Initiation Read online

  A widow. He had said it. That word: widow. It hit her hard. She raised her head towards the window. Dread flickered through her eyes.

  ‘Your British money won’t bring my husband back.’

  ‘Luc was a casualty in the war against Germany. Many have died and many more will be killed before France is once again free’.

  ‘Michel, don’t think for a moment that I will believe that rubbish. Is that how you idiots justify the killing, is it? So many “heroes” dying in the name of France. But what is France if it’s made up of murderers like you? My husband didn’t die for his country, he was killed for driving a train. A train! Killed for doing his job trying to support the two of us, poor as we are. Oh my God, how am I going to survive without him? This cottage is for the railway men. I’m not just a widow, now Michel, you understand? Very soon I’m going to be a homeless widow.’

  She wasn’t sure what she was feeling but it felt like her organs had dropped down inside her body. She slumped.

  ‘I know how you must be feeling right now. I don’t expect you to understand-‘

  ‘Understand?’ she spat. ‘Understand what, precisely? Understand how it is to have your man killed by your own village folk, your old school friends, in the name of a country that to me ceased to exist years ago? Don’t you understand that the railway will kick me out of this beautiful house? Don’t you understand that you have destroyed, utterly destroyed, everything that I hold dear? Trust me, Michel, you haven’t the first idea how I feel.’

  Michel was on the back foot. ‘I meant that I don’t expect you right now to understand why we did what we did, considering the impact it has had on you’. Michel spoke slowly to formulate a better answer, ‘He was driving a German military train, a legitimate target. It could have just as easily have been attacked by an allied plane. I don’t look for the death of any Frenchman, except traitors, and …’

  ‘What! Are you now calling my Luc a traitor as well?’ She was only barely in control of herself now. Her body rippled with barely discernable shakes. ‘Is this what you’re saying?’

  Michel, suddenly pale, shoved his hands out in front of him, quick to backtrack. ‘No, no, no, no, Yvette! There was no suggestion that your husband was a traitor. We all know that if he had refused to do the German’s bidding, he would have been shot.’

  ‘So you kept that auspicious task for yourselves, did you – killing innocent men. You’re as bad as the Nazis. Don’t shake your head at me, Michel. You and your little tinpot army kill and claim it all for a higher purpose. You both do that, you and the Nazis! You and your band of egomaniacs. Don’t you dare try to speak! I have seen it, you young men coming into the villages claiming that they are Maquisardes to get the eyes of the girls. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. You’re brave enough to spout patriotic trash but you cannot even look a woman in the eye when you come to break the news of what you’ve done. Luc, me, you – we all went to that school up there. Who’s the traitor here, Michel? The Germans are the invaders but what are you? You, who kill other Frenchmen and expect me to somehow be, what, grateful?’

  Michel’s shoulders slumped pathetically in defeat. They both knew he was beaten. Quietly, almost murmuring, he repeated, ‘We regret deeply the death of your husband, Madame. Nothing I can say can make anything any better but rest assured that we will support you financially.’

  She was not listening. ‘How many others died?’

  ‘The fireman and twelve Germans.’ Michel did his best to remain ‘matter of fact’ in his tone but no one could mistake the hint triumph in his voice when it came to speaking of the German dead. ‘The fireman was from Rouen’.

  ‘So’ - she was talking very slowly now - ‘fourteen women like me are widows or bereaved mothers today because of you.’

  ‘I don’t care much for the Germans. As I said --’ He raised his head bureaucratically, looking out of the window to avoid eye contact. ‘--the death of Luc is regrettable. We are truly sorry.’

  ‘That makes it all so much better then,’ she said, her voice, like her shoulders, trembling.

  ‘It’s the war, Yvette, don’t you see, it’s the war,’ Michel said sadly, looking down to brush imaginary dust from his knees.

  ‘There has been no war here since 1940, just bombing raids every now and then. How many villagers are the Germans now going to round up and shoot in revenge for what you and your little friends have decided to do?’ Yvette bellowed. She clenched her fists and looked out of the window to see Luc’s clothing hanging limp from the line.

