The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Good day, boys!’ Lily smiled at them as she approached, gesturing with one hand to the blue sky above. ‘Some day for April, yes? Bet you’d rather be out of those uniforms and on the beach, yes?’

  One soldier stared at her, not understanding a word of her French, and seemed about to challenge her. But his companion put an arm on his to stop him, stepping forward to take control and smiling up at the beautiful peasant girl sitting smiling back down at him from her driving seat.

  ‘Slowly, mademoiselle, if you would,’ he requested in schoolboy French. ‘My French is not so good.’

  Lily bent over towards him, allowing him a good view of her breasts through the open neck of her shirt as she did so. Repeating what she had just said carefully and slowly, she remained in that position until a more than visible blush had begun to rise from the young soldier’s throat to suffuse his face.

  ‘It is certainly warm today, mademoiselle,’ he said in halting French, running a finger round the back of the collar of his heavy shirt. ‘I said just now to my friend here that we would like to swim.’

  ‘I’m going to swim as soon as I have delivered this wretched corn,’ Lily replied, broadening her smile. ‘When are you boys off duty? I know a lovely part of the beach.’

  The two soldiers looked at each other, the French-speaking one translating for his friend, who immediately opened his eyes wide to stare with wonder at Lily.

  ‘We have some time this afternoon, late, mademoiselle,’ the first soldier finally replied. ‘We were thinking of going to the – what is the word?’

  ‘Beach? Well, if you are, let me show you the best place. It’s very private too.’ Lily let the implication hang in the air as she continued to smile at the young men.

  ‘First I have to ask you where you are headed,’ the French-speaker said, trying to hide his own smile. ‘We have to ask everyone their business.’

  Lily explained what she described as her boring task for the day, a job that was keeping her from the beach, which was why she was so anxious to get it done as quickly as possible. As she kept the soldiers so well occupied, Scott and Rolande slipped unnoticed into adjacent fields and took to the woods, headed fast now for their objective.

  ‘So, boys,’ Lily smiled, picking her reins back up. ‘Maybe we’ll see each other later on the beach? I’ll look out for you and take you to my little cove. OK?’

  She left the two soldiers grinning like the schoolboys they had been only a handful of months before, smacking the rump of the old pony between the shafts of the cart with a limp whip and smiling to herself at her sangfroid. She had known no fear whatsoever during the exchange, only a sense of purpose and confidence, which she knew would give Miss Lavington twin fits. Unlike herself, Cissie Lavington felt that agents should not be fearless, that to be fearless was actually to play the most dangerous game anyone could perhaps play, but according to the way Lily saw things their work had to be viewed in terms of game-playing. As long as it was, and reality was kept at bay, then she could indulge herself to the full.

  When the two German soldiers had stopped her in the road she had assumed the role of the character she had decided to play with zest. She was a peasant girl delivering a load of animal feed to a farm, and she was already bored by the task, having previously determined to spend a lazy day on the beach. She was also a flirtatious miss, and one not averse to toying with the emotions of the enemy as much as she did with the local boys, although the character Lily had created for herself was already bored with the local lads, and excited by the thought of fresh young and energetic blood being infused into her dull little fishing village.

  That was why she had succeeded so convincingly, she told herself, as she drove the cart up the long incline towards the farm at the top. She had succeeded in convincing the Germans she was bona fide because that was what she believed – and therefore to survive that was all she had to do: continue to believe in whatever fantasy she created.

  The rest of the initial part of the mission went according to plan. The four of them rendezvoused at the end of the track, at a holding owned by another Resistance worker who led them to an entrance concealed in the rocks behind his family farm, which in turn led them down to the warren of caves that had been chosen as ideal hiding places for the transmitters and their operators.

  The caves were a genuine labyrinth, smaller and more tortuous than those that Lily had grown to know so well at Eden Park, although fortunately well marked with white chalked-up directional signs for the benefit of the newcomers, ending in three large caves approximately fifty feet above sea level, each with tiny apertures in their sea walls, allowing a restricted view of both the Channel and the beach below.

