Voices on the Wind (8 page)

Philippe said, ‘Your first trip won't be a long one. You'll be working with me. I asked for you especially.'

‘Oh?' She managed to sound pleased. ‘That
is
flattering. Did you ask for Judy too?'

He didn't hesitate. ‘No. Only for you. I'd better get packed too. See you before dinner. If I remember, they give us champagne tonight.'

It was a haze in her memory, that last evening at Beaulieu. The successful candidates were noisy and elated. There was an upright piano in the room where they served coffee; one of the girls sat down and began to play popular songs. Everyone joined in, clapping and banging table tops. She ended with the sentimental hit of the year, ‘We'll Meet Again'. Vera Lynn's poignant love song of two lovers parted by the war brought tears to Kate's eyes. She had teamed up with Judy and Fred. He was brimming with wine and emotion, singing at the top of his voice.

Judy nudged her. ‘He's got more to be happy about than most of us. If he hadn't passed, he'd have gone back to jail!' Her laugh was full of affection. Kate saw Fred grin and reach out to her. For a moment they held hands. Kate thought in amazement, Good Lord, they're fond of each other. And I never noticed it before. She thought wistfully, I wish I had someone, instead of Philippe following me with those chilly cat's eyes. I wish I had a man to sing to tonight. Maybe she had let her imagination run away, thinking there was anything but shipboard friendship between Fred and Judy. The professional safe-breaker and the daughter of a London surgeon, who was known to be a snob. Kate dismissed the idea as fancy. Later, Captain Alfurd came and joined her.

‘I must say, you came through with flying colours,' he said. The pianist was playing dance tunes and some couples were inching their way round a corner of the room where there was a little space.

‘I didn't expect to,' she said. ‘My conducting officer in Scotland did his best to get me chucked out.' And to persuade me not to go at all, she remembered suddenly, but she didn't say it.

‘That's his job,' Alfurd countered. ‘You'd be surprised how many people give up under pressure.'

‘I suppose so,' Kate agreed. ‘It only made me more determined.'

‘So we noticed,' he said, and laughed. ‘Come and dance.'

He's very nice, she thought, drifting in his arms to the piano music. I don't mind him holding me at all. She settled her cheek against his and gave in to the subtle pressure in the small of her back to bend closer in to him still.

When she went upstairs he came with her. She turned at the door and said, ‘Good night.'

‘Does it have to be?' He bent and kissed her on the mouth. Kate was tempted. So tempted that she was surprised at herself. She kissed him, liking the probing intimacy. Then she pushed him away.

‘Good night,' she said. ‘I've got an early start in the morning.'

He didn't try to argue. ‘I'll get in touch when you come back. Will you have dinner with me?'

‘I'd love to.'

‘Take care,' he told her.

‘I will,' Kate promised and went inside. She fell asleep immediately. The next morning they were taken by motor-bus to a house three miles from Lineham airport. There, under the strictest security, they were given their assignments. Their destination was the South of France. There they would join the famous Dulac network. Judy was to act as courier and liaise between Dulac and the neighbouring network south of Nice. Kate was to be the wireless operator and Fred was to hold himself in reserve for a specific task at Dulac's command. The purpose of the two major networks in the South of France was to prepare the local French Resistance and the civilian sympathizers for the coming Invasion of Europe.

Paul Roulier hadn't interrupted her; memory, especially when long suppressed, can easily be sidetracked. She was talking fluently, once or twice correcting herself. Under the lamplight in the sitting room, Katharine Alfurd seemed to be shedding the years. The past was overtaking her; her voice belonged to the young girl sitting it out in Wimborne Manor, waiting for the flight to Gibraltar and the start of her dangerous enterprise. To prepare the French people for the Invasion. What a word-picture she painted of the excitement and the comradeship between the little group, mewed up in their last stopping place in England.

‘We were there for a week,' she said. ‘The weather closed in and there was no flying. We were completely cut off from the outside. Once you knew your assignment and your team, you weren't allowed to telephone, write a letter or leave the grounds. It was a bit like a prison, with soldiers patrolling, and no communication. We heard that someone broke out once before leaving on a mission, just for the hell of it, and they caught him and put him in Parkhurst prison till the war was over. He knew too much to be let out. There was a separate group from the Free French. We palled up with them, and it made the time pass. They had their conducting officer with them. He'd been right through their courses and he was holding their hands up to the last minute. I remember them commenting on the fact that ours hadn't come with us. It was unheard of to separate the trainees from their conducting officer half-way through the course. They couldn't understand it.'

