There was a light drizzle falling, by the time she reached Segré, riding straight through it and out the other side. Her road led roughly northwestward then. After about twenty kilometres there’d be a village called Pouance, then another ten or twelve kilometres would take her to Châteaubriant. By which time it would be about mid-morning.
Head down, legs pumping, eyes slitted against the drizzle… Might send the ‘arrived safely’ signal from Rennes tonight, she thought. Because they’d be waiting for it, that was all, and until they got it might link her silence with the ‘Hector’ business and guess she’d run into trouble of some kind. It would be better, anyway, to go on the air from Rennes than to break radio silence from anywhere further west before she had good reason to.
* * *
Thinking of Ben again: whether he would get himself back to sea when his knee was mended. He was counting on it: although he’d admitted, last time she’d visited him in the hospital at Haslar, that the doctors hadn’t guaranteed it ever would be the knee it had been. But then again – as well to remember he’d got back to sea with one ear that still didn’t work, after his previous smash-up in an action off the Dutch coast – winter of ’41, before she’d known him. So maybe – if at some stage he found he could do without that stick – Ben being Ben…
A car swished past, spraying her. A grey Citroen: three men in civilian clothes in it. Almost certainly Gestapo; grey-painted Citroens were their favoured means of transport. Nothing to do with her, though – it had vanished ahead, its horn blaring as it forced its way past other traffic.
The drizzle had become quite heavy; by the time she got to Pouance it was more like rain. This was a miserable little dump of a place, too. She’d been ready for a break, had had thoughts of stopping here, but now decided against it. In Châteaubriant there might well be a choice of cafés, not just one that looked ramshackle and in any case still had its shutters up.
Another hour’s pedalling, therefore. To a cup of coffee, a cigarette or two and maybe half an hour with her feet up. Wooden-soled shoes weren’t ideal for cycling: she’d learnt that six months ago, in Rouen. Still, it hadn’t gone badly, so far. Ought to make Châteaubriant not much after ten o’clock; earlier on she’d reckoned on getting there around midday.
About the time June would be ringing Ben.
It would have been better if she could have told him herself. Although he’d known it would be this way; and there’d have been nothing to say that they hadn’t already said to each other a dozen times.
Her calves and thighs ached. Face half-frozen, hands too; her mittens had been soaked through hours ago. Unfortunately you couldn’t equip yourself with gear of a type Suzanne Tanguy wouldn’t have been able to get hold of.
She was in Châteaubriant nearer ten-thirty than ten, rode around until she found a café that was open, locked the bike to some railings and took both suitcases inside with her. A girl of about her own age, coming quickly from the nether regions, focused on them at once and spread her hands: ‘We don’t have rooms. Sorry. If that’s what—’
‘It isn’t. Why would I want a room at this time of day?’
‘I don’t know. I thought—with baggage… But – excuse me, but you look half-drowned. As if you’d been in the river!’
She looked pregnant.
Rosie told her no, not in the river, just in rain; she’d come a long way, by bicycle, still had some way to go, didn’t therefore have much time, only wanted a hot drink and something to eat – if there was anything available, at this time of day.
‘Sausage – with bread?’
‘That’d do.’ If they ever had anything, they had bloody sausage. Fumbling wet-fingered for a cigarette. ‘Fine. And coffee, eh?’
‘That’s easy.’ She had a nice smile: and she was pregnant. Shaking her head… ‘The state you’re in… Look, there’s no one here yet – like to come in the kitchen, where it’s warm?’
* * *
Leaving Châteaubriant, she had a choice: stay on this main road – the direct route to Rennes from Angers – or fork left after about three kilometres for Bain-de-Bretagne so as to come into Rennes eventually as if from Nantes. It was conceivable that they’d be watching the Angers road, Angers being roughly where she might have started from. If they’d been hoping to catch her at Le Mans, then realized she was a jump ahead of them? They weren’t stupid, those people. Unpleasant to a high degree, but not stupid. After a couple of trains from Angers had come and gone, they’d have only to pick up a telephone to Rennes and arrange for a watch to be set on the Angers road. One car and perhaps two men would be enough. No need to stop all the traffic, they’d only have to concern themselves with girls on bikes with luggage. They’d reckon on having a reasonably good chance – why would she be on any other road?
