Operation Kingfisher (23 page)

He set off as quickly as possible, keeping below the top of the embankment so that he did not present a target against the faint light from the sky. At the point where he had laid the first charge, he stopped and called softly, ‘Raoul?’

There was no response. He called again, twice, then went on. The railwayman had said he saw Raoul heading for the town, but perhaps he was only making a detour in order to get back to the rendezvous. If not, the rest of the group could be in the hands of
the Gestapo by now, but there had been no shooting and he did not believe that they could have been rounded up without at least one bullet being fired. Nevertheless, it was sensible to approach carefully. Heart thumping, he climbed the fence beside the track and edged his way up to the point on the road where they had left the vehicles. To his intense relief, a shadowy group of figures was standing near them. He drew breath and whistled softly, the musical phrase that they used as a recognition signal. Gregoire’s voice came quietly from the group.

‘Luke? Come on. Where the hell have you been? We began to think you’d got lost. Where’s Raoul?’

Luke lifted his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. He got into a blue funk and ran off, just as we were about to start laying the charges. I thought he might have come back here.’

‘
Merde
! No, we haven’t seen him. Did you manage to lay the charges anyway?’

‘Yes, but.…’

‘But what? No, never mind. Tell me later. If that little swine Raoul has gone rushing off to tell the authorities, they could be on us at any moment. Into the cars, everyone. Let’s get out of here.’

The men scrambled back into the two vehicles and a minute later they were heading for the comforting shelter of the forest. As before, when they were well away, Gregoire stopped at a vantage point where they could look back into the valley.

‘Any minute now,’ he said, looking at his watch.

As he spoke there, was a bright flash and the roar of an explosion.

‘That’s the turntable,’ he said, with grim satisfaction.

The big explosion was followed by a series of smaller ones.

‘There go the points,’ said Alphonse.

‘I wish we could see mine go up,’ Luke said wistfully.

Gregoire squeezed his arm. ‘Never mind. I’ll make sure someone goes to check tomorrow and I’ll let you know the result. You were going to say something about it. You did set the charges correctly?’

‘Yes, I’m pretty sure about that,’ Luke said. ‘It was where I set them that I wanted to tell you.’ As briefly as possible, he described his encounter with the railway guard and the advice he had given him.

‘Of course!’ Gregoire said when he finished. ‘I should have thought of that.’

When they got back to the camp, Luke’s euphoria gave way to a sense of emptiness. When he had returned from previous missions, Christine had always been there to welcome him and ply him with questions; now she was gone. They had parted that afternoon in an offhand manner that was partly the product of English restraint, but largely due to Luke’s disapproval of her decision and her determination to go ahead. Now he felt he had been ungenerous and wished he had given her a warmer send off.

Next day, Gregoire arrived back from one of his unexplained absences and slapped him on the shoulder.

‘Total success! The bridge collapsed and the engine and two trucks ended up in the river. It will take Jerry days to repair the railway. So well done!’

A
s the days passed, Christine settled into her new life at the
Beau Rivage
. Mme Bolu only required her to work in the evenings, when dinner had to be prepared and served to the little group of permanent residents, so she was free during the day. Jean Claude dropped off her bike on the second evening, so from then on she spent most of her time cycling around the area. Madame played her part with enthusiasm, inventing errands that would take her to different places, as required by her new duties.

Every morning, she was careful to leave a note with that day’s date and her initial in the tobacco tin in the ruined building and sometimes there would be a slip of paper waiting for her: ‘
Can we meet in Brassy tomorrow?’; ‘I have to go to Ouroux. Can you meet me there?
’

Then she would set off on her bike to the place in question, watching out for German checkpoints on the way, and enquiring locally if there had been any signs of enemy activity. Sometimes the answering note which she left in the tin read: ‘
I could meet you tomorrow in the place you suggested
’. In that case, she usually heard via local gossip that there had been a
Maquis
ambush on the road there, or an electricity sub-station had been blown up or pylons blown down. Sometimes her note read: ‘
Can’t meet you as arranged. Father is watching
.’ Then she knew that she had stopped her friends walking into a trap.

It was hard work, cycling around the Morvan hills, where no road seemed to run flat for more than a few hundred metres. But there were rewards, apart from knowing she was doing a useful
job. Often she would emerge from a long uphill ride through thick forest to find herself on an open ridge, with wide views in every direction, with the undulating landscape of woodland and pasture stretching away towards Burgundy to the east and the valley of the Yonne to the west. She grew to love the little towns, with their strange names and their grey stone houses clustering around churches that seemed too big for the local population. And she came to admire the people for their dogged devotion to their land and their animals and their stoical acceptance of the troubles brought upon them by the activities of the
Maquis
. German reprisals were becoming more and more frequent and she heard that the mayor of Quarré les Tombes had been shot, and several houses in the village burnt down, in an effort to terrify the populace into revealing the whereabouts of the
Maquis
camps. As far as she could ascertain, no one had come forward with any information.

