Voices on the Wind (12 page)

‘They knew what would happen if they didn't,' he said, swilling the Armagnac round and round in the balloon glass, sniffing it as it warmed between his hands. ‘Forty hostages were shot in my first six months, after they blew up a train carrying ammunition to Marseilles. That took the stuffing out of them!'

‘I'm sure it did,' Christian said. ‘General Knocken thinks it is one of the best means of combating acts of terror.'

‘Of course.' Stohler drank and savoured for a moment. ‘Of course, but then Paris and all that part is a hotbed of trouble. We're comparatively quiet here.'

He eyed his replacement cunningly and smiled. ‘You'll be wasted in this lazy part of the world. The weather's too hot for mischief. And most of them have Italian blood. All they want to do is eat and fuck and sleep in the afternoons. I don't know why you've been sent here. You'll be bored to death. Unless you like women a lot. I do. I can recommend several. You do like women?'

Eilenburg went slightly red. There was no deadlier insult to the SS than a suggestion of homosexuality. Although there were many in its ranks. He said calmly, ‘I like women enough to marry one on my next leave.'

‘I don't mind going,' Stohler said. ‘I need a new challenge. This has been too easy. I suggest we work together for the first few weeks so that my staff get accustomed to you, and you can familiarize yourself with the problems we have here and our methods of dealing with them. You'll find the Abwehr are a pain in the ass, but that's true everywhere, I suppose.'

‘Perhaps,' Eilenburg said. ‘I never worked with them.' He looked at his watch. It was nearly half past three.

‘I think I should do as you say,' he said quietly. ‘I think I should make myself known to my staff and familiarize myself with our problems. I have a letter for you, Herr Standartenführer. I thought it best to wait until after lunch. It is from General Knocken. I gave it to your secretary. Will you excuse me? And thank you for the excellent lunch. We don't live so handsomely even in the Avenue Foch.'

He had been assigned an office near to Stohler's. He went there and saluted the young SS secretary who was waiting in a cubicle outside. The response was a little slow.

‘Heil Hitler!' Eilenburg didn't speak, he shouted. He shouted so loudly that the girl blanched and stiffened as if she'd been struck. ‘Stand to attention at the salute! Attention, do you hear? Again, Heil Hitler!'

The reaction was instant. ‘Heil Hitler,' she snapped back. Eilenburg came close to her. ‘That is better,' he said slowly. ‘Come into the office and close the door.'

A handsome desk, two telephones, filing cabinets, a large portrait of Adolf Hitler on the wall facing them. A vase of flowers on a side table. Cigars and cigarettes and a decanter and glass on a silver salver. He walked over, took out the stopper and sniffed. It was brandy. He said over his shoulder, ‘Whose office is this?'

‘SS Hauptmann Koenig, Standartenführer!'

‘Did he drink brandy when he was working? Who puts flowers in an office? Cigars? Expensive ciagrettes like these?'

Eilenburg swung round on the girl. He was ashen with rage and the pale blue eyes were murderous.

‘Clean this place out! This is an office where work is to be done, not a brothel! And send Hauptmann Koenig to me. At once!'

The secretary saluted, shrilled out, ‘Heil Hitler!' and sped out to obey his orders. Half an hour later SS Hauptmann Koenig had been reduced to the ranks and Albert Stohler was sitting in impotent fury in his own office, reading Knocken's stinging letter of dismissal. It took effect from the moment Christian Eilenburg arrived in Nice. His next posting had not been decided. He was to leave for Germany and the SS HQ in Berlin immediately, to account for his failure as head of the Führer's Gestapo.

Kate couldn't sleep. Physically she was exhausted, but at a pitch of nervous tension; Dulac had stood beside her while she coded his message and transmitted it to London. She finished with her call sign and turned to look up at him.

‘No problem,' she said. ‘Everything clearly received, they said.'

‘When will we get an answer?'

‘Hopefully by the end of the week at this time. I was so scared I'd make a mistake – my hands were shaking!'

‘I saw them,' he remarked. ‘But not when you used your machine. That's the mark of a good operator.'

She felt his hand lightly rest on her shoulder. My God, she thought, I never knew a man could make me feel like this, just by touching me.

