Gibraltar Passage Read Online Free PDF

small-time gangsters, who ran the gambling and the prostitutes. Many shop owners, whose families had been there, probably working the same tiny shop, for hundreds and hundreds of years. And fishermen, extremely conservative families who kept to themselves. Somehow my brother managed to make friends with all those people, and all of them helped him with his smuggling work.”
    As they approached the water’s edge, the evening crowd thickened to the point that the road became impassible even for bicycles. They dismounted and walked.
    â€œSo what happened?”
    â€œWhen the Germans came in, they demolished the entire area. It was impossible to control, so one day they simply went in and leveled it.” Pierre swept his hand out. “One day home to several thousand families, the next rubble.”
    â€œWhat happened to the people?”
    â€œAh, that is another mystery.” Pierre stopped and shook the hands of a young couple, exchanged greetings with three others, then rejoined Jake and continued. “According to what we learned later, the Germans planned to round everyone up, interrogate them to find out who was involved in illegal activities—which of course meant almost everyone—then ship them off to the camps. But instead, almost no one was there! The entire area had been cleared out overnight, right under the noses of the Nazi guards. Poof!”
    â€œAn informer,” Jake guessed.
    â€œYes, that is what I think as well. But who would have had access to such information? And who could have gotten that information back to so many families so fast?”
    Pierre smiled fondly at the ancient facades lining the harbor. “So many mysteries,” he murmured. “That is the nature of Marseille, my friend. It is close enough to the Arab world to have learned to treasure its secrets.”
    ----
    Their entry into the restaurant was greeted with a roar of approval. Chairs were shoved aside and napkins flung onto tables as waiters and patrons together rushed forward to hail Pierre Servais. Jake allowed himself to be swept up in the hubbub. His coat was slid from his shoulders, a chair was jammed up behind him, and friendly hands forced him down. A glass was slapped into his hand. A bottle appeared. But just as the room quieted for a toast, a rotund little man in a chef’s apron and hat pushed his way through the crowd to stand before their table. His cheeks were the color of ripe apples, and below his nub of a nose sprouted a curling waxed moustache. He sprang to attention, which shoved his belly out at a ridiculous angle, and snapped off a parade-ground salute. “A votre service, mon Capitaine!”
    â€œMajor,” corrected a voice from the crowd.
    â€œJake, allow me to present Sergeant Roncard,” Pierre told him. “Formerly the greatest scrounger in the Fighting Free French.”
    â€œTrue, true,” the rotund little man agreed merrily in English.
    â€œIn the middle of the Algerian desert,” Pierre went on, “the illustrious sergeant fed his troop so well we actually gained weight.”
    â€œI took my duties most seriously, mon Capitaine,” Roncard replied, still at attention.
    â€œWhen my men began wondering if we would ever be permitted to fight, and I was growing weary of fighting for the attention of deaf officers, the grand sergeant told me to invite the general for a dinner. After finishing off the only wine within a hundred kilometers—”
    â€œTwo hundred,” the little man murmured.
    â€œâ€”not to mention dining on desert grouse and wild onions—”
    â€œAh, you remember,” Roncard said, and stuck out his pigeon’s chest even farther.
    â€œâ€”the general was made to see reason, and we were sent into action with the Americans. Not, I must add, without a struggle, for the general wanted to keep the sergeant for himself. The sergeant, being made of hero material, insisted on his right as a