CHAPTER X
WE MEET AGAIN
Two days later I was able to get up. My back and shoulders were still bruised and raw and movement was very painful but a good constitution had stood me in good stead and I wouldn't have believed that I was the person who only four days ago was so thoroughly beaten up by the S.S.
Carnac and the doctor were in my room helping me to dress. I had to meet Giselle at midday and we were making preparations for the sortie.
I put on an Army shirt and khaki trousers and the addition of a Red Cross armlet made me a very convincing French medical orderly.
d'Angelay handed me a pair of dark glasses.
“This will complete the disguise,” he said. “It’s a sunny day, too. Nobody would recognise you now.”
I looked in the mirror and agreed with him.
Carnac laughed. “That’s very good,” he said. “I only hope that Mademoiselle will recognise you.”
I followed the doctor down long corridors and a flight of stairs to the hospital entrance. An ambulance stood outside with a soldier at the wheel. We climbed in beside him and started off into Laon.
I was curiously excited at the prospect of seeing Giselle again.
She had been so much in my thoughts for the last few days that I had once to regard her almost as an old friend and not a French girl whom I had met for a brief hour in Amiens. I wondered if she would be there to keep the appointment. The postal service must be seriously disorganised at the moment; perhaps she had never got our letter, or she might decide that the risk was too great, that she had helped me once and that was enough. I continued this anxious speculation as we drove on through the busy streets of the old town, past the German traffic policemen, the German lorries and cars and the new black and white signs, “Nach Reims” and “Nach Amiens.”
Just before we reached the station two German traffic policemen signalled us to stop and our driver pulled up sharply. The Germans strolled across to us and one of them put his head through the windows and addressed the driver.
“Where are you going?”
“To the station to pick up some stretcher cases for the hospital.”
“Where is your authority?”
d'Angelay pulled a form out of his pocket and handed it across to the German who glanced at it and then handed it back. I sat very still, trying to appear unconcerned. I knew they were becoming very strict about French motor traffic. If he asked for our papers as well, we were finished. I hadn't got any.
The feldwebel looked at each of us in turn. His eyes rested on me for a second, and then he stepped back.
“Very well,” he said. “Carry on.”
I breathed again.
We drove up to the station, left the driver in the ambulance and d'Angelay and I walked in. The train was late and we went across to the bar and edged our way through a grey mass of Hun soldiers. They were all swilling beer by the gallon and nobody paid the slightest attention to us.
We had a glass of vin rosé and talked quietly. d'Angelay said, “I hope this girl of yours will be there. It may be difficult to do this ambulance journey another day.”
“I hope so too. A lot depends on it.”
We had another glass.
“Has Carnac told you our plans?”
“Yes, everything. Very difficult, I think.”
“That's why I've got to see this girl.”
I remembered another point.
“Has the Boche been making any more enquiries at the hospital? They didn't seem very satisfied with your story of the burned airman.”
“No, nothing. I hope they've dropped the matter.”
Eventually the train arrived. I summoned the driver, now fast asleep in the ambulance, and we walked up the train. At the back there were some cattle trucks. They had been hastily converted into an ambulance train and a lot of French wounded were lying on stretchers on the floor. The heat and the flies were beyond description.
Some Red Cross nurses and an army doctor were checking the patients against a list of names. d'Angelay walked up and conferred with the doctor. They picked out four stretchers and the driver and I carried them into the ambulance.
d'Angelay came out of the station after us. He glanced at his watch and said to me in an undertone. “Nearly time.”
It was ten minutes to twelve.
We climbed into the ambulance and set off up the hill.
Near the cathedral d'Angelay said something to the driver and we turned down a little side street. The doctor pointed ahead.
“L'Epicerie Herve,” he said.
I saw the sign above the door and an instant later I saw a girl standing in the doorway.
It was Giselle.
The ambulance slowed down and stopped. I opened the door, put my head out and said softly, “Giselle!”
She looked round in surprise at the untidy French soldier in dark glasses and then her face lit up in the same lovely way I had seen it so often in my imagination and she ran across towards me.
“Hallo, Pierre!” she said.
“Hallo, my sweet. Jump in quickly.”
She took my outstretched hand and I hauled her up and shut the door.
We set off for the hospital, bumping along the pave, while Giselle sat tightly sandwiched between d'Angelay and me, and I felt happier than I had done since we left England. We were together again and we had effected our meeting successfully with all the Gestapo and security police in Laon searching for me.
