The Collaborators

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Miche, what the hell’s the matter? Too strong for your stomach, is it? You amaze me. I’d have thought you were just the lad for the rough stuff.’

  ‘Rough stuff? Don’t lecture me about rough stuff, Pajou,’ snarled Boucher.

  He clenched his fist and studied it as he tried to articulate his feelings. There was a line of reasoning which started there somehow…a fist was a fist…and a face was a face…and sometimes it was natural they should meet…but buckets, and women…

  Pajou said, ‘Look, mate, don’t take it so hard. There’s no lasting harm done, she’ll be back on the job tonight.’

  Boucher looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘True,’ asserted Pajou. ‘She doesn’t know all that much. Bait for Boche soldiers, that’s her game. But she’s picked up from her boyfriend that his gang’s planning a raid on some canal barges soon, and I reckon if she can squeeze the details out of him, we can scoop up the lot.’

  ‘You mean she’ll betray her man?’ said Boucher indignantly.

  ‘No,’ laughed Pajou. ‘She’s done that already. He’s the only one whose real name she knows. Now we get her working for us so she can save him! Clever, eh? We promise he’ll come to no harm and she co-operates.’

  ‘She didn’t look like she was co-operating in there.’

  ‘Just a final taste of what she can expect if she double-crosses us,’ said Pajou. ‘Love and fear, that’s how you tame ‘em, old Fiebelkorn says. I’d better get back. I’ll tell ‘em you’d eaten a dicey oyster, turned your stomach. Regards to the lovely Hélène.’

  Whistling cheerfully Pajou turned and re-entered the room.

  Boucher went down to the car. It wasn’t so bad, he reassured himself. Arlette was going to be all right. Christ, she’d probably had worse times with some of the kinky customers she got. All the same, it made you think. If this was the way things were going, it wasn’t going to be so easy to kiss and make up after the Boche had gone. And they would go, of course. No one stayed for ever.

  Suddenly he made up his mind. He would buy the house at Moret. Not in his own name, though. In Hélène’s name. He would be her respectable businessman husband, working all week in the city. For once in his life he’d look to the future. For Hélène a nest, for himself a bolt-hole.

  He got into the car and accelerated away to tell her.

  A few miles to the south beneath the leafy dome of the great Cedar of Lebanon which Jussieu had planted in the Jardin des Plantes two hundred years before, Michel Boucher was the topic of conversation.

  Mai had offered the subject as one of neutral common interest, and Janine had gladly accepted it for the same reason.

  ‘He’s got a good heart,’ she said. ‘But he doesn’t think. Working for you people could bring him a lot of trouble one day.’

  He sucked deeply on his pipe and glanced sideways at her.

  She interpreted his glance as the comment it was.

  ‘Yes. I know it’s incongruous, me sitting here saying things like that. That’s the trouble with life isn’t it? It’s all mixed up instead of being clear-cut and simple. Miche is kind and generous, but he’s also a Géstapiste. Maman is prejudiced and grasping but she’s still my loving caring mother. You’re the enemy. Yet, though I’m here against my will, I somehow feel quite willing to be here, talking to solid, reliable Monsieur Scheffer from Alsace whose company I almost enjoy.’

  The pleasure Mai felt at hearing these words was far from professional, but inside him, the Abwehr officer, the enemy, was telling solid Monsieur Scheffer, ‘She’s vulnerable. Work on her. She wants to talk. Squeeze her!’

  Sadly he listened. But where should he push her to? Now that she was out of Valois’s flat (definitely at Delaplanche’s instigation; he’d established a link between the lawyer and the owner of the new apartment) what was the best way to use her? With the hold he had on her, he could probably force almost anything from her; what did she know of any interest?

  He said, ‘Yes, I see what you mean. And your husband too…’

  ‘More than anyone he’s two people,’ she agreed sadly. ‘Loving husband, loving father. And the other, the cold, distant unremembering man your bullets turned him into.’

  ‘He’s no better?’

