Rosette peeked outside, searching for signs of the others. Janel returned from the barn with a bucket of fresh milk, Alphonse continued his task along the edge of the field, and a cloud of dust drifted up from the road not too far away. “Where are they hiding? Is Hiram with you?”
“I’ve got another six with me. Hiram’s off making life difficult for the bad guys. He said something about blowing up a bridge or two. He’ll meet up with us tomorrow.”
“I made it home, Ida. But, Sophia and Leverette – my babies – were gone. I can’t believe he did it. They are children.” She tried to contain her tears. “My bastard husband turned them over to the police after I was taken. Said they were tainted by my blood. How could he throw away his own sweet children?”
“Oh, Rosette. I am so sorry,” Ida hugged her friend. “We need to focus on slipping out of here, then we can get your children back, along with the rest of our families. The policeman is on his way back. Follow me.”
As Ida reached for the door handle, they heard the car coming up the dirt drive. Rosette risked a peek out the front window and recognized Locard in the driver’s seat. Another man sat beside him.
When the car stopped, Locard stepped out of the car, then the passenger door opened. Rosette looked at Locard and at the other man now climbing out. She refused to let him take her away. “Come on! We have to go.” Rosette guided Ida to the open side window, which looked out over the Benoit’s field. Alphonse, now distracted by Locard’s arrival, headed back toward the house. “Stay close to the house. We can get to the woods around back.”
The two crept around the outside of the weathered, stone farmhouse. Once around back, they took off toward the thick border of trees separating the property from the one behind it. Once hidden, they could make their way to the woods less than a kilometer away.
As she cleared the garden, a familiar voice called out. “Mère!”
Rosette stopped.
“What are you doing? Run!” Ida said.
“Mère!” the small voice called again.
“Leverette,” Rosette whispered. She turned and ran back to the farmhouse, not caring who might see her now. She cut through the garden and almost demolished a row of Brussel sprout stalks.
When she reached the front of the house, a little boy of about five, stood next to the policeman.
“It is you!” Leverette cried.
Rosette took a few steps toward him and fell to her knees. The child ran to her, moving as fast as he could go. Mother and son reunited in the dirt driveway. Locard and the stranger watched from a respectful distance. “Are you here to take us away?” Rosette said with the boy in her arms.
Before Locard or the other man answered, Ida stepped around from the back of the house with her M22 assault rifle held against her shoulder. “Hands up!” she said. Their hands went up without hesitation. Ida’s six companions appeared out of the fields surrounding the farmhouse, weapons aimed toward the policeman and his comrade.
36
0610 hours, Friday, August 14, 1942, Saint Chamond, Loire Department, Vichy France
Hiram, Trembley, and Charlotte joined teams Bravo and Echo in Saint Chamond just before daybreak. It had been a productive, or rather, a destructive night. Hiram had planted satchel charges on each trestle of the two bridges crossing the Loire River, then detonated them as freight trains crossed from the east. The train carrying munitions had provided a spectacular fireworks show. Now, two fewer routes existed for the Holocaust Trains to travel.
They left the railbike with Charlotte’s Team Echo compatriots in the woods west of the farmer’s fields. Isadore informed Hiram that Team Delta had checked in from Moulins. As they walked up to the farmhouse, he wondered how far Team Charlie had gone on their move south toward Liborne.
Ida greeted them at the door, then led them into the parlor where two men sat in straight-backed chairs, guarded by Charlotte. The taller man wore a rumpled grey suit, his long legs crossed at the ankles well out front of the chair. His thick framed glasses disrupted the style of his hair, which lay at awkward, messy angles around his ears. The other man was older, maybe mid-fifties with greying hair and piercing blue eyes. In contrast, he wore a tailored black suit and expensive, well-shined shoes.
Hiram turned to Ida. “Rosette?”
As Ida spoke, Trembley translated for him. Hiram did not want to expose the secret of the Babel Fish to either prisoner.
