Night Flight to Paris

by David Gilman

  ‘My love,’ he whispered.

  5

  They had sent him north to a place where no matter what time of the day or night the mountain air chilled everyone. The training camp in the Scottish Highlands was deemed perfect for its isolation and ruggedness. A place to quickly weed out those who were unsuitable for the dangers that lay ahead. Men and women, all dressed in brown boiler suits, ran from one training session to another until fatigue claimed them. They slept at every opportunity. It was a myth, Mitchell had once been told, that soldiers could sleep on the march because of exhaustion. After three weeks of intensive training, Mitchell was prepared to argue it was no myth.

  Major Knight stood with Sergeant Major Laughlin in a wooden hut, warmed by a potbellied stove. Laughlin was a family man with a soft heart for all things Scottish and a cold one for the bastard heathens who had claimed his son at Dunkirk. He knew his skills could help train others to kill the enemy, which is why he dedicated himself to these courageous men and women who were prepared to go behind enemy lines. He was in charge of the training teams and his no-nonsense approach demanded high standards. Through the window, the two of them watched as small groups of men and women ran past, shepherded by an army instructor. Further, in the distance, four more candidates were being taught unarmed combat. Somewhere in the background was the muted sound of gunfire.

  ‘He’s a fit man for his age. It’s the killing he’s no good at, sir,’ said Laughlin.

  A concerned Major Knight flipped through a file. None of the instructors was told anything about their charges: neither where they were from nor what they would be expected to do if they passed the test of the rigours placed upon them. Knight decided to share some of Mitchell’s background. ‘He served in the Great War as a junior officer. He was eighteen years old, rear echelon, a non-combatant. There was an... incident.’ He handed the file to Laughlin open at the relevant page and let the hard man read the report. The dour Scotsman scowled, and then sighed.

  ‘Is there anything else I need to know about him?

  Knight shook his head. ‘He’s your responsibility, sergeant major.’ Knight took back the file. He checked his watch. ‘I have to get back to London. Do whatever it takes. He’s no good to me if he can’t pull the trigger when he has to.’

  *

  Mitchell stood hunched in the cold at the firing range as Laughlin showed him the black metal pistol.

  ‘It’s .45 calibre. Single shot, semi-automatic, which means it fires one bullet at every squeeze of the trigger. It uses the force of the fired round to chamber another and reset the hammer. That prevents the striker from re-engaging the firing pin. Pull the trigger. And so on. Child’s play, Mr Mitchell, sir. It’s the standard sidearm for Americans. Effective range is fifty yards. Seven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Whatever you hit will stay hit. Now, that’s just a drum of water,’ he said, pointing to a forty-four-gallon drum twenty yards away. ‘It doesn’t talk, it doesn’t goose-step.’ He handed the loaded weapon to Mitchell. ‘So, in your own time.’

  Mitchell fired. The recoil kicked the weapon down and blew a hole in the ground five feet in front of him.

  ‘Need to get used to the recoil, Mr Mitchell. Just a matter of knowing about it so you can compensate,’ said Laughlin, standing patiently behind him. Almost tenderly, he corrected Mitchell’s body position. ‘Feel the butt of the pistol, bring your arms up, point and shoot. Both eyes open – can’t shoot the buggers if you can’t see them. Now... point and shoot.’

  Another shot, another miss. Another slight adjustment from Laughlin. Another shot, a near miss. Laughlin positioned himself right behind Mitchell’s shoulder. ‘All right Mr Mitchell, sir, we’ve a bit of a problem now. I’m out of ammunition and I’m wounded and if you can’t stop that SS man – he’s going to kill me and you and then he’s going to rape and murder your wife and daughter.’

