The moon silvered the sea. Nancy hadn’t had much choice about the “when” of this operation, but they’d been lucky. It was a clear night with just enough moon to follow the path to the beach without waving their torches around.
Antoine had brought them the message from a contact in Toulouse. A British submarine would creep along the coast, ready to take a crop of escaped prisoners off their hands by sea. The submarine could take up to fifteen men and would row to this beach to pick them up on this date, at this time, give this signal, wait for this response.
Then it was a matter of trust. That the message was genuine and hadn’t been garbled, that they had the right place, time and codes, that no one Nancy had spoken to as she contacted the men to be rescued and gave them their instructions on where and when to meet her had talked.
Oh, and that when the British said they could take up to fifteen men, they’d left a bit of wiggle room. Waiting in the dark at the edge of the beach with Nancy were twenty men who needed to get the hell out of France. They were British mostly, and a couple of American airmen, Iowan farm boys with an infectious sense of humor which made Nancy love them. Three of the Brits had been stuck in a safe house outside Montpellier for a week, talking in whispers and trying not to move around the apartment in case the neighbor, a definite Vichyist, heard them. Most of the others had broken out of a transit camp to the northwest. Nancy, Philippe and Antoine had expected six men through the wire, but news had got out in the camp and the rest insisted they get their chance too. The last man they’d picked up from a safe house in Marseille itself, though none of the houses seemed that safe since this man Böhm had arrived in town. The prisoner was called Gregory. He was a Brit with a French mother, and the English had parachuted him in behind enemy lines to help out the loyal French or something, but the Gestapo had grabbed him off the street in his second week. It turned out his contact in town had come to an understanding with the authorities.
He’d been a guest of the Gestapo for a month, until he’d taken a mad chance during a round of questioning, throwing himself from a first-floor window in front of his astonished guards. Somehow he’d managed to escape into the market crowd, and they saved him. One man gave him his cap, another his long blue coat which most of the farmers wore, another the clogs from his feet. The Gestapo officers who poured out of their headquarters in pursuit found their way blocked, accidentally of course, by confused stallholders, a fight over a heavily laden cart. The news of his escape got to the members of the Resistance still at large in the town, and he was scooped up and dumped in Nancy’s lap.
Gregory had mumbled this story out to her through broken teeth. Normally they would have sent him on the route out over the Pyrenees, but he didn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of making the walk. He was missing all the fingernails on his right hand, his ribs were cracked and his wrist broken. Every inch of him was purple with bruising. Nancy had no idea what to do with him other than feed him and keep him hidden until the message about the Royal Navy pickup came in. Praise the Lord. She fetched him herself, and they had strolled along the streets of Marseille, arm in arm, his broken face wrapped up in Henri’s scarf, his thin frame bulked out by one of Henri’s coats, peering out at the world from under the brim of one of Henri’s hats. They took the bus toward the coast to join the others and he thanked her. Quietly. Sincerely. Then he didn’t talk much.
Nancy checked her watch in the moonlight. Bloody Royal Navy were late. Not disastrous, they-are-definitely-not-turning-up late yet, but still late. How long could they wait here? How could she get all these men into safe houses before dawn if the British didn’t arrive? The coast here, east of Marseille, was rocky and steep, mostly limestone, which looked ghostly in the darkness. This small beach, fringed with wild sage bushes and pines, was one of the few places a boat could come in. She hoped nothing had gone wrong. If all had gone to plan a submarine was out there now, half a mile off shore, dark and silent, waiting to whip these men through the Strait of Gibraltar and back to Britain to rearm, regroup and re-join the fight.
“They’re late,” Antoine said softly at her shoulder.
“They’ll be here,” Nancy said firmly.
There was a rustle in the darkness and Philippe joined them. “Any sign yet? They are late.”
Jesus.
“Are you certain about the signal, Nancy?” Antoine asked. “Should we signal them?”
“Hold your nerve, guys, for fuck’s sake,” she whispered. “We’re not standing on the beach flashing torches at any German patrol which passes by. They signal us first.”
“Maybe the message was fake,” Antoine breathed. “What if the message was from the Germans? Easy for them to pick us all up then, prisoners, us and the famous White Mouse. All just sitting here on the shore like we’re having a moonlight picnic. God knows, the message came just when we needed it! Was it too good to be true?”
It had crossed her mind, of course it had. They’d all heard the rumors: Germans stealing radio sets and sending false messages back and forth to London and then scooping up Resistance fighters, prisoners, supply dumps, casually as kids scrumping apples in the orchards.
“If it were the Germans coming,” she said clearly now, and with angry precision, “they’d have bloody well been on time.”
Philippe grunted, but she could almost see his swift, reluctant smile.
“Fine, Nancy,” he said. “But you can’t tell me things aren’t getting harder. Major Böhm has picked off a dozen men I know about. How long until he picks up someone who knows about us? There are too many people involved now. That man Henri told me to talk to at the factory, Michael—I don’t like him. Too hot.”
“You’re complaining now the French are finally getting their shit together and fighting back?” she said. He was pissing her off now. “If Henri told you to talk to him, he’s fine.”
“Henri is a good man, but he’s romantic,” Philippe persisted. “He thinks every Frenchman is a Resistance fighter at heart. He doesn’t want to believe we have fascists of our own. One of those gendarmes we’ve been using your husband’s money to bribe is going to say something eventually. We shouldn’t have paid them to keep the road above us clear tonight. It would have been better to risk the police patrols.”
Antoine tutted, but Philippe was right. Which didn’t help. Antoine had made the decision and paid the bribe without even telling them. He swore he could trust the man he paid, a true French patriot, but if he was that much of a patriot why did he need paying in the first place?
