Cold Lonely Courage

by Soren Petrek

  It was a long time before Teach stood and helped Madeleine from the floor. He moved towards the stove and started to open the jars of food. She came up next to him and took them from his hands and walked him over to the table and sat him down in a chair.

  “Let me,” Madeleine said in way that told him she wanted to do this simple thing for him.

  Again he felt the urge to speak, but listened instead as she spoke of the food and how it must have been prepared. She served him first and then came with her bowl and sat very near him. The room was fragrant with the thyme and rosemary the lamb was cooked in, spices pulled from the rough terrain over which the sheep grazed.

  “The food is very good, Madeleine, Thank you.”

  “The people of this region have a fascinating cuisine that is both Spanish and French. Flavorful and abundant, but it is not Provencal,” she said, raising her chin involuntarily with pride, letting the name of her home glide off her lips with the satisfaction of certainty.

  “Some day we will eat together near the sea en Provence,” she promised them both.

  “It will taste all the better knowing that the Nazis are out of France forever. I cannot wait to stand with you on the beach in a free France,” he said, holding her eyes. As she looked at the magnificent blue of his eyes, she saw the sea. Although he was from London she believed that the people of Great Britain all have the sea in their eyes. As an island people, the British were held in its embrace. More so than ever, the sea and the pilots of England had shown the timelessness of the marriage of the people to their protector, a rough and raw stretch of the North Sea.

  “France will be free again. People will not abide the Nazi yoke of hate much longer,” Madeleine said, reaching out to touch his hand. He took hers and held it against his chest.

  “Madeleine, I don’t have much experience with women and feel like I’m not much more than a boy just out of school. But I am not confused or uncertain about you. I love you. Not just because of this tonight. My feelings for you have been growing since you first came for training. I could not leave without telling you. I hope you have feelings for me. This war doesn’t give us much time for a courtship, but I would like to be with you when this is all over. Will you give me that chance?”

  “I love you too, Jack. So much of me died along with my brother. I never thought I could find any happiness again. I cannot imagine a person so uncomplicated and caring as you. Neither of us knows what is going to happen. But, if we make it through the war, you had better come looking for me. I will not worry if you stray, as long as you come running back,” she said, straddling the chair he was sitting in, her beautiful body entwining itself in his.

  “You’re joking,” he blurted, lost in disbelief.

  “No, I am French. And by the way, you’re no schoolboy, Jack Teach,” she said, her eyes burning with black fire as she raised her mouth to his.

  The next morning came all too quickly. They ate a meal of canned peaches and the leftover stew. Neither of them said much but touched almost constantly. Finally Jack looked at his watch.

  “I have to leave, Madeleine. I have to meet my contact well into the foothills and have many miles to go into Spain.”

  “Funny how you have to escape from fascists through another fascist country.”

  “Spain will not be fascist forever. We have many friends among the loyalists. Many have come to fight the fascists among the Resistance groups here. They have known war longer than we and hate the Germans for helping the fascists during their civil war.”

  “The fight must continue until this plague of fascism is gone from Europe,” Madeleine agreed.

  Teach smiled and said, “You sound like a communist.”

  “I don’t understand politics, nor care to at this point. The French people will decide the future for France. That and revenge will be enough for me.”

  With that Teach kissed her and walked out the door. Madeleine watched him walking away with powerful strides towards the hills that lay just behind the house, and then he was gone. She went back inside the barn, covered her face in her hands, and sobbed silently as the war demanded sacrifice from her again.

  As Teach made his way carefully through the jutting rocks and boulders of the frontier, tears ran freely down his face. He clenched his teeth and kept his chin firmly locked against the pain in his heart as it ached and screamed at him to turn around. He forced his feet forward, on the path that would bring him back to her. It would be a long, impossible road, but like his countrymen, he would never surrender.

  CHAPTER TEN

  More than three years later, Madeleine pushed her bicycle slowly down an alley towards the front entrance of a police station. She was acting on very recent intelligence and swift action was required. She didn’t like having to expose herself to enemy eyes, but the situation dictated it. She wore no disguise. She needed to appear as normal as possible and for the men to focus on her body, not her face. She could not disguise her beauty, and tried to utilize it to her advantage. There were too few clothes to choose from and the ones she’d chosen were worn and threadbare. Although the garments were loose, her looks captured the attention of the police officers loitering around the entrance. She hoped that the last thing the men would look at was her face. She made sure that the clothing didn’t obscure her curves completely, positioning her body to ensure that they did not. She leaned the bicycle against a lamppost and collected a few loaves of bread and a wheel of cheese from the basket behind the seat. The loaves were irregular in shape but were mostly baguettes, partially wrapped in paper with the top halves sticking out. She moved uncertainly, seemingly confused and frightened, trying to appear subservient and nonthreatening. The men showed no concern for security, despite the fact that two of their more important masters were inside the station on an inspection.

