The Sisters of St. Croix

by Diney Costeloe

  He was back the next evening, and hearing nothing, he crept up to the cottage and again peered in the windows. All looked as it had the evening before. He examined the front door. It was still locked and there was no way he could break it open without a good deal of noise. If the Jews were hiding inside he didn’t want to alert them, so he went round to the back door. This was closed with a heavy wooden bar, locked in place with a stout padlock. Fernand was about to try and lever the padlock away from the bar when he noticed something. He put the crowbar on the ground and ran his hands along and behind the wooden bar. A gleam of understanding showed in his eyes and he smiled. The bar was separate, not attached to the door at all. From a distance it looked as if bar and padlock kept the door firmly locked, but on closer inspection he saw that the door could be opened with the bar still in place. He lifted the latch and pushed. The door didn’t move. It must be locked on the inside. He went back to the window to have a look, but it was at the wrong angle and it was impossible to see. He tried the door again, but it wouldn’t budge.

  But the Jews must be in there somewhere, he thought, excitedly. All I have to do is wait for them to come out again.

  He made his way back to the shelter of the trees, and finding a sturdy oak at the edge of the clearing climbed into its branches. From this vantage point he had an uninterrupted view of the back door, and he settled down to keep watch. He waited until it was full darkness before he gave up.

  Perhaps they don’t dare come out every night, he thought. I’ll just have to keep coming back until they do. I must be sure they really are here before I go to Thielen, or better still, Hoch. Yes, Colonel Hoch was the one who hunted Jews. Fernand’s eyes glittered at the thought of the bounty there might be on a whole family of them.

  It was four nights later that he struck lucky. Ensconced in his tree Fernand heard a soft creak and saw that the back door was being opened from the inside. Joseph Auclon’s head appeared, and, having decided that it was safe, he emerged, followed by his wife and the two boys. Once outside, Joseph crossed to the shed and moments later returned carrying a heavy bag. He went straight back into the cottage, only to re-emerge moments later. He still carried the bag, but this time it was empty and he returned it to the shed.

  Fernand was exultant. Not only were the family hidden somewhere in the house, they were being supplied with food by someone. He remembered seeing the empty bag in the shed when he had looked in the first time, but it hadn’t dawned on him that it had any significance. He remained in the tree for the twenty minutes or so the family allowed themselves in the fresh air, but as soon as they went back into the cottage and he’d heard the bolt on the inside of the door scrape home, he scrambled down and hurried back to the village.

  He was just coming out of the woods when he met a local farmer, Étienne Charbonnier, walking his fields, his dog at his heels.

  “Evening, Charbonnier.” Fernand tried to sound casual, and kept walking.

  “Hey, Fernand, what are you doing on my land?” demanded Charbonnier, suspiciously eyeing the sack Fernand carried. The dog, hearing the tone of his master’s voice, flattened his ears against his head and growled.

  Hearing the growl, Fernand stopped and looked back at the dog nervously. He had never liked dogs. “Keep that dog under control, Charbonnier,” he snarled.

  “What are you doing on my land?” asked Charbonnier again, making no move to quieten his dog.

  “Just walking,” replied Fernand, his eyes fixed on the dog, whose lips were curled back menacingly. “Collecting firewood.” He indicated the empty sack over his arm.

  “Any firewood on my land is mine,” snarled Charbonnier. “Clear off. You’ve no right to be here.”

  “I’m going, I’m going,” muttered Fernand, and turning his back on the farmer and his dog, hurried off down the track that led back to the village.

  Étienne Charbonnier watched him until he had reached the road before turning back to his own house.

  Fernand had returned to the village and by the time he’d reached the German HQ he’d decided his information was definitely too important for Major Thielen and asked for Colonel Hoch. He was made to wait, but at last he was summoned into the colonel’s office.

