Never Leave Me (20 page)

Her father rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘Do you mean that you have been listening to the BBC?' he asked incredulously. ‘Here? At Valmy?'

She nodded, the dark fall of her hair lustrous in the lamplight. ‘Yes, Papa, I listen every night. With Dieter.'

Henri passed a hand across his eyes. The punishment for the possession of a radio was fierce. Deportation to a labour camp or execution as a spy. And Lisette was not only listening in to banned broadcasts, but was doing so with a German officer! There were times when he doubted if he would ever be able to adjust to the situation between Lisette and Major Meyer. He found it far too disorientating.

‘When are they coming?' he asked, trying to collect his scattered wits. ‘More importantly still,
where
are they coming?'

‘I don't know, Papa. But the message that was broadcast was to warn the Resistance to be on the alert. To begin sabotaging rail and road links to the coast.' Her eyes were urgent. ‘Dieter believes that the invasion will take place here in Normandy. You must leave now, Papa. You must take Maman to Balleroy.'

‘We must
all
go to Balleroy,' he said, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘It will be the most massive battle in French history!' His hands gripped hers. ‘I can hardly believe it, Lisette! After all these years of waiting and hoping. At last they're coming! France will be free!'

She hugged him tight, knowing that he was near to tears. ‘You must leave first thing in the morning, after curfew ends. Dieter has left papers enabling you to pass freely on the roads. You will have no trouble at the check points.'

‘
We
will have no trouble,' he corrected.

She drew away from him gently and shook her head. ‘No, Papa. I'm not going with you. ‘I'm going to stay at Valmy until Dieter returns.'

The exhilarated colour that had flushed his cheeks drained away, leaving him ashen. ‘You can't stay here on your own,' he protested. It's unthinkable! We must either leave together or not at all!'

Her eyes held his unfalteringly. ‘No, Papa,' she said again, with a determination that brooked no argument. ‘I'm not leaving Valmy without saying goodbye to him. Please don't ask it of me. I will stay here until he returns and then I'll make my own way to Balleroy.'

‘Your mother will never agree to it,' he persisted vainly. ‘The invasion could come before you are able to leave. You could be cut off here in the middle of a battlefield. Trapped.'

‘There is no need to tell Maman of the message or what it means. Only that you are going on a visit to Balleroy and would like her to go with you. Tell her now, Papa. And Marie. You will need to leave early in the morning, before the roads become congested with troops being ferried to the coast.'

His shoulders sagged. He knew that to argue further was hopeless.

‘Is there anyone we should try and get in touch with?' he asked defeatedly. ‘Anyone we should tell about the message?'

She shook her head, ‘No, Papa. The people for whom the message was meant will have received it and will be acting upon it. Dieter ordered the evacuation of Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts a week ago. There is nothing that we can do but wait.'

He heard the tension in her voice and his heart went out to her. He knew that she was thinking about Dieter. The battle that they had longed for that was now imminent, was one in which the man she loved could very well lose his life. He sighed again. Nothing, not even the prospect of an Allied victory, was simple any more.

‘I'll go to tell your mother and Marie now,' he said awkwardly, not knowing what comfort he could give her. ‘With God's good help, this battle will be the last.'

She looked down at the map of France spread out on his desk. ‘I hope so,' she said fiercely, her hands clenching in the pockets of her skirt until the knuckles showed white. ‘With all my heart, I hope so, Papa.'

She slept very little that night. At two she heard the familiar and distant sound of bombs falling over Cherbourg. She waited, rigid, for the attack to spread. For more planes to fly across the Channel. They did not come. The bombers dropped their nightly load and returned to England, ack-ack guns firing in their wake.

Her parents and Marie left at seven the next morning. Lisette had expected Lieutenant Halder and his men to be tense with expectation, but the activity in the chateau's courtyard was no more hurried than normal. If they had been informed during the night that an attack was imminent, they were showing no signs of it.

‘Henri, I'm sure it isn't necessary for me to go with you,' her mother said protestingly as her father settled Marie and a large basket of eggs in the rear seat of the family's battered Citroen.