“Upstairs in one of the bedrooms with her son. These men brought him back from Camp des Milles. The farmer and his wife are in the kitchen.” Ida’s words sounded grim despite the good news she had just delivered.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She pointed her gun at Locard. “This one is Inspector Locard, says he’s a French policeman. He says our families are being moved again. By train, through Belgium, and then east.”
“Kak!” Hiram said. Shit.
“Who’s this guy?” Hiram directed his words to Locard, and was surprised when the man answered in English before Trembley completed the translation.
“May I present my good friend, Oberst Hans Paul Oster. Deputy Director of counter-espionage, German military intelligence,” Locard said.
Without thinking, Hiram took a step backward and leveled his rifle at the German colonel.
“Delighted to meet you.” Oster held out a hand to Hiram, the motion quick and confident.
“Yasher koach,” Hiram tested whether the man spoke Hebrew. May God grant you the strength to continue your good deeds.
Oster said, “Shalom. And that, I’m afraid, is the full extent of my Hebrew,” he continued in English. Hiram lowered his gun and Oster rescinded his offer to shake.
The German’s name sounded familiar to Hiram. His father had mentioned a General Major Hans Oster several times in connection with his research. Probably the same man, not yet promoted from the German equivalent of full colonel to brigadier general. Of course, the Oster Conspiracy! Oster plotted to kill Hitler back in 1939. He would be arrested in 1943 for helping Jews escape Europe, which precluded his personal participation in the Operation Valkyrie plot to supersede Hitler’s regime in 1944. His execution in 1945 followed another attempt to terminate Hitler. But Oster’s story had changed. Everything had changed.
“Hiram,” Charlotte said as she burst into the room. She said a few more words that Hiram didn’t understand.
“Sounds urgent,” Trembley said.
“Ida, these men are not our prisoners. Let’s get them more comfortable accommodations,” Hiram said.
Hiram and Trembley followed Charlotte out into the hallway. Charlotte spoke again in French.
“She’s found Deborah and Danette,” Trembley said.
“Where? Are they safe?” Hiram wanted to leave immediately to get them.
“Vosges Mountains, south of La Bresse. About seventy-five kilometers east of Vittel. They lost the railbike somehow. Not in imminent danger, but travelling on foot. They’re following the French-German border south, staying well west of the demarcation zone.”
“Show me,” Hiram said
Charlotte held up the C2ID2 display. Danette and Deborah walked up a steep mountain path among heavy woods. Both alert and watchful. They each carried their M22 assault rifles at port arms. Hiram noticed their backpacks had changed from the IDF-issued ones to smaller canvas packs, the C2ID2s nowhere in sight. It explained his inability to contact them.
“Can we get the drone down where they can see it, so they know we’ve found them?” He was eager to see Deborah’s face again.
Trembley translated.
Charlotte zoomed the view back out and looked further up the trail the women climbed, then zoomed in closer.
Trembley said, “She can bring the drone down and buzz them when they enter that clearing.”
“Do it,” Hiram said. Charlotte directed the drone to descend to just above the tree tops where it circled, waiting for its quarry. Deborah and Danette lingered at the edge of the clearing, weapons high. As the
y stepped out into the open area, Charlotte sent the little pilot-less aircraft into a tight, low orbit around the clearing. Charlotte, Hiram, and Trembley watched Danette lock onto the little plane with her rifle as the drone passed. Two more passes and she jumped up and down, waving and pointing at the drone. Soon Deborah joined her. Charlotte settled the drone into a hovering position and zoomed in on both of them as Hiram fought back tears.
“She has one more thing to tell you,” Trembley said.
“What?” he asked, irritated at the need to have Trembley translate in Deborah’s place.
“Team Delta reports that the German 15th Infantry Division near Moulins is packing up to move. They don’t know where yet,” Trembley said, his translation slow as he took in Charlotte’s words.
Before Hiram could respond, Trembley said, “That could be good news, or bad news. Can we see the view from their drone?”
