Le Temps des Cerises (24 page)

She padded along behind, puffing as quietly as she could and pleased to be dressed in thick trousers and jacket for the night was cold with a frost-tinted breath. Her toes tingled a little in the high black boots and her face felt quite raw but inside she was aglow with excitement. The girls on the Rue Ornano and La Païva would never do anything like this! They had their sales and their crinolines, balls and caviar but they didn't have this. For the first time in her life Eveline felt truly alive. She had a purpose; she had a mission – though admittedly she didn't know what it was yet. Something involving secrecy and darkness, that much was clear, as all the best missions did. Her father had been right when he said that anything of import always happened in the dead of night. How could it not? When everyone was fast asleep, tucked up in bed another world came out to play in the trees and the boulevards. How many times had she stuck her head out of Laurie's window, wondering what went on under the blackness and stars. And now she knew. She was a part of it. For once she was a part of it. Another world existed between midnight and the early hours, amidst blackness and stars, before disappearing again like a vanishing act with cock crow and daybreak. And she was a part of it….

Soon they came upon an open space – a large field bordered by a rough-hewn wall and she thought it must be their destination because Alphonse started talking to her again in a normal voice.

‘Here we stop to pick up the troops,' he told her and she decided he must be half mad. Nothing here resembled a troop unless you wanted a troop of cooking fires, a troop of shiny pots and kettles, a troop of shadowy figures flitting about like bats or moths and a troop of two ponies – and if they were the greedy beggars then they really were greedy for there were only two of them and even to Eveline's unpractised eye they looked pretty stout and well fed.

‘Are these the greedy beggars?' she murmured in a tone of surprise.

‘Don't let them hear you say that!' grinned Alphonse, unlacing the top of the hessian sack as a fair-haired young boy approached them. ‘Else they'll put you on the fire with the hedgehogs.'

‘Hedgehogs!' cried Eveline in alarm, staring at the nearest campfire and the red faces dancing behind the flames like a bunch of little devils. ‘Hedgehogs?'

‘Alphonse.' The fair-haired young man held out his hand and Alphonse took it warmly. He looked vaguely familiar to Eveline but she couldn't quite place when and where she'd seen him. She watched him eyeing her warily as he accepted one of the iced buns she'd made that afternoon and slipped it into his pocket.

‘It's alright.' Alphonse motioned with his head as if to say that his friend was safe. ‘You can speak freely in front of… Yves.' Even in the darkness she could sense he was grinning wickedly and she wanted to give him a kick in the shins for it. ‘How did it go, anyway?' His voice turned serious. ‘Did he blab?'

‘Easy!' The boy replied gleefully. ‘Like a baby. He was desperate to get it off his chest. Three o'clock in the morning just as we thought. They're occupying the bridges, railway stations and the Place de la Bastille. And they're heading for Montmartre.'

‘Which gives us,' Alphonse thought rapidly, ‘three hours at least. And the girl?'

Eveline pricked up her ears.

‘Up to her tricks as we speak,' winked the boy, ‘though she wants more for it.'

‘Oh?' Alphonse raised his eyebrows.

‘Grooms don't smell too good apparently. And they treat their horses better than women.'

‘Quite probably,' Alphonse responded with a chuckle. ‘Did she say how much...'

‘What girl?' Eveline interrupted, bristling beside him in the darkness, feeling ridiculous and transparent in her man's uniform. It wasn't so easy jumping from one skin to another.

‘Oh, just an acquaintance of mine from the Boulevard des Italiens,' Alphonse said easily which didn't make her feel any better for the Boulevard des Italiens was a favourite haunt of women who sold their bodies. She would have had it out with him then and there but for the boy's eyes upon her, sniggering and faintly derisive, having clearly seen through her ludicrous get up. ‘Perhaps Yves would like to try a bit of supper,' Alphonse half spluttered then, striding off with the hessian sack like a little Father Christmas and making her want to kick him in the shins again. ‘I don't suppose he's ever tried hedgehog!'

