Adelaide had known there was very little chance of evading capture, but she had remained behind the refectory door in the hope that she might be able to slip out through the hall if it were left empty. She almost made it. Two soldiers had pushed the door wide, striding into the refectory and switching on the lights. One began searching beneath the tables that stretched the length of the room, while the other had climbed up onto the dais and peered behind the lectern where the nun on duty would read during meals. Neither was watching the door, and Adelaide edged her way round it. She was almost into the empty hallway when the man on the dais looked up and saw her. With a shout he was after her, chasing down the length of the room, knocking chairs aside as he came, his mate right behind him. As they pelted out into the hall, Adelaide sprinted down the corridor. A soldier emerging from another door reached out to grab her, but with a short, sharp punch to his solar plexus that left him doubled up and gasping, Adelaide evaded him and dashed into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. It gave her the few seconds’ respite she needed.
The back door, left open for her earlier by Sister Marie-Marc, was still unlocked, and now she flung it wide, before darting down the cellar steps, closing that door softly behind her. She raced to the secret room, closing and bolting its door before climbing the old ladder once again. She listened intently through the grating. She heard the two soldiers storm out into the yard, heard them shout to the guards at the gate and heard an answering call. She risked raising the grille enough to peer out.
The guards outside had run towards the convent gate, calling back to the men who had chased after her and were now searching the courtyard.
It was now or never. Adelaide eased the grille aside and hoisted herself up through the hole, sliding as quietly as she could on her belly away from the gate into the sheltering darkness of the bushes beyond. She knew she had to get away quickly; it wouldn’t be long before they found the hidden room; the locked doors wouldn’t hold them; they would realise she was away and the search would be on.
Once round the corner of the wall she was out of immediate view, and she risked coming to her feet, running at the crouch away from the convent, and to begin with away from the village. Half a mile further on she circled back, crossed the footbridge over the river, and taking the towpath hurried to the end of the twisting lane that led to the back of Juliette’s café. In the distance she heard shouting and guessed they had found her escape route. There was little moon as she crept up the lane and one knock on the door had it open. Seeing Adelaide, white-faced and alone, the old lady hauled her inside.
“It’s all gone wrong,” Adelaide said breathlessly. “German raid on the convent. Don’t know if they’ve caught the Auclons, but they’re certainly looking for me.”
“Into the cellar,” Juliette said, and together they rolled back the rug to open the trapdoor. “I’ll watch to see what happens,” the old lady promised as Adelaide slipped down into the space below. “Remember, no light!” hissed Juliette as she looked down. “There is a small window, and the light would show. I’ll be back.”
Adelaide nodded, and ducked down as Juliette lowered the trapdoor over her head. The darkness in the cellar seemed complete, but as her eyes grew accustomed, she realised she could make out the slightly paler rectangle of a window high up in the wall. Hands outstretched, she edged across the small room, feeling her way around some furniture she encountered on the way. She reached the window, but it was too high. She felt for a chair and, dragging it under the window, stood up on its seat and tried to see out. The window, at ground-level outside, was coated in grime, and, she realised, faced out into the alley at the side of the house, giving her a view of absolutely nothing. Frustrated, Adelaide sat down on the chair and waited. It was all she could do. As she sat alone in the darkness wondering what was going on at the convent, whether the Auclons had been found, whether Sarah was safe, she realised a fraction of the living hell that must have been the Auclons’ life for the past year, and more extremely, for the past few days. Not knowing what was happening. Not knowing if loved ones were safe. The silence was deep and unbroken. She could hear nothing from the outside world, and had no clue as to what was going on.
How could they have lived weeks and months in this sort of limbo, she wondered? Not knowing. Did they get used to it? Would I get used to it?
She felt exhausted, and she tried to relax back into the chair, but she was too strung-up to sleep. The events of the night played over and over in her mind. Could they have got the Auclons clean away if they had been able to take them straight from the cellar? Should they have brought them here before trying to get them cleaned up? Why had the Germans come? Had she been followed to the convent? Was it she who had triggered the raid? The more she thought about the evening, the more she was sure that she had not been followed. So what had made Hoch raid the convent on that particular night? Had he found the Auclons? She was sure that he must have done, and if he had, what had happened to Sarah and the other nuns? She thought of Sister Eloise and shuddered. Surely Hoch wouldn’t take a reverend mother from her convent? But she knew, of course, that he would if he wanted to; and he would want to, to make an example, to keep people in line. If the local populace defied him in any way, Hoch would make reprisals, and the local populace knew it. It was what made them, despite their grumbling, tolerate the German occupation with comparatively little resistance.
Adelaide gave some thought then to her own position. What was she going to do next? She couldn’t stay here, that would put Madame Juliette at risk. Did Sarah need her help? Could she, in fact, help Sarah, or would she simply put her in yet more danger? Should she go back to the farm? Would any of the soldiers who had chased her be able to recognise her again? If so, not only would her cover be blown, but it would bring the Launays into more danger, too. Could Marcel get her away, out of the area?
