In at the Kill

by Alexander Fullerton

  ‘Your wife’s clever at making fine meals out of what you might call next to nothing…’

  His voice fading, losing the thread: distracted by noticing his host – who with the name of Jacques could only be Jacques Craillot – staring at these strangers. Taking in first Rosie, then Guillaume, and the gazo. Priest and hotelier shaking hands then: ‘Until soon, mon vieux.’ Priestly smile for each of them in turn: crossing the road then, heading towards the village centre. Craillot approaching, meanwhile, asking Guillaume, ‘Perhaps I can be of service?’ A glance at Rosie, and an inclination of the head: ‘Madame.’

  ‘Mam’selle actually, M’sieur Craillot.’

  ‘Ah – pardon…’

  Surprised, suspicious look: on guard, suddenly. But she had to handle this – take the lead. It was her brief, she was going to need a certain degree of authority here and she didn’t want the Craillots to get the impression she was Guillaume’s subordinate. Craillot, she guessed, must be a few years on the right side of fifty. About five-ten, fit-looking, with curly dark hair greying around the edges. A pleasant-enough face – even though it could have done with a shave. Guillaume asking him, ‘We were hoping – we aren’t too late for a meal?’

  ‘Ah, well.’ Transferring his gaze from Rosie. He was wearing dark, rather baggy trousers, a striped waistcoat over a blue shirt, white tie. ‘There’s sausage, and there’s cheese. You’ll have heard Father Patrice then, but that was fish pie – all gone. Bit late now, we were busy earlier. May I ask – you know my name, but –’ a glance towards the gazo – ‘just passing through, M’sieur?’

  Rosie cut in: ‘You are Jacques Craillot?’

  ‘Yes – as it happens—’

  ‘If you’d provide us with a meal – sausage or cheese would be fine – somewhere where we could talk with you and your wife privately? My name’s Justine Quérier; you won’t have heard of me, but Victor Dufay may have told you there’d be someone coming. I’m here by his direction, you might say.’

  ‘Dufay.’ A hand to his brow – looking puzzled… ‘I’m not sure I recall—’

  ‘He came here after he was visited by a man you have not met, by name of Michel Jacquard. Dufay may have mentioned him to you. You gave him – Dufay – certain information which he was able to pass to Michel, who passed it on to me. That is –’ quick glance round before she murmured it – ‘to SOE. I’m sorry to be so – direct, but I’m trying to save time here. Because – look, here’s the bad news. This morning we came by way of Troyes – Buchères, actually – from where I was hoping Monsieur Dufay would have brought me and introduced me to you personally, but our arrival there coincided with his arrest. At about midday, we saw it happening just as we arrived.’

  Shock had been visible momentarily: he’d absorbed it now. Shaking his head: ‘Since I don’t believe I know this person—’

  ‘If we’d got there an hour earlier they’d have caught us too. We were very lucky.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Gesturing helplessly. ‘I confess I’m – at a loss…’ Turning to Guillaume: ‘Monsieur—’

  ‘Rouquet. Guillaume Rouquet. I’m a vet, in Nancy. That’s a fact, but also –’ he’d looked round as Rosie had, seen there was no one near them. ‘As my colleague said, we’re cutting corners – nothing else for it – in view of what’s happened. I just have to tell you – I’m chef de réseau of SOE in Nancy. And Michel, whose visit to Dufay started this off, is Commandant, First Maquis Liaison Group.’ He checked round again: the nearest passers-by were on the other side of the road. ‘You understand, Dufay would have brought Justine down here and introduced her to you and your wife. Would have made this a lot easier, obviously. As it is, I’m acting as delivery boy, and somehow we’ve got to convince you we’re who we say we are. May we come in and talk – please?’

  * * *

  Colette was making the running now. She wasn’t more than thirty-five, Rosie guessed, a good ten or twelve years younger than her husband. Hour-glass figure – in a white blouse and dark skirt – attractive, heart-shaped face, tiny little ears, hair almost the colour Rosie’s was naturally, without the dye. Cleverer than her husband – perhaps – as well as younger. Michel had quoted Dufay as saying that Jacques wasn’t any too bright; he didn’t look or sound exactly stupid either, but he did seem to be leaving most of this to her. She asked Rosie now, ‘Who made the arrest? Gestapo?’