  ‘Sometimes he’s almost his old self again,’ she said. ‘But I daren’t relax because he can change to the other almost in a breath. It’s the children I worry about…Céci’s too young to really notice but Pauli, he notices…’

  ‘How does Jean-Paul pass his time?’ asked Mai casually. ‘Does he see much of his friend, the one whose flat you stayed in?’

  ‘Christian? No, not since we moved on. To tell the truth, I don’t know what he does or where he goes…sometimes I think…’

  She shook her head, not in denial but in exasperated self-reminder that this was not some old family friend she was talking to, but a German intelligence officer. It was odd, though; with everyone - her parents, Sophie, Christian -she had to hold something back. Not always the same thing, but something. Yet with this man, where she must always be most on her guard, she somehow felt most relaxed.

  It was his job, she reminded herself bitterly. And he was good at it.

  And by her side Mai caught her hesitation and guessed its cause.

  Jean-Paul went she did not know where, returned late, ignored her questions. Normally the answer would be obvious - another woman. And Janine must have considered this answer and, even though neither the man nor the times were normal, had not been able to discard it.

  But the man and the times suggested other possibilities, and Günter Mai’s heart sank as his professional mind computed the likelihood that a Boche-hating former soldier like Simonian would be recruited by the Resistance.

  And if he had been, it was his job to pursue and destroy him.

  7

  It was a bright, clear night of early July with a slice of moon lighting up the poplar-lined towpath like a stage spot.

  ‘This is no good,’ whispered Pierre. ‘It’s like the Rue de Rivoli at Christmas.’

  André looked upwards and sniffed the air.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Wind’s in the east, and that bank of cloud over there will black us out long before we need to move.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Your trouble is, you’re not an angler, Pierre! When you’ve spent as long as I have on exposed river banks, you get to understand the weather.’

  ‘I spent long enough this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, and a right idiot you looked. I had to tell people you were a bit simple!’

  The canal like the majority of the waterways in and around the city was lined with fishermen most weekends and evenings. What had formerly been a sport was now a method of supplementing meagre and monotonous food rations. That day André’s group had used their fishing as a cover for concealing weapons and explosives along the banks to be picked up that night. This meant that if one of their number happened to be stopped on his way to the rendezvous, at least he wouldn’t be carrying anything incriminating. Curfew breaking was always serious, but sometimes you could persuade a sympathetic cop that sex or booze had been your downfall and get away with it. Sympathetic Germans were becoming harder to find, however, as acts of sabotage and assault increased.

  The heat of the July day had long since vanished. The night breeze quickened along the length of the canal, bringing with it a dank chill which gave more than one of the men waiting a welcome excuse to shiver. There were eight of them in the team; André, Pierre and Jean-Paul Simonian plus four others were the attack force, while Henri was providing back-up in a wood two kilometres to the east. The plan was for the raiders to join him there, pass the night in the open, then filter into the great Sunday rush of hopeful anglers and so get back to the city unnoticed on Sunday night.

  Personally Simonian thought it was all too clever and they’d have been much better advised to head straight back to Paris under cover of dark. Nor did he care for the complication of
leaving their weapons hidden on the canal bank for collection at night. But he had resolved to take orders till he felt sufficiently accepted to voice opinions.

  He glanced impatiently at his watch and then up at the sky. The cold breeze was taking its time in dragging the blanket of cloud across the moon.

  ‘Relax, Jean-Paul. Plenty of time,’ said André soothingly.

  Fifteen minutes later his fears about the complexity of André’s plan had been partially allayed. They’d successfully picked up all the weapons and explosives where they’d been hidden and were now approaching the main waterway where, if André’s information was right, the three supply barges would be moored above the lock. Part of the plan was to blow open the lock gates and sink one of the barges right in the middle of the basin.

  ‘There they are!’ whispered André. ‘One, two, three. What did I tell you?’

  He sounded as gleeful as if the job were already done.

