Ormerod's Landing (54 page)

'Dodo,' Marie-Thérèse spoke behind his back. He half turned and saw she was twenty feet away levelling her pistol at him. 'Whose side are you on?' he gasped.

'Leave him now,' she ordered. 'It is enough. We are all in this together.'

'I only want to kill him before he kills me,' answered Ormerod, glancing back at the sagging Le Blanc. 'Is that unreasonable?'

'He has orders
not
to kill you,' she said. 'Orders from Paris. He would not dare to do it now. But we need him also. You have done enough.'

Le Blanc was a dead weight against the fence. Ormerod let him drop to the muddy ground. 'All right then,' he said. 'But just let him try it once again and I'll shoot his ugly bloody head off.'

He bent and put his hands under the Frenchman's armpits. With a grunting heave he lifted him onto the top cross-member of the fence. Then, steadying him with one hand, punched him backwards into the soft dung.

'Humpelken-Pumpelken,' he said drunkenly. 'Had a great fall.'

Then he collapsed on the cobbles.

The small town of Moulin-en-Ceil lies south-west of Paris, twenty kilometres from Chartres. The countryside is flat as an ocean there, running for miles to the sky, with Chartres Cathedral rising like a great and distant ship.

The harvest had been taken and the fields were rough with stubble, some of it now being burned, the annual ritual, so that

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the placid vista looked as if some recent battle had taken place.
Coils of oily smoke, with red eyes of fire at the base of each,
climbed into the flat October air.

Ormerod and Marie-Thérèse moved carefully across country
over two nights to reach Moulin-en-Ceil. Jean Le Blanc had
left before them, sullen and bruised as Ormerod was bruised, instructing Marie-Thérèse that he would be bringing orders to
the town.

The little town, like the cathedral on the other horizon, is to be seen from a good distance. It sits on a plateau of slightly rising land, so modest that it might have been made by man not nature, but clearly seen because of the flatness of the
country. The windmill from which it takes its name stands up
against the sky.

They arrived there in the early morning and went at once to the house of a man called Louis Brechet, who lived above his
grocer's shop almost at the tail of the main street. They slept
deeply in his storeroom, among bags of beans, and in the even
ing Brechet's wife came into the storeroom and said there was
a message for Marie-Thérèse. The wife was suspicious of them, in the way that wives have for scenting trouble in other women.

Ormerod was left with Brechet, who was a dark-jowled,
sociable man, solidly eating Normandy tripe and nosily drink
ing Muscadet. He found it difficult to start a conversation, even
though the Frenchman spoke some English. In the end, his mouth filled with tripe, he asked, 'And how's business?'

Brechet looked unsurprised at the unorthodox yet mundane
question, in fact he seemed to welcome it. 'Not bad,' he said. 'Not bad at all. At the moment we have enough goods to put in the shop. Later it will be difficult.'

'Are the Germans good customers?' inquired Ormerod cautiously.

Brechet looked at him in astonishment. I am a Jew,' he said.
'The Germans are not permitted to buy from me, thank God. That is their own law. They look in the window sometimes because I have some things they like to put in their bellies, but I have a large notice saying "This is a Jewish Business" and I wave it about in front of their noses and they go away. It works both ways.'

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He drank his wine appreciatively as if it were a new and unusual vintage. 'Some of the shops must have made good money from the Boche,' he said. 'Very good. The Occupation is the best thing that has happened to their poor businesses. They are nothing more than Kollabos.'

'Kollabos? What's Kollabos?'

'Collaborators, licking the boots of the Nazis,' sniffed Brechet. 'You should have seen them when they realized the Germans
paid
for goods. They thought that the troops would just take everything, loot it, so they locked up their miserable shops and hid in their rooms. Then the Germans began looking through the windows and waving money. Ah, that was different. Soon the doors were unlocked. Even patriotism does not shout louder than money, my friend.'

Ormerod nodded sagely. I bet you're glad you're Jewish,' he said. 'Not having to serve them.'

I am,' said Brechet sincerely. 'But when food gets short I shall be the one who is looted. You just see.'

