The Sisters of St. Croix (27 page)

“It’s like this, Father,” she began, and told him the whole story, from Sister Marie-Marc’s discovery of Terry Ham hiding in the shed to their arrival in Amiens.

He listened without interruption until she had finished. “And this young man is waiting in my church now?”

Mother Marie-Pierre replied that he was.

“Then I think you’d better go and fetch him straight away.”

When Terry was safely installed before the tiny coal fire in Father Bernard’s study, his host looked at him with interest before turning to Mother Marie-Pierre. He spoke with a smile. “I see how you got away with it… this time. You were lucky he is not a big man. Still, I think the first thing should be to turn him back into a man again… he won’t bear close scrutiny, you know.”

Mother Marie-Pierre gave Terry a quick translation and the young man looked very relieved. “He’s right,” he said with fervour. “I can’t wait to get out of this hat thing.”

Father Bernard took Terry upstairs, returning moments later without him. “I’ve given him some of Father Gilbert’s clothes.”

“Won’t Madame Papritz wonder…?” began Mother Marie-Pierre, but Father Bernard shook his head. “Madame Papritz sees everything and says nothing. She is the perfect priest’s housekeeper. I trust her completely.”

“What are we going to do with Terry now, Father?” Mother Marie-Pierre at last asked the all-important question.

“Don’t worry about him,” Father Bernard said calmly. “He’ll be all right. I have connections. Better you know no more than that. Is the little Jewish girl safe?”

“Yes, she is.” Mother Marie-Pierre smiled at him. “You weren’t fooled then either, were you?”

“No,” he agreed, “but I had ample opportunity to study her. Anyone meeting her in the street might well have accepted her as what she seemed.”

“It was because of her that I came to you,” Mother Marie-Pierre said. “I had nowhere else to turn.”

The door opened and Terry came in. He was wearing the collar and cassock of a Catholic priest. “It’s a relief to get out of that hood,” he said. “But I’m still wearing a bloody frock!”

The light above Adelaide’s head changed from red to green.

“Go!” bellowed the voice over the roar of the aircraft, and Adelaide, closing her eyes, went through the hole in the fuselage and into the night air, free-falling for a second before her parachute opened above her head with a reassuring crack. She was aware of other parachutes opening above her in fast succession as her suitcase and other containers followed her out of the plane, then she had no time to think of anything else as the ground rushed up to meet her. The instructions that had been drummed into her during her brief training at Ringway came to her aid and she rolled as she hit the ground, trying not to absorb the impact with her legs. For a moment she lay winded, and then she was struggling to her feet, pulling at the release of the parachute harness.

A young man ran over to her and spoke in French. “You OK?”

“Yes, give me a hand with this.”

Together they bundled up the parachute and dragged it to the edge of the field. “We’ll hide it here,” the man said, and began stuffing the unwieldy silk bundle in a hollow under some bushes.”

Adelaide grabbed his arm. “No, we were told to bury them.”

“Not now. It’ll be dealt with. Now we have to gather everything up and get clear before the Germans realise there’s been a drop. Come on… move.”

The reception party who had signalled to the plane were already busy at work. Shadows moved in the darkness as they collected the packages and containers that had dropped from the aircraft as it made its pass over the dropping zone, before roaring away into the sky. As it disappeared, the moon rode out from behind a cloud and the field was bathed in clear, pale light.

“Hurry.” A tall man who seemed to be directing operations spoke to Adelaide. “All OK? No injuries?”

“Fine. You Marcel?”

“Yes.”

“Antoinette,” she returned briefly, and looked round for her suitcase.

The reception party had gathered up the equipment and were loading it into a farm cart, working quickly in the shifting moonlight. Adelaide spotted her own small case and picked it up.

“Right, get going,” Marcel said to his men as the last container went onto the cart. “Tomorrow, at six.”

The cart began to move away and Marcel turned back to Adelaide. “Welcome to France,” he said. “Follow me.”