Everything churned round in her mind as she sat entombed in the silent cellar, and she came to no conclusions. “If you’re in a tight spot, stay calm and think” had been drummed into her during her training. Well, she was in a tight spot now… so, stay calm and think. It all depended, she decided, on what Juliette had discovered. When she knew exactly what had happened, she could begin to make plans.
It was more than an hour before she heard the trapdoor opening and light seeped into the little underground room.
“Adèle, you can come up now,” whispered Madame Juliette, and Adelaide gratefully climbed the steps out of the darkness. Blinking in the dim light Juliette had on in the kitchen, Adelaide rubbed her eyes.
“They’ve taken prisoners to the German HQ,” Madame Juliette told her. “Four of them. Almost certainly the two Auclons, and two sisters. I think it was Reverend Mother with another sister. I watched from the upstairs window with the binoculars, but it was very dark and I’m not sure. Poor Joseph, he was stripped naked from the waist down. Janine was wearing a nun’s habit, but her head was bare.”
“You’re sure it was Reverend Mother?”
“Almost,” replied Madame Juliette. “But the other sister… well, I don’t know. Poor Reverend Mother, once they discover she is English, it will be even worse!”
Adelaide stared at the old lady. “How did you know she was English?” she asked.
Madame Juliette shrugged. “I have always known. She came here during the war… the last war… to nurse with her maid. They came to my café for cakes and tea.”
“But who’d tell the Germans that she is English?” demanded Adelaide.
Madame Juliette smiled sadly. “Almost anyone in St Croix,” she replied, “if they think it is worth their while. People here want a quiet life. They know there will be reprisals if the Germans are attacked in any way. Few will resist, because they want no bloodshed.”
“It doesn’t mean that they will inform.”
“That is naïve, Adèle. In war everyone looks out for number one. It is human nature. If someone thinks Reverend Mother will cause more trouble, they will tell. The Germans take her away and pouf! The problem has gone.”
The two women discussed what Adelaide should do next.
“You must stay here for the rest of the night,” asserted Madame Juliette. “They will still be searching for you out there. Did they get a good look at you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Adelaide. “The corridor isn’t well lit and I was running.”
Madame Juliette ran her eye over Adelaide’s black slacks and jersey. “A change of clothes would help, something bright, and a scarf to cover your hair.” She disappeared for a moment or two and then reappeared with a cotton dress, pale blue spattered with daisies, a white cardigan and a white cotton headscarf.
“My daughter’s,” she said briefly. “In the morning, you will look nothing like the girl in black trousers who ran away. But now,” she said firmly, “you must go to bed and sleep. If they come here before morning, we will say you were helping me, were too late for curfew and stayed over. Give me your clothes and I will deal with them. Get up in Rose’s dress in the morning.”
To her surprise, Adelaide did fall asleep in the little room above the café. Its one tiny window looked out onto the square, and before she slept, Adelaide turned off the light, pulled back the blackout curtains and looked out. Across the square she could see the dark shape of the town hall, but there was no activity there now. Where had they put the prisoners, she wondered? Were they still in the German HQ, or had they been locked up in the police cells for the night, like Sister Eloise had been?
She woke early as the rising sun forced a ray between her curtains to dance on her pillow and finger her face. Once again she peeped between the curtains and looked across the square. The town hall stood silent, its once proud façade draped with two swastika flags, and beneath these, one either side of the door, stood two sentries, rifles in hand, on guard.
Adelaide and Madame Juliette had decided that the first thing to do was to get her safely back to the farm, where she could tell the Launays what had happened. If questioned they had to be telling the same story. Once there, she could change again and go back to the convent, turning up for work as if she knew nothing of the night’s events. It would be a risk, but as far as she knew, apart from the three soldiers of course, no one but Sarah and Sister Marie-Marc had seen her the night before. No one there would know she had been involved, and she could find out exactly what had happened. So, half an hour later, dressed in the cotton frock and with the scarf tied over her hair, Adelaide slipped out of Madame Juliette’s back door, walked down the alley and headed for the Launays’ farm.
“Will you contact Marcel? Get him to come to the farm?” Adelaide asked as she paused inside the kitchen door. “I need to see him soon, so we can decide what to do next.”
“I will,” agreed Madame Juliette. “Now go… and good luck.”
The Launays greeted Adelaide with relief, but listened with horror as she related the events of the night.
“You must get away from here,” Gerard said. “We will say that you found the country too quiet and have gone to live with relatives in Paris.”
“No,” Adelaide shook her head, “I must go to the convent as if I know nothing. It’d be more suspicious if I didn’t turn up, and anyway, I have to find out what happened there.”
“They were arrested,” Gerard said. “You know that from Madame Juliette.”
But Adelaide was adamant. “I don’t know for sure that it was Reverend Mother and I must find out.”