  “Bonjour, mademoiselle, you are new. Where is Marc today?” The closest of the officers called to her as she moved towards the door.

  “My uncle is ill today and cannot make his rounds,” She answered, making only brief eye contact with the policeman and smiling demurely, shrinking slightly into herself.

  This is a shy one, the man thought. With looks like that perhaps she will not always be so. He admired her openly, and inwardly bemoaned his own lack of success with women. Half of them seemed to be afraid of him because of his position as a police officer working with the enemy, the Vichy government. It wasn’t his fault France had fallen so quickly. In his mind, one did the best they could under the circumstances and followed orders. His situation had been vastly improved by his cooperation. He was better off now than before the war. His food and clothing were more than adequate. He was thriving under the occupation. He felt that reporting illegal activity was his duty. After all, he was a police officer and the Resistance were terrorists and subversives. They made life harder for everyone else. The war couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t seem like the Germans were going to leave France. He sighed inwardly as he looked at her. In passing he thought about searching the bundle of bread and the small package the girl carried, but she seemed so young and insecure, she’d probably collapse in fright if he did so.

  “Let me get the door for you. I hope Marc remains ill for a while so that we may enjoy your company again.” The man smiled and looked over at his fellow officers who were only interested in Madeleine’s feminine charms. They made no move to search her deliveries.

  “Thank you monsieur, I will be sure to tell my uncle of your kindness,” She almost whispered as she slid past him and into the hallway of the police station.

  As she entered she saw two leather overcoats hanging in the hallway. They bore the insignia of the Gestapo. The intelligence had been correct. A routine visit by the hated German secret police was underway. As soon as she was out of sight of the men at the front of the building, the transformation in her demeanor was instant. She seemed to grow and harden, her limpidness replaced with iron. She moved swiftly towards the back of the building where the small kitchen
was located. She walked past two offices along the corridor and heard voices coming from the one closest to the kitchen. They were distinctly German. As she unloaded the bread onto a table she listened to see if a third voice came from the room. She moved slowly and with patience, knowing that for what she intended to do, patience and nerve beat bravado and recklessness every time. The men in the room were smoking, and thus would have at least one of their hands occupied. She could detect different odors of tobacco. One of them had a pipe. Their conversation was languid and unhurried. There was no excitement in their voices. Given the time of day, it was likely that these officers had eaten a good meal. Their movements would be slow.

  Madeleine worked with her hands as she kept an eye on the front. She was aware of everything around her. Her senses heightened and became acute. She selected one of the thicker baguettes and tore open one end, revealing a small metal cylinder. She raised her skirt and took out a pistol that was bound to the inside of her thigh, a location few men felt comfortable searching under fairly routine circumstances. She quickly screwed the silencer into the end and tucked the gun under the bread paper and carried it over to the office door behind which she heard the steady cadence of the men’s conversation. She paused briefly, then gently pushed the door open and walked into the room holding the silenced weapon along her side so that it wouldn’t instantly be noticed. The officer seated at the desk turned only after she was fully into the room. Without hesitation she shot him squarely in the forehead. The other officer seated in front of the desk didn’t have time to register surprise. She turned and put a bullet through his throat and face in instant succession. Turning back to the first officer, she shot him a second time so there would be no mistake. Although the room smelled of gunpowder, the silencer had done its job. Both men remained slumped in their chairs, surprise etched on their faces. Madeleine moved swiftly out of the room and closed the door behind her. With practiced efficiency she unscrewed the silencer and tucked it away inside her sweater. She placed the gun in her pocket. She moved back to the kitchen, opened a window and dropped a short distance to the pavement below. It was a market day, and although many things were scarce, the street was getting crowded. She was well into the crowd and away before she heard the first shriek of a police whistle.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Madeleine sat next to a small campfire at the entrance of a cave at the top of a hard hike along a forgotten path through scree and boulders on the side of a mountain. It was a semi-regular hiding place that only she knew of. She had discovered it months ago while moving from one area of southern France to the next. The smells of wild herbs and the breeze off the sea comforted her. Living wild wasn’t by choice. Although she generally used safe houses, someone other than she knew of their existence. She could never stay with one of the Resistance groups. Not even for a short while. The risk was too great. Her exploits had reached legendary status and the reward for her capture or death was high enough to make the most resolute consider treason to the Resistance. In the beginning she had brief encounters with Resistance members. Little by little, it was clear that they feared her as well. They were cordial but always in a hurry to distance themselves from, “L’ange de la mort” as she had come to be called by both civilians and the Germans.

