A YOUNG SUCCUBUS NAMED DELICIA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 12 – PARTNERS IN COMBAT

 

05:36 (Paris Time)

Friday, October 24, 1941

Apartment building, Rue Danton

Quartier Latin, 6th Arrondissement Paris, Occupied France

His mind still foggy and his eyelids heavy, Paul Romanov went to the bathroom of his family apartment, where he splashed some cold water on his face to fully wake up, then brushed his teeth. Still wearing his pajamas, the communist veteran and secret Résistance fighter made his way to the kitchen, careful not to wake up his wife and children. He was preparing a sandwich, to be brought later as his noon lunch to his place of work at the Austerlitz Train Station, when a light knock on the doorframe of the kitchen made him turn his head. Expecting to see his wife, Paul instinctively jumped back on seeing a young man he didn’t know, standing in the doorframe and wearing a long brown coat. The newcomer made a reassuring gesture and spoke in French with what sounded like a British accent.

‘’Relax, Mister Romanov: I am a friend.’’

The man then opened his coat with both hands, uncovering a British battledress uniform.

‘’Let me present myself: Lieutenant Robert Jones, Royal Marines, of the First Special Commando Unit. You must have heard about the recent actions of me and my men around Paris.’’

‘’How could I not have heard about them?’’ replied Paul, his tension dropping as fast as it had surged up on seeing first the newcomer. ‘’The Germans around Paris are now completely paranoid and don’t feel safe even in their caserns. Your unit is doing a fantastic job, I must say.’’

‘’Yes, but the Germans are about to respond in a most bloody way.’’ said Jones, his face now grave. Paul nodded his head, realizing what he was talking about. The response by the Germans to the murderous raids and bombing by the British commandos had been a public ultimatum: either the British commandos in Paris gave themselves up by noon tomorrow, Saturday, 25th of October, or thousands of French

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hostages would start to be executed. What Romanov didn’t know was that this ultimatum had come straight from Berlin, where Adolph Hitler was livid about the debacle of his SS troopers in Paris. To his credit, General Otto Von Stulpnagel, the

Kommandant of the Gross Paris area, had refused to order his army troops to commit such mass executions of hostages. As a consequence, he had been quickly replaced and sent back to Germany, leaving Paris under the dominating authority of the SS and Gestapo.

‘’I know about the Germans’ plan to execute thousands of French hostages if you and your commandos don’t give yourselves up by noon tomorrow, mister. However, I don’t doubt for a minute that you will then be promptly executed by the Germans, unless they decide to interrogate you hard first, so I won’t blame you if you decide to not surrender to the Germans tomorrow.’’

Jones/Mélanie gave a sober look at the communist militant and Résistance fighter.

‘’And what would you do in my place, Mister Romanov?’’

‘’Me? I would keep killing Germans regardless, until they would leave France. Freedom is never cheap and it is worthy of paying a price for it. Uh, could I ask you why you came here, in my home, to see me, when all the Germans in Paris are looking for you and your men?’’

‘’I came because I know that you are an active Résistance fighter and that you are a man I could count on to fight the Germans.’’

‘’And who told you that? I do hope that this is not commonly known in Paris.’’ Jones shook his head, seemingly amused by that.

‘’No, it is not, Mister Romanov, so you can relax. It happens that we have a common friend and ally, right here in the Quartier Latin: she provided you some weapons, ammunition and explosives a number of times already.’’

‘’She? Are you talking about Miss Lilie?’’

‘’Her exactly! I suppose that you know who she is exactly, right?’’ Jones/Mélanie waited with interest Romanov’s answer to that question: Mélanie wanted to be sure about the actual degree of anonymity she enjoyed in Paris. She didn’t like much the knowing smile that Romanov made then as he replied to ‘Jones’.

‘’She never gave me her true name, but such a beautiful girl can’t hide from men’s looks for long. I actually saw a picture of her on an advertising poster beside the main entrance of a local cabaret where she dances and strip…for German officers. When I think that her idiotic neighbors think of her as a collaborator… With her

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sensational body, she must be making those German officers blab out their secrets in bed like idiots.’’

‘’That she does! However, I would encourage you not to share her true identity with the members of your Résistance cell. It would take only one of them to be captured and interrogated by the Gestapo to blow her cover.’’

‘’That won’t happen, as I didn’t tell my men about her.’’ lied Romanov. Mélanie’s telepathic powers told her otherwise, but she kept the face of her present human shape impassive.

‘’Good! Know that she is also helping us by providing us with one of our hiding places.’’

‘’Decidedly, whenever the Germans leave Paris, I will then have to go defend her reputation publicly: she could very well be branded a collaborationist and suffer the consequences, along with the other girls of that cabaret. Well, let’s return to the subject of those hostages’ executions: what will you do about them?’’

‘’You mean, what will WE do about them, Mister Romanov. I came to see you because, while me and my men are deadly in combat, we can’t just go around Paris without being instantly noticed. However, you and your men can. What I mean by this is that, while I am ready to save those hostages and break them out of their jails before they could be executed, I will then need French people like you to then help those hostages to hide from the Germans, at least for a few days, time for them to find their own individual refuges with friends or family members.’’

‘’But I would need vehicles for that, along with gasoline and the appropriate permits to pass German checkpoints. We are after all talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of people who are about to be executed.’’

‘’You are correct about that, mister, and I have already started working on that problem. Does any of your men speak fluent German?’’

‘’Three of them actually do, Lieutenant: they are German communists who had to flee to France when the Gestapo started hunting down known communists around Berlin. I am sure that I could find more German speakers quite quickly if need be. Why do you ask?’’

‘’Because my men left an assortment of stolen German SS uniforms, weapons and field kit in the usual cache where Miss Lilie leaves weapons and ammunition for you. You will thus be able to dress your men as SS troopers, something that should facilitate greatly your movements. As for the vehicles, you will find three stolen German trucks

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hidden in a decrepit, abandoned warehouse in the suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine. Here is the address of that warehouse, along with the keys to the padlocks I put on its doors.’’ Romanov, not believing his luck, took the folded piece of paper handed to him by Jones and looked at it briefly before looking back at the British.