  ‘Enough of this. Now leave. Just go and don’t come back. Have the Priest come to visit. I want my husband’s body back so that I can give him a proper funeral. You’re paying. Now go.’

  Michel took the lifeline all too quickly. Yvette’s glare of contempt stopped Michel from putting his hand out towards her shoulder to offer solace. He got the message. Michel put his cap on his head and, with some effort, shut the door behind him. She heard his boots go briskly up the garden path, where Paul was waiting for him. Michel’s footsteps got faster.

  After a few paces, the men would hear the anguished screams begin from inside the cottage. She didn’t care. And they kept walking.

  * * *

  In this cold, cold winter, it was another bitter day repairing railway lines. Lieutenant Schmidt, a harassed and passed-his-prime German army railway engineer spent a long time watching a single wisp of cloud drift eastward. A barking dog brought him back to his senses and everywhere he looked, he saw soldiers. Soldiers patrolling the tops and sides of the valley, soldiers standing sentry on the bridge and around the crash scene, soldiers kneeling and discussing the flat patches of grass where Clement’s men had laid in ambush the previous morning.

  In the valley, Schmidt watched the river swirl around what was left of the shattered locomotive, the clear water turning black as it clung to the hulk momentarily before meandering on. A large team of Frenchmen had been put to work cutting up the wreckage of the train. They had to be French – the Germans and Hungarians were not for getting into the water, icy as is was.

  With the railway crane from Paris destroyed in the explosion, Schmidt could hear a new train from Rouen lugging up another from somewhere near the coast. According to the bombastic Colonel that Schmidt had been on the other end of a phone to the previous day, there was a greater need for this crane in building invasion defences and taking a day or two to fix a railway line was, frankly, ludicrous. Ludicrous or not, Schmidt had taken the eventual and grudging silence on the other end of the phone as acceptance that Schmidt’s need for a crane was greater after all: without a fixed railway, the good Colonel would soon have nothing left to build defences with. For Schmidt, who had been through all this countless times before, the facts trumped pomposity every time.

  Schmidt’s engineers roused, having been waiting on the embankment in the sunshine. Everything that could have been done had been done and no matter how hard the Infantry stared at them, his men were going to progress no further without that crane. Order had been restored to the area to a certain degree: most of the wreckage had been lifted by hand, bent track cut, cleats removed and some damaged railway sleepers stacked as neatly as could be. Even the bodies they had found had been collected and placed in a row under a tarpaulin sheet, from the edge of which a stiff, dead arm pointed pleadingly skyward. At least in this winter, thought Schmidt, there would be fewer flies to feed on them.

  The crane approached, pushed by a locomotive. Behind the locomotive, he could see lengths of track, cut ready for him to place, arranged in logical order on railflats. Schmidt and his men would have this all fixed in no time. The train slowed to a crawl, Schmidt watched the crane edge onto the viaduct. The sentries by the track lowered their eyes from the jets of steam and hot water being blown from the wheels and running gear.

  Schmidt was suddenly lying on his back, his cap had gone and his hair warm and beginning to mat at the back. Blinking hard through brown dust, Schmidt stood up gingerly with hi
s ears ringing. He winced as he put his hand to the back of his head, it was blood red when he looked slowly down at it. A swirling wind had begun to clear the dust. He still couldn’t hear anything except an almighty ringing in his ears.

  He focused and saw the crane sat crippled with its front wheels missing and the mechanical arm smashed downwards. He stumbled a little and put his hands out to steady himself. Schmidt watched the train driver sprinting away madly. Gradually Schmidt’s hearing returned, the valley was full of the rumble of the explosion and the orders of NCOs barked throughout the valley. He looked across to his own men who were, like him, getting slowly to their feet and checking for injuries.

  Schmidt stepped very carefully forward. On closer inspection, Schmidt noticed the new crane had been blown in half, the arm of it hung over the wall of the bridge like the drooping arm of a dead man. Schmidt sighed heavily and shook his head. Now he had two breaks in the track to mend and no crane to mend them with. That Artillery Colonel near the coast was going to go mad. Schmidt walked gingerly to look across at the bridge. His sighs turned to a loud groan when a saw the large crack in the brickwork just under where the crane stood.

