by Thomas Wood
“What did he do?”
“He was crossing the road. He looked to his right before his left. There was a German watching his every move while he did it, apparently.”
We thought for a moment, before Mike spoke, “Apparently? So, you didn’t actually know this man or see it happen?”
“Well, no,” she said, her body tensing up in defence. “But I heard it from a friend in Orléans. So, you should be careful when you’re here.”
“Well, forgive me, but I’m not going to be taking too much notice about what your invisible friend says about our agents. Besides, we don’t even know which sides your friends are on.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I butted in, trying to thaw out the frosty atmosphere that had developed inside the car. “The point still stands. We must be careful here if we do not want to be caught. How long until we arrive?”
“Ten minutes maybe. We will walk the last half a kilometre. Make sure you know where your papers are. If you fumble around for them, it will look like you are not used to producing them.”
I pulled mine from the inside of my pocket and inspected them. A sharp, clear photograph of Jean Pelletier stared back at me. He looked tired, fed up and as if something was eating him up from the inside.
It wasn’t far from the truth, and I could only hope that any inspecting German soldier would not be so analytical as I was. Jean Pelletier was a man that had made mistakes, and the brightness of his skin and eyes was due solely to the fact that he had been given a new lease of life, an opportunity to make amends for his past.
I forced myself to look away from the card and stuffed it quickly into my breast pocket. Instead, I began unbuckling the case that I had laid out on my lap. I began to run my fingers over all the different carpets that I had stored in there, as if trying to clean something from within its fibres.
The number of samples that I had in my case was overwhelming, to the point where I thought my arm would be wrenched from its socket the first time I picked it up. My cover, along with my sales partner Michel Houdin, was that we were travelling carpet and rugs salesmen, visiting various wealthy customers up and down France.
I had spent hours learning about carpets and rugs, from the cheapest varieties that I could get my hands on, to the rarest and most expensive Persian rugs known to man. If it came to it, I would try to talk my way out of an inspection with my overwhelming knowledge of the things. But I was hoping desperately that it would not come to that.
“Okay, we get out here. From here, we walk.”
We stumbled from the car, my breath instantly eluding me as I heaved the case from the seat. I found it almost impossible to catch my breath again, as Suzanne was already striding out in front of us as if she was more than happy to leave us abandoned in the city.
As she continued to pace away, without looking back once, I began to think that, if I was unfortunately captured by the Germans anytime soon, I would be more than happy to give this woman’s name up. But I had managed to convince myself that the Germans already had her name and that she was some kind of Sicherheitsdienst agent, out to capture us in the most elaborate of plots.
I felt light-headed as I continued to struggle with my breathing. As I looked around at the city, with its marvellous cathedral dominating the skyline, I realised that this was it. This was the real thing.
There were Germans here, plenty of them, but there were also locals, locals that we would have to convince to be on our side. And I wasn’t sure where many of their loyalties would lie.
Many, we had been told, had simply accepted the Germans being there, opting instead for a quiet life, rather than a free one and a large proportion were happy to keep it that way. If that meant turning over a couple of British agents, then I had been convinced that they would have no qualms in doing so.
As I managed to catch up with Suzanne, I caught the eye of a young German soldier across the road, his helmet attached to his webbing just clinking gently against the rest of his kit. I held his gaze for perhaps a second too long, in which time I managed to recall the way that Suzanne had suggested their tactic to stare an agent out was one regularly employed.
I felt like I had to look away, to break the deadlock and get on with my day. But I couldn’t.
The German took a step forward, about to cross the road. He thought better of it as a truck, stuffed with troops, barrelled its way past him at a lightning speed.
Our eyes were still locked, even after the truck had passed.
Instead of crossing, to check my papers, the young soldier did something else. Something almost inconceivable. He nodded in my direction.
There was a brief moment where I connected with him, where I wanted to go over to him and talk to him. But the rational side of my mind prevented me from doing so.
What if he hadn’t nodded at all? What if it was just my eyes playing tricks on me? There was a chance that he had mistaken me for someone else, one of his comrades maybe. He was not my friend, after all.
Nevertheless, I found myself bowing my head for half a second, as I nodded in return. Disengaging my eyes from the German immediately after, I rushed to catch up with Suzanne, who had ducked off the main road and into a side street.
I replayed the episode with the German over and over in my mind, even while we walked through the door of another middle-aged man, who bore a striking resemblance to Alfred.
“Ah, welcome, welcome. My friends,” the man said, as he embraced us, kissing us on both cheeks. Mike reeled away from him, giving him both a quizzical and horrified look in equal measure.
“And you, my girl. How are you?”
“Very well, Monsieur Plantier. Very well.”
I noticed that there was a frostiness in her emotions towards the man, which was not reciprocated by Monsieur Plantier. He seemed a welcoming and accommodating man, if not a little overbearing.
