The Little Parachute

by J. Robert Janes

  Your own didn’t, she wanted so much to say but couldn’t bring herself to hurt him like that, had never said it to him.

  Still he kept his back to her and she had to wonder what the hell had happened on that roof? ‘Martin … chéri, did you remember the road south from Paris?’

  YOU’LL SEE, he wrote in French and then, at the sound of the brakes, erased everything.

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ she demanded when he sat down opposite her. ‘Grâce à Dieu, it’s good we have this box to ourselves, though me, I would wish for better company!’

  He said nothing. He just sat there like a peasant, not crying, not even shedding a single tear. Just looking at her as if at a dumb animal he was about to slaughter. A rabbit perhaps.

  Slapping his face hard, she burst into tears, he to silently say, Cry! That’s what you should do.

  ‘I can’t understand,’ she blurted. ‘What’s happened to turn you so against me?’

  He didn’t answer. He got up and left her alone to weep and nurse her bruises, but once in the corridor, said aloud and softly to himself, ‘Yes! I really have remembered that road and the Messerschmitts that machine-gunned us. Me, I know what really happened to my father. The sound of that gunfire last night made me.’

  The train had stopped, and in the heavy stillness of this Sunday afternoon nothing stirred but a few chickens, a worn-out dog, one old stationmaster who was too tired to care, and a handful of flies.

  Martin despaired. Picquigny was little different from all the other places along the railway line from Amiens to Abbeville, but here the land did come down through the trees from the plateau above the valley. An old castle had been smashed to pieces so long ago that smashing hadn’t been necessary in this war or in the one before it and the one before that one. Some of the cellar walls still remained, and the stone staircase to what must have been the dungeons. Maybe résistants were hiding in those dungeons? Maybe.

  Fighting … there had always been fighting along the Somme, but she wasn’t coming. The Mademoiselle Moncontre must have been arrested, though she had said last night that she would try to meet them today. She really had.

  Angélique didn’t know a meeting had been promised. She didn’t know anything anymore.

  He wasn’t going to tell her he had remembered or that he could speak. He wasn’t going to tell anyone, not even the Mademoiselle Moncontre, if she hadn’t been arrested. He was going to keep it all a secret. He had to. Otherwise monsieur le maire and the Germans would know he didn’t need to carry a pencil anymore. ‘Besides, that way I can help her, too, because the Boches, they’ll not expect me to be able to talk and will think me stupid just like everyone does at the farm.’

  There was an old church and an abbaye in the village, and he could see these while standing on the platform next to the steps that were off the rear of the third-class carriage and between it and the general-goods wagon. Upriver a little, one of the canal wardens was listening to two German corporals whose Mauser rifles were slung over their shoulders. They were sharing a cigarette, all three of them, and beyond them, a long line of poplars followed the towpath. All the lower branches had been removed and only the tops had leaves, which stirred and shone a dusty grey against the pale grey-blue of the sky.

  The bark of the poplars was a grey green but much lighter, much nicer than that of the German uniforms. There were sooty black spots too, and as he watched the poplars, some starlings that had gathered in a newly plowed field suddenly took wing, black and noisy but faintly so in the heat.

  Distant from them, he heard a bell ringing with great urgency. A bicycle with a carrier basket came into view, the bike being pedalled like the blazes along the towpath towards them, and he saw at once that it was the Mademoiselle Moncontre. ‘Hurry,’ he whispered aloud. ‘Please hurry.’

  She came on swiftly, but the path was bumpy and he thought she might fall if not careful. At one place she hit a half-buried boulder and the big handbag she had in her carrier basket leapt so high, she had to risk her life to push it down.

  The corporals turned to watch, as did the canal warden, the stationmaster and the dog. A worn, plain brown leather suitcase was roped to the carrier rack behind her and she pedalled right up to the station to breathlessly ask if she was too late, and to lean her bike against the wall while she went in to get her tickets.

