Waiting for the Violins (36 page)

Finally he collapsed and she threw herself on the ground next to Sandrine. “Are you all right?”

Sandrine was already sitting up holding her head. “Yeah, I think so, though my head is pounding. He saw that I’d run out of bullets, and he hit me on the head. I guess when he figured out I was female, he didn’t want to kill me right away. Or else he was using me as bait. When I came to, I realized I couldn’t do anything except keep you away.”

“How did you know I was still alive?”

“I could sense it. I was sure you were out there and that he was waiting for you to come to me.”

Antonia took her by one arm and pulled her to her feet. “Bastards,” she snarled. “If they’re not killing us, they’re trying to rape us.”

“That’s the least of it. Where are the torches?”

Antonia searched inside her jacket and came up with a small square pocket torch and clicked it on. “Whew. At least we have one. What happened to yours?”

“In my pack. Somewhere in the bushes. But we can use his.” She unhooked the torch from the dead man’s belt. Its beam was still strong.

“It’ll do fine,” Antonia said, glancing up at the sky. “The plane could arrive any time, so we should go down to the landing site and set up the beacons.”

“Um, yes. The plane. That’s expecting only you. This should be interesting.”

Leaning together for support, they began the trudge down the slope. At the landing field, they tried to gauge the center, with maximum distance on all sides from the trees and bushes.

“How are we going to do this?” Sandrine asked. “We don’t have the pickup team and we have only two lights. We need four plus the signaling torch.”

“We can manage with bonfires for the three lights on the long side and use your light for the foot of the L. Plenty of dead wood around.” She patted her pocket. “Finally, I’ll get to use the matches they packed for me in my jump kit. Fancy carrying them around for two years.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t start to rain.” Sandrine swept up handfuls of dead wood from the ground and they built the first pyre where they stood. Then, pacing out the first ninety meters of the “long” side of the L shape, Antonia gathered kindling for the second fire while Sandrine did the same for the next ninety meters and the third fire.

“The timing will be important. We can’t light these until we hear the approach, and of course, if it’s not
our
plane…Well, I don’t want to think about it.”

“Silly creature, you.” Sandrine’s mood was obviously improving. “We’ve survived two years of war, prison, and rape. Lighting bonfires is nothing.” She snapped her fingers.

“Glad you think so”, Antonia said, looking up at the night sky. “Because I hear a buzzing that could be our ride. I’ll set up the lamp beacon if you can light the bonfires. They should have enough straw to catch right away.” She slapped a tiny metal matchbox into Sandrine’s hand and took off running.

Two hundred meters later she arrived, winded, at the first, still-dark woodpile and paced out fifty meters at right angles to the “line” of the other fires. The buzz was becoming louder, like a motorcycle approaching. She hurried to dig out a small hole and inserted one of the torches. It wobbled a bit, but when she clicked it on, she judged it as visible from above.

The clatter of the airplane motor was loud now, though she still couldn’t make out the form of the aircraft.

She ran to the spot midway between the two beacons of the foot of the L and clicked on her torch. Tilting it to 45º upward, she began sending
Di dah dah dah
…pause…
di dah dah dah
…pause. To the side she could see Sandrine approaching, and in the distance all three beacon fires were burning. She kept flashing up at the sky: J…J…J…J…J. God, she hoped the aircraft wasn’t German.

Finally it appeared, black against the ambient gray sky, heartbreakingly small and fragile. A Westland Lysander. Never had she loved a plane so much. It flashed its position lights in the assigned code: R…R…R…R. Then, with amazing agility, it descended at a sharp angle and landed close to the middle bonfire.

Success.

Antonia and Sandrine took off toward the plane. The plastic canopy slid open, and the pilot leaned out over the edge of the cockpit. “What’s going on?” he shouted down at them. “I had orders to pick up one agent.”

“Don’t give me any flak, Captain,” Antonia called up to him. “We’ve just been in a firefight with three Nazis, and more could come any time. My friend here has a concussion, and I’m not leaving without her.”

