In at the Kill

by Alexander Fullerton

  He was giving Rosie a long, hard stare. Studying her more than the hat, she thought.

  Wondering what might be familiar about her?

  Guillaume protesting, ‘So happens we do not have time to waste—’

  ‘But – please –’ Pauline’s lashes fluttering – ‘just another tiny instant…’

  It didn’t look like suntan. She knew it didn’t. Wouldn’t even to this bastard – couldn’t possibly, not for long, such close inspection… Could have been oil or cream of some kind on tanned skin: that had been how the hairdresser had suggested she might explain it. She glanced at Guillaume, forced a smile. Praying that the creature currently feasting its little gimlet eyes on her might not have studied the posters, not be straining its memory…

  If they had memories. One could wonder as one might about dogs: did they actually think – or see in colour, or just in black and white?

  Snap of its fingers like a pistol-shot. ‘I’ll take it.’

  A nod to the proprietress, and a small bow to Rosie: ‘I am greatly obliged, Mam’selle.’ Guillaume turned away, looking annoyed and making a show of checking the time again, as Pauline lifted the hat carefully from Rosie’s head, purring, ‘So very kind…’

  * * *

  He’d acted his part well, she thought. Affronted and impatient, but in a subdued manner, natural enough in the daunting presence of the Boche. And her own reactions had only really become noticeable – to herself anyway – after the event, when they’d got up here. The need to smoke as voraciously as this, for instance… She was glad of that, that at the time she’d managed it all right. She squashed out another stub, committed herself to waiting ten minutes now before lighting another. For one thing, cigarettes were rationed and not all that easy to come by unless one had black-market connections and money to spare. Which Guillaume probably would have. Her pulse-rate was still much too fast. Time now, ten minutes to two. The pianist, Léonie Garnier, should be getting the signal out by now, might even have sent it and signed off. Zoé proposes that as an alternative to immediate recall… Guillaume had told them he’d be back here by three thirty. Using emergency procedure and when a reply was called for, you’d get it exactly one hour and ten minutes after the operator in the communications centre in Sevenoaks had received your signal. She could see it all happening – having worked in that establishment as a radio-operator herself, before Johnny’s Spitfire had been shot down into the Channel and she’d applied to be accepted for training as an agent. Initially they’d turned her down: Johnny had been killed only the day before, and the interviewing officer had suspected her of harbouring some sort of suicidal impulse; then shortly afterwards apparently had second thoughts and called her back. She’d heard later that in fact Maurice Buckmaster, head of ‘F’ Section, had just about blown his top at hearing of the rejection of a candidate who was already a trained wireless operator as well as a fluent French speaker.

  But she did know the Sevenoaks scene intimately: could hear the clicking of the Morse key as the operator acknowledged receipt of message and signed-off with the letters AS, meaning ‘Stand by’, simultaneously buzzing for the message in its five-letter groups to be rushed to the cipher room where it would be translated into plain language and passed to Baker Street by teleprinter. Supposing Sevenoaks had received it at 1350, say, it would be chattering through on Baker Street’s teleprinter in plain language by two fifteen, and ‘F’ Section staff would then have twenty minutes to think about it, reach a decision and draft a reply: so by 1440 the decision affecting her own future movements would be rattling off the teleprinter in the Sevenoaks establishment, where ciphering would then take twenty minutes and Léonie Garnier, somewhere in Nancy, with her ivory-white skin and blue eyes, near-black hair and delicate, artistic-looking hat-making hands would have it at 1500.

  What she’d get first would be a code-group meaning I have a message for you, are you ready? to which she’d tap out in reply QRV – K: ‘Ready. Over…’

  Wherever she was. Couldn’t be far because Guillaume had arranged to see her back here at three thirty, which meant Léonie couldn’t be more than half an hour away – across town or out in its fringes somewhere. You could get a long way on a bicycle in half an hour. Delivering a hat, no doubt, or collecting one. She’d taken a hat-box with her on the bike anyway. And she’d have had the set hidden in some loft, or a church tower, or – factory building, empty office or roof-space or a friend’s apartment which if she was wise she would neither have used before nor use again.

