Once they had emptied the truck, Bill made his way upstairs to see where he’d be calling home. The building had certainly seen better days. The once-grand cornice and coving work was hanging off, cracked and peeling. Around the room were various make-shift beds, books and bundles of clothes. It looked like a transit depot for the last train to nowhere. He wondered about his new colleagues. How long had they had to live like this? Could they honestly trust each other? Do their families know they are in the Resistance?
He pulled out a couple of the waxy flakes from his smock pocket and started to rub them in his hands nonchalantly. He hoped Lena would be here soon. Jack had gone to brief the French and give them an inventory of the weapons they had brought with them. They were poorly armed, from what Andre had said on their journey to the city. The Resistance had been reaching out to their trusted contacts in the French Police in the hope of securing more weapons, but the Germans now had their wiry fingers in every French flan.
The police were even expected to account for every bullet, but Bill assumed the same wasn’t true for the Germans. He doubted the average Gestapo officer would be expected to list each shot expended into the back of every suspected partisan’s head. Although, with their reputation for efficiency, Bill wouldn’t be surprised if he saw some Nazi goon digging out the lead from an old Jewish woman’s skull just to balance the books. Shaking his head, Bill started packing the rubbed tobacco into his pipe.
The Gestapo, the state secret police, and their sister unit, the SD, were among the most feared in all the occupied areas. They differed mainly in peculiarities of their uniform and came under the same umbrella of psychotic maniacs, otherwise known as the RSHA or Reich Main Security Office. The SD was the official intelligence service of the SS and the broader Nazi state. They wore the same uniforms as the SS but with a diamond SD patch on their left arm. They could clear entire cafes, and people suddenly fell into silence at their mere presence, such was their reputation. They also specialised in catching spies.
If the Resistance thought they could re-take Paris, Bill hoped they had more than the handful of Stens and revolvers they had brought along. Unfortunately, bravery and a handful of grenades weren’t likely to stop a Panzer division with its tanks and artillery.
The young girl they’d briefly met earlier walked in and sat opposite Bill with a grin playing on her lips.
“That’s some present you’ve brought for us. You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.” She opened a small canvas roll, laying down a German MP-40 onto it, and began to disassemble it with the efficiency of a well-practised gunsmith.
“Are you quite sure you wouldn’t prefer chocolates or roses?” Bill smiled.
“I’m sure, monsieur,” she replied, “you can’t kill Germans with flowers.”
“Quite so, and you certainly wouldn’t soften their hearts,” joked Bill as he finally got his pipe to stay lit.
“My only aim is to stop their black hearts. I hate them. They arrived here and treated us like we are second-class citizens in our own country.” Nicole was now carefully cleaning each part with a lightly oiled rag.
She may have been young, but he also sensed there might be more to her hatred of the Germans than just words. He had a feeling she may have already seen action. “How old are you, Nicole?”
“I’m eighteen. Why?” she said with more than a little defiance. Bill assumed she had been asked this question before, probably with the implication she is young and naive, which Bill had been careful to avoid.
“I am just curious.” Bill tried to calm her and lighten the mood. He blew out a stream of smoke.
“Will you be staying until the liberation? We are going to push those Boche bastards out of Paris soon.”
“I expect I will be somewhere around, keeping myself busy,” Bill answered vaguely.
“Have you met Lieutenant Roland yet? He is our main strategist. He has been in contact with the allies. We will be taking Paris back when the Americans arrive.”
“Then I hope you have more than a few sub-machine guns.” Bill was concerned the Resistance was biting off a lot more than they might be able to chew.
“The Parisians are a tough bunch. This won’t be the first revolution where the French have overthrown their oppressors.”
“True enough,” Bill mused, “you certainly have a good head on your shoulders. So try to keep it there.”
“They won’t get me,” Nicole defiantly exclaimed. “I owe them one.”
Andre suddenly entered the room like a cockroach escaping a flooding cellar. The dim lightbulb caught his chiselled features. He seemed to have a head full of angles. He moved almost as strangely as he looked.
“Ah, Willy! Stay away from that one! She is dangerous! The last man who chatted her up ended up with Roland’s boot in his balls!”
“Shut up, Andre! We were discussing the war!” Nicole said through a stifled giggle.