‘I'll put the baby to bed,' she said, trying to sound casual. She put the transmitter back into the suitcase, locked it and pushed it out of sight.

‘Ma Mère has gone to bed,' he said. ‘Come downstairs and have a glass of wine. I don't fancy poor Janot for company tonight. Unless you're too tired?'

‘Well, I am,' Kate admitted, knowing it was only half-true. But anything was safer than being alone with him so close, feeling as she did. The bed made her self-conscious. ‘I am tired, but I'd love a cigarette.'

‘I have plenty of those,' Dulac said, and opened the door for her.

It was very warm in the kitchen; everything shone in the light of three oil lamps; there was a smell of smoke and cooking and wine which Kate found soothing.

Janot poured them all a glass of the dark red wine; she smoked Jean Dulac's cigarettes. The two men talked about local topics for a few minutes and then the young man heaved himself up from the chair by the stove and said good night. His mother was right; he was clumsy. He banged into the table as he moved, mumbled something and rubbed his thigh, grinning apologetically at them.

‘He's the last son she's got left,' Dulac said. ‘She had three killed in 1940 and she was widowed then. He helps her run this place; she rules him with a rod of iron, but she loves him and he's a good fellow. Absolutely loyal. But not very easy to talk to. Thank you for keeping me company tonight. I needed it.' He sighed. ‘It's very lonely, being responsible for so many people. And now for you and your two friends. I made a brave show for the Englishman today, but how long can we keep him hidden, when he doesn't speak a word of French? London tells me he's a man who can open any safe or strong-room and there'll be a job for him, but when? I send them an urgent message tonight and they don't reply for five days – maybe even longer! I know, I've had experience of London.' He scowled, clenching and opening his hands. ‘I want to take that convoy,' he said, almost speaking to himself. ‘I want to show them that they're
never
going to be safe from Frenchmen.'

Kate said slowly, ‘What about the wounded officers, travelling by ambulance?'

He glanced at her, his eyes black and cold.

‘You don't like the idea of attacking helpless men? The Red Cross, is that it? Wait, my dear Cecilie, wait till you've been here a little longer. I'll take you to the place where they shot forty innocent men, some of them so old they had to be supported by the other victims, as a reprisal for us blowing up a goods train. There are no wounded men, only Germans. And Germans have got to be exterminated. Think what a blow it would be to them, if their relief troops were ambushed and we killed some of their best senior officers, just when they thought they were going to sun themselves at Antibes! What a blow to the new man they've sent us!'

Kate said, ‘What new man?'

Dulac shrugged. ‘A new Gestapo chief. He took over from Stohler. Stohler's been here a year. He's a pig; he takes bribes, especially from the rich Jews here, and then sends them to the camps anyway. He ordered the hostages to be shot, but he's lazy and crooked and he spends his time lining his pockets and sleeping with any woman he fancies. Those women – wait, their turn will come! So they've replaced him. We've been too successful, that's the reason!'

His mood had swung from anger to excitement. ‘We've hammered the swine for nearly a year now and they've kicked out the pig Stohler and sent some young thug from Paris down here to teach us all a lesson. But I'll be the teacher, Cecilie, if only those fools in London will support me!'

‘I'm sure they will,' Kate said. He hardly heard her.

‘First the convoy and then, while they're still reeling, the power station! One after the other, that's the way to strike at them. Not giving them time to recover and start arresting people. I'll light a firecracker under this swine Eilenburg. He'll wish he was back in Paris!' He got up, stood over her. ‘I've held this network together, Cecilie, and believe me, it hasn't been easy. We've lost people. Good friends.' He chewed his lip at the memory. ‘But nobody faltered. Whatever happened, they didn't betray us.' She knew that he meant ‘me'.

‘I rebuilt and repaired the damage to our organization and our morale. We lost a safe house, I found another one, better than the other. I gave my people success and victory over their enemies. They learned to trust each other again. Have you any idea what it's like to fear the neighbour you've known all your life? Not to trust your own family, even? That's what the Germans and their collaborators have done to French people. They have traded on the worst in human nature and made it work for them: suspicion, fear and greed. It took a long time to convince friends I'd grown up with that they could trust me and we had the same goal. It wasn't done except with patience and caution and I'm not a cautious man.' He smiled at her. ‘I like to act and if it means a risk, that doesn't worry me. But I'm responsible for so many others, as I said to you. It's a burden. You're a burden too.'

