Page 42 of The French Wife

‘Stop! Stop, please. I need help!’ she shouted.

Finally, when she thought there was no chance at all of the vehicles stopping, the headlights of the first truck came so close they lit her up, silhouetting her against the dark road, and the driver must have seen her. With a shudder of brakes, the vehicle ground to a halt.

Someone got out of the cab and approached her. It was a troop truck and she could hear German voices in the back, some of the soldiers were even singing a rousing battle song. As the man got closer, she could see from the stripes on his uniform that he was an officer. He was dressed in long boots, a greatcoat and a helmet, a rifle over his shoulder.

‘Please, sir,’ she said, looking into his eyes. ‘My car has broken down. Can you help me?’

He peered down at her and frowned. ‘We cannot stop, we do not have time,’ he said. ‘Move aside please, madame.’

‘Please. I just need some fuel, I’ve run out,’ she said, staring up at him with the most appealing, helpless look she could manage. ‘Do you have some in your truck?’ Her mind was racing. Where had the others got to? She couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

The German muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse. He turned back towards the truck and at that moment came the sound of metal creaking as the car’s boot sprang open and all hell broke loose around her.

Raoul and Bruno leapt out of the boot. Raoul ran towards her, aimed and shot the German in the chest and Henri dashed towards the truck and sprayed the windscreen with bullets. At the same time, the other men emerged from the ditch and ran the length of the convoy brandishing their guns, throwing hand grenades into the vehicles and shooting along them.

Within seconds the Germans were returning fire from the back of the transport trucks, and a fierce gun battle broke out. Raoul had told Amélie to run back to the farm truck and drive it along the track and up to the road behind the convoy so they could get away quickly, but she saw now that was impossible. If she tried to head back along the road, she would be caught in the crossfire. She looked around wildly, searching desperately for another way back to the truck. Then she realised that if she could get down into the drainage ditch, she would be able to run back along it to the vehicle.

Ducking as bullets zipped around her, she scrambled down the bank behind the Renault that was now riddled with bullet holes, grazing her legs and scratching her skin as she went. She hadn’t realised how steep the bank was, and at the bottom, she tripped over some brambles and fell headlong, grazing her face on some loose stones. She cried out in pain, but forced herself back to her feet, aware her cheek was bleeding. She needed to get to the truck quickly. Bent double, she half crawled, half ran along the bottom of the ditch, forcing herself on. Stumbling and tripping as she went, cut and bleeding from the brambles that snagged at her skin, sobbing and panting with fear and effort while bullets pinged overhead. She could hear the shouts and screams of the soldiers and the rattle of gunfire on the road.

She soon spotted the truck ahead on the track. All she needed to do was scramble up the side of the ditch and run hell for leather for a few metres and she would be there. She was preparing to climb out of the ditch when a figure jumped down onto the track from the road above, ran across it and stumbled into the ditch right in front of her.

It was a German soldier. There was a deep gash on his shoulder and his uniform was soaked in blood, but he was carrying a gun. When he saw her in front of him, his eyes widened and he pointed it at her. She had no choice. She whipped the handgun out of her belt, cocked it and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the man in the forehead. He fell backwards with the force of the shot and landed in the ditch in front of her.

She stared down at him for one horrified second, but there was no time to pause. Instead, she pulled herself out of the ditch and ran, panting and sobbing, along the dirt track to the truck. She clambered into the cab and, with shaking hands, turned the key. The engine choked and spluttered. She turned it again and it chugged into life.

‘Thank God!’ She wiped away tears of relief and reversed the truck back up the track and onto the road. The battle still raged on and there were bodies strewn about; the partisans were still shooting into the German vehicles. When they saw her, the St Marie group ran towards the truck and climbed in the back, while the others made for the Renault. Raoul and Henry got into the cab beside her. Raoul had a patch of blood on his jacket.

‘You’re wounded,’ she said.

‘Not badly. It doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘just drive!’

She put her foot to the floor and the truck roared away from the wreck of the convoy, the bloodied bodies slumped on the road. They rounded the bend and, glancing in the rear-view mirror, Amélie could see nothing. She drove on, letting her heartbeat gradually slow down, and soon the ambush and all the horrors it had entailed lay far behind them.

FIFTEEN

EMMA

2010

For the next week or so Gaston worked hard on the renovations to the kitchen at Le Châtaignier. He sanded, repaired and varnished the original wooden units and the old dresser, installed marble worktops and new cupboards under the window, painted the old range and restored the table and benches. He stained the oak ceiling beams to bring out their natural colour and finally painted the ceiling between them and the rest of the walls white.

‘This looks amazing!’ Emma said when she walked into the room for the first time after he’d painted. She’d been into town and was carrying an armful of shopping. She stood in the doorway admiring the room afresh. ‘Having the walls whitewashed has completely transformed it. It looks so light in here now.’

Gaston turned around, paint pot in hand, and smiled at her. She noticed he had a few flecks of white paint on his tanned face, but she resisted the urge to tell him.

‘It was all your idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve just done what you asked. I should finish this tonight if I work a bit late, and first thing tomorrow morning I’ll start on the floor tiles. You probably won’t be able to use the room until tomorrow evening, though. Is that alright?’

‘Of course,’ she said, then added as an afterthought, ‘You know, you could always stay over if you need to work late. I have a camp bed we could set up in the spare room.’

He put his paint pot on his workbench and looked at her a little apologetically. She wondered if he’d misinterpreted her invitation and looked away in embarrassment as he cleared his throat.

‘That’s a kind offer, but I really do need to go home,’ he said. ‘It’s only a short drive into St Marie from here and I like to read my daughter a story before she goes to bed.’

‘Your daughter?’ Emma asked lightly, putting the bags of shopping on the table, trying not to let this news throw her off balance, remind her of the gaping void of her loss.

‘Oui,’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘I have a young daughter. My mother looks after her most of the time during the holidays, but I do like to put her to bed.’

‘Of course. I didn’t know you had a daughter,’ Emma said, her voice catching in her throat, unable to look him in the eye. ‘You never mentioned that before. How old is she?’