‘Naturally
you
wouldn't see anything sinister in it,' Roulier remarked. ‘You weren't experienced. But what about Philippe and Judy? Didn't they think it peculiar?'

‘Philippe brushed it aside,' Kate answered. ‘You couldn't tell what he was thinking anyway. Judy just complained to the French; she was in a funny sort of mood those last few days. Everything SOE did was wrong and the Gaullists had it right. Fred was like a lost soul when he wasn't with her. He didn't speak a word of any language and that was where Michaelson would have been a godsend. I thought to myself, how on earth are we going to keep him hidden when we get over. If he opens his mouth to sneeze, he'll be caught. But you put those thoughts away damned quickly when you're waiting to go. If you start worrying, it's hopeless. We'd been taught to be positive, aggressive. I said to myself, Fred'll be all right. They know what they're doing. And of course I was thrilled to be working in the Dulac network. It really was an SOE legend. Again and again they'd made fools of the Germans. There were several hundred of them in that area and they'd done marvellous work in collecting information and sabotaging communications throughout the Midi. I kept wondering, what is Jean Dulac going to be like? Philippe wouldn't be drawn. “You'll meet him and you can judge for yourself,” was all he'd say. It could have meant anything.'

She paused to light a cigarette. ‘I've smoked like a chimney,' she said. ‘Good Lord, look at the time. You must be starving. I forgot about food.'

Roulier said, ‘This has been quite an ordeal for you, Madame. Let me go into your kitchen and see what I can find. I would be happy with a sandwich.'

‘Oh, there's plenty to eat, I was expecting my grandsons for lunch yesterday. There's some Sauternes in the fridge. Are you sure you don't mind?'

He smiled. ‘You know Frenchmen are quite at home in a kitchen. We're not like the English. I'm sorry about your grandsons. But then we wouldn't have been able to talk, would we?'

He had to admire the organization. He wondered how they'd managed to re-arrange the plan and get her family out of the way. Katharine Alfurd heard him moving round the small kitchen. He was right, of course. In all the years they'd been married, Robert had never cooked a meal. It was clever of the young man not to break her concentration. A very quiet, professional sort of person. He knew when to prompt, and when to stay silent. There was a sympathy between them, in spite of the age difference.

It was all becoming so real; memories were becoming thoughts and feelings, projecting her out of the present into the past. She had her dates right; the distant past was clearer than the events of a week ago. When he came into the room with a tray she said suddenly, ‘Do you realize, the very time we were at Wimborne Manor, Christian Eilenburg was on his way to take up his post at Gestapo Headquarters in Nice?'

3

He had travelled by train overnight from Paris. He had a slight headache after the party given at the Petite Étoile restaurant. It was a happy evening, surrounded by his colleagues. They'd provided some French girls, and he'd spent a couple of hours with a redhead before catching the train at the Gare du Nord. Promotion suited him. He was proud of the Standartenführer flashes on his black uniform. The silver thread was new and it shone. He had proved himself at the Avenue Foch, showing that a young officer could see problems with a fresh eye. SS General Knocken had recommended Eilenburg for Standartenführer's rank and a letter signed by Heinrich Himmler himself required him to take charge of Gestapo operations in Nice. A strong Resistance had been flourishing in the Midi, run by the Communist-controlled Maquis and British agents. There had been sabotage, serious acts of terrorism against German personnel off duty, and evidence that information was being gathered and passed to the Allies. A very strong hand was needed, the letter said. The zeal and enterprise of Standartenführer Eilenburg had earned him this posting. The first thing he did was to select a team of twenty men from the SD section go to to the South with him. And one expert from the French arm of the Gestapo, the Milice. Eilenburg had seen him at work in Paris. A Frenchman more terrible to his compatriots than any German. And for motives that made Eilenburg disgusted and contemptuous. A sadist and a pervert, but a useful tool just the same. Better for him to sink to the lowest depths than for one of Eilenburg's own men. He was met by a big Mercedes at Nice station. There was a chronic shortage of petrol; many of the army officers had to share transport. But there was no limit on resources for the Gestapo. People made way for him as he walked out into the April sunshine. He saw the fear in the faces of the French, some sitting on their cases after waiting all night in the hope of a ticket. But there was open hostility too. That indicated how far German authority had deteriorated. He got into the back of the Mercedes and was driven along the promenade to his quarters at the Hôtel Negresco.