  Dufay might have been prejudiced for some reason, she thought. Shrugging: ‘A Boche in plain clothes – he’d come in a Wehrmacht staff car and my guess was SD, but he could have been either.’

  ‘And they’d set up a road-block but just let you through it?’

  Pushing the dish of sliced sausage towards her. There was no hostility in this questioning, only a perfectly understandable caution: questions for the sake of questions – taking soundings and giving these strangers a chance to trip themselves up. They were at the kitchen table, the four of them. The Craillots had two daughters still of school age who were spending this part of their summer holidays with relations in Châtillon, Jacques had mentioned – while still insisting, although more quietly than his wife, that he didn’t know anyone by the name of Dufay… Rosie answering Colette’s last question: ‘They stopped us, and had Guillaume out of the car to show his papers. They didn’t look at mine. The barrier wasn’t even in place, we were the first through.’

  ‘Why set it up at all, one might wonder?’

  ‘To net certain individuals, perhaps. That’s a point, though – if you know anyone who might call there or try to contact Dufay—’

  ‘We don’t. I’ve told you, my husband has told you—’

  ‘The fact is we were very lucky. If we’d got there earlier, for instance, been with him when they arrived—’

  ‘Have you ever been arrested?’

  ‘Yes.’ They were eating sausage with home-made pickle and bread and butter; Rosie taking advantage of her mouth being full, not to reply immediately. Knowing she could convince them she wasn’t an infiltrator, but concerned not to divulge certain things. About the ‘Wanted’ posters for instance – in case it scared them to the extent they wouldn’t risk taking her in, and because of the price on her head. One knew – from Dufay – that they were résistants, but nothing more than that, nothing at all about them as individuals – and a million francs being a lot of money. She’d nodded, swallowing. ‘Yes, I have. But listen – if we were caught and you were interrogated—’

  ‘Have you some reason to think it’s likely?’

  ‘We all know it can happen. If they knew of your connection with Dufay, for instance – if he let them know of it—’

  Jacques shook his head, frowning. ‘He wouldn’t. Damn sure he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Oh, Jacques – heaven’s sake!’

  Rosie smiling at him, Colette glaring. Rosie deciding she rather liked him. OK, so he wasn’t the brightest spark around – what the hell… He’d flushed with embarrassment. She went on – to Colette – ‘If the worst did happen and you were obliged to tell them anything, quote me as telling you I arrived by air from England last night. It’s all I would have told you. None of what I’m about to tell you now – which incidentally I can prove.’

  ‘Be glad to hear it, then.’

  In manner and looks Colette was not unlike Pauline, the milliner in Nancy, Guillaume’s girlfriend. Rosie was distracted for a moment, hearing Jacques Craillot telling Guillaume, ‘As much as you want. I collect from the burners in the forest, stock it here and distribute all over. It’s a useful side-line and it gets me around, of course – especially out there, you know?’

  ‘But that’s wonderful…’

  ‘Fetched up in the right place, eh?’

  Colette shushed him, and prompted Rosie: ‘You were about to say?’

  ‘I’ll cut it as short as possible. I was in Fresnes prison. I’d been arrested – by Gestapo – after a slight débâcle in Brittany. Actually I’d been in a car smash – these scars, d’you see? They don’t show much now, but it�
�s why I’m wearing dark make-up. Anyway I was pretending loss of memory. From Fresnes I was taken to the Gestapo building in Paris, Rue des Saussaies, and they flogged me – demanding all sorts of information which I didn’t give them – instead I fainted. But my back’s still striped from it, that’s part of my proof. I mean I’ll show it to you. An infiltrator wouldn’t get herself whipped, would she? Then from Fresnes they put me and some other SOE women on a train for Ravensbrück, it was stopped in Alsace by Maquis sabotage of the line, I made a bolt for it and I was shot. Here – this side of my head – feel it?’ Leaning to her, across the corner of the table. ‘This graze knocked me out, I think, but I was hit in the back too – back of this shoulder, the bullet came out here. So I was unconscious, blood all over, and they left me for dead, but Michel – the man who later went to see Victor Dufay—’

  ‘We’re supposed to believe this story?’

