Barely noticing the commotion downstairs, Bill stayed in his semi-conscious state as long as he could. That middle ground between awake and asleep, where you are aware of things going on but cannot make sense of it all, like some strange, semi-conscious, waking coma. He fought off this odd heavy straitjacket and wondered if that was what dying felt like. He immediately shook the image and peered out of his uncooperative pupils to see Jack snoring in the far corner of the room.
The others, including Lena, were gone. He could now clearly hear the coming and going downstairs and stood up to see what was happening. He was still dressed. He had no intention of being woken in the night by the Gestapo in nothing but his underpants. He picked up his smock and started emptying the pockets. He put everything into an old canvas sandbag he had brought for the purpose. He kept hold of his pipe in its little green drawstring bag, a small packet of French tobacco and his ID card.
“Wake up, you lazy bastard,” Bill said as he booted Jack and laughed at his pal’s reaction.
“Leave me alone and wake me when the war is over,” Jack grunted.
“No problem, brother, I’ll just pop along to Berlin and stick a round in Hitler’s dome so we can all go home.”
“That’d be great. A bullet in the Führer’s head and a big cup of coffee, what else could a man ask for?”
“A bacon sandwich?”
“Christ, I remember those.”
The Gestapo building looked like many other grand buildings in the neighbourhood if you ignored the twenty-four-hour guards. It was a large building with thick, solid walls and many oversized windows. It was of typical Parisian construction. Each floor had a black iron balustrade in a mock-balcony design across the lower part of the windows. Bill imagined at least one of the rooms would be sound proof for the Gestapo to carry out their own particular kind of interrogation; probably the basement, thought Bill, which would be fitting for the types of demons who inhabited the field grey uniforms who made this house of horrors their home. The Gestapo cynically referred to their torture rooms as kitchens. The kitchens often needed good drainage, he had heard.
The top floor was where the prisoners were kept. There was no traffic on the broad avenue, mainly due to the fuel shortages, and somewhat eerily, minimal sound. The Germans had also commandeered the houses on either side. Bill watched Jack stroll past, a newspaper in hand, and surreptitiously glance up at the top floor windows, then back down to give the guard by the front black iron railings the slightest of nods. Most Parisians gave the house a wide berth for a good reason. Much like the greatest of illusionists, the men in this building could make anyone disappear.
Bill sat opposite on a small bench. Sometimes the best hiding places are in plain sight. What sort of spy or Resistance operative, except a complete lunatic, would sit in front of, much less walk past, the Gestapo headquarters in Paris? He watched as the SS guards stood around in the small front courtyard. Without observing for a few days, it would be impossible to ascertain the handover times and procedures. He could not sit on this bench for more than half an hour without being approached and questioned. Bill watched Jack cross the street and wait near a lamppost, behind the trunk of one of the avenue’s trees, almost out of sight.
Bill could now see that entering the fortress would be almost impossible. Although the building was joined on both sides, the roof line was much higher and dropping down would require ropes. Besides, Numbers 82 and 86 were also occupied by the Germans. Bill was no stranger to open-field combat, but those tactics would not work here. There were too many look-out points from high vantage points. They’d just get picked off.
Their target would have to come out sooner or later. Bill had thought about snatching him, tying him up and rushing him towards the allies and being done with it, but knew it was a fanciful idea that would raise too many alarms. It would jeopardise too many other operations in the city, and how would he get through the German front line to reach the British? Moreover, there would undoubtedly be other SOE agents with different targets in Paris. Maybe they would just shoot him and run.
Number 84 on Avenue Foch was a vast building with six floors. Since the SS counter-intelligence service, the SD, and the Gestapo were basically one and the same in the occupied territories, they shared workspace and often even uniforms. Bill recalled the intelligence briefing; their man worked on one of the upper floors. Ernst Misselwitz had risen to commander of the Gestapo in Paris. His primary job was the capture, interrogation and imprisonment of spies. This included French Resistance and SOE agents. He, along with his assistants, had been responsible for the disappearance of dozens of agents.
The building also housed a counter-espionage radio unit that, using the codes found in possession of agents or extracted using interrogation, had been used to draw out others into revealing themselves. Bill knew there would be other SOE teams targetting leaders at the nearby Fresnes Prison, where most of the captured SOE agents were thought to have been imprisoned, but this was not their mission. Instead, they would be focussing on what the French had dubbed The Street of Horrors.
