Into the Fire

by Into the Fire (retail) (epub)

  Incidentally, the sooner London heard about the Pension d’Alsace, the better.

  But it would mean delay. Several days at least to make that contact – which might in any case be extremely difficult, since no-one in this business could afford to take anyone else on trust – and then a long wait for the exchange of signals. And he was already late: Romeo had been told to expect him a week or more ago. On top of all that, he had no sound reason to suspect there was any connection between the Pension d’Alsace and this silk man: so he’d have caused a lot of disruption and delay quite unnecessarily.

  He walked on – across the bridge and the glittering river and straight on, along the Cours de Verdun with the railway line and the Gare Perrache off to his right. Then left, along the west bank of the Rhône, looking for Jules Martin et Cie.

  And by Jesus, there it was!

  Stone-faced, with intervals of patterned brickwork, wide entrance doors shut and chained, with the company name painted across them and a notice with an arrow pointing to a small door at the side: Renseignements.

  For ‘Jules’, read ‘Fabien’?

  He walked on past, on the river side of the road. A man out for a stroll, enjoying the scenery and the sun’s warmth. The nearest vehicle was a farm cart with a seedy-looking horse between its shafts, and forty metres beyond that a brown van with its doors open and two boys unloading what looked like cases of wine. A woman on a bicycle. A string of barges in mid-river, in tow of a steam tug.

  Having passed under the railway bridge, he was crossing the road when a Wehrmacht truck which had come over the river by the Pont Galliéni swung left with screeching tyres, forcing him to hurry, to get out of its way. Reaching the kerb, he looked back over his shoulder and saw helmeted soldiers inside, facing each other from the side benches like identical stuffed dummies, each with a rifle vertical between its knees.

  Still accelerating. Nothing to do with anything that mattered here. Only that the sight of them still set one’s teeth on edge. As if the swine took it for granted they had some right to be here.

  Get this over, now. Limping on past Jules Martin’s vehicle-entrance doors, coming to the small one… Pushing it open, he found himself in a shop-cum-storeroom – a counter facing him, bolts of silk in racks which looked as if they might have been there a hundred years. Mahogany, all that timber: the counter too, on which there was a brass bell, which he rang.

  ‘Oui, monsieur?’

  A small, grey-haired woman had appeared from a doorway in the wall behind the counter. Like a mouse popping out of its hole. She’d left that door open but it was along to the right so that he had no view into the nether regions.

  ‘Perhaps I’m mistaken…’ – he’d cleared his throat – ‘Could be I’ve come to the wrong place. I’m looking for – someone by name of Fabien, is there?’

  A male voice called, ‘Show the gentleman in, Françoise!’

  She’d raised a flap in the counter. He’d have to pass through that gap and then along behind the counter. ‘Monsieur…’

  At close range, a second or two later, he saw that she was shaking all over and that her little eyes were popping like those of a petrified rabbit. He’d limped through the opening in the counter by that time – then glancing her way again had seen her state of fright and realized immediately that this was a trap and that he was in it.

  Well – not quite…

  ‘I’m interested in buying silk, you understand.’ Edging out, getting ready to bolt, talking only for the ear of the man inside. Aware that he’d have stood only a slim chance even if he’d not been lame. Beginning to retreat anyway, to get as far as possible before that one knew he was on his way: covering it with ‘I was told that Monsieur Fabien – that’s to say, if one was to buy in sufficient quantity—’

  ‘Any quantity you like! Please, come in!’

  Then the street door had opened: the woman’s rounded eyes also jerked that way. His own sharp intake of breath coincided with a kind of mew from her: there was an S.S. trooper – inside now – with a Luger in his fist. The stuff nightmares were made of: and a momentary, desperate hope that this was a nightmare, that he’d wake in a moment in his bed in the hotel. Then again it was the woman’s reaction that caused him to turn: the one from inside had come out and was covering him with yet another Luger. He had it in both hands, with his elbows planted on the counter.

