The Little Parachute

by J. Robert Janes

  The mayor would come running, the others too. Bucking—arching her back—Marie-Hélène tried to throw him off. ‘Ah no you don’t, my pretty!’ he cried and slammed her head back.

  Dazed and bleeding, she tried to fight him off, tried to get away. Must kill him … kill him. A priest, a priest!

  Momentarily a wrist was freed. He was trying to grab that iron bar. He was going to kill her.

  Groping in the rubble, she found a chunk of concrete and tried to hit him with it.

  ‘BITCH!’ he shrieked. ‘HONORÉ, WHERE ARE YOU?’

  ‘I’M COMING, NICOLAS. HOLD HER!’

  ‘THÉODORE … WHERE IS THÉODORE?’

  ‘DON’T TELL ME SHE HAS KILLED HIM?’

  She gave a gasp, a ragged sigh. Now only the sound of the rain came clearly. Always the rain and the constant dripping of water. Everywhere, water.

  Ledieu tried to catch a stifled breath. ‘Nicolas,’ he hazarded. ‘Are you all right?’

  He was certain he had found the right place but when, in all but total darkness he cautiously made a circuit of the area, he couldn’t find them.

  Against the constant dripping of the water, he heard a resonance that was repeated over and over, the sound both a sigh and a warning. He had no light. They had come unprepared. ‘THÉODORE!’ he cried. ‘NICOLAS!’

  When he found, quite by accident, the Luger, he felt certain God had given them the edge and that now at last, they could put an end to this infiltrator from Paris, this traitor, this servant of the Nazis.

  A voice came hesitantly from the floor below perhaps, or from the one below that. ‘Honoré, are you making that noise?’

  It was Théodore and soon he quietly said, ‘Jean-Pierre and Eugène are watching the canal in case she escapes and tries to reach the Kommandantur.’

  ‘Have you a light?’ managed Ledieu.

  The sounds were muted. The constant dripping could and did often hit every note in the keyboard of such, but then there was also this gentle sighing, this resonance, as if it questioned the success of their little hunt.

  The beam of the sous-préfet’s torch pierced the darkness to throw the shadow of Father Nicolas onto the broken walls and heaps of tangled wreckage.

  Caught in the skeins of wire, and with some of it wrapped around his neck, Nicolas bounced slowly up and down from the gaping edge of the floor above.

  Marie-Hélène waited. Ledieu would have to go to the assistance of his friend. They couldn’t allow the corpse to continue hanging. The head would soon be severed. Ledieu would have to kneel on all fours, would have to find something with which to cut that wire.

  A shadow to her, she saw the Luger in his hand almost at the same instant as he fired. Châlus … where was Châlus? Not here … not here …

  The corpse plummeted to the floor below. The head hit the broken concrete. ‘Idiot!’ hissed Allard. ‘Why couldn’t you have been more careful?’

  More careful … more careful …

  Bois Carré was no refuge. Down across the fields, in the dusk and rain, the helmeted soldiers in their capes and gas masks, and with their guns at the ready, fanned out and soon the dogs were hungering up the slope through the maize, the barley too, and soon it would be all over.

  Angélique pulled Martin to her. Apart from a harsh, ‘Mademoiselle, we do not know each other,’ Châlus—Anthony, yes—had given no hint of memory, of love or caring, only a bitter hardness, a cruelty and swift decisiveness, an impatience that didn’t become him even in such a moment of crisis.

  He would detonate the mustard gas. He would envelop them all in a blinding, choking fog that would burn the skin and the lungs. He had no thought for her or Martin or even for Yvette Rougement. Having taken the grenade from herself, he had ruthlessly jammed it among the shells and had soon found construction cord enough to run this from the primer ring to himself so as to detonate it at any time.

  He had taken the colonel and the Hauptmann Scheel hostage even though the Sturmbannführer Kraus might welcome such a thing.

  Stubborn still, he hadn’t wanted to listen to the colonel or herself. And yes, he had changed drastically. No soft and half-hidden smile for Martin. Only an outright denial, a rejection and a fierce determination to accomplish what he had come to do.

  ‘Sabotage,’ said Martin softly. ‘He’ll kill the Mademoiselle Moncontre too, if possible.’