Back in March, the French Resistance leader, Pierre Brossolette, was found in a crumpled heap at the foot of 84 Avenue Foch, having thrown himself from the window of his cell on the top floor. Rumour had it that most of the bruises and cuts on his body had been inflicted prior to his suicide. Locals had heard his screaming for several days.
Bill drew deeply on his pipe. He suppressed the wince as the taste of the local tobacco hit his taste buds. It was only a small thing, but getting caught with British tobacco was a one-way ticket to the basement opposite him. He wasn’t used to such a fine cut, and he regretted drawing so hard as the tongue-bite hit.
If they couldn’t get a better, safer view of the headquarters, they would have to gather some Resistance fighters to help contain the building when the time comes and hope to flush out the rats. He made a mental image of the house and surroundings. Jack passed behind Bill’s bench, making his way back towards town. Bill waited a few minutes, then stood up, brushed off the odd tobacco flakes, and started to follow him.
A few minutes later, Bill caught up with Jack, and the two men continued the almost flat gradient toward l’Arc de Triomphe.
“I almost feel sorry for the thing,” Bill muttered.
Jack looked up at the monument, which appeared a light tan colour in the light.
“Why’s that, Bill?”
“Well, it’s stood there over a hundred years, a solid embodiment of French accomplishment and victory, right? And now the bloody Germans stomp about under it and parade their army in front of it while France bows its collective head. After everything they have achieved in the past, they have nothing to show for it but the shame of capitulation. I can’t imagine England would have gone the same way.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Bill. Remember that Poland, Czechoslovakia and others are having to suffer them too. They just have to hope the Russians can push through on their side.”
“I’m not so sure life under the Russkis will be much better for them. Certainly, the aristocrats will be packing their bags as we speak.”
“It’s just modernisation, Bill. The workers’ power will eventually overthrow their old masters unless the master is a little Charlie Chaplin lookalike who has successfully brainwashed the people into being afraid of even their neighbours.”
Bill thought about how many spies and saboteurs working against the Germans were communists or sympathisers. Even the Polish Resistance were hoping for a sweeping Russian victory. Bill knew the government had sided with Uncle Joe as a means to an end but couldn’t help wonder if it would one day come back to bite them.
“It’s impossible, pal.” Jack pushed back in his chair and blew out a plume of blue smoke.
“If we have learned anything, isn’t it at least that anyone can be got at?” replied Bill as he carefully stirred his espresso. Only in Paris could you find proper coffee like this. They were right in the heart of the lion’s den. They had carefully chosen the most downmarket and quiet of all the cafes along the Champs Elysees. Most proudly displayed signs stating they were for Germans Only.
The blonde waitress smiled at Bill from behind a stack of glasses. He had barely noticed her when she brought the coffees, he was so deep in thought. She was around thirty, with bright red lipstick, short-bobbed hair and a small silver crucifix around her neck. The way her cotton dress moved with her hips made Bill thankful he was not a Catholic, or he would need to go to confession to cleanse the thoughts he was having.
The room had cheap prints of classical art on the yellowing walls. Mostly they seemed to depict soul-stirring battles of the Napoleonic era. The cafes were all relatively quiet, perhaps due to the overcast weather. Maybe the Germans were all busy packing their loot, ready for their inevitable retreat like rats from a sinking ship. The media would, as usual, have very few of the facts, choosing instead to mention only the splendid acts of bravery by the glorious German Wehrmacht. Still, Bill had no doubt the allies would have secured at least one port by now, and with most of the German divisions on the Eastern Front, it wouldn’t take long for them to be pushed back into Germany.
“It will be like getting into a can of beans without any tools.” Jack swirled his cup and necked his coffee. “We will have to get a squad together to surround the place. Roland reckons he can get at least some of the police onside. We’d better have a vehicle ready, too.”
“I can’t imagine when the time comes that many Parisians will do much to assist the Germans. Even the collaborators are going to start covering their tracks. Maybe we can get all of them onside? Maybe the collaborators will see it as some sort of redemption for their treason?”
“I will make some subtle enquiries in the coming days.” Jack started to fumble some coins out of his pocket.
“Good man.”
The blonde waitress strutted up to their table like she was a model in a fashion show. She was too short for the likes of Maison Chanel, probably around five-foot-two, but everything was right where it should be. She collected the coins and winked at Bill as she picked up the empty cups.
As he watched her shimmy away, he silently thanked God he was an atheist.