Hiram removed his C2ID2 display from the pouch on his body armor and handed it to Trembley. “Tell Charlotte what you want to see. Since Inspector Locard and Colonel Oster speak English, I won’t need you to translate. See if you can figure out where that division is going.”
“Charlotte, the minute you hear from Foxtrot or Golf, give them Deborah and Danette’s coordinates.” Hiram paused, to clear his throat. “Tell them I would be most appreciative if they would send a team to fetch them.”
37
0930 hours, Friday, August 14, 1942, Perpignan, Pyrénées-Orientales Department, Vichy France
Captain Petain replaced the Ericsson Bakelite telephone handset in its cradle and made a note in the case file spread out before him on his large desk. Yet another delay. He thought he’d succeeded in scheduling a train to take the troublesome Jews out of Frontstalag 194 in Vittel and off to wherever the Germans deported them in the East, not an easy task. Rail transit across the German-French border remained restricted by the event in Saarbrücken and the subsequent response by the German and Vichy governments. But he’d found a French National Railway Company dispatcher willing to route the train northward through Belgium.
Now the dispatcher had called to report a delay. Two bridges over the Loire were gone, blown up by partisans, and the train had to be rescheduled. On top of that headache, ration deliveries to the German soldiers took precedence over his requests. Sometime tomorrow the train would leave, along with the last remaining ties to the missing prisoners and the evidence that his men had failed in their duties. Petain had called in numerous favors to get the women’s families on the first outbound train from Drancy after their arrival. Had the event in Saarbrücken taken place an hour later, the train would have reached Germany and been out of France for good. A half an hour later and the explosion might have destroyed the train. He would have enjoyed watching that fireworks display. Instead, his prisoners had been sent to a fucking resort in the Vosges Mountains.
The idea that the mysterious man, who had created such a headache, had caused the event in Saarbrücken crossed his mind. He had used advanced weaponry to take out Petain’s men, but he found it hard to believe one man could have taken an entire city down to the ground. Surely an industrial nation-state developed the thing that destroyed Saarbrücken. Most likely the Americans.
“Sir, you have a call from Lieutenant Lebeau,” Rubi called from her desk outside his office.
He snatched the phone. “Lebeau, what have you found?”
“One of the missing maids, sir. Inspector Locard picked up the Bertrand woman’s son from Camp des Milles. Then, he drove to Lyon where he picked up a man at the train station-.”
“Who?” Petain interrupted.
“We haven’t established that,” Lebeau said. “He’s German. Came all the way from Berlin according to another passenger I interviewed.”
Petain guessed this new player must be important to have secured passage by train, given the current state of the rail system. “Where did they go?”
“We followed them to a farm outside Saint Chamond, in Loire Department. We did a quick drive past the farm. Don’t think we were detected. We saw two heavily armed women emerge from the fields around the farmhouse. They took Locard and the other man inside. One of the women took the boy into her arms. She had to be Rosette Bertrand. I assume the other women are some of the remaining prisoners from the convoy attack we’ve been seeking.”
“Keep an eye on them,” Petain said.
“Officer Thibult is watching from the bell tower of a church in Saint Chamond. I’m at the local police station a few blocks away. We’ll monitor the situation.”
“Thibult’s an imbecile. Tell me you have another officer with you!”
“Just Thibult and myself, sir.”
“Notify me immediately if the situation changes. I’m on my way.” Petain hung up the phone. Time to go hunting.
* * *
Petain compared the two maps spread out on the table in his outer office. On the left, was a roadmap of France, marked with existing checkpoints. He expected the four-hundred-kilometer road trip from Perpignan to Saint Chamond to take at least six hours, longer if he avoided the checkpoints. He wanted no official notice of this expedition to reach Vichy, given the risk that someone might connect the dots between the missing female prisoners, the attack on the cargo vessel M.V. Calais at Port Leucate, and the event in Saarbrücken.
On his right, was a map of the French railway system with the route from Camp Vittel to the Belgian border crossing marked in red. The circuitous train route passed within one hundred kilometers of the farmhouse Lebeau and Thibult watched.
