Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

  As soon as Henri releases me I step back and dry my face with the backs of my hands. I take a deep breath and growl on the exhale. “When do you leave?”

  “In March. We still have time. Let’s just enjoy it. Please.”

  I can feel that old, familiar stubbornness wash over me, and it is met with a thought, so intriguing, so impractical, that I embrace it immediately. I sniff, stand up straighter. “I know what I want for my wedding gift.”

  Henri squints. “What?”

  “A truck.”

  “And where will I get a truck?”

  Silent laughter is rippling across his face, so I glare at him. “You will give me one of the dozens that belong to your shipping company.”

  He pops a bit of cracker into his mouth. “I will?”

  “Yes. And then you will have it converted into an ambulance.”

  “What for?”

  “So that I can drive it to the front and be of some use while you’re away.”

  “You will drive to the front—”

  “—and ferry the wounded to field hospitals. Yes.”

  Poor Henri; he doesn’t realize that I am completely serious. He thinks this is a game. So he needles me. “You can better help the war effort here.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Here I help no one.”

  “I do recall that your first job was as a nurse.”

  “A nurse’s assistant for two months over the course of one summer. And I was fifteen. Besides, it’s not as though the wounded will be pouring into Marseille.”

  At least not yet. I can see that both of us are thinking this, but neither of us says it aloud.

  “But why would you even want to help? War isn’t for women.”

  I lean very close to him and lower my voice to a dangerous pitch. “And yet we suffer most in them.”

  Henri sees the flash in my eyes and takes a solid step backward. He throws his hands up in surrender. He tries to laugh off his ignorance. “Haven’t I told you how I won the last war for France? Now I will win it again. Have you no confidence in me?”

  “Certainly,” I say, giving him a saccharine smile. “But I’m sick of hearing how you won the last one. I will win this one.”

  “You and what army?” It’s a good thing he’s smiling, that a teasing glint is clear in his eyes, otherwise I might swipe at him with a cheese knife.

  “I’ll build my own army if I have to. Besides, I don’t see why I should have to wave you a proud good-bye and then sit at home knitting balaclavas.”

  Henri thinks for a moment, knowing better than to try to dissuade me. “I will give you your ambulance on one condition.”

  Ah. That word again. The use of conditions is now one of our favorite bargaining tools. “Which is?”

  “That you promise me you won’t go unless France is invaded. No running off to Belgium to help on that front just because you’re bored.”

  I stick out my hand and we shake, formally. “Deal.”

  You might think there was a cactus growing directly between my eyes by the way he is looking at me. He shakes his head. “You are the damnedest woman I’ve ever met.”

  Poor Henri. He does not realize that I am serious, or how determined Germany is to spread its cancer across the face of the earth. I saw what they did in Vienna and Berlin, and I know that Hitler has no intentions of stopping at Belgium.

  If Henri is going to war, so am I.

  PART THREE

  Lucienne Carlier

  Gentlemen of the human race, I say to hell with the lot of you.

  —VICTOR HUGO, LES MISÉRABLES

  Madame Andrée

  CHAUDES-AIGUES PLATEAU, CANTAL, FRANCE

  May 15, 1944

  I am ripping seats out of the bus when we hear the first explosion. My plan—thanks to a bit of creative engineering and a set of bolt cutters I’ve borrowed from Fournier—is to create an area at the front of my bus where I can entertain my colleagues out of the elements. I’ve already turned the back—where the two benches face each other—into something of a bedroom. All I’m waiting for is the mattress that Tardivat promised. At the moment, however, I’m on my hands and knees, head crammed under a seat, trying to pry it loose from the floor, when the distant, unmistakable rumble reaches us. I feel it vibrate up through the ground, across the bus, and into the palms of my hands, like something deep within the earth has torn loose and is charging toward the surface.

  I’m on my feet and out the door, bolt cutters still in my hand, before I’ve even made the conscious decision to move. I run toward the middle of the clearing, where Hubert and Fournier have already planted themselves—like old, weary trees—scowling toward the north. That first explosion is followed by another. Then another. Distant booms that gather momentum in the early-evening air. And then the gunshots begin, scattershot and rapid, echoing through the valleys that lie between us and that far-off ridge.

  “What’s happening?” I ask Hubert.

  “An attack.”

  “Where?”

  He tips his chin toward the north. “Sounds like Mont Mouchet.”

  “Gaspard.”

  “It was bound to happen,” he says, then looks at me to gauge my reaction. “You did warn him.”

  “Are we going to help?”

  Hubert is quiet. Weighing the possibilities. How long it would take to notify each of Fournier’s groups. What it would require of us and whether we could get to Mont Mouchet fast enough on foot—we do not have the vehicles to transport even a tenth of Fournier’s troops.

  “There are thousands of men under Gaspard’s command,” I say. “They don’t deserve to die for his stupidity.”

  It is Fournier who answers. He stands behind me and to my left. His voice is quiet but authoritative. “No. But there are mountains between us. Valleys. At least two rivers swollen by spring rains. By the time we can assemble our men, travel, and reach Gaspard, the attack will be over. It may well be headed toward us by then.”

