Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
‘ I bought it in Paris,’ Lizzie said carefully, her heart slamming against her chest as she pretended to browse the newspaper.
The woman said quietly, ‘It’s too dangerous here. Meet me inside the cathedral tomorrow at noon. Wear the yellow scarf.’
Lizzie didn’t reply, but when the woman stood up to leave, they exchanged a brief look, and she turned the page of the newspaper like it was the most absorbing thing she had ever read.
The woman disappeared as quickly as she arrived and when Lizzie looked up a few minutes later, there was no trace of her.
Lizzie’s heart gradually slowed from its manic thud. She waited five minutes and then lay the newspaper aside and left the café. Every now and then she checked she wasn’t being followed, using shop windows like she had been taught in her training.
As she walked down a narrow lane on the outskirts of the city, she noticed a short man wearing a cap watching her. There was nothing unusual about his attire, especially near the vineyards, but she was suspicious of everyone. When she turned back again, she saw him limping in the other direction.
This was what it was like to live in the shadows. Always alert and always on the edge of danger.
As she left the city, she felt like she was walking on air. Something important had finally happened, and she had met a real-life member of the Resistance. Her visit wasn’t for nothing and now she would be an asset, instead of returning to London like a failure who had wasted SOE’s time. And Jack’s.
Lizzie realised with a jolt, that more than anything, she yearned to make Jack proud of her. She shook her head impatiently, as if to dismiss the thought, condemning herself for being shallow and vain.
There were much bigger things at play, like winning the war and freeing France from the yoke of Nazi oppression. And here she was fantasising about Jack praising her for saving the day like some silly young girl.
Nevertheless, his face loomed in her mind all the way back to the cottage, and she wondered what he was doing. Was he worried about her? Lizzie had fallen for him in a way she hadn’t expected. There had been a semi-serious boyfriend in Jersey, but their relationship fizzled out months before she left for London. Thinking about her childhood sweetheart, she hoped he was safe and wished him well, but she had no regrets.
The thought of seeing Jack again filled her with wild joy. He was much older than her, and she suspected he was in love with Hannah, but she couldn’t help her feelings. Could she?
She remembered her mother telling her during one of their heart-to-heart chats when they meandered along the beach at Seagrove, that you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with. She thought her mother was right because Jack was unsuitable in so many ways.
Lizzie didn’t know exactly what he had done before the war, but he had mentioned undercover work. Some men, like her father were called up for the war effort and had completely different careers in peacetime. Her father planned to return to his law practice when this was over. Her brother Archie would do the same—she daren’t imagine any other outcome.
Lizzie didn’t allow herself to entertain the dark thoughts that were so easy to get lost in when she thought of her loved ones far away. If she let herself think about anything bad happening to her family, she wouldn’t be able to function.
Since she arrived in Reims, she hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time. Lizzie did her best to stay calm by planning what she would do next, and not allowing herself to worry about what could so easily go wrong. If she thought deeply about what she was doing in occupied France, she would panic and that was no use to anyone.
I’ll find a way to get home safely once I’ve met with the Resistance.
Jeanne had told her she was welcome to stay for as long as she needed, until she could make new arrangements. Lizzie thought that Jeanne rather liked having her at the cottage for company, but she was in awe of how brave she was to risk harbouring British agents. The punishment for Resistance members was torture and death if the Gestapo found out what she was doing.
Lizzie tapped twice on the kitchen door and entered the cottage. ‘Jeanne, I’m back,’ she called but there was no reply. Lizzie made herself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table to rest after the long walk.
Jeanne had left for work on her bicycle that morning so she mustn’t have finished her shift yet. Lizzie didn’t know Jeanne’s schedule, but it was pleasant to sit quietly alone in the safety of the cottage. Only now, when she relaxed into the chair, did she realise what an ordeal the day had been. She was exhausted from being ready to spring into action at any moment.
Lizzie pulled the big map out of the drawer. Jeanne had shown it to her the other day when she explained which way to walk into the city. Reims was famous for its vineyards. In happier times, it was a popular place to visit.
