Just post-dawn, with the sun coming up out of Germany and gilding the round-topped mountains. It looked clear up there, those balloon-tops already hard-edged, although at this level mist still hung like smoke. Rosie adding her own small quota to it – smoke from a Caporal: all right, Occupation-type Caporal, naturally, with probably as much sawdust in it as tobacco, but still a smoke – courtesy of Marie, who’d be reimbursed eventually by ‘F’ Section SOE for all of this, and not least for the risk of her own and her father’s life.
Rosie had told her ten minutes ago, when leaving the kitchen to get herself ready for departure, ‘I’ll never forget you or Thérèse, Marie. Or cease to be grateful to Michel…’
‘Give him my regards, when you see him?’
She wasn’t sure she would be seeing Michel. Or even that he was still alive. Marie was simply assuming that he was, that he must be. So OK, share that faith… But Marie’s telephone call had come from Luc and had said nothing except that this priest, Father Gervais, would be coming to fetch her. Hadn’t even said that – only that he’d be passing, fetching some woman who’d been staying with cousins in Colmar but whose ancient mother was dying and asking for her, and Luc had told him the Destiniers were good friends and very hospitable, would surely give him/them a meal and a bed for the night. It hadn’t been necessary to say more – there was only one way it made any sense. Father Gervais had duly arrived – last evening, and stayed overnight; it was for him that Rosie was waiting now in the yard. He’d been out here before breakfast, to flash up the charcoal burner on his gazo: she could see the red glow of it over there, beside the barn. The gazo belonged to some well-heeled parishioner who often allowed him the use of it, he’d told them. Parish of Dieuze, forty kilometres east of Nancy, on the road from here to Metz. That was how he’d put it: whether it meant they’d be taking her on to Metz she didn’t know, but it had sounded like it. Made no odds, she was in their hands – for the time being, in this padre’s – and she didn’t have to know – beyond the fact that she was now Justine Quérier, and had papers to prove it. She’d memorized the details – date of birth, home address – her mother’s – mother’s name Hortense – et cetera. The scars on her forehead were attributable to her having been injured in Rouen in an air-raid: she’d had a teaching job in Rouen at that time, but since sustaining the injury to her head that night she hadn’t been able to concentrate too well.
The real Justine was deceased, a former resident of Sarrebourg, where she’d been a teacher in kindergarten. (Ostensibly – fictionally – before moving to Rouen, of course.) Height and weight were all right – roughly – but for the date of birth, which also matched Rosie’s approximately, grey hair was definitely wrong. Her scarf would cover it, as long as she was careful, but if she was going to have to rely on these papers for any length of time she’d have to bleach and dye herself back to normal. A bit of a toss-up either way: she felt she needed the grey hair. While the photo on the identity document was a bigger and more immediate problem: would have been fairly miraculous if it had resembled her at all: and it did not. The most fundamental difference was that Justine’s face had been fat, with virtually no bone-structure visible, and the only solution or partial solution – arrived at in discussion last night between Rosie and Marie – had been to put padding in her cheeks, strips cut from an old shirt and folded over and over into wads.
She still didn’t look like Justine. Different, certainly: not much like Rosie Ewing either.
A voice behind her: hand on her shoulder: ‘Keeping you waiting, is he?’
Otto Destinier – Marie’s father. Jerking his head back towards the kitchen, referring to the priest: Rosie moving out of the doorway, not only making way for him but having learnt to keep a certain distance. He was in his sixties, tall and stooped: clearly it was from him that Marie had inherited her hop-pole figure. Rosie had made friends with him during her few days here by taking an interest in his vines and wine-making equipment and techniques: old oak barrels which he’d said his grandfather had used, for instance.
‘Early to work, M’sieur?’
‘No earlier than usual.’ He had a pipe going, with tobacco in it that he’d grown himself. A lot of tobacco was grown around here, apparently. ‘But it’s high time you and Monsieur l’Abbé were on the road.’ Thin smile, then: thin face, sparse grey hair, blue eyes – which his daughter had not inherited. Poking at Rosie’s arm with a gnarled forefinger: ‘Be sure he keeps his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel, eh?’
