CHAPTER 22
“All right, out with it,” Sidney declared as we returned to the road. “What’s made you so windy about this village?”
I gazed out over the golden fields now fallen silent when not so long ago they shook with the thunder of artillery guns. I knew I couldn’t keep this from him. He would see the truth for himself soon enough. And perhaps it was better if he was prepared.
“In early 1918, the Germans evacuated Havay and then used it as a training ground for their heavy bombers. They wanted to test their latest large-caliber bombs in real situations before using them in operations.”
Sidney glanced over at me. “You mean . . .” He couldn’t seem to finish the words.
“They leveled it.”
It would be little better than the war zone, minus the squalid trenches and rotting corpses.
I watched as the reality of what we were about to drive into settled onto Sidney’s shoulders. His hands tensed around the driving wheel.
Why Emilie was sending us to such a place, I didn’t know. Unless it had something to do with the wireless-controlled aeroplane she had been searching for evidence of. Had the Germans’ capability with such a weapon progressed to the point that they were testing it in the field? Monsieur Chauvin’s comments had led me to believe the matter was still in the earliest stages of development, but perhaps I’d misunderstood. After all, one significant cause of the collapse of the German Army had been the revolution that occurred in Germany, overthrowing the Kaiser and his imperial regime. Given another few months, would things have changed considerably?
Whatever the truth, the proof of the Germans’ destructive capabilities soon came into view. We crested a small rise, and there unfolded before us a scene of utter destruction. I’d heard another agent describe Havay as a modern-day Pompeii, and the comparison was an apt one. Not a single building still stood. The town hall, the church, every house and farm had been reduced to rubble. And the land, which had undoubtedly been fields of rich soil, was pitted with craters and the splintered ruins of trees, much like I had witnessed along the front.
Sidney slowed the motorcar and came to a stop in the middle of the road. Though he didn’t speak of it, I could sense the turmoil within him. The air was thick with it. I knew his memories of the war were not far from his thoughts. He’d twitched with them in his sleep as I drove us to Quevy.
“Why did she tell us to step with care?” he asked. “Are there unexploded shells?”
“It’s possible. It doesn’t look like anyone has done anything to begin clearing this debris to rebuild the town. If they even mean to.” I squeezed my hands together in my lap. “They trained some of their miners here as well, so there may also be undetonated mines.”
Sidney turned to stare at me incredulously. “Does this Emilie mean to bump you off?”
I smiled weakly. “I don’t know what her intentions are in bringing us here. There must be something she wants me to see.”
He snorted in dissent but began to inch forward again.
“But even so,” I added. “Let’s leave the motorcar at the edge of the destroyed area.”
A profound sadness overcame me as I gingerly picked my way through the dust of what had undoubtedly been a flourishing village before the war. This place where people had lived and loved and dreamed had been turned into mere fodder for the enemy’s weapons. A quick glance at Sidney’s face showed that he was digesting the same thoughts, though he seemed more inclined to anger than dismay.
We made our way through and around the heaps of rubble and skirted by the craters, walking several feet apart so as to distribute our weight across a greater area. Except in a few places where the going was rough, and he assisted me over the loose rocks and debris. The air was too quiet. Not even a birdcall to break the silence. Tufts of plants had begun to reclaim the soil in spots, growing wildly amidst the ruins with a few of the ever-present poppies that seemed to spring up in seemingly the most improbable places—just as those flowers had in the battlefields of Flanders. Even so, these blossoms were late bloomers; but our spring and early summer had been cool.
It was a trail of these brilliant red poppies that led my gaze toward the wreckage of an aeroplane half-consumed by the ruin of a building. The aircraft must have been one of the last to fly over the area, for otherwise it would have been reduced to almost unrecognizable rubble like all the rest.
I pointed to it, and Sidney and I made our way through the debris field closer to it. I’d only stood near an aeroplane once before, but as then, I was astonished by how flimsy and insubstantial the flying machine seemed. Particularly knowing it carried men up into the heavens, holding them aloft with nothing to catch them should it fail.
I couldn’t help but think of the aviator from whom I’d stolen the map case. In the haze of his drunken bragging, he’d admitted that if not for alcohol, he would never have had the courage to leave the ground. And he was one of Germany’s crack pilots, with over twenty-five successful flights to his name. It was no wonder they’d kept the aeordromes stocked with kümmel.
“I’m no expert. But doesn’t it look smaller than the aeroplanes we normally saw?” I offered hesitantly. “Even the Germans’ little Albatrosses?”
Sidney nodded. “But who knows what aircraft they had in development by the end of the war?” He ventured closer, surmounting a pile of masonry as he leaned this way and that to examine the aeroplane.
