Page 94 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
“I’m fine up here, really,” she said. “It’s you I worry about. If they catch you carrying weapons or even messages, they’ll shoot you.”
He patted her cheek now. “Luckily I know this coast better than they do. There are plenty of little coves where I can hide out if I spot an enemy ship. And my speedboat can outrun most of them.” He paused, thinking. “I want to ask a favour of you.”
“Go on.” Ellie wasn’t sure what was coming next.
“My mother. If anything happens to me, will you take care of her? Take her in? Look after her? I’m all she has.”
“Of course.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. But let’s not think about such possibilities. I want you to stay safe.”
“So do I, actually.” He smiled. Then his lips brushed her forehead, and he hurried off.
It was the next day that Tommy received a message. Resistance fighters had indeed intercepted the lorry in Marseille. They had created a roadblock and opened the back door for the prisoners to escape. Most ran away but Bruno just stood there, unable to decide what to do next. The Germans shot him. Ellie had to give this news to his mother and let the woman cry on her shoulder. “My Bruno,” she kept saying. “My little boy. All I had in the world.”
Ellie felt a profound sense of failure, even though she had done all she could ... They had all done all they could. Sometimes the odds were just too great.
Chapter 38
A funeral was held for Bruno, which the whole village of Saint-Benet attended. Everyone wept. Even Ellie, raised to show no emotion in public, sobbed. That such a sweet and gentle soul could have been taken so brutally seemed the ultimate inhumanity. Bruno’s mother sat with a stunned look on her face, as if she still could not believe that her son was gone.
“Don’t worry, madame, we’ll take care of you,” Mavis said to her. “Everyone in Saint-Benet. We all loved your son.”
As she walked back up the steps, Ellie realized how much she was going to miss him. He had become part of her life, appearing in the mornings with a big smile on his face and bringing the loaf of bread in better times, still nodding and smiling when she’d given him a task to do. “I can do that, madame, don’t you worry,” he’d say and set to work right away.
“Maybe a swift death was better than one of those camps we’re hearing about,” Tommy said as he walked beside her. “For him that would be the ultimate horror.”
Ellie tried to agree. “I keep thinking this is just the beginning. Who will be next? Which person I love will be taken from us?”
Christmas came and went, with a Midnight Mass in a packed church. There was no Christmas feast at Henri’s bar, and the people who filed out of church after Mass wished each other a simple joyeux Noël, then went silently on their way home. Tommy and Clive wentout of their way to make the house look festive with draped greenery, a pine sapling as a Christmas tree and cutout paper decorations. Mavis and Louis came to join them for a Christmas lunch. For the celebration, they killed one of the hens that had stopped laying. Tommy, sentimental as usual, said a eulogy over it before putting it in the pan, and served it with roast potatoes, parsnips and cabbage, followed by stewed apples and goat milk cream. They accompanied it with one of the last bottles of good wine. Roland toasted them. “To the magnificent chefs and the dear people who have made me so welcome,” he said. “You are my dearest friends.”
Ellie realized this was the wine talking but was glad that he no longer seemed discontent and surly and had accepted his lot.
“If only we were at my château, I could have showered you with gifts,” he went on. “But here I have nothing except the clothes I stand up in. I am a pauper, an outcast, homeless ...” And he started to weep.
“What a treat to have chicken,” Mavis said to Ellie as they washed up after the meal. “We’ve been living on turnips and beans mostly, unless Louis traps a rabbit. Things have been hard for Louis, you know. Those bloody Germans come and take his tools, bring things to be mended and then never pay. I can tell you, I’m half tempted to hit one of them over the head with a big shovel.” She laughed. “But it looks like you’re still doing all right up here?”
“So far. You know you’re welcome to share any of our produce. You don’t come often enough.”
“It’s all right. You’ve got four mouths to feed now,” Mavis said. She glanced back into the sitting room, where the four men were now drinking the latest excuse for coffee. “Who would have thought it when we left England that we’d both be living with strange men. Your Lionel would have a fit. So would my Reggie, God rest his poor soul.”
Ellie had to smile. “Not my choice of ‘strange men,’ as you put it. But you’re obviously happy with yours.”
Mavis nodded. “He’s a good bloke. Kind. And not a bad kisser, either.”
Ellie hoped to see Nico, at least to wish him a joyeux Noël, but he wasn’t at church, and she had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She found it hard not to worry. And at night she lay there, worrying about her two sons. She had no idea where Richard’s regiment was now, no idea if Colin was now an airman, if he was even still alive. And she had no way of finding out. At the Christmas Mass, she had prayed for both of them, to the Virgin Mary as Mavis had suggested, but with so much death and destruction it was hard to believe that her one small prayer would make any difference or that any God would single out her sons to keep safe.
The new year came with no celebrations, except for those German officers, who had clearly found a way to access the wine cellar at Roland’s château, judging by their raucous songs. Then, in the middle of January, Tommy came downstairs with a grim look on his face. “They have started rounding up French Jews,” he said. “In Paris now, but I’m sure it will include the rest of the country soon enough. Taking them on trains into Germany.”
“We should let the Adamses know,” she said.
“You’d better tell them,” Tommy said. “She despises us.”
So Ellie went down to the village. It was a cold and stormy day. Rain swept in off the sea, making the steps slippery, and the wind snatched at her breath. She held her scarf tightly around her head. At least the weather had kept people off the street. There was no sign of German sentries guarding the port. As she slipped into the pension, she knew why. The sound of animated German conversation came from the parlour, and a pall of cigarette smoke drifted into the lobby. From the kitchen came the delicious smell of real coffee brewing. Ellie stood for a moment, looking around for Mrs Adams. Then she rang the bell on the counter. Mrs Adams appeared, but one of the Germans poked his head around the parlour door.
“Hello, my dear,” Ellie said, in warmest tones and in English. “I haven’t seen you in ages, and I miss our little chats. How have you been keeping?”