  Hoch was working at his desk when he was told that Fernand wanted to see him, and was surprised. Thielen usually dealt with the likes of him. He wondered what information Fernand was bringing him. He despised him, a snivelling weasel of a man, but useful. He had eyes and ears where Hoch’s men could never go, and the information he had brought in so far had been reliable, if not particularly important. Now he was demanding to see the colonel, saying that he had something very important to tell him. Hoch had kept him cooling his heels for nearly an hour; he had no intention of letting the little collaborator get ideas that he could simply demand the colonel’s time, but he was intrigued all the same.

  There was a knock at the door and Hoch picked up a paper from his desk before bellowing, “Come.” The door opened and Fernand came in. Hoch continued to read the paper without looking up, and Fernand was forced to stand in front of the desk, his cap in his hand, waiting for the colonel’s attention. When at last Hoch did look up, he ran his eyes over the man standing before him with distaste.

  Fernand was small, with a narrow face, his watery blue eyes set close together over his sharply pointed nose, his hair wispy and thin, combed over a balding pate. He shuffled now, his eyes not quite meeting the colonel’s.

  “Well?”

  “I think I’ve found some more Jews,” Fernand said. “The Auclons. They slipped the net in the round-up last year.”

  “I see, and where are these Jews?” Hoch spoke without any apparent interest, but he remembered that the Auclons had never been found and his eyes sharpened.

  “I’ve found their hiding place,” Fernand said. “I’ve been watching them for some time.”

  “Have you now? And why didn’t you report this immediately?”

  “I wanted to be sure, Colonel. Didn’t want you to come on a wild goose chase.”

  “I see. And now you are sure?”

  “Yes, sir. Quite sure.”

  “So, I ask you again, where are these Jews? How many of them?”

  “Four, sir. Parents and two kids. Twins.”

  Hoch smiled. “The whole family, then.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a derelict cottage over in the woods, beyond Étienne Charbonnier’s farm. There used to be a farmhand lived there, but he didn’t come back from the last war.”

  “Show me!” Hoch crossed to the large map of the district that hung on the wall. “Point out where this cottage is.”

  Fernand looked at the map for a moment before placing a grubby finger on the woods beyond Charbonnier’s farm. “About there, sir,” he said. “There’s a clearing, and the cottage is there. The trees have grown up round it over the years. You don’t see it until you reach the clearing.”

  “And this family…”

  “The Auclons, sir.”

  “The Auclons… are living in this cottage?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, not in the cottage itself. I think there must be a cellar.”

  “And you’ve seen them?”

  “I’ve seen them go in and out of the cottage.”

  “So why haven’t they been found before?”

  “There must be a hiding place inside the cottage, sir.”

  “And you think it’s a cellar?”

  “Yes, sir.” Fernand nervously ran a finger round the inside of his grubby collar. “They sometimes come out in the evening, for a bit of fresh air, like.”

  “And how have they survived, four of them in this cellar, for so long?” Hoch wondered.

  “Don’t know, sir. Someone must have been bringing them food and stuff.”

  “Who?” asked Hoch.

  “Don’t know, sir. But I saw Joseph Auclon fetch a bag from the shed. It must have had food in it. Don’t know who left it, sir.” />
  “Then you’d better go and find out,” snapped the colonel. “I want to know who’s been helping them. We’ll have them as well. Go and find out. I want to know who’s been sheltering them. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Fernand nodded vigorously.

  “In the meantime,” Hoch said thoughtfully, “we’ll pick up the Jews tomorrow. A dawn raid.” He glowered at the little man in front of him. “Report back to me as soon as you know who it is.” When Fernand hesitated the colonel growled. “Well, get on with it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fernand beat a hasty retreat out of the office and onto the square. Once outside he drew a deep breath and allowed himself a moment for his heart rate to slow, then with a satisfied smile he set off through the village. He had a shrewd idea who had been feeding the Auclons, and he was sure it wouldn’t take long to confirm his suspicions.

  Even better, he thought. The bounty for a whole family of Jews should be worth having, and something for the fools who’d been giving them shelter.

