by Ariel Lawhon
Hubert nods. “It’s no secret at all, the plateau and Château de Couffour are only—”
“Five kilometers apart.”
“Maybe a bit less.”
“Which means Gaspard can find us easily.”
“Or lead someone else to us,” Hubert says.
“You think he’d really report us to the Germans?”
He shrugs. “I have no idea what that man might do.”
The sun won’t be up for another hour and the sky has that wet-wool look, like rain is coming in from the west. The road is full of potholes and the steering wheel on the Renault is loose. But I turn my head and look at Hubert anyway. His gaze is fixed on mine and he sits there, hands now still and resting in his lap, waiting for me to come to the same conclusion that he’s already reached.
My mind is numb and flaccid after being up all night. It takes only a moment longer and I’m furious with myself for not taking stock of the situation earlier. “Merde!” I scream, pounding the flat of my hand against the steering wheel. “We have to move camp.”
* * *
—
It was too much to hope for, I suppose, being able to weather the war safe and sound inside the Château de Couffour. But at least our host is coming with us.
I like Fournier. He was a hotel executive before the war and then fled to the country when the Germans invaded, bringing his cheerful wife and a small fortune with him. The money, long gone, was put to good use arming his maquisards, but his wife is kept hidden and safe in a remote village whose location he refuses to share even with me.
I stuff my possessions into my pack as Hubert stands at the door of my room. We did allow ourselves one last, comfortable sleep this morning when we got back from the drop zone. But it’s late afternoon now and we have to be on our way. At least Fournier provided us a lunch of bread, soft apples, and fresh milk. There’s a cow hidden somewhere on the property and she must be happy and well fed, because the milk was thick with cream.
“I should have known we couldn’t stay,” I grumble as I zip my pack.
“Large manor homes make easy targets,” Hubert says.
“Yes, but they also come equipped with proper beds and fully stocked wine cellars.”
I give one last, longing look toward the mattress and follow Hubert from the château. Denis Rake is waiting for us in the backseat of the Renault. He is unshaved, unhappy, and underwhelmed with our new plan.
“You mean to tell me we are actually going to camp out in the woods with these men?” He scowls at me, unaware of how comical he looks sitting there, holding the transmitter and radio to his chest like a couple of teddy bears.
I toss my pack onto the seat beside him, climb in, and start the engine. I offer my best, most charming grin—the one Henri loves—making certain to flash my dimple. “Not at all. Camping implies a short period of time. One week. Perhaps two. We’re going to be living out there, rough as guts.”
Although I can’t be certain, I suspect that Rake is assailing me in Hungarian by the way he spits out a slew of guttural words.
“Any idea what he’s saying?” I ask.
Hubert shakes his head in the seat beside me. “Not a word.”
“Probably best.”
And then we’re off, following Fournier as he leads us to a remote encampment. Though his headquarters are at the Château de Couffour, his men are spread out, in small groups, throughout the Cantal. He’s arranged each with a leader who answers directly to him and dispersed them widely so as not to be vulnerable to attack. Still, each of Fournier’s camps has specific needs and I must assess them one by one in order to arm them properly. It will take weeks.
We drive for over twenty minutes, maneuvering our way through the foothills and then up, ever higher, until we reach the spot chosen by Fournier as our base for the foreseeable future. This is the farthest end of the Chaudes-Aigues plateau and is home to one of his larger groups, populated by over two hundred men. The plateau commands all the other surrounding mountains and valleys, and Fournier’s Maquis control every path, track, and road that leads up to it. His men are embedded in the strongest position in the entire district and they use it to their advantage. Despite being remote, its elevation should provide an excellent radio signal for our daily transmissions to London.
Fournier directs us into a clearing and cuts his engine. We climb out of our vehicles and find six smoldering cook fires and a handful of men eating what I fear might be the remains of a horse. Once they recognize Fournier, a series of whistles are sent up and dozens more men materialize between the trees. Some hold weapons, but most don’t. As I look around the clearing, it occurs to me that there is not a single shelter or tent to be seen, only these men, wearing what they have. The ground is damp, the men are haggard, and everyone is staring at us. I feel out of place in my wool slacks and red lipstick.
“I’ll just explain to them who you are,” Fournier says, then jogs off to speak with one of his lieutenants.
Hubert is an army man and accustomed to harsh conditions. Even still, his shoulders slump and he glowers at the cook fire. He mutters something under his breath and stomps off after Fournier.
“You can’t be serious,” Rake hisses in my ear. He is an aristocrat, fond of his luxuries, and is dubious about this entire situation. “Where are we going to sleep?”
I flash him a wicked grin. “I call dibs on the car.”
“Fine, but what are we going to eat?”
We both look back to the campfire, where Hubert is standing, now pointing angrily at the carcass. “Not that,” I say.
“Have you ever seen Hubert so worked up?” he asks.
“I didn’t actually know he was capable of emotions.” And yet there he is, face red, voice a low rumble.
Rake snorts. “I still find it funny that Buckmaster put you two together.”
