A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress

by Natalie Meg Evans

  Sleep closed in on her fast. A sleep so deep it sucked her from the earth into limitless space. Into another consciousness…

  Chapter Twelve

  Yvonne

  Inside the Halifax bomber it was airless and clammy, the roar of engines scouring the insides of her ears. It couldn’t be long, surely, until the pilot circled over the dropping point?

  For over four hours, she’d perched on the edge of her seat, trussed so tightly in her harness her shoulder blades felt pulled out of alignment. Beneath the man’s camouflage jump-suit they’d issued her, she wore a brown check cotton skirt. It was tucked between her legs like a schoolboy’s shorts. Beneath that, a rather seductive slip and a pair of Parisian silk knickers, but no girdle or stockings because nylon was off the Frenchwoman’s shopping list these days. Her ankle socks had been made in a Lyons hosiery factory before the war. The rest of her outfit consisted of a beige blouse, a knitted brown gilet and a tan, belted jacket, cut twelve inches longer than anyone was wearing in London. She hadn’t worn so much brown since she’d played a woodland creature in a school performance of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The jacket disguised the belt around her waist, concealing several thousand French francs, a number of forged ration books, maps and some spare radio crystals. The crystals were for a wireless operator who was lying low in Bordeaux.

  The heat inside the plane climbed until it was all she could do not to rip off her flying suit and helmet. She’d put her hair up in a bun and the grips were digging in. Glancing at her two SOE colleagues, Jean-Claude and Cyprien, she thought – Why is it that being female is always a handicap, whatever you’re trying to do? Jean-Claude, the oldest of the three of them, was asleep, his mouth open. Handsome, pouty Cyprien was staring down at his fingers. The fingers of a trained wireless operator. Once he’d been taken to his safe house, he’d transmit messages back to London. Messages she’d bring him. Until he got caught, that is. Wireless ops usually got caught, their signal giving away their locations. God, she shrieked inside herself, what are we doing? Cyprien’s lips moved – reciting Shakespeare? An actor before the war, Cyprien knew reams of it and claimed it calmed his mind. Just don’t quote any once we’re on French soil. She transmitted the thought and, to her fascination, Cyprien looked up and scowled.

  She jiggled her helmet to relieve her scalp. If only they’d let her cut her hair short! But apparently Frenchwomen were wearing theirs longer now. Her handlers had tutted over its colour, too, muttering that she’d stand out among the dark-complexioned Dordogne population. She’d offered to dye it black and they’d looked at her as if she were mad. Did she not realise that luxuries such as hair colourant had vanished in France? What would she do if they couldn’t extract her in a few weeks, as arranged, and her roots began to show through?

  Then, she’d really appreciated what she was letting herself in for.

  Their solution had been to give her a fake identity that fitted her complexion. She was no longer Antonia, a former teacher of French and Physical Education from the Derbyshire peaks. Until she returned to England she was Yvonne Rosel, born in Caen, Normandy. ‘Lots of Normans are carrot-tops,’ her handler had explained.

  ‘Venetian gold,’ she’d corrected him coldly. Her rich hair had been an indivisible part of her personality since she’d been old enough to recognise herself in the mirror, and nobody was going to demean it with the word ‘carrot’. Though right now, she’d have shaved it off if she could.

  She hadn’t noticed the sergeant going up front to speak to the pilot, but he must have done because he was suddenly yelling at them that they were over the town of Tulle, reducing height.

  ‘Ten minutes, gentlemen and Miss.’

  Yvonne’s stomach responded with a shallow contraction. So. This was it, assuming no disasters or eleventh-hour changes of plan. How she regretted tucking into eggs, bacon, tomatoes and steak at lunchtime. Feet together parallel to the ground, she repeated, drumming the landing sequence into her brain, though quite honestly, if she hadn’t learned how to parachute by now…

  She was jumping in Cuban-heeled lace-ups and they’d bandaged her ankles tightly before take-off to keep the shoes on as she dropped. And to prevent her ankles breaking as she hit earth. To quell her rising fear, she patted the zip pockets of her jump-suit, checking papers, compass, torch and knife were still there. She bent her leg to ensure that the little spade was safely lodged against her calf. That was for burying her parachute if the reception committee failed to show up. They’d better not fail.

