by Will Belford
Swimming out through the crashing waves, pulling the wounded Private Gregson, was one of the most exhausting experiences Smythe had ever had. He’d only learnt to swim since joining the commandos and couldn’t call himself a strong swimmer. Fit yes, strong yes, but his technique was woeful. Joe had shown them all how to do the ‘Australian Crawl’, but trying to draw breath amidst the chaotic rushing foam of the breakers was altogether different from doing it in a flat, freshwater Scottish loch; the appalling temperature was the only thing the two pieces of water had in common.
After an eternity of near-drowning in the wash and foam, Smythe cleared the break and was able to paddle out to the boat, rocking on the swell, and grab hold of the rope around its edge. Never had a rope felt so welcome, and when the sailors hauled him inboard he collapsed in a heap.
‘Is he the last?’ asked a sailor of Black.
‘All except the Lieutenant,’ replied Black gruffly, ‘and he ain’t comin’ by the looks of it.’
‘Sir!’ interjected a sailor, ‘E-Boat coming up from the south-east!’
‘We have to leave right now then,’ said the sailor, ‘sorry about your officer, but we have to go.’
Up on the edge of the cliff, Joe drew breath and watched the inflatable turn away. In the grey dawn light he’d seen the E-Boat cutting its way towards them at high speed, only a few minutes away to the south. It would take him a few minutes to climb down the cliff, and another few minutes to swim out. A delay like that now would doom them all. If he hadn’t had to spend twenty minutes avoiding Richter and his squad of goons he’d have made it.
He’d failed. Oh they’d blown up the radar station, but that was a secondary target. He’d failed in his main objective, the reason he’d taken the mission, to capture Richter. On reflection, in the cold hard light of failure, it was a cockeyed mission from the start: ill-conceived and poorly-executed. Worst of all, he was now a liability trapped on a foreign shore. Assuming he could avoid capture, the best he could hope for was to find some sympathetic Frenchman who would give him some civilian clothes so he could pass as a Frog until he could find a way back to England. As for Yvette, he longed to see her, but that would be insanely dangerous for both of them.
Out to sea, the rubber boat reached the MGB and he watched the small khaki figures clamber up onto the deck. He could see Smythe staring back to shore but he didn’t show himself; he knew that would just make matters worse. The water at the rear of the gunboat foamed and she gathered way, turning in a wide arc and accelerating towards the cliffs of Dover, now becoming visible in the rising sun, a thin pink line on the horizon.
The bushes behind him parted, and Richter stepped out onto the cliff edge, holding a pistol in his right hand. Three of the men from the radar station behind him.
‘Zo. We thought we might find you here. Missed the ferry did you? How sad.’
Joe took one last look at the receding gunboat and raised his hands. He was turning around when Richter smashed the Luger into the side of his head.
~ ~ ~
A shaft of morning sun stole through the gap between the blind and the window frame, illuminating Yvette’s sleeping form. She stirred and rolled over, but was suddenly wide awake to the sound of boots stamping in the forecourt of the hotel and loud German voices.
Peeking out the window, she saw half a dozen German soldiers guarding a man in a British uniform. Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter was striding up the steps and into the foyer, his left arm covered in blood. She hurriedly threw on a dress, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and hurried down the stairs.
In the foyer, Richter was on the phone, fortunately with his back to her, and she slipped across the hall and into the dining room, where she pretended to be setting the table nearest the door. She could hear Richter shouting into the phone.
‘Ein Englander! Ja, commandos … vier, funf … sie haben der radarstation vernichtet. Calais? Ja naturlich, sechs-und-dreissig heure. Alles gut.’
‘I think you’re done here Alouette,’ said the waiter in charge of the dining room, ‘can you help in the kitchen please?’
Yvette jumped.
‘Oui, of course,’ she said. She stole a glance out the window. The man in the British uniform was Joe alright, and he was bleeding from a gash on his forehead.