‘Nevertheless, my dear, you are coming,' Henri said firmly, glad that there was at least one female member of his family over whom he still had authority. ‘The Duboscqs have offered us shelter if we have to leave Valmy. It is only good manners that we should thank them for doing so.'

‘But Lisette will be on her own all day …'

‘Goodbye, Maman,' Lisette said, opening the front door of the Citroen for her and kissing her cheek, ‘Don't worry about me. I shall be perfectly all right.'

Her father slammed the rear door on Marie and looked across at her, his eyes anguished.

‘Please, Lisette … Change your mind. Come with us.'

‘No, Papa,' she said with the same firmness with which he had spoken to her mother. ‘I shall be perfectly safe at Valmy. And I shall be with you very soon. I promise.'

Her mother was winding down the window, looking up at her curiously, and Lisette knew that in another moment her suspicions would be roused. She stood back, flashing them a brilliant smile, waving cheerfully. ‘Goodbye Papa … Maman, Goodbye Marie.'

Her father stepped heavily into the driving seat and revved the engine. There was nothing more he could do. Her mind was made up and nothing on God's earth would change it. His responsibility was now to his wife. It was better that Heloise was at Balleroy and that Lisette had promised to join them there, than that Heloise, too, should remain at Valmy and run the risk of being caught in the middle of a bloody and murderous battle.

The Citroen, unused for nearly two years, creaked into life and rolled and jolted over the cobbles of the courtyard towards the stone archway that led out on to the linden-flanked drive beyond.

She waved until it had disappeared, as she had waved when Dieter had left. This time her isolation was complete. There was no one for her to talk to now. Not even Marie. She turned swiftly on her heel and walked quickly back to Valmy. Lieutenant Halder would know that her parents and Marie had left Valmy and that she was alone. It was not a pleasant thought. She wondered how long it would be before Dieter returned. He would have heard the message last night as she had done. With luck, he would be back by lunchtime, perhaps even earlier.

She made herself a cup of chicory and stood sipping it in the kitchen. Nothing that she had expected to happen was happening. There was no sign of alarm. No black staff cars screaming down the drive. No telephones were ringing. And lunchtime came and went, and Dieter did not return.

The turret room gave the best view over the windswept headland and the sea. She stood at the deep, embrasured window for hour after hour, but the Channel remained empty of ships, the waves heaving and surging with a heavy swell. Dusk fell and she returned to the kitchen and made herself an omelette and then, tense with expectation, she tuned the radio into the BBC London.

Through the whining and roar of static she listened to the news and then the familiar voice from across the Channel said in perfect French, ‘Kindly listen now to a few personal messages.'

Lisette sat on the floor, hugging her knees as message after message was broadcast and then at last it came. ‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn'. She waited, the breath so tight in her chest that she could hardly breathe. No second part came. The first line of Paul Verlaine's poem was repeated and then another, entirely different message, was broadcast.

She turned off the radio and let out her breath unsteadily. It hadn't come. Perhaps German intelligence had been misled. Perhaps there wasn't a second part to the message at all. Perhaps the message did not even mean what they believed it to mean. With her head aching, she walked back down the winding stone stairs to her own room. She had told her father that all they could do was to wait. And the waiting, for a little longer at least, would have to continue.

It continued for far longer than she had anticipated. All through the next long, lonely day, German activity continued as normal in and around Valmy. That night the message was broadcast again, as was a message for all French residents living along the coast: ‘You are urged to abandon your homes temporarily and move far inland to a safe place,' a solemn British voice intoned. ‘Repeat: you are urged …'

But Dieter did not return and the Germans at Valmy betrayed no signs of apprehension.

On the Sunday night there was a fierce storm. Tiles on Valmy's roofs were hurled to the ground. Gale-force winds rattled the deep-set windows and hurled sheet after sheet of rain against the leaded panes. Lisette lay in bed, listening to the roar of the distant waves in despair. A fleet could not set sail in such ferocious weather. It could be days before the Channel was calm again. And then the tide would perhaps be wrong for a landing. Dieter had told her that there was only a few days a months when the tide and moon would be right for the Allies. Was that why he had not speedily returned to Valmy? Did he know that in spite of the message a landing was impossible?

