Darkest Longings (78 page)

was sitting on a bomb was unlikely to seem as funny to him

as it had to her and Monique. ‘You’re being overprotective, Francois,’ she grumbled.

‘Someone has to be; it seems the whole damned lot of you

have lost your senses. Do you know how many Resistant! have been arrested in Touraine during the past four weeks?

No, I didn’t think you did. Over twenty. And while we’re

here I’d better tell you that you have a traitor in your midst.

The escape-line has to close down, Claudine, before you’re

all arrested. Has anyone told you that you haven’t got one

pilot, one agent or one escaped prisoner through in the past

three weeks?’

‘What!’

‘The Gestapo have got them all. They’re picking them up

at Poitiers.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

‘I’ve only just found out. There’s a weak link in your chain.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘No, but I don’t think it’s here, it seems to be further

down the line. Nevertheless, if they’ve got one link in the

chain they can trace the whole thing. So I’m telling you, my

mother is to stop carrying messages and so is Liliane. Don’t

argue? he roared as she started to protest. ‘Shut down that

escape-line and tell Lucien I want to see him.’

He stalked off then, and she knew better than to go after

him when he was in that mood.

When Lucien returned from Paris a week later, and she

finally got the two of them together, there was another bitter

row. In the end Lucien capitulated and told Solange that

she wouldn’t be able to run any more errands. Solange

meekly agreed, then informed Claudine that she was at her

disposal as usual.

‘Francois is right about the escape-line,’ Lucien said to

Claudine later that night, as they stood together just inside

the forest at the back of the chateau. ‘If the Germans have

managed to infiltrate it, we have to close it down. The

problem is, we have a pilot in Neuville who needs to be

moved. He can’t go on, because we think our “weak link” is

just beyond Neuville. I suggest we bring him back here for a

while. Can we put him in the cottage?’

‘I don’t see why not. For how long?’

‘A few days, no more.’

But it turned out to be a lot longer than that. While the

pilot and his guide were on their way back to Lorvoire they

ran into a German patrol and were challenged. The guide

panicked and pulled out a gun. The pilot followed suit, shot

one of the German officers, and in the melee that followed

the guide was killed. The pilot, by some miracle, managed

to escape and make his way into the forest of Fontevraud,

where he was picked up by other fugitives who managed to

get word to Lucien. What Lucien didn’t discover until he

arrived at Fontevraud was that the pilot had been shot in the

leg and shoulder. By the time he got him to Lorvoire, the

man had lost so much blood that Doctor Lebrun seriously

doubted his chances of survival.

The shooting of the German officer had immediate

repercussions. Posters were pasted on every wall and

lamp-post informing those responsible that if they didn’t

come forward, twenty of the prisoners held in the cellars of

the Hotel Boule d’Or would be shot. No one doubted that

the threat was real; no one had forgotten what had

happened at Nantes and Bordeaux.

Those early days of March were the darkest any of them

had known, for many people in Chinon and the surrounding

villages had loved-ones in the German cells. Most were

there for crimes as petty as breaking curfew or failing to

salute a German officer, but the Germans had not yet

named those who were to be shot. Neighbour suspected

neighbour; fights broke out on the street as prisoners’

relatives accused lifelong friends of harbouring the culprit.

For Claudine and Lucien the dilemma was terrible. The pilot, Squadron Leader Jack Bingham, remained unconscious,

and the idea of handing him over to the Gestapo was

utterly abhorrent. But so too was the prospect of seeing

innocent men go to their deaths.

In the end Claudine turned to Francois for help. As she

expected, he was furious even to be told that she had the

pilot in their cottage, and that Monique and Estelle were

nursing him round the clock didn’t please him either.

Nevertheless, two days after she told him, the threatening

notices started to come down. How he managed to achieve

this Francois refused to tell her; he wasn’t proud of the fact

that he had turned the Germans’ attention to a group of

Communist Resistants he knew to be planning the sabotage

of a train out of Tours sometime during the next week. The

man they were looking for, he told his colleagues, was with

them.

The FTP did sabotage the train, and managed to secure

themselves hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel bound for

Germany. Their success was due to the fact that they struck

a day before the Germans expected them to, and further

back on the line, near Chemille.

Francois hadn’t tipped them off; he was fairly certain the

informer was a cleaning woman at the Chateau d’Artigny,

who had been sweeping outside his office when he told his

fellow-officers of the FTP plan. He was grateful to her for

doing it - but the FTP coup also filled him with a gnawing

dread. He would have a lot of questions to answer when he

met von Liebermann in Vichy. This was just the sort of

incident that would prompt the General to start moving the

pieces again in his iniquitous game of human chess.

The very next day Francois was ordered to present

himself at the Hotel Louis XV in Vichy the following

Wednesday, at fifteen hundred hours precisely.

Halunke watched from the grime-covered windows of the

fishing hut. At the moment there was nothing to see, but he

knew that de Lorvoire and his wife were on the point of

leaving old Thomas’ hut. It was Tuesday morning, the day

before Francois was due to go to Vichy, and though

Halunke had managed to overhear very little of their

conversation, he knew that de Lorvoire had told his wife a

lie. He had told her that he was meeting von Liebermann at

nine o’clock in the morning. There was probably a good

reason for the lie, and Halunke was fairly certain he knew

what it was, but it didn’t concern him. All that concerned

him was that von Liebermann had given his authorization

for another strike while de Lorvoire was away - and de

Lorvoire was leaving at noon.

Halunke jerked his head back from the window as the door to the next hut opened and de Lorvoire came out. A few minutes later Claudine followed, by which time de Lorvoire had already disappeared into the runnel leading back to the chateau’s inner cellar. Careless of him to have left her alone like that, Halunke mused, but of course she always carried a gun, and she certainly knew how to use it.

