Early One Morning (25 page)

M
AY
–J
ULY
1943

T
HE EIGHT MONTHS
were purgatory for Williams. Robert went back with Rose to England, picked up by a Hudson near Le Mans. Sporadic drops of weapons and supplies came in and had to be intercepted and dispersed around the estate with the help of Eve, Maurice and Jean-Pierre Wimille. However, stashing supplies for some vague far-off event was hugely frustrating—and judging by the débâcle of Dieppe, the second front was a very long way off indeed.

It was getting more dangerous to move around. The occupiers had introduced a scheme, the Service du Travail Obligatoire, the STO, forced labour for nearly all able-bodied men. Now Paris was a city of women, old people and young children, the middle band of males gone, as if wiped out by an age-sensitive plague.

With agonising slowness, that savage snapshot, the faces at the door of the cattle truck, slowly faded, to the point where Williams could close his eyes at night and not have it leap out at him, not cause the anger to rise again. He just hoped that one day, when he needed it, it would be there again to remind him.

Robert returned in March, leaner and fitter, with the new, lighter B2 radio, a decent enough grasp of Morse and a welcome innovation—codes on silk sheets and one-time pads. The poem codes were quietly being retired for something more professional and harder to break.

Maurice, Eve and Williams celebrated Robert’s return with a meal at the restaurant in Dreux that Maurice supplied with decent wines. The owner, a man of surly demeanour, explained that, by sheer luck, he had a decent cassoulet they could share with real, not sawdust sausages. And to follow, a
tarte tatin.

Maurice, of course, knew what was in the cellar and ordered Brouilly and Pouilly Fumé, in a voice that caused the owner to shush him. Exactly what was and wasn’t in stock was a closely guarded secret, to be manipulated according to the cut of the customer’s jib.

There were a few other clients, all of them smart businessmen, who, thought Williams, looked as if they wouldn’t know a ration book if he slapped them round the face with one. He had misgivings about even being there, but the others had overruled him.

‘How is it over there?’ asked Eve.

‘Well, the food is worse than ever. And there’s hardly any of it,’ smirked Robert. ‘I saw Philippe Rothschild.’

‘Ah,’ said Williams. ‘How is he?’

‘Well. He’s working with a similar outfit to us. Urged me to join them. Gaullists.’

Williams knew this was the SOE branch under the control of the Free French, the one that was supposed to have the pick of French nationals. Robert would be quite a prize. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I didn’t care for de Gaulle. Just because he was right about tanks, and actually did some fighting against the Germans, doesn’t automatically make him the best man to lead France.’

‘What did Philippe say?’

‘He understood. He told me to be careful. Of SOE. We aren’t always told the full story.’

Williams laughed. ‘It’s a secret service. That’s what they do. Keep secrets.’

Eve asked: ‘How is the city?’

‘London … well, London’s taken a pounding. Makes me glad that it didn’t happen to Paris.’ He looked at Williams. ‘Don’t believe all that pulling-together propaganda shit. People are dying. There are deserters robbing banks. Food shortages like France …’ He tailed off while wine was poured then continued. ‘But there is a feeling since Africa that the tide has turned.’

‘Doesn’t feel like it here,’ said Maurice.

‘I don’t know,’ said Williams, ‘You look for the signs you’ll see them. Maybe you should lift your head from the black-market trough now and then.’

Maurice furrowed his brow. ‘Listen, without me—’

‘Without you what?’ Williams snapped, pushing his plate away. ‘We might not get to eat this shit? All it does is give me gut ache anyway …’

‘It’s not gut ache, it’s your prissy guilty conscience—’

‘Stop it,’ said Robert firmly. ‘Just stop it. What’s got into you two? Don’t fall apart now.’

There was a silence while wine was twirled in glasses.

‘What’s next?’ asked Williams. ‘For us? More waiting?’

‘Mostly. Two things. There is a line of pylons that feed power to dozens of factories, from Michelin to Aluminium Nord. We are to blow those at some point.’

Williams broke into the baguette, wondering about its strange flaky consistency. You just didn’t know what you were eating these days. ‘And?’

‘Georges Legine has to die.’

Eve asked: ‘Why? They’ll only replace him.’

‘Then we do the next one.’

‘And the next?’

