Madeleine's War

by Peter Watson

  “Let’s cross back over the road,” I said quickly to Madeleine. “It’s an unexploded bomb.”

  I led the way into the road, waving to the traffic so it slowed. “If they thought it was about to go off, we’d have been kept much further away. But we’re safer on the other side of the road, even so. Come on.”

  The traffic lights in Lisson Grove had changed to red and we were able to scuttle across the wide expanse of tarmac. Madeleine picked up Zola and carried him.

  “These men earn their wages. There must be unexploded bombs all over London.” She set him down on the sidewalk again.

  We walked quickly for a couple of hundred yards.

  After a while we slowed. “I should think we are beyond the range of the bomb now,” I murmured.

  I reached across and held her hand. “That was a good thing to say, that you would like my children. Look…I’m not very good at this sort of situation. I think I fell for you the first time I saw you, months ago, that night at The Farm. God knows when you fell for me…but it’s only in the last few days that we have…that the slow burn caught fire. So I don’t know…are you saying—with what’s coming up, all the uncertainty—are you saying you want to get married…is that what’s on your mind? You did it once before, after all.”

  She didn’t reply straightaway.

  She stopped, to let Zola inspect the base of a tree.

  “It’s crossed my mind, of course it has. And yes, it’s what I did before. But not this time, Matt. I don’t think so. Not because I don’t…I like it just the way we are. We haven’t known each other long—you’re right there…Getting married wouldn’t change anything. I thought it would with Philippe, but now I don’t think so. We’ll either survive the war or we won’t. And our feelings will either survive or they won’t—marriage won’t change that, I don’t think so anyway.”

  She looked up at me and smiled, her eyes growing rounder. “Look at what happened in Casablanca—their love survived but bigger events got in the way, and they both accepted that, and went their separate ways. Remember that famous line, when Bogart says, ‘We’ll always have Paris!’ Who is to say the same won’t happen to us, that events won’t intervene? We’ll always have Scotland—and now Lisson Grove.” She laughed again. “It’s not Paris, exactly, but it’s just as much…It has been wonderful, Colonel.” She squeezed my hand. “It still is.”

  I chuckled. “I like the idea of you as a mix of Ingrid Bergman and Leni Riefenstahl.”

  “Ah, I’d settle for that,” she replied, smiling and holding her hair off her neck. “Yes, I’d settle for that.”

  “And if you do get pregnant?”

  She paused for a moment. “There’s no point in worrying about that unless and until it happens.” She put her arm in mine again.

  I kissed her on the head, smelling its new smell again.

  It brought back the ride in the back of the Land Rover in Ardlossan, the night we had rescued Erich. When her hair had smelled of mud.

  “When I’m in France, I’d like you to do me one favour.”

  “Name it.”

  “Can’t you guess? You’re supposed to be clever.”

  I thought for a moment.

  A bus went by, advertising on its side the latest films.

  “Oh yes. Of course. I’ve got it!”

  “You have?”

  “Yes. You want me to cut out and keep all the newspaper clippings on Leni Riefenstahl.”

  “I don’t believe it! Yes, that’s exactly right—you’ll be busy, of course, but—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You can rely on me. While you’re away in France, she will be the only other woman in my life.”

  · 10 ·

  FUNNY HOW NO ONE—SO FAR AS I KNOW—has written about cigarettes in wartime. Not only were they in short supply, most of the time, when we needed them most, but their quality was poor. The tobacco was thin and tasteless, the paper was thin and crumbled in your fingers, or on your lips, and the smell…the smell was…best forgotten.

  As Hilary Armstrong sidled into my office the next morning clutching a leaf of crispy, wafer-thin paper of the type our code people used, I was just lighting the first cigarette of the working day.

  He was, as usual, dressed as if he were going for lunch at some country hotel—a three-piece brown tweed suit, a thin gold chain leading from the buttonhole in his lapel to his upper breast pocket, a pale blue shirt, exquisitely ironed, regimental tie, and hand-sewn brogues that I can only describe as glowing with age, brown as beer. His socks, drawn taut over his slim ankles, were charcoal-grey. He settled into the chair across from my desk and laid the thin sheet of paper on my blotter.