  Martin knew he mustn’t wave or acknowledge her in any way. He must keep his eyes on the soldiers, but also search the road beyond them for others.

  The corporals were supposed to examine her papers and they began to walk towards her, she checking the bicycle over but not removing the suitcase. ‘Must you charge me extra for it?’ she complained to the stationmaster. ‘Hey, I can leave it on the bike, can’t I? It’ll be okay like that?’

  She was charged the extra, and with the bike once more in hand, walked it right past, and as she stood waiting, Martin watched as it was lifted up and taken into the baggage wagon. ‘Tie the bike to something. Make sure there’s no damage,’ she said to that one.

  Catching up with her, the corporals thought that maybe they could have a little fun, but she found her papers and handed them over, didn’t say anything, and when they grinned at her, she looked down at their uniforms and frowned so deeply, they began to think that something must be wrong. Were there stains, their flies open?

  Embarrassed, they had to look for themselves, but she didn’t give them a moment, was really defiant and very pretty, and yes, she did have lovely brown eyes and soft dark brown hair that was brushed back today and pinned at the sides with bow-shaped barrettes. The plain white blouse was nice, the beige skirt too, even the white ankle socks and the scruffy brown leather shoes. No lipstick. Maybe not even any perfume. A bathing towel hung part way out of the woven straw handbag she carried instead of a purse.

  ‘Excusez-moi, s’il vous plaît,’ she said to him, and stepping past, went up into the carriage.

  So far so good, thought Martin. Now he must remain on the lookout so as to give warning if necessary.

  The compartment was stifling, the Bellecour woman distraught.

  ‘What are they doing in Bois Carré?’ asked Angélique bitterly. ‘What’s so important they would kill people to protect it?’

  A cigarette would help, felt Marie-Hélène. She would light and share it, would have to be straight with this one but mustn’t mention those aerial photos of the site that she had seen in Hans’s office. ‘We don’t know. That’s what I have to find out.’

  ‘Didn’t that message we brought to Paris tell you anything?’

  Had it all been but a waste? Having been put through such a difficult time, the Bellecour woman should still have been able to calm herself a little by now. ‘What’s happened? If you’ll forgive me for saying so, you don’t look well.’

  ‘How could I? But never mind, I simply want an answer.’

  Taking the cigarette from her, she would snuff it out to emphasize things, thought Marie-Hélène. ‘The message only told us that the Boches were building something in the woods and that Bois Carré isn’t the only site. Apparently there are five others near Abbeville and all are hidden by woods, so it’s something really big.’

  ‘And?’

  A tough one. ‘A simple sketch gave the layout. A square house of some sort, a long, narrow clearing through the woods. Stranger still, there were two long things that looked like skis that had been lain on their sides. I’m going to have to get in there, but right now, don’t know how I’ll do it.’

  ‘When we were at the avenue Foch, the SS beat a man to death. You do know of this, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course, also that he wasn’t the only one to die.’

  The two last night. ‘Someone in Abbeville, or in the surrounding countryside, betrayed that man, but if you ask me, Mademoiselle Moncontre, how is it, please, that if monsieur le maire and his friends fel
t so strongly there might be one in their midst, they didn’t send the message with that man but used a boy who couldn’t even cry out his name?’

  ‘That’s another matter I have to clear up, but they may not have felt betrayal possible. They might simply have been cautious, and that’s why they chose to switch pencils with Martin.’

  ‘Who is keeping a watch in the corridor for you, isn’t he?’

  This one was questioning far too much for her own good. ‘It’s necessary. Look, I’m sorry it’s not pleasant, but …’

  ‘Even children have to help? Is this what you’re telling me?’

  Must she be so difficult? ‘Oh for sure, I don’t like it any more than you do.’

  ‘Then tell me, please, what happened on that roof to change him so much. Now he hates me. He won’t even “talk” to me or write a word.’

