by Mike Ripley
I saw her to the shop, wished her goodnight and, once I was sure she was secure inside, I did my best to disappear into the Stygian darkness of the narrow streets and then surprised myself by finding my way to the Hôtel Libéria without getting lost more than twice. It took far longer than it should have as I was nervously looking over my shoulder most of the time, paranoid that I might be seen making a beeline for an Abwehr safe house by a compatriot of Olivier Courteaux. It would indeed be difficult to explain how I was helping our Free French allies by collaborating with our German enemies.
I did not recognize the tall man behind the reception desk at the Libéria at first, as I was more familiar with the back of his neck. It was the driver who had taken us to the Camp des Milles in that rather spectacular Panhard and from somewhere I recalled that Robert had called him Erik, but his surname and Abwehr rank I never knew.
Thankfully, Erik remembered me and, having ascertained that I spoke German well enough, he told me that Freiherr von Ringer was away from Marseilles but had left instructions that I was to be assisted in every way possible, and before I could reveal my shopping list of favours, Erik reached down behind the desk and produced a cardboard box, smaller than a shoebox, which he handed to me without comment. It did not contain shoes, but a Walther PPK automatic pistol – the safety catch thankfully on – and a spare magazine.
With Teutonic formality, a short bow and a click of his heels, Erik asked if I would be requiring anything else.
I adopted what I thought was my most charming demeanour. ‘Yes, please. Could you get me a car for tomorrow night along with enough petrol for four hundred kilometres? Oh, and it had better not be the Panhard. I need something less conspicuous and something you won’t get angry about if it doesn’t come back in one piece.’
The Panier district was once described as ‘an ant hill with none of the home comforts’, and so it had been for nearly two hundred years after the middle-class of Marseilles had moved out to more fragrant areas, leaving the Panier to become, as its name implied, a basket full of immigrants, seamen, dockers, dope-dealers, thieves and prostitutes.
The streets were narrow, dark, pungent and steep, with deep steps and iron hand rails running down the middle. It was not a place from which one could make a quick, or even a slow, getaway by car. Which was why I needed Corinne, or so I told myself. She would help guide Astrid Lunel out of the Panier and to the Hôtel Moderne, where my Abwehr taxi would be parked. A pregnant woman walking with a young girl, even late at night, would be noticed less than one being dragged along by a furtive middle-aged man desperately trying not to get lost in the Old Port. It was my plan to be the advance guard when it came to the actual rescue and then the rearguard for the escape. I was loathe to involve young Corinne in my pseudo-military campaign, but I could not see how I could manage it alone – even finding Pirani’s hideaway in the maze of the Panier after dark might be beyond me – and, in any case, I seriously doubted that Corinne would agree to be left out of the action now that it, and I, had the blessing of her idol, Olivier Courteaux.
We had conducted a reconnaissance mission in daylight, getting as close to our target as we dared, or at least what Corinne assured me was our target: specifically, a tall, thin house with a warped and faded green door at the top of three stone steps in a narrow canyon of an alley where adjoining houses with overhanging balconies and window boxes helped limit the natural light. The alley gave off the distinct aroma of rotting vegetables and bad sanitation, and the presence of a large dead rat in the gutter near the door suggested that even the seagulls found the place unsavoury.
I never doubted that Corinne had correctly identified Pirani’s hidey-hole, not because she felt obliged to help me, but because she was keen to impress Olivier Courteaux. Still, I was relieved to have my faith in the girl confirmed when, as we were observing that shabby green door, it opened and a man emerged. He was dressed in standard French workman’s clothes – complete with beret – and puffing on a Gauloises. He looked neither left nor right, but walked quickly down the hill, confident of his territorial rights and moving with a swagger, despite his left arm and shoulder being encased in a sling made from what appeared to be the remains of an old shirt. The last time I had seen him he had been screaming as Magnus Asher’s foot had descended on that shoulder.
