Chapter Sixteen
February 3, Afternoon
Just before noon Major Lindisl eased himself into the room from where the café was being watched. The three Germans saluted and Abu bowed to the major. “Well, any luck?” he demanded.
“Nein, Herr Major,” reported the senior member of the party. “Do you know what description this dumkopff has given us?" He went on, parroting the Arab, “Tall, but not too tall, slim, and with brown hair. We have seen twenty men fit that description!”
The major motioned to the Arab, who left the window to approach him. “Don’t you have any better description than what you have told them?” Major Lindisl questioned in French.
“No, effendi, he was a most unassuming person.”
The major was lost in thought; the Americans had left with his belongings yesterday morning, they might not have arrived yet, but they should have. “Does the café have a back door?” he queried in German. The three Germans looked at him blankly, “I don’t know, Herr Major,” one of them said. “But if he does try to enter that way, wouldn’t it draw attention to him?”
“Not if nobody is watching, dumkopff,” he roared angrily. “Go and check if there is a back door!” The German scurried out the door. The major glared after him, wishing he had his Gestapo men with him instead of having to rely on stupid German soldiers to do his work.
Meanwhile, one of the Germans had been keeping an eye on the street. He saw a couple, an attractive woman with black hair, and a somewhat taller man, slim, and with brown hair, come around the corner and walk down the street. He was about to call to Abu to come and see if this was the man, and then realized that the spy could not possibly be with a woman. The couple came to the café, and seeing that all the outside tables were filled, walked into the café.
Once inside, Drew and Angelique saw a few vacant tables and sat down at one. Drew let his gaze wander around the room, and saw to his dismay three Germans at another table. There were a number of diners, mostly French, and a middle aged waitress who seemed to handle all the serving. He turned his gaze back to Angelique, who looking uncomfortable. “Relax, and enjoy the company of a handsome man and food you didn’t prepare yourself,” he said with a smile. She gave a trembling smile back, but did relax a little. “I am surprised that I remembered the way here so well,” Angelique announced. “I only came here twice with some acquaintances”.
“Anyone special?” Drew asked with a smile.
“No,” Angelique smiled back, and then added more seriously, “I was coming to see if I could stay with them when you found me.”
Drew reached out and squeezed her hand sympathetically. “What kind of food do they serve here?” he asked prosaically.
“They are known for their fresh fish.”
Just then the waitress came to their table with a large plate of different kinds of fish. “Welcome to Le Belle Francis, what kind of fish do you desire?” she asked. They made their choices and she hurried back to the kitchen to have them grilled.
“Now what should we talk about?” Drew leaned forward.
“How about your home in France?” teased Angelique.
“Gefosse-Fontenay? It is a small village on the Normandy coast, a nice place to visit,” he answered.
“Did you make that up?” she asked, laughing.
“Oh, no, it is a real place. As a matter of fact, I became friendly with some fishermen who lived near there and they took me out with them once.” He gave a soft laugh. “We went out and fished all night. I was soaked and it was hard work and I would hate to do it all my life, but it was a blast.” He looked pensively at his glass of wine. “I wonder what became of them,” he added softly.
He gave himself a surreptitious shake and brought himself back at the matter at hand; how to meet Monsieur Gascoigne. He glanced around the room, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to them.
Just then the waitress brought their food, and they started to eat. There was a stir at the doorway and Angelique glanced up. Suddenly, she went white: Major Lindisl had entered the café.
When the German soldier returned to the lookout room, he did not look happy, “Jawohl, Herr Major, there is a back way.” Lindisl glared at the unhappy soldier, “Get on the radio and call for another team to watch the rear exit and then go back and keep an eye on it until they arrive.” He thought for a moment, “You three keep watch here; I’ll go and have a look in the café.” He left the room, walked across the street and into the building.
When he walked in, he looked around at the diners, and started to sit at a vacant table. Suddenly his attention was caught by a white-faced woman staring at him. He stared back at her, and then looked at her companion. His pulse started beating faster; the companion was a slim, brown-haired man. He got up and marched over to their table and watched her eyes get bigger. “What is it?” Drew asked softly when he saw the frightened look. “It’s Major Lindisl of the Gestapo and he’s coming this way,” she whispered back.
Realizing that because of her reaction, he needed to have one also, he turned and looked at the blocky figure advancing towards them.
“Your papers,” Lindisl held out his hand to them. Trembling, Angelique handed hers over, while Drew fished his out of a pocket and gave them to the major.
Lindisl barely glanced at hers, but scrutinized the man’s. “What is your name?” he asked in French.
“Etienne Pinochet.”
“Where are you from?”
“Gefosse-Fontenay.”
“Gefosse-Fontenay? I have been there. A little village with a church that has a beautiful stained glass window. The church sets in the middle of the town.” When Lindisl had been in northern France, he had passed by that particular village several times.
