by Kit Sergeant
Ladoux shrugged his shoulders, as if he’d expected her to say as much.
Alouette’s curiosity got the best of her. “What did you have in mind?”
“What you ought to have succeeded in doing in Switzerland.” He sat down behind the desk and gestured to the chair in front of him.
Alouette crossed her arms, refusing the seat. “Spy on the Germans? But we both know that neutral Spain is cut off from the arena of war.”
“On the contrary,” he spoke quietly and Alouette had to lean in to hear him. “There is a great deal to be done in Spain. Many German officers have been stationed there, and your job will be to find out why.”
“If you’ll pardon me, Captain, I have been…”
He held up his hand. “Never mind all of that. You can make up for the missteps you took in Switzerland.”
Alouette pondered this sudden change in the Captain’s attitude. His manner had always been somewhat suspicious toward her, but now he seemed open, if not downright friendly.
She finally sat down to relate what had happened in Switzerland. As she began to describe Gerda, he interrupted her. “Ah, yes, I’ve heard of such a character. The blonde woman, your Gerda, is otherwise known as Elsa Shragmüller, a German spy. I suspect that ‘Otto’ and ‘Charles’ go by other names as well. It is also my suspicion that your friends were involved with illegal transmissions to and from Germany via Swiss wires. So you see, madame, your, as you called it, ‘failed mission’ was not such a failure after all.”
Alouette shook her head. “I do not speak any Spanish.”
“Well, if that’s how you feel,” Ladoux stood up. “I will have to find someone else.”
“Wait,” Alouette didn’t mean for the word to come out, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I can do it.”
He frowned as his eyes dragged down from her rumpled hat and travel-weary clothes to her dust-covered boots. The suspicion was back. Distrust must permeate every corner of the Secret Service, Alouette thought as Ladoux resumed his seat.
“It is my duty to warn you, Madame Richer,” his voice had taken on a harsh tone, “that if you happen to carry off any coup successfully for us, it will be impossible for you to give up working for us afterwards. If you deviate from your duty and allow them to bribe you with their gold, don’t forget the terrible fate that awaits you.”
Alouette laughed at the thought of accepting German gold. “I could only guess that fate would be a firing squad.”
He took no notice of Alouette’s flippant reply and fixed her with a grim look. “You are taking your life in your hands.”
Alouette’s smile faded. “Yes, Captain.”
“Have you any money?”
“No,” Alouette answered. She hadn’t been lying to the Germans about that point. “I shall write to my lawyer.”
Ladoux extracted his wallet and tossed eight hundred francs across the desk. “That’s all I have. Get the Germans to pay you. Our department is hard up for funds.”
Chapter 17
M’greet
January 1915
After approaching her old lover, Harry de Marguérie, on the Rue Boissière, M’greet convinced him to help her gather her things from Neuilly. Together they packed crate after crate of silverware, drapes, and furniture.
“I can’t believe this stuff is still here,” Harry stated as he tucked a fringed lampshade into one of the crates.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” M’greet asked.
He straightened and put his hand on his back. “We’re at war, remember? People are becoming desperate from starvation.”
“Starvation?”
“Maybe not in Neuilly or that pretty house you are building in the Hague, but in many other places. And a lot of them are freezing to death, not just the soldiers in the trenches. France’s coal supplies lie behind the German lines.”
M’greet picked up a fur stole. She hesitated for a second as Harry frowned at her, but then she resumed wrapping the fur in tissue paper before placing it in a crate. She knew him well enough to know he was thinking she should donate the stole to some poor cretin off the street. “Those Boches confiscated my full-length furs. I need something to keep me warm in the winter,” she said by way of explanation.
He unceremoniously dumped the last of M’greet’s things on top of the stole. “Are we quite done here?”
When M’greet nodded, Harry slid the lid over the crate and pounded it shut with a little more force than necessary.
“Care for a drink?” she asked when he stood up.