  Hoch thought it was important too, and called in Lieutenant Weber.

  “A sighting of that missing Jew Auclon and his family,” he said. “We’ll pick them up tomorrow.” He pointed to the map. “I’ve information that they’re here, in this wood.” He explained about the derelict cottage. “Organise a raiding party to move up there before dawn. Get the place surrounded and then break the door down. They may be hiding in a cellar. Bring them all back here.”

  Weber saluted. “I assume you want them alive, sir?”

  “Certainly I do,” snapped the colonel. “I need to find out who’s been sheltering them. The parents’ll talk soon enough if we’ve got their children.”

  Fernand went home and collected a torch, which he slipped into the pocket of his jacket, along with his sheath knife. He wanted to be there when the Germans captured the Auclons. He wanted to see the fear on their faces. He wanted Joseph Auclon to know who it was who had found him. He wanted the barber to know that he couldn’t cheat decent, real Frenchmen with impunity.

  It was beyond midnight as Fernand crept from his house and headed to the wood once more. The village, under curfew, lay silent in the darkness as he threaded his way between the houses and onto the track across the fields. It was pitch black in the woods and several times he had to risk shining the pinprick of light from his masked torch. He was certain no one would see it out here, but even so he only flicked it on and off for a moment each time, just long enough to show him the path. Once he thought he heard something. A footfall? The crack of a twig? He ducked quickly into the shadows. He waited for several minutes, crouching in the shelter of some bushes, but no one passed his hiding-place and he heard nothing more. Must have been an animal of some sort, he thought, and, straightening up, he continued his stealthy approach to the cottage.

  As Fernand emerged from the trees into the clearing the starlight provided faint light, enough for him to make out the shape of the building, its roof and tumbled chimney dark against the night sky. He went across to the barred door, and, as he always did, lifted the latch to make sure it was still locked from the inside. This time it wasn’t. To Fernand’s amazement the door opened with a creak, the bar and padlock still barring the way in. Flicking on his torch, he ducked down beneath the bar, and pushing the door gently went into the kitchen. He paused on the threshold, listening. The silence was absolute. The thin beam of his torch revealed nothing except the table and the stove he had seen through the window, a deep stone sink and an old range, which had not been visible from the outside. Cobwebs curtained the ceiling above the door that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house. There was no sign of anyone. There was nowhere for anyone to hide. Flummoxed, Fernand crossed to the other door, and lifting the latch went through. Cobwebs clung to his face and he swatted them angrily, dashing them from his eyes, and even as he did so he realised that no one could have used this door for ages, or there would have been no cobwebs. Still, he went on through to the other part of the house. There was a tiny hallway, which smelt damp, and another door also draped with thick grey spiders’ webs. Fernand swung his torch through these to clear a path and opened the door. Beyond it was the cottage’s only bedroom, and this too seemed exactly as he had seen it from the outside, an old iron bedstead, a single chair, a cupboard built into the corner and a fireplace full of cold, black soot. Fernand wrenched open the cupboard door. Empty. No one here. No sign of anyone ever having been here.

  Fernand felt a cold finger of fear down his spine. He had told Hoch the Auclons were definitely here and now not only were they not here, there was no sign that they ever had been. He shone his torch into the fireplace and up the chimney, more in desperation than in the hope of finding anything. Nothing. Colonel Hoch was sending an arresting party here at dawn, and there was no one for them to arrest. The colonel would be furious at being made to look a fool, and Fernand shuddered at the thought of his rage. He shone the torch round the floor. Stone flags with no covering to soften them. Close to despair, Fernand returned to the kitchen. Again his torch revealed nothing, there was nowhere to hide. The floor in here was also stone flagged. He shone the torch under the sink. It had been fed by a pump and emptied into a pipe, which drained to the outside. He crawled under the table, running his fingers over the stones in the hope of finding some sort of trapdoor. Nothing.

