right to fall in love, because it was too dangerous for security. When I think back to the number of friends who, the night before their execution, must have hated themselves for respecting this rule, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.
That evening, Robert sat down on the end of the bed and Claude didn’t move. One day I shall have to have a word with my little brother about his character. Robert took no notice and stretched out a hand to me, congratulating me on a mission accomplished. I said nothing, torn by contradictory feelings, which, on account of my absent-minded nature, as my teachers said, instantly plunged me into the total silence of deep reflection.
And while Robert stayed there, right in front of me, I mused that I had entered the Resistance with three dreams in my head: to join Général de Gaulle in London, to join the Royal Air Force and to kill an enemy before I died.
Fully comprehending that the first two dreams would remain out of reach, the fact that I had at least been able to fulfil the third ought to have filled me with joy, particularly since I was still not dead, while the operation was now several hours earlier. In reality it was quite the opposite. It gave me no satisfaction to imagine my German officer who, at that time, for the needs of the investigation, was still in the position where I had left him, stretched out on the ground, arms at right angles to his body on the steps of the staircase, with a view downwards to a public urinal.
Boris gave a little cough. Robert wasn’t holding out his hand to me in order to shake it – although I am certain he would have had nothing against it, with his natural warmth – but by all accounts he wanted his weapon back. The barrel revolver I had lost was his!
I didn’t know that Jan had sent him as a second line of protection, anticipating the risks linked to my inexperience at the moment of the killing and the getaway that was to follow. As I said, Robert always brought his men back. What touched me was that Robert had entrusted his weapon to Charles the previous evening so that he could give it to me, when I had scarcely paid attention to him during dinner, far too absorbed as I was by my share of the omelette. And if Robert, who was responsible for my rear and Boris’s, had made such a generous gesture, it was because he wanted me to have the use of a revolver that never jams, unlike automatic weapons.
But Robert mustn’t have seen the end of the operation, nor probably the fact that his burning pistol had slipped out of my belt and landed on the road, just before Boris ordered me to get the hell out of there.
As Robert’s gaze was becoming persistent, Boris stood up and opened the drawer of the room’s sole piece of furniture. From a rustic wardrobe he removed the long-awaited pistol and immediately handed it back to its owner, without a word.
Robert put it back in its proper place and I took advantage of this to learn the correct way to slip the barrel under the belt buckle, to avoid burning the inner thigh and having to deal with the ensuing consequences.
Jan was happy with our operation; we were now accepted into the brigade. A new mission awaited us.
A guy from the Maquis had had a drink with Jan. During the conversation, he had committed an involuntary indiscretion, revealing among other details the existence of a farm where a few weapons parachuted in by the English were stored. It drove us crazy that people were stocking weapons with a view to the Allied landings, when we went short of them every day. So apologies to the Maquis colleagues, but Jan had taken the decision to go and help himself from their stocks. To avoid creating pointless quarrels, and to avert any blunders, we would leave unarmed. I don’t say there weren’t a few rivalries between the Gaullist movements and our brigade, but there was no question of risking wounding a ‘cousin’ partisan, even if family relations could sometimes be a bit strained. Instructions were therefore given not to resort to force. If we blundered we’d clear off, and that was that.
The mission was to be conducted with artistry and savoir-faire. What’s more, if the plan Jan had devised worked without a hitch, I defied the Gaullists to report what had happened to them to London, at the risk of coming across as real twits and drying up their source of supply.
While Robert was explaining how to proceed, my little brother behaved as if he didn’t give a damn, but I could see that he wasn’t missing a single word of the conversation. We were to report to this farm, a few kilometres west of the town, explain to the people there that we had come on behalf of a guy called Louis, that the Germans suspected the hiding place and would soon turn up; we had come to help them move the goods and the farmers were supposed to hand us the few cases of grenades and submachine guns they had stored there. Once these were loaded onto the little trailers attached to our bikes, we’d do a bunk and the whole thing was in the bag.
‘We’ll need six people for it to work,’ said Robert.
I knew quite well that I hadn’t been wrong about Claude, because he sat up on his bed, as if his siesta had just come to an abrupt end, there and then, just by chance.
‘Do you want to take part?’ Robert asked my brother.
‘With the experience I have now in bicycle theft, I suppose I’m also qualified to nick weapons. I must have the face of a thief for people to think of me automatically for this kind of mission.’
‘It’s quite the opposite. You have the face of an honest lad and that’s why you’re particularly well qualified. You don’t arouse suspicion.’
I don’t know if Claude took that as a compliment or if he was simply pleased that Robert had addressed him directly, offering him the consideration he seemed to lack, but his features instantly relaxed. I think I even saw him smile. It’s crazy how the fact of receiving recognition, however tiny it may be, can hearten a person. In the end, feeling anonymous among the people you’re with is a much greater pain than people realise; it’s as if you’re invisible.
It’s probably also because of this that we suffered so much from living clandestinely, and for that reason also that in the brigade, we rediscovered a sort of family, a society where every one of us had an existence. And that meant a lot to each of us.
Claude said, ‘I’m in.’ With Robert, Boris and me, we were still two short. Alonso and Emile would join us.
The six members of the mission must go at the earliest opportunity to Loubers, where little trailers would be attached to their bikes. Charles had asked that we should take turns; not because of the modest size of his workshop, but to avoid a procession of bikes attracting the neighbours’ attention. We were to meet up at around six o’clock on the way out of the village, heading for the countryside and the place called the ‘Côte Pavée’.
It was Claude who was first to introduce himself to the farmer. He followed to the letter the instructions Jan had obtained from his contact with the Maquis.
‘We’re here on behalf of Louis. He told me to tell you that tonight, the tide will be low.’
‘Too bad for the fishing,’ the man replied.
Claude didn’t contradict him on this point and immediately delivered the second half of his message.
‘The Gestapo are on their way, the weapons must be moved!’
‘My God, that’s terrible,’ exclaimed the farmer.
They
