Return to the Field

by Return to the Field (retail) (epub)

  Then – invasion. Whenever: but probably quite soon. After that the task would be to prevent and disrupt movements of Boche troops towards the beachhead or beachheads. Disrupt everything. Blow up railway lines and roads, sabotage the rolling-stock. Eventually, although it might take a little while, you’d have German withdrawal or surrender. And then, Ben darling…

  But – before that, maybe – once the Free French came in, who’d need ‘F’ Section SOE? In this corner of France, anyway. That was a lovely thought. French paratroops dropping in strength and absorbing the Maquis in their own professional soldiering, the Boches on the run and people like oneself – and Lise and Noally, please God – surplus to requirements?

  By the end of summer, say?

  * * *

  At Scrignac on the Tuesday Count Jules wasn’t enthusiastic about Lannuzel’s plan of action. In his view, he told her after she’d explained it to him, there was too much reliance on good luck.

  ‘At least, on absence of bad luck. For instance – he’ll be leaving the farm at Laz some time after eleven – because he’s despatching the Trevarez force at eleven – right?’

  ‘Yes…’

  In his study, leaning over a Michelin map together, the count using a pencil as a pointer and his other arm tending to drape itself across her shoulders…

  ‘How does he know what he might meet on the road? Here’s Kerongués. He’ll be using only the small lanes, you said. So – a route like this, perhaps. But he still has to pass through Moncouar. Probably coming through Landuda on the way there. It’s a sizeable village, eh? Well – small lanes or not, throughout this area there are sure to be intensive anti-Maquis precautions. They know who’s in those woods, don’t you think they know damn well? They aren’t going to trifle with the security of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, are they! Or even his deputy’s – what’s his name—?’

  ‘Admiral Godt.’

  ‘Godt. Right. Or Bachmann. If I were responsible for security I’d have patrols out all over the place. Laz is damn close to Trevarez, too – I’d say too close. Guy Lannuzel wants the reins in his own hands as long as possible – understandably, perhaps – but to achieve it he’s bringing a hundred Maquis almost into the open. If it was up to me I’d muster them in the forest – where they belong!’

  ‘I think this farm’s outside the village. Somewhere like this lane here – already on his route to Kerongués. He knows all the little by-ways.’

  ‘I’m sure he does.’ Tapping the map… ‘But look – the Forêt de Laz here – enough of it to hide a thousand men in, let alone a hundred. And ground they all know well, by this time. The village itself, though – how does he know it won’t be stiff with Boches?’ Pointing again: ‘Laz to Trevarez, about two kilometres – what’s that, when it’s one of the Führer’s right-hand men for whose safety they’re responsible?’

  ‘Actually—’ she moved sideways a little, to be less convenient an arm-rest – ‘Doenitz may well not be there.’

  ‘Never mind. He may be, and others certainly will be.’ He shook his head. ‘My dear – Guy is a professional soldier – I’m not. I’m not saying he’s wrong and I know better – I’m sure I’d make an awful mess of it… But – you’re seeing him tomorrow, you said?’

  She nodded. She’d intended it anyway, but had had confirmation from Baker Street last night – Monday – that the RAF strike was on. Lannuzel was of course assuming it would be, but he still had to be told, and she had no intention of making any telephone calls about it.

  ‘Tell him, if you would—’ the count was folding his map – ‘that if I were in his shoes I’d have that truck of Jaillon’s waiting somewhere well to the west of Laz.’ Opening the map partly again, poking a finger at it: ‘Here, somewhere. Off the road, under cover. I’d have the Trevarez force gather in the forest, then let their own commanders get on with it while I made my own way on foot to join those three at the truck. It wouldn’t matter then if Laz was full of Boches. I’d expect it, I’d expect the worst – which is very different from hoping for the best!’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Give him my apologies for interfering. I’ll look forward to having him explain to me why I’m completely wrong.’

  ‘Wouldn’t like to visit him yourself?’