There was nothing else that she could say. ‘I'm sorry. I thought I'd be a help.'

He gestured impatiently. ‘Of course you will. You're a good wireless operator and you can keep your head. But you're you, a human being to me. I have to think of you like that, worry about you – try to keep you safe! That's what I meant.'

Kate got up. He looked feverish, his eyes too bright and his energy too febrile. ‘I think,' she said quietly, ‘that you should go to bed and get some rest yourself. Otherwise you'll be sick and the burdens will have to take care of themselves.'

Suddenly he laughed. He shook his head and looked at her. ‘You're angry,' he said. ‘You don't like what I said.'

‘Not much,' she admitted. ‘Please don't worry about me. I came because I wanted to and actually I've been very well trained at looking after myself. This is one responsibility you can forget about. I'm going to bed now. Will Ma Mère tell me what I do tomorrow?'

‘You stay here,' he said, ‘and wait for London's answer. When it comes, Janot will contact me. Until then, you keep out of sight.'

‘Good night then,' Kate said and moved away.

‘You're right,' he called out as she reached the door. ‘I have a fever. But I'm never ill. I can't afford to be.'

Kate went upstairs and left him. No, she couldn't sleep. The outburst had shaken her; under the calm, reassuring public image, there was a highly emotional man, at odds with himself and with his English allies. And sick, too. He held so many lives in his hands. Fine, slim hands, the hands of an artist. She thought of them and the longing to be touched swept over her again. If he had opened the door at that moment, she would have welcomed him without a second thought.

Love? The idea terrified her. Was that what this meant, this electric charge that flowed between them? So different from the tempting sensuality of dancing with an attractive man, of being kissed and allowing small liberties. There would be no holding back with this man, if he wanted her. And he did. She sensed it in him as strongly as in herself. He would be gone by the morning. But when at last she woke and came downstairs, he wasn't. Ma Mère had found him collapsed on the kitchen floor and put him to bed.

4

By Thursday evening, eighteen people had been arrested. The orders had been specific.

‘Half a dozen from the professional classes, school teachers excepted, the rest working people with some shopkeepers and the owner of some well-known café. That makes sure the news will spread. Bring them all here and lock them up. I'll see them in the morning.' Then the new Gestapo chief went back to his hotel to relax for the evening. The day had gone too quickly; he hadn't noticed how late it was when he finally left his office. Cleaning out the Augean mess left by Stohler's greedy regime would take some time. But the seizure of those eighteen French people would start the rats running, he thought. They'd no connection with each other, so far as the Gestapo knew. That would baffle the Resistance. Unless of course they'd drawn one genuine card from the pack without knowing it. He smiled and dismissed the idea. He didn't believe in miracles, only hard work and determination. For the moment he had cracked the whip as a warning. That would do for now. He ordered brandy in his room and drank it while soaking in a hot bath. He had a team working on the police records of every convicted criminal and others sifting through the families and contacts of anyone caught in anti-German activities. Particular attention was being paid to the friends and relatives of the hostages shot by Stohler eight months ago. Anyone taken in on suspicion and later released was to be placed on a separate file. Check and cross-check; that was the method used in Paris. Always, something came into the net as a result. He stretched in the hot water, finished the brandy. He wasn't tired; his brain was over-active, and so was his body. He needed a girl. Before dinner or after – he dried himself and decided that he didn't want to eat first. He telephoned and asked for the manager. The manager had gone home, he was told. The reception then. After quite an interval a man answered.

Eilenburg said, ‘This is Standartenführer Eilenburg. I want a prostitute; young and clean. I like –' and he described it. ‘And don't pretend you don't supply them!' The mumble at the other end infuriated him. From sexual excitement he passed to rage. ‘Get someone here,' he shouted, ‘or you'll find yourself in the Villa Trianon.'