  ‘Chéri, don’t let her make you feel so betrayed. Women lie all the time, isn’t that so?’

  ‘And men?’ asked Martin bitterly. ‘Men like my father.’

  ‘They’re liars too. Why else would so many women like myself or your mother find temptation their ruin?’

  ‘I think I love you, Angélique.’

  ‘And you’re not lying to me?’

  She felt his hand in hers, felt him put an arm about her and press his cheek against her. Fondly she caressed the back of his head. ‘I could sleep and sleep, Martin, but in a warm and comfortable bed like we so often shared, and with you to bring me coffee as you used to when I awakened on a Sunday.’

  The dogs were still held back by leashes, thought Martin. One could run from them. One could climb into the branches of the highest trees only to be dragged down by the soldiers and torn to pieces even as the mustard gas rushed to fill the lungs and …

  ‘He was on that road and lying under a car, Angélique. He was all shot to pieces and dead, I tell you. Really dead!’

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu, chéri, you were mistaken. It’s understandable. In the confusion, you saw many who had been hit by cannon shells. One bloodied face and shattered brain became another.’

  She wasn’t going to believe him. ‘I took his pencil. Me, I closed his eyes. Was I mistaken by those?’

  ‘Then your father was terrified, just like us. Perhaps he’d been hit, who’s to say? And when you closed his eyes, he must have let you do this in his terror, for he couldn’t move himself, but it helped him to get back his sanity.’

  ‘Then he forgot all about us. Is that how it is, Angélique?’

  No memory of them. ‘Come on, mon cher. Let’s find Mademoiselle Yvette so as to be with her when the dogs come.’

  ‘Don’t run into any of the tunnels. Don’t try to hide in them. There’s no escape from those. They’re all blocked up at one end and have no windows.’

  The ankle that had been badly sprained had been deeply cut, and earlier, when Angélique had bathed it, she had seen the girl wince and had heard her say, ‘It’s no use. You must leave me.’

  But now? wondered Angélique as they waded through the rain-soaked ferns to where the girl sat on the ground, leaning against an oak and with the colonel’s pistol in her lap.

  She looked exhausted, not the picture of determination she had been in Paris with that vélo-taxi, nor was she so sure of herself. ‘Pray for me,’ she said. A girl of nineteen or twenty who would call up her horoscope and claim their rescue an exercise of conscience.

  One could not lie to her. ‘The dogs,’ said Angélique and saw her throw a worried glance towards that side of the woods.

  ‘The dogs,’ she whispered and crossed herself. ‘The shells … ? Is he going to detonate them?’

  ‘Come on, Martin and I will take you with us.’

  ‘No! You must go yourselves. Run! Try to get away from here before Raymond, he …’

  They got her up but she really had had it. Repeatedly, since leaving the auberge at Noyelles-sur-Mer early this morning, Anthony had forced her to run on that ankle and now the girl had nothing left to give.

  The dogs would race through the ferns. They would leap at each of them and knock them to the ground. Shrieking, rolling over and over and trying to cover their faces, their heads, each would feel the dogs biting deeply until … until the shells exploded and a heavy rush of stinging yellow fog swept over them. A last, choking, blinding memory.


  The tunnel was near and though Martin had warned her not to hide in one of them, that is where they went. They had no other choice.

  Against the edge of the woods where the barley stubble ended, three figures had emerged and at a word from Kraus, the men ceased moving forward and stood still.

  The dogs were calmed. Perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes of dusk remained. There was no letup in the driving rain, which still came from the west.

  ‘Go on,’ said Châlus not looking at the Hauptmann Scheel but using Deutsch as good as any of them. ‘Go and tell him I want to talk.’

  A foolish attempt. Perhaps sixty metres of stubble separated them from the SS. ‘That one, mein Herr, will not listen,’ said Lautenschläger, gruffly nodding to indicate the Sturmbannführer. ‘There’s blood on his hands. Like the dogs, he has its scent and finds he enjoys it.’

  ‘The wood is surrounded,’ interjected Scheel. ‘You have no choice but to surrender.’

  ‘You know I can’t.’

