The Champagne Girls

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘Ssh … It’s all right … Let us get inside and close the door.’ He pushed her back up the stairs. She heard him follow up with the other man, and then the curtain was fitted against the door to keep in the light. He struck a match, lit the staircase lamp.

  Behind him on the lower treads was a young man in an extremely ill-fitting grey suit.

  ‘Gaby, this is Lieutenant John Stanner of the Royal Flying Corps. Madame Bleker, Monsieur Stanner.’

  ‘How d’you do, madame,’ he said in English.

  ‘Marc! What is he doing here? Why have you brought him here?’

  ‘He’s got to be got out. Gaby. He’s got information that needs to go back to British Intelligence at once. And you’re going to take him.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, my darling ‒ you’re right, it’s time for you to go ‒ and you must take this young man with you.’

  ‘Go without you? Never!’

  ‘Yes, you must,’ Marc insisted. He turned to the newcomer. ‘Please come upstairs, Lieutenant. We’ll have a drink and explain things. Then you must get some sleep because you’ve a long trip ahead of you.’

  ‘Marc,’ Gaby said in an angry whisper, ‘I am not leaving Rethel without you ‒!’

  ‘Listen, Lieutenant Stanner’s plane was hit two days ago above Tournai. He tried to make it back to the British lines but the wind forced him east and he came down near Le Cateau. Luckily some friends of ours collected him and brought him in a supply wagon to Rethel because he’s got to be taken back, tomorrow morning ‒ I mean, this morning ‒ or this evening at the latest.’

  ‘But why? I don’t understand why?’

  ‘Because he saw German reinforcements coming up in large numbers. Don’t you understand, Gaby? The British are going to launch another offensive at Passchendaele and the Germans already know about it! When the British and French leave their trenches, they’ll be walking straight into a trap.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘Have I done something to offend you, madame?’ asked Lieutenant Stanner.

  Gaby paused in her rapid pace to stare at him for a moment. She shook her head and hurried on.

  ‘I quite understand we couldn’t speak on the train because of my terrible French. But you haven’t said a word to me even now we’re on our own.’

  ‘M’sieu, I’m taking you back behind the lines because I’ve been ordered to. But please don’t ask me to be conversational.’

  She saw him colour up, and was ashamed. But she couldn’t summon the energy for apology or explanation. All her strength was needed for this journey.

  It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Every step was taking her further away from Marc. Every step, she died a little.

  Their train journey from Rethel had been uneventful. No one had even asked to see their papers and permits. They had got off at a branch-line station near Pettiloul as dusk drew on. Curfew began now, and had they been stopped they would have had a hard time explaining their activities, but Gaby knew how to fade into the shadows of the trees.

  The young aviator said nothing as he followed this beautiful but sombre Frenchwoman. He gave an exclamation of astonishment when she skirted the side of a shallow incline and plunged in among the briars. But at her brief command: ‘Help me,’ he began to tear the bushes aside.

  To do him justice, he was in good command of himself throughout their strange subterranean journey. Once he gave a start when some creature scurried away in the dark, and he was heard to say, ‘My word!’ when she found and lit the small lamp in the second of the underground chambers. Other than that, he was silent.

  The journey took all night and part of next morning, so that the sun had been up for over an hour when she led him up a narrow unrailed staircase in the chalk and asked him to help heave aside a great stone closure.

  She had no way of knowing if they were in No Man’s Land or in French territory, because details of the exact lines were never made public. All they could do was move cautiously and surrender themselves if they saw French uniforms.

  It was in fact French troops that they encountered. A platoon was being sent out on forage by a sergeant. Gaby walked up to the astonished soldier and said, ‘I want to be put in touch at once with Major Garouche in Rheims.’

  ‘Eh?’ gasped the sergeant, bringing up his rifle. ‘Where the hell did you spring from?’

  ‘Never mind that. At once, please ‒ take me to a command post and telephone to Major Garouche.’

  Nothing is ever that easy. They were put under arrest, marched to a guardroom, the sergeant’s officer was called, the subaltern thought it best to tell his captain in case the young man speaking atrocious French was a German spy, the captain called the provost marshal, and five hours went by before Gaby was invited to speak on the telephone to Garouche.