Her relocation to the
Beau Rivage
had other, unexpected, benefits. She had been prepared to dislike Jeanette intensely but instead she had found a friend. Transferred from an English girls’ school to a French Lycée at the age of twelve, she had found it hard to settle and with her tomboy attitude, she had been regarded as an oddity and had never made any close friends. She realized that her initial appearance at the hotel, filthy and unkempt, was enough to put off the fastidious Jeanette; but when she returned, more conventionally dressed, the other girl was delighted to find someone of her own age as a companion.

She was not the only person whose attitude changed. On the first evening when she was being introduced to work behind the bar, Adrienne de Montfort came over and gazed at her.

‘Why, it’s the little boy/girl who was here the other week! But,
chérie
, you are so pretty! Why do you try to hide yourself?’

‘I don’t,’ Christine protested. ‘Those were the only clothes I had.’

‘And what are you doing here?’

‘I’m working, Madame. I have a job here now.’

‘You’re right, Madame,’ Jeanette put in. ‘I keep telling her she could be really stunning if she took a bit more trouble.’

‘
Bien sûr
! A little powder, a touch of lipstick – and something must be done with that hair. What do you say, Jeanette? Shall we take her in hand? Shall we transform this chrysalis into a lovely butterfly?’

So it was that, closeted with Jeanette in the older woman’s bedroom, Christine was given access to her precious hoarded supply of cosmetics and learned how to apply them. And for the first time in her life, she was prepared to listen and learn. Her hair, which she had always worn as short as a boy’s, had grown since she left home and with some trepidation, she allowed Jeanette to wind it in curl papers and restyle it in waves round her face. Afterwards, looking at herself in the mirror for the first time, with her face powdered and her lips reddened, she was disconcerted to find herself beautiful.

The proof of the transformation came a few days later. She was serving behind the bar when the door opened to admit Gregoire with Cyrano and Luke and a group of
Maquisards
. Their visits to the hotel had become rarer since the Germans arrived in Montsauche, but it was an act of defiance; one that proclaimed their domination of the area. Unsurprisingly, it made the permanent residents uncomfortable and the two groups would sit on opposite sides of the room, ignoring each other except for occasional suspicious glances. The only person who ever acknowledged the presence of the rebels was Adrienne de Montfort, who seemed to take delight in the disapproval of her fellow guests.

On this occasion, Christine’s first reaction was one of delight at seeing her brother and her friends, quickly followed by anxiety at the risk they were taking.

Gregoire strode across to the bar, his face breaking into a grin.

‘Christine, I hardly recognized you! Your brother was worried about you, so we decided we had better bring him down to let him see that you are all right. There you are, Luke. You see? She’s quite safe – and flourishing, by the look of it.’

Christine felt herself blushing. She looked at her brother. He was frowning and smiling at the same time and his voice when he spoke was oddly husky.

‘Hello, Chris. You OK?’

‘Yes. I’m fine. You?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

Gregoire turned to the
Maquis
leader beside him.

‘There, you see, Xavier? How eloquently we British express our affection for each other!’ He looked back at Christine. ‘Beers all round, if you would be so good, Mademoiselle.’

It was only then that she allowed herself to look at Cyrano. He was standing a little back from the others, but as they moved away to find a table he came closer.

‘Chris, you look gorgeous! What have you done to yourself?’

She ducked her head. ‘Oh, it’s just a bit of face powder.’

‘No, it’s more than that,’ he said. ‘Gregoire’s right. It’s a transformation! Here, let me give you a hand.’

He helped her carry the beers over to the others, and there was no doubting the impression her new appearance made. Once she would have been embarrassed, but now she found herself enjoying the attention. It was only Luke’s attitude that she was uncertain of. He kept casting sidelong glances at her and she could not decide whether he approved or not.

Next morning she met Adrienne in the foyer and was surprised to see that she was dressed very simply and wearing hardly any make-up.

‘You wonder where I am going, dressed like this?’ Adrienne said. ‘I will tell you. Watching you and your friends last night, I was suddenly ashamed. I decided I must do something useful. I hear that there is a doctor at the Château Vermont who needs nurses. I have a little experience in that direction, so I am going to volunteer.’

The
Maquis Xavier
had an unexpected addition to its numbers that day. Four of the men who had been keeping watch on the
road below the camp came in with a prisoner. He was a German despatch rider who had been knocked off his motorbike by a tripwire stretched across the road, and had suffered a broken arm. The four men were very proud of their trophy, hoping that the despatches he was carrying would provide useful intelligence about German intentions. The despatch case turned out to be empty except for blank sheets, the messages it contained having been delivered, but the prisoner, whose name was Hans, professed himself delighted at having been captured and willing to offer whatever help he could to the
Maquis
.

He was a soft spoken, intelligent man and when Gregoire interrogated him, his explanation was simple and shocking.

