On the Wednesday by mid-morning, 25th this was, she was on her bike pedalling out of Toulouse north-eastward, out through St-Jean on the road for Sulpice. Not St-Sulpice-sur-Lèze near Montgazin where Loubert hung out – and Jake would be today, with Déclan – but plain St-Sulpice which was on the road for Gaillac and beyond that Albi where old Wiggy had come to grief. Albi had caught her eye on Berthe’s map when Jake had been pointing out the highish, wooded area he’d been suggesting she might use tonight and maybe again on Friday – on which she’d decide for herself later, not being all that keen on gracing the same district twice in a row. In this instance it was only thinkable because there was a lot of forestry out that way, so that Friday’s choice of location could be a long way from tonight’s.
Wouldn’t be going anywhere near Albi anyway. Not that there was any logic in running scared of a place just because it had seen the end of one’s predecessor. Could have happened anywhere, if they’d been on to him somehow, as one might guess they had. He might have used that area once too often; or told someone he trusted that was where he’d be. Someone helping with the research he’d expected to be doing in Albi that next morning, maybe.
Some girl, perhaps. None of the others seemed to know much about his private life.
Anyway, Jake’s forefinger-tip following this road – this one – yesterday on Berthe’s map had forked left at St-Sulpice – thirty kilometres out of Toulouse – and continued effectively due north from there, through Salvagnac, Puycelci…
‘Seventy-five, eighty kilometres – a hundred even, by the time you’ve found a spot that suits you – nothing to the “old pins”, eh?’
‘As long as I don’t have to do it again on Thursday, making it four days running.’
‘Not likely, Suzie.’
‘But possible?’
Point being that after Jake’s consultations with Déclan, Loubert and whoever else, he might have stuff to be sent out tomorrow. Info for instance for the commando team and/or felucca skippers which it would still be possible to get to them at Gib preferably but otherwise at sea. And Marc’s, especially any update on the beach situation when Jake saw him tomorrow. That might have to go out on Friday – in daylight even, if it was really urgent. Tonight she had nothing to transmit, and the same might apply tomorrow, but she’d still have to be listening-out on Friday and Saturday – Hardball confirmation on 27th and 28th, they’d said.
Surprising, when one came to think of it, that when SOE had recruited her – graciously permitted her to enrol as a field agent, having turned her down with a paternal pat on the head a couple of days earlier – the one question they hadn’t thought of asking was whether she had strong legs. Which one bloody well did need, on this job. Pedalling pretty well full-tilt with them now, overtaking most other cyclists, all the horse-drawn traffic of course and even some of the slower gazos. Should make it easily enough into the forested area by early evening – unless she was held up somewhere or other – but wanted as much time as possible for prospecting around before the light went; and by Sulpice she’d have covered only about a third of the distance. This part of it was pretty well all flat, too, which later on it wouldn’t be, so make the most of it. Fairly flying – even at risk of making oneself conspicuous – bat out of hell being the phrase one might have used, but looking perhaps more like a speeding hedgehog – in her shabby overcoat and headscarf, tatty old suitcase lashed on the carrier with frayed string and a bundle of what you might call iron rations – including soup in a thermos – in the panier. She had the dismantled transceiver and its battery in the suitcase, packed in among various articles of clothing including a sweater which as it was warmer than it had been recently she didn’t need – but would tonight – the overcoat being more than enough, especially after about a dozen kilometres of this. Headscarf if anything too warm, but effective as concealment – and overall effect being that no one in his right mind would look at you more than once.
Except maybe to wonder where the fire was…
So ease off a bit. But bear in mind that there were thousands of women and girls on bicycles, all over France, most of them fairly shabby. Reminding oneself that one was only one of thousands did help – not only on the bike, but in pretty well any situation. When you didn’t feel like anything out of the ordinary, you didn’t look it.
The only thing one really did have to worry about – at checkpoints for instance, if you ran into any – was the transceiver.
If a searcher happened to recognise any of its component parts. The transmitter key for instance just on its own would be a dead give-away, to anyone but the village idiot.
Name of that village where the priest, Father Christophe, might know the present whereabouts of one’s late husband’s Aunt Ursule?
