The Maids of Chateau Vernet
Page 10
Peeking between the crates, she could see Pasqual’s wife Josefa following them in another truck, that one carrying most of the family’s possessions. Pasqual and Josefa planned to flee into the mountains after finding the doctor, their cover compromised. The family vineyard would likely be confiscated by the government.
“Bloody hell,” Tony said as the truck jostled around another sharp turn.
“How are you feeling?” Sarah said.
“How much farther?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“I don’t know. Not far.” I hope. The truck eventually slowed, and Sarah stole another glance between the orange crates. They had entered a village. Two more quick turns, and the trucks came to a halt. Between the three of them, they managed to carry Tony through the backdoor of what she presumed to be the doctor’s office. She was disappointed to see they had entered a storeroom instead. At least there was a cot, and they laid Tony down on it.
“Wait here, I bring doctor,” Pasqual said, then turned and left via the room’s front door.
“And I watch trucks,” Josefa said. “Street urchins steal everything.” She left through the door they had entered, leaving Sarah alone with Tony.
“Do you think he’ll come back with the doctor?” Tony clutched his wounded arm.
“Yes. If they wanted to abandon us, they’d have done it at the vineyard,” she said. The heat in the small storeroom seemed to grow more intense as they waited. Sweat beaded on Tony’s forehead. Sarah wet her kerchief with her canteen and mopped his brow, letting a little of the cool water trickle into his hair. Tony relaxed a little despite his suffering.
They waited about fifteen minutes, an eternity in the closed-in space. Pasqual returned with the doctor, a plump middle-aged man a head shorter than Sarah. As the medic bent to examine Tony, Pasqual turned to her and said, “We leave now. The Policía look for the trucks. Ve con Dios.” Go with God – a sentiment she learned from Maria. He left before she could reply.
Tony winced as the doctor pulled the bandages back from his shoulder. The doctor talked to Sarah, but she couldn’t understand the blur of Spanish that came out of him. He pointed at the wound, touched the foam that had bubbled up out of the hole in Tony’s shoulder.
“Clotting foam,” she replied.
Tony took hold of the doctor’s hand and said something back to him. His version of Spanish barely resembled the doctor’s language. The short man winced as Tony talked, as if struggling to understand. The doctor looked at the wound again and then back at Sarah.
“Wait outside,” Tony said right before he moaned in agony. “Go,” he hissed.
Sarah reached for her pack on the floor next to Tony’s cot, except it wasn’t there. She looked around the small room, bent and peered under the cot. Not there. Where the hell is my pack?
“It’s on the truck!” Sarah sprinted out the back door where they had come in. The trucks had pulled away. Her backpack, medical kit, handgun, and Icarus drone were gone.
She ran down the road in pursuit. “Pasqual!” She cried. “Josefa!” The trucks kept moving. For a few minutes she watched them, not sure what to do.
Cursing, she ran back to the storeroom. Inside, Tony lay still on the cot with his eyes closed. The doctor’s fingers explored his shoulder determining the extent of the damage. “Dormido, no muerta.” Tony let out a breath.
Sarah sat down on a crate next to the door. She pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing the C2ID2 strapped to her forearm. She tapped a few icons and cursed again. Pasqual’s truck, and her backpack, were six kilometers away and travelling at nearly fifty kilometers per hour. Soon it would be out of the C2ID2’s range. She activated the self-destruct menu, entered the code Hiram made her memorize on the walk to Catalonia. Sorry Pasqual. I hope you and Josefa survive this. She tapped the activation icon. The sound of the explosion disrupted the doctor at work. He looked at Sarah and shook his head. After a few heated words, all unfamiliar to Sarah, he returned his attention to Tony’s wound.
The doctor removed the bullet from Tony’s shoulder, along with a small patch of clothing carried into the wound by the bullet. The cloth and the bullet sat on the cot next to Tony’s limp body. He doused the wound with sulfa, packed it with a poultice soaked in honey, bandaged the wound, and then placed Tony’s right arm in a makeshift sling. Tony had passed out sometime during the process. The pain killers Sarah had given the pilot had worked well enough to get him here, but the pain induced by the doctor’s poking and prodding had been too much. She doubted he’d wake any time soon.
The doctor cleaned his hands with a rag he pulled from his worn bag. He seemed to assess his work, then headed for the door.
Sarah followed him, but he stopped her from leaving the storeroom. “No,” he said. He took her arm and guided her back to the cot. He pointed to her and then to Tony.
“I don’t know what you want me to do.”
He said a few more words to her and then headed for the door again. As he closed the door behind him, he held up his hand palm out in the way one would command a dog to stay. She nodded. The doctor closed the door and left her behind with the injured pilot.
She sat down on the foot of the cot, leaned against the wall, and waited. She needed Maria. Maria would know what to do. Maria would have understood the doctor. But Maria was gone. Her body lay sprawled on the front lawn of the vineyard, abandoned. Sarah cried.
* * *
“Sarah,” a hushed voice called. “Wake up.”
She opened her eyes, tried to adjust to the darkness of the room. Night had fallen. Inside the storeroom, she could see nothing.
