The seventh of december, p.26
The Seventh of December, page 26
"We'd best collect our 'parcel'," Luc had said. Our parcel was Andrew, who had parachuted in late the previous evening and was being hidden by a small group of local maquisards.
As we drove, Luc and Andrzej playfully exchanged insults in Normand and Gascon. Andrzej's mother came from Bordeaux, half way between La Rochelle and Bayonne. He knew the coastal area south of La Rochelle very well, having worked there on a fishing trawler in his university holidays. He told us that, before the war, he and his mother had come to visit her parents every year.
Trying to smoke in a fast-moving touring car with the roof down was an exercise in futility - the airstream blew away more of the cigarette than we could smoke. That was why we'd stopped here, on the far end of the causeway at La Caserne, a mile from the ninth-century castle in the sea.
"Did you know that the Archangel Michael was supposed to have appeared to Saint Aubert here in the eighth century?" I said, to Shorty. "Michael would have loved to see Mont Saint-Michel."
"All the historical records were moved out late last year and stored just near Édouard's house at Saint-Lô," Andrew said.
Andrzej looked at him oddly. "Why do you mention that? Is it important?"
"Of course it is - it's important that we preserve Luc's heritage, Andrzej. The Germans won't win this war, and we'll need to know where they've stored everything they've stolen and then get it back to where it belongs. Hitler and Göring have been 'appropriating' art works from all over France for their own offices and houses; once this disgusting regime's over, and they're dead, it will be the duty of the victors to return stolen art to the French people."
I felt much moved while my Scottish friend said this. I could not help but nod vigorously in agreement. It was my view that not only were most of the leading Nazis thugs, but they were also vandals of the worst sort.
We spent the night in Nantes courtesy of Lieutenant Colonel Karl Hotz, the Feldkommandant of the town. The British military hierarchy, many of them aristocrats themselves, had tried to be careful when appropriating some of the nicer stately homes in the English countryside; the Germans were not nearly as subtle. The British requested them - the Nazis marched in, and then threw everyone out into the street. Hotz had installed himself in the Château des Ducs de Bretagne in the centre of town and entertained us in considerable style, even inviting Andrzej, our 'driver'.
Getting a room together had been simple. I merely mentioned that Shorty - 'Hauptmann Hofschreiber' - had been ordered to guard me during the night, as the Resistance's favourite targets were SS interrogators. I felt that the excuse was chancing my arm, but Hotz accepted it without question. They set up a camp-stretcher for Shorty in the corner of the room I had been assigned and we mussed it up before we got into bed in case we forgot in the morning. I had the foresight to tell the guard outside the door not to worry if he heard moaning during the night, as I was still suffering from bad dreams after my 'ordeal' in North Africa. I planned to put my sock in Shorty's mouth.
Dinner was delightful. Hotz was a career soldier, and as we chatted it became clear that he was obviously operating under duress, and in a position that he did not like. He told us that he had been working as a civil engineer in Nantes before Hitler invaded Poland - his posting as the town's Kommandant was ordered by the High Command, despite his wish not to accept it. He was very well educated, and offered to play the piano for me when I spied a beautiful violin in a display case in the music room. The violin was a delight, only needing a little tuning; it felt so wonderful in my hands that I nearly cried. Shorty had been right, of course - the time spent on my old QV instrument made this one impossibly wonderful to play.
At first I was extremely reluctant to pick it up in case the man had ever attended any of my concerts in Germany and might have recognised me. However, earlier in the evening we had done what any field operative would have done - teased out his past history. He told us he'd worked in Nantes since the 1920s, had returned to Germany in '38 and then had been posted back here due to his familiarity with the town. As I had never performed in this part of France, and he had returned to Germany after I left, it felt it safe to take up the instrument and play.
I was somewhat surprised when he returned from the library with pile of music, on top of which was a copy of Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata. I grabbed it with both hands, and could not help but press my cheek against the cover.
"Would you prefer something else?” he asked. “It's quite difficult for the violin."
I tried my hardest not to smirk, and vowed to myself that although I had memorised it years ago I would pretend to use the music when I played it. It was a piece in my concert repertoire and I knew it back to front; I had loved every note in the score for as long as I could remember.
His soft moan of pleasure as I played the opening four bars of the work was enough to tell me that the man was not just a piano player; he was a musician.
I experienced moments that I had never felt before when performing this work. Maybe it was the wonderful instrument, or Hotz's very skilled accompanying? However, I could have sworn that I produced a new level of sophistication that had hitherto been beyond my reach. Could it be that I was improving? It was more likely that I was in love, and more in touch with my feelings, and therefore also with the sound in my hands.
Hotz was genuinely moved and very excited after we finished the first movement. “Das darf ich kaum glauben! Wunderbar! Bravo!“ I politely refused to play anything else and reluctantly gave him back the violin. I should really not have drawn attention to myself while undercover, but the magnetic draw of that wonderful instrument, together with the chance to make music, had been too much to resist.
"I was to go to the Wiener Volkskonservatorium, but my father insisted I study engineering instead," he explained, after I had complimented him on his exceptionally fine playing - the piano part was indeed extremely demanding.