They walked down the block in silence. Harry seemed to be seething over something, but for the life of her, M’greet couldn’t figure out what. Once they reached a main intersection, Harry hailed a motor-car and instructed the driver to take them to La Mère Catherine.
“This is a Renault,” Harry remarked as the car pulled from the curb.
“Oh?” M’greet pulled out a compact from her purse and rearranged a few stray curls that had been ruffled by the January wind. At least Harry was speaking to her again.
“The kind of taxi that carried our boys off to fight the Germans?”
She snapped the compact shut. “Must we talk war?”
Harry, clearly lost in thought, ignored her and continued, “It was quite a sight to see all those soldiers in blue uniforms waiting for the bright red taxis. The army didn’t have enough transports to take them all to the front, so the taxi drivers volunteered. What remained of Paris had come out to see them off. When the line of cars circled the Arc de Triomphe the crowd was so loud in their shouting ‘Vive la France!,’ it was as if half the city hadn’t fled in terror the week before.”
“How very Parisian,” she murmured. He fell silent and M’greet stared out the window. Maybe Harry was right, she mused as they drove by a long line of people outside a bakery, trying to buy bread. They looked cold and haggard in their threadbare frocks. M’greet pulled her own expensive raccoon-trimmed coat tightly around her body. I hope that never happens to me.
Harry took M’greet’s arm as they arrived at the brasserie. He had quite a few people to greet before they took a seat at the bar.
“That’s my Harry, always knowing everyone.” M’greet commented as the bartender delivered their menus.
He shrugged. “I’m the second secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It’s part of my job.” He closed his menu and laid a hand on hers. “But I’m all yours now.”
M’greet beamed.
He ordered her a sherry and himself a bourbon. “Did you hear about the Christmas truce at the front?” he asked as the bartender moved down the bar to fill their order. “Apparently the Boches were the ones to start it: they approached our trenches unarmed, wishing our men a Fröhliche Weihnachten.”
“I don’t want to speak of the war anymore.” M’greet crossed her legs with a whisper of silk stockings. “I’ll speak of anything but war.”
Harry laughed. “All anyone ever talks about is war nowadays.”
“Not me. I’d rather hear about your travels since we last met.”
He took a long swig of bourbon. “Tokyo, Vienna, Burma, Lisbon. But nothing compares to Paris. Even during,” he coughed, “the war.”
“Oh, I agree that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world.” M’greet twirled her sherry glass. “I wish I could stay, but I’m only on a traveling visa. I’m supposed to return to the Hague next week.” She put a gloved hand on Harry’s arm. “I was hoping to go shopping on the rue de la Paix before I go back.”
She could feel his muscles stiffen. She was skilled enough in reading men’s emotions to retract her hand.
He took another drink before setting his glass down with a clang. “Is that all you can think about—shopping? Is that what you want from me, to pay for you again?”
M’greet could feel her face grow hot as the other patrons fell silent. “How dare you?” she hissed under her breath. “You were perfectly all right with the situation as it stood ten years ago.”
Harry’s face softened and his voice was lower as he replied, “You know, when I was in Java, the supposed place of your birth… I learned of something called karma. I take it you’ve heard of it?”
M’greet nodded, but Harry continued anyway. “It’s the principle that the actions you take in this life will determine your fate—whether you will be rewarded or punished—in your next life. I would have thought both of us would have changed in the past ten years, or at least once the war started. I came back to the Quai d’Orsay to volunteer my services.” He finished off the last dregs of bourbon. “Did you hear me, Marguérite? I’m not getting paid.” He swiveled his chair to meet her eyes. “If I can’t afford to keep you, will you stay?”
M’greet snatched her coat off the stool beside her. “If that’s who you think I am, then no, Harry, I won’t stay.” She marched to the door, expecting him to follow her, but when she glanced back, he was still seated at the bar.
