Clateau and I formed numbers five and six, but it was to the seventh that we needed to turn: He of the gueules cassées, the broken mugs from the 1914–1918 war, those poor unfortunates whose facial features have been disfigured by shrapnel, machine-gun fire, or other such things. Paul Tessier lived in the little town of Bois-le-Roi on the Seine and about eight kilometres to the south of Melun. The main railway line to Paris went right through there. Tessier was a woodcarver whose services were not much in demand those days, but his fingers were of a surgeon. Later I was to discover that he knew all about explosives but, more than this, that he enjoyed them.
‘This railway train?’ he asked.
He was of about sixty, I suppose. ‘One railway truck. Only one,’ I told him. ‘The paintings and other works of art will be sealed inside it by welding the doors shut.’
‘It’s too risky,’ said the schoolteacher, reaching for the cigarettes I’d brought along with the Armagnac from my husband’s cellar. ‘Who’s to say the things will stay in France, should we get them?’
He was emaciated, possibly tubercular, and wore glasses that served only to hide his blue eyes and then, suddenly, to expose their nervousness.
‘Right now, my friend, the stuff’s slated for Germany, so why argue?’ I asked. ‘Something has to be done to stop it. Isn’t that right?’
It was the gueule cassée who said, ‘What interest have you in this? The way I see it, your husband’s in bed with the Boche, and we shouldn’t trust you.’
‘He’s my husband only in name. Look, I haven’t slept with him in over two years. We stay together because …’
‘Because she’s British,’ interceded Clateau, ‘and her husband needs her to watch over his family’s house. In turn, she needs him to keep her from the internment camp.’**
‘A fine match!’ said the smaller of the two railwaymen, one whom you wouldn’t trust with his mother’s handbag. He’d sunk half a bottle already and was brave, but not on the drink, had the innate courage of a cornered rat. ‘Your railway truck, madame. Why, please, will it depart from the Gare de Lyon?’ He was smart, too.
‘Because Göring is afraid the RAF might bomb the train, so he’s taking no chances. The train will be routed south to Dijon and from there to Mulhouse on the Rhine and finally to Munich.’
He was impressed. ‘How is it that you know all this?’
‘I … I can’t say. Look, it would be foolish of me to reveal my sources. The less others know, the better.’
‘How many men have you?’ snapped the flic. He was not in uniform, but one can always tell a cop.
‘That I also can’t reveal. When the time comes, you’ll know by the armbands they’ll wear.’
‘Our funeral?’ the schoolteacher said with a snort.
There was only one way to handle this. I got up and said ‘I’m leaving. Forget you ever saw me. Forget I asked for your help. France is being plundered of her art treasures, and all you can do is drink my brandy!’
‘Sit down, madame. Please, it’s all right. Don’t be put off by our little questions,’ said Tessier, but was the broken mug their leader? He had a way with him I liked. He dragged out a map of the district and began to spread it on the table. ‘The bottles … come now, boys,’ he said. ‘Don’t knock them over. The lady’s been generous.’
A forefinger traced out the line from the Gare de Lyon through to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and on southward to Melun and Bois-le-Roi.
‘We must discuss the repercussions first,’ he said, lifting those small, hard eyes to look fully at me, and I knew I couldn’t shrink from this initial defiance, for he had the twisted face of a deformed potato, the wired jaws that must have hurt terribly in the damp and the cold. ‘Since hostages will be taken and shot, madame, from where, please, would you like this to happen? In my town, or theirs?’ He indicated the four from Melun. ‘Or yours?’ His voice had the flutter of dry wind over paper.
‘Fontainebleau,’ I heard myself saying, ‘is far too close to my house. We need to stop the train somewhere …’
‘We need to switch it on to a siding,’ said the smaller of the two railwaymen. ‘Villeneuve-St-Georges would be suitable and far enough from all of us, but the closer one gets to Paris, the more Germans one has to put up with.’
‘How many other railway trucks will there be?’ asked his pal. ‘Is it to be a goods train, madame, or one that also carries passengers?’
‘I … I don’t know yet. Look, as soon as I find out, I’ll get word to you.’
‘How?’ demanded the schoolteacher.
I was getting to like him less and less. ‘Through a friend of a friend.’
Tessier clucked his tongue and waved an impatient finger. ‘Arnold, be quiet, eh? Let the lady tell us if she’ll have a cutting torch to open that can of beans and the lorries with which to move the stuff once we have it.’
There were so many details to work out, it all seemed hopeless.
‘You really do need help, madame,’ he said, ‘but where are you going to hide everything if we should manage to steal it?’
‘I have a place but can’t tell you where it is.’
‘Then it’s no deal,’ said the schoolteacher.
‘Arnold, pour l’amour de Dieu, be quiet,’ snapped Tessier.
‘Surely the Boche will have a guard on this train?’ asked Clateau. ‘We haven’t any guns, madame. There’s bound to be a fight. Some of us will get …’
He left it unsaid, but butchers the world over tend to be practical. Tessier ran his finger down the railway line, and I knew he was still worrying over the problem of hostages. ‘Nemours,’ he said, ‘where the line curves into the Bois de la Commanderie. The woods will help us. I’ll go to Paris and make the complete run. I’ve a cousin who lives in Nemours. He’s a real shit, and in bed with the Nazis, so it’ll be good to get in touch with him. That way the Boche won’t be suspicious of me.’
‘I could meet you in Avon on your way back, if that would suit. My children go to school in Fontainebleau so I have the excuse of being there when they get out.’
‘At five’ he said, lifting those puckered eyes of his. ‘Well, what about it, Gaston?’ he asked the taller of the two railwaymen.
‘Five … no, the five thirty, I think,’ said that one. ‘It’ll pass through there on the way into Paris, but you’ll only have a few minutes and the platform will be guarded.’
Those schedules could have been off as well, but I nodded. It was too good an opportunity to miss and I had to do something. Tessier squinted at me. I think, then, that he finally said, Okay, to himself, for he smiled and shook his head. ‘A woman with two children should limit her risks, madame. Let me get off the train and have my supper someplace. A little café, a bistro-surely Fontainebleau has such, or have the Boche turned it back into the luxury of the kings?’
I mentioned the restaurant of Matthieu Fayelle, and all of them understood.
‘Then I’ll see you there at four thirty, madame, should the train not be delayed. We’ll have an acorn coffee or perhaps even an apéritif. It will be my pleasure.’
‘What day?’ Already I was thinking I could really trust him and it was such a relief.
‘Which day would suit you best?’ he asked. ‘For me, my time is more or less my own, since the wife runs our little tabac without too much assistance, especially now that there’s so little tobacco and what there is of it, leaves much to question.’
‘Friday.’
‘Ah, bon, and not a no-alcohol day.’
As were Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, but could I get cigarettes from him? I wondered. Oh, for sure, the rations were being cut and cut and women still weren’t allowed a card and tickets, but there were ways, weren’t there? Always. ‘Yes, Friday would be best. It’ll give me time to talk to some of the others.’