“Someone’s out there,” Tony said – a weak, but alive Tony. They heard talking outside. After a few seconds, light crept in under the door, interrupted by shadows as people moved around outside.
Sarah looked around the room, searching for a place to hide. A few stacks of crates, most filled with sacks of flour and cans of food, were pressed against the outside walls. If she tried to move them, the people outside would hear. Besides, she had no time to hide Tony.
The people outside grew quiet, and the door started to open. Sarah felt around the room, searching for a weapon. She grabbed a can out of the crate nearest her. As the man’s head popped in, she threw the can as hard as she could – and missed.
The man rushed in and took hold of her, pinning her arms to her body in a bear hug. Two more men came in and eased Tony up off the cot.
“Don’t move him!” she yelled. “Let him be. He’s hurt.”
The man who held her said something to her.
“Please,” she said.
“Sarah, don’t fight them,” Tony said.
“Who are they?”
Tony went out the door, the two men supporting his weight. “I don’t know.”
The man holding Sarah relaxed a little. Her arms slipped down his body and she felt the hilt of a knife on his waist. She grabbed the weapon and moved out of arms reach. She turned on the stranger and waved the knife at him. He put his arms up as if defeated and backed out of the room.
Sarah ran out after Tony, the knife out in front of her. She was met with blinding headlights of a large truck. With one arm blocking the light and the other wielding the knife, she searched for Tony.
Two men walked toward her, hands in the air. The man on the left had earlier restrained her in the storeroom. He said something in Spanish, the same thing he had said when he let her go.
“Where is he?” she asked.
The man spoke again.
Tony emerged from behind the truck. A man supporting him as he moved toward her. “Our good friend the doctor sent these strong young men. Now come on, we’ve got to get out of here. The police are searching for us.”
The man on the left motioned for her to come along. She looked at Tony and back at the others. The four young men bore quite a resemblance to the doctor, though they were fortunate to have picked up a few more inches in height. She headed towards the back of the truck.
Once Tony settled onto a pile of blankets on the floor, the men helped Sarah up into the open back truck. She sat on the floor beside the pilot.
“Where are we going?” Sarah asked.
He pointed to the smallest man in the truck. “This is Luis. The doctor’s nephew. He’ll be escorting us to the docks.”
20
2300 hours, Tuesday, August 4, 1942, Mediterranean Sea, south of the Costa del Sol, Francoist Spain
“Bloody fucking sea,” Tony grumbled as the rowboat rose and fell with the waves. “If I wanted to be a sailor, I’d have damn well joined the Navy, not the RAF.”
Luis huffed as he fought to make his way out into open water.
Tony put his hand against the bandages on his shoulder. “Why in hell did we have to take this boat?”
They had intended to board a fishing boat at the docks. Luis had known one of the locals and promised safe passage. But a roadblock a few kilometers into their journey sent them on a less well-known road. They pulled into a small fishing village just past Marbella. Now, Luis, Sarah, and Tony rode in Luis’ family’s little boat with no motor and no lights headed out from the shore with only the dull glow of the quarter moon to guide their way.
“Try to focus on the horizon,” Sarah said. “Throwing up would not be a good thing for a man in your condition. You’re already dehydrated.”
He said a few words under his breath and looked away.
“When we were back at the vineyard, Ricardo called you a spy. Why?” Sarah tried to take his mind off the waves, and her own off Maria’s death.
“The 138th Squadron is a ‘special’ squadron. We support the British Special Air Service, the SAS, flying them in and out of France, dropping supplies, and carrying messages too sensitive to transmit by radio. And now that I’ve shared my spy secret with you, I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why you are going to the Rock.” He did not take his eyes off of her. As a wave hit the small boat, he winced. Still, he didn’t look away. The longer he looked at her, the more she wanted to tell him the whole story. She wondered if this was one of his spy tricks.
She supposed he deserved an answer. Tony might be her only chance to make it to Gibraltar. They fought on the same side. “I’m on my way to see General Eisenhower,” she said.
“Eisenhower? What business could you have with him?”
“Well, first I’m going to tell him to keep an eye on Saarbrücken, Germany. I’d hoped to tell him exactly when to keep an eye out, but I lost my radio. It won’t be long though,” she said.
“What would he be watching for?”
“For a very large explosion.”
Tony smiled. “Your comrades are planning to blow up something in the city?”
“More like, they’re going to blow up a large portion of the city,” Sarah looked down at her hands.
“How?”
“That’s a secret I can only tell the General, I’m afraid. For American ears only.”
“You’re not American,” Tony said.
“Nope. French Jew. Spent time in America as a post-doctoral student, then returned to France. I got stuck in an internment camp when the Nazis put the Vichy in charge. Escaped with the help of a friend’s grandson. He’s American, or at least his father was. Anyway, once Eisenhower sees the explosion, I’m sure he’ll be interested in discussing further applications.” She’d skipped over a couple of generations between Danette and Hiram. He’d never believe the truth. She hardly believed it herself.
