Close Quarters

by Thomas Wood

  I waited for the answer that he was a well-connected public schoolboy, wanting to get his teeth into a sense of danger, before getting his mates blown up and collecting his handful of medals.

  “Well, he is good at one thing. Just not the practical things. I think it is why I was sent here with him. I did well in training, but I’m not great with people.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  Seemingly, he ignored me and carried on regardless, “He can empathise with people. He understands their situations and listens to them. I, on the other hand, just want to get stuck in. Adding other people into the mix can make things messy, stops things from working out.”

  “He didn’t seem to empathise with the people down in Clerval earlier today.”

  “Oh, he did. He is a sensitive sort, the kind that takes time to process what we saw. He will be deeply affected by it; he’ll be thinking about it non-stop for days. But it will mean that now it has stuck with him, he’ll want nothing more than to see an end to it immediately.”

  “But what good will his empathy do for us? We needed a fighter, not a priest.”

  “It could do a great deal more than you could ever imagine, trust me,” he said, his eyes deviously flicking out towards the street below so that he didn’t have to hold eye contact with me. “I’ve seen him able to persuade people to do things that you never thought possible, all because he seems to have a way with people.”

  “Right,” I muttered, with nothing else to say, simply allowing my thoughts to continue to rampage around my head.

  I flicked the lamp down so that the hissing flame eventually went out, before heaving up the suitcase to my side.

  I still did not feel all that confident having a man such as Christopher on my side, as I had quickly realised that he was going to take a lot of managing to be able to get the best out of him, or to get anything at all.

  Guiltily, I thought it best to hide all of this from Mike, as I knew that his thoughts would be compulsive and irrational, and it wouldn’t be totally impossible that Mike would somehow get him removed from the circuit.

  I needed to trust Andrew’s judgement, and that was exactly what I was leaning on as I turned to step back down the attic ladder and into Magheritte’s home.

  “Come on then, let’s get back.”

  11

  The pace of life as an agent in France was at times so startlingly slow that it seemed like months could pass without anything really noteworthy happening. But it would be pricked from time to time, where something would happen, a new piece of intelligence would come to light, that would mean that everything would sprint along at such a pace that it was difficult to keep up.

  Once Andrew and I had made it back to Jules’ home, that night felt like such a moment. My thoughts were sprinting, harder and faster than ever before, and as such it felt like hours had passed before I could even speak.

  The others knew that whatever information we had would lead to one of two emotions; excitement or disappointment. Because of that, they were eager to find out what we had learned. It was three in the morning, but each of them had stayed up, eyes wider than if they had just woken up.

  As Andrew and I entered the room, the three of them shuffled in their chairs, turning their bodies to face us. They were ready for whatever it was that we were about to tell them.

  I thought of the small boy Georges, the only occupant of the house who was not in the room with us, and pictured him fast asleep, curled up in a ball until morning. I wondered whether or not he would ever know what went on when he went to bed, the five men downstairs plotting and coming up with devious ways to disrupt the Germans.

  I hoped that one day his father would tell him of us, and that he would look back on the time with pride, that his father had played an integral part in trying to defeat the Germans. To do that, Jules would need to survive, which was why I had been keen to distance him from any of our conversations. But, at his insistence, he almost always joined us, silently.

  The tension of the situation was such that even Christopher had turned to look at us as we entered the room, his stupor broken by the hold of the impending news. I looked him up and down, far more worried about him and his abilities since Andrew’s revelation than I had been before. There was a sympathetic look on my face, one that spoke of the foresight that this man was going to die in this world, unless I could look after him effectively.

  Gradually, my eyes met with the other two pairs of eyes that were staring at me; Jules first, then Mike.

  As soon as I looked at Mike, I felt compelled to look away once again, a wave of shame and awkwardness descending on me in equal measure. He knew that something was up. He could tell that I knew something that he didn’t.

  Slowly, forlornly, he removed his eyes from mine and instead looked towards the clammy face of Christopher. There was no point trying to hide anything from Mike, we had been together for so long that we knew when one another needed to go to the toilet, hiding something of that magnitude was never going to hold for that long. I had hoped that it would have lasted ever so slightly longer than it had done, though.

  “Right, well, I suppose there is not much reason for delay. Then we can all get to bed.”

  I tried to laugh weakly, which was only met with even weaker responses from those sitting down.

  I cleared my throat in anticipation, as I took a rickety old wooden seat next to the table and turned to face my comrades. My throat had dried rapidly, the moisture sucked from it and instead distributed to my palms, which I wiped down the sides of my legs firmly. For some reason, I was nervous, overwhelmingly so.

  “London received our message about the bombings, and our idea.” Everyone held their breath, including me, despite knowing what was coming next. “As such, they have seen fit to stop the bombing runs over Sochaux for the time being.”

