They Fought Alone

by Maurice Buckmaster

  Harry gave orders that a certain factory, Malin et Fils, should be blown up and Raymond was deputed to see Monsieur Malin. The man was especially truculent.

  ‘I think you would be foolish to refuse us, Monsieur,’ Raymond told him. ‘I would hate to see you shot down on your own doorstep…’

  ‘Are you threatening me? I am a loyal Frenchman—’

  ‘Then you must prove your loyalty.’

  ‘Well, if the explosion were only a small one,’ the man said, ‘I might consider allowing it, as a special favour, you understand—’

  ‘You cannot do your own country a favour, Monsieur.’

  ‘If you will promise that it will only be a small explosion,’ persisted the other.

  ‘It won’t be as big as some,’ promised Raymond, with a broad grin.

  ‘Well, all right. But I won’t take responsibility if anything goes wrong.’ The man turned away from Raymond. The latter gripped his arm and turned him round again. ‘You will, you know,’ the Spaniard said.

  Raymond left the man and went straight to tell his dynamiters that they were to do the job that night, in case the man changed his mind and informed the Germans. He had given Raymond the key to the side gate and a plan of the factory. The whole thing should be fairly simple.

  ‘We mustn’t use quite as much explosive as usual,’ Raymond told his men, ‘is that clear?’

  Most of them had been in the Spanish Civil War with Raymond and they were tough and remorseless. They nodded gravely. At two in the morning the men met, each one carrying a large crate of explosive. By the time they had finished laying the charges the factory was unlikely to work for the Germans again. At four in the morning a colossal explosion wrecked the place. Turbines were flung hundreds of yards by the force of the blast. The entire shop floor was destroyed. There had never been a bigger explosion in the area.

  The owner was absolutely livid. He did not know to whom he should protest; it would scarcely do to tell the Germans that he had never agreed to so large a bang, while the Resistance was not prepared to accept liability. He stored his rancour, however, throughout the war and after the liberation he refused, I fear directly because of Raymond’s little joke, to allow his factory to manufacture sacks for the British Army. ‘They said a small explosion,’ he protested, ‘and my factory is out of action for over a year. That is not British justice!’

  Raymond was undeterred. There was no action which he would not undertake and Harry used him for a number of highly dangerous missions. Messages to Raymond were generally taken by a courier called Rex. One day in January 1944, Harry suggested to Raymond, through the medium of Rex, that he should devote a little time to the disruption of a jam factory (working for the Germans, of course,) situated near the small town of Belin. Raymond was delighted. He collected some of his gang and they set out from the chateau where the three Allied flags flew at the mastheads, in a ‘commandeered’ lorry. It was late and even if their business had been harmless it would have been illegal since all French traffic was forbidden on the roads and curfew was in force. Raymond bargained on the well-known German inability to believe that anyone would do anything which he knew was against regulations; brazenness often paid off. They reached the factory without incident and soon they had laid their charges. During the course of the operation they found themselves in the sugar store. ‘Be a shame to burn all this lot,’ was Raymond’s view. ‘We’ll come and collect it before we leave. There’s no point in going home with an empty truck.’

  They laid their charges with their long fuses and then returned to the sugar store. They formed a human chain and soon the lorry was loaded with sugar. The men jumped in and soon they were back at the chateau. Early the next morning the citizens of one of the Bordeaux suburbs were on their way to work and to market when a lorry honked its way through their midst. The driver halted it in the middle of the market square and got out of the cab. A fair crowd surrounded it and they watched with curiosity as the driver ran round to the back and opened the flap of the tailboard. A great notice-board was attached to it, upon which was printed in enormous letters: ‘Housewives! Free Sugar Today – By Courtesy of the Maquis!’ By the time they looked round the driver had disappeared. Very shortly afterwards so had the sugar.

  Gestures of this kind had an electric effect on civilian morale; once people were really aware of the Resistance and of the activities of our agents they were encouraged to help us in every possible way and to hamper the Germans whenever they were able. By the beginning of 1944 we were able to arm the Maquis on a scale that had never been thought of before. More and more young men, fleeing the clutches of the Todt labour organisation, were taking to the hills and the remoter areas of the countryside, and they demanded arms to enable them to take an active part in the war against the Germans. It was Peter Churchill, to the best of my recollection, who first saw the possibilities of organising these young men into really efficient fighting forces. To begin with the supply of arms was very limited, but by 1944 the flow was considerable. There were arms dumps stocked and ready for D-Day in many of the Réseau areas and we dropped weapon training experts to instruct the French. The presence of these dumps and the numbers of the new recruits greatly added to the hazards of our men, for they were less able to check up on the new members of their organisations and the chance of double-agents infiltrating them was commensurately greater. Equally, the detection of an arms dump was much more easy than, for instance, rooting out a wireless operator. Arms dumps are bulky affairs and cannot be concealed in old suitcases. The dangers grew with the expansion of our power.

  Meanwhile Aristide had not been idle. He had established what he believed to be a fool-proof liaison through Jean and Rex with Harry’s group, and thus with Raymond. He told Rex, the courier, that Raymond could be used to do arms drill with a new batch of recruits who had recently joined the Réseau. Rex went and told Raymond and Raymond told him to notify the group to rendezvous in a farmhouse not far from the chateau where Raymond had based himself.

