by Ariel Lawhon
Hélène
THE AUVERGNE, FRANCE
March 1, 1944
It is dark as pitch, I have no idea where Hubert is, and this strange little Frenchman is trying to get me into his car.
I slide my hand closer to my coat pocket and therefore the revolver hidden inside. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and where to find Hubert.”
“My name is Henri Tardivat. And I am trying to deliver you to him.”
I have room in my life for only one Henri and it’s not this man, so I make a mental note to call him Tardivat and then ask, “Why?”
“I am your contact.”
I do not tell him that our contact’s name is Maurice Southgate and that we have been instructed, in no uncertain terms, not to use a vehicle of any sort. London has assured us that the Germans have commandeered most of the civilian vehicles in this area. Barring the option of a train, we are to bike or walk to our rendezvous point. Since we see neither trains nor bicycles available at the moment, however, our remaining option feels less than ideal in the dead of night in unknown territory. And then of course there is the issue of my coconspirator. I cannot leave without him.
“I’m not getting in that car without Hubert.”
Tardivat tips his head to the side, pulls at his cigarette, then blows the smoke out his nostrils. “Are you always so difficult?”
“I assure you, this is the agreeable version of myself.”
There is a rustle in the bushes beside Tardivat. “It’s true,” Hubert says, voice deadpan, as he steps out of the hedgerow. “This is about as pleasant as she gets.”
“About time,” I mutter as he brushes dried leaves from his coat. He looks altogether calm, standing there in the dark, as though there’s nothing odd about this meeting.
“I sent this chap to collect you,” he says.
“And why didn’t you come along?”
“I was burying my chute.” Hubert eyes the pile of silver nylon under Tardivat’s arm with concern. He scowls at me for breaking The Rules.
There’s no time to explain, so I say, “We need to find our friend and be on our way.”
“About that.” Tardivat snuffs out his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, then flicks it into the bushes. “Maurice Southgate sends his regards. He’s in a bit of trouble with the local Gestapo. He won’t be meeting you tonight.”
Hubert’s face is hidden in shadow, so I cannot see his expression, but we exchange a quick glance nonetheless. The fact that he knows Southgate’s real name is a good sign, but we can’t be sure how he came by it.
“What exactly does that mean?” Hubert asks.
“Southgate got caught up in a German raid near Montluçon and has likely been arrested. Or killed. I’m not sure which.”
I am exhausted, cold, and hungry. My dinner was far from satisfactory, but I still regret leaving it on the floor of the Liberator. “And you know this because…?”
Tardivat shrugs in that nonchalant French way, as though we have all the time in the world to stand in a damp forest in the middle of the night and chat. It’s infuriating. I want to grab his shoulders and shake him so hard his teeth rattle.
“He sent word to me,” he says. “Be grateful. Otherwise there would have been no one to greet you.”
Hubert tightens the belt around his coat. The air is growing colder. “And our other associate?” Southgate was only one of two men we were supposed to meet at the drop zone. The other is Denis Rake, our radio operator.
“A no-show.”
“I suppose you’re the one who lit the fires?” Hubert asks.
“Standard procedure. The planes have to be signaled somehow. You aren’t the first lot to fall out of the sky, you know.”
Indeed, we’re not. Counterintelligence missions have gone up seven hundred percent in the last year. And yet what London cannot prepare you for are the myriad decisions that must be made on the ground when things do not go according to plan. To trust a stranger or not. To bury your chute or allow it to be purloined. To accept a ride or hike instead.
But Tardivat is losing patience. “Listen, do you want me to take you to Gaspard or not? If so, you need to get in the car. Because I’m not walking. His encampment is over twenty kilometers away in Mont Mouchet, and there are other places I have to be tonight.”
There is no need to confer. For better or worse, Tardivat knows a great deal about our affairs. At the moment he is our only option.
“Lead the way,” Hubert says.
While Tardivat is stuffing my parachute into the trunk of his car, I tug on the sleeve of Hubert’s coat and whisper, “Denden?”
It’s our code name for Denis Rake. He refused to parachute into the Auvergne with us, demanding instead to be flown onto a private landing strip two days ago on a small Lysander. The man does not jump from planes or like guns, and he’d be no use to the war effort whatsoever if he wasn’t the best radio operator this side of the Atlantic Ocean. However, we were assured that Southgate and Rake would meet us here and together we would find the maquisard leader known as Gaspard to begin operations. I now wonder if we’ve all fallen into an elaborate trap.
Hubert shakes his head. “No idea.”
We slide into the backseat of the small, two-door Renault and I know that somewhere in the deep pockets of Hubert’s trousers are a pair of service revolvers identical to mine. And I’m certain that, like mine, his hand hovers nearby, ready to fire them into the back of Tardivat’s skull should things go badly from here.
Whatever else I might think of Henri Tardivat, he is a superb driver. Within moments he’s navigated us through the forest floor and onto a narrow, winding back road—all with the headlights off. He whistles softly to himself and hangs one arm out the open window. The air is brisk and it smells of old leaves and frost, but it keeps us awake as we drive.