  A great exhale of breath was felt rather than heard in the room, and I thought for a moment that Christopher was going to get up and hug me. Tears had flooded his eyes as he bit down on a clenched knuckle, presumably to prevent himself from sobbing uncontrollably.

  My own words tripped me up as I thought what they meant for the people who lived there, particularly the remaining occupants of Clerval. They would be granted a reprieve, a period of time to be able to restore some sort of normality, if it was ever going to be possible again.

  But they would not know of the news, and why it was happening. Only that the raids had stopped. I wanted nothing more than to run as fast as I could to tell them all, so that they could sleep in their beds for the time being, without having one ear open to listen for the sounds of the wailing sirens, or the drone of engines overhead.

  “For the time being?” Mike said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Yes. Unfortunately, they haven’t suspended the raids indefinitely. They have given us four weeks. If, after that time we haven’t been successful, the raids will begin again.”

  We all took a few seconds to process this latest bit of information, some taking longer than others for it to truly sink in.

  “Well, I’m sure those lazy beggars in Bomber Command will be happy for a few nights off at least.”

  Mike began to chuckle, as well as a smattering of other polite titters from around the room. I knew that he was only speaking in jest, but I couldn’t help but harbour a slight frustration with him, especially as we both knew that those boys would simply be sent to batter someone else instead. Despite the rivalry between those in bombers and those who, like Mike and me, had flown fighters, there was a united desire for no one to get shot down.

  “A few nights off is more than we ever seem to get,” Andrew said, shuffling forward in his seat, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “You speak for yourself!” Mike chimed, triumphant that he finally had a playmate to bounce off. “We’ve been here a lot longer than you two!”

  The chuckles intensified, and I was even certain that a slight sharp exhalation of air passed through even Christopher’s n
ostrils as he listened to the two of them going back and forth.

  “Yes, of course, you have. But we’ll be here a lot longer after you’ve managed to get yourself killed!”

  I wondered for a moment if Andrew had overstepped the mark, but a half-second pause was all the time that I had to ponder the thought before Mike burst out into a great roar of laughter, enough to threaten waking up the entire neighbourhood.

  Andrew and Mike became the biggest contributors to the noise, but in truth, we all let out a few relief-ridden laughs that seemed to ease us all. That was until Jules decided to speak, with authority and over the childish chuckles.

  “Four weeks. It is not long for what you are proposing.”

  The laughing stopped almost immediately. He was right. Our plan involved lengthy periods of observation and note-taking, and that was before we even got into the nitty-gritty of what explosives and weapons we might need for the operation.

  We did not have too many stores to call upon, everything would need to be arranged with London and dropped in. We would need a firm plan, with a shopping list, in place by the end of the week.

  It was a sobering thought, and one that was shared with everyone in the room. There would be no more time for chuckling and messing around, we would need to be as focused as ever.

  “We will have to start preparations right away then,” Mike offered, looking at each of us in turn. “We can’t afford to lose a single hour.”

  “Maybe we can sacrifice a few so that I could get some sleep?” I asked, my mouth conveniently drawing wide as I yawned.

  “Makes sense. We can start in the morning. Goodnight, gents.”

  “Wait,” I blurted. “There’s one more thing.”

  Mike repositioned his buttocks in the chair that he had already started to rise from. Four panicked faces glared back at me, each one of them knowing that the appendices to my message were hardly going to be full of good news and joy.

  I tried to think through what it was I was going to say, my words jumbling themselves up in my head to the point where I became convinced they would come out as nothing more than a garbling mess. It was as if my mind already knew that the next few weeks would run away from me at the speed of light and it was feeling the need to make a protest against it immediately.

  “London have received intelligence about someone turning up in Besançon. An SS officer.”

  “So? We’ve put up with them before, I’m sure we can do it again.”

  “They wouldn’t have mentioned it if they weren’t worried, Mike.”

  “Do they know who it is?” asked Christopher, his voice trembling slightly.

  “Yes. A man called Franz Mökhen. He has been tasked with keeping the resistance activity in this area at bay.”

  There were no jokes or snide remarks this time, only a deadly serious sea of deadpan and concerned faces. This man was dangerous enough for London to have on their radar, which meant we would have to take him with an equal dose of sincerity.

  “Do you suppose he was the one that we encountered at the train station a few weeks ago? He seemed like he would have a name that sounds like that, Murky did you say his name was?”

  “Mökhen.”

  “Murky, same thing.”

  “It could have been him. Hard to tell though without knowing what he looked like. Either way, we need to be careful. If he has a reputation back in London, then we know that he must be dangerous. We can’t afford to make mistakes with someone like him around, can we?”

  “True. But when we’ve been given a time frame like we have; we’re going to need to cut some corners somewhere along the line.”

  Mike seemed impatient, which was worrying me. It was true that four weeks was not all that long to do everything that we might have hoped, but it was still long enough to think through our decisions and make informed choices. There was no need to needlessly end up in the clutches of the SS officer Murky.