St-Antonin Noble Val was the village. Bit of a mouthful. Berthe happened to know that priest. He would not remember Aunt Ursule, since no such person had ever walked this earth, but if she had and had lived within a dozen kilometres of that village he surely would have. In point of fact no one was going to ask him, it was only something Suzette Treniard could go on about if she needed to identify herself and explain what she was doing so far from home. Home being Toulouse – having recently moved there from Paris – all that stuff, including down with the filthy British – and having hopes of a job as a trainee teacher in a nursery school. She had the schools name now and that of its headmistress. Berthe had said yesterday, ‘She does know of you and your ambitions, but there’s not much chance of a vacancy in anything like the near future, I’m sorry to say.’ Rosie had shrugged that off with ‘Just being cautious, isn’t she. I’m an optimist, I’m counting on it.’
Old Rosie told me, in the Café des Beaux Arts – we’d had a leisurely stroll around the town, but it had begun drizzling again – ‘I never actually had to trot out all that stuff. Had it ready, must have rehearsed it to myself a hundred times, but I simply wasn’t ever asked for it. Actually not all that surprising – as I was saying, one tended to feel vulnerable, but looking at it from a gendarme’s or say Funkabwehr’s angle – well, city’s full of people, crowded roads, pavements and cafés, unless someone does something staggeringly stupid why pick on her? If one can just look and sound like one’s part of it all—’
‘Dressed like Charlie’s aunt on a bicycle licking along at fifty or sixty kph—’
She smiled. ‘Slight exaggeration.’
‘Let’s get back to that. Except that if nothing untoward did happen – you were speeding towards St-Sulpice—’
‘One thing potentially untoward did happen. About – I suppose halfway between here and St-Sulpice I found I was bashing along through an edge of woodland. Rising ground on my left, and thickish woodland. Now, it’s probably all redbrick bungalows, factories, supermarchés – there’s a multi-lane highway of course, wherever you go you find those, don’t you—’
‘But you’d have been on something like a route nationale through open countryside – well, forest – what was “untoward” about it?’
‘I think I’d have to look that word up in a dictionary. How about “not so good”?’
‘Near enough. Dictionary’d more likely give you “unlucky” or “unfortunate”.’
‘Both of those. Although as it turned out – well, thing was, I’d been worrying about having to bike myself into a frazzle maybe three or four days in a row, and here was this high ground and good cover only about a fifth of the distance out of town that I’d settled on for that night’s performance. This being Wednesday – which I’d continue with as planned, the next night I might have “off” – free, depending on developments and his nibs – while on the Friday and Saturday I’d no option, had to be listening-out no matter what.’
‘As you were saying.’
‘I’m summing it up for you, damn it, making sure you—’
‘Sorry, but—’
‘I thought I might save this much handier location for use on the Saturday. Would have just about had it, by then, and an easy one for a change would be just the job – as one used to say. Especially with Sunday being H-day for Hardball, so forth.’
‘OK. So carried on as planned, found a good place for listening-out that night’—
‘Yes. And same Thursday. I mean Friday. Thursday, had the luxury of staying home, Berthe and I made ourselves a good supper and then had an early night. Bliss, it must have been. Friday then was a regular listening-out night but I had to transmit as well, Marc having told Jake that there were now two patrol boats based in Port Vendres and dumps of barbed wire at intervals of a few hundred metres all along the beaches. Truck-loads of it were being brought up every day apparently. Obviously Baker Street and the Hardball team had to be tipped off, but Jake wasn’t as worried as he might have been; for one thing, he said, commandos on a job like this would be equipped with wire-cutters – and so could we be, Déclan could see to that – and for another, with only two days to go and the wire not actually strung up, needing some kind of posts, probably metal things that’d be half-buried in the shingle, we had the Boches you might say pipped at the post as far as Sunday night was concerned. But – this incidentally must have been the first I’d heard of it – there was to be a pick-up by felucca a few days later, and of course by that time they might have the whole coastline wired off – and then they’d be likely to patrol it as well, he thought. Not so bright an outlook. Dear old Jake, though – no panic stations, ever, worked a thing like that out and then stuck with it – for the Sunday night, that was it, no loss of sleep or resolution – inform Baker Street, natch, mentioning the likelihood of there being wire all over the beaches by early next week, but otherwise – no sweat.’
