Light of the Moon

Quine spoke into his headset. In response, the dispatching sergeant eased himself over towards Evelyn and indicated that he wished to attach the automatic-opening strop of her harness which would ensure her parachute opened. She watched him, knowing that she was about to jump out into the cold dark air a thousand feet above France. Having thecked the strop, the sergeant fastened the line which held her extra baggage onto her leg strap and showed Evelyn that both were correctly in place. 'Remember that when the line slackens you will have three seconds or so before landing.'

He moved on to John and attached the wireless's webbing to John's harness. He gave the thumbs-up signal to Evelyn over the sergeant's head. The sergeant crawled towards the exit door and pulled back the cover. Moonlight flooded in and a stream of thin, cold air invaded the oily-smelling fuselage.

Evelyn wished she had been awake when they had flown over Tourns. She would have liked to have thought of her grandparents and cousins asleep down below. Under her flying suit, she went cold and shivered. If any of them had the remotest idea of what she was doing...

John touched her arm. 'Merde,' he shouted over the roar of air and engines, using the traditional french slang for 'good luck'.

Evelyn blinked back at him in the uncertain light. 'Merde,' she mouthed back. 'All the best.'

'Good girl.'

The Whitely circled and a red light appeared on the road above them. The sergeant raised his arm and Evelyn shifted into place behind John.

'There they are,' shouted the sergeant.

'Five hundred feet,' said Quine into the headset.

The red light turned to green. The sergeant brought down his arm and John disappeared. Evelyn swung her legs over the 'Joe's hole' and flexed her hands on the edge. Below her, three points of light were flashing.

'Go,' yelled the sergeant.

Forgetting to worry about her face hitting the opposite edge of the hole, she pushed against the plane's protective fuselage and fell into space. A blast of air caught her and the Whitely's underbelly slid away. The whine of its engines drifted back for a while as she dropped and then suddenly all was quiet. Almost immediately her parachute opened with a jerk. It wounded like sheets flapping on a washing line. Evelyn reached up with her hands as she had been instructed and grabbed the webbing.

Currents of air slapped her face and buffeted the harness, and she swung like a marionette on a string. The moonlight grew brighter and whiter and spread its silver over a silent landscape below. She squinted to get a better look and made out a shape floating on her right. After the plane, the peace was extraordinary.

The torches flickered through the darkness under her feet. Her panoramic view narrowed. She was floating down into a clearing surrounded by dark trees that sucked her towards the earth. The lights grew brighter. There was a burst of conversation and someone shouted 'Shush!' Then 'Attention!'

The line on her leg went slack. When she hit the ground she bent her knees and rolled sideways. For one gut-freezing second she thought that it was Germans waiting for her under the trees. A stone grazed her cheeck. Her fingers scrabbled unsuccessfully for a hold as the parachute pulled her over the rough ground. The skin was ripped from one finger and she yelped. But she was safe and presently slithered to a halt. Two shapes materialised out of the darkness.

'Tout va bein, camarade? Vous n'êtes pas blessée?'

Evelyn sat up and reached for her harness clip. 'Tout va bien.'

'I can't believe it, you are here at last.' The speaker sounded breathless and excited.

Evelyn unclipped her baggage pack, wriggled out of the harness and undid her flying suit to reveal a camel coat over a blue cotton dress and wool headscarf. She struggled to roll up her parachute which continued to flap and billow.

'Here, let me.' The larger of the two men came forward and held out his hand. He wore a short black jacket and a beret. 'I'm Jean-Claude and I'm in charge of the reception party here. We've been waiting weeks for you to arrive. Do you have the password?'

'The apples are ripe, and my name is Violette.' The new name rolled round her tongue.

Jean-Claude shook her hand lengthily. Since the reception committee had spent most of the waiting period fuelling themselves with brandy, he smelt strongly of drink. Evelyn's spirits lifted. Here was the France she knew and loved.

'We weren't expecting a woman,' Jean-Claude sounded dubious. 'We've had very little information to go on. I am afraid your companion has twisted his ankle.'

