Dupuis, however, stands back as much as possible and lets Schiller nudge the door open, but both must stoop to enter and it’ll be dark in there, for there are no windows, not even a stovepipe hole, and if I had the Schmeisser assembled, I could give them a couple of bursts and terrify the hell out of them, but the bicycle will be as safe as it was before and I can come back for it later.
Sacrificing one bullet from the Luger, I place it in the middle of the trail where they’re sure to find it notched.
Due north of the Mountains of the Goats, there’s the Rock of the Salamander-quaint, isn’t it, to have such names? Now I’m perhaps a kilometre to the north of the woodcutter’s hut and among tall oaks, and from here, I’ll walk across a tableland to find the copse of cedars with its moss-covered boulders that’s still so clear in memory.
Even the lean-to Tommy and Nicki used is where they left it, the roof now a webbing of dry and seasoned sticks. There’s evidence of a last campfire whose ashes are damp as I bring a pinch to my nose and shut my eyes. Immediately, as in the camps with all those dead and dying people around me, I’m right back here in time with Tommy, who fed his tiny fire with such love and care, and sat to one side of it, Nicki to the other. The map Paul Tessier had given me that day in Nemours had been spread on the ground. ‘The train is to leave Paris at four thirty in the afternoon, 10 November,’ I told them. ‘It’s to be a mixed one of goods and passengers.’
‘How many of each?’ asked Tommy.
‘Eight of passengers, twenty-two of goods. The passenger carriages will come first.’
‘And the shipment?’ asked Nicki.
‘Somewhere among the others. This our railwaymen won’t know until the train is finally made up. Right now the truck is sitting on a siding at the Gare de Lyon.’
So it was anyone’s guess where it would be located in the train. ‘What about machine-guns and extra guards?’ asked Tommy.
‘Probably, but none that we know of as yet, just the usual antiaircraft gun on its flatbed, but this, I think the Boche will want to keep as far from the art treasures as possible.’
‘What about the dummy railway truck?’ asked Nicki. ‘Will our railwaymen be able to make the switch?’
It was to wait on a siding near Bourron-Marlotte. ‘That’s out. There are no spares.’
‘And the cutting torch?’ asked Tommy.
‘Clateau has promised one from the garage in Barbizon, but must have it back well before dawn.’
‘And if he doesn’t manage to get it?’ asked Nicki.
‘Cold chisels, hammers, and explosives if necessary. Once the truck is located, the rest of the train ahead can be released and sent on down the line. Only two trains a day regularly use that route, so there should be lots time between them for ours.’
It was Nicki who said, ‘What’s to prevent the engineer from stopping near La Chapelle-la-Reine and getting a warning out?’
This little village is about four kilometres to the south-southwest of Ury. ‘Dmitry will have cut the wires by then,’ said Tommy. ‘We have to trust him, Nicki. It’s all been arranged.’
‘That Bolshevik?’ said Nicki. ‘There’s far too much at stake for us to trust him.’
‘Listen, you two, it’s crazy anyway for us to attempt this. You’ve got to call it off. Paul’s certain it could be a trap.’
‘Tessier and those railway boys are just nervous, Lily,’ said another whose voice I knew well enough. ‘There are crates and crates of artwork waiting to be shipped to the Reich from the Jeu de Paume and the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. It’s too good an opportunity. Dmitry’s one of us, Nicki. Me, I can guarantee him.’
I turned and my sister was there behind me, having watched my back without my knowing. There was a Walther P38 in her right hand, and I had to ask myself, Has she slept with Dmitry, and I had to answer, Probably. ‘Why does it have to be done, Nini?’
Unfortunately, those lovely dark eyes flashed a fierceness I’d never seen before. ‘Because for us, it’s to be the catalyst. A whole train, Lily. Pour l’amour de Dieu, think of it, will you? No one has ever done such a thing. When word gets out, other réseaux will be sure to form and we’ll be stopping trains everywhere!’
‘What she means, Lily, is that London wants us to pull this off,’ said Tommy dryly.
Anxiously, I looked at Nicki who said, ‘To go forward, though, we’ll absolutely need you to help us.’
‘Me? Hey, monsieur, aren’t I too well known?’
‘Lily, that train has to be made to stop just before it’s switched on to the other line. That way it will be starting up and we can jump aboard just a little later, so you must get on at Avon. You can purchase a ticket for Saint-Léger, the crossing that is just to the south of Bourron-Marlotte. That doesn’t require an Ausweis for you, so no one will question it.’
‘Except the one who sells the tickets and the ones who punch them. You’re all crazy. There are German railway police on all of our trains; French ones, too.’
Again, it was Janine who insisted ‘We can’t chance its not stopping, can we?’
‘Tommy … Tommy, it’s impossible for me. I’d need a very good excuse to get off at that little place. The Germans are bound to question it. Schiller …’
‘She’s right,’ said Nicki. ‘We’ll have to think of something else.’
‘No we won’t,’ said Janine. ‘She needs wax to finish Göring’s sculpture and can easily visit the beekeeper in Saint-Léger.’
She had thought it all out beforehand. ‘Wax … Ah, merde, I …’ Why must she do that to me? ‘All right, I’ll do it. I can take my bike with me and still be home in time for curfew if I hurry.’
‘Lorries?’ asked Nicki. ‘What about them?’
‘We’ll “borrow” them from the Wehrmacht,’ said Nini. ‘There’s a driver I know who can be bought. I’ll tell him to bring a friend and make him an offer he can’t refuse.’ Herself.
‘We have lorries enough of our own. Would you insult their owners?’
Clateau and Matthieu Fayelle. ‘Of course not. We’ll use theirs as well, but the German ones will offer perfect cover. Now you’d better get home. Say hello to the children and give them each a big hug for me.’
Jules has moved the body of Madame Vuitton, though Schiller and Dupuis haven’t yet returned with André’s car, but the past still tugs and I can’t let go. It was the morning after I left Tommy and the others. Jean-Guy had given me a message and it took me down the road.
‘Georges, what is it you want of me?’
He gave a whack with the axe, and the head of another rabbit fell. ‘Madame, I must speak with you.’ Whack, and it was the front paws that time, then the hind ones.
‘So speak.’ Merde, had he an endless supply of rabbits?
‘The wife saw that sister of yours in the forest today. Janine, she was with two men.’
‘Since when has my sister not been with men? They were hikers probably.’
The skin was slipped off. Blood dripped from his hands. ‘They didn’t look like those to me.’
So he’d seen them too, had he? ‘Perhaps they were friends from Paris, but Nini hasn’t said anything of them.’
‘The one came here before the war, madame. I’m sure of it.’
I shrugged. I didn’t turn away nor avert my gaze from him, but had to wonder why Georges hadn’t let Dupuis know, and concluded he wanted something else.
It was not long in coming. ‘These times, they’re not easy, madame. Monsieur Jules … Sometimes he forgets to pay us.’
Ah, bon, but had he really given me a possible hold over him? ‘Perhaps I could help. The Germans give me an allowance for their rooms and meals.’ It was an opener and he saw this, but I’d have to offer something else to pry the rest out of him.
‘One hundred thousand francs?’ he asked.
I wanted to fiercely object but couldn’t look in the least surprised. ‘That much, if necessary. Yes, I could manage that. I would have to go to Oberst Neumann, but there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.’