The tavern sat above the rain soaked curb across the street.
La Maison Noire. It’s dimly lit facing held an arrangement of colourful flower baskets and the terrace sitting to one side of the entrance was entirely empty but for a few enclosed umbrellas. Stefan blinked, sending the tiny droplets of rain that had gathered upon his eyelashes down on the cobbled street below. Jacques ventured a sideways stare from the darkness of the alleyway.
‘Pretty quiet for this time of night,’ he said.
‘Is it any wonder?’ Stefan replied, his point gesturing towards a car parked up against the curb beside the entrance.
‘Huh,’ Michel snorted, looking upon the fluster of pinned flags flittering above the pitch black bonnet.
Stefan looked at the brightly lit doorway and then back at the car.
‘Hand me the case.’
The others did their best to look at each other through the darkness.
‘Michel.’
Reluctantly Michel let the handle of the briefcase slip away from his fingers.
‘Help me with this,’ Stefan said as he placed the case upon a twosome of tall barrels. It clicked open, revealing a heap of clutter. He pushed the papers aside.
‘Wait,’ Michel protested, ‘what are you going to do?’
‘Like you said, we can’t go in there.’
A lighter snapped into the night air. The wiry mechanism flickered to life. It was like nothing any of them had ever seen before. Stefan took the fluttering papers into his hands as their wind rattled pages were distracting him from planning his next move. Something caught his eye.
‘Let’s not be hasty,’ Michel continued to protest, ‘this thing could...’
‘How many times did you try the latches?’ Stefan interrupted.
‘About twice, why?’
‘Stay here,’ Stefan said, poking his head out into the glare of the street. Once he saw that no one was around he crept across the road. Puddles clapped under his shoes. He came to the black car and ignored his wide-eyed reflection in the mirror.
‘Take this you bastards,’ he muttered, thrusting the case beneath the body of the vehicle. He was back across the road in seconds, his heart racing and his breath rushed. Patrice, Michel, Jacques and Gerard watched, extraordinarily curious, painfully fearful. The downpour grew, tumbling down at a higher, more aggressive rate. Stefan didn’t take his eyes away, he couldn’t. He needed to see it.
‘What did you do?’ hissed Patrice.
An orange flare rose before them, spreading quickly across the puddle splashed roads. A crash of shattering glass sounded beneath the tornado of rising flames and smoke. The group of huddled shadows retreated within the grotty confines of the alleyway, their eyes fixed to the smoky mass that was beginning to swell above the tavern.
‘Let’s go,’ Gerard whispered, ‘come on.’
‘Wait,’ said Stefan, barely able to fight the urge to run.
A small crowd began to form around the smouldering chassis, shouting and muttering and pointing. A few moments later they appeared, their faces drenched in confusion and anger. Their uniforms were loose and shabby from an evening of carefree drinking. The Aryan Quattro stood with their hands in their pockets, glaring at the burning upholstery of their ride home. A band of smiles lingered within the alleyway. The newly established saboteurs were gone.
Over the next few weeks the five Frenchmen would find a vague, black and white description of themselves and their escapades on the front page of every newspaper in Paris. The papers called them;
Le Stallers (the stallers)
What did it mean? That the people of France resented them for taking so long to fight back? A reference to their acts of demolition perhaps, acts that held up convoy movements and caused officers to arrive late to lunches? The column predicted those involved doomed, more or less stating that unless
the stallers
had a small army, they wouldn’t compete with the Nazi’s surrounding Paris. They weren’t murderers despite what they were up against. They would move mainly at night, targeting trucks and town cars that were left unattended outside back street taverns and bars. If the first act of destruction had taken place somewhat hastily the second had been planned to a tee. One burnt out cab wasn’t enough for Stefan, he wanted to cause as much inconvenience to the Nazi’s as possible. The papers were half right, they
were
stalling. Stalling for someone else to come along and take control of their city, for they knew they couldn’t become the saviours’ of Paris. They would do their best but in the end, it wouldn’t be enough.
TAKING IN STRAYS
Part III
Emile held her breath.
What was that?
She thought. A roll of passing thunder perhaps? The ear-splitting grunt of a landing Beaujolais? She shook away the figments of dreamy imagination and sat up, kicking away her bed covers and hopping down onto the floor. The cold nipped at her feet. Her blindly guided fingertips met the frosty glass of her window. The darkness offered nothing. The sharp, sudden sound was lost within the sweep of flustering trees and swirling winds. She tried to replay it in her mind. It wasn’t the same. She turned away from her reflection and headed back to bed, mumbling hushed words of disappointment.
Pierre remained crouched against the grass, his palms fixed to the damp knolls leading down to the riverbank. Francis lingered within a swarm of bustling swamp flies, too engrossed by the rattle of noise emerging from over the distant treetops to set down the string of rope resting against his mud smothered fingers. Then it was gone, the echo feeble. Francis squinted into the mass of blackness that engulfed the river, his eyes finding it hard to focus on the silvery silhouette bobbing lazily downstream.
‘Bring in the rope,’ hissed Pierre, his ears still listening out for the noise to return.
‘What?’ Francis replied, his gaze still fixed upon the quivering darkness.
‘The rope, ravel it up.’ Raindrops had started to fall.
The damp seeped across his knuckles and wrists as Francis gathered up the rope. His gaze hit the tree pointed border of the forest.
