Bomber (22 page)

He had met the two Americans at that apartment in Paris, now compromised and unusable, but at least he had taught Stearley a lesson. He hoped it would make him behave more responsibly. He didn’t trust him though. He’d had similar trouble with a British officer a few months back. Nearly got two of his men caught when he started to chat up a woman in a café right by the Arc de Triomphe.
Jean-Pierre was quite prepared to die ferrying these flyers back to England, but not for someone else’s foolishness.

He tapped out the day’s news for London. The two flyers were safe and he was expecting them in Le Mans shortly, but it had been a close thing. One of them, the co-pilot, was causing no end of trouble. He was flirting with the courier and taking terrible risks to impress her. And he’d had a fight with another escaper. Immediate advice was required.

The message came back from SOE almost instantly. Jean-Pierre flinched at its stark brutality.

They were lucky with the train from Montparnasse. There were no long delays, and they pulled into the station at Le Mans around ten o’clock that evening.

The place felt quite different from Paris. More relaxed. There were a few German guards at the station, but they seemed bored and took little time checking the passengers’ passes.

Harry and Stearley followed Natalie down the dark streets. She walked for maybe twenty minutes into the centre, and they found themselves in a district of old timbered houses.

Natalie unlocked a creaking door in a drab plaster-fronted terrace. When they caught up, she was waiting for them in the darkened hall.

She beckoned them to follow her upstairs, where there was a small apartment on the top floor.

‘Two rooms – you can have one each. Wait here until I come to collect you.’

Then she left without another word.

Natalie returned in the dead of night. It had been a difficult journey, in which they had narrowly avoided a roadblock. She felt uneasy. On edge. Outside on the landing she could hear Stearley snoring but he stopped when the door to his room creaked open. She crept in, holding a single candle. He was in a deep sleep, a little smile playing around his lips, and she had to nudge him several times to fully wake him. When he opened his eyes, he looked surprised, delighted and then crestfallen in the space of an instant.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

She put her finger to her lips. ‘Come with me,’ she whispered.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘I will tell you on the way,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait outside the door while you get dressed.’

She stood on the landing, noting that the younger one in the other room was sleeping soundly. She could hear his gentle snoring. She wondered if the lieutenant was aware that something was afoot. He didn’t seem to be. She thought about what they were about to do and her jaw tightened.

She could hear him pouring water into the bedroom wash bowl and splashing his face. Then she heard the
curtain rail creak. Perhaps he was getting suspicious – it was a good thing they had parked out of sight of the house.

She was there outside and smiled briskly as he appeared. ‘Quick then,’ she said, and tiptoed down the rickety stairs. They went out the back of the house to where a Citroën Traction Avant saloon was waiting. She opened the rear passenger door. Stearley got in and Natalie sat in the front.

‘Hey, where’s Harry?’ he said.

Natalie turned round. ‘Change of plan, Lieutenant. Best if you don’t know.’ She had rehearsed this line.

‘But he’s all right, isn’t he?’

She nodded and said no more. It was impossible to see in the dark, but she sensed his unease, almost like an electrical current in the air.

They had brought Georges with them, a tough young man who would be quite able to handle the lieutenant if he got difficult. Next to Natalie in the driving seat was Jean-Pierre, her controller. She wondered how long it would take for Stearley to recognise him. He had gone to the Paris apartment and punched him in the gut after the incident with the German soldier.

She could feel herself getting angry even as she was reminded of it. She thought of her brother, Raymond, and her sister, Valérie, both murdered by the Gestapo. They held them for six weeks before they killed them. She was sure they had been tortured. Should she feel sorry for this
américain
? She could find a glimmer of pity. A lot of young
people are foolish … but he should have known better, so she banished the thought from her head.

They drove on in silence. It really was dark outside. No stars, no moon, no lights in the distance. The blackout was total. Natalie hoped Jean-Pierre knew the road well, otherwise they were going to end up wrapped around a tree.

‘So, where are we going?’ Stearley asked again. He sounded rattled now.

Eventually Jean-Pierre spoke. ‘We are taking you to another safe house.’

