Into the Fire

by Into the Fire (retail) (epub)

  She’d reached the other pavement, knowing she had to take a grip on her emotions, which might otherwise show when she looked at any German. Reminding herself that she was Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre, worrying only about her child and what she’d use for money if she didn’t get this job…

  She paused at a jeweller’s window – to let those two get out of sight before she started back towards the Maison Cazalet, also to use the glass as a mirror, confirming to herself that the doorways on the other side still had no loungers in them. She’d made sure before starting to cross the road that this side was clear. The two German boys had gone out of sight around the corner. There were a few other pedestrians in the street, two cyclists and a gazo Renault. No visible dangers, anyway. She limped towards Louis’s place, pausing to look in through plate glass protected by an iron grille and seeing that he sold other things as well as scent. Rather beautiful silk squares, expensive-looking handbags. Germans for the use of, she thought, pushing the door open. Or their lackeys. Who else would have that sort of money, in the Paris of 1943?

  Well – she would. She had a million and a quarter francs in her suitcase, she remembered.

  A petite brunette with a stylish hairdo and a skimpy black dress, double strand of pearls glowing against smoothly tanned skin, was looking at her rather doubtfully from behind the glass counter. They sold crystal here too: there was some on display inside it. And Lalique. The air was heady with perfume. The girl was pretty and very carefully made up; her uncertainty, of course, stemmed from Rosie’s rather dowdy appearance.

  ‘Mam’selle?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s Madame, actually.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, madame. May I—’

  ‘I have an appointment to see Monsieur Cazalet. I’m his cousin, Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre.’

  * * *

  ‘You’re Louis, of course.’

  He nodded. Downstairs, in front of the girl, she’d called him Pierre and he’d called her Jeanne-Marie. He was of medium height, plump and with wavy dark hair – perhaps a little too dark to be natural. About fifty, she guessed. Full, curving lips, brown eyes narrowed by the squeeze of flesh around them. A pale blue silk handkerchief protruded from one cuff of a beautifully tailored silvery-grey suit.

  In anything like normal life, she thought, I’d run a mile.

  ‘And you’re Angel. Do you happen to have my letter with you, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes. Here…’ He’d led her to this first-floor sitting room, which was furnished with antiques, mostly she thought Louis Quinze. The painting above the fireplace looked like a Cézanne. He’d asked for the letter as positive identification, she imagined; somewhat less than positive, in fact, since anyone impersonating her might very well have acquired whatever papers she’d had with her. She told him, ‘There’s one urgent matter. Do you know someone called Guillaume?’

  ‘I would think at least a dozen of them, my dear!’

  ‘This one was with Vidor. He and I came on the same train – separately, of course. I’m sorry to say he was arrested at the Gare d’Austerlitz.’

  ‘Oh. Oh…’ Then a sharp glance: ‘Austerlitz?’

  ‘There was a diversion. I don’t know why.’ She added, ‘I know what was in his briefcase, and that he was taking it to someone in Auteuil. He and Vidor were discussing it this morning over breakfast. On the platform they’d made him open it and one of them was riffling through it while the other kept a grip on poor Guillaume. I’d say they had a fair notion of what they were going to find. Boches, of course, plain clothes, one of them had joined the train at Rennes.’

  ‘Aren’t we lucky that you saw it.’ Cazalet reached to a white telephone. ‘I want Toutou – at once, please.’ Nodding to her as he put the receiver down: she was wondering who or what Toutou might turn out to be: the word’s English equivalent would be ‘bow-wow’ or ‘puppy-dog’. Cazalet was saying, ‘Very lucky indeed, my dear, that you were there. Otherwise – great heavens…’

  There was a silver-framed portrait, on a side table, which looked as if it might be of Hermann Goering. Autographed, by the look of it. But too far away, and close behind Cazelet’s shoulder, she couldn’t stare at it too hard. Anyway – it couldn’t be… The door opened behind her: ‘Want me, boss?’

  ‘Come in, Toutou. Shut the door. My dear, I present Toutou. Toutou, this is my young cousin, Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre.’ He was watching her, amused by her surprise as Toutou came into her field of view. In fact, filled it. He was about six foot six, and he’d have had to turn sideways as well as stoop to get through most doors.