  “Those are quite some shoes, sir,” I said. “Do you have a slave to shine them for you?”

  He smiled a weak smile. He had something else on his mind.

  “Alex MacGibbon—or the Gestapo behind him—wants a quantity of cigarettes dropped as soon as possible.”

  I picked up the slip of paper and read what was on it.

  “Still no security codes—bluff or otherwise?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “What do you want to do?” I pulled on my own cigarette, wincing slightly at the taste.

  “I want to talk it over with you, first. Isn’t that obvious? That’s why I’m here. What’s your reaction?”

  “Tell me first—what do you hear from upstairs?”

  He took back the piece of paper and folded it, leaving it on the desk between us.

  “They are considering our plan…your plan, to use MacGibbon to spread misinformation, I mean.” He tapped the paper with a long finger, his nails glowing like pearls. “But we need a prompt response to this message, if we are to continue to keep the Gestapo thinking they have duped us.”

  I pointed to it and nodded. “My guess is…that it’s a test.”

  “A test? Hmm. How is it a test? How do you mean?”

  “There are no security codes. That’s unnatural. We, here at headquarters, might have forgiven Trident one oversight, but not two or three—he’s an experienced agent.” I nodded as my conviction took hold. “So—you reply by reprimanding Trident for not following proper procedure and say you can’t consider any requests unless they are made in the correct way. And tell him to stay off air as much as possible.”

  “That could frighten the Gestapo away.”

  “How? No, sir. The opposite. We played along the first time, putting the lack of codes down to naivety on Trident’s part. We can’t allow him to get away with it a second time—that would be unnatural and look suspicious. No, you reply to Trident tersely and tell him to shape up. Only if the Gestapo think we have been thoroughly taken in will we be able to use them down the line. That means acting suspiciously if MacGibbon breaks the rules. And I agree, sir—we must do it promptly.”

  Hilary picked up the slip of paper and slid it into his jacket pocket. “Trident’s is not the only piece of news we’ve had today.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes. We’ve heard from Apple, Spencer Fullerton, who runs the Orchid circuit in Paris. Apparently, the Gestapo headquarters are at 78 and 80 avenue Foch.”

  I whistled. “That’s a very smart address—they must have oodles of power. Do we know who the commanding officer is?”

  “I was coming to that. Yes. According to Fullerton—Apple—it’s a certain Wolf Grundmann. You’ve heard of him?”

  “I’ll say. When I was in France he was known as the ‘Butcher of Besançon.’ He’s very bright, very ruthless, and very ambitious. In 1941, at least, I was told he had Himmler’s ear. If he’s running Trident then MacGibbon is as good as dead—Grundmann shows no mercy.

  “Our only hope—and it’s not much of one—is that he is so ambitious that any plans we feed him will cloud his judgment, if they offer him the opportunity for advancement, and for promotion. What I mean is, he might just be the perfect target to mislead the Germans about the invasion.”

  I pointed to the ceil
ing. “Tell that to your people upstairs. Is Apple safe, by the way? Tell him to keep his distance—Grundmann is fiendishly clever and horribly cruel. Make sure the entire Orchid circuit knows that. In fact, we should warn all our agents in northern France not to take any risks where Grundmann is concerned. In Besançon he even had children executed—children as young as eleven—because they were being used as couriers, or he thought they were. No one can expect any mercy from him.” I leaned forward, as a thought flashed into my head.

  “Wait. On reflection, sir—I don’t want to be a wet blanket—but there may be more to this than meets the eye.”

  “What do you mean—how can there be? Apple has given us a fantastic piece of information—two pieces, the Gestapo’s address in Paris and the name of the commanding officer.”