Sarah said all she intended to say. Tony wanted more. Not wanting to feel the urge to tell him everything, she turned to the sea, anxious for any sign of the expected fishing boat.
“Donde bloody barco?” Tony said, his terrible Spanish accentuated by his irritation, which rose with the waves.
Luis shook his head and spoke to Tony.
“We are right where he was told to wait,” the pilot said. Even in the moonlight, Sarah could see for quite a distance. Not a single ship waited nearby.
One of Luis’ brothers had gone back to the docks to notify his contact of the change in plans. She hoped he had made it. Sarah was running out of time.
A few moments later, the water a few meters away stirred.
“What is that?” Sarah said.
“That, my dear, is our ride.” Tony said. “Word of my injury probably prompted a change of plan.”
A dark shape rose up out of the water. A submarine! The small boat rocked in the wake.
She heard a deep bang, saw the silhouette of a man climb out. A voice called out, “Lieutenant Farley, I presume?”
“Ho!” Tony yelled. “About damn time.”
A flurry of movement erupted from the opening in the submarine as others climbed out to assist. A man on the sub tossed a rope toward them. Sarah caught the line and reeled them in.
“We’ll need help getting him aboard,” she said. “He’s injured.” Two sailors clambered down a rope ladder into the rowboat to assist Tony. Sarah shuddered at the sight of the rope ladder, remembering her experience disembarking from the M.V. Calais.
Once Tony had been hoisted up to the sub’s deck, she turned back to Luis who waited, his face betraying nothing. She took one of his hands. “I don’t know how we’ll ever repay you and your uncle. Thank you.”
He nodded as if he understood.
When she started to climb up the ladder, a sailor held up his hand. “Sorry, miss. Only the Lieutenant.”
“Let her aboard,” Tony yelled from above. “We don’t want her to end up in the wrong hands.”
21
2020 hours, Tuesday, August 4, 1942, Vichy, Allier Department, Vichy France
Rosette stepped off a train in Vichy, wearing a faded gray frock she had stolen from a clothes line back near Perillos and a pair of women’s oxfords left to air out on a porch a few doors down. The M22 and night vision goggles had been hidden beneath an old broken-down tractor on an abandoned farm, wrapped in the uniform she had to leave behind. She had felt naked without the weapon at first.
Although the new ensemble did little to announce her sense of style, the plain clothes provided a more suitable costume on the train than the adaptive camouflage uniform and heavy boots she had worn back at Hiram’s camp. As she walked down the packed dirt road towards her home in Brugheas with her lower legs showing, hips accentuated by the shape of the frock, and hair pinned back on the top with an inward curl resting on her shoulders, she remembered what it felt like to be a woman. Not my best, but at least I won’t scare Garon or the children.
The oversized shoes rubbed the back of her heel raw as she walked. She refused to slow down. Her family waited. She could not wait to feel Garon’s arms around her or Sophia’s warm breath on her neck as she held her tight. And Leverette, who looked so much like his father, would rattle on about everything that had happened in her absence. She predicted a short stay, considering the number of policemen on the lookout for the missing maids. Any time she could have with her family, she would take. She walked faster.
As she approached her home, she noticed candle light flickering through a neighbor’s curtains. All the lights should be out at night. I will be sure the Dumont’s are reminded, but not until I see my little ones.
Rosette slipped through a break in the houses and headed around back. The back door always stayed unlocked. Careful not to step too close to the Dumont’s house and set off their old, blind, and almost deaf hunting dog, she walked wide around their back door. She took hold of the door handle, released the catch, took a deep breath as the door swung open, and tiptoed into her home.
After taking off the Oxfords, she ascended the stairs with light steps hoping not to wake the children. Not yet. I want to see them sleeping snug in their beds, oblivious to the dark turn of the world around them.
She stepped i
nto the quiet nursery but found Leverette’s bed empty. The quilt she had stitched for him spread out over the made bed, not a ripple in sight. For a moment, Rosette panicked but then thought the child may have taken refuge with his father. The boy had been known to have nightmares on occasion. She walked over to Sophia’s crib, but the foot board shadowed the sleeping area making it impossible to see anything inside. Rosette reached into the crib and ran her hand across the cool fabric searching for her little girl. The crib was empty. She closed her eyes and took a breath before heading to the master bedroom.
As she passed the stairs, she heard a voice from the main floor. She moved down the stairs, no longer worrying about waking anyone. Garon stood in the doorway of the kitchen, silhouetted by the candle burning on the table.
“Rosette?”
She ran to him, wrapped her arms around his thin body. “It’s me!”
He hugged her loosely for a moment, then pushed her away. “You-you shouldn’t have come here,” he said.
“I missed you all terribly. I know I won’t be able to stay long. Where are the children? Have you left them with Mabel? I was hoping to see them before I had to leave.”
“The children are with my sister,” he said. “Where it’s safe.”
His sister lived on a farm, far from the towns that had been targeted by attacks from the enemies of those who occupied France. Hiram had told her of the destruction brought about by the war, after all that was why she was here. “I suppose that is best for now. But you will need to get away from here, out of France if you can help it. Get the children and go as far away as you can.”