Evelyn finishing bundling the unwieldy parachute and stood with it clasped to her chest. 'Badly?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so. We will have to make alternative arrangements, but first we search for the rest of the parachutage. There were four containers, yes?'

She nodded.

'Right, give me your parachute and I will put it in the van.'

Feeling like a new girl on her first day at big school, Evelyn shook her head. 'Sorry, it's against orders.'

Jean-Claude sighed. 'The parachute is needed,' he said. 'Please, consider, we have nothing in France. No clothes, no material. You cannot expect me to bury such a valuable thing.' Evelyn was not to know that Jean-Claude's current mistress was looking forward to a new set of underwear and he had been rash enough, during one lovemaking, to promise to procure the silk.

Before she could answer, he was diverted by a third figure running towards them, calling out that they had to go.

'I'm Antoine.' The man who had first spoken to Evelyn held out his hand in greeting. 'Pleased to meet you. Jean-Claude is the big man round here and he is used to getting his own way.'

Jean-Claude swung round and the moonlight highlighted a square face and a determined chin. 'Right. We must go. Load up the van. You, Violette, are to go with Antoine.'

There was no time to argue. Jean-Claude wrestled the parachute out of Evelyn's hands and disappeared towards the gate. 'Come on.' An unmade-up lane skirted the field and a van was parked by the gate. Two men were lifting the heavy metal containers into the back when Evelyn joined them and a third was camouflaging the load with sacks. John leant against the gate.

'Bloody hell,' he greeted her, obviously in some pain. 'It can't be helped. I'm being taken to a temporary safe house. They don't think they can get me to the one they planned.'

Evelyn pulled the scarf from around her neck. 'I'll tie this foot first.'

'Thanks,' said John, and shifted the attaché case, which held his wireless set into the other hand.

'Find the café in Ribérac nearest the main square,' Evelyn said as she wound the scarf round the ankle and tied a knot. 'I'll be there on Wednesday the first week, Tuesday and Thursday the second, between ten and elevent in the morning.'

'You leave at once' ordered Jean-Claude. 'I will take your friend.'

'See you soon, Violette,' said John.

Antoine beckoned to Evelyn. 'Here's your bicycle. It's not a very good one, I'm afraid. You must be very careful. Not only are we breaking curfew but you have lights and that's an offence. Also the road is rough, so please follow me.'

As Evelyn rode off down the track after Antoine she looked back. It was a strange scene. Moonlight streaming over the field fringed with black trees, and at the gate the frantic movements of the men working to obliterate their traces.

One by one, the torches were extinguished. The last sack was pushed into place. The noise as the van engine wheezed into life was earth shattering in the silence.

'Gazogène,' Jean-Claude explained. 'It's rotten for engines.' He put his arm under John's shoulder and they lurched into the lane. 'I'm sorry I can't offer you a lift,' he explained. 'It is too dangerous. The Boches are everywhere.'

'Everywhere?'

'Did you study a map of the area?' John nodded. 'Well, as far as we know there is a garrison of three hundred at Vauxains - that's apart from the contingents in Bordeaux and, of course, Ribérac. Anyway, it means all cross-over points on the line are guarded, and we will have to go through the forest.'

Jean-Claude handed John a bicycle. John looked at it and thought that if he could survive this, he could survive anything. He wiped the sweat off his face and leant experimentally on his feet, an exercise which proved pointless because he nearly fainted. Jean-Claude swept a torchbeam over the ground and rubbed out a footprint with a large boot.

'No sense in advertising our presence.'

John made a huge effort and used his good leg to mount the bicycle. Jean-Claude wheeled his into the lane.

'I'll take you to you my niece, Mariette,' he said, as he strapped John's wireless onto the back of his bike. 'Not ideal, but it will have to do. She lives at the far end of Bertric-Burée, a village north of Ribérac. Her garden leads straight onto the demarcation line. After you have rested the foot, we will hide you properly.'

The distance they had to cycle was ten kilometres or so. In terms of sheer dogged endurance the ride was a marathon. At first, John tried brainwashing himself: 'It could be much worse.' When that failed, he pretended that the sickening pain in his ankle was, in fact, pleasure. This approach was not destined for success either.