“But don’t worry, Willy, when the time comes, she is just as dangerous with that Schmeisser!” he exclaimed as he gestured towards the now re-assembled MP-40.
The MP-40 was the submachine gun that many Resistance fighters tended to favour. These were the captured weapons they were well-versed in using over the British and American weapons, like the ones Bill’s team had brought. It was reliable as long as it was kept meticulously clean. The only flaw was how the magazine fed the rounds. If it was incorrectly held by the magazine with the supporting hand, it could jam. It was better to hold rifle-style behind the magazine or by the magazine housing, but, Bill thought, like people, nobody’s perfect.
“There is food ready downstairs, Willy.” Andre gestured, then lit a cigarette, lounging back in his bed.
“What about you, Andre? What do you think are the chances of taking Paris back?” asked Bill.
“I don’t know, Willy, but I know we will surely die trying if that’s what it comes to,” replied Andre.
“None of us get out of this life alive. So I guess we all have to die for something.”
“I’m going to kill that bastard Misselwitz,” Andre swore. “Do you know what happened to my friend Jean?” Bill politely shook his head. Andre continued, “We met during the last war. Leo and I …” Interrupting himself, he explained, “He is the handsome chap who you briefly met earlier.” Ah, the spiv, Bill thought. “Anyway, after the poison gas at Verdun, we were both transferred to a labour battalion to help with digging and general labouring. That’s where we met Jean. We all became close friends. In our downtime, we would all have a drink and play cards. Sometimes Leo would sneak a nice bottle of eau-de-vie out of the officers’ mess, and we would share it.”
Bill listened intently as Andre smiled at the memory.
“Jean loved to draw. He used to sketch animals and scenes from his childhood and the world around him. He was passionate about politics and was keen to hear the news about how the Russians were doing after overthrowing their aristocracy. Truth be told, he was a bit of a Bolshevik himself, I think. The armistice was signed, and the war ended before we could get sent back to the front,” Andre continued. “After the war, we all kind of lost touch. I didn’t hear anything of Jean until I joined the Resistance. It seemed to me almost everyone was happy with the Germans being here, and those that weren’t simply turned a blind eye to the horrors they brought with them, so I asked around, and here I am. Last year Jean had risen to be the leader of the Resistance, and that’s how we got reacquainted. He was different though, more serious somehow.”
Bill now realised who Andre was talking about. Jean Moulin had been the president of the Council of the Resistance. SOE had even smuggled him back to England to meet and make plans with de Gaulle and drop him back into France. He had been captured the previous year and never seen again.
Andre stared blankly and stopped speaking. Tears were starting to well in his eyes. Bill thought he looked like a gargoyle on an old Gothic church as the water flowed down his angular cheek.
“They tortured him, Willy.” Andre wiped his face and continued, “Misselwitz, and the man they call the Spy Hunter, Klaus Barbie. They butchered him. I saw him when he was moved to the railway station. He was like a dead man walking. His face looked like a bruised-up rotten apple and was covered in open wounds. No one saw or heard from him again. Even our contacts at the concentration camps said he never showed up. So, we know he is probably dead. When his sister went to Misselwitz a few weeks back to ask for his ashes, he simply laughed at her and told her that they had fed him to pigs.” Andre drifted off again into a stunned trance.
“Best to leave him, I think. I’ll take you down and introduce you to the others,” Nicole said as she propped her MP-40 against a small table.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs, out through the glass door, coming across the courtyard, he spotted Lena. As she approached the door, she spotted Bill and flung open the door to hug him.
“I’m so glad you are safe, Bill!” she squealed, then kissed him full on the lips. “We got stopped and questioned by some German Military Police, and I was sure they’d see through my cover story, but they let us on our way. God, it’s so stressful. Training can’t prepare you for staring down a German while they check your ID for real, while you hope your story stacks up. How have you done this so many times and stayed sane?”
“To be honest, Lena, I’m not so sure I have. Every time I’ve had to lie, it seems a little bit of me dies and never returns. The trick is to try to truly believe what you are telling them. Remember; if we stick to the plan, the hardest is over. They are careful about who is entering the city, but with the allied advance, Jerry’s on the back foot, and the word is that moving around Paris is getting easier.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m not sure I’m cut out for this after all. I’m glad I’m here with you, Bill.”