  “So we do nothing?”

  “We wait,” Fournier says. “Gaspard has concentrated his forces. They have few weapons and no reserves. They will have to retreat eventually. And when they do, they will come here.”

  * * *

  —

  It is a strange thing to hear a battle raging and not engage. I find that my body grows tense and leans forward with each explosion. All that day we listen as the attack, swift and merciless, falls on Gaspard’s compound. Fifty kilometers. Technically a short enough distance to walk in half a day. And yet, from where we stand, a treacherous tangle of nearly impassable geography. This is why the maquisards chose to situate themselves in the Auvergne—the Fortress of France—each group claiming a piece of this daunting territory and positioning themselves on high ground amidst the plateaus. But as difficult as it is for the Germans to maneuver through these hills, it is equally difficult for us to reach one another on foot.

  And into this complicated mess of guerrilla warfare, Hubert, Denis, and I have landed, knowing that, busy as we are now, the real work will begin once the Allies arrive in France. Arming and training the Maquis is only half the mission. The fighting and the sabotage that will drive the Germans out of France are yet to come.

  We continue with our work, raising our heads occasionally as reverberating strings of gunfire and faint, distant battle cries reach the plateau. From here it sounds like the memory of war, like some strange echo reaching across time to remind us that the Germans were here once before, that we drove them out and we can do it again. But only if we do not waver in our resolve. So we set our minds to the task at hand. I go back to work on my bus, then spend the evening coding messages. Denis radios London and we listen to the BBC French news bulletin until they sign off with their usual phrase letting agents scattered throughout the country know that personal messages are a
bout to be broadcast, “Et maintenant, quelques messages personnels.”

  Hubert, Denis, and I sit beside the radio, listening to the usual endless strings of nonsense. Bits of nursery rhyme. Eighteen surnames. What I can only assume is a grocery list. A recipe for cough syrup. And then, finally, the confirmation that our message has been received and our order approved: “A cricket chirps in Kent.” And that settles it. We will receive three airdrops over the next five days.

  At nightfall the booms and echoes across the ridge begin to lessen, then stop entirely within two hours. It is almost midnight when Denis pulls his headphones off and yawns. We decide to stretch our legs and go meet Fournier beside the campfire.

  “The silence makes me nervous,” Hubert says.

  “The Germans have retreated.” Fournier stands beside the fire. He holds his hands toward the flames, palms out, to warm them. The air smells of damp earth and bright green pine needles. Above us the sky is clear and dotted with a million pinpricks of light. “They will return at dawn. They always do.”

  As usual, Fournier is right. After a rare night with no shipments to collect, I sleep like a concrete block and wake at six o’clock the next morning, to a tremor and the sound of bus windows rattling. Even in my sleep-drunk state I know that the battle has resumed and we must prepare ourselves for the fallout.

  * * *

  —

  The first of Gaspard’s men reach us at midday. A handful of them are wounded and all of them are hungry. Those who are armed have only small weapons, revolvers and rifles, but not a bullet to share among them.

  “We retreated when we ran out of ammunition,” one of them says, staring at me, curiously, over the bridge of a nose that has been broken at some point in the past. “We went through the Auvergne, but we lost most of our heavy equipment on the way.”

  “Why did you come to us? Why not Tardivat? He’s closer,” Hubert asks.

  The maquisard tips his chin at me. The look on his face is something akin to wonder. “Because of her. Everyone knows Madame Andrée calls for weapons and they fall from the sky.”

  Hubert flicks his dark gaze to me, then back to the maquisard. I am startled to realize that he is worried about me. Worried that Madame Andrée’s notoriety has spread to the point that even random maquisards know who she is and where to find her.

  Fournier, ever the strategist, steps between us and sets his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Tell me,” he says, “about the Germans. How many were there? How were they armed? What was their strategy?”

  “They outnumbered us almost four to one. So, eleven thousand, we think. But they do not know how treacherous these woods can be. They dislike approaching on foot, so they came with artillery. Tanks. Armored cars. We ambushed the convoys as they entered the forest and then we withdrew before they could gather and return fire. Over and over we did this. Attack. Pull away. Attack again from a different angle.” He looks at me, as though seeking approval. “We avoid, as much as possible, a direct battle with the Boche. Gaspard taught us to pick them off. To shave off the edges. To grind them down.”

  It pains me to admit this, but I say, “That is very clever of him.”

  The maquisard nods, and I see in that single movement how loyal he is to his leader.

  “What were your casualties?” I ask.

  “About one hundred and fifty. Gaspard did not give the order to scatter until our ammunition was gone.”

  “And the Germans?”

  “They bled like pigs and died by the hundreds,” he says, then adds, “Gaspard and his chief lieutenant captured an armored car and two cannons.”

  “And what do Gaspard and Judex plan to do with these weapons?”

  He raises an eyebrow, intrigued that I know this other name. “Bring them here, of course.”

