The Room on Rue Amélie(79)
An hour later, she brought them through the darkness across muddy fields and country lanes to a small cottage that overlooked the moonlit water. There were six pilots there already, and the others who had been on the train from Paris arrived shortly thereafter. They were joined by a Russian and two Frenchmen, all of whom were running from the Germans and would make the journey with them. The man who had interrogated Thomas in the bistro in Paris—who had introduced himself as Captain Hamilton—arrived just past ten-thirty to explain the plan. By morning, he said, if all went well, the men would be back home. “I’ll need your IDs and anything personal that could identify you,” he concluded.
Thomas lined up with the others to hand over the last of his effects, and then he waited. When Hamilton was done collecting everything, he went on to explain in a clipped tone exactly what would happen next. There would be six guides to lead the men to the cliff Marie had mentioned, and then they’d have to proceed, one by one, down the hundred-foot drop to the beach while making as little sound as possible.
“On the way there, we have to cross through fields patrolled regularly by the enemy,” he added. “Be prepared to fight them off if it comes to that. We can’t compromise the mission.”
Just before midnight, they made their way across the road and into a field filled with thorny bushes. The men had been told to remain completely quiet and to hold hands, forming a silent human chain. They broke apart as they reached the cliff, and for a moment, standing on the edge of France, Thomas felt nauseated as he looked down into the blackness. The surf crashed below, loud and hungry, frothy white waves glowing in the moonlight. It was a long way down, and once he’d made the plunge, there would be no going back.
The man in front of Thomas stepped to the edge of the cliff and disappeared in a rumble of falling rocks. Then it was Thomas’s turn. The man behind him nudged him forward and Thomas took a deep breath. This was it. He closed his eyes, and as Captain Hamilton had instructed, he lay on his back, extended his legs with his feet flexed, and pushed off. His body slammed down the cliff, and as rocks ripped through his clothes and tore his skin, he held a fist in his mouth to keep from crying out. He hit the beach with a thud, and with an aching back, he stood and moved into the shadows. Reid, one of the Americans who’d been sheltered with him at Marie’s house, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed once, a reassurance.
Once they were all huddled in the hollow by the sea, there was nothing to do but wait. Captain Hamilton had been vague about the events that were meant to unfold, but Thomas had assumed there would be boats along to retrieve them shortly. Instead, the moon ascended higher and the tide continued to rise. One of the guides flashed a Morse code signal into the blackness at one-minute intervals, indicating that they were ready for pickup, but no one came, and Thomas began to worry that something had gone wrong. In the distance to the west, the pillboxes of the Pointe de la Tour, a coastal guard post manned by the Germans, were just visible against the night sky. Thomas began to wonder about the logic of this plan.
But then, after they’d waited for more than two hours, three pale dots appeared on the horizon, moving toward them at a rapid clip. As they drew closer, Thomas realized they were wooden surfboats, each manned by three fellows with oars. As they slid silently into the cove, the men aboard the boats exchanged greetings with Captain Hamilton and the guides, and they put away the submachine guns they were carrying. Quickly, they unloaded a large gasoline tank and six suitcases. “Now,” Hamilton whispered to the airmen, gesturing for the one closest to the water to come forward. Quickly, the escapees boarded the boats, and by the time Thomas turned back around to watch the beach slip away, Hamilton and the others were gone, as if they’d simply melted into the night.
Soon, they were approaching a wooden-hulled motor gunboat, an MGB, that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Quickly, the men were pulled aboard and escorted belowdecks, and the surfboats were secured. A single engine purred to life, and they headed north, toward England, the cliffs of France vanishing into the blackness behind them.
The small cabin exploded in a cacophony of voices as soon as the last man descended. There were cheers, expressions of disbelief, jolly complaints about the gashes many of them had sustained on their backs and legs from sliding down the cliff to the beach. But Thomas stayed silent; he knew he should have felt overjoyed to be heading home, but all he could think was that with each passing moment, he was farther and farther away from France, farther away from Ruby, farther away from the future he so badly wanted. He knew he didn’t have a choice, that the only way back to Ruby was to return to England and rejoin the war, but right now, it felt like he was making the biggest mistake of his life.
Six hours later, as they pulled into Dartmouth Harbor, the rest of the pilots filed toward the front of the boat to watch as they approached land. Only Thomas turned the other way, looking southeast toward the country that was no longer visible across the Channel. “I’ll come back for you,” he whispered into the morning mist. “I promise.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
February 1944
The days without Thomas felt empty at first, but within a week, after several interviews with stern-faced MI9 men, Ruby began to host pilots once again. The new work kept her occupied and prevented her from dwelling on all the terrible things that could have befallen the man she loved. She cried herself to sleep, but during the day, she put on a cheerful face for Charlotte and Lucien. In the mornings, she pretended not to see the concerned glances of pilots who, hidden in the wall overnight, must have heard her sobs.