“If we all do our job, we’ll be fine. Let’s get something to eat and a good night’s sleep, and we’ll start the planning in the morning.”
The kitchen was full of beautiful smells and one hell of a mess. Bill found a clear bit of the table and carefully set down his pipe on its side. Leo-the-spiv was chatting, in French, to Jack. Jack noticed Bill’s presence and gave him a grin, raising his small glass to him. Bill nodded back.
“Pleased to meet you, Willy,” a slightly skinny man called out as he grabbed Bill’s hand to shake it. “We have been told you are Britain’s finest.”
“I don’t know about that. There’s this plump bloke who wears a hat, lives in London and smokes a lot of cigars. He’s pretty good too.”
Bill realised who he was talking to. This was Roland Boursier. He was not what Bill had expected. He was tall but gaunt, with a prominent forehead and a large Adam’s apple protruding from a sinewy neck. He looked almost Slavic rather than French. Since the Dunkirk evacuation, he had set up numerous resistance groups across Northern France. If the Gestapo could extract what he had in his head, it could bring a lot of the network tumbling down.
“Ha ha! You are an amusing chap, Willy! I am Roland. I think you may have been told about me, no?” He laughed as he poured out three glasses of cognac from a fine-looking decanter. “You must be Lena. Pleased to meet you, mademoiselle.”
Nicole smiled at Roland and hugged him warmly, then realising they wanted to talk business, went off in search of food.
Bill first sipped the brown liquid carefully, and to his surprise, it wasn’t the cheap fake brandy-coloured schnapps he was expecting but the real deal. He let the nectar run down his throat and smiled at Roland before knocking back the rest. “Pretty good stuff you have here, Boursier.”
“Call me Roland, please. So many things fall from lorries here in France, Willy. You just have to be standing in the right place at the right time to catch them.” He turned around and clattered some pans. “You must be hungry. Please sit down.”
Clearing a space at the table, Bill and Lena sat down. The kitchen was almost as badly damaged as upstairs. Bill imagined this is what Pompeii must have looked like after the volcano, but probably here had fewer orgies. Roland set down two bowls of steaming chicken stew. It smelled delicious.
“Coq au vin, my mother’s recipe,” he proudly announced, switching into French.
The garlic fragrance filled Bill’s nose as he waited for Roland to hand out the spoons. He also set down two cups and a bottle of wine. Roland noticed Bill looking at the cracked plaster.
In perfect English again now, Roland explained, “This place was owned by a Jewish family. Since they were taken away, it has been used as a safe house. Officially housing dancers from the nearby cabarets and employees of Brasserie La Coupole. The police leave us alone, as the building’s owners are known as collaborators, and personal friends with General von Stülpnagel, the military commander of Occupied France. In actual fact, the owners help our organisation, but don’t worry, no one outside this building knows you are here. Even the local Resistance commanders have not been informed of your mission.”
“And what of the previous occupants?” inquired Bill. Of course, he knew all about the roundups but wondered how well-informed Roland was.
“The Jews? The French Police called them up in ’42 during the Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv’. The roundup of all the Jews of Paris, to confine them in the Vélodrome d’Hiver. Of course, I wasn’t in the city at the time, but it was a very open secret. The French Police went house-to-house with a list of so-called undesirables. Families with children were dragged from their beds by Frenchmen. Can you believe such a thing, Willy? They were told to pack one bag each and that they would not be returning; that their homes were needed for good, Aryan families. The story went that they were collecting them to relocate them to the east for work, but the French politicians and police chiefs all knew what was really happening. The bastards. The year before, they had sent out green tickets to all the foreign Jews, telling them they needed to attend a status review, which was just cover for a trap. Anyone who showed up was arrested and immediately put on trains and sent to concentration camps in the Loire Valley. I can tell you, Bill, the stories coming back from those camps are not pleasant. According to my sources, the camps were closed last year, and every one of them was sent on trains to the east, to places in rural Poland.”
Bill ate his stew and hung on every word. He knew well of the places Roland was referring to. Some SOE ex-partisan fighters had told him about factories of death in German-occupied Poland. The Germans had buildings connected to truck exhausts. Execution chambers where they could murder hundreds at a time; men, women and children alike.
