Rebels and roses

Northern French coast, 1942

Hélène put on her best fake smile as the German officer approached the tobacco stand.

‘Leutnant Dorn, n'est-ce pas?’ she said from behind the counter. Although she hated the way the Nazis were running roughshod over her beloved fishing town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, it paid to be polite and remember the names of the big cheeses in the occupying force. 

Surprise spread across Dorn’s craggy face. ‘Richtig. I’m flattered you have learnt my name.’ He threw her a stiff smile. ‘And you are Hélène, correct? How could I forget the only one-eyed beauty in this dusty little place.’

Hélène blushed despite herself. When she was twelve years old she had been out exploring the countryside with her two older brothers, something they’d done often when the summer days were long and life seemed full of dreams, just waiting to become true. She tripped over something in the ground, something hard and metallic. Kids in post-First World War France being every bit as inquisitive as kids in every other time and place, they dug around the object which turned out to be an unspent mortar round from that very conflict.  

Her oldest brother, Guillaume, didn’t survive the subsequent blast while their sibling Denis had to have both of his arms amputated below the elbow. Hélène got off relatively lightly in only receiving a piece of burning shrapnel through her right eye. After several days of excruciating pain, doctors said there was no choice but to remove the eye altogether.

After she recovered she had always worn a pirate-style eye patch and nursed a deep-seated rage for the people who had sown such deadly seeds in the soil of her country.

‘Two packs of Gauloises and a box of matches, if you please.’

Hélène snapped back from her reverie, handed Dorn the cigarettes and picked up the coins he tossed on the counter. 

‘What sort of secrets do you hide under that patch anyway?’ Dorn asked with a chuckle in what Hélène thought was possibly the worst attempt at a pick-up line she had ever heard. 

If only you knew, Herr Leutnant, you would wet your damned pants. 

‘Oh, you know,’ she said. ‘Just an apple or two and a few pieces of ham in case I get peckish.’

Dorn chuckled at the comeback. ‘You know, I would look after you well if you agreed to us…becoming closer. I have plenty of victuals at my apartment - lamb, cheese, and even chocolate and wine. Come with me once you have finished your shift and we could have our own little feast.’

Hélène’s stomach rumbled at the thought of it. Wartime rationing had bit hard and she was hungry. Plenty of young French women had agreed to play the part of a German officer’s mistress in exchange for plentiful food and preferential treatment, but the thought of it had always repelled her. 

‘I hope you don’t mind letting me think about it for a little while longer?’ She turned to fill the cigarette racks with packets, hoping Dorn would go away.

‘Very well, but I assure you I won’t be “on the market” forever.’ He winked, gave her a curt little bow and turned on his heel.

The German soldiers stationed to Boulogne generally fell into one of two categories, Hélène thought. There were the hard cases who gave the locals icy stares and face slaps at every opportunity. Then there were others thought of themselves as charmers. They chatted to shopkeepers, took French girlfriends and even learnt some of the language. 

But Dorn, she considered, was a third type. He clearly wanted to be a charmer but failed miserably with his clumsy humour. He didn’t seem to have the guts to be a hard case, but she suspected he could be cruel.

Hélène heard two slow knocks followed by three quick ones on the door at the back of the tobacco stand. Antoine! What was he doing here? She opened the door a crack and he whispered through. ‘Hélène, I have found something. It could be big.’

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Meet me in the cellar in five minutes.’

Giving Antoine enough time to disappear, she looked out onto the street in all directions. Seeing there was no-one watching, she drew the shutters and locked up. A short distance away amid a row of shops was a small, covered alley which led through to a private garden. Hélène unlocked its gate and pushed through, then used her keys again to open an innocuous doorway on a side wall. A spiral staircase led down to a stone-walled cellar, and this was where Hélène carried out what she considered to be her ‘real’ job - as the leader of a cell in the French resistance. 

‘So, what have you found,’ she said to Antoine. He was holding a band of camera film, examining the negatives in front of a low-hanging light bulb, the only only illumination in the room aside from a couple of stubby candles on a central bench.

‘It looks like a new type of radar installation. I came across it yesterday when I when I was cycling, about fifteen miles west. It’s set well off the road and there were a lot of patrols. I went back at at daybreak. It was quieter and I managed to sneak up and get some photos.’

