The Sisters of St. Croix (46 page)

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.

With the arrival of Hoch on the scene, the crowd who had been watching melted away. Adelaide moved with them, fighting the tears as she watched the lorry and its miserable cargo prepare to leave. She should not be in the square at all, she knew that. She couldn’t afford to be conspicuous, but neither could she bring herself to walk away from Sarah. She could do nothing for her but be there, and so she had stayed.

The German soldiers returned to their HQ, as the lorry rumbled out of the
place
, and Hoch, with a final glance around the square, followed them inside. Once back in his office, he called for Lieutenant Weber. The lieutenant found him standing by the window that overlooked the square.

“You wanted me, sir?”

Hoch looked round. “Come here, Weber. Look out there. You see that girl crossing the square now? I want to know who she is and where she goes.”

“Shall I have someone bring her in, sir?” asked Weber.

“No,” snapped Hoch. “I just want her followed. I want to know where she lives, who she meets, who she talks to, where she goes. But discreetly, Weber. I don’t want her to suspect she is being watched. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get someone on to it.”

“And Weber, when you’ve done that, come back. I need you to go up to the convent and speak to the new reverend mother.”

“Yes, sir!” The lieutenant snapped a salute and left the colonel watching Adelaide walking slowly away. Hoch was almost certain she was the young woman who had been working at the convent, but was she the one who had escaped his men last night? If she were the young woman, Antoinette, who had taken the Auclon children away, then she was the important one now. She clearly had links with a wider network. Hoch needed her to lead him to this Marcel, whoever he was, and anyone else she had been working with; maybe to the whole network. With enough rope, he would hang them all. He would leave the minor players, the Charbonniers and Launays, for the time being. They weren’t going anywhere; he could round them up later on. If he arrested them too soon, it might alert Marcel, he would go to ground and Hoch would never catch him.

Unaware of this scrutiny, Adelaide made her way slowly across the
place
. With the departure of the lorry, people began to drift back onto the square once more, carrying on their everyday business. A queue of housewives formed outside the boulangerie for the daily ration of bread, workmen called to each other as they repaired a fire-damaged shop. Two young women pushing prams across the square paused to perch on the edge of the fountain and chat; a woman was cleaning her front window, another sweeping her step. An elderly car chugged in from a side road, a man with a briefcase hurried along, consulting his watch as he went; the priest came out of the church. Life went on.

How could everything seem so normal, Adelaide wondered bleakly as she watched them? How could life go on as usual when there was such an evil presence in their midst? She wanted to weep. Impotent fury and grief boiled up inside her, knotting together, a visceral pain. Her heart and mind were in that dreadful lorry, transporting its desperate human cargo to God alone knew where, and though she knew her own situation was precarious, she couldn’t give it her attention.

Hardly looking where she was going, Adelaide almost cannoned into a young German soldier heading the other way. He put out a hand to steady her, and smiled. “
Enschuligen
!”

Adelaide was jolted back to the present and with a duck of her head she muttered, “Pardon!” and hurried away.

Horrified at her own stupidity, she forced herself to continue at an even pace, though her mind reeled. The soldier watched her appreciatively for a moment before going into the café. He had not recognised her, but, Adelaide realised with a sudden chill, he could so easily have been one of those who had given chase last night, and she, too, could have been gathered into Hoch’s evil web.

Focus! Focus on what needs to be done, she admonished herself. There’s no time to think about Sarah now. You must put her out of your head and focus your mind on what to do next.

But try as she would, she could not banish the battered and bruised faces of the two nuns from her mind’s eye. And she was responsible; it was as simple as that. If she hadn’t hidden the Auclons at the convent, Sarah and Sister Marie-Marc would be safe and Aunt Anne would be alive.

A tiny voice inside reminded her that she had saved the children. She thought of the two little boys she had passed on to Father Bernard and wondered where they were now. Were they safe or had that been in vain as well? What about Father Bernard himself? If she were to be caught now, he too would be in jeopardy. The colonel had obviously been brutal in his questioning of the four prisoners, and Adelaide knew she must be in acute danger. She had no idea what he had been able to extract from them, but she guessed that they would not have been sent on their way had they still held information that Hoch needed. She had to assume that they had told him everything.

Now, more than ever, she needed to see Marcel. She had no direct means of contacting him, she had to rely on Madame Juliette. That was a security cut-out. Indeed she realised, as she didn’t even know Marcel’s real name, he would be safe if she were caught, but even so, she knew that she had to get away. Madame Juliette. She was another who would be at Hoch’s mercy should Adelaide fall into his hands, for if she were caught, she knew that she would be unlikely to withstand Hoch’s questioning for long. If there was no message from Marcel, or if he didn’t or couldn’t come to the farm, Adelaide decided that she must use the fallback rendezvous he had given her in Albert.

The longer I stay in the area, the more I endanger everyone concerned, Adelaide thought. Pull yourself together, woman, and get yourself away from here.

The first thing to do was to get out of sight. There were off-duty German soldiers sitting at tables outside the café. Any of them could be among those who’d been at the convent, any of them might recognise her. Whatever happened next, she had to warn the Launays and the Charbonniers. Adelaide quickened her pace and took the alley along the side of the café down towards the river. If Marcel did not come quickly she must contrive her own escape.