  “Yes, but maybe that’s just too fantastic. We are now playing for high stakes—very high stakes. We are dealing with the date and location of the invasion—possibly the most important piece of intelligence in the entire war, since the Americans joined in. We know the Gestapo have penetrated Trident. They hope, there, to lure us into revealing details about the invasion. What if they’ve done the same with Apple? What could reassure us more that Apple has not been penetrated than for him to provide us with such valuable information?”

  I tapped more ash into the ashtray between us.

  Hilary was frowning but I carried on.

  “Knowing the address of the Gestapo in Paris is some help—yes; and so is knowing Grundmann’s name. But, from their point of view, the Germans’ point of view, it may be a price worth paying, a risk worth taking, if it buys them our trust—if it encourages us to drop our guard and reveal ahead of time…where the invasion will be.”

  Hilary was shaking his head. “I can’t believe…I can’t…surely…” He looked up as a thought struck him. “Say you’re right, say Orchid has been penetrated like Banquet has…It’s a terrible thing to say but, although it means Trident and Apple are sacrificed, we now have two ways, two avenues, to mislead the Germans. If the people above me buy it.”

  His eyes were glowing. If we could pull this off, he could see his knighthood down the line.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, I see it now. Two conduits filing misinformation—lies—is much more convincing than one. If we are right to be so skeptical, and if the Gestapo have penetrated two of our circuits, then, bleak as it sounded at first, they may actually have done us a favour.”

  —

  MADELEINE AND I WERE TWO HOURS and more out of London, we had a tankful of black-market juice, the Lagonda was behaving itself, and we had the top down. Zola was in the small back seat, like a panjandrum, with the wind in his face, and we were on course to surprise my mother at lunchtime.

  I was proud of my car and had asked Madeleine if she wanted to drive, but she had astonished me by saying she didn’t know how.

  “Something to teach you when you get back from France,” I had replied.

  The traffic was slow through Northleach. I knew that there was a major interchange at the far end, with the Stow-on-the-Wold–Cirencester road crossing our path. As we inched forward, the throaty growl of the engine cut into the morning air. If you owned one like I did, you could always tell a Lagonda by the thunder of its engine.

  “How long will this traffic jam last?” said Madeleine.

  “We’re about two hundred yards shy of the crossroads, just beyond the curve of that bend. When we’re through there, the road rises in a long, shallow hill, then descends to another small village, with a level-crossing. That’s quite busy, so we may be held up there for a few minutes by the trains. But after that the road should be clear. Why?”

  She closed her eyes. “I just love speed. No one’s ever given me a birthday present like the stretch we did just now. Sixty miles an hour—for-mi-dable! Do you think that people will ever do a hundred miles an hour?”

  “They already do on racetracks.”

  “Heaven! Maybe, after the war, when you get a new car, a couple of birthdays from now…a hundred miles an hour! Imagine!”

  She reached over and squeezed my leg.

  “Remember when we took that bicycle ride in Ardlossan, careering down the side of the mountain? All that wind in your hair, on your thighs…no one could do that before, could they—I mean, before we had bicycles or could drive in open-top cars at sixty miles an hour? One day they’ll have music in cars and you’ll be able to drive fast and listen to Mozart or Hank Snow.”

  “Who? Who’s Hank Snow?”

  “Hmm. Only one of Canada’s greatest singers. Don’t you know ‘The Prisoner Cowboy’?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “You have heard of Mozart?”

  “Was he Canadian?”

  I accelerated just a bit, as the traffic moved forward. Madeleine’s hair was made for an open-topped car. On the fast, straight stretches of road it streamed out behind her, like flames. On the slower bends, when the eddies of wind came from all directions, it wrapped itself around her face. She peeled it away with her fingers, closing her eyes and holding her cheeks to the sun, her lips slightly parted. Black-market petrol wasn’t given away, but that day it was worth every penny.

  Speed and being in love are alike: the two most invigorating sensations there are.

  The rumble of the car bounced off the façade of the houses lining the road. “Do you think so? I mean, do you really think they’ll have music in cars?”

