China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) by Madalyn Morgan (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

‘Does your friend know where the men were taken?’ Édith asked when the waiter was out of earshot.

‘To Périgueux, of course.’ Claire felt numb. Jacques took a bite of his cake, leaving a white sugary substance on the narrow slug of hair above his top lip, and turned his attention to Claire. ‘The message you asked me to send was given as you instructed, Miss,’ he said, with his mouth full. ‘There was no reply to that message, but there is to be a--’ Jacques looked at the door, wiped his hand across his mouth and mumbled, ‘drop!’

‘When?’

‘Monday. One package is to go to Orléans and one to Paris.’

‘I shall deliver the package to Paris. Tell them tonight when you bake, Jacques, that China Blue will deliver to Paris,’ Claire said.

‘Claire dear, there’s almost a week before the drop. I think Jacques should wait until we’ve discussed it with André, don’t you?’

Claire rolled her eyes and blew out her cheeks. ‘Very well, but I shall go to Paris next week anyway. Whether I take anything with me is up to André, but since I don’t have any work over the next few weeks, I would like to visit the wife of a friend who had to stay in Paris with her parents when her husband and their children escaped to England.’ Édith lifted her empty coffee cup and pretended to drink. She wasn’t convinced, Claire thought. ‘It doesn’t make sense to take someone away from important work to make a delivery when I am free and can do it.’

Jacques finished his coffee and wiped a serviette across his face. ‘I shall say goodbye. I look forward to seeing you when you have made a decision,’ he said, lifting his chair and placing it carefully under the table. Then he put his hand in his pocket and gasped. ‘Madame,’ he whispered, putting his other hand up to his mouth, ‘I have forgotten my wallet.’

Édith smiled. ‘It will be my pleasure to buy your coffee, my friend.’

‘And the pastry,’ he giggled. Jacques put on his fedora, picked up his umbrella and after bowing to both women, he left.

André paced the kitchen floor. ‘I don’t like the idea of you delivering money to this new Maquis group calling themselves the Paris Centre on your own,’ he told Claire.

‘And your reasoning?’

‘You don’t know these men. You don’t know Paris.’

‘I know people in Paris that I can stay with. They don’t know about the work I do and I have no intention of telling them, unless I think their house will be a good safe house.’

André looked to his mother for support. Édith shrugged and André threw his hands in the air. ‘All right! You can go to Paris if you give me your word you will not go to Périgueux.’ Claire nodded. ‘You must deliver the money to the leader of Paris Centre first. Only then can you visit your friend. Agreed?’ Claire nodded again.

Claire had never been part of a reception committee and found waiting for the aircraft as frustrating as waiting to jump out of it. She looked up at the sky. There were only a few puff-ball clouds, and the moon was almost full. A torch flashed at the bottom of the field, followed by a second and a third. Small, round, and bright enough for an aircraft to see at a thousand feet, the torches formed a straight line. Almost immediately Claire heard the familiar grumbling of a Halifax engine. She looked to the east and her tummy fluttered with excitement. She thought of Mitch and wished it was him landing. She swallowed hard. If he was in Périgueux prison in Paris, at least he was still in France, not in a work camp in Poland or Germany. Or in a concentration camp – she shivered – where Jewish people were taken and never heard of again.

The plane, silhouetted against the clear sky, came into view and Claire watched the parachutes fall. She ran with the others to claim them. The speed of the operation was paramount. Collapse the chutes, fold them as small as possible and bury them. With Frédéric, she began to dig the damp mossy ground on the edge of the wood bordering a field that had once had wheat standing tall waiting to be harvested. Now it was overgrown and the crop, strangled by weeds, was dried and dead.

Half an hour after the drop, the crates were buried. ‘Money,’ André said, handing Claire two small leather wallets. She placed them in her shoulder bag, buckled it and set off home.

The following day after breakfast, Claire sat down with André, Frédéric, Édith and Pierre Ruban to discuss getting the money to Paris. All modes of travel were dangerous, but travelling by train was more so, because of the numerous identity paper checks. The Germans were paranoid. Every city and town a train went through brought out the local gendarmes who took delight in stopping and boarding the train to check its passengers’ papers. They often travelled on the trains. On those occasions there were fewer delays. Claire hoped that would be the case. It only took one over-zealous young gendarme wanting to impress his Gestapo masters to hinder, sometimes end, a passenger’s journey. Claire took out the Metro underground map that Professor Marron’s son Éric had given her. ‘I would like to visit someone in the 8th Arrondissement,’ she said. ‘I understand it is unusual to take time out when delivering, but ...’

‘But what?’ Pierre asked.

What she was about to say sounded sentimental in such circumstances, but she was not going to hide anything from the brave men she worked with. ‘I