The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  After he had gone she ate the food and went back to examining her position. She was no longer sure about handing over the package sitting in the left luggage bureau at Perrache. Something was not quite right and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She was still not sure whom she could trust. Almost five thousand Swiss francs, that was a lot of money – so what was it for?

  CHAPTER 8

  Paris

  ‘The British have shelled Bordeaux harbour,’ the doctor told Grainger. ‘They sank two German ships.’ It was good news; he was excited by it and had become quite animated. ‘It is only a matter of time until the tide turns,’ he said cheerfully, ‘then Hitler and his thugs will really be in trouble.’

  But a short while later when Adele came back from her afternoon visit to the boulangerie where she had collected the daily bread ration, the mood changed. Her face was grim and worried. ‘Young Robert has been taken,’ she said gravely, ‘a patrol. He was coming back from the arms cache and he ran into them. They searched him and found one of the guns and some explosives. They will execute him, that is certain.’

  Dr Giraud looked at the clock sitting on the mantle of the ornate Louis fireplace; it was four o’clock and already getting dark. ‘I have to go out. I have a patient to see – he has the documents and some clothes for you.’

  His wife looked pale; there was fear etched in her face. ‘Do be careful, Etienne. If the boy talks it will lead to the others and then to you.’

  When he returned less than an hour later Etienne Giraud came with more than the documents and the clothes. ‘They’ve shot poor Robert,’ he said sombrely, ‘and his parents, Jean and Florence – and his sister; the whole family – gone. They’re still searching the village, house by house. There is the threat of more reprisals. It’s dreadful – unthinkable.’ He sat quietly for several minutes gathering his thoughts.

  ‘Adele,’ he said calmly, ‘we shall leave for Paris first thing in the morning. It would be better if you took Marianne and went to stay with your sister in Amiens while I’m gone. I would feel happier if you were not in the house alone while this is going on. Prepare what you need tonight. We shall leave at six.’

  The bells of St Wulfram woke Grainger; he counted them off – five strikes. A short while later he heard the sounds of movement elsewhere in the house. He washed and shaved, then he put on the clothes the doctor had brought for him, stuffed the new identity papers into the jacket pocket and made his way down to the living room.

  Marianne was in the kitchen with a bowl of barley porridge. Adele appeared with a suitcase and put it down by the front door. ‘Good morning,’ she said quietly, but there seemed nothing good about it. The dawn had brought a veil of fog which threatened to delay their departure, and at any moment there could be the knock on the door that everyone had learned to dread.

  The knock didn’t come but the fog persisted. As they crossed the Somme canal they saw there was a lone sentry standing by the bridge. Giraud slowed the car but the sentry ignored them. ‘I think he knows the car,’ the doctor said quietly to Grainger. ‘I often cross this bridge.’

  Just before eight they arrived at the outskirts of Amiens where they came upon the first checkpoint: a red-and-white pole sitting in two wooden cradles straddled across the road. There were three of them, all with rifles slung over their shoulders, gas masks in canisters hanging from their belts, stamping their boots and clapping their gloved hands together, trying to fend off the cold morning air. One of them stepped out to meet the car as it stopped a few feet short of the barrier. Giraud wound down his window and handed out his identity card and travel permit. The guard ducked down and peered in at the other occupants.

  ‘Where are you going, Doctor?’ He demanded curtly in barely understandable French.

  ‘Paris; to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.’ It was wasted breath, the soldier just shook his head.

  ‘Raus,’ he grunted, jerking his head back to indicate he wanted everyone out of the car. They stood in a huddle, close together, while a second soldier stuck his head into the vehicle and briefly looked around. It took only seconds for Grainger to see a flaw in their strategy. He was carrying Reich documents which gave him authority over these men. He was supposed to be SD, and if he didn’t exercise this authority, and quickly, they would get suspicious and the game would be up.

  ‘Very good,’ he said in the best German he could muster and stepped forward to the first guard. The soldier put out a hand to stop him, unslung his rifle and shouted. ‘Halt!’

