Shadows In Paris (Seagrove & Raven #2)

Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

T he following night, Lizzie, Hannah, and two other members of the Liberty Network lay in wait in a ditch by a railway track on the outskirts of Paris. It was freezing, and they were all restless.

The countryside was still and quiet, apart from the occasional rustle of nocturnal wildlife. Tension weighed in the air and with every passing minute Lizzie grew more anxious.

Francois offered her a cigarette, and she accepted to distract herself. He cupped the flame with his hand and lit the cigarette for her with a gallant flourish.

She tried not to cough but couldn’t stop herself as the acrid smoke caught in the back of her throat.

‘Amateur smoker?’ he said.

She grimaced. ‘Afraid so. I thought I should learn how to smoke, but I don’t enjoy it.’

They passed the time with Francois giving her demonstrations on how to smoke. The train was due about thirty minutes earlier and they were wondering whether it was going to arrive. It wasn’t uncommon for trains to be cancelled at the last minute, and they had no way of knowing.

‘No sign of it in thirty minutes and we’ll call it a night,’ Hannah said.

Lizzie was glad of the gloves she had borrowed from Hannah. The evening air had a fierce chill that made her face sting and Francois predicted more snow.

A shiver ran through Lizzie, and she thought longingly of her comfortable bed in London. What would they all be doing at home now? It was late. They would probably be fast asleep. Unless there was an air raid.

No one could escape the menacing shadows of war.

That morning over coffee, Hannah had explained that their new Resistance network had been extraordinarily successful in disrupting military trains that transported German weapons and troops.

‘Do people die when you blow up the tracks?’ Lizzie asked, still blurry eyed from a heavy sleep as she warmed her hands on the cup.

‘Not always, but yes, sometimes soldiers do. We try not to kill civilians in any operation, but it’s difficult these days to tell a collaborator from a civilian.’

‘I know it’s necessary, and I’ve been trained for it, but I’m still not used to killing people—even German soldiers,’ Lizzie said.

‘That’s understandable. Even now, I kill only in self-defence or as an unavoidable part of an operation. We don’t want to give the Nazis an excuse for reprisal killings of civilians.

The thing to remember is for each soldier we kill; it is one fewer that can point their gun at one of ours. Make no mistake, the Wehrmacht’s orders are to clean up France, one way or another, until there’s no one standing who opposes Hitler. ’

Lizzie stubbed her cigarette out until the flicker of orange withered on the ground. She had resolved to harden her heart for what must be done, or she wouldn’t have agreed to return, but her previous experience still haunted her.

War was a brutal business and there was no way to avoid deaths if you were to carry out successful operations.

‘You are so experienced, I wonder how on earth I’m going to learn all this in time to replace you,’ Lizzie said, turning to Hannah, a wistful note in her voice.

Hannah adjusted her beret over her blonde hair. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t plan to disappear completely. I will be back as much as possible to train you in what we do. That’s why we need you to stay for a while. Just because I’ll be working on another mission doesn’t mean we should release the pressure on the rest of our operations. We’re making too much progress.’

‘How long do you think the new mission will take to resolve?’ Lizzie asked.

Hannah said, ‘It depends. It has the potential to be long term, and if I infiltrate at that level to gain intelligence, I’ll stay as long as they let me.’

‘If there’s anything you need from me, just let me know,’ Lizzie said.

‘Sshh,’ said Philippe, who had been quiet throughout. ‘I think I hear the train in the distance.’

The small group fell silent and strained their ears.

After a few seconds, Hannah commanded, ‘Go!’

They scrambled up the bank towards the railway line. Lizzie watched Hannah position the explosives on the track, illuminated by the silver light of the moon. They used small torches so they could see what they were doing. One wrong move could prove fatal.

‘Get out now!’ Hannah said, her voice low and urgent.

This was the most dangerous part of the sabotage, and it could easily fail. So many factors were out of their hands, such as the exact time the train would roll over the explosive-rigged track. If they got it wrong, they could blow themselves up, and the train crew would be alerted in time to make an emergency stop.

They watched from the safety of a thicket on the hilly bank of the railway.

‘Here it comes,’ whispered Francois.

Lizzie held her breath, and her heart felt like a gong banging in her chest.

The noise of the train pierced the quiet night, and she glimpsed it rattling along the track in their direction.

‘One minute left,’ said Hannah, who had been counting down in her head. ‘If it doesn’t explode soon, we won’t hit the target.’

Lizzie stared, mesmerised. It wasn’t long since she had been watching Gone with the Wind in Leicester Square. Now she was blowing up railway lines. It was surreal. She exhaled and her breath steamed in the cold air.

‘Come on,’ Hannah snapped, staring at the track, willing it to explode.

The train rushed towards them.

Lizzie spotted sparks of dancing lights on the railway lines and then heard a loud hissing sound. It was like watching a Hollywood film as she saw the track explode in front of her eyes just as the train hurtled towards it, seeming to pick up speed as it grew nearer.

The brakes of the train screeched to a halt, but it was too late to stop, and it barrelled into the epicentre of the explosion.

‘Time to get out of here,’ Hannah instructed, her voice strangely calm.

As they ran through the trees, holding their torches low to light the way, they heard loud booming sounds .

