Operation Kingfisher

by Hilary Green

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To get some sand. Come on!’

  They found a bucket left behind by the builders, shovelled in some sand and lugged it back to where the engine stood. Christine unscrewed the top of one of the containers and trickled sand into it.

  ‘I’ll do this side. You do the other. If I’m right, once the engine gets up to speed the bearings will overheat and then the whole thing will come to a grinding halt.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he grumbled. ‘The things you have me doing!’ But he went round to the far side of the engine as she had told him to.

  He rejoined her just as she was screwing on the last cap. ‘There. That should do it.’

  As she stood up, there was a shout and floodlights came on along the footbridge which crossed the lines, illuminating the whole yard as brightly as a stage set. Luke grabbed her by the wrist.

  ‘Run! Come on!’

  Bent low in the shelter of the line of trucks, they ran back the way they had come. Behind them, Luke could hear running feet and then two gunshots, but the bullets were not, it seemed, aimed at them. The pile of sand served as a marker and they scrabbled up the embankment on all fours to the hole in the fence. As he wriggled through, pulling Christine after him, Luke just had time to register the fact that the flap of wire was not as neatly replaced as he had left it. Then something hit him on the back of the head.

  Luke came round to darkness and a sense of movement. He was being jolted around on a hard surface; he was in the back of a truck – again. The thought was comforting. They were being taken back to the Maquis camp.

  From nearby he heard his sister’s voice. ‘Luke? Luke! Are you all right?’

  ‘Mmm. Think so. Don’t worry. It will be all right. Cyrano will vouch for us.’

  ‘Cyrano’s miles away. We’re not going back to the camp. We were in the rail yard. Try to remember.’

  ‘Railway yard? Oh God! Yes. What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. Suddenly all the lights came on and we had to run for it, and then someone grabbed me from behind. I think they must have hit you.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In the back of a truck.’ She gave a small giggle, which verged on hysteria. ‘Talk about déjà-vu!’

  ‘Who’s got us? Do you know?’

  ‘No. No one spoke. But it must be the Germans. They must have been mounting some sort of surveillance. I think … I’m afraid…’ her voice shook. ‘I think it must be the Gestapo.’

  He said nothing, struggling through the fog in his brain to take in the implications of what she had said.

  Christine went on, ‘Listen! If they question us, we must stick to the same story. We’re refugees, looking for somewhere to shelter for the night. We were looking for our godfather but he wasn’t there. The closer we stick to the truth, the easier it will be. Have you got that?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he mumbled. ‘Got it.’

  The truck came to a standstill and rough hands dragged them both out and pushed them down stone steps to the door of a cellar. Inside, blinking in the light of an unshaded electric bulb, they saw their captors for the first time. Four men, dressed in black and wearing black ski masks. There was a wooden table with some upright chairs round it. One of the men pulled out two chairs and said gruffly, ‘Sit!’

  The strong hands gripping their arms left them no option but to obey. An inner door opened and another man appeared. He was wearing a civilian suit, his light hair was cropped close to his head and he had cold blue-eyes above hollow cheeks. He perched himself on the edge of the table in front of them and barked something in German at Luke.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t speak German,’ Luke replied.

  The man’s lip curled in disbelief. ‘Oh, I think you do. But we will continue in French if you prefer. Who are you working for?’

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’ Luke’s voice was still slurred from the effects of the blow.

  The man leaned forward and jabbed a finger into his chest. ‘Don’t try that with me. I want some answers, and I don’t mind what I have to do to get them. Understand? Now, who sent you to that rail yard?’

  ‘Leave him alone!’ Christine broke in. ‘He’s only half conscious, thanks to your thugs. We didn’t mean any harm. We’re just a couple of refugees looking for somewhere to sleep.’

  ‘Oh yes? And you just happened to chose a spot exactly where an act of sabotage was about to take place.’

  ‘Sabotage? We don’t know anything about sabotage.’

  He twisted towards her. ‘Don’t you start! There’s nothing wrong with your head. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Someone sent you to spy on what was happening and to raise the alarm. I want to know who it was.’

  ‘What do you mean, spy? We didn’t raise an alarm.’

  He raised a hand as if he was going to strike her. Then he sat back.