Marie-Thérèse reappeared in the storeroom, climbing over the bags of beans like an elephant boy over the backs of his charges. I have a message from Le Blanc,' she said. She glanced at Ormerod as she said the name.

'I'm surprised he's still talking to us,' commented Ormerod. 'Well, to me, anyway.'

'Forget that,' she said, sharply enough to make Brechet glance at them questioningly. 'That is past. I told you, it must be forgotten. There are more important things. Jean Le Blanc is our leader and he must be obeyed because of that fact. Nothing more matters.'

'The fifth-form bully wins again,' muttered Ormerod. 'What's the news?'

'We are growing very strong in this region,' she said with a serious smile. 'The information from Dreux is that many of the workers in the factories are forming resistance groups. There has already been sabotage. In Paris things are being organized very quickly. Before long the Nazis will know it is
we
who have
them
the prisoners. They will not be able to move a single metre without fear.'

She glanced at Ormerod and then at Brechet, her face full of

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enthusiasm. 'Tonight,' she said, 'we have a rendezvous with Le Blanc, with some of the leaders from Dreux and two men from
Paris. Our plans are looking well.'

'Perhaps your Paris boys will know the whereabouts of Smales,' said Ormerod without much hope. He looked at her. 'You remember Smales?' he said.

'Something I have to tell you, Dodo,' she said stiffly. 'Mon
sieur Smales has been told that you are looking for him.'

Ormerod felt his indignation rising. 'Oh thanks. Thanks very
bloody much. Well, I'll still get him, you wait and see.'

'You may not be permitted to get him,' she said quietly. 'I
told you that before. Or
he
may get
you.
Also, there is another
thing. Motte, the doctor who smuggled you into the ward at
Bagnoles; he was arrested and is now dead. They tortured him
and he fortunately was able to commit suicide. But they got
one thing from him first. They have your full description.' She
looked abruptly dejected as she said it. 'They now know the face they are looking for. So from now on you must be more careful than ever.'

Ormerod looked crushed. 'That's bloody lovely that is,' he said. 'Bloody lovely. I think I'll just pack up and go home.'

The rendezvous was at an almost derelict mill house built over the stream at Moulin-en-Ceil, a stream which springs almost at the heart of the modestly elevated town and, because of the
immediate slope to the flat country all around, runs at a fast rate down to the agricultural plain.

It was a cold place for the meeting, noisy with the rushing mill brook, but the large old building was ideal for posting look-outs and an escape way was planned along the stream if the Germans found them there that night.

These precautions were explained immediately by Jean Le Blanc to those sitting in what had been the machinery room of
the mill. There were four men from the factory committee at Dreux and the pair from Paris, all quiet, threatening-looking men, squatting and listening to Le Blanc. As Marie-Thérèse,
Ormerod and Brechet came in Le Blanc's eyes drifted up for a
moment to those of the Englishman. Ormerod performed a mock affable wave. 'Feeling better?' he asked. The Frenchman

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did not answer. Nor did his expression alter. Ormerod squatted down with the rest. He could feel the cold air coming up from the dashing water below.

'I am here to tell you that the first operation of the resistance group in this area has been planned,' said Le Blanc, his bald head strangely like some extraterrestrial orb in the gloom. 'It will be a very special operation and it will show the Nazis that there are still those who will not tremble before them. We plan, gentlemen, to blow up a German military band.'

Marie-Thérèse translated in a whisper and she watched as Ormerod's jaw dropped. Christ, he thought, wasn't that just like Le Blanc. An assassination at a hospital, an ambush from an ambulance, and now the destruction of a military band. He nearly said: 'Why?' but Marie-Thérèse restrained him with her hand on his arm. She watched Le Blanc seriously.

