Obviously, the plane passed by. It didn’t linger over our field in particular either – must have been on some kind of routine patrol – don’t like to think what would have happened if it had done its fly-past while we were loading up a Lysander.
It sobered everybody up.
We drove the refugees and anyone else who fitted back to within a mile or two of their safe house, 3 bicycles tied on the running boards and roof of the Rosalie, the motor car absolutely jammed full with 3 of us in the front seat, 4 in the back, 2 in the boot and me and the w/op riding on the rear bumper and hanging on to the roof like baby monkeys clinging to their mum – the idea being that if we were stopped, she and I would at least be able to jump down and make a run for it. No one else would stand a chance. It’s marvellous, in a desperate kind of way, to opt for speed over subtlety – like screaming downhill to put out the fire when your aircraft’s in flames.
Every time we came to a gate, the two of us jumped down to open and shut it and took flying leaps back on to the rear bumper as the Rosalie set off again.
‘You’re so fortunate to be in Damask,’ the wireless girl shouted at me as we clattered through the dark – no lights, not even those useless, slitty blackout headlamps. Didn’t need them with the moon nearly full though. ‘Paul will take great care of you. And he’ll do everything he can to find your missing agent – that will be a matter of pride for him. He’s never lost any of his circuit before.’ Posh Southern English with a faint French accent. ‘My own circuit has collapsed – 14 arrests made last week. Organiser, couriers, the lot – someone’s leaking names. It’s been sheer hell. I’ve been given to Paul for safekeeping – shame he’s such a lech, but as long as you know –’
‘I can’t stand him!’ I confessed.
‘You have to ignore it. He doesn’t mean any harm. Close your eyes and think of England!’
We both laughed. Suppose we were a bit high – keyed up with the Benzedrine, rattling through the French countryside in the moonlight, people we love and work with disappearing around us like burnt-out sparklers. Hard to imagine how dead we’d have been ourselves if we’d met anyone – felt alive and unbeatable.
Don’t like to think of her being hunted. Hope she makes it out of France.
I am Katharina Habicht now. It’s not nearly as frightening as I thought it would be – the change brings such tremendous improvements to daily living that the additional danger’s nothing. Who cares? I couldn’t become a bigger jangle of nerves than I already am.
I’m sleeping in Etienne’s room now – ‘hiding in plain sight’ taken to extremes. I’ve also nicked some of his stuff. We cleared out a drawer to make room for Käthe’s underthings and extra skirt – illegally scrounged with Julie’s coupons. At the back of the drawer was a super Swiss pocket knife with a tin-opener and screwdriver attachment, and this notebook – a school exercise jotter dated 15 years ago. Etienne’s written out a list of local birds on the first three pages. For a week in 1928 Etienne Thibaut decided he was going to be a nature enthusiast. Sort of thing you do when you’re ten, about the age I took Gran’s gramophone to bits.
The list of birds makes me sad. What changes a small boy from a birdwatcher into a Gestapo inquisitor?
No good place for me to hide things in this room – Etienne knows where all the hiding places are. Two loose floorboards and a niche beneath the windowsill and a hole in the plaster are all crammed with his Small Boy Stuff – he hasn’t touched any of it for years, all of it dust-covered, but I’m sure he knows it’s there. I am keeping this notebook and my Pilot’s Notes IN the mattress – which I have slit with Etienne’s own knife.
I have met him. Trial by fire for Käthe. Went cycling with Amélie and Mitraillette, my first sortie looking for landing fields – three girls on bicycles, you know, having a jolly afternoon out together, what could be more normal? My bicycle is the one that belonged to the sentry Paul shot when I landed here. It has been ‘remade’. On our way back up the main road we met Etienne coming the other way, and of course he stopped to bait his sisters and find out who I am.
My evasive action consists of smiling like an idiot, hiding my face in my own shoulder as though I’m too shy to deserve to live, giggling a bit and mumbling. My French has not improved, but they have taught me a few responses to greetings which I am allowed to give when I am directly addressed – then let Mitraillette and her cadette sister do the rest of the talking for me. ‘She’s Mum’s cousin’s daughter from Alsace. Their house has been bombed and her mum’s been killed. She’s having a holiday with us till her dad finds a new place to live – she’s a bit fragile at the moment, doesn’t like to talk about it, you know?’
In an emergency they are supposed to say a code word, MAMAN, and speak directly to me in German. That’s the signal for me to burst into noisy tears, which the girls will respond to with equally noisy comfort and cooing – all in German. This performance is designed to shock and embarrass whoever is pestering us so deeply that they will quickly give us back our papers, without looking at mine too closely, and run in the other direction to get away from us.
We’ve practised this routine and made rather a fine art of it. And every morning since I moved into the house, La Cadette – Amélie – comes and bounces on my bed crying out, ‘Wake up, Käthe, come and feed the chickens!’ Suppose it’s quite easy for them to remember my ‘name’ as they’ve only ever known me as Kittyhawk anyway.
So – we met Etienne. And of course the whole conversation was carried on in German because not only do they speak it at home with their mother, but as their cousin I’m expected to understand it too. Every ounce of strength in me was invested in listening for the code word mixed in among their talk, which might as well have been Glaswegian for all I could make out! My maidenly blushes were not phoney – felt my face would catch fire with fear and embarrassment. I had to let the Thibaut girls do the hard work of covering for me, explaining me to their brother as a cousin he’d never heard of before.
But then Etienne and Amélie started scrapping, Amélie going whiter and whiter the more he talked – expect I did too, after a while – until I actually thought she was going to be sick, at which point Mitraillette snarled oaths at their turncoat brother and threatened to thump him. He went dead stiff, said something nasty to Mitraillette and started off on his bicycle away from us. But then he stopped and turned and gave me a nod, dead polite and formal, before he cycled off.