He had always loudly protested his innocence.
Before he could do so now, Boucher rattled his cuffs again and pleaded, ‘Come on, chief, you know it’s not right. If them Stukas come, it’s like we were staked out for execution.’
The warder, Chauvet, opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Pajou cried, ‘Listen! Look!’
Looking and listening were almost the same thing. Two black spots expanded like ink stains in the clear blue sky in a crescendo of screaming engines; then came the hammering of guns, the blossoming of explosions; and the long straight river of refugees fountained sideways into the poplar-lined ditches as the Stukas ran a blade of burning metal along the narrow road.
Boucher saw bullets ripping into the truck behind as he dived over the side. With no protection from his arms, he fell awkwardly, crashing down on one shoulder and rolling over and over till a poplar trunk soaked up his impetus.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he groaned as he lay there half-stunned. All around were the cries and moans of the terror-stricken and the wounded. How long he lay there he did not know, but it was that other sound, heard only once but now so familiar, that roused him. The Stukas were returning.
Staggering to his feet he plunged deeper into the field which lay beyond the roadside ditch. What crop it held he could not say. He was no countryman to know the difference between corn and barley, wheat and rye. But the sea of green and gold stems gave at least the illusion of protection as the Stukas passed.
Rising again, he found he was looking into Pajou’s pallid face. His spectacles were awry and one lens was cracked but an elastic band behind his head had kept them in place.
‘You all right, Miche?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What now?’
Why the man should offer him the leadership, Boucher did not know. He hardly knew Pajou and didn’t care for what he did know. Robbing the rich was one thing, selling your country another.
But people often deferred to him, probably simply because of his appearance. Over six foot tall, Titian-haired, eagle-nosed, he had the kind of piratical good looks which promised excitement and adventure. Also he was known from his name as Miche the Butcher, and if his easy-going manner made anyone doubt his capacity for violence, his sheer bulk generally inhibited them from testing it.
But Pajou’s question was a good one. What now? Run till they found a friendly blacksmith?
‘Hold on,’ said Boucher.
An image from his mad flight from the road had returned to him.
He retraced his steps to the roadside. Lying in the ditch just as he had remembered was the warder. There was no sign of a bullet wound, but his head was split open. Despite the freedom of his arms, he must have fallen even more awkwardly than Boucher.
The bloody head moved, the eyes opened and registered Boucher, who raised his booted foot threateningly. With a groan, Chauvet closed his eyes and his head fell back.
Squatting down with his back to the body, Boucher undid the man’s belt, then fumbled along it till he came to the chain which held his ring of keys. It slid off easily.
Standing up, he found that Pajou had joined him.
Looking down at the unconscious warder, he said admiringly, ‘Did you do that? Christ, you can handle yourself, can’t you, Miche?’
‘Let’s go,’ said Boucher shortly.
They set off once more into the green-gold sea, sinking into it like lovers after a couple of hundred metres.
It took ten minutes working back to back to unlock the cuffs from Pajou’s wrists, two seconds then to release Boucher.
Released, Pajou was a different man, confident of purpose.
‘Come on,’ he said, massaging his wrists.
‘Where, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Back to Paris, of course,’ said Pajou in surprise. ‘With the Germans in Paris, the war’s over.’
‘Tell that to them back there,’ said Boucher curtly gesturing towards the road.
‘They should’ve stayed at home,’ said Pajou. ‘There’ll be no fighting in Paris, you’ll see. It’ll be an open city. Once the peace starts, it’ll be a German city.’
Boucher considered the idea. He didn’t much like it.
‘All the more reason to be somewhere else,’ he growled.
‘You think so?’ said Pajou. ‘Me, I think there’ll be work to do, money to be made. Stick with me, Miche. The Abwehr will be recruiting likely lads with the right qualities, and they’re bloody generous, believe me!’
‘So you did work for them,’ said Boucher in disgust. ‘All that crap about being framed! I should’ve known.’
‘It didn’t harm anybody,’ said Pajou. ‘If anything, it probably saved a few lives. The Krauts were coming anyway. Whatever helped them get things over with quickest was best for us, I say. It’s them silly military bastards who went on about the Maginot Line that should’ve been locked up. We must’ve been mad to pay any heed to a pathetic old fart like Pétain . . . Jesus Christ!’
Boucher had seized him by his shirt front and lifted him up till they were eye to eye.
‘Careful what you say about the Marshal, friend,’ he growled. ‘He’s the greatest man in France, mebbe the greatest since Napoleon, and I’ll pull the tongue out of anyone who says different.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Pajou. ‘He’s the greatest. Come on, Miche, let’s not quarrel. Like I say, stick with me, and we’ll be all right. What’s the difference between robbing the Boche and robbing our own lot? What do you say?’
For answer Boucher flung the smaller man to the ground and glowered down at him.
‘I say, sod off, you nasty little traitor. Go and work for the Boche if you must, and a lot of joy I hope you both get from it. Me, I’ll stick to honest thieving. I may be a crook, but at least I’m a French bloody crook! Go on, get out of my sight, before I do something I probably won’t be sorry for!’
‘Like kicking my head in like you did that warder’s?’ mocked Pajou, scrambling out of harm’s way. ‘Well, please yourself, friend. If you change your mind any time, you know how to find me! See you, Miche.’
He got to his feet and next moment was gone.
Michel Boucher sat alone in the middle of a field of waving cereal. It was peaceful here, but it was lonely. And when the bright sun slid out of the blue sky, he guessed it would also be frightening.
This was no place for him. He was a creature of the city, and that city was Paris. Pajou had been right in that at least. There was nowhere else to go.
The difference was of course that he would return as a Frenchman, ready to resist in every