  ‘Mademoiselle Tramont! It really is you! What on earth are you doing at Bledot?’

  ‘It can’t be explained on the telephone. Please send transport at once ‒ I have someone with me whose report you must hear.’

  ‘A foreigner, I hear.’

  ‘It’s a British airman. Please, Major ‒ this is very urgent.’

  An hour later a staff car arrived. They were driven at jolting speed back to Rheims.

  How strange it all looked to Gaby now. She had been away eighteen months. The city had changed, there was more shell damage, the countryside to the north-east was a wasteland of trenches and redoubts. At HQ Lieutenant Stanner was asked to wait while Gaby was interviewed by Garouche.

  He couldn’t hide his surprise when she came into his office. ‘Mademoiselle! Have you been ill?’

  ‘No, I’m quite well. Only, please be quick. My companion has urgent information, and then I want to get back at once to Rethel.’

  ‘Get back?’

  ‘Yes, my partner ‒ I must get back to him.’ Garouche had stood up to shake hands, and now he stepped back a little to study her. ‘You aren’t fit to go back.’

  ‘Nonsense, I must!’

  ‘A moment, mademoiselle ‒ what was the cover story for your absence?’

  ‘My mother is supposed to be ill in Strasbourg.’

  ‘And you left the shop ‒ when?’

  ‘The night before last.’

  ‘You certainly can’t go back yet. It would take you a day at least to get to Strasbourg and one supposes you’d stay a few days with an ailing parent ‒’

  ‘I’ll say she was well when I got there …’

  ‘Please, mademoiselle, I must insist that you remain in Rheims for a few days at least. We have many questions that you could answer, I think ‒ questions of general background. And then the bona fides of this young man must be established before we can risk your going back ‒’

  ‘Oh, he’s genuine enough,’ she said impatiently. ‘One of his fellow officers will identify him at once ‒ his squadron is based at ‒’

  ‘Mademoiselle Tramont, you simply cannot be allowed to turn around and go back to Rethel. It wouldn’t make sense ‒ there are things we can arrange for you to take, if you give us a day or two to organise it. And besides, your father … Surely you want to see your father?’

  She controlled a shiver of emotion. ‘My father … How is he?’

  ‘I believe, not well. I really think you should take a few days’ leave to see him.’ He was still holding her hand, and he pressed it now, warmly. ‘It’s time to stop being brave, Mademoiselle Gaby. It’s time to be your father’s daughter for a little while.’

  She saw there was no help for it. She wouldn’t be permitted to go back and it was useless to try to elude the authorities and go back on her own account. What the Major said was true ‒ if she waited a few days, it would look more genuine when she got back to the shop. She could take new orders or information to the group in Rethel. And she ought to see her father.

  She was given a room at HQ where she could telephone the villa in privacy. Her father’s secretary, a new voice to her, said doubtfully, ‘Mademoiselle Tramont?
Not Mademoiselle Gaby?’

  ‘Yes ‒ please put me through to my father.’

  There was a long delay. She began to think the call had broken down. Then Robert Tramont’s voice, trembling and husky. ‘Gaby? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  ‘Gaby … My dear child … I … I … I never expected to be called to the telephone for a call from you … I’m sorry, dear, I can’t …’

  ‘Papa!’ Now that she heard him, love and anxiety and remorse flooded through her. She couldn’t really have been going to hurry back to an enemy city without even seeing her father? ‘Papa, I’ll be home in half an hour.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘Yes, dearest Papa, yes ‒ home ‒ for a little while.’

  He was standing in the archway of the porte-cochère when the official car drove up. She scrambled out, her thick country shoes catching on the running board so that she almost tumbled into his arms.

  She was weeping helplessly. He held her close, supporting her, and yet unsteady himself. They leaned against the grey stone of the arch.

  ‘My little girl,’ he whispered. ‘My only little girl …’

  The servants were fluttering about in the background ‒ the butler, expecting a suitcase to carry in, the housekeeper waiting to offer tea or coffee or whatever comforts the young mistress might want.