‘’I know that area fairly well. When will you need us to be ready?’’

‘’As soon as possible. I expect the first executions of hostages to start at dawn, on Sunday. So, we don’t have much time. The word I have is that the Germans will use the Fresne Prison to hold the hostages, pending their execution, with the main prison courtyard there used for the killings. Your job will be to wait in hiding some distance from the prison and then rush in at my signal to pick up the hostages who will be fleeing the prison. With luck, you won’t need to fire a single shot by yourself during the operation.’’

‘’I must say that you seem to have things already well in hands, Lieutenant Jones. I promise you to make my men ready by no later than midnight, tomorrow night.’’

‘’Good! Oh, one more thing: in the glove compartments of the cabs of the trucks my men hid, you will find sets of German military identity cards, along with one official German stamp and ink pad and a stapler. Have your men bring with them passport pictures of themselves, so that they could staple them to those identity cards.’’

‘’My god, where did you find those things?’’

The question brought a mean smile on the face of Jones/Mélanie.

‘’The identity cards? They belonged to the German drivers and passengers of those trucks, whom we killed. As for the official stamp, we picked it up in the old Gestapo offices on Avenue Foch…before we torched them.’’ What Jones/Mélanie didn’t say was that she had stolen a lot more than just one official Nazi stamp at the Gestapo offices and at other places she had raided. In fact, she had in her secret cave under the cabaret enough authentic German materiel to start a forgery office of her own.

‘’Well, you will be a busy man today and tomorrow, so I will leave you now. I will communicate again with you later tomorrow, to give you the precise timings and place where I will need your men. Have a good day, Mister Romanov.’’ Jones then closed back his long coat and raised its collar before leaving Paul’s apartment. The communist fighter looked again at the piece of paper given to him by Jones, then remembered that he had a job to go to. On second thoughts, he was

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probably better off calling in sick for today: he would indeed have a lot to do in the next 48 hours.

 

07:28 (Paris Time)

Sunday, October 26, 1941

Fresne Prison, Val-de-Marne

South of Paris

‘’Come on, Jeanne, be strong. Show these bastards that we are no cowards.’’

‘’But I am scared, Sylvie!’’ protested the younger woman to the mature woman closest to her in the first group of hostages being led to the execution grounds by SS soldiers. Sylvie, who had shared a cell with Jeanne and two other female hostages, one of them a mere teenager, passed a comforting arm around Jeanne’s shoulders, doing her best to calm her. Thousands of normal French citizens had been picked up at random in the streets of Paris and of its suburbs by roaming groups of SS soldiers during the last week, to be then brought to the old and sinister Fresne Prison, the largest prison in France. The prison, which had already been over capacity, was now overcrowded beyond description, with small individual cells having to accommodate four prisoners or more. Hygienic conditions, already poor, had become abysmal, while the food rations served to the prisoners were barely above starvation level. To add to the cruelty of all this, the SS had shown little discrimination in who they were picking up, freeing afterwards only those who officially worked for the German administration or for the Vichy government. Contrary to German Army practice, the SS had shown no

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compulsion about grabbing women and teenage girls along the usual pick of men and teenage boys as hostages. But what was burning Sylvie the most was the fact that the French policemen guarding the prisoners of the Fresne Prison had either turned a blind eye to the plight of the thousands of innocents gathered by the SS for execution, or had willingly helped the SS’ dirty work in order to gain favors with them. One such French policeman who was ‘helping’ the hostages to move along with liberal swings of his truncheon earned a stinging comment from Sylvie.

‘’You can be really proud of yourself, you piece of shit!’’

Angered by her words, the policeman advanced on her with his truncheon high, but was stopped at the last second by another, more senior policeman who blocked his raised arm.

‘’Enough, Martin! These are hostages, not criminals. You’ve played enough with your truncheon this morning: go take a long break at the guardhouse.’’ The said Martin grudgingly obeyed, throwing a last glare at Sylvie before walking away. The senior policeman who had stopped him made a contrite smile to her.

‘’I am sorry if I can’t do more for you and the other hostages, madam.’’

‘’You could do at least one more thing: quit your job and join the Résistance, mister!’’ replied Sylvie, making the man lower his head in shame. Feeling a bit better after venting her anger, she then continued to follow the other hostages while supporting Jeanne, whom had been a perfect unknown to her a mere two days ago. Her group of forty hostages soon emerged in the open air of a courtyard, where SS soldiers waiting for them brutally pushed the hostages and lined them against one of the stone walls of the courtyard. Sylvie paled when she saw the four SS machine gun crews, backed by ten infantrymen with rifles, lined up on the opposite side of the courtyard, their weapons pointed at her and her companions of misfortune. Behind them were a row of empty, waiting trucks, their rear tailgates opened. Understanding that her end was near, she looked up for one last look at the sky, with the Sun now barely above the horizon. She closed her eyes on hearing the first harsh command in German from a SS officer to his gunners. The series of detonations that followed a second later shook her physically, being much louder than anything she had expected. However, to her surprise, she didn’t feel any pain or actual physical impacts from bullets. Opening her eyes, she was just in time to see a burst of machine gun fire, apparently fired from an elevated position, rake down the line of SS machine gunners, mowing them as they lay on their stomach behind their weapons. Debris of all kinds were also falling all around, while big clouds of dust

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and smoke expanded from multiple points of the prison. She was both shocked and overjoyed to see one of the guards’ barracks suddenly jump into the air, propelled by some powerful underground explosion, before falling back down and collapsing in a giant heap of rubble. Looking to her left, she saw that there were now two large holes in the walls on this side of the prison, while the watch towers she could see had crumbled, blown up from the inside. More machine gun fire followed, downing most of the surviving SS soldiers, who were desperately trying to either return fire or find some cover. One of the hostages, a mature man in his fifties, then shouted at the top of his lungs.

‘’SOMEBODY HAS COME TO HELP US ESCAPE! RUN FOR THOSE HOLES IN THE WALL!’’