  He sat back on his heels, his mind racing feverishly. He had seen the family come into the house only a few hours ago. He had heard the door being bolted on the inside, but now there was no one there.

  Damned, bloody Jews! The thoughts raged through his head. Where the hell had they gone? He turned on his torch again, and pulling the masking tape from the front shone the full beam round the room, yet again.

  It was then that he saw it. A footprint. On the table. Someone had stood on the table and left a scuffmark in the dust. Fernand pointed his torch up at the ceiling. The rafters ran the width of the kitchen, blackened beams supporting the roof above, and between the two that passed over the middle of the big old table was…? Fernand was not sure what he could see. He scrambled up onto the table, and shining the torch directly upward peered at the ceiling. There, he found what he was looking for. Carefully contrived, between the rafters, was a trapdoor. Fernand reached up. He could touch the ceiling but he was not tall enough to raise the trapdoor. He jumped down from the table and fetched the old chair from the bedroom. Placing this on the table he climbed gingerly onto it and lifted the trapdoor. It was hinged and once it was upright crashed open. Fernand stuck his head through gap and stared in amazement at what he saw. There was a loft in the roof space that covered the whole area of the house. Its floor was boarded and though there was no furniture as such, the space had been kitted out with a few things to make life possible there. Blankets and pillows were piled against the chimney breast, a mug and a couple of plates stacked in a tin bowl. There was a candle end on a saucer, and a box was upended to serve as a table. A galvanised bucket stood in a corner. Someone had been living here, and, from the smell emanating from the bucket, had been there very recently.

  Fernand felt relief wash through him. The Auclons weren’t here, but they had been. When Hoch’s men arrived in the morning they wouldn’t find the family, but they would find where they had been hiding, and it would be only a matter of time before they ran them to earth. Hoch would be angry that they’d given him the slip once more, but if Fernand worked fast he could probably find them again before the Germans did, and turn them in as planned. However, he was not keen that the arrest party should find him at the cottage when they arrived. It was time to go. He left the trapdoor open and the chair on the table so that the soldiers would find what he had found, and then pulling the door to behind him beat a hasty retreat into the woods.

  There were two families who Fernand thought might have been sheltering the Jews; the Launays and the Charbonniers. Both families had more than a normal grievance against the Germans. Both had lost a son during the invasion, and Fernand had been won
dering about them for some time. He’d had no occasion to visit either farm, but his encounter with Étienne Charbonnier earlier this evening made him very suspicious. Had Charbonnier been on his way to the cottage with more supplies? Fernand tried to think back as to whether the man had been carrying anything with him. He thought not, but he couldn’t be sure. Had Charbonnier suspected him, Fernand, of anything? He might have and come to warn the Auclons, to get them away to another safe place. But where? To his own farm? Unlikely. It was the nearest and the first place that would be searched.

  What would I do if I were him, wondered Fernand—where would I take them? To friends? They’d have to be very good friends to take that risk, very good friends… or family. Family. Isn’t Étienne Charbonnier related to Marie Launay? Cousins or something? Worth going to both farms and having a snoop round, he decided, and wondered which to visit first. He was about to set off in the direction of the Charbonniers when he remembered the sounds he’d heard on his way to the wood. Could that have been the Auclons actually making their escape? If so, they weren’t going towards the Charbonniers. Changing his mind, Fernand set off along a different path, heading for the Launay farm.

  There was already the grey light of a false dawn creeping into the sky when he reached the farm and crept into the farmyard. To his surprise there was a thread of light at one edge of the blackout over the kitchen window. He crossed the yard and put his eye to the crack. Marie Launay was sitting at the kitchen table, her head resting on her arms, apparently asleep. Fernand stared at her for a moment, then turned and went to the yard door. Taking his knife from his pocket, he eased the door open and went inside.

  18

  “Adèle, wake up! You must come, quickly.”

  Adelaide sat up with a jolt as Marie Launay shook her awake. The room was still in darkness, but she could hear the urgency in the Marie’s voice.