  Relighting the cigarette, she passed it to Angélique. ‘I’ll speak to him. It’s the shock of having seen one of our people thrown from that roof. We were trapped. Not only had all the skylights of the nearby roofs been wired shut, those bastards had installed iron grilles inside them so that even if the glass was broken, it would do no good. I thought they would take me too, but then Martin found me and … and together we waited it out.’ So that was it, shared moments of danger. ‘He’s in love with you, and what he felt for me has been handed to you on the platter of his innocence. Treat it tenderly, mademoiselle. The bankroll of his trust is never secure.’

  Had jealousy intruded? wondered Marie-Hélène.

  In tears, Angélique turned quickly away, but said, ‘Two young men, no more than boys were killed. It’s hard to imagine such hatred could exist. Frenchmen against Frenchmen.’

  The sadness and disbelief that such a thing could happen were very real, therefore the answer must come softly and earnestly. ‘That’s the way it is.’

  ‘Then please tell me why those two were even in that house?’

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu, you ask too many questions! You should know that’s not wise. They were my backup and I’m glad they were there. Otherwise it would have been you, me and Martin, and we would …’ She shrugged. ‘Well, who’s to say what would have happened?’

  The cigarette helped a little, just talking to someone, a little more, and when Isabelle Moncontre took a bottle of cognac from her bag, that too, helped.

  ‘Martin’s father … Is he the one who leads your réseau?’ asked Angélique. ‘Look, I know I shouldn’t have asked, but Martin now believes it entirely.’

  ‘And yourself?’

  She shook her head. ‘To me, Anthony is in England and I’ve always felt this.’

  ‘Do you still love him so much?’

  ‘As from the day I first met him in the Louvre. We had our differences on that road south from Paris during the exodus, but I could never hold any of that against him. He knew he had to leave, that what I had said was true. He simply didn’t want to leave Martin behind. Everything in those few tragic moments came down to his son. Anthony, he … he blamed me for our having left Paris with all the others, and then for having stopped him from going after Martin when everything had been shot up like that and those ME-109s were coming back for yet another run, but it was the only thing I could possibly have done. For him to have stayed in France would have been far too dangerous. You see …’ Was it safe to tell her, to tell anyone? ‘He had done things for the British while in the Reich on business. Gathering military intelligence—ah, I knew this. At least I suspected it, and when I found some sketches he had made from memory, I knew it but didn’t tell him this until … until those last few moments together. He … he then accused me of having spied on him.’

  Isabelle Moncontre looked at her with … ah, what was it? wondered Angélique. Suspicion? Fear? A deep interest, most certainly, for the woman now drew on that cigarette and held the smoke in for as long as possible to give herself time to think, but what, please, were those thoughts?

  The leader of the réseau de soie bleue had to be Anthony James Thomas, felt Marie-Hélène. Alias the Hauptmann Thiessen, alias Raymond Châlus. Unable to take the brittleness from her voice, she said abruptly, ‘I can’t tell you who leads us. It’s far too dangerous. Look, I’m sorry, but far too many others depend on him.’

  ‘He’s good, isn’t he?’

  ‘The best. Exceedingly careful. Always one step ahead of the SS and their friends. In Lyon eight months ago it was a disaster for us, but he has learned from that and now takes no chances. He hunts for the SS and those who help them, and just as hard as they hunt for him and the rest of us.’

  ‘Yet if he takes such care, how is it, please, that those gestapistes français and the Germans knew you were to meet us in that house?’

  A shrug would be best. ‘Perhaps there was a foul-up, but this we really don’t know. Those types, they often raid the maisons de passe, searching for evaders of the STO and for Jews on the run. It could simply have been that.’

  Again the Bellecour woman listened to the wheels of the train until at last she said, ‘What were the names of those two boys they killed?’

  ‘Are names so important to you?’

  ‘It’s often all that is left to remind us of a life, and then but briefly.’

  ‘I can’t tell you. The Germans will print something but even then no one will claim the bodies. Fear will prevent this. Also they carried false papers.’

  ‘How can you do this sort of thing?’

