Staying Alive Read online

  ‘Use your telephone?’

  He slid a jeton across the bar – she had a coin ready – and pointed with his head. The phone was on the wall, no barrier between it and the general racket, nothing to do but yell. She wove her way through to it, reminding herself of the number, one of several she’d memorised. No option, since one did not, ever, carry notes of numbers, names, addresses. Had to put the transceiver down then – the case on edge, flat against the wall below the telephone, with her toes against it. Her baby, almost – what she was for, here and now virtually ninety per cent of what she was.

  * * *

  ‘I was jittery, all right. I can just about feel them now, those jitters. Can you understand, how one would be – despite all the training and preparation?’

  ‘I certainly can.’

  ‘Could hardly overemphasise one’s state of nerves. It’s important, you know, for – well, your atmosphere. Me, complete novice, in a real state of nerves, much worse than I’d expected.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind. Rosie as ingénue, a long way short of the steely character she grew into.’

  A smile. ‘Never all that steely. Not even at the very end, to be honest. Even then one tended to get the inner shakes. Truly, my God, some of those long night hours, the three a.m. sweats as I’ve heard it called.’ She expelled a short, hard breath, remembering it. ‘Anyway, I dialled the number…’

  * * *

  ‘Yuh?’ '

  Female, and hoarse, distant-sounding. Rosie yelled, as close to the mouthpiece as she could get, ‘May I speak to Marcel? It’s Suzette, tell him.’

  ‘Don’t know you, do I?’

  ‘What matters is Marcel does. Will you get him, please?’

  ‘Would if he was here, but he ain’t. Want him to call you?’

  ‘D’you expect him soon?’

  ‘Oh, I know better than to have expectations, with that one! What’s your number – or does he know it?’

  She read it from the card pinned to the box. Added, ‘This is a café, so —’

  ‘Could be quite a while!’

  ‘Please, the minute he gets in?’

  The woman had rung off. Rosie hung up, stooped to pick up the transceiver case; as she moved away a priest took her place without even glancing at her. There was a queue at the bar now: might order from Madame when she came by, there was certainly no hurry. She’d been heading for a vacant table beyond the bar, but on second thoughts turned back – to put herself reasonably close to the phone, as one would if one were actually expecting a call. As it happened she was not, it was now only a matter of appearances.

  ‘Mind if I use this chair?’

  A table for four, with only one couple at it – middle-aged, dowdy, had been eating sausage with choucroute. The man stared at her woodenly, but his wife smiled, shook her head: ‘We’re about finished.’ Draining her cup, and the husband following suit with the last of his thin-looking, fizzy beer. Rosie explained with a nod towards the telephone, ‘Expecting a call, don’t want to miss it.’

  The priest was still there – talking or listening, inaudible over the background noise – and the husband was checking his bill then fingering coins out of a purse. They were harmless enough, she thought. In fact it might be better if they stayed; when they moved she might well get something worse, was unlikely to be left on her own at a table that had chairs for four.

  He’d got the money settled. Nodding to his wife. ‘If you’re ready—’

  ‘Wait a minute.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Glancing at her, then looking where she was looking, at the entrance. Rosie too, craning round – seeing two men in the famed belted raincoats and felt hats. Hands in their pockets, staring round – from table to table, face to face, and meanwhile effectively blocking the exit.

  The husband said quietly, ‘Boches.’

  ‘Police of some kind.’ Looking at Rosie, then back at him. ‘Best hang on. In no great rush, are we?’

  ‘They seem to be looking for someone.’

  ‘Not for us, at least.’ A snigger, under her breath. Conversation elsewhere had virtually ceased. She murmured, ‘And I’m sure they couldn’t be after our young friend here!’

  Rosie thinking, They could, though. A wire-tap – if like Jean they’ve been expecting me? Intercepted signal? She still didn’t know what might have happened to the pianist she was replacing: and such horrors had occurred, in SOE memories. She had her back to the Gestapists, and didn’t look round again – instinct telling her to show no interest in them, more essentially no concern for oneself in their presence. Not to push the transceiver’s case further under the table even – when one of these two might somehow react to the movement, drawing attention to it. In the comparative quiet, hearing the priest say loudly into the telephone, ‘I am much obliged, monsieur’, and the clatter as he hung up – turning with a look of surprise – struck by the silence first, then seeing the Germans, mouthing to himself in surprise…

  Prayer?