Corinne confirmed that he was not the man who had complained about having to do the shopping at Madame Joubert’s, which meant that Astrid Lunel had two guards. To make sure, the girl and I watched the house from the shadows at the far end of the alley, but apart from ‘shoulder man’, who returned carrying a string bag clinking with bottles, there were no other comings or goings.
Once it was dark, I made the girl show me the quickest way out of the Panier, down the hill and across the Place Daviel and into the crumbling tenements of the Old Port, threading our way through to emerge on to the Quai Maréchal Pétain near the Hôtel de Ville. From there, I led the way to the Hôtel Moderne and insisted we had something to eat to keep our strength up, which Corinne seemed determined to do. Noting her appetite, I realized we might need provisions for our escape from Marseilles and, in good military style, I volunteered the girl as quartermaster, palmed the required funds from my wallet and slid them across the table.
As I did so, our waiter – an ancient specimen with fallen arches and body odour strong enough to fell an inquisitive ox – approached to inform M’sieur that there was a telephone call, which M’sieur could take in the cabine near the reception desk if he so wished. Trying not to look surprised, M’sieur agreed to take the call as long as the provision of food to the mademoiselle continued uninterrupted.
I was not expecting a telephone call, and of course there wasn’t one. The receiver of the telephone in the cabine was out of its cradle, acting as a paperweight holding down a single sheet of paper on which was written extérieur. Even I could follow such simple instructions and, having checked I was not being observed, I strode outside.
Thirty feet from the hotel doorway, a tall figure in a trench-coat and fedora signalled me to approach. He had positioned himself under a street lamp to add to the dramatic effect, and then heightened the tension as I approached by plunging his right hand deep into the pocket of his coat.
I was ten feet away from him when I realized it was my Abwehr chauffeur Erik, and that what he was pulling from his pocket was a set of car keys.
We conversed furtively in whispered German, and I learned two things: that there was a Citroën 7CV ready for my use, with extra petrol in cans in the boot, parked around the corner, and that Robert had sent me the message: ‘Our mutual friend is moving west tonight’.
I thanked Erik, took the keys from him and returned to the hotel dining room.
‘We have to do it tonight,’ I told Corinne as she demolished a pastry of uncertain origin. ‘I fear we don’t have much time.’
I could not tell Corinne why we were now on a deadline, but if Robert had secured the transfer of Nathan Lunel out of the Camp des Milles, it was only a matter of time before Pirani’s network got wind of it, which meant that Astrid Lunel would be in danger, and so our clock was ticking.
When my Abwehr friend Erik had given me the keys to the Citroën, he had added a small bonus by telling me that the car was ‘known’ to the local police and was unlikely to be stopped or searched within the city. Outside Marseilles was, of course, another matter, nor did it make the car immune from the interest of other parties, but I decided it was worth the risk to leave the car in the Old Port, nearer to the Panier, hopefully making our escape that much easier.
Around nine o’clock that evening, it began to rain heavily; the stinging, swirling sort of rain generated by a squall out to sea. It would clean the gutters of the Panier and hopefully keep pedestrian traffic to a minimum. I decided it was time to launch our little Commando raid.
Corinne led the way up the hill through the rabbit warren of alleys into the Panier. She wore a headscarf and a long woollen coat, no stockings and
rope sandals to cope with the rainwater running down the streets. The coat disguised her slender frame and the Sten gun strapped across her chest.
My Commando instructor in Scotland, the red-faced Corporal Colgan, would have had a plan for storming the house in the alley, which would no doubt have involved tossing grenades in through the first-floor windows and covering crossfire from two machine guns. Our plan was much simpler: Corinne would knock on the door and then run away. I would then wave my pistol in the face of whoever opened the door and we would enter in a civilized manner and commence negotiations.
Corinne knocked on the door, and when a voice growled, ‘Who is it?’, she answered, as we had rehearsed, in her best girlish voice, that she was delivering clean clothes ‘for the lady’. The door was unlocked and opened by a tall, dark figure. He was male and bearded, but I could make out little else before Corinne poked the Sten gun from out of the folds of her coat and shot him in the foot.