‘We must have hit the weapons cargo,’ Hannah said.

‘It’s such a shame to waste them,’ Francois said as he ran, keeping pace beside Lizzie.

‘Stealing them would be too dangerous though, wouldn’t it?’ Lizzie said.

‘Yes, it would be good, though. Use their own weapons against them, the Boche bastards.’

‘Well done, boys,’ Hannah said to Francois and Phillipe, slapping them both on one shoulder. ‘Now get out of here and lie low for a few days. And if anyone sees you, stick to your cover stories.’

They rushed to find their bicycles in the various spots they had hidden them and scattered in different directions. Only Lizzie and Hannah stayed together and followed Hannah’s route through the dark forest towards the farmhouse.

The girls cycled as fast as they could over the hard, frosty ground and weaved around trees until the forest gradually thinned.

In the distance, they heard voices and screeching wheels.

‘This way,’ Hannah whispered.

They pedalled along a narrow path that bordered a field eerily lit by the moon until Hannah made a sharp turn and jumped off her bicycle. Lizzie followed. Hannah threaded her way through a dark lane, then stopped abruptly and pushed on a wooden gate. Lizzie joined her on the other side and looked around, surprised.

‘ Voila ,’ said Hannah, winking.

‘My goodness, how did we get here so suddenly?’

They stood in the large back garden of the farmhouse.

‘My magic trick,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ve been working on finding shortcuts from various directions. There are several ways to access the grounds, so it’s easy, really. ’

‘Easy!’ Lizzie laughed. ‘I’m not sure I’d call it that, but all the same, it’s brilliant. You’re brilliant.’

‘Come on, enough for one night. I’m shattered. Let’s make a cup of tea.’

It wasn’t long before they sat drinking tea by candlelight in the kitchen. ‘I’ll show you how the furnace works tomorrow. Fuel is scarce, so we have to eek it out.’

‘The walls are remarkably bare for such a lovely house,’ Lizzie remarked, gazing around in the dim light.

‘Yes, there’s not much in the way of antiques or artwork. My guess is the Germans stripped the place of anything valuable like they did in Jewish homes in Germany and Poland. Paris is one enormous art collection for the Nazis to loot. They are plundering everything they can and transporting it all to the German treasure chest to fund more of their vile plans.’

Lizzie frowned. ‘I heard something about that on the radio at home a while ago. It all seems so distant when you’re in London, but to see it in action like this is shocking.’

Hannah said, ‘They stole our apartment when they arrested and sent my parents away during the Kristallnacht pogrom and I was left homeless.’

‘It’s hard to believe this is allowed to happen in a civilised world,’ Lizzie said, her heart hurting for Hannah as she talked about the disappearance and possible death of her close family.

Hannah said, ‘There is nothing civilised about this world. People pretend there is, but when evil gets a grip, there are always those greedy enough to relish in the spoils of other people’s efforts.’

‘Do you still have friends in Germany?’ Lizzie asked, her tone gentle.

Hannah sighed, and the sadness tore at Lizzie’s emotions as she watched the pain on her face. ‘No, I doubt it. I’ve been living like a rat in the sewers for years. No one in Germany can know my real identity, or I wouldn’t be able to operate there.’

Lizzie listened to her every word, transfixed by the awfulness of it all.

‘Following Kristallnacht, I stayed with friends for a while, and I spied on our apartment from a distance and watched as a German family moved in. Then, over the coming months, Jewish families were given minutes to pack a small bag and vacate their homes. Their bank accounts were stripped bare, and we never saw them again.’

‘You are so brave. I don’t know how you do it,’ Lizzie said. Tears rolled from her eyes and splashed onto her cheeks as she listened to the horrifying story unfold.

‘You are brave too, dear Lizzie.’ Hannah squeezed her shoulder. ‘One way or another, we will get through this. I’m so glad you’re here. It gets lonely sometimes.’

‘I’m glad I’m here too, and I’m so sorry, you’ve had to go through this hell, Hannah. It’s pure evil. If there is anything I can do when I’m back in London to help you look for your family and friends, please tell me.’

Hannah’s eyes shone with unshed tears. ‘The whispers I hear on the underground networks make me scared to even hope to see them again. I fear the ultimate Nazi plan for the Jews is even more diabolical than we have been led to believe.’

‘This war must be over soon. Surely it can’t go on much longer,’ Lizzie said. ‘What do you make of France falling so quickly? I didn’t even realise we were in real danger in Jersey until my father was called urgently to the War Office in London.’

Hannah replied, ‘Once the Phoney War was over, France folded like a house of cards. De Gaulle calls for resistance, albeit from his comfortable base in London, but the French fight was over before it had barely begun. That coward Pétain sold France down the river in an afternoon, to waving swastika flags on the Arc de Triomphe, military parades and the sound of marching bands on the Champs-élysées.’

Lizzie saw the anger etched into her delicate features that belied the Resistance operative’s mental and physical toughness.

They chatted for a while longer. Hannah asked after Lizzie’s sisters and Lizzie made her laugh with tales of what they got up to in wartime London.

It had been an intense night, and as Lizzie lay her head on the pillow, she blocked out the image of the exploding train and tried not to think about how many people were killed.