The Sea Garden (15 page)

The Milice shot Arlette later that day.

6

Lavender

August 1944

A
rlette's body was dumped at midday outside the police station in Forcalquier alongside Candide's, the two of them laid like bait. It was too dangerous to claim them, and in any case a sympathetic doctor protested that corpses should not be allowed to rot in the town square and arranged for their removal to the hospital mortuary.

But they could not go to fetch her. The moon was full.

 

O
n a plateau of lavender fields shielded by mountains near Saint-Christol, British planes dropped supplies at night to the Resistance. Carts tasselled with lavender drew up by each drop zone, and men went to work releasing the precious cargo from protective containers and hiding weapons and explosives under the sheaves of flowers.

The operations were urgent now. Partisan cells received parachuted agents on rocky terrain that was really only suitable for containers. They called the long, flat field Spitfire. It had been used before to land aircraft secretly, the length of the landing strip disguised with two hundred metres of lavender. Six hundred metres of grass, then the lavender, and then it became a potato field.

Each night the Mussets had watched the waxing of the moon and waited for confirmation. A courier arrived, but only to tell them to stay where they were: the flight was delayed. Contact with the organisers had been patchy. First they were on, then the flight was delayed in Italy, stuck on the ground in thick cloud. Then, at the beginning of the second week of August, when the moon had begun to wane, the message came at last. The plane was coming in the following night. The two Americans were expected, with the Actress as guide. With no method of further communication, Caspian and his group had no option but to follow their instructions. It was not possible to tell them that the Actress would not be coming.

 

I
shall be the Actress,” said Marthe.

“Don't be ridiculous!”

“They are expecting a young woman with the boys. You said so yourself.”

“I can't allow that.”

“But you need a girl. They don't know about Arlette, and there's no time to tell them.”

“Even so. You're not thinking straight—none of us is, with what's happened.” Musset's voice was tight with emotion.

“I want to do it. For Arlette. You have to let me. Kenton and Scotty will lead me. I just have to play my part. And think—who will suspect a poor blind girl?”

“They would never believe we would be so stupid as to try it.”

“All I have to do is let the organisers think I am Arlette. They will be looking for a young couple and their friend wandering into the field. That is the plan, and it cannot be changed now, since we are no longer in wireless contact. If anything does not tally with the agreed plan, if we don't arrive as arranged, they will suspect we are infiltrators—it will all have been for nothing!”

“We could ask Etienne's daughter.”

“And involve someone new? You can't do that. It goes against everything you have been so careful to set up. I want to do it—and I have to do it! I'm the obvious choice. The right size and age. The boys will steer me in the right direction.”

There was a long silence.

Then Monsieur began to describe the scene she must be prepared to enter. The men in peasant clothes, the baggy serge jackets, hunting bags slung across their chests. A gun with an end like a garden hose, designed by the Czechs and dropped by parachute by the British.

 

T
he Army of the Night,” Marthe said to Kenton. “And I'm going to be part of it.”

“You're sure, aren't you?”

“There is no other way. Arlette . . . she would want me to do this.”

“I think—no, you're right. But—”

“Have you ever killed anyone?” she asked.

He did not answer. She was going to ask again, but before she could form the words, she decided against it. She did not need to know.

That night they slept in her room again; she in her bed, he on the floor. When they said good night, Marthe reached out and found Kenton's head, then snatched her hand away as if scalded. “Your hair—where has it gone?”

“Shaved off. I gave myself what the army calls a number one. Too risky to travel with you, looking like an Aryan who isn't German.”

Neither of them had mentioned the time they slept in each other's arms for comfort. Courage was all now; and they had each decided, it seemed, that a need for comfort might be construed as weak. She bit her lip and tried to make no sound as hot tears rolled for Arlette.

 

T
he next evening Madame prepared a meal they forced themselves to eat and drink. Toasts were made in cracked voices to valour and friendship. Auguste's cousin Thierry, the
garagiste
, had patched up the truck and agreed to come along in case running repairs were needed.

