Shadows over Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  “Why didn’t you get the airmen out immediately?” asked Henri.

  “They refused to go.”

  “What!” cried Antoine, jumping up from the seat he had only a moment before taken. “The idiots! Don’t they know they endanger her life? It has always been understood that the protection of the safe-house proprietors comes first. The airmen could only be arrested again—she could be shot!”

  “They must understand,” said Lise, “though they do not speak a word of French, and Mme. Guillaume knows no English. My own is so limited I could do nothing to remedy the situation. They are very agitated and ill. I think they have spent many very difficult weeks getting this far from Germany. Their uniforms were filthy and torn when they arrived, and Madame took them and burned them. Now they seem to think that if they go out wearing the civilian clothes she gave them, especially while the place is under surveillance, they will be arrested as spies. It’s obvious they have been through a terrible ordeal. I believe they would be more reasonable otherwise. But they are so desperate for the rest and so reluctant to go out on the run again.”

  “It is still no excuse,” Antoine said staunchly.

  “I have nearly convinced them to leave,” continued Lise, “but now I have no more available safe houses. I spent the last hour trying to contact everyone I knew, and no one can squeeze in even two more. Henri, I was hoping you or one of the others might have something.”

  Henri did not waste even the moment necessary to answer her. He was on the phone by the roll-top desk almost before her request was completed. He asked the operator for several numbers while everyone watched expectantly.

  “Allô!” he said at last into the receiver. “M. Leprous? I thought you might want to know that my friend M. L’Oiselet brought by two books for you. Shall I drop them by your house?” There was a pause while Henri listened. He nodded his head slowly, his mouth spreading into a grin. “Merci . . . and au revoir,” he said. He hung up the phone and turned back to the group with a satisfied smile on his face. “Voilà!” he said. “It is arranged.”

  He jotted down the address on a slip of paper and handed it to Lise.

  “Oh, Henri! You are a savior,” exclaimed Lise, and the intensity of her dark eyes lightened a moment. Her gravity it appeared might also contain room for some laughter under the right conditions. “Now I only have to get the men out of there,” she added, as if it were a small matter.

  “Why don’t you take M. Tanant with you,” suggested Jean Pierre off-handedly. “As an Englishman, perhaps he could be of some help with them.”

  “Merci, but I can take care of it, mon père.”

  Logan couldn’t tell if it was defensiveness or mistrust in her tone. Then she added, “There is no need to involve anyone unnecessarily.” If there was apology in her voice, it was more than likely directed at the priest.

  “He has come to help us, Lise,” replied Jean Pierre firmly, but at the same time gently. “I think we should let him do that, don’t you?”

  She hesitated for a second, though it seemed much longer, as the entire room waited in silence.

  In the meantime, Logan found himself growing steadily more perturbed with this bunch. He had risked his neck to come here for their sakes, and now three out of five of them were treating him as if he were but one step removed from the Germans. He was not yet sure of the priest, whom he thought might simply be testing him, however civilly he chose to do it. Logan was just about to tell this woman, who was so arrogantly assessing him with her critical eyes, that she need not do him any favors, when she spoke.

  “If he is willing . . .” she said.

  It might have been nice to hear, “Merci, it would be helpful to have him come,” instead of the grudging consent she finally gave. But he had not come here for thanks or appreciation. If he could help, that would be the best way to prove his loyalty and good intentions. So he swallowed his annoyance and merely nodded his assent.

  A few minutes later, he found himself walking down the rue de Varennes with a very silent resistance agent at his side.

  23

  First Assignment

  They walked for ten minutes before Lise finally turned toward Logan and spoke.

  “I bear you no grudges, M. Tanant.”

  “You’re not afraid I have come to impose my will on your organization?”

  A corner of her mouth curved upward, amused. It was not a smile, but was as close as she had yet come.

