by Robert Rigby
Paul stared. “You’ve done that?”
The priest smiled. “Several times when I was a young man; sadly I could never resist a dare. But it’s dangerous and I wouldn’t choose to do it now, or advise anyone else to. Come, we must go quickly.”
Suitcase in hand, Paul started towards the Renault.
“No, Paul,” Father Lagarde said softly, “I’m taking you to meet an old friend.”
“But you said we must go quickly.”
“Exactly. Follow me.”
They walked swiftly through the empty streets, the windows of every house shuttered or darkened by heavy curtains.
The town had no permanent German army presence, but Father Lagarde had explained that they were stationed nearby and frequently patrolled the area – day and night. If they met a German patrol, Father Lagarde could explain that he had been summoned to see a sick parishioner or even to administer the last rights to someone close to death. Paul had no such protection; until he reached France, when he could use his forged French papers and travel permit, he didn’t even have an identity.
Moving quickly, and keeping to the shadows, they headed for the outskirts of town. Suddenly, nearby, a dog began to bark.
“Shut up, will you!” a man’s voice yelled. The dog barked even louder. In the still of the night it was impossible to know for certain where the sound was coming from, but it was very close.
A light came on in the first floor of a house across the street, a dull yellow shaft spilling out into the night. Father Lagarde put out an arm to stop Paul and they both backed silently into the darkness of a doorway. The upstairs window was slightly ajar.
“I said, shut up!” the man yelled again as the dog continued to howl. “All right, I’m coming. Stupid animal!”
“I don’t know why we put up with him,” a woman shouted. “He never stops barking.”
“He’s a guard dog, isn’t he!” the man came back. “Keeping us safe in our beds!”
As suddenly as it had started, the barking stopped and the night was silent again.
“Move, Paul,” the priest whispered and, avoiding the light from the window, they crept away, reaching the edge of the town within minutes.
“Where does this friend of yours live?” Paul asked after they had passed the last house.
“Not far now,” Father Lagarde said. “Just down that track over there.”
They crossed the road, started down a mud track and walked for another fifty metres. Then, straight ahead, Paul saw the outline of a small building. It turned out to be a stone-built barn.
“Someone’s in there?” Paul whispered. “Is he hiding?”
Father Lagarde didn’t answer but pulled out a torch and a key from his pocket.
At the front of the building were double wooden doors, their brown paint faded and peeling. Father Lagarde slotted the key into the lock and after two turns it clicked open. The priest pulled back one of the doors, telling Paul to open the other.
The interior was shrouded in darkness until Father Lagarde flicked on his torch.
There, sitting in silent grandeur, was a beautiful horizon-blue, open-top car.
Father Lagarde’s face beamed. “The Bugatti Type 35,” he said proudly. “My Bugatti Type 35.”
“This!” Paul gasped. “We’re going to France in this?”
“I bought her in 1926.” Father Lagarde spoke with pride, as they prepared to leave. “Raced her for the first time at Lyons later that year.”
“Did you win?” Paul asked.
“Modesty forbids me to answer that,” the priest replied. Then he winked and nodded. “Let’s just say that in this car, I believe I can outrun any vehicle on the road. Now, be ready to crank the starting handle when I signal, and once she starts, jump in next to me.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat, switched on the ignition and gave Paul a thumbs-up sign.
Paul grasped the starting handle in both hands, felt the resistance point and swung the cold metal through a single turn to the right. The engine gave a slight cough, then burst into life, its throaty roar loud in the confined space of the barn.
As Paul clambered in, Father Lagarde feathered the throttle and then slipped the Bugatti into gear, and eased her gently through the barn doors.
“Shouldn’t I close the doors?” Paul asked.
The priest shook his head. “I must be back here before first light. They can stay open until my return.”
There was little room in the cockpit; two individual leather seats shared a single backrest. Paul was squeezed into the passenger seat with his suitcase on his lap.
As the Bugatti bumped slowly down the mud track, Paul’s eyes were drawn to the control panel. It was sparse and basic; pressure and oil gauges and the rev counter were set in a simple, steel housing, from which the wooden-rimmed steering-wheel also sprouted.
Above that, on the exterior bodywork, was a small windscreen, but as they reached the turn for the road, Father Lagarde slipped a pair of goggles over his eyes and passed a second pair to Paul.
“They make it easier for us to see at speed,” he said with a grin. “The lights help too.” He switched on the headlights and their beams cut through the darkness. “Here we go, Paul. Next stop, France.”
TWELVE
The plan was simple: drive like the wind to the agreed rendezvous point, stopping for nothing or no one.
There was no back-up plan in case of an emergency, no contingency measures; the unorthodox priest obviously didn’t work that way. With Father Lagarde it was all or nothing.
He drove the Bugatti as though he were part of it, effortlessly demonstrating the difference between someone who drives a car quickly and a genuine racing driver. His entire body worked in harmony with the machine, and the Bugatti, freed from too long behind the garage doors, responded smoothly to every turn of the wheel, every change of gear, every touch of the brakes.
