The Girl in the Baker's Van

by Richard Savin

  ‘That’s for stealing my money,’ he growled sourly, but the growl quickly gave way to a look of amusement. ‘Still that doesn’t matter anymore.’ He nodded towards the bags of gold coins and laughed, then pushed her into a corner and forced her to sit. ‘Stay here, and don’t be stupid enough to move or you will find out what a real slap I can deliver to you.’

  He went back to where Grainger lay on the floor, groaning and trying to get up. ‘Come along,’ he said in mock politeness. Kasha picked him up effortlessly, carried him to the corner and dumped him down in a heap next to Evangeline.

  ‘Pig!’ she cursed at him and spat on his shoe.

  ‘Spit all you like, madam,’ he responded with a sneer, ‘it makes no difference to me – my boots are dirty anyway.’ He went back to the box where Father Guillaume and Cigale were examining the haul.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas, vicar,’ he taunted and, closing the lid on the box, hooked the padlock into the hasp and turned the key. He beckoned to the other two men. ‘Get this loaded onto the van.’

  Propped up in the corner, Grainger began to regain consciousness. Evangeline had put an arm around him and had inclined his head to rest on her shoulder. Her face still smarted from where it had been slapped; his hard knuckles had left livid red patches high up on her cheek bone. The priest came over and smirked at her. ‘God moves in mysterious ways to chastise sinners.’

  ‘Leave them,’ Kasha said brusquely as he stood over them menacingly. Evangeline could see he was holding Grainger’s automatic pistol in one hand and braced herself for what she thought would come next. Kasha lifted the gun but did not fire it. Instead he released the ammunition clip, slipping it out from the butt of the pistol. With his thumb he removed the seven remaining rounds in the magazine, flicking them one by one into the mouth of the well. He replaced the clip in the gun, pushing it in sharply with the heel of his palm, then sliding back the breach he let it snap shut. He brought the gun up to Grainger’s head and squeezed on the trigger. There was a sharp snap as the firing pin fell on an empty chamber. Kasha laughed, then tossed the gun into Evangeline’s lap. ‘You have it,’ he jeered at her. ‘With a bit of luck when the Gestapo find you they’ll think you’re armed and shoot you.’

  Looking down, he saw the single gold coin that Grainger had been holding when the priest felled him. Holding it between thumb and finger he flicked it and sent it spinning across to land on the floor next to Grainger. ‘Keep it,’ he jeered. ‘You might as well get something for your troubles.’

  ‘Oh, and you should know,’ Father Guillaume intoned, his voice charged with false sympathy, ‘the Gestapo have been tipped off. They know where to find you.’

  The door was closed and they heard the noise of a bar being dropped in place to lock it shut. In the pitch black dark of the tower Grainer struggled to sit upright. He fumbled in his pocket until he found a cigarette lighter. He struck the wheel with his thumb and a flame formed on the wick. He held it up and in its feeble light his eye fell on the storm lamp that Kasha had recently extinguished. ‘Can you get that and light it.’

  Evangeline came back with the lamp and by its light took a look at his head. He flinched. ‘Jesus, that hurts.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said, touching the spot tenderly with her fingertips, ‘that’s what he hit you with,’ and she pointed to a round stone boulder twice the size of a cricket ball.

  ‘Richard, do you think you can get up? We should try to get out of here. If they really have tipped off the Gestapo they could arrive at any time.’ Grainger struggled to his feet and wobbled a bit, catching hold of the side of a barrel to steady himself as he weaved towards the door. There was no handle on the inside and anyway it was locked. He looked around, holding the lamp close to the ground, looking for something heavy enough to hit the lock and smash it.

  ‘Bugger!’ he shouted when he finally gave up the search, having found nothing. He sat down on some stone benching to get his breath and she came and sat next to him. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s hopeless – and it’s all my fault.’

  ‘When Kasha put the gun up to your head I imagined he was going to kill you and then he didn’t. Do you suppose that was one of your nine lives?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘How many do you think you have left?’