'Hurry.' Jean-Claude's voice was made fainter by the increasing distance between them. John bent over the handlebars and invoked any god who might be around to help him. At one point Jean-Claude stopped to anchor John's attaché case more securely. 'We go over the line now,' he said. 'Don't make any noise.'

At last, he turned up a lane and a cottage came into view at the end of a narrow strip of land planted with rows of vegetables. 'Wait,' said Jean-Claude. 'I must talk to her first.' he discounted and walked towards the cottage.

John slid off his bicycle onto the ground, almost weeping with relief. He saw a door open and Jean-Claude step inside. A light appeared in the downstairs window. Five minutes passed. Perhaps the niece didn't want him? He wouldn't blame her. Jean-Claude reappeared. He put his finger to his lips and jerked his head in the direction of the cottage. John gave him the bicycle and limped towards the door.

All his life he had been sensitive to smell - the stale sweat of the green room, the lingering whiff of fish and chip suppers in poky digs, the obscure tang of a herb in a good French dish. He was particularly familiar with the smell of poverty and this assaulted him as soon as he entered the cottage: the fungoid smell of clammy plaster, the mouldiness of water-impregnated wood and the unpleasant odour of damp clothes in airless conditions. The cottage possessed a single downstairs room with a couple of cabin-like areas opening off it. It was very untidy. Clothing was draped over chairs and the remains of a meal littered the table. A girl in a nightdress stood by the table with no sign of welcome in her face.

As John limped over the threshold, a bed creaked upstairs and a child's cry sounded above them. Mariette went over to the staircase in the corner of the room and shouted up, 'It's all right, Jeanette. It's only me.'

John clutched the edge of the table for support. 'There are children in the house?'

'Yes,' the girl replied sullenly, pushing the oil lamp further into the centre of the table. 'Mine.'

'Then I shouldn't be here.' John was perturbed. 'I'm sorry.'

She jerked her head in the direction of the garden. 'If he says so then I don't have much choice.'

'I'm sorry,' he repeated, at a loss. 'I'll try and leave as soon as possible.'

She gave him a hard stare. 'Are you badly hurt?'

By now John was swaying with the effort of staying upright. 'Not really.'

She pulled out a chair, pushed John down into it and bent over to look at his foot. She was wearing a cardigan over a nightdress that was too short and her hair hung down over her shoulders in wispy strands. When she got up and went over to the oak dresser, her breasts and bottom swayed rather attractively under the thin material.

The dresser was the one piece of good furniture in the room. Searching among a litter of glasses and odd china, she found a bottle. Handing John a glass, she filled it from the half-empty bottle.

'What is it?' he asked after its first shock.

'Pineau des Charentes. It's made round here.'

Jean-Claude let himself in. Tall, with a torso that had once been heavily muscled but was not turning to fat, his hair was very black in the lamplight. He seemed menacing, the sort of man whose energy never gave out and who was used to taking the lead. 'I've go to go,' he said 'otherwise I might run into the dawn patrols. Let me see your papers.'

He riffled through John's papers expertly. 'I'm a policeman' he explained. 'So I've more excuse to be about than most.' He studied the papers. 'Not bad. Have you got for feuille semestrielle? You need it to get food and clothing coupons. If you haven't got one we'll have to get it made. What's your cover story?'

At Tempsford, the briefing officer had taken away four typed pages detailing John's new persona. His job now was to flesh out those bare bones, and to make 'Olivier' come to life.

'I am Olivier Blanc, aged thirty-two. Former employee of SNCAS but unable to take up employment after 1940 as experiences on the battlefield have left me psychologically incapable of holding down skilled work. Now offering my services as a farm labourer.'

'Yes, but why is he in this house?' asked Mariette, with a note of triumph. 'Think up that one.'

Jean-Claude flicked at John's papers with a stubby finger. 'He is here, Mariette, because he fancies you? Got it?'

Mariette pushed back the strands of hair that flopped over her shoulders. 'Wonderful,' she said bitterly. 'Gone in the head and interested in me.'

Jean-Claude poked a finger at her. 'You just shut up and do what you're told.' Then he handed back the papers to John. 'Right, Olivier. I've hidden your luggage in the shed. Don't tell her what it is.'