He set a tough pace, leading her across fields and through a wood before skirting a village that lay silent and still in the moonlight. Adelaide had no trouble in keeping up, though her suitcase was a nuisance. Marcel did not offer to carry it for her and for that she was glad. She wanted to prove herself and she wanted no favours.

Though, she thought, as she manoeuvred it over a stone wall, perhaps I should have let it go on the wagon.

In the distance a dog barked, and Marcel put out a warning hand to halt her. There was no other sound and at last he moved on, keeping to the shelter of the hedgerows as far as possible, straining his ears before hurrying her across an open road and down behind a stone wall on the far side. There was a dirt track along the edge of another open field and then they were through a gate and approaching the dark bulk of a farmhouse, surrounded by outbuildings.

Marcel led the way confidently through the farmyard to the back door. It opened and they slipped inside. Once the door was closed again a light was switched on and Adelaide found herself in a warm, stone-flagged kitchen. Marcel waved to a chair at the big kitchen table.

“Sit down,” he said, and, as Adelaide sank gratefully into the chair, he put his head round the inner door. “Maman!”

An elderly woman appeared from the depths of the house, and greeting Adelaide with a smile she poured coffee into mugs from a pot on the range. Adelaide took hers gratefully, warming her hands round the mug. It had been freezing cold in the plane despite having a blanket wrapped round her. She had been dressed for her landing in France, all her clothes made by French tailors in London, cut in the French style, and despite the flying suit on top, they did not keep out the cold at the high altitudes of the plane’s flight.

Maman then asked Adelaide if she were hungry. By now it was the early hours of the morning and Adelaide shook her head. “No thank you, Madame,” she said. “The coffee is all I need.”

“Anything from Rousseau?” Marcel asked the old woman.

She shook her head. “Nothing. No movement.” She smiled at Adelaide, said goodnight and left the room.

“Now we can talk,” Marcel said. “And you can tell me what orders you bring from London.”

“London wants to set up an escape route for airmen who are shot down over Germany,” Adelaide replied. “They know what your group is doing, of course, through Bertrand”—she used the code-name of the wireless operator who had been sent in some weeks earlier to make contact with the resistance—”and they were very interested in one of your reports. They’ve sent me to follow it up.”

“The convent,” Marcel said.

Adelaide nodded. “Yes. I have to find out exactly what is going on.”

Marcel scowled. “I can’t see why they had to send someone over from England just for that. We could have infiltrated the convent ourselves.”

“They sent me because I already have a contact inside the convent,” Adelaide said tersely. “They sent me from England so that if something went wrong your entire network would not be jeopardised.” She smiled at him. “They sent me to help,” she added more gently. “My grandmother is French, I have come to help France.”

There was a silence between them for a moment, and then Marcel spoke. “And your cover story?”

“I am Adèle Durant and I have come to help my uncle Gerard Launay on his farm. My parents are dead. He is elderly and he and his wife can no longer manage on their own… since their son was killed during the German invasion.” She looked at him questioningly. “London believes you to have made this arrangement already. My papers support it.”

Marcel nodded. “I just wanted to be sure we both had the same cover for you,” he said. “Tonight you stay here, and in a few days, when I have made the proper arrangements, I will take you to the station in Albert. From there your uncle will come and collect you from the train and take you home to the farm.” Marcel got to his feet. “Now I suggest you go to bed. You should be safe enough here. My people have cleared the dropping zone, and it seems that the drop went undetected, by the local Boche, anyway. We have someone keeping watch so we should have warning if there is any sign of them. In the morning I will start the arrangements for you to join your uncle. Bertrand will let London know that you are safe and send any other messages that you may have for them.”

The old woman led Adelaide upstairs to a room over the kitchen, furnished with a large bed and little else. Left alone, Adelaide got ready for bed, and then snuggled under the feather comforter. Although she was dog-tired, her nerves were strung taut as piano wire and sleep eluded her. As she lay in the darkness, her mind churning, she thought back over the last few days.