  He looked down and recognised his cap. He slapped it against his thigh a couple of times to remove the dust, looking down the valley as he did so. This was going to be a long job.

  Chapter Four

  After the privations of life in Holland, the Hotel Majestic, used as General von Kettler’s Paris headquarters, was taking some getting used to. It was a much sought-after posting and those that were lucky enough to get a job here were busy making the most of everything Paris had to offer. Life was elegant, predictable, lordly, and the VD clinic was busy.

  Berner stepped through tall oak doors into a panelled anteroom. The high ceilings and art on the walls oozed opulence. Groomed officers sat hushed in deep leather armchairs, reading or whispering salacious tales. The war seemed very far away. To his satisfaction, even after a few days here, hardly anyone had noticed Berner. Wearing a suit that no longer quite fitted instead of a uniform helped: one had to look the part to be important around here. The man Berner was looking for certainly looked the part. Berner walked directly over to the lean man immaculately poised in a Naval Captain’s uniform.

  ‘Good morning, Sir, how good it is to see you in Paris.’ Berner lowered his head with a minute bow and a wide smile. The man smiled back but kept quite still. Gesturing warmly to the doors, Berner persisted. ‘Perhaps you would like to come with me?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ beamed the Captain, stubbing out a cigarette into an ornate ashtray and finished his brandy. The naval officer leaped energetically to his feet, threw his newspaper onto the chair and followed Berner out. The two walked and chatted nonchalantly as they ascended the grand staircase, strolled along a corridor to a doorway protected by two sentries, who clicked their heels to attention as Berner and the Capitan walked by. Four doors down from the General’s office, Berner opened a door, ‘After you, Kapitan Brunswick.’

  Leaning against the door as he closed it behind him, Berner smiled. ‘A naval Captain today, are we?’

  ‘Grand uniform, isn’t it?’ Brunswick stared down, admiring his own uniform. ‘I couldn’t resist it. Found it in Boulogne on the way here. I thought it would come in handy one day. I certainly don’t look out of place around here, do I? I’ve never been anywhere like this before, it’s … well, just as the hotel sign says: Majestic.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘seeing as they’ve made you a Colonel, I wanted to stay one step ahead and I thought you might need cheering up. How disappointed I am, may I say, that you’re not in uniform yourself. The girls love it and ah, the girls … everything they said about Paris seems to be coming true. Anyway.’ He turned towards the window to peer out. ‘I want to see if these French girls go for a sailor’s uniform like the girls in Hamburg used to.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Initial impressions are looking positive but the subject demands much more research.’

  Berner shook his head and laughed slowly. ‘If the Head Steward finds out that he has just served his finest Cognac to an Abwehr Sergeant impersonating an Officer, he would probably have had you shot.’ Still shaking his head, Berner walked towards the drink cabinet, not needing to ask if Brunswick would want one, or what he would want at this time of day.

  ‘I could just as easily have been a Lieutenant Colonel in the Luftwaffe, you know,’ said Brunswick lightly, ‘Yet I figured that Kapitan was not only a higher rank but, in a fine place such as this, I’d get a better room to stay in. My plan seems to have worked: the porter was most agreeable, most polite. My room has a beautiful view down the Avenue and all the ladies walking along it. I bet it’s better than whatever they gave a mere Oberstleutnant like you!’

  ‘I live out of the way upstairs.’ Berner gestured towards a camp cot set up in the far corner of the room. ‘It’s a good job they gave you a room, otherwise that camp bed would have been as grand as it got for you.’

  ‘Lieutenant Colonel Berner, your kindness and consideration never cease to astound me.’ Brunswick smoothed a hand over his immaculate silver hair. Berner had 4to admit it, Brunswick looked every bit the aristocratic naval officer. Looking older than he was and with a disarming charisma, Brunswick’s habit of dressing up as a senior officer had ever aroused suspicion. Berner poured out Schnapps as. Brunswick draped himself over one of the armchairs, swung one leg elegantly over another and let a foot bounce contentedly.