Father Lagarde had told Paul the engine needed to warm thoroughly before the carburettors would respond fully and he could really “open her up”, as he put it. But in the first seconds, as the vehicle accelerated at the first thrust of power, Paul felt the surge of adrenaline through his body. It was thrilling, exhilarating, as if he too was free again after being imprisoned. The cold night air bit into his cheeks and made his eyes water, but he felt alive and bursting with energy as they hurtled through the darkness, the headlights barely two pinpricks of light illuminating the way ahead.
The route Father Lagarde had worked out wasn’t the quickest way to their destination, but it was the safest. Driving through towns and villages where enemy soldiers were stationed was too great a risk, even for the daring priest. So they stuck to quiet back roads, not glimpsing another living soul as they zigzagged down through Belgium towards the French border.
The priest had calculated that if all went to plan there would be time to make the rendezvous point, refill the Bugatti’s fuel tank and be back home before dawn. It would be tight, but he was confident he could do it.
On long stretches of flat, open road, he floored the accelerator, making the Bugatti dart forward like a thoroughbred racehorse entering the finishing straight. And as they wound their way through twists and turns in thickly wooded areas, he expertly used gears and brakes to ease the vehicle on its way.
Paul sat back and watched in admiration, speaking only when Father Lagarde spoke to him. He didn’t wish to disturb the priest’s concentration and was content simply to observe a master going about his business.
“There were a number of good machines around in my racing days, you know, Paul!” Father Lagarde shouted as he changed down a gear, leaned into a corner and accelerated out. “Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Delage, all excellent racing cars, but nothing quite like the Bugatti Type 35. Not for me, anyway.”
“I can believe that!” Paul yelled back. “I’ve never been driven like this, it’s incredible!”
Father Lagarde laughed. “We’re very close to France now. And fortunately our German frien
ds don’t have checkpoints on the smaller roads and border crossings. There are just too many of them.”
They were travelling through a densely wooded area. Racing over a small crossroads, Paul thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark shape on the turning to their left.
Father Lagarde was one step ahead of him. “I think I’ve spoken a little too soon.”
Paul looked back and immediately saw bright headlights turning towards them.
To Paul’s surprise, the priest slowed the Bugatti. “I want to hear its engine,” he said before Paul could speak, “to know exactly what we have on our tail.”
“But…”
Father Lagarde lifted one hand from the wheel to silence him and turned his head slightly towards the other vehicle.
Hearing the high-pitched scream of its engine, Paul glanced behind and saw that the car was swiftly making up the distance between them. He flashed a look at Father Lagarde, who seemed completely unconcerned. Paul couldn’t decide whether he was ice-cool or crazy.
“Ah, yes,” the priest said at last, “it’s a Citroën 11CV. The Germans have even taken our cars to use for themselves. It’s good, but it will never get near us.”
Paul looked back again. The twin headlights of the chasing vehicle shone directly into his eyes. “Actually,” he said urgently, “it is getting near us, very near.”
The priest nodded, dropped a gear and floored the accelerator. In seconds they were leaving the Citroën far behind.
But now Paul could see a third headlight as a smaller vehicle swung out and overtook the Citroën. “There’s something else coming!” he shouted. “Faster. I think it might be a motorbike.”
Father Lagarde risked a quick look back. “A motorcycle and sidecar; makes it more interesting. Keep your head down, Paul, it’s just possible that—”
Before the priest could finish his sentence, a staccato burst of gunfire cut through the night air. Paul had heard that sound before; it was a submachine-gun. As the sound echoed away, a fleeting image of his father being gunned down on the dockside flashed through his mind.
The weapon spat out again.
“The passenger’s firing!” Father Lagarde shouted. “A hand-held weapon. At least it’s not a heavy machine-gun fitted to the sidecar; that would be much more dangerous.”
Another short burst sounded and in the same instant a round grazed the side panel close to Paul’s shoulder.
“My paintwork!” Father Lagarde yelled. “Now they’re making me angry!”
He began swerving the Bugatti from side to side on the narrow road and Paul was acutely aware that the vehicle’s fuel tank was directly behind them, beneath the thin casing of the rear bodywork. A piercing round from the submachine-gun could explode the Bugatti in a ball of flames.
But before the sidecar passenger could fire off another burst, the road curved away into a bend. The Bugatti swept majestically into the turn, engine roaring, and they were suddenly, for a few seconds at least, out of their pursuer’s sight.
“I didn’t really want to do this, but it will probably help,” Father Lagarde said, reaching to flick off the headlights, instantly plunging them into total darkness. “Don’t worry, Paul,” he added, “we’ll soon get our night vision.”
Within seconds, and with the aid of starlight, Paul could see the road ahead. He couldn’t see very far, and neither could Father Lagarde, but the priest’s incredible reflexes and uncanny instinct kept the Bugatti in the centre of the road at high speed.
Paul looked back as the motorcycle and sidecar emerged from the bend. He couldn’t help imagining the German soldiers’ confusion as they realized the road ahead was empty and the car they were chasing had vanished into the night.
The bike slowed briefly, its rider and passenger checking to see if the Bugatti had spun off the road. But then its speed increased again.
Paul saw yellow flashes as another shot burst out from the submachine-gun.
