The boy wasn’t any relation. The farmer and his wife – Solange’s long-dead mother – had taken him in years ago after his own family had thrown him out.
* * *
Vidor explained – in the dawn, riding bicycles side by side through deep, stony lanes – ‘Our caches of munitions have to be moved to other locations as soon as possible. If we had more men we’d do it all at the same time, but we’re too few for that. So your offer to help’s most welcome.’
‘Because you’ve lent some for this sabotage job?’
‘Exactly.’ He’d mentioned it last night. ‘All happening at once. As always.’
‘The action’s at Brest, you said?’
‘Near Brest. A factory at St Renan. They make periscope sections for U-boats.’
‘Worthy cause.’ He nodded, stooped over the handlebars. ‘I’m definitely for that.’
‘Unfortunately there’s always a reaction. Hostages, so forth. One doesn’t mount such an operation without the best of reasons. But this one was planned weeks ago. So happens, it could have a beneficial effect – for us – if some of the troops they’ve been deploying here were withdrawn to police the St Renan district, after this. The Master Race sometimes act like headless chickens, you know?’
‘Why should the next-door réseau need your people?’
‘Because of the security clampdown in their area. It’s made complications for them.’
‘Ah. Suppose it would. Although from what you say you’re getting a similar state of affairs here now… Can you tolerate another question?’
‘Why not?’
‘Couldn’t this factory be hit from the air?’
‘It could. But there are houses close all round it – very close. Bombing’s not always so accurate, is it? Our way, explosives are placed on the machines or in them, it’s certain – and families living nearby aren’t hurt.’
‘Except for the reprisals?’
‘You see, we can’t give in to that. We’d be living on our knees. What they want, the bastards.’
‘There’ll be a guard on the place, presumably?’
A grunt. ‘Such things will have been taken into account.’
‘They’ll have their throats cut, you mean.’
‘Well – could be greater tragedies… Turn to the right here.’
‘I see what you meant about not needing us here, just at this moment.’
‘Never mind. I’m grateful for your help. Anyway, if they withdraw some of their soldiers it won’t be so bad. Depends – I think – on whether or not this infestation is connected with the arrest of Guillaume. I hope not… But he was carrying explosive with him, you see. Figure it to yourself – if they get to believe there’s a dump on this small neck of land – a farmer with a cache on his place, say – if they take his wife and children, shut them in the barn and tell him they’ll put a match to it. Huh? If you were that farmer?’
‘Christ…’
‘They’ve done such things before. And look – if for instance our man is able to hold out – in Paris, Avenue Foch or Rue des Saussais, wherever, poor sod – but if they only know he was here or nearby, it would be enough. Or of course if they break him. They haven’t yet – if they had they’d have been here. He may be dead…’
‘Meanwhile you move the stuff anyway.’
‘Certainly. We ourselves could disperse at short notice. Join the Maquis, for instance. Those without wives or children anyway, it’s much easier for us. But the rifles, machine guns, mortars, ammunition – we’ve all risked our necks for it – so have you, your people – and one day – soon, please God—’
‘Hey, look—’
Lights ahead. Car or lorry, facing this way. It was stationary, by the look of it. Waste of its battery: it was virtually daylight now. Vidor said, ‘If it’s police or Germans – act dumb.’ Peering ahead, slowing slightly but not by much. ‘I’ll talk for both of us. You’re my assistant – Félix, all right?’
The only Felix he’d ever heard of was a cartoon cat.
‘I’ve no papers, if—’
‘I’m on my way to castrate a donkey. I need you only to sit on the animal’s head while I do it. You’re a bit slow on the uptake – you don’t articulate too well, either.’