“Don’t worry,” he says sometime later, when Hubert protests him turning onto another byway, “the Germans stick to the Routes Nationales.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
And indeed we do. The farther we drive into the Auvergne, the rougher the terrain gets. In the ten years that I have lived in this country, I have heard this area referred to as the Fortress of France, but I never knew why until now. The little car climbs ever higher through the hills without so much as a groan of protest as those same hills turn to mountains, many of them over six thousand feet. The byway disintegrates into a dirt road that is pitted and meandering and almost impossible to navigate. We wind through seemingly endless plateaus and around volcanic rock formations, occasionally drifting perilously close to gorges whose bottoms we cannot see in the dark. Wooded slopes spring up on all sides and the road softens beneath a blanket of pine needles. I must confess that it is perfect terrain for the maquisards to wage their unique brand of guerrilla warfare. And instructions from London notwithstanding, walking would have been exhausting and a bicycle utterly worthless.
It is three o’clock in the morning when we pass through an opening in a low stone wall and pull up to the château at Mont Mouchet. It sits alone in the middle of a large field without so much as a single ornamental hedge or tree out front. It is old, solid, large, and square. Pieces of pale stone are crumbling off the corners, but otherwise it appears intact and impenetrable. All the lights on the first floor are blazing and the circular driveway is packed with crushed rock and an endless supply of small flatbed trucks and rusty Renaults. There must be thirty or more, parked at haphazard angles all around the château. Cars, cars everywhere, when London said they were rarer than sugar in wartime.
“Stolen,” Tardivat offers before I can ask. “Though to be fair, the maquisards only target known collaborationists. They’d be confiscated by the Germans anyway. We might as well get some use out of them.”
“Where do they get the petrol to power
so many vehicles?” Hubert asks.
“Most of those are gazogènes, coal-fueled vehicles. And coal is easy enough to come by in these parts.” Tardivat peels himself out of the car and stretches. “Wait here. Gaspard does not like surprises.”
We watch as he saunters across the drive, hops up the front steps, and pounds on the broad double doors. Once he’s slipped inside, I turn to Hubert. “Do you think he’s going to kill us?”
He leans his head against the back of the seat and yawns so wide that his jaw pops. He closes his eyes. “If so, I hope he’s quick about it. I’m exhausted.”
After several moments, the front doors swing open again, and the small Renault is illuminated by a rectangle of yellow light.
“He’s waving us in,” I say. “For better or worse, here we go.”
Hubert and I grab our packs, situate our weapons within easy reach, and walk into the house, only to find it occupied by fifty of the most surly, suspicious-looking Frenchmen I have ever seen. A quick introduction proves them to be dirty-minded, foulmouthed, and irritated by our presence. A den of thieves indeed. But they are not Germans, and that is an immeasurable relief.
“Gaspard will arrive in the morning,” Tardivat says. “You can wait up with this lot or you can try to get some sleep. Your choice.”
A brief glance at Hubert and the decision is made. “Sleep.”
He nods to a long, lean maquisard standing at the foot of the stairs. “This is Judex, Gaspard’s chief lieutenant. He will see you up to your room.”
“And what of you?”
Henri Tardivat grins and offers me an exaggerated wink. “You are not the only ripe fruit that must be plucked out of a tree tonight, madame.”
I want to hate the man, but I can’t quite muster the animosity, even when the maquisards leer. The truth is I’ve never met an Henri whom I didn’t like.
Tardivat evades my retort by escaping through the front doors.
The interior of the house is much like the exterior. The floorboards are battered but none of them squeak, the plastered walls are chipped in places but not discolored, the tapestries frayed but numerous, and the furniture, though old, is stolid and austere. Who and where the original tenants are we’re never told, but I can surmise that they are an unshakable lot. We follow Judex up three flights of stairs and down a long hallway to the only empty bedroom in château Mont Mouchet. He opens the door, then leaves without a word.
There is a single window, a washstand, and a double bed. There is no chair, couch, or even a rug on the floor for one of us to sleep on. Hubert curses, I groan, and we glare at each other in a standoff for several seconds, but there’s no point making a scene.
I am too exhausted to argue. “Give me the left side and you can sleep on top of the covers,” I say.
“That’s a very specific request.”
“Left is my psychological side.”
“I do not believe there is any such thing as a psychological side of the bed.”
This is what happens when your partner is a former soldier turned academic. Creativity takes a backseat to logic.
“Of course there is. My husband sleeps on the right side of the bed and I have the left. Psychologically speaking, I cannot sleep otherwise. That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”
“I fear your husband would kill me if he knew.”
“My husband is not the one you need to fear tonight. Just stay on your side.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough.”
Our backpacks, along with my purse, are stuffed under the bed, and we claim our respective sides in silence. I hand Hubert my coat and crawl under the blankets, trying not to think of who might have used this bed last or what took place within. Both of us secure a loaded revolver under our pillows. I pull the sheets up to my chin, Hubert burrows beneath his pile of coats, and we are asleep in seconds.