Except for a handful of hostages who stayed paralyzed with fear, the others, including Sylvie and Jeanne, started running at once in a mad dash towards the openings in the perimeter wall and freedom. While running, she saw the hostage who had shouted out go instead towards the dead SS gunners, where he picked up one of the German machine guns. He had time to shoot down three SS soldiers near the trucks before he was killed by rifle fire from other SS soldiers. Promising herself to later make a prayer for the soul of that brave man, Sylvie helped Jeanne climb over the small mound of stone debris across one of the wall openings. She was however shocked to see German soldiers, clad in the black uniforms of SS troopers, on the other side of the wall. However, those SS troopers were wearing French berets and spoke in French!

‘’HURRY UP! WE HAVE TRUCKS FOR YOU TO YOUR LEFT, ON THE ROAD. GET IN THEM, QUICKLY!’’

Sylvie didn’t have to be told twice and ran towards the first of three German trucks waiting nearby, still holding Jeanne’s hand. As she helped Jeanne climb in the back of that truck, she saw that a few of the disguised Frenchmen were now going inside the prison grounds through the holes in the wall.

‘’May God bless these brave men.’’

Inside the corridor used by the first group of hostages to go out in the courtyard, other groups of hostages assembled in advance by prison guards instinctively threw themselves down on the concrete floor as an intense firefight could be heard outside, intermixed with explosions. The French policemen guarding them, taken completely by surprise and having no directives for such a situation, apart from being armed only with truncheons, simply fled, retreating towards the main guardhouse, where the few

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weapons they had were stored. They however quickly found out that the said guardhouse was one of the prison buildings which had just been blown up and was now reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Seeing that their nearby barracks, where the majority of the prison staff had still been at the start of the attack, had also been destroyed, the surviving policemen panicked and ran, jumping in the few cars and trucks parked near the main gate and driving out at top speed. Paul Romanov, leading five of his disguised men inside the prison walls, smiled on seeing that eight empty German medium trucks were parked, intact, inside the execution courtyard: they must have been meant to carry away the bodies of the dead hostages afterwards.

‘’LUCIEN, MARC AND PIERRE, GO SECURE THESE TRUCKS! WE WILL USE THEM TO CARRY OUT MORE HOSTAGES. RÉGIS, MICHEL, YOU COME WITH ME!’’

Paul then led his two men at a run towards the door of the courtyard which gave access inside the nearest prison building. Jumping inside with his MP40 submachine gun at the ready, he grinned on seeing close to a hundred hostages, lying down on their bellies and nearly filling the corridor.

‘’FRENCH RÉSISTANCE! WE HAVE TRUCKS WAITING FOR YOU OUTSIDE! GET UP AND RUN OUT, NOW! RÉGIS, GO WITH THEM TO GUIDE THEM!’’ Paul started running again, going deeper down the corridor with Michel Perrier and finding more hostages who had been lined up for execution. Shouting at them to run outside and board the trucks there, Paul soon realized that, even if they would have enough drivers for all the captured trucks they had, they would be able to transport away only a small portion of all those who had been scheduled to be shot today by the SS. Looking out through a window, he saw the nearest cell block, a long four storey building housing over 460 individual cells…and there were three such buildings in the prison! If his men and the British commandos left now, the Germans would still have over a thousand prisoners to pick from to execute as hostages, something that he was not ready to let happen. The only satisfactory solution for him to that dilemma would be to free all the prisoners in this prison, be they criminals, captured Résistance fighters or hostages. But how would he help so many people to then evade the Germans and disappear?

Paul Romanov was taken out of his thoughts by the ear-splitting detonations from a burst of submachine gun, in time to see a SS trooper collapse at the visible end of the

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corridor. Pointing his submachine gun, he got ready for more Germans, but had to stop himself at the last second, as Lieutenant Jones appeared past the corner of the corridor. Feeling better now, Paul ran towards him while urging the hostages he passed by to run outside, finally stopping in front of the British Royal Marines officer.

‘’Lieutenant Jones, I see you just in time. The hostages who had been lined up along this corridor, along with the others who had been about to be shot outside, are now running for our trucks. However, this will still leave nearly 2,000 prisoners in this prison, prisoners whom the Germans will be free to execute once we are gone. We just can’t let all these men and women die by abandoning them now, no?’’ Jones/Mélanie made a grimace at that: with so little time to prepare this operation, that point had not been properly planned and prepared for by her. However, the fight to gain control of the prison had gone much better than Mélanie had expected: there had been fewer SS troopers present than she had anticipated, while the mostly unarmed French policemen guarding the prison, at least the ones who had survived the blowing up of their barracks, had fled or were now fleeing as fast as they could.

‘’I agree with you that we can’t abandon them, but the problem will be how to lead them away to safety after opening their cells? I already gave the order to retreat to my men and stayed only to see how your men were doing. Let me think for a moment!’’ Thinking furiously for a few seconds, Jones/Mélanie finally took out a map of the region out of his cargo pocket sewn on the left leg of his battledress trousers and pointed at a location on it.

‘’This is the prison we are in now. About 400 yards to the East of the prison is one of the surface access points of the old underground Médicis Aqueduct, which runs from the nearby village of Rungis all the way to the Paris Observatory, in the 14th Arrondissement. We could make the escapees flee underground along the aqueduct, but we will have to make it quick before the Germans could react and see where everyone is disappearing. I actually had kept that route as an emergency fallback plan but we have no better choice now. Your men did cut the local telephone wires when you heard the first explosions, right?’’

‘’We did!’’ said Romanov without hesitation, making Jones/Mélanie nod once.

‘’Good! That should keep the Germans confused for a few more precious minutes. Keep this map and go open with your men the cells doors in all the cell blocks, then tell the prisoners to follow them to that surface access point. Someone I trust will

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be waiting there to guide you underground. I am sorry if I have to leave now but I really must run. Good luck! I will come and see you in Paris tomorrow evening.’’ On that, the British commando officer ran away, turning a corner at the end of the corridor and disappearing, leaving a Paul Romanov a bit overwhelmed by his new responsibilities. The communist cell leader however got back hold of himself quickly enough and pointed an index at Michel Perrier.