'What makes you think I'm curious?' said Mariette, who had a fine line in ripostes when she felt like it.

Jean-Claude ignored her. 'When the ankle is healed, I will return. Meanwhile stay indoors and don't let anyone see you.' He transferred his attention to the girl. 'Keep your mouth shut, Mariette. There's no telling what might happen if you don't.'

She shrugged and looked resigned. 'My mother? What about her?'

'Tell the old woman he's a boyfriend, like we've agreed.'

Mariette turned her back on Jean-Claude. John caught a glimpse of her face, pale and rebellious. 'I don't like it. What happens if we are caught?'

'You won't be,' he replied with the confidence of someone who knew what he was talking about. 'I tell you, the Boches are stupid. If you act sensibly they won't suspect a thing.'

'All right,' she agreed reluctantly. 'You don't give me much choice. If the children are harmed I'll blame you.' she paused. 'Anyway, what do you think I am going to feed him on?'

'He's got a ration book.'

John was feeling very uncomfortable. 'Please,' he said. 'I don't think this is fair on her...'

The argument did not impress Jean-Claude in the least. 'She will do as I tell her,' he said. 'We will see that she's looked after.'

Whoever 'we' was, the idea of them did not appear to comfort Mariette. 'So?' she said. 'So what if he has got a ration book? That's not enought to feed a sick child.'

Jean-Claude pulled out a roll of francs from his pocket and peeled off a couple of notes which he gave to Mariette. She took them, stuffed them into the pocket of her cardigan and stood, rocking on the balls of her feet, to watch him leave. The door closed.

John dropped his head into his hands. 'Its very kind of you,' he said, 'truly.' The words were inadequate, but he did not feel up to improving on them.

'Are you hungry?' she asked with a sigh.

'No,' said John, who longed only to sleep. He finished his Pineau and allowed Mariette to ease off his shoe anduntie Evelyn's scarf.

'Tsk,' she said. 'it's badly swollen.'

She pulled open a drawer in the dresser and extracted a strip of linen which she dipped into a bucket of water standing under the sink. The cold helped ease the discomfort.

'My two children and my mother also live here,' she said fiercely. 'They are upstairs. You must promise to say nothing to them.'

'Keep it,' John said.

Mariette had picked up Evelyn's scarf. She cocked an eyebrow. 'thank you.' Now that she had seen the violent-coloured bruise and the surrounding skin puffed out like a mille feuille, she seemed to regard John more sympathetically. She got up and hung her scarf on a peg by the door.

'One thing.' Her back was turned. 'You will have to share my bed. Don't worry, my husband is dead. Jean-Claude is really his uncle, not mine.' she turned round to help him and her breasts rose with a quick intake of breath. 'Up you get.'

In her bedroom, Mariette threw back the faded coverlet and helped John to climb onto the bed. He lay back. The smell of old sheets, damp and dust was very strong. On the other side, Mariette settled herself and pulled the cover up to her shoulders. After a minute or so she fell asleep.

John remained awake, trying to ease his ankle into the most comfortable position. Relief at being safe and the Pineau took the edge off his discomfort.

Somne time during the night he awoke to find Mariette had rolled closer to him. He shifted his ankle and fell asleep, only to waske a second time when she flung an arm across his chest.

Antoine was obviously used to cycling and before ten minutes had passed Evelyn was panting to keep up with him. Scattered with stones, unexpected cracks and tree roots, the road was uneven and difficult and more than once she almost feel off.

At a crossroads Antoine halted. 'We turn right here towards the main road and the demarcation line. There is a hundred yards or so of no-man's land and then we're over. I'm afraid I don't have a pass for you yet.' he said anxiously, and she felt guilty that he should be worrying about her. 'But it would be difficult to use at the moment. Once over the road, we are almost there.' He turned to look up the road and then flapped his arm for Evelyn to get down. 'There's someone coming.'

'Where?' she asked stupidly.

'Quickly, Violette.'

She did not need to be told twice. Antoine was already running towards a ditch with his bicycle. She pursued him, flinging her machine behind a bush where it lay with its wheels spinning. They sprawled in the ditch, breathing hard, face down in the grass.