  Nice-looking girl. A year or two younger than Rosie – twenty-two or three. Rather shy, quiet manner, smiles that were slow in coming as if she didn’t like to waste them. Rosie had apologized for putting her in such danger: the emergency procedure routine, especially in a town, wasn’t much less chancy than a game of Russian roulette. The German radio detectors would have caught that first transmission and the rapid acknowledgement from England, there’d be Boches listening out now for London’s further response and they’d know the SOE procedures well enough to be expecting it – as Léonie was – after the seventy-minute interval. So they’d be listening for her brief ‘Ready. Over’ and ‘message received’ transmissions – having perhaps got somewhere near to pinpointing her from the earlier exchange.

  Could have watchers down in the street by then. She’d be acutely aware of it, and very, very cautious; checking whatever might be visible from the windows before she emerged, and so forth. Even then knowing she wasn’t anything like safe, but emerging into the street casually like any other citizen going about her normal business, while taking every possible precaution to ensure she didn’t have a tail.

  Tailing her back here.

  Two o’clock. Reaching for another cigarette. Pulse-rate still faster than it should have been, but – improving. She wasn’t anything like properly fit: couldn’t have hoped to be, after a whole month just sitting around. Emotional disturbance was what upset the rhythm, she supposed. Tension, fright, in other words. One was scared half to death, quite often. It had always been more or less OK, she remembered, when one was on the move and things were actually happening; the worst strain had always been before and after.

  So think about something else – now. How it might be in 62–4 Baker Street, for instance, with the arrival of this signal, reactions of friends and colleagues, all of whom would earlier have written one off as dead. There’d be astonishment, even disbelief and suspicion of the authenticity of the message. But the rush to sort out the options, come to the right decision in a situation that might be complicated by factors of which here one had no knowledge – such as measures which might already have been taken with regard to ‘Hector’ – and with the rocket element in particular making for real urgency – having to tie it all up in twenty minutes flat wouldn’t allow for much jollification.

  But then there’d be some whoops of joy, she thought. Tonight, maybe, the pop of a cork or two. At least, a cork. Smiling to herself, thinking: Damn well better be…

  They’d pass the news to Lise, of course, right away. Glancing at the clock, thinking Might have already… Except Lise might not be in Baker Street, might be in one of SOE’s country-house establishments. Might even have been sent on leave. Wherever she was, when the news did get to her she’d be pole-axed.

  And Ben?

  Better if they didn’t tell him, she thought. At least, not unless the decision was to recall her forthwith.

  * * *

  At three twenty there was a rap on the door: she opened it to Guillaume, and he locked it again behind him.

  ‘All right?’

  She held up two crossed fingers. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘Had a date with a horse and it took less time than it might have. So –’ he flopped on to the sofa – ‘here I am, playing truant.’

  ‘Do your partners – Racke and Ruin, whatever – they know you have these outside interests?’

  ‘One of them does. The young one – son of Racke. The other’s – well, fr
ankly ga-ga.’

  ‘Were you a vet before the war?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Reaching to the pack of Gauloises. ‘Mind?’

  ‘They’re yours, why should I?’

  ‘No – your very own, a present from the management.’ Peering into the pack, ‘Been going it a bit, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have.’

  ‘Nerves?’

  ‘Well. You know. Time heavy on one’s hands.’ She saw a hint of mockery, and admitted, ‘That Boche downstairs—’

  ‘You coped marvellously. Should give you confidence in your disguise, eh?’

  ‘I’m sure he was wondering where he’d seen me before. And if he sees a poster now and it jogs his memory—’

  ‘Mistake to give the imagination too much rope, Rosie.’

  ‘Only thing is – you were with me, and you’re a friend of Pauline’s – which would have been obvious to him… But OK, you’re right, spilt milk… Were you a vet here in France?’

  ‘No. England. Boyhood and some schooling here though – hence the lingo.’

  ‘I suppose you and Son of Racke were students together, something like that?’

  ‘Something like it, yes.’ He’d lit their cigarettes. Sitting back now, checking the time again. ‘Come on, Léonie…’

  ‘Not actually late yet, is she?’