  Was it acceptance of her at last? wondered Marie-Hélène. ‘Because we must. Because if we don’t, we’ll have those people on top of us forever.’

  ‘Have you a gun, a pistol?’

  ‘I lost it last night.’

  ‘And yet you can still … ? The SS, Herr Dirksen …’

  ‘The Standartenführer, a colonel.’

  Reluctantly Angélique told her what was expected of Martin and herself. Isabelle Moncontre listened gravely and nodded. Lost in thought, she again took her time to consider things.

  And now, at last, wondered Marie-Hélène, is it to be a moment of understanding between us? ‘Then you must do as he asks, but we will intercept the next message and will substitute another. That way the Germans will think we know far less than we do.’

  ‘And yourself?’ asked Angélique.

  ‘If you see me, we must pass in the street as total strangers. Me, I’ll contact you if necessary.’

  ‘Am I to warn monsieur le maire?’

  ‘No, I’ll do that. You must play your part or everything is lost. Remember, please, that this Dirksen will have his own people in the area. They’ll be watching you all the time.’

  ‘And Martin?’

  ‘Martin, too. The very fact that they’ve not arrested Émile Vergès indicates how serious it is. They want to take all of us and our only hope is to play along with them for a little.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Escape lines are being arranged. Safe houses—farmers we know we can trust absolutely. Then you and Martin to Switzerland, I think. Myself …’ She shrugged. ‘Into the south again, the Vaucluse this time perhaps. It’s too early to say, but I can assure you we’ll be one step ahead of them all the time.’

  Her gaze is so sincere, thought Angélique. She’s very aware of the risks and is incredibly brave. ‘It’s Martin’s father who leads you, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Somehow Anthony stayed behind and hid himself so well, he could live in my flat and no one knew until … until I had to be so foolish as to insist on a specialist for his son.’

  ‘Does Martin look like him?’

  ‘You’ve seen it too. Martin’s like his father in so many ways. Anthony speaks Deutsch like a Prussian and can imitate almost anyone. He has that knack of dissolving himself completely into another character. While at Cambridge, he took part in every amateur theatrical he could and planned to become an actor. Martin has some of that gift. Had the
war not come along, he might well have become what his father had wanted most for himself.’

  An actor. A Wehrmacht lieutenant, an Abwehr agent, Raymond Châlus.

  Isabelle Moncontre’s hand came to rest on her own, the concern in her lovely eyes deep. ‘You and Martin will escape, as will your Anthony. Always you must believe this.’

  To try to smile was difficult. ‘Me, I don’t really know what to believe anymore. Anthony was always very good at fixing things. Engines, clocks, wireless sets, all those sorts of things. Designing yachts came as naturally to him as it did for Martin to build his own crystal set and learn how to read and use Morse. And that was all before I ever met Martin.’

  Merde, what was this? ‘Please, he’s not your son?’

  Did it matter so much? ‘He’s Anthony’s. Martin … Martin, he hid in the Alcyone’s bow locker when his father came to take me from France before it was too late.’

  ‘The Alcyone?’

  ‘Yes. A seven-metre yacht. Anthony had as great a love of the early Greeks as myself. Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus, keeper of the winds. When she married Ceyx of Trachis, son of the Morning-star, they were so well suited and happy in their love and lovemaking, she foolishly referred to him as Zeus, herself as Hera, thus angering the gods. When he was killed in a terrible storm, Alcyone threw herself from the rocks and into the sea.’

  A typical Greek tragedy—was this what Isabelle Moncontre was now thinking? wondered Angélique, but the woman remained so lost in thought, something else would have to be said. ‘Anthony always had a streak of fatalism, that’s why he gave the yacht a name like that. He did it on a dare to himself, I suppose. His marriage was splitting up and he had found another great love. His father had been killed on the Somme in the Great War and now, in a final irony, I find myself taking the grandson of that one back down the Somme to a final battle.’

  ‘Did he tell you where he had left the yacht?’

  ‘But … but why would you want to know such a thing?’