  Mitchell froze; then he turned and faced Laughlin, forcing himself not to react. He pressed back the fury he felt rise up in his throat, tossed the .45 down and walked away. This confirmed Laughlin’s doubts. He muttered to himself: ‘Christ Almighty, if he hasn’t got the imagination to see what could happen, then he’s no brain at all and as much use as a Catholic at a Rangers’ game. Fucking bait.’ Sectarianism was alive and well between the two Scottish football teams, Celtic and Rangers. That was history for you, he thought. And much good fucking history had done anyone with this mess they were in. He picked up the pistol and wiped a caring hand over the black metal, cleaning away a smear of dirt. Laughlin fired the .45 with rapid accuracy, punching holes in the water-filled drum. Mitchell’s shoulders hunched, flinching from the gunshots, but he refused to look back.

  *

  Mitchell had washed and changed as darkness settled. He sat on his bed in the spartan hut that served as accommodation. Those who shared the room with him were already in the mess tent for the evening meal. He opened his footlocker, took out a large envelope and spilt its contents on to the bed. There were training sheets and schematic drawings of weapons and demolition charges. Pages of information on saboteur work skidded across the rough blanket. He sifted through the papers, ready to do his homework, till his hand brushed over a smaller government-issue envelope. He hesitated and then took out the photographs of his wife’s execution. Knight had given them to him, no doubt in the hope that the reminder would spur him on. Mitchell needed no such inducement. He picked up the fuzzy pictures showing the bruised and bloody woman being dragged by two SS soldiers to the execution post. Nothing he could do would ever erase these images. He turned to the next grainy picture where she was tied to the post in the courtyard. Then the German soldier aiming a Schmeisser. Another picture taken from the same fixed angle. Suzanne slumped. Head on chest, knees sagging. The final glossy was of the German officer giving her the coup de grâce.

  Mitchell raised his head, other earlier memories intruding on the images in front of him, visions he had long tried to suppress. His head snapped upright as he heard a gunshot. He listened. Was the shot real or imagined? He carefully shuffled the photos together and put them back into the envelope. One additional photograph had been given to him when he had agreed to do what Beaumont and Knight wanted of him. A photograph of a German officer. Standartenführer Heinrich Stolz. Mitchell slid across a picture of Danielle to rest next to that of Stolz. The two photos lay side by side as he gazed at them. The sudden chatter of distant machine-gun fire broke his concentration and, outside the window, a flare curved up and illuminated the night sky. He saw his reflection in the dark glass and as another flare burst the red glow lit up his face, distorting his features. It was a face he did not recognize.

  *

  A week later, in the south of England, Mitchell sat in the warmth of the sun reading his briefing documents in the well-kept gardens of Beaulieu House in the New Forest. Major Knight, his suit jacket draped over a deckchair and his tie loosened, sat opposite him. Mitchell had gone through the documents while Knight waited patiently. As the last page was turned Knight could see that the man had absorbed the information easily. Mitchell had a quick mind. He offered Mitchell a cigarette, but the teacher raised a hand to decline.

  ‘You’ve done rather well in the appallingly short time we’ve had available for you. So, just a final chat really, see how you feel about things.’

  ‘More confident than when I started, and a lot more scared.’

  ‘Well, that should help keep you alive,’ Knight answered and studied him for a moment longer. ‘You have to remember what problems an agent faces and has to solve. How to defeat the enemy; whom to recognize as having political influence or power; how to avoid local police and security people and finally how you are supposed to function in a practical manner on a day-to-day basis.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘What I’m asking myself,’ said Knight, fixing his gaze on Mitchell, ‘is what happened to that frightened junior officer in 1918 who found himself out of his cosy office and at a field headq
uarters close to the front.’ He tossed a file on to Mitchell’s lap. ‘I know everything about you, Harry. You think I didn’t?’

  ‘Twenty-five years ago was another lifetime.’

  ‘You were ordered to command a firing squad.’

  ‘I was a junior transport officer.’

  ‘You may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time but you were an officer and you couldn’t give the man the finishing shot. He was already dead. And you couldn’t do your duty.’