‘What do you think that was?’ he said, making his way up the grassy bank.
‘Gun shots,’ Patrice replied, ‘what else?’
Silence hovered beside them as they headed towards the dimly lit veranda of the cottage.
‘Go inside, check that everyone’s alright. Hopefully they didn’t hear anything.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘We’re running low on firewood.’
Francis’ response was only half true. Even though his body shook with fear, curiosity pushed him towards the murky tree line. Rain crept onto the porch.
‘Pass me that jacket,’ he requested as Pierre stepped through the doorway.
‘Don’t be long,’ Pierre whispered, ‘the sooner this night’s over the better.’
Shrugging into his jacket Francis braced the downpour and headed out towards the pyramid of lumber. He heard the door click behind him and Pierre was gone, leaving the veranda empty and rain swept. Francis scooped down to collect a stray log, his blind glare aimed into the darkness. Bark met his palms and he cradled it within the crease of his sleeves. There was a crackle. Francis glared into the swallowing blackness of the forest. There it was again, the gentle snap of a twig, as though something was creeping across the bed of fallen leaves. It began to get louder, the careful steps growing nearer and nearer. An axe sat embedded within a shallow tree stump not an arm’s length away and Francis didn’t need a second glance before settling down the collection of stray wood and yanking the curved handle away from its swollen birth. The axe swung at his knee and he crouched against the grass as the rustling continued. A shadowy outline formed behind the first fortification of tall trees and a cold gasp of air slipped through Francis’ frozen lips.
He didn’t move. The shadow had now stumbled away from the tree line and was slowly limping towards the cottage. Francis arched his back, slowly edging forwards, desperate to get a closer look.
What was that, a mask?
He found himself slinking forwards again, his eyes battling the darkness. The axe rose above his shoulders. It was a man, or so Francis assumed, his form crippled by pain, the clothes on his back ragged and worn. The masked man’s arms were stretched out before him and appeared to be bound together by a set of jangling cuffs. A firearm rattled loosely within his welded hands. Moonlight was the only thing that separated them, the milky channel tempted the stranger to wonder into its midst so that Francis could decide on his move whilst aided by a scarce blaze of silver light. Clouds of pallid breath leaked from underneath the scantily stitched disguise. His visitor was blind, wandering in complete darkness.
What should he do?
Who was this stranger?
Questions such as this flooded his mind. The intruder stumbled and fell to his knees. Francis circled him. Using the nose of the pistol the stranger regained his footing.
‘Stop,’ Francis ordered, the tip of the axe held against his guests shoulder.
‘Who are you?’
The rain drenched mask offered nothing but a deep breath of stale air.
‘Are you German?’ Francis asked.
‘No,’ the mask replied, ‘and neither are you.’
‘Correct.’
Francis detected a great amount of pain in the man’s voice.
‘Drop your weapon.’
The pistol slipped away from the intruder’s fingers and hit the grass. Francis glanced down. Luger.
‘W-why, what are you doing here?’
‘Please,’ hissed the mask, ‘m-my stomach.’ Francis kept his eyes on the rising fluster of the mask as he moved to one side. The stranger raised his arms slightly, his agony glaringly evident. A jagged hole had ripped into his shirt. Francis noticed that the mark at the front didn’t surface at the back. More shreds on the shoulder and left arm.
‘Please,’ repeated the wilting figure.
Francis lowered the axe. His fingers met the creased edges of the sodden fabric covering his guest’s face. He didn’t flinch. With a careful peel Francis took away the mask. A thick mop of dark hair fell over a young, blood stained face.
‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Stefan,’ wheezed the unmasked stranger, ‘Stefan De Lorme.’
Francis watched on as the boy shuffled uncomfortably. He cradled against the makeshift bed, his legs straight, his arms clasped tightly against his shivering chest. Spurts of agonizing gibberish dribbled from his mouth. Upon assisting the wounded stranger into the barn Francis had skipped back down to the cottage and fetched Pierre, who had been perched on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands.
‘Don’t tell me there’s another unconscious German pilot sitting in there,’ Pierre huffed, bracing the cold as they trudged up towards the barn.
‘Not quite,’ Francis replied with a concerned smile. They closed the doors behind them. A dim light flickered at the rafters.
‘We’ll need that,’ Francis said, pointing at his old toolbox.
Pierre placed the hack saw back into the tool box and took the crumbling cuffs away from Stefan’s wrists. The young boy groaned as he flexed and turned his wrists, scratching and itching at the bracelets of red travelling up his arm. The top floor of the barn basked in the warm glow of lamp light.
‘Is there anything we can do for him?’
‘It depends,’ Pierre said, rubbing a band of fingers against the rough stubble laced over his chin, ‘with the proper tools, maybe.’
Pierre observed their guest.
‘Jesus, Franc. First the German... now this.’ He swiped at a tumbling drop of rain that threatened to fall from his brow.
‘We’ll need a few things; warm water, a needle and thread, a hot bowl of soup.’ Francis turned to the ladder.
‘No, I’ll go,’ Pierre whispered. His shadow grew as he neared the ladder and he stepped down each rung until his boots reached the hay swamped ground floor. The doors closed. Francis let out a sigh and turned to the boy sprawled out across the cot, his face creased in agony. Tears streamed across his red cheeks, his dark hair clung to his brow. Francis set his hand upon Stefan’s frayed sleeve.