Blue madonna, p.16
Blue Madonna, page 16
“We couldn’t have gotten far without them,” I said. “But they didn’t seem focused on security.”
“I only hope they will wait for orders,” she said. A sputtering, wheezing engine interrupted her as an ancient Peugeot propelled itself down the drive, smoke billowing from the rear. “Don’t worry, it’s not on fire. It’s a gasogene engine, powered by wood gas.”
“That’s one way around fuel rationing,” I said. A large firebox was built onto the back of the vehicle, with pipes leading to the engine up front, where the gases apparently made the thing go. The light-blue Peugeot slid to a stop, grey smoke wreathing it as the engine continued to rattle. With the headlights directly behind the slanted grille and taped over to allow only a sliver of light to escape, it had the look of a smoking metal dragon.
I glanced toward the château, where a shadowy figure stood at a window, silhouetted by the glow of candlelight.
The driver stepped out of the car. She was dressed in a raincoat cinched tightly around a thin waist. Her hair was dark red, strands spilling out from under a man’s wool cap. Her eyes, bright and alert, were the best feature on a face that otherwise was unremarkable. Sonya introduced us, and Christine got right down to business.
“Weapons?” she asked. I wondered if she didn’t speak much English or was in a hurry to beat the curfew. Or if she was short on firewood.
“Five canisters,” I said. “Sten guns, pistols, grenades, explosives.”
“The wireless?” This she directed to Sonya, who shrugged.
“They say they can fix it. They also said that before they went to sleep.”
“Merde! Sergeant Boyle, we must have more weapons. We have many who want to fight, men and women.”
“Our wireless operator thinks he’s found the problem, but they had to get some sleep,” I said, giving Sonya a look. “They’re working now.”
“Good,” Christine said. “There will be more Germans soon. The Coudray group ambushed a German convoy, not long after your people blew up the train crossing. Major Zeller is setting up roadblocks everywhere. He is determined to catch the terrorists responsible.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
“Because he told me so in the library today. Come, get in.” She opened the rear door, moved boxes of books and a good-sized ax, and then pulled on the seatback cushion. It revealed a space about a foot wide running the length of the seat. “Most of the trunk is used for the wood. But there was enough room for this hiding place. It may be a little warm, but do not worry.”
I looked at the size of the space she wanted me to get into. I handed Sonya my helmet and Thompson, then took off my web harness with the extra clips and grenades. I still wasn’t sure I’d fit.
“You’re certain this is safe?” I said as I looked again to the château. The window was dark, the curtains drawn. I eased myself into the hiding place.
“If you wished for safety, you should have stayed in l’Angleterre, Sergeant,” Christine said with a hint of a smile as she slammed the cushion in place. “Do not move. Do not speak. I will say when it is safe.” Once again, I was in total darkness.
The automobile lurched off, pressing my body against the metal wall separating me from the firebox. I settled in, trying not to think about being locked in a crawlspace next to a hot fire, driven around by a woman who’d come from a friendly chat with Major Zeller, and that I’d left a lot of firepower behind. At least I still had my .45 automatic on my belt and the .38 Police Special revolver in my shoulder holster, both of which were digging into different parts of me.
The ride was slow and bumpy, and I guessed Christine was taking a route through the Forest of Dreux. The luminous dial on my wristwatch told me we had forty minutes until curfew, when anyone found outside would be shot on sight. A wood-burning rattletrap was sure to attract attention, so I prayed that Rouvres wasn’t too far away.
As we bounced along the bumps and ruts, I thought about how little we’d accomplished so far. A bum radio, a handful of supplies, and no opportunity to get Switch Blake alone to let him know his cousin was safe and sound. One dead body and no time to interrogate suspects. No chance to be alone with the woman everyone knew as Juliet, either.
One final rough patch, and we were on a smooth road, picking up speed.
Then Christine hit the brakes.
Voices. German voices. Christine answered, her voice light and airy as if she didn’t have a care in the world. I could make out her rapid-fire French, followed by slower-paced German. Then a male voice, asking questions, his tone stern and harsh. Christine responded, her voice cheerful as my heart beat faster and faster. I wanted to get a hand on my automatic, but I was afraid to move, certain that they’d hear the rustling of my clothes. I waited.
Finally another voice, this one pleasant, calling her by name, if I heard right.
Then a cheery “Auf Wiedersehen,” and we were off. I’d been worried about her chat with Zeller, but she got us through the roadblock, so who was I to complain?
A few minutes later we stopped again. Christine cut the engine and pried me out, her finger to her lips. “L’hôpital,” she whispered, giving a nod in the direction of the structure behind us. We were wedged in between two ambulances, both with the same gasogene setup. It was close to nine o’clock, and lights winked out in all three stories of the brick building. “Silence,” and then she darted off into the shadows, slinking along a line of cypress trees. I drew my pistol and followed.
We were soon into the woods, Christine clambering over the rocks and branches with ease as we made our way up a slope. She’d been this way before. Clouds blew across the night sky, shimmering bursts of blue moonlight shining through and creating strange, dark shadows, then fading away, like waves receding on a beach. We crested a ridge, the rolling countryside spread out before us, lit only by the intermittent moon.