‘Fantastique!’ Hélène said. ‘The Allies need to know about this. It could have a big impact on their bombing runs into Germany. We should pass it on to the SOE agent in Saint-Étienne.’

The SOE, or Special Operations Executive, was Winston Churchill’s spy and sabotage outfit operating in France. Sometimes known as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, its agents were dispatched into Nazi-controlled areas with the direction to ‘set Europe ablaze’. For several months there had been one in hiding at a farm in a nearby village, who was sending messages across the English Channel using carrier pigeons.

‘Can you put something on the film, a message so they can pinpoint the location of the radar?’ 

Antoine poured over a map and wrote a tiny string of numbers of a scrap of paper which Hélène surmised were the co-ordinates of the new station. He then attached the paper to the film with a dab of drying wax from base of one of the candles.

Hélène nodded approvingly. ‘Now, we have to hide this, somewhere the Germans won’t look if you get searched.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘I have an idea.’ 

She quickly climbed the steps to the garden and descended a moment later with a bunch of roses, their petals a deep pink. She wrapped the film around the flowers’ stems and reached into a wide pocket in the folds of her dress, taking out a couple of pieces of string and a carefully folded paper bag. She tied the stems together with the string and put the bunch, stems first, into the bag. Then she delved into her pocket again, took out a red ribbon and tied it around the stems on the outside of the bag.

‘Wonderful,’ Hélène beamed. ‘A perfect gift for our British spy friend.’

‘You really have everything in there,’ Antoine said, nodding to the pocket from where the ribbon, string and bag had emerged.

‘Oh, you haven’t seen the half of it,’ she said. 

Frustrated by the lack of in-built pockets on off-the-rack dresses, Hélène had taken to sewing in her own, which she populated with a range of handy bits and pieces.

Antoine took the flowers. ‘I’ll go now to Saint-Étienne.’

Hélène clasped him on the shoulder. ‘Be quick. And bonne chance.’

He flashed a wry smile and made is way back to the street, making for a bicycle he had left propped up on the wall of a nearby café. 

Antoine rounded a corner and ran straight into someone coming the other way, and while he was able to keep his footing the other guy was knocked straight to the ground.

Antoine realised, to his horror, that it was Leutnant Dorn.

‘Merde!’ He went to help the officer to his feet but Dorn batted away the proffered hand and pushed himself up. He seemed furious.

‘You fool,’ Dorn said. ‘Don’t you provincial pig-shaggers ever look where you’re going?’

‘I’m so sorry Leutnant. It won’t happen again.’

‘I hope not,’ Dorn said, brushing down his uniform. ‘Or I’ll have you cleaning toilets at the soldiers’ barracks until the Führer’s ninetieth birthday. Where do you think you’re going with those anyway?’ He said, motioning to the bunch of roses.

Antoine stuttered. ‘Oh, these? They are for my mother. It’s her birthday tomorrow.’

‘Ha! You’d be better off taking the old crone a dead rat. She’d get more protein out of it for a start.’

Antoine winced at the thought of his dear mama, sitting down to eat with a baked rodent on her plate. ‘Again, I’m so sorry, Herr Leutnant. I must be on my way.’ He straightened his gaze but Dorn grabbed his upper arm as his tried to pass. ‘Stop. Give those here.’

Antoine’s heart was racing. ‘Herr Leutnant, please, I really cannot…’

‘That was not a suggestion or even a request, pig-shagger. It was a command. Now give the flowers to me.’

Antoine felt a bead of sweat form on his forehead as Dorn rested his hand on the pistol dangling from his belt. For one hot moment he thought about running off, pushing the German over again or even punching him in the face.

But reluctantly, he handed over the bunch of flowers. An old French expression flashed into his mind - patience passe science - an ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains. 

Dorn harrumphed and stalked off while Antoine, nerves jangling, dashed back in the direction of the cellar and found Hélène emerging onto the street. She briefly froze with surprise and they ducked back into the cover of the alley.

‘What happened to you?’ Hélène asked.

‘I ran into Dorn. Rather too literally in fact. He took the flowers.’

‘Mon Dieu! If he finds the film we’re finished.’

Antoine looked puzzled. ‘What does he want with them away?’

Hélène screwed up her face. ‘It’s probably part of his plan to get into some French girl’s underwear.’ 