‘’You and I will start opening the cell doors in the eastern cell block. As soon as the first prisoners are out of their cells, tell them to help us by going to open the cell doors on the upper floors and in the two other cell blocks. The prisoners are to regroup on the ground floor of the eastern cell block, from where we will guide them out towards that aqueduct surface access point. If you see weapons or flashlights on the bodies of dead Germans or policemen, grab them and distribute them to the prisoners you will deem most trustworthy. Now, let’s go! The clock is ticking!’’

Running down concrete and stone masonry corridors, the two Résistance fighters encountered a number of dead German soldiers or French policemen, giving them the opportunity to grab in passing quite a few weapons, spare magazines and flashlights. They soon arrived at the central hallway of the prison, which connected all three cell blocks, plus the common facilities. By then, many of the prisoners were shouting and banging on their cell doors, clamoring to ask what was happening. Paul sent Michel Perrier to open the ground level cells of the northern wing of the eastern cell block, then started running down one side of the southern wing, opening the steel cell doors as quickly as he could. He however took the time to grab the first men who came out of their cells, looking them in the eyes while speaking with as much authority as he could show.

‘’You, you, and you! I need you to climb to the upper levels of this wing and open the cell doors. You will tell the others to assemble down in the central hallway, on the ground level. I will then guide you all outside and towards freedom.’’

‘’Who blew up the barracks and watch towers? You?’’ asked one of the prisoners, making Paul shake his head.

‘’Not me, but an ally of mine. Now, please, don’t ask more questions and go quickly open the cells on the upper floors.’’

To Paul’s relief, the three men didn’t question him further and left at a run, climbing the steel staircases leading to the three levels of cells above. That allowed Paul to finish

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opening the cell doors on his level of this wing, by which time over 300 men were coming down from the upper levels. Leading them to the central hallway, which was already packing up with hundreds of prisoners, Paul took sixteen men with him and went to unlock the cells in the two other cell blocks, leaving Michel Perrier in charge of explaining to the freed prisoners what was going to follow.

They managed to free and assemble over 2,000 men and some 300 women in record time, with Paul Romanov quickly selecting the toughest-looking men in the lot and distributing to them the weapons taken on the dead Germans and the flashlights which had belonged to the French guards. He then led the crowd out of the cell blocks and towards the holes blown in the eastern perimeter wall of the prison. He was happy to see that his men had already left with the captured trucks, transporting the hostages saved from the SS firing squad towards a predetermined refuge in the southern suburbs of Paris. His men had also had the sense to loot the dead SS troopers of their weapons and ammunition, something that certainly could not hurt. Using the map given by Lieutenant Jones once outside of the wall, Paul oriented himself quickly and pointed an arm eastward towards a small, distant stone hut visible through the sparse trees and open fields.

‘’THIS WAY! LET’S HURRY BEFORE GERMAN REINFORCEMENTS

ARRIVE!’’

Despite the fact that most of the prisoners had been underfed, some for long periods of time, everybody started jogging behind Paul Romanov, doing their best to stay with him. Paul himself, a tough man accustomed to hard physical work as a metal worker, covered the 400 yards to the stone hut in about two minutes despite being loaded with weapons and ammunition. He felt immense relief when he saw that someone was waving at him from the opened door of the hut, signaling him to hurry. His relief however turned into amazement when he arrived at the hut and could see clearly the person waiting for him and carrying a MP40 submachine gun and a spare magazines holder.

‘’Miss Lilie?!’’

‘’That’s me!’’ replied Mélanie, smiling, before becoming serious. ‘’Let’s get all these people underground before the Germans could arrive and spot them in the open. We will organize them once they are all down. ALRIGHT PEOPLE, START GOING DOWN THE STAIRS. ONCE DOWN ON THE LEVEL OF THE AQUEDUCT, GO

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FORWARD IN THE TUNNEL FOR ABOUT A HUNDRED PACE, TO LEAVE ENOUGH SPACE FOR EVERYONE TO FIT IN INSIDE.’’

Grabbing flashlights from a pouch she wore across her chest, Mélanie then gave one of them at intervals of about fifty people. The tunnel of the aqueduct itself was not lit by lamps, being normally pitch black and forcing visitors to bring their own lights with them. Making all 2,300 freed prisoners go down the stairs felt like taking an eternity to her and Paul Romanov but she was able to close back and lock the steel door of the hut before she saw any German vehicle arrive at the prison. In that she probably could thank two big factors: firstly, the fact that the German occupation troops in and around Paris had suffered very heavily in the last few months, particularly the infantry units which were primarily tasked with security; secondly, the excessive degree of caution now exercised by German troops around Paris, who had been subject by now to countless surprise ambushes and attacks by ‘British commandos’ along the roads and at checkpoints. Those Germans now heading towards the Fresne Prison were probably expecting to hit a mine or some kind of ambush along the way. To be frank, Mélanie couldn’t blame them for that, as she had made life truly miserable for the Germans in the last few months, thanks to her ‘British commandos’ and their ghost-like tactics.

Going down the stairs herself, she put Michel Perrier, who had a flashlight, at the tail end of the long column, so that he could make sure that nobody fell behind and got lost in the dark. Then, she had the flashlights available redistributed more evenly, to ensure that everybody would have some light to help them advance. Arriving at the head of the thick column squeezed inside the narrow tunnel, she spoke as loudly as she could, so that everyone could hear her.

‘’LISTEN UP, PLEASE! YOU ARE NOW INSIDE THE TUNNEL OF THE OLD MÉDICIS AQUEDUCT, WHICH RUNS FROM RUNGIS ALL THE WAY TO THE 14TH ARRONDISSEMENT. THAT REPRESENTS ABOUT FIVE MILES OF WALKING IN A DARK, NARROW TUNNEL, SO WE WILL GO SLOWLY BUT STEADILY. ONCE INSIDE THE WALLS OF PARIS, I WILL ANNOUNCE TO YOU THE VARIOUS SURFACE ACCESS POINTS WE WILL CROSS, SO YOU CAN CHOOSE WHERE YOU WILL LEAVE US AND TRY YOUR INDIVIDUAL LUCKS. UNFORTUNATELY, THAT IS THE MOST WE CAN DO FOR YOU NOW. HOWEVER, WHATEVER HAPPENS, DON’T START TELLING OTHERS ABOUT YOUR ADVENTURE OF TODAY: ANYTHING YOU MAY SAY COULD JEOPARDISE THE SAFETY OF THE

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BRAVE MEN WHO RESCUED YOU. WE WILL NOW START MOVING DOWN THE AQUEDUCT. BE QUIET AND HELP EACH OTHER FROM NOW ON.’’ With Mélanie taking the lead and with Paul Romanov following some 200 yards down the column, they then started their long walk along the masonry tunnel of the aqueduct.