Answer: because she wasn’t stupid.
It would add about ten kilometres to her journey. But she had time in hand now, and the break in Châteaubriant had done her good. Not only the coffee and sausage and more or less thawing out, but that pregnant girl’s kindness. Her husband was a gendarme stationed in Laval, she’d told Rosie, and this café was owned by his widowed mother. It was her first pregnancy; they hadn’t been married long.
Anyway – it had been a relaxing interlude, and now she’d have to make up for it. Eleven-twenty: and the rain had thinned again to drizzle – stopping now and then, tending to start again just when she began to think there might be a chance to dry out. The traffic after she’d turned off at the fork consisted mostly of farm lorries, carts and tractors, and the road was correspondingly foul. Thirty kilometres of it, roughly, to Bain-de-Bretagne, then about forty to Rennes. The last five or so of those, in the built-up area, might be slower going.
Get there about five, perhaps.
Her original intention, as from the briefing in London, had been to deposit the case with the radio in it in the consigne at the station – having taken ‘Giselle’’s cash out of it first so as not to have to go back to it until she was ready to leave town. But she’d been planning on arrival and departure by rail, at that stage; now, there was no reason to go anywhere near the station. Very good reason to steer well clear of it, in fact. There were always military as well as plain-clothes police around – even without any special lookout they might be keeping now. Also, there was the bike – which she’d stick to, leaving Rennes. For better or for worse… She wasn’t sure of the distance to Carhaix and beyond; although it could hardly be less than another hundred kilometres. More, probably – just to Carhaix… But if she could make another early start – finding somewhere for the night – she was rather hoping ‘Giselle’ might solve that problem for her – on that basis, tomorrow might be another day like this one.
Grimacing into the drizzle, thinking Lucky me…
* * *
At the southern approach to Bain-de-Bretagne, almost immediately after she’d turned on to the main road, there was a road-block which they either hadn’t closed yet or had just re-opened. The barriers, trestles and poles, were on both sides of the road, parallel to it, on the verges, and there were German soldiers standing around where an armoured vehicle was parked. Then as she got closer she saw two uniformed officers on this side, standing there talking and watching the passing traffic. High-fronted caps, peaks glistening wet, long-skirted coats overhanging their damn jackboots. She’d become conscious suddenly of a familiar hollow in her stomach. Fear: acute dislike, too; dislike heightened of course by the fear. Pedalling hard on the slight gradient, short, hard, panting breaths matching the piston-like action of her legs, and her face tight against the cold, in her own mental picture of how she might look to them as she passed – was about to pass them – the suitcase on the bike’s pillion seemed – to her – about the size of the tall cylinder on a gazo, must attract their interest.
Challenging herself then: so what? Suzanne Tanguy: papers in order, on her way to this new job, could hardly be going there without a change of clothes, spare pair of shoes, a few personal
effects, for God’s sake… Open a case – are you joking? In this rain, get everything soaked? For Christ’s sake…
One of them was smoking a cigar. Not much of it left, hardly more than a stub. He was holding it clear of his mouth – a leather glove on that hand – and laughing at whatever the other was telling him. As relaxed as if they had some right to be here…
She was passing them – now.
Had passed.
No shouts, no order to stop. They might not even have noticed her. Pedalling on: brain still taut, nerves racked tight for quite a while before the tension gradually eased off.
Like the end of an attack of mental cramp. In sharp reaction finding herself almost laughing: telling Ben in that flood of relief, Oh, if you could’ve seen me then!