  Facially, not unlike the filmstar Wallace Beery, she thought, as an enormous hand enclosed hers. A rather charming, genuine-looking smile … ‘An honour, mam’selle…’

  ‘That’s enough flirting, now. Listen to me – I want you to take a message to Auteuil, immediately. You must memorize it, nothing can be written down… Why might you be in Auteuil, though? Hardly to attend the races…’

  ‘To visit that one who mends china?’

  ‘Of course. Excellent. In fact—’ He paused, glanced at Rosie. ‘My dear – would you excuse us, just for a few moments? Come, Toutou…’

  He led the colossus through to an adjoining room. Very sensibly, she thought. One should not let the left hand know, when it didn’t need to. She was rather uncomfortably aware of knowing too much already. On the other hand, while the cat was away… She got up, went quietly to the side table for a close look at that portrait – which was of Goering. The smirking Reichsmarshall was in a white uniform festooned with decorations, and the scrawl across the bottom right-hand corner read – in German, of which she had only a smattering, but enough to make this out – To Pierre, the best wishes of his friend Hermann.

  Crikey. But it would help, she realized. Might help a lot… Fairly staggering, all the same. A door through there had opened and shut, and now a telephone tinkled. Toutou on his way, she guessed, and Louis calling Vidor. He’d have some coded way of passing on the bad news, probably through an intermediary with whom he did legitimate business. Something of that sort. Glancing at the portrait again: Louis was certainly – something special… She crossed to the window – further out of earshot – and stood looking down into the street: at pedestrians, cyclists, gazogènes. Thinking about Vidor and his réseau and whether the arrest of Guillaume and the chance that he’d talk might force them to split up, or at least temporarily suspend their operations. In which case, what about the airmen who’d be there by this time?

  The gunboat flotilla did use other pinpoints, as they called them, besides the island at L’Abervrac’h. Four or five others, Ben had said. So obviously there’d be other réseaux at work in those other places; the airmen might be shuttled along to them, she guessed.

  Unless Guillaume was only used as a courier, didn’t know much?

  But he knew Vidor, for God’s sake…

  ‘My dear – profuse apologies.’ Cazalet closed the door silently. ‘But it’s all taken care of now. Thanks to you. Come, sit down. I’ve told them to bring us some tea and cakes – you’d find room for some, eh?’ The arch smile faded… ‘Some suggestions for you now, though. Unless you have any better alternative, my sister Béatrice would be enchanted if you would make use of the spare bedroom in her apartment. It’s not far from here, and you’d find it comfortable enough. Tomorrow, you see, I must tell you a thing or two about this perfume business. If you’re going to represent us out there in the wilds, eh? A day is as much as we’ll need, I’m sure. So – if you agree – two nights at my sister’s place – and we’ll go out for a meal together, there are still restaurants worth visiting – and they let me in, I’m tolerated – friends in high places, and so forth’ – he’d thrown a glance at that portrait, obviously well aware that she’d have seen it – ‘well, anyway, day after tomorrow we’ll put you on the train to Rouen. I have an address there for you – a most charming family, very well disposed. You won’t want to stay with them for ever, of course, but—’

 
‘You’re the tops, Louis.’

  ‘Oh-my dear…’

  ‘I’m very grateful.’ She changed the subject. ‘What will Vidor do?’

  ‘Vidor.’ He shrugged. ‘Really, I have no idea. Except that he’ll make his own assessment… You barely knew Guillaume, I think?’

  ‘I didn’t know him at all.’

  ‘No. Nor did I. But Vidor does, of course – or did… It’s for his judgement, eh?’

  6

  Sailing time was set for 1700, two hours earlier than it would normally have been, to allow for an expected deterioration of the weather. Destination L’Abervrac’h again: the dinghies were to be at Guenioc by 2359 G.M.T./14, i.e, midnight tonight, Wednesday 14th July. Bastille Day: more importantly, the last night of the present moonless period.

