A Gathering Storm

by Rachel Hore

  She had just finished washing her face when there was a soft knock at the door. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ came Rafe’s voice.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she replied, but by the time she opened the door he’d gone downstairs.

  She frowned. Since that first meeting, he’d been avoiding her. Well, not avoiding her, exactly; after all, they had to work together, and he certainly spoke to her and took every care. But he was aloof, withdrawn, and this hurt her. She couldn’t understand it. She knew he was under a terrific strain – that greyish pallor never left his face, and tiredness and anxiety were etching furrows on his forehead.

  She sensed that life here was worse for him than for her. After all, he could never go out without attracting attention because all the young men had been sent away into forced labour, and, yes, she had to admit it, he was English-looking. He had only to open his mouth to confirm that he wasn’t French. And there were things he couldn’t tell her; she knew it was policy even here, in the midst of their activities, not to let others know more than they needed to play their own parts, in case they were picked up by the Gestapo. What they didn’t know, they couldn’t tell. Rafe would know everything, she guessed, and he kept it from her. For her protection, yes, but it was hard having so much between them.

  After that first day he’d been punctilious about speaking in French to her. He rarely talked to her about anything to do with their normal lives. Here they were Florian and Paulette, and she felt terribly, terribly lonely.

  She pushed her feet into the pair of house shoes Brigitte had given her – worn slippers bulged out by Brigitte’s bunions – and went downstairs.

  ‘That man came into the café again today’, Brigitte told her husband.

  ‘What man?’ Gaston growled. He mopped his face with his napkin and broke off another piece of bread, which he dipped in his stew.

  ‘You know who I mean.’ Brigitte addressed Beatrice, who nodded. It was that smartly dressed man she’d seen on the day she arrived, sitting in the shadows. Today he’d ordered coffee in French that was fluent enough. No one knew his business, but Marie said she had seen him coming out of the police station, so they suspected the worst.

  ‘There’s something wrong about him,’ Brigitte declared, shaking her head. ‘Anyway, I don’t like him.’

  ‘You don’t like all sorts of people,’ Gaston said.

  ‘Being suspicious saves lives,’ Brigitte riposted and started collecting up the empty plates with unnecessary bangings and fumblings.

  Gaston winked at Beatrice, who smiled politely and looked at Rafe. Rafe looked more worried than ever, but, ‘C’était delicieux, merci,’ was all he said as he passed his plate to Brigitte and looked up at the clock on the wall. There was to be a meeting tonight.

  Later, they sat round that same table over tumblers of red wine: Rafe, Beatrice, Charles, Stefan, the doctor and a couple of others. Stefan had brought along a man only he and Rafe had met before – a great burly type with a handsome hook-nosed face, thick dark hair and eyes that flashed in the lamplight. Beatrice wondered if his ancestors mightn’t have been Mediterranean pirates.

  ‘There are difficulties.’ The maquis leader rapped his fingers on the dining-room table as he spoke. ‘The others want to do things differently.’

  Rafe sighed and said, ‘Somehow we have to work together. You know the plan; you’ll have to talk them round. This is not something I’ve come up with – I’ve got my orders from further up. They must know that.’

  Stefan swore violently under his breath. ‘They’re a lot of country bumpkins,’ he almost shouted. ‘Concerned with their own petty quarrels. How can we stop the Nazi pigs if we all think of ourselves, huh?’

  The stranger’s eyes flashed dangerously.

  ‘Thank you, Stefan,’ Rafe said quietly. ‘It won’t help to insult others. But I have to tell you, Charles heard again today: we’re to continue with the plan, no changes. Now perhaps we could look at the details again.’

  Beatrice didn’t know the exact location of the bridge that was to be blown up, but problems had arisen because of tighter German security, and it seemed that there was a certain hot-headed proposal from this Resistance cell, whose job was to carry out the mission, that involved storming a German position. This was almost certain to end in failure, if not in exposure of the entire operation. They had to be dissuaded from doing this at all costs.

  She listened to Rafe’s quiet but firm voice as he soothed the visitor, praised his cell’s courage, appealed to the man’s pride, then twisted his words in such a way as to make the man not only accept the official line, but also make him believe that he’d come up with the idea in the first place.

  ‘It’s important that your group be seen to succeed in this mission,’ he told the maquis leader. ‘When the war is over, the people will look to men such as yourself for leadership, not only because of your bravery but because of your cleverness.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the man said, ‘and we will make sure that they do not look to us in vain. The needs of the ordinary working man will be met. First we’ll deal with the enemies within our ranks, and the collaborators. You know—’

  ‘Of course you will. But that is for the future,’ Rafe said, a tad impatiently. ‘Now we must address the present, so you will go back to your men and tell them that the original plan is the one to follow. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes. You can rely on us.’

  ‘I know we can. Now, that girl who told you about the shift changes, can you go back to her . . .?’

  When the official meeting broke up two hours later, Beatrice crept exhausted to bed, leaving Rafe, Stefan and the maquis leader still talking below.