Chapter Eleven
Sergeant Smythe had never met the two men who debriefed him at Dover. When the MGB came into the jetty he had gone straight to the naval headquarters and called the number Joe had given him. A couple of hours later, during which the Royal Navy had been kind enough to issue Smythe and his men with dry clothes, hot soup and half a pint of navy rum, he was summoned by a midshipman.
Major Benjamin and Captain Jensen were awaiting him in a small office, with a man in civilian clothes who introduced himself as ‘Mr Smith from the Ministry’.
‘So you lost two men and most of your equipment on the way in?’ asked Captain Jensen, aghast, as Smythe related the events of the night, ‘and lost your lieutenant on the way out? Good God, what a monumental fuck-up!’
‘Well sir, I’d say we were lucky not to lose more men, the surf was that rough.’
‘The usual intelligence balls-up,’ said Captain Jensen with a sigh. Major Benjamin gave him a frown and gestured at Smythe to continue.
‘So we don’t know whether your lieutenant was killed, taken prisoner or escaped?’ said Jensen.
‘No sir’, replied Smythe, ‘but he certainly blew up the station, we heard the blast at 0430 by my watch.’
‘Well that’s something at least,’ said Major Benjamin, ‘pity about Richter, but we can’t have everything can we?’
‘You said he changed into a German uniform to kidnap Richter,’ asked Mr Smith in a low voice, speaking for the first time.
‘Yes sir,’ said Smythe, ‘I pointed out to him that this was rather dangerous, but he knows the risks, he’s done it before. We both got through the lines in German uniforms on the way to Dunkirk. Besides, he changed back into his khakis before we left the ambush.’
‘Let us hope he has avoided capture then,’ said Mr Smith, ‘if not, our Lieutenant Dean will most likely be shot out of hand as a spy or worse, passed to the Gestapo. Fortunately for us he doesn’t know much about anything except this operation.’
Smythe glared at the man but said nothing.
Chapter Twelve
‘Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter tells me that when you kidnapped him you were wearing the uniform of his driver, is that correct?’ enquired the man.
The room was dank and mouldy, there were no windows and the only light came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Joe grimaced: it was faintly ludicrous, almost comic, a cliché from a First World War spy story, the kind he’d devoured avidly as small boy. Yet, here he was, in just such a place, and while the man interrogating him hadn’t identified himself, Joe was reasonably sure he was from the GeheimStaatsPolizei, the infamous Gestapo. This was interesting in itself, because, as he understood it from his mission briefings, they were concerned with internal security, spies and the like, not with military matters.
This led him to consider the question further. He understood the rules of war as well as any soldier, and being caught in enemy uniform almost invariably led to the firing squad, on either side. He was surprised at his own calmness; for the moment it all seemed perfectly logical, he hadn’t yet succumbed to the terror of his situation, but he knew this self-delusion couldn’t last long. That knowledge itself was a small puncture in the wall of his self-belief, a puncture that the pressure of fear was steadily enlarging.
Joe said nothing.
‘Dog!’ screamed the man, leaning over the desk, his spittle flecking Joe’s face, ‘you think to play the fool with me? Why were you here?’
He had the red, jowly face of a man who over-indulged in beer and sausage. Above the cheeks a pair of small, piggy black eyes stared out angrily, seeming to find offence in whatever they saw, while his receding hairline added to t
he impression that he was some sort of demonic dwarf. Around the fastened collar of his shirt, folds of flesh drooped and sagged, and beneath the shirt a large belly protruded. Up close, his breath was a foul mixture of rotting pork and sour wine—he clearly had not cleaned his teeth in some time.
Joe didn’t answer. Admitting anything would do no good. He’d decided on a resolute silence as the best course of action. The instructors had said that engaging in any conversation with an interrogator was simply playing into their hands, and that while a mute silence might enrage them and drive them to torture sooner, that was preferable to finding yourself talked into betraying someone without a fight.
‘You do realise what is going to happen to you, don’t you?’ asked the man, picking his nose and examining the result. ‘You will be shot as a spy’, he said calmly, ‘thrown onto the town rubbish heap for the dogs, and no-one will ever hear of you again. You will be listed as ‘Missing In Action’ and your mother will worry herself to death over what may have happened to you. Worry herself into an early grave. Do you love your mother? Clearly you care nothing for your mother. You’re no doubt one of these wastrel sons, you probably ran away from Liverpool or some such hellhole to join the army.’