  ‘Coming this way, one of ’em.’ The woman had whispered it to Rosie. Picking up her empty cup, making a show of draining it, actually hiding behind it, peeping over it at the one who was on the move: towards them, but surely to pass them – en route to the bar, perhaps, the patron. Nothing to do with me – really can’t be. Not this soon, God’s sake there’s no way it could… She had a back view of him as he did pass – and of the priest standing motionless, watching, the patron similarly transfixed – but certainly no suggestion of any challenge, and the German exuding – what, self-importance, conviction of his own supremacy? Not at all surprised, anyway, by the effect he was having on them all – which on its own would have been enough to arouse instant dislike – easily confusable of course with fear, or euphemistically anxiety. Although as it happened – surprisingly – there seemed to be a lightening of the tension elsewhere in the room – people resuming their conversations or looking round for service. The priest snapped out of his daze too, started towards the exit, while at the bar meanwhile the patron’s voice was a high squawk, jowls wobbling as he protested, ‘No persons of such description, monsieur. Not that I’ve seen, in any case. Mind you, one’s been hard at it since mid-morning, so—’

  Making common cause of whatever it might be – or trying to, and the German turning away contemptuously. Rosie turning away too, giving the husband a glance and asking his wife whether they’d always lived in this town: in order to be seen as belonging, one of the group, the German passing on his way back, the woman putting down her cup and muttering, ‘Good riddance!’ Her husband, startled, murmuring in alarm but she and Rosie exchanging smiles. Out of a sense of shame, collective cowardice? The German having by this time rejoined his colleague, barking something like ‘No good, let’s go!’ in what to Rosie had always been an ugly, brutal-sounding language. At school in England years ago, when they’d realised they couldn’t teach her any French she’d been allowed to switch to German, and had very soon thrown her hand in. The woman was shaking her head: ‘Sort of thing we have to expect from now on, I suppose.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘Now the barbarians are in our midst…’

  ‘Oh now, shush!’

  A flash of anger: ‘Why shush? Aren’t we in France?’

  The patronne then, demanding, ‘And for you?’ Scooping up the man’s assembly of small change and looking almost angrily at Rosie for her order. Rosie told her, ‘Coffee, and a galette – cheese galette.’ She’d seen one on another table and thought it didn’t look too bad. The patronne scribbling briefly, snapping back to a question from the woman as she and her husband got up, ‘I have no idea. But no doubt that they had good reason.’

  One ready-made collaborateuse, one potential résistante. Maybe: at first showing, but in the longer term, maybe not. Maybe in the longer run they’d both – all – keep their heads down, play the three wise monkeys…

  The coffee was revolting, but after half an hour or so she’d bought a second cup of it – which wasn
’t improved by having now gone tepid. Still had the table to herself, at least. There were plenty of empty ones. The young girl, daughter or niece, whatever – about seventeen, pudding-faced – was now doing all the waitressing that was required, madame having disappeared. Patron still present, sprawled at a table close to the bar. Rosie happened to be looking his way when he glanced up, disturbed by the street door swinging open for the first time in quite a while.

  Man blundering in, pushing the door shut behind him against the wind. Could be him. Jean – Jake. Could be. Stopping there as if he might have come into shelter only to light a cigarette; match flaring in his cupped hands. Then straightening from it, looking around – not at people so much as – well, he’d located it, the telephone.

  Still wouldn’t bet much on it, but it had begun to seem not improbable. He’d flicked the spent match away, was moving unhurriedly to the bar; beckoning the girl, asking for a jeton.

  So far, he fitted the bill, all right.

  He was wearing a leather jacket – soft-looking leather, well-fitting, no doubt expensive – over a chequered shirt with a thin, dark tie loosened at the throat. Thickset, about five-ten or five-eleven, and maybe forty, even forty-five. Hair grey and thick, and a short, blunt jaw. It matched the description Marilyn had provided except that for some reason Rosie had thought of him as younger. Exhaling smoke, nodding to the girl. ‘Merci.’ Growling as he turned and limped towards the phone – which meant towards Rosie too – ‘Blowing like hell out there.’

