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Troubador Publishing Ltd - David Longridge

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129 pages

English

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Working as a courier for an escape line over the Pyrenees early in the Second World War, Francoise is approached by the British Secret Service. Is what they propose - involving leaving her family and entering the lethal game of wartime espionage - reasonable for a young woman only two years after finishing her schooldays in Bordeaux? Franoise's best friend, Justine, enters the glamorous world of haute couture, which is still thriving in occupied Paris. Justine has a past that, should it be discovered, could mean deportation to the camps in Eastern Europe. Justine's sister, Claudia, a brilliant mathematician working in Berlin on a top-secret project for the German High Command, is faced with the nightmare of betraying her country if she is to save her life. Powerful and emotional, the close relationships between Franoise, Justine and Claudia are tested by their conflicting wartime allegiances as they struggle to take possession of a secret that can alter the course of the war... David Longridge takes inspiration from Alan Furst, Nella Bielski, and Sebastian Faulks.In Youth, In Fear, In Warhighlights the way in which certain women played as important a role in espionage as their male counterparts played in fighting at the front, and at least as dangerous in terms of the personal risks they ran. The novel will appeal to fans of historical thrillers, particularly those set during WorldWar Two.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 février 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785897825
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

In Youth, in Fear, in War
David Longridge
Copyright © 2017 David Longridge
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
In Youth, in Fear, in War is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters other than certain known historical figures, are of the author’s imagination and are not to be interpreted as real. Where real-life historical figures appear, the dialogue and situations concerning those persons are entirely fictional. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
To Anna
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgements
About the Author
1
Arcachon, September 1941
All is normal until she gets off the train. Across the tracks, she sees a cordon of police and soldiers between the station exit and the goods yards nearby where a train is offloading a mass of people. Suddenly, shouts in a language she doesn’t recognize, neither French nor German. Two men break away from the crowd and run in her direction, apparently heading for the station building.
‘Halt, or we fire’, shouts a voice in German. They go on running. Gunshots, but still they keep running. They reach the station area where Françoise is standing, frozen to the spot. The first man is through the archway and now protected by the wall. The other is almost there, and then staggers. Somehow he plunges on, and then drops a few metres from her. Instinctively, she leaps towards him, beside the body in a flash, pulling at his working jacket as he pushes with his feet. Now he’s behind the cover of the wall, lying at her feet.
The soldiers are running towards them. A hand from behind her sweeps her up, saying urgently in French, ‘Get back, they’ll kill you.’
She is half pulled, half thrown into a ticket office, and then out through a door on the other side. She looks back, sees the first soldier arrive and put his boot on the wounded man’s head. Then another, this one in black uniform and probably an officer, pistol in his hand. She feels the shock of a loud crack, as he shoots the man in the back of the neck.
‘Follow me’, says the man who pulled her out of the way, and together they lose themselves into the watching crowd of onlookers.
‘Who are these people, where are they from?’ she says to him.
‘Take this bicycle and follow me. We must get out of here’, he says, as he pulls two bicycles from a rack. ‘Then I’ll tell you. Have you got the package?’
‘Yes. How d’you know about that?’
‘Later’, he says. ‘Follow me.’
She pedals hard, struggles to keep up. Soon they are out of town, and turn up a lane and into a farmyard. They put the bicycles in a building alongside the house, and go through a side door and into the kitchen. A woman who seems to know him, stands there, hands on the apron around her broad hips.
‘Madame, sorry to barge in on you, we just had a brush with the Boche’, he says, breathing heavily.
‘Oh’, says the woman, ‘then you’ll both need a glass of rouge.’ And she pours wine from a flask into two glasses, pointing at chairs for them to collapse into. The man drinks his wine in one go, and Madame refills the glass. He turns to Françoise.
‘Mademoiselle, that was a bit impetuous, but I admire your courage.’
‘I couldn’t just stand there while he lay bleeding on the platform. Anyway, who are they, what nationality?’
‘They’re Poles’, he says almost to himself. ‘Forced labour, going to work on the new bunkers for U-boats in the Bordeaux docks area. There’s a holding camp for them near here, so as not to attract attention. Not long ago, they were France’s allies’.
He looks at her and smiles. ‘I should introduce myself. I’m called Jacques. As you know, we only use first names.’
‘I’m Françoise de Rochefort. I recognize you. You shared your lunch with me on the train a couple of weeks ago, when I was crossing into the Free Zone to make a delivery in Bergerac.’
‘I know. Just now, I was at the station to keep an eye on you and see that the package got through. I’ll help you with it, later.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Suddenly she feels vulnerable, out in the open, being watched.
‘You’ve been doing an excellent job for us as a courier for several months now. We’re part of a line down which Allied airmen find their way to the Pyrenees and back to England.’
‘Thanks. I’ve heard a bit about the escape line.’