“Careful,” I gasped as his foot slipped, shifting the rubble beneath him. He paused, extending his arms to balance himself before continuing on.
I moved a few steps to the right on the more level ground to see the aircraft from a better angle. The single wing had buckled over the cockpit and the front had all but been crushed by stones, but the tail, marked with the Germans’ black cross, was relatively unscathed.
“Didn’t the lighter fighters, like the Albatross, usually escort the heavy bombers on their raids?” I asked, curious whether that was how this aeroplane had come to be here. But why would the swift, darting fighters be used on a practice run if the main goal was for the bombers to improve accuracy? I supposed they could have proved a distraction for new bomber pilots, so they’d sought to acclimate them to flying through the heart of those dizzying dogfights. Though something had definitely gone wrong here.
When Sidney didn’t reply, I glanced toward where he arched up on tiptoe to peer into the cockpit. The look on his face was pinched and drawn, and I cringed at the possibility some evidence of the pilot’s battered body still remained.
“What was inside here, I can’t say with any certainty,” he said, glancing up at me over the wreckage. “But I don’t think this was piloted by a human.”
My eyes widened. “Why do you say that?”
“There’s no space for a man. Unless he’s the size of a child. And all the controls have been ripped out.”
“They wouldn’t have done that unless they wanted to salvage what was there because it was particularly exceptional, or . . .”
“They wanted to keep it from falling into the wrong hands,” Sidney finished for me.
Neither of us had to say the words, for we were both thinking the same thing. It appeared Emilie’s report of tales of a remote-controlled aircraft may have been based on fact after all, and not merely the usual German optimistic exaggeration.
I studied the aeroplane with new eyes, not sure I wanted to believe such a thing was possible.
“Of course,” Sidney spoke up again, interrupting my horrified musings. “The controls might not have been removed by the Germans.”
He was right. There was no way to know who exactly had confiscated them. Just as there was no way to know precisely what had been there for them to take.
But Emilie had wanted us to see this. I felt certain of it now. Why else send us here?
Now, what were we supposed to do with this information?
As if in answer to my silent question, something fluttered in the corner of my eye. I turned to see a piece of faded, yellow fabric billowing in the breeze. I was drawn toward it and noted that one end of the cloth appeared to be trapped beneath a rock next to the squat remnants of a wall. Somehow, I doubted it had survived this way for nearly a year since the village’s destruction.
I was rewarded for my curiosity, for at the base of the wall I could see words written in English painted in stark white against the gray stone.
If you dare not grasp this, you should not seek me.
Another code.
I sighed and reached out to touch the stone with my gloved fingers, ruminating on her riddle. Something about the phrasing niggled at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t recall why.
Behind me the crunch of Sidney’s footsteps came to a stop. “Another message from Emilie?”
I rose to my feet. “Yes. Though I’m not quite certain how to decipher it.”
Sidney leaned down to read the words before standing again. “Sounds like something from a poem.”
“Yes, I had a similar thought.” I chewed on my lip.
“Maybe Byron? Or Tennyson? Or Shakespeare?”
I glanced at him in amusement. “Or Chaucer or Wordsworth?” Poetry had evidently not been my husband’s favorite subject if he was merely going to rattle off some of the most famous names.
He shrugged, accepting my teasing without complaint.
I felt a drop of water on my forehead and then another, and glanced up toward the sky. The rain that had been threatening all morning began to fall somewhat sporadically, almost as if it couldn’t make up its mind.
But just in case it decided to begin in earnest, we began to make our way back toward the motorcar. It was as we passed a pair of red poppies sprouting on a grassy verge that the answer came to me.
“It’s Brontë,” I gasped.
“Emily?”
“No, Anne. ‘But he that dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose.’”
“I see. She’s the rose, since that’s her real given name.” Sidney opened the motorcar door for me. “But how does that tell us where to go?”
I frowned, arrested in thought. “ ‘If you dare not grasp this,’” I murmured, turning my head to gaze out past Sidney’s arm toward the trees growing in the distance, spared from Havay’s destruction. “ ‘This.’ The thorn.”
“I assume you can ponder the matter just as well inside the motorcar.”
I glanced up to see humor glinting in his eyes as the rain fell softly around us. The sight of him smiling at me did something funny to my insides, making it difficult to breathe. And all of a sudden, I was arrested for an entirely different reason—struck mute by the fact that I’d feared I would never again see such a gentle expression on his face when he looked at me.
As if grasping the magnitude of this moment, his smile faded, but the tenderness remained. His hand lifted to cup my face, and I was certain he would have kissed me. Had the sky not decided right then to open up and pour.