* * *
He’d have been called to the telephone by now. Expecting her voice, hearing June’s, knowing immediately what it meant. Maybe half an hour ago. He’d be off by himself somewhere, she guessed: reminding himself that he’d known the moment would come, and here it was, so—
So he’d come to terms with it, that was all. He had a gammy knee but his head was screwed on all right. More than ‘all right’: he had a hell of a lot going for him, had Ben Quarry… Shaking her head – shaking rain off so there’d be less to run down her neck – and turning her thoughts back to Rennes. A town plan she’d studied in London had given her an idea of the layout, of the main boulevards and where the river and the railway tracks ran, and so forth. She’d never set foot in the place, up till now, only passed through it in trains. Last time, she’d come from Paris and there’d been an SS officer – in civies, masquerading as someone he wasn’t – behind her in the same carriage, believing that she was leading him to a Resistance cell which operated around one of the secret landing places, called ‘pinpoints’, used by the motor gunboats based on Dartmouth. The flotilla Ben had been in, at that time. But at Rennes, some men from another Resistance group had been supposed to board the train and take care of the German, and they hadn’t: she’d been watching for them, and it had been a very bad moment when the train had pulled out and she’d realized they’d let her down.
As it happened, that westernmost of the gunboats’ ‘pinpoints’ had been closed down now. She’d heard it only a few days ago, in the course of briefing. No details, nothing about what had happened to the people there – who’d been her friends, effectively saved her life… Anyway – the SS man in the train – where this tangential thought had started – she’d killed him. With a kitchen knife, in the lavatory at the end of the compartment, just minutes before the halt at Landerneau.
The only person she’d ever killed. She’d had some help with it, admittedly. And bad dreams, for some time after.
* * *
A gazo van passed close, sheeting muddy water over her and then over an elderly woman cyclist a few lengths ahead. The old bird was still shaking her fist after it, screaming imprecations, when a lorry did exactly the same thing.
She was in the outskirts of Rennes by four-fifteen. It was already getting dark. Dry though, by then, except for the muck coming up off the road. Thinking about routes into town and finding a café, and so on – as much as she’d memorized of it was based on a plan of the centre with the railway station as her starting-point – as it would have been – and the river, La Vilaine, hooping around to the north and northeast of it. So if you found the station and then turned north but stayed this side of the river you’d be near enough in the middle of the town. Find a café anywhere around there, then ring the Trianon and ask for ‘Giselle’.
She was on the Rue de Nantes. No river yet, so keep going. Legs feeling as if they were full of lead. Head, too – muzzy… Having to force herself to concentrate: aware of being physically and mentally near-exhausted.
Better not even to think of doing much the same as this tomorrow…
Railway bridge, right ahead: the station would be somewhere along there to her right. Had to be: would have been to the left if she’d come in on the Angers road. So – under the bridge: and right, then. She was on the north side of the railway line now.
The only reason to find the station was of course as a reference point. They’d have it staked out, for sure.
At least – if ‘Hector’ had been turned, they would.
Trouble was, you started thinking he might have been, and next minute it was part of your thinking that he had. Not necessarily so at all… Forking left here, away from the tracks. No option, no other way she could have gone. Quite soon after that, anyway, she was diverting back to the right again; then – well, eventually – pedalling into a square with a central garden and a very large edifice – surely the station building – U-shaped around the square’s southern end. Place de la Gare, for sure. A fair bet there’d be a Café de la Gare too – maybe a hotel with a café under it. But – too close, not worth risking: instincts were worth a lot when you had nothing more solid to guide you, and hers told her that not only the station but its close surroundings should be avoided.
She rounded the Place and turned up an avenue leading north. What she needed was a café spacious enough to have a public telephone so placed that the staff and other customers at least didn’t have to listen in. And preferably one that wasn’t stiff with Germans. They had their own places – to which French people other than highly-placed collaborators weren’t admitted, and where there was a better variety of food and drink – but they came slumming too, quite often. To pick up girls, for one thing.