  * * *

  —

  Gaspard’s men trickle in throughout the evening, into the night, and all the next day. But not just his. More new recruits flock to the Chaudes-Aigues plateau by the dozens. Word of the fighting has spread to small towns and villages throughout the Auvergne. Men, young and old, come to us, eager to join the Maquis, eager to be part of a group known for organization and access to weaponry. I hardly see Hubert or Fournier the entire day. They meet with each man as the scouts bring them in. Asking questions. Gathering information. It is a porous, nerve-racking system we have in place. Any of these men could be Milice—the French auxiliary of the German army tasked with ferreting out members of the Resistance and slaughtering them. Any of them could be German agents. We do the best we can, screening each recruit as though he were volunteering for the British Special Service. Hubert separates the wheat from the chaff by making it clear that traitors won’t be jailed or sent away. They will be shot.

  By the end of the day Hubert can barely stand. His voice is raw and dark bags hang beneath his eyes. It’s been five days since he shaved and three months since his last haircut, and I am amazed at how my buttoned-up partner has turned into a scruffy mountain man in such a short amount of time.

  “How many new recruits do we have?” I ask as we sit in my bus. The only seats that remain are four at the front that I have unbolted from the floor and arranged around a broad, flat stump that makes a handy table and the two benches in the back that face each other. Beggars can’t be choosers, and besides, the arrangement gives me a semblance of proper living quarters. A place to sleep. And a place to meet with colleagues.

  “Almost a thousand. They’re coming from every direction. You’d think the sound of all that fighting across the ridge would keep them away. But no,” he says. “And that’s not even counting the men who’ve come from Gaspard. Those number at least fifteen hundred already and there are more on the way.”

  I pass him the bottle of brandy that came through in our last shipment. Occasionally there is a crate marked Hélène, and it always contains a small luxury for me. Tea. Chocolates. Toothpaste. A hairbrush or Lizzie Arden lipstick. This last shipment had two bottles of brandy, clean socks, and a jar of face cream.

  “What are we going to do with them?” I ask.

  “Assign them to groups and ask London to double the shipments.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “We’ll have to triple them.”

  “They need everything, Nance. Food. Boots. Clothes. Money. Weapons. I interviewed a group this morning armed with nothing but rusty pitchforks.”

  “But they’re warm bodies, willing to fight. That’s as close to a miracle as we’re going to get.”

  “Fournier’s numbers have nearly doubled in recent weeks. Add in those of Gaspard, and do you realize what we’ve got here?”

  I nod. “Enough men to disrupt the German supply lines. To stop their soldiers from reinforcing troops at the battlefront. To destroy every single target that London has given us.”

  “If we can just put guns in their hands and keep them alive, we have the chance of winning,” he says.

  * * *

  —

  Gaspard reaches Chaudes-Aigues two days later. He stomps into Fournier’s camp as though he’s the bloody prime minister of France.

  “Nance…,” Denis says, from where he’s sitting at the front of my bus, ear tuned to the radio, pen scratching code across a fresh sheet of paper.

  “I see him,” I say, pulling my pack from underneath one of the benches at the back of the bus. I dig around until I find my lipstick and the compact Buckmaster gave me. Then I carefully apply a coat of blood-red armor. I’ve not worn my lipstick in weeks. But the sight of Gaspard leaves me feeling as though I could use a bit of reinforcement. I look at Denis and smile.

  “You are the strangest woman I’ve ever met,” he says.

  “How so?”

  “I tell you that Gaspard—the greatest herpes blister in all of France—is walking through our camp, and you put on lipstick.”

  “Would you go
into battle without a bulletproof vest?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Neither would I.” I wink. “You stay here. Finish that transmission. I’ll deal with the festering pustule that is our dear friend Gaspard.”

  He lifts one perfectly arched eyebrow toward his hairline.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Do we know if the man even has a last name?”

  “We do not know. And we do not care.”

  The thing about lipstick, the reason it’s so powerful, is that it is distracting. Men don’t see the flashes of anger in your eyes or your clenched fists when you wear it. They see a woman, not a warrior, and that gives me the advantage. I cannot throw a decent punch or carry a grown man across a battlefield, but I can wear red lipstick as though my life depends on it. And the truth is, these days, it often does.

  Gaspard blinks twice when he sees me approach. I am wearing army boots, slacks—now quite loose, thanks to months in the forest—and a short-sleeved silk blouse because it is too hot for anything else now that summer has arrived.

  I tip my head to the side and take in Gaspard’s bedraggled appearance. His beard has gone wild. His hair is greasy. Torn pants. Ratty collar. There is blood and grime smeared over most of his body. He smells like a wet, mangy swamp dog.

  I give him my best smile. “Bringing up the rear, I see.”

  “I have come for my men,” he says.

  “The men who fled your compound and came to me for arms?”

  “You mean to take them?”

  “No. I was simply noting a fact. What do you want?”

  Gaspard’s lip twitches and he turns to look over his shoulder. His lieutenant, Judex, is several yards away, talking to Hubert. “A conference. To discuss your terms.”