Drew looked up at him. His face was calm, but his heart was pounding away, and poor Angelique looked like she was going to faint. “The major must be mistaken, Gefosse-Fontenay does not have a church in the middle of town, and the one it does have does not have a stained glass window.”
“You know who I am?” Lindisl pounced on that. The man had been right about the church; Lindisl had tried to trick him.
Drew gestured towards Angelique, “My…companion…has seen you before.” Drew allowed some of the stress he was feeling to show, it would not do to act unafraid of the Gestapo.
Lindisl stood there, slapping the credentials into his free hand. He was suspicious, but he didn’t quite know what of. “Your French is very good,” he suddenly announced in English.
By a supreme effort, Drew kept his eyes blank, “Monsieur?” Drew asked questioningly, but Angelique gasped.
Lindisl whirled to face Angelique, “You understood me?” he demanded.
“Oui, monsieur. I, I teach French and English to children,” she stammered.
Lindisl scrutinized their identifications. “What is your…companion’s…occupation?” he asked her in English.
Angelique’s mind went blank. She couldn’t think! “Mother Mary, help me!” she thought to herself. She couldn’t remember! She saw the major’s face harden in suspicion. Any second now he was going to haul them off for questioning! Drew could only stare blankly at what was going on, pretending not to understand. “Oh, the God of Dane, if you are real, help me!” she prayed fervently. She opened her mouth, “He is a produce exporter.”
Lindisl stared at both of them for a long minute, handed their id’s back, and went and sat down at his table.
Drew reached across the table and held her shaking hands. “Magnifique,” he whispered. She started to get up but he stopped her, “We can’t leave now or he will get even more suspicious. We have to eat our meal.”
“But how can I eat now, after this?” she entreated, with huge frightened eyes.
Drew searched his mind for ways to relax her. “Let me tell you about my vacation a few years ago. After I graduated, I took a leave of absence and went to France for a holiday for a whole month. I landed at the port city of Brest and spent a couple of days the
re, and then took the train to the city of Isigny in Normandy and spent a week there. I rented a bicycle and pedaled around to several of the villages nearby, including Gefosse-Fontenay. That’s where I met some fishermen and got acquainted with them. Then I took another train to Saint Mihiel where Dad fought. I stayed there for a while, biking around and visiting the places he was at.” He didn’t think it necessary to mention the flirty and very vivacious mademoiselle he met there and spent quite a lot of time with. “Then I stayed in Paris for a few days and went back to Brest where I caught the ship back home.”
She was looking better so he asked her, “Now tell me about your home.” She gathered her thoughts and started talking about a happier time, “I grew up in the town of La Budille outside of Sedan. There was Mama and Papa and my brother Louis. Papa was the school teacher, that’s how I learned English. Louis is two years older than me. He hated school but I loved it, I loved the learning about new things, the mental challenges.” Her black eyes glowed with remembering the happiness of her childhood. Then she shook her with a look of self-disgust, “But I was always too scared to actually go out and learn, I wanted only the safety of the schoolroom.”
“But you did leave and come to Tunisia,” Drew interrupted.
“Oui, but it was the only time I ever did anything brave like that,” she confessed. “Louis married the belle of La Budille, and he and Suzanne have two children. When we moved to Marseille, Louis could only find a job as a common laborer. There were too many displaced people looking for too few jobs. So,” she shrugged her shoulders fatalistically, “I had to find some income. The man doing hiring for the job at Gafsa knew something of my father’s academic standing and hired me. And now here I am, for better or worse.” She gave a shudder and Drew quickly reached for her hand.
“It was very brave of you to come all this way,” he said encouragingly, squeezing her hand. She gave a wry smile, wondering what would become of her after these Americans left Sfax. Her mind took a new bent. “I wonder if Dane is safe?” she asked with a worried look.
Drew felt the jab of jealousy, must she always be thinking of him? He pushed the feeling away and concentrated on cheering her up. “I am sure he is, they are safely hidden.” He forbore to mention that they were in much greater danger than he was. He concentrated on cheering her up, and succeeded in sidetracking her mind with some funny recollections from his visit to France, mostly gaffes he had made which were thoroughly embarrassing to him at the time.
The time passed quickly as they talked and laughed. Lindisl kept his eye on them for a while, but it looked to him that there was a romance going on, and he concentrated on the other diners. There were at least three that answered to Abu’s description, but there was nobody meeting any of them. When the last of the three had left, Lindisl gave up and left too. He would make sure that there were no Germans in the café the next day, maybe that would bring the spy out of his hole.
Late in the afternoon Drew looked at his watch, “I don’t think we can stay here any longer, we are getting pretty suspicious as it is. We had better leave.” He paid the bill and they walked outside. A horse drawn wagon was passing by just then, heading in the direction they were going, and they walked along beside it to the corner, both they and Abu Mehouf unaware of each other’s presence.
Back to Table of Contents