He pulled back, ushering me inside the vehicle before he darted around to the other side through the cold deluge.
“Dash it all,” he cursed as he fell into his seat. Shrugging his shoulders, he tried to shake off the dampness.
I passed him a handkerchief so that he could mop his face.
“Well, I’m certainly awake now,” he quipped.
Whether it was the gamut of emotions I’d run in the past twenty-four hours or our foiled kiss. Whatever the reason, he suddenly seemed impossibly handsome to me, even with his skin glistening and rain dripping from the brim of his hat. I was forced to clear my throat before I could speak, lest I make a cake of myself. “All the better to help me puzzle this riddle.”
“The thorn, hmm? There isn’t a village by that name, is there?”
“Not that I know of. Although . . .” I paused, as an idea took hold in my brain, becoming more plausible the longer I contemplated it. I sat forward in enthusiasm. “Of course. I’m not sure how they met, but surely it’s possible.”
“How who met?”
I swiveled to face him. “So ‘the thorn’ in French translates to ‘l’epine.’ And I just happen to be familiar with a Madame de l’Epine.” I arched my eyebrows at the significance. “She hid me in her home in Tourcoing, near Lille, one night.”
But rather than excitement, his face blanched. “That close to the rear of the German front?”
“Well, yes,” I fumbled to respond. “Though assignments that required me to be so close to the fighting were rare.”
“Because they were dashed risky.”
I didn’t deny it. Security in those areas had been rigorous. If I had been stopped and they’d bothered to check their rolls of citizens, as an outsider I would have instantly been arrested or shot. But I wasn’t about to explain myself now, nor the necessity of my being there.
“All that is not of the moment,” I replied calmly. “But the fact that Emilie is possibly in Tourcoing is.”
“So that is where you wish to go?” Sidney replied grimly.
I nodded, knowing full well what that meant for him.
He inhaled a deep breath as if to ready himself. “On to Tourcoing then.”
* * *
Fortunately, as we traveled out of Havay, the rain ceased. Though the heavy gray clouds remained in place, threatening to drench us again at any moment. Some distance outside of Mons on the road to Tournai, in the hotly contested country fought over during the Allies’ initial disastrous retreat in August 1914, we stopped at a café in a small village for coffee and sandwiches. Sidney was pleased to find the town had a supply of petrol, so he filled the motorcar’s tank and performed some other maintenance with the help of a man with a booming laugh who had been a mechanic in the Belgian Army. All while a swarm of local boys clustered around him, buzzing excitedly like bees. They asked a hundred rapid-fire questions in their peculiar slang, all of which Sidney answered patiently, happy to find someone as interested in motorcars and engines as himself.
I smiled at the sight, amused by all of their boyish enthusiasm, and strolled down the street to the Hôtel de Ville. They professed they were delighted to let me use their telephone, and I rang up Captain Landau’s office in Brussels. As was the case earlier that day when I’d called from the hotel in Maubeuge while waiting for Sidney to shave and gather his luggage, his secretary claimed Landau was not in. So I left another message stating I would telephone again when we reached our destination. She had no news for me, and while frustrated, I wasn’t overly concerned. It might take some time for the agents in London to track down Pauline Laurent, and I was well aware that Captain Landau was busy with other matters. I trusted he would find a way to get in touch with me if the situation turned urgent.
Sidney had told me he would swing around with the Pierce-Arrow to pick me up at the town square, so I crossed the road toward the green space. Or what had once been green. But the grass was all but stunted, and I could only surmise the Germans had commandeered this square for their use like so many other places. Many of the trees were shorn in half, splintered by shells, but a few remained to offer their welcoming shade on hot days. I strolled down the pathway cutting diagonally across its center toward a statue in the middle, happy to stretch my legs after so many days spent in the motorcar. However, my contented idyll was short-lived.
As I neared the limestone figure, a prickling sensation began along the back of my neck. One I’d long ago learned to heed. I glanced about me slowly, as if surveying the park. There were a few other figures milling about, but none of them seemed to be paying me the slightest attention. I lifted my eyes to the buildings ringing the square that still stood, but there again I was foiled for it was impossible to see through the windows from such a distance. Nevertheless, I felt certain someone was watching me.
I continued through the square, ever mindful of those around me. When I saw the Pierce-Arrow approaching, I abandoned all pretense of ease and turned abruptly to scan the park behind me, hoping to catch them off guard. On the left, a tall man with his hat pulled low hurried away, passing behind two trees. I narrowed my eyes, trying to tell if any part of his walk or appearance seemed familiar to me.
Sidney leaned across to open the motorcar door, and I slid into the passenger seat.
“Drive around toward that direction,” I instructed him, wondering whether we could intercept the man before he disappeared.