  They had already been equipped with plain tables and chairs, as well as two camp beds in case anyone had to spend any length of time in hiding there and a simple camping stove on which the operators could make a hot drink or heat a can of beans or stew. Heavy batteries had been put in place ready to power the transmitters once they were set up, which they were within two hours of the party’s arrival underground. Each set worked to perfection, other than the fact that they were unable as yet to transmit because of the lack of vital aerial wires.

  Scott pronounced the caves perfect as far as security went but not so the set-up, considering the rock walls to be too thick for successful transmission even if they did manage somehow to rig up the necessary aerials. He further considered that in order to maximise the power of the homemade transmitters, whose signals had to be picked up by receivers at Beachy Head, they needed to be higher or they would never finally reach HQ.

  ‘You’ve all done a wonderful job so far,’ he declared as they sat down at the table to drink some wine and smoke cigarettes. ‘But the problem is these transmitters are weaker than one had hoped for. No fault of your grocer friend, who has made a great job of assembling them – but from here we have a good fifty or sixty miles to carry across, and unless we erect a socking great aerial we’re not going to reach our destination.’

  A long discussion then followed concerning how best to erect an aerial tall enough to do the job, but not tall enough to be noticed by curious German eyes. The farm owner suggested they transmit from his house instead, erecting some sort of aerial on the roof, which seemed to be a sensible idea until Scott pointed out that it could only be a short-term solution as the Germans were known to have sophisticated monitoring devices that could readily pick up radio signals within their vicinity. It was why the caves had been suggested in the first place; they were rumoured to be impenetrable to enemy listening devices.

  ‘It doesn’t have to go up in the air, does it?’ Lily suddenly enquired, looking up from her nails, which she had been carefully cleaning with a sharpened match. ‘This aerial. It doesn’t have to go straight up in the air, does it? Or does it?’

  ‘That’s what aerials usually do, Lily,’ Scott replied, using a deliberately over-patient voice. ‘Remember seeing them? They’re like little beacons – and sometimes rather larger beacons.’

  ‘Yes, yes, mein Führer,’ Lily interrupted, getting to her feet and carefully brushing herself down as if she was in her best party clothes rather than borrowed peasant garments. ‘I know what they look like – but that wasn’t my question. Is that the only way aerials work is my question. Vertically?’

  All the men looked at her as they realised a little late that it was a question they had not really considered before. They also all, to a man, remained silent, as if finally reluctant to take up the challenge.

  ‘Let me put it another way,’ Lily continued ruthlessly, realising at once that none of them had ever thought of using aerials any way except straight up. ‘Could an aerial work horizontally? If it was off the ground, and long enough?’

  Scott frowned. ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said at last, reluctantly. ‘But then I don’t actually see why either.’

  ‘No, no!’ Yves exclaimed, jumping to his feet. ‘Lily is perhaps right! There is no reason, so long as the aerial
wire is long enough and is raised sufficiently, why it should not work! No – I see no reason why it should not! Why? What are you suggesting, my little one?’

  ‘I take it that’s a compliment in your language, Yves? To be called a little one?’

  ‘But of course! Of course! So? Then?’

  Lily looked round at them, mischievous as always, before finally beginning to expound her idea. It was so simple it was astounding, and of course, always provided it remained undiscovered, there was no reason why it should not work.

  ‘You are married, monsieur?’ Lily asked the farmer, to reassure herself.

  ‘But yes, mademoiselle. I have a wife and four children, three of them under the age of conscription, thank God.’

  ‘So you will have plenty of washing?’

  ‘There is always plenty of washing in our household, m’moiselle. My wife – even with the restrictions, she is a very strict housekeeper.’

  ‘Then all we have to make sure is that your new washing line is always well hung.’

