Clash by Night (39 page)

That had been eight months ago.

Laura stowed her purchases on the shelf in her classroom and went looking for Lysette. She found her sitting behind her desk in the library with an open book in her hands, staring into space.

“No lunch?” Laura said to her.

 
Lysette started and Laura laughed.

 
“Deep in thought?” Laura asked.

 
“I guess so,” Lysette murmured. “What did you say?”

 
“I just said that you weren’t having lunch.”

 
“Oh, no. I’m not hungry.”

“You’re never hungry. I don’t know what keeps you going.” Laura sat on the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “Word has it that the invasion is coming soon,” she said softly.

Lysette closed her book, not answering.

“Isn’t that wonderful?” Laura prodded, baffled by her friend’s lack of reaction.

“We’ve heard rumors before,” Lysette said quietly.

“Yes, I know, but I really think this is it. The Germans can’t hold on much longer. The Allies are advancing all along the Italian front and they entered Rome yesterday. The Germans are in full retreat there and...”

“That could be just talk,” Lysette said sharply, standing abruptly. “We don’t have any way of verifying anything we hear. It’s all just word of mouth. People say what they want to believe, what they would like to be true.”

Laura stared at her. Lysette had seemed more distant and self absorbed than usual lately, but Laura was used to dealing with her rectitude and often found it restful. Lysette had a habit of disappearing at odd times. She was probably taking long walks or going to church—about the only possibilities which the limits of curfew and the boundaries of Fains-les-Sources would permit. Laura had discovered her absences when she went on impulse to visit her at home. Laura didn’t mind that Lysette obviously preferred her own company, and had defended her to others who accused her, behind her back, of being cold or unfriendly. This, however, was an odd reaction even for Lysette. It was almost as if she didn’t
want
the invasion to occur, didn’t want the Germans to pull out of France. What could she be thinking?

“Well,” Laura said, rising also, “our only source of official information is the Germans and I find their silence significant. They’re not even trying to counter the rumors with propaganda but they seem very busy. I wonder if it could be because they have bigger problems to occupy their time?”

“I don’t know,” Lysette said, walking to the window, “and I think it would be better if we didn’t speculate about it.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s time for us to call them in,” she said. “Would you mind ringing the bell?”

Laura left the room, pausing to cast one last puzzled glance over her shoulder at her colleague.

Lysette waited until Laura’s footsteps faded down the corridor and then covered her face with her hands.

* * *

It was dawn when the knock came at the door of Becker’s quarters. He had spent the night waiting and was not asleep. The only light in the sitting room came from the glow of his cigarette. He stood and dropped it in an ashtray, pulling on his tunic with his other hand.

He opened the door to admit Kurt Hesse and then stepped back to let the younger man precede him into the room. He shut the door.
 

“Well?” Becker said, turning.

Hesse handed him a message on yellow dispatch paper. “This was just decoded in the wireless room. More is coming in but I thought you would want to see it now.”

Becker didn’t take it. “What does it say?” he demanded.

“It’s the invasion.”

“Calais?” Becker asked sharply.

“Normandy.”

Becker nodded, walking further into the room and switching on a lamp. “Normandy. The least obvious choice.” He paused. “I had thought the weather on the coast might delay them.” He folded his arms. “Any count yet from our surveillance?”

Hesse swallowed and looked at the floor. “Twenty-one American and thirty-eight British and Canadian convoys on the sea. The closest guess is one hundred and fifty thousand men in the first wave.”

Becker closed his eyes.
 

“The aircraft still appears to be...” Hesse stopped.

Becker looked at him.

“Uncountable.”

“Jesus Christ,” Becker murmured.

“The radio operator said the horizon was obscured by ships at first light.” The boy hesitated and then went on stolidly. “The sky is described as ‘black with planes.’”

Becker walked to the window and stared thoughtfully out at the just rising sun.

“What’s the date?” he asked.

“The sixth.”

“We’ll never forget it,” he said softly. He looked around at the boy. “We’ll never forget this date or this moment, you and I.”

“No, sir,” Hesse said huskily.

“Germany’s inglorious defeat,” Becker murmured. “The whole world will know our shame now, what these fools have been up to during the last years. It’s no dishonor to lose in a good fight but this will be an inexcusable disgrace.” He gestured futilely and dropped his hand. “I’m so glad my father did not live to see it.”
 

Hesse kept silent.

“It’s all over, son,” Becker added softly. “Our idyll in the French countryside is at an end.”

His dark eyes sought the younger man’s blue ones, and the distance of rank between them evaporated.

“What will happen now?” Hesse asked.

“I don’t know,” Becker replied in a tired voice.

Hesse waited. He had never seen his superior at such a loss.

Becker indicated a pile of papers on the table beside his armchair.

“I have been rereading my orders from Berlin for the last week. Each day they contradicted the directives from the day before. They are panicked, Hesse, panicked like rats scurrying off a sinking ship.”

“Do you think a retreat will be ordered, sir?” Hesse asked.

Becker smiled sardonically. “Oh, I imagine so, boy. Otherwise we will be jitterbugging in the streets with the G.I.s in a few months’ time.”

Hesse understood Becker well enough by now to know that his attempt at humor was a defense against his true feelings.

“Is it hopeless, then?” Hesse asked in a low tone.

Becker went to him and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Yes, it’s hopeless. I won’t lie to you now. They’ll fight on for a while I’m sure, but we don’t have the resources to combat an onslaught like this one. The war is lost.”