They didn’t agree; they knew nothing of the close bond between their “niece”, Adèle, and the reverend mother, but they accepted her decision and once she had changed into her normal working clothes, Adelaide set off to the convent.
She found Sister Elisabeth in the kitchen. The nun looked relieved to see her. “Where’s Sister Marie-Marc?” Adelaide asked innocently.
Sister Elisabeth shook her head. “Not here today. Sister Marie-Joseph is helping me this morning. Now, Adèle, please bring up some coal. The range is nearly out.”
“Of course, Sister,” Adelaide replied and picked up the buckets. Once down the cellar steps, she hurried through to the hidden room. The door, which had been battered open, now hung drunkenly from one hinge, and the old ladder lay on the floor.
The grille had been pulled down into place and was covered with something on the outside, so that there was no daylight. It was obvious that they had discovered how she had escaped… but did they know who she was?
When she carried the bucket of coal up to the kitchen, Sister Elisabeth was nowhere to be seen, but Adelaide found the novice, Sister Marie-Joseph, washing up the breakfast plates in the scullery. She picked up a tea towel and started on the drying.
“Is Sister Marie-Marc ill?” she asked innocently.
The novice shook her head. “She went with Mother,” she whispered.
“With Mother? Where?” Adelaide tried to keep her tone light.
“The Germans took them.” The girl’s voice shook and Adelaide saw that there were tears running down her face. “And Sister St Bruno, she’s dead!”
“Dead!” Adelaide didn’t try to hide the horror in her voice. “How did she die? Did she have a heart attack?”
“No,” whispered Sister Marie-Joseph. “That German colonel, the one with skulls on his uniform”—her eyes were wide with remembered horror— “he kicked her in the head and she died.”
Disbelief and rage hit Adelaide with equal force. She stared at Sister Marie-Joseph incredulously. “What did you say?”
“She was praying… out loud… the Twenty-third Psalm. He kicked her in the head and then he just walked out. The soldiers took Mother and Sister Marie-Marc and they all left.”
“And then what?” demanded Adelaide. “What happened then? Nobody said anything? Nobody did anything?”
“Sister Marie-Paul told us to say and do nothing. She said we didn’t want any more trouble from the Germans. She said that from now on we must keep ourselves to ourselves.”
“And Sister St Bruno?”
“She’s in the chapel. Her funeral Mass is tomorrow.”
“Sister!” Sister Elisabeth’s voice was sharp as she addressed them from the kitchen doorway. “You’re not gossiping, I hope! You know what Mother said.” She glowered at Sister Marie-Joseph. “You will remain silent for the rest of the morning,” she ordered. “Is that understood?”
“Yes, Sister.” Colour flooded the novice’s face and she busied herself with the washing-up, plunging her arms into the sink to her elbows and scrubbing the plates as if they were coated in grime.
“Mother would like to see you, Adèle,” Sister Elisabeth continued, “in her office.”
Stunned by the news of Sister St Bruno’s violent death, Adelaide turned, pale-faced, to look at the nun. “Mother…” she began.
“Is waiting for you in her office, Adèle. Make haste!”
Knowing that Mother Marie-Pierre was being held in the village, Adelaide approached what had been her office with great unease. When the bell summoned her inside and she opened the door, she was still half-expecting to see Sarah, but her worst fears were realised when she saw that it was Sister Marie-Paul who now sat, grim-faced, behind the desk.
Adelaide allowed her surprise to show. “I’m sorry, Sister,” she said, “but Sister Elisabeth said that Mother wanted to see me.”
“And so I do,” Sister Marie-Paul replied smoothly. “I am Reverend Mother, now, Adèle…”
“But Mother Marie-Pierre…?” began Adelaide.
“Mother Marie-Pierre is no longer living in the convent. In her absence, the sisters have chosen me to carry on her work.” There was the faintest pause, as if Adelaide might comment, then she went on. “Now, I’ll come straight to the point, Adèle, with regard to your position here. I am afraid that is terminated from today. We no longer require your help. I am sure Mother Marie-Pierre warned you that the job would only be temporary.” She reached into a cash box that stood on the desk. “Here is what you are owed for this week,” she said, handing Adelaide some folded notes. “Please leave the convent now, straight away. I wish you good day, Mademoiselle.” Sister Marie-Paul picked up a paper that was in front of her and began reading it; the interview was clearly over.
Being dismissed suited Adelaide very well, but she gave a heavy sigh as she put the money into the pocket of her skirt, and with a quiet “Good day, Mother”, she left the room.
As the door closed Sister Marie-Paul looked up again, thoughtfully. Sister Celestine, so often Sister Marie-Paul’s eyes and ears within the convent, had reported to her that she had seen Adèle wandering about after curfew. Clearly the girl was up to no good, and Sister Marie-Paul wanted no further trouble with the Germans. Better to get the girl out of the way and arrange other help for Sister Elisabeth in the kitchen. The sooner she was out of the convent, the better.