‘So on the Friday—’
‘Hang on. While I think of it. Another thing Marc had told Jake was he’d thought it over and decided not to keep his appointment with Gabrielle’s husband. Which removed that slight anxiety.’
‘Did Jake ask him why he’d ever contemplated such a thing?’
‘Yes, he did, but… Hang on, see if I can get it straight. Yes. First of all he had reason to believe that Vérisoin wasn’t as pro-Vichy as Gabi had made out. That had been her way of disassociating him from whatever she might get up to. Shielding him, you might say, socially and politically. So, he thought there was a good enough chance he’d be in sympathy at any rate to some degree with his own nefarious activities – the escape-line and so forth – and he was worried for his sister, because he’d told Gabi about her and was losing sleep over it – whether under Gestapo ministrations Gabi might drop her in it.’ A shrug. ‘If that adds up.’
‘Can’t really see what Vérisoin could have done about it. But Marc must have had something in mind. Or – your thought this, wasn’t it, and distinctly possible – if he was really gone on Gabi, floundering? The fact he’d dropped the idea rather suggests – confusion, doesn’t it… Anyway, Rosie – same bike-ride on the Friday, listening-out and telling Baker Street about the wire?’
‘Yes. I settled for a spot maybe thirty or forty kilometres from Wednesday’s, and still felt edgy about it. Same general area, they might have had a van patrolling on the off-chance of a repetition. But I sent my stuff out and took in Baker Street’s, which when I’d got back and with Jake’s help decyphered it turned out to be confirmation that the landing was to be on Canet-Plage, approx two hours after nautical twilight – which Jake interpreted as meaning about nine-thirty – and any amendment to this to be radio’d the next night.’
‘Saturday. Lucky you.’
‘Nothing new in it – I mean that I had to listen-out 27th and 28th. But that screed wound up with another of old Buck’s morale-builders, like the one when he’d told us the church-bells had been ringing for Alamein. This was the French fleet having scuttled itself in harbour at Toulon. It was to be reported on the BBC’s French-language news bulletin in the morning – so listen-out, boys and girls! They had, of course – listened-out – at least Berthe had. It was about midday by the time I was with them, the bulletin had come over at seven, so they told me about it.’
‘I’d forgotten all about that. They scuttled the ships we hadn’t accounted for at Mers-el-Kebir, didn’t they?’
‘Oran, yes. Where my alleged husband Paul got his. But it was a dramatic event, all right. Brought on, obviously, by the Boches having invaded the south. They’d have seen that fleet as up for grabs – including a modern battleship and a couple of battle-cruisers. Balance of naval power would have been affected very seriously, and now it wouldn’t. French captains had stayed on their bridges, gone down with tricolores flying, oil installations and ammunition stores in the naval dockyard had been blown up – you know, you could really take your hat off to the old Frog marin. And with the BBC report there’d been a stirring oration from de Gaulle. Berthe had wept, she told me – half the people in the streets had been in tears apparently. Jake had been there with her awaiting my return of course, to get whatever I’d have had from Baker Street – which in fact was only what we’d expected, nothing new or startling. Well – on the face of it I’d have been setting off again pretty soon – to be on the air again by listening-out time, take in the “any adjustment” as promised – pretty shattering prospect really, almost perpetual bloody motion – but in fact I had time for a substantial meal, as I’d prearranged with Berthe – having been on sandwiches, soup and water for the past twenty-four hours – and I was reckoning on a couple of hours’ kip too, asked Berthe to be sure of waking me – don’t know what time, but early afternoon – and Jake expressed surprise – how would I get there before dark, find a good location, etcetera? He was actually quite embarrassed, asking me this, adding something like “I know it’s just about asking the impossible, don’t know how you do it, damn sure I couldn’t—” and I explained I wasn’t going anything like as far as he imagined, only about twenty kilometres. Having found this much nearer patch of forest covering uplands of sorts, which since I’d now used the more distant region twice running would actually be less dangerous – also being so much less of a marathon might even leave me still capable of staggering around under my own power next day – so on, so forth. And that was OK; we agreed we’d meet back there in Place Marengo next day about mid-forenoon or earlier, and that was that.’ She checked the time, and asked me, ‘What would you say to a small cognac?’