She hadn’t brought her horse today, which meant that as

she started back through the forest, Halunke was able to

follow. He kept at a safe distance all the way, and not once

did she turn round - which surprised him, given that curious sixth sense of hers. When she reached the meadow in front of the chauteau, Halunke stayed in the forest, circled the meadow under cover of the trees, made the steep

climb to the back of the chateau and waited.

Half an hour later he heard de Lorvoire drive off, and not

long after that Claudine came out onto the bridge, looked

around, then started the trek to the cottage. Again Halunke

followed.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind staying on?’ Claudine said,

wiping down the table in the kitchen and glancing over her

shoulder at Monique.

‘No, of course I don’t,’ Monique answered, sitting back in

the chair she had pulled up to Jack Bingham’s bedside. ‘I

like sitting here with him. It’s restful.’

‘I imagine it is,’ Claudine said, with some irony. ‘He’s still

unconscious.’

‘But improving,’ Monique reminded her.

Claudine started drying the few dishes she and Monique

had used for their lunch. ‘Are you warm enough?’ she said,

shivering suddenly. ‘There’s not much wood on the fire.

Shall I put some more on for you?’

‘Yes, please.’ Monique leaned over the pilot and tucked

the blankets closer round his face. ‘He’s American, you

know,’ she said.

‘American?’ Claudine turned round in surprise. ‘But he’s

an RAF pilot.’

‘That doesn’t preclude him from being an American, does it?’ Monique smiled. ‘I found a letter from his mother in his wallet, she lives in a place called Missouri. And look,

he’s got a photograph of his wife and three children too.’

Claudine took the small, disintegrating snapshot and

stared at the laughing faces of Bingham’s family. Then

suddenly she shivered again. This time she cast a nervous

glance towards the window, but there was nothing to see.

Monique was looking at the pilot again, and Claudine

watched as she stroked a wisp of fair hair from his forehead.

It was odd, Claudine thought, how she hadn’t noticed his

looks before, perhaps because he had been so deathly pale

when he arrived. But now that a little colour had returned to

his cheeks she could see that he was really quite handsome

in, come to think of it, an extremely American way. Her eyes

moved to Monique’s face, and immediately her heart sank.

Francois had talked to Monique, some time ago now,

about her feelings for Lucien. Exactly what he had said

Claudine wasn’t sure, but he had seemed satisfied with the

way the conversation had gone. Now however, seeing

Monique gaze so adoringly at Jack, Claudine was very much

afraid that Francois had not managed to get through to her

at all.

‘Monique,’ she said softly.

Monique looked up, and her wide amber eyes seemed so

innocent in her fragile white face that it was all Claudine

could do to make herself go on. ‘Monique,’ she said again,

perching on the edge of the bed and taking her hand. ‘He’s

married, cherie?

‘I know,’ Monique answered, smiling.

‘When he’s well he will have to return to his family, or to

the war.’

‘Yes, I know that too.’ Then squeezing Claudine’s hands,

she said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s only concern I feel.’ She turned

to look at him. ‘And perhaps gratitude.’

‘Gratitude?’

Monique nodded. ‘He was there to listen and not judge

when I needed to talk.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I’ve told him

about Lucien, and about all the men I’ve … Well, it doesn’t

matter now, it’s in the past. But Francois made me see how

misguided I had been, how there had been no need to

search so desperately for love just to convince myself I

didn’t want Lucien in the way I thought I did. Of course,

Jack couldn’t hear what I was saying, but it helps sometimes

to speak things aloud, don’t you think?’

Claudine smiled, then leaned forward to kiss Monique’s

forehead. ‘Estelle should be here soon,’ she said, picking up

her coat and checking her pocket for the gun. ‘Doctor

Lebrun said he would stop by later, too. Invite him to join us

for dinner this evening, will you?’

‘Will anyone else be there?’

‘Besides us, only Blomberg.’

Monique grinned. ‘What a pity Francois won’t be there. I

so enjoy the way Blomberg squirms every time he brings up

the subject of German culture. I’m sure Francois does it on!

purpose.’

‘Well, the Colonel can rest easy tonight,’ Claudine said,

laughing.

‘If you can call putting up with you, resting easy,’

Monique remarked. ‘You’re as bad as Francois. And the

way you look at him sometimes, Claudine, is enough to make anyone think you’d just scraped him off the bottom of your shoe.’

Again Claudine laughed, and Monique watched her as

she buttoned her coat and pulled her fur hat down over her

ears. ‘Did something happen between you and Blomberg,

Claudine,’ she said carefully. ‘Something you haven’t told

me about?’

‘The short answer is yes,’ Claudine answered. ‘Please

don’t ask for the long one, and don’t mention it to Francois

either.’

‘I won’t if you don’t want me to, but Francois asked me

that very question himself just after he came back from

Germany. I couldn’t help wondering at the time why he

didn’t ask you.’

‘He did, but I didn’t give him a straight answer.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he would have taken matters into his own hands

- and I’m determined to deal with Blomberg myself, the

very minute the opportunity presents itself.’

‘You’re a mean woman, Claudine,’ Monique grinned, Claudine pointed her fingers at Monique like a gun and made a firing noise. Then, smiling, she let herself out into

the forest.

In the little clearing outside the cottage, the sun was

bright, making her eyes water. She took a deep breath of the

crisp autumn air, slid her hand into her pocket to take firm

hold of the gun, and set off into the trees.

She had gone only a few steps when she heard something

I behind her. In one movement she whipped out the gun and