An hour later Giselle and I sat talking on my bed in the little room at the top of the hospital.
She was wearing a light summer frock and around her hung the same fragrant and elusive perfume that I had noticed in Amiens. She looked so delightfully fresh and young and clean that I realised soberly for the first time the responsibility that lay upon us in getting her involved in this hazardous enterprise and linking her fate with our own. It was a hateful thing to do and could only be justified by the great issues at stake.
She turned to me. “Are you very surprised to see me?”
“Not exactly,” I said, “but I'm very relieved. I didn't know if you'd be able to come.”
“But of course,” she said. “You remember the promise I made.”
“Yes, but I thought it might be asking too much of you to help me again. I'm afraid that you are going to get caught up in a very dangerous affair if you stay here with us.”
“Us?” she said. “Who are the others then?”
“There are only two of us. The other is a Frenchman, Charles Carnac, who came out from England with me. He should be here in a minute.”
“Why did you come to France?”
“We were sent out by the British Government to try and stop some very important information reaching the Boche.”
“Have you succeeded?”
“No. We have failed badly so far and were very nearly caught. That's why we decided to ask for your help. It seemed the only way left.”
She smiled. “First of all, suppose you tell me what you want me to do.”
“Wait until Carnac comes. He's the captain of our little team and he'll tell you all about it. Now let's talk about you for a change. I seem to know you so well and actually I don't know a thing about you except that you're called Giselle and you live in Paris.”
“That's quite true,” she said. “I live in Paris with my mother and brother—or did—because René is missing now. He was a lieutenant in the Army. My father was in the Army too,—he was killed in 1918, and he never saw me.”
“And where is your mother now? Does she know that you have come here like this?”
Giselle shook her dark head. “No, she left Paris before the Boche arrived. I think she is in Bordeaux now.”
“And why did you stay on?”
“I was driving for an American Ambulance unit. In any case René and I were always very independent. Father left us both some money and mother never tried to interfere with our lives. She always trusted us to be sensible.”
“I'm afraid you're n
ot being very sensible now,” I said. “This is a mad business, if ever there was one. I feel an awful swine to have pulled you into it.”
“You mustn't feel that,” she said slowly. “I would do a great deal to help you and in any case I told you at Amiens that I had one or two scores to pay off against the Bache. My father and now René —” She stopped abruptly. “But tell me about yourself. How long have you been in France?”
“We landed two days before I met you in Amiens, but we got separated and Carnac came here by himself.”
“And the Boches are looking for you now?”
“Yes, very much so. You see, we killed several of them when we escaped the other night, and if there's one thing that enrages the Hun more than anything else it's using violence against his own troops. They're out to get us now at any price and they've turned Laon inside out in the last few days. They were even here in this room.”
“And where were you?”
“In this bed.”
She looked so incredulous that I told her the whole story of the evening at Mendel's house, how Carnac rescued me and how we managed to reach the hospital.
“You must have been badly hurt,” she said when I had finished. “They are devils, these Boches. Are you better now?”
“Pretty well,” I said. “Not quite hundred per cent. But I will be in a few days.”
There was silence for a moment and then I went on, “You see now why I'm so worried about bringing you into this, Giselle. It's so very dangerous and if we are caught then it's absolutely certain death—and for you too. They will have no mercy.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But it doesn't make any difference.”
A little later there was a tap on the door and Carnac came in. He and Giselle regarded each other with interest as I introduced them. I think that each of them approved of the other and indeed it struck me that in some indefinable way they were very alike with their dark good looks, their poise and vitality and their quick intelligence.
The three of us sat down cross-legged on the bed and lit cigarettes.
“Good,” said Carnac. “Now that Mademoiselle Saint Brie has arrived we can discuss our plans.”
“First of all, tell her the whole story of why we came to France,” I said.
“Certainly,” said Carnac. He turned to Giselle. “It happened like this—” and he told her the whole long series of events that had led up to the present position. Giselle listened with the keenest interest, asking a question here and there, and when Carnac finished with a description of our complete failure to find Passy she sat in thoughtful silence for a few moments.
“And you ,think,” she said at length, “that I shall be able to find this man for you?”
“Yes,” said Carnac. “You see, Claydon and I are being hunted by the Gestapo. We are in danger every time we leave this building and if we started to make enquiries we should be trapped in five minutes, but with you it is different. They are not looking for you and moreover you are a girl. You can approach it in a different way. You see, this man Passy is not a very pleasant type. He is vain and very fond of women, and if he is still in Laon I think you could get to know him.”