  ‘Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m off on Thursday – Paris, again. It’s unavoidable…’

  She asked Peucat that afternoon on their way down to Huelgoat – to visit the patients who’d give her an alibi for Saturday night – whether he’d known the count was planning another Paris visit, so soon after the last. Peucat expressed surprise: he hadn’t known of it, Sara hadn’t mentioned it either.

  ‘A recent decision, then.’ Rosie lit a cigarette. ‘D’you think he prefers to be elsewhere, when things are happening?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ They were passing through Berrien: would turn left in a minute. ‘Your Saturday business, you mean?’

  ‘Fact is, he’s not too keen on it, in any case.’

  ‘On the plan you told me in your sleep was so good?’

  She nodded. ‘He disagrees.’

  ‘It’s Guy Lannuzel’s plan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well – he knows his stuff. Saw a lot of action.’

  ‘Count Jules is fully aware of it.’

  ‘And you think he’s putting distance between himself and – yourselves… I know nothing about any of it, of course, but I can’t see what disadvantage there’d be in his remaining at Scrignac. Conversely, how it would benefit him to be in Paris.’

  ‘Except the obvious one?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Smiling: ‘What usually takes him to Paris?’

  Left turn coming up. Peucat shaking his head, lips pursed… Rosie thinking that if she was even half right, the solution might involve herself and Mme de Mauvernay. If things went badly on Saturday and she herself came to grief, the trail of subsequent investigations would inevitably lead back to the former actress. In which context Jules had said last week, ‘She might not be easy to locate, by that time.’

  Because he’d have tipped her off and she’d be in hiding? If he’d decided that in present circumstances Suzanne Tanguy had become a bad risk?

  * * *

  On Wednesday she was at the Lannuzel place when Jaillon delivered the truck, or bouc. She was with Brigitte out in front of the house when the big pantechnicon van appeared, frontways at first – stopping with its nose at a slant in the gateway and displaying the inscription above the cab Au Service d’Allemagne – then backing out, turning in a series of elephantine lunges to and fro, finally re-entering backwards and grinding slowly up towards the farm’s outbuildings. It backed up to the barn, stopped, and Jaillon climbed down. Lannuzel was coming by then, summoned by his sister.

  Waving as he came limping up. ‘Hey, Jean-Paul. Better late than never, huh?’

  ‘Late? I’ll tell you, you’re getting bloody good service here!’

  Tipping his cap back. You could imagine him as a Foreign Legion sergeant, Rosie thought. Tough as an old bouc himself. He came strutting over, touching his cap: ‘Pluto at your service, Mam’selle Zoé. You’ll have had my message of thanks for the parachutage, I hope?’

  She nodded. ‘Did they send all you asked for?’

  ‘Near enough. Heard about the Stens, too. D’you have saboteurs in your English factories?’

  ‘It’s more like carelessness or greed. Churn ’em out faster, get more money.’

  ‘And good men could kill themselves. But thanks for the warning.’

  ‘Let’s get it under cover, eh?’ Lannuzel was pulling the barn doors open. ‘I’ll take this out…’

  His gazo pickup. He didn’t have to get it started; there was a slight incline and he had only to release the brake. He swung it round clear of the doors, and joined Jaillon at the transporter. ‘No road-blocks, eh?’

  A shrug. ‘They all know me, anyhow.’

  ‘Exactly. Shoot on sight, you’d think.’


  Brigitte took Rosie indoors for some coffee. Murmuring, ‘I’m not supposed to see this, anyway. It’s something important you’re doing, I gather. Trevarez – Kerongués?’

  ‘If you know it all, Brigitte—’

  ‘Heard those places mentioned, that’s all. No – I only get bits and pieces…’

  There’d been a resounding crash outside: Rosie went to the window, realized it must have been the transporter’s tail-gate crashing down. They were off-loading chicken-coops now: the bouc would have been behind and under a load of them, she supposed. She joined Brigitte in the kitchen: ‘How’s the poultry business?’