As she walked she considered her options. She thought about Madame Juliette’s cellar. Perhaps she could hide there until Marcel did come, until he brought news from London, but the idea appalled her. She knew she couldn’t survive in that claustrophobic underground room for long, and she would yet again be putting the old lady at risk. No, that would truly be a last resort. Marcel had told her that in an emergency she should head for Albert and he would look for her in the Café Rousseau every morning at eleven. Better to go there, she decided, than put Juliette at further risk.

As she reached the end of the lane, a young man in workman’s overalls came pedalling along the towpath on an elderly-looking bike. He raised a hand in greeting as he passed, and as she watched him riding on along the path, she thought about the bike she had used to carry the children. Perhaps she could simply get on her bike and ride away. She hadn’t used it today. After some discussion they had decided that Gerard should take the child seat off the back before she used it again, in case someone remembered seeing her with one of the boys up behind her. Still, the bike was a possibility. She might simply ride out of the area… if the Germans weren’t already on the lookout for her. Could she get as far as Albert without being picked up? And when she got there, where should she go until eleven o’clock tomorrow morning?

Adelaide reached the old stone barn and turned down the track that led to the Launays’ farm. Further up the towpath, she saw that the cyclist had stopped and was energetically pumping up his back tyre. He must have got a puncture, Adelaide thought sympathetically. The path was rough enough, jagged stones bedded in rutted mud. If she did decide to use the bike to get away, she must remember to take the puncture kit and pump with her. She couldn’t afford to get stranded at the side of the road.

As Adelaide turned onto the farm track, Horst Braun stood up from his bicycle wheel and looked back. Pushing the bike, he walked back to the end of the track and glanced along it. The girl was walking briskly, striding out, almost running. In the distance Braun could see farm buildings among some trees, obviously her destination. He climbed onto his bicycle and rode quickly back to the town hall, taking the direct route rather than the circuitous one he had used to disguise his approach.

“She’s gone to the farm in the river bend,” he reported to Hoch.

Hoch’s eyes gleamed. “By the river, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see.” Hoch thought for a moment. Weber had been up to the convent and spoken to Sister Marie-Paul, the new reverend mother. He’d come back with the information that the girl Hoch was looking for no longer worked there, she had been sacked just that morning.

“Her name’s Adèle Durant,” the reverend mother had said. “She lives with her aunt and uncle at a farm out along the river. The Launays.”

The Launays. Hoch had smiled with grim satisfaction at this. Launay was one of the names given by Joseph Auclon in his efforts to save his wife. So, there definitely was a connection. Joseph had said the girl’s name was Antoinette, but he could have been wrong. Adèle? Antoinette? Hoch was certain in his own mind that Adèle and Antoinette were one and the same; the girl Hoch had seen and recognised in the square today. And now young Braun had watched her heading down the lane that led to the Launays’ farm. The problem was going to be how to keep watch on her without being seen. Hoch had no doubt now that she was the link and must eventually lead him to the man Marcel, and Hoch was sure that Marcel was a key figure in the emerging local resistance movement. He wanted them both: the girl, Antoinette or Adèle, and Marcel.

“Shall we bring her in?” Braun asked.

“No!” snapped Hoch. “I’m waiting for someone to contact her. For now I just want her watched.”

“It will be difficult to get near and keep watch without being seen.”

“What’s it like there?” demanded Hoch. “Is there no cover?”

“Very little, sir, until you reach the farm buildings. There are a few trees round the house, but the fields are pretty open, just some low hedges. Oh, and there’s a derelict barn at the end of the track. But that’s not very near the farmhouse itself. You wouldn’t see much from there.”

“But you could watch the track itself? The approach to the farm?”

“Yes, sir. That would be easy enough.”

“For the moment that’s all that’s necessary,” replied Hoch. “I’m looking for someone. Take two men and watch from the barn. If anyone goes to that farm, or anything suspicious happens, you’re to report back. Use one man as a runner to keep me up to date.” He thought for a moment. “Who’s watching the place now?”

“No one, sir. There was no time for backup.”

Hoch cursed under his breath and then snapped. “Well, get back there, man. Get back to that barn and keep watch. And Braun, remember, don’t stop anyone going into the farm, but let me know at once if anyone does.” He thought back to Joseph’s description of the man Marcel. “I am looking for a man, thirtyish, quite tall with dark hair and eyes. If someone who fits that description approaches the farm, send word immediately.” Hoch gave a malevolent smile. “And I shall come myself.”

“Suppose he tries to leave again, sir? Before you get there?”

“If possible follow him, if not, arrest him. And the girl too, if she is with him. But I want them alive, Braun. Injured if necessary, but alive.”

“Yes, sir.” Braun saluted smartly and left the room.

When Adelaide reached the farm, Marie came running out to meet her.

“Adèle, are you all right? What’s happened?”

“It’s bad,” Adelaide replied. “Where’s Gerard?”

“In the top field, mending a fence.”

“Quick, Marie. Go and get him. We have to talk.”

With scared eyes, Marie nodded and set off, out of the farmyard. Adelaide went into the house and gathered up her few possessions. She was calmer now. She knew that she was on her own. The Launays could do nothing for her, and if the Auclons had talked, they would have problems of their own soon enough. If Marcel did not come in the next half-hour, she would strike out alone. She slipped her knife into her garter where it nestled comfortingly against her leg. She knew there would be no escape if she were cornered, no point in being unarmed and innocent. She had no gun, but the feel of the knife against her flesh gave her an illusion of security.

Marie and Gerard came back into the yard as Adelaide was pushing the old bicycle out of the shed. Gerard had already removed the child seat, and there was now just a small parcel carrier behind the saddle, to which she had strapped her small suitcase.