She had at last finished her special training and then been sent to a small flat in London for what she had thought would be her final briefing. In the past eight months she had had a thorough training in a great many skills that would have been inconceivable for a woman in the earlier days of the war. Relentless physical training had ensured that Adelaide was now superbly fit. In Scotland she had learned how to live off the land, and survive in open countryside in all winds and weathers. She learned signals and codes, she learnt how to use explosives, trained in unarmed combat, became familiar with a variety of weapons. She had learned to kill silently, to fade into the background. She had learned to listen, she had trained her memory and her rudimentary German had improved so that she could at least follow a conversation. She had spoken French most of the time, immersed herself in the language, so that her instinctive response would be to cry out in French, to answer in French, to challenge in French.

There had been times when she had almost given up, when it had all seemed too much and she couldn’t cope with the ruthlessness needed, the perpetual fear, the concentration of living a lie. Then she thought of Andrew, and her resolution hardened with bitter determination and she applied herself again. Andrew, her beloved cousin, more brother than cousin, was dead. Grand’mère had written to tell her, and Adelaide had been numb with the pain of it. Every fibre of her being cried out against it. Andrew? Why Andrew? There were no details of his death, the family had simply been told he’d been killed in action. Adelaide herself did not actually know any more than they did, but having guessed that he was involved in some sort of clandestine work, she also guessed that he had been dropped into occupied territory somewhere, probably in France as his French was as fluent as her own, and he had not returned. He had risked himself in the war behind the lines and Adelaide knew that she must do the same.

So, her training went on. She had spent two days at Ringway near Manchester, learning to parachute, something that had filled her with almost more dread than the thought of living on her wits in occupied France. How could she fling herself out of an aeroplane? The very thought of it brought her close to blind panic. Cora, who had been with her for much of the training, seemed to have no problem with the jump, and it was she who gave Adelaide the strength to go through with it. Almost paralysed with terror, Adelaide had done it, and now she was ready… or as ready as she’d ever be.

She and Cora had grown close during their training, each helping the other in areas where they felt insecure, but at the end of their training, Cora had disappeared, sent on some mission of her own. Adelaide did not know where or what that might be. No one knew anything that was not absolutely essential; even the most courageous would eventually talk if caught and questioned by the Gestapo. Knowledge of another agent put that agent at even greater risk. Now Cora had gone, Adelaide was on her own, to live and die by her own wits… and the silence of others.

“You’ll be dropped near the town of Albert in north-east France.” It was Captain Jenner, the officer who had first recruited her who was briefing her now, sitting across the table in the tiny flat, as if they were normal people sharing a pot of tea. “Your accent will pass in that area and we need someone to carry out some special work there.” He looked at her and smiled. “The reports that have come through about your training are very good, and we think that you are the right person.”

“Thank you, sir,” was all Adelaide said, wondering what was coming next.

“Your codename will be Antoinette,” Jenner told her. “You are going to join up with a resistance circuit being built in the Somme area. We have already dropped in a wireless operator who has linked up with the local resistance to gather information. We need information about anything and everything that might be of use to us, both now and in the future. We need to know exactly what the Germans are up to. What they are building, what they are manufacturing, where their troops are and why. Airfields, anti-aircraft guns, roads and railways, any troop movement. All that is vital and the local circuit is beginning to gather such information for us. However, though you’ll have a link with them, we have a special job we want you to do. Marcel, the local resistance leader, will be told why you are there and will give you any help that doesn’t put the circuit at risk. Marcel, that’s a codename too of course, will be your cut-out. He, and only he, will liaise with you. You will know no one else in the circuit unless he feels that it is essential, and then only by codename. That way if anyone is arrested, neither you nor they will jeopardise the whole network. Do you understand?”

Adelaide nodded. “Yes, sir, but…”

Major Jenner went on as if she had not spoken. “Marcel is arranging his end of the cover story you will be given. I’ll give you that to work on before I leave today.”

“Am I responsible to him?” asked Adelaide. “This Marcel?”

“No,” replied Jenner, “but you will need him and you should be guided by him. He’s the man on the ground, the man with the knowledge of exactly how things stand in the area.” Jenner looked at Adelaide sharply. “Why, is that a problem?”