  Jacques was staring at her too: but intently, not cynically… Guillaume told them, ‘She passed through two other safe-houses and ended up in my office in Nancy. Just four days ago. The reason she made a bolt for it, from the train, was to divert the guards’ attention so another girl could get away – under the train and into the river Meurthe. That one passed through my hands too, we got her away to London – with very important information, which was Justine’s reason for doing what she did. We’d have arranged a pick-up and sent her back to England too, but your news about the rocket-casings reached us through Michel, Justine offered to take on the job, London agreed, and that’s why she’s here. In my own opinion she deserves a medal, Madame, not disbelief.’

  Rosie glancing at him quickly: reminded, and still far from comfortable with it. It was – a curiosity, more than anything: if it turned out to be untrue – if Marilyn had jumped the gun for instance and in the interval they decided against it – well, almost a relief…

  She asked Colette, ‘Want to inspect the scars?’

  ‘Perhaps in a moment. Tell me this first. Monsieur Rouquet said you offered to “take on the job”. What job, precisely?’

  ‘I’m a pianist. My brief is to investigate whether these are or are not rocket-casings, and inform my people in London.’

  ‘Then if it’s as we believe it is, they’d send bombers?’

  ‘If they did, we’d know in advance, and when the time came we’d have to get everyone out of their houses somehow. In fact right out of the village – I realize this having seen the place, it’s so hugger-mugger, isn’t it? But we would, we’d have to – with your help, of course, as a stranger here I couldn’t set it up. But – you provided this information, remember – and if it’s true – for God’s sake, those are weapons of mass destruction, there’d be thousands of lives at risk – and with no warning. Could change the course of the whole war, even – if they made our ports unuseable, so we couldn’t supply our armies? That’s the Boches’ hope and belief, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – apparently. But—’

  ‘And admittedly knocking this lot out won’t scotch that threat – only contribute to countering it – save a few hundred lives, maybe a thousand—’

  ‘And what about here? Heavens above, all our friends – and their children, even—’

  ‘I said, we’d warn them, get them out. With your help – somehow—’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  Gazing at Rosie: then at her husband. He muttered, ‘We’ve no option. You know we haven’t. She’s right, we started this, we have to!’

  ‘Have to what?’

  ‘Well – see it through. Co-operate, whatever’s—’

  ‘What I’m asking –’ Rosie interrupted – ‘is for you to let me stay here – help out in any way you like, in return for board and lodging. Actually I’d pay my way. You’d pass me off as a sort of distant sister-in-law who’d been going through a bad patch and needs help – I was hurt in an air-raid, had slight brain-damage. I’m – you know, slow. But my brother married your sister—’

  ‘If I’d even had a sister! As everyone here knows I never did!’

  ‘You might invent one? One you’ve never let on about because you couldn’t stand her, or – brought up by some other relative, maybe?’

  ‘My God.’ Spreading her hands, glancing at her husband. ‘And she says she’s slow!’

  ‘We could make it a cousin, couldn’t we?’ Jacques spoke quietly, reasonably. ‘For instance if your aunt Adèle—’

  Rosie agreed quickly, ‘A cousin would do. In fact better…’

  Chapter 12

  She was woken by the noise of a car tearing through the village. Petrol engine, therefore Boche – evident not only from the sound, but from the scent of exhaust moments later in the still night air. Decidedly cool night air, to a body straight out of a warm bed. She’d tumbled out of it to the window barely awake, in fright that it was Gestapo coming here – and as background to it a vision of Dufay breaking under interrogation, naming the Craillots, L’Auberge la Couronne… Half-asleep logic insisting – why else turn off the main road? Nothing else here… The car had rushed by though, westward, the noise at an explosive peak just as she reached the window: she barely saw it, had only an impression so vague it too could have stemmed from her imagination, that hurtling shadow in the moonlight.