  But they stood aside in silence as the two Tramonts walked indoors, arms about each other, lost to everything except their reunion.

  When at last they were sitting side by side on a worn sofa in the former grand drawing room, they studied each other. He saw a woman in her mid-thirties, even more beautiful now than as a girl, though haggard and almost unkempt in the harsh afternoon light. She saw an old man ‒ Papa was old! In his sixties but looking older, his dark hair streaked with grey, the stoop that was due to an old war injury much more pronounced.

  They could only speak haltingly at first. He wanted to ask what she had been doing but knew that such questions were forbidden ‒ she had been behind the enemy lines, on duty, like a soldier, and to speak of it might be to expose colleagues to risk. He took it for granted that she was home for good, and went white when she said she must go back as soon as possible.

  ‘You don’t understand. Papa. I’ve left my partner I must go back or he’ll be unable to explain my absence.’

  ‘But ‒ but ‒ surely you’ve done enough? Gaby, please ask for your release from this work. It’s too dangerous ‒ I can’t bear to think of you ‒’

  ‘It’s not dangerous,’ she lied with a false gaiety that convinced him not at all. ‘It’s not in the least dangerous. We run a shop ‒ no one suspects us.’

  ‘Please stay, Gaby.’

  ‘I must go back. I can’t leave him …’

  Robert sank back into the corner of the sofa. ‘Ah,’ he sighed, ‘I see. He’s important?’

  ‘Yes, Papa ‒ important. If I could only tell you …’

  ‘Never mind. How long can you be spared to me?’

  ‘A few days.’ To change the subject she said brightly, ‘And how is David?’

  As soon as she had said it, she knew the answer. Her father’s face changed, he put a hand up to his brow as if to hide his eyes.

  ‘Papa,’ she said in a faltering voice. ‘What happened to David?’

  ‘He was killed in the spring, Gaby. In one of the “pushes” at Arras.’

  ‘Oh God!’ She folded her arms across her breast and huddled into herself, as if to protect herself from the blow. ‘Oh, poor David, poor David … And I didn’t even know!’ Then she looked up. ‘Why didn’t you send word?’

  ‘I gave the information to the authorities at Rheims and a Major Garouche came to see me. He said he thought it best not to send on the news ‒ it would only unsettle you.’

  ‘Unsettle me!’ But the brief indignation died. ‘Oh, poor Papa! All this time and you couldn’t even let me know about my own brother …’

  The housekeeper, unasked, had made hot chocolate and now brought it in. But though Gaby thanked her, she was unable to swallow even a sip. It wasn’t that she was ill: it was simply that her body cried out for respite from the strains of the last few days, and the long months that had gone before.

  ‘Is my room available? I’d like to rest, if I may.’

  ‘Of course, Gaby ‒ your room’s waiting ‒ I tried not to let it be used though we’ve had soldiers billeted ‒ Madame Lousson, please run a bath for Mademoiselle ‒ there is hot water, isn’t there?’

  The housekeeper didn’t say she’d given orders to use precious coal to produce hot water the moment she heard Mademoiselle was coming home. She ushered Gaby upstairs like a mother hen caring for a frightened chick.

  The bedroom, once so pretty, was scarred now by damp and war damage. But the linen on the bed was clean, there were roses in a chipped vase by the bed, and in the bathroom the mahogany trimmed bath was soon brimming with hot water.

  Gaby’s clothes had been carefully kept. She found a nightgown and a robe on the peg on the bathroom door. As she put them on she felt drained, dazed, lethargic. She could hardly make the few steps to the bed. She fell on it, clutched the pillow in her arms, and fell asleep.

  When she woke she found that someone had lifted her into the bed and covered her. The light was quite different. She raised her head. Her father was sitting in an armchair by the open window.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

  She blinked and rubbed her eyes. ‘Better,’ she admitted. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘You’ve almost slept the clock round, it’s midday Wednesday. Are you hungry? Madame Lousson has some real coffee she’s waiting to brew for you, and there are fresh rolls.’