“Just trying his luck!” Father Lagarde yelled. “He can’t see us. Or maybe he’s shooting at pigeons.”
They sped on for another two kilometres, increasing the distance between the Bugatti and its pursuers. Then, up ahead, the road forked.
“I know this place,” the priest said. “And if I’m right, the Germans will expect us to take the right fork.”
He turned left, drove on for another two hundred metres and pulled the Bugatti to the side of the road. They looked back, and waited.
Seconds ticked by and then they saw the single headlight beam and heard the engine as the bike approached the fork. It slowed, almost to a standstill.
“Making his mind up,” Father Lagarde said quietly.
The motorbike’s engine roared and the beam turned to the right and went flickering away. A minute later, the Citroën’s headlights appeared again and swiftly disappeared in the same direction.
Father Lagarde slipped the Bugatti into gear and drove on.
Ten minutes later, he turned to his passenger and smiled. “That didn’t go quite the way I planned, but welcome to France.”
About a hundred metres ahead and to their left, three faint pinpricks of light blinked in the darkness.
“Look,” Paul said.
“Yes, I saw it,” the priest answered. He drove slowly onwards. After a few seconds the flashes came again.
“That’s them,” Father Lagarde said.
Half an hour ago they had entered French territory and Paul felt that it was at last safe for him to ask a question. “Where are we?”
“In champagne country,” the priest replied. “To the south-east of the city of Reims.”
He turned the Bugatti off the road at the entrance to a farm and continued slowly down a smooth mud track into a square yard with open barns on two sides and a house on another.
A figure standing in the darkness of the closest barn flicked the torchlight over the ground and the Bugatti followed it until the light stopped moving. Father Lagarde switched off the engine. The night was totally silent.
The priest turned to Paul and lifted the goggles from his face. He looked like a weary owl, dust and grime surrounding large white circles where the goggles had been. But within the circles, his blue eyes still sparkled. “We made it, Paul.”
Paul nodded. “Thank you,” he said, removing his own pair.
Footsteps sounded and Paul glanced across to see what appeared to be a short man wearing farm overalls and a cap approaching. It was only when the figure stopped at the driver’s side that Paul realized his mistake. There, bathed in yellow torchlight, stood a young woman of around twenty. She was small and slim, and the chestnut hair beneath the cap framed delicate features.
“I’m Sabine Simorre,” she said to Father Lagarde. “My parents are in the house. They have a meal and hot coffee ready for you.”
“Thank you,” the priest answered, “both will be most welcome. I’m Father Lagarde and this is my young friend, Paul.”
Paul nodded weakly, certain that he looked as stupid as he felt. He didn’t know many women, especially attractive young woman like Sabine Simorre.
She in turn was studying his face intently. “Mmmm,” she said, apparently disappointed. Before Paul could think of what to say she added, “You look a bit English.”
Paul glanced at Father Lagarde for guidance, and when none came said simply, “That’s because I am a bit English.”
THIRTEEN
Josette was confused. And when Josette was confused she was unhappy. She was of strong and uncomplicated opinion; what was right was right and what was wrong was wrong. It was as simple as that.
To Josette the problem for her beloved France, and its solution, were both blatantly obvious. The problem was the Nazis and the Vichy government; the solution was to get rid of them. She knew that wouldn’t be easy, but it was the only answer. Why, wondered Josette, didn’t everyone else feel the same way?
People she had known and liked for most of her life had suddenly changed. Proud Frenchmen and women didn
’t seem to care that their country had been ripped in two. Or if they did, they weren’t prepared to do anything about it. Worse still, some were collaborating with the new government for their own ends, betraying former friends and neighbours.
And it wasn’t just in Lavelanet and the surrounding area. Stories of betrayal were circulating throughout southern France. It was confusing, frustrating, disappointing – and Josette didn’t understand it at all. Which was why she had come to see her grandmother, Odile Mazet, her father’s mother.
The two had always been close. They shared similar looks and the same fiery temperament. Odile was seventy now and had mellowed a little, but she retained a razor-sharp mind, and was always prepared to voice her opinions and defend her point of view, however controversial it might be. Just like her granddaughter.
Odile lived across the town from the Mazet family house in an old, end-of-terrace, stone-built cottage nestling close to the river Touyre.
Josette had come there straight after work and now they were sitting in the little lean-to attached to the back of the house. They had spoken about the family, about Josette’s continuing worries for her mother’s depression and about the increasing prices at Lavelanet’s Friday market. Odile knew that there was something else on her granddaughter’s mind, but she enjoyed Josette’s company so was content to wait until she was ready to mention it.
“Gra-mere,” Josette said at last, using, as she always had, the less formal version of “grandmother”, “why is it that so many people don’t seem to care about what’s happening to France, or won’t do anything about it?”
Odile sat back in her wicker chair and glanced through the window to the swiftly flowing river, weighing her thoughts before replying. “It’s little more than twenty years since the last war; the war they said would end all wars. A lot of us lost loved ones then; for me it was a cousin and a nephew, for others it was husbands and sons. For some – ” she looked across at Josette “ – a brother or a grandson.”
She paused and Josette knew they were both thinking about Venant.