  ‘Well – not quite…’

  ‘There you are, then. What’s her background?’

  ‘Rosie – you know better than—’

  ‘Anyway, she’s nice.’

  ‘Understatement of the week. What I can tell you is she was born and brought up in Belgium, father a Venezuelan who skipped home in ’39. In the oil business – or was.’

  ‘What about Mama?’

  ‘Skipped too. Not as far as Venezuela, fortunately.’ Checking the time again. ‘Now, she is late.’

  ‘Using a bike, is she?’

  ‘Yep.’ He got up, went to the window, then pulled back from it. ‘What’s that specimen holding the wall up for, I wonder.’

  ‘Where?’ Beside him, and seeing the object of his interest. A man in exceptionally shabby clothes, propped with his back against the wall close to the door of a baker’s shop. Dark-blue cap, pale blob of a face, head forward as if dozing. Guillaume had taken a step back from the window: the ceilings were low, on this upper floor you weren’t all that far above street level.

  The man was obviously waiting for something, or someone. Or to see who came and/or went. Rosie said, ‘One thing I mustn’t forget – that shopping list, pistol and cash and so forth – another thing I’ll ask for is a wristwatch.’

  ‘Boches pinched yours, I suppose.’

  ‘Didn’t have it when I came to in the hospital at Morlaix. The Feldgendarmes who I was told picked me out of the car-wreck must have taken it.’

  ‘They would have.’ Looking round at her, shaking his head: still at the window but she’d gone back to her chair, perched on its arm. ‘But Rosie – in your shoes, I really would grab at the chance of getting home. The more I think about it – after all that—’

  ‘All that is over and done with. And I feel I need to. For instance – lacking a watch hasn’t bothered me because I’ve been in other people’s hands all the time – like a child… All right, I’m very grateful to all concerned, very, but—’

  ‘I’m still betting Baker Street will recall you.’

  ‘In which case – as I said—’

  ‘You’ve no husband, I imagine… Any boyfriend who matters?’

  She shrugged. ‘I keep getting asked that. There’s a man who wants to marry me, yes. Australian.’

  ‘Are you going to marry?’

  ‘Probably. As of this moment, he most likely thinks I’m dead. I imagine they’ll have—’

  ‘Hey.’ Pointing down at the street: Rosie moved up beside him again. A woman had come out of the baker’s shop, stopped on the pavement looking round as if she’d lost someone, while the man who’d been leaning against the wall had straightened – head up, and right behind her. Then – he must have spoken or yelled, right in her ear – and she spun round… He was laughing, she moved as if to swing at him with her shopping bag but he stepped inside her guard, and they embraced: were on their way then, his arm round her shoulders. About to pass out of sight behind a parked gazo van from which crates of cabbages were being delivered to a café-restaurant.

  Cabbage soup tonight, she guessed. In her mind, she could smell it. Guillaume asked her, ‘This Aussie’ll be thinking you’re dead, you say.’

  ‘Probably. Since Lise’s got back. He’ll have been in touch with Baker Street, badgering them for news of me, and—’

  ‘He’ll be in for a surprise now, then.’

  ‘Won’t he, just… You married?’

  ‘Me?’ Quick glance at her: shake of the head. ‘No.’

  She looked at the clock: three forty-two. Way past schedule. Sitting again, visualizing Léonie on her bicycle. She thought Guillaume might be the girl’s lover – or shaping up to be. That ‘understatement of the week’: and his tone, expression when he’d said it. Also that sharpish denial of other attachment: as much rebuttal as denial. And the look of him now: leaning across the low table to stub out his cigarette, he’d frozen in that position – head up, motionless, eyes on the door.

  Like a pointer. Even to the extent of having one paw still raised…

  Scrape of a key being pushed into its lock: the first sound she’d heard, but he must have heard the girl coming up the stairs. He was at the door unlocking it and jerking it open, then she was inside – he might have yanked her in, was reaching past her now to push the door shut, simultaneously hugging her: ‘At bloody last…’

  ‘There was a hold-up. On the Sarreguemines road.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nuisance, that’s all. They were searching lorries and vans mostly, and car drivers’ papers. I showed them the hat, wasn’t even asked my name. There’s a heck of a lot of military traffic heading north, by the way.’ Disengaging herself, she smiled at Rosie. ‘Hello. Sorry you had such a wait. I’ve got London’s answer, all we have to do is decode it.’