  ‘Your hands behind your back, please. César, is it? I regret, the person you know as “Fabien” is – detained elsewhere.’ There was a clink of metal, then the cold steel of the cuffs as the soldier clamped them on him. Also consciousness of disaster, and – even at that moment – of his personal responsibility for it. The man at the counter had straightened from his marksman’s pose: ‘My name is Hauffe. Ernst Hauffe. What might yours be – other than “César”?’

  * * *

  They’d pushed him into a pitch-dark cell and left him there all day with nothing to eat or drink, and now after questioning him for about an hour – it was past midnight, he’d heard a clock strike some time ago – they were taking photographs of him with a magnesium flash.

  Front, face-on – left profile – right profile. God alone knew what for… Well – to be able to prove to some other prisoner that they’d got him?

  ‘Let’s have one from behind too. While we’re at it.’ Hauffe switched back into French: ‘I dare say you’re wondering why we’re doing this.’

  ‘Well.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s painless.’

  ‘Well, indeed.’ The narrow, dark head nodded. ‘And you must have expected that we’d be hurting you by this time.’ He said quietly in German, ‘The film’s to go immediately by despatch rider to Avenue Foch. Mark it for the attention of Sturmbannfuhrer Kieffer. It’s urgent, don’t waste any time.’

  The other one moved up close behind him again. Avenue Foch meant head office, the S.D. headquarters in Paris, Avenue Foch 82/86. The beginnings of understanding, suddenly. Except that he’d have thought they’d send him, the object itself, not just pictures. Just as a preliminary, perhaps: faster, by despatch rider, they could start working on it in Paris while Hauffe got on with his interrogation here.

  This had to be the answer. He felt actually sick, as the logic of it hardened in his imagination: together with awareness of his own impotence – compounding carelessness, the lives he’d put at stake by taking a chance instead of playing safe, going the long way round.

  Might have known. Really, should have known…

  Hauffe picked up his telephone. ‘Get me Avenue Foch, Sturmbannfuhrer Kieffer.’ He nodded. ‘If he’s not, ask for his private number – or wherever he can be found.’

  He’d hung up. ‘Speaking of hurting you, Rossier… There’s one question – well two, two in one, really – which might avert the need for it completely – if you’d give me a straight and truthful answer. Are you interested?’

  ‘Your French is excellent.’

  ‘Thank you. The question’s this. There’s a young woman, code-name “Angel”, and a male you’re calling “Romeo”. I want to know what they look like.’

  ‘I bet you do.’

  Fabien must have been talking his head off. But actually, Michel thought, while this sod obviously wouldn’t mind having a description of Angel and Romeo – which as it happened he wouldn’t have been able to supply, having never set eyes on either of them – what the bastard really wanted to know was whether either of them knew what he – César – looked like.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember.’

  Needing a moment or two to think it out. The possibility that he might not be quite so impotent after all. If he could convince them that Romeo and Angel would know César when they saw him – more to the point, would know at a glance that an impostor was not César – it might stop this thing in its tracks.

  Hauffe was hardly likely to believe that he’d abruptly give in – not to the extent of betraying his fellow agents…

  ‘Are you going to tell me?�
�

  ‘You know damn well I’m not. So you may as well get on with it.’

  ‘Is it because you know the woman personally, that you won’t describe her?’

  He’d been right: here was the real question, and he jumped on it. ‘Even if I didn’t know her—’

  ‘If you did not, the question of describing her wouldn’t arise in any case, would it?’ A slight shrug… ‘What about the man – “Romeo”?’

  ‘I’m not answering any questions.’

  ‘You just tried to tell me something, though – didn’t you?’

  Canny bastard. But it made no difference, he realized. If they saw even a faint chance of pulling it off, what would they stand to lose by trying?

  He shut his eyes. Knowing the savagery would start soon. God, give me strength…

  4

  She’d been more dozing than sleeping, and the bang on the cabin door had her awake at once. It was Ball, the sub-lieutenant, telling her ‘Be there in half an hour. If you like – when you’re ready – you could move up to the plot.’

