘If they do, shouldn’t we assume they are collaborationists?’
‘Not all. Pierre has permission to travel from Paris to Bordeaux to see Mama and Papa whenever he wishes. My God, he could be on this train.’
‘He won’t be. I gave him instructions not to leave Paris until this business is over.’
‘And you are the boss.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘Does that bother you so much? Somebody has to be the boss.’
‘I am glad it is you.’
They reached the position he had chosen, where there was a slow bend in the track. The drivers of the express would not see the signal box until they came round this bend, and it wa
s here they would sound the whistle.
James crawled up to the track, Liane immediately behind him, and they sat together as they unpacked the explosive from Liane’s knapsack. ‘What else do you have in there?’ James asked. ‘There seems an awful lot.’
‘Just about everything I still possess,’ she said. ‘It is not a lot.’
‘Keep down,’ he warned, studying the ground in front of them. Then he crawled forward with the gelignite, and carefully placed it between the sleepers on both sides of the track. The wires were inserted, and he crawled back to where Liane waited, with the box, slowly laying the wires out behind him.
‘That looked simple enough,’ she said. ‘How far back do we go?’
‘It’ll be a big bang. Another thirty yards will take us into the trees. We should just about stretch that far.’
James started to unwind the wire, when they suddenly heard a noise. They both turned to look back at the track, and saw two German soldiers walking down the line. ‘Shit!’ James muttered.
Liane drew her Luger from her knapsack, and he caught her wrist. ‘We don’t know where the rest are,’ he whispered.
‘Suppose there are no others. Look, they have seen the explosive.’ The two men had certainly noticed something beside the track. ‘What do we do?’
‘Listen.’ Suddenly the roar of the express filled the night. The soldiers stood up. One blew a shrill blast on his whistle, the other took a flashlight from his belt, switched it on, and ran to the bend, obviously intending to stop the train. ‘That’s done it,’ James said. He took the Luger from Liane’s hand, held it in both of his to aim, and squeezed the trigger. He had always been an excellent shot; the German soldier went down without a sound, the flashlight flying from his hand. His companion swung round, unslinging his rifle as he did so, while from out of the gloom behind him there now came four more men, shouting as they ran. ‘The tommy,’ James snapped. Liane had already unslung it. Now she gave it to him. He levelled it and sprayed the track, carefully aiming above the lines. Two of the Germans fell. The rest went down voluntarily, returning fire. Bullets sang through the air over their heads. ‘Keep down.’ Liane pressed her cheek into the earth as she had done when sheltering from the air attack in May. ‘Are we done?’
‘Not until we fire the train.’ He sent another burst over the tracks to prevent the Germans from investigating the suspicious objects. Now he heard a series of cracks and explosions from further down the track as Jules’ people went into action. But now too the roar of the train was very close. A moment later it came into sight, rushing round the bend, a long glittering sequence of light. James heard shots and saw flashlights being waved, but it was too late. The engine was just coming up to the explosive. ‘Are we too close?’ Liane asked.
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