Sidney did as instructed, accelerating sharply around the square, but there was no such man in sight. Only a woman pushing a pram who leveled a fierce scowl at us. Sidney stopped short, allowing her to pass while I searched the buildings.
“Did you see someone?” he guessed.
“I don’t know,” I prevaricated, not wanting to speak the name of the person I thought it might have been. “Maybe. But I could have sworn someone was just watching me. And the man I saw move this way was too tall to be that fellow from Brussels who claimed to be Jonathan Fletcher.”
I turned to find Sidney watching me, a shrewd look in his eyes.
“You don’t have to avoid saying his name, you know. I promise I won’t order you out of the car and drive away.”
I inhaled past the tightness in my chest. “Well, you can hardly blame me. For a man who usually charges directly at difficulties, you’ve been doing a remarkable amount of walking away.”
Something shifted behind his eyes, something bleak and heart-wrenching. He stared straight ahead through the windscreen, inching the motorcar forward again. “Yes, well, I’m not always certain I have complete control over myself anymore. It seems better not to risk it.”
I could tell how much it had cost him to admit such a thing, and it only made the confession all the more distressing. For what could I say to that?
I knew the war had changed many men, and often not for the better. Those who would have never lost their temper or lifted a hand in violence, suddenly found it difficult to contain themselves even over the most trifling matters, let alone the larger ones. For them the war was still in the back of their heads, and the instincts and habits they’d fine-tuned over the years of conflict, in order to stay alive, could not be turned off in an instant. Even those who did not suffer from shell shock had nerves twisted and frayed, sometimes almost to the breaking point.
So many of them struggled to let go of the war. I’d wondered if Sidney was one of them, and now I knew.
Swallowing hard, I choked down the lump that had formed in my throat and reached over to gently touch his leg. I didn’t dare look at him. I knew he didn’t want that. And I feared if I did so, I might not be able to contain my brimming emotions.
For several moments, he didn’t move except for the actions required to drive his motorcar. But then his hand dropped to cover mine, squeezing it tightly before he relaxed his grip.
We fell silent as the village fell away and we ventured deeper into the open fields of the torn countryside. Much of it was still barren and fallow, trampled and mismanaged during the years of German invasion and occupation, or marred by shell holes. But here and there were encouraging signs of regrowth—the green leaves of sprouting potatoes and waving stalks of barley.
I had traveled through this area a few times, cutting across the country from Holland and Brussels toward the French border, often with the aid of a passeur or other guide, largely avoiding towns. The sight of this landscape now tugged at something inside me. I felt a peculiar sense of almost melancholy. Not for the war and all the danger involved, but perhaps for the purpose I’d felt.
“This would probably be a good time to tell you that I spoke with my friend at Scotland Yard,” Sidney said.
I glanced up in surprise. “When?”
“I telephoned him this morning. I wanted to hear whether Pauline Laurent had revealed anything more when they questioned her. She did not.”
“But . . . ?” I could hear the word fairly ringing in his silence.
His eyes darted toward me rife with cynicism. “But she’s no longer at the address she gave them. He went to ask her a few more questions and the proprietress told him she’d departed some days before and most of her things were gone from her room.”
I sat back, somehow not surprised. “Well, that’s suspicious.”
“To say the least.”
“So why did she leave so quickly?” I contemplated. “And where did she go?”
As if in answer to that question, the crawling sensation along the back of my neck began again. I swiveled to look over my shoulder.
“There’s another motorcar some distance behind us,” Sidney said, correctly construing my concern.
“Has it been following us for long?”
“I didn’t see it before our stop, but it might have been there.” He flicked a glance into his wing mirror. “If either the sun would appear or the sky would get dark enough to force us to turn on our headlamps, it would help. As it is, the vehicle almost blends in to the horizon.”
I scanned the road ahead of us, gnawing my lip in thought. Ahead of us, I saw a crossroad leading off toward the east. I pointed. “Turn here.”
Sidney immediately complied, though he had to brake hard to do so. He slowly motored forward on the dirt lane while I turned in my seat, waiting for the other vehicle to appear. About a minute and a half later, a gray motorcar came driving down the road. But it didn’t even brake, simply continued to move forward and carry on to the north, disappearing from sight.
I sank back into the leather, wondering what that meant, if anything. Perhaps, I was imagining things.
“Shall I turn around?”
I gestured incredulously to the muddy mires lining either side of the narrow road. “Where?”
“I’m sure I could manage it.”
I arched a single eyebrow at him, not keen on the idea of watching him attempt such a feat. “Just keep going. We should be coming up on another road cutting back toward the north.”
This proved to be a mistake.