The freed prisoners soon earned the respect of Mélanie by walking quietly and steadily without complaining, despite the very rough times they had already gone through while imprisoned in the Fresne Prison. From what she had briefly seen of its inside, Mélanie would have classified the Fresne Prison as being worthy of some of the upper levels of the Abyss in terms of a place of punishment, if you took into account the brutal beatings and interrogations which the Germans performed there on prisoners. Mélanie then thought that this fortitude shown by the ex-prisoners was due to the fact that most of the French people she had just helped escape had been part of the small portion of French men and women brave and resolute enough to have tried to oppose the German occupation of their country, either as Résistance members or by providing shelter to persons wanted by the Germans, thus risking their own lives for others. The sad truth was that, up to now, the vast majority of French people didn’t actively oppose the German occupation, being instead preoccupied mostly with keeping their lives as normal as possible while finding enough food to eat.

Because of the physically weakened state of most of the ex-prisoners and the difficult conditions of the march, it took the group a good six hours before they arrived within the old walls of Paris and started advancing in the underground network of the 14th Arrondissement. Forty minutes later, Mélanie stopped the group at the entrance of a small subterranean chamber.

‘’WE HAVE NOW ARRIVED AT THE SURFACE ACCESS POINT NUMBER 22, IN THE PARC MONTSOURIS. I WILL GO CHECK FIRST IF IT IS SAFE TO EXIT HERE, THEN THOSE WHO WILL WANT TO LEAVE US HERE WILL BE ABLE TO DO SO. PASS THE WORD DOWN THE LINE, PLEASE!’’

Going up the stone stairs leading to the access hut, Mélanie cautiously looked through a small window giving her a view of the park in which the hut was built. To her satisfaction, she saw that it was raining outside, with an overcast sky full of gray clouds. Not surprisingly, especially on an October Sunday, the cold rain would have made the Parisians stay mostly at home, while German patrols would tend to be less vigilant.

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Going back down the stairs, she found dozens of people shuffling places in the column to get closer to the access point.

‘’IF YOU WILL LISTEN AGAIN, PLEASE! IT IS PRESENTLY RAINING

OUTSIDE, SOMETHING THAT SHOULD HELP YOU GO AROUND MORE INCOGNITO. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WILL LEAVE US NOW, BE CAREFUL AND DON’T GO TO YOUR OLD HOMES, UNLESS IT IS A SHORT VISIT TO PICK UP THINGS, AS THE GERMANS MAY START LOOKING FOR YOU THERE TOMORROW. IF YOU HAVE DEPENDABLE FRIENDS, GO SEE THEM FIRST. I WILL NOW LET YOU GO OUT IN SMALL GROUPS. FOLLOW ME UP, BE QUIET AND GIVE ME BACK YOUR FLASHLIGHTS BEFORE GOING OUT.’’

No less than 250 people chose to exit at the Parc Montsouris. Mélanie then led the rest of the column to the next exit point, near the Ste-Anne Hospital, where more people left the aqueduct. By the time that the group had arrived at the end of the aqueduct, situated four exit points further and next to the Paris Observatory, near Place Denfert-Rochereau, it was down to a more manageable 400 people.

‘’LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS THE END OF THE AQUEDUCT, NEXT TO THE PARIS OBSERVATORY. HERE AND NOW WOULD BE A GOOD PLACE TO EXIT, BUT IF YOU WANT TO GO A BIT FURTHER NORTH, I KNOW A WAY THROUGH OLD UNDERGROUND QUARRIES WHICH WOULD LEAD US UP TO THE JARDIN DE LUXEMBOURG AND THE RUE DE VAUGIRARD, IN THE 6TH ARRONDISSEMENT. MAKE YOUR CHOICE NOW!’’

Not surprisingly, quite a few people decided to stay with her until they could get to the 6th Arrondissement, it being much nearer to the Right Bank of the Seine, where the biggest portion of Paris was built. Also not surprisingly, Paul Romanov and Michel Perrier elected to stay with her, since they lived in the 6th Arrondissement. Finally, it was a group of 56 people who followed her back down in the tunnels, going through the Quarry of the Capucins and the Quarry of the Val-de-Grace and up to the Rue de Vaugirard. There, about everyone else exited, walking away towards places that they deemed safe enough for at least one night. That left three young women with Mélanie, along with Paul Romanov and Michel Perrier. All three bore the marks of brutal beatings and seemed unsure where they wanted to go next. Mélanie’s telepathic powers then told her something that made her frown as the women asked for a place to stay and hide.

‘’What do you mean, girls, when you say that you have nowhere to go?’’

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The oldest of the three, who could not be more than thirty, hesitated a bit before answering her.

‘’Uh, we have nowhere to go in Paris because we are not French: we are British

S.O.E.38 agents. To be more precise, we were radio operators until the Germans found and arrested us. That is why they beat us up.’’

‘’Merde39! What do we do now?’’ asked Paul Romanov, taken by surprise by this revelation. ‘’I can’t exactly hide them in my home: my neighbors would ask too many questions about them.’’

‘’The same here!’’ added Michel Perrier. Both Communists and the three British female agents next looked in unison at Mélanie, who objected at once.

‘’What a minute! My mother would kill me if I brought three British agents to our cabaret: it would be way too dangerous for everybody.’’

‘’Why so, Miss Lilie?’’ asked the youngest British agent, who looked to be about 22 years-old. Mélanie made a wry smile in response.

‘’Because our cabaret is also a bordello and because we cater exclusively to German officers.’’

