by Sharon Maas
Oncle Yves sat on a stool at his workbench and took up where he had no doubt left off; indeed, filing a wooden sole down to size, fitting it against its designated shoe.
‘… though I might as well call it my play-shop judging by the amount of work I have to do in these hard times. Nobody is buying new shoes and resoling old shoes with wood or cork doesn’t buy even a week’s worth of potatoes. Times are hard, Jeanne. And I can’t pay you a salary, you know that. Don’t just stand there. Have a seat. You must be weary after all that walking. There’s a jug of water if you’re thirsty.’
He indicated a cracked porcelain jug, its opening covered with a small cloth, next to it a glass.
‘The SOE is paying my salary. And I have brought money for you too.’
She poured herself a glass and looked around for a chair or a stool. There was none. Oncle Yves seemed not to notice, or to care. He went on working.
‘Well, thank goodness for that. And I suppose the one good thing that will come out of this major mess is that he seems serious about fixing me up with a German leather supplier. I suppose that will count in the eyes of some of my neighbours as collaboration with the enemy but frankly I don’t care. I have a job and I want to do it. I need leather and I need work. I don’t care if the shoes belong to French people or German people. They all wear down the same. And if I can get good leather – well. There are still some rich people around who will want new shoes of good leather, German or not. He was right in that you can tell a person’s character by the quality of their shoes. Why are you still standing?’
She shrugged, and swept her hands around to indicate the lack of seats.
‘Oh, I see, no chair. I don’t have many visitors. Use this.’
He upended a wooden box and offered it to her as a seat. She perched on it. He went on talking as he moved about the shop, putting things away, tidying he shelves.
‘Anyway, let’s get you settled in. Are you hungry? I can’t offer you much. A potato and a turnip in yesterday’s soup and a bit of cheese. And some chicory coffee. Though if you say you have brought money you can run off and do some shopping. I will need to get ration cards for you. And you must register yourself at the town hall. You’ll have to change your name. It’s overrun by Nazis, of course. First thing they did when they rolled into Colmar with their tanks: occupy the Mairie, roll out their huge Swastika banners from the windows. C’est la vie. We have to move forward. Would you like to go upstairs and rest? You must be tired after your long walk from the station though I am glad you did not have to carry your valise. What to do. C’est la vie.’
‘Actually, I need to get my luggage out of the shop, take it upstairs, hide the wireless. As soon as possible. If he were to come back or send someone to search…’
‘I assume in that case is a radio?’
‘Yes.’
‘Madness, to bring it here openly like that. What were you thinking? That you look like an innocent woman making an innocent train journey with a suitcase? Do you not know that a woman carrying a suitcase is always going to attract the attention of some chivalrous gentleman? And you might not consider the Boche as gentlemen but they do have this fantasy about women and you saw the result today: they think you are frail little flowers who cannot carry a suitcase down a street. It could have been downright perilous for you. Silly girl!’
‘I know. I know it now. It was reckless of me. I know better now.’
‘You cannot afford to learn as you go along. There is too much risk involved. And you would have involved me as well if you had been caught.’
‘But I wasn’t caught, was I! Oncle Yves, I’m not going to waste time berating myself for my mistake. I know better now and I just want to move on. I need to set the radio up. Where will it go?’
Oncle Yves jabbed the air with a finger pointed upwards. ‘Up there. In the attic. You can take it up now, or later. Through that door.’ He pointed to the door at the far end of the shop. ‘Up the stairs, right up to the top, to the attic, for anything incriminating – you have the wireless, weapons? Hide it up there. Your personal things, two flights up. You’ll find it. Forgive me if I don’t help. Arthritis.’ He rubbed his hip.
‘That’s fine. I’ve had enough with men helping me today. It’s not that heavy.’
‘Heavy enough for you to drag the damned Boche into my shop.’
Ignoring the last jibe Sibyl fetched the case, lugged it into the shop and straight through to the back door. She emerged into a dark hallway which seemed a storeroom for odds and ends – a broom and other cleaning materials, an old desk, piles of firewood. A door at the other end indicated a back exit to the building – always a bonus. Two very old bicycles were leaning against one of the walls. A narrow flight of wooden stairs, so well used that the treads were worn down at the centre, led up into yet more gloom. Holding the precious suitcase in both hands, Sibyl walked up.
On the first floor was a very narrow hallway with a door at the end. Curious, she set down the case and walked to the end, opened the door; it led into a long and narrow sitting room with windows facing the street. The room was the length of the shop and the workshop together. Two more doors along the corridor led into a small bathroom with a claw-footed tub and a sink, and a very long and narrow lavatory. The stairwell itself encompassed a doorless kitchen, with a dirty-paned sash window at the far end. She walked over and peered out, noting that the back of the house opened onto a large closed courtyard shared with several other houses on the street. On the other side was what looked like a large barn and, perhaps, storerooms. As she watched, a man emerged from the back door of one of the neighbouring houses and opened one of the double doors into the barn and entered, closing the door behind him. It appeared not to be locked. At least not in daytime. Interesting…
She climbed the stairs to the next floor. Another corridor, this time leading to a medium-sized bedroom at the end, overlooking the street, and, along its length, two more rooms, one furnished as a tiny bedroom – with a single bed, a table, and a small wardrobe – and the other, unfurnished, a storeroom cluttered with boxes, suitcases, more odds and ends. The bedroom, no doubt, would be hers. She took note that everything was immaculately clean, and wondered who did the cleaning, and how often.
