by Vic Robbie
He did not have anything against guns, just what they were used for. He was an American after all. Back home a kid was given his first gun around the same time he got his first pair of shoes. It took him back to his childhood when reality became an enduring nightmare, growing more degrading with every visit. He was holidaying with friends, and their fathers took them on a hunting expedition. After hours of tracking, they cornered a wild boar and the men shot at it and in their excitement only wounding it. The animal sought refuge deeper into the brush and they followed it shooting as they went. And the animal was squealing and grunting every time it was hit. Eventually, it could flee no further and lay on its side and its panting was like a long, low sob of pain. Blood pumped out of multiple wounds and, as the men aimed their rifles for the kill because only a death would satiate them, the boar lifted its head in defiance. And then he realised it knew it would die. And in its eyes there was one last act of pleading aimed at him as if he were in some way responsible for its suffering. He vowed then never to fire a gun.
Pushing a hand through his hair, he wondered what he should do with the revolver. Of course Hemingway would’ve known, he’d have stuck it in the waistband of his trousers.
There again, he thought, I’d probably shoot my nuts off.
Damn Bernay.
10
BERNAY banged the telephone handset down on its cradle, surprising himself with this unaccustomed show of anger. He tapped the desk with his right hand and exhaled. Pushing back his chair and wincing as it screeched on the wooden floor, he got up and paced his office deep in thought. He’d gone to the British for help. Even they realised the benefits of his plan. What he was attempting was risky and dangerous, but there was no alternative. It would have meant giving up without a fight. Now the British were demanding a favour in return for their help – and it complicated matters. It was like a blackmailer. Give him something and he keeps coming back for a little bit more. He thought what he’d offered was enough although this was war after all. He had already discussed his plans with the ambassador who had promised to help although he couldn’t contact him on this occasion. Perhaps he’d already left Paris although he suspected he was just avoiding him. Instead, he was put through to someone who gave his name as Brown and said he’d been given the responsibility of finding whatever help he could. Yet even though Brown professed to understand the importance to France of what Bernay was proposing he wasn’t making things easy. In these difficult times, Brown explained, it was almost impossible to get the manpower to carry it out. No matter how deserving the cause.
Bernay felt a desperation creeping over him. This was his last chance.
Brown had heard the disappointment in the director’s voice and paused, letting him fill the silence.
‘Is there anything we can to do to persuade you to help?’ Bernay asked.
Brown’s intake of breath sounded almost terminal. ‘What have you in mind?’
His mind was racing, trying to think of something, anything, he could offer.
Brown delayed, knowing Bernay had nothing more to offer.
‘I’m not sure.’ Bernay felt a bead of sweat roll down his cheek.
Brown could almost smell the banker’s desperation.
‘Is there anything, Mr Brown?’
Brown hesitated again. There was no rush. He picked the remains of a baguette out of his teeth with a letter opener. The game was beginning to bore him. It was almost time to reel him in. ‘Well, now you mention it, there’s something you could do for us...’ It was vital Bernay should not suspect the importance of what he was about to ask him.
His relief was overwhelming. ‘Anything, just name it.’
‘One minute.’ Brown put down the telephone on the desk and went over to a small radio in the corner of his office. He switched it on and turned up the volume until he was sure it would drown out their conversation. The radio whined and crackled as the Marseillaise boomed out a despairing protest. He returned to his seat and picked up the telephone. ‘M’sieu Bernay, are you still there? Good, this what we need you to do.’
Brown paused to let his words sink in. ‘Accept and we’ll help you. If not... you’re on your own, I’m afraid.’
Everything these days came with a price. It was an added complication. What Brown had demanded was fraught with danger. Yet without Britain’s help, how else could he achieve it? Opening the door to his office, Bernay instructed his secretary: ‘Please ask Renard to come up and see me.’
He was still considering his options when there was a light tap on his door.
‘Come in, Arnaud, please, come in.’
A small man in overalls, Arnaud Renard, pushed open the door and paused before entering. His boss pointed to a seat in front of his desk. And Renard picked his way across the highly polished oak floor on the balls of his feet as if worried he might make a noise or damage the wood. Never before had he been allowed to sit on the chair in his oil-stained work clothes although it didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Renard shifted in the seat and noticed two buff-coloured folders on the desk before the director.
‘Arnaud.’ He smiled his most welcoming smile. ‘Is everything going to plan?’
‘Yes, M’sieu Bernay, it’s almost complete and should be ready to go within the hour.’
‘And your assistant?’
‘Lefevre,’ he reminded him.
‘Ah, yes, Lefevre, a good man? What does he know?’
‘Nothing. I’ve done most of the work myself.’
‘Good, good, it’s better for him the less he knows. This has to be our secret.’
Renard nodded in discomfort wishing he didn’t have to be part of any secret.
He smiled at him. ‘A drink?’
Renard spluttered. It was one thing to be summoned to the director’s office and called by his first name, the first time the director had done so in all his years at the bank. To be offered a drink and in the morning was unheard of.
‘Splendid.’ He turned away as if Renard’s silence meant acceptance and opened a door in his desk taking out a bottle of Armagnac and two crystal glasses.