Adelaide did not, however, leave the convent, not immediately. She went quietly along the passage to the chapel. When she opened the door she was hit by the smell of incense and the warm glow of candles. Despite the wartime shortage of the latter, the nuns had not stinted for Sister St Bruno. Her plain wooden coffin stood on a trestle before the altar with candles at her head and feet and more burned on the altar. Sister Danielle was the sister kneeling and keeping watch, but she did not look up when Adelaide quietly took a seat in a pew near the door. The silence lapped round her, seeping into her mind and her heart. She thought of Joseph and Janine who had been taken from this very place the night before; and what would happen to them. She thought of her aunt, Sarah, who with the faithful Sister Marie-Marc had been arrested too. What would become of them? And she thought of her Great-Aunt Anne, lying in the wooden box in front of her, dead, simply because some German soldier had casually kicked her in the head.
She thought of Marcel and hoped that he could get her out of the area very soon, but before she went, she had one thing she needed to do. Her hatred of Hoch flooded through her veins like melt water, turbulent, icy cold and powerful. Before she left she would do her damnedest to make sure he hunted down no one else.
Chapel was not the place to plan revenge, so Adelaide said silent goodbyes to her great-aunt, and getting quietly to her feet slipped out of the chapel and out of the convent.
Once outside, Adelaide hurried back to the village. It was a risk appearing in the village itself, but she had to discover what had happened to Sarah and poor Sister Marie-Marc. As she came into the square she heard the sound of an engine behind her, and turned to see a covered lorry, swastikas emblazoned on the sides of its canopy, grinding down the hill behind her. She stepped hastily out of its way and watched as it swept up in front of the town hall. A little crowd of onlookers gathered as people paused to watch what was happening. When the lorry came to a halt one soldier jumped down and went into the town hall while another circled to the back of the truck, his rifle trained on the tied-down flaps.
Adelaide joined the group watching as four prisoners were brought out from the cells beyond the town hall. More guards followed, and, covered by their comrades, two of them untied the flaps that sealed the lorry. There were shouts and cries from inside, and as the flaps were raised, Adelaide could see the pale faces of the men and women who were already crammed into the truck. Some covered their eyes at the sudden sunlight, others reached out, begging for water, calling for help.
One of the guards jabbed at them with his rifle, shouting. “Get back! Get back I say, or I’ll shoot.”
Adelaide stared in horror at the prisoners being brought to the lorry. The Auclons, dressed only in their ragged underwear, staggered forward prodded by the rifles of the guards, their arms round each other for support. They were followed by the two sisters. Mother Marie-Pierre was almost carrying Sister Marie-Marc, who stumbled along beside her on unsteady legs, her eyes glazed with incomprehension. Both were battered and bruised, their faces swollen and blood-smeared, and although they were still dressed in their habits, neither had her head covered. Colonel Hoch, Adelaide realised with another flood of ice through her veins, had spent the night interrogating them.
Hoch had indeed had a busy night. He had come to the cell into which the two nuns had been unceremoniously tossed, and flung wide the door, crashing it back against the wall. Stepping inside he had filled the tiny room with his presence. The sisters, sitting together on the single narrow cot that served as a bed, looked up fearfully. He saw the fear in their faces and he smiled. Fear he enjoyed; fear would get him what he needed to know.
“Stand!” he barked. The two nuns obeyed, the older of the two swaying a little unsteadily on her feet. Reverend Mother reached out a hand to steady her, and Hoch, watching the instinctive gesture, knew on whom he should concentrate, who would crack.
He turned to the soldier who had followed him to the door. “Shut the door, lock it, and wait outside.”
The man saluted and pulled the door closed with a clang. Hoch waited until he heard the bolt drawn across before giving his attention to his prisoners.
On his orders they had been taken through the German HQ to the police cells, and there he had let them stew for over two hours. It had given them time to consider their fate before they were interrogated, which, he knew, made interrogation more fruitful.
Hoch was angry. His raid on the convent had only been partially successful. He had received information that a family was being hidden there. A young woman and a child had been seen after curfew near the convent, and it was suggested that it might be the Auclon family. He had hoped the raid would deliver the whole family into his hands, and although he now had the parents locked up, the children seemed to have eluded him. He had hoped to arrest the young woman, whoever she was, at the same time. He’d been right, she had been there, but his idiot, incompetent men had allowed her to slip through their fingers. The cellar had quickly been discovered, disclosing where the Jews had been hidden, how they had been supplied with food, how the children had been removed and finally how the young woman had made her escape from the convent. He had sent men after her, but searching the countryside in the dark had been a waste of time. The woman had vanished, and the men concerned had only been able to furnish the sketchiest of descriptions. Good enough though for Hoch to recall seeing a young woman with the mother superior on a previous visit to the convent, a young woman who might fit. It was one of the things he intended to learn now, one way or another.
Looking at the two nuns standing before him, he realised that their habits gave them psychological protection. Somehow they would feel safe while still dressed in their black robes and white hoods; their dignity would be preserved, their feeling of self.