They would take the old roads over the mountains towards the peak of La Contadour. Boxes of soaps and more boxes containing bottles of eau de toilette, antiseptic, and cleaning fluid were lashed carefully to the back and sides of the truck's hold. When this was done, it was impossible to see the old wardrobe secured behind in which Kenton and Scotty were to stand.

Monsieur removed the unfilled boxes in front of the wardrobe door. It was an extraordinarily effective device. “In you go, lads.”

Marthe felt a hand over hers briefly, then the Americans thanked Madame for all she had done before climbing up into the truck. Madame said a prayer first for the antique engine, and then for the souls it carried. “Away with you,” she said. “Good luck.”

The truck vibrated as Monsieur cranked the motor at the end of the bonnet. It spluttered and spat out the smell of burning charcoal from the gasogene appliance bolted on to produce the gas fuel that marked it as a nonmilitary vehicle.

Two of the farm workers now began loading the back with implements of lavender harvesting: the bundles of twine, the ropes, the scythes, the tarpaulins. Then, more carefully, they lifted in the old alembic still that they would not miss if the expedition ended in disaster. Auguste jumped into the back and pulled down a wooden seat. It would be his job to ensure the cargo remained secure, and to provide the cover and first line of defence should they be stopped. He secured ropes around the brass belly of the still, then tapped his knife against his teeth. “Newly sharpened,” he said. “They say the crop's tough this year.”

Monsieur pulled Marthe up into the cab beside him; on the other side was Auguste's cousin Thierry's large, soft bulk. He was a man who spoke in bassoon tones and smelled of oil and gut-rot brandy. They rumbled off down the bumpy track.

Five minutes into the climb beyond Manosque it was touch and go whether the old motor would keep ticking over. The jolts and wheezes became more and more pronounced. There were muffled protests from the back. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Monsieur and Thierry, Marthe could feel the tension in their muscles as they swayed together.

There was a long wheeze and a sudden violent shudder. Then nothing. The engine stalled. Monsieur pulled sharply at the handbrake lever as they rolled backwards. His arm dug painfully into Marthe's ribs.

Before a word was said, Thierry jumped down and ran round to the crank. Not even a cough from the motor. Thierry cursed softly.

“Come on, beauty,” coaxed Monsieur, as he might to a favourite horse.

It felt like minutes before a spark caught. They were all holding their breath, willing the mechanical parts to revive. It seemed to die away, then abruptly there was a shake, and then another. Monsieur revved the engine, there were belches from the exhaust, and Thierry threw himself against Marthe as the truck began to move.

They were climbing, Marthe's back pressing into the hard seat. At a stately pace, bends followed bends, the whine and grinding and rattling from the front of the vehicle rising and falling.

“We should sing a song,” said Thierry, with heavy sarcasm. No one replied.

 

S
he was so full of life,” said Musset savagely. Arlette's death, the manner of it, was unbearable to him. Neither he nor Madame could speak of that. But they wanted to talk, to remember her as she was.

So they pushed on through the night as M. Musset recounted his most vivid memories of Arlette as a child: when she had once stood on a table to sing to a family gathering, and then would not be stopped; when she put on a play using puppets she had made of paper and ribbon; the time she ate too many wild plums, unable to restrain herself because they were so delicious. “I can't help it if I like them!” she cried, doubled over with a violent stomachache. “And I'd like some more as soon as I'm better!”

“You know,” confessed Marthe, “I might once have been jealous of Arlette, when she first arrived to live with you, but as soon as I knew her better, I wasn't. Does that make sense? She was my friend, the best I ever had. She let me share her family. She never ever made me feel unwelcome, or as if I was taking too much of your attention away from her.”

“She was a truly good person. It's just so—”

“Road block,” said Thierry.

