Jackdaws

She lumbered across the cobblestones. She thought the major was shooting at her, but she could not be sure as there was so much gunfire from the château, from Genevieve, and from the Resistance fighters still alive in the parking lot. The fear that a bullet might hit her at any second gave her strength, and she broke into a lurching run. She made for the road leading out of the square to the south, the nearest exit. She passed the German lying on top of the redhead, and for a startled moment she met his eye and saw an expression of surprise and wry admiration. Then she crashed into a café table, sending it flying, and she almost fell, but managed to right herself and run on. A bullet hit the window of the bar, and she saw a cobweb of fracture lines craze the glass. A moment later, she was around the corner and out of the major’s line of sight. Alive, she thought gratefully; both of us-for a few more minutes, at least.

Until now she had not thought where to go once she was clear of the battlefield. Two getaway vehicles were waiting a couple of streets away, but she could not carry Michel that far. However, Antoinette Dupert lived on this street, just a few steps farther. Antoinette was not in the Resistance, but she was sympathetic enough to have provided Michel with a plan of the château. And Michel was her nephew, so she surely would not turn him away.

Anyway, Flick had no alternative.

Antoinette had a ground-floor apartment in a building with a courtyard. Flick came to the open gateway, a few yards along the street from the square, and staggered under the archway. She pushed open a door and lowered Michel to the tiles.

She hammered on Antoinette’s door, panting with effort. She heard a frightened voice say, “What is it?” Antoinette had been scared by the gunfire and did not want to open the door.

Breathlessly, Flick said, “Quickly, quickly!” She tried to keep her voice low. Some of the neighbors might be Nazi sympathizers.

The door did not open, but Antoinette’s voice came nearer. “Who’s there?”

Flick instinctively avoided speaking a name aloud. She replied, “Your nephew is wounded.”

The door opened. Antoinette was a straight-backed woman of fifty wearing a cotton dress that had once been chic and was now faded but crisply pressed. She was pale with fear. “Michel!” she said. She knelt beside him. “Is it serious?”

“It hurts, but I’m not dying,” Michel said through clenched teeth.

“You poor thing.” She brushed his hair off his sweaty forehead with a gesture like a caress.

Flick said impatiently, “Let’s get him inside.”

She took Michel’s arms and Antoinette lifted him by the knees. He grunted with pain. Together they carried him into the living room and put him down on a faded velvet sofa.

“Take care of him while I fetch the car,” Flick said. She ran back into the street.

The gunfire was dying down. She did not have long. She raced along the street and turned two corners.

Outside a closed bakery, two vehicles were parked with their engines running: one a rusty Renault, the other a van with a faded sign on the side that had once read Blanchisserie Bisset-Bisset’s Laundry. The van was borrowed from the father of Bertrand, who was able to get fuel because he washed sheets for hotels used by the Germans. The Renault had been stolen this morning in Chlons, and Michel had changed its license plates. Flick decided to take the car, leaving the van for any survivors who might get away from the carnage in the château grounds.

She spoke briefly to the driver of the van. “Wait here for five minutes, then leave.” She ran to the car, jumped into the passenger seat, and said, “Let’s go, quickly!”

At the wheel of the Renault was Gilberte, a nineteen-year-old girl with long dark hair, pretty but stupid. Flick did not know why she was in the Resistance-she was not the usual type. Instead of pulling away, Gilberte said, “Where to?”

“I’ll direct you-for the love of Christ, move!”

Gilberte put the car in gear and drove off.

“Left, then right,” Flick said.

In the two minutes of inaction that followed, the full realization of her failure hit her. Most of the Bollinger circuit was wiped out. Albert and others had died. Genevieve, Bertrand, and any others who survived would probably be tortured.

And it was all for nothing. The telephone exchange was undamaged, and German communications were intact. Flick felt worthless. She tried to think what she had done wrong. Had it been a mistake to try a frontal attack on a guarded military installation? Not necessarily-the plan might have worked but for the inaccurate intelligence supplied by MI6. However, it would have been safer, she now thought, to get inside the building by some clandestine means. That would have given the Resistance a better chance of getting to the crucial equipment.

Gilberte pulled up at the courtyard entrance. “Turn the car around,” Flick said, and jumped out.