  Simonian viewed the squat hulk of the silhouetted barges with less enthusiasm. He’d always found canals with their unnatural straight lines, and flat-bottomed boats with their lack of either power or grace, simply depressing.

  They were attacking two to a barge, with André in support with his Sten gun wherever he might be needed. This part of the operation had been meticulously rehearsed. Timing was of the essence. The German deck guards had to be gunned down simultaneously so that the attack on one barge wouldn’t alert the next. Four Germans to a barge, two on watch, two below sleeping. The deck secure, the next move was to get below and take the other two before they were fully awake. Pierre, who was very nervy, was all for dropping a couple of grenades down the hatch first, but André said, ‘No. The crew are French lads, doing their job. What’s up with you, Pierre? Arlette giving you a bad time?’

  ‘She had bad feelings about this job,’ admitted Pierre. ‘She didn’t want me to come.’

  ‘First time ever!’ joked André, relieving the tension. But Simonian, who was paired with Pierre, didn’t rate very highly the French crew’s chances. Pierre was going to blast anything that moved.

  Now they were in position, crouched behind the low wall which separated the towpath from the plantation of plane trees they’d just come through. Pierre was checking his watch, mouthing figures as he counted them down to the agreed deadline. Simonian focused his gaze on the familiar yet fearsome silhouette of the nearest German guard, great-coated, rifle slung over the shoulder with its fixed bayonet rising like a steeple above the smooth cupola of the coalscuttle helmet. The other German joined his comrade, offered him a cigarette. They lit up. Their faces looked young, almost childlike, in the glow of the match. They’d had it too easy, thought Simonian. Such indiscipline wouldn’t be found among trained and experienced men, expecting trouble. These two probably congratulated themselves every time they heard a bulletin from the Eastern Front. A cushy job on a cushy posting. France, the young man’s dream, where the German soldier with his endless Marks was king. Well, soon they would realize their error.

  ‘… three…two…one…GO!’

  Pierre’s scream took Simonian by surprise and he was a second behind the other man in going over the wall. He had his pistol ready, however. André was the only one of them with a truly automatic weapon, the Sten, so they had to get close to their targets to make sure of them. It was no use blazing away from fifty feet with a pistol. On the other hand, there was nothing like the rattle of gun fire to spread fear and alarm, so as he ran forward he let off a couple of snap-shots towards the barge.

  Or tried to.

  He was pressing the trigger but nothing was happening. Jammed, perhaps? It happened easily. But that easy explanation was crowded from his mind by the awareness that neither to left nor right was there any sound but rushing feet and the clicking of useless hammers on unresponsive cartridges.

  And then the moon came out. No, not the moon, which before had merely seemed like a theatrical spotlight. These were genuine lights, blossoming from either side along the towpath and now joined by beams from the barges themselves as the grinning soldiers pulled back tarpaulins from search lights and from the machine guns that were mounted alongside them.

  ‘Hands up! Stand still!’ called a voice in fluent French. ‘Resistance will be useless. Don’t make things worse for yourselves.’

  They’d slowed down as the shock of the lights hit them. The wise thing was now to obey, to stand quite still, to wait for the triumphant Germans to herd them away to some quiet cell where they could sit and ponder who had betrayed them, and who they would betray in a few hours.

  That is probably what they would have done. But from somewhere behind them in the plantation came a pathetic flurry of shots from a hand-gun. One of the search lights shattered. But there was still more than enough light from the machine gunners to mow down the line of attackers as they turned to flee. Simonian was already diving for the ground. A bullet clipped his shoulder as he fell, but he felt no pain. Pierre too was down and hit. Perhaps not badly? There was only a thin trickle of blood down his back. Then he rolled cumbersomely over as if desperate for a last look at the sky, and revealed the shattered ruin of his chest. ‘Arlette…’ he breathed, whether in accusation or simple farewell Simonian had no way of knowing. In any case, he was himself no longer there by the canal. He was in a trench, a shallow defensive scrape on the foothills of the Vosges, and all around him his companions of more than a year lay dead or dying. Their deaths would bring more pain than he could bear, and part of his life and his soul would be cut away beyond all hope of retrieval.

