At Long Last Love

by Milly Adams

  Bernard ordered for them both, saying, ‘It’s best to be here early or it is all gone.’ It was midday. George was halfway through his meal. There were others, men and women, eating.

  George said quietly, ‘Good use is made of the black market, thank the Lord.’

  Bernard nodded, easing off his coat and letting it fall onto the back of the chair, as Sarah had done. He muttered, leaning forward so that his lips could not be read, ‘Welcome to Paris. We have a safe house for you, Cécile. I will lead you.’ The two men laughed, and Sarah joined in. It must look as though their conversation was that of old friends, which of course they were, but even these friends were treated with reservation, for who knew if they had been turned by the enemy?

  Sarah listened to the two men, but thought of the Resistance worker she had heard of who had been captured, unknown to their group, and subsequently released back into the fold. From this tightly knit world he had reported on his fellow agents and activities, until suspicions had been aroused. It transpired that a member of his family had been taken hostage, and how could you choose between a mission and the life of a loved one?

  It was difficult to spot a traitor in a hostage situation, because there was no need for the Gestapo to shadow them. Why bother, when to run or disobey would bring about the death of a relative? So, if there are no suspicious shadows, there was no suspicion. It was simpler when someone was doing it for thirty pieces of silver; then Gestapo tabs would be kept on them, and sometimes, just sometimes, it was possible for the betrayed to catch the betrayer.

  Bernard spoke, his lips barely moving. ‘Cécile, we are in this area to organise the sabotage of selected targets. For this we need to receive explosives, incendiary devices and weapons, and deliver them on to others.’ He lit a cigarette.

  George raised his voice. ‘Ah, here comes your mutton. I am about to finish, but if you have a poor appetite, I will help.’

  As the patron placed the mutton before them, Sarah said to George, ‘I understand what you say about the cold, but I like the seasons. If you want sun, you should have been living in Nice.’ The patron stood beside the table, his apron smeared with gravy. Steam rose from the plates.

  ‘Nice? With those Vichy swine.’ George raised his voice again, as though he wanted the Germans to hear.

  They thanked the patron for the mutton, their expressions unchanging and no acknowledgement being given. He could be a plant. He nodded as though he understood, and left.

  Bernard said, ‘We think he’s all right, but we’re not sure.’ He inhaled, carefully pinched out his cigarette and left it on the ashtray for later. ‘Our task, Cécile, is – as always – to find the right people for each group. Ones who are prepared to take risks and become a part of the quiet army of those who are fighting back. We have to make them aware that we need to create damage with carefully placed explosives and, if possible, without the enemy realising the cause, to prevent retribution.’

  She knew this, of course she did. So what was her role?

  He was shovelling the mutton into his mouth as though he hadn’t eaten in days. He was so drawn and thin that perhaps he hadn’t. Her heart twisted. She ate hers, but hadn’t felt hungry since she had arrived in France, so she took it steadily, eating only because she needed fuel.

  He said, through his chewing, ‘We need to find grounds suitable for drops, and places to hide the equipment when it is dropped. We need to find people to train to use it. Simple.’

  George laughed. ‘I have to go, as others are reminding me.’ He was warning them that the Germans were passing nearby, on their way to the door.

  Sarah said, ‘So, shall we be together for Christmas? Mama would be so pleased.’ There was a draught as the door opened, then slammed shut. She said, ‘My task?’

  ‘To work with me, Cécile – that is your task. I need a courier and trainer.’ Bernard would say no more, because no detail must be passed in front of George.

  They ordered coffee, real coffee. This she savoured, holding the cup between her hands and breathing in the scent of it, sipping slowly. Work with Bernard? Thank heavens.

  He said, ‘I have a contact; and from him will come others. George, we will come to you to pass on information of the drops needed, or leave messages at the safe drop. You know where I mean, and soon so will Cécile. We all know the codes, including that for an emergency, should we be compromised. Now, we should go. You must be in place by this evening, George. Stay safe, my friend. Continue to move daily to transmit, but you know that.’

