Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
T he next day, Lizzie walked into Reims, following Jeanne’s directions. Champagne country was glorious in late summer, and she admired the rows of vines laden with plump shiny grapes that looked as though they would soon be ripe for picking. Rustic cottages nestled on the landscape like a scene from a watercolour painting.
Jeanne’s willow basket swayed on Lizzie’s arm with a hypnotic rhythm as she moved. She tried not to think about how much danger she was in, or fear would paralyse her.
Jack had emphasised it would be a simple reconnaissance mission if nothing unforeseen happened. He cautioned that if things went wrong, she may not return. He had made her write a letter to her parents so they would have something from her if she went missing.
At that point, he had urged her to consider what she was agreeing to, and he would be back soon for her definitive answer.
The vivid, chilling picture of wartime France Jack painted as he sat opposite her smoking, would be lodged in her mind forever. Part of her longed to say that this had all been a mistake. Who was she—a Jersey girl with no espionage experience—to carry out a mission like this behind enemy lines?
She should tell him he had been right about her in the beginning. Lizzie imagined herself standing up and leaving St. Ermin’s Hotel. She could jump on the bus and be back home with her family at the lovely house in Regent’s Park in no time. No one would be any the wiser and it would be as if they’d never met. Lizzie would continue with her work as a translator and could look back in years to come and tell her children she did her bit for the war effort.
But a more determined part of her resisted. That part of her knew this was her destiny, and she was supposed to do this precisely because she was a Jersey girl who spoke fluent French and had spent much of her life in France. Despite the palpitations in her chest and the fear running through her body like an electric charge, she could not walk away.
And then there was Jack. She was drawn to him like a moth to a flame and wanted to help him. Lizzie saw how earnest he was about finding Hannah, and even if he was in love with the missing Resistance agent, and she was inexplicably jealous, she couldn’t turn her back on him. Her father had instilled in his children a sense of duty to one’s country, and a moral compulsion to always do the right thing.
Lizzie knew in her gut this was the right thing to do, so when Jack returned, she said she hadn’t changed her mind, and would do whatever he asked. She had hoped that would banish the sadness from his beautiful eyes, but still it lurked in their depths, and she suspected he must be truly devastated over losing Hannah.
She told herself to stop thinking of him in any way other than her boss, or she was going to get hurt. But even as she admonished herself, she knew it was impossible. It was too late for that. Her heart ached just at the thought of him being in love with the courageous agent .
As she approached the city, she remembered his heartfelt plea before she left the aircraft. ‘Come back to us,’ he said.
Who was us ? she wondered.
It seemed impossible to imagine that the France she knew and loved was irrevocably changed. Walking through the streets of Reims, on first impression, things were much as she might have expected them to be before the war.
Then reality came hurtling in as she saw a group of German soldiers walking towards her. Their jackboots gleamed in the afternoon sun and left no room for confusion about who they were. A frisson of sheer terror struck her.
Lizzie straightened her shoulders and clutched her basket as though it were a lifeline to Jack. She was just a regular French girl on her way to the shops with her ration card. Her heart bashed against her chest, and she was lightheaded.
She darted out of the way of the oncoming soldiers and lowered her eyes to the ground as she walked. Surely the occupiers would not expect a young woman to meet their gaze.
Even so, it didn’t stop one of them catcalling to her in broken French. ‘Mademoiselle, where is such a pretty girl going on this fine day all alone? Come here and introduce yourself.’
Lizzie hurried along and pretended not to hear. Jack had warned her to avoid confrontation with German authority and French police at all costs. That was where the most danger lay, he explained.
The sound of mocking laughter rang through the air, and she was shaking again, but this time it was anger that flooded her veins. How dare they march into France and treat women as if they owned them? Thoughts of what her family and friends must be going through tormented her, and she was more resolved than ever to do what she had come here to do .
It was only when she dared look back over her shoulder and saw the soldiers must have turned a corner and were no longer visible, did she allow herself to breathe properly again.
Lizzie entered the square, and a fresh chill gripped her as she saw the blood red Nazi banner emblazoned with the dreaded swastika, draped from the H?tel de Ville, fluttering in the breeze as though it belonged there.
Outrage fuelled her steps as she made her way to the Café de Ville, where Jack had told her to try to rendezvous with a member of the local Resistance.
She entered the café and curious faces assessed her as she placed her basket on a table. Lizzie rearranged her yellow silk scarf, so it was fully visible over the collar of her summer dress. This was the sign she was to use to let the Resistance know she was here to meet with them.
Lizzie ordered a café au lait , not hopeful of getting the au lait , and rested her back against the hard wooden chair, trying to look for all the world like she belonged there.
It was many years since she visited Reims with her French cousins one blazing hot summer, but she remembered it well. Her auntie and uncle had taken them on a tour of the local vineyards and whilst the adults sampled the champagne, the kids had run around outside playing hide and seek.
Then they had eaten a delicious lunch near the town square. Lizzie remembered the imposing gothic cathedral and how her cousins had quickly grown bored with the cathedral tour and her uncle had scolded them for misbehaving.