“There, Coudray,” Christine said, leaning against a tree and catching her breath. “Can you see the church?”
“Yes,” I said, spotting the squat tower in the distance, past the folds of rolling fields. On the far side the forested knoll rose up, looking down on the village shrouded in inky blackness. “If that’s northwest, then that’s the hill where we hid the canisters.”
“It is,” Christine said, gazing along my outstretched arm. “We wait now. For the Maquis.”
“For Murat?” I asked.
“We shall see. Be patient, Sergeant.”
“While we wait, tell me what Major Zeller was up to in the library today,” I said, pulling up a piece of ground and stretching out my legs.
“Why, borrowing a book, of course,” she said, smiling as she sat next to me. “What else does one do in la bibliothèque?”
“Brushing up on his French literature, was he?”
“No, he knows very little French, and it sounds horrible. But he does like to read, and we have some English titles and quite a few books in German.”
“I’d have thought German books wouldn’t be too popular in a French library,” I said. “Especially since this is the second war with them this century.”
“Oh, I see. You are suspicious, yes? Because I have books for the Germans. You think I am a collaboratrice? A double agent, perhaps?”
“I was a police officer before the war,” I said. “I can’t help being suspicious. Of everyone.”
“As am I, Sergeant. Now about the books—when the Germans came, I searched everywhere for anything written in German. I hoped to do something, do you understand? I thought that if we had books in their language, some of the Germans would come to the library.”
“And chat with the friendly librarian, who also happens to be a spy?”
“Exactement! But I was not a spy when I started. I was afraid to approach anyone for fear they would turn me in. People thought Marshal Pétain, with his silly regime in Vichy, had saved the honor of France. But really they wanted to ignore what happened, to wish it all away and pretend to be normal. If you spoke against the Germans, you reminded them of what cowards they were.”
“How did you come to be involved with the Resistance? And with Juliet and Sonya?”
“I knew Sonya from Toulon. I saw her in town one day, and I could see I’d frightened her. Her father was English, you know. He had a shipping business in Toulon, and she grew up there. Of course, Sonya wasn’t her name at the time.”
“She thought you blew her cover,” I said.
“What?” She furrowed her brow, unsure of what I’d meant. “Oh, yes, her cover story. Bien sûr. When she told me I must forget about Toulon, I knew I could confide in her. I told her of my plan, and what I’d learned. Most of it was about military units in the area, who the senior officers were, where the headquarters were located.”
“So your plan worked?”
“Yes, but I was surprised that most of the information came from the enlisted men. Young boys who were lonely. I found a box of adventure novels at a bookseller’s. Many by Karl May, who wrote cowboy stories. The Germans love those, isn’t that strange?”
“This feels like cowboys and Indians,” I said, gazing at the fields and forest surrounding us. “I wonder who the Germans think they are.”
“They are savages, not at all noble. But I do listen to them. The young boys who are lonely, who miss their girlfriends and mothers, the ones too shy to speak to a French girl, the ones who want some kindness that reminds them of home. And they tell me their troubles. No leave because of invasion warnings. Sharing tight quarters with reinforcements. Transfers to the coast. Their officers, especially the harsh ones.”
“What about Zeller?” An owl hooted in the distance, its call answered seconds later, echoing against the distant hills.
“He fancies himself a cultured man. Not a member of the Nazi party, he’s reminded me more than once. Reads Thomas Mann, Rilke, Kafka, that sort of thing.” Christine squinted in the gloom, her gaze traveling across the open and empty fields.
“Have you learned anything from him?”
“That he is dangerous. He worries that he looks bad to his superiors. After all, the nearby networks were all destroyed. But he’s captured no one from this area. He said this morning he believes Dreux must have its own nest of spies. A desperate man is to be feared.”
Something rustled in the trees behind us, and I drew my pistol, not certain if it were a man or the breeze. I waited, catching Christine’s eye.
“The wind,” she whispered. “If it were the Germans, you would hear their heavy boots. If it were the Maquis, you would hear nothing.”
“Not the White Giant?” I asked.
“Oh, you know of the giant who haunts the Forest of Dreux? If it were he, you would see an unearthly white glow. My grandfather told me the giant will guide you underground, to the treasure house of the ancient Druids, where mounds of gold and precious stones are kept. He will tell you that you have all the time in the world to take what you wish. Which is true, because if you enter, he shuts the iron doors behind you, and you are entombed until the end of time.”
The leaves whooshed in the wind. I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder, feeling foolish that her story had given me a tingly feeling like someone was right behind me.
There was. I rolled, hand on my pistol.
“No, no, Sergeant,” Christine said, one hand covering her mouth in an unexpectedly girlish gesture as she laughed. “It is not the White Giant.”
“Il faut se hâter,” said the man with the Sten gun. He wasn’t a giant, but he was a big guy, and he wasn’t laughing. Christine took in the look on his face and stood, firing volleys of French at him too fast for me to understand a word. He’d said something about hurrying, or being in hurry, but that was all I got out of it.