She was still glaring as the young boy led her to the campfire and guided her down on a smooth flat stone. The Boulevard des Italiens was notorious, even worse than the Rue de la Vieille Lanterne for the women were younger, prettier, singers, dancers and the like. Her father had said he'd met her mother in the Boulevard des Italiens, saving her from a life of shame and debauchery, though Eveline had always thought it was just another of his stories.

She took a grim little gulp from the tin of coffee handed to her and scalded her mouth for the second time that evening. It was boiling hot, black and tasted of earth, twigs and nuts and she didn't think anyone would close their eyes drinking this little lot unless they were closing their eyes in disgust. She glanced around at her companions – there were four or five boys about the same age as the fair-haired young man, except for one whom she took to be the cook with his fat cheeks and glistening skin. They were eating merrily and chatting away quietly, wriggling their feet by the fire and cupping their hands round their coffee tins for warmth. The night was turning icy and she took another sip of coffee, thinking doggedly that when in Rome… Alphonse was still going from group to group, doling out her home-baked goodies and she felt a little cheated and taken for granted. Oh I'm good for baking, she said to herself sourly, but not much else by the look of things.

Alphonse was calling time by then and the select few were leaping proud and excited to their feet, grabbing extra hats and coats and gliding into formation at the edge of the field. One minute they were lolling by the fireside eating hedgehog and the next they were lining up by the wall as professional as any army Eveline had ever seen; and she realised suddenly where she'd seen them before. They were the pilfering sparrows at the back of Brébant's, the bin pickers and scrap merchants. She couldn't believe how different they looked. She'd dismissed them as waifs and strays, tearaways and criminals and now here they were taking orders from Alphonse with the grace and ease of a well-oiled regiment. They even looked a little fatter like turkeys that had escaped the Christmas nightmare and she bowed silently to the cook before getting up and joining the end of the line.

Those who had been excluded gazed from their campfires and raised their coffee tins with a mixture of envy and pride. Everyone wanted to be involved in the mission. Mission Pegasus as it had been nicknamed. It was the most important mission ever to be undertaken apparently and only the most daring, courageous and skilful had been chosen. Mission Pegasus had been spoken about for days in hushed undertones, whispered rustlings, secret confabulations. Even the flames crackled Pegasus, even the stars shone Pegasus, the bats screeched it, the whole night air stank of it. It was to be the last strike of the oppressed and the poor and the first strike, Alphonse had said, of the revolution. It would be the stuff of nursery rhyme and ballad, firesong and myth; but it would never go down in the history books. It could not exist in the history books except perhaps as a small dead moth, absurd and irritatingly stuck between the pages, having dared to fly out of the cold black night and into the warm drawing rooms.

‘We shall not have the time,' Alphonse spoke quietly to the group of young men who were itching and impatient to be off, ‘to clarify things later so I should like to run through them now if you don't mind. Sandy…'

The fair-haired young man uttered an eager ‘yes'.

‘You are to head for the Bois, of course. Try to avoid the Porte Maillote and Trocadero if possible and go by the quieter ways. Roger?'

Eveline heard a muffled ‘yes' from the middle of the group but she couldn't make out who'd spoken.

‘You are going to Vincennes. It is a long way but I think you have the stamina for it if your reputation precedes you accurately.'

Some earthy laughter greeted this as well as a few stamping feet for the night was freezing away from the campfires and they were desperate to be off. Mission Pegasus, the boots seemed to scrape. Enough of the chit-chattering. But Alphonse persisted. ‘Ben's crew?'

An impish-looking fellow next to Eveline stuck up his hand, grinning from ear to ear. He was the youngest member of the mission and though he took his responsibility very seriously hadn't been able to stop grinning since finding out he'd been chosen.

‘You are to come back here, past the old church as we rehearsed. On no account take the main routes and if you get into trouble, drop everything.'

‘Yes sir,' said the boy, still grinning from ear to ear.