Chapter 18
Marthe
January 1915
The days after the bombing were complete torture. Marthe’s nerves, shocked by all the chaos she had witnessed, made her jump at every little noise. The Oberarzt offered to give her a few days’ leave to recover, but to lie in bed alone, thinking about all the destruction she had caused was the last thing Marthe needed. In her nightmares, she walked along the ruined train station, the corpses of German soldiers and the British aviators staring up at her with glassy eyes. If she didn’t wake herself up in time, the dream would continue on with Fischer, the short man from the train station, grabbing at Marthe’s ankle, an endless stream of Why? coming from his blackened lips.
On the fourth day after the air raid, Marthe overheard the Oberarzt speaking to someone in his office. “How can we spare a doctor?” His normally calm voice held an uncharacteristic note of desperation. “Aufrecht and Nagle went to No. 8 hospital this morning, and Sudermann has come down with pneumonia. There is no one else.”
“Do you not have anyone else who could perform emergency procedures?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
Marthe stepped into the room under the guise of retrieving some medical supplies. This could be her chance to redeem herself.
“Marthe,” began the Oberarzt, but then he paused and waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind.”
“Herr Oberarzt, did you need something?” Marthe’s voice was innocent, as if she hadn’t been listening in the doorway.
“We are in dire need of someone to work on the field at an advanced dressing station,” he replied.
Marthe knew that advanced dressing stations were located very close to the line so soldiers injured in the trenches could be evacuated to receive prompt treatment.
“You can’t mean…” the soldier who had been conversing with the Oberarzt stammered. “She’s a woman!”
“A woman with a vast amount of medical training,” Marthe put in. “I will go at once.”
“Field work is no joke, fräulein,” the soldier stated as he folded his arms across his chest. “You will be in constant danger.”
“I am fully aware of that, hauptmann.” She turned to the Oberarzt. “Give me a few minutes to gather some supplies and I will be ready to go.”
The Oberarzt bowed. “Thank you, Marthe.”
An hour later, Marthe found herself in a battered ambulance speeding down a gutted country road. The sound of gunshots grew closer, and she asked herself why she had volunteered to go any closer to the battlefield.
The ambulance shook as something thundered overhead “A welcome shell,” the driver said, attempting a friendly smile. He was a tall, thin man in a German military overcoat. “Don’t worry,” he continued upon seeing her frightened expression. “The Allies seem to be taking it easy this afternoon. Let’s hope for your sake they continue to do so, fräulein.”
“Marthe,” she corrected.
He took his eyes off the road again to glance at her. “Alphonse Martin.”
“Are you German?” Though he wore the same uniform and had the same close-cropped hair of many of the soldiers she had encountered, he somehow struck her as different. Maybe it was his amiable green eyes or the easy-going way he had mentioned the Allies.
“Sort of. Alsatian. My family has been in the same region for generations. They were French citizens until Germany took over Alsace during the Franco-Prussian war. I was conscripted by the Kaiser, but at least I was assigned to driving ambulances, not to die in the trenches like many of my brothers.”
Marthe gave him a sympathetic smile, thinking of her own brother. Had he too died in the trenches?
The ambulance splashed to a stop a few minutes later. Looking out the cracked window, Marthe saw a muddied sign stating “Advanced Dressing Station No. 3.”
“There is nothing here,” she said, looking out across the soggy, desolate field. Only a few blackened trees marked that this area had once been forested.
“Been bombed to bits,” Alphonse agreed. “The dressing station will offer some protection from the shelling. It’s over there.” Squinting her eyes at where he pointed, Marthe could see a circle of sandbags surrounding a hole in the ground near the side of the road.
She opened the door and stepped off the footboard into the mud.
“Good luck, Marthe.” Alphonse’s voice was muffled through the pounding rain. She watched as he yanked on the clutch and drove away.
She stifled the urge to run after him and headed toward the dugout.
A medical feldwebel was standing just inside the hole. “Fräulein?”