Imagination stemming from his own inclinations, no doubt. And for ‘smile’, read ‘leer’. Like an old goat – truly not unlike one, and regarded locally as pro-German. Marie had surprised her with this information when discussing arrangements for getting the two RAF men away – Bob, who’d been the Halifax’s flight engineer, and Arnold its mid-upper gunner. They’d left on Saturday in the van, sharing the back of it with a dozen twelve-week-old lambs – Marie’s third delivery trip in the course of the weekend. In reference to the chances of being stopped and searched she’d told Rosie that, thanks to some well-publicized remarks attributed to her father in the early thirties, both he and she were regarded by the Boches as ‘V-männer’ – Vertrauensmänner – meaning trusted people, French pro-Nazis. Otto Destinier’s mother had been German – hence the name he’d been christened with – and a decade ago he’d gone on record as saying that Adolph Hitler was the sort of man they needed in France, the country being stiff with Jews and bolshies, and so forth. He’d changed his views since then – Marie had added, if they’d ever been his views, not just ill-judged self-advertising when he’d been standing for the office of president of some wine-growers’ association in which the Germanic element had been numerous – but some of the local people of French origin, the Destinier family’s natural friends and associates, were still wary of him.
‘In some ways it’s advantageous. For instance, this business now – if they’re searching—’
‘Won’t come here?’
A shrug. ‘Can’t guarantee they wouldn’t, but on the other hand we aren’t automatically regarded as suspect – despite our French blood. So as far as other French-origin Alsaciens are concerned – you can imagine—’
‘When the Boches are kicked out, will you have problems?’
‘No. Or anyway not for long.’ She’d pointed to the blue- hazed mountains. ‘Plenty up there, who’ll put the record straight. And plenty down here who’ve done damn-all, who’ll have that to answer for. Resistance friends elsewhere too – in particular, I might say, the man I telephoned, who passed my message on to Luc. He carries weight, that one.’
Michel’s ‘associate’, no doubt.
Old Destinier had stooped, giraffe-like, kissed her cheek. Stubbled face, rank tobacco smell. ‘Leave you now. I’ve already taken my leave of Monsieur l’Abbé. I wish you a safe journey and a long and happy life, Mam’selle Rosalie.’
‘I can’t thank you enough – you and—’
‘Thank her, not me. Adieu…’
Shuffling away, as the others came out. Marie was carrying the priest’s small bag of personal effects, since he was laden with bottles of the previous year’s Destinier Riesling. Marie told Rosie, ‘Half of that’s for Luc – or Michel, or both.’
Rosie smiled at the priest: ‘Isn’t she kind?’
‘One of her virtues, surely.’ He was about Rosie’s age: anyway not more than thirty. Slim, of average height, with a rather long, pale face, humorous mouth and eyes. Taking his bag from Marie, carrying it and the wine over to his gazo; the dogs were snuffling around. Rosie picked up her basket – right-handed, still wearing the sling, although the time might have come to discard it now. ‘You’re very efficient as well as kind, Marie. To have arranged this so quickly—’
‘Luc’s doing, not mine.’
‘Those others weren’t. The aviators. And you did set this up.’ She shook her head. ‘The one really awful thing is Thérèse; if you do get word of her—’
‘I’ll pass it along.’
The priest had conducted a Mass for Thérèse, last night. Since the Gestapo had taken her there’d been no news at all. Marie had paid a neighbourly call down there on the Friday evening, had found nephew Charles coping all right but knowing nothing beyond the fact that the place had been ransacked and his aunt had been arrested.
‘Well – first thing he found was the dog’s corpse in the yard.’
‘Oh, God, I should’ve buried it, or—’
‘How could you, you had to clear out quick.’
‘But poor Charles!’
‘Don’t worry. He’s no softie. Got his head screwed on, that kid.’
He’d found the place deserted except for hungry animals and an unmilked cow – on the Thursday evening – and next morning his mother had called at the police station, where they’d only confirmed that her sister had been taken into custody by ‘the military authorities’. Marie had let the boy believe this was the first she’d known of it. But she’d be going back down there this evening to see if there was anything she could do – might for instance bring the cow up here so at least he wouldn’t have the milking chore. He’d have more time soon anyway, with school holidays starting in about a week.