‘And stop grinning at me like that,' smiled Alphonse. ‘They could spot your teeth twenty miles off in a balloon!'

‘No sir.' The boy valiantly tried to straighten his face without success and Eveline reached out and squeezed his hand for he reminded her a little of Jacques but he glanced at her in alarm and she dropped it quickly, remembering who she was meant to be.

‘Alright.' Alphonse's voice came clear above the rising, buffeting wind. ‘Do we have the sacks and the lead ropes?'

Yes yes yes! Enough of the chit-chattering, the boots seemed to stamp. Whoever do you think we are? A bunch of bumbling National Guardsmen? A battalion of oafs in the regular army? It is time. We must be off.

Alphonse suddenly grinned, his own teeth lighting up the night like a torch. ‘All that remains for me to do is wish everybody good luck. If our cause is noble – and I believe it is – then it shall succeed. Tonight my friends…' he saluted the men, ‘we ride.
'

‘Tonight we ride,' they repeated solemnly and Eveline's heart pounded with excitement as the boots began their march over the dirty, mud-clotted field. She turned her head for one last glance at the twinkling campfires and saw, beyond the red and leaping flames, that the men left behind were standing to attention, silent and in awe, their coffee tins raised aloft. Dashing the tears away from her eyes, she bent her head to the task in front. Mission Pegasus had begun and she was a part of it. For once she was a part of it.

It must have been well past two o'clock when they reached the Tuileries stables and Eveline could see from the night lanterns that Alphonse's face was tense and worried as he ushered them into the courtyard.

‘The night groom may well be back soon from his… distractions,' he whispered urgently, ‘and we must hurry.'

Eveline had figured out that the night groom's distraction was the girl from the Boulevard des Italiens but she didn't know what she thought about it yet and she didn't have time to think. Alphonse was leading them at a fierce pace over the cobblestones, fleeing from one little shadow to the other before creeping forward and beckoning them on again, past the mounting block and water trough, the night groom's quarters, dark and empty still, and the tack room smelling of boot polish and silver until they were all panting but safely under cover of the stable itself. It was a long, low airy building, softly lit and smelling to Eveline of warm bread and treacle. It reminded her a little of the pâtisserie for she'd never been inside a stable before and didn't recognise the smells of bran mash, oats and molasses, would never have dreamed that horses could be fed such things as bran mash, oats and molasses. The nearest she'd been to a horse was when one dashed past her on the Rue de Rivoli, blinkered and hooked up to a dainty little carriage carrying the likes of La Païva and men in top hats. Or, more recently, hooked up, red and bloody, in a butcher's shop. Close to they looked enormous, like monstrous statues that coughed and wheezed – there must have been thirty of them at least, peering their long noses over the tops of their loose boxes or standing with one back leg bent and balancing on the other three, their heads almost touching the floor.

Sandy was already tying the hessian sacks around the feet of a big black horse who stood patiently for him, looking down at him with large inquisitive eyes.

‘Make 'em tight,' Alphonse advised, ‘or we shall wake the dead on these cobblestones. Ben?'

The impish young fellow stood to attention, still grinning.

‘Keep an eye out for the night groom. The rest of Ben's lot take the ten horses at the far end. Two a piece, mind, we don't have time to take any more.'

Ben dashed off the way they had come while the rest of his men scooted over the flagstones, digging out headcollars and lead ropes and the home-baked goodies Eveline had made that afternoon. They ducked into looseboxes, click clucking like professional jockeys and holding out iced buns and jam tarts to distract the horses while they slipped on their headcollars.

‘They'd turn their noses up at carrots,' smiled Sandy, moving on to another horse with his hessian sacks. ‘They eat better than we do!'

‘Of course,' muttered Alphonse, directing Roger's men to the remaining looseboxes. ‘What do you expect? They bear Generals and Emperors into battle. They are the best-kept horses in Paris. Even where they are stabled is kept a secret and they are moved every few months to keep them safe.'