  ‘He was alive. He looked right at me, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘Putting the fear of God into your belly is what the enemy does, Harry, not some poor wretch who was shot for desertion.’ He drew smoke into his lungs and exhaled. He studied the end of his cigarette as he turned it in his fingers. ‘Question is, do I scratch you off my list or do I let you go?’

  ‘I won’t let anyone die because I have doubts about killing.’

  Knight looked at him. It was decision time. An extremely important decision.

  ‘Then I’ll make the necessary arrangements to get you over there. Your training will finish here at Beaulieu.’

  6

  For eight hundred years Notre-Dame de Paris, Our Lady of Paris, the cathedral dedicated to Mary, Mother of God, had been a symbol of devotion. A place where kings and paupers had knelt and prayed. In the streets not far from the revered place of worship, a dozen or more French civilians lined up against a wall, hands on their heads, while their identity papers were checked. A German military police officer, distinctive in full leather coat, helmet and the iron plate across his throat, stood ready with his machine pistol, as did other members of the Feldgendarmerie who had blocked off the street. A French gendarme checked the identity document of one man and passed it to a German officer, who looked at the document and nodded that the papers were in order.

  Leitmann stood further back, casually smoking, watching the inspection. Down the line, a boy of about nine years old stood like the others with hands on head. Leitmann noticed that he kept looking nervously over his shoulder. Leitmann took the few steps down the line towards him. The boy’s terror was plain to see. A plainclothes German could only mean a Gestapo officer. The child turned his gaze to the wall.

  ‘Turn around,’ said Leitmann quietly, almost politely.

  The boy did as he was told.

  ‘You can put your hands down,’ said Leitmann, but the boy was too frightened to obey. Leitmann slowly eased the boy’s hands down to his side and as he did saw something tucked under the child’s oversize jacket in what looked like a specially stitched poacher’s pocket. Leitmann reached in and eased out a quarter of a loaf. The boy stared wide-eyed at him, and Leitmann smiled and then pushed the stale loaf back into the pocket. As he pushed the bread down he saw something glint in another inside pocket. He pulled the boy’s coat aside and took out a gold fountain pen. He looked down at the boy’s feet where a pool of urine seeped from under the boy’s shoes.

  Leitmann gave the lad a friendly smile. ‘It’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Where did you get this?’

  *

  A dozen streets away in another arrondissement, in a curtained-off area of a working-class apartment, Alain Ory sat in shirtsleeves in front of a wireless transmitter in a suitcase, a string aerial hooked up from it. He sat smoking, headphones on, tapping out his coded message from the small pad in front of him. The Morse key clicked rhythmically.

  Madame Tatier stood at her stove stirring a meagre stew, grateful that her son, Marcel, had found some bread, no matter that it was a few days old. Once dipped in the broth it would help fill their shrinking stomachs. Rationing was hurting everyone. She glanced over at the boy and her eye caught something out of the window down in the street below her first-floor apartment. Gendarmes and, behind them, Gestapo were moving towards the building. Her hand flew to her throat and then she turned quickly and pulled aside a curtain.

  ‘Alain!’

  He was writing down a message he had just received. Without a word, he switched off and ripped down the aerial as she pulled out a false bottom of a small dresser, and in one quick, well-rehearsed movement the radio was hidden. He pulled on his overcoat, slid open a window and was gone as the sounds of stamping feet were heard outside the passage. A sudden pounding on her door. She pulled her son to her.

  ‘Marie Tatier! Police! Open up!’

  Her stomach lurched but she tried to keep her voice normal and buy Ory time. ‘A moment! I’m coming.’

  But the door gave way as two gendarmes broke it down and rushed into the small room. With barely a glance at her, they pushed her aside and pulled open drawers, quickly finding the radio. Two shots rang out from the back street. She peered out and saw Alain Ory’s body sprawled on the ground. A young, fresh-faced Gestapo officer stood over the fallen man, still aiming his pistol as another Gestapo agent searched the body.

  *

  At the security service headquarters, Koenig approached Stolz at his desk.