“And when I have found him you are going to kill him.”
“That is so,” said Carnac quietly. “We are going to kill him, whatever happens to us, because he is a traitor to France and because we must stop him giving this information to the Boche.”
There was silence for a moment. Carnac sat watching Giselle, his face hard and set, while she stared out of the window looking utterly miserable and perplexed. I felt intensely sorry for her; it was a hateful task to undertake, and I understood very well her reluctance to agree to it.
“It is a terrible thing that you ask me to do, monsieur,” she said at length.
“War is a terrible thing,” said Carnac relentlessly. “Thousands of French women and children have been bombed and killed by the enemy and yet this Frenchman is working for them.”
He paused a minute and then continued in a softer and more persuasive tone.
“What else can we do, mademoiselle? We cannot stand by and see this man sell this secret to the Bache, can we? We cannot deliberately place England in even greater danger because we refuse to face an unpleasant duty. Ask Claydon what he thinks.”
“That's quite right,” I said. “I don't like the idea much but I know that it's got to be done. There's no other way. You see, Giselle, so much depends on it for both our countries. We've just got to succeed—and even now it may be too late.”
“Very well,” she said. “If you believe in it enough to risk your lives then I'll do anything you want.”
“Good,” said Carnac, and for some reason we all shook hands on it.
“Now for the details,” I said. “How are we going to start?”
“I can see only one way,” said Carnac. “Giselle must go to the Deux Frères tonight and perhaps some other cafés as well. She must enquire casually about Passy as though he is an old acquaintance and perhaps she might meet some Luftwaffe officers who know him. You remember the prisoner of war said he was there with some Luftwaffe officers last week.”
“Isn't that rather dangerous?” said Giselle. “He will know that we've never met and perhaps be suspicious.”
“I think we can arrange that,” I said. “We know of an incident that happened in Abbeville at the end of April in a bar called the Père Jacques. Passy won a hundred francs from an English sergeant who bet him that he couldn't drink a pint of beer straight down. There was quite a noisy party in progress at the time and you could say that you saw him there that night. He was rather drunk at the time so I don't suppose his recollections of the evening are very clear, and in any case he's evidently a pretty vain type where girls are concerned. Probably he'll fall for it easily and be very flattered that you remember him. Say you spotted him in the Deux Frères the other night, and thought you'd like to meet him again.”
“I understand,” said Giselle. “Abbeville—Père Jacques—a hundred francs from an English soldier for drinking a pint of beer straight down…. Anything else?”
“If you do meet him,” said Carnac, “find out where he lives, whether he is expecting to be moved shortly and then make a rendezvous with him for tomorrow night.”
“And then—?”
“Then Claydon and I will meet him instead.”
“One other point,” I said, “Giselle doesn't know this man and it's just possible she might miss him on that account. Shall I go with her? I'm the only one of us who has ever seen him.”
“Yes,” retorted Carnac, “and don't forget that he has seen you too. Suppose he recognises you as the R.A.F. officer he saw at Abbeville and denounces you?”
“I admit there is that chance but I don't think it's very likely because he saw me for only a brief instant and probably he's forgotten all about it by now. He doesn't realise the significance of that little meeting.”
“It's very dangerous in another way,” continued Carnac. “When the Gestapo followed us that evening from Mendel's house we went to the Deux Frères and probably they guess that we have some interest in the place so they'll be watching it in the hope that we shall return. They are incredibly patient and thorough in matters like that. You'd be arrested in five minutes.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I've been thinking this out. I got away with it today by wearing dark glasses and I believe if I went as somebody else I might pass it off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the Huns are looking for Pierre de Buissy, a French airman. That was the name I gave Mendel, you remember. But suppose I go as an American civilian with a convincing story and dark glasses and a different suit—isn't there a chance they'd never spot me? I'd be so completely different from the man they're looking for.”
Carnac thought. “Perhaps,” he said at length. “It would be the unexpected and bold move which sometimes beats the Bache, but it's risky all the same and it would involve Giselle too.”
“No,” said Giselle quickly. “We are in this together. If it's worth the risk, let's take it.”
“I think it's worth it,” I said. “We've lost so much time already and we may get only one chance of meeting Passy. It would be too awful to miss it because Giselle didn't recognise him.”
“Yes,” said Carnac. “Perhaps you are right. You had better go with her.”