Musset slowed immediately, perhaps to give the men in the back time to ready themselves.

Dogs barked as they pulled up.

“Cut the engine.” The voice came from the left, through the open window. It was clearly an order.

“I'd rather not,” said Monsieur. “It's a devil to restart, and I don't want to block the road.”

“Cut the engine.”

It shuddered and was silent. Its echoes continued to ring in Marthe's ears.

“Papers. It's after curfew. You had better have a good reason to be out.”

Monsieur reached into his jacket, jabbing his elbow into Marthe's side, and turned to hand them over.

“Where are you going?”

“To our suppliers in Sault.”

“Where have you come from?”

“Manosque.”

“Don't you have your own lavender growers over there?”

“We are in a cooperative with a few farms here. It's easier for us to take the distilling equipment there than try to transport the crop down the valley and up again. They grow lavandin here, and with our process we can extract four times the essence of traditional lavender.”

“What's in the back?”

“Deliveries. Products we made from last year's crop. That's part of the deal.”

There was a thump from the back, and renewed barking from the dogs. While one soldier was asking questions, others had come round to the rear and pulled the canvas back. From the bounces, it seemed that Auguste was on his feet.

“You'll find it all in order,” said Monsieur.

“You don't make deliveries at night.”

“No, of course not. But you cut lavender by moonlight. It's the best, the traditional time to cut, when the plants are full of juices. That's how we do it here. This is the way it's always been done to extract the best-quality essences.”

The voices from the rear grew louder. It was impossible to hear what was being said.

“Papers for the vehicle. Why has it not been requisitioned?”

“It's so old no one would have it. It won't even start again for anyone who has not nursed it for thirty years or more. Perhaps not even then . . . as for papers, unfortunately those I cannot help you with. That's like asking for papers for the rusted buckets at the farm, or the birds in the trees. It has never had any papers.”

A metallic sound as if a kick had been aimed at the side of the truck was followed by a heartfelt sigh from Monsieur.

“Tell you what,” he said. “We're running late already, thanks to this heap of tin, missing the best hours for cutting. Let me come round to the back, and I'll see what I can offer you. One farmer won't be best pleased, but that's the price you pay for keeping going in these difficult times, eh? Some eau de toilette for your girl, perhaps?”

Before the soldier had a chance to think, Monsieur swung himself out of the cab, still speaking. “Have you any idea how important this crop is to us? I don't care a fig about politics. You can do what you want as far as I'm concerned. Ask the
kommandant
, if you care to—he will tell you. I have nothing to hide.”

Was it too brave a speech? Had his words been unable to contain the crack of emotion? The dogs sniffed. Then one sneezed.

Musset moved off round the side of the truck. The German soldier, grumbling in a token fashion, followed.

Marthe pushed herself as far back in the bench as she could, straining to hear what was happening. Thierry stayed quiet. They ignored each other completely.

After what seemed an hour, but must only have been minutes, the door at the back slammed. The muffled voices sounded less unfriendly. Then Monsieur hoisted himself back in the cab.

“Thierry? The crank, please,” he said.

Thierry obliged. Marthe pressed her hands together in prayer on her lap. The first and second attempts failed. The third almost ignited. The fourth was hopeless. On the fifth effort, the engine shook itself like a wet animal and then roared.

The cab rocked as Monsieur took off as fast as the old crate would go.

 

W
here are we?” asked Marthe.

“On the road up to Simiane. Not far now to Saint-Christol.”

Their nerves had calmed after the stop at the checkpoint but were starting to fire again now that their destination was closer. Marthe could only imagine the discomfort in the back, in the wardrobe. So close by. Kenton and Scotty were so close they must be only a hand's width away. Her heart was a hummingbird's wings—less beating than whirring.

The closer they came, the more she drew on what she held in her head. If they had used this field before, villagers must have heard the engines of the aircraft. They must have done. Whole farming villages apparently suffering from communal deafness.