  ‘Right. Thank you.’

  It felt like only about half an hour since he’d banged on the door like that and told her ‘Skipper’s compliments, we’re about to test the guns. Makes a bit of a racket, might alarm you if you weren’t expecting it.’ But actually that had been not long after they’d sailed; and after the gunboat had sounded and felt as if it had been blowing up – its numerous guns all blasting off simultaneously – she’d gone up to join Ben in the plot as he’d suggested. Ball added now, ‘Only thing is – word of warning – pilot’s going to be concentrating like mad. Tricky approach, this one.’

  She smiled. ‘Won’t speak unless I’m spoken to.’

  ‘Leave your suitcase in here, for the time being?’

  There was a lot more movement on the boat than there had been: an irregular plunging motion and thudding impacts of the sea as the bow smashed through it. No feeling of seasickness though – as yet. She slid down from the bunk, and put her shoes on: thinking how much easier it would have been to go in by Lysander, or even by parachute as she’d done last time. You landed, and there you were; either the reception party had a bicycle for you, or there was transport – a farm lorry, milk cart or some such, to some safe house or a railway station. A lot simpler than rowing-boats, beaches and cliffs, God knew what else, all in pitch darkness.

  A wash, and a pee. The last of either for some time, probably… There was another knock, though. ‘Like tea, miss?’

  ‘Oh, would I!’

  The sailor looked about sixteen. ‘Bacon sandwich here an’ all. I put one sugar in the tea.’

  ‘As good as the Ritz.’

  ‘Ah. Well.’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘Best of luck, miss.’

  Sipping the hot tea, she wondered whether that warning about Ben concentrating on his work had come from young Ball or from Ben himself. She’d spent some time up there, after the gun-testing, and he’d had thick, mustardy ham sandwiches brought up from the galley. The last of the light had been going, the sun dipping behind a distant streak of land; it was Lizard Point, he’d told her, about sixty miles away. And behind, on the quarter, Start Point… ‘Prawle Point there – entrance to Salcombe.’ Her last sight of England for how long, she’d wondered: England at its most beautiful, at that, with the light dying in a golden glow over the littoral behind the darkening coast.

  He’d shown her on a chart where they were going: a remote crack in the Breton coast called L’Abervrac’h. In fact it was going to be worse than that: L’Abervrac’h was an indenture in the mainland, but she was to be put ashore on some small island from which there’d be a second boat-trip to an even smaller one, followed by what looked like quite a long slog – on foot – over a sandpit which only at low tide connected it to the mainland. She’d asked him ‘Couldn’t you have made it really difficult?’

  ‘Not easy even from my angle. Navigationally. Have to more or less feel our way along this channel – see? Rocks right, left and centre. And to add to the joys of spring,’ – he’d touched the coastline with the tip of a pencil – ‘here, here and here – Boche lookout positions.’

  ‘You’re having me on, Ben.’

  ‘You might well think so. But that’s one advantage – they wouldn’t believe anyone in his right mind would come near the place, would they?’

  It was a point… ‘You’ve been there before, anyway.’

  ‘Lots of times. Coming from Falmouth more often than Dartmouth – shorter trip. Doesn’t make much odds to this hooker, though, we have the range and some to spare. It’s the furthest west of our pinpoints, this one – as well as the trickiest approach. But it’s not just a matter of picking some beach and saying “OK, here’s a good one”; there’s a heck of a lot more to it. Takes months to set one up. There’s got to be a local réseau who can handle it – people and material in and out, routes to and fro – on shore, I mean. And lines of communication beyond that – I suppose you’d know that end of it – routes right across France, for escapees, British and Yank shot-down flyers, escaped P.O.W.s sometimes. Mail, too – secret stuff from all over Europe.’ He’d paused, then added, ‘And last but certainly not least, people like you. To whom, let me say this while I have the chance, Rosie – I take off my hat. I really do. I wish you weren’t doing it, but – in my book, you’re the bravest of the brave.’