  ‘This is the best office they could get you? I mean the General’s office is just back there, you’d think the office they gave you was a bit grander than this. It’s a bit too puritanical for my liking.’

  ‘Everything’s a bit too puritanical for you these days. Anyway, we’re not on holiday, we’re on a job, remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember but we can live a little, can’t we?’

  ‘The other complication, of course, is that I’m not really here. Moving some of the staff out of grand offices for me would have got them talking about me and that’s not what I want.’ Berner handed out the Schnapps and sat down.

  ‘So, I am locked up for my own safety,’ said Berner, ‘or perhaps the Old Man wants me contained. Your guess versus mine.’

  ‘You really think you’re here, we’re here, simply so the Admiral can keep us quiet?’

  ‘It’s a possibility but I don’t think so. This looks and feels like the real thing. So as of today, Kapitan, I want you to focus your attention on British activity in France: in Paris and northern France specifically. I want to play the Englandspiel here just as we did in Holland but without being blown open this time. Schneider has a team in Berlin listening out for British radio activity that the SS and the rest of the Abwehr have not yet locked onto. The intelligence machine here is focused more on internal security and finding Jews. No wonder we don’t know much about Allied invasion plans, or even if the Allies have any invasion plans. When Berlin puts us on the scent, you go out with the radio detection vans and get locating fast. Our success in getting to the British before anyone else does. The vans are already in the courtyard down there hidden away. I want you to bring Steinseck and the boys up here soonest.’

  ‘They won’t object! Did you say the vans are here already?’ Brunswick asked, suspiciously.

  ‘Yes, they arrived before I did.’ Both men smiled at each other knowingly.

  ‘The old bastard’s up to his old tricks again, isn’t he?’

  Berner ignored that. ‘When your boys arrive, they will need to keep a very low profile. Neither the SS or the local Abwehr must know we’re here. We will all wait in Paris until Berlin gives us the word. Use the time to make the most of your new uniform, sample the nightlife, have a great time but don’t get noticed. I doubt it will be long before you’re off rushing around the countryside anyway, so make the most of Paris whilst you can.’

  ‘I will I am sure be able to keep myself occupied. The British can take as long as they like,’ sai
d Brunswick looking enthusiastically towards the window.

  ‘Also, I’ve got a little job for you and the boys once they’re all here. I want you to do some surveillance for me.’

  ‘Sure, who do you want to watch?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Maybe not me specifically, not yet, but I want to know who’s watching this HQ.’

  ‘No problem.’ Brunswick stood up and pulled his jacket straight.

  ‘No time like the present?’ asked Berner.

  ‘A bit like that, yes but I will do a proper job when the rest get here. Until then, I will have a walk around and see where all the good places are to watch this place. Then I think I will go out for dinner and cocktails. There must be some very classy places here just itching to give the best table to a Kapitan of the Kreigsmarine. Perhaps I will wear my Knight’s Cross tonight to make sure everyone’s suitably courteous. It’s a shame you can’t join me.’

  Berner chuckled as his sergeant got up to leave, feeling a pang of envy. A night out amongst the classiest of Paris society would be good for him – a chance to talk of other things for a while. Berner walked slowly to his desk as the door closed. Four files awaited his attention: the death of a German intelligence officer in Lyon, an airdrop intercepted near Biarritz, sugar poured into fuel tanks in Marseille, and an attack on a railway near Rouen.

  * * *

  Eve had spent the afternoon practicing how to draw a pistol quickly from a small handbag. She had to admit it, she was good at it and enjoyed it - the crack of the pistol and the smell of the smoke was as electrifying today as it had always been to her. To amuse herself further, Eve swayed up and down the range when checking her targets, leaning forward provocatively knowing full well that nearly all the men at the firing point would be watching her. The silence from the crowd behind said it all, as did the sudden re-starting of conversations as she began to turn around to walk back to the firing point.