She said quietly – about Thérèse – while Father Gervais was busy with the gazo, ‘If they decide they’ve reason to keep her – or send her away—’
‘Please God they won’t.’
‘– if they do, they’re liable also to burn her place down. It’s happened before – teach the rest of us a lesson… But her best hope may be that they’ll soon be racing to put the Rhine between themselves and us. Unless they try to hold the mountains. My father thinks they will. They’re thick enough on the ground in the valley here, God knows, he may be right…’
There’d been good news, over Swiss radio. The Americans had smashed their way through at St Lô – on the Tuesday, and the day after – Wednesday 26th, the day Rosie had arrived here, limping into this yard at about three in the morning – they’d taken Coutances, which according to the commentator was a major strategic gain.
Crossing her fingers. Still a hell of a long way from here. Something to be said for that, too: Boches still in Paris, Gestapo presumably still in Rue des Saussaies, ‘Hector’ – touch wood – not yet gone to ground.
A shout from the priest: ‘Are you ready, Mam’selle?’ He had the engine running: then the gazo rolling out. Father Gervais braking, then leaning over to push the passenger door open. ‘All aboard!’
They came up the winding mountain road into a sudden blaze of sunshine – then plunged back into forest. Sun breaking through again intermittently as the road cut to and fro. Roller-coaster country, with impressive views occasionally where the trees thinned or drew back briefly from the unpaved, winding road. More a track, in fact, than a road. Father Gervais had a pencil sketch of his route, with notes and names of villages: one called Villé, they’d just passed through.
‘Pretty, eh?’
‘Yes. But – so different…’
‘You mean Germanic?’
‘I suppose. I was thinking Austrian – even Swiss.’
‘You could be right. The carved sign on that inn, for instance… Life’s hard up here in winter, I’m told. Did you notice how the houses have their backs to the road, open into their own small courtyards?’
‘Yes – I suppose so… But you’ve been over these mountains before, have you, Father?’
‘Not for years. And not this part, even then. No –’ touching his crumpled map – ‘without our mutual friend Luc’s guidance, we’d be nowhere.’
‘D’you know him well?’
‘No. Not well. You?’
‘I’m not sure I’ll even recognize him when I see him. If I’m going to. Even Michel – whom you don’t know well either, I heard you tell Marie.’
‘Getting round to the question you really want to ask, how come I’m involved with these people at all – eh?’
‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘One’s curious, naturally.’
‘And the answer’s simple. If a blacksmith can be a résistant: if a baker or a bank-clerk can be – and if priests can serve in armies, in uniforms of sorts?’
‘Of course… But do your superiors know about it?’
‘Would the bank-clerk’s branch manager know?’
She shrugged. ‘Only if he was involved too, I suppose. Obviously you’ve been asked such questions before.’
‘May I ask some of you?’
‘Why not? Long drive ahead of us, after all.’
He’d taken a right turn on to an even narrower, rougher track. They were up high, by this time. Glancing at her… ‘I think first I’ll yield to temptation, and accept the smoke you offered me. Mine are in my case behind us – as I don’t usually smoke before midday, I thought I wouldn’t—’
‘No excuses are necessary, Father. I’m dying for one.’ She fingered two of Marie’s Caporals out of the packet, and gave him one. For the past hour or so she’d been resisting the temptation, under the impression that he was a non-smoker and might prefer it if she didn’t. But a box of matches had materialized in his nearer hand. ‘If you wouldn’t mind—’
‘Of course.’
He explained, ‘Going this way – from that last turn, if you noticed – not much of a road, but –’ leaning over to the match, then back again – ‘thanks. If we’d held straight on, the way I came yesterday, we’d end up passing through a village called Rothau – just south of Schirmeck – where in the first place they were stopping everyone – all right, may not be doing so now, and nothing so very alarming about it even if they were—’
‘And in the second place?’
He glanced at her, looked away again. Expelling smoke… ‘Going this way instead – avoid Rothau, that’s all.’
‘But what in the second place, Father?’