  “I see Claude has accosted you already,” she said. “He is forever thinking someone is trying to take over our operation. He imagines bogeymen everywhere. But I have no such fear. Even if it were your intention, you won’t get far with Claude and Antoine.”

  “Then, what are you afraid of?” asked Logan. “From me, that is?”

  “It has more to do with trust than fear.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Trust is a commodity I have learned to dole out skeptically and scantily this last year.”

  She paused as a bicycle-powered velo-taxi came into sight. She waved a hand and it stopped. After she gave their destination to the driver and she and Logan had settled themselves into the rickshaw-like seat, she took up her speech again. “I don’t like it, M. Tenant. I despise this world in which I must exist. I despise what it forces us to become. But it is the only world I have left. I must live in it and still keep my honor. Someday I hope things will be different . . .” She said no more, leaving whatever else there may have been of the thought unfinished. She was not accustomed to revealing her heart to many.

  “I think I understand,” replied Logan, saying no more. He allowed the sincerity in his voice and eyes to say the rest.

  In another twenty minutes they had reached the building in which Madame Guillaume occupied a small flat. They had departed the cab a block away and walked the rest of the way to the building so they could reconnoiter the area. Lise feared that if the Gestapo did indeed have the place under watch, it might look suspicious for her to return so soon after her last visit. But a thorough examination of the street revealed that either Mme. Guillaume was mistaken or else the Gestapo had given up. Logan unwillingly reminded himself that there was one other possibility—that the Nazis had already raided the place. But he said nothing.

  Inside the building, all appeared peaceful and normal. They climbed the stairs to the second floor, and Lise led the way to the door, where she knocked using a prearranged signal—two knocks, a pause of two seconds, and two more quick knocks. Only a minute passed before there was a response from inside, but to Logan it seemed inordinately long.

  At last the door opened a crack. The woman on the other side smiled broadly when her eyes lighted on Lise. She opened the door the rest of the way and hurriedly ushered them in.

  She was a gentle old soul, plump and wrinkled, with eyes that drooped slightly at the corners, giving her a sorrowful look like a woebegone basset hound. Yet whenever she smiled, the expression of her face was warm enough to make up for the eyes, and if there was indeed sorrow in her life, it seemed to make up for that too.

  “Ah, Lise! I did not think you were ever coming back,” said the woman as she placed a chubby arm around Lise and propelled her into the living room.

  “Have you seen any more of the Gestapo?”

  “Non, thank goodness!” she replied. “I think it was a neighbor. I heard rumors that he was a collaborator, but I could not believe it. He has lived next to me for twenty years. We made too much noise last night getting the Anglais gentlemen in here. He must have reported me.”

  “But they are not watching you now,” said Lise. “If that is so, why have they not yet made a move against you?”

  “It is most peculiar.”

  “Where are your men?” asked Logan. Whatever the Germans were up to, he doubted there was time to sit around analyzing it.

  “This is M. Tanant,” said Lise, in response to the other woman’s questioning look. “He is here to help us.”

  “Welcome to my h
ouse, Monsieur,” said the lady. “Please come this way.”

  They followed her down a short hall and into a dimly lit bedroom. There were two beds in the room, and on each a man was lying. A youth of about eighteen years was bent over one of the beds holding a cup for its occupant.

  “That is my nephew, Paul,” explained Mme. Guillaume, motioning toward the boy. “I was afraid to be here alone if the Boche should come, so I asked him if he would stay with me.”

  Logan marveled at the woman. She appeared so fainthearted; what could have prompted her to take on such a harrowing task? No doubt she was like so many of her courageous countrymen and women who saw a need and did not stop to wonder whether she had the heart for it before offering her aid.

  Logan did not have the chance to ponder this long, for the men on the beds required his attention. One had already started up to a sitting position at the unexpected intrusion. His eyes darted nervously toward these newcomers, and did not rest until he realized he recognized one of them. The other man simply lifted his head off the pillow and let it fall back in fatigue.

  “Tisna the Germans, is it noo, Bob?” he said in a voice that sounded as if he hardly cared anymore.