He showed us to our rooms and watched as we unpacked our few belongings, keeping certain things hidden from the man that we had only just met.
After a while though, he realised that we weren’t about to build a bomb in his upstairs room, nor were we about to radio other agents to coordinate a large attack. Eventually, he became bored and left us to our own devices.
The pattern of being left alone continued for a week or so, as we spent our days milling around the streets, working out where local landmarks were and how to escape the city if we needed to.
As we took a right down Rue Christophe Colomb, Mike began to think of our latest escape route.
“Reckon you could swim across that, old fruit?”
I looked at the river ahead of me, not fast-flowing enough to drown someone, but quick enough to pull you a decent distance downstream.
“Not sure. Probably. Why?”
“On the other side is an island. Just trees and forest. If we’re ever on a sticky wicket, I say we swim across there and lay low.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. It would take us ages to dry out.”
“I think the possibility is far more likely than you think, Jean.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, turning to face him in the middle of the street.
“Our accomplice. The delightful Mademoiselle Seguin. I don’t trust her.”
“Me neither. I want to know what happened to her husband.”
“I think I know,” he muttered morosely. “I saw her being very chummy with a German officer yesterday. Particularly chummy.”
“How do you mean?”
“Put it this way, I’ve been less friendly with some of my girlfriends.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“How could I? She’s been in the house with us the whole time. Have you noticed how she never lets us out of her sight?”
“She’s let us out now, hasn’t she?” I asked, trying to convince myself just as much as Mike.
“That kind of woman doesn’t have to be the one doing the looking to
see things.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” I mumbled, almost quivering.
“Look behind you, Johnny,” he said, in unashamed English. “We’ve had the same young lad following us for the last three streets. He’s either being paid by the Germans directly, or he’s working for Suzanne Seguin.”
14
The next few days were spent in almost total solitary confinement, as we silently pondered what we were to do about Suzanne. In our silence, we had convinced ourselves that she was not what she was making out to be, and her seeming unwavering patriotism was nothing more than a front, to make a profit out of both sides of the war.
“I reckon she killed her husband,” Mike had suggested.
“That’s if she ever had one in the first place. The woman seems like nothing more than a compulsive liar.”
“I wish we could go and see Alfred again. I reason that he has all the answers we need right now.”
We had considered bringing up the whole situation with Monsieur Plantier, the man who was accommodating us for the time being. He was a single man, with no wife or children to speak of and nothing to really show for his life except a pronounced limp from the last war.
But, on balance, it seemed like Monsieur Plantier, despite his best intentions, was not a man of great intelligence or awareness, and so reasoned that he would have had little understanding of our plight.
Suzanne came and went, informing us of the goings-on of her fellow fighters, as we counted down the days till we were due to contact London.
“Maybe she’s not on the Germans’ side after all,” Mike managed to say through a cloud of smoke. “Maybe she’s one of those communists. It would make sense.”
“How so?”
“Well…they’re not really on any side, are they? Except their own. It adds up with the fact that she’s helping us to disrupt the Germans, but then making alliances with the Germans in order to further her own cause.”
“I suppose that is a possibility.”
“Besides, what other organisation would allow a woman to impose such fear and authority over others? Only the communists are like that. They even shake hands with one another.”
“I don’t think that is entirely a bad thing, Mike.”
“Oh, come on Johnny. You don’t buy into all that ‘Bread, Peace, Land’ do you?”
“No, I don’t, but sometimes treating everyone with the same level of respect isn’t so bad. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s any less good at her job than us, Mike.”
We had become used to switching between English and French while in Monsieur Plantier’s house, as it meant that our conversations were more detailed and fruitful than if they had been in our second tongue.
But the boredom that had ensued, had meant that sometimes our conversations had moved away from what was strictly necessary and the close proximity to one another had led to some rather heated moments, surpassed only by the times that we continued to share with Suzanne.
“Michel, what will you do after the war?” Monsieur Plantier asked over a cup of coffee one morning.
“I will go home, Monsieur Plantier. I will pick up my life where I left it. This war is nothing but a minor interruption to me,” he chuckled heartily, reciprocated by his host, before staring into the bottom of his mug, as if it was a window to what had once been.
“And you, Monsieur Pelletier, will you go home also?”
I stuttered for a moment, as my mind threatened to take me to a place that I would have rather not thought of. It was something that I had never considered, as I was not entirely persuaded that I would see it through the war. I thought talking of home would somehow curse my life and be sure to put me in the ground.
“I have no home to go to, Monsieur Plantier.”
“No wife? No family?”
“No. None to speak of.”
I sensed Mike bow his head in a moment of contemplation and embarrassment.
“I lost a lot of my own family in the last war,” the kind-hearted Frenchman went on, clearly sensing my hesitancy to continue. “My father, two brothers, a cousin. All of them perished at different stages of the war. My mother too, a casualty of the war.”