It was a Wehrmacht troop-transport. Lights burning but no-one on or in it, and no barrier on the road. But there was a cottage – farmhouse, maybe – set back to the left, a light glimmering in an upstairs window – candle or lantern maybe… A shout – German-sounding, but some way off, from the direction of the house. Vidor gritted, ‘Keep going. We’re in luck.’ That they hadn’t left even a driver with the truck, he must have meant. Vidor put all his weight on the pedals, pushing the bike along hard, Ben doing the same although he’d dropped in behind him, about a length between them. Passing through the aura of the transport’s yellow lights: then Vidor was out of it, and so was he: there’d been no more shouts. Vidor glancing round: ‘Made it. Left fork in a minute.’
He was easing off, and they were coming to the fork. Tall hedges overhanging, cutting out enough light to put the clock back by an hour or so. Side by side again: Vidor told him, ‘That was lucky. For us… This is a slightly longer route, a way they won’t take.’
‘Pointing the other way – wasn’t it?’
‘Nothing to stop them turning. When they’ve finished whatever they’re doing at the Demorêts. It won’t be just a social call, for sure.’
‘Farmers, are they?’
‘They raise ducks and turkeys. Damn it, I can guess what the swine may be there for…’
The shot came sharp as a whipcrack – rifle-shot, therefore – from somewhere behind them. A single shot, then a pause, and then a rattle of automatic fire, its echo fading into what sounded at first like a dog’s howl but resolved itself into a human scream. A woman – in horror, despair, extreme of pain… Imagination played its part: the scream had been cut short and one envisaged a blow, a rifle-butt… Vidor shouted, ‘Keep going. I’ll come back, later. Christ Almighty…’
He fell silent – more or less – and Ben kept quiet too. It wasn’t time for comment or for questions. Being out of one’s element and having an enquiring mind – as well as fairly acute anxiety – one tended to ask too many, anyway. Uphill stretch here, legs aching from strains they weren’t used to… Vidor burst out with it suddenly: ‘They have a son who escaped from a work-camp in Germany, arrived back here in the middle of the night – a month or six weeks ago. It happens often enough, I may say, I know of several who’ve done it, but this Demorêt lad – Youen, that’s his name – was lying low at home instead of going to join the Maquis right away. If he’s still there – Christ, his parents face a death penalty for harbouring him, even. How d’you like that – for “harbouring” your own son?’
‘Where’s the Maquis, that he’d have joined?’
‘All over. Mountainsides, forest areas – wild parts, not easily accessible. Some bands are several hundred strong, others much smaller.’
‘Do the Boches leave them alone?’
‘Go after them sometimes. Sometimes they send their French units. So-called Frenchmen.’
This had to be Landeda now, though. A scattering of houses and hovels thickening considerably ahead. Church spire ahead too, with the sun behind it like a skewered orange. The garage was on the outskirts of the village, was all Vidor had told him: having done enough pedalling for one morning, he hoped it might be on this side of it.
Vidor muttered, ‘Didn’t have to be looking for the Demorêt boy, though. Could be just taking pot luck. Some ways, that could be worse… Incidentally, we’re going to have to move you anyway, before long.’
‘Is there a connection?’
A grunt. ‘As much as anything, it is the strain on such a small ménage. Food and cooking, for one thing – Solange doesn’t have many minutes to spare, in her days. Not really the resources either. But mostly, it’s bloody dangerous for them – and too close to our islands, eh?’
To
Guenioc and Tariec, he’d have meant.
‘So you’ll move us – where to?’
‘I don’t know yet. But if they’re going to start searching isolated farms like the Demorêts’ – Jesus Christ…’ Then: ‘Sorry. But they’re such good people. The best. Or they were. You know, I can’t believe it – that we actually heard it…’ And after another pause: ‘Might not be easy for us to stay in business here, the way things look.’
‘The pinpoint?’
‘It’s – a possibility. One has to be ready for such contingencies.’
‘Would you get out, yourself?’
‘No. I’ve my job here. I mean the farms, the animals. Léon has his too – he’s a farmer’s son but he has a boat, spends most of his time fishing and potting for crabs and lobsters. And Luc – our radio man – he has his own job too – works in the café – he’d stick around. Well – touch wood, if we were left alive and free, in this hypothetical situation…’
‘As you see it, it is only hypothetical, then.’