  She couldn’t help smiling at him. He was treating her as if she were eight years old.

  ‘I’d like some breakfast, Papa,’ she said obediently.

  Afterwards she found a dress laid out for her, a summer dress she’d managed to buy second-hand in Rheims market after all her clothes were stolen by the retreating Germans. It was strange to wear something she herself had chosen after being Madame Bleker for so long.

  When she came downstairs there was a stranger waiting. Her father introduced him as Dr Didier. ‘I’d just like him to take a look at you, Gaby.’

  ‘Oh, Papa, don’t be absurd. There’s nothing wrong with me!’

  ‘Now, daughter, please do as you’re told,’ Robert said.

  She shrugged. What did it matter?

  Dr Didier went up to her room. He took her pulse, her temperature, looked into her eyes, examined her hands, and pronounced her undernourished, overstrained, but otherwise fit.

  ‘I could have told you all that.’

  ‘Perhaps so. But I’m glad to have this chance to speak to you alone, mademoiselle. I’ve been looking after your father for almost a year now, and I must warn you, he’s a very sick man.’

  ‘Papa?’

  ‘Didn’t you think he looked unwell?’

  ‘Yes, but … We’re all under a great strain these days …’

  ‘Quite so. But as I understand it, he was wounded in the last go-round with the Boches ‒ quite a medical history, though all the records have been lost in the shellings. He shrugs and says every day he’s lived since then has been a bonus. Well, mademoiselle, I must tell you that the bonus may be withdrawn at any moment.’

  She gasped. He was alarmed and made her sit down. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have put it so bluntly.’

  ‘No, no, it’s better that you’ve told me. I had no idea! I thought … I thought he was just older, that’s all.’

  ‘No, he has a heart condition now. He’s been under strain all his life, making his body work under protest because he wouldn’t submit to a wheelchair. Your homecoming has caused him to have a slight attack ‒’

  ‘What?’

  ‘While you were asleep, Madame Lousson sent for me. He’s recovered, and since I was here he asked me to take a look at you so I went along with it. But i
n fact, your father is the one who needs nursing. I hope you’re going to look after him. Mademoiselle Gaby?’

  There was nothing she could say. She simply sat staring at Didier, helpless in the grip of dismay and anxiety.

  Two days later news came through of a big battle on the front in Flanders. There had been enormous casualties on the Allied side. Gaby read the flimsy news-sheet with something like rage. All that urgency, all that desperation to get the news to Allied HQ that the Germans knew of the proposed attack and were prepared for it. And by the time the information had been sorted out and handed on, it had been too late.

  She had left Marc ‒ for nothing. She had saved no lives, done no good ‒ except to return a lost flyer to his unit.

  She went to see Garouche. ‘When am I to go back to Rethel?’ she asked, without even referring to the disaster at Passchendaele.

  ‘Er … We have decided it’s better if you stay this side of the lines, mademoiselle.’

  ‘Decided? Who has decided?’

  ‘Intelligence HQ, mademoiselle.’

  ‘What utter nonsense! I must go back. Marc Auduron needs his “wife” there.’

  ‘No, mademoiselle, that’s all changed.’

  She looked at him, suddenly tense. ‘What does that mean? What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing, my dear lady ‒ there’s no need to look like that’

  ‘You fool, tell me what’s happened!’ she cried, jumping to her feet and leaning over Garouche’s desk. ‘What’s gone wrong? Tell me!’

  ‘Now, now …’ He sat back, fixing his monocle in his eye and looking disapproving. ‘We don’t actually know what’s happened.’

  ‘Then I’ll go back and ‒’

  ‘No, no ‒ your cover is blown, that’s certain. The Bleker shop is finished.’

  She could hear her heart thudding with heavy, forbidding beats. ‘And Marc?’

  ‘We don’t know. He’s gone.’

  After a long pause she said, ‘Tell me what you know.’

  He was hesitant. ‘The shop didn’t open one morning. We hear that the gendarmerie eventually broke in and examined the premises. They found a body in the storage cellars.’

  ‘A body? Not … not …?’