Such intense feelings wrung at her emotions as she sat sipping the seedy tasting black coffee, discreetly studying the faces of the patrons, and hoping someone would respond to her scarf signal. She couldn’t go back to Jack empty handed, so she must find someone who knew about the intelligence Hannah had smuggled into France from Germany. Perhaps Hannah would come herself, and it would all be quite simple.
No one turned up that day.
Nor the following day. Or the one after that.
On the fourth day, Lizzie walked into the city early in the morning.
She’d tried various times of day, different spots in the café, and always wore her yellow silk scarf. Lizzie was scared she was becoming too conspicuous going there day after day, but she didn’t know what else to do.
On the third day, the café owner had struck up a conversation with her and asked where she was from. This was the first time she had used her official cover story. When he asked her name, she told him it was Marie, and she was visiting a family friend from Paris . When he said he knew most everyone in Reims and thereabouts, and asked which friend she was staying with, she panicked. ‘Sophie,’ she said, using her cousin’s name. He waited for her to continue. ‘Sophie Duval,’ she blurted, giving the first popular French surname that entered her head. Lizzie didn’t even know Jeanne’s surname, and she had been right not to disclose it to her. She saw now why it was better not to give any more detail to each other than necessary.
‘I don’t know of a Sophie Duval,’ the café proprietor said, scrunching up his unruly bushy eyebrows as he tried to figure out where she was staying.
Lizzie brushed him off, saying her friend had not lived in the area for long before the war. She avoided any further conversation and took her coffee to a table near the window. Perhaps she would have better luck by being visible to passers-by.
One thing was certain—she couldn’t keep coming in here indefinitely without attracting unwanted attention. Jack had said he hoped she would meet the contact on the first or second day. He explained there were several potential contacts who were part of the early Resistance movement in Reims, and they had all worked with Hannah.
Now it was the fourth day, and Jack’s orders were for her to leave France that night at the latest, no matter what .
Her lack of success disappointed Lizzie, and she didn’t want to give up. She wished she could talk it over with Jack, but that was impossible. It seemed like a dreadful waste to leave now she was here.
Only the café proprietor had shown any interest in her. Oh, except for the German soldier, she reminded herself. She mustn’t run into him again, either. Reims was a small city, so she had to be wary of meeting the same people.
Lizzie sat at the small table in the window watching the sun edge lower in the pink sky along with her sinking spirits, knowing she must leave soon.
It was a long walk back to the cottage and Jeanne had warned her not to risk the streets after curfew. She told her that the French Police had arrested a colleague from work the previous week when she was spotted on the street a few minutes after curfew began. The woman hadn’t been seen since. Lizzie rose from the table, feeling beaten.
That night she lay on the bed fully clothed like the day she arrived, ready to go cross country to the pickup spot where she would meet the plane that would transport her back to London.
Jack was very clear. ‘We will come for you on the third and fourth nights. Try to make it by the third, but you must come on the fourth even if you haven’t been able to make contact with the Resistance. It is far too risky to stay any longer.’
She didn’t want to return without completing her mission, but she had to follow Jack’s orders even though she knew he would be so disappointed when she returned empty-handed. He was desperate for news of Hannah and said the intelligence from Germany could make all the difference in the battle to stop Hitler invading England .
Lizzie had envisaged bringing Hannah back with her to safety in London, along with the intelligence she had gathered.
Jeanne told her there were sinister whispers about Jews in Germany being herded onto trains. Her Resistance friends said there was something evil happening in Germany and Poland in what they called concentration camps. But when Lizzie probed for more details about Hannah, the courageous agent, Jeanne fell silent.
Lizzie reached the edge of the pasture and heard the comforting hum of an aircraft approaching. It was circling low in the dark sky, and she could see the rough outline by the shadowy light of the moon. She was about to switch her torch on and signal to the plane like they had taught her at SOE, when she heard rustling noises and loud voices in the distance.
Lizzie moved swiftly into a thicket, and slipped behind a bush where she stood frozen, her heart clattering. She worried the men would hear her as they approached.
German voices. There were three men in uniform, and as their voices grew louder, she grew rigid with terror. They stopped and loitered nearby, and she recognised the German word for aircraft and saw them looking up and pointing at the sky as if they were playing a game.
Lizzie dared not breathe whilst the soldiers chatted and smoked. Then one of the men moved further into the pasture and brandished a pistol. He aimed it at the plane and fired two shots. The loud noise reverberated through the quiet countryside, and she thought her heart would stop as she hid behind the bush, trying not to move or make the slightest sound.
The other soldiers watched and laughed as they called out to the shooter in a torrent of excited German Lizzie couldn’t catch. As far as she could see, the shots didn’t hit the aircraft, and it swooped and ascended back into the beautiful starry sky until it vanished from view.
Lizzie’s one connection to London—and Jack—disappeared. The Germans had observed her pickup point, whether by luck or design, she did not know.
But she was stuck in occupied France with no way out.