Rosie's War (9 page)

Over the summer I got to know the
Septième
well. But (as at the hospital) I had neither the time nor the inclination to go further afield. The little I knew of what was happening in the outside world came mainly from the rumours brought to the canteen. This was perhaps why I got so easily rattled by the pro-German police. They knew of my worry about my family in England and loved goading
la sale petite anglaise
.

Now that I was based in the centre of Paris I saw on the walls the propaganda posters aimed against the British: John Bull the killer; Churchill as a menacing octopus, his tentacles crushing screaming victims; and one showing a drowning sailor holding a French flag with the caption ‘Remember Oran’. This last poster totally perplexed me at first, given my lack of information or news about the war, until someone explained that the British had sunk most of the French navy at Oran in North Africa, so as to prevent it from falling into German hands. It didn’t take long for some of the police at the canteen to start complaining loudly at how the Royal Navy had murdered hundreds of French sailors.

The Place de la Concorde was bannered with bright yellow instructions and directions signed by the German Kommandant of Paris. The civilian population (unlike the police) generally found their conquerors to be courteous and correct in those early months. German soldiers were allowed to gorge themselves on chocolate and butter, take local girls out to dances and wander round the city calling out ‘Spazierengehen, Fräulein?’ in the hope of getting a date. It was all very disturbing to me, to say the least. At night, in the concierge’s little spare room, I would hear the drunken singing of songs such as ‘Wir Fliegen nach England’ from the bar below.

One of the policemen at the canteen gave me a bicycle that had been left behind in the exodus. Naturally it had a crossbar and was so large that I could not put both my feet on the ground when I wanted to stop. As in Avignon, I became a source of great amusement to those who watched from the cafe tables as I struggled to control this massive machine. Luckily there was little traffic. Even the Champs-Elysées was often deserted, as few people had permits for private cars. I soon learnt which of the police on duty on the roads were anti-English, as they were the ones who made me wait at the empty crossroads so that I toppled off my bike!

I had two male protectors that summer. One was Mr Edward Sutton, the Deputy British Consul who was in charge of the British Interests Section at the US Embassy. I met him when I went to the embassy after I had been at the canteen for a few days. Perhaps I am being unfair, but it seems that Mr Sutton was one of the very few British consular officials who did not pack up and run as soon as the sound of German guns approached. He was a hardworking man from Guildford, in his early forties and with his thinning hair carefully drawn across his scalp. His face seemed to have a perpetual look of worry. Maybe this resulted from his being continually shouted and screamed at by irate English people who could not believe that the brave words ‘without let or hindrance’ on their passports did not, in reality, mean much.

As I sat in his office for the first time, he chided me gently for not having notified him immediately upon leaving the American Hospital. He also took over the responsibility of allotting me my small monthly allowance of 300 francs.

‘Now, what about your parents?’ he said in his quiet, measured way. He looked down at the paper on his desk. ‘Commander and Mrs Say. I don’t suppose that you’ve managed to contact them?’

‘I’ve written to them a couple of times but I’ve no idea if the letters have got through.’

‘Probably not,’ he said with a resigned smile.

‘I was rather hoping you could help me.’

‘Of course. Try and get something to me tomorrow if you can.’

As I returned to the canteen for my evening shift, I realized that I was hiding from this mild-mannered official the desperate concern that I felt for my family in London. I had recently witnessed the chaotic fall of Paris and was convinced that London was about to experience a similar fate.

My real worries on this point show up clearly in my first letter home from the American Hospital. Amazingly, my parents received it many months after it had been sent. Written just days after I had witnessed the German army entering Paris, its tone is quite breathless, almost hysterical:

It is just sheer bad luck that I should have got everything fixed and arranged on the very day that I should have kept away from Paris – I got in like a lamb … if only I can feel that you … above all are making arrangements in case of emergency to get out … do believe me that you will be in a terrible position without a car … I must feel that you will not stay in such imminent danger. I wouldn’t try and write to me. I think of you all practically without ceasing and have learnt to be brave … please get somewhere as safe as possible … remember go quickly or it will be impossible. My love – my love – Baba.

The day after my first meeting with Mr Sutton, I arrived back at his office with a letter in a similar vein. It would have both terrified and alarmed my poor parents if it had ever reached them, particularly at that time when Britain seemed to be on the brink of invasion. Mr Sutton read my words, paused thoughtfully and began to make amendments with a pencil.

‘Try to sound confident, Miss Say,’ he advised. ‘Not frightened. Your parents would not get much relief if they received this letter.’

‘But aren’t the Germans going to attack us any day? Look how quickly France collapsed. Won’t we go the same way? I want my parents to leave London now!’

I looked at him imploringly. I was near to tears and almost hysterical with fear. Apart from Ben in the hospital, Mr Sutton was the only English person that I had had a conversation with since the German army had arrived in Paris a month before. I had been subjected to a barrage of victorious German propaganda over the previous few weeks and found it difficult to believe that England could hold out for long against the expected German onslaught.

‘We can only hope for the best,’ he said quietly, handing me his draft. ‘Look, try something along the lines I’ve suggested here. You may use the room next door. But please hurry. I need to get this off by noon.’

I went into the little room beside his office and wrote a much jollier letter. In it I lied that the people at the canteen were ‘extremely kind’ and exaggerated somewhat that the concierge looked after me as though I were her daughter. I reassured my family that having got myself into this mess I had landed on my feet and was in no danger. I ended:

Have confidence in me above all – this is a wonderful experience and I am in no danger. I may be home any time, any day – you won’t worry any more will you? God keep you safely dearest M and Pappa … remember I have good, influential friends and will not run any risks.