  “I’m definitely no German!” answered Logan in English, striding up to the man’s bedside. “An’ what else cud I be but a muckle Scotsman just like yersel’, lad!” he added, in the thickest brogue he could muster.

  “Hoots!” exclaimed the man. “I must hae deed an’ gone to haeven! Whaur be ye frae? I’m a MacGregor mysel’ o’ Balquhidder.” As he spoke the sallow Scottish face spread into a huge grin, perhaps the first in many weeks.

  “Logan Macintyre o’ Glasgow,” said Logan, not even realizing his error in revealing his real name. The Highland airman stretched out to take Logan’s extended hand, then, thinking better of it, instead threw his arms all the way around Logan in an emotional embrace.

  There were tears in MacGregor’s eyes as he fell back on his pillow. “I’m thinkin’ ye’re as close as I’ll be coming t’ me bonny Highland fer some spell, laddie!”

  “’Tis muckle nonsense, man!” exclaimed Logan. “We’re here t’ get ye back on yer way. Are ye up fer it?”

  MacGregor glanced over at his companion. “What do ye say, Bob?”

  The one whom MacGregor addressed as Bob rose and extended his hand toward Logan. He was as worn and emaciated as his companion, and his clothing was the same coarse garb that Mme. Guillaume had provided. There was, however, a certain cool refinement about him that the Scotsman had lacked.

  “I’m Robert Wainborough,” he said in a genteel Eaton voice.

  Logan knew the name. The elder Wainborough was an M.P. and a baronet. But Robert had carried the name to new heights as an ace R.A.F. pilot and hero of the Battle of Britain.

  “Well, Wainborough,” said Logan, too hurried and anxious to be impressed by this celebrity before him, “shall we be on our way?” His words were half statement, half question.

  “Look, old man,” he replied, then paused as he sat back tiredly on the bed and reached for a pack of cigarettes, “we don’t want to endanger these people. We’re ready to go. But this is the first real roof we’ve had over our heads since we flew that German coop two months ago. We thought here was a place where we could rest a bit, and start to feel like human beings again. We’ve been dodging patrols, living in ditches, stealing food—Lord, it’s been miserable!”

  He paused and lit his cigarette with a shaky hand. “When they told us we had to leave here before we’d even had a full night’s sleep—it was more than we could bear!”

  “I understand,” said Logan solemnly, but he wasn’t sure he actually did any more than he had really understood Lise earlier. He had been through his own trials and doubts, it is true, but he wondered if it was possible that he would ever understand either Wainborough or Lise in the way their words were truly meant. But before he had the chance to reflect further on what his future might hold, he was jolted back to reality; Wainborough was speaking again.

  “Would you please explain it to them?” he said. “I flunked French at Eaton—never had much of an aptitude for languages.”

  “I’m sure they know, Wainborough,” replied Logan. But he turned back to Lise and briefly related all that had passed between them. Then to his countryman he said, “I wish you could stay and recuperate longer, but we better start thinking about being on our way.”

  “Mac is in rotten shape,” said Wainborough, “though he’d never admit it.”

  “Can you walk, Mac?”

  “Point me in the direction o’ me bonny Balquhidder, an’ then try t’ stop me, lad!” he replied with more spirit than energy. With the words he gathered his remaining strength and, with the help of Paul and Wainborough, got himself into a sitting position.

  Logan turned to Lise. They spent a few moments discussing details of a plan that was beginning to form in Logan’s mind. It was several miles to the new safe house, but a tram ran about four blocks from the Guillaume place that would take them almost to the doorstep of their destination. They had merely to get the soldiers safely those four blocks. Logan wished they could move under the cover of darkness, but there was no time to wait for nightfall. Besides, roaming the city at night presented its own hazards. At length Logan turned back to the R.A.F. boys.

  “Have you lads seen Gone with the Wind yet?”