‘Well.’ Shift of gear. ‘If you insist…’
‘I don’t, if it bothers you so much.’ The explanation hit her, then: she nodded. ‘Natzweiler’s somewhere around here, of course.’
He’d grimaced. ‘Sooner not have mentioned it or gone near it. Rothau’s the station for that place, though, and it’s – very picturesque.’
‘Christ.’
‘Well – I should take you to task—’
‘Yes – I’m sorry—’
‘– but in the face of that…’ He’d paused. Shaking his head. ‘There’s also a stone quarry – right beside the road – in which they work their prisoners to death… But listen, now – by way of changing the subject. Dress-rehearsal – imagine they’ve stopped us, I’m a German quizzing you. I’ve taken your papers, I want the answers off pat – OK?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Name?’
‘Justine Quérier.’
‘Address?’
‘Sarrebourg. Well – Souillac, Rue Celeste.’
‘Place and date of birth?’
‘Sarrebourg, 1917 – November 13th. About a year older than I really am, therefore.’
‘Father’s name and occupation?’
‘Joseph Quérier, post-office clerk. Mother Hortense Quérier, née Lebarque. She’s dying, she sent you to fetch me.’
‘Didn’t send me. As your curé and your mother’s, I came, that’s all. What were you doing in Colmar?’
‘Oh – staying with a cousin. For – a rest… In fact near Colmar, not right in it. At home I’ve been looking after old Mama, you see – since a house fell on me, in Rouen…’
‘House fell on you: I like that. Not trying to amuse, either.’ A nod… ‘You’re an actress – as well as whatever else… So – a question you would not answer, if a German asked it. Are you a very experienced agent?’
‘Agent?’
‘You said I could ask questions.’
‘There are questions and questions, Father.’
‘Well.’ The cigarette – what was left of it – waggling between his thin lips, ash scattering over one lapel. ‘I’ll try a different approach. What drives you?’
‘Drives me?’
A nod. ‘Question perhaps more to your liking. I thought – less technical, more personal.’
She drew on her cigarette. ‘Still not an easy one to answer.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have had it settled it in your mind from the outset. You’d have volunteered – effectively to live and work under constant threat, extreme personal danger, twenty-four hours a day?’
‘You make it sound –’ She checked herself: ‘I mean, it’s not always—’
‘Is the driving force simply patriotism?’
‘I love France – certainly.’ She shrugged. ‘And I hate Germans. And they have to be defeated, so—’
‘Hate them for what they’re doing to France?’
‘Yes – and to us. Well – we are France.’
‘You don’t hate them simply for being German – like not liking cats…’
‘It does come down to that, though. What they do becomes what they are.’
‘Except some might only be doing what they’re forced to do, they’d be shot if they didn’t?’
‘Would you do disgusting things to people if you were told you’d be shot if you didn’t?’
‘I hope not. But if I came from an entirely different background – if I hadn’t been imbued from an early age with certain ethical standards, moral precepts—’
‘They’re supposed to have those standards too, surely. It’s one of the things that sicken me. They actually go to church, call themselves Christians!’
‘They’ve had other ideas drilled into them more recently. What they’d call patriotism and don’t see as conflicting with their religion. Well, of course, they’ve accepted the doctrine of violence and their own superiority far too readily – a defect that is in their blood, maybe – in your own view, what they are, therefore… Have you seen – you personally, Rosalie, at first hand – examples of the sort of brutality – what you called disgusting things—’
‘Very much at first hand.’
‘Really.’ He was following her example, squeezing his cigarette stub into the dashboard ashtray. This had been a very luxurious automobile, in its day. Dashboard of bird’s-eye maple, for instance. Glancing at her again: ‘You’ve faced torture, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘And not given way?’
‘Actually, not. But on one occasion – to tell you the absolute truth, if it had gone on a minute longer—’
‘But it didn’t, and you did not give way.’ Looking at her: she’d shaken her head. He was watching the road again: ‘You can thank God for your strength then. Be proud of it, too – and my admiration is unlimited, Rosalie – but as I say—’
‘I would have given way. Another few seconds.’
‘What was at stake? It was an interrogation, obviously—’
‘They wanted names and addresses, mainly.’
‘Which you did have?’ He saw her nod. ‘Of résistants?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’d then have been arrested, I suppose.’