“I was sent by the hospital’s Oberarzt,” Marthe replied to his unasked question.
He frowned. “I suppose if the Herr Oberarzt recommends you, it must be because you do good work.” He started down the slippery stairs, which were nothing more than thin wood planks stuck into the mud. “This is one hell of a place. We do the best we can. Sometimes we work all night and day, but there’s been a lull up at the front lately.”
As Marthe descended, she was greeted with a putrid stench of blood mixed with perspiration. She refrained from holding her nose as she gazed around the spacious underground dressing station. Directly in front of her was a small table, wet with something shiny. A gefreiter was laying out dressings on the cleanest part of the table. His blood-stained apron looked as though he worked at a slaughterhouse instead of a makeshift hospital. He touched his cap to her, but the orderlies smoking cigarettes to Marthe’s right paid her no heed.
The feldwebel pulled a box out from under the table. “Have a seat, fräulein. All of that vibration from above means it’s about to get busier down here.” He offered her a tin of meat and called for an orderly to get her a cup of coffee.
Marthe glanced at the far corner of the room, where four corpses lay covered in coats. “I’m not all that hungry, but thank you.”
“Ah, but you better eat now to keep up your strength. You might not have time when the cases begin to arrive.”
The sound of voices and boots splashing in the mud above ground grew louder. The blood-stained gefreiter paused in his sorting and pulled at his long mustache. “Get moving lads,” he instructed the smoking orderlies. “They are coming.”
They threw their cigarettes on the ground and stamped on them before going to stand at the foot of the steps.
Two stretcher-bearers entered conveying a badly burned soldier. The feldwebel pointed to an empty bed and the stretcher-bearers deposited their burden before quickly heading back up.
Marthe rolled up her sleeves and went over to him. His face was black with a mixture of mud and blood and she dipped a cloth in water and began to wash his face. His lower arm had been shattered and the other was covered in burns. He reached out a hand that appeared as though it had been crisped in an oven to grab her arm. “Morphine, fräulein,” he managed to gasp out.
She gave the feldwebel an inquiring look. He freed her of the burned soldier’s grasp and pulled her aside. “We would have to have great tanks of morphine to supply the men who ask
for it. But we have none.” He took a syringe out of his coat pocket and then retrieved a small bottle, turning so that the soldier, had he been coherent, could read the label. Morphium. After filling the syringe, the feldwebel injected the burned soldier, who soon stopped moaning and fell asleep.
“What’s in the bottle?” Marthe whispered.
“Water,” the feldwebel replied just as quietly.
The time passed quickly. Marthe kept so busy that she didn’t realize she’d been covered in mud and dust from the dugout. Wounded men trickled in all afternoon, battered men in tattered uniforms using their rifles as a makeshift crutch or clinging to their comrade’s arms. Overworked stretcher bearers carried in the wretched men who could not walk.
The shrieking of shells was occasionally accompanied by a rumbling in the ground, but most of the workers ignored the disturbances. One shell hit so close that dirt and stones from the dugout roof fell into some of the men’s open wounds. The feldwebel was quick to distribute his “morphine” after that incident.
At one point Marthe banged her head into the low ceiling and a splinter cut her forehead, but she was so intent on soothing the suffering of others she barely felt her own pain.
An ambulance arrived in the late afternoon to transport men to the main hospital. “Germans first,” the feldwebel commanded. The orderlies sorted the men and helped a few to walk up the steps before coming back down with stretchers.
“’Ere, you haven’t forgotten about me, have you?” Marthe turned to see a man with a bandage wrapped around his chest lying with his shoulders propped against the dugout walls. He was dressed in the khaki uniform of the British and winked at her before taking a cigarette from his pocket.
“Fräulein,” another soldier called.
“Yes, mein herr,” A German had appeared on the other side of the Englishman.
He held out his hand, which was misshapen and purple with bruises. “I’ve been waiting quite some time to have my hand wrapped.”