  ‘And he can’t let you escape, can he?’ countered Lautenschläger, still looking down across those sixty metres. ‘Herr Himmler would be most displeased should that happen.’

  ‘The men will be entering the wood behind you,’ hazarded Scheel. ‘You can’t assume those who are on the other side of it will also have been given the order to halt. In no time they’ll cut that cord of yours and pick you off.’

  Snipers … were there snipers?

  ‘Give up,’ said Lautenschläger. ‘Let me use what influence I have to see that you’re put into Abwehr hands and are not left to that one.’

  There were lorries but these were under guard and solidly blocking the road to the woods. To break out and cross the fields in this rain was impossible even under cover of darkness.

  Grimly Châlus ran his gaze along the line of men. Again he worried about snipers. ‘Verdammt! Get Kraus up here now,’ he shouted. ‘Go on!’ He shoved Scheel and all but jerked the cord taut.

  Lieber Gott, sweated Lautenschläger. ‘What about your son? Does he mean so little to you?’

  ‘He’s not my son, but even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.’

  ‘Is the death of that woman the SS have been using so important?’

  ‘For me, yes, and for France.’

  He had meant it too. Even in the rain and the falling light and against such odds, thought Lautenschläger, this one gave no sign of wavering. ‘To be resolute is admirable but I greatly fear you will have to go to him. Kraus just won’t have the courage to come to you.’

  Slowly Châlus let the spool he held on a short stick unwind the cord. He didn’t say anything but indicated with his revolver that they were to do as suggested.

  Schmeissers were trained on the terrorist. Snipers? wondered Lautenschläger. Each footfall sank deeply into the soil. Mud clung to his jackboots.

  ‘Call off the dogs and tell your men to bugger off,’ said Châlus to Kraus when they had all but reached him. ‘If you don’t, I’ll detonate the ammunition dump. It’s just up there behind us among the trees.’

  So this was Châlus, thought Kraus scornfully looking him over and wanting to shriek, I CAN HAVE YOU KILLED WITH THE FLICK OF A FINGER! This was the one who had got away in Lyon and had then clandestinely hunted down and followed Dirksen’s little pigeon. This was the one who knew where the parachutist was hidden. ‘The SS don’t parley with Banditen. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘Where is Marie-Hélène de Fleury?’

  He even knew her real name but would he give up that of the parachutist so easily? ‘Busy fingering the members of the réseau de soie bleue.’

  ‘Get her here and I’ll leave the dump alone.’

  A man of limited purpose. It would soon be dark. ‘That could perhaps be arranged.’

  So much, then, for Kraus’s refusal to parley.

  ‘Clear the road of the lorries and bring the de Fleury woman to Bagatelle Château,’ interjected Lautenschläger firmly. ‘Until then, Hauptmann Scheel and myself will remain as hostages.’

  How soft of him and he a colonel, thought Kraus. ‘The infiltrator may be difficult to locate.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Sturmbannführer. Listen to what I’ve said!’

  ‘Get her!’ hissed Châlus.

  By now those on the other side of the wood would have entered it, thought Kraus. A first priority would be to secure the munitions dump. ‘There’s no need to be offensive,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Such arrangements must always be conducted in a civilized manner. Is that not so, Herr Oberst?’

  He was up to something—the terrorist saw it too and gathered in the cord. ‘Wait!’ breathed Lautenschläger. ‘Call off your men, Sturmbannführer. If you don’t, this site will have to be abandoned for a considerable time.’

  The dogs had made no sound, nor had Yvette cried out in alarm or the others, that boy and his mother, and that could only mean one thing, felt Châlus, letting his gaze move swiftly over Kraus and the colonel and Hauptmann Scheel. The memory of Marie-Hélène de Fleury was all too clear. He saw her as the soft light of evening had descended on her in the Bois de Boulogne, saw her returning to her flat on the boulevard de Beauséjour, and in Lyon talking to another and another of his people. Dressed plainly as always so as to blend right in, and clever, far too clever.

  ‘Salaud!’ he cried out and savagely yanked on the cord.