Although momentarily stunned by Corinne’s improvisation on our original meticulous plan, I sprang into action, knocking down the silenced barrel of the Sten and pushing Corinne aside to get at her victim. It was not altruism on my part. The single shot had been a quiet plop, but a man with a bullet in his foot was almost certainly going to scream the house down and wake the neighbours.
He had stumbled and fallen backwards on to the floor, his hands scrabbling at his left boot, already slippery with blood. I dropped to one knee by his shoulder, removed a small revolver from his waistband and pocketed it, then clamped my left hand across his mouth and waved my pistol in front of his staring, frightened eyes. I spoke rapidly and hoped that he was paying attention through the shock and the pain.
‘Keep quiet and we will send for a doctor. Make a noise and you will not enjoy breakfast. Do you understand?’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Where is the woman?’
His eyes flicked upwards, which given his position could have meant anything, but I assumed he was indicating an upstairs room and the sound I could hear was Corinne already running up the wooden staircase. I girded my loins and charged after her.
They had been keeping Astrid Lunel in a small bedroom at the back of the house. The shutters on the single window were closed and fastened by a looping chain and padlock. The single weak light bulb showed there was a bed, a chair and a washstand with a large china bowl and jug. On the bed lay a figure covered with a bulky eiderdown; in the chair sat a man with his arm in a sling and an expression on his face which said: ‘Oh no, not again!’ In the doorway stood Corinne, legs apart, brandishing the silenced Sten gun, her left hand around the canvas sleeve on the silencer, which prevented the user from being burned as the barrel overheated, something the gun was prone to do when set to fire on full automatic. Corinne had wisely set the gun to single-shot mode. Corporal Colgan would have been proud of her.
‘Madame Lunel,’ I announced, asserting what was left of my authority, ‘you will come with us now. Please do not let this young lady frighten you. You will be safe with us.’
The eiderdown on the bed began to billow and a dishevelled female face emerged as if gasping for air.
I turned to the man with one arm in a sling, who was staring down the barrel of Corinne’s Sten.
‘As for you, my friend,’ I told him, ‘my advice is that you should be very frightened of this young lady. If you give her any excuse she will happily put a bullet in your other wing. If you follow us out of this house, I cannot guarantee her aim will be so kind. If you doubt me, ask your compatriot downstairs by the front door.’ His eyes widened at that. ‘And he might also appreciate you fetching a doctor before he bleeds to death,’ I added as an afterthought. ‘Are you armed?’
He shook his head at Corinne, if only to show he was not entirely frozen with fear, but the girl had already moved on to her next objective, the figure on the bed still cowering under the eiderdown.
‘Get up, woman! Now! You are coming with us!’ she snapped.
I thought her approach to be harsh and unkind, but it seemed to work, as Astrid Lunel shook herself into action. In the bed she had been fully clothed apart from her shoes. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and reached an arm under it in an attempt to find them, but her condition restricted her movement.
I slipped my pistol into my pocket and knelt down to help her. As I placed her feet into her shoes as gently as I could, I looked her in the eyes and whispered in as calming a voice as I could muster.
‘Madame Lunel, Nathan says you must trust me. I have come to get you away from this place and reunite you with your husband.’
‘Nathan?’ she said in little more than a croak.
‘Yes, Nathan. His release from prison has been arranged by some friends of mine and you will see him soon, but not in Marseilles. We must get away from the city tonight. I have a car waiting.’
All we had to do now was get to the car.
We didn’t make the end of the alley before we heard the first shouts and the first lights began to come on, producing a chequerboard of illuminated squares on the wet streets; but in this game of hopscotch, those would be the most dangerous areas. It seemed we really had kicked an ants’ nest.
Our intention had been for Corinne to assist Astrid Lunel down the hill with me acting as rearguard, but our roles were quickly reversed. Whether through hunger, exhaustion or sheer fear for her condition, Astrid seemed incapable of putting any strength or urgency into her stride, and we made progress only when I wrapped my arm around her generous waist and began to half drag, half carry her.