He sighed and studied his hands while speaking to me. I recognised the gesture; it was one that every professional performer knew only too well. We heard the accompanying phrase countless times - 'I could have been a… ' but for some ignorant parent who did not see the joy of music as a fitting livelihood. How much had been stolen from the world by the unfinished training of these embryonic performers? I felt quite sad for him.
To my surprise Shorty sat down at the piano to play and sing some German popular songs and operetta. When he finished with 'Wien, Wien, nur du allein', I almost forgot the war for the second time that night. The terrible futility of conflict, and the tragic madness that made otherwise sane, normal men kill each other in the most grotesque and cruel ways imaginable, was evoked by the sudden, loud and sustained applause from a small group of assembled officers and enlisted men who had gathered outside the open door to listen to our impromptu performance. I loathed the moments when I saw the human face of the enemy; it was almost too much to bear, because I could only do the things I did when I depersonalised them. Seeing their smiling faces, some with tears of homesickness in their eyes, was very hard to bear. I said my goodnights and headed off to bed.
I was genuinely sad to say farewell to Obersturmbannführer Hotz the next day. If people like him had been in command, instead of that manic Austrian, this stupid war would never have come about.
It took us about five hours to drive to La Rochelle.
We stopped outside town, at Les Grands Champs, to ask directions from an elderly woman with a handcart; Édouard had told us to make contact with the priest of the abbey of Saint-Hilaire. The woman curtly told us where to go - both in directions and in invective - and then spat on the ground as we drove off.
I tipped my cap to her.
Père Christophe nearly had a heart attack when he saw the four of us arriving in the Mercedes, dressed in our Nazi uniforms. It was only when Andrzej began to speak in Gascon dialect and Luc in Normand that he began to relaxed and listened to our story.
We stowed the Mercedes in one of the barns of the abbey, then changed into civilian clothes. There was a lot to reconnoitre in the town, and contacts to be made before we could approach the Kommandantur in our German uniforms. Père Christophe invited us into the refectory of the abbey so that we could talk about the German occupation of La Rochelle and its surrounding areas. Over a glass of decent local wine he explained that things were very complicated - there were two opposing groups of local Resistance fighters. Neither had any formal contact with England as far as he knew, and there was a struggle for control between the two leaders - men who held a long-standing animosity towards each other. There was no chance that they would work together, and both groups would remain disparate as long as these two were in charge. However, Père Christophe said he would make arrangements for me to meet with one of them in La Rochelle in the early afternoon, and offered us the use of his immaculate 1933 Citroën Coupé. He explained that his parishioners each donated a litre of gasoline every so often, so that he could drive around the countryside attending to their needs - and to do a bit of spying.
Some time later I sat in a café just near the church of the Saint-Saveur waiting for my contact to arrive.
"Bonjour," said the man who sat down at my table.
"Bonjour," I replied, deciding to speak with my mother's Alsace accent, rather than use cultivated French. I felt it would be friendlier. I introduced myself, substituting my mother's maiden surname in place of my own. "My name is Thomas Thiriot," I said, holding out my hand.
He said his name was Martin; he did not give me his full name, which I accepted as a precaution. He also did not shake my hand, but tilted his head, albeit with a sad smile. I understood what he meant - 'maybe later, when I know who you are'.
We strolled down to the harbour together chatting about the weather, the fishing fleets, even which mushrooms were in season, but avoiding the reason for our meeting. Despite the cautious way he spoke to me, I couldn't help noticing that he was naturally charming - every so often he let his defences down to unleash a flashing, genuine smile.
"It's quite odd, Thomas," he said. "I have the strangest feeling that I trust you already."
"You've no reason not to trust me," I replied, "and I have to confess that I trust you too." I caught a glimpse of 'almost-blond' hair beside one of the quayside stalls, and nearly stopped in my tracks.
"This way, Thomas," Martin said, indicating a narrow laneway that ran beside a boarded-up hostellerie.
He knocked eleven times, in an irregular, complex rhythm, at the door of a small house which lay hidden from the quayside behind the abandoned pub. I reckoned the knocks were to prevent anyone else who might be observing being able to repeat the sequence readily.
An old woman, probably in her eighties, opened the door and motioned us inside. The small room in which we sat was bare, apart from a table and three chairs. Once we were seated she leaned across the table and inspected me carefully before rattling off a series of questions about Strasbourg, first in Lorraine French and then in Alsace German. When I replied in Parisian French, instead of dialect, she slapped my hand, which made me grin.
"Very well, madame" I snapped. "It's obvious you're from Alsace too, but I have to tell you that your German's as rusty as plough left in a barn!"
"Well, you certainly are from Strasbourg," she said, laughing at my use of such an old-fashioned saying that was only ever heard in that city. "But that doesn't necessarily mean you are who you say you are."
I knocked eleven times on the table, repeating the exact rhythm Martin had used - being a musician with a good memory proved quite handy. At that moment, a door behind her flew open and a skinny, bespectacled, young man burst into the room, pointing a Luger straight at me. I stood slowly from my chair, my hands above my head, while trying to assess vantage points around the room.