He said no more, but she could tell the lieutenant was getting more and more agitated. He was fidgeting and his breathing was increasingly loud.

Stearley spoke again. ‘Look, if this is about me being a pain in the ass, then I’m sorry.’

Natalie spoke, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as she could. ‘Really, monsieur, don’t trouble yourself about it.’

Natalie exchanged a worried glance with Jean-Pierre, then noticed Stearley could see her in the rear-view mirror.

An awful silence descended.

They drove on a short while longer, then Jean-Pierre pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped.

‘Get out,’ he snapped.

‘Where’s the safe house?’ Stearley was close to panic now. They were in the middle of nowhere. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

Georges had a gun; Natalie knew that. He would probably have to prod him in the ribs with it to get him out.

‘Get out of the car,’ Jean-Pierre said again.

Natalie was out now, standing by the side of the road. They were parked by a copse of tall poplars. There was some light from the moon now, and she could see Stearley was barely able to stand.

He turned to look back at Natalie, his eyes pleading, as if to say, ‘Can’t you get me out of this?’

There was a terrible pause. Stearley looked blank, then terrified. His mouth was moving but he seemed to have lost the power of speech. For a moment he struggled free of their grip, but Georges and Jean-Pierre quickly grabbed him and dragged him towards the dense woodland. She could see one of Georges’s powerful hands clamped tight around Stearley’s mouth.

Natalie could feel her legs beginning to tremble as she stood waiting by the car. Why was it taking so long?

Then she heard a single muffled shot.

A few minutes later Jean-Pierre and Georges returned, with Stearley’s dog tags. No one would know what happened to him. He would be posted as ‘missing, presumed dead’.

In the car she held back her tears. She didn’t want Jean-Pierre and Georges to see she was upset. Before, she had been sure it had been the right thing to do. No one should be allowed to put the lives of the Resistance workers at risk like that. But now she felt remorse. Like them, the lieutenant was young, with his whole life ahead of him. The arrogance and folly of youth shouldn’t be a death sentence. But these were terrible times.

Natalie woke Harry the next morning with the news that they would be travelling on to Bordeaux that day.

‘I have the tickets and travel permits. We leave in half an hour.’

‘I’ll go wake the lieutenant,’ he said.

Natalie shook her head. ‘He’s gone, Harry.’

‘Gone? What do you mean?’

She wouldn’t catch his eye. Then she said, ‘We decided to separate you. He was too much trouble.’

‘So what the hell’s happened to him?’

‘Lieutenant Stearley put our lives is danger. We warned him. He is on his own now,’ she said coldly.

So it hadn’t been an idle warning – the Resistance people had been true to their word. Harry didn’t envy Stearley the task of finding his way through occupied France on his own. He might be in with a chance. His French was pretty good.

They caught the train to Bordeaux later that afternoon. Harry and Natalie sat in the same carriage but separately.
The journey was slow but uneventful and Natalie brought another newspaper for Harry to hide behind. This time it worked. No one engaged him in conversation. By midnight the whole carriage was asleep. Natalie had gone to sleep first.

The train reached Bordeaux at eight the next morning, and they disembarked with hundreds of other passengers. Ahead, at the platform end, they could see a great queue building, and many German soldiers. It seemed today was a day for a very thorough inspection of train tickets and travel permits.

Natalie seemed unperturbed and coolly walked into a platform-side café and Harry duly followed. She sat down at one end, and when he came in a few moments later she waved, calling him over in French. She ordered two coffees and indicated that Harry should ‘read’ his newspaper.

When the coffees arrived, Harry noticed a small key on her saucer. She pushed the scrap of paper to him.
Follow me into the corridor
, it read.

Harry nodded. He noticed a young Frenchman staring at them. He was joined a minute later by another man, who turned to look at them shortly after.

Natalie got up to go, but fortunately neither of the men across the café paid her any more attention. Harry followed soon after.

She was waiting in the corridor and quickly unlocked a side door next to the lavatories. It led straight out to an
alley filled with dustbins, off a street running down the side of the station.