‘’A BORDELLO? GERMAN OFFICERS?!’’

‘’Shh! Please keep your voice down: voices can range far in these tunnels and caves. Yes, me and other girls strip for German officers and bed them as well, which is a very effective way to get some precious information out of them without them realizing it. Remember: with men, their dicks often speak louder than their brains.’’ Those words made the three British women giggle briefly before they became most serious again, with the older one looking somberly at Mélanie.

‘’So, what are we to do now?’’

Mélanie was thoughtful for a moment as she detailed the three women, then spoke up.

‘’First, the three of you will need some serious medical attention. My mother knows a doctor who does home visits and who can be depended on to be discreet. So, I will bring you to my mother’s cabaret. However, let me be clear about this: if you stay at the cabaret, then you will follow my rules and those of my mother. With all the German officers visiting the cabaret, one faux pas would be enough to kill us all.’’

‘’Fair enough! Now, how do we get to your cabaret without being stopped?’’

38 S.O.E.: Special Operations Executive. A British government agency tasked with performing clandestine operations in Occupied Europe during WW2.

39 Merde: Shit, in French.

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That question made Mélanie grin with amusement as she pointed at Romanov and Perrier.

‘’Easy! Those two SS gentlemen will escort us to the cabaret. If someone asks, we will say that you work at the cabaret and are being protected because of the hostility of our neighbors. By the way, my moronic neighbors really hate my guts because they think that I am a ‘collabo’ and would love nothing more than to torch the cabaret.’’ The youngest British girl, a very pretty redhead with green eyes, made a face at that.

‘’Wow! You go around with a submachine gun and fight the Germans, yet pass off as a collaborator. That’s quite an interesting situation.’’

‘’Well, my life has been anything but dull…or saintly. Just give me a second and we will then go out on the street.’’

First removing the magazine from her MP 41 submachine gun and folding its steel stock with practiced ease, Mélanie then hid her weapon and its magazines carrier under her long women’s trench coat. Next, she exited the access hut and stepped on the sidewalk of the Rue de Vaugirard, close to the Palais du Luxembourg. Once her five companions were also out on the sidewalk and into the rain, she led them up the Rue de Condé and towards the Boulevard Saint Germain. It was now close to supper time and, with most shops and establishments closed for Sunday and with the rain continuing to fall, albeit less heavily, they crossed path with very few other pedestrians. Those who did pass by them only needed one look at the two ‘SS soldiers’ escorting the girls to keep any comment to themselves and go on their own way.

The group split up one block away from the cabaret, with Paul Romanov and Michel Perrier leaving for their respective homes after a last exchange of goodbyes and good wishes with the British girls. Now alone with the three women under the temporary shelter of a shop’s entrance, Mélanie gave a sober look at her three new companions.

‘’At this hour on a Sunday, there will probably be German customers present in my mother’s cabaret, the ‘Mille et Une Nuits’, so we will have to be careful. We will use the service entrance at the back, but you will need to have your stories straight and ready, in case we bump into a German customer. Officially, I am bringing you at the cabaret as new employees I just found on the request of my mother.’’

‘’My God!’’ exclaimed in a small voice the redhead. ‘’We are to pass off as strippers and prostitutes?’’

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‘’Only if you wish so.’’ replied Mélanie, smiling. She then used one hand to weigh one of the ample, firm breasts of the brunette of the group, whose soaked dress outlined her chest. ‘’On the other hand, you could make a nice topless waitress: you have quite an impressive pair here.’’

Instead of getting offended, the brunette grinned with amusement.

‘’That’s funny: I worked as a waitress in a Montreal restaurant before the war.’’

‘’Hum, a Québec girl… Interesting! Seriously, being a topless waitress at the cabaret would be the perfect cover for you. You should really consider that. What is your name, by the way?’’

‘’Louise…Louise Thibault. I had a cover name, but it is now blown, so I will have to find another one soon.’’

‘’Just present yourself as ‘Louise’ for the time being: that will be good enough. What about you and you? What names should I use with you?’’

‘’Call me Lisa!’’ answered the older woman, a beautiful blonde.

‘’And I am Mary!’’ said the young redhead, making Mélanie nod once.

‘’Louise, Lisa and Mary…that will do just fine until I can get you new, forged papers. Do you have any special skills which you could use as a cover activity, apart from radio operator of course?’’

‘’I am an experienced seamstress.’’ proposed Lisa.

‘’Uh, I was studying literature before the war, but I can cook and wash.’’ said Mary. Mélanie nodded her head again, quite satisfied by their answers.

‘’Very well! Lisa, you are the new seamstress for the cabaret, in charge of repairing and modifying the stage outfits of the dancing girls. Mary, you are our new assistant cook and maid. As for Louise…’’

Mélanie then threw a ‘Suggestion’ spell at the brunette before continuing.

‘’Louise, I really think that you should play the topless waitress. It would make you able to listen to what our German customers will say and would also make them relax and drop their guard even more.’’

Lisa and Mary opened their mouths in shock, scandalized, when Louise nodded her head.

‘’Why not? The important thing is to be able to get secrets from those Germans.’’

‘’Good girl! By the way, my mother’s name is Marie Laurent. Now, follow me closely to the cabaret.’’

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Leading the women to the service entrance of the cabaret and using her key to unlock it, she opened it and let her new companions in before locking back the door behind them. The three S.O.E. agents looked around them with curiosity, noting the three closed doors nearby and the narrow staircase going up at the back of the mostly empty room they were in.

‘’Well, girls, here you are, inside the ‘Mille et Une Nuits’ Cabaret. To your right, you will see the door of our general storage room, where we keep among other things our bicycles and our reserves of coal. You will also see the door to the staircase leading down into our basement, where our primary wine cellar is. To your left is the door to the kitchen and to the rest of the ground floor of the cabaret. Behind you is a private staircase used by the employees of the cabaret to go to our rooms upstairs. That staircase is isolated from the sections of the upper floors opened to our customers, so I would urge you to use exclusively that staircase for the time being. I will now lead you up to a few spare rooms we have in the attic. If you will please follow me.’’ Climbing the narrow, steep stairs up three levels, the women ended up in the attic space formed by the peaked roof of the cabaret. A dormer window near the staircase well gave a fair amount of natural illumination to the area. Mélanie pointed to the nearest door to the staircase.