  * * *

  She’d fetched her one-time pad – a pad of microfilm pages, rice paper, easily destructible, even edible, each page for use only once – and a pencil and paper, magnifying glass for reading the micro-lettering, her own personal alphabetical table printed on a silk handkerchief, and Baker Street’s message; she’d pencilled it on the inside of a used envelope which she must have opened up and then re-folded into envelope shape again – so that it looked like nothing but an old, used envelope. She’d had it in her pocket with a receipted butcher’s bill stuffed into it.

  ‘OK. Key…’

  Three groups each of five letters to form the top line, in capitals. Rosie did the writing-down, Léonie dictated; Guillaume was in the kitchenette making what might pass for coffee. The cipher-text as received from London had to be written letter by letter horizontally below the key; translation into plain language came from reference to the table printed on the square of silk.

  The message wasn’t a long one.

  All here are overwhelmed with joy and send Zoé our love and congratulations. Include shopping-list in your Thursday transmission, also confirmation that Xanadu is usable. Listen out tonight midnight CET for detail of special courier visit probably Saturday with pick-up Sunday for courier with or without Zoé depending on further deliberation and investigation at this end.

  She’d called it out, word by word, commented as Guillaume came from the kitchen with mugs of coffee-substitute, ‘Seems as if they’re keeping their options open.’

  ‘Does, doesn’t it.’ He put the mugs down, took the decoded text from Léonie. Muttering to himself, ‘What investigations at that end…’

  ‘The rocket dimensions – if there’s any Intelligence data?’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ Glancing at her, then: ‘Keeping options open, mind you, doesn’t mean they’ll give you your head… But �
� all right – first thing is to be listening out at midnight, Léonie. From here, huh?’

  She’d nodded. Rosie asked her, ‘Spare transceiver here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Movement of her smooth, dark head, pointing upwards – attic or roofspace up there. ‘Receiver only – in case I was ever tempted to take a risk.’

  ‘Wise.’

  A shrug, as she gathered up her bits and pieces. ‘Careful, anyway.’

  ‘Better be.’ Guillaume smiled at her. ‘But listen – it might be best for Rosie to stay here with you – d’you think? Tonight anyway, with more guff coming in?’

  ‘Yes – definitely. If that couch would do you, Rosie? I’ve slept on it, it’s quite comfy.’

  ‘Do very well. Yes – thanks…’

  ‘Better all round.’ Guillaume was dispensing sugar-substitute. ‘Save time and a lot of running to and fro. Also exposure of you to the outside world. I’ll have to fetch your suitcase, that’s all. And I’ll bring some rations. Later on, Léonie. On second thoughts, I’ll send Willi with the case.’

  ‘I should be downstairs earning my living – now, I should. Rosie, you could let him in when he comes?’

  ‘Of course—’

  ‘Rather a big lad, Rosie, answers to the name Willi and looks savage, but he’s harmless – to his friends, anyway. Some time around five, when he knocks off – OK?’

  She’d nodded. ‘Is he your courier?’

  ‘God, no…’

  And he wasn’t telling her who was. Béa, maybe. She shrugged: ‘Anyway, thank you both. Where would I have been staying?’

  ‘A rooming house – west of here, other side of the railway station. We need to keep in touch though – with this message coming in tonight, and ours with your shopping-list out tomorrow. Better finalize that, hadn’t you? And it’s best to keep you off the streets as far as possible.’ He turned back to Léonie. ‘I’ll check the Xanadu field myself. I’ve business in that direction, and I’ll have a word with the Déchambauds – family with a cottage out that way, Rosie, it’ll be handy if this courier’s to be with us for a day. We could move you out there too. Now that’s a good idea. Directly from here to there – Saturday evening, say, in my gazo – then you’ll have your day with Baker Street’s courier, and either go back with him or – well, from there to wherever you are going.’