She went on up, to the attic. This final flight of stairs was narrower than the other and led into the eaves, ending in a door, locked, but with the key in the lock. She turned it and entered. The eaves steepled up above her head; there was room to stand upright only in the very centre of the room, but in any case, various items were packed under the lower slopes of the eaves – mostly old furniture; a baby’s cot, a desk, a dining table and several broken chairs, and, again, the ubiquitous boxes and trunks and suitcases, filled no doubt with the paraphernalia all families collect over the decades and store for the generations to come, which never come, or, if they do, have no use for what is now just sentimental detritus.
She wondered about Oncle Yves. Had he always lived here? Raised a family? The baby cot implied that yes, there had been at least one child, and so a mother, a family. No doubt she’d soon find out the details. As Jeanne Dauguet, Acrobat had informed her, she did not need to know. She had left Colmar as a baby, had never returned until now, had never asked her mother about Oncle Yves’ background. Oncle Yves was anyway from the paternal side of her family. She would get acquainted over the next few days and weeks.
Now, though, she was Acrobat One and had precious cargo to hide. This attic would become her transmission room. She opened a dusty wooden sideboard and found it packed with moth-eaten blankets. She removed the blankets – surely Oncle Yves would be happy for them to be thrown out – and inserted the biscuit tin in their stead, shut the door to the sideboard, turned the key. Similarly, she hid the pistol.
Blankets under her arm, she returned down the stairs. She deposited the old blankets in the stairwell at the bottom, and in so doing noticed a wooden trapdoor. So, there was a cellar as well. She’d inspect that later. Now, it was back t
o Oncle Yves.
‘Back already?’ he asked. ‘If you’re hungry, as I said there’s some leftover soup you can have. Just warm it up.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Sibyl. ‘I’d rather discuss the actual work with you. I understand you already have several important contacts.’
‘Yes. There is one of us working in the Mairie; a German working for de Gaulle right slap-bang in the middle of the Nazi setup. We get a lot of military information from him. Information about possible targets. It will be your job to identify those targets and get your maquisards to blow them up. He sends information through – well, through shoes. Have a look.’
He removed a shoe that had obviously seen better days from the shelf. Its sole, was, as usual, worn away. Oncle Yves picked up one of his instruments, poked around at the heel of the shoe and part of it fell away. He held out the shoe to Sibyl. The heel was hollowed out, leaving space for – well, any small thing an agent wished to hide in there.
‘I have several such shoes. I get information from this fellow and pass it on.’
‘How do you pass it on, and to whom?’
‘The cleaner, Madame Guyon. She takes it in her brassiere. A simple but effective hiding place when it comes to older women. Trust me, the Boche is not interested in searching a middle-aged woman’s brassiere. They are not interested in middle-aged women. They do not think such women can be spies. They do not think such women even have a brain. They do not exist for the Boche. They are invisible, all the better for us. Your handlers would have done better to send a middle-aged woman instead of you. Nobody would have offered to carry her suitcase.
‘The trouble is that your employers seem to have overlooked the dangers of placing a young pretty female in this situation. Overlooked the basic animal nature of men. And of women, may I add. Many a French woman has indulged in what we called collaboration horizontale with the enemy. I would hope you are not one of them.’
Sibyl flushed. She wanted to fling back an angry retort, but decided against it.
‘Let’s not bring that up again, Oncle Yves. I know you don’t approve of me for being too young and a woman but sadly I’m what you’ve got and you just have to deal with it.’
He scrutinised her for a silent moment, eyes narrow. Finally he nodded.
‘Bien. Let’s continue. The thing is, I am getting a bit too old for all this spying business so you will be taking over as liaison. We work for the Bureau central de renseignements et d’action. Gathering information, passing it on. A little out of your work description but we are all working together on this. So that is two of our agents: Herr X is directly responsible to the chief of staff of the Sturmabteilung in the main office, which is situated in the Mairie. His information is gold, and will win the war for us. For the Allies. We are only waiting for the final battle, the battle for Alsace. I don’t know what is taking the Allies so long. When is this damned invasion going to come? What are you British doing, twiddling your thumbs?’
‘Oncle Yves! You don’t know? You haven’t heard? The invasion has already taken place! Weeks ago – early June, in Normandy! The Allies are in France! It’s only a matter of time. A few months!’
For once, Oncle Yves smiled: the first time since she had arrived, excluding the initial exuberant welcome show put on for the sake of von Haagen. He smiled, and then he chuckled, and then he laughed.
‘C’est vrai! Mais c’est merveilleuse!’
‘How come you haven’t heard yet?’