  ‘Very well. Let’s start again. Name?’

  The question was directed at Luke. ‘Luke Beauchamps.’

  ‘And I’m his sister, Christine.’

  Their interrogator raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Sister, eh? Papers!’

  She fumbled in her pocket and produced her identity card. He scrutinised it and then turned to Luke with the same demand.

  Luke shook his head. ‘Haven’t got them.’

  ‘Our house was bombed, by the allies,’ Christine said. ‘We lost everything. That’s why we are refugees. We are looking for our godfather. He lives in Montbéliard, but he wasn’t at home. That’s why we needed to find somewhere to sleep.’

  ‘And you just happened to know how to get into the rail yard.’

  ‘No, we didn’t! We just happened to spot the place where the wire had been cut.’

  He laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement.

  ‘Oh, you’re good! I’ll give you that. Quite an accomplished little actress.’ Then, deadly serious again, ‘You are a liar. You are a filthy collaborator in the pay of the Germans. Now, tell me who you are working for.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. You are German. If we were working for you, you would know about it.’

  ‘German? Are you out of your mind? Why would we try to blow up our own train?’

  ‘You were trying to blow it up?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know! And thanks to you and your brother here – if he is your brother and not a Boche spy – two of my men are dead or prisoners and that load of tanks will be on its way to the Front tomorrow.’

  ‘No it won’t! It won’t get very far. We’ve seen to that.’

  ‘You? You expect me to believe that you two were trying to sabotage that train yourselves?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With your bare hands, I suppose.’ He grabbed her wrist and sniffed her hand. ‘You haven’t been anywhere near explosive.’

  ‘No. We didn’t have any plastique so we put sand in the oil pots.’

  He stared at her in silence for a moment. Then he said, in a different tone, ‘This godfather you are looking for. What’s his name?’

  ‘Lemaître. Marcel Lemaître.’

  He looked from one to another, frowning, then turned to one of his men.

  ‘Fetch the patron. I think we’d better let him deal with this. Put them in the other room till he gets here.’

  They were hustled into the inner room and the door was slammed shut behind them. Without speaking they turned to each other and clung together for a long moment.

  Then Luke said, ‘You were marvellous. I couldn’t think straight.’

  ‘I just said the first thing that came into my head,’ she replied. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘More or less. My head aches.’

  ‘Poor you. Come over here and sit down.’

  There was another table and more chairs in the room and they sat facing each other, their hands clasped.

  ‘I think it’s going to be all right,’ Christine said. ‘I think they are Resistance. We’re all on the same side.’

  ‘As long a
s we can convince them of that,’ Luke said. ‘They obviously blame us for the operation going wrong.’

  ‘But it wasn’t anything we did. The Germans must have been expecting them.’

  ‘And they think we were the ones who gave the game away. I hope we can persuade this patron, whoever he is, that it wasn’t us.’

  They sat in silence after that, until the door was opened and the man in civilian clothes said, ‘Come on out. The boss wants to see you.’

  A man was standing in the middle of the room; a tall man with fair hair and a neat beard. For a second no one spoke.

  Then Christine said, ‘Papa?’

  They were sitting around a table in a mountain hut. A fire of pine logs was burning in the grate and the air was filled with a resinous scent that reminded Luke of Christmas. On the table were the remains of a breakfast of ham and eggs and real coffee, smuggled over the border from Switzerland. Luke, with interruptions from Christine, had just finished telling the story of their journey and their many adventures.

  Marcel Lemaître, whose chalet they were in, shook his head in amazement. ‘What a saga! You both deserve a medal.’

  ‘I rather think,’ Roger Beecham said, with a smile, ‘that their mother would say they both deserve to be smacked and sent to bed without their supper.’ He leaned across the table and took hold of a hand of each of his children. ‘My dears, I can’t tell you how proud I am of both of you. But if I had had any inkling of what was going on I should not have had a moment’s peace. Thank God you were able to give your mother some reassurance.’

  ‘That was Cyrano’s doing,’ Christine said. ‘He sent the messages for us.’ Neither of them had mentioned her infatuation with the English radio operator, but she was beginning to find that she could speak of him without so much pain.

  ‘Yes, a good chap, Cyrano,’ her father said. ‘And a brilliant pianist.’