‘Well.’ Blinking at her… ‘I think I might say to it, “Why do you have to be so small?”’
Would have been a bit much if she’d had to go all the way back to St-Sulpice and minimally another thirty kilometres north from there. But with this much easier trip in view, and having taken in sustenance as well as a couple of hours’ sleep, she felt pretty well on top of it again. Out through St-Jean, Castelmaurou, and now Garidec: this was the 988, and before long she’d be turning off it into a track of which she’d taken mental/visual note that morning. Checking on the map at Berthe’s since then she’d seen there was a place called Buzet up there, with vineyards around it, and higher, wooded ridges sheltering these lower, vine-bearing slopes from prevailing westerlies, Atlantic winds further cooled by the Pyrenean snows.
More traffic than there’d been last evening. Both ways, into and out of town. Saturday, of course. Still quite early evening, but the light already less good than it might have been. There was a place called Montastruc-la-Conseillère coming up next, then a hamlet the map didn’t show, and then – up into the woods.
Actually had cut it a little fine.
Jake was really splendid, she thought. In all sorts of ways. Well – just generally, the cat’s whiskers. Berthe certainly was nuts about him – had almost given up trying to disguise the fact. Which one could see at times embarrassed him a little – as it would, since the last thing he’d want would be to embarrass her in any way.
Mind on the job now though – pedalling into Montastruc – into and out of, and really not far to go now – and a grey Citroen Light 15, traction avant as they called it, overtaking actually on the corner, crowding her, and the front-seat passenger – soft hat and moon face was as much as she saw of him, but he was subjecting her to a close inspection as the thing swept by. Bastard. Rosie with her head down and legs pumping, not letting up at all, might almost have been trying to stay with it. As if she didn’t know poison when she saw it.
Gone now – same way she’d be going.
Jake had murmured when saying goodbye – inside the house of course – ‘Good luck, Suzie. Remember now, ultra-caution.’
‘Betcha life, boss.’
‘I mean it, though. Couldn’t do without you. Have I said that before, or is it just so darned obvious I didn’t need to?’
He’d better watch it too, she thought. And be lucky. If they both exercised caution and had luck – well, who could tell, might really make something of it. Fingers crossed, on jolting handlebars; dreams could come true, had been known to. Not that it had to be mere dream, depended surely on how hard you worked at it. If you got the chance to work on anything. That you might call the ‘luck’ element – after which it would be up to you – if he felt similarly inclined, of course. She was around that corner now and into the straight where the forest sloped down to straddle it; then in a few minutes, having passed that little group of farm buildings and cottages – could see their chimneys now, and the road ahead was clear, that car having hurtled on – no problem there, thank God. Better step on it though: didn’t want to be in sight of other traffic when she turned up into the trees, and with the light going quite fast now couldn’t afford to hang around.
The dirt track left the road with branches each way, one to the right into vineyard and one left into the edge of forest. This one led back westward, roughly parallel to the road, before it curved right and began to climb – not all that steeply to start with, but enough of a gradient, over earth and loose stones, that she found it easier to get off and push. From the road when passing that morning it had looked easier than this. Still – making progress: one’s chief concern was the light, wanting if possible to get up there – wherever – and rig the aerial wire without having to use Uncle Bertie’s torch. Next thing then was that after about a quarter of an hour the track having passed over a ridge continued downward, facing her with the decision whether to stay with it, down into the dip – its depth in this failing light unassessable – before climbing the next ridge, or striking off through the trees along this one.
Didn’t need to be any higher, she decided. And it would be really dark before she’d have got back up to this level. So leave the track, follow the ridge eastward, install oneself somewhere on the wood’s eastern fringe, where when the sun rose you’d have a view down to the road on that side.
Leave the bike somewhere near the track here?