'It will be poetic, I think,' said the Frenchman. 'It will also be practical. On Sunday the Boche are holding a parade of troops in this region. They will march through several villages, to show off their strength, and then through the streets of this town, Moulin-en-Ceil, and across the bridge which can be seen from this very place where we are now sitting. The water that you hear under our feet has run down from the bridge which is only two hundred and seventy metres upstream. The bridge can be well observed from this mill in daylight. The plan is to explode the bridge and to escape by means of the stream itself. We have some small canvas boats being brought from Chartres for the purpose. It will be a very swift escape. Our Paris friends here have arranged the boats and are experienced in using them. We leave immediately after the action, dropping through the trapdoor there and below to the side of the water. The boats will carry us downstream and we will leave them just before the main Chartres road.

'There is a railway station at Nogent le Roi. There is a train to Chartres at noon on Sunday. The group will be on the train. There is a connecting train to Paris at one o'clock. We will be on that. It is as well that the French railways are still good. There is no other way of travelling quickly. We will, obviously, split up. I will travel alone, our friends from Paris will go together and our friend Dove and her friend Dodo ...' his eyes

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went to Ormerod like a slow dart, ... they will go as lovers to Paris to see Notre Dame.' His smile was icy.

Ormerod thought: 'You're jealous too, you bastard. Jealous because of her.'

'Brechet will not be required to take part in this operation. He is too valuable in this region to take the risk. There are plenty of us anyway. Nor will our friends from Dreux. You
have things to do there. Your turn will come. The small details
of the operation will be given to those taking part just before we commence.'

Marie-Thérèse had been whispering a translation to Ormerod. Now he leaned forward in the gloom. 'Question?' he suggested diffidently. 'May I ask a question?'

The white-skinned Frenchman glowered at him. 'What is this
question?'

'Well... why blow up the band? I mean if there's a column of infantry why not wait until
they're
on the bridge?'

For almost a minute Le Blanc looked at him like dull steel. Then he said: 'Because I
say
we blow up the band. I
want
it to be the band.' His nasty smile severed his lower face. 'I have no ear for music'

Sunday saw all the stubble fires in the fields at last extinguished.
The flat pan of the countryside was black with ash. The harvest
was finished. It was traditionally a day for thanksgiving. On
the Saturday night, in the days of peace, there had always been
harvest suppers in the villages of the plain and a church service
on the Sunday in the onion-domed church at Moulin-en-Ceil. The people from the villages would walk in procession up the
gentle gradient roads to the town carrying with them the rewards of their work; bread and barley and vegetables, and singing songs that had been sung beneath those pale autumn
skies for as long as anyone could remember. In this October of
1940 the people's thanksgiving was muted. There were no harvest suppers, the men instead just gathering in the village inns and bars to drink one or two glasses of wine or cognac before quietly going home. Nor were there the traditional
trailing processions across the used-up plain making the ascent to Moulin-en-Ceil. Instead the village churches each held their

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own quiet thanksgiving, each sending a prayer that there would be some kind of harvest to gather the following year.

The parade of the German soldiers through the villages of the plain was watched by a few people in the streets and many more from their windows. Few of the inhabitants wished to be seen standing to watch the Germans march by to the jolly music of their band, although children, to whom soldiers and music and marching are a fascination without prejudice, watched the conquering platoons excitedly.

The October sun was warm enough for the marching troops to sweat as they left the roads of the flat country and began the gradual ascent of the streets of Moulin. They were glad of the band with its cornet and drums, its oomphing souzaphone and its charming, chiming glockenspiel. As the musicians entered the enclosed streets of the town its sound altered as the music filled the narrow spaces between houses. All the shopkeepers - excluding Brechet - and most local businessmen had come out to watch the parade with their families, one or two of them waving tentatively. Some of the girls eyed the striding Germans speculatively. The occupation, they argued within themselves, was likely to last a long time.

The rumbustious music and the sound of the boots on the cobbles alerted the local German commander at his saluting base outside the town hall. The mayor of Moulin and his councillors were present because they had been ordered by the occupation authorities to be there. But they refused to wear their robes. Now they stood behind the German colonel and his senior officers as the music and the boots came near. The band swung jauntily into the main square and the German commander raised his arm in salute. His fellow officers stood to attention with clicked heels. The mayor and the town council stared ahead with sombre interest. For them it was not a good day.