  Bernard rose, beckoning to the patron. ‘Excellent mutton, patron, we will be here again, when we are next in Paris.’ He paid for all three.

  The patron took the money and gave half back. ‘For when you come again.’

  Bernard shook his head. ‘Good food deserves good payment.’ He left it, and more, on the table. The patron shrugged and pocketed it. George put on his beret.

  Bernard picked up his pinched-out cigarette, stuffing it in an inside pocket. ‘Filthy habit,’ he muttered, drawing back Sarah’s chair. ‘Mama would be unamused, would she not, Cécile?’

  George led the way onto the street. His bike was tucked down the side alley. Without a backward glance he pedalled away. Sarah could hardly bear to see him go. It could so easily be the last time, because he had outlived the period that a wireless operator was expected to survive.

  Bernard walked with her. ‘Meet me tomorrow; you know when and where?’

  Sarah did. He strode right at the boulevard Haussmann, she to the left. On arrival at the hotel, she passed through the lobby and listened at her door for sounds of movement. There seemed to be none. She eased into the room. It was empty. She examined the hairs she had stuck to her suitcase. All was well. She slept until morning.

  They took the train sitting separately, but in the same carriage. Bernard rose as the train slowed for a station and tucked his newspaper beneath his arm – her signal. Sarah followed. Some way from the station he eased into a barn, where two bicycles were propped against a rusted plough. On the back of each was a small crate in which a chicken scrabbled and clucked. Rope bound the top shut, and air penetrated between the slats.

  Sarah sighed and pedalled after Bernard. Her revolver, tucked into the back of her waistband, felt cold, but she considered it necessary, here in the occupied zone.

  They passed through two villages, jiggling over the cobbles. At the crossroads of one they were flagged down by a German patrol. They stopped, dug for their papers, resting the bicycles between their legs. While one of the Germans studied their ID cards, two others walked around them, stopping at the crates. They eyed the chickens through the slats. ‘Why?’ one asked.

  ‘We take it for the farmer, to another farm.’ Bernard shrugged.

  ‘Why not two in the same box?’

  Sarah said, tucking her ID card into her coat pocket, ‘They peck one another, like quarrelling children.’

  ‘This farm, you work there?’

  Sarah said, as Bernard had briefed her, ‘No. We have no work at the moment, so we do what we can. In return, we will be given eggs – six between us.’ She gave him the name of the farm. If the soldiers checked, they’d be in trouble, but also long gone.

  The patrol leader adjusted the rifle slung over his shoulder, as a priest left the church and headed through the village, perhaps for his lunch. Two women in headscarves left too, and a nun. The soldier gestured with his head. ‘Don’t eat all the eggs at once, or you will be constipated.’

  The others laughed. Sarah smiled. Bastards, she thought. Bernard tipped his beret. They pedalled away, the chickens protesting at the bumpy ride. ‘Shut up,’ she growled. ‘You could have been in a Nazi pot by tonight.’

  Miraculously, the hens fell quiet. Bernard, riding alongside her now, laughed. ‘You have the power of command. We’re nearly there.’

  She snatched a look behind. The village had disappeared, and so too the patrol. She and Bernard would find another way back. They pulled up 100 yards away
, at a quite different farmhouse from the one she had mentioned to the patrol. They left the bicycles on the far side of the hedge, and the crates with the chickens too. It was their cover. Besides, the farmer wanted them back.

  They flanked the farmhouse and came at it from the side, slipping around the house, listening. Bernard checked his watch. ‘Dead on time.’

  ‘Don’t say “dead”,’ she snapped.

  ‘I’ll lead, and stop being prissy. It’s only a word.’

  He scouted ahead, and she watched as he slipped in through the huge doors of the barn. She would wait, because you never knew. There was no sound of shots, no shout. He would always shout, he had said, as indeed had she, because if they were captured, they were dead anyway.

  He re-emerged and gave a nod. She skirted the farmyard and entered the barn. Bernard stood with a man whose tattered old trousers were tied with rope at the waist and with string at the knees, to stop rats climbing up. He was as old as his trousers, and as broad as he was long. Clearly ‘tough’ was his middle name. There was another, younger man standing in the shadows.