‘Shot, or sent to the camps. Tortured first – for other names.’
‘I wonder if you would have given in.’
‘Yes, I would have. I’m not going to tell you what they were doing—’
‘My guess is you might not have.’ Looking at her again: several quick glances between her and the twisting road ahead. ‘I think it’s conceivable that you wouldn’t. With those other lives at stake – don’t you think – when the moment came you might have found you couldn’t – however much you wanted to?’
‘No. Much as I’d like to say “yes” to that. There’s a point at which pain – and terror of even worse pain – and mutilation – unless one’s lucky enough to faint, of course—’
‘Ah…’
‘Answer me a question, Father?’
‘Go on.’
‘If a German – say Gestapo, but any of them – came to confession and told you of unspeakable things he’d done—’
‘It would depend on the genuineness or otherwise of his contrition. Of course you realize that fewer than half of them are Catholics – besides which, they have their own military padres—’
‘If this one said he was very sorry and he’d never do it again, tra-la, you’d give him absolution?’
Tight-faced, staring at the road ahead. Working his jaw-muscles, she saw, like pulses. Glancing round at her then: ‘Give me another cigarette?’
Over a crest, a few kilometres after passing through another village. Then a left. The sun was high and hot: downhill now, the narrow road cut like a furrow into wide-open slopes curving down to blueish woodland. Cattle were grazing: further back there’d been sheep daubed with paint. In forest again then, the heavy green meeting overhead, shutting out the sky. The road was even more twisting than it had been, with several especially sharp bends. Near the bottom of this bit, Father Gervais told her, they’d be joining a road coming from the village that he’d avoided and bringing them to Schirmeck.
‘Where we turn west, to the Col de Donon. Steep drop then.’
He hadn’t been talking much, in the last few kilometres. Might still have been grappling with her question about the granting of absolution to torturers: pondering either the question itself or perhaps her brashness in challenging him with it. He had – or was supposed to have – his cast-iron certainties, and she had her – all right, prejudices. Even if, to her, they amounted to certainties. And right now, he was helping to save her life. Which wasn’t a small thing. As she’d pointed out to the two airmen, Bob and Arnold, when they’d been grousing about being cooped up for so long, complaining that they might almost as well have just hoofed it, travelling by night and hiding by day in ditches, making towards Normandy and the Allied lines – she’d pointed out to them that if they were caught by the Boches, they’d only need to show their service identity discs and they’d suffer no worse fate than being shipped off to a POW camp, whereas any French man or woman caught helping them would be put against a wall and shot, or beaten to death in the course of interrogation, or consigned to some resort such as Buchenwald or Natzweiler. Also the fact that for every escapee who made it back to England via an escape line, an average of twelve to twenty French people would knowingly have accepted that risk.
She hadn’t told the boys in blue who or what she was. To them she was only a French woman who happened to speak perfect English.
Father Gervais was crushing the stub of his second cigarette. He’d just shifted up another gear: they were climbing again, after that long sweep down through forest. He glanced her way, found her eyes on him and cocked an eyebrow: ‘All right?’
‘Yes. But one thing I’d like to say – while it’s in my mind—’
‘Go on, then.’
‘Only that I’m very conscious of the risk you’re running – for a total stranger, at that. One tends to take such things for granted, I’m afraid.’
‘Should be able to. We’re on the same side, after all. Now I’ve got something to say too. We have Marie’s bread and cheese in the back there, but at the present rate of progress we’ll be in Dieuze by about midday. So we’d better eat lunch quite early. All right with you?’
‘Perfectly all right. We did start early, didn’t we? But do you and I separate at Dieuze?’
‘Yes. That’s the plan.’
In Schirmeck there was a road-block, at the junction. Striped poles blocked off the right-hand half of the road from each direction, with two French gendarmes at each barrier and a Wehrmacht truck with helmeted soldiers in it parked opposite the turn-off.
‘Don’t be anxious now, Justine.’