“You can start by taking off that ridiculous headgear,” he said sharply. “Now!”
Sister Marie-Marc began to protest, but Mother Marie-Pierre simply reached up and began to remove the offending hood, encouraging mildly, “Come along, Sister. Do as the colonel asks.”
Sister Marie-Marc was used to obeying Reverend Mother and without further protest, but with shaking hands, she did as she was told.
“And that cap thing!” snapped Hoch when they stood there, hoods removed, but heads still encased in the tight-fitting wimple and wide starched collar.
“Is that really necessary?” Mother Marie-Pierre asked. She remembered how Sister Eloise had looked, diminished and vulnerable with her cropped hair standing in a spiky halo about her head, and she knew it was part of Hoch’s intimidation tactics. She had no illusions about his interrogation methods and she was afraid. But she had to be strong for Sister Marie-Marc, to give her the courage they would both need from now on.
“Don’t make me ask twice, Reverend Mother.” Hoch spoke softly, menacingly. “Remember, I have men outside who would be only too delighted to discover if a nun was the same as any other woman under all that black bombazine.”
Mother Marie-Pierre undid the wimple, but left her collar in place, and Sister Marie-Marc did the same. Their heads were revealed, Mother Marie-Pierre’s hair in tiny cropped curls, Sister Marie-Marc’s scalp almost bald, with only wispy hair above her ears.
Hoch smiled at what he saw, two women, one of them old and scrawny, one in middle-age, the mystery of their calling shed with their hoods. Two very ordinary women, both afraid.
“Now I can see you properly,” he began, “I’m going to ask you some questions… and I expect some answers.” He fixed his eyes on Reverend Mother. “Where are the Auclon children?”
“I have no idea,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre.
He moved so quickly and unexpectedly that she received the full force of the back of his hand across her face. Almost knocked to the floor, she staggered backwards, and it was only Sister Marie-Marc’s grasping hands that kept her on her feet.
“Wrong answer! Where are the Auclon children?”
“I don’t know.” This time she was ready for the blow, but this time he used a clenched fist to her cheek and nose. Blood spouted and a cut opened up under her eye. Mother Marie-Pierre cried out, her hand flying to her face as the blood poured unchecked down onto her collar. Sister Marie-Marc screamed, and sat down hard on the bed, her legs having given way beneath her.
“Who brought the family to you?” Hoch demanded, ignoring the older nun’s sobs. Mother Marie-Pierre pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and tried to staunch her bleeding nose, but she made no reply.
“You!” he roared at Sister Marie-Marc. “Stand up.”
Sister Marie-Marc struggled to her feet, her face ashen, her eyes wide with terror.
“Who brought the family to the convent?”
Sister Marie-Marc shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Hoch raised his hand again and Sister Marie-Marc flinched away, but it was not her that he hit, but her superior, another stinging blow across her other cheek.
“Turn the other cheek!” he mocked. “Isn’t that what you do, you holy nuns? Not so holy now, though, are you? Telling lies. Telling lies to save a family of filthy Jews. Well, let me tell you, you holy sisters, your lies won’t save them. Nothing you can do will save that family. They’ll never see their children again, and when I find them they’ll follow their parents to Germany. But I need to know where they are, and you are going to tell me.” This time he did hit out at Sister Marie-Marc, knocking her to the floor and then aiming two sharp kicks at her body. The old nun moaned, curling herself into a ball and flinging her arms up to protect her head.
“Stop it! Stop it!” shrieked Mother Marie-Pierre. “She doesn’t know anything!”
“Possibly,” agreed Hoch, “but you do, and if you don’t tell me what I want to know, it will be her who suffers.” He delivered another kick, this time to Sister Marie-Marc’s shaven head.
“Stop it! You’ll kill her!”
Hoch looked down at the figure now lying still on the floor. “Yes, I may. But that is entirely up to you. As soon as I have the information I need, I shall leave you in peace. Now, where are those children?”
Mother Marie-Pierre’s thoughts raced. Sister Marie-Marc couldn’t take much more of Hoch’s brutality. More kicks to the head and she would indeed die. Save her life and risk the Auclon twins? She had seconds to decide. She opted for partial truth.
“I don’t know where the children are,” she said reluctantly, “they were taken away.”
“Who took them?” Hoch’s eyes gleamed as he watched her face, searching out the truth.
“I don’t know. A man came for them.”
Hoch aimed another kick at Sister Marie-Marc’s head, his boot connecting with a sickening thud. “You’re lying!” he said almost conversationally. “It was a young woman. She was seen. Who was she?”
Mother Marie-Pierre paled, but held her nerve. “I don’t know. A man brought them, a woman took them away. I’d never seen either of them before.”
