Remember the roses

Robert glanced skyward at the wide bands searchlight probing the London sky and then went up the steps into the sandbag shielded building in Whitehall. Colonel Peers was waiting in the underground room and turned from a large wall map of France as he entered.

“Ah, Captain Phillips, I didn't think you'd get here so soon. Sit down and I’ll brief you.” He opened a file on his desk and handed Robert a photograph. “That's Paul Renard. He's head of Resistance in Normandy. Two days ago we heard he'd been taken by the Gestapo.” He paused and drew a breath. “Captain, in just one week from now the Allied forces will land in France.”

Robert, like everyone else in Britain, had been expecting an invasion but the statement still came as something of a shock. “A week?”

“Yes. I can't tell you just where the landings will take place but I can say this. We’ve gone to immense trouble to fool the enemy. Right now he's concentrating his defenses on a quite useless stretch of beach. Our actual landing point is known to only a few.''

“And Paul Renard is one of them,'' Robert guessed.

“We knew it was a risk but we needed support from be Resistance. You know as well as I do the strongest men can break under the Gestapo. It isn’t just a question of courage. Renard must be reached. Either rescued or…” He moved his hand in a helpless gesture, “Or silenced. It isn't pleasant. To have to kill an ally. But thousands of lives are at stake.”

Robert nodded. It wasn't the first time a Resistance worker had been eliminated because he knew too much. He knew now why the Brigadier had picked him. For him it wouldn't be a new experience.

“Where is he being held?” Colonel Peers rose and tapped the wall map. “Here, in Rouen, the old prison near the market place. The local Resistance has a plan for getting him out but it calls for someone with fluent German and none of them could speak it.”

“When do I leave?"

"Tommorow night. A car will take you to our airfield in Kent. You'll be briefed on your cover there and then knitted out. It's got ot be a quick job. I don't want you in France for more than twenty-four hours". He held out his hand, his face suddenly older. "I hope you to succeeed, Captain. If there is a leak it would be another Dieppe, only worse. Much worse"

"I'll do my best, sir" Robert shook the proffered hand and saluted, conscious, as he turned away, of a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Another drop, his fifth, and the odds of survival grew less each time. But worse than the thought of the capture was the knowledge that he might have to kill an ally. Again. in cold blood. That was a particular kind of horror. Even his own memories of the slaughter at Dieppe failed to take away the sour taste in his mouth.

Robert knelt on the damp grass and bundled the billowing folds of his parachute into the hole. Around him the woods were quiet, he expected torch signal nowhere to be seen. There could be a hundred reasons why no one had to come to meet him but the unexpected was still rather alarming. Ofcourse, the Germans were expecting the second front. They'd be thightening up, making government difficult. Even so it wasn't like the French undergroung to let a man down.

He stood up, kicking leaves over thr freshly dug earth, and headed eastwards towards, the town.

Pierre Delon lived ar number sixteen rue de Derriere and as second in command to Paul Renard he;d be his best contact.He kept to the fields, hugging the shadow of the hedges wherever possible and stopping at the slightest sound. His cover had been dreamed up in a hurry and wouldn;t stand up to any close scrutiny. A farmhand from Balbec en route to a job in Evreux might pass an answer if he was stopped, but under interrogation the story just wouldn't hold up.

The first outlying streets ofRouen closed around him and he slowed his pace, dodging into a doorway as the steady tramp booted feet passed closed by. The rue de Derriere was in center of the town, close by the river, and it took forty minutes of unalleviated tension before he reached it.

Everything was quiet, the Street deserted, and he was conscious of his footsteps echoing on the cobbles. Number sixteen was in darkness and he lifted his hand to rhe knocker, raising the heavy iron. A cold tickle of fear ran through him, a presentiment of danger. Logic told him there was no reason for it. Everything was as it should be. But the feeling persisted, even imstinct urging him to run. He lowered the knocker slowly and it squeaked and he removed his hand.

Inside house something clicked and suddenly he knew his instict was right. It was the click of the bolt. A rifle bolt.

He was halfwat down the Street. His running footsteps ringing hollowly on the cobbles, as the first burst of fire raked the wall beside him. He swung around the corner and heard a car engine roar into life. Moments later the headlights swept over him as the car turned the corner after him and another spray to bullets chipped some splunters from the wall above his head.

A dark alleway offered refuge and he raced down it, emering on a narrow wharf. High walls enclosed it on three sides and on other ran the Seine.

He stopped and leant back against a wall, regaining his breath while he looked around for a way. Stone steps led down on the river and he started down them as heavy footsteps sounded in the alley. He could try to swim away. I was unlikely he;d get very far even if he eluded his immediate pursuers. A man in dripping wet clothes would stick out like a sore thumb.

The brackish water sopped against the green, slime-covered stone, and in the darkness a shadow moved against the faintly luminous water.

He pressed himself back against the stone embankment as the shadowy figure came up the steps.

"Come out with your hand up"

The order came in guttural English from the whar above. The slight figure paused beside him and he had a vague impression of pale blonde hair, cut short like a boy’s but the voice, heavily accented. was that of a girl.

"You are an Englishmen?"

He nodded and she caught his arm. "This way follow me."

She urged him on down the steps and he saw for the first time a gaping hole in the bank. Without hesitation she went in and he followed, grimacing in distaste as the stretch of sewer reached him. Shots sounded behind him and he quickened his pace, splashing through the stream of foul water that was dimly lit by moonlight glancing through the drains above.

The girl stopped and turned to him. “Now we go up.” she pointed to an iron ladder sat into the side of sewer and, grateful to escape from the overpowering smell, he went up it, pushing open the manhole at the top.

Above was a large, lighted room and as he emerged and locked around he realised it was a crypt. Thick pillars rose to a vaulted roof and at one end stood a stone altar.

The girl climbed over him and he replaced the cover. For the first time he had a good look at her. she was dressed in the way most women in the Resistance dressed. Black trouser, dark woollen jumper worn under a leather jacket and a Sten gun hitched over one shoulder. She was attractive in a boyish sort of way. Her face was a little too strong and determined to be labelled beautiful and yet there was a magnetism about her that made him decide that, once seen, she would never be forgotten. She smiled at him with a touch of shyness.

“My English is not good?”

“I speak French, ma’mselle.” He dropped into her language.

“I don’t know how you managed to find me but I’m very grateful.”

“You need help. I knew you were coming.”

“I was supposed to be met outside of the town. What happened?”

“The Resistance in this town is broken. They have all been arrested. Someone betrayed them…and you. As they are not aware of your reason for coming.”

“You know why I’m here?”

She nodded. “To rescue Reynard”

“With the Resistance out of action I don’t know how I’ll manage it” He realised suddenly that she hadn’t told her name. By way of invitation he held out his hand. “” I’m Robert Phillips.”

She smiled and took his hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “They call me Jehane Jehane Lebrun.”

“I don;’t suppose you know where they’re keeping Reynard?”

“In the old prison. In the room above the one I was in.”