She felt another idea coming on. ‘I think I know how we can get it back. I want you to follow me, but at a discreet distance. If I go inside anywhere, wait outside, under a balcony or a window if there is one. Now which way did Dorn go?’

‘He was walking west down Grande Rue.’

‘The German officers all have apartments down there by the river, that’s where he must be headed. Let’s go, and remember, be discreet.’

Hélène set off towards the town’s main street, Antoine trailing. She spotted Dorn ambling listlessly along with the bunch of roses in his hand and changed course so she would pass by him.

‘Oh, Leutnant Dorn,’ she said in a surprised tone.

‘Hélène. How nice to see the town’s only one-eyed beauty twice in one day.’

She blushed and looked at the roses. ‘My word, they are beautiful.’

‘Every bit as much as you,’ he said and held them out. ‘Please, would you accept them as a token of my friendship?’ 

Hélène smiled and took the bunch. ‘Goodness me, you are so kind.’

‘It’s nothing. Now that you have gotten something from me, I must have something from you. And I would like your company at dinner, and you shall prepare it for us with the generous contents of my kitchen. Come, I live just across the street.’

‘I’d love to, but I have to get back to the tobacco stand.’

‘You can leave it for today. I really must insist.’

Hélène heard a touch of menace enter his voice.

This could get ugly quickly, she thought. I’ll have to play along for now.

She nodded assent and let Dorn put his arm around her waist, lead her across the road and up to his second-floor apartment.

They entered into a room with a kitchenette and a small wooden table. A door opposite led through to what Hélène thought must be the bedroom, and probably an en suite bathroom.

‘Make yourself at home,’ Dorn said. He took off his boots, lit a cigarette and unbuttoned his jacket.

Hélène looked around anxiously. ‘Do you have anywhere I can put the flowers, a vase perhaps?’

Dorn took a seat at the table. ‘Use a beer stein. They’re over there, bottom drawer.’

She carried the bunch into the kitchen and took out one of the ceramic mugs. Dorn was facing the other way but she positioned her body to hide what she was doing in case he turned around. She untied the ribbon, took the roses out of the paper bag and detached the strip of film. Then she quickly rolled up the film, put it into the bag and slid it into the pocket in the folds of her dress. That sorted, she filled the stein with water and the roses and turned to Dorn.

‘So, so pretty,’ she said. ‘I think they would look good next to your bed. And I need to use the bathroom, do you have one?’

He laughed. ‘Now I know what you’re thinking. I have a nightstand through there, and a bathroom,’ he said, nodding to the door. ‘But don’t forget, before we get down to business you have to prepare us a feast!’

Hélène suppressed a grimace. Not on your life, Herr Leutnant. She went into the bedroom and saw to her relief there was an open window framed by a single, grotty curtain swaying gently in the warm breeze. She stuck her head out and looked down to the street, where Antoine was thankfully below standing next to a laundry cart.

The cart was piled high with linen, presumably the dirty bedsheets from all the officers’ quarters in the area. She whistled out as loud as she dared, and Antione looked up in time to catch the paper bag with the film inside Hélène had dropped down to him.

‘What are you doing in there?’ Dorn called out. Don’t make me wait forever, my one-eyed beauty.’

‘I am just, ah, powdering my nose,’ Hélène said, as Antoine hurried away on the street below. Now the film was safe, she had to find a way to get out of there. Think quickly, Hélène, she told herself, or you’ll end up as dessert for this German fool.

 She went into the bathroom and pulled a roll of toilet paper off its holder, then went back to the window in the bedroom. Searching with her fingers in her pocket full of handy things, she retrieved a box of matches, lit one and put it to the toilet roll until it was well alight. Hélène dropped the burning mass out the window and it fell straight onto the laundry cart. She watched just long enough to see that the flames were spreading.

‘Ready for dinner?’ she said, forcing a smile as she went back into the room where Dorn was waiting.

‘You bet.’ He said. ‘I was just thinking we should..’ His words trailed off as they heard a woman yelling out from the street below.

‘Fire! It’s a fire!’ Both Hélène and Dorn rushed to the window and looked down onto the growing commotion.

‘Mon Dieu!’ said Hélène and moved towards the apartment door. ‘We have to get out of here.’