  Not again! Not again! He pushed himself to his feet with his right arm, aware for the first time that the left was useless. The German guns had for the moment swung from the fallen men and were devastating the plantation in a blind effort to destroy their unexpected assailant, who had to be André; André who had kept his own revolver with him after all. A leader wasn’t bound by his own rules, Simonian would remember that. But not now. He was off and running, not towards the plantation where bullets were pumping into tree trunks with a noise like cleavers on a goose farm at Christmas; no, he went in the only direction possible, towards the water.

  He had surprise on his side, but not for long. The soldiers on the barge missed him with their first two shots, but the third caught him in the side and the fourth burnt through his thigh. He fell forward. No ground came up to meet him but a long space, then cold black water. He’d reached his goal but with one leg and one arm out of action his success looked likely to be his death also.

  Deep down he went. Instinct sent him reaching up in search of light and air, but each time he tried he crashed against an obstacle as long and solid as a coffin lid. He was under a barge, moving with the slow current down its whole endless length. He kicked out with his good leg and arm but felt no respondent surge of speed. Slowly he tumbled and turned, felt long tongues of weed lick and caress him, pushed upwards once more in fear and revulsion, hit the coffin lid, sank down again. He knew he was finished because his mind was seeking a god to pray to. The current drifted him slowly down the pale line of classical deities, marble whitely gleaming in long neglected arbours; past the palest of them all, the grey Galilean with his blood-stained palms; plunged him suddenly into a whirlpool of colour where the human form was parodied instead of perfected in a welter of limbs and animal heads; sank him briefly into a pool of serenity where a peaceful buddha contemplated his own smooth belly; and then all too soon the current dragged him out of that peace and began rushing him at ever-increasing speed through a tumult of water towards what he had known from the start was the end of this journey, to where the first god he had rejected, the god of his fathers, the god of their persecution, the unrelenting, unforgiving, unforgetting god of blood and birth and a thousand years was waiting.

  He opened his mouth to scream denial, to drink oblivion, anything rather than this humiliating return. His mouth and nose and lungs and belly were full of water and still that fire of fear and hatred could not be quenched.<
br />
  He screamed, ‘No!’

  It wasn’t much of a scream, which was a good thing, he realized. For the waters had parted above his head to reveal not the god of Moses clearing a way through the sea to the promised land, but a plain French moon coquettishly flashing her bosom through a rent in the clouds.

  He looked back and was amazed to see how very far past the barges he had come. They would have been invisible if the air around them had not been stained with light. The gun fire had stopped except for an occasional crackle as someone imagined he saw something move among the trees. He turned over and with an awkward side-stroke made obliquely for the bank. When he reached it, he saw instantly that he might have spared his effort. The bank here was steep and crumbly. Even if his good hand had had the strength to pull his body upwards, the shallow-rooted grasses lacked the strength to support it. He would have to go further downstream. But when he tried to resume his side-stroke, he found that his body which had been promised dry land and safety if it reached the bank had withdrawn its labour.

  He clung to the bank one-handed while his mind harangued his flesh. There was no response. You’ll be sorry, he threatened. Get yourself moving, or it’s all up with you!

  He pushed himself off once more, realized at once that his plea had been in vain, sank, drank deep of the foul and chilly water, rose spluttering, grabbed at the bank again and felt it crumble like English cheese under the puny pressure of his nerveless fingers.

  Have it your own way, he told his recalcitrant body. See if I care.

  And let himself go.

  His wrist was seized. An illusion, of course. He tried to pull it under to join the rest of his departing body. But an opposite and superior force was pulling upwards, dragging his whole sodden body up the canal bank.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, make an effort!’ hissed a voice.

  Weakly he dug his good leg into the yielding clay and pushed upwards. It wasn’t much but it was enough. Next moment he was out of the water and lying alongside the towpath.