‘’This is a small bathroom with a bath tub and a shower head, where you will be able to clean up once I find you some spare clothes. Thankfully, we have a couple of storage chests full of old clothes in the attic. You won’t be exactly fashionable, but you won’t be naked or wet either.’’

Going down the long, straight and narrow corridor going down the length of the attic, Mélanie stopped in front of a door and opened it, revealing the inside of a tiny bedroom lit by a dormer window.

‘’Our attic bedrooms were meant to house visitors, family relatives and extra domestic aides. They have been empty for quite a while now but have been kept clean by our resident maid, Stéphanie. I guess that this job will now go to you, Mary, along with this room. Stay with me, though, so that I can get you new clothes first.’’ Opening the doors of two similar bedrooms and assigning them to Lisa and Louise, Mélanie then went to a part of the attic used for storage purposes and opened a large wooden chest covered with dust, revealing an eclectic collection of female clothes.

‘’Those are some of the old clothes me, my mother and our other girls wore in the past. My mother believes in not wasting anything, so we kept whatever we didn’t give to

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needy people. Feel free to search in it and take what will fit you reasonably. If you don’t find anything suitable in this chest, then look in the other chest over there.’’ As the three female agents started foraging inside the first chest, Mélanie had an idea and went to the second chest full of female clothes, searching in it for a moment before finding what she was looking for. With a malicious grin, she then showed her find to Louise Thibault, who was checking out a light beige dress to see if it would fit her.

‘’Look what I just found for you, Louise: my mother’s old topless corset and matching fishnet leggings, from her early days as a young topless waitress here, before she bought the cabaret. I believe that my mother is about the same size as you, save for her chest but, since this is a topless outfit, your tits will hang out just fine.’’

‘’Why, thank you, Miss Lilie!’’ said Louise, smiling, while taking the outfit offered to her.

‘’By the way, girls, Miss Lilie is my ‘nom de Résistance’, so don’t use it here, especially in front of German customers. My name is actually Mélanie Laurent and I am the adopted daughter of Marie Laurent, who took me in at the age of five. So, just use ‘Mélanie’ with me.’’

‘’Understood, Mélanie!’’ replied Louise, with Lisa and Mary also acknowledging that. The women then continued their search through the first chest, going next to the second chest to complete the assortment they had already found. Once they were reasonably well outfitted, Mélanie brought the three women back to their assigned bedrooms, where they dropped most of their findings on their beds, keeping only a set each of underwear to put on after their shower.

‘’There is already one large towel inside the attic’s bathroom, but I will go get more towels downstairs. I will also at the same time go warn my mother about your presence here. You may start washing yourselves in the meantime.’’

‘’Thanks, Mélanie!’’

Going downstairs to the laundry room of the cabaret, Mélanie picked up a few clean bath towels there, then intercepted her mother as she was coming out of the kitchen. Marie seemed relieved on seeing her.

‘’Aah, good! You made it in one piece. How did it go in Fresnes?’’

‘’Better than expected. We suffered no casualties and were able to empty the prison. The Germans will be like chickens without heads for a few days. Uh, about the prison: I brought back with me three ex-prisoners.’’

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Marie, about to continue towards the show lounge, stopped on the spot and stared hard at her adopted daughter.

‘’You did what?’’

‘’Mother, they are three female British agents who were being brutalized by the Germans in Fresnes. They had nowhere to go and no one else to help them, so I offered them the shelter of the cabaret. Before you ask: yes, they know that we cater to German customers and that we are also a bordello. However, they accepted to do work at the cabaret, under false identities, of course. They all speak good French, by the way. They are now taking a shower in the attic’s bathroom and I loaned them some of our old clothes. One last thing about them: they were beaten up pretty badly and will need a visit from Doctor Morin.’’

‘’I will arrange that later: I have customers to take care of now. By the way, you better take a shower yourself: you reek of gunpowder and explosives.’’

‘’Oh! Right!’’

Going back to the attic, Mélanie entered the small bathroom to put her towels on a shelf and found Louise and Mary inside, both naked. Mary was under the shower head, nearly finished with her own shower, while Louise was waiting beside the bathtub. One quick glance was enough for Mélanie to tell her that Louise had a very sexy body and one fine, impressive pair of breasts that would make about any man mad with the desire to fondle them. As for Mary, she was well worth a look herself. Dropping her towels, Mélanie then left the bathroom and went down one level to her own bedroom, where she removed her stained and smelly clothes and grabbed a soap, a bottle of shampoo and a set of fresh clothes. She was about to go into the bathroom she, her mother and the other dancing girls used, but had an idea and went up to the attic again, in time to see Louise come out of the bathroom, clean and dry.

‘’It feels nice to be clean again after all those rough weeks in Fresnes.’’

‘’I can believe that. Tell Lisa that her turn has come.’’

‘’Will do!’’

As Louise walked away, Mélanie entered the bathroom and put her soap and shampoo within hand’s reach of the shower, then took off her bathrobe and stepped under the shower head. She had already started to apply shampoo to her long hair and was scrubbing it hard when Lisa entered the bathroom. She immediately stopped and was about to excuse herself and leave when Mélanie spoke up.

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‘’No, stay, Lisa! I have a few questions for you.’’

‘’Uh, alright, Mélanie.’’

Lisa closed the door behind her and locked it, then stood beside the bathtub, looking at Mélanie through the semi-transparent shower curtain. Mélanie smiled to herself when her telepathic powers confirmed something about Lisa that she had suspected after her first mental introspection.

‘’Uh, while you are there, Lisa, would you mind stepping in the bathtub to soap up my back?’’