  He rubbed the bump on the back of his head and winced. ‘Not a lot I should think.’

  She put a hand up and brushed her fingers across his cheek. ‘I thought of you last night – when we were at the hotel. I heard you move and I thought for a moment you were going to come and get into my bed. I wish you had.’

  He leant over and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘I wish I had too. I was being a bit feeble really. I find rejection difficult to deal with, sort of embarrassing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have sent you away.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know that.’ He hauled himself up onto his feet again. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we can’t sit here feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to find a way out.’

  From outside they heard the sound of vehicles arriving, then doors slamming. ‘They’re here.’ Grainger looked frantically about him. There was a flight of stairs that led to the next floor but when he put his foot on the first tread it collapsed in powder. ‘Termites,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘They’ve bloody well scoffed most of the timber in this place.’

  Through the door they could hear voices then there was the sound of the bar being lifted, immediately followed by a hollow thud as it was dropped on the stone paving. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Grainger hissed under his breath with an air of urgency. ‘It’s a longshot because we don’t know how many there are. You remember when you told me how you held up the choirmaster – with an empty gun – and how they assumed it was loaded, so they did as they were told?’ She nodded vigorously.

  ‘Well,’ he said, brandishing the gun Kasha had thrown into her lap, ‘I can try pulling the same stunt. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work on them as well. We have a chance; it’s slim but it’s worth a throw of the dice. Get behind the barrels and don’t come out till I call you.’

  Grainger moved to one side of the door and waited. There was the grinding sound of a key being turned in the lock; iron grinding on iron. The door laboriously opened and a man appeared silhouetted against the light outside. He stood there while he waited for his eyes to deal with the low level of light, then he switched on a torch and began to shine it across the giant barrels. This had to be it, Grainger decided and, stepping behind the man, pressed the muzzle of the gun a hard up behind his left ear.

  ‘Keep very still,’ he said softly in German, which he supposed the man to be. ‘Don’t call out or you are dead.’ The man stiffened but stayed still. ‘How many outside?’

  ‘Vier.’

  ‘Put your arm out slowly and give me the torch.’ The man did as he was ordered. Grainger took the torch, shone it on the man’s face and concluded he was Gestapo. ‘Open your coat and keep your hands on the lapels.’ Again the man did as he was told and stood quietly waiting to see what happened next.

  ‘Evangeline, help me,’ Grainger called in the general direction of the barrels. She came from behind them, being careful to stay away from the partly opened door.

  ‘Ah,’ Schreiber said as Evangeline came out from the shadow of the barrels, ‘the girl in the baker’s van.’

  ‘Right, frisk him,’ Grainger told her when she reached Schreiber. She pulled out an oval metal disk, then a small automatic pistol. ‘He is Gestapo,’ she said under her breath. She looked at his papers. ‘Otto Schreiber.’

  ‘Call the others in here.’ Grainger pressed the gun harder into Schreiber’s neck. Schreiber hesitated, then called out in French. ‘Venez ici – vite’.

  Grainger pulled back the door. Four gendarmes bundled in and were immediately consumed by the gloom. When they had recovered their vision they were confronted by the reality of their position. From where she stood on the other side of the barrels Evangeline calml
y told them to surrender their arms. There was no attempt to resist; nobody seemed willing to risk dying for this German whom their masters had dumped on them and they happily threw down their weapons. Grainger liberated four sets of handcuffs and shackled the unhappy bunch together. Schreiber stayed remarkably sanguine and for a while said nothing more until they were about to leave them there, their arms linked round a stone post that supported the staircase, like revellers around a maypole.

  ‘I know who she is, but who are you?’ Schreiber said calmly as they made for the door. ‘You are not Kasha – I know that.’

  Grainger stopped. ‘No, I am not Kasha. Kasha has gone to Spain. You’re too late, you’ve missed him.’