  “What?” exclaimed Wainborough. “Have you gone daft, man? What do we care about movies for now?”

  Logan smiled. “Have you seen it?”

  Both men nodded, but cast each other puzzled looks as they did.

  “Well, you two are about to play Ashley Wilkes, and I’ll assume the role of Rhett Butler after a questionable evening at Belle Watling’s place.”

  Yet another moment longer the airmen remained confused, until the light dawned on MacGregor as he remembered the scene where Rhett saved Ashley from the Union soldiers by claiming he and Ashley had just spent a drunken evening at a house of ill repute.

  “I got ye!” said Mac.

  “Then why don’t you explain it to our bemused war hero?” said Logan with good-natured sarcasm, “while I attend to a few other details.”

  24

  Déjà Vu

  The morning was well-advanced when three drunken rousters, well doused with Mme. Guillaume’s last bottle of sherry, made their wobbly way down the stairs to the first floor and out onto the sunlit street. They could not have made a better job of it had several bottles of the sherry been inside them rather than merely splashed about their head and clothes. Even Wainborough got into character and could have passed an audition for the part with ease.

  They had no sooner exited the building, squinting painfully from the blast of light, when a French policeman loomed up before them. Logan did not falter a moment, but he dared not look at his companions’ faces to see their reactions.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Le Gendarme!” said Logan, affecting an extravagant bow, nearly stumbling into the man’s arms.

  The policeman looked disdainfully down his long nose at the three. “It is early for such behavior, non?” he said sternly.

  “Oui . . .” answered Logan, “unless you have been at it all night, eh?” he chuckled, hoping to appeal to this man’s natural French love of a good time.

  “You are fortunate I am in a generous mood,” said the policeman. “But get yourselves home quickly—the Germans are not so benevolent.”

  “Merci beau coup! Vous êtes très bien. . . . You are a good man, most kind,” Logan rattled on. Then he thrust out the bottle of sherry he was holding. “Please share a drink with us.”

  “Get on your way before I lose my patience!”

  Logan bowed again with a sickening grin; then he and his companions staggered on their way.

  “You’ve got nerve, old chap,” said Wainborough, beginning to reevaluate his opinion of this Scotsman who had come to rescue him. “I just aged ten years, but you didn’t even flinch.”

  “What’d
ye expect?” exclaimed MacGregor. “He’s a Scot, isn’t he?” He didn’t bother to admit that his own heart had nearly stopped at first sight of the gendarme.

  Glancing in a shop window, Logan saw that Lise and Paul were behind them at some distance in case they happened to need someone to run interference for them. But he did not kid himself about the danger. He knew too much was at stake for them to risk their organization for the three of them. If serious trouble came, they would be on their own. The loss of three Britons was a small price to pay to keep their network functional. He knew they would help if they could, but they could not compromise their larger work.

  By now they had turned down another street, a wider avenue with more midday traffic—mostly bicycles and pedestrians, though there were also a few automobiles. Logan scrutinized their surroundings, thinking that the tram line should not be too much farther, when partway down the street he spied some commotion. A German van had pulled to a stop in the middle of the thoroughfare. His stomach lurched as he saw the S.S. soldiers barricading the street.

  “We’re finished!” moaned Wainborough.

  Just as they passed a narrow alley, Logan nudged his companions into it, even though he saw immediately it was a dead end.

  “Wait here,” he said, then stepped back onto the sidewalk and ambled to an adjacent shop window, where he paused as if shopping. In a moment Lise and Paul were at his side, feigning the same activity.

  “What’s going on?” asked Logan.

  “Looks like a snap check,” answered Lise. “I doubt it has anything to do with us. It’s just a rotten coincidence. The tram stops around the corner beyond the barricade.”

  “Then we have to get past it,” said Logan. Not only did they want the tram, but he now saw that a similar barricade was being installed at the other end of the street from where they had just come. They were trapped between the two groups of soldiers. “Those Germans are thorough!” he said.