Close Quarters

by Thomas Wood

  Whatever it was, it was making his face morph from one of sincerity to utter depression.

  “Yes. I listened to it,” he mumbled, losing all sense of authority as he sank into a leather chair, rubbing at his equally leathery skin.

  He said nothing further, frustrating us both no end as he refused to elaborate on what he had heard.

  Each time that Mike or I stepped forward to say something, he drew a deep breath in, quite like he was about to let out a great bellow or cry. Every time that he did, we recoiled, keen to allow him to speak in his own time.

  But time was not something that we had in abundance. We had already used four days of our limited allocation and we had barely even had a chance to look at the perimeter of the factory yet. We desperately needed a decision from the man in front of us, and fast.

  “So?” Mike said, clearing his throat with a slight wobble. “Can you help us?”

  “Will you help us?” I repeated after yet another silence. If it wasn’t for the faint muttering under his breath as he thought aloud, we would have both been forgiven for thinking that the man had suddenly been struck dumb.

  There was something odd about the air in that room, as it made me feel queasy and uptight, a great weight pressing down on my chest the longer that I stayed in there. It also made me feel incredibly suspicious of everyone; Peintre, Philippe the police officer, even Mike and myself were called into question a couple of times.

  But the biggest worry lay with Peintre. It almost felt like he was biding his time, waiting for something to happen.

  My knee began to quiver slightly as my body started to panic. I was still in full control of my mind and rationality, but I was aware that if I allowed the situation to carry on unchecked, then that would soon be on its way out also.

  “Monsieur Peintre, please. Will you help us? We do not have much time. The bombers will only stay away for so long. They want your factory destroyed. We have only been given a small window in which to operate.”

  “What do you want me to do?!” he suddenly blurted, his hands thrown to the sky in exasperation. His cheeks had reddened nicely, similar to how I imagined Nathalie's tomatoes were looking now they were ready for picking. “You are going to carry on with your plan whether I am with you or not, aren’t you?”

  It was the first time since I had met him that I felt sorry for him. I hadn’t taken to him much, he had a lovely home and a pleasant enough wife, and he was willing to squander it all on some little girl that cared for nothing but his money.

  But, in that outburst, I had realised that he was genuinely worried, scared even, about what was going to happen. This was unfamiliar territory for him, and it was clear to see that he was not happy about it, but the two men in his home would not leave until they had got their answer.

  I tried to be as soft as I could, channelling everything that I had learnt from Christopher and trying to invoke a similar response.

  “Raymond, we need your blessing for this to happen. You know the factory, you’re in the best place possible to help. Without you, there will be a great deal more lives that will be lost.”

  “With your help, we can do maximum damage to small parts of the factory. From the outside, it won’t have changed in the slightest. The same can’t be said if the bombers come back.”

  He looked me straight in the eyes, and something told me that I had to tell him what we had planned.

  “We know that the Germans rely heavily on your equipment; your presses, your lathes, the boring equipment. Without that, they won’t be able to produce enough engines. That will stop their advances in other regions and help the Allies when they return,” he scoffed, and Mike did well to not let his frustrations bubble over.

  “We want to enter your factory and identify the machines that are crucial to the Germans. Then, we’ll plant explosives on them and destroy them for a long period of time. The British government will reimburse you after the war.”

  He lit a cigarette, that bounced around excitably as he began to grow irate, wagging his finger at us like naughty children.

  “Let me tell you something. My grandfather built that factory. It was nothing more than a garden shed when he started, he drove himself to an early grave, as did my father, making sure that it carried on going. We found success, and that success we shared with the people here, without that factory they would not have jobs. They would barely have lives to live.

  “And now? Now you want me to help you blow all that up. You want me to destroy my own factory?”

  He let the question linger in the air for a second or two, as he took in such a large drag of his cigarette that it was almost reduced to the stub.

  “I have my own ways of resistance. I am not as idle as you and your government think I am. Clutches. We can make hundreds of them a week. Most of them work to perfection, but I make sure that one or two are faulty. They won’t see out fifty kilometres. That takes time for them to resolve, men, resources. Are you saying I am not doing enough?”

  He had gone into full businessman mode, there was nothing to do other than take a firm grasp of the situation, shocking him into submission.

  “No, you are not. Most of your manufactures work, and that is what is killing innocent people. If you help us, nothing will come out of that factory of any use to the Germans.”

  I felt Mike suck in air through his gritted teeth as he thought that I had taken it too far, his hand almost reaching over to my arm to hold me back, but I was in full flow.

  “Thirty-two people died in a single bombing raid the night before last. Fifty in the three raids before that. All of those bombs were meant to land on the factory, crippling it for weeks. How long did it remain closed for? Three hours. Three hours. Just one bomb made it inside the perimeter fence, and the backup generator was working to full capacity by sunrise. You may think that you are doing your bit, Raymond, but the fact is you could be doing more.”

  I finished my speech and felt like collapsing into the nearest chair that I could find, it was the closest thing to an inspirational speech that I could muster, and it had sapped all of my energy.