“Oh, I think you had,” said Hoch. “I think it was that girl who was at the convent when I came before. She was seen running away tonight. I have a good description. I think it is the same girl. If you don’t tell me who she is, I shall simply ask up at the convent. There’s a sensible nun up there. I’ve dealt with her before, she doesn’t want any more trouble.” He waited for some reaction, but although Mother Marie-Pierre was shaken at the thought that Adelaide had almost been captured, she was relieved to know she had got away. Surely she would make good her escape from the area as fast as she could. She must know there was no future for her in these parts now her cover was blown.
“So,” he said, “you might as well tell me her name now and save me the trouble of going back to the convent.” Again his hand whipped out across her face, the signet ring on his finger ripping a gash across her chin. Then he glanced down at Sister Marie-Marc still and silent on the floor, and prodded her with his toe. She moaned softly. “She’s still alive… just,” he remarked. “So, now, Reverend Mother, let’s start again, shall we? And this time don’t try my patience any longer. Who brought the Jews to the convent? They’d been hiding in a derelict cottage, and then someone brought them to you. Who was that?”
Sister Marie-Marc moaned again. Hoch said, “Please answer my question, or your sister will die.”
“A man from the resistance. I don’t know his name. I’d never seen him before.”
“If you didn’t know him, why did he bring the family to you?”
“The convent is a Christian house,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre. “I suppose he must have thought we would give shelter to any family in danger.”
“Because you’d done it before!” snapped Hoch. “That’s why he came to you! A secret room was prepared in the cellar. I saw it with my own eyes. You knew they were coming… or someone in the convent did. Someone prepared that hiding place… if not you, who? The girl? She worked in the convent. She came in each day. You had to have help from the outside. Who is she… the one that prepared the room?”
“I did it.” The words were scarcely more than a croak. Sister Marie-Marc had opened her eyes and was staring up at the colonel. “I made the room. Mother didn’t even know about it until the Auclons were there.”
Mother Marie-Pierre dropped to her knees beside her sister. “It’s all right, Sister,” she said, “you don’t have to say any more.”
“Oh, I think she does,” Hoch said, pushing Reverend Mother aside. “Go on, Sister, what about the girl? The young woman who took the children away and then came back for the parents tonight? Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” murmured Sister Marie-Marc, her eyes closing again.
Hoch bent down and lifted Sister Marie-Marc’s head from the floor, peering at her swollen face before letting her head drop with a sharp crack onto the stone floor. “I don’t think she’ll survive tonight,” he remarked, glancing up at Reverend Mother. “I shall leave you to consider now,” he went on. “We shall resume in the morning. I shall bring another of my men who is specially trained in interrogation. Perhaps he will be more persuasive than I am.” He walked to the door and then glanced back at the figure on the floor. “It’s a pity you weren’t more helpful. You could have saved her a lot of pain.”
Mother Marie-Pierre held his gaze. “Will you send in some water so I can bathe her face?”
“No, Reverend Mother, I will not.”
“And a bucket, or something… for our needs?”
“You can squat in the corner,” he replied cheerfully, pointing to an open drain hole. “Something you’ll have to get used to, I expect. There’ll be few conveniences at the camps where we send enemies of the Reich.” He rapped sharply on the door three times and Mother Marie-Pierre heard the bolt being drawn back. The door opened, the colonel left, and as the door closed behind him, the light went out.
Mother Marie-Pierre bent down in the darkness and tried to ease Sister Marie-Marc from the floor onto the narrow bed. As she did so, the elderly nun murmured. “You didn’t tell him did you? About Adèle and the children?”
“No, Sister, I didn’t tell him.”
“Thank God.” She groaned as she tried to move. “Don’t tell him to save me. I’m old, they’re young. Don’t tell him. Evil! Evil man!”
“It’s all right, Sister, stay still,” soothed Reverend Mother. “When it gets light we’ll have a look at your bruises. It’s all right.” She rested the nun’s head in her lap. There was little else she could do for her until she could see, except pray.
It’s all right, she’d said, but it wasn’t all right at all. Mother Marie-Pierre knew that Hoch would be back in a few hours, and the interrogation would start again. Would he use Sister Marie-Marc again to try and make her talk? Would he reverse the process and attack her, Reverend Mother, in an effort to make Sister Marie-Marc tell what she knew? So far they had been subjected to Hoch’s bullyboy tactics, but there were other ways of extracting information from an unwilling prisoner. And so she prayed, through the darkest hours of her life, prayed for strength and guidance, for deliverance for them all. Truly, she thought, we are in the valley of the shadow of death.
As the dawn light crept in through the grubby window, Mother Marie-Pierre was able to see the damage Hoch had done with his boot. Sister Marie-Marc lay in an uneasy doze, her face was swollen, her nose broken with one eye almost closed. Damping a corner of her own blood-soaked handkerchief with saliva, Reverend Mother wiped away some of the blood that had crusted round the old nun’s nose. Sister Marie-Marc’s breathing was uneven, and even in her fitful sleep she moaned and muttered with pain. Mother Marie-Pierre’s own face ached appallingly. Her right eye had swollen from Hoch’s punch, and she, too, was finding it difficult to breathe through her nose.