Joe said nothing. He examined his fingernails to try to prevent himself looking at the German. He might not have them tomorrow.
‘So you are not prepared to do this the civil way then?’ asked the man, almost rhetorically, ‘in that case we will have to find other means. You are now the property of the Gestapo, and Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter has laid a case of espionage against you. My fellow investigator will be here tomorrow and I can assure you that he has none of my moral scruples about interrogation. You see, I am a student of humanity and the idea of pain is abhorrent to me, but my colleague has no such qualms, and he travels with a well-stocked bag of devices that have been refined over centuries to make people reveal their secrets. I’m no expert in his methods, I usually leave him to do his work unimpeded, but I’ve seen the results. His name is Hagan Schmidt. It’s a name you’ll love to hate for however long he decides to let you live. I’ll leave you to contemplate that. Auf wiedersehen.’
The cell door clanged shut and the light went out, plunging Joe into blackness.
~ ~ ~
In L’Espadon, Marcel Fabache and Etienne Rigal drank their vin rouge morosely.
‘Merde, how did it come to this?’ said Etienne, gesticulating wildly.
‘Etienne,’ replied Marcel calmly, ‘we’ve gone through this a thousand times. We lost.’
‘Oui, but why did those commando bastards insist we go home?’ he remonstrated, ‘we could have helped them! And now look, they let that German bastard get away.’
In the room around them, a small and insalubrious wine bar, fishermen and farmers talked in murmurs about the catch, the weather and the Germans. Due to its proximity to England, this part of France now laboured under far stricter rules than the rest of the occupied area. Passes had to be carried everywhere, a curfew was in place, petrol was almost impossible to get except on the black market. Food was becoming scarcer, available only through ration books issued by the Germans or through that same black market at extortionate prices. Being a port town and surrounded by fertile countryside, the situation was not so bad in Calais as it was reported to be in the bigger cities, Rouen for example, where people were now queuing for hours for a loaf of bread. The worst thing for the two men though, was the constant presence of the Germans.
‘When les Allemands came here in 1870,’ muttered Etienne, ‘my grandfather fought them, and lost. When France surrendered, the Germans occupied nothing but Paris, and once the terms were agreed, they went back to Germany en masse.’
This time was different. The Wehrmacht troops in their field-grey uniforms and their jackboots were everywhere: sitting in the restaurants, cafes and bars, wandering around the town taking photos as if they were tourists on holiday. And that was the ones who were on leave. They were complemented by armed squads who patrolled the streets to enforce the curfew, and conducted raids on houses of suspected ‘enemies of the occupying forces.’
‘And Mareschal Petain sits in Vichy issuing grand proclamations,’ continued Etienne, ‘it is “the duty of every Frenchman to co-operate and that the time for fighting is over.” Pah!’
The man spat on the floor in disgust.
With millions of French soldiers captured and sent to Germany during the confused fighting of the invasion of France, there were few young men left, and the streets looked strangely empty of French males under 30, their place taken by the Germans.
‘And now our women are flirting with the Germans,’ cursed Marcel, the combination of the cheap wine and Etienne’s anger kindling a fire in his usually calm demeanour, ‘but at least we have one who is ready to fight.’
It had been the quiet violence of the words of Yvette Bendine that had enabled them to see the defeat of France as more than a threat to French manhood.
‘What manhood?’ she had said derisively, ‘no Frenchman can hold his head up after such a surrender. Fight? The glorious Armee de Francais barely lasted a month! No wonder French girls are turning to the Germans, they are the victors! And besides, all the best French men are in prison camps, who knows when they will return?’
Her words had cut deep into the pride of the two Frenchmen, as she had intended. She needed them to be so ashamed that they would do whatever was necessary, take any risk to kill as many Germans as possible.
