We'll Meet Again (15 page)

The Special Operations Executive had been formed in July the previous year. Their brief was to work behind enemy lines, recruiting resistance workers and organising them to be ready to assist the Allies when they invaded, which they surely would. There was already a network of
resistants
in the country who had begun simply as publishers of newspapers and pamphlets to keep the spirit of unconquered France alive, but that had escalated into acts of sabotage, though not everyone approved. Some actively co-operated
with the invaders on the grounds that the Allies could not possibly win the war and they would rather be on the winning side. Others were simply compliant; it was easier that way.

There had recently been a concerted round-up by the Gestapo and the
Brigade Speciales
of the Vichy police, which had left the
resistant
ranks decimated. London had no idea how this had worked on their morale. Those who were left did not have enough explosives and money to carry on the fight to any great degree. His task was to find out what they could do and what they needed. Esme’s was to operate a wireless set to send and receive messages from London. Once the circuit was in place, they would be sent arms and ammunition, explosives and anything else they might need. What happened after that was in the lap of the gods.

He had told his mother he was going into the parachute regiment and that had been his original intention, but when the call came for French-speaking volunteers, he had put his name forward. Goodness knew what she would make of what he was doing now, but as he was not allowed to tell her, she was still in ignorance. HQ had a series of postcards and letters from him which they would post to her at intervals while they knew he was still alive. Whether she would be deceived by that, he did not know. His whole life from now into the foreseeable future would be one of deception. He was reminded of his mother saying the war was making liars of everyone. She was probably thanking God that he had not gone out to Singapore with the rest of his battalion. He would either be dead or a Japanese prisoner of war by now.

The van turned off the road onto what must have been a rutted cart track, judging by the jolting. Five minutes later it stopped. They heard Jean get out and come round to let them out. The van door was flung open and Jean held out his hand to help Esme down. ‘Welcome to Chez Duport,
mes amis
.’

They found themselves in a farmyard facing a building which they took to be a farmhouse. Its blackout was complete and they could only see its dark shape and chimneys silhouetted against the night sky. As they picked their way carefully towards it, the door was opened and a large woman in a black dress was outlined in the light which flooded out into the yard. ‘So you are here. I heard the aeroplane. Come in, come in.’ She stood aside to let them enter. ‘You are welcome.’

‘My mother,’ Jean said.

They shook hands with her and in no time at all they were seated at a table in the kitchen along with Jean and three other men. Jean introduced them as Anton, Philippe and Gustave. Anton was Jean’s younger brother, the other two were neighbours. They were all dressed in rough working clothes, stalwart men with unshaven chins. ‘We have already sabotaged some trains,’ Jean said, as his mother bustled about filling soup bowls with thick vegetable soup. ‘But we did not have enough explosive to do any lasting damage to the lines. London will send us explosives, no?’

‘And money,’ Gustave chimed in. ‘We need money for bribes.’

‘Whom do you bribe?’ Gilbert asked.

‘Railway officials, people in the mayor’s office for identity papers and ration cards,’ Jean said. ‘Sometimes Vichy police and German soldiers. They tell us what is worth attacking and what is unimportant, and warn us when there is a search on for us, but they ask a great many francs for their information.’

‘How many of you are there?’

‘The four of us and the men who were on the field when you arrived, but we need more. We need to persuade those who sit on their backsides and let the Boche rule us that France is not beaten, can never be beaten.’

Gilbert smiled. There was no doubt the men were keen and
patriotic, but he guessed they might also be foolhardy and take unacceptable risks. It was up to him to instil discipline.

‘I must send in my report,’ Esme said, going to the canister which was lying on the floor beneath the window. ‘I need somewhere to hang the aerial.’

‘There’s a tree directly outside one of the bedroom windows,’ Jean said. ‘We could string it to that.’

‘Will it be seen from the road?’

‘No, it’s at the back and we are fairly isolated here. The Boche don’t bother with us so long as they get their milk and eggs.’

‘There’s always a first time,’ Gilbert murmured.

Anton, carrying the wireless, led Esme from the room.

‘What have you done with the parachutes?’ Gilbert asked Jean.