“Nancy!”
She looked out into the darkness and saw it: the flash of a torch about a hundred yards off shore. Three quick flashes then one longer one. She clicked on her torch and pointed it out into the dark. Two longer flashes. She clicked it off again. Waited.
It seemed to take forever before she heard the shiver of the water, then the quiet shift of gravel on the beach as a wooden boat was pulled to the edge of the gentle surf. She went forward alone. The crew consisted of two oarsmen and a man she assumed to be an officer, all wearing the woolen trousers and canvas overalls of the local fishermen.
“Ready for the parade?” she asked.
“Mother sent balloons,” he replied. “God, are you English?”
“Australian. Long story.”
He nodded. It was not the ideal time to chat. “How many packages?”
“Twenty. One special delivery from the Gestapo, and Auntie sent extra from the camp. Can you take them all?”
He hesitated. Then spoke firmly. “We’ll manage. And sorry to be late, patrols have stepped up all along the coast. This route is not going to work in the future. Navy can’t risk a submarine here now to pick up escapees.”
She turned and waved the men in from their hiding places round the edge of the beach as she replied. “Bastards have made the Pyrenees route almost impassable too. Just hurry up and win the damn war, will you?”
“We’ll do our best.”
He nodded appreciatively as the men emerged in orderly fashion from their hiding places among the low undergrowth above the high-water mark and were helped into the boat.
“Good show, my dear.”
It seemed to take forever, the men coming two at a time. The officer was looking at his watch every five seconds. His men were shuffling the boys about in the rowing boat to make space for the last three escapees now. Gregory went in last, grabbing Nancy’s hand and squeezing it as he passed her. The crew men were hauling him in over the side when a light hit them from the coast road, a searchlight. Full beam. Then excited shouts in German above them.
“Time to go,” the officer said smartly.
One of his crew jumped lightly into the surf and he and the officer shoved off, forcing the overloaded boat back onto the water and into the darkness using their shoulders, their feet digging up great banks of wet sand and shingle.
Bullets started to sing and zip into the water beside them as they flung themselves in, the officer ordering them to pull hard.
Nancy turned tail for the woods as the edge of the search beam hit, praying it wouldn’t track her. It didn’t, thank Christ. They were after the rowing boat. In the shadow she caught sight of Antoine, lying on his back and firing up toward the searchlight.
Shit, was that barking? Please do not let them have dogs.
She dropped into a crouch among the wild sage bushes and twisted round to see how the navy were doing. They were still caught in the beam and at least one figure in the boat was slumped unnaturally in the stern. They were sitting ducks.
“Come on, Antoine,” she muttered between gritted teeth, watching him, not daring to move yet. Could she climb back onto the road? Get behind the patrol and take out the searchlight with her revolver?
Antoine exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. Glass shattered above them and the light faded.
“You little beauty!” she said aloud. “Now let’s get out of here, shall we?”
Not a moment too soon, as she could hear the shouts of the soldiers as they crashed down the slope toward them. They’d have rough going of it if they couldn’t find the path which twisted and zigzagged down to the water. Sharp falls and thorns. She hoped they broke their sodding necks.
Philippe grabbed her arm. One path was open to them going east along the shore and the three of them ran, heads down, hunching forward. Nancy could feel the terrible pulse of excitement in her blood. This was better than flirting her way through checkpoints. Her feet seemed to find their way along the narrow track without her needing to think. The bullets tearing past her in the dark really did make a sort of mewing sound, like tiny kittens. The thought made her giggle.
The patrol—it could only be an army patrol chancing this way rather than a trap or they would all be dead already—were still concentrating their fire on the retreating rowing boat, even though they couldn’t see it now, the idiots. She guessed only two guys were crashing through the tough grasses, juniper and laurel. Then the light of a torch swept across them from above. A shout and a shot. Nancy heard Antoine gasp, and she spun around as he crumpled onto the needle-thin track, only kept from rolling off the low cliff and into the water by a tangle of undergrowth, his hand on his side.
“Philippe, help me!” she hissed into the darkness, and she saw his shadow returning.
“Here! This way! They are getting away!”
The man on the path above them was answered by his colleagues. Philippe aimed at the voice and the light, pulled the trigger. The torch went out, clicked off neatly to prevent Philippe from finding his target, and the man called for his friends again. He sounded giddy with excitement.
Antoine pushed her away. “Go, Nancy!”
“Like hell, I will.”
She bent down to get her arm round his shoulders as Philippe shot blindly toward the voice again.
“Help me get him up,” Nancy said to him, but Antoine was too quick for her. He pulled his revolver from his jacket, a revolver Henri had paid for, a revolver Nancy had given to Antoine herself, put the barrel into his mouth and fired.
It happened so fast that Nancy could not even begin to understand it. She was still, too surprised to scream. Philippe howled and shot again into the darkness. More torches were approaching along the path above them. Then Philippe grabbed hold of her arm again, hauling her to her feet, and shoved her forward in front of him, loosing a couple more shots into the dark behind him. She stumbled. Suddenly her feet didn’t know what to do after all. What had Antoine done? That gun wasn’t supposed to be used on him. She’d given it to him to kill Nazis, not himself, stupid boy. She’d give him such a talking to.
“Move, Nancy!”
She carried on, her thoughts fractured and muzzy. How strange to be here at this time of night. How did she get here? How pleasant and terribly British that officer had been. Shouldn’t they wait for Antoine? Philippe jostled her forward until at last her thoughts began to reconnect, make sense. She began to run and she ran on until the sounds of pursuit faded and the only sounds she could hear were her own panting breath and the chirruping song of the cicadas.
They didn’t stop until the night became thick and silent around them.