Page 55 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure

The first of the men arrived two days later.

He came, bundled in a great overcoat and scarf.

It seemed he was wearing a jacket and jumper underneath since he could not carry a suitcase with his clothing.

Instead he carried a small bag. He was sweating profusely, as much from fear it seemed as from the overabundance of clothing he was wearing.

His eyes darted nervously as he looked around the room.

“Don’t worry,” Ellie said. “You’re safe here for the moment. We’ll give the signal for your transport to pick you up tonight. In the meantime you can take off your overcoat and sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

“Most kind. Most kind,” he muttered. He had a deep, rumbling voice. He removed his hat and had a shock of grey curly hair.

“If anyone asks, you are a friend, visiting us,” Ellie muttered before she went through to the kitchen to pour the water. The man was sitting, perched on the edge of a chair, when she returned. Tommy had disappeared, and the man was staring out at the view below.

“You have a lovely view here,” he said.

“Yes. It’s a beautiful spot.” Ellie handed him the glass.

“I should introduce myself,” he began, but she cut him off.

“No, don’t. The less we know about each other the better. Just in case.”

“You’re right. Just in case.” He took a gulp of the water.

“That was quite a walk. Rather steep. I’m afraid I’m not incredibly fit.

” Then a spasm of pain crossed his face.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “I never thought it would happen to me. I thought I was a respected member of the community. I’m the conductor of the Marseille symphony orchestra, you know.

I’ve held the position for years. I have so many friends .

.. so when they said all Jews have to report I didn’t think for a moment that I would be involved.

But then one of my violists got a tip that they were coming for me.

I left in the middle of a rehearsal.” He shook his head as if he was still trying to make sense of it.

“So many of my musicians are Jewish, too. How can they do this to us? We are valuable members of the community.” His voice cracked, and he took another drink of water to swallow back the emotion.

“I’m so sorry,” Ellie said. “But with any luck you’ll be safe. The Italians are in control of Corsica, and they value music, don’t they?”

“Who knows anymore,” he said. “The world has gone mad. We are all being ruled by a madman.”

“What about your wife?” Ellie asked because she noticed the wedding band on his finger. “What will happen to her?”

“She is not Jewish, thank God,” he said. “But she has gone up to a friend in the countryside, just in case they come to question her. Who knows if I’ll ever see her again.” And a tear trickled down his cheek. He wiped it away hastily.

Tommy returned and sat keeping him company while Ellie went out to the terrace, and with hands that trembled a little she pegged the blue shirt on to the line, raising it high enough to be seen.

It fluttered bravely in the breeze. Would Nico see it?

she wondered. How often did he check her line?

Anyway, the man was safe for the moment.

She fed him vegetable soup for lunch. Roland was delighted to find a guest and chatted to him about music.

“How I have missed artistic company,” he said. “I keep thinking I must go back to Paris, where I can attend the opera again.”

“Is the opera still performing, I wonder?” the man said. “I heard they have shut down so much, and of course there is the curfew after dark.”

“But the Germans love music,” Roland said.

“You would have thought so, wouldn’t you,” the man replied.

Ellie made a big show of inviting their guest to stay the night. Clive and Tommy went up to bed. Roland lingered. At last Ellie said, pointedly, “You must be tired, my dear,” to the man. “Let me show you to your room. You don’t have to stay awake and be polite any longer.”

She led him upstairs. Roland also came up and went into his room. After a suitable while, Ellie tapped on the spare room door and led the man down again.

“Get ready,” she said. “We don’t know when the boat will come, but I should take you down, just in case.”

She put on her overcoat. He put on his, and she led him out into the night. It was fortunate that the moon was almost full. She had brought a torch and picked out the steep and winding steps as they went down the cliff.

“Go very carefully,” she said. They took the steps one by one.

At the bottom they came to the small harbour—a little dock protected by an outcropping of rocks.

Any boat moored there would be invisible from passing ships.

Ellie stood looking and listening, every fibre in her being tense and alert.

She heard the slap of waves against the rocks, the rustle of wind in the pine trees above. Apart from that, silence.

“You should sit down here, out of the wind,” she said, indicating a flat area of rock. “It may be some time. He’ll have to wait until he can slip away without being noticed. There are German sentries in the village now.”

The man brushed off the rock surface before sitting on it. “I don’t know why you people risk your lives for someone you don’t know,” he said. “In my culture you would be called a righteous person.”

“We have to do what we can,” Ellie said. “We can’t let evil swallow the world.”

“No. We can’t.”

They sat in silence. Then Ellie stood up. “What was that?”

She heard it then. The low pop pop of a motor, and the boat came into sight. Nico flashed a signal from his torch, then cut the motor and the boat drifted to them. He stood up, leapt out before it could hit the dock.

“I’ve picked up some oars,” he said. “Better to row silently until I’m well clear of the village.” He turned to the stranger. “Good evening, sir. A fine night for a sea voyage, I think.”

He helped the man into the boat, then pushed off, waved and started the motor. Once they were out to sea, she heard it rev up to full power and they were gone.

In the morning there was a note from Nico outside the front door: All went smoothly. This is a great idea.