“She was a nurse?”
“Oh no. Nothing of the sort. She died of a broken heart. Mine too was broken, but I have been kept here on this earth for another purpose. I suppose you two are a part of it.”
There was a soft squeal of brakes outside, as what I assumed was another German truck pulling up somewhere in the street, as they so often did. But there was something troubling Monsieur Plantier, his head cocked to one side, like a dog, noticing a difference to the normal pitch of the engine.
Without saying a word, his head still turned towards the front door, he stumbled his way to the front of the house, using the dinner table as a support for his stiffened leg.
I looked across to Mike. His face was not one of alarm or concern, but of dejection, as he continued to stare at the bottom of his cup.
“Oi,” I rasped, kicking his leg under the table. He looked up, surprised. I nodded towards the door, where Monsieur Plantier was now peering through the small window at the top.
“Is everything alright, Monsieur?” I asked, with wavering tones.
“I am not sure. Wait a moment.”
“What is it?”
“Germans, a lot of them. I think they are about to do a search.”
“Do they do that a lot around here?”
“Not without reason. Even they don’t bash doors down without a premise.”
I looked back at Mike. His face was as ashen and scared as mine felt. We knew those soldiers were coming straight to Monsieur Plantier’s door. And there was nothing that we could do to stop it.
“They are coming this way, my friends. Get your stuff and leave. Leave now!”
We shot from the table, sending the chairs in different directions, and the mugs crashing to the ground. We thundered up the stairs to gather our belongings, at which point we could already hear the fist thumping on the front door. Monsieur Plantier answered. There were voices. Muffled, but they were talking. Quite respectfully, for now.
I made sure that my suitcase was tightly secured, before checking the contents of Mike’s for him.
“What are you doing?” Mike hissed.
“We have to make sure everything is there, otherwise our whole purpose here will be pointless.”
“Let’s get out first, then we can check it!”
“And find that half our kit is missing? Are you mad?”
I flicked the case open, to inspect the wireless set that it apparently tried to conceal. The suitcase itself was inconspicuous, but the sheer weight of the thing was more than enough to give you away if you appeared to look like you were struggling with it. It was why we took it in turns to carry the case, in the hope that a fresh arm would not appear so tired.
“The coils are missing!” I screeched, trying to convey the urgency while also hiding as much of my voice as I could.
“Forget it, Johnny. If we don’t get out now, we’ll be dead any second!”
“You go, Mike. I’ll catch you up.”
To my surprise, he turned towards the window, ready to throw himself out and escape in the agreed way. He flung the glass open, sending them smashing into the wall behind them, as I felt every pair of eyes downstairs suddenly look up.
I heard Monsieur Plantier say something, followed by a slight chuckle, as Mike prepared to leave me on my own.
Then, with a series of curses that would have made even the most seasoned of sailors embarrassed, he turned back towards me.
“If I get killed here, I’m blaming you.”
Without another word, we began hurriedly searching the room for the missing coils, until they were found under Mike’s bedframe.
“Come on, I’m not waiting for you now.”
As the voices downstairs grew louder, Mike tossed himself from the open window, as I heard his body connect to the gr
ound with a thump.
Acting as the only go sign that I needed, I heaved the more important suitcase up and onto the ledge, before dropping it down into Mike’s arms. The case was far too heavy to catch properly, and I could see the rage and profanity in Mike’s eyes as his arms were crushed beneath its weight.
After tossing out the other case, Mike moved away and into the alleyway that ran along the back of the houses in the street.
I pushed myself from the window, in much the same way that I had done from the Whitley bomber, landing far more gracefully than I had done the first time around.
We began running, just at the same time that we heard voices from the far end of the alleyway.
We daren’t look over our shoulder to see who it was that was shouting, we already knew who it would be. Iron grey uniforms, with eyes as steely as the helmets on their heads, would be stood at the end of the alley, giving chase to the two men that were ahead of them.
“Halt! Halt! Oder wir schießen!”
It was too late for us. If we stopped now, they would shoot us regardless. At least if they shot us while we ran, there was a slight chance that we would be wounded, instead of killed.
Either way, there was something about the possibility of being struck in the back that I did not take to all that kindly. There was some sort of ironic cowardice in the act. We posed no threat to them whatsoever, and yet they would happily gun us down without even giving us a real chance to escape.
Most unsporting of them.
The brick around us began to crack and shatter into tiny little shards, as the soldiers behind tried their hardest to fire and move.
The alley was narrow and cramped but, as I played chase with Mike’s back, I realised that, in a peculiar way, it played to our advantage. It meant that only one soldier could really fire at a time, unless he wanted to blast the head off the man who stood in front of him.
So, although the rounds were throwing mortar and red brick dust right into our paths, the volume with which that was threatening us was considerably less than it could have been.
