World War II Thriller Collection (54 page)

He knew that she found his fractured English endearing, but it was not going to work this time. She switched to French. “How could you betray me for a nineteen-year-old nitwit?”

“It doesn't mean anything, she's just a pretty girl.”

“Do you think that makes it better?” Flick knew she had originally attracted Michel's attention, back in the days when she was a student and he a lecturer, by challenging him in class—French students were deferential by comparison with their English counterparts, and on top of that Flick was by nature disrespectful of authority. If someone similar had seduced Michel—perhaps Geneviève, a woman who would have been his equal—she could have borne it better. It was more hurtful that he had chosen Gilberte, a girl with nothing on her mind more interesting than nail polish.

“I was lonely,” Michel said pathetically.

“Spare me the sob story. You weren't lonely—you were weak, dishonest, and faithless.”

“Flick, my darling, let's not quarrel. Half our friends have just been killed. You're going back to England. We could both die soon. Don't go away angry.”

“How can I not be angry? I'm leaving you in the arms of your floozie!”

“She's not a floozie—”

“Skip the technicalities. I'm your wife, but you're sharing her bed.”

Michel moved in his chair and winced with pain; then he fixed Flick with his intense blue eyes. “I plead guilty,” he said. “I'm a louse. But I'm a louse who loves you, and I'm just asking you to forgive me, this once, in case I never see you again.”

It was hard to resist. Flick weighed five years of marriage against a fling with a popsie and gave in. She moved a step toward him. He put his arms around her legs and pressed his face into the worn cotton of her dress. She stroked his hair. “All right,” she said. “All right.”

“I'm so sorry,” he said. “I feel awful. You're the most wonderful woman I ever met, or even heard of. I won't do it any more, I promise.”

The door opened, and Gilberte came in with Claude. Flick gave a guilty start and released Michel's head from her embrace. Then she felt stupid. He was
her
husband, not Gilberte's. Why should she feel guilty about hugging him, even in Gilberte's apartment? She was angry with herself.

Gilberte looked shocked to see her lover embracing his wife here, but she swiftly recovered her composure, and her face assumed a frozen expression of indifference.

Claude, a handsome young doctor, followed her in, looking anxious.

Flick went to Claude and kissed him on both cheeks. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “We're truly grateful.”

Claude looked at Michel. “How do you feel, old buddy?”

“I've got a bullet in my arse.”

“Then I'd better take it out.” He lost his worried air and became briskly professional. Turning to Flick, he said, “Put some towels on the bed to soak up the blood, then get his trousers off and lay him facedown. I'll wash my hands.”

Gilberte put old magazines on her bed and towels over the paper while Flick got Michel up and helped him hobble to the bed. As he lay down, she could not help wondering how many other times he had lain here.

Claude inserted a metal instrument into the wound and felt around for the slug. Michel cried out with pain.

“I'm sorry, old friend,” Claude said solicitously.

Flick almost took pleasure in the sight of Michel in agony on the bed where he had formerly cried out with guilty pleasure. She hoped he would always remember Gilberte's bedroom this way.

Michel said, “Just get it over with.”

Flick's vengeful feeling passed quickly, and she felt sorry for Michel. She moved the pillow closer to his face, saying, “Bite on this, it will help.”

Michel stuffed the pillow into his mouth.

Claude probed again, and this time got the bullet out. Blood flowed freely for a few seconds, then slowed, and Claude put a dressing on.

“Keep as still as you can for a few days,” he advised Michel. That meant Michel would have to stay at Gilberte's place. However, he would be too sore for sex, Flick thought with grim satisfaction.

“Thank you, Claude,” she said.

“Glad to be able to help.”

“I have another request.”

Claude looked scared. “What?”

“I'm meeting a plane at a quarter to midnight. I need you to drive me to Chatelle.”

“Why can't Gilberte take you, in the car she used to come to my place?”

“Because of the curfew. But we'll be safe with you, you're a doctor.”

“Why would I have two people with me?”