‘If we have to. As an example to others. And, being a Frenchman, it’s unlikely there’ll be reprisals.’

Williams said: ‘Why don’t they bomb the St Just plant if they want to do some real damage?’

‘I suggested that,’ said Robert and affected an English accent. ‘“Not a top priority, old boy”, apparently.’

No, trainloads of Jews heading east, just a fact of war. And, thought Williams, it ties up all those guards, all that rolling stock. Jews heading east meant no fresh units heading west, he supposed. ‘Do they know where the trains go?’

Robert shook his head. ‘Like here. There are rumours.’

The cassoulet arrived and they ate for a while in silence. It was good. Better than any of them had tasted for a long time. Even Williams, despite his earlier protest, tucked in, earning himself a smirk from Maurice which he ignored.

‘Did they have any suggestions as to how to get to him?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ said Robert quietly. ‘He’s been assigned a Milice escort.’ The Milice were the volunteer militia formed in what was once the unoccupied zone, a ragbag assortment of thugs, bigots and criminals. ‘There is only one time in the week when he dumps them.’ Robert went back to slurping his food.

‘And?’ asked Williams.

‘And I think we’d better toss for this one.’

Georges Legine peered into the darkness and damned the blackout lights of his car, sending their feeble slits of blue-ish light into the gloom and fading away to nothing. As he dropped down to second gear he spotted his first one in the trees, just a glimpse. Big, maybe too big. The last one had been unshaven and stank of cheap perfume and he’d felt like he was fucking a docker. Not the idea at all. Something more delicate. But it looked like a bad night tonight. Perhaps there had been another raid by some high-minded Germans or the gendarmes were out to extort some more protection from the girls’ purses.

It wasn’t fair. He had one simple pleasure in life, a quick taste of anonymous transvestite sex and that was it. Back to the wife, children, work, the unholy trinity of his life. He was just contemplating giving it up as a bad job, when he saw her.

Tall again, but not too heavy, a muscular body sheathed in a yellow dress, his favourite colour. A shock of curly hair, and from what he could see, nice legs. Not as petite as he was hoping for, but this was no night to be fussy. He gave two flashes of the lights, the agreed invitation and she raised her arm in agreement. He pulled over.

Georges stepped out and looked around. Nothing, possibly the shape of another car in the gloom, but it didn’t look like cop or Gestapo. He squished across the wet grasses to the bushes and his quarry. Skittishly she stepped back into the shadows of the tree.

‘How much, Madame?’ he asked.

‘Two thousand,’ said the low voice, trying hard to climb to a higher register, but failing.

Extortionate, but it was a seller’s market tonight. ‘Show me your arse,’ Georges said matter-of-factly.

She turned around, stuck her rear out and slowly wiggled the dress up and over her hips, to reveal the lace-covered buttocks underneath.

‘Lovely. It’s a deal. Come here.’

Georges took off his overcoat, stepped to the shrubbery he knew so well and selected a small, well-trammelled clearing. He laid the coat on the ground and beckoned her over. She hesitated and he wondered if this was his/her first time.

It was sheer stroke of luck that Georges stumbled on a root just as the knife flashed out, grazing his adam’s apple rather than opening up a second mouth. Mary, Mother of God. A robbery. Georges tried to shout but only a dry, strangled yelp emerged and she was back on him.

‘Help.’

Georges lashed out wildly with a strength born of desperation, catching the creature a good solid blow in the face. Ha. Another. He swept a short, heavy branch from the ground and began to swish it back and forth. Williams waited until it was at the far arc of travel, confidently stepped in and drove the blade up under the ribs and twisted. He felt the warm blood trickle over his hands. Already the light was fading in the man’s eyes and Williams made sure he got the dedication in before the curtain fell once and for all. ‘This is from Raymond Berri.’

The Atlantic started up and purred down the road and Williams sprinted to the kerbside as best he could, the blood spatters on his dress glistening black in the moonlight. Wimille and friends had done a good job of driving off all the competition, leaving him the only show in town for Legine, but he knew the creatures would be back soon. He fell into the car beside Robert, panting, and they drove off. Robert glanced in the rearview mirror. He could see a couple of dark figures on the road. The curious, alerted by Legine’s cries, coming out once it was safe.