‘I hate the Nazis. You see, there are two categories of people whom they regard as being virtually subhuman, inferior beings who should be exterminated. One is the Jews and the other is homosexuals. I have the misfortune – if misfortune it is – to belong to the second category. So far, I have succeeded in hiding the fact, but I know of many friends who have been arrested and sent to the camps; camps from which, we are beginning to realize, no one ever returns. I am convinced that it would only be a matter of time before someone denounced me and I suffered the same fate. So you see, I have good reason to hate the Nazis as much, perhaps more, than you do. If I can do anything to hasten their downfall, I am happy to do it. But if you feel you cannot trust me enough for that, I shall still be better off as a prisoner of the French than as a soldier in the Wehrmacht.

Xavier grunted sceptically and muttered to Gregoire, ‘What makes him think we have the facilities here to keep prisoners?’

‘What would you do with him, then?’ Gregoire asked.

‘Shoot the bastard!’ was the reply.

‘Not while I have anything to do with it!’ Gregoire said. ‘We don’t shoot prisoners. Anyway, I think he could be useful. I’ll take responsibility for him and if it turns out he can’t be trusted, I might have to turn him over to you. But until then, he is to be treated in a civilised manner. Understood?’

So Hans was sent to the
Maquis
hospital, where his arm was set, and then he was returned to the camp. For a while, two of the men were sent to keep watch on him and at night he was handcuffed to his bunk, but it did not take long for everyone to be convinced that what he had told them was genuine. By day, he was prepared to help with any menial chores that his arm permitted and in the evenings his conversation made a welcome addition for Gregoire and Cyrano to the limited preoccupations of the
Maquisards
. Soon, he was accepted as just another member of the group.

Pedalling up the long hill from Montsauche towards Dun, Christine rounded a curve to find herself facing a German checkpoint. It was not an unusual occurrence and she had a ready-made excuse. Madame Bolu had sent her to deliver some plums from the orchard around the hotel to an old friend. What made her pulse suddenly race, was the face of the young soldier manning the barrier. It was Franz, the boy who had tried to make a date with her. It was clear that he had recognized her.

‘I waited,’ he said, as he handed back her papers. ‘That Saturday afternoon. I waited a long time for you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she responded breathlessly. ‘I couldn’t get away. I had to work.’

‘Work? What at?’

‘I’m a waitress at the B
eau Rivage
hotel, down by the lake.’

‘I’ve seen it. It looks a nice spot.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Maybe I’ll come down there one evening when I’m off duty, to see you.’

Christine’s heart thudded faster. She could not have him walking into the bar, maybe bringing his friends with him. Suppose Gregoire and the others decided to call in again. At all costs, she must scotch that suggestion.

‘No, please don’t do that!’ she begged. ‘My employers wouldn’t approve of me fraternising with … with one of you.’

‘OK. Where can we meet, then?’

Her thoughts were racing. If she refused to give him another rendezvous, he might take it into his head to come to the hotel after all. And at the back of her mind was the thought that this young soldier could be a useful source of information, if she played her cards right. It was a high-risk strategy, but the only one she could think of at that moment.

‘All right. Listen. The grounds of the hotel run right down to the edge of the lake. The trees are quite thick there. We could meet there and no one would see us.’

His face lit up and she saw the friendly boy beneath the uniform.

‘Tonight? Can I come tonight?’

‘Yes, all right. But it will only be for a few minutes, or I might be missed. Nine o’clock?’

‘I’ll be there!’

As she cycled away, she could not decide whether she had made a clever move or taken a foolhardy risk.

They met as arranged and walked by the lake shore. He was polite and almost pathetically grateful.

‘You have no idea how awful it is to have no other company than soldiers,’ he said. ‘Most of them are ignorant oafs who can’t talk about anything but women or football.’

They exchanged stories about their homes and their childhoods, which involved Christine in some rapid improvisation. To her relief, most of the time he was happy to do the talking. When she said that she had to go in before she was missed, he clicked his heels and kissed her hand and she found herself thinking that if circumstances had been different, it would have been quite nice to have him as a boyfriend.

Three days later, four German officers walked into the bar of the
Beau Rivage
and demanded champagne. Christine’s first instinct was to refuse to serve them, but Madame Bolu was there and she greeted them as she would have done any other customer and sent her scurrying down to the cellar for the wine. As she
searched among the bottles, Christine’s thoughts were in turmoil. Suppose Gregoire and the others chose that evening to call in? There would be no passing them off as regular customers. For one thing, it was after curfew; and for another they always carried rifles, wherever they went. One glance would be enough to identify them as
Maquis
and the only possible outcome would be a firefight. She wondered desperately if there was any way she could get a message to her friends but she could think of none. All she could do was lurk as near to the door as possible, straining her ears for the sound of an approaching vehicle, until Madame Bolu reprimanded her sharply for failing to attend to her duties.

As she returned to her place behind the bar, the proprietress hissed into her ear, ‘Do you want to make them suspicious? Anyone with half an eye could see that you are terrified that someone else is going to come through that door. The best thing we can do is behave normally. Let them see we have nothing to hide.’