  She went over the code phrase again that her French comrades would use to identify themselves: Je préfère une alouette a un moineau. I prefer a lark to a sparrow.

  She took her place between Cyprien and Jean-Claude. Cyprien would go first with his radio set attached to his harness. The powers-that-be had decided that she, the lone female, should be sandwiched between resolute males. As if, by virtue of being a woman, she was the most likely to refuse to jump. Her bet was, if any of them funked it, it would be Cyprien.

  ‘Five minutes, gentlemen and Miss.’

  The dispatcher – the airman responsible for getting them out of the hatch, hurling them if need be – was performing a last-minute check on their harnesses and deployment bags. He attached the static lines that would open their ’chutes for them.

  ‘Au revoir, Antonia. Bonjour, Yvonne,’ she muttered. And then the hatch was open, icy air blustering in. Nothing beyond but blank darkness, until the plane began to turn and she saw a perfect half-moon. And far below, pin-point fires. She counted five, arranged in the shape of a capital ‘L’. The drop zone. Her teeth slammed together with cold, because the temperature had suddenly plummeted from steam bath to icehouse.

  The dispatcher threw out various packages with parachutes attached. These contained armaments for the Resistance circuit that operated around Garzenac. Sten guns, disassembled. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition, muzzle grease and a couple of Sten silencers. Any moment...

  ‘I am Yvonne Rosel,’ she murmured, ‘Mademoiselle Yvonne Rosel.’ Some four thousand feet below, the French résistant contact assigned to her was waiting. His code name was Écharde, which meant ‘splinter’, an amusing coincidence since her real English surname was Thorne. Already, the dispatcher was clapping Cyprien on the shoulder, checking that his wireless set was secure in its pack. A moment later, he was gone. The hand came down on her shoulder and she thought—

  Actually, no time to think. She jumped with a piercing cry as her body drank in the freezing air. For a moment she was spread-eagled on her back like a frog dropped from a heron’s beak.

  The static line deployed and her ’chute flared open, halting her freefall. She was finally dangling upright in the nothingness, laughing. Laughing like the daredevil, fun-loving redhead everyone on her training course believed she was.

  It was a pure, clear night and the terrain below began to make sense. Ponds and streams shone silver. Forest was easy to distinguish from fields. Grey stripes, like corduroy fabric, suggested vineyards. Hmm, a glass of red would be just perfect, she thought. Trifling thoughts fled as something sharp cut behind her back. There were sparks spitting far below like a welder’s torch. Anti-aircraft fire? They’re firing at the Halifax, she thought. Or are they firing at us? In that moment she knew – was absolutely certain – they’d been betrayed. She was dropping into an ambush.

  Suddenly, the ground was coming up fast and she was in the blind zone, where the ground blots out all light. Feet together, parallel. She hit the earth and rolled, letting the movement absorb the energy of her landing. And it was a textbook landing, though bruising because the little spade dug into her shin. Ignoring the pain, she scrambled up, registering the fact that she’d come down in a dry meadow. And into a full-scale battle. Where was the reception committee? Where was Écharde?

  She launched into the routine she’d practised, releasing the straps of her parachute, bundling it up. She saw Jean-Claude land and roll, his canopy sinking over him like a jellyf
ish. But she didn’t see him get up, and when she called to him, she got the worryingly high-pitched reply, ‘I’m stuck!’ Where was Cyprien? Where the bloody hell was their welcoming committee? The darkness was alive with barking machine guns, their muzzle flares illuminating white faces and metal helmets. Answering fire came from the other side of the field.

  Abandoning her parachute, she ran, bent double, and tripped headlong over something on the ground. Getting to her feet, she discovered she’d fallen over a radio backpack… Cyprien still attached to it. Putting an arm under his shoulders, she lifted him from the waist and loosened the straps that tethered him. He whimpered. His upper torso was blood-soaked. What the devil was she going to do now? Carry him on her back? Where to?

  And then a hand clapped down on her shoulder. ‘Hsst! Yvonne?’