Out of the park and heading south, back towards Auffargis, Robert taking the car on to the warren of backroads he knew so well. Williams tore off the wig and rubbed his chin where Legine had managed to hit him. He was rusty. He would have done better than that at Arisaig. But then that was all make-believe, with rubber knives. How did he feel now he had done it for real, knifed a human being in cold blood? Rose Miller had asked him if he could. Now he knew. He tried to examine his thoughts. Nothing. Except for the burning anger a scribbled, despairing note could still ignite in his guts. It had to be done. It was done.

‘Next time,’ Williams said wearily, ‘you get the frock.’

‘But, darling, it was your arse he liked.’

Williams punched Robert so hard his upper arm went numb, but that only made him laugh even harder.

F
RANCE
, J
ULY
1943

‘LIFE MUST GO
on,’ said Maurice as they were waved through a roadblock after he had produced his travel pass. They were in a Hotchkiss tourer, another of Maurice’s recent acquisitions, with the hood down, as they headed north to the picnic site at the Forest of St Germain.

Williams and Maurice were in the front, Eve and Robert in the rear. Williams had suffered a restless night, because inside he wasn’t as at ease about the death of Legine as he had thought he should be. He was sure it would pass. That morning Robert showed him a badly printed copy of
Combat
, the underground paper. In it were strange pictures of the camps that the paper suggested were the final destinations for the trains, camps that made the hellhole of Drancy look like the Elysian Fields, so it claimed. It could be propaganda of course. The thought of those trains told him otherwise. Exactly why they took so much delousing powder along, though, was a mystery to him. Probably to stop typhus outbreaks.

‘Did you hear about the guy on honeymoon in Mexico?’ began Maurice. ‘Well, the local police chief, he warns him, he says, Señor, Speedy Gonzales, the fastest dick alive, is in town. It is essential that you sleep the night with your hand firmly planted upon the pussy of your beautiful bride. So the guy does exactly this. But in the middle of the night he needs to scratch his nose. When he puts his hand back a voice says: “Please-a Señor, to take-a your hand-a off-a my arse.”’

Robert and Williams laughed despite themselves—Maurice’s jokes may not have been top notch, but his delivery was. Then Eve said quietly: ‘I don’t get it. Why didn’t he scratch his nose with the other hand?’ At which point they all guffawed.

Williams pointed when he saw the line of pylons marching aggressively across the countryside. ‘Those?’

Robert nodded. ‘That line. But we have a problem.’

‘What?’

‘Tell him, Maurice.’

Maurice became serious for a second. ‘Berlin has ordered fifty hostages for each act of sabotage. Ten to be executed. Forty to be transported to Germany. Which, I have heard suggested, is much the same thing. Only slower.’

Williams nodded.

Robert leaned forward. ‘Which means we are looking at a large number of avoidable casualties.’ He put his hand on Williams’ shoulder. London had urged him to destroy the line as soon as possible, but that seemed ridiculous to him. The Germans were becoming very adept at carrying out running repairs. Bombed factories were up and functioning again within days, sabotage often corrected within hours. Surely if it was all co-ordinated properly, if the Resistance attacks were timed across the country to coincide with the second front, that would make any blow twice as effective. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Will, you’ll get your big bang OK. But not until the Allies have landed. You’ll just have to wait.’

‘Wait, wait, wait. That’s all we fucking do. Wait.’

‘Yes and you could be in Paris getting your toes tickled by the SD. Plenty of people will be. I met Madeleine the other day, SOE’s radio operator. Beautiful, too beautiful for this job, and not overburdened with brains.’

‘What were you doing? Swapping Morse tips?’

‘I was trying to tell her not to write the messages down every time. And to keep moving. They’ll DF her before long if she carries on with her routine.’

‘I told you,’ said Williams. DF was the aggressive direction finding the Germans were indulging in, along with tricks of sequentially cutting the power supply to streets and even houses in an area where a pianist was operating, knowing that when the radio went off air, they had pinpointed the agent. At least Robert had bought one of the newer sets, which could be operated from batteries. ‘Every time you use that radio, you make sure you go as far away from the house as possible.’

‘Don’t worry we’ve got a proper operator coming. Name of Chandler. I’ll put him in Pontoise with Thérèse Lethias. Is that far enough away for you?’