‘Well, of course not…’
Except for a familiar hollow in the gut, damp palms, accelerated pulse-rate. Just normally accelerated, not going crazy. Despite the fact she’d been through about a hundred checkpoints before this, but never with papers as flawed as Justine Quérier’s. Also, desperate to adjust the headscarf, restraining herself only with difficulty from what might seem a display of nervousness. She had discarded her sling, thank God, pushed it under the seat soon after they’d started out. Father Gervais bringing the gazo to a halt – both front windows were already wound right down – and one of the pair of gendarmes from the barrier in front of them approaching the driver’s side. Checking the registration plate on his way.
Stooping at that open window.
‘Your papers, Father?’
‘Of course. I should mention this vehicle is borrowed, not my own.’ Extracting his and presumably the gazo’s documentation from a wallet. A smile at Rosie: ‘He’ll want to see yours too, Justine.’
‘That’s a fact. I will.’ A small, polite smile revealed a gap in his front teeth. He also had a little moustache that might have been pencilled on, sticking-out ears and close-cropped hair greying at the temples. There was no traffic anywhere within sight or sound, no pedestrians either. This gendarme’s partner was leaning against the wall at the corner, picking his teeth or nose, and the other pair were chatting to the Boches in the truck.
‘What’s the purpose of your journey, Father?’
‘Collecting this young lady from relations near Colmar, bringing her home to Sarrebourg. Her mother’s very ill.’ He dropped his voice. ‘In fact, dying. And this one isn’t – well – isn’t entirely—’
Facing this way, she could only guess at his expression, but the gendarme was looking sympathetic. Father Gervais accepting his papers back. ‘Now your papers, Justine.’
The tone you might use to a child; but the gendarme cut in with, ‘We won’t bother with those.’ Quick shake of the head, and Father Gervais looking at him in surprise; Rosie with her papers already held out in that direction, not having heard what he’d said but suspecting the scarf had shifted, might have uncovered the scar over her ear – so obviously from a bullet – might also have revealed grey hair, while Justine Quérier’s age was shown in her papers as – what, twenty-seven. Father Gervais had put his hand on hers, pushing it and the papers back on to her lap: ‘He doesn’t want to see them.’ Nodding to the gendarme then: ‘Thank you.’
Straightening, touching the peak of his kepi. ‘Drive on, Father.’
From Schirmeck to the Col du Donon was about ten kilometres, all of it at that high level: the village of Donon itself then, before the nose-dive to the plain, a drop of maybe a thousand metres in what seemed like no time at all. Several more sharp turns at the bottom put them on the road to the next village on Luc’s list – Abreschviller.
‘Sounds German.’
‘Not unusual, in these parts. But long before that, there’s a bridge over a river—’
‘The Meurthe?’
‘No. The Meurthe is – back that way. About twenty-five kilometres, I’d guess, to its nearest point. This is quite a small river – where the bridge is, anyway. May I think be a tributary of the Sarre. As in Sarrebourg?’
‘Right.’
‘Does the Meurthe mean something to you?’
‘I knew it was – hereabouts, that’s all.’
Where the train had stopped and she’d made her short dash, where Lise might or might not have gone into the river. Somewhere – Rosie had worked it out with Thérèse – on the Nancy side of Baccarat, probably. But that question about Lise: she’d lived with it for a month, almost dreaded having an answer before much longer.
Because it wouldn’t be a good answer.
Father Gervais continuing, ‘Anyway – near that bridge might be a good place to stop and have our snack. And I can replenish with charcoal.’
There was a sack of it, he’d mentioned, in the boot. Into which, incidentally, the gendarme hadn’t even glanced. Might have been full of Sten-guns – anything. Zeal fading, maybe, with Allied armies breaking out of Normandy? She touched bird’s-eye maple, asked, ‘How far to Dieuze?’
‘From Abreschviller –’ consulting his notes – ‘on the small roads we’ll be using – about forty kilometres. From here – say fifty. Hour and a half, maybe.’
‘And you remain there, do you – in Dieuze?’
‘No. You do.’ Quick smile: ‘Only as a staging-point, don’t worry.’
Heading near enough due north now, she guessed. They’d stopped at the bridge, got the bread and farmhouse cheese out and made manageable sandwiches of it, he’d topped up the charcoal burner, they’d each made a short promenade – in opposite directions – through the wood. Then got started again, eating as they drove.