The pilot blew out a stream of air as if weighing the danger. “I don’t know…”

“Look, Captain. This woman is a major leader in the Resistance and has saved a few hundred pilots just like yourself, so let’s not cause an international incident, shall we? We’re taking her out of here.” She pushed Sandrine toward the metal ladder at the side of the plane.

Antonia climbed into the passenger pit after her and sat down on one of the narrow benches, resting her back on the auxiliary fuel tank that separated them from the pilot. She pulled the canopy shut and the plane began rolling again. Obviously, the pilot had overcome his misgivings.

As soon as they gained altitude, Sandrine peered through the canopy down at the ground. “Two of our beacon fires are still burning. Will that give away the landing site?”

“It was already compromised, I’m sure. That patrol wasn’t there by accident.” Antonia glanced around the passenger pit, lit indirectly by the overhead reflection of the pilot’s instrument panel and, beyond that, by the moon. The voice of the pilot startled her. “If you see an enemy plane, press the button to your left,” he called back. “You can see to the rear and I can’t.”

“Righto. Happy to accommodate.” She scanned the airspace behind them. “So far, so good.” Then after a moment, “Sorry to be so brusque back there. You’re right to be suspicious. But the SOE will know who this woman is.”

Apparently placated, he answered, “There’s a flask of hot coffee under the seat. And next to it is a bottle of whisky. Help yourself.”

“Jolly good!” Antonia fetched up both containers and poured whiskey-enriched coffee into the flask lid. She took a sip, to test the mixture, and held it out to Sandrine. But Sandrine stared through the canopy as if hypnotized.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I think so. Just a little overwhelmed.”

“Haven’t you flown before?”

“No, never.”

“Ah, then flying a Lysander at low altitude is probably not the best place to start. Here, try some of this. It’ll warm you up.”

Sandrine sipped it, smiled politely, and then returned to gazing down at the hills and valleys of the Ardenne that passed below them.

Antonia turned back to the pilot, “By the way, where are we going?” she shouted over the fuel tank.

“France,” he called back, and it was obvious that was all she was going to get out of him. She turned her attention to Sandrine, lit both by reflected instrument lights and by the moon—and completely starstruck.

Antonia smiled. The passenger pit of the tiny plane, for all its rocking and freezing temperature, was their private place. Finally they had a room of their own, and yet Sandrine only had eyes for the land that passed below them, her homeland. Taking Sandrine’s cold hand in hers, she understood.

Chapter Thirty-five

May 31, 1944

Behind her, Antonia could overhear the pilot talking on his radio, and receiving landing instructions. Surely the message wasn’t coming from England, and if not, how did the local agents manage to transmit from the ground without danger?

A few minutes later, the Lysander rumbled to a landing on rough ground. “Here we are, ladies,” the pilot said over his shoulder.

Antonia slid back the canopy and stood up, curious to learn where “here” was. She threw a slightly numb leg over the side of the fuselage and shivered at the touch of cold metal on her thigh. The landing beacons were too far away to give useful light, so as she climbed down the tiny steel ladder, she saw only the dull form of her welcoming committee of one. Some distance behind him, two other men stood together with a lantern.

Four steps and a slight leap, and as she touched ground she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome to France, Toni,” a familiar voice said. An impossible voice. She stared for a long moment, trying to make him out, incredulous.

“Lew? Lew Rhydderch? What the hell?! You went down in the crash.” She could hear herself sputtering.

“Funny. I thought the same thing about you.”

“But…how’d you make it out?”

“It weren’t easy, old girl. I had the devil’s own time until the people got me down to Switzerland.”

She embraced him quickly, energetically. “Switzerland? You mean the Comet Line rescued you? Why didn’t the SOE let me know?” Her astonishment ratcheted up a notch, toward indignation.

“It weren’t the Comet Line, but a Dutch group that helped me. There’s more than one line, though the Jerries keep killing them off.”

“Excuse me! Could someone help me down this damned ladder?”

“Oh, sorry.” Antonia turned around to offer a hand to Sandrine. Taller than she, Lew reached over her head to help Sandrine down the rest of the way. “Hey, who’s your friend?”

“Didn’t the SOE tell you who I was working with?”