  Sarah waited just inside the door. The old man looked at her. ‘Ah, Cécile. I am François, and here is Hugo. He is eager to join us.’ He called Hugo forward.

  Bernard talked to him for a while, beckoning Sarah in. She and François sat on a pile of old logs, François fiddling with a piece of string.

  She heard Hugo say, ‘You can count on me. You need grounds for a parachute drop, you say? I know of one.’ They shook hands and came over to Sarah and François.

  They followed Hugo and François over a rise, south of the farmhouse, skirting the fields and woods until they reached level ground, about 300 yards in length, nicely shielded by trees from the road. Perfect and it matched anything she’d scouted out in the south. She and Bernard nodded to one another. As they walked back, Hugo and François conferred about possible hiding places for the supplies. Finally they agreed on an area only a few yards from the dropping zone: an unused potato-storage barrow.

  Bernard asked if they knew men who could be trusted to help with the reception of supplies, and the securing of them at the barrow. Yes, it transpired, they did. Bernard made as if to leave, saying that a courier would come with details of the drop. François protested, ‘No, no, my friends. Come, come.’ Hugo left, but François led them into the farmhouse kitchen.

  There they met Simone, François’s wife. There were two grandchildren. Simone waved them to a chair. ‘I have coffee – real coffee.’

  Sarah closed her eyes and could almost smell it. ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Sit, sit.’

  She did, next to Bernard. He draped his arm over the back of her chair, touching her shoulder briefly. ‘Half an hour,’ he murmured. ‘We need to be back by curfew.’

  The beans were ground, the coffee made and drunk, and if she died that minute there would be no need of heaven, because that real coffee was food of the gods and she savoured every mouthful.

  Beside her, Bernard did the same. He said, ‘Even in England we do not have this.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Simone. ‘But you’ve Winston Churchill, who has stood firm, he has not promised falsely; it will be hard, but we can win, we can take our country back.’

  The children ran into the yard. ‘How old?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘Six and eight.’

  Sarah almost said that Lizzy was nine now. She put her cup down and asked instead, ‘Where are their parents?’

  ‘Their father is a prisoner in Germany, working somewhere – the bastards.’

  François grumbled, ‘The mother, pooh. She has another life, with a German. It is from there that we get the coffee.’

  Immediately Bernard straightened, even more alert than usual. He checked his watch. ‘We must go. We will tell you if we need you. Be safe, and thank you.’ He shook hands, and François kissed Sarah on both cheeks, and Simone too.

  Simone pressed some cheese into her hand. ‘Go back safely to your home, one day.’

  They rode back to the cycle drop and left the bicycles and the hens, before walking to the train. Sarah said, ‘We can’t use them; the children could say something to their mother.’

  Bernard nodded. ‘We try again tomorrow, or we move to Rouen. I will see George later, or at dawn. He will have moved, of course, and left notice of that at the message drop.’

  They hurried to her hotel as darkness fell, using the back streets. Bernard stopped in the dark of the alley running along the side of the hotel. ‘Come to the café and wear as many clothes as possible; we might just leave here. Do not, I repeat do not, carry your weapon again for trips like these. If you are stopped, all the bluffing in the world will not help.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I know the shape of you, Cécile.’

  The next morning Sarah moved to Rouen; Bernard did not. Why? The coded message at the drop had said, ‘Change of plan.’

  At Rouen, the Seine was its usual stolid self. Rouen’s Gothic churches stood as though daring anyone to damage them, and its timbered houses probably looked as they did when Joan of Arc was tried for heresy. Sarah was focusing on this, because she hated being alone again. She felt the panic rising as she crossed the cobbled street. Everywhere there were German troops, and posters of wanted men and women pasted on the walls; some torn and weathered, others new. She saw one of George; it was new. Dear God, they must try and get him out of the country, but it wasn’t a full moon, so no Lysander aircraft could be sent for him yet.