She pummelled her pillow and tried, once again, to sleep. It was impossible. He had left Valmy intent on speeding up Black Orchestra's plans to annihilate Hitler. In the three days that he had been away, he could have been arrested. Even killed. She had no way of knowing what was happening to him. She could only wait – and wait – and wait.

The next morning the sky was bright and clear with only the broken blossoms in the rose garden testifying to the ferociousness of the storm. She braved the hard, curious eyes of the Germans by walking round to the stables for her bicycle. There was no excuse now for bicycle rides, Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts was deserted. Only one or two farmers, obstinate to the last, had been allowed to remain, and that mainly so that they could still supply milk and fresh eggs to the militia. She wheeled her bicycle over the cobbles of the courtyard and through the archway on to the gravelled drive, expecting at any moment to be stopped.

Lieutenant Halder turned sharply in her direction, his eyes narrowing. She lifted her head high, her chin wilful. If he wanted to stop her he would have to do so physically. A private called out ‘Halt,' beginning to run towards her, but Halder barked out a restraining order and the private slowed to a standstill, watching hostilely as she pressed down on the pedals and skimmed away from them.

She had no intention of going far. She did not want to be away from Valmy when Dieter returned, nor did she want to miss any message that might come from him. At the far end of the drive she turned left, away from the village and towards the sea. She wanted to see for herself if extra troops had been posted. If the cuff tops were bristling with men.

She cycled as near as possible to the giant rolls of barbed wire that closed off the cliffs. Two soliders were squatting outside a pillbox, playing cards. Another was patrolling, keeping a lookout for any approaching officers. It was all very curious. There was no sign that tanks were being ferried to the coast. Or extra men. No sign of any extraordinary activity at all. Yet for three consecutive nights the message from London to the Resistance had been broadcast loud and clear. Why, then, were the Germans not in a state of high alarm? Was their confidence such that nothing could shake it?

Depressed and anxious, she cycled back towards Valmy. The day had grown hot and sultry. The storm of the previous evening had cleared nothing from the air. If anything it seemed even more oppressive. To the right of her the sea glittered, surging with a heavy swell, the waves creaming on the beaches, the steel spikes and bars that Rommel had ordered embedded in the sand, rearing skywards grotesquely.

If Hitler did not die … if the Allies came … Then Dieter would fight against them. He would fight, not for Hitler, but for Germany. He would be responsible for the deaths of men who were coming to free France. And he, too, would very likely die. The monstrousness of it all sickened her. She skimmed to a halt, wheeling her bicycle to the verge of the road and into the field beyond, throwing herself down on the grass.

Time: it was the one thing that they desperately needed and the one thing that they did not have. Time for von Stauffenburg to carry the bomb into Hitler's headquarters. Time for Rommel to assume the mantle of leadership. Time in which a peace treaty could be signed. Time in which the coming battle could be averted.

She blinked up at the sky and the scudding clouds, overcome by the terrifying certainty that time was not going to be kind to them. It was going to betray and defeat them. Minute by minute, it was leading them, not towards happiness, but towards disaster.

That evening, for the fourth time, she listened in, alone, to the radio. ‘It is hot in Suez … It is hot in Suez,' the voice of the announcer said clearly. ‘The dice are on the table… The dice are on the table.' She waited, her heart racing, and at last it came. The second part of the message that Dieter had told her would presage the invasion of Europe. ‘Wound my heart with a monotonous languor … Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.' She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and as she did so there came the sound of a powerful car approaching Valmy at speed.

She leapt to her feet, running out of the room and down the spiral stone staircase. It had to be Dieter. It couldn't possibly be anyone else.

She flew along the corridor to the head of the stairs. Distantly she heard the car doors slam; heard him wishing his chauffeur goodnight. There was no urgency in his voice. No strain. As she reached the head of the stairs he stepped into the huge, medieval hall beneath her and she knew, instantly, that he had heard nothing.