  The telephone to Paris was impossible. The woman who ran the PTT in a far corner of a makeshift tabac and bar-café was adamant. ‘It’s forbidden. There are no lines. The switchboard operator in Amiens will simply tell you this. No calls are allowed from the zone interdite to anywhere in the zone occupée, or from here to there. Just for the Germans who have their own lines.’

  Marie-Hélène was frantic. She had run from the ruins of the textile mill, had managed to find this one lonely blue light in a town of ruins and empty spaces that had been plunged into the blackout. ‘Look, I know this but I have to call Paris. It’s not just urgent, it’s vital.’

  She threw a glance over a shoulder at the heavily curtained doorway, saw the patrons in their worn clothes all staring at her and turned back to the woman who, with the eyes of a dumb ox, took her in and devoured her state.

  Fresh blood trickled down a forearm where the blouse had been torn. Marie-Hélène plucked at the fabric and, suddenly self-conscious, tried to pull the blouse away a little from her front. ‘My hands,’ she said. They were badly scraped and bled at the fingers and thumbs. ‘My knees …’

  Madame Monnier pursed her lips. ‘Is it not the hospital you wish?’

  ‘No! It’s Paris, damn you!’

  Had German soldiers raped her or had she been violated among the ruins by others for having offered herself to those very Boches? wondered Aurore Monnier.

  Clucking her tongue, she said, ‘Wait here. We’re not without heart,’ and when she came back through from the bar, she put a glass of eau-de-vie into the telephone-wisher’s hands. ‘Drink it. All of it. Down the hatch, as the British say.’

  The marc was rough. Gasping, ducking her head to clear her throat and eyes, Marie-Hélène managed a feeble, ‘Merci,’ and then anxiously said, ‘Look, they’re still after me. If they come here, please tell them you haven’t seen me.’

  A gang rape, ah merde, what next in these troubled times? ‘How many?’

  ‘Five, or four. I … I can’t be sure. All of them drunk, the youngest maybe eighteen and … and from Lübeck or was it Bremen?’

  Again the woman left her but when she returned from the bar, she slid a short, lead-weighted club through the counter slot of the cashier’s cage. ‘I would give you a knife but those are illegal to carry. Why not just stay here?’

  ‘I really do have to call Paris.’

  The words had been given almost in a whisper. The boyfriend would need to be told, thought Aurore. The shame of what had happ
ened—yes, yes! One should get it over with so that life could go on. ‘Then you must put what happened to those in charge of the Kommandantur. Look for the belfries of the Church of Saint-Vulfran and then that of the Kommandantur and hôtel de ville. These you will see distinctly against the night sky but only if the rain, it has stopped.’

  An older man came through, a relative of the patronne perhaps, in a faded denim jacket and shabby beret, which he hurriedly dragged off. ‘Allow me, please, to guide you. It’s the least we can do, mademoiselle, so that you will understand in your heart that all men are not like those who have defiled you.’

  Somehow she found the strength to smile faintly and to find that former graciousness that had stood her in such good stead. ‘Very well, I accept. Merci.’

  She took no time at all to push the curtain briefly aside to reach the door. Once in the rain, she searched the darkness—listened hard and said, when he, wearing his rain cape, had joined her, ‘They’re out there. I can feel them.’

  ‘Come. It’s not far but we’ll take a different route than the usual. Here, give me the baton. I was once a sailor. Not even the five of them will stop us.’

  In the darkness and the rain it was so hard for her to tell which way they were heading. She thought things were all right. They seemed to leave the ruins, to walk out across an open space—the square in the centre of town and near the Kommandantur and hôtel de ville—but all too soon there were walls on either side of them and doorways. She was certain of it and asked how long had he been sitting in that bar-café, and he said, ‘Not long. The apértif, n’est-ce pas?’

  A former sailor …

  The street became a walkway that climbed low stairs. ‘It’s just up here a little,’ he said, but of course most of Abbeville was flat, so what the hell were the stairs for?

  He didn’t knock. The rain beat down and when she heard him grunt, she knew the door must be very heavy or stuck.

  It slammed behind them and in the pitch-darkness, the smell of rubble came to her. That, too, of incense and beeswax.

  A match was struck again and again until the sound of it flared outwards at her as it glowed. They were in the undamaged part of the Church of Saint-Vulfran. They were right next to the Kommandantur …