Page 95 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
Mrs Adams looked at her strangely but then caught on. “Not so bad,” she said. “Yourself? Why don’t you come into the kitchen and have a cup of tea?” She turned back to the German soldier who was observing them. “An old friend from our days in England,” she said to him in French.
Ellie followed her through the dining room and then into the kitchen. An old-fashioned stove gave a comforting warmth. There seemed to be a big pot of some kind of stew cooking on the stove. “Now then, what’s up?” Mrs Adams asked Ellie.
Ellie lowered her voice. “They are rounding up Jews further north. Taking them away by train to camps. I thought Mr Adams should know. He may want to try and escape before it’s too late.”
Mrs Adams’s expression did not change. “Oh, don’t worry about us, dearie,” she said. “I think we’re quite safe here. Nobody knows or cares he’s Jewish. He doesn’t wear the star, so how would those Germans even find out? Besides, we’re getting along quite nicely with them. They bring me the occasional coffee or bit of meat. I think they like the way we treat them here, and they’re quite content.”
“But if men come in from the outside, Gestapo, Abwehr?”
Mrs Adams shook her head with a patronizing smile. “As if anyone would know or care about Saint-Benet. No, dearie, they’ll want the big prizes—Marseille and Toulon. That’s where they’ll go looking.” She paused. “Besides, where would he escape to? If they are checking papers, he’d not get two yards on a train. And I can’t see him hiking over the mountains into Switzerland.” She gave a little chuckle. “But it was kind of you to think of us. How did you hear about this, anyway?” There was something in the tone of her voice that made Ellie wary. She suspected that Mrs Adams wouldn’t hesitate to turn herself and Tommy in to the Germans if it got her an extra ration of something.
“We can sometimes pick up the BBC on our radio,” she said. “Being so high up, we get a good signal. Of course, it’s still crackling and going in and out, but I’m sure that’s what we heard.”
“You’d better not let these Germans know you’re listening to the BBC,” Mrs Adams said.
“Of course not,” Ellie said. “But it’s good to be informed, isn’t it? Make plans just in case the worst happens?”
“I’d rather not know, personally,” Mrs Adams said. “They pay good money to stay here. I treat them well, and we’ll ride out this stupid war until it’s over.”
There was nothing more to say. As Ellie walked through the lobby, one of the Germans stuck his head out again. “Hey, Frau ... madame. Come and keep us company,” he called in bad French. “We’re lonely boys far from home.”
“We’d be very happy if you went home to your loved ones,” Ellie said. “But I must go back to my husband. He wouldn’t like me chatting with soldiers.”
As she glanced into the parlour, she noticed a girl sitting on the knee of one of the soldiers and was shocked to see it was Madame Blanchet’s daughter—the younger one her mother had described as flighty. Giselle Blanchet caught her eye and gave a defiant stare back before she puffed on a cigarette and blew out smoke. Should she warn Madame Blanchet, she wondered? Then she realized that the girl still lived at home. Her mother surely knew, but perhaps she also benefited from the occasional gift of coffee or sugar.
Ellie bade a polite goodbye to Mrs Adams, then went back up the steps, as always a little shaken at any encounter with the German soldiers. They could be genial now, but rumours indicated that they wouldn’t think twice about shooting someone who annoyed them in any way. Or grabbing any woman they wanted.Thank heavens I look middle-aged and not at all desirable,she thought.
The storms continued, the wind rattling shutters, moaning through the roof and hurling rain at the windows. The palm trees swayed and bent until Ellie thought they had to snap. The chickens huddled miserably in their coop and wouldn’t lay. The goats were fretful in their pen. Ellie had just gone to milk them one morning and was returningwhen she heard someone hammering on the gate. She went to open it, and Mr Adams half fell into the garden.
“Mr Adams, what is it?” she asked.
She noticed then that he was carrying a small bag with him. His expression was of terror. “There’s a German lorry in the village, and they’re going house to house looking at papers,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. They’ll take me away, won’t they? My ID card gives my race.”
“Come in before you get soaked,” Ellie said. “Then we’ll think.”
“I don’t want to put you in any danger,” he said.
“Don’t be silly. Nobody checks up here.” She went ahead of him into the house, put the milk on the kitchen table and told him to sit down. She gave him a cup of mint tea.
“We have to get you away,” she said. “But I’m not sure how. Just lie low here for now.”
Then she went out to the clothesline and, in spite of the rain and wind, she hung a blue shirt on it. She didn’t think it was likely that Nico would notice it on a day like this, but if he came through the garden at night he would see it hanging there. The day passed. Tommy tried contacting the Resistance operator on the radio, but without success. Ellie made up a bed on a sofa for Mr Adams. Then, as she was getting ready for bed herself, filling a hot water bottle, there was a tap at the front door and Nico stood there, the rain running off his oilskin.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, shaking off the worst of the drips before he stepped inside.
“Oh, you came. Thank God,” Ellie said. She led him inside and pointed to Mr Adams. “The Nazis were in the village, checking identity cards. They’d see he was Jewish.”
Nico sighed. “Yes. They’ve already started taking Jews from Marseille. We have to get him away.”
“But where? How?”
“Corsica is now in Italian hands,” he said. “If we can get him that far, he shouldn’t be in too much danger, and we can work out what to do next.”
“Corsica? You don’t have a boat that can go that far, especially not in this weather.”
“True,” he said. “But I could take him out to the island. That abbot is a good fellow. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind hiding Mr Adams until we could work out the next step.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Ellie said. “Nobody would notice an extra monk, would they?”