“Three. We need Michel to hold a torch.” There was an unvarying procedure for pickups: four Resistance people held flashlights in the shape of a giant letter “L,” indicating the direction of the wind and where the plane should come down. The small battery-operated torches
needed to be directed at the aircraft to make sure the pilot saw them. They could simply be placed in position on the ground, but that was less sure, and if the pilot did not see what he expected he might suspect a trap and decide not to land. It was better to have four people if at all possible.

Claude said, “How would I explain you all to the police? A doctor on emergency call doesn't travel with three people in his car.”

“We'll think of some story.”

“It's too dangerous!”

“It will take only a few minutes, at this time of night.”

“Marie-Jeanne will kill me. She says I have to think of the children.”

“You don't have any.”

“She's pregnant.”

Flick nodded. That would explain why he had become so jumpy.

Michel rolled over and sat upright. He reached out and grasped Claude's arm. “Claude, I'm begging you, this is really important. Do it for me, will you?”

It was hard to say no to Michel. Claude sighed. “When?”

Flick looked at her watch. It was almost eleven. “Now.”

Claude looked at Michel. “His wound may reopen.”

“I know,” Flick said. “Let it bleed.”

. . . .

THE VILLAGE OF
Chatelle consisted of a few buildings clustered around a crossroads: three farmhouses, a strip of laborers' cottages, and a bakery that served the surrounding farms and hamlets. Flick stood in a cow pasture a mile from the crossroads, holding in her hand a flashlight about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

She had been on a weeklong course, run by the pilots of 161 Squadron, to train her for the task of guiding an aircraft in. This location fitted the specifications they
had given her. The field was almost a kilometer long—a Lysander needed six hundred meters to land and take off. The ground beneath her feet was firm, and there was no slope. A nearby pond was clearly visible from the air in the moonlight, providing a useful landmark for pilots.

Michel and Gilberte stood upwind of Flick in a straight line, also holding flashlights, and Claude stood a few yards to one side of Gilberte, making a flare path in the shape of an upside-down “L” to guide the pilot. In remote areas, bonfires could be used instead of electric lights, but here, close to a village, it was too dangerous to leave the telltale burn mark on the ground.

The four people formed what the agents called a reception committee. Flick's were always silent and disciplined, but less-well-organized groups sometimes turned the landing into a party, with groups of men shouting jokes and smoking cigarettes, and spectators from nearby villages turning up to watch. This was dangerous. If the pilot suspected that the landing had been betrayed to the Germans, and thought the Gestapo might be lying in wait, he had to react quickly. The instructions to reception committees warned that anyone approaching the plane from the wrong angle was liable to be shot by the pilot. This had never actually happened, but on one occasion a spectator had been run over by a Hudson bomber and killed.

Waiting for the plane was always hell. If it did not arrive, Flick would face another twenty-four hours of unremitting tension and danger before the next opportunity. But an agent never knew whether a plane would show up. This was not because the RAF was unreliable. Rather, as the pilots of 161 Squadron had explained to Flick, the task of navigating a plane by moonlight across hundreds of miles of country was monumentally difficult. The pilot used dead reckoning—calculating his position by direction, speed, and elapsed time—and tried to verify the result by landmarks such as rivers, towns, railway lines, and forests. The problem with dead reckoning was that it was
impossible to make an exact adjustment for the drift caused by wind. And the trouble with landmarks was that one river looked very much like another by moonlight. Getting to roughly the right area was difficult enough, but these pilots had to find an individual field.

If there was a cloud hiding the moon it was impossible, and the plane would not even take off.

However, this was a fine night, and Flick was hopeful. Sure enough, a couple of minutes before midnight, she heard the unmistakable sound of a single-engined plane, faint at first, then rapidly growing louder, like a burst of applause, and she felt a homegoing thrill. She began to flash her light in the Morse letter “X.” If she flashed the wrong letter, the pilot would suspect a trap and go away without landing.

The plane circled once, then came down steeply. It touched down on Flick's right, braked, turned between Michel and Claude, taxied back to Flick, and turned into the wind again, completing a long oval and finishing up ready for takeoff.

The aircraft was a Westland Lysander, a small, high-winged monoplane, painted matte black. It was flown by a crew of one. It had two seats for passengers, but Flick had known a “Lizzie” to carry four, one on the floor and one on the parcel shelf.