No. Hump it along. Imagine, if one came back for it at first light and it wasn’t there. Scruffy-looking female with tired eyes and a battered suitcase, begging for a lift – having been where all night, for God’s sake, doing what? OK, against that, how many potential bicycle thieves were likely to be prowling around in woodland miles from anywhere on a late November night?
Answer, mentally shrugging, not so many. But still – ultra-caution, Suzie…
Humping it along. Staying on this contour this way and that through leafless trees. It was less the awkwardness of the bike itself than the transceiver’s weight on its rear end. Would have to use the torch, she realised, to all intents and purposes it was already dark, and there’d be no moon. The monthly dark period only began tomorrow, but cloud-cover would take care of that in any case. Somewhat blundering progress – actually quite awkward, one way and another. So take it easy now? Had been expending a lot of effort, but mainly to beat the darkness, and you’d lost out on that, as far as time was concerned, the listening-out period began only at eleven, and it couldn’t be much after eight yet.
So stop and rest. Give it until nine, say. Get the torch out first, to check the time, then flop out.
Actually, nine-fifteen. It didn’t look all that much darker. Hefting the loaded bike again and plodding on. Simple enough strategy – get to the eastern side of this stretch of forest, see how it looked down there, if there was anything to see, then retire into the trees’ cover, set up shop and await the magic hour. About another half-hour’s slog now, she guessed, and then – hour, hour and a half maybe.
Might have made more sense to have left the bike back there near the track. As it was, she was going to have to lug this bloody encumbrance all the way back there at first light…
Jake had mentioned the moonless period starting tomorrow night. It must have been basic to the planning, timetable of events, the felucca’s arrival offshore and its boat’s approach, and the pick-up operation three nights later. Moonless periods lasting three or four days – which would impose its own time-limit on the Noé operation. But if there happened to be a change in the weather and a clear night sky, no matter. Only a little radiance from stars, she supposed. On the other hand, if the commandos couldn’t do it in the three days or four it might still be OK, with continuing cloud-cover. Moonless plus overcast would be the ideal – what Jake had called a belt-and-braces situation.
She’d asked Jake whether the felucca on its second visit would be picking up the German, von Schleben, and he’d cocked an eyebrow: ‘Really want to know?’
‘Not all that desperately, I suppose.’
‘Well, then.’
‘The other party goes over the mountains, does it?’
Because something he’d said recently had indicated that von Schleben and his Boche companions would be taking different exit routes. Which might be the safest or surest – sea or mountains – well, since he hadn’t been in a mood for answering questions – and incidentally there was now the likelihood of beaches being wired and patrolled… All he’d said then had been ‘Aren’t so many alternatives, Suzie, are there?’
Both lots over the mountains, maybe. German troops busy patrolling beaches that would now be unusable. They’d also be patrolling the Zone Interdite, of course – would be doing that already – as Marc had said, shooting at anything that moved.
Slight greying of the dark ahead of her, the trees’ vertical stripes blacker than they had been, against that background. And a detectable down-gradient now. Then from the straggly fringe of this strip of forest she was looking down over the regularly patterned expanse of vineyard: making out in the far corner close to the road a single-storey shack – or chai – stone-built and she thought most likely whitewashed, accounting for its visibility. No lights, she guessed it wasn’t lived in. So of no concern. Access to it though would be by way of the track on which she’d turned in from the road – if one had turned right instead of left – and where beyond a black line of hedgerow vehicles were still passing this way and that – mostly gazos by the sound of them.
OK. Orientation complete. Wondering whether at daybreak she might go straight down through the trees from here, rather than the longer route she’d come by. Maybe: but think of that when there was light to see by – how good or difficult the going might be directly downhill. For now, back into cover, assemble transceiver and rig up the aerial wire, remove overcoat, pull on sweater then coat too and wrap up in it. Sit then, drink some so-called coffee, maybe snooze.
What seemed to have woken her was a car door slamming – at some distance, but loud enough in the quiet of the night – and in the moment of waking, awareness of an engine having just been switched off. Petrol engine. To know this she knew she must actually have heard it, been listening to it maybe in half-sleep.