  It seemed it was as simple as that. Monsieur Rochard, the farmer, acquired a brand new washing line behind his farmstead, along the top line of the cliff but not particularly noticeable from below. To be sure it was a little longer than the normal domestic line and made of an entirely different material, but that would only become apparent to anyone standing beside it, and since it was determined that he should keep as much washing hanging out to dry on the line as possible, whatever the weather, given the remoteness of the farm, and the fact that visitors were few and far between, there was only the remotest of chances that any foot soldiers would bother to come and inspect the Rochard family’s line. Nor would the transmitters give their positions away, left as they were far below ground and wired securely up to the washing line above them. The only difficulty facing the Resistance now, given the sizeable German presence in the area, would be gaining regular access to the caves without being spotted by the enemy patrols.

  ‘Perhaps not for much longer,’ Rolande remarked, as they sat drinking marc in the farmhouse late that night, their day’s work finally done. ‘We hear only the other day that Herr Hitler is turning serious attention to Russia. And if this proves to be the case, my friends, I think we may see many of these troops being withdrawn. After all, they were sent here to invade England, not Russia.’

  ‘Let’s hope,’ said Scott, raising his glass. ‘It would certainly make life a lot easier for you.’

  ‘Not for us?’ Yves enquired. ‘You are leaving us?’

  ‘Not yet, comrade,’ Scott replied. ‘We’re going to make sure all this is up and running first and that we get the first all important bulletins back home. Tomorrow we shall transmit all the information you, my comrades, have gleaned about the fortifications being built along this stretch, as well as all troop movements so far and any new ones – just in case the forecast about Russia is wrong. No, no, we’re not going to ship out just yet – though we are ordered to return by the end of the month provided everything is running smoothly by then.’

  Yves nodded his understanding, all the time looking at Lily, who, although she was perfectly well aware of his attention, chose to ignore it.

  ‘I’m out of cigarettes,’ she announced. ‘Has anyone got a cigarette that isn’t made out of sheep droppings?’

  The three Frenchmen shrugged and sighed their regrets.

  ‘Here,’ said Scott, offering her a Players.

  ‘It’s your last one,’ Lily said with feeling, looking up at him.

  ‘Then I shall have to learn to smoke sheep droppings.’ He nodded to her to take it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said finally. ‘Ta very much.’

  ‘Ta to you too, Lily,’ he said. ‘That was actually quite a bright idea about the aerial.’

  ‘Shucks,’ Lily returned in mock American.

  ‘I mean it,’ Scott insisted. ‘But in future if I were you I’d forgo the manicures. If you’re stopped, some bright-eyed Kraut might wonder what a peasant girl like you is doing with such dainty manicured mitts.’

  So attractive was her laugh and so gay her smile that Scott felt like kissing her instantly. Instead he cadged a Gitanes from Rolande and poured himself another glass of marc. They were nowhere near safe yet. In fact they were only just beginning the business of their mission, and now that the transmitters were ready to work, the danger they were in was all the greater. Any false sense of celebration must be put aside.

  ‘God,’ Lily suddenly thought aloud. ‘Listen – do you think they’ll have reported the cart? The Germans who stopped me this morning. If they’ve put the cart down in their reports—’

  ‘Which they well might do,’ Scott agreed.

  ‘Then whoever takes over their duty might notice my non-return. Mightn’t they?’

  They just managed to hide everything away in time. While Madame Rochard cleared the kitchen of all traces of the visitors, emptying cigarette ends into the stove and washing and drying the brandy glasses and coffee cups, Monsieur Rochard pulled his bewildered seventeen-year-old son out of bed and dragged him over to the hay barn where he was introduced to an already half undressed Lily, who got up from in between the hay bales to greet him.

  ‘Now you behave yourself, young man,’ Monsieur Rochard warned his still utterly bewildered son. ‘This is for France, understand? You are not to think of anything other than la belle France! You do and I will see to you myself!’

  ‘It’s all right, monsieur,’ Lily whispered to the distracted farmer. ‘I’ll take good care of him.’