  Madeleine worked alone, receiving her missions in code from London. It was no longer safe for her to associate with any of the scattered individual Resistance groups. They had to operate autonomously with little or no association. That meant that the capture of one group would not lead to the capture of all. They all knew that the Gestapo used torture and were good at it. One could tolerate physical pain to a degree, but the torture of others, especially loved ones, was impossible to withstand. There was no humanity in torture and the Gestapo encouraged sadists to do the dirty work. Their enjoyment increased with the intensity of their victim’s pain. They were the people Madeleine targeted for execution. There was no question of guilt. She rationalized that they were truly evil and that she was protecting the innocent from the enemies of all people.

  She cut a piece of bread and placed it along with a lump of lard into a small frying pan that she kept buried in the back of the cave. This time she had scrounged a piece of hard goat cheese. She broke off a piece to nibble on and crumble onto the bread when heated. She sighed and thought about Provence in the days before the occupation, when cheese was so abundant and so varied that you could eat the freshest, only days old, or the drier and older aged pieces that burst with flavor as they melted slowly in your mouth. Funny how much she thought about food and how important it was to her. She wasn’t quite sure that the cheese she had was intended for the longer aging process, but she didn’t care. It was cheese. She also had a skin of wine and intended to drink all of it. The cave was the safest place in her world, except perhaps for England. She fingered the cyanide capsule she always kept on her person. At least she wouldn’t need it tonight. Still, she knew she’d probably never use it. If trapped, she intended to die in a gunfight or at least with her hands around the throat of the enemy.

  Madeleine’s thoughts turned to Teach. He was constantly with her. She didn’t allow herself any doubt that she would be with him again. She thought that he might have other women. She remembered telling him as they parted that if he did, she would understand, as he was a man. She smiled, remembering the shock on his young face, his looking at her like a dangerous animal, wanting her but afraid of being bitten. She laughed out loud. It was these tiny moments of joy that kept her sane and pushed her forward. Her life had been an endless path of death. She had to make it through.

  Outside the cave the day quieted into twilight as she tended her cooking and drank from the skin. The wine was good and she felt it warm her spirits. She was elated that she had performed her mission so well and knew that her “uncle Marc,” a member of a Resistance group from outside the area, had probably reached safety by now. His mission had been to deliver bread and other foods from the bakery around town.

  Marc, like so many of the other men of his generation, was a veteran of the First World War. His hatred for the Germans reached a level beyond even Madeleine’s comprehension, born of gas attacks in the night in a blasted land. He was a soldier, not an assassin. He thought of war in a conventional manner that included rules of engagement. In Madeleine’s mind, the monsters had forfeited the game. She was bound by nothing. Not even the directives of London. She freelanced when she saw the need.

  Madeleine opened the pages of the leading Resistance paper, “Combat.” They weren’t easy for her to come by. She picked them up during the brief contacts she had with Resistance groups. She realized that the Gestapo knew something of what she looked like, although she varied her appearance slightly each time. Sometimes it was eye wear or baggy clothing. She also used variations in hairstyle or accent.

  America was in the war now, and everyone was expecting invasion. It seemed that it would never come. She was tired of running and hiding and fear. Her only goals were to live to see France free again and to find Jack. It was hard to believe that it had been more than three years. She had had no news of him. There was no way for her to get any. She knew that he was alive. She had not had a premonition of tragedy, which were common to the women in her family. Their feelings were so acute that people had long ago stopped discounting them. The premonitions were both an asset and a curse, and so overwhelming as to be shattering in their psychological effect. Madeleine and her mother had known the instant her grandmother had passed away. It bordered on telepathy and, some said, clairvoyance. Madeleine relied upon her ability to know that Jack was alive and well.

  The last three years had been a jumble of killing and hiding. Madeleine was able to rest from time to time in one of several remote safe houses. Even though the British SOE maintained them, she felt like a noose was slowly tightening around her neck. She had been very lucky so far, but it seemed the Germans were never far behind and were always getting closer. Little by little the mood in France turned toward t
he anticipation of invasion. It would come. The bombers flew over towards Germany in ever-increasing numbers, and the resistance to them seemed to dwindle. Now the German people suffered and she was happy for it. She felt no empathy except for the children. The German people did not hold their leader or the military accountable for any atrocity. So she did. The day of reckoning was coming. She expected the call to come any day, encoded in a BBC broadcast.

  Madeleine’s orders came in a code singular to her. She was the hand of retribution, a source of terror among those that feared the Resistance. The Germans saw the Resistance as terrorists. The notion that one can be a terrorist in one’s own conquered and occupied country made no sense to her. Wouldn’t the German people fight an oppressor? Their nationalistic pride and the yoke of servitude after their defeat in the First World War had been the tinder that allowed a monster like Hitler and his henchmen to come to power. She knew the SS and the Gestapo, Hitler’s elite, regarded anyone not of pure Aryan race as sheep to be slaughtered at will, without compunction. No, the planes and bombs were just. If that was what it took to eradicate the evil that was Nazi Germany, then the German people had called it down upon themselves.