Outside she heard the sounds of a new day, men’s voices and the heavy tread of boots. She urgently needed to relieve herself, and unwilling to have an audience for this, she gently eased the sleeping Sister Marie-Marc off her lap and went to the drain in the corner. When she returned to the bed she realised that Sister Marie-Marc was not asleep, but had drifted off into unconsciousness. Mother Marie-Pierre hammered on the door, trying to attract the attention of a guard, to get help, but if anyone heard her hammering, it was ignored. No one came. No one brought food or water. They were left in the cold silence of the cell. Occasionally there were sounds from outside; once she heard a piercing scream and the slamming of a door. Again she hammered on their door, but to no avail.
It was several hours before the bolts were again drawn back and Hoch strode in. He had not been idle in those hours and he was delighted with the results of his labours. He had begun by interrogating the Jews. Using the same technique, as with the nuns, he had them brought together in a cell. There Joseph was handcuffed to the wall, forced to watch as Hoch began to work on Janine. First he stripped her and then forced her to lie on her back, naked on the narrow bed, tying her wrists and ankles to the bed legs so that she was stretched out like a sacrifice. She had struggled against him, but she was no match for his strength, and a sudden punch to her head had sent her flying. She had screamed with fear and Hoch had shrugged. “You can scream all you like,” he said. “No one can hear you… and if they can, they won’t come.”
He glanced across at the pale-faced man. “You only have to answer my questions, Jew, and her pain will be over.” He had few of the more refined instruments of torture that were available at the Gestapo headquarters in Amiens, but Janine’s shrieks of pain as cigarettes were applied to her breasts and genitals soon had her husband singing like a nightingale. Within an hour Hoch had all the information he needed. His only failure was that the children were lost to him. Even the threat to put out his wife’s eyes had not produced the required information from Joseph, screaming frantically that he didn’t know. Hoch had come, reluctantly, to believe that he really didn’t know where his children had been taken. But Hoch now knew about everything else. About the Charbonniers, how they had let the family hide in the loft of the derelict cottage and kept them supplied with food; about the Launays, who had some connection with a girl called Antoinette who had brought them to hide in the convent; about a man called Marcel who had arrived with Antoinette to collect the children, one at a time, and taken them away. Hoch had not even needed the services of his “specialist” interrogator. He and he alone had this information. He would be the one to round up this little group of résistants. He would get the credit; none for the mealy-mouthed apology for a major, Thielen. He would stamp his authority on this place once and for all. And then maybe, just maybe, he would be moved from this godforsaken area to a more prominent job, in Paris perhaps. He had proved that the dreadful truth that his grandmother had been a Jew did not stop him from hunting down Jews wherever they hid, and sending them to the camps where they belonged.
This information culled was all he needed. Returning from the Jews’ cell, he sat down in his office to consider just exactly what he did know. The information about the fugitives at the convent had come in an anonymous letter. Hoch got it out of his desk now to look at it again. Written on cheap, lined paper, it was scrawled in pencil and simply said, “She’s hiding them in the convent! The girl had one of the children.” Of course it was unsigned, and the writer gave no clue to his or her identity, but Hoch, guessing who had sent it, had decided to act on it.
The information had proved correct, and Hoch was in no doubt now that the “she” must be the mother superior. Someone in the convent did not like her, the letter having been sent for private purposes; an informer who wanted some sort of reward would surely have made herself known. This fitted his theory that the letter had come from the nun he had dealt with before, Sister Marie-Something. She wanted to run the convent and was content to co-operate with the Germans if necessary, to do so. She might want to be rid of Reverend Mother, but so did he. He would tolerate no subversives in his area, and Mother Marie-Pierre was certainly that. The other nun, whoever she was, had been taken simply to implement his earlier threat. His point had been made, and emphatically made at that—there would be no further participation for the nuns in this war.
Hoch contacted the HQ in Amiens and arranged for one of the lorry transports on its way to Drancy, the transit camp outside Paris, to be diverted to pick up the prisoners. He had no further need of any of them. The Jews would be off to Drancy in a couple of hours, and the nuns could go with them.
That still left the question of Antoinette. Who was she? Was she the young woman at the convent? Almost certainly she was, so he could get her name easily enough. There would be no problem bringing in the Charbonniers and the Launays, they’d soon be made to talk. The only one he had little information on was the mysterious Marcel. No doubt Antoinette could furnish that information, and who knew where that might lead to?
There was also the mysterious disappearance of the weasel informer, Fernand. Since tipping them off about the Jews in the first place, he had made no contact. Where was he? Fernand, or rather his disappearance, had irritated Hoch. He wanted to know what the man was up to, so he’d sent Weber to Fernand’s house, either to bring Fernand in, or find out where he was. Weber had returned with Fernand’s landlady.
“Where is Monsieur Fernand, Madame?” Hoch had asked, almost civilly.
Martine Reynaud was terrified to find herself in the German headquarters and her voice shook as she answered. “I don’t know, Monsieur.”