  Dinghies plural because they’d embarked a second one to allow for the number of escapers. This had been decided when the anticipated number had been twelve: now it was seventeen. Vidor’s signal that he had the airmen ready for pickup had reached Baker Street yesterday evening, and Hughes had had his orders by scrambled telephone within the hour. M.G.B. 600 had been on stand-by – refuelled, watered and provisioned – since her arrival here in Falmouth on Monday afternoon.

  Ben had shaved his beard off, as he’d promised Rosie he would. Not that she’d have given a damn whether he did or didn’t… More usefully, he’d also cleaned off his charts: the ones in most frequent use were getting dog-eared and discoloured, but they’d survive another trip or two. In his plot now – early afternoon, alongside the Coastlines wharf, the flotilla’s usual berth – he was doing his homework, checking in the Nautical Almanac and filling several pages of his brown-covered navigator’s notebook with data on tides, tidal streams, depths, and rocks’ heights above water hour by hour from midnight to 0400.

  Weather prospects weren’t good. The return trip from L’Abervrac’h on Monday hadn’t been more than average-rough, and there was only a light wind at this moment; but according to the forecasters the worst was yet to come. The gale was still out there in the Atlantic, only hadn’t moved east as fast as they’d expected; Monday’s blow had been just a curtain-raiser.

  Last night in the Bay Hotel, where he and Don Shepherd had gone with Hughes for a quiet pint – leaving Ball on board as duty officer – Ben had suggested that he should take charge of the second dinghy.

  ‘Obvious bloke for it, aren’t I? I mean, damn-all to do once we’ve dropped the hook. Eh, skipper?’

  Hughes had agreed. ‘You did some at Praa, didn’t you?’

  Praa Sands, in Cornwall, was where they all practised beaching dinghies through heavy surf – turning dinghies onto their beam ends often enough too, before getting the hang of it.

  ‘Give him something to do, won’t it.’ Shepherd nodded through a haze of smoke. ‘Especially with no girls on board this trip. Find time very heavy on his hands.’

  They’d have no passengers, or cargo. Last night another of the flotilla – M.G.B. 318, an older boat, ‘C’ class – had landed some agents at the Grac’h Zu pinpoint, thirty miles east of L’Abervrac’h, and for the time being there were no more in the queue.

  * * *

  ‘Ready for sea, sir.’

  In her bridge, P.O. Motor Mechanic Harvey, who pre-war had been part of a motor-racing team, touched his cap to the solicitor from Ross-on-Wye. All four engines were running, warming through, had been doing so for the last fifteen or twenty minutes.

  Don Shepherd climbed into the bridge. ‘All hands on board, sir, duty men closed up. Take off the backspring?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Hughes returned the salute. ‘Let go aft, while you’re at it.’

  With the midday news broadcast Vidor’s code-phrase had gone out: Le père de Gilles est assez vieux. He’d hear it again this evening; he and Léon would then begin moving their seventeen airmen over the sands to Tariec.

  Shepherd reported, ‘All gone aft, sir’; Hughes moved the port outer telegraph to slow ahead. ‘Starboard ten, cox’n.’ Turning her stern out into the stream by pivoting her on the forespring, a hemp rope running from her stem to the jetty abreast her stern.

  ‘Ten of starboard wheel on, sir.’

  Hughes moved that telegraph to stop, then both outers to show astern. ‘Midships. Let go for’ard.’

  Backing off the quay: with only the shoreside berthing party who’d let go the ropes and wires to see them leave. Ben checked the time: 1702. Not bad… Mental reservation then: if the weather doesn’t fall totally to pieces… On the upper deck the hands were falling in, fore and aft, Ball up on the bow and Leading Seaman Mollison, the second coxswain, with the party on the stern. Hughes had crossed to the starboard side to see the fore-breast and spring flop away. He glanced round: ‘Stop both outers.’

  ‘Stop both outers, sir…’

  The stern-way came off her almost immediately, in the run of the ebbing tide. Hughes said, ‘Slow ahead outers. Port fifteen.’

  P.O. Ambrose flung the brass wheel around…

  ‘Fifteen of port wheel on, sir!’

  ‘Outers slow ahead.’