Abreschviller – after about twenty kilometres. Then Lorquin: and over a canal, taking a back road into Sarrebourg – which wasn’t as large a place as she’d expected – turning left in the centre of it, over the river Sarre and then out northwestward, another winding lane that seemed to go on for ever. Only farm traffic on it. He was staying clear of main roads of course, where checkpoints were more likely: was well aware – admitted it now, hadn’t earlier – that Justine Quérier’s papers wouldn’t have stood up to very close inspection.
‘But I keep them when you leave me in Dieuze?’
‘Might as well. Luc’ll get them back to me. By the way, I should apologise for giving that gendarme the impression that you might be brain-damaged?’
‘Perfectly all right. Might adopt the idea myself, in fact. As long as I’m looking as I am, anyway.’
‘As you are?’ Glancing at her curiously. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘All scars. And tufty grey hair. Sort of – demented.’
‘But that’s nonsense. And I assure you, the scars aren’t as noticeable as you may imagine. And since your hair’s covered by the scarf – you dyed it grey, Marie mentioned…’
He was looking at her mouth: and quickly away then, at the road ahead. Men did tend to focus on her mouth; Ben had referred to it once as her I’ll-eat-you-alive mouth. But in her present state – and from a priest?
Marie might have told him that she was sensitive about her changed appearance. Morale-building exercise? Imagining that strange-looking woman murmuring to him, Look, Father, if you get a chance…
Wouldn’t put it past either of them.
Crossroads, finally, at a place called Espérance; they were turning left, westward, having been on that road from Sarrebourg for about twenty kilometres; it would be another ten from this point to Dieuze, he said. She put her head back, closed her eyes, thinking about Michel and Luc and the next stage, getting in touch at last with ‘F’ Section. Which would lead to Ben hearing she was alive – probably. If he’d been given reason to believe she might be dead… In any case a huge improvement would be that one way or another she’d be on the move, at last. A month had been far too long to be helpless, making virtually no decisions for herself. Not given to self-analysis, she hadn’t appreciated until now how much she needed to have the reins in her own hands – how she always had, until just recently.
Well – for quite some time. Since Johnny had been killed, and meeting Ben, and joining SOE…
‘Rosalie?’
Michel’s voice…
‘Uh?’
Stirring: as a front wheel thumped jarringly through a pot-hole. Not Michel’s voice, nothing like it. Father Gervais’s – telling her, ‘Dieuze. We’re here. Wake up, Rosalie!’
‘I was dreaming…’
‘I know you were.’
But how could this be Dieuze already, when only a few minutes ago – or so it seemed—
‘River down there is the Seille. Rises near here, flows right up through Metz, in fact it joins in with the Moselle there… But I’ve turned off the road we were on, d’you see – that one continues west to Nancy. And here now, around this corner – oh, hold on…’
Two Feldgendarmes, Boche military police, watched the gazo as it swung around the bend. Field uniforms, boots, caps not helmets, slung Schmeisser submachine guns. Watching all and any passing traffic, she supposed: or just sunning themselves, browning their pink-pig faces. Or even – for heaven’s sake – just waiting to cross the road. Out of sight now; Father Gervais muttering something to himself, perhaps a prayer of thanks. There was a church on a rise, rather isolated on this edge of the village – southern edge, the position of the sun told her – and below the road on the other side, the left, a view of the continuance of the river winding through pasture where cattle grazed. It looked cool down there.
She hadn’t realized the church was their destination until they were pulling up at the gate in the iron railings.
‘You have that basket, haven’t you? I’ll bring it: you can have it in the pew beside you. All right?’
‘If that fits into the programme…’
‘We’re a little early, that’s all.’
‘This is your church, is it?’
‘No.’ He’d got out: she did the same; he took her basket out of the boot and joined her on the pavement. Glancing back towards that corner, but the Feldgendarmes hadn’t come this way. Answering her question: ‘No – I’m based in Sarrebourg. The priest here – he knows what we’re doing, there’s no problem – is Father Matthieu. Listen: you’ll be picked up either by Luc or one of his colleagues, who’ll know you as Justine Quérier. You’re to be in the seventh pew from the back, in the right-hand section. Your mother, as you know, is very seriously ill; it would be appropriate if you were kneeling. I – Father Gervais, from Sarrebourg – have arranged for you to be met here and taken to her. In Metz, by the way.’
