Rosie's War (24 page)

‘I am sorry, but this is necessary,’ she added. ‘The contact who’ll be bringing you over the border won’t be here until tonight.’ She hurried back to her duties elsewhere.

It was a long, boring day stuck in that back room with nothing to do and no books to read. We spent a few uncomfortable and suffocating periods locked in the wardrobe keeping absolutely silent. We were pent-up with excitement and expectation, for the Swiss border and freedom seemed almost within touching distance. That evening our contact was brought to see us. He was a tall, thin man who could not have been much older than I was. He paced the room nervously and could hardly look us in the eyes as he told us the news.

‘The main problem in getting you out of France is that this whole area on both sides is heavily policed by German, French and Swiss guards,’ he began. ‘Last week a
passeur
took three escaping English soldiers over. One fell and twisted his ankle. The others carried him but they were all caught, including my compatriot. We have no news of him yet.’

‘How much will it cost?’ asked Frida, cutting straight to the point, as ever. She’d realized what the man’s nerves were about. ‘We’ve got money to pay.’

‘There is perhaps someone who will take you over. But it will cost 10,000 francs,’ he replied, turning his head away.

We stared at him, open mouthed. ‘But that’s robbery!’ I shouted. ‘We’ve only got about 1,000 francs between us. You can have it all.’

‘That’s not enough.’

‘You’ve got to help us. We’ve escaped from a camp and just want to get home. We’re not tourists. We can’t go back. You can have all the money we’ve got.’

‘This is war, Mademoiselle, not one of your cricket matches.’ And with that rather fatuous reply he stormed out. The young woman looked at us apologetically.

‘I shall arrange for you to return to Besançon as soon as possible,’ she said and left the room.

We were shocked. We had come so far and were now only a few miles from freedom. I sat on the bed, stunned. Frida took charge of the situation.

‘We’ve got to change our plans, Pat. We’ll go over the line into the Unoccupied Zone and then down to Marseille. We can get a boat from there.’

‘How do you know? You’re just guessing. It’ll be just as difficult to get across the line. They might want even more money.’

‘No. I’ve heard it’s not as bad as the Swiss border. There are only a few German sentries on bicycles with guard dogs. And that’s for a border hundreds of miles long. Come on, it’s the only thing left for us.’

The hotel manageress was as good as her word. We were taken back to Besançon in a decrepit lorry later that evening and spent a rather miserable night above the bicycle shop. By dawn we were on our way south again to a village called Arbois on the demarcation line. To our amazement we were driven there in an official police car. ‘Vive le BBC!’ were the policeman’s parting words as he left us at a farmhouse.

The old couple there led us into the kitchen and then left us alone. They had their own work to do in the fields. We were learning fast that people who helped us had to keep up the routine of their normal lives, to hide the huge risks they were taking. This often meant that they hardly spoke to us, if at all. As it got dark the couple came back from the fields. We all sat by the fire in silence, waiting for the guide that the policeman had promised us. When he finally arrived he turned out to be a rather pimply boy of no more than about fifteen.

‘200 francs each,’ he quickly told us. ‘And don’t make a sound. We’ll be there in a few hours.’

The old lady gave us some bread, which we put into our pockets. We followed him out. He seemed very unconcerned. I got the impression that he did this trip regularly. Well, if that was the case it was easier for him than it was for me.

We had only a few miles of the wooded, boggy country to cross but it was rough going. It was a moonlit night and very cold. We could hear the dogs baying far away; I shivered at the thought of being savaged by an Alsatian. At one point I sank into a bog. The boy pulled me clear and put his hand deep into the squelchy mud to retrieve my rather sorry-looking boot.

The crossing was a nightmare: the swamps, the cold, the fearsome noise of the dogs in the darkness and the thought of being shot by a German guard. And all the time we were pushing though thick woodland with the branches catching in our clothes. There was no track and I was terrified that the boy would go too fast and leave us in this dark wood. Not once did he look round to see if we were following and we didn’t dare get too close in case the branches that he was pushing through came swinging back into our faces.

He stopped. ‘Keep quiet and stay here. I have to do something for my father. I’ll be back soon.’ With that he was gone.

Frida and I looked at each other in horror. I reached out and took her hand. I didn’t want to be left alone. All I could hear was the noise of the dogs at the other side of the wood. There is something so primeval about that sound; perhaps it’s the instinctive terror of the hunted. I don’t know what we would have done if it had gone on much longer. Probably fled back through the bog to light and people. The boy suddenly reappeared, just as quietly as he had left. Without a word he simply started walking again, with Frida and I stumbling along behind. Suddenly he turned to us as we approached a river.

‘We’re near the line now,’ he whispered. ‘Be absolutely quiet. If I hear a sentry I will run. Be ready. Here, hold my hand.’

We crept out from the wood to the small track used by the soldiers. There was no one about. We moved slowly down to a little bridge and were met by a friend of his who was about the same age.

‘You’re in the
zone libre
,’ he said by way of greeting.

‘Vive la France!’ Frida shouted as we hugged each other. ‘We’ve made it.’

‘Quiet! The Germans will still shoot if they see you.’ Our guide put his finger to his lips in alarm.

The boys took us to a farmhouse near by where their bicycles were propped up outside. We sat on the crossbars clutching our bags. It was like being the figurehead on a battering ram: they simply took their feet off the pedals and freewheeled at a terrifying speed down the steep hill to the village of Poligny. We stopped at the back of an inn where our guide knocked at the door. A man came out and nodded in our direction. Not a word was said by anyone. Our guides seemed to melt away before we could even thank them.

The proprietor’s wife led us into the kitchen. She was a friendly, motherly woman of about fifty. Over a meal of hot bean broth she began to explain about life on this side of the demarcation line.