Ellie herself was amazed how smoothly it had gone.

More Jewish men followed. They were always men of consequence: professors, scientists, artists, writers.

It seemed unfair to Ellie that some lives were considered more valuable than others—how could anyone determine that a professor had more worth than a baker or a shoemaker?

—but she understood that not all could be saved.

Also these men usually had non-Jewish wives.

Those whose families were also Jewish had refused to leave them.

The men were all movingly grateful, and some even hugged her when she took them down the cliff to meet Nico’s boat.

Because it was working so well, Ellie had stopped worrying so much.

But with the warmer spring weather and calmer seas, the German navy was more in evidence, guarding the strategic port of Marseille.

It was now not unusual to see a naval vessel or even a convoy passing out at sea from where they sat on the terrace.

They never came near the coast, which was a relief.

Then one night Ellie had gone to bed. There had been no Jewish guest that day.

They had enjoyed a good meal, a big chicken stew with lots of vegetables, thanks to one of the chickens that had died of old age.

They had played a few rounds of bridge, and Ellie had felt quite content as she pulled the covers over her.

She had just dozed off when she heard the rattle of pebbles at her shutters.

She jumped up, opening the shutters. In the dark she could just make out Nico standing there.

“I’ll come down,” she whispered, then hurriedly slipped on her robe and tiptoed down the stairs. He had come around to the front door and slipped inside the moment she opened it. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“They almost got me,” he said. “I was delivering some supplies to the cell further down the coast when this German patrol boat appeared out of nowhere. They shone a searchlight on me and told me to come alongside. I had ammunition in the boat. Of course I wasn’t going to do that, so I put the throttle on full and got out of there.

But they fired at me. I managed to outrun them, and naturally I know this stretch of coast better than they do, so I was able to hide out in a hidden cove and then, when they had gone past, make my way back here. ”

Ellie noticed he was wincing. “You said they fired at you. Did they hit you?”

“I’m not sure. Probably yes. I felt something, but there was so much adrenalin coursing through me that I hardly noticed.”

“Take off your coat,” she said. “Let’s see.”

As he took off the heavy jacket, she saw the blood. “Oh God, Nico. You’re bleeding. Come into the kitchen. Let me get a cloth.”

He followed her and sat on a stool while she put a pan of water on the stove, then grabbed a clean cloth and moistened it with water. “We need to find where it’s coming from,” she said. “Here. Let me help you off with your jumper.”

He held up his arms like a small child as she pulled it over his head.

Blood was running down his front. “It’s your neck,” she said.

“Oh God.” She started to wipe the blood away, dreading what she was going to find.

Did one have to remove a bullet? How would she do that? Then she heaved a sigh of relief.

“You’re a lucky man,” she said. “It just grazed the side of your neck. A centimetre to the left and it would have struck your jugular vein and you’d be gone. You must lead a charmed life.”

“The devil doesn’t want me yet,” he said, giving a nervous chuckle.

The water was heating up. She dipped the cloth in it and cleaned up all traces of blood. All that was left was a long scratch along one side of his neck. “It seems the bleeding has stopped,” she said. “Let me put a bandage over it. I’ll get some Dettol to make sure it’s not infected.”

“Ow, that hurts,” he said as she dabbed at it with a cotton swab.

“Don’t be a baby. I always did this for my boys when they skinned their knees. They didn’t make a fuss.”

He grinned, then he said, “Tell me about your boys. You never mention them.”

“No, but I think about them a lot,” she said. “One was in the army before the war even started. The other was going to join the RAF. I haven’t heard any news from either of them for a long while. I don’t know if they are still alive or not. It’s hard not to worry.”

“You were close to them?”

“Not really. When they were little, we were close. They snuggled with me when I read them a bedtime story. Such darling little boys. And then my husband insisted that we send them to boarding school when they were seven, because that was what the best families did. I tried arguing, but Lionel always got his own way, so off they went. And they were never the same again. They never dared to show their emotions after that. It was as if they shut off from any affection.” She gave a little sigh.

“Oh, they were always polite and nice enough to me, but there was never that spark of connection anymore.”

“Not like we have,” he said. When she looked up he smiled. “‘That spark of connection,’ you said. We have that, don’t we?”

“Yes, I think we do.”

He was looking at her steadily. “I can’t go home tonight,” he said. “They may be looking for me. They’ll want to find out who the boat belongs to. It does look rather distinctive.”

“Then leave it hidden down below for a while. Until the heat has died down,” she said.

“There are still more Jewish men coming. I have to take them. It’s my duty,” he said. “But tonight, you don’t mind if I stay here? I don’t think they can trace me, but you never know.”

“Of course you can stay,” she said. “I told you I made up a room already for you.”

He put an arm around her shoulder. “I want to be with you,” he said. “I want to remember what it feels like to be close to someone, to fall asleep in someone’s arms. It’s been so long ...”

He was looking at her steadily. “All right,” she said unsteadily.

“Just all right? You don’t want it, too? You’d just be doing me a favour?”

Ellie’s eyes held his. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I do want it, too.”

He held her close to him as they walked up the stairs together.