  The group that Raymond was to instruct was a mixed one – some of them had been recruited by Le Chef, others by Roger and others by Jean, the other courier – and they were all to form a separate group under Raymond once their training was completed.

  Raymond left the chateau to meet his men early on a Sunday morning. It was a fine winter morning with frost sparkling on the ground. Raymond walked along the lane towards the farmhouse and met a group of men going in the same direction. He recognised one of them and they all walked on together. In the woods approaching the farm there were a number of other men. The farmhouse itself was deserted. Raymond opened the door and led the men inside. There was a large quantity of arms there, but little ammunition. The arms training lesson was completed according to plan and the group sauntered out of the farmyard.

  A machine-gun opened up at point-blank range.

  ‘Put your hands up, you are surrounded.’ A German officer was standing beside the machine-gun on the edge of the wood. Raymond pulled his men back into the shelter of the farmhouse. The machine-gun fired again.

  ‘Try the back,’ Raymond said. The men took what arms they could find and dashed to the back of the farm. No sooner had they opened the door than a murderous fire opened up. They were trapped.

  ‘Right,’ Raymond said. ‘I want volunteers to come up on the roof and give covering fire.’ Several men said they would come. ‘We’ll have to have the ammunition,’ Raymond said.

  ‘Come out of there, you terrorist swine.’

  ‘You’ll have to run,’ Raymond went on. ‘Run as fast as you can and get out of the wood. We’ll keep you covered just as long as we’ve got ammunition. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come on,’ Raymond cried. He led them into the loft of the farmhouse and pushed open the flap which gave on to the roof. The Germans did not notice them. Raymond worked his way to the back of the roof where it overlooked the Boches. ‘Now,’ he shouted. He and his men opened a sporadic fire on the Germa
n machine-gun. They dare not fire rapid for fear of exhausting their ammunition too quickly. Raymond shot the German officer commanding the post at the back and the door of the farm burst open. The unarmed patriots ran out and through the yard towards the safety of the woods. The machine-gun swivelled on them.

  ‘Rapid,’ Raymond said. The men on the roof concentrated their fire on the machine-gun. The Germans at the front of the farm now hurried round to help their comrades. The machine-gun turned on the roof to return Raymond’s fire. The unarmed men were able, for the most part, to get through the cordon, leaving perhaps a third of their number dead or wounded. Raymond and his men were now isolated on the roof.

  Another burst of firing from farther off suggested that the men who had escaped had run into further trouble. Raymond and his six companions now crawled round to the front of the farm. The machine-gunners from there appeared to have gone in pursuit of the escapers and Raymond and his men flung themselves down in the yard and ran to the gate. Still no one challenged them. A burst of fire suddenly came from the right and they saw that a section of men were coming back to cut off their retreat. Raymond grabbed the arm of the nearest man. ‘Stay with me,’ he said. ‘You others run for it when we open fire. That is an order.’ Raymond and his companion threw themselves on the ground in the open and engaged the section, taking what shelter they could behind the gateposts. The other five men ran for it. Two dropped at once. Raymond jumped up and ran shouting towards the Germans. His companion joined him. They ran, firing from the hip, straight at the Boches. The other three men escaped. Raymond and the other man almost reached the Germans, before they dropped, still firing, on the edge of the wood.

  The remains of the weapon training class returned with the sad news to Bordeaux. Out of an original twenty, only eight survived. None of them is ever likely to forget Raymond and his brave friends.

  Harry and Roger were deeply disturbed not only by the fact but also by the manner of Raymond’s death. Roger sent both Rex and Jean to get as much information about the circumstances as they could. It was not easy to find out very much: those who had escaped really remembered very little of significance about the incident. It had all happened very quickly. Nobody could remember seeing anyone whom they knew directing the Germans and though Roger was suspicious of treachery, there was no definite clue upon which he could build his theory. He resolved to take the greatest care in allowing outsiders to join the Resistance.

  Harry Peulevé was especially upset at the death of Raymond and those with him, for he had worked with Raymond since his return to the field. He came to see Roger in a trusted friend’s house and told him of the serious gap which the loss of Raymond had made in the Réseau up towards Périgueux. In order to make the organisation really comprehensive some recruiting would have to be done.

  ‘I rather think we ought to cut down on recruiting just now,’ was Roger’s view.

  ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Well, we know that our chaps must be on their way pretty soon. I’m going to round up as many people as I can get hold of. When the big day comes we shall need as many as we can muster.’

  ‘I’m uneasy about things,’ Roger said. ‘I rather want to lie doggo for a bit and see what the Boches do next. They obviously have some sort of penetration into one of our groups and I’d like to wait till they show themselves again.’

  ‘Le Chef tells me that he’s got a group which is all ready to join us, under a Colonel called Jouas. He says they’re absolutely 100 per cent safe, but they haven’t got either arms or instructors.’

  ‘Le Chef told you about this man?’

  ‘That’s right. He hangs out in Bergerac.’