“Anyway, the velodrome has a sealed glass roof. All the toilets were boarded up as they were potential escape routes. There were around seven thousand people in there, all shitting wherever they could. They had to share one tap. Apart from the Red Cross and a few local churches bringing whatever food they could, they were starved for five days. Anyone trying to escape was shot. Many chose suicide, however they could manage it. Mothers even suffocated their babies so they wouldn’t have to face what they knew was still to come. Eventually, most of the French Jews were sealed into the ghetto in Drancy, just out of the centre of Paris, guarded by the French Gendarmes. Since then, most have been sent to the east. Sent to the east is what the Boche say when they mean sent to be murdered, Willy.”
“The Germans love a euphemism. It hides their actions even from themselves,” Bill replied.
“When they eventually cleared the last of the Jews from Vichy France, the children were initially held back, split from their parents, who went straight to their deaths. The little kids arrived in Drancy alone, some only two, barely big enough to carry their little cases. After a while, they were collected and sent to meet their maker too, Willy. How could a Frenchman do such heinous things? I ask myself all the time. We have managed to get at some of them to re-pay what they did, but when the Germans found out, they took retribution on the camp at Drancy. One of the Gestapo men who arranged all this and made it possible is sitting eating sausage and drinking beer just a short way from here. The ring leader of death, Ernst Misselwitz. Don’t forget who it is we are dealing with, Willy.”
“I am only too aware of who we are dealing with, Roland.” Misselwitz was the new head of the Gestapo in Paris, having replaced his old boss, a clever man by the name of Josef Kieffer. Kieffer was a model Nazi. His intelligence was only matched by his cruelty. Misselwitz had clearly learned the ways of his old master.
They back at Baker Street knew many of the SOE operatives that had gone missing in action had last been seen in the custody of Misselwitz. Bill had studied the intelligence file. The photo had been taken early in the war when he was in one of the Eastern Front murder squads in Ukraine.
“No one keeps their secrets long with those demons asking the questions. They are pure evil, Willy.”
Bill could feel the anger course through his veins. Then, composing his thoughts, Bill asked, “Are you sure we are safe here?”
“Yes, sir, we have been in this building for over a year. We never get raided, as the cabarets have made it clear there will be no shows if their girls or security staff are harassed. Of course, there are none of their girls here, but with Nicole and a few others coming and going, it keeps up appearances.”
“Our target resides at the Gestapo headquarters. Have you got some good information about it?”
“We are not amateurs, Willy. I will have the photos and plans ready for you in the morning. Eat as much as you like and help yourself to whatever you require. Our home is your home. Good night—bonne nuit.”
Leo, who had been chatting to Jack, got up and followed Roland out with a courteous nod towards Bill and Lena. Jack rose unsteadily from his chair, picked up what was left of a bottle of clear schnapps, and joined the other two who were hiding their laughter as he stumbled into the seat opposite them. He relit the cigarette dangling from his lips. As if reminded, Bill checked for his pipe and collected it from the table. He always thought best when he was smoking. He carefully removed the ash and bits from the bowl with his small penknife and started rubbing a couple of more flakes from his pocket.
“So, tomorrow Jack and I will look around and see if there is anywhere suitable for an observation post near the Gestapo headquarters,” Bill said. “Lena, you will need to drop a coded note to let the section know we have arrived safely in the city. In the morning, we will set out the emergency protocols with our new companions in case we get split, or something happens. It’s too dangerous to use the radio set in the safe house, so we will rely only on the dead-drop for now.” Bill packed his pipe as if in some kind of trance. He always meticulously filled the bowl loosely, pressed it down, repeated, then a final small pinch more on top with a last gentle press. He used a match for an initial charring light and then a second.
“We will meet tomorrow evening after our reconnoitre for a full briefing,” Bill added. He tamped the charred top layer down, as he often did with his finger, and relit. “We are in no mad rush. The allies won’t make it to Paris for a few weeks, at least. Get a good few hours’ sleep, Jack. Be ready to go for midday.” They both nodded and trudged out. Bill was starting to feel tired, too, so he poured himself a small glass of whatever the clear noxious liquid was and made his way upstairs.