Walking up the gravelled path towards the church’s carved oak doors. Sun like a furnace blazing down. ‘So Mama’s in Metz, now.’
‘Yes. In hospital. Whoever comes for you—’
‘Luc, or—’
‘Some parishioner of mine, helping out. It’s been arranged for you, that’s all, you can be a little – well, disorientated.’
‘Brain-damaged.’
‘If you like.’ He stopped, just short of the doors. ‘I’ll see you into your pew now, but first –’ putting the basket down, and taking her hands in his – ‘Rosalie – God bless you, and keep you safe.’
‘And you. Bless you, for all you’ve done.’
Half that parcel of wine was for Luc, she remembered. But she didn’t want the weight of it in her basket, so didn’t remind him. He took her arm: ‘Seventh pew from the back, on the right. Come on.’
A priest passed through, once, burly in his soutane, pausing halfway up the aisle to look back at her before continuing and vanishing through a door leading, she supposed, into the sacristy. Her knees ached. Having no watch she had no clear idea of how long she’d been here, but it couldn’t have been less than an hour.
Tempting to push herself up, and sit: but safer to endure the ache. Why would a scruffily dressed, battered-looking female spend hours in a church just sitting?
Enjoying the cool, perhaps…
And allowing the mind to wander.
See you quite soon, Ben darling…
Forget about ‘Hector’? Signal them only that you’re here, more or less mended, would be glad of a Lysander pickup?
No – not Lysander. A Lysander didn’t have the range. Hudson, probably.
But ask, Did Lise make it?
Knowing damn well she wouldn’t have. It had to be at least ten to one against her having survived at all, maybe a hundred to one against her having got right away. Therefore, in whatever signal one sent, tell ‘F’ section about ‘Hector’ – confirmation that he was a traitor, working for the Gestapo. If Lise had got through, they’d know it already; but she wouldn’t have, she’d have gone as surely as Alain Noally had gone – devastating the last weeks of her life. During that time the harsh fact of his death would have been a lot harder to bear than anything the bastards had done to her.
Even the business of the fingernails. One hand entirely nail-less.
‘Hector’ certainly deserved to hang. Die anyway: but preferably on a rope.
Christian thoughts, these, from the seventh pew from the back of this very old, very beautiful small church. Thoughts – or a fixation, aberration? What Father Gervais had sensed, perhaps? But what about an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Not that one was contemplating striking bargains or fair exchanges: she whispered in her mind, I confess it, God. Mary Mother of Jesus, I’ll tell you too, I want the bastard dead. Her face in her hands, head bowed, knees aching – partly because in Rouen a year ago a sod of a Gestapo interrogator had made her kneel on the edge of a shovel’s blade, the blade then being angled upward by the weight of another thug, a heavyweight, standing on the shovel’s handle. That had been just one of the preliminaries, a warm-up to the main event – courtesy of the people ‘Hector’ worked for. Her eyes moving while she thought about it – peering out between her fingers, appreciating the church’s cool, shadowed depths and remembering how when Ben had first seen those scars he’d hugged her knees and kissed them, tears glistening in his eyes.
Smiling to herself; thinking, Some tough old salt, my Bim-Bam…
‘Rosalie?’
She’d jumped…
‘Sorry. Woke you, uh?’
A long, angular figure in a workman’s overalls slid into the pew beside her – into a forward-leaning position with his behind pushed right back on the bench and elbows on his knees, having then to twist half sideways to allow for his length of leg. ‘Congratulations – such a quick recovery.’ Glancing round, light-eyed in the gloom: he’d brought with him an aroma of machine oil. Attention back on her then: gleam of teeth as well as eyes. She’d replaced the padding that fattened her face, having had a rest from it for a while.
‘Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.’
‘Great to see you, Luc.’
‘Same here.’ His grin might have been described as wolfish, but it was also shy. All right, a shy wolf… ‘I’m taking you to our dump in Metz – OK?’