  ‘You had better not, m’moiselle,’ Rochard growled back. ‘He is barely seventeen!’

  ‘I meant I will make sure he comes to no harm. We shall only be pretending. Please don’t worry.’

  Monsieur Rochard regarded her with deep suspicion, smacked his son lightly about the head with one hand as an advance warning of what might befall him should he get carried away, then hurried back to bed in his house. Two minutes later, when Scott, Yves and Rolande were all safely on their way down to the labyrinth, the Germans arrived.

  They turned the place over, much to the well-acted consternation of the Rochards whom they yelled at to get out of their beds, along with two of their children.

  ‘There is another child!’ one of the soldiers barked in half-acceptable French. ‘There is an empty bed in this room! Where is this one? Well?’

  Monsieur Rochard frowned deeply and shrugged, turning to his wife, who simply raised her eyebrows to the heavens.

  ‘Should this child be in bed, madame?’

  ‘But of course, sir. It is very late, and even though he is the oldest—’

  The German captain cut her off with a nod of his head to the men behind him and a barked order. The four soldiers who had followed him up the rickety staircase swung themselves back down with a great heavy clatter of boots and clank of equipment as they left the farmhouse to instigate a further search.

  It didn’t take them long. The door of the hay barn was swinging open and within minutes two of the soldiers, aided by their powerful spotlights, had found the so-called lovers in their bed of hay. At once Lily grabbed the short top she had discarded to make herself decent, holding it over her breasts, while the unfortunate young Rochard tried to hide himself under the hay, mortified with embarrassment and shaking with terror.

  The two German soldiers stood looking at them, the younger one smiling helplessly while the older one looked at Lily in a quite different way. Seeing the look, for once Lily put all ideas of flirtation out of her head and began to cough as deeply and unpleasantly as she could, before seemingly trying to control the fit.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ she muttered, wiping one hand slowly across her mouth while biting hard at the inside of her lip at the same time, successfully drawing blood which she carefully made evident on her hand as she stopped coughing. ‘Forgive me, please – it’s my chest.’

  At once the older soldier’s expression changed from one of patent lust to one of equally obvious fea
r and revulsion.

  ‘Come!’ he ordered them, with a wave of his rifle. ‘Move!’

  Grabbing their clothes, the two fake lovers covered themselves and hurried as best they could down the ladder. At the bottom the young German captain waited with his other two men, tapping his leg with his baton. He looked from Lily to the young Rochard boy and shook his head, laughing. Then he clicked his tongue at the boy.

  ‘You’re a bad boy,’ he said. ‘I wonder what your father is going to say.’

  ‘No, no! Please, sir, no!’ young Rochard pleaded, as he had been instructed by Lily. ‘No, please, sir – do anything but tell Papa! Please!’

  The captain regarded him, as if uncertain whether to take him in and punish him himself or to hand him over to be reprimanded by his father. When he saw how violently the boy’s knees were knocking he smiled broadly and indicated the house.

  ‘Go on,’ he ordered. ‘Off with you! Take him inside, Corporal! And tell Papa what his little boy has been up to! And now, mademoiselle – to you.’ The captain had that same look in his eyes as he moved towards the beautiful half-dressed young woman who stood before him, hair entangled with hay, only her canvas shirt held tight to her breasts protecting her decency.

  ‘You may go, men,’ he ordered in German. ‘I wish to have words with this young lady here.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ the older soldier said, stepping forward. ‘If I may make so bold, Captain . . .’ He dropped his voice before continuing, having given a sideways glance to Lily.

  Lily knew what he was whispering from the expression on the captain’s face, a look that also turned from lust to loathing.

  ‘Filth,’ he said, slapping her hard round the face. ‘Filth. Disgusting disease.’

  Then turning on his heel he stalked out of the barn, leaving his men temporarily behind him. The younger two smiled shyly at Lily, and left ahead of their older companion, who stared at her before spitting his contempt on the floor.