  Gathering way, then, and swinging her bow towards the exit. Four destroyers lay at anchor out there, some trawlers and M.F.V.s this side of them. A barrage balloon was being wound down very slowly, slanting away from the wind. Blue sky, wisps of fast-moving white cloud, flecks of white on the sea out there in the channel. Ben was thinking about seeing it in a frame, how it might turn out if he had canvas here, and paints: he knew exactly how he’d want it to turn out.

  He went down to his plot. After she’d cleared the bar – on all four engines by that time – they’d go to action stations and test-fire the guns, then at cruising speed relax to what was known as the second degree of readiness, with only the Oerlikons and the point-fives manned, for anti-aircraft defence. He’d be piloting her then through a departure point four miles south of the Lizard – the D3 buoy – on to a course-made-good of south five degrees east for L’Abervrac’h.

  Jotting down figures on the edge of the chart… At a cruising speed of twenty-two knots the trip would take five hours, so ordinarily you’d have sailed at 1900. Allowing for foul weather and having to reduce speed – even to half-speed, possibly, say halfway over – you’d need all of the extra two hours. Two and a half or even three, he thought, might have been a better bet, but the skipper had reckoned this was playing it safe enough.

  * * *

  As the roar and clatter of the guns petered out, he was wondering where Rosie was at this minute. On the last trip she’d told him that although she’d been warned about it she’d almost jumped out of her skin when they’d all let fly.

  What she’d really been scared of, though, had been whatever lay ahead of her in France. There’d been moments when he’d seen and heard the tension in her. The most fundamental kind of bravery, he thought: to be frightened half to death and still go ahead.

  She was bloody marvellous, that girl. Truly and absolutely bloody marvellous.

  Extremely secretive, though. He still didn’t know her name, or where her people lived in England. When they’d been talking – here, in this plot – and she’d side-stepped all such questions, he’d told himself that it didn’t matter, because he knew how to get in touch with her now – through the S.O.E. office in Baker Street. But he’d realized since that he wouldn’t know who to ask for, or what name to put on a letter. And you could bet they wouldn’t hand out any information unless they were sure you already had it.

  Birds of a feather, you might say.

  The only name he could put on the envelope would be ROSIE. And even if it got to her, she might well decide to maintain the wall of secrecy he’d first run into eighteen months ago.

  * * *

  In the Wellington, near Hyde Park Corner, at a fairly early stage in the evening. Might have been at the New Yorker, in fact… Anyway, he’d given her his own story, about this terrific break he’d had – getting back to sea – and about the time he’d spent in Paris preten
ding to be an artist, all that – and then it had been her turn to expound on whatever these troubles were that needed drowning: other than S.O.E. having turned her down, which he’d known about already. She’d been reluctant to tell him any more, even at that stage: she’d been worried that she might become maudlin and weep all over him. He’d urged her, ‘But you’re welcome to. Any time… come on, we had a deal, remember? Gets worse, anyway, if you bottle it up – well-known fact, Rosie… Please, let’s hear it?’

  So she’d told him about her husband having been shot down and killed only a day or two before this, and her need to escape, make a new life; and that since she was a fluent French-speaker – bilingual, she was as French as she was English – she’d had this thought of joining S.O.E. for some time, only hadn’t done anything about it because her husband hadn’t wanted her to. Which was understandable enough, Ben had thought, who would? But with the shock of her husband’s death, in a mood of desperation she’d come to Baker Street to offer them her services and had been told – in so many words – that she wasn’t the sort of recruit they wanted.

  ‘Doesn’t make sense, Rosie.’

  ‘Wasn’t only Johnny not wanting me to. I felt he needed me there when he wasn’t flying. I mean it was obvious, he really did.’

  ‘Yeah, well—’

  ‘You think that’s normal? I mean, like he’d need a mother?’

  ‘Oh, surely—’

  ‘Surely, yes. Girls, all over. All over him – or vice versa. I was only the one he had pegged down, the one who – well, ironed his shirts too… Listen, it would’ve been all right if he’d stayed alive, would’ve come all right – God knows how, but – given the chance, I mean, a year or two—’