* * *
—
We wake sometime later to raucous shouting and slamming doors. The entire house vibrates, and I can hear little trails of plaster dust sliding down the walls. It is not yet dawn but there are ribbons of pale sky along the horizon.
“Do those buggers never sleep?” Hubert groans beside me.
“I’d wager Gaspard has arrived.”
“Should we greet him, then?”
I shake my head and my hair rustles against the coarse linen pillowcase. “No,” I whisper. “They think we’re asleep.”
Hubert is silent for a moment, pondering. “We have the advantage, then.”
“He’ll know we’re here—”
“Which means they’re discussing us.”
“But,” I say, “I’d bet they left Judex on the stairs. They’re a ruddy awful lot of pigs but they aren’t entirely stupid.”
Hubert is at the window, peering down in a matter of seconds. “As I recall, you were quite adept at the ropes course in Kent.”
“So?”
“We’re in luck. These horrid men have supplied us with a perfectly adequate trellis that reaches all the way to the ground.”
Despite excelling at the ropes course, I did not, in fact, enjoy the training exercise. Nor do I particularly like putting it into practice as I shimmy down three floors of rickety trellis after Hubert. Despite the age and questionable construction of the wooden slats themselves, the wisteria vines are strong and established and—thanks to a late winter—mercifully bare of leaves. We are on the ground in no time.
“These poor fools need all the help they can get,” I whisper as we creep around the side of the château toward what appears to be a kitchen. “Worst security I’ve ever seen. There’s not a guard in sight.”
“They left Judex on the stairs. They probably have lookouts at the windows. It’s impossible to sneak up on the house.”
“But not,” I say, “to sneak around it.”
The kitchen windows are low and open, and the smells of coffee and porridge drift out from them and into the predawn air. My stomach complains and I count the hours since eating that ill-advised Spam sandwich. Hubert shakes his head at the sound as though to say, Get that under control, and we settle into what was once an herb bed. At the moment it is occupied by sparse little plants that have turned dry and brittle with neglect. We try not to snap any branches as we take our spots.
Hubert looks a little puzzled by the rapid, colloquial French that’s bantered about inside. He’s the pure, academic sort who learned from professors and textbooks, whereas I learned the language from Stephanie and Henri and the streets themselves, so I translate as needed. Soon enough I can distinguish Gaspard from the others even though I cannot see him. He is loud and brash and domineering. He cuts off his lieutenants constantly, dismissing their ideas and observations. Arrogant. Surly. Self-satisfied. He sounds like a bully and I dislike him immediately.
“Oh,” I whisper, the sound of my voice little more than that of a breath. “They’re talking about us now.”
“And?”
“He has no interest in cooperating with London.”
“Then why the bloody hell are we here?”
“He believes he will be receiving aid from de Gaulle’s Free French forces in North Africa.” I listen a bit longer, then snort. “It is seen as disloyalty to take aid from les Britanniques.”
The conversation inside the kitchen notches up rapidly and I lean my head against the wall to listen. If Hubert cannot keep up, I’ll fill him in later.
“What do we do with these two Britanniques, then?” one of Gaspard’s lieutenants asks. “Tardivat drove off and left them here.”
“Get rid of them. I don’t care how.”
A pause and then, “We suspect the woman is carrying a lot of money with her.”
There is a long silence and I can hear a coffee cup sliding across the table. A slurp. “How much?”
“We don’t know. But s
he is very calm. Sure of herself. Both of them carry large packs.”
“Radios perhaps?”
“Non.”
Gaspard asks, “Are they armed?”
“We believe so.”
Fingers tap an eager staccato against the table. When he finally speaks again, Gaspard’s solution is stunning in its nonchalance. “One of us will have to seduce the woman, then kill her and relieve her of the money.”
There is a great deal of foot stomping, hooting, and volunteering at this proclamation.
Gaspard sounds intrigued. “She is attractive?”
“Très sexy!” a man says, laughing, then goes on to describe my finer points, not the least of which apparently include straight teeth, shiny hair, a small waist, and gros seins. I glance down at my breasts in curiosity. Interesting. I’ve always thought Frenchmen preferred a diminutive bosom.
Hubert shakes his head, horrified. Apparently, he understands a bit more country French than he lets on.
Several of the men suggest that I might be shared among them before I’m dispatched. One of them offers to go collect me at once. There is some talk about how they will get into the room without getting shot and what to do if I resist or if Hubert tries to intervene.
“Assez!” Gaspard shouts, bringing order back to the room. “I will do it.”
“And the man?” one of his lieutenants asks.
“Kill him too.”
Nancy Grace Augusta Wake
HEARST NEWSPAPER GROUP, PARIS HEADQUARTERS
1936
“We can’t publish this,” my editor says. He slides the stack of papers back across his desk toward me with the tip of one finger as though they are contaminated.
I blink at him. I am exhausted and unwashed and not my sharpest at this particular moment. The entire article was written longhand on a notepad I bought at the Anhalter Bahnhof train station as Frank and I left Berlin. I returned to my flat long enough to type it and change my clothes before delivering it to Milo Caron, my editor. I expected any number of things after he read the article, but rejection wasn’t one of them.