‘It’s as I say – to be ready for it – for whatever—’
‘Another thing I was going to ask – what about our boat, down there?’
‘It’s still there. Well covered. The best place it could be, right now.’
‘But if they found it—’
‘Then it’s curtains.’
‘Couldn’t we land it – in that cart, under seaweed?’
‘You’d need to hide it somewhere ashore. Anyone would know at a glance it’s not a local boat. Not easy to hide, either. Break it up – that’s possible… But the best way is the next moonless time, next gunboat visit – you take it with you, eh?’
‘If there is another gunboat visit here. And it stays hidden for a fortnight.’
‘Exactly. One can only – keep one’s nerve, say one’s prayers… Down here now, we’ve arrived.’
The garage was at the bottom of a short cul-de-sac. It was a rickety-looking barn made of tarred planking: wide doors standing open, semi-wrecked vehicles dumped all over about half an acre of dockweeds. Vidor freewheeled down the pot-holed slope and straight in, calling as he dismounted, ‘Anyone home?’
‘Ah. It’s you.’
Ben followed him down, and in, dismounting. Preparing to be introduced – as the village idiot, no doubt, more or less incapable of speech. He could guess what had put that in Vidor’s mind – the boy at the farm, Alain. And he’d be looking the part well enough, he guessed, in the old farmer’s ancient gear-patched work-trousers, torn jacket, a sweater with holes in it and one sleeve mostly unravelled. The girl had brought this lot to him, at Vidor’s request. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days either. Must look bloody marvellous, he thought: stand me in a field, keep all the crows away… Vidor was shaking hands with a shrimp-like, elderly man in clean brown overalls. Long chin, small hooked nose, wisps of grey hair plastered across his scalp. Vidor introduced them: ‘Paul Durand…’ Jerk of a thumb: ‘Call this one Félix. He’s kindly offered to help. Doesn’t talk much French and he has no papers – keep him out of sight, eh?’
‘No French and no papers. Gift from the gods, I don’t think.’ The little man hadn’t shaved much lately, either.
‘I do talk some French.’
‘What sort of accent’s that?’
‘Would you believe Australian?’
They heard the lorry then: firing on no more than three cylinders, backing down the slope – and finally, into the barn. The man at the wheel, craning round to look backwards, could have been a farmer. Durand called, ‘Jacques, come here!’ in a high, noise-penetrating yelp, and a boy in oily dungarees appeared, still chewing, from some nether region. Vidor and the lorry driver were shaking hands, and the driver – a big man with a large belly – was telling him, ‘A lead off one plug, is all. Others are oily anyway, but I want ’em that way, we’ll break down again at Bodilis, see… How’s it with you, then? Boches a bit too thick on the bloody ground, aren’t they?’
‘When we passed, they were paying the Demorêt place a visit. There was some shooting.’
‘Bloody hell…’
‘I’m going back there – snoop around—’
‘Well, for Pete’s sake—’
‘From the back, across the fields. I’ll be like a mouse.’
‘Yeah. Mice get caught, remember.’
The inspection-pit, immediately behind the lorry, was stacked with rifles, Sten guns and ammunition. The boy Jacques was prising up the boards that covered it, using an iron bar. Vidor explained to Ben, drawing him aside, that the old man – Durand – would busy himself now with the malfunctioning engine, at the same time keeping his eyes open for unwelcome visitors, while Ben, the driver and the boy would load the cargo into the back of the lorry, then rope a tarpaulin over it and on top of that spread a load of scrap-iron.