The pilot did not stop the engine. His aim was to remain on the ground no more than a few seconds.

Flick wanted to hug Michel and wish him well, but she also wanted to slap his face and tell him to keep his hands off other women. Perhaps it was just as well that she had no time for either.

With a brief wave, Flick scrambled up the metal ladder, threw open the hatch, and climbed aboard.

The pilot glanced behind, and Flick gave him the thumbs-up. The little plane jerked forward and picked up speed, then rose into the air and climbed steeply.

Flick could see one or two lights in the village: country people were careless about the blackout. When Flick had flown in, perilously late at four in the morning, she
had been able to see from the air the red glare of the baker's oven, and driving through the village she had smelled the new bread, the essence of France.

The plane banked to turn, and Flick saw the moonlit faces of Michel, Gilberte, and Claude as three white smears on the black background of the pasture. As the plane leveled and headed for England, she realized with a sudden surge of grief that she might never see them again.

DIETER FRANCK DROVE
through the night in the big Hispano-Suiza, accompanied by his young assistant, Lieutenant Hans Hesse. The car was ten years old, but its massive eleven-liter engine was tireless. Yesterday evening, Dieter had found a neat row of bullet holes stitched in the generous curve of its offside fender, a souvenir of the skirmish in the square at Sainte-Cécile, but there was no mechanical damage, and he felt the holes added to the car's glamour, like a dueling scar on the cheek of a Prussian officer.

Lieutenant Hesse masked the headlights to drive through the blacked-out streets of Paris, then removed the covers when they got on the road to Normandy. They took turns at the wheel, two hours each, though Hesse, who adored the car and hero-worshiped its owner, would gladly have driven the whole way.

Half asleep in the passenger seat, mesmerized by the country roads unwinding in the headlights, Dieter tried to picture his future. Would the Allies reconquer France, driving the occupying forces out? The thought of Germany defeated was dismal. Perhaps there would be some kind of peace settlement, with Germany surrendering France and Poland but keeping Austria and Czechoslovakia. That seemed not much better. He found it hard to imagine everyday life back in Cologne, with his wife and family, after the excitement and sensual indulgence of Paris and Stéphanie. The only happy ending, for Dieter and for Germany, would be for Rommel's army to push the invaders back into the sea.

Before dawn on a damp morning Hesse drove into the small medieval village of La Roche-Guyon, on the Seine river between Paris and Rouen. He stopped at the roadblock at the edge of the village, but they were expected, and were quickly waved on. They went past silent, shuttered houses to another checkpoint at the gates of the ancient castle. At last they parked in the great cobbled courtyard. Dieter left Hesse with the car and went into the building.

The German commander in chief [West] was Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt, a reliable senior general from the old officer class. Under him, charged with the defense of the French coast, was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The castle of La Roche-Guyon was Rommel's headquarters.

Dieter Franck felt an affinity with Rommel. Both were the sons of teachers—Rommel's father had been a headmaster—and consequently both had felt the icy breath of German military snobbery from such men as von Runstedt. But otherwise they were very different. Dieter was a sybarite, enjoying all the cultural and sensual pleasures France had to offer. Rommel was an obsessive worker who did not smoke or drink and often forgot to eat. He had married the only girlfriend he had ever had, and he wrote to her three times a day.

In the hall, Dieter met Rommel's aide-de-camp, Major Walter Goedel, a cold personality with a formidable brain. Dieter respected him but could never like him. They had spoken on the phone late last night. Dieter had outlined the problem he was having with the Gestapo and said he wanted to see Rommel as soon as possible. “Be here at four a.m.,” Goedel had said. Rommel was always at his desk by four o'clock in the morning.

Now Dieter wondered if he had done the right thing. Rommel might say, “How dare you bother me with trivial details?” Dieter thought not. Commanders liked to feel they were on top of the details. Rommel would almost certainly give Dieter the support he was asking
for. But you could never be sure, especially when the commander was under strain.

Goedel nodded a curt greeting and said, “He wants to see you right now. Come this way.”