  Grainger pulled out his papers and thrust them at the soldier, who was now threatening him with his rifle. ‘Sicherheitsdienst,’ he stated with authority.

  The soldier hesitated and lowered his rifle. ‘Erich,’ he called to the other, ‘check his papers.’

  Grainger smiled and calmly handed over his papers. This would be make or break, he realised, so there was no point in holding back. He looked condescendingly at the two soldiers, who were now showing signs of being uneasy at what they had caught, but they persisted. The third soldier, a corporal, came over from where he had been standing a short way off. ‘What is it?’ he said irritably. He took the papers and gave them no more than a glance. Grainger glared at the corporal.

  ‘I applaud your men’s diligence, corporal,’ he said imperiously, at the same time holding out his hand to retrieve his papers, ‘but I think this is enough. We need to be on our way. I’m sure you don’t wish to hold us up – unless, of course, you want to find yourself on the Eastern front.’

  The corporal gave in and handed back the papers, put on a placatory face and saluted. The other two got the message and quickly lifted the barrier. Grainger breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That worked,’ he said almost under his breath, as if frightened he might be overheard by the men who were now fast disappearing into the mist behind them.

  The streets of Amiens were quiet as they worked their way to the southern side of the city, to where Adele’s sister Clarisse had a house. There were no cars any more – not running, at least. They dotted the kerbsides, inert and cold – abandoned where they had run out of petrol. There was almost no fuel to be had; just the privileged and those doing essential work could get any.

  They passed a tradesman with a barrow struggling with his load over the rough cobbles of the street. A bit further on a horse and cart clattered its way in the early light to wherever it had business. There were no longer any buses running; instead there were men and women on bicycles heading for their places of work, the shops, or for some clandestine rendezvous or other with friends perhaps. There were trams, though many were no longer working. There were mechanics who knew how to fix them but no spare parts to be had. Here and there around the city they now stood abandoned on their rails in the street where they had broken down. The doctor’s car was the only private vehicle to be seen, and they felt conspicuous.

  In a quiet residential street in the southern suburbs of the city Etienne Giraud said his goodbyes to his wife. ‘I will be back in two days,’ he told her, then kissed her and little Marianne. ‘Stay inside as much as you can and take no chances. Say your prayers, Marianne, and remember to pray for your maman and papa – and say a special prayer for France.’

  They left straightaway, departing the city on the Beauvais road. From there it would be around a hundred kilometres due south to Paris. Picking their way through the empty streets the city looked forlorn and uncared for. Everywhere the wounds of the invasion lay unattended: smashed houses, broken roads, piles of rubble, unfilled shell craters, and always the dark hollow eyes of hungry people. It had barely recovered from the Great War and now here it was again, crippled, its back broken and its soul torn away from it. Miraculously the famous cathedral had survived without damage.

  ‘It was a great city once,’ Giraud remarked as they left the last of the suburbs and drove out to the flat open farmland that lay beyond. The fields either side of them were covered in burned stubble waiting for the plough; they stretched in a patchwork to the h
orizon, occasionally interrupted by a small wood or copse that had survived the battles of twenty odd years before. The fields had fared no better than the cities, and farmers were still being blown to pieces as the ploughs brought up live ordnance left unexploded in the ground for two decades – destabilised by the years, their fuses temperamental, sensitive to the touch of a steel share.

  The road had been quiet and they were nearly at Beauvais when Grainger spotted something. In the distance they saw a vehicle approaching, and watched as it grew larger. As it came into clear vision they saw it was the head of a convoy – a long procession of trucks loaded with infantry driving north.

  ‘They’re going to stop us,’ Giraud looked concerned. Ahead an armoured car with SS insignia was blocking the route. ‘It may not be so easy, this time – let me do the talking. Your papers are good but they may not be convinced by you.’ Giraud began to sweat; he could feel it inside his thick driving gloves even though the temperature was barely above freezing. If they were discovered he had no illusions about their fate. If they were lucky they would be shot on the spot; if not the rest was unthinkable. His mind flashed up images of Adele and the child Marianne – would he ever see them again? His courage was being tested and he knew he could not let them down, but it was hard not to feel the fear.

