J. Janes - Gypsy

Perhaps eight hectares had been enclosed by the abbey’s outer walls, perhaps a little more. It was hard to tell, for the walls had fallen in several places offering perfect defensive and sentry positions. Forest and brush had long ago encroached on an orchard that could now hold terrorists. Ah Gott im Himmel !

Desperately looking for a way out, Kohler stood beside Nana Theleme. The men, supremely confident and thoroughly experienced, had taken up their positions. The dogs they had brought with them were muzzled but intently searched the lie of the land as he did.

There wasn’t a sound. Breath steamed in the air.

‘At least let us have a look, eh?’ he said to the lieutenant in charge. Under the padded white parka, the bastard wore the ribbon of the Winterschlacht im Osten 1941/42, the ‘Frozen Meat Medal’. He had lost his right leg to the Russians but had got through the willow shoots easily enough on that prosthesis of his.

The silver wound badge and both the EK2 and EK1 were pinned to that same tunic, the Eiserne Kreuz , the Iron Cross.

Max Engelmann and the SS-Untersturmfuhrer Schacht had chosen to wait in the Citroen. Schacht had even asked for the keys ‘in case of problems’. Goodbye car, goodbye trouble.

Given the field glasses, Kohler searched the ruins for any sign of life.

‘Janwillem and Tshaya won’t have built up the fire during the day,’ confided Nana sadly.

The belfry of the chapel dominated everything. From there, the abbey’s walls enclosed a substantial inner courtyard in which there were now large trees. He could make out nothing of the arcades at ground level, could get only glimpses of gaping windows and holes in the roof above them. Once stuccoed, the thick grey limestone of the walls was often exposed in ragged patches and where not, the yellowness of age and dampness remained.

A lane, unused in today’s approaches, could just be made out leading in from a gap in the forest to the west. Men would be covering it, should De Vries and his band attempt a break-out.

‘That is enough, ja ?’ said the lieutenant.

Kohler handed the glasses back to him. ‘Your rifle’s Russian. Hey, my boys were both killed at Stalingrad. I wonder if it was with one of those?’

‘A lady’s gun. The Soviets always make a big thing of their women snipers but the truth is, the weapon doesn’t stand up to field use.’

‘May I?’ asked Kohler, and not waiting for an answer, took the rifle from him to examine its telescopic sight. ‘What’s it set for?’

‘1300 metres,’ came the grim and wary answer.

The distance from here to the outer walls? wondered Kohler. The SVT40, the self-loading Tokarev, had a ten-round detachable box and used 7.62 mm cartridges. To the sniper, its semiautomatic action’s main advantage was that a second shot could be rapidly got off without moving the cheek from the stock to reload. ‘It seems we can’t make anything ourselves any more,’ he grumbled. ‘Our Gewehr 41s are simply copies of this.’

‘But better. Now give it back to me, ja? und go. Already we are a little behind schedule.’

‘Just let me tie my shoelace. Here, Nana, would you hold this?’

Swiftly Kohler turned aside to give the rifle to her. The lieutenant made a move to get round him, but the muzzle of a 9 mm Beretta was pushing his chin up.

The gun had been strapped to a leg …

‘Say nothing, my friend,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Just walk out there as if there’s been a little change of plan and you’re going to check out the ruins with us. Nana, put the rifle under your coat, the muzzle down. Leave only one button done up so that you can hand it to me quickly.’

‘ You won’t get away with this !’ seethed the lieutenant.

‘Hey, relax. We already have.’

Where the forest ended, the walls began. Trapped, St-Cyr looked anxiously back towards the troops and Boemelburg’s car, but there was no sign of anyone, so well were the men hidden.

Then he realized tears were misting his eyes and lamely said to the others, ‘This way, I think.’

Merde , it was terrible knowing the shots could come at any moment. Why do they not get it over with then? he demanded. Why must they torment us like this?

‘Janwillem De Vries was the “package”, wasn’t he?’ he said bitterly to Gabrielle who was in front of him. Suzanne-Cecilia had fallen back a little. ‘When I talked to Rene Yvon-Paul, he told me things were far too difficult for them. After De Vries had done all the robberies you had arranged for him, he was to have been taken to Chateau Theriault to meet up with the local Resistance. From there, what was it to have been?’

Neither of them replied. Gabrielle pulled off one of her mittens to break a small icicle from the lip of a rocky ledge. It was so beautiful.

‘Your Vouvray people were to have taken the Gyspy where?’ he demanded. ‘Was he to meet his next contact under the tail of the bronze horse?’

Lyon was a centre of the Resistance and one of their meeting-places, known just as he had given it, was near the equestrian statue of Louis XIV in place Bellecour, but how had Jean-Louis learned of it? ‘Lyon is far too dangerous now,’ she said. ‘Our contacts in Vouvray had agreed to take him through Chateau-roux to Limoges, Toulouse and Narbonne.’

‘And then?’ he asked, subdued.

It was Suzanne-Cecilia who said, ‘Perpignan and then into Andorra.’

‘Via the tobacco smugglers of Las Pscalades?’ he asked.

‘And from there into Spain to Seo de Urgel and Cordoba.’

The truth at last. ‘Then Gibralter,’ he sighed. ‘The diamonds would have been proof enough of the Reich’s desperate need for them. It’s a tragedy it went so badly, but what I cannot forgive is that you didn’t take Hermann and myself into your confidence. We could have helped!’

He was really upset and was needing answers. ‘I tried to keep you both out of it,’ said Gabrielle sadly. ‘I knew that Hermann would be placed in an untenable position, and with him, Giselle and Oona. Oh for sure, I had faith in him but even so, it was not simply up to me. The decision had to come from all of us.’

‘We were striking a fantastic blow for France, Jean-Louis,’ said Suzanne-Cecilia earnestly.

‘And the money the Gypsy stole? Was it to have funded the Resistance?’

Must he press so hard? wondered Gabrielle, dismayed to be facing him like this. ‘They were to have taken it south. Eventually it was to have reached the maquis of the Auvergne and those in the Haute Savoie.’

‘They are desperate for funds,’ confided Suzanne-Cecilia, hesitantly reaching out to him. ‘We … we had worked it all out. At least 100,000,000. It’s a lot, but …’ Hastily she wiped away her tears. ‘But it wasn’t to be.’

‘Did the Spade learn of your plans?’ he asked.

‘Why must you keep harping about that one?’ demanded Gabrielle, in tears herself.

‘Did Tshaya tell him of what Janwillem De Vries knew of us – is this what you’re thinking?’ blurted Suzanne-Cecilia.

‘You know that is what I wondering. Mon Dieu , why must you both be so stubborn? Why can you not tell me everything now? The Gypsy is in there among the ruins with others. He’ll have wired the place, will have created a last refuge, lines of defence, escape routes most certainly.’

‘Perhaps, then, you had best ask him when we find him,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Perhaps either he or Tshaya will tell you so that you … you will not believe us guilty of such a sadistic murder!’

‘The Generalmajor Wehrle had no choice but to kill himself,’ interjected Suzanne-Cecilia earnestly. ‘Once he learned Nana was seriously under suspicion, and then of Gabrielle’s arrest and the raid on my wireless set, he knew precisely what awaited him at the hands of his fellow Nazis.’