Now, with German soldiers marching through the city, lording it over the grand estates, and Gestapo lurking in black cars on every corner, Lizzie had a bitter taste in her mouth. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe France—and Jersey—had fallen to the Nazis. It was like an evil parallel reality.
Once the invasion began, it had all collapsed as quickly as a house of cards. After months of what people called the Phoney War, where nothing seemed to happen, the Nazis stormed into Paris, crushing the French army.
During one of her conversations with Jack in between her training sessions, he explained that Germany had been preparing for this war for years before the Allies realised their intentions. Germany wasn’t even supposed to be armed according to the Treaty of Versailles, but Hitler paid no attention to that and steadily built his war machine right under its WW1 opponents’ noses.
Jack went on to say, that how they persecuted the Jews in Germany in the thirties, should have been a sign to the rest of Europe to act whilst they still could. But no one wanted another war so soon after the last. They buried their heads in the sand, hoping that the whispers from Germany weren’t true.
Hitler blamed the Jews for all the ills that had befallen Germany after the Great War. He whipped the country into a frenzy of bigotry and hatred, harnessing ancient antisemitic tropes which cast the Jews in the role of the villain.
Many Jews were born in Germany and were loyal citizens who were successful in business and contributed significantly to the economy. Hannah’s family—the Steins—was one of them, until they were arrested. That’s when Hannah went into hiding and joined the early seeds of Resistance, helping persecuted people in danger of arrest by the Gestapo, to flee Germany and get to safety through various routes.
All this went through Lizzie’s head as she sipped her tea. She fervently hoped Hannah was alive and well. It would be a tragedy if after all the poor girl’s efforts she had been murdered.
Lizzie jumped at the sound of someone moving around outside. She had locked the door just as Jeanne had told her to and she was only to open it if Jeanne knocked twice.
No knocks so far.
Lizzie grabbed her knife and dropped to the floor in case anyone looked through the window. Her heart thumped violently as she crouched under the table, clutching the knife, and praying she wouldn’t have to use it.
There were two swift knocks, and Lizzie breathed again. Her shaking hand slipped the knife back into the pocket sewn into the lining of her raincoat that lay over the chair. She unlocked the door to see Jeanne waiting outside.
‘Did I scare you?’ Jeanne said. ‘I tried not to make any noise before knocking, but my bicycle slipped against the wall!’
‘I jumped out of my skin and was ready to attack you,’ Lizzie confessed.
They both laughed with obvious relief. Lizzie made Jeanne a cup of tea, and they shared a small piece of delicious apple cake one of Jeanne’s friends had given to her.
After curfew when the blackout blinds were firmly in place, and darkness had fallen, Jeanne surprised Lizzie by rolling aside the beautiful Bordeaux patterned rug in the sitting room where they sat after their meagre supper. Lizzie was reading a book about the cathedral and studying images of the interior, when Jeanne removed one of the wood floor slats and produced a radio as though she were a magician.
Lizzie sprang out of her seat and jumped up and down with excitement. ‘You didn’t say you had a radio!’ she whispered, even though they had no neighbours to overhear.
Jeanne beamed at her. ‘The Nazis confiscated all radios when they invaded, but fortunately I had two and I hid one for emergencies. I only get it out occasionally as it’s too risky.’
Jeanne twiddled the knob and Lizzie sneezed as dust tickled her nostrils. For one hopeful second, she had thought she might be able to transmit a message to SOE, but she saw it was only a receiver.
Churchill’s distinctive voice echoed over the airwaves.
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
They listened, transfixed, not wanting to miss a word. The BBC broadcaster replayed the headlines of Churchill’s moving speech to the House of Commons, where he thanked the Allied aircrew for their valiant defence of the United Kingdom.
That night Lizzie was again too nervous to sleep as she tried to stop thinking about the rendezvous in the cathedral the following day. When she fell asleep, she dreamt she was eating apple cake and drinking champagne with Jack. The war was over, and they walked hand in hand on the golden sands below Seagrove .
Then the blissful feeling morphed into a nightmare as the Gestapo hurtled towards them in trucks along the beach.
Lizzie woke, her skin damp with sweat and her heart banging with terror as the pale light of dawn gradually seeped through the blinds.