  “Mökhen. Mökhen. I’ve heard that name before. Where have I heard that name before?” Andrew asked, his reddened cheeks puffing out as he struggled to recall something from the depths of his memory.

  I glared at him, willing him to remember, as our lives could well end up depending on it. I could feel Mike’s eyes similarly pestering him to recall where he heard the name, as I prayed that it was as a result of an incredible incompetence that the man had come to London’s attention.

  “Mökhen. I’ve heard of him,” Jules piped up, taking us all by surprise.

  “And?”

  “There are rumours about him. Not very nice rumours. He was in command of an SS battalion when they had the French and British armies trapped in the north.”

  “Dunkirk?”

  “Yes. He captured large numbers of soldiers. French and British. They surrendered to him. He rounded them up and executed them.”

  There was a silence for a moment or two.

  “How many?” asked Andrew.

  “Does it matter? If the rumours are true, then we should be very concerned that this man is around. There are no rules in the war that he is fighting. That is dangerous enough.”

  We sat, shocked for a moment and I subconsciously looked over my shoulder as if expecting to see the officer from the train station standing over me, licking his lips at the thought of another execution.

  I looked at my watch; four-thirty. Jules caught sight of me doing so.

  “If that is everything, I think we should retire. Not long to go until sunrise.”

  “There was one other thing,” I said, as panic set in once again. “I think a lot rests on this operation.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because something was sent in the transmission, after we had both signed off.”

  “Why would they do that? What did it say?”

  “See it done.”

  Mike paused for a moment.

  “No pressure then.”

  12

  There was a particular art to following someone, that I always remained conscious of every time that I found myself hot on somebody’s heels. I had spent months training on how to put an effective tail on someone and what to do if you somehow thought they had noticed you.

  I had spent hours poring over books and articles on how best to track someone but, the place that I really learnt how to follow someone well was by being followed myself. It made me aware of all the things that were done wrong, the various ways that the prey could try and escape and ways around that, and minute details such as how close I could reasonably get without causing too much suspicion.

  I must have spent days wandering around various towns and villages in Britain, having had just minutes to survey a map of the local area. The key was to work out where all the dead ends were because, if you found yourself down one of those, then you would need to be prepared to fight your way out of the situation.

  For the tail though, the key was always having a reason, an excuse, as to why you were where you were. It seemed simple enough when you were tailing someone through the local high street, you could look through hundreds of shop windows and not arouse any suspicion. The real test came when the shop windows were non-existent, and it became near on impossible if someone was making their way across a country track or field.

  These thoughts were constantly whirring through my mind, as I continuously prepared to give an account of myself if I was to be challenged by the man that I was watching, or a local police officer or inquisitive soldier. I also ensured that I did not keep my eyes boring into the back of my target’s head, that was unnatural and, if he was to turn around, he would notice me immediately.

  It had not stopped me from noticing however that he had a rather odd walk. He seemed to limp to one side for a few paces, before limping on the other side, quite as if the pain in his legs could not quite make up their mind as to where to settle. It added another complication into the mix for me though, it meant that he was walking slower than the average person, meaning that I had to walk just as slow, which thre
atened to give me away with every pace.

  All in all, though, the last fifteen minutes or so had largely been a success. We had tailed the man from the factory as he clocked off for the evening, and he was still blissfully unaware that he was being followed.

  I took it as a good sign, that he was still nonchalant in the way that he walked as, if he was jittery and jumpy, constantly looking over his shoulder expecting someone to follow him, then the whole operation might have been called off there and then. We needed a cool-headed man for this job and, so far, he was fitting the bill.

  The man slowed up and crossed the road. Unconsciously, I slowed also, but refrained from following him to the other side of the road, as he had stopped at a door to one of the houses.

  I willed the door to open before I got level with him, as the second that I had passed the door, I would not be looking back. I had no reason to and therefore it was too dangerous.

  When I was only a few feet away from drawing level with the door, it squeaked open, a young, pretty face there to greet the man. He wasted no time in stepping into the house, before he pressed his lips to hers and closed the door slowly behind them. Their lips were still locked together a few seconds later when I drew level with the door and caught a dying glimpse of the two of them.

  Frustrated ever so slightly by the inconclusive nature of my work, I paced off to the end of the street, planning to round the block and make a second pass, this time with a newspaper under my arm. I would have had to have been incredibly fortunate to see him emerging from the house at the exact time that I passed, but it was worth a try, something might jump out at me.

  My footsteps began to echo off the walls of the terraced houses, some with glass still in panes, others without, and I noticed that there was another set of steps, completely out of sync with my own, that were gradually coming towards me.

  I pulled my pipe from my pocket, already pre-packed and waiting for its curtain call and placed it in my mouth, just as the footsteps drew level with mine. I stuck my arm out.