  Baggy, fawn-coloured trousers. The limp was noticeable. He’d given Rosie one slowish passing glance – evincing no special interest in her, but she guessed he’d have seen as much as he needed. As she had of him. Stopping now well short of the phone, looking back at the girl, screwing his face up and slapping his forehead – an effort to remember the number he had to call. Making a joke of it, presumably to amuse the child – and succeeding, but the patron looking up peevishly from his newspaper, growling something that sent her to clear a table recently vacated.

  Oddly, that performance had seemed to age him, in Rosie’s view. Forty-five at least, she thought. Uncle Jake… Marilyn might have said forty-five and she’d heard it as thirty-five?

  She heard him lift the receiver and dial.

  Ringing tone, presumably. Then sharply: ‘Oh… But that’s not Marie-Claire?’

  Pause. Grunt of annoyance, and ‘An hour, damn it!’ Further pause: then, ‘Look, have her call me here, will you. The numbers—’ Reading it out. ‘Got that?’

  He’d hung up – after talking to a dead line. She pushed her cup away, was checking the time. Looked round then; telling him, ‘Good luck to you – I’ve been waiting at least an hour to have a call returned, and I don’t think it’s bloody coming.’ Shrugging, seeming to make her mind up in that moment: adding in a mutter to herself, ‘In fact, the hell with him!’ Shifting her chair, reaching for the suitcase that hadn’t until then been visible – but was now, all right.

  Spreading his hands. ‘Leaving? Giving up?’

  ‘Regrettably, monsieur—’

  ‘I’d just thought – hoped – I might be so fortunate as to have your company for a while. Being in the same boat, so to speak—’

  ‘Would have been nice, but—’

  ‘Well, look here – if I might suggest it – having an hour to kill and no inclination to sit here on my own—’

  * * *

  Rosie said, ‘First pick-up ever. Unless you count Ben in the hallway at 62–64 Baker Street. But that was more of a collision than a pick-up. This one might have been more elaborate than it need have been, but at least – see, no names, real numbers or addresses, not a thing to give the game away, and there we were, fait accompli – he and I out into the gale, over the road and up towards all that greenery, the Grand Rond and its surroundings.’ She’d pointed back over her shoulder, southeastward – a couple of kilometres from here, it would have been – and told me that the so-called Jean Samblat’s first words when they were out of the café had been: ‘Call you Suzie, may I – or Lucy? Welcome to Countryman. How’s London looking, these days?’ and she’d told him, ‘More battered than when you last saw it. Battered and burnt, quite a lot of it. But life goes on.’

  ‘Bloody better, hadn’t it. Suzie, we’ll talk French, from here on. And you must have more luggage than just that blessed object?’

  ‘Blessed’ because it was what he’d been waiting for – transceiver plus its handler, the essentials with which to start solving his réseau’s problems. She told him yes, one other suitcase, which she’d left in the consigne at the Gare Matabiau, and he commented that that was about as convenient as it could have been, since he’d arranged for her to move in with a local school’s headmistress, name of Berthe Devrèque, who had a house on Place Marengo in which she’d be glad to put her up. It would do to start with anyway, as long as the two of them got on, and was in easy distance from the station, which might have advantages other than just picking up the rest of her luggage by and by. Then he asked her how she’d got on with Alain Déclan, and she said fine, fine, nice guy, and – well, a great reception, having a lift to the station – train stiff with Germans incidentally – Déclan had seen her right on to it, marvellous of him! Jean had agreed that Alain was one of the best. Adding though, incomprehensibly, ‘Touch wood.’

  Then as she glanced at him in surprise, ‘There’s so much I need to tell you, heck of a lot to fill in, plus a situation in which we really need to have you hit the ground running, as they say…’

  ‘Perfectly OK with me. But about Déclan – that “touch wood” – meaning you’ve doubts of him?’

  ‘Not of him, no. The problem is – could be – his wife. Although I’m pretty sure we’re OK. I mean that he’ll see to it we remain so. Hell, he’s OK, salt of the earth. He’s a cool customer, and with that old truck of his and his work on farms, farm machinery, he’s in a really marvellous position – as regards parachutages, for instance. The problem is that his wife, who in his view of it acts the part of a Pétainiste, almost certainly is one.’