  She went to the house designated in her instructions, strolling past a machine-gun post at a corner. Her papers were checked, then again by a patrol. The second time she was searched. Thank God she carried no revolver this time, just her suitcase. This too was searched, but the false bottom was not discovered.

  The door at the rear of the safe house was hanging half open. The windows were cracked and broken. It was unoccupied, cold. There was no furniture. Sarah slipped in. She felt cold, in spite of her layers of clothing. She carefully clicked open her case and removed the false bottom, withdrawing her revolver. Listening, she crept from room to room, ready to break a neck, kick legs from beneath any attacker or beat them with the gun. She didn’t want to shoot, because it would alert passers-by more surely than hanging a sign out of the window.

  She crept up the stairs, each creak seeming like an explosion. In the attic there was a note: ‘Someone once lived here, but we don’t know who any more.’ She waited; ‘once’, ‘who’ and ‘someone’ meant that a contact would come. Shivering with cold, sitting on the floor in the attic and clasping her knees, she listened, and waited.

  Through the broken skylight she heard the sound of Germans marching past, and one man shouted to another. There was the noise of passing lorries. Germany had been stalled at Stalingrad, and Montgomery had won at El Alamein, or so Bernard had told her. Maybe it was making the Germans nervous. Good, but it could impinge on the activities of the Resistance.

  She waited, sitting on the floor of the deserted and empty house, but for whom?

  At eleven at night, Sarah heard footsteps on the stairs. She eased herself upright and took up station behind the door, her hands ready, revolver in her waistband. Higher and higher the intruder was climbing. If it was the enemy, there would be more than one. She strained to pick out the sounds. The footsteps stopped, then started again. She listened until they reached the top of the stairs. She breathed through her mouth, put her weight on the balls of her feet. The floor of the landing creaked, and then again. He, or they were closer, so close. She waited poised behind the door.

  Bernard whispered, ‘I came by moonlight.’

  She almost wept – Bernard, thank God. She whispered back, ‘Indeed, and the wind is calm tonight.’ She stepped out, and there he was. He reached for her, held her close and now, though there was no patrol, he kissed her, and it was such a long time since anyone had loved her that she kissed him back. They clung together, but then she pulled away. ‘They have posters
of George.’

  He pulled her back, saying against her hair, ‘I know, I was alerted. He is safe, for now. They will send a Lysander at the next full moon. If they can’t land, then it will be next month.’

  She didn’t ask where, because there was no way he would tell her. Information wasn’t exchanged. It was better that way. He held her close, whispering, ‘We must stay here tonight. There are curtains at one of the windows downstairs; they’ll keep us warm.’ He left her, hurrying to the rooms below, and soon returned with the curtains. ‘I don’t like being up here, we’re rats in a trap.’

  He was arranging the curtains on the floor, and the dust from them caught in Sarah’s throat. She said, ‘We’re not trapped. There’s a way down from the window. We’re better here than on the street. Just tell me: have we lost any more men?’

  He shrugged. ‘Come on, sleep. I’ll stay on watch. Then I’ll have some shut-eye, while you keep watch.’

  They nestled beneath the curtains, shivering. She put her arms around him, and he around her, for warmth of course.

  ‘Sleep,’ he said. She did.

  In the morning, stiff and aching, Sarah left her suitcase hidden in the eaves and wore two layers. She left her revolver. If she didn’t return to the safe house, she would manage without it. They set out, heading for a shed where Bernard said they would find bicycles. They dodged patrols as they pedalled through and out of Rouen.

  Yet again they headed for a contact; yet again it was a farmhouse; yet again they hunted out dropping zones. They met potential recruits, some to form a group that would carry out discreet sabotage, others who would stay passive until the allies invaded. At that point the groups would be awoken and their support action would begin. By the end of the week, Sarah and Bernard had the beginnings of a circuit, a group in the Bonsecours area. At the end of the next week, they had two. She and Bernard stayed in a safe house in a hamlet north of Bonsecours, one that no-one in either group knew.