And what I also did not know was the actual direction I had been moving in and how many hours of darkness remained to me. I had assumed dawn was not far off. It was in fact only midnight. I had also trusted that I was travelling south-east, whereas in fact I had already, unwittingly, veered — too far — south-west and was doing the very thing I feared — circling the Château at no great distance from it. I missed the Doubs tributary. I eventually came upon a village. But certain features of it, even dimly visible from the distance, told me it was Frécourt, a village scarcely two kilometres from the Château and the very first place the Germans would search.
But, believing daylight was imminent, I had little choice. I battered at the door of an outlying farmhouse. You may imagine the scene, which in retrospect has strong touches of the grotesque and the comic, though at the time such notions counted for very little. I was a naked man, filthy and blood-smeared, hammering at the door of complete strangers. I did not think of the reaction of the occupants. I was only concerned that they would not hand me over to the Germans. Some trace of civilized delicacy still clung to me in my primitive state and I tore a leafy branch from a bush for purposes of decency. I stood like Adam after the Fall.
The door was opened, warily, by a woman, in her forties, with an oil lamp, clutching the folds of her dressing-gown. Her eyes went wide as saucers.
There was no time for elaborate explanations:
‘Madame, je suis un agent Anglais. J’ai échappé aux Boches. Je vous en prie, donnez-moi des vêtements.’
This was the first time, in addressing a stranger, that I had dispensed with my French ‘cover’. I called myself an ‘agent Anglais’. I thought this would add to the effect.
My potential saviour stared at me for several seconds. She was interested less in my nakedness than in the filth and blood-stains that covered me. For a moment her face indicated nothing. Then she said, in the most collected of voices: ‘Entrez monsieur. Attendez ici.’ And I knew I would be provided for.
She left me and returned in no time with a large blanket, towels and clothes; then went out again and reappeared with a bowl of warm water and a cloth. She beckoned me into a room and spread the blanket over a sturdy armchair.
‘Asseyez-vous. Lavez-vous et mettez ces vêtements.’
I was touched by the way that in the midst of harbouring a fugitive ally she was concerned for her armchair.
She went to a sideboard, took out a bottle of wine and a tumbler.
‘Buvez. Je vais vous apporter quelque chose à manger.’
It was only now as I began to bathe myself that I realized how I had suffered in the course of my flight. My feet and ankles were raw, bloody, deeply gashed in several places and — for the first time — stabbingly painful. All this was on top of what had been wrought at the Château. A sense of having no time to spare, together with the pain involved, made me none too thorough about the washing. I slipped on the underwear and trousers I had been given. They were a shade too small.
The woman returned with soup, bread and cheese. Now that I was decently clad she allowed herself to inspect me more closely and to examine my wounds. She knelt and looked at my feet, uttered a brief exclamation of sympathy and began rinsing them gently. This hurt a great deal. ‘Allez — mangez, buvez,’ she said. She spread towels under my feet so that the splashes of blood and filth would not touch the floor. It struck me that this was to avoid future evidence of my presence; but it must have already left incriminating footprints in the hallway. I realized the extreme risk she was running. She was a capable, dignified — and handsome woman, with reserves of warmth behind her alert grey eyes and disciplined, unpanicking features. Circumstances lend attraction to women — but this reflection is unfair to her.
I gulped at the wine. Though I had been starved for several days and my belly must have craved sustenance, I could not face the food.
‘Ces vêtements, madame. Ils sont à votre mari?’
‘Oui. Les Boches l’ont tué. Il y a un an.’
She left the room and returned with some thick socks and a pair of the sturdy leather boots beloved by the Maquisards and almost impossible, at this stage of the war, to get hold of. I had always preferred to be lighter shod myself, but I did not complain.
As I was pulling on these boots — like the clothes; they were a size too small and consequently, though they gave protection, they exacerbated the pain of my existing wounds — we heard the unmistakable noise of a German ‘arrival’. Cars, the squeal of tyres, commands — the dreaded barking of dogs. The sounds came from the centre of the village.
We both stood up. Stabs of pain shot up my legs.
‘I must go,’ I said. I wanted to quash any attempt by this good woman to hide me. But she seemed already to have concluded for herself that I stood a better chance by flight.
I laced my boots. ‘You must hide all this,’ I said, pointing to the stained towels and blanket, the tray of uneaten food.
‘Don’t worry. They will know nothing.’
I believed her.
The sounds from the centre of the village were beginning to spread out. She went to a back window.
‘Quickly.’
She ushered me to the door through which I had entered and opened it. She must have taken in the significance of the dogs (what presence of mind!) for she pointed to the right (the opposite direction to the one in which I had arrived) and said: ‘Over there — there is a stream. Then after, the forest.’
I had no time to say more than ‘Merci madame. Mille fois, merci.’ We embraced quickly, just as, in France, two men would have embraced in the same situation. Later, I reflected on this woman’s extraordinary coolness and bravery — all without asking me questions. I was quite sure she would cope with the searching Germans. I did not know who she was and she did not know me. I promised myself that whenever it was possible I would return to thank her properly. But I confess, to my shame, I was never able to trace her.
I made off in the direction she had pointed out. I had ascertained from a clock in the house that the time was half past one. There were perhaps four hours of darkness left.
I crossed the little stream, slipping, almost disastrously, on a boulder, and made for the trees. I was now back in the mad world of flicking branches and clawing brambles, with my pursuers, this time, definitely on my trail. I was soon experiencing the paradox that rest, in the middle of great effort, can produce exhaustion. For a good twenty minutes, in the farmhouse, I had regained my breath, quenched my thirst, had my aches and wounds nursed, and the result of all this was not renewed energy but redoubled fatigue. Every movement was now becoming a distinct labour. On top of this, the boots I had squeezed into were beginning to make the already painful condition of my feet intolerable. At some point along the way I did a seemingly senseless thing. I took them off and threw them away (only an hour before I had been craving shoes), retaining only the woollen socks. I even debated whether to remove my borrowed clothing; for though, like the boots, they offered protection against the spears and barbs of the forest, they seemed, after several days of nakedness, a weighty encumbrance.