Hesse bent his head.

“Don’t be unhappy,” Becker said firmly. “I mourn the dishonor but not the outcome. This is the way it had to be.”

Hesse was still young enough to take such a thing personally and couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Kurt, listen to me,” Becker said in the voice of command, and Hesse straightened.

“Yes, sir.”

“I want you to bring Madame Remy to me tonight,” he said quietly.

“Yes, sir.”

“And I suggest you prepare your friend as well,” Becker went on, making oblique reference to Brigitte. “When we pull out it will happen fast and there may not be time for goodbyes then.”

The subject had never before been discussed but Hesse listened dutifully. Pretense under these circumstances was unthinkable.

“Now go and get breakfast for us,” Becker said in dismissal. “I feel it will be a very long day.”

* * *

That night just before curfew Curel knocked on the door of the Duclos house and found Laura and Brigitte in the kitchen. As Laura admitted him, one look at his face told her what he had come to say and she seized him.

“The invasion,” she whispered. “It’s here?”

“It’s happening right now,” he answered, his old eyes shining. “It came across the BBC a few minutes ago.”

“Where?”
 

“Normandy. They started landing this morning, at beaches all along the coast from Caen to Valognes. It has begun.”

Laura threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “Thank God, oh thank God.”
 

Curel held her for a moment, savoring their mutual joy. His grip was surprisingly masculine and strong.

 
“Come inside and tell us,” Laura urged, tugging on his arm.

Curel entered and nodded at Brigitte. He sat at the table, his excitement visible. His hands, gnarled with a lifetime of hard work and corded with blue veins, were trembling.

“The message was brief, as they always are, but this is what we know. Fifty-seven thousand Americans as well as fifty-four thousand British and twenty-one thousand Canadians came ashore today,” he said, reciting from memory.

“So many,” Brigitte breathed in wonderment.

Curel nodded vigorously. “Over eleven hundred warships and five thousand landing craft. Thirteen thousand airplanes. That’s all we could decode but it’s enough to know that it’s the largest invasion force ever assembled in the history of warfare. It’s all under the command of U.S. General Eisenhower.”

“God bless America,” Laura said with real feeling and her companions smiled.

“Do you know anything else?” Brigitte asked, hungry for any scrap of further information. She moved next to Laura and the two women waited breathlessly, too happy to cry, almost unable to accept this long awaited announcement. Was it really true?
 

Curel shook his head. “We’ll know more tomorrow night, I’m sure. They couldn’t take a chance on having the broadcast intercepted. The Germans might be able to figure out the troop strength from the coded message.”
 

“Any instructions for Vipère?” Laura said.

“Not at the moment. Be patient. We’ll hear in time.”

Laura whirled and paced before the fireplace. “It’s just that I feel I should do something. I want to help.”

“You have helped,” Curel said quietly. “You’ve done more than your share for four years.”

Laura looked at him, surprised. He was not one to toss bouquets. He had never commented on her involvement with Vipère, seeming to assume, as they all did, that there was really no choice involved.

Curel cleared his throat. “It’s mostly out of our hands now,” he said. “We just have to wait.”

“I think this calls for a celebration,” Laura said suddenly, going to a cupboard and taking out a bottle of cooking sherry. “This is all we have but it will do. I’ve been saving it for this occasion, wondering if it would ever come.” She poured a shot of the yellow liquid into each of three glasses and handed the drinks around.

“To the success of the invasion,” she said, and raised her glass to eye level.

“The invasion,” Curel repeated.

“And
la belle France
,” Brigitte added softly, “that we get her back.”

“Hear, hear,” Laura said.

They all drank.

“You’d better go,” Laura said to Curel, putting down her glass. “You don’t want to get caught out on the street just when we’re about to win this war.”

Curel grinned.

“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said, and slipped out the door.

Laura and Brigitte exchanged glances.

“What do you say now, doubting Thomas?” Laura asked her sister-in-law triumphantly.

“I’m very happy to be proved wrong,” Brigitte said. She hugged herself with happiness. “I wonder how long it will be before the Americans get here?”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Laura replied, laughing. “They just landed on the coast. You’re acting like they’re going to be marching into Fains tomorrow!”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were?”

“They’ll get here. Sooner or later.”

“Do you think Harris will be with them?” Brigitte asked.

Laura shook her head. “I have no idea. But he’s a marine and I think it’s the infantry that marches across land, isn’t it?”

“Don’t ask me,” Brigitte replied, shrugging. “A soldier is a soldier to me.”

“What about Kurt?” Laura asked carefully. “He’ll be leaving with the Germans.”

“We’ll find a way to be together,” Brigitte said confidently.

“Will you marry him?”

“When the war’s over. And it can’t be over soon enough for me.” Brigitte gazed at Laura, her expression alive with hope. “Did you ever think when it began that it would end like this?”

“It hasn’t ended yet,” Laura said cautiously.

“Oh, don’t be a spoilsport,” Brigitte said impatiently. “You heard Curel describing the invasion. How could a force like that possibly fail to win?”

“Brigitte. You’ve been observing the Germans first hand for quite a while now,” Laura said quietly. “Can you picture them giving up without a fight?”
 

Brigitte fell silent for a long moment. Then she said, “How long do you think it will take?”

“For them to pull out of France?”

“For the war to be over.”

Laura sighed. “I’d like to be optimistic but I think it will be some time yet.”