  ‘Whatever induced you to grow a beard?’

  ‘Laziness, mostly. Saves shaving. Disapprove, do you?’

  ‘No. Well –’ she’d shrugged – ‘hardly my business, is it?’

  ‘I’d like it to be. Really, love it to be.’

  ‘All right. Shave it off, then.’

  He nodded. ‘Back alongside, first thing I’ll do.’

  ‘I wasn’t being serious, Ben. What’s this?’

  ‘Message carrier, between me here and the W/T office. Lanyard here through the pipe – signal’s stuffed into this little bucket, gets pulled up or down… Tell me how I can get in touch with you – at some later stage?’

  ‘Ben – I can’t see there’d be much point. In any case I may be away a very long time.’

  ‘Not for ever, though.’

  ‘Well – I hope not. But—’

  ‘What’s the other thing?’

  She’d shaken her head.

  ‘Listen. Please. What happened that night – I want you to know I’d no such thing in mind, no intention at all—’

  ‘I do know that. But it still happened.’

  ‘Well, you say that, but—’

  ‘I’d like you to know that if I hadn’t been blind drunk—’

  ‘The hooch they sold us. That joint where we danced. My fault, I’d persuaded you to come along, should’ve looked after you. Bloody should’ve. If you’d ever trust me again, Rosie, I swear—’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with trust. Sorry, but – simply no. Quite apart from the fact that whenever I have any time off I go home – which is nowhere near London… I’m sorry, Ben.’

  ‘Still don’t want to tell me where “home” is, either…’

  She shook her head again. ‘Can’t we just leave it?’

  ‘Well.’ Shrugging. ‘Have to, if you insist… D’you reckon your family wouldn’t like me, is that it? Bloody colonial, wouldn’t fit in?’

  ‘Nothing even remotely of that kind. Even to think it could be you must have a totally wrong impression of me.’

  ‘OK. So – new question – how did you get into this, after that bloke turned you down?’

  ‘I was contacted at work.’

  ‘What work was that?’

  ‘At Sevenoaks, the S.O.E. wireless reception centre. I was what you might call a dotter and dasher.’

  ‘I’m sure you never told me that.’

  ‘Dare say I didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t tell me a damn thing. We made a joke of it, remember – sang a song?

  Ask no questions

  You’ll be told no lies…

  Remember we sang
that all over London?’

  * * *

  In the Gay Nineties, they’d first put it to music. After she’d refused repeatedly to tell him her surname or where she lived, and he’d gone on arguing about it, she’d trotted out that old rejoinder and he’d made a jingle out of it. Those two lines and then on a basso note a sort of chorus of No lies. No lies. No lies…

  In the street – quite a number of streets, probably – blundering through the fog – a real pea-souper, that night – they’d sung it in duet. Shivering, clinging together, they’d still been warbling it when they’d made a complete circuit and were back at the same policeman of whom half an hour earlier they’d asked the way. It was how they’d ended up in the hotel, where the night porter had taken pity on them although there’d been only one single room available: he’d told them doubtfully, ‘Does have its own bathroom’, and Ben had slurred ‘S’all right then – I’ll sleep in the bath.’

  The hell he had.

  * * *

  He’d told her, when the gunboat had left Start Point well astern and was steering south 22 degrees west at about 24 knots, ‘Stayed with me ever since, that song. Over and over, day in, day out.’ There’d been a call from the bridge then, which he’d answered, something about a log-reading and the speed-made-good: then he’d turned back to her… ‘Rosie – something else I have to say. Hope it won’t annoy you. That evening – night – well, early morning anyway – OK, so I’m totally to blame for how it ended, I apologize and I’d give my soul for a chance to prove to you I’m not the heel you think I am – but up to that point, that night out with you – you know, I never had such a bloody marvellous evening in my life?’