Half an hour before they were due to arrive in Perpignan, as the dusk was deepening over the countryside, the conductor stuck his head into the compartment.
“Move,” he said, looking straight at Nancy. “The Germans are stopping the train. Full search.”
She didn’t have time to thank him or work out how he knew she needed the warning. He was gone as soon as he finished speaking.
“Shit, now what?” the redhead said in English.
One of the French passengers in the compartment crossed herself as if she’d heard the devil himself speak.
Nancy pulled down the window.
“You’ve got crap papers,” she said. “We have to run, or you’ll be back in prison before dawn. If they don’t just shoot you.”
The other Englishman, Brutus, was squinting out of the window next to hers. “There’s a hill, mile or two off, with a copse up top. Meet there.”
He certainly had a bit more authority now he had his trousers back on.
Nancy reached for the door handle, just as the train lurched against its brakes and began to slow. The door swung open and she fell forward. The world filled with the churning thunder of the wheels. She hung in mid-air by some miracle just long enough to grab the other side of the door frame with her left hand. She pulled herself back in, panting. An elderly Frenchman squeezed into the corner of the carriage had grabbed on to the edge of her coat and saved her life. She caught his eye, nodded her thanks, tried to control her breathing. The train had slowed to a walking pace.
No time to wait for it to stop completely. No time to think. That was a blessing anyway, looking at the drop below her. Thank God she wasn’t in her high heels today.
“Come on!” she shouted to the others, and jumped.
Nancy landed OK, then slipped on the gravel and slid down a steep embankment into the darkness.
Two figures leaped out behind her, carried farther down the line and silhouetted by the lights in the carriage as the train finally came to a rest. Farther up the train she saw another door swing open and another group of figures jump one by one into the shadows. Then shouts, as another shape appeared in the open door and lifted a rifle. The shot popped in the silent countryside, a sudden punctuation mark as the hot metal of the wheels above her clicked and cooled.
Soldiers were climbing out of the train now. Shit. Time to run.
She scrambled over the low stone wall at the bottom of the embankment. It was a vineyard. Jesus, that was lucky. Paths to run along and foliage to hide behind. If they’d been on pasture land, the soldiers could have just mown them down like wheat.
Fast or slow? If she went slowly, moving between the shadows, they might never spot her, but if they sent enough men into the field they might pick her up while she was still creeping about. If she ran they’d be more likely to see her. She was still hesitating, just inside the rows of vines, when she heard for the first time the deadly rattle of a light machine gun.
Fast then.
She ran straight and hard between the rows of vines, keeping as close as she could to the shadows. Behind her she heard the shouts in German, and the barking of dogs. Bullets thudded into the dry soil behind her, sending up little clumps of earth which sounded like rain as they landed among the leaves.
To the east of her she heard more shouts, more excited barking. They’d got someone. Sons of bitches. Go faster, Nancy. The ground began to rise. Torches to her west, she spun east, forcing her way between the vines, then went north again. She knew she was bleeding now. Was it from a vine scratch or a bullet? Did it matter? Keep on. Would they shoot the men they recaptured? Maybe. They’d certainly shoot her. The acid burn in her legs was excruciating and she couldn’t pause and catch her breath.
Keep going. Follow the rise.
She ran out of the vineyard, floundering into a wire fence and falling forward across it into a square, sloping field of grass. She turned over and lifted herself up on her elbows, looking back down the hill for the first time. Torches bobbed through the lower part of the vineyard near the embankment like fireflies, but they didn’t seem to be coming up the hill as yet. Above them, on the tracks, the train still waited.
She lay there on the cool ground for a second, staring up at the moon and panting. Then she dragged herself to her feet and followed the fence east to the far corner of the field. The wire turned north, and she followed it, with woodland on her right and climbing again.
She’d never liked walks in the country. She was a city girl to the core, and when her friends had told her, smugly, about the joys of tramping through the beautiful French countryside with a sort of religious conviction she was pretty sure they were mad. The countryside was where food and wine came from, but there were no shops, no cafés, and how excited could you get about looking at the same view for hours, or weeks? She was in no mood to change her mind now.
She reached the top of the hill. This seemed to be the hill the Englishman had pointed out. Total silence. She sat down on the edge of the little copse and looked down again. The lights were still there, bobbing around in the vineyard, but as she watched they retreated toward the train and blinked out, and then, finally, the lit windows of the carriages were on the move again. She let out a long sigh as it disappeared toward Perpignan.
It was then she realized she’d lost her handbag. It came as a cold feeling in the gut which spread upward and closed her throat. Her papers. Her money. Her jewelry. Her engagement ring. Her fucking engagement ring. She’d worn it through the whole occupation, but it was too fancy to wear around Marie’s flat, so she’d tucked it into the lining of her bag. Oh, the note! She’d been so careful, taken so little, but even that scrap of Henri’s writing was gone now.
For the first time since the Germans had turned up in France she burst into tears. The cold, the exhaustion. Her ring. The note. How could she have dropped it without noticing? Shit shit shit shit shit.
A rustle in the undergrowth startled her and she half-turned to see Brutus and the redhead approaching her carefully. The redhead held back, but Brutus knelt down beside her and offered her a handkerchief.
“You hurt, Madame?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m fine. I’m sorry. It’s stupid. I lost my bag, it had my engagement ring in it. All my papers.”
“Shall I go and look for it?” he said quietly.
“Don’t be a sodding fool,” the redhead whispered fiercely. “The Germans will have left a platoon down there. Just because they’ve switched their torches off doesn’t mean they are gone. If the silly bitch wants it, let her go and look for it herself.”
Brutus ignored him. “I’m happy to do it.”
Nancy wavered, then shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. We need to get moving.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m more tired than I thought, that’s all. We walk tonight, find somewhere to lay up during the day and then go into Perpignan when it gets dark.”
“We haven’t any food! Any water!” the redhead protested.
“If you are missing prison rations, just hand yourself over to the Gestapo,” Nancy snapped.
Brutus patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Of course we should only travel by night. We’ll get there.”