‘’Sure, Mélanie!’’ answered Lisa, sounding eager. The blonde quickly undressed and joined her in the bathtub, pulling back in place the curtain before grabbing the bar of soap and rubbing it gently against Mélanie’s back. She became a bit more audacious when time came to rub the teenager’s buttocks and, seeing that Mélanie didn’t seem to mind at all, soaped as well her genitals. Mélanie then encouraged her by spreading open her legs further, something that Lisa took advantage of at once, first by fondling her clitoris, then by inserting one, then two fingers inside her vagina and starting to pump her hand up and down, accelerating her rhythm gradually. She soon had Mélanie moan with pleasure and, while continuing her fingering, raised her other hand to Mélanie’s right breast to fondle it. Mélanie climaxed two minutes later with a contained groan, her body shaking and tensing up at the same time. Letting out a long, satisfied sigh, Mélanie then turned around and smiled to Lisa.

‘’Your turn under the shower.’’

Lisa soon found out that Mélanie was a true master at the art of sexual stimulation and pleasure giving, climaxing herself thanks to the teenager’s hands and tongue within minutes.

‘’Oh my God! This was really good! How did you know that I am bisexual?’’

‘’Simple: I felt it! Remember that I am in a line of work where one learns quickly about sex. Well, let’s soap you up, so that you could say that you truly washed yourself.’’

‘’Right!’’

Twelve minutes later, they both exited the bathroom and went to dress up for supper. The three S.O.E. agents were a bit nervous when they went down to the kitchen with Mélanie, but the tempting smell coming from the kitchen made their empty stomachs grumble.

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‘’God, I’m hungry!’’ said Mary in French as she was about to follow Mélanie inside the kitchen. Once in, she saw that the kitchen was quite a large room, with a dining table big enough for twelve people sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Mélanie made the three agents sit at the table, then went to Sylvie Renaudin, the cabaret’s cook.

‘’What do we have tonight, Sylvie?’’

‘’A chicken broth soup and bread, followed by roast pork with potatoes. Who are these three girls, Mélanie?’’

‘’New employees of the cabaret, whom I found today. They are still a bit shy, so don’t ask them questions for the moment.’’

Understanding the hidden meaning of Mélanie’s words and being able to see how battered the faces of the new ‘employees’ were, Sylvie simply nodded her head once and started filling bowls with soup, with Mélanie helping her by bringing the bowls to the three agents, along with a big loaf of fresh bread. The three women, who had been starved by the Germans on top of being beaten and tortured, hungrily wolfed down their soups while dipping pieces of bread in the broth. The roast pork and potatoes, accompanied by a brown gravy and some butter, was devoured with equal gusto. In contrast, Mélanie ate little, attracting a question from Mary Gillies.

‘’You are not hungry, Mélanie?’’

The cook then answered for the teenager, smiling at the newcomers.

‘’Mélanie always eats like a bird, yet she is a bomb of energy. I never could figure that out.’’

‘’That’s because you don’t know about the physiology of Demons, Sylvie!’’ Thought Mélanie to herself.

Doctor Jean Morin showed up at the cabaret at a bit after seven in the evening, having been called by Marie Laurent, and entered through the service entrance for more discretion. Led upstairs to the attic by Mélanie, he looked sadly at the bruised, swollen faces of the three female agents, who also had cigarette burn marks and welts from floggings with leather straps on their bodies.

‘’Damn Nazis! One fine day they will pay for all their crimes and cruelty.’’

‘’How long do you think it will be before those marks and bruises are not visible anymore, Doctor Morin?’’

Morin looked at Mélanie, understanding why she was asking that specific question.

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‘’Those young women should not go out in public or be seen by Germans for at least two to three weeks. But let me examine them first, to see if they have anything else that is not visible.’’

After maybe one hour of examination and treatment, Morin gave his final verdict to an anxious Mélanie.

‘’Thankfully, they don’t seem to have any broken bones or other internal injuries. They are however weak and thin and will need to rest as much as possible for a few days, on top of eating proper meals. My early verdict on the bruises and marks still stand. I unfortunately can’t do more for them now, short of a visit to a fully equipped hospital, but I realize that hospitals would not be safe for these girls.’’

‘’Too true! Let me get something to pay you for your visit, Doctor. Don’t protest and try to go without pay! You too need to survive this war and you are too precious to us right now. I won’t be long.’’

Running down the stairs, Mélanie then came back less than four minutes later, a shopping bag in her left hand. The bag proved fairly heavy to Morin when he took it from Mélanie, along with a good sum in French Francs. He smiled with satisfaction when he looked inside the bag: it contained a large smoked ham, plus four large tins of canned fish and one bottle of red vintage wine, things that one had to pay a fortune for on the black market.

‘’I must say that you are quite generous, Mélanie, as always. Do you run a black-market network or what?’’

‘’Even better: I steal from the Germans, Doctor.’’

While that answer only mildly surprised Morin, it made the three S.O.E. agents open their eyes wide. They however held on to the multiple questions they had for Mélanie until Morin had left, with Lisa Van Houten being first to fire away at the teenager.

‘’Who are you really, Mélanie, and to what Résistance group do you belong? You seem to be awfully active for a teenage girl. By the way, how old are you?’’

‘’Me? I am seventeen!’’ lied Mélanie, who was now in reality fourteen. ‘’As for what Résistance group I am a part of, I suppose that I can tell you that, since you are now part of my group.’’

‘’YOUR group?’’ said a stunned Lisa, making Mélanie look at her soberly.

‘’Yes, MY group: the ‘Groupe Paris Liberté’. My mother, while an important member of the group, has too much to do just running this cabaret, which acts as our

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information gathering center. Me and the other dancing girls seduce visiting German officers into careless talking, thus gathering quite a lot of secrets from them. However, I also do some direct action, like stealing supplies from the Germans and helping other friendly combatants, like the communist partisans who escorted you out of the Fresnes Prison. I know the network of underground tunnels, old quarries, crypts and caves under Paris like the back of my hand and uses it to go around without being noticed by the Germans.’’

‘’Incredible!’’ said weakly Louise Thibault, stunned by all this. ‘’And us, what are we going to do now in Paris? I didn’t join the S.O.E. to simply hide and do nothing in Paris.’’

‘’Oh, the three of you will be kept plenty busy, once your bruises will have healed. That I promise you!’’ said firmly Mélanie.