Clandestine by J. Robert Janes Page B

in the newspapers, like lots of others still. ‘And she always wants to know what’s been going on at home.’
    Back in February 1941, in Amsterdam, there had been an altercation at an ice-cream parlor and about four hundred young Jews had been arrested, some so badly beaten, fifty had soon died in the Konzentrationslager at Buchenwald, the rest being sent on to the KZ atMauthausen. But being Dutch and not liking what had happened, the Netherlanders had gone on strike on the twenty-fifth of that month, circumstance putting a stop to it within about three days. Even so, by September 1941 every Jew in the country had been registered. All 140,000, of whom about 20,000 had been refugees, most of whom had fled the Reich before the war. And by April of this year, none had been allowed to live anywhere other than Amsterdam or in the internment camps of Vught and Westerbork, the latter being the main transit point.
    â€˜And now?’ he asked himself, clenching a fist at the inhumanity, for it had been going on here too, and Louis and he had come up against it time and again. ‘Only about 2,000 are left in the Netherlands. That Le Matin of 20 August 1942 dates to just a month after that first major round-up in Paris. What was happening here would have driven her crazy with worry.’
    Slamming on the brakes, he got out to impatiently wait for Louis.
    One would have thought him a sudden control, felt St-Cyr, for Hermann was a big man and the breath was billowing from under that fedora and into the frosty darkness that was lit from behind by the faintness of the Citroën’s headlamps and then his own.
    â€˜Louis, she went home to find out what had happened to her parents. Oona’s always wanting to for the same reason, and not just her own, but Martin’s too. That’s why that girl took such a chance with the embroidery. She brought it from home—it was all she could find. She couldn’t stand not knowing what could well have happened and had finally forced herself to leave Paris.’
    â€˜Only to then find out and hitch a return with a passeur?’
    â€˜ Passeurs don’t drive trucks like that. They’re usually loaners. They sit a few seats behind in the bus or railway carriage, not in heavily loaded trucks that can’t even get up the speed of a gasoline engine.’
    â€˜Unless …’
    Ah merde! ‘Using the cover of hauling stuff to sell on the marché noir. I don’t think there’ve ever been any passeurs caught doing that, but …’
    â€˜There’s always a first time, Hermann, though it still doesn’t explain Berlin’s sending those two.’
    â€˜Then maybe there’s an FTP connection.’
    As Hermann and he both knew, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans were the backbone of actively armed resistance and the cause, no doubt, of the recent death of Dr. Julius Ritter. ‘What a happy thought.’
    â€˜It’s a night for them. Now roll us one from these. Two Wills Goldflake and two Chesterfields.’
    Though but a rumour like everything else they usually heard, von Rundstedt, commander of the army in the West, had recently sent the Führer a detailed report of the rapid increase in rail sabotage. In September alone there had been more than 500 serious actions, compared to a monthly average of 120 for the first half of the year. FTP réseaux were thought to be small, their security so tight none would even fart in public, but there would be Italians among them from the days of 1930s and Mussolini’s hatred of the Communists, Armenians, too, from the Turkish troubles, and Poles, especially from just before and after 1 September 1939.
    â€˜And Austrians, Hermann, from before, during and right after the Anschluss . The Third Republicand Paris, in particular, offered home to many.’
    â€˜And most would likely have taken day jobs that fitted them right in, some even having gotten married and had