  Gone. But the engine-note falling suddenly, steeply…

  Turning into the manor? Of course…

  Crouching at the window, listening: getting her breath and heartbeat back under control. The gateway to the manor was only just along the road there, two hundred, two-fifty metres away, no more. She heard the scrape of tyres on gravel, then the car’s engine picking up again, driving on – into the manor’s walled and wooded grounds. Colette had said the house wasn’t visible from the road, and trees were indicated on Dufay’s map. She checked the time – by moonlight. Just after four. Shivering, dragging the lower part of the sash window shut. The sky had cleared since she’d come up to bed at about midnight, and the land down to the stream and beyond it was patched in black and silver. Full moon, she guessed – somewhere overhead, out of her sight, but it had been as near as dammit full the night before. And before it was much less than full, St Valéry-sur-Vanne might look very different. Certainly the village centre, all around the factory. If it was acceptable as fact to London that the tubes were rocket-casings – as Jacques and Colette firmly believed, all the more so now that the factory was working three shifts, seven days a week, with completed casings – ‘les tubes’, they called them – rapidly filling up available under-cover storage space. The time to hit the place, she thought, would be now – destroying not only the works but perhaps more importantly the past few weeks’ production before they got it on the road to Germany. Colette’s explanation, in their talk last evening around the kitchen table, had been, ‘Shortage of trucks, they’re saying. Tied up maybe collecting from other places. Must be that, because these are specially fitted ones. Mind you, we’re hearing from all over that there’s a mass of heavy transport on the roads; also that with most of the Seine bridges blown or bombed a lot of it’s being abandoned, up north. Vicinity of Rouen, particularly. They could be stuck in that lot. But you’re right – needing the things so badly – which they must, wouldn’t otherwise be keeping Marchéval’s so hard at it, would they – they aren’t idiots, aren’t going to leave them here, are they?’

  ‘Squeezing all they can out of Marchéval’s while they can.’ Jacques, smothering a yawn. With supper – soup, bread and cheese – they’d drunk red wine out of bottles without labels. On their own, the three of them, the auberge being shut on Sunday evenings. He’d added, ‘Writing’s on the wall for them, and they must know it.’

  Colette had crossed her fingers. ‘Soon, please God. Paris first, then –’ flapping her hands like shooing chickens – ‘to the Rhine – into it or over it, eh?’

  ‘What are your plans, for when they pull out?’

  A grunt from Jacques: ‘Celebrate! What else?’

  Colette had sniffed, thrown him a cau
stic glance. Telling Rosie then – in a designedly adult-to-adult manner – ‘Maquis’ll come out fighting, ahead of the first troops getting here. There’s a message personnel to come: Martin’s uncle breeds horses that win races. That’s what will trigger it. I should tell you, we’re in frequent touch with the boys out there. Jacques and his foraging for charcoal, you know? Takes them whatever they need that we can get. A lot of help comes from local farmers. They pay for their charcoal in produce too – suits us, what makes it worthwhile, you might say. But the boys are well armed – we’ve helped with that – and they had weaponry instructors flown in – oh, six months ago. Moved on, since…’

  It had been a late supper; by the time they’d sat down to it Guillaume should have been back in Nancy. He’d left at about three in the afternoon, with ample supplies of fuel and two packs of Gauloises supplied by Rosie. He’d refused to accept more than two.

  She’d asked the Craillots, ‘Are you sure there isn’t any proof you’ve overlooked that they’re rocket-casings?’

  ‘Proof, no. Indications, however – yes. One is the speed-up in production – which seems to match the military situation – don’t you agree? As Jacques said, squeezing what they can out of the place while they can. Another’s the very fact that still nobody’s allowed to know what they are.’ She’d shaken her head. ‘It’s not proof. And I’ll tell you – Justine… All right, we’ll help you. But if your people aren’t convinced, I won’t be shedding tears. I don’t want bombing – nor does Jacques – eh?’

  ‘If it could be avoided – no. But – look, we’re saying it’ll only be a week or two, and so on – it may not end that quickly. The Allied advance could be stalled. Boches might counter-attack – meanwhile, Marchéval’s still churning those things out. I see entirely that if it can be stopped, it must be.’

  Colette tight-faced, shaking her head. He asked her, ‘Don’t hear the sound of the guns yet, do you?’

  ‘That’s silly. Armies move fast, in modern war. This isn’t 1914, heaven’s sake!’