Stopped now, anyway. But – a car driven in from the road and stopped somewhere down there?
Unlikely, surely. Just stopped in the road, she guessed. Checking the time, which was ten thirty-two. Less than half an hour to listen-out time. It gave her a jolt – hadn’t reckoned on sleeping deeply or for so long. Three-quarters of an hour, roughly. Sliding the torch back into her coat pocket as she got up, pushing herself off from the tree she’d been using as a backrest, moving quietly to see what, if anything, might be visible down there. Expecting – brain more or less in gear by this time – a car stopped on the roadside, its driver most likely out of it for a leak.
Wrong. No car, and not in the road – a van, close to that single-storey shack and with its lights on, lighting itself up – reflection of its headlights on the whitewashed wall: light also visible inside it, the rectangle of one rear door standing open. Had only in that moment been opened, was blacked-out now for a moment by an emerging human form, yellowish-glowing rectangle now visible again.
And a voice – male, and German-sounding. Answered by another one – a man passing through the headlight beams between van and shack. In sight again briefly before – no, still there. The van’s driver maybe, who’d got out and slammed that door – joining his friend who was peeing against the shack’s wall.
Yes – wasn’t their shack, must belong to the vineyard – French, therefore OK for a Boche to pee on. Both of them at it now – and both in uniform, light glinting on their caps’ peaks and insignia.
One of them had climbed back inside. Funkabwehr, she guessed – security police. And if she was right on that, it was a radio-detection van. Here, of all places… Thinking about it, though, not all that far from where she’d been on the air yesterday and Wednesday. Might be more than one of them on the job, at that, around the area generally. Not such a wild coincidence therefore. Second one lighting a cigarette: flare of match or lighter, then a pause while he looked around before joining his colleague in the van. Almost as if they knew about the 2300 deadline – which they might, come to think of it. Ridiculous – right here, almost in spitting distance: something rather more bothersome than ‘ridiculous’ though, seeing as she was going to have to answer Sevenoaks very shortly with Receiving you strength X, send your message – and the German listener down there, if he was on the ball and correct frequency…
Well. Might not be tuned-in in time. But in any case one did have to take in whatever was being sent. Hardball postponed, for instance, or the landing at some place other than Canet-Plage. Lives might hang on it.
But if there was a second van at work and they managed to get cross-bearings…
Might beat the bastards to it?
Time now 2254. Six minutes, if Sevenoaks came through on time. Might not, hadn’t always, even quite recently had not. She was backing into the trees: actually edging backwards as if she was only a few feet away from them rather than a few hundred metres. Then after a moment’s near panic – having picked the wrong tree then finding the right one and the set and flopping down beside it, muttering to herself – headscarf back out of the way, headphones over her ears and the Send/Receive switch to ‘Receive’… Time by torchlight 2257. Three minutes. Telling herself she needn’t give the Sevenoaks girl the strength of her transmission, just Send your message and let her get on with it: then not acknowledge, either, trust the girl to cotton-on and those sods down there to be still swapping dirty jokes or making tea, whatever.
Minute to go, maybe. Battery switch to ‘On’. Little red light, and a mélange of sounds in the headphones. Volume up just a little, whooshing noise mounting to a howl. Down a fraction: and fiddling with the tuner: interference still there but lower-pitched. Further tiny adjustment…
Sevenoaks calling!
Bless her. Bang on time. Picked the right night for punctuality, precious! Series of A’s going on longer than it need have, but —
A one-second pause, and Over.
Torch on and pad in place, pencil poised. Fingers of left hand inviting the girl to send her message – Over… A group of four letters had encompassed that, a ripple of dots and dashes that had taken about half a second. And getting it now – what she’d come all this way for – ten or twelve seconds’ worth was all it came to, before the familiar AR for Message ends, out…
Which one should have acknowledged with the single letter K – but she could do without it, and the bloody Funkabwehr most certainly could. Instead, battery switch to ‘Off’, and—
Nothing. Except pack up, be ready to leg it if she had to. Praying meanwhile that between her and the Sevenoaks kid they’d had it over and done with before those sods had even got round to switching on.