  A soldier with a paddle board bearing the word HALT, in red, stepped into the path of the Renault as he saw it approaching. The doctor slowed the vehicle to a stop. The soldier advanced on them. He stared at the occupants through the front windscreen, his breath condensing in the frost cold air, streaming out of his mouth and nostrils like some baleful dragon. He made a move towards the driver’s side window.

  ‘In for a penny,’ Grainger said under his breath but loud enough for the doctor to hear. He opened his door and pulled himself upright to stand beside the car. Holding his papers up in his hand he walked round to the soldier. He was a solid-looking man dressed in a long black leather coat; he had a hard face painted with a look of aggression. His eyes stared out from two white patches were they had been ringed by the protection of goggles from the grime that smeared the rest of his face. A motorcycle stood on its stand at the side of the road. He was no more than a traffic policeman, Grainger concluded, and he ignored him except to indicate with a point of his finger that he was going directly to the armoured car. The soldier stood for a moment, not sure of what to do, but before he could come to any conclusion Grainger was already at the side of the SS vehicle.

  Through the windscreen the doctor watched as the top hatch of the armoured car opened and an officer appeared, head and shoulders. He leaned down to Grainger and took his papers from him. The officer looked unconvinced; it was clear an animated conversation had started up between them. It didn’t look as if things were going well and he cursed Grainger for putting them at risk. The officer shouted something to the soldier but it was too muffled for Giraud to hear from where he sat inside the car. The soldier tucked the paddle into his belt, unslung the submachine gun that had been hanging around his neck and doubled over to where Grainger stood. There was more talking; it did not look good. Giraud mentally counted the seconds of his freedom as another image of Adele crossed his mind, an image of what she would look like when she heard the news she had always dreaded.

  The conversation broke off abruptly with the soldier accompanying Grainger back to the Renault. Grainger got in – there was a relieved grin on his face. The engine on the armoured car burst into life and it pulled onto the verge of the road to let them pass.

  ‘I’m not sure I can take much more of this,’ the doctor said as he started the Renault and they left, the soldier with the paddle holding up the convoy and waving them through. Neither of them spoke. Giraud drove slowly, shaking his head in relief; Grainger looked straight ahead, unable to believe their luck. After they had eclipsed the last truck and driven for a few kilometres Giraud brought the Renault to a halt on the grass verge of the highway and got out. He walked a short distance, then stopped and just stood there trembling. Grainger watched for a moment, then he too got out and when he reached the doctor he saw his face was wet with his tears – he was crying. Neither man said anything; they just stood there in the cold open countryside, silently, while Giraud sobbed himself dry. Then they went back to the Renault and carried on with the journey.

  ‘Is this Beauvais coming up?’ Grainger asked, speaking the first words that had gone between them since the incident at the roadside. The doctor nodded. He had regained his composure but there was a nervousness about him that had not been there before. ‘Let us hope we do not get stopped again, but if we do leave it to me to do the talking, please.’ There was a detectable note of censure in his voice and Grainger took the hint to say nothing more.

  When they entered the city the first thing they came to was another barrier. As they drew closer to it a figure stepped out from a hut at the side of the obstacle, followed by another with the familiar silhouette of the private soldier, rifle over shoulder. ‘We are going to be stopped again,’ Grainger observed in a steady voice. He glanced sideways and saw that Giraud was beginning to tremble again. ‘Steady in the ranks. Here we go again.’ He prepared himself for yet another confrontation. ‘Hope Fritz is as dumb as the last two lots,’ he said, trying to lift Giraud with some sort of ill-timed humour.