  ‘I thought the flute was his main instrument,’ Christine said.

  Her father laughed. ‘Yes, I believe it is. It just so happens that company slang for a radio operator is a pianist. You can see why.’

  ‘Oh, I see! I suppose it is a bit like playing an instrument. Cyrano taught me to use a Morse key, and I know all the Morse alphabet.’

  ‘Do you indeed!’ He looked at her fondly. ‘You’ve grown up so much. When I left home you were just a little girl, and now look at you.’

  ‘You should see her in a skirt and lipstick,’ Luke said with a grin.

  ‘A skirt and lipstick? Chris? Surely not!’

  ‘I had to. It was a sort of uniform, when I was working behind the bar.’

  ‘Dear God! Working behind a bar and wearing lipstick. Whatever would your mother say?’

  ‘She’d approve. She was always on at me to make myself look more attractive.’

  Luke cut in, ‘You actually know Cyrano? And Gregoire?’

  ‘Yes. I trained with them both.’

  ‘So that’s why they asked what you looked like,’ Christine said. ‘When I told them you looked like Luke, I think they recognized you, but of course they didn’t say anything.’

  ‘We did wonder if you might have volunteered for the same thing,’ Luke said. ‘But why weren’t you sent to the Auvergne, where you had contacts?’

  ‘Precisely for that reason. Too many people would have recognized me. But when the top brass found out I knew this area well they suggested I should come here. I was pretty sure I’d be able to recruit Marcel, but when I arrived I discovered he was already running his own circuit, so we were able to join forces.’

  ‘Who was the man who questioned us, before you arrived?’

  ‘Laurent. He’s one of our best men, which is why I put him in charge of the operation last night. I hope he wasn’t too rough on you.’

  ‘No, he behaved pretty well, considering. I’m really sorry if we got in the way, but it wasn’t intentional.’

  ‘I know that. It was just an unfortunate coincidence. Someone must have tipped off the Germans and we shall have to find out who, but that’s for another day. At least, if Chris’s scheme works out, the train won’t get far.’ He looked at her teasingly but with a kind of wonder. ‘Who would have thought that your interest in all things mechanical could be put to such good use?’

  In spite of herself, Christine yawned and her father got up.

  ‘Bedtime! None of us has had any sleep tonight. Tomorrow Marcel will take you over the border, but for now you both need a good rest.’

  They set off soon after dawn, in borrowed boots and warm ski jackets. Roger came with them on the first leg of the journey, but at the top of a ridge he stopped.

  ‘This is where I have to leave you, I’m afraid. There are things I have to attend to down there in Montbéliard. Marcel will see you safe across the border and his contacts there will get you to the British Consul. As you are both technically minors, there shouldn’t be any difficulty about getting you sent back to England. Don’t tell your grandparents that you’ve seen me. As far as they know I’m in Canada, training their pilots.’

  ‘We won’t say anything,’ Luke promised. ‘But I wish you’d let me stay here with you and join the circuit. Chris would be all right on her own from here.’

  ‘Not possible, Luke. You know that. Anyway, you told me last night you want to join the RAF and fly Spitfires. You’ll be much more useful doing that.’ He reached out and drew them both to him. ‘I’m so proud of you both and I can’t wait for the war to be over, so I can come home and get to know this brave young man and this lovely girl that my children have grown into. Take care of yourselves and please, don’t be any more heroic than you absolutely have to!’

  He kissed them both and turned away down the mountain path. They stood watching him until Marcel said, ‘Now we must go. We have a long walk in front of us.’

  A week later, Isabelle was crouching over the radio in her kitchen. Her two German lodgers had gone and no one else had taken their places, so she felt safe in bringing the set indoors. The news was not good; instead of being able to march through Italy almost unimpeded, the Allies were facing determined opposition from the German army. There was bitter fighting. When the bulletin ended, she only half listened to the messages personelles. It was so long since there had been any news.

  Then it came: Michou’s pups are safely back in their proper kennel and the old dog who sired them sends his love.

  Copyright

  © Hilary Green 2013

  First published in Great Britain 2013

  This edition 2013

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1285 9 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1286 6 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1287 3 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1051 0 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Hilary Green to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988