She remembered how it all started, the kindness of the headmistress of her old school after her boyfriend was killed on the battleship Bretagne . The interest she showed when Françoise said her brother was staying in England with the Free French, and how she wished she could help in some way. Then the approach from a smart-looking woman, ‘I’ve been told you sew beautifully and that you might be interested in helping me. Would you like to start by delivering some patterns and materials?’
Françoise looked inquiringly at Jacques, who grinned at her reassuringly. ‘I’ve something to propose’, he said, turning serious for a moment. ‘Say at once if you don’t like it, no problem, and you can continue the valuable courier work.’
Françoise didn’t answer at once. She was curious, but on her guard. She knew nothing about this man, although he seemed a genuine sort. ‘What are you suggesting? she said.
‘Well’, said Jacques, helping the two of them to another glass of wine. ‘I have a friend. We’re taking photographs of the U-boat bunkers under construction in Bordeaux docks, and I’d like you to help us. Afterwards, you’d take the results to a contact in St-Jean-de-Luz, close to the Spanish frontier at Hendaye.’
‘Sounds exciting, I’d certainly help with that’, said Françoise, surprising herself, knowing one could get into serious trouble if caught doing something like that.
‘Excellent’, Jacques exclaimed. ‘Let’s get that package delivered now to the retired colonel in town, and then we can take the train back home.’

‘You’re absent from the office rather a lot lately!’ Françoise’s father caught her leaving early the following afternoon.
‘I’ll make up the time on Saturday’, she said over her shoulder, pushing her bicycle out of the front door of the building as her father returned from a long lunch.
Jacques was waiting just down the street, wearing the blue overalls of a French construction worker. ‘Come on, it won’t take us long to cycle to where Paul’s waiting’, he said. When they arrived and she shook hands with Paul, Françoise felt she had met him before. He was standing beside a truck with a canvas cover over the back, and was very friendly, as though they were off for a day on the beach.
‘Let me describe the construction site to you’, he said, as he unfolded a drawing on the front of the vehicle. ‘It’s very large, and there’ll be several hundred workers there. The submarine pens are being constructed side by side inside enormous bunkers of reinforced concrete. There’s a mass of scaffolding everywhere.’ He moved his hand across the bunkers on the drawing. ‘London wants pictures of the concrete shells and our estimate of their thickness.’
‘How are you going to get in there, Paul, to take the pictures?, asked Jacques.
‘I’ve a pass, and machinery and parts in this truck for delivery to the site. A friend of mine will be looking out for us, and will be there to receive it all. You’ll come with me and help with the unloading.’
‘And me?’ said Françoise. She was unsure now why she’d allowed herself to be drawn into a dangerous operation, spying on the Germans. She felt the war was enveloping her, drawing her deeply into the unknown. She wanted to escape it, get back to life before it all started. And yet, there was her brother Henri, fighting alongside the British, and the terror faced by Justine and her Jewish friends.
‘I’d like you to act as look-out’, said Paul. ‘You’ll come in the back of the truck with your bicycle. There’s space alongside the machinery in there. When I get close to the site, I’ll stop and you should jump out and cycle along behind the truck. Before the control point, move off the road and hide the bike.’
‘What’s the best place for me to watch from?’ she said. Her doubts somehow stepped into the background, Paul almost making her mind up for her. She was responding to his enthusiasm, his leadership.
‘There’s a large cement plant just outside the barrier, where you can position yourself. If we’re not back in an hour, get the hell out, and go back to my apartment where someone will be waiting.’
‘Understood’, said Françoise. ‘I could take notes of moveme