“Because I have all the emotions?”
“On a regular basis.”
We watch Hubert, amazed.
Finally, at a loss for any other explanation, Rake shrugs. “He must love horses.”
“Madame Andrée!” Fournier shouts, waving me over.
“Come along, then,” I tell Rake. “We’re being summoned.”
As we trudge through the clearing Rake takes in the various groups of men scattered near the trees, then leans in and whispers, “They’re all staring at you.”
“Jealous?”
He glares at me. “Have they never seen a woman before?”
It’s true. Fournier’s men are staring. They have been since we stepped out of the Renault. The more men who have entered the clearing, the more curious eyes I’ve felt upon my person. They are shameless in their surveyal. “Not in a long time, I’d wager.”
“Careful, Duckie, that could be an issue.”
I march ahead, chin high. “Only if I let it.”
When we reach the fire, Hubert turns to me, hands tucked deep into his pockets, and says, “We have a problem.”
“More than one, apparently, by the look on your face. But start with the most urgent.”
“Your friend does not like the…ah…arrangements my men have made for feeding themselves,” Fournier says.
“Arrangements?” I ask.
“Normally my men maintain a steady diet of forest mushrooms—cèpes, they’re called—along with whatever game they can catch. Mostly fish and quail. With the occasional old horse thrown in for good measure,” he says, and I shudder, then brave a glance at Rake. That confirms our suspicions. “But the Cantal is littered with small farms and villages.”
“So?”
“So,” Hubert interrupts, “these men have been raiding farms at night, stealing pigs and chickens. Pillaging root cellars.” He points at the carcass beside the first. “Did you not notice it’s still wearing a saddle?”
I hadn’t, in
fact. I was too distracted by the grotesque, bared teeth inside the blackened skull.
Hubert continues. “They pluck clothing right off the line and milk the dairy cows before their owners can get to them. They’ve become a plague throughout the Cantal.”
Fournier is clearly embarrassed at this revelation, but he tries to defend his men nonetheless. “And who do you think is protecting those very farms and villages from the Germans? My men! What are they supposed to do? Sit out here and starve to death?”
It’s clear most of these men don’t speak English. Their heads whip back and forth from Hubert to Fournier to me. They are uncertain who is in charge. I look at each of them in turn and say very clearly, in French, “Leave us alone, we need to speak with Fournier.”
None of them move. In fact, from the way their spines stiffen and their fists clench, it looks as if they are growing roots right into the ground. To be given an order by a woman? The insult!
“Allez!” Fournier snaps, and they look at him, startled, before glaring and stomping off.
“You cannot let your men steal from their neighbors,” I say. “Or you will be fighting two wars. Much more of that”—I point to the saddle—“and your countrymen will be after you with pitchforks.”
He gnaws at the side of his lip and looks somewhere beyond my left shoulder. He cannot bring himself to make eye contact as he says, “I can’t afford to feed them.”
And this is why I volunteered to come back to France, to be tossed out of an airplane, to sleep on the ground and be deprived of basic luxuries. “But I can,” I say.
His eyes lock into place at this bit of news. “Pardon?”
“Well, to be specific, England can afford to feed your men. But the money will come through me.”
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“Starting today, I want you to instruct your men as follows. Let them take whatever they like from the Germans. Food. Clothing. Vehicles. Lifeblood. All of that is fair game. But they are not to steal one more thing from their countrymen. Every time you take from your neighbors, you erode their trust. And we need them. Living out here is no excuse to take advantage of the only allies you have. We need their loyalty and their information. Understand? They see and hear things we don’t, and we can’t have them keeping it from us out of spite. I will request money for you and your men along with the weapons, and I will distribute it among your groups according to need. They can buy their provisions from these farmers at market rates. Do you understand?”
He nods.
“There will be no exceptions to this rule.”
He nods again.
“Good. Go tell your men.”
He blinks at me once and then trots off, assuming I mean right this moment.
“Well.” I huff out a breath and turn in a slow circle, staring back at the little clusters of men gathered around the clearing. “This will be interesting.”
* * *
—
I wake just before dawn with a full bladder and the uncomfortable realization that I am surrounded on all sides by two hundred sex-starved Frenchmen. In my experience, this particular species is undaunted even when regularly serviced. But the men around me haven’t seen or touched a woman in months, possibly years. Rake was correct. This could be an issue.
The greater problem, however, is the urgent need to relieve myself. There is little chance of falling back to sleep now, so I decide that I may as well kill two birds with one stone.
Hubert teased me mercilessly back in London when he heard that I planned to bring my red satin pillow, a toothbrush, and a hefty supply of toothpaste with me on this mission.
“Bloody waste of space!” he said. “You’ll drop straight to the ground with all that weight in your pack.”
I’d patted his stomach and laughed. “It doesn’t weigh half so much as your spare tire.”
And that had been the end of it. Until last night, when he caught sight of me blissfully brushing my teeth beside the stream. I like to think he was sick with envy when I laid my head on that pillow inside the Renault while he laid his on a clump of dry grass beside the campfire.