  A captain in the field-grey uniform of the regular army requested their papers. It was followed by inquisitive faces staring into the car. The back doors and the boot were open and the contents – or lack of them – inspected. It had been a very polite but formal procedure and when the captain came round to look at Grainger he wound down his window and, smiling, made a light throwaway remark. Giraud mentally winced, but the captain laughed. When it was over and they had once more been waved through and had watched the sentry box diminish in the rear-view mirror, Grainger again made a glib comment. ‘That was easier than a walk in the park,’ he said, laughing. ‘Hope the rest are that stupid.’

  Giraud said nothing in reply but inside he boiled. Grainger had taken an unnecessary risk with his cavalier approach. It was a risk that could have had them both arrested and again the consequences would have been disastrous. He had no idea what Grainger’s mission was but all he wanted now was to be rid of him – pass him on to the next man in the chain.

  ‘Beauvais is much tidier than Amiens,’ Grainger said, continuing in his lighter vein, but it fell on deaf ears. The doctor was in no mood for light conversation; he knew there was every likelihood they would be stopped again before he got his charge to the safe haven in Paris.

  They entered Paris through the Porte Saint-Denis and were again confronted by a checkpoint. This time Giraud was expecting it; he knew it was there. It was a permanent installation and he had deliberately chosen it because his car and his face were known to the duty officers who were in attendance day and night.

  ‘Leave all the talking to me – and, please, no attempts at clever conversation this time. The risk is an unnecessary one.’ There was a directness in the delivery of the remark that hit a nerve. They passed quickly and successfully with only a cursory inspection of the doctor’s papers and a short explanation of his passenger and where they were going.

  ‘Another easy one,’ Grainger remarked casually, but this time it was too much for Giraud, who turned on him angrily.

  ‘This is the trouble with you British!’ he snapped. ‘You think this is all a game; you don’t have a wife or children to worry you. No one will take out your mother and shoot her in reprisal. The Germans do not have death squads patrolling your towns and villages. This war is serious, not some great adventure for over-privileged young men to indulge in heroics. You need to grow up, Mr Grainger, grow up and understand the seriousness; be aware of the consequences of your actions. Every time one of these operations goes wrong young French men and women die; parents are sent to labour camps; children are made to become orphans.’

  He stopped and drew breath, then softly he said, ‘Grow up, Mr Grainger. Try to
think where your actions may lead you – and drag others behind you.’

  Grainger said nothing. He felt castigated but he understood how Giraud had felt. He had no wife to worry about, no friends who could be caught out by the ill-considered actions of others they hardly knew. Giraud did, and therein lay the difference between them.

  They drove in silence to the hospital and then walked up the steps to the main entrance where a German soldier stood guard. There was no special reason for a guard to be there except that it was a public building and that is what the Germans did; they were omnipresent. Though they had largely become invisible to Parisians, who had now grown used to their presence and learned to ignore it, there was always that menace, waiting in the shadows, the threat of a challenge on the slightest suspicion: arrest without warning, interrogation without end. Once sucked into the net there was rarely any prospect of release.

  As they climbed the steps Grainger could feel the eyes of the guard passing over him. Inside, the main reception lobby was busy with the work of the hospital. Patients, doctors, nurses and an army of administrators milled around, each intent on his or her own task, oblivious to the others except where a casual greeting was passed between those who were acquainted. The crowd brought with it the comfort of anonymity as Grainger and Giraud made their way along a corridor, then up a flight of stairs, then another to a landing where it was much quieter, the hubbub below swallowed in the cavern of the stairwell. They reached the doctor’s private office.

  Entering the room they were confronted by the image of a man standing by a window, looking down into the street below. He was, Grainger guessed, well over six foot two and big-framed. His steel-grey hair was still thick like a short cropped thatch settled over a face that was lined and gnarled, not so much by age – though he looked to be in his fifties or even perhaps sixty – but by the elements; it was a face that spoke of time spent in harsh conditions and Grainger recalled that Giraud had mentioned a man who had once been in the Légion Étrangère. The man moved towards them, embraced Giraud, then put out a hand in greeting to Grainger. His grip was as hard as iron and he fixed him with a penetrating stare through ice-blue eyes.