My vision blurred, and for just a moment, I was in her shoes, staring into the eyes of a child who trusted me completely. A child I would die to protect.
Just then, the woman looked up, and saw me through the window, and opened her mouth as if to scream. I pressed a finger over my lips and with the other, fumbled into my brassiere. I withdrew a small wad of cash and pressed it against the glass.
Her mouth remained fixed in a shocked circle, but the scream I’d feared did not come. Money was a powerful motivator, especially to a woman who had just lost her breadwinner. Instead, she lowered the spoon, allowing the toddler to take it. He immediately began to bang it on the nearby table, happily singing to himself in baby talk as the woman cautiously rose to her feet.
The back door swung open, just a crack.
“I don’t want to make trouble for you,” I said, voice low, staying back just far enough from the light seeping through the door that my face remained in shadow. “But I heard your husband was arrested last night.” She nodded, still staring at me suspiciously. I extended the notes toward her then asked carefully, “Was he working with the resistance?”
Her eyebrows knit. She glanced between the money in my hand and her son, behind her.
“I can’t—”
“If I were loyal to the Germans I’d have nothing to gain in asking,” I rushed to assure her. She hesitated, so I pressed, “Right? They already know the answer to the question. So the very fact that I am asking it should tell you I’m an ally.”
“I don’t know much at all. He had been sneaking out after curfew,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. “He told me he was just visiting his brother, but he was also arrested last night. My sister-in-law said that many of their friends have now been taken too.”
“This sister-in-law—”
“Her name is Nathalie.”
“And Nathalie is still free, will you give me her address?” The woman nodded. I passed her the cash then stepped back into the shadows.
Nathalie lived in an apartment above a restaurant. I sat in a café across the road for hours the next morning, trying to figure out the best way to make an approach. The Gestapo may have been watching her apartment building, so arriving unannounced to her front door was out of the question. I couldn’t even chance a phone call—switchboard operators listened in on calls for the Germans all the time.
In the end, there were no easy, safe ways to make contact. I watched until I’d seen the same woman come and go from the building several times, until I was reasonably certain this must be Nathalie. When I saw her leaving again, I followed her down the street and into a grocer. While she stood in front of the tinned beans, I pretended to bump into her.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, as I slipped a note into her pocket. Her gaze followed my hand, confused, but I pressed my finger to my lips quickly. She reached into her pocket and nodded subtly.
“It’s no trouble,” she replied quietly. I turned and walked away, and waited for her in a nearby park, where I found a retaining wall behind a park bench. I perched on the low wall and removed a novel from my bag, resting it on my lap so I could pretend to read it.
The minutes passed and I began to wonder if she’d join me as I’d requested in the note. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t—her whole life had likely been upended by her husband’s arrest, and the secretive nature of my approach indicated that I represented still more trouble. But then, after a few minutes, I saw her coming up the path, the newspaper I’d instructed her to buy tucked into a woven grocery bag. We exchanged a polite smile, and then she sat on the park bench behind me, facing away from me to read the newspaper.
“You are Nathalie?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised. I heard movement and realized she’d turned to stare at me.
“Don’t look at me,” I said sharply, still staring at my novel. “Lift the newspaper so if anyone see us together, they won’t realize we are talking.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend. Your husband was arrested?”
She hesitated for a long time, until I realized that if I wanted her to take the risk of opening up to me, I would have to reveal a little more of myself first.
“Do you know Basile?”
“Yes!” She seemed relieved by the mention of his name.
“Basile and I have much in common,” I said carefully. “I’m here at the request of our mutual friends. We knew one another when we worked as janitors…”
She turned the page of the newspaper and then said softly, “You’re with the SOE?”
“I’m here at Basile’s request,” I said, deciding quickly it was best not to confirm her suspicion. “What can you tell me about the circuit?”
“Basile had maybe a hundred or more men and women organized in Rouen alone. We were meeting in small groups. Mine was undertaking training for sabotage. My group had about a dozen members and our leader was…” Her voice grew rough. She paused, cleared it, then finished in a whisper, “He was my friend. His name was Thierry. About a week after Basile left, the Gestapo came to arrest Thierry and the stubborn fool pulled a handgun, and…” She broke off, overcome with emotion.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For a long time the rest of my group seemed to have escaped German attention but a few weeks ago the arrests began and this time, they snowballed. Every night, more arrests. When they came for Claude a few nights ago, I was only surprised they didn’t take me too. But listen to me, if you’re here for London, you need to tell them what’s been happening.”
“The arrests?”
“They’ve started constructing concrete runways all along the coast, perhaps ten meters long, beginning underground in a cavity, and sloping up from there. I know for certain that there are some just north of here, but I’ve heard rumors they extend every ten kilometers from here all the way to Cherbourg!”
I pictured a map in my mind and felt an icy chill run down my spine. Elwood warned me there were rumors of German rockets that would reach Britain from the continent. That curve from Rouen to Cherbourg ran roughly parallel to the English coastline.
“Claude spoke to a lorry driver who was bringing deliveries of sand for the construction,” Nathalie continued. “He had been throwing iron filings into the sand, hoping that whatever these weapons are, they use some kind of magnetic orientation and the metal will throw them off. I know Thierry was planning to launch sabotage attacks against the bases and the runways, but with him gone and the circuit in disarray—everything has stalled.”
“Who else do you know who has escaped arrest?”
“There are just a few of us…”
“Nathalie, you all must go into hiding immediately,” I whispered urgently. “If they’ve detained most of your group, it’s only a matter of time before someone exposes the rest of you.”
“I have nowhere to go,” she said miserably. “I have no family to hide me and no money. Most of our friends were involved with the circuit. I’m a sitting duck.”
With just a handful of operatives and only two weeks left in Rouen, sabotaging those platforms was out of the question…but with the help of Nathalie and her friends, perhaps I could at least confirm their existence, and take details of the infrastructure back to London with me.