‘They have been hidden for now. Tomorrow we will bury them.’

‘Bury that canister too, good and deep. If it’s found here, we will all be in trouble.’

‘We will do that, monsieur.’

‘You know why I am here?’

‘To find out what we need and London will send it,’ Jean said.

‘More than that. I am instructed to organise a resistance group with a proper chain of command, not only to sabotage, but to gather information and send it back to London. There are other groups in other parts of France and the occupied countries being told the same thing. It must all be co-ordinated, a secret army, ready to rise up when the time is ripe.’

‘A secret army, I like the sound of that,’ Jean said, laughing. ‘I’ll drink to that.’ He held up his wine glass and clinked it against Gilbert’s.
‘L’armee secrete.’

‘L’armee secrete
.’ Gilbert watched him drink and took a mouthful from his own glass. ‘You will be expected to take your orders from me.’

‘Never!
Sacre Dieu!
What do you take me for? A lap dog?’

‘No.’ Gilbert smiled to soften what he had to say. ‘Not a lapdog, but perhaps a fearsome wolf. Wolves fight best in packs and there has to be a leader. I’m afraid it has to be me.’

‘I am the leader. I have been from the first. Everyone acknowledges it. I say what we do.’

Gilbert shrugged. ‘No compliance, no money, no explosives.’

Gilbert’s assessment that Jean might be hot-headed was borne out when he rose to his feet, fists clenched. The last thing Gilbert wanted was a fight; he refused to rise. ‘Sit down,
mon ami
, we can work together. We have to, to defeat the common enemy. I am the head, but you are the arms and legs and the beating heart. You will give your men their orders, even though ultimately they have come from me, or rather from my bosses who will have the last word. This is not a local issue, what we do affects the whole war effort. Little groups working independently might prick the Germans, but they won’t defeat Hitler.’

Deflated, Jean sat down again. ‘You are right,
mon ami
. I will agree.’

‘Good.’ Gilbert held out his hand and the other shook it. ‘Now, let us get down to business. First things first, accommodation for myself and Arlene.’

‘You will stay here for the rest of tonight,’ Jean said. ‘Tomorrow you will go into Ville Sainte Jeanne and find the bicycle business of my cousin, Paul. I have an
ausweiss
, a pass to go from the free zone to the occupied zone because some of my fields are on the other side. Paul will take you to lodgings where you may stay while you do your work. Arlene can stay here. Safer for her. We will think of a cover story for her presence if anyone should come asking.’

The area close to the River Cher had been chosen for the drop because Jean was known to the people in SOE and also because
there were railway marshalling yards a few kilometres away and an airfield used by the Germans for its fighters, which harried the British bombers as they crossed the channel. They had been earmarked for sabotage. Its situation on the demarcation line was another plus because if saboteurs were being hunted they might be able to disappear into the free zone. It wasn’t free in the accepted sense of the word, because it was ruled by the Vichy government who collaborated with the Germans, but without occupying troops. He hoped to find a way of moving between one zone and the other, as Jean seemed able to do, but he would need a pass to do it openly. How that was to be obtained he did not yet know.

Esme came back into the room followed by Anton. ‘Message gone and London says well done and take care. The next transmission is scheduled for tomorrow evening at seven o’clock.’

‘Good.’ He turned to Jean. ‘I shall need a courier to contact people and take messages to Arlene for transmission and to pass on instructions from London.’

‘I can do that,’ Madame Duport said. ‘I often go into Ville Sainte Jeanne to shop and take produce to the market. No one takes any notice of me. I am a nobody.’

‘Are you sure you want to do it?’ Gilbert asked. ‘It could be dangerous.’

‘Pah! If my sons can work to free our beloved France from the Boche, then so can I.’

‘If anyone wants to know, I am Gerard Lebonier, an insurance salesman,’ Gilbert went on. ‘It will explain why I move around a lot visiting people.’ He went over to the canister and took out a briefcase. ‘My stock in trade, forms for people to fill in to obtain insurance.’ The forms were headed with the name of a well-known French insurance firm, which he had been assured were authentic.