‘I think we deserve this.’ He poured two generous measures. ‘We might not have the opportunity to have one later.’
He pushed the almost full glass across the desk to his worker. He trusted Renard. Every day when he left the Bentley at the door of the bank, Pierre drove it round and into the underground car park housing the bank’s vehicles. Pierre washed it and Renard checked it over and always found something to work on ensuring it was always in the very best condition.
‘Santé,’ he raised his glass and Renard did so in acknowledgement and took a larger gulp than he intended almost making him choke. ‘Thank you, Arnaud. This is a historic day. France will salute you. If we succeed, we’ll both be heroes. If we fail...’
Putting down his glass, he stared at Renard and, tapping his fingers on the two buff folders on the desk, he pulled them towards him.
‘As soon as everything is ready, you must leave the bank. These folders are your and Lefevre’s employment records. These will be burned straight away. There must be no record of you ever having worked for this bank. You understand?’
He waited until Renard agreed before continuing.
‘My secretary has an envelope containing money for both of you. Let’s say it’s severance pay, a very generous amount in recognition of what you’ve done. I suggest you leave Paris and head as far south as possible.’
Renard mumbled his thanks.
‘You love this great city as much as I do, don’t you, Arnaud?’
Renard replied with a shy smile as if it were a vice to admit it.
‘Then it’s better for you to leave because once the Nazis have invaded it’ll break your heart. What they might...’
His hands fiddled with the folders on his desk.
‘... or will do...’ His voiced trailed off at the thought of it.
‘Will you go, monsieur director?’
&
nbsp; ‘No, I think I have to stay.’
His eyes swept around his office, knowing it would be hard to leave.
‘I need to be here when they come. Perhaps in some small way I can lessen the damage. Maybe save a little bit for us when... if ever we win back the city.’
And he thought of the mission Ben Peters was about to undertake and it gave him a quantum of hope. He got to his feet, signalling their meeting was at an end and shook his worker’s hand placing his left hand on top as if cementing their agreement.
‘Everything will be destroyed; it’ll be as if you never existed...’
11
SMOKE billowed out of a ground-floor window joining that from the bonfire burning in the grounds of the British Embassy on the Rue d’Anjou. A queue of staff lined up to add records, files and papers to the pyre. Those in line waited with impatience to unload their secrets knowing as soon as they had completed the task they would be free to leave. In silence, they watched the fragments of burning paper float upwards from the flames like an armada of tiny ships setting off on an arduous voyage.
Herbert Brown couldn’t take it anymore. He had to open it.
The liaison officer Pickering, dressed in crumpled tweeds and plus-fours and wearing brown brogues, stretched out on a chaise longue with his head on the arm of the seat and his long legs dangling over the end. He puffed on his favourite pipe clenched between his brown-stained teeth as if unaware of the danger they were all facing. And he was also oblivious to Brown’s discomfort.
Even if Brown had complained he would have received the usual riposte. ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of smoke, old boy. The best whisky and the most expensive salmon are smoked so what harm will it do to us?’
Brown often wondered with whom Pickering liaised. He never seemed to do anything although he was always present at the important meetings picking his goatee beard as if searching for invaders and sucking on his pipe. Every now and then he’d remove it from his mouth to add to the discussion and stick it back in as if the thought had deserted him. The word from embassy colleagues was that he was ‘well connected’.
Pickering had little time for Brown. Not the embassy type, you understand. Pretty ordinary school. Ill-fitting suit. Because of his eyesight he couldn’t be called up, although he was rather a good shot by all accounts, so they stuck him in Intelligence. Something Brown was devoid of in his opinion. He just didn’t look the part for embassy circles, close-cropped hair like a convict’s and a bony expressionless face.
Brown did smile from time to time and he’d the habit of grinning at Pickering with an irritating look of superiority. Boy, did that get Pickering’s goat. It was an amused smile although it was all mouth. There was no warmth there. He couldn’t locate the grey eyes swimming behind the thick lenses of his steel-rimmed spectacles and it troubled him. When Pickering was able to see their eyes, he believed he knew what they were thinking and he had a chance of anticipating what their next move might be. It would have been better if Maclean had been looking after this, but he’d gone off to marry an American woman and was making his own way back to Blighty.
Pickering seemed unperturbed considering the amount of activity around him as anything that couldn’t be taken was being trashed or burned. In a languid movement, he removed his pipe and tapped out the remains in an ashtray. ‘So, Brown, what did our man have to say?’
‘He wasn’t happy.’
Pickering snorted and shook his head in disbelief.
‘That’s bloody gratitude for you.’
‘Well, let’s say he was hacked off.’
‘Typical French.’
Inserting a new wad of tobacco, Pickering tamped it down as if he were engaged in a work of art before re-lighting his pipe. ‘We’re over here trying our damnedest to help them.’ He took a couple of puffs until the thing smoked like a steam engine. ‘Look at our boys being shot up at Dunkirk.’
‘It’s not quite –’
‘Between you and me if London hadn’t been very keen on it, I’d have told him where to put his madcap idea.’
