Page 25 of Resistance
‘Is it how you remembered, Gran?’
Swallowing, Dottie looked on through misty eyes. ‘It’s like I’ve never been away.’
They were in the graveyard of Saint Denis. As many tend to be, it was a peaceful place, at the rear of the church where rows and rows of crooked headstones and engraved slabs edged parallel pathways. At times, during their meandering along the white gravel that crunched underfoot, they had been shaded by twisted oaks and the gable end of the church. But it was nearing midday and becoming clear that searching for names that Dottie recognised, and one in particular that she knew well, was not going to be a simple task.
On the way into the churchyard they had passed the hotel and on closer inspection she realised that it had fallen into disrepair and part of the grounds were cordoned off by tape, a bulldozer lying idle signified major works were underway. She wondered if it was still occupied and what had happened to Tante Elise and her daughters, the aunt and cousins of little Polo, but the mere thought of his and their fate had cast a shadow which Dottie swiftly stepped away from.
They could have popped into thetabacacross the road to ask, or perhaps made enquiries with the lady who was talking to a gentleman, seated in his wheelchair opposite the hotel but instead Dottie walked on,there’s plenty of time, take it slowly.
Maude stopped at the end of a path, a few paces away from Dottie, and placed her hands on her hips.
‘Look, there’s a bench. Let’s have a sit down. It’s getting a bit hot now, Gran, and even I’m knackered from wandering up and down so you must be too.’
Dottie followed in silence and it wasn’t until she plonked herself down beside Maude that she answered.
‘You’re right, it’s shaping up to be a scorcher so let’s take a few minutes here and relax. Not that I’ve done much apart from sit on my bottom and natter on. You’re a good girl you are, for indulging me.’ Dottie took Maude’s hand in hers.
‘It’s been a pleasure, Gran, and I’m loving having you all to myself and hearing your stories. But don’t you find it a bit depressing, you know, being here?’
‘I always find graveyards very relaxing. I often visit George, you know, when the mood takes me.’
Maude twisted slightly to look at Dottie. ‘Do you? Well fancy that. You’re a dark horse, Gran, that’s for sure.’
Dottie chuckled. ‘Oh yes, we have lovely chats and I take my transistor and play him some jazz. I always feel cheered up afterwards.’
Neither spoke after that, instead they let the sun warm their faces and the breeze tickle their hair, accompanied by birdsong, and then the engine of what sounded like a digger revving into action.
‘Was it always this quiet in the village? I imagine it was a lovely place to live apart from having the Germans swarming everywhere.’ Maude closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the sky.
‘You know the funny thing is, that when I was here, I didn’t see it like that, you know, how it is now; a tourist spot where thousands of people come for holidays. To me it was a strange place, full of even stranger people, the Boche not the French. I’d been catapulted into a war zone and thrust into a world of espionage. Can you imagine it? A young girl – I was barely a woman back then, if I’m honest – who’d been brought up in the capital, surrounded by smog and bricks and noise turning up in a place like this.’ Dottie gestured to nowhere in particular.
‘Before training I’d never been away from home, the furthest I’d travelled was in a charabanc to Margate for a day at the seaside. And here I was, staying with a woman who I called aunty, who I’d never seen before in my life, where I fed chickens, watered vegetables and delivered sticks of dynamite and couriered downed airmen and other evaders to safety. When I look back, even though I know I did it, I honestly can’t believe that little Dottie Tanner from the pie and mash shop was a special operative, in the middle of nowhere, alone, homesick… oh, and a virgin.’
At this Maude’s head spun to the side. ‘Gran! Did I really need to know that?’
Dottie chortled. ‘I’m only trying to give you an idea of how I was then, so you can grasp the enormity of what women like me did.’
‘Okay, I get you. So while we’re here in the middle of nowhere, in a moderately creepy graveyard with only our bony buddies for company, why don’t you carry on from where you left off, when you and Maude were ready to come to France. I’m sure this lot haven’t heard a good story for a while.’
Dottie tapped Maude’s wrist but appreciated her humour, sometimes it got you through the worst situations. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’ll explain a bit more and then we’ll head off and get some lunch.’
‘Deal.’ Maude gave Dottie the thumbs up.
‘Okay, so once again, if you’re sitting comfortably, then I will begin.’
13
Into the Abyss
France, 1943
They had waited for days at the holding site, the moon needed to be full before the pilots would risk flying across the channel and dropping their cargo in France. Agents, or ‘Joes’ as the pilots called them, were flown in Lysanders into France or dropped from a Halifax bomber. Moon Squadrons, in every sense of the term. The Germans were swarming along the Atlantic Wall, making things difficult for the British flotillas that also used the short distance from Dartmouth to ferry supplies, agents and evaders back and forth, landing on the northern coast of Brittany.
Dottie had steeled herself before saying goodbye to her family, and in the end dealt with it like one of their role plays at the Beaulieu training camp. She was up, dressed and ready to go when her parents and Delphine came into the kitchen and you’d have thought she was off to the office at Whitehall, not saying what could be her last goodbye. After swift kisses, firm hugs and a cheerio, Dottie left her mum to her tears and Delphine to rattle the kettle on the grate, her dad caught like a rabbit in headlights as she bit her lip and took the stairs two at a time. Never looking back.
Maude was waiting at the flat after returning to the Ritz, tactfully giving Dottie one last night at home with her kin. Here, they were kitted out and given their code names, forged identity papers and cover stories. Dottie quite liked her new name, Yvette Giroux, previously resident in Paris, the orphaned niece of widowed Madame Helene Noury who had kindly taken her in. Maude became socialite Estelle Sable, relocated from Corsica, ex-wife of recently deceased Baron Sable. They would be met by the Maquis on the ground and moved to their new locations which would be revealed after the drop.
The night before they left, Dottie and Maude lay side by side on the single bed, staring at the moon through their shared bedroom window. It was January the twenty-first, absolutely perishing outside and not much better in, hence the need for warmth and comfort.