  I watched his face, trying to read any signs that would give him away, but there was next to nothing. He chewed on the end of his cigarette, the soggy saliva that rolled around on his lips glistening in the late morning sun.

  Suddenly, he shot to his feet, straight-backed and energetic once more. The distant look in his eyes had vanished, as if reinvigorated and convinced by the enthusiastic man before him.

  I turned to Mike and gave a flick of my eyebrows. He shook his head as he looked away, smirking.

  He pulled something taped to the underside of his desk and turned to face us. In his hand he had a large wallet, from which he pulled some papers and spread them out in front of us.

  “Plans. For the factory. They lay out everything that is in there.”

  “How recent are they?” Mike asked.

  “I had them made the week before the Germans occupied Besançon. Don’t worry,” he said looking at our concerned faces, “they haven’t done anything to change the inside. But you’ll have to figure out where the sentries are yourself.

  “I will give you a name,” he said, stepping away from the plans and offering us both a cigarette. “He will help you. Knows the factory better than I do.”

  He lit our cigarettes with a slight tremble in his hand, which I hoped was excitement.

  “After that, I want nothing to do with what goes on. I don’t want to see you again. The Germans are going to suspect that I had something to do with it from the start. Let me at least try and keep my family safe by keeping my hands clean.”

  Mike and I silently nodded, before folding the plans up and tucking them away for no one else to see.

  Peintre said nothing to us as we bundled together what information he had given to us and made for the front door. It was only as we went to leave that he held out his hand to us and whispered those two words that every saboteur loved to hear.

 
“Bon chance.”

  16

  It was incredibly difficult, having studied the floorplans of the factory for so long, to tear my eyes away from its gated perimeter. But break my gaze I must as I was aware that any one of the other occupants of the café might have been a German agent, ready to use my longing glares as evidence against me.

  My coffee had gone cold a long time ago, and the conversation between Jules and me had gone the same way. Instead, we sat and smoked, occasionally grunting something to each other as the minutes slowly ticked by.

  Jules was calm, relaxed, as he perused the newspaper with gusto, the ink rubbing off slightly on the tips of his fingers.

  I, on the other hand, could not distract myself totally from the disproportionate number of soldiers compared to the local population. It seemed that, especially so in the café, that there were three German soldiers for every Frenchman, to the point where German was the predominant language that I had heard as we wandered towards the café.

  The rest of the customers were dressed in faded blue overalls, every other body tying the top half of the boiler suit around his waist, revealing the greasy and dirtied arms and hands that could only have come about as a result of hours on a workshop floor.

  I lit another cigarette, allowing myself another brief look towards the gates of the factory. Two guards took their posts as they continued to pace up and down, basking in the warmth of the sunshine on an otherwise quite nippy afternoon.

  “Stop it,” Jules growled as he turned another page to pretend to read.

  “Stop what?”

  He didn’t answer, instead flicking backwards and forwards in Au Pilori, the weekly newspaper that the Germans were only too happy to distribute to the French people. He caught my eye, as I took in the cartoon on the front page of the paper, a sketched image of three men in stocks; a Priest, a Rabbi and a traveller.

  Menteur, Voleur, Assassin was scribbled under each caricature.

  Liar, thief, murderer.

  Jules raised an eyebrow at me, informing me that he took it all with as much disgust as I had written across my face, which I was glad about, especially after reading the headline at the top of the page.

  Les Anglais abandonneront!

  The English will give up.

  “Ignore it. They say plenty about the Jews that isn’t true either.”

  I grunted at him, as he folded it up and tucked it underneath his crossed arms.

  “So, you haven’t said, did it all go alright last night?”

  His eyebrows dropped back down to their natural height, although one was slightly higher than the other as his curiosity got the better of him.

  “What?” I blurted, my mind’s instant reaction as it bought itself some time to work out what it was that I was going to say.

  I knew immediately what he had meant, but it had nonetheless shocked me into regurgitating the events of the night previous, where we collected the items that we had requested from London.

  Mike had an annoying habit of referring to it as our ‘shopping,’ which was why I was quite glad that I was with Jules, so as not to hear him call it that again.

  Mike had changed over the last month or two, his lust for blood had waned dramatically, but the carefree way that he was referring to the explosives and weapons that could potentially kill many lives frustrated me no end.

  “Fine,” I said curtly. “It went fine. We got what we needed.”

  I tried my best to swallow the repeated feeling of claustrophobia, the paranoid sense that someone had always been watching us and tracking our every move. It had become even more strong after receiving the news about our local SS officer, Captain Murky as he had become labelled.

  I had tried to do my best to dig into the myths about him from earlier on in the war, to find out if there was any truth in the allegations that he had killed numerous unarmed, surrendering soldiers when the Germans had first invaded. But nothing I found was definitive. In many ways, I was glad that was the case.

  Nevertheless, the rumours were enough for me, and I had spent the night retrieving the canisters packed with bombs and guns, convinced that within the next ten seconds that trap would be sprung upon us.

