was sitting on a bomb was unlikely to seem as funny to him
as it had to her and Monique. ‘You’re being overprotective, Francois,’ she grumbled.
‘Someone has to be; it seems the whole damned lot of you
have lost your senses. Do you know how many Resistant! have been arrested in Touraine during the past four weeks?
No, I didn’t think you did. Over twenty. And while we’re
here I’d better tell you that you have a traitor in your midst.
The escape-line has to close down, Claudine, before you’re
all arrested. Has anyone told you that you haven’t got one
pilot, one agent or one escaped prisoner through in the past
three weeks?’
‘What!’
‘The Gestapo have got them all. They’re picking them up
at Poitiers.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me sooner?’
‘I’ve only just found out. There’s a weak link in your chain.’
‘Do you know where?’
‘No, but I don’t think it’s here, it seems to be further
down the line. Nevertheless, if they’ve got one link in the
chain they can trace the whole thing. So I’m telling you, my
mother is to stop carrying messages and so is Liliane. Don’t
argue? he roared as she started to protest. ‘Shut down that
escape-line and tell Lucien I want to see him.’
He stalked off then, and she knew better than to go after
him when he was in that mood.
When Lucien returned from Paris a week later, and she
finally got the two of them together, there was another bitter
row. In the end Lucien capitulated and told Solange that
she wouldn’t be able to run any more errands. Solange
meekly agreed, then informed Claudine that she was at her
disposal as usual.
‘Francois is right about the escape-line,’ Lucien said to
Claudine later that night, as they stood together just inside
the forest at the back of the chateau. ‘If the Germans have
managed to infiltrate it, we have to close it down. The
problem is, we have a pilot in Neuville who needs to be
moved. He can’t go on, because we think our “weak link” is
just beyond Neuville. I suggest we bring him back here for a
while. Can we put him in the cottage?’
‘I don’t see why not. For how long?’
‘A few days, no more.’
But it turned out to be a lot longer than that. While the
pilot and his guide were on their way back to Lorvoire they
ran into a German patrol and were challenged. The guide
panicked and pulled out a gun. The pilot followed suit, shot
one of the German officers, and in the melee that followed
the guide was killed. The pilot, by some miracle, managed
to escape and make his way into the forest of Fontevraud,
where he was picked up by other fugitives who managed to
get word to Lucien. What Lucien didn’t discover until he
arrived at Fontevraud was that the pilot had been shot in the
leg and shoulder. By the time he got him to Lorvoire, the
man had lost so much blood that Doctor Lebrun seriously
doubted his chances of survival.
The shooting of the German officer had immediate
repercussions. Posters were pasted on every wall and
lamp-post informing those responsible that if they didn’t
come forward, twenty of the prisoners held in the cellars of
the Hotel Boule d’Or would be shot. No one doubted that
the threat was real; no one had forgotten what had
happened at Nantes and Bordeaux.
Those early days of March were the darkest any of them
had known, for many people in Chinon and the surrounding
villages had loved-ones in the German cells. Most were
there for crimes as petty as breaking curfew or failing to
salute a German officer, but the Germans had not yet
named those who were to be shot. Neighbour suspected
neighbour; fights broke out on the street as prisoners’
relatives accused lifelong friends of harbouring the culprit.
For Claudine and Lucien the dilemma was terrible. The pilot, Squadron Leader Jack Bingham, remained unconscious,
and the idea of handing him over to the Gestapo was
utterly abhorrent. But so too was the prospect of seeing
innocent men go to their deaths.
In the end Claudine turned to Francois for help. As she
expected, he was furious even to be told that she had the
pilot in their cottage, and that Monique and Estelle were
nursing him round the clock didn’t please him either.
Nevertheless, two days after she told him, the threatening
notices started to come down. How he managed to achieve
this Francois refused to tell her; he wasn’t proud of the fact
that he had turned the Germans’ attention to a group of
Communist Resistants he knew to be planning the sabotage
of a train out of Tours sometime during the next week. The
man they were looking for, he told his colleagues, was with
them.
The FTP did sabotage the train, and managed to secure
themselves hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel bound for
Germany. Their success was due to the fact that they struck
a day before the Germans expected them to, and further
back on the line, near Chemille.
Francois hadn’t tipped them off; he was fairly certain the
informer was a cleaning woman at the Chateau d’Artigny,
who had been sweeping outside his office when he told his
fellow-officers of the FTP plan. He was grateful to her for
doing it - but the FTP coup also filled him with a gnawing
dread. He would have a lot of questions to answer when he
met von Liebermann in Vichy. This was just the sort of
incident that would prompt the General to start moving the
pieces again in his iniquitous game of human chess.
The very next day Francois was ordered to present
himself at the Hotel Louis XV in Vichy the following
Wednesday, at fifteen hundred hours precisely.
Halunke watched from the grime-covered windows of the
fishing hut. At the moment there was nothing to see, but he
knew that de Lorvoire and his wife were on the point of
leaving old Thomas’ hut. It was Tuesday morning, the day
before Francois was due to go to Vichy, and though
Halunke had managed to overhear very little of their
conversation, he knew that de Lorvoire had told his wife a
lie. He had told her that he was meeting von Liebermann at
nine o’clock in the morning. There was probably a good
reason for the lie, and Halunke was fairly certain he knew
what it was, but it didn’t concern him. All that concerned
him was that von Liebermann had given his authorization
for another strike while de Lorvoire was away - and de
Lorvoire was leaving at noon.
Halunke jerked his head back from the window as the door to the next hut opened and de Lorvoire came out. A few minutes later Claudine followed, by which time de Lorvoire had already disappeared into the runnel leading back to the chateau’s inner cellar. Careless of him to have left her alone like that, Halunke mused, but of course she always carried a gun, and she certainly knew how to use it.