The fire has gone out now, and my companions are snoring. This will never do long-term, but we will figure out better accommodations later. I sit up and stretch my aching back, push my hair away from my face, and peer out of the car window. I am the only person awake. There won’t be a better time, so I push the door open, grab my pack, and pick my way through the camp. I head toward the gentle, trickling stream beyond the pines.
The stream bank is dotted with clumps of waist-high brush—gorse, I think—and I move carefully, looking for a good spot. It’s at times like these that I wish I’d been born a man. How wonderful it must be to shift your trousers and stand up to pee. But no, women have to go bare-assed and vulnerable. In the cold! Not to mention the issue of aiming. Just thinking about the indignity makes me angry. I’ve been in this situation before and I didn’t like it any better then. Best to just get it over with.
I squat.
And then I wait.
It takes only a few seconds, but, as expected, the bushes around me begin to shake. The men hiding inside are trying to get a better view. I knew it. I just knew it. I could feel all those leering eyes watch me as I headed to the stream last night. They’d marked my preferred location and formed a plan. Part of me can’t blame them. My presence has created quite a stir. They are curious. And incorrigible. But still, this is unacceptable.
I slide my hand into my pack, withdraw my revolver, and stand. I like to think they are disappointed to see that my trousers are still in place.
“You can come out now,” I say.
The bushes continue to wriggle but no one emerges.
“If that’s how you prefer to do this.”
I aim my revolver at the ground in front of the nearest patch of brush and fire a single shot. It’s like startling a pack of geese. Men spring out of the earth all around me. Some throw themselves on the ground and begin scrambling away. Others shoot straight up, several feet into the air. A handful dart into the woods, but most freeze when I yell, “Arrêtez!”
I’m fairly certain that one man has pissed himself—his trousers are dark and damp around the crotch. Pity. He won’t fare well against the Germans if that’s what happens when he hears a gunshot.
And that’s when Hubert, Rake, and Fournier burst through the trees, weapons raised, heads whipping back and forth, trying to find the cause of the commotion.
“What the bloody hell,” Rake says, looking at me agog. Half his hair is sticking out to one side and there’s a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth. “Are you dead?”
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I say.
“We thought someone had been shot,” Hubert says.
“Someone was about to be.”
Fournier is the only one who seems to have caught on to what’s happening. He isn’t smiling, exactly, but there is amusement in his eyes. “We thought we were being attacked.”
“Call them back,” I tell Fournier. “Every single man who just left. I want everyone in the clearing in two minutes.”
He nods, then whistles, clear and loud, and we all tromp back to stand beside the fire pits. I am surrounded by dozens and dozens of men, the vast majority newly woken, and I look at their faces carefully. I can tell who was in those bushes based on who will not meet my gaze.
I set my pack on the ground, stow my revolver inside, and speak very clearly in French. “Since we’re all together, I’d like to set a few ground rules.”
They stare and blink. Rub their eyes. Scratch their crotches. Stretch and yawn. Some look at me suspiciously. Others smirk. I’d like to box every single one of their ears.
“Fournier is your commanding officer,” I say, my voice loud enough to echo off the trees. “But my colleagues and I are the ones who
will supply you with weapons and teach you how to use them. Do you understand?”
Heads nod reluctantly.
“Along with those weapons will come money for food. Do you understand?”
Heads nod, a bit more interested now.
I turn in a half circle, trying to make eye contact with as many men as possible. “But if you make me angry, I will not give you weapons. And I will leave you out here to starve. Do you understand?”
Heads nod.
“It really, really makes me angry when desperate, surchauffé, unwashed little men try to get a glimpse at my bare ass while I pee. Do you understand?”
Heads nod, emphatically.
“I will have my privacy. Do you understand?”
Nodding, nodding, nodding.
Hubert tries to wrestle his grin into submission, but Rake is positively shaking with mirth.
“I will go to the damned toilet in peace. Do you understand?”
Heads nod.
Fournier chortles out loud. I glare at him and he clears his throat, doing his best to make it seem as though he’s coughing.
“Follow me into the bushes again and I will shoot you twice, once in the ballocks and once in the skull. Do. You. Fucking. Un. Der. Stand.?” Heads nod once more. “Good. Now get out of my sight.”
They flee, like their own mothers were after them with a switch, and before long it’s only myself, Fournier, Rake, and Hubert left around the burned-out fire. At least the horse carcass has been removed.
“I am tired and hungry and cold,” I say. “And I swear if any of you teases me about this, I’ll kill you too.”
Hubert shrugs. “I actually thought it was quite impressive.”
Rake nods, eyes glinting. “My own ballocks crawled right up inside my body. I’ll have to go through puberty again so they’ll drop.”
“Shut up.” I laugh and then stop because that makes me need to go even worse. “I need their respect, not their lust. And I can’t have both.”
I turn and walk away.
“Where are you going?” Rake shouts after me.