‘That lot there. For the railway siding at Landivisiau, supposedly – en route to the Ruhr, they send whole truckloads when they have them full. But you’ll be stopping en route at a church where the cure has a tomb open and ready for this lot, he’s expecting you. The lorry’ll have more engine trouble, young Jacques’ll be working on it while you unload. But listen – there’ll be another transfer you can help with tomorrow – the last, thank heaven – so best stay here tonight – in Durand’s house – over there. He’ll give you a meal and a bed. I’ll see you tomorrow. Meanwhile I’ll try to move your men from old Brodard’s place. I think that’s wise… See you tomorrow, anyway.’
‘By then will you have had news about the action at St Renan?’
‘Before that. This morning, I expect.’
He put his hand out. ‘Good luck.’
‘Same to you. And thanks.’
Calling au revoirs to the others, then, Vidor wheeled his machine out into the slanting early sunshine. Ben wondered as he went to work what the hell would happen if Vidor – the king-pin in all of this – ran into trouble at the turkey farm, got himself shot or arrested. Stooping to grab the rope handle of an ammo box: thinking Bloody chaos…
10
At Lyons-la-Forêt, a German army car with a general’s flag on its bonnet drove in through the entrance to the Hôtel de la Licorne; as soon as it was inside, the wooden gates were pushed shut, a trooper with a slung rifle emerging just before they actually closed, to mount guard outside on the pavement. Either the general had the hotel to himself and meant to keep it that way, or he was joining others already in there. A staff conference, or somesuch. Or a party. Whatever it might be, it was an obscenity, in this peaceful, beautiful old French village.
There was another inn, Rosie saw – Le Grand Cerf – fifty metres farther along and on the same side as the Licorne. Might as well use that one, she decided.
She’d only known of the Licorne, but a pub was a pub, what the hell… Outside it, she propped her bicycle carefully at the kerb. It was a relief to be off that saddle, too. She’d been on it for about the last eight hours, for Pete’s sake… Without hurrying now, she untied the strings which had been holding her sample-case and the tatty old leather-and-canvas bag which Madame Bonhomme had lent her, and took them with her into the Grand Cerf, passing under the big inn-sign of a stag with enormous antlers. It was a very old, half-timbered building, its plaster nearer yellow than off-white.
Gloomy, inside. Small windows, low ceilings, dark paintwork. Coolish, anyway. Two old men in a corner, staring at her, their eyes on her as she entered but then shifting – like lizards’ eyes, she thought – to watch the approach of a waiter – barman, whatever he might be. Wooden-soled shoes loud on the bare boards… ‘Help you? Want a room?’
Having seen that she had luggage, of course: reasonable question, therefore. He was a squat, plump boy, smooth-cheeked, wearing a striped apron over shiny-seated serge trousers. She shook her head: ‘I don’t know. I’ll tell you later. Meanwhile I’d like a long, cold drink. Lemonade, d’you have?’
He nodded. ‘Anything to eat?’
‘D’you have a sandwich?’
‘Fine.’
She sat down, and lit a cigarette, fully aware that she could well have done justice to a proper meal, but for the time being only needing something to keep her going. She’d only come in here to ask for directions and in the course of doing so to leave a reason for (a) being in Lyons-la-Forêt and (b) visiting that particular individual – who might in fact offer her a meal. But if anyone had any interest in her presence here, an enquiry here might satisfy them.
It had, really, been a hell of a long bike-ride. The hardest bit had been right at the start, a long, steep climb southeastward out of town. She’d taken the quieter, country route – out through St Aubin and Montmain, more of a lane than a road, but actually more direct and for someone on a bicycle just as fast – or slow – as the main road past the airfield at Boos. It was a Luftwaffe station now, of course, with Junkers 52 transports in and out all day, every day. She’d seen one this morning, from the road she’d been on. At that early stage, on the fairly open and straight section between St Aubin and Epinay, she’d stopped several times to look back, to see whether she was being followed. With Romeo in mind, primarily. He had seemed to her to be sound enough – as far as you could ever tell – and she’d thought his story held water, but only an idiot wouldn’t hedge her bet, in all the circumstances.
Into the Fire Page 17