  ‘Almost certainly…’

  Affirmative grunt. ‘Best to be warned, that’s all. Her value of course is she’s his cover and in the light of what I just said a particularly good one – even though she doesn’t know it, obviously mustn’t know it. As long as he has it under control – her, that is, and maybe her friends.’

  ‘From as much as he said to me, I’d say he does have, and was warning me. Makes better sense of it, in fact. Possible, I suppose, he doesn’t want her involved?’

  ‘Distinctly so. That’s a generous thought, and – yes, pretty well in character.’

  ‘You have another courier as well, a Frenchman?’

  ‘Marc Voreux. Code-name Raoul. Frenchman of BCRA origins but assets/qualities no less useful to us than Déclan’s. All in all it’s a darn good team – and now with you joining us, we can get on with things that – well, none too bloody soon!’

  ‘Things such as – specific operations, or—’

  ‘One specific, important operation which has become more urgent in recent days, and more or less part and parcel of it, a parachutage or maybe two of them.’

  ‘How have you managed, since you lost your pianist?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you all that. But first things first – number one, I very much hope you’ve brought us some cash?’

  ‘Half a million francs.’

  ‘Ah, now, that is a relief. Where exactly, at this moment—’

  ‘Poacher’s pocket inside this coat. Quite a wad, I’ll be glad to be shot of it. Want it now?’

  ‘At the house, better. Chez Berthe Devrèque, by and by. Wouldn’t want that much cash blowing on the breeze.’

  ‘Wouldn’t, would we. Subject of Berthe Devrèque though – is she one of us?’

  ‘She’s a patriot, loathes Vichy and the Germans – at heart one of us, therefore, and I’d say she’d like to be. Time being, she provides us with a planque – which is
all I want of her. She doesn’t have to know any more than the fact we need it.’

  Planque meaning a safe-house. Rosie asked him, ‘What sort of age?’

  ‘Berthe – oh, middle forties. But let’s take one point at a time now – OK? My agenda, all questions and/or elaborations to follow – right?’

  In other words shut up now, just listen.

  4

  Rosie and I had been finding the bench a bit hard, so for a break after another half-hour we took a stroll southward along the river-bank almost to the next bridge, Pont Neuf, which was the best part of a kilometre, and found another – no less hard – where we sat down again, with the Eglise Notre-Dame-de-la-Daurade on our left and the open grassed space of Place Daurade behind us, and she continued on the subject of Marc Voreux, the Countryman réseau’s other courier. In fact she’d been recalling her briefing by Jake, on which I’d already made a few notes – on his cover for instance as a civil engineer – Ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées – and his having an apartment in a building on Place Victor Hugo, where as it happened a rather smart hotel called l’Ours Blanc was at that time – time of her arrival – being taken over by the Gestapo as their Toulouse headquarters. Jake had been in two minds whether to move elsewhere, there being a possibility that doing so might attract attention that would be best avoided; not that the Gestapo themselves were likely to take note of such a move by a businessman of whom they’d no reason to have any suspicions whatsoever, but that French neighbours or tradesmen might. There’d be plenty seeking to curry favour with their new lords and masters.

  Marc Voreux, though. Code-name Raoul. French, aged at that time twenty-two, he’d been one of the prime movers in an escape-line that had folded – had been ‘broken into’ was old Rosie’s phrase for it – by Abwehr (military intelligence) agents, a number of its operators arrested and no doubt either shot or sent to concentration camps in Germany. There were several escape-lines at work, most of them terminating in the south-west here and getting their evaders or escapers – which they referred to as colis, meaning parcels – away over the Pyrenees and through Spain to Gibraltar or Portugal to Lisbon. Not all, by any means. At least one escape-line smuggled their clients into Switzerland, while another delivered them to Resistance groups on the coast of Britanny – one such location being a mere niche in the rocks called l’Abervrac’h, where as it later transpired Ben’s gunboat was to land Rosie on her second deployment. But Marc Voreux had operated to start with in and around Tours, and his sister Denise between Paris and Orléans. She, Denise, had set it up, the system being the same as in other lines, the colis often enough Jews but then – increasingly – shot-down aircrew, being transported/escorted across France from safe-house to safe-house with what were known as cut-outs at each stage, these ensuring that the transients would be passed from one escort to the next without overlap, i.e. without their escorts over one stage seeing those of the next or the previous one or knowing anything about them.