He considered how long it would take to move his men to Saint Chamond. A better option appeared before him as he looked at the rail map.
“Rubi,” Petain called. “Did Inspector Locard have access to the schedule and route of the train from Frontstalag 194?”
The assistant hurried into his office. “Yes sir. I saw him checking it before he left Thursday morning. But,” she paused, “he wouldn’t know about the latest delay. Should I try to reach him?”
“No thank you, my dear.” If Locard knows, so must his co-conspirators. And if my evaluation of this mysterious soldier is correct, he can’t resist rescuing a train full of Jewish prisoners. I can use the train as bait!
He would load some of the railcars with armed policemen disguised as prisoners, enough to overwhelm the soldier and his Jew whores. If the soldier didn’t bite, Petain’s men could disembark in Mâcon and proceed to Saint Chamond by truck.
Petain rolled up the maps and headed out into the open police station. Twelve of his men rose as he entered the room, waiting for the afternoon’s assignments. A few more and he’d have enough to mount his attack.
“Rubi, get second shift in here. Tell them we’ve got a situation.”
“Sir?”
“And tell them to forget the uniforms.”
“Um, yes sir.” The assistant picked up her phone and began dialing.
38
1159 hours, Friday, August 14, 1942, Saint Chamond, Loire Department, Vichy France
Although Hiram was relieved to learn Deborah and Danette remained unharmed, he still faced the problem of rescuing the families, along with the other prisoners. The route for the Holocaust Train Inspector Locard provided passed within a hundred kilometers of their current position. Even if stopping the train and freeing hundreds of prisoners went as expected, moving that many people through occupied France would be impossible.
“Oster has proven smuggling routes to Switzerland,” Locard said. “I’ve been helping him to get Jews out of Germany for years. The job has become difficult now that the French police have enthusiastically joined in Hitler’s cause. Captain Petain and many others like him are going well beyond what’s required by rounding up minors and mothers with small children. I asked for Oster’s help getting Rosette and the children out of France.”
“What was the plan?”
“First, we were going to Vittel to secure Sophia’s release from Frontstalag 194, then we planned to take
them to a mineral processing plant in the Jura Mountains. After that, I don’t know. For Rosette’s safety, the less we know, the better. Talk to Oster. See what he can offer.”
“You trust him?”
“Rosette wouldn’t have been the first Jewish woman I’ve gotten out of France.” Locard reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. He opened the watch and pried open a well-camouflaged door on the lid. He offered the watch to Hiram, not taking his eyes off the image of the woman inside.
“Who is she?” Hiram asked.
“She was supposed to be my wife,” he said. He pulled back the watch but didn’t cover up her picture. “I think our parents had written off the idea of either of us getting married. We were planning to tell them. Of course, at our age neither of us planned to have children.” He rubbed the bottom edge of the gold frame, then closed the lid and returned the watch to his pocket. “I trust him.” Locard stepped out of the room. No one stopped him.
Oster sipped a cup of tea in the parlor. Agnes stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame with her M22 held ready. She watched the German as if she expected him to turn into a horned beast at any moment.
Hiram touched her on the shoulder and she seemed to relax a little. He signaled for her to step out of the room. She looked from Hiram to Oster and nodded before leaving.
“Locard thinks you can help us get the prisoners out of France, maybe get them across the Swiss border,” Hiram said.
“I’d hardly call the women you have here prisoners,” Oster said, setting the teacup down on the table beside his chair.
“Not them. There’s a train headed this way from Drancy. We anticipate two to three hundred Jewish prisoners on board. Do you think you can move them through the mineral processing plant, the way you planned to take Rosette?”
“Three hundred you say.” He looked up at the ceiling, tapped his fingers on his knee as if trying to count them up in his head. “If we factor in the number of children, elderly, and possibly sick, you are looking at a high mortality rate just to move them the first hundred or so kilometers.”
The Maids of Chateau Vernet Page 17