  A week later, Beatrice got off a train in Périgueux and walked down a long shadowy street to a square in front of the cathedral. She was supposed to turn up one of the smaller roads off its north side in search of a particular address, but she did not dare because as her journey had progressed she’d become more and more certain that she was being followed.

  It was the man she’d seen on the day she’d arrived at Café le Coq; today he didn’t have his briefcase with him, but she’d noticed him pass her compartment in the train, and that’s when she’d started to feel uneasy.

  By the time they reached Périgueux she’d almost dismissed her worries, but then she saw him ahead of her on the platform and had hung back, waiting until she thought he’d gone. But walking up the long boulevard to the cathedral square she’d turned round a couple of times and seen him. She’d quickened her footsteps and decided she’d stop at a café to see what he would do next. Outside the smarter of the two cafés in the square, two Nazi officers stood talking and laughing with an elderly but elegantly dressed Frenchman. She passed on to the smaller, shabbier establishment, sat at a table outside, ordered coffee and, while she waited, contemplated the cathedral, a rather astonishing building that combined a square, pineapple-capped bell tower with a roof of nipple-like domes. She was just thinking how alien it was after English Gothic when she caught sight of the man who’d been following her. He was standing at the edge of the square, looking straight at her.

  What he did next was surprising. He came over to the table and asked if he could join her. She looked about quickly. The café was busy, so it would have been rude to say no, and anyway she couldn’t think of a reason that wouldn’t rouse his suspicions. So she shrugged and, as he pulled out a chair, stared out across the square.

  ‘You think it’s ugly, n’est-ce pas? I see it in your eyes.’ Brigitte had been right about his odd French with its hard rolling Rs. She wondered whether he might be German.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The cathedral. You don’t like it.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it? It’s just the cathedral. I was daydreaming. Is it a crime now to daydream?’

  The waiter arrived with her coffee and the man ordered some for himself. ‘I will pay for the lady’s coffee,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Ah, why not
. I wanted to talk to you. I’ve seen you in Café le Coq.’

  ‘I work there.’ She was watching the Nazi soldiers, who were now shaking the hand of the elegant old gentleman and walking away.

  ‘My name,’ he said, ‘is André. And you, I’ve heard them call you Paulette.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The café belongs to my cousin and her husband.’ If she tried to sound outraged at his audacity then maybe she wouldn’t sound nervous.

  ‘But she is not really your cousin.’

  ‘What a thing to say! Of course she is. Not first cousins. That is, she and my mother were.’ She was worried now.

  ‘No. You don’t need to say anything more, but I think we both know what I am talking about.’

  Beatrice gathered her things and stood up, trying to look very young and very shocked, but he put a hand on her arm and said, ‘It’s all right. Your secret is safe with me.’ His eyes flickered across the square to where the German soldiers now stood watching a group of children playing hopscotch.

  ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘You are being very rude.’ The grip on her arm became more forceful. She sat. There was nothing else she could do.

  ‘Now, Paulette,’ he said. ‘There is no need to do anything silly, is there?’

  ‘I ought to go,’ she repeated. ‘My mother said . . .’

  He threw back his head and laughed, a rolling, carefree laugh. Then he leant forward and whispered, ‘Your mother is a long way away, is she not? In England, perhaps.’

  She grew still and he released her arm.

  ‘Let me make myself clear. I am not one of them.’ Again, he glanced at the soldiers. ‘Nor am I one of you, if you get my meaning. But I want to be. I want to get to London and I need you to help me. I help you and you help me, do you see?’

  She looked at him blankly.

  ‘I need to get to London,’ he repeated.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that. I have been watching and biding my time. I would like your friends to telegraph London for me and say that I have vital information and that I need to be flown to England.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Beatrice said. ‘You’re frightening me.’

  He gave her a freezing little smile. ‘I think you do,’ he said.

  ‘I must go now. I have an appointment.’ She opened her bag and from her purse laid out several coins on the table. Meeting his eyes she said, ‘Goodbye. If you follow me, I . . . I will call for help.’

  He smiled again and fear shivered through her.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘I’ve told you. He said he wanted to get to London, that he has information.’

  ‘Well, this is a disaster. He’s guessed who you are.’

  ‘Not who I am, just that I’m not who I say I am. Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘You did the right thing, at least,’ Rafe said. He was trying to soothe himself, she thought, as much as her. They were in the small parlour, where she’d found Rafe when she returned. It was here that he spent most of his time fretting over papers on the desk or, like now, pacing the floor, or sometimes just standing by the window, his hands in his pockets, staring out over the fields.

  ‘What else could I do?’ After she’d left the man who called himself André, she’d picked at random one of the small streets that led off the square and hurried up it, then turned left and right several times before getting thoroughly lost and having to ask her way back to the station. It had not been possible to deliver her message.

  ‘What should we do?’

  Rafe thought for a while. ‘We’ll have to get a message to Buckmaster, see what he says. And we’d better find out all we can about this chap. I’ll get Stefan to put a tail on him. And in the meantime . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’d better carry on as we are. He might just be a bit mad, or operating on his own, as he says. We’ve no reason to suppose he knows about anyone except you.’