She hadn’t brought her horse today, which meant that as
she started back through the forest, Halunke was able to
follow. He kept at a safe distance all the way, and not once
did she turn round - which surprised him, given that curious sixth sense of hers. When she reached the meadow in front of the chauteau, Halunke stayed in the forest, circled the meadow under cover of the trees, made the steep
climb to the back of the chateau and waited.
Half an hour later he heard de Lorvoire drive off, and not
long after that Claudine came out onto the bridge, looked
around, then started the trek to the cottage. Again Halunke
followed.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind staying on?’ Claudine said,
wiping down the table in the kitchen and glancing over her
shoulder at Monique.
‘No, of course I don’t,’ Monique answered, sitting back in
the chair she had pulled up to Jack Bingham’s bedside. ‘I
like sitting here with him. It’s restful.’
‘I imagine it is,’ Claudine said, with some irony. ‘He’s still
unconscious.’
‘But improving,’ Monique reminded her.
Claudine started drying the few dishes she and Monique
had used for their lunch. ‘Are you warm enough?’ she said,
shivering suddenly. ‘There’s not much wood on the fire.
Shall I put some more on for you?’
‘Yes, please.’ Monique leaned over the pilot and tucked
the blankets closer round his face. ‘He’s American, you
know,’ she said.
‘American?’ Claudine turned round in surprise. ‘But he’s
an RAF pilot.’
‘That doesn’t preclude him from being an American, does it?’ Monique smiled. ‘I found a letter from his mother in his wallet, she lives in a place called Missouri. And look,
he’s got a photograph of his wife and three children too.’
Claudine took the small, disintegrating snapshot and
stared at the laughing faces of Bingham’s family. Then
suddenly she shivered again. This time she cast a nervous
glance towards the window, but there was nothing to see.
Monique was looking at the pilot again, and Claudine
watched as she stroked a wisp of fair hair from his forehead.
It was odd, Claudine thought, how she hadn’t noticed his
looks before, perhaps because he had been so deathly pale
when he arrived. But now that a little colour had returned to
his cheeks she could see that he was really quite handsome
in, come to think of it, an extremely American way. Her eyes
moved to Monique’s face, and immediately her heart sank.
Francois had talked to Monique, some time ago now,
about her feelings for Lucien. Exactly what he had said
Claudine wasn’t sure, but he had seemed satisfied with the
way the conversation had gone. Now however, seeing
Monique gaze so adoringly at Jack, Claudine was very much
afraid that Francois had not managed to get through to her
at all.
‘Monique,’ she said softly.
Monique looked up, and her wide amber eyes seemed so
innocent in her fragile white face that it was all Claudine
could do to make herself go on. ‘Monique,’ she said again,
perching on the edge of the bed and taking her hand. ‘He’s
married, cherie?
‘I know,’ Monique answered, smiling.
‘When he’s well he will have to return to his family, or to
the war.’
‘Yes, I know that too.’ Then squeezing Claudine’s hands,
she said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s only concern I feel.’ She turned
to look at him. ‘And perhaps gratitude.’
‘Gratitude?’
Monique nodded. ‘He was there to listen and not judge
when I needed to talk.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I’ve told him
about Lucien, and about all the men I’ve … Well, it doesn’t
matter now, it’s in the past. But Francois made me see how
misguided I had been, how there had been no need to
search so desperately for love just to convince myself I
didn’t want Lucien in the way I thought I did. Of course,
Jack couldn’t hear what I was saying, but it helps sometimes
to speak things aloud, don’t you think?’
Claudine smiled, then leaned forward to kiss Monique’s
forehead. ‘Estelle should be here soon,’ she said, picking up
her coat and checking her pocket for the gun. ‘Doctor
Lebrun said he would stop by later, too. Invite him to join us
for dinner this evening, will you?’
‘Will anyone else be there?’
‘Besides us, only Blomberg.’
Monique grinned. ‘What a pity Francois won’t be there. I
so enjoy the way Blomberg squirms every time he brings up
the subject of German culture. I’m sure Francois does it on!
purpose.’
‘Well, the Colonel can rest easy tonight,’ Claudine said,
laughing.
‘If you can call putting up with you, resting easy,’
Monique remarked. ‘You’re as bad as Francois. And the
way you look at him sometimes, Claudine, is enough to make anyone think you’d just scraped him off the bottom of your shoe.’
Again Claudine laughed, and Monique watched her as
she buttoned her coat and pulled her fur hat down over her
ears. ‘Did something happen between you and Blomberg,
Claudine,’ she said carefully. ‘Something you haven’t told
me about?’
‘The short answer is yes,’ Claudine answered. ‘Please
don’t ask for the long one, and don’t mention it to Francois
either.’
‘I won’t if you don’t want me to, but Francois asked me
that very question himself just after he came back from
Germany. I couldn’t help wondering at the time why he
didn’t ask you.’
‘He did, but I didn’t give him a straight answer.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he would have taken matters into his own hands
- and I’m determined to deal with Blomberg myself, the
very minute the opportunity presents itself.’
‘You’re a mean woman, Claudine,’ Monique grinned, Claudine pointed her fingers at Monique like a gun and made a firing noise. Then, smiling, she let herself out into
the forest.
In the little clearing outside the cottage, the sun was
bright, making her eyes water. She took a deep breath of the
crisp autumn air, slid her hand into her pocket to take firm
hold of the gun, and set off into the trees.
She had gone only a few steps when she heard something
I behind her. In one movement she whipped out the gun and