As they walked along the hallway, Dieter said, “What do you hear from Italy?”

“Nothing but bad news,” Goedel said. “We're withdrawing from Arce.”

Dieter gave a resigned nod. The Germans were fighting fiercely, but they had been depressingly unable to halt the northward advance of the enemy.

A moment later Dieter entered Rommel's office. It was a grand room on the ground floor. Dieter noticed with envy a priceless seventeenth-century Gobelin tapestry on one wall. There was little furniture but for a few chairs and a huge antique desk that looked, to Dieter, as if it might be the same age as the tapestry. On the desk stood a single lamp. Behind the desk sat a small man with receding sandy hair.

Goedel said, “Major Franck is here, Field Marshal.”

Dieter waited nervously. Rommel continued reading for a few seconds, then made a mark on the sheet of paper. He might have been a bank manager reviewing the accounts of his more important customers—until he looked up. Dieter had seen the face before, but it never failed to make him feel threatened. It was a boxer's face, with a flat nose and a broad chin and close-set eyes, and it was suffused with the naked aggression that had made Rommel a legendary commander. Dieter recalled the story of Rommel's first military engagement, during the First World War. Leading an advance guard of three men, Rommel had come upon a group of twenty French troops. Instead of retreating and calling for reinforcements, Rommel had opened fire and dashed at the enemy. He had been lucky to survive—but Dieter recalled Napoleon's dictum: “Send me lucky generals.” Since then, Rommel had always favored the sudden bold assault over the cautious planned advance. In that he was the polar
opposite of his desert opponent, Montgomery, whose philosophy was never to attack until you were certain of victory.

“Sit down, Franck,” said Rommel briskly. “What's on your mind?”

Dieter had rehearsed this. “On your instructions, I've been visiting key installations that might be vulnerable to attack by the Resistance and upgrading their security.”

“Good.”

“I've also been trying to assess the potential of the Resistance to inflict serious damage. Can they really hamper our response to an invasion?”

“And your conclusion?”

“The situation is worse than we imagined.”

Rommel grunted with distaste, as if an unpleasant suspicion had been confirmed. “Reasons?”

Rommel was not going to bite his head off. Dieter relaxed a little. He recounted yesterday's attack at Sainte-Cécile: the imaginative planning, the plentiful weaponry, and most of all the bravery of the fighters. The only detail he left out was the beauty of the blonde girl.

Rommel stood up and walked across to the tapestry. He stared at it, but Dieter was sure he did not see it. “I was afraid of this,” Rommel said. He spoke quietly, almost to himself. “I can beat off an invasion, even with the few troops I have, if only I can remain mobile and flexible—but if my communications fail, I'm lost.”

Goedel nodded agreement.

Dieter said, “I believe we can turn the attack on the telephone exchange into an opportunity.”

Rommel turned to him with a wry smile. “By God, I wish all my officers were like you. Go on, how will you do this?”

Dieter began to feel the meeting was going his way. “If I can interrogate the captured prisoners, they may lead me to other groups. With luck, we might inflict a lot of damage on the Resistance before the invasion.”

Rommel looked skeptical. “That sounds like
bragging.” Dieter's heart sank. Then Rommel went on. “If anyone else said it, I might send him packing. But I remember your work in the desert. You got men to tell you things they hardly realized they knew.”

Dieter was pleased. Seizing his advantage, he said, “Unfortunately, the Gestapo is refusing me access to the prisoners.”

“They are such imbeciles.”

“I need you to intervene.”

“Of course.” Rommel looked at Goedel. “Call avenue Foch.” The Gestapo's French headquarters was at 84 avenue Foch in Paris. “Tell them that Major Franck will interrogate the prisoners today, or their next phone call will come from Berchtesgaden.” He was referring to Hitler's Bavarian fortress. Rommel never hesitated to use the Field Marshal's privilege of direct access to Hitler.

“Very good,” said Goedel.

Rommel walked around his seventeenth-century desk and sat down again. “Keep me informed, please, Franck,” he said, and returned his attention to his papers.

Dieter and Goedel left the room.

Goedel walked Dieter to the main door of the castle.

Outside, it was still dark.