  ‘Well, of course he must, or he wouldn’t have been sitting there waiting when I came in through the door on the first day. Oh, Rafe.’ She stood before him, staring down at his unhappy face. ‘And no, don’t tell me I shouldn’t have come. That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s the success of the mission that concerns me. I’ve only just got here and I seem to have ruined it already. It makes me boil.’

  ‘It’s hardly your fault,’ Rafe said, hands in pockets, his expression grim. She longed to reach out and put her arms around him, to comfort him, but something in his demeanour warned her away. Nothing felt natural here; there was always the sense that they were being watched, that the enemy could knock on the door at any time and they’d be discovered. It had already happened once or twice in the town. There’d be some hushed conversation in the café about this or that family or individual arrested or sent away somewhere. People would be taken without warning and sometimes without trace.

  In the end, the vital message to the house in Périgueux was delivered by other means. André was not seen in the café for several days, but even this made Beatrice nervous. The report came from Stefan that the man was living at a hotel in Limoges. The Germans seemed to let him come and go without harassment.

  Just as she was starting to tell herself that he’d given up on her – decided he was wrong about who he thought she was, or accepted her rejection – there he was, sitting at his usual table and smiling at her as he ordered his usual coffee and glass of water. She acted as her alias would have done, tossing her head and refusing to meet his eye, then hid in the kitchen and considered what to do. ‘Act normally,’ was her decision. However, when she ventured out once more, he’d gone, leaving her a ludicrously large tip.

  ‘Here, you have it,’ she said to Marie. ‘I don’t like him.’ Marie put the money in her purse in the twinkling of an eye.

  After that there was no sign of André for a long time.

  ‘They don’t think anything of it in London,’ Charles told her one afternoon, showing her the message he’d transcribed. ‘Just that we must watch and see. The man is probably a maverick and not dangerous.’

  ‘How do they know that?’ she wondered aloud.

  ‘Perhaps that is what Rafe thinks, too,’ Charles replied with a shrug. But Beatrice was not reassured.

  It was hard keeping the peace between the different ideologies in the movement. One of the cell near Périgueux had befriended a woman cleaner at the big guardhouse near the bridge, and she’d found out useful information about night patrols. The other members of the cell were impatient to go ahead, but Rafe was trying to persuade them to wait. There was a wider timetable that should not be jeopardized. The atmosphere of the meetings was dark with argument, and sometimes Beatrice, feeling her presence wasn’t important, avoided them and crept away to her room, though her sleep was broken by the rumbling of voices below. Once there was a crash, as of a chair falling.

  Her dreams were troubled. Often there was that old one of trying to run and getting nowhere. Sometimes she was trying to save Rafe, sometimes her child, sometimes just herself.

  There were quieter evenings, too, when the five of them – the Girands, Rafe, Charles and herself – sat together in the kitchen talking after supper was cleared away, or in the parlour, airless, for they had to keep the windows closed, trying to tune into the BBC on the wireless. Finally, there came a message they’d been expecting. ‘Antony to meet Cleopatra tomorrow night,’ the announcer said. Stefan was dispatched with a second man to the field where Beatrice had landed, to pick up another crate. The mission passed without incident. Beatrice was sent off into the countryside the following day on her bicycle with a message for the maquisards about its arrival. The contents of the crate were moved on.

  The weather grew hotter, the air thick and heavy. Faraway thunder rumbled, the tension in the air was palpable. It was impossible to sleep and she felt constantly headachey.

  One hot night she lay restless, the window open, a net stretched across to keep the insects o
ut. Nothing could keep out the moon, though. It shone through the crack in the shutters onto a gecko splayed motionless on the opposite wall of the room. Some small animal scrabbled in the roofspace above. She listened to it patter about its business across her ceiling and thus didn’t hear other footsteps, outside on the landing. But she did hear someone knock lightly on the door, and sat up, her heart thumping with fear.

  The latch was sprung and the door swung open. ‘Bea?’ He came quietly into the room, his lithe figure in the long nightshirt striped with moonlight. The door closed softly behind him.

  ‘Rafe. Is something the matter?’

  ‘No. Sorry if I frightened you. I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Nor can I. It’s too hot.’

  ‘I got up for a drink of water, then I thought, well . . . I’d see if you were all right. It’s oppressive, isn’t it?’ There was a huskiness in his voice. She heard him swallow.

  ‘Come over here,’ she whispered, and he came and knelt on the floor by her bed so that he was looking into her face. His, she saw, glistened with water, or was it sweat? She wrapped her arms around him and drew him close and they sat like that for a while until it grew too uncomfortable, so he got onto the bed and lay beside her. Gently at first, then with increasing passion, he kissed her. His hands began to move over her body and she rolled towards him, wanting him desperately, hardly believing that the moment had come at last.

  Later, as they lay in each other’s arms, she said, ‘I’ve wanted this for so long.’

  ‘Have you?’ he said, his eyes glinting. Eventually he said, ‘Me too.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ she whispered. ‘All I could see was that you were tense and unhappy.’

  ‘There’s no one I can talk to about it, Bea. Not even you.’

  ‘You don’t have to reveal secret things, but you can tell me about how you feel.’

  ‘No. I want to be strong for you, not make you frightened.’