‘Be careful,’ she warned us. ‘Where you have just come from you can see your enemy in their uniforms and everyone knows the collaborators. Here it is different. The Germans don’t wear their uniforms and in Vichy France everyone suspects his neighbour. If you have to speak at all, speak in French.’

We had dried off by now and felt much warmer. She took a candle and showed us up the stairs. At the top she halted and turned round to look at us.

‘We have to go through another room to get to your bedroom,’ she said. ‘It is occupied by the sister of a policeman. She will report you if she hears you speaking English. Just so that you know.’

We were past caring. I was so tired that I curled up on the bed and went to sleep without a word. The next morning we were up late. Thankfully, our neighbour in the next room had gone. Sitting downstairs in the warm kitchen we told the family about our escape. We were among friends. Henri, the proprietor, was a soulful looking man who had been badly wounded at Verdun in 1916. He took out a bottle of brandy and toasted us. I drank it happily even though it was not yet midday.

‘Tell them in London,’ he said, ‘that not all of France has given in to the Germans.’

As he couldn’t organize a lift for us to Lyon until the next day, we spent that afternoon with his older daughter, a rabidly anti-German girl of about twenty. She proudly took us to meet her friends. Perhaps this was not the wisest thing to do but she was terribly eager to show us off. Talking to them we began to understand how the age-old animosity between the north and south of the country had been inflamed by the new division imposed by the Germans. Rumours of the behaviour on either side of this fortified line were cleverly circulated to build up jealousy and despair. They also told us of the intrigue and double-dealing that went on in Vichy France.

‘Sometimes people just disappear,’ a rather serious girl told us.

I was amazed. ‘But surely you know what’s happened and why? I mean, you must see them leaving their homes with the German soldiers?’

She shook her head. ‘You won’t see many German soldiers around here. It’s the
gendarmes
who do the dirty work. I saw them hustle our neighbour into a car.’

‘Something similar happened to me in Paris,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘But you weren’t on the German list simply because someone hated you.’

This group of friends were desperate to help us get away. We were touched by the enthusiasm of everyone that we met on our first day in Unoccupied France. Indeed, we had had nothing but help in both zones over the past few days. Our journey from Besançon up to the Swiss border, back again and now over the demarcation line had been organized by a network of people who had risked a great deal for us. No one seemed to ask just who these English girls who needed help were. After all, we could easily have been spies or informers, yet people didn’t hesitate to help us.

This spirit of self-sacrifice and bravery was very different to the widespread image of French collapse and cowardice that we encountered when we got back to London. Frida and I were to travel all over Britain in the months that followed our return, giving talks about our experiences. I see from my notes for one of them that I said, ‘Thanks to the French people who sheltered us, fed us and gave us money at the risk of their lives we made our way … ’ That was no exaggeration.

Early the following day a silk merchant drove us to Lyon while we sang our hearts out in the safe confines of a big car jogging hesitantly along on poor petrol. We were heading for the US Consulate. As in Paris, this still-neutral country had a British Interests Section attached to its diplomatic mission. It was our intention to see if we could get some sort of protection from the US authorities to travel on the Paris-Lyon-Marseille express. Our driver dropped us on the outskirts of the city, as he was heading off elsewhere. He told us that even though it was Sunday the concierge at the Consulate would be around; he could help us with somewhere to stay for the night. We set off into town. It was a long walk and it wasn’t until early afternoon that we finally got to the Consulate. We found it completely shut up with no sign of anyone, let alone a concierge. We looked at each other in despair.

‘We can’t wander around yet another town until tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Our luck is only going to take us so far.’

‘Well, we don’t have any choice. Come on, let’s see Lyon and then decide what to do.’

It felt so odd walking around looking at shops with goods on display in the windows and to see people bustling about. The absence of German uniforms and posters on the streets was strange. We both felt a little overwhelmed and took refuge in a cinema. We saw a dreadful film on the life of Beethoven. It was one of those soupy hagiographies where Beethoven kept gazing out of the window looking constipated while music rose around him. We didn’t care. At least it put off the moment of having to make a decision.

‘Pat,’ Frida whispered as the film swelled to its finish. ‘I don’t think we can wait. Our papers aren’t good enough to risk in a strange hotel and I’m nervous here. We don’t know anything about this city.’

‘I agree. Let’s just take our chances on the train to Marseille.’

‘Fine,’ Frida said after some hesitation. ‘Somehow or other we’ll contact the US Consul once we’re there. At least we’ll be on the coast and not stuck in the middle of France.’

We were both worried and frightened about getting the train without official US help. Henri in Poligny had told us that the train could be heavily patrolled as it came from Paris and crossed the demarcation line. But what else could we do? Maybe we were influenced by the previous afternoon’s talk but Lyon definitely felt different from Besançon and Nancy. It was full of elegant buildings and busy streets, yet was curiously oppressive. We had had such high hopes when crossing the line but now we just wanted to get away. We picked up our bags and went straight to the station, which was as beautiful, impressive and dangerous as the rest of the city.

It was a nerve-racking journey. The train lurched and shuddered its way down to Marseille. At any moment we expected to hear the order ‘Vos papiers, s’il vous plaît.’ It never came. I don’t know if the atmosphere was a projection of our own fears, but the whole train felt tense and worried. People were quiet or talking in whispers. They seemed to be waiting for something or perhaps someone to come and demand what everyone was doing there. No one came, nothing happened. Slowly, slowly we pulled into Marseille.

And then we realized why the train had been empty of officials. An inspection was indeed going to take place, but much more thoroughly and much more slowly at the ticket barrier. As we disembarked we could see a group of officials ahead, carefully checking the passengers’ papers. The beginning of a long queue was forming. We joined it, not looking at each other, knowing that this was the end. There was no way our papers were going to fool this sort of official check.