‘Bernay was worried it could make things difficult for them.’
‘Look, without our people he wouldn’t be able to deliver his bloody package.’ He wanted to distance himself from Brown yet he had to admit Brown had taken up the ball and was running with it although in what direction he wasn’t sure.
‘I think he accepts that.’ Brown nodded his head slowly. ‘He was just worried our arrangement was an extra complication.’
Pickering raised his voice in indignation. ‘A bloody vital one.’
With a glint in his eye, he unfolded from the chaise longue and lumbered over to a corner of the room.
‘Fuck the French,’ he roared. ‘You’re good for nothing but food and fornicating.’
He wheezed with laughter and with his pipe tapped a grille in the wall he knew hid the French intelligence services’ bug as though he was expecting them to emerge from their hiding place. He believed he knew where all the bugs were. What worried him were the ones he hadn’t found.
It was standard procedure. Insult the French snoops and never give them anything of importance. They moved out into the garden to discuss confidential details though now there was too much going on out there.
‘I doubt anyone’s listening now,’ said Brown.
He ignored that. ‘Well, Brown, I’m sure you’ll have everything sorted for him.’
Brown was pleased. Everything seemed to be going to plan.
‘Did you tell Bernay anything about our arrangement?’
‘Good God, no. The fewer who know, the better.’
‘Good man, you can’t trust the froggies. Who’s going to make the delivery?’
‘He’s got an employee, Ben Peters. A Yank.’
‘Interesting! Quite clever. At this time, they’re neutral until his government decides to get its finger out, and you’re sure he knows nothing about any of this?’
‘Nothing, and Bernay still believes his mission to be the important one.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Pickering coughed and a flicker of fear danced across his face at the thought of it all going wrong. ‘What was the phrase he used? Ah, yes... ‘It could save the future of France’.’ Again he roared with laughter.
Brown escaped to the door and turned as he opened it.
‘And if the Yank succeeds in delivering our package it will give Herr Hitler something to rant about.’
Pickering gave no impression he’d heard. He was back on the chaise longue puffing hard on his pipe and staring into the distance.
12
BEN ran into the banque de france carrying his leather overnight bag in which he’d hidden the revolver under his clothes. He was met by Pierre, who gave him a reproachful look suggesting he didn’t approve of running within the confines of the bank. Pierre raised his eyebrows and gestured over his shoulder with a nod towards the back of the bank’s lobby.
‘He’s waiting for you.’
Bernay was agitated. He kept taking out his gold Hunter pocket watch and opening it to check the time as he paced up and down.
‘Ah, Ben.’ Bernay seemed relieved and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
‘Sorry, I’m late.’ He wasn’t sure if he was.
‘Follow me.’ Bernay took his arm and led him to a spiral staircase they descended in silence to the bank’s basement.
He’d never been down here before and, although he’d once been told it could house 3,000 people, its size surprised him and was emphasised all the more by an empty, echoing coldness. Staff had commandeered all of the bank’s trucks to move their families and possessions away from Paris and out of harm’s way.
Empty, apart from in a far corner two men working on a car up on a ramp. He could just make out in the dim light the garage manager, Arnaud Renard, a nervous little man in oil-stained overalls, but didn’t recognise the other. When Renard saw them approaching, he dismissed his assistant telling him to go off for a coffee and not to return for at least thirty mi
nutes.
‘Bonjour, gentlemen,’ said Renard wiping his oily hands with a dirty rag and half turning to the car on the ramp that Ben recognised as Bernay’s Bentley. ‘She’s almost ready for you.’
He’d seen it many times before and admired it and even coveted it although he’d never been this close. It oozed sensuous power and with its shiny body sweeping and curving into the dark looked less like a machine fashioned from steel but more something born of an organic being. And he almost believed if he touched it he’d find it breathing. Watched by its eyes, five huge chrome headlamps in a cluster, he felt it could pounce and devour him.
Bernay tapped Renard on the back and turned to face Ben before spreading his arms in an extravagant gesture. ‘This is your task.’
Ben struggled to conceal his disappointment. Surely Bernay, whom he thought to be a man of the highest integrity, wasn’t just concerned about his own possessions with the Germans about to enter the city? It seemed all Bernay wanted was for him to drive his valuable motorcar far away out of the Germans’ reach. That angered him. He’d always wanted to drive a Bentley though not in these circumstances. Bernay could get anyone to drive his damn automobile, why him? He wanted to do something worthwhile for the war effort. Something he could write about. This was not the material he was looking for. Not quite Hemingway, he thought. Hemingway at least drove an ambulance and saved lives.
Bernay realised what he was thinking. ‘Yes, yes, I need you to drive the Bentley out of Paris, but there’s much more.’ There was an impatient edge to his voice. ‘This is most important for all of us.’
He gestured to Ben. ‘Come.’
Lamp in hand, the banker ducked under the ramp and he followed and copied Bernay’s gaze up into the car’s innards. Along the entire length of the chassis, a number of canvas bags were strapped by leather belts to the inner rails and Bernay tugged at several of the bags trying and failing to dislodge them.