  ‘Sir, one of the men we were searching for has been located. He was a wireless operator. This message was on him.’ He stepped forward and placed some folded papers in front of Stolz. ‘He had just decoded it. He was shot while trying to escape.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Badly wounded. He won’t stand up to torture.’

  ‘I don’t want him tortured. I want him to have the best medical attention possible. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, colonel.’

  Koenig was halfway out the room when Stolz called him back.

  ‘Find me that signals officer who used to be with the field security police, the clever one who cracked that wireless group in Bordeaux earlier this year.’

  ‘Leutnant Hesler?’

  ‘Yes! That’s him. Get him here.’

  Hauptmann Koenig turned to leave as Stolz read the message. He lifted his head and smiled at Koenig. ‘They’re sending in another agent.’

  *

  Mitchell tossed and turned in a fitful sleep. The bare attic room was stuffy, with no window to open. He lay in a vest but had kept his trousers on. Never strip right down, they had taught him, you never know when you might have to make a run for it. The sudden gut-wrenching banging on the door snatched him from his sleep.

  ‘Gestapo! Open the door! Open the door immediately.’

  Before Mitchell reached the door it was kicked in by two heavy-set Gestapo officers. He backed away but they grabbed him and punched him in the stomach. As his knees buckled one of them pulled a black sack over his head and hauled him from the room. A wave of nausea threatened to swamp him but he fought it and tried to sense where they were taking him. He was thrown roughly into the back of a car and the Germans laughed and congratulated each other at how easy it had been to capture him. As far as he could tell they drove for about half an hour and then, when they pulled up, he heard an iron gate being opened nearby as one dragged him from the vehicle. He was hustled down a corridor and into a room. The door slammed and he was thrust on to a chair, his wrists handcuffed behind him. As they took the hood from his face he got a clearer picture of the two men, who were already pulling off suit jackets and rolling up shirtsleeves. There was an array of what looked like surgical instruments and a small table to one side, in the semidarkness of what seemed to be a cellar. One of the men turned a bright lamp on to his face.

  He had no idea how long they questioned him. It was relentless and harsh. One liked to put his face close to Mitchell’s and his guttural demands sprayed spit on to him. Hour in, hour out they asked him questions, trying to get him to contradict himself. The room was airless and the men perspired. At one point he thought he had fallen asleep; his chin rested on his chest, and blurred images confused his mind. It was a long night, and the lamp continually blinded him. The Gestapo interrogators smoked, and it was obvious they were getting tired, but not as exhausted as Mitchell, whose head sank again.

  One of the Gestapo men snatched his hair and yanked his head back. The other threw d
own his documents on the small table in front of him.

  ‘These documents are false,’ said the one.

  ‘You say you lived in Lyon?’ the other asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mitchell.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Near Perrache Station.’

  One of the officers moved around him and gave him a quick sharp punch into his kidneys. ‘You’re English!’

  Mitchell gritted his teeth through his pain. He shook his head. ‘No. French. Born and bred.’

  The man in front drew the chair closer to him. ‘You say you’re a teacher? You’re lying. Your school was destroyed during the invasion.’

  ‘That’s why I teach privately now. It’s the only way I can earn a living. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘You said you came south by car?’

  ‘Back then, yes. It took us days. The refugees clogged every road.’

  ‘You’re a smuggler. You’re not a teacher. We have proof that you helped smuggle Jews out of the city.’

  ‘I’m a teacher.’

  The violent Gestapo officer behind him put his arm around Mitchell’s neck in a choking armlock; at the same time, the other man leant his weight on Mitchell’s legs so he couldn’t buck free from the chair and on to the floor in any attempt to save himself.

  ‘Smugglers are worse than black marketeers. That’s why you’ll be executed. For helping Jews escape,’ said the armlock thug, and then released his grip, allowing Mitchell to suck in air. They gave him a moment to recover.

  ‘I helped some of my pupils to safety during the fighting. That’s all. I didn’t have any Jewish kids in my class. I swear I didn’t.’