‘But, my friends,’ she had said, ‘as a Frenchwoman myself I can see an opportunity here.’
That had been two months ago. The two men had been sitting in this same tavern, trying to ward off despair with thoughts of how best to resist the Germans, when Yvette had come in with a basket, walking around the rooms, importuning the drinkers to ‘give a little something for the poor orphans, of which there are now so many more than usual.’
When she had reached their table, she gave a quick glance around the room and while leaning over to accept their donations, whispered, ‘I hear you are the men I should speak to about la resistance.’
They met the next evening at a cafe, and discussed their position. Yvette made two things clear immediately: that she hated the Germans with a passion, and that she would not tolerate being treated as anything but a man in all respects as far as the work of resistance went. When the conversation turned to action, Marcel listed from memory the German units he had noticed being posted in the area. The one that he was most interested in was the 14th company of the SS Totenkopf division. He knew that a certain Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter who commanded a company in this regiment was one of the SS officers who had committed hideous atrocities during the campaign—the general staff had received reports of these even as the front collapsed around them. He was determined to give the man his just desserts while he had the chance, but he had been utterly incapable of working out how to do it, except perhaps through the clumsy expedient of a grenade through the window of his car, an approach which would almost certainly mean death for the perpetrator.
‘Richter?’ said Yvette, ‘I know the man, he would have had me ‘relocated’ with all the other Jews from Roubaix if it hadn’t been for the intervention of another Nazi pig who wanted me all to himself.’
She shuddered at the memory, and the two men looked away in embarrassment, an embarrassment that encompassed their feeling of inadequacy for the whole of France, and every woman who had been violated during or since the invasion.
‘I have no doubt I can get close to Richter,’ she said, ‘he’s just a man after all. I’ll put myself in his way, then once I have him in a routine you can find a way to kill him that leaves me completely blameless.’
The two men looked at each other with alarm at her cold-bloodedness.,
‘Yvette,’ said Marcel, ‘are you sure that’s what you want to do? It will be extremely dangerous.’
‘Do we have a choice?’ she demanded, ‘what plan hav
e you come up with?’
Marcel and Etienne exchanged a rueful glance: they had no plan whatsoever.
‘If you’re determined to do it, then we will have to move fast,’ said Marcel, ‘his unit will not be here on leave for long, a month at most I expect. Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she replied firmly, feeling none of the confidence that her voice implied.
~ ~ ~
In the light of the night’s events, that conversation seemed to belong to a distant time. Yvette was appalled at her naivety and over-confidence, but she had had no option. If she were to achieve anything she had to prove that she was tougher than these two professional French soldiers, tougher in her own way, and able to offer something they could not: the wiles and sex appeal of a young, attractive woman. She had no illusions about what her role in the resistance would entail. She was the honey trap, the seductress who would open the way to murder.
She hadn’t given it much thought. After what the German spy Schmidt had done to her, her sense of self had changed irrevocably. There was no way to explain to herself the abuse she’d suffered, and certainly no-one she could possibly talk about it with, so she had crushed her pain into a ball and swallowed it. Now every day she chewed upon it as cud, looking for some way to digest it, and the only answer that presented itself was revenge. As a word it was meaningless; she’d heard the expression that vengeance was a dish best eaten cold, and she thought she understood it, but it relied upon the idea that the victim would one day meet the perpetrator and, in some perfect climax, avenge themselves. She knew that there was little chance of ever tracking down Schmidt and visiting upon him some of the tortures she’d dreamt of inflicting upon him.
No. Her vengeance had to be more general, visited upon the Germans as a whole. God knew their whole race deserved punishment for the crimes they had committed. Any and every German in France was a target to her, and if she had to take off her clothes and give her body to them to help her compatriots kill them, then that was what she would do. She knew that some of the folk in Wissant has already labelled her as a collaborateur. She cared nothing for their opinion—none of them were doing anything to resist—and she hadn’t planned on staying for long anyway: there might be safety in knowing the local terrain and the people, but there was just as much risk. Anyone could turn out to be an informer, betraying a confidence for some trifling favour from the occupiers.