“When did you last see him?”
“I don’t know, Monsieur. A few days ago. He comes and goes as he pleases.”
“But you must know when he’s in the house.”
Certainly Martine knew when the brute was in the house, with his demands for cooked meals, washing and mending to be done, boots to be cleaned. She had relished the peace of the last few days when he had made no appearance at all. She had not dared to hope that he might never come back and she might regain the use of her own home, but now this German officer with the skulls on his shoulder was glowering at her… and he was far more frightening than Fernand.
“Sometimes, sometimes not. He’s always out and about, Monsieur,” stammered Martine.
Hoch knew there was nothing more to be learned from her and he dismissed her. “When he comes back, you’re to let me know. But remember, Madame, there will be no need to tell him you have been here today.”
“Yes, Monsieur, I mean no, Monsieur,” gabbled the woman, and scurried out of his office.
Hoch considered what he had learned. Fernand had obviously disappeared. He, Hoch, would look into the matter later on. If Fernand were dead he wasn’t going anywhere, and if he wasn’t, well, he’d turn up sooner or later. He could be lying low, afraid, because his information proved to be out of date. Or perhaps something had happened to him? Hoch realised that he must be known locally as an informer, and probably a lot more besides. Had he met with an accident? It was more than possible that he had been silenced by one of his neighbours. Hoch did not particularly care whether the man was alive or dead, but if he had been murdered by the cell of résistants he was seeking now, the murder of a Frenchman would more than justify their arrest and execution when the time came.
Today, however, Hoch was concentrating on the girl and Marcel. Once he had them he’d have time for everyone else.
When he returned to the nuns’ cell, he found that the older one was in a bad way. She lay on the bed, moaning softly as Mother Marie-Pierre tried to soothe her. She had removed Sister Marie-Marc’s starched collar and cleaned her face as best she could with her handkerchief. As Hoch walked in the reverend mother appealed to him again. “For pity’s sake, Colonel, let them bring me some water. Sister Marie-Marc is feverish, she needs water to drink, and I need to bathe her face.”
Hoch looked down, unperturbed, at the old woman on the bed. “You can have some water,” he said, “and then get her ready to go.”
“Go!” Mother Marie-Pierre leapt to her feet. “Go where? She’s in no state to go anywhere. Let her be taken back to the convent so her sisters can care for her.”
“You are being taken to a prison camp,” he told her, “and she will go with you.”
“In the name of God, have you no pity?”
“For enemies of the Reich, no, Reverend Mother, I have not.” He walked to the door and then paused. “By the way, the Jews gave me the information I needed. I shall soon arrest all the others concerned in this little affair. You will be brought out when the transport arrives.” Hoch stared at her for a moment. “You are a meddlesome woman, nun, and you have brought this on yourself… and on her.”
“And you are an evil man, Colonel,” Mother Marie-Pierre replied quietly. “May God have mercy on you and forgive you, for I never will.” She turned back to Sister Marie-Marc. For a moment she thought he might strike her, but he simply gave a harsh laugh and left the cell slamming the door behind him and ramming home the bolt. Not long after that the soldiers had come for them.
Adelaide watched with mounting anguish. What right had anyone to treat another human being as Hoch had clearly treated his prisoners, as the desperate men and women in the truck were being treated? Her fury threatened to boil over, but there was nothing she could do. Nothing to avert what was happening. She willed Sarah to look in her direction, so that Sarah would know that she, Adelaide, was safe; so that Sarah would know she and Sister Marie-Marc had not been deserted. Sister Marie-Marc, her face almost unrecognisable, was clinging to Sarah, muttering incoherently.
As they reached the back of the truck, one of the soldiers grabbed Janine Auclon and simply tossed her over the tailgate. There were more cries from inside as she landed on top of those already aboard. Joseph Auclon was thrown in after his wife, and then the soldiers turned to the two waiting nuns.
Sarah began to sing in English, her voice clear and loud, a bell ringing out across the square. “In death’s dark vale I fear no ill, with Thee dear Lord beside me. Thy rod and staff my comfort still, Thy Cross before to guide me!” For a fleeting moment her eyes met Adelaide’s, and then she shouldered Sister Marie-Marc’s weight once more, and reverting to French she said gently, “Come, Sister, it’s time to go…”
As the soldiers still hesitated, she turned to them and spoke. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to help us into the lorry.” Two of them moved forward, and clearly uncomfortable at laying hands on a nun, lifted first Sister Marie-Marc and then Reverend Mother up and over the tailgate into the crush of humanity already on the inside.
At that moment Colonel Hoch emerged from the town hall, his face dark with rage. “What the hell’s going on here?” he roared and the soldiers snapped to attention. “Get those flaps closed and get on the road.”
The soldiers leapt to do his bidding, but as the flaps were hauled closed and roped into place, Adelaide heard Sarah’s voice, raised loud one last time. “God bless you!” and she knew that the blessing was for her.