‘And Arlene?’ Madame queried. ‘She looks too young to be doing this work.’

Gilbert smiled. ‘We know Arlene looks nearer sixteen than twenty-two,’ he said. ‘And so that is what her identity documents say. Born Madeleine Tillon in Algiers in 1925. Her parents were killed in a motoring accident in 1936 and she came to live with her Aunt Matilde in France.’

‘I will say Matilde was my cousin but she has recently died,’ Madame Duport said. ‘So she has come to stay with me.’

‘Do you have a cousin who has recently died, madame?’ Gilbert asked.

‘No, but I can invent one. It would be better for her to be attached to a family.’

‘If you are sure,’ Esme said. ‘That would work very well. I will call you Tante Gabriellle.’

‘Tante Gabby will do. Now, I think we should all go to bed. It will soon be dawn. Jean, Anton, you have work to do tomorrow.’

‘As have I,’ Gustave said, rising. ‘Come, Philippe.’

The two men left and Madame showed Gilbert and Esme up to their bedrooms, each carrying the small pack that contained a change of clothes and toiletries, all French of course. Esme was given the room from which she had radioed London. Gilbert said goodnight to her before going into his room. It was very small with a sloping ceiling, so that it was only possible to stand upright in one half of the room. Stripping off his clothes, he climbed into bed.

It seemed a lifetime ago since he had stood on the Tarmac of Tangmere airfield, waiting to board the Whitley, but it was only five or six hours. In that time he had entered a different world, a clandestine world where one wrong move, one unconsidered word, could result in death, not only his but of everyone around him. It was a fearful responsibility.

All that training, running with a heavy pack for miles, vaulting over obstacles, diving into muddy streams, target practice with a pistol, learning to kill silently with a knife, unarmed combat, learning about explosives, being interrogated by men in Nazi uniforms with loud, harsh voices, at all hours of the night and day, sticking to his story, had been leading to this. And there was no going back before the job was done, not then if London couldn’t get him away. He was well aware of the risks and the odds of living through it. If he didn’t, would his family, father, mother and Prue, ever learn what he had been doing?

He had a feeling that Prue might. She knew more about what was going on than she was saying. Why, for instance, had she been called to the Foreign Office and then been given a job which involved ‘boring office work’, in a place like Bletchley Park which was full of boffins and where security was so tight it was like a prison? He had tried to visit her soon after she went there and been turned away, and then had gone to her billet, a typical suburban house, kept by a thin, austere woman who practically curtsied to him when she realised he was Prue’s brother and a viscount. He smiled at the memory.

Unable to talk privately at the house, he and Prue had gone to the hotel where he had taken a room. They had talked about home, their parents and friends, who was in which service, and who had been turned down on medical grounds, who was marrying whom. She had not divulged anything about her work. He guessed it was quite taxing mentally because she was looking tired and sometimes did not seem to take in what he was saying, as if she was thinking of something else.

Her last letter, received only a week before, talked about the changes at Longfordham where American engineers had arrived to help complete the extension of the aerodrome ready for their
bombers. ‘They need long, hard runways,’ she had written, ‘so every bush and tree, every tussock of grass is being uprooted, every hollow filled in, and covered with concrete. Goodness knows what the rabbits and partridges and skylarks and all the little animals will do about that.’ She went on to write about her friend, Sheila, and their failed attempt to find the girl’s brother, about the weather and the films she had seen. It was as if his sister had to fill her letters with inconsequential chatter to avoid writing what was really on her mind. But he had been guilty of the same thing. And now she would not hear from him for weeks, months, maybe years, and would have to rely on those cards he had already written to his parents, which would tell them nothing.

He woke when he heard people moving about on the landing outside his room, and reached for his pistol, but it was only Jean coming to tell him it was time to get up. ‘I will take you into Ville St Jeanne to the bicycle shop,’ he said. He was newly shaved and his dark hair had been combed and oiled. ‘Breakfast is ready in the kitchen.’

Esme was already seated at the kitchen table, eating a boiled egg with some bread and butter. She greeted him cheerfully. ‘Did you sleep well?’