‘Hurry! Stay in the shadows! Keep in to the left! They are gaining!’
Corinne, who now seemed to be directing operations, barked her orders from behind us. Exactly who, or how many were chasing us, I did not know, so intent was I on making sure Astrid did not stumble or fall as we ran into yet another wet and smelly canyon between the looming buildings. To give the woman her due, she kept going, her breathing heavy and erratic, her legs pumping. Not once did she complain or cry out.
Not even when the first shots rang out and echoed through the rain.
I would like to say we ran through a hail of bullets, or that I turned in one swift movement (in homage to Corporal Colgan again), dropped to one knee and returned fire with deadly accuracy, but I have never been good at battlefield heroics.
Fortunately, Corinne was.
When an incoming bullet thwacked into the brickwork of the nearest building a few feet above my head, I pushed Astrid into a doorway, covering her as best I could with my body while fumbling for the pistols in my pockets. I turned my head to look back up the alley to locate our pursuers, only to find that Corinne was ahead of me.
She was down on one knee in the middle of the alley, the Sten gun at her shoulder, aiming up the incline we had just stumbled down. When she fired, it was on full automatic, and the sound was a continuous popping noise, rather like a distant motorbike revving up. I saw her shoulder judder and shake with the recoil, and even heard the tinkling of spent cartridge cases as they were ejected, bouncing off the cobbles through a cloud of cordite smoke, until the gun gave a loud click on its empty magazine and fell completely silent. From where she had been aiming there came the sound of breaking glass and a distinct, and rather satisfying, howl of pain. Then Corinne herself yelped like a kicked dog, flung the Sten away from her body and put her left hand to her mouth where it had been burned by the hot barrel.
‘Go!’ she said, her voice muffled as she sucked at her hand. ‘That will not hold them for long.’
We were all soaked from the rain as well as hot from our exertions and, within a few minutes of piling into the Citroën, the atmosphere inside the car had become a steamy fug, as if we had allowed a pair of Labradors fresh from a dip in a duck pond on board.
I drove with one eye permanently fixed on the rear-view mirror, looking for following headlights, and one eye negotiating the main streets of the city, heading north and west.
Corinne sat in the back seat, breathing loud
ly and rapidly and nursing her burned hand. Astrid Lunel was slumped down in the passenger seat, perhaps instinctively so that she could not be seen from the street. She had pulled her coat tight around her and clasped her hands, with fingers locked across the bump of her stomach.
‘Am I allowed to ask who you are?’ she said at last.
‘Of course, madame. My name, at least for the moment, is Didier, and I represent the government of Great Britain. The young lady in the back, who acts as my guide and moral compass as well as my bodyguard, is Corinne.’
‘And I,’ said the girl rather grandly, ‘represent the government in exile of the Free French.’
In the dark I gave Madame Lunel the benefit of my most disarming smile. ‘So you see, Astrid, you are in the best possible hands. Within the hour we will be clear of the city and by dawn we will be well on the way to Toulouse.’
‘Is my husband in Toulouse?’
I could not bring myself to tell her that – if all had gone well – Nathan Lunel had exchanged one concentration camp for another.
‘Not exactly,’ I said with studied vagueness.
‘Then I have no intention of going there,’ she said firmly. ‘You will drive on to Pau.’
‘That’s an extra two hundred kilometres!’ wailed my guardian angel in the back.
‘If you want what my husband has, you will take me on to Pau.’
‘Why Pau?’ I asked, feeling that I already knew the answer.
‘Because I intend to have my baby at home,’ she said, then closed her eyes and fell immediately asleep.
After four hours of driving, peering through the darkness and the rain, I felt I needed to follow Astrid’s example and pulled off the road. I estimated that we were twenty or thirty kilometres short of Montpellier and, from memory, possibly in the commune of, ironically, Lunel, which had once been a noted centre of Jewish learning.