‘The usual procedure, monsieur,’ she whispered. They set off, Harry following Natalie at a discreet distance.

It took them an hour to reach their destination – an ordinary house in an outlying suburb. They were welcomed by a young man who seemed entirely pleased to see them. He spoke only French and left soon after they arrived.

‘There are two guest rooms in the attic,’ Natalie told Harry. ‘We can go up there. If you hear any commotion, you’ll have to hide as best you can. Now we eat, and then upstairs, yes?’

They were sitting in the dining room about to eat breakfast when the phone in the corner rang. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. Natalie rushed to answer it. She turned pale and her rapidly spoken words finished abruptly – mid-sentence. She stood looking at the receiver aghast.

‘We have to go. Immediately,’ she said.

‘What’s wrong?’ Harry said.

Natalie shook her head. ‘This place is not safe.’

They grabbed bags and left without so much as picking up any food from the table.

‘Whatever happens, don’t run. Nothing attracts suspicion like a running man,’ she said. She walked close to Harry, arm in arm as if they were lovers for a few brief steps, and spoke under her breath. ‘There’s another safe
house out in Pessac. It’s on the edge of town. We can get there in maybe an hour if we walk fast. I’ll walk ahead. You keep up.’

Still walking together, wrapped up in the confusion of what had just happened, they turned a corner. Right ahead was a German roadblock. There were a few cars and a waiting crowd. Harry could already see a German soldier looking straight over at them. It was too late to turn round, and definitely too late to pretend that they weren’t together. ‘Keep walking,’ she whispered softly, her arm still in his. ‘We’re going to have to go through this.’

The soldier beckoned for them to stand with a group of people selected to have their passes scrutinised in detail, while others were waved through. Harry felt his heart pounding in his chest. What if they started to speak to him? What if they asked him anything that wasn’t written on that identity card?

Two officers were sitting in a staff car by the roadblock and were staring directly at him with undisguised hostility. They wore the insignia of the SS. Maybe they thought he looked like a Jew? He could feel his legs start to shake and realised he was beginning to sweat. He might as well have
I AM AN AMERICAN JEW
stamped on a placard around his neck.

He glanced over to Natalie, who looked as calm and collected as ever.

Salvation came from an unexpected quarter. Air-raid sirens started up and the German guard told them that
the nearest shelter was three streets away and that all pedestrians should hurry there at once.

Almost immediately the bombs started to fall – far away but enough to feel the blast in their ears. Harry looked up to see wave after wave of bombers almost overhead and coming in over the west, tiny flecks in the blue sky, with their wispy white contrails.

A series of explosions came nearer and nearer, close enough now to make the earth tremble beneath their feet. A woman screamed and several dogs began to bark loudly. In the stillness after the first bomb detonations they could hear the steady buzz of aero-engines and the slow cascade of a collapsing building.

They reached the shelter and hurried down its concrete steps. Natalie banged hard on the metal door. There were at least twenty desperate people behind them, pushing down the stairs. Harry felt the life being squeezed out of him. He was crushed against the door and could barely breathe. There were further explosions, seemingly just down the street, the blasts turning them momentarily deaf. People were screaming and the crowd seemed close to panic.

Natalie banged again on the door and shouted angrily at the top of her voice. Harry could barely believe she had the breath or strength to do it. But the door opened and there was a mad stampede inside. She pushed her way determinedly through the packed bodies in the shelter and Harry followed right behind. Some cursed but she apologised sweetly.

There was space in the far corner of the shelter, but it was lit by the gloomiest of little bulbs and the smell was deeply unpleasant. They sat down to regain their breath.

A steady pattern of explosions brought Harry back to reality. They were creeping nearer all the time. Those sticks of bombs that fell from a Fortress – he’d never really thought about what happened when they hit the ground. Bortz usually dropped them in series rather than all at once. Their Fortress flew at about 250 miles an hour over a bomb drop, so it seemed logical that those twelve bombs in the bomb bay would come down a second or two apart in almost a straight line. Now here he was directly underneath them, counting those explosions as they fell overhead.