I kept up this brisk, almost matter-of-fact tone in the next letter that I was able to send in early August via Mr Sutton. I even claimed that this sudden change of existence was doing me a lot of good. I was in the safest possible spot, I wrote: ‘I shall probably come home bristling with efficiency!’

Mr Sutton took a fatherly interest in me. On my afternoons off I would go with him to Chantilly, to the Bois de Boulogne or in a
bateau mouche
along the Seine. We seemed to talk mainly about how to get out of Paris. One day I went to meet him at the embassy to be told that he was no longer there. I discovered that he had gone with the first batch of British men to an internment camp in Germany. I never saw him again.

My other male protector that summer was a policeman at the canteen called André Boinet. He was a tall, good-looking young man who had recently got married. He was very pro-English and saw to it that I was protected from the numerous hostile policemen who patronized the place.

On a couple of occasions André took me to drink coffee with friends of his at the Paris Mosque near the Botanical Gardens. This was a wonderful treat: the total peace and quiet inside the lovely building, the beauty of the colours, the breath of an ancient civilization not yet in chaos. All this calmed and soothed me. I remember sitting with him on the steps leading to the Tuileries Gardens one hot afternoon, watching the horses of the little roundabout going quietly round with no children to ride them. I did not feel isolated or alone when André was near. He helped me to settle down to my canteen life without bothering too much about the outside world.

Yet even in the most determined isolation the outside world has a strange way of impinging. One memorable afternoon I was finishing lunch in a deserted canteen when André came in looking very worried.

‘Mam’zelle Rose,’ he whispered.

‘What is it? There’s no one here, you can speak up.’ I immediately began to panic.

‘I have something to ask you. Some old friends of mine have been hiding two English soldiers in their home. They have fed them and given them French clothes to make their getaway. My friends are frightened now. The soldiers have stayed too long. They should leave before anyone notices. Could you speak to them?’

‘Of course’, I said. ‘Give me a few minutes to clear things away.’

We drove in silence in his police car to the south of Paris. I was worried. Of course, I wanted to help André who had been so good to me over these past few weeks. But for the first time I was coming into contact with people on the run. If we were caught the consequences could be severe. A decree had recently gone out that anyone found harbouring British nationals without registering their names at the local police station would be
en peine de mort
.

We arrived at the small house. The elderly owners ushered us silently up to the attic where the soldiers were hidden. I received a shock. In front of me were two vast Scotsmen fast asleep in their makeshift beds, with empty wine bottles, dirty plates and playing cards strewn over the floor. They were complete with sporrans and kilts. One of them had flaming red hair. It was as if they had come straight from a casting agency looking for stereotypical Scotsmen! I burst out laughing, much to the surprise and annoyance of André and his friends.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, quickly stifling my amusement. ‘But I don’t see how they could possibly pass for Frenchmen. They could hardly pass for Englishmen.’

We woke up the two slumbering giants. Their accents were difficult even for me to decipher, so goodness knows how the elderly couple had coped. After some time I came to understand that they were prepared to make their way to the Pyrenees and over into Spain if I would accompany them.

‘We canna make it on our own, missie,’ said the red-headed one. ‘Ye ken the language here.’

‘I can’t possibly go with you,’ I replied. ‘I’m registered with the German
Kommandatur
as a British citizen and I have to sign in every day.’

‘Och, so yer’s a spy,’ he said in disgust and spat on the floor in front of me.

André took a step forward. For a fleeting moment I had a horrible vision of him trying to tackle the two of them single-handed.

‘Now look here,’ I informed them haughtily. ‘You are endangering the lives of these good people who are sheltering you. If you are caught, you’ll be put in a POW camp. But they won’t be so lucky. They’ll probably be shot. The same goes for me.’

André translated this to his friends who nodded vigorously in agreement.

‘Anyway,’ I continued. ‘It’s your duty as soldiers to make your way back to your regiment at all costs. You simply have to clear off.’ My prissy impersonation of a schoolmistress seemed to do the trick. They weren’t deserters, they were just biding their time a while.

André informed me a few days later that they had left that very night. When I eventually got back to Britain I made some enquiries and found out that they had indeed managed to get home (complete with kilts and sporran). They had even been decorated for devotion to duty.

At the end of August, when the concierge at the canteen fell ill, I moved temporarily to the Young Women’s Christian Association by the Champs-Elysées. A few Englishwomen were staying at the hostel but my long hours of work meant I had virtually no contact with them. Very early each morning I walked across the Pont de la Concorde, past the Chamber of Deputies and along the Boulevard Saint-Germain to the canteen. We were now past the heat of midsummer and the mornings were often misty. These walks were wonderfully peaceful.

As the summer progressed, Parisians began to trickle back to the capital with terrible stories of the exodus: bombing on the roads, starvation, families separated, children lost and similar horrors. For most of them it would probably have been better to have stayed put in the first place. But the government had, after all, fled Paris just before the Germans’ arrival and the collaborationists had made things worse by encouraging people to flee. The herd instinct had simply taken over.

The atmosphere in the city changed as the months went by. Those who were Jewish or who had no papers began to hide as best they could. The increasing lack of food and a raging black market dominated many people’s thoughts. Propaganda was rife and false rumours circulated by the hour. One report that persisted for a number of days at the height of the Battle of Britain was that Churchill had been replaced as Prime Minister by Lord Halifax, who was suing for peace. Ridiculous to imagine now perhaps, but it is difficult for anyone who has not experienced it at first hand to understand the insidious power of propaganda and rumour after weeks of hearing practically nothing else.