It was cold and windy, the slate-grey sea slapping angrily along the beach. There was nothing more desolate, Eilenburg felt, than a resort in the off-season. He had never been to the South of France before. He had arrived in Paris as a lieutenant, on his first tour of duty a year ago. He spoke very good French and was a talented police investigator. Hardworking and ambitious, he caught his superior's attention. He knew instinctively how to manipulate people without always using brute force. He was a clever, ruthless psychologist who understood how to turn weakness and veniality to his advantage. His first work in Paris was mostly routine check-ups on suspected persons on the Left Bank. Small, unimportant quarries. Petty thieves robbing drunken soldiers in the street. Prostitutes who sold bits of trivial information to third-rate Intelligence touts who would just as easily have worked for the Germans and often did. It was too easy to be a challenge, but he became known and feared among the Parisian half-world of crime, masquerading as Resistance. From there he moved to rapid promotion and to investigations on a more sophisticated level. When given a test case by his senior officer he proved himself a skilled and merciless interrogator.

A well-known architect, a respected member of the intelligentsia in pre-war Paris, was arrested after his telephone had been tapped. Reference had been made to Fresnes prison. A number of important Resistance workers were being held there from cities like Chartres and Bordeaux, waiting to be interrogated and then shot. A savage beating had failed to make the Frenchman give the name of the man who had telephoned him, or any explanation for what had been said. Eilenburg had sent a doctor to his cell. He came in person to apologize for the ill treatment and assured the prisoner that he would have the SS men responsible punished. He behaved very correctly, without being too friendly. He created the impression of a civilized young German officer who deplored brutality and was embarrassed by what had happened. He let two days pass. No more questions were asked; the Frenchman was left to torture himself with anticipation. On the third day, he was brought out, taken in a van to the rue des Saussaies and brought to the fourth floor. There were four men in civilian clothes. Three of them were Germans, but he didn't know that because they never spoke. The fourth was the celebrated sadist, borrowed for the occasion from the Milice. The shock of what a fellow countryman did to him, broke the victim. He confessed to a plot to rescue the prisoners in Fresnes, implicated everyone, and died of his injuries two days later. That was the beginning of Christian Eilenburg's spectacular rise in the Gestapo hierarchy. At twenty-six, he was promoted above men much older and with long experience. He was talked of as the successor to the great Reinhardt Heydrich, the ‘Butcher of Prague'. Not unlike in looks either. The same striking Nordic type, almost white-blond, with blue eyes and a fine athletic body.

The car drew up outside the Hôtel Negresco. A wedding-cake in plaster, he thought. All architectural icing, designed to sparkle white in the sunshine. On that chilly day it looked drab and grey, the palm trees huddled in the wind. But it was the most luxurious hotel on the playground coast of France, and he, from his modest background in Hamburg, would live in one of its finest private suites. He went inside. He ordered breakfast, had a hot bath. His personal servant had laid out a fresh uniform. He wandered into the sitting room, still in his dressing-gown. He tried the sofa and the two armchairs. Very comfortable. A small cabinet for drinks. He would send for a stock of spirits and cocktail mixes. He had grown to like cocktails in Paris, and was good at making them. Off duty he was gregarious, liked parties and pretty women. He did his job and then he felt justified in thoroughly enjoying life. There was a handsome writing desk by the window; he opened the drawers and found headed paper and envelopes. There was ink in the little bronze pot. While he was standing there, his breakfast arrived on a trolley. When he first came to Paris, the standard of living in good hotels and restaurants had intimidated him. His family were solid middle-class Germans, who never went to such places. Now, he had become quite at ease. He ate the food, grimaced at the coffee, which was made of acorns and tasted bitter, and decided he would write to his family before he went to his new headquarters. He had an elder brother, posted missing on the Russian front. His mother had become an old woman when she heard the news. They were a united family, and the loss of Ernst brought them even closer. He was their only son now, and he became immediately responsible for them and three elderly grandparents. He wrote to them regularly, and looked forward to their letters. The Allied bombing had reduced Hamburg to a blasted ruin, but the Eilenburgs were moved to a little house on the edge of the suburbs. It had been requisitioned by the Gestapo when the air raids started. They had a store of such properties, ranging from large mansions in private grounds to modest bungalows. The previous owners had gone to concentration camps. His family were as safe as privilege could make them. The girl he was engaged to marry was a nurse. They had been at school together, and members of the Hitler Youth. Sweethearts from childhood, Christian knew he was going to marry Minna. She was a gentle girl, devoutly patriotic. To her, even more than him, Germany and the Führer were one and the same. She had firmly refused to go to a hospital out of bomber range. Twice the hospital in Hamburg had been hit, with many casualties among the patients and the staff. On his last leave he had begged her to move to a safe place. The haunted face, the big brown eyes red-rimmed with sleeplessness and strain, tortured him and at the same time made him proud. Her place was with her people. She refused his help.