  ‘I will find him,’ Schreiber said in a voice filled with determination.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Grainger called back to him, then heaved the door shut and dropped the bar into place. Just under the bar there was the lock with a key sticking out of it, conveniently left by Kasha for the Gestapo. Grainger turned the key until he felt it clack securely shut and then slipped the key into his pocket. Around the square, faces dotted the windows – curious faces, peeping suspiciously out at what was happening.

  They walked quickly along the side of the tower, turning into the shade of the narrow alley that would lead them to where they had left the car. Descending the mud path, they emerged onto the open quay. It was deserted except for a line of giant plane trees, massive in girth, gnarled and twisted by time and the winds; now devoid of foliage they stood sentinel along the edge, peering down into the river bed.

  They were almost at the car when a figure stepped out from behind one of the larger trees and stood in front of them. Grainger immediately recognised the man he had disabled in the park, the one they had seen on the canal bridge. The man had extended his right arm; he was holding a gun. Evangeline watched as Grainger’s hand went into his pocket and fumbled to find his pistol. It was as if she was watching it in a dream, a slow-motion dream. She moved away to one side, instinct telling her that separation from him was her best defence. Her eye fell on a largish stone which she bent and picked up – the thought flashing through her mind that she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  The man advanced rapidly on Grainger. ‘Don’t do it, son. You’ll be dead.’ Grainger raised his hands, palms open and facing forward to show they were empty. It took a second or two for it to sink in that the man had spoken the words in English. He came to within an arm’s length of Grainger. ‘It’s okay, you can drop your hands.’ The words came again in English but the accent was American.

  ‘Sergeant McAndrew,’ the man said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘1st Armour Regiment, US army – on secondment to the Office of Strategic Services, Uncle Sam’s all new secret intelligence agency. We’re hunkered down across the border in a small town called La Vajol.’ The sergeant pushed the gun he had been holding into his coat pocket and offered a handshake. Evangeline, who had all the while stood a few yards away, heaved a sigh of relief. The sergeant looked over to her and noticed as she dropped the rock with which she had armed herself. He laughed. ‘Thanks, missy – I don’t fancy being hit from behind a second time.’

  Grainger did his best to feign remorse, ‘Sorry about that.’

  McAndrew winced then grinned. ‘Don’t matter – it happens. Look we need to get outa here; I saw the posse going up to the tower. I think we should take my car – yours is kinda flashy.’

  ‘How did you get on to us?’ Grainger asked as they sped away from the village.

  ‘London got a message to us. The major I work for sent me to find you; the resistance guys around these parts aren’t too well organised but they sure as hell know who’s what and where they’re at. You’ve been blazing a trail a mile wide – you were easy.’ He rubbed the side of his neck where Grainger had hit him with the gun. ‘Could have saved you a whole lot of trouble back there if you hadn’t slugged me.’

  Grainger gave a little ironic laugh. ‘I need to find a telephone, I need to let our guide Pau know what’s happening.’

  ‘Already done. He was the guy who told me you were in that town back there.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘We have to catch up with your Polish agent. He’s got something Uncle Sam really wants to get his hands on.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘No idea. Not even my major knows.’

  In the back of the car Evangeline felt relaxed. They were no longer the hunted; now they were the hunters and, for the first time since the farm on the road to Epinal, she felt in control of her life.

  *

  A small crowd had gathered in the square; Monsieur le Maire and his deputy stood by the door of the tower and listened. The tower had been securely shut up for longer than any local memory could recall, even longer than the memories of their parents and grandparents; tales of spectres and hauntings abounded. Now somebody had opened the door – ‘they must have had a key,’ the woman told them at the Mairie when she had reported what she had witnessed. She was sure som

  eone was still inside but the door was again locked.

  The Maire tried to bang on the door with his fist but the thick oak planking refused to resonate to something as feeble as soft human flesh. A man stepped forward with an iron bar and banged it hard against the wood. From inside came the muffled reply, ‘Au secours, au secours!’

  ‘Fetch les pompiers,’ the Maire ordered and a man was despatched to the fire station.