  She squirmed round to find a man crouching just behind her. Écharde? His black beret was pulled low, his face pasted in mud or coal dust. Was that the flash of teeth? He could smile? ‘Identify yourself,’ she commanded angrily.

  ‘Je préfère une alouette a un moineau. Your welcoming committee. Bonjour, Madame.’

  ‘About blasted time. There’s an injured man here and poor old Jean-Claude is stranded a hundred metres down the slope.’ She pointed. ‘Somewhere.’

  The man gave orders in rapid French, and dark figures slipped away towards the gun fire. Two others picked up the inert Cyprien and bore him away towards the dark edge of the forest.

  Her contact had spoken in heavy dialect, so she supposed him to be a small farmer or a vigneron, a wine-grower. Farmer by day, enemy of the German occupiers by night. More appreciative of the risk he was taking, she softened her voice. ‘Are we betrayed?’

  ‘Yes, surrounded on three sides, but we’re holding the ground alongside the forest.’ A thin moustache defined his smile. The humour in his voice even as he described their danger suggested someone who enjoyed a fight and had the experience to survive one.

  She answered in kind. ‘I don’t intend to perish on my first night here, you know.’

  ‘Indeed, I would not allow it, Madame. What would you think of us? It is the Milice firing on us, incidentally. French police collaborators.’ His tone curled with scorn. ‘My men are thinning them out. So, ready to run?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll bring Cyprien’s wireless set.’

  ‘On three, pelt towards the trees. If we split up, hide out all day until darkness returns, then make your way to Chemignac. Ready? One, two—’

  ‘Hang on. Chemignac?’ During those instructions, her companion’s accent had changed to one she was familiar with from the time she’d spent in Paris, studying at a highly exclusive language institute.

  ‘My home, Madame.’

  ‘Then, are you the Comte de Chemignac?’

  She got no answer and exasperation gripped her. Of course he would not say who he was in ordinary life, and she should not ask. But something overrode the rules. ‘Tell me, will you! Are you the Comte de Chemignac?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You’re Écharde?’ Was the splinter about to meet the thorn?

  Had the splinter met the thorn?

  Shauna opened her eyes, then shut them quickly against astringent sunshine. Morning had blossomed while she slept. While she dreamed. She lifted herself on her elbow, blinking. ‘It’s you!’

  Laurent agreed that it was him. ‘Bonjour, mon ange. You were talking in your sleep, of Écharde. That was the code name my grandfather used when he was in the Resistance. How do you know it?’

  ‘Mm? It popped into my dream. How long have you been watching me?’

  ‘A few moments. I wasn’t sure if you were in conversation with me or somebody else.’

  She screwed up her face. ‘So – does that mean you’re the Comte de Chemignac too?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’ A distance away, church bells tolled for mass. Laurent was on one knee beside her, a Basque beret pulled low on his brow. His expression was grave.

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I don’t tell everybody. Certainly, I don’t introduce myself that way.’

  ‘I’m not everybody, Laurent.’

  He brushed that aside ‘You named names in your dream. Can you remember?’

  ‘I was in a plane, padded up like the Michelin Man and sick as a dog. I had to jump. I’d trained for it and there were two men jumping with me…’ The dream lingered, sharp as a just-watched movie. ‘Cyprien and Jean-Claude. Not their real names, though. Code names. Leaping out was a relief because I was free of the horrible rattling noise and my back stopped hurting. Oh, and the moon looked wonderful. Only, later, I realised people were firing at us from the ground.’ She shut her eyes again, experiencing the weightlessness of being suspended under a canopy. ‘I thought I’d be shot to ribbons and was furious more than frightened because it meant the Resistance had cocked up. Or some bastard had betrayed us. I was helpless as a trussed chicken…’ She sat up. ‘What’s that noise? ’

  It was the horse, Héron. He was a few paces away, tearing greedily at the grass. His bridle was knotted around his neck. ‘Did you come to find me?’

  ‘We often gallop this field, Héron and I. He saw you and shied. I thought an elf had landed from heaven, or an angel in rubber boots.’ Laurent got to his feet and reached out to haul her up.