“No, but you can tell me now. Come on, we’ll talk inside.” He turned to wave off the two men standing to the side. One of them wore a curious metal gadget on his chest and held a tall metal T-rod. “Thanks lads. We’ll contact you for the next landing. Cheerio.”

“Who are they?”

“Local men who provide the landing lights and S-phone to the pilot. Newest technology from London that lets us guide you in by radio. Worked like a charm.”

The Lysander taxied back along the field and took off again while they scrambled toward a car that waited at the edge of the field.

Lew got in and started the motor, and once they were underway, he spoke to Antonia at his side. “So, tell me again who your friend is.”

“Hey, don’t talk about me like I’m dead” came from the backseat. She’d rarely heard Sandrine speak English and was amused by her accent. “I’m Sandrine Toussaint from the Comet Line, the escape line that your lot was so keen to organize a few years ago. I know Antonia’s been sending SOE regular reports on the pilots we saved. She sent half of them from my house.”

Lew reached a hand over his shoulder. “Well done to you, Sandrine! Pleased to meet you. I’ve heard of the Comet Line, but not of you, but I’m just another working sod at the bottom of the ‘need to know’ list.”

Antonia turned toward him as if seeing him for the first time. “So you made it all the way home to old Blighty and all they did was send you back? Why didn’t they post you to Belgium?”

“I was injured so it took me a month to get home, then another two months to get fit, and by that time, you obviously had your own business going. I guess they thought I’d have just been baggage. And I suppose they didn’t tell you about me for the same reason they didn’t tell me about you, because it would be just another fact the Gestapo could get out of us.”

“So they assigned you to France, even though your French stank.”

“Yeah, but Dora’s French was pretty good. We worked together for almost two years until the Jerries got her. A week ago.”

“Where is she?” Antonia remembered a lovely, innocent night. “Her body, I mean?”

“With the Germans. Whatever they do with the people they execute.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It’s never a heroic end. Not for any of us,” Lew replied. “Anyhow, when I asked for another agent, I didn’t know who they were sending until this morning. I was just as surprised as you. By the way, you’ll be needing this.” He drew a large leather wallet out of a side pocket and handed it to her. Antonia opened it and flipped through the papers inside.

“Ah, so the SOE already has a new identity for me.” She slid the wallet inside her jacket. “Can you get some papers for Sandrine?”

“I’ll ask for them, but a lot’s going on in Bayeux and that will have low priority.”

“Bayeux. Is that where we are?” Sandrine asked.

“Yes. The SOE’s been working with the local resistance groups, supplying munitions. In return, the local people pass back intelligence about troop numbers, facilities, anything London might need to know.”

“What have you found out?”

“Well, the German forces here are under General Rommel. But they seem to have little motorized transport and are mostly older or foreign troops. No elite fighters.”

“So, what was the rush to get me here?”

“Something big’s going on. It even has a name. Operation Bodyguard.”

“Is that the name of the invasion?”

“More like the preparation, but officially, we still don’t know anything about that. And neither do the Jerries. ‘Bodyguard’ is one of several feint operations to convince German high command that the invasion is planned for next year, and that when it does come, it’ll be at Pas de Calais. They’re already bringing in inflatable tanks so German reconnaissance will photograph them and think a battalion’s forming.”

“Pretty clever. So where do I come in? And Sandrine, ideally.”

“Someone’s got to send out a lot of complicated messages, false information about fictional field armies, order of battle, and so forth. Someone who can transmit fast, for long periods, to give the impression we’re commencing major operations elsewhere. You come in because the SOE obviously thinks you’re better at that than I am.”

“Won’t they be able to pinpoint us? I mean if we’re transmitting all the time?”

“Even if they do, they’re not going to try to capture us. Not if they think they’re tapping into critical intelligence. You’ll be a gold mine for them, and they won’t touch you.”

“We’ll be based in Bayeux?”

“For the moment. But you know the SOE. They could move us any time, possibly closer to the landing site. We always try to stay mobile.”

Antonia snorted. “Mobility’s the only thing I know, but each time we move, I lose more stuff. Can I get a change of underwear anywhere here?”

“You can change with me, if you like.” Lew smirked.