Then she’d found it: Café Dinard. A long frontage, and a rail outside to which bicycles could be chained, and some people coming out who looked ordinary, nondescript. Like herself – touch wood. Except she knew she’d be looking like nothing on earth, by now… Having tethered the bike, she took her cases off it and carried them inside with her, through double blackout screens into warmth and light, a reek of tobacco-smoke and garlic. Confirmation that she was looking like some sort of escaped convict came in an assortment of stares and double-takes. Ignoring them – looking around: seeing that there were a few unoccupied tables, also a telephone in an alcove at the far end of the bar.
She went over to it, carrying the cases, asked a young girl who was unloading a tray of beer glasses, ‘Toilette?’
‘Through there – the door at the end.’
A black-haired woman further along the bar watched her go, and was still watching ten minutes later when she emerged, feeling better and slightly cleaner. Madame then signalled to a waiter, whom she must have warned to be ready for this: one didn’t maintain a toilette just for scruffy-looking girls to walk in off the street for a pee and then walk straight out again.
‘If you please, Mam’selle?’
Grey-haired, stooped, pulling back a chair. At a table close to this one were two men in civilian clothes who might well have been SD, or Gestapo. Ordinary Wehrmacht officers wouldn’t have been in civies, in an establishment like this; and they couldn’t be Abwehr because since Rosie had last been in France the Abwehr – Military Intelligence – had been absorbed into the SD – Sicherheitsdienst, the SS secret police. They were Germans, anyway, in badly fitting dark suits, and they were taking an interest in Rosie. Maybe thinking she’d wanted to sit near them. Too late now, anyway: to have shifted, having noticed them, might have made matters worse. She nodded to the waiter: ‘Thank you.’ Putting her cases partly under this table but at her side where she’d be able to see them from the telephone.
Those two had resumed their conversation. It was German they were talking. She told the waiter, ‘I’d like coffee, please.’
‘And to eat?’
‘Not at the moment. I may have a friend joining me.’
‘Just one coffee.’
‘Large one, please, with sugar.’ It would be saccharine, but that was often referred to as sugar. Just as certain brown liquids were known as coffee. Why split hairs? She added, ‘And a jeton for the telephone.’
‘At the counter.’
She lit a ci
garette first. Needing it: if she’d allowed herself to put her head down on her forearms on the table she could have fallen asleep within seconds. Leaning back, instead, inhaling smoke devouring it – her eyes on the doorway where two priests were fumbling with umbrellas. Must have been in here a long time, she thought, if they think it’s still raining.
How one’s mind worked. Dissecting everything – or trying to.
Get a jeton. Wait too long, might miss her. Then what? She got up, went to the counter, ‘Jeton for a local call, please. D’you have a telephone directory?’
‘Not of recent date.’ The proprietress, undoubtedly: she had that manner. Fifty-ish, hair coal-black, almost certainly dyed, small, sharp eyes, thick neck and shoulders. Sliding a telephone book across the counter, and scooping up Rosie’s payment for the jeton. ‘Still look as if you’ve been climbing mountains. Better than when you walked in, but still – that coat’s wet through, eh?’
‘Someone said earlier, as if I’d been in the river.’
A shrug of the heavy shoulders. ‘If you’d told me you had, I wouldn’t doubt it.’
The directory was greasy, stank of cigarette smoke and had numbers, names and doodles scrawled all over it. Rosie murmured, turning another page of T’s, ‘Truth is, I’ve come a long way, by bicycle. Going to a new job, stopping off here to see an old friend. And if she’s not here after all that…’
She’d found it – Café Trianon – and was memorizing the number. Adding as if to herself, ‘Ought to have my head seen to.’ Imparting that much information in order to prepare the ground in case she needed to ask where she could get a bed for the night at reasonable cost. The waiter, she saw, had put her so-called coffee on the table. And one of the Germans was watching her, making no bones about it. She shut the book; Madame was moving along to serve another customer. She’d pack a hell of a punch, Rosie thought. The Café Trianon was in Rue St Sauveur; not that that told her anything.
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