  “Oh sure. There’ll be car radios and even small gramophones for specially designed records.”

  “Is that such a good idea, do you think? Won’t it be a distraction, unsafe?”

  She put her hand on my thigh. “Is that a distraction?”

  I reached down and removed it. “Yes.”

  “Where are we having lunch?”

  “I don’t know. Are you hungry already?”

  She shook her head. “No, not yet. But isn’t part of the pleasure of food thinking about it ahead of time?”

  I smiled and looked across to her. “Up to a point. Thinking about it too much is a sure-fire way of getting fat very quickly.”

  She shook her head again and grinned. “I’m safe. I think about bed much more than I think about food.”

  Before I could reply, the traffic ahead moved and we reached the crossroads with the Stow–Cirencester road. A tractor turned off the Stow road in front of us, so we were very slow going up the hill that led out of Northleach. It was belching filthy exhaust, too, so we kept our distance and our mouths shut. At the top of the hill, however, the tractor turned off and we picked up speed going down the hill into the next village. Just before we reached it was the level crossing—with its gates beginning to close.

  “Can you make it if you hurry?” said Madeleine softly.

  “Are you kidding?” I started to brake.

  “Look at her!” said Madeleine suddenly, urgently. “She’s having a go.”

  I could see instantly what Madeleine meant. Coming towards us was a Land Rover pulling a horsebox. As I brought the Lagonda to a stop, twenty yards short of the slow-closing gates, we watched as the woman driving the Land Rover mounted the slightly raised section of the level crossing, where the rail lines were. In fact, from the way the horsebox was bobbing about, the crossing wasn’t as level as it might have been. The Land Rover had almost reached the other side of the crossing but one of the gates was closing between the back of the Land Rover and the front of the horsebox, where the coupling was. The woman kept the Land Rover moving forward, but the gate also kept closing—till it hit the coupling and the front of the horsebox was pulled into it.

  Both the gate and the Land Rover-and-horsebox stopped, jammed together. The other three gates carried on closing.

  “Oh, my God,” whispered Madeleine loudly. “Now what? The Land Rover is safe but the horsebox is trapped—”

  “Stuck straddling the railway lines,” I added, half to myself.

  As we watched, the woman got down from the Land Rover, slipped
through the gap in the gates, and went to the back of the horsebox. She looked along the line, and then let down the back of the box and disappeared inside.

  A few moments later we saw her back out of the box, pulling on some reins.

  At first the horse wouldn’t budge and she pulled harder.

  She looked along the line again.

  Suddenly, as she did so, the horse rushed forward—and knocked her over.

  It panicked, and kicked out. The woman, getting up off the ground, was hit by one of the horse’s hooves. She screamed and fell back down again, clutching her arm.

  Still no sign or sound of a train but it couldn’t be long.

  “Look!” cried Madeleine.

  We both had the same thought at the same time.

  Blood was spurting from the woman’s arm in an energetic arc.

  We both scrambled to get out of the Lagonda, jumping over its low doors.

  Madeleine looked across at me. “Give me your belt.”

  I had it off in no time. “You try to stop the bleeding, I’ll try to stop the train.”

  I registered other people around but no one else appeared to be doing anything.

  Madeleine reached the woman and knelt next to her. She was screaming. Calmly Madeleine slapped the woman’s face and then slipped my belt under her shoulder. She was going to make a tourniquet to stop the blood loss.

  I slipped between the gates and looked along the line.

  There was a train about a quarter of a mile away.

  How long did it take a train to stop? If I ran towards the locomotive, would the driver see me? Given its speed, I had only seconds to run down the line—would it make any difference?

  No.

  Either the engine driver had seen the horsebox blocking the line, and was already braking, or he hadn’t, and he was too close for any action on my part to make a difference.

  The only difference I could make was with the creature in most danger.

  The horse hadn’t gone anywhere. Its halter rope, which the woman had dropped when she fell, had entangled itself in the hinges between the sloping lip at the back of the box, and the floor of the horsebox proper.