‘But how are we to hear these things? The Boche is feeding us only the information it wants us to have. It feeds us the propaganda dictated by dear Mr Goebbels. Germany is winning! Germany will rule the world! The enemy has fallen at our feet! That is the news we get. No wireless, only newspapers all saying the same thing. We are cut off from the world, cut off from the real news, cut off from your precious BBC. We are fed a constant diet of fake news.’
‘But we must tell the people! They have to know! It will be such a boost to the morale of Colmar citizens, the French! Think of it: if they only knew, what a positive spirit could be derived from that! A positive spirit is half the battle! We must spread the word!’
‘Indeed we must. And I know how. Écoute, ma chère Jeanne.’
He lowered his voice, took on a conspirational tone and expression, and continued. ‘One of our friends is the forger, I will call him Pierre though that is not his real name. You too have access to him, by the way, if you need documents for your maquisards. He is very good. He has contacts within the Colmar newspaper Colmar Quotidien which the blasted Boche has renamed Kolmar Heute. Now see if you can figure it out yourself.’
Sibyl grinned. ‘Yes! I understand! We will do it ourselves, inform the people, write a flyer, print it, distribute it. We’ll do it. Although…’
She hesitated. Her face fell.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I just remembered Sophie Scholl.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘You never heard of Sophie? No, of course you haven’t. You don’t get the news. Sophie was a German Resistance fighter. She and her brother did exactly what we are planning: produced an anti-war, anti-Nazi leaflet, and distributed it. She was caught, hauled before a sham military court and sentenced to death. She and her brother were executed by guillotine.’
‘Well, we’ll do the same but we won’t be caught. Let’s both think about it, and how we will execute the distribution. I am sorry for the bad joke. I am sorry I was rude to you. Can we be friends now?’
She nodded. Their eyes met. Finally Oncle Yves shrugged, and clapped her on the shoulder.
‘Yes, I am just a grumpy old man. I have lived alone for so long. It is good to have a young woman in my life again. You will wake me up. It is good, to have a new niece at my age. I welcome you into the family. And now, yes, I really am hungry. It is time to warm up that delicious potato and turnip soup, I think. I am afraid I am not a very good cook, especially not with the meagre portions we are allowed. I hope you are able to feed yourself adequately. You have good meat on your bones. A few months in Colmar, and you’ll be skin and bones. What a tragedy. What a horror is this war.’
‘I can cook. I will prepare something, even if it is only a gruel. I will go upstairs and see what I can do. And I will unpack and make myself at home upstairs, and maybe have a rest. It has been an exhausting day.’
Chapter 17
They abandoned completely the idea of distributing leaflets themselves, but not the general concept. It was, in the end, quite simple.
On her second day in Colmar Sibyl set up the wireless and, on the assigned date, made her first transmission. Vera had warned her frankly that the average SOE radio operator, known among agents as pianists, lasted only six weeks before being intercepted by the Gestapo, arrested, interrogated and either sent to a prison camp or executed.
‘But don’t fear. We think it’s far less risky in Colmar than in, for instance, Paris. They’re not on high alert there.’
The truth was, German interception would depend on the frequency and regularity of calls. Sibyl did not need to make contact with her superiors frequently; she was, basically, running the Alsace show on her own, coordinating, supporting and supervising sabotage attacks to be organised and led by Jacques in the south and Henri in the north. She was to make contact with Acrobat in London once a week, but on a different day and at a different time each week; coded messages that would make no sense to a German interceptor. She had memorised this schedule; nothing was to be written down. And this was the day for her third scheduled message.
Aunt Noreen has finished sewing the curtains.
That was her message for this week, and it meant that everything was going to plan, no problems. But Sibyl remembered the opening address of her SOE training course. Sabotage was not the only aim.
You can raise the morale of the population of the occupied countries by various forms of propaganda… to unify the population in a common hatred of the Boche… there should come the so
rt of non-cooperation with him which is so important to us… implant in them a conviction amounting to a certainty that the Allies will win.
Informing the Alsatian population of the Normandy invasion, of the fact that Germany was suffering terrible losses and that the Allies now had the upper hand, progressing northwards through France – well, what could be more morale-boosting than that? They had to know.
Sibyl realised that she really was living, along with the Alsatians, in an information blackout. No wonder almost every French person she had met to date, starting with the maquisards and ending with Oncle Yves, seemed to be stuck in an abyss of despair, surrendered to the enemy in practical terms as a survival tactic, but inwardly cowed, beaten. Jacques had managed to keep alight a spark of hope, and so had Henri, the Schmidts, and, presumably, Madame Guyon and the few individuals who worked with Oncle Yves. But the rest? They had to be told!
Sophie Scholl had been caught while trying to distribute the sixth leaflet produced by the Resistance group, the White Rose. But on the back of that failure, the leaflet was smuggled out of the country and scattered over Germany by Allied planes. Surely that could be done again, now?
But Sibyl faced a dilemma. She was only on her second day in Colmar, her second day on her official job, not counting the training of the maquisards. Would it be out of place for her to suggest an air distribution of flyers? Would it be considered overstepping her role? But if she didn’t, if she simply stated the situation – that truth of the invasion and an almost certain Allied win was being withheld from the Alsatians – would her supervisors make the decision on their own?