"Count backwards from one hundred as quickly as you can," he said, to my astonishment in English.
I did what he said. He stopped me when I got to eighty with a gesture of his gun, and then shouted, angrily, "Now the alphabet, backwards too!"
"Alright,” I muttered angrily, under my breath, "don't do your lolly."
"Well, bugger me!" he said - and then laughed loudly, tucking the gun into his waistband. "Levi Samuels," he said, holding out his hand. "Ex-professor of English at Michel de Montaigne University of Bordeaux - originally from Collingwood in Melbourne; pleased to meet you."
"You're an Aussie?" I was past surprised.
"Too right!" he said, grinning as he shook my hand. "And I gather that you telling me 'not to do my lolly' means that are you too."
I nodded. "That's as may be, Levi," I said, "but unless you let me open the door my guess is that a very tall, angry American is going to burst in here any moment with a gun and start shooting."
He looked startled, but I reassured him and the older woman. When I opened the door, of course Shorty was outside, tensed and waiting. I told him to come in, and then introduced him to Martin and Levi.
"And whom do I have the honour of addressing," he asked, in his perfect, but strongly American-accented French.
The woman held out her hand, which he kissed. She looked as though she might swallow her dentures in surprise, but merely blushed and said, "You may call me Horloge."
"Clock?" Shorty asked.
"Yes, Clock," she replied, "because I know when it is the right time for everything." She tapped the side of her nose with one forefinger.
As we talked, I noticed that she could not take her eyes off Shorty; it was as if she was flirting with him and he played right along. After a short time, I knew they trusted us completely. "Mon dieu," she said, "how pleasant it is to talk in German to someone who is not a Kartoffelbauer."
"I don't speak like a potato farmer!" I protested. My German was perfect; maybe a bit of Bavarian slang every so often, but Berliner-correct.
"But he speaks beautiful, cultivated, preußisches Deutsch. True, he does speak French like a turnip… " she said, with wink.
I smirked, despite the grumpy look he gave me.
Levi had been telling me that the rounding up of the Jews in France had not started yet, but he had been dismissed from his post at the university with no notice. He told us that he had heard rumours of specialised labour camps in Germany and Poland for those of his faith.
"I left Munich in '38," I said. "On the seventh of December; and yes, it was because of Kristallnacht."
Levi nodded. "What were you doing in Munich?"
"I did my doctorate in European languages under Klaus Stoltenberg."
His face lit up almost incandescently with excitement, and he began to babble about Klaus's theories on Proto-Indo-European verb roots until Shorty, exasperated, butted in.
"You two can talk gobbledygook later, once we find out what's going on here and how it can help us."
"It's not gobbledygook," we both said, indignantly, at the same time. His eye-roll was spectacular.
Once Horloge's niece appeared from behind a closed door with a bottle and four glasses, the conversation became not only animated but much more informative. After I had explained our problem, Martin told me he would be able to help; but - and there was a big but - there was a major obstacle. Jérôme, the leader of the other Resistance group, was both extremely narrow-minded and paranoid. It was his group which had been hiding the three airmen who were now in captivity. They had been smuggled through the country by the Resistance, all the way from the Belgian border to La Rochelle. The locals had planned to get them onto a fishing boat at Mimizan-Plage, and then take them by sea to northern Spain, but someone had informed. While Jérôme was at work in the local munitions factory, the Germans had raided the hiding place and carted off not only the three English pilots but Jérôme's wife and sister as well.
"Then we'll have to try to rescue them too, if we can manage it," I said.
"There's one more problem," Martin said. "Jérôme's father and his two brothers were killed at Mers-el-Khébir. He's not going to like talking to a load of Englishmen; he won't even look at Levi, and he's an Australian."
The sinking of the French Mediterranean fleet at anchor in North Africa remained the cause of a great deal of anti-British sentiment in France, and wounds were still fresh nine months later. If Jérôme had lost three of his family, it would be difficult for him to look us in the face - even if Andrew was the only Briton among us.
"I found the whole sorry mess impossible to comprehend myself," I said. "Maybe when he hears that we intend to try to rescue his wife and sister he might be more amenable?"
"Maybe," Martin mused. "He finishes work at around four-thirty. I think you should wait somewhere nearby, and then, if he agrees, I can bring him to you."
"Did you get to meet the pilots?"
He nodded. "Two were Scottish and the other was from Canada, I think."
My heart sank a little at this news. "I don't suppose that you've heard of any other English pilots coming this way?"
Horloge interrupted. "There was one in, when was it? October, I think… "
That didn't rule Ffranc out; he had disappeared in September. Still, the chances were slim, I thought, cursing myself that before I left I hadn't scanned a log of the RAF pilots who had gone missing in action.
"He was in a terrible mess - shot in the leg." She shook her head. "He was trying to get to Lesaka in Navarre, if I remember correctly. He stayed here until just before Christmas when the other three arrived; then he just disappeared the same night, leaving a note to say that he was grateful, but four were too many to hide safely."
My ears shot up at the word 'Lesaka', as I knew that Michael and Ffranc had spent a week in the Basque country at the end of April in '39. "Did anyone keep the note?" I asked. "Has anyone still got it?"