  But it never came.

  The weapons were now carefully stored in an underground storage shed, built by a local farmer in the hope that, if the Germans were to search his premises, they would be drawn to the most obvious, but best hiding place; his barn.

  “Good. Good,” Jules mumbled, his wry smile and glinting eyes making plain his accusation that I was lying to him. I wondered if my own eyes were managing to hide the guilt as well as I was hoping.

  “Are you sure you will recognise him?” I asked, trying to draw away some of the heat from my flushing face. “The contact that Peintre has given us. Will you be absolutely certain it is him?”

  His face dropped, not in a despondent way, but one that was more relaxed in its nature.

  “Of course,” he said, without smiling, “I grew up with him. I know his whole family. Fat little face, with cheeks as red as apples, but an athletic frame. Tall, wiry, hair as white as snow. I will always remember the back of his head most as I chased him during our school races.”

  “Let’s hope he walks in backwards then,” I mumbled, mistakenly taking a sip of the icy cold coffee. Forcing it down to avoid drawing attention to myself, Jules laughed to himself quietly.

  I pulled my wristwatch up to my eyeline and checked.

  “How long now?”

  “Three minutes.”

  “Why twelve thirty-seven? Why not twelve-thirty or forty?”

  I could not be bothered to go into the ins and outs of what my training had involved, in order to get to the bottom of his question. But I rapidly found myself back in Arisaig, listening to the strong arguments for setting odd times for meetings. It was to make it more difficult for the Germans to follow us, or spot suspicious activity.

  Locals met each other at odd times all through the day, but agents always kept religiously to their timetables. It was easy to remember a meeting at eleven o’clock, or one-thirty in the afternoon, but less so for twelve thirty-seven.

  It was hoped that it would add a layer of fog to any observations that were on us, while simultaneously adding a façade of legitimacy.

  I watched impatiently as the second hand rolled around my watch face, my palms growing sweatier by the second. If the man was late, even by something as marginal as ten seconds, he would turn up to the café with no one to meet.

  A meeting that was not kept to was a meeting that would easily be compromised.

  The claustrophobia that I had experienced so often in the past was reaching a climax, one that did not go through a fleeting stage but was lasting hours at best, days more often than not.

  It was a restrictive crushing of my chest that got to me first and, as my breathing grew shallower and more rapid, so too did my heart rate. It was a slippery slope that would almost always lead to nausea and dizziness. It wasn’t the finest attribute for someone who was required to come into contact with his enemy on a daily basis.

  “Thirty-seven is my lucky number,” I replied, leaving far too long a gap to answer my accomplice.

  I took a slither of comfort from the fact that I did not feel like I was sticking out too much, which was what I always felt like whenever I went anywhere with Mike. Not only was Jules a local, but he had that kind of face that no one really took too much notice of, the perfect face to become a criminal on the run.

  Might come in handy soon.

  But his common and run-of-the-mill face was exactly what I wanted in that moment, as I could not risk having too many unfamiliar faces around the café. Besides, three men sharing a coffee was far more inconspicuous than a group of six or seven doing the same thing.

  I jumped as the sound of the outside world intensified as the café door was opened, and just as quickly slammed shut again. A blast of cold air slapped me in the face, and I could feel the icy glare of Jules as he wonde
red what it was that he had let himself in for.

  A woman staggered over table legs and admiring glares of the German soldiers, apologising to the old man behind the counter for being as late as she was.

  I counted down the second to twelve thirty-seven, Jules’ eyes boring into my forehead as I did so. As quickly as the girl had flown into the café, twelve thirty-seven came and went.

  “He is late?” Jules asked, impatiently.

  I said nothing, but tried to nod my head in some sort of sign that I was still with it.

  “Then we go, now,” he muttered, with a sense of urgency so strong that I thought I would have to drag him back down into his seat.

  I supposed he didn’t want to be arrested by the Germans any more than I did.

  “Wait,” I said sharply. “Leave it a few more seconds, then we’ll go. Slowly.”

  I downed the last bit of my now rancid coffee as I checked myself over, readying to leave. Jules did the same.

  “Alright then,” I said, “Let’s go.”

  Just as I was about to get up and kick my chair backwards, the door swung open again, a man filling the frame that was almost as wide as the door itself. His hair was dark and unkempt, his mucky face and hands doing nothing for my overall impression of the man.

  “Stop,” Jules said, quite loudly. “That’s him.”

  “Him?” I asked, looking him up and down as he pulled a bag from his back. “Jules, he looks nothing like the person you described earlier on.”

  “We were only boys back then.”

  “No one changes that much.”

  “I’d recognise le blaireau from a mile off.”

  “Le blaireau?” I repeated, making sure I had heard correctly.

  He looked me dead in the eyes, as the man began to stumble towards us, with less admiring looks than the young girl had received. “The badger,” he stated, as the man pulled up a chair next to us and dumped the bag at his feet.

  He too was wearing the same uniform as the other workers, a blue jumpsuit that had faded with age, covered almost head to foot in grease and grime.