Page 53 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure

A funeral was held for Bruno, which the whole village of Saint-Benet attended.

Everyone wept. Even Ellie, raised to show no emotion in public, sobbed.

That such a sweet and gentle soul could have been taken so brutally seemed the ultimate inhumanity.

Bruno’s mother sat with a stunned look on her face, as if she still could not believe that her son was gone.

“Don’t worry, madame, we’ll take care of you,” Mavis said to her. “Everyone in Saint-Benet. We all loved your son.”

As she walked back up the steps, Ellie realized how much she was going to miss him.

He had become part of her life, appearing in the mornings with a big smile on his face and bringing the loaf of bread in better times, still nodding and smiling when she’d given him a task to do.

“I can do that, madame, don’t you worry,” he’d say and set to work right away.

“Maybe a swift death was better than one of those camps we’re hearing about,” Tommy said as he walked beside her. “For him that would be the ultimate horror.”

Ellie tried to agree. “I keep thinking this is just the beginning. Who will be next? Which person I love will be taken from us?”

Christmas came and went, with a Midnight Mass in a packed church.

There was no Christmas feast at Henri’s bar, and the people who filed out of church after Mass wished each other a simple joyeux Noel, then went silently on their way home.

Tommy and Clive went out of their way to make the house look festive with draped greenery, a pine sapling as a Christmas tree and cutout paper decorations.

Mavis and Louis came to join them for a Christmas lunch.

For the celebration, they killed one of the hens that had stopped laying.

Tommy, sentimental as usual, said a eulogy over it before putting it in the pan, and served it with roast potatoes, parsnips and cabbage, followed by stewed apples and goat milk cream.

They accompanied it with one of the last bottles of good wine.

Roland toasted them. “To the magnificent chefs and the dear people who have made me so welcome,” he said. “You are my dearest friends.”

Ellie realized this was the wine talking but was glad that he no longer seemed discontent and surly and had accepted his lot.

“If only we were at my chateau, I could have showered you with gifts,” he went on. “But here I have nothing except the clothes I stand up in. I am a pauper, an outcast, homeless ...” And he started to weep.

“What a treat to have chicken,” Mavis said to Ellie as they washed up after the meal.

“We’ve been living on turnips and beans mostly, unless Louis traps a rabbit.

Things have been hard for Louis, you know.

Those bloody Germans come and take his tools, bring things to be mended and then never pay.

I can tell you, I’m half tempted to hit one of them over the head with a big shovel.

” She laughed. “But it looks like you’re still doing all right up here? ”

“So far. You know you’re welcome to share any of our produce. You don’t come often enough.”

“It’s all right. You’ve got four mouths to feed now,” Mavis said.

She glanced back into the sitting room, where the four men were now drinking the latest excuse for coffee.

“Who would have thought it when we left England that we’d both be living with strange men.

Your Lionel would have a fit. So would my Reggie, God rest his poor soul. ”

Ellie had to smile. “Not my choice of ‘strange men,’ as you put it. But you’re obviously happy with yours.”

Mavis nodded. “He’s a good bloke. Kind. And not a bad kisser, either.”

Ellie hoped to see Nico, at least to wish him a joyeux Noel, but he wasn’t at church, and she had no idea where he was or what he was doing.

She found it hard not to worry. And at night she lay there, worrying about her two sons.

She had no idea where Richard’s regiment was now, no idea if Colin was now an airman, if he was even still alive.

And she had no way of finding out. At the Christmas Mass, she had prayed for both of them, to the Virgin Mary as Mavis had suggested, but with so much death and destruction it was hard to believe that her one small prayer would make any difference or that any God would single out her sons to keep safe.

The new year came with no celebrations, except for those German officers, who had clearly found a way to access the wine cellar at Roland’s chateau, judging by their raucous songs.

Then, in the middle of January, Tommy came downstairs with a grim look on his face.

“They have started rounding up French Jews,” he said.

“In Paris now, but I’m sure it will include the rest of the country soon enough. Taking them on trains into Germany.”

“We should let the Adamses know,” she said.

“You’d better tell them,” Tommy said. “She despises us.”

So Ellie went down to the village. It was a cold and stormy day.

Rain swept in off the sea, making the steps slippery, and the wind snatched at her breath.

She held her scarf tightly around her head.

At least the weather had kept people off the street.

There was no sign of German sentries guarding the port.

As she slipped into the pension, she knew why.

The sound of animated German conversation came from the parlour, and a pall of cigarette smoke drifted into the lobby.

From the kitchen came the delicious smell of real coffee brewing.

Ellie stood for a moment, looking around for Mrs Adams. Then she rang the bell on the counter.

Mrs Adams appeared, but one of the Germans poked his head around the parlour door.

“Hello, my dear,” Ellie said, in warmest tones and in English. “I haven’t seen you in ages, and I miss our little chats. How have you been keeping?”

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 returning when 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?”

Nico smiled. “Right,” he said. “Have him get ready. I’ll take him down to the speedboat.”

“Now? In the dark? In this weather?”

“More chance of making it in the dark and in this weather,” he said. “The German navy won’t bother to patrol as much when they think everyone stays home.”

A spasm of worry crossed her face. “But Nico. Your little boat can’t handle this rough sea, surely?”

Again he grinned. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

“Wait until the storm dies down. He’ll be safe enough here,” Ellie said.

Nico shook his head. “I don’t want the Germans to find Adams here,” he said. “They shoot people for harbouring Jews. The sooner we get him away, the better. Don’t worry. The worst thing that can happen is that he’ll be seasick.”

They went through into the sitting room, where Mr Adams was getting ready for bed. He listened in silence, nodded, then put his shoes on again. “If it must be done this way, it must,” he said. “Better than a train trip to Germany, anyway.”

Ellie followed them to the front door. “Take care, won’t you,” she said. “Good luck, both of you.”

Then she watched them cross the terrace and disappear down the steps.

The wind was making too much noise to hear the speedboat start up.

She sat up for several hours, hoping that Nico would report back, then hoping he’d decide to stay on the island until the storm died down. At last she fell into a restless sleep.

When she awoke the first streaks of a red dawn were in the eastern sky. She put on her dressing gown and went downstairs. She half hoped she’d find Nico asleep on her sofa, but there was no sign of him.