  ‘Elves don’t descend from heaven. They’re earth-bound.’ Unlike her, it seemed. She’d been Yvonne, inside that shuddering fuselage, envying Jean-Claude’s ability to sleep through it all. Real, visceral emotions. Floating downward, feeling she could catch a corner of the moon… Then the sting of bullets… Scarily close. Where had it all come from? She’d never been a fan of spy stories or war films. ‘Figments of my imagination,’ she said, more to convince herself than Laurent. Then she admitted, ‘In that plane, I felt intense feelings for the men I was jumping with. Not love. I admired Jean-Claude, and pitied him because I knew that if he was ever cornered by the enemy, he’d be lousy at running or fighting back. Cyprien – well, he was a pain in the backside. A poseur who objected to being sent on a mission with a veteran and a mere woman. But, really, he was only a kid…’

  ‘What makes you say that Cyprien was young and Jean-Claude old?’ Laurent asked. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because it was my dream. I’m allowed to make up the characters.’ She tilted her head back and cupped his face. A face as exquisite as the carved heads in the nave of Chemignac’s church. ‘Actually, “old” is pushing it. Jean-Claude was only in his fifties, but that’s late in the day to be…’ She’d been about to say ‘throwing yourself out of Halifax bombers’ when the absurdity of the detail hit her. Why a Halifax? Actually, what the heck was a Halifax, apart from being a town fifty miles from her native Sheffield? ‘Don’t look at me like that. You’re worrying me.’

  Laurent’s face tightened. ‘When will you accept the reality of these experiences, Shauna?’

  ‘I won’t, because they’re not real.’

  ‘In the forest, you discovered the memorial to the men of the Garzenac, the murdered ones.’

  ‘I told you I did.’

  ‘And saw that two of the names were English.’

  ‘Maurice Barnsley, George Sturridge.’

  ‘Whose code names were Cyprien and Jean-Claude.’ He ignored her intake of breath. ‘They were dropped into this meadow in June 1943, only just escaping an ambush that awaited them. Cyprien, who was twenty-one, suffered a bullet injury. Jean-Claude was unharmed but for a wrenched ankle. They were parachuted in to aid the Resistance circuit of which my grandfather was a member. My grandfather- Écharde.’

  ‘A thorn in Yvonne’s side,’ Shauna added, without thinking.

  ‘Cyprien was a pianist.’

  ‘No, an actor. An egotist. Heart-rending profile, mediocre talent.’ My God, Shauna thought, who’s taken over my voice?

  ‘Radio operators were called ‘pianists’ because of their fast fingering,’ Laurent explained. ‘Jean-Claude was a talented photographer.
His role was to take pictures along the Bordeaux to Limoges railway line, its depots and tunnels. Nobody knows why, though it was probably to aid the saboteurs that SOE intended to send in later. The men lasted less than two weeks before being murdered in our forest. How do you know their names, Shauna?’

  ‘I don’t.’ Ice entered her blood.

  His gaze dug deep into hers. ‘Perhaps you read their story before you came here?’

  ‘That would explain it.’ Though, she had to admit, this region of France had simply not figured in her life before this summer. ‘I could be experiencing what they call “recovered memory”. Mum or Dad might have told me stories when I was little.’

  Laurent made a doubtful movement of the lips. ‘The story of Chemignac’s Resistance was buried after the war. The memorial was only put up fifteen years ago, thanks to a local man. You know him I think. Monty Watson.’

  ‘Monty who runs the internet café?’

  ‘He came here in the eighties to renovate a farm the other side of the hill.’ Laurent jerked his thumb towards the rising land behind the château. ‘He became obsessed with the story of Garzenac’s Resistance. He interviewed all the old folk in the surrounding villages, digging out those who remembered the war years. A slow job, gaining their trust. He tried with Oncle Albert.’ Laurent put in a sardonic laugh. ‘From eye-witness accounts and reports drawn from local archives, Monty pieced together how the men died, but he never nailed exactly why. Chemignac finally honoured its heroes, but Monty couldn’t get his memorial placed in the square at Garzenac. It had to be the forest or nowhere.’