Other figures stepped out from the forest. Christine had been right; they’d been yards away, and I hadn’t heard a thing. There were a dozen of them, drifting into a wide semicircle around us, watching the fields and the woods at our backs, while the big guy and Christine yammered at each other. Something was wrong. The group was silent and wary, clutching a variety of weapons, and ready to use them.
“We have little time,” Christine finally said. “We must get to the canisters quickly. Come.”
She broke into a trot, pulling me along as the men ran through the fields, grouped protectively on either side of us, the big guy close by. We ran through calf-high plants that smelled of onion as we crushed them.
“What’s happened?” I managed to say between breaths.
“One of the Résistants from the village has been captured,” Christine answered. “Cyril. He was with the group that met you.”
“Yes, I remember him,” I said. We slowed as we crossed a stream that divided the fields and made our way through the brush.
“He will talk,” she said. “He will tell them where the canisters are.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked before breaking into a run.
“Everyone talks,” she said as she led the men up the next hill. “It is only a question of when.”
I stopped asking questions.
The Resistance group from Coudray had used the weapons we gave them to attack a convoy. Cyril must have been captured during that attack, or another I didn’t know about. I felt responsible, since we gave him and his pals the guns, but he was an eager volunteer. Maybe too eager, which was pretty much the story with a lot of guys fighting and dying today on the Normandy beaches. I tried not to think about what was ahead for Cyril. Torture until he talked, followed by a Gestapo cell or a bullet. Either way, he was a dead man.
We ran a race against time, a race pitting our lungs and legs against Cyril’s stamina and willingness to suffer. There was no way to know if the race had already been won by the Germans, or if Cyril was neck and neck with death. The Germans would want to know about his group first. Names and locations. They might not ask about their weapons right away, but they’d get around to it. Sten guns meant supply drops, and the Krauts would want to know when and where. There was a chance our landing site would be compromised as well.
Christine signaled a halt. We’d reached a line of oaks that bordered one of the farmhouses at the edge of Coudray. A road led up the hill to where the canisters were hidden. To our left, the road forked, one lane going off into the woods and the other curving around the farmhouse on its way to the village. She held a whispered conference with the big guy, and in seconds one of the other men slipped off into the darkness.
“He is going to look,” she said. “What is the word? To go ahead and see?”
“Scout?” I suggested.
“Yes, he will scout. We cannot use the road in case the Germans have an embuscade, yes? Maurice is very quiet, a good hunter. He will see.”
“Was that Murat’s idea? Is that him, the big man?” I said, pointing to who I guessed the commander was.
“Yes, it was Murat’s idea,” she said, the wisp of a smile playing across her face as she watched the farmhouse. I might be slow at times, but I wasn’t stupid.
“You are Murat,” I whispered.
“Oui,” she said. “And if I die, there will be another.”
“You’re not the first?” She shook her head and held up three fingers. It made sense. Murat would never die. It gave people a hero.
We settled in for the wait, listening for any movement or the distant approach of trucks. Wind blew the clouds to the east, leaving the moon bright as a searchlight. Another owl hooted, and then one of the Maquis hooted back, a signal that all was clear from the look on Christine’s face.
Four of the men crossed the road and disappeared into the trees. We stayed in the woods on our side and worked our way up the hill, weapons at the ready, taking no chances. We found Maurice at the top of the hill, crouched at the side of the road, studying the downward slope.
He stood and shouldered his rifle. “Personne.”
“Zéro,” I said, remembering that personne meant no one. I’d picked up a few French phrases from the Canucks I’d rousted back in Boston, mostly French Canadians who’d had too much to drink on Saturday night, or gotten caught with stolen loot. Between that and what I’d learned in Algiers, I could make out a few words here and there, especially if they were about the black market, booze, or a good alibi. Personne was usually who could vouch for a proffered alibi.
“It seems we have beat the Germans, or that Cyril has held out,” Christine said.
“Let’s hope they don’t think he has any information. He’s just a kid, after all. Come on,” I said, heading into the woods near a fallen pine I recognized. I tried to find the exact spot where we’d hidden them, at the base of a lichen-covered rock, covered in branches. Having lost my bearings, I headed back to the fallen pine and almost stumbled over the canisters. They were all there, unopened. Cyril and his people had kept their promise, leaving the bulk of the weapons for Murat.
We got the canisters out to the road, where Christine gave the men their marching orders. They snapped to, taking up the canisters and heading down the other side of the hill, leaving us alone.
“We have a hiding place, an old cellar, not far,” she explained. “Thank you for leading us here. The arms will be well used against the Boche, believe me.”
“I do. What next?”
“We walk back to l’hôpital,” she said. “I hide you there for the night. They are used to seeing me stay after curfew, so it is not dangerous. Not so much anyway.”
With that cheery qualification, we took the road back, staying in the shadows cast by the silvery moon. The landscape was silent, the only sound coming from our heels hitting the road.
Until we heard the engine. Grinding gears and tires on gravel, coming from the forest lane near the farmhouse. We bolted for the oaks, taking cover at a spot that gave us a clear view of the fork in the road.
