In Time of War (Part Six of The People of this Parish Saga) by Thorne Nicola

Author:Thorne, Nicola [Thorne, Nicola]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

December 1943

Dora drove carefully along the narrow, uneven road that led to the house, past the rows of desolate, frozen vines now lying dormant until the spring. The harvest had been very poor. Many of the négociants in Rheims and Epernay were not even troubling to make champagne. Their vats remained empty of new wine as the Germans made raids on the cellars emptying them of rare vintages. Sometimes it seemed as though the production of champagne had ceased altogether and many growers had allowed the grapes to rot on the vine. Jean had been unable to sell half of his harvest and had been forced to throw it away.

Dora had been working all day at their office in Rheims where, in happier times, they had kept a small staff. Now she and Jean saw to the administrative details themselves. It was also a good cover as far as the occupying authorities were concerned.

Jean did not make his own champagne but sold his grapes to négociants, though there had been talk of forming a cooperative of wine growers which had had to be abandoned. Maybe that would eventually be revived after the war.

There had been another reason for Dora to work late on this particular evening. Jean was having an important meeting with the senior members of his réseau, and the trainee wireless operator, ‘Mathilde’ – a code name – had been left in charge of operations in the secret room at the back of the house.

Mathilde was a young woman who had come from the Loire, ostensibly as a relation of the Parterres. She was a rather nervous, tense-looking young woman whose credentials for the job Dora had at first questioned. However there was no doubt as to her reliability or her patriotism. She had received no formal training but had impeccable references from the Loire circuit for whom she had acted as a courier. She also showed an aptitude for the work, a quick facility for mastering the codes and a steadiness in sending and receiving messages.

Dora felt however that, although self-effacing to the point of embarrassment, Mathilde was an obtrusive presence in the house and she would be glad when she left.

Soon she would move north to where the Allied landings were expected to take place, if they ever did. Some said it would be Normandy, some the Pas de Calais. So far they had had no warning as it was too risky.

Dora parked the car in the barn – petrol was so scarce that it could only be used a few times a month – and made her way through the inky blackness to the house. She thought how strange it was that one got so used to danger one almost no longer felt afraid. There was usually a chill, a frisson of fear on waking in the morning and then, with the normal events of the day taking their course, it disappeared, though there were sometimes many surreptitious comings and goings of people not connected with the wine business.

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