'Head down.' whispered Antoine. 'It might be nothing, but it is better to be sure.'

They waited, listening for the car engine. Antoine raised his head and the lights of a very slow-moving car broke through the dark night. He ducked. Cruising smoothly on petrol, the car came into view, stopped while the driver apparently checked out the crossroads, and then continued.

'Vichy police,' Antoine breathed into Evelyn's ear. 'Line patrol.'

Fear is infectious. Evelyn swallowerd and a treacherous thought surfaced that she had been a fool to get into this. She learnt later than Antoine had a lot to lose: a wife, small children and a job as a senior administrator in the town hall.

'The bastards often work hand-in-glove with the Germans.' the mild-seeming Antoine continued in a whisper. 'In fact, in some cases they are worse than the Germans. We'll get some of them one of these days.'

They waited for another ten minutes. 'They won't backtrack,' Antoine informed her, 'because they're stupid as well as collaborators.' Evelyn digested this information. It appeared that a section of the population was more hated than the official enemy.

'It's good to have you, Violette. For a time we thought we couldn't ever make contact with England. But a friend called Laroche got through on a transmitter with the help of the Count. Otherwise you would have been dropped blind and we wouldn't have been there ot receive you.'

Crossing the main road proved an anticlimax after that. An easy dash over the tarmac and then off at top speed towards the village of Bertric-Burée. She was not in occupied France. After riding through the cillage, smeling comfortably of dry dung and not so pleasantly of rubbish tips, Antoine bore left onto a track which ran between two maize fields sloping up to the breast of a rise. The green spears massed thickly, almost taller than Evelyn. Antoine went on foot and Evelyn followed, her feet sliding on the dry, whitish earth. Every so often she was forced to catch her breath: once she lost her balance and her bicycle slithered into the maize. She retirved it and toiled on.

At the top of the rise Antoine pointed to a path than ran off at a right angle. 'I leave you here,' he said, and Evelyn's heart missed a beat. 'Follow the path until you come to a gate in a stone wall. go through this and turn right, keeping the wall on your right. Walk about fifteen paces and you will see a creeper hanging down. Behind this is an iron grille set into a stone archway. Pull the grille towards you and follow the passage inside. It is quite safe. Please hide your bicycle in the shed you will see nearby. Goodbye.'

Antoine held out his hand, and Evelyn noticed that it was trembling. He seemed to small and frail to be doing this sort of work. She listened to the dull sound of his footsteps going away.

The maize rustled. Banks of cloud were gatherand and daybreak, she was, was imminent. She looked at the border of fruit trees beyond which stretched yet more maize. A cock crowed in the valley and the warm autumn night was heady with the smell of ripe crops. Evelyn's fingers tightened on the handlebars. At least she had got this far.

The patch narrowed and a wall came into sight. It was high, built of flaking stone and in need to repair. A pair of wrought-iron gates opened through a stone archway into parkland and Evelyn had her first glimpse of the château set at the top of a gradient.

It was getting late. As instructed, Evelyn hid the bicycle and carried her suitcase to a massive vine and growing down over the wall. She searched for the iron grille and gound it with some difficulty. It was well hidden. It eased smoothly open when she pulled, allowing dank air to spill out. Taking a deep breath, she let herself down into the passage and pulled the grille shut behind her.

It was pitch dark. Evelyn felt for her torch and inched along the stone passage. The walls wept moisture and she noticed a strong odour of mouldy grapes. After a hundred yards or so, the passage widened, ran upwards and ended abruptly in a wall. She ran the torchbeam over it and discovered a wooden door set cunningly into the stone. Evelyn put down her suitcase and got out the pistol concealed round her waist before easing it open an inch. she peered htrough into a large barnlike structure with heavy beams, stone walls and a blacked-out window. On a table in the centre burned an oil lamp. A man was sitting at the table bent over some papers. Evelyn must have made a noise, because he looked up and got to his feet.

'Mademoiselle?'

Evelyn lowered her pistol. 'Monsieur de Bourgrave. The apples are riple.'