  *

  ‘The Pyrenees,’ Grainger said, pointing through the windscreen to a snow-capped mountain on the horizon, its peak washed with the pink blush of the setting sun. The cloud had cleared, swept away by a strong wind that had sent them scudding west and, as they arrived in the city of Perpignan, the evening looked set fine. McAndrew parked the car in a side street and they walked the short distance to a hotel called the Régence.

  ‘The hotel’s safe,’ McAndrew assured them. ‘There’s a guy here who knows his way around.’

  In the bar of the Régence a man in a worn jacket and a grey waistcoat sat in a corner with a glass of beer. Long, jet black hair fell from under a loose Catalan beret, lank and greasy, almost to his shoulders; he looked like any one of half a dozen men sitting in the bar. He stood up as they approached and invited them to sit with him. ‘I am José,’ he said in quite good English; José had news.

  ‘The man you are looking for …,’ he removed a rough cigarette, hand-rolled in black liquorice paper, and exhaled loudly, a trail of acrid smoke billowing from his mouth and his nostrils like some fire-breathing dragon, …‘he has already gone into the mountains. There is a woman, two men and a donkey with him; the donkey is carrying some heavy baggage.’

  ‘Where is he going? Do you know?’

  The man nodded deliberately and slowly. ‘Now he is in Céret, a small town south of here. The trail he will have to take is difficult and rough and goes over the Col de la Brousse. It will take them maybe two days and two nights, maybe more if there is a snowfall. There are shepherd’s huts.’

  Grainger looked from José to McAndrew. ‘Can we catch up with him?’

  McAndrew looked sceptical. ‘Do we need to? There’s not a lot of point, is there? He’ll come to us; that’s what he said, didn’t he? Well, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but …’ There was a spell of silence.

  McAndrew raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, but what?’

  ‘The Gestapo, what you called the posse. You can’t rely on them staying where I left them trussed up forever. I only spoke briefly with him but I’d say he was a man on a mission; he’s determined.’

  McAndrew screwed up his face and thought about it. ‘If you’re going after him it’ll have to be without me. I have to get back to my unit the way I came in, through the border at Le Perthus. The US still has full diplomatic relations with Vichy. It might not look so good if I was caught climbing in through the back window. We’ll be waiting for you guys as arranged, on Spanish territory, at La Vajol.’

&n
bsp; Grainger resigned himself to the inevitable. ‘Okay, but take the girl with you.’

  McAndrew shook his head again. ‘No can do. They’d pick her up at the border for sure. If she’s on the Gestapo wanted list like you say, well, hell, all kind of shit could fly around. She’s better off taking her chances with you.’

  Evangeline looked angry. She had listened to what was being said and although not all of it was understood, she got the drift of it and she wasn’t about to be pushed around by these two. She would make her own decision. ‘When you men have finished deciding what you will do with me,’ she said forcefully, ‘I shall tell you how it will be.’

  That stopped the conversation. Both men fell silent and stared at her not knowing what to say in response. She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I will go with you, Richard. It makes sense – and you forget …,’ she dipped into her knapsack and pulled out the small automatic pistol she had taken from Schreiber, ‘my gun has ammunition and yours has not.’

  McAndrew burst into laughter. ‘Well, sonofabitch, she’s got you there buddy.’ He put his hand in his coat pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, handing his own pistol to Grainger under the table. ‘Good old army issue Colt 38. It’s got a nine-round clip – and here’s a spare.’

  Grainger stuffed the gun in his grip. ‘Okay, that settles it.’ He turned directly to José. ‘Can we get around them, get ahead of them?’

  José thought on it; he gave a little twitch of his head. ‘We can try – but we will need to leave now. We will go to another place, a hamlet called Les Hauts. There is a piste, it goes to another hamlet called Palagourdy. After that we have to climb over the Pic de Boularic. It is a hard climb, too steep for a donkey so they won’t go that way, but it is very direct and you will reach the Col before them.’