  ‘Could you contact him?’ Roger asked. ‘It ought to be all right.’

  ‘If Le Chef says it’s all right, it’s all right.’

  ‘Now listen, if I have any news and I can’t contact you with it I shall send a message on the messages personnels. Can you listen every evening? If you hear the message “Jean est très malade”, drop everything and clear out. OK?’ The other nodded.

  Harry left Roger and went back to his own group. Five men were to accompany him to Bergerac where they would stay for a few days under the pretext of being a syndicate interested in the purchase of some property. Harry had as his second-in-command a man called Poirier to whom he explained the need for caution.

  ‘Le Chef has vouched for this Colonel Jouas,’ he said to Poirier as they drove in their car towards Bergerac.

  Harry had a presentiment that things were not going to be as easy as he had thought. Was it simply Roger’s fears that gave him this feeling? It certainly seemed that there was nothing to worry about as they entered the small town. There were few Germans about and the whole place was apparently quite untouched by the war.

  Harry made some enquiries about Colonel Jouas and found that there was indeed such a person. He lived at the far end of the town, on the Avenue Pasteur. Harry went himself to see the man.

  ‘I hear that you have recruited a large number of men,’ Harry said when he had shaken hands with the white-moustached Colonel.

  ‘Well, I have a nucleus, shall we say?’ the Colonel said. ‘I have my organisation mapped out.’

  ‘What is its substance?’ Harry insisted.

  ‘I have recruited almost entirely from the Socialist Party – the real Socialists, that is – none of your Communists, thank you. First-rate lot of chaps.’

  ‘How many are there? How effective are they? What have they done?’ Harry went on.

  ‘Well – they – they haven’t actually… No arms, you know. No arms at all – scandalous!’

  ‘I want to meet these men of yours,’ Harry said. ‘That’s quite essential before we can give you any arms.’

  ‘Where are your dumps? How soon can you let us have some explosives?’

  ‘That will have to wait. Now then, I want to meet your group’s commanders tomorrow night. What about it?’ ‘Yes, that can be arranged. There’s a farm called “La Grise” on the Périgueux road. Be there tomorrow night at eight o’clock and we’ll have our chaps ready to meet you.’

  Harry went back to his men and told them what he had arranged. Poirier said: ‘I don’t believe the old boy’s got any men under him at all.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘The old school,’ Harry told them.

  ‘Like the Marshal,’ commented Poirier gloomily.

  ‘We’ll start from here at a quarter to seven. We can spy out the land a bit before we make the contact. We won’t be coming back here after we’ve made the rendezvous, so we’ll take all the arms and the wireless in the car with us. Don’t leave anything which might give a clue to where we’re going. Clear?’

  The other men nodded.

  The next night the black Citroën drew up outside Harry’s digs. The other five were already in it.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Gustave Poirier was driving and they set off at a fair pace. When they were some distance along the road, he suddenly yanked the car to a halt outside a small routiers’ café.

  ‘This is a fine time—’ began Harry jokingly.

  ‘The BBC,’ Poirier said. ‘We ought to listen in case there’s a message.’

  ‘Nervy, Michael?’ asked one of the others.

  ‘He’s right,’ Harry said. ‘Gustave, you go in and see if you can get them to let you listen to the wireless. We’ll stay here in the car. If we drive off you’ll know it’s because the “flics” have turned up. You’ll have to make your own way to the rendezvous. If there’s anything suspicious about it, make your own way home.’

  Gustave nodded and went into the café. The road was quite dark and little traffic disturbed it. A German army lorry rolled past, but neither slowed nor stopped. The men in the car waited impatiently. ‘Looks as though they’ve got a set,’ Harry said.

  ‘Or a daughter,’ suggested one of the others.

  At
length Poirier came out of the café. He walked round the back of the car and then opened the driver’s door as Harry slid over to let him in. He put his head down into the car and looked at each of them. ‘Jean est très malade,’ he said.

  Another German army truck rolled past the parked car outside the café.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Poirier started up the car and turned back towards Bergerac. If the Colonel had betrayed them – and that was what it looked like – he would have some explaining to do to his German friends when Harry and his men failed to turn up.

  ‘Turn off here,’ Harry ordered when they had gone a little way. ‘We’re not going back into Bergerac. The trap may be that end for all we know. Cut across country to Sarlat. I’ve got a safe address there.’

  The headlamps of the car, heavily dimmed, barely illuminated the road ahead as Poirier flung it down the country lanes towards the place Harry had named. It was another smallish place and one in which, barring accidents, they should be secure from the Gestapo.

  They found the house, which was empty, and went inside. Harry decided to send a message to London as soon as possible telling them that they were safe. This would lessen the risk of anyone being sent to try and contact them and running into a trap. It was a necessary part of the team spirit of our organisation that the safety of others was as important as one’s own. On the other hand a kind of ruthlessness was also necessary: if a man was caught it was against orders to attempt his rescue, if it was going to risk the lives of others and the future of the Réseau; if a man was wounded our men were forbidden to stay with him if such a stay were likely to lead to their own capture. It was cruel, but so is war.