  * * *

  She told Lannuzel, when Jaillon had gone and Brigitte was out on the farm somewhere, ‘They’ll probably hit Kernével at the same time as Trevarez. That was the idea a couple of weeks ago, anyway. No need to tell anyone because there’s no ground action called for.’

  ‘No. Good. Excellent, in fact…’

  Kernével, the U-boat Command and Communications headquarters, was about twenty-five kilometres east of Quimper, near Rosporden. The attack would be in easy sight and sound of Kerongués, as would the one on Trevarez.

  ‘But, Guy, I should tell you. I was with Count Jules yesterday, and I told him your intentions, roughly—’

  ‘You did, eh?’ Silent for a moment, staring at her. Then: ‘Some reason you had to?’

  She held the angry stare. ‘I told you before, he had doubts about it. And he’s the boss, more or less—’

  ‘Thinks he is.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, he is. If it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t be here.’ She added, ‘And you wouldn’t have had your parachutage.’

  ‘All right.’ He shrugged. ‘And he has some beef now, has he?’

  ‘He thinks you aren’t taking into account the probable level of Boche security around Trevarez. Road-blocks and patrols, troops stationed in villages – et cetera.’

  ‘Knows more of what goes on around here than I do, eh?’

  ‘Well. He asked me to tell you—’

  ‘Couldn’t tell me himself?’

  ‘He’s off to Paris tomorrow – today I suppose he’s busy. I did suggest that, as it happens.’

  ‘When the invasion comes perhaps he’ll remember he has an appointment on the moon!’

  She shook her head. She’d thought more about it, since that chat with Peucat in the gazo, and remembered the rhetorical question the count had put to her that day in his stable-yard: Behind bars or dead, what use is one?

  ‘Might be unfair, Guy. You and he know each other a lot better than I do, but my impression is that the invasion – being ready for it – is the one thing he has in his sights. He’s a pragmatist, in fact. This is your job, your territory, he leaves it to you. No, he does – these were only suggestions. He asked me to tell you he’ll look forward to hearing from you why he’s dead wrong. He said, “Guy’s the soldier, I’m not.’”

  ‘But he wanted it done, in the first place…’

  ‘Yes. For reasons I explained to you. Now he’s asked me to pass on these comments. I’d say he’s only trying to be helpful.’

  ‘Well. Perhaps. You put up a good case for him, anyway. Have you – been spending much time up there?’

  ‘A lot less than I have here – as it happens. Are you suggesting anything, by that question?’

  ‘Suggesting nothing, Suzanne.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want to be caught up in a lot of bickering. If men like you and Jules de Seyssons can’t get on…’

  Actually it was par for the course. Resistance leaders always bickered. By nature they were individualists – had to be. They were French, too. Lannuzel had shrugged: ‘Gets my goat sometimes, this – absentee commander-in-chief. Anyway – as it happens, we’ve refined the plan a little – as I think I indicated we would. There’s no change as far as you’re concerned, but in other respects – for instance, there’ll be Maquis observation of the routes to Kerongués to give warning of any road-blocks or patrols. Not that we’d expect any. Security around the château itself, yes, but they don’t have the numbers to police the whole countryside. That’s half the answer to our mutual friend Count Jules, incidentally.’

  ‘One point he did make – instead of assembling your men on the farm at Laz, why not in the forest?’

  ‘You want the answer to that?’

  That brilliantly blue stare again. He wasn’t in the least like Ben: she wondered how she could ever have thought he was. She shook her head. ‘Not particularly. I’ve passed on what he said, that’s all. If you resent it, tell him.’

  ‘The farm is as remote as the one you’ll be using. Also directly accessible from the forest. It has communications, too.’

  ‘You mean a telephone?’

  ‘What else? In that way it’s ideal. Such a ruin of a place, you’d never expect to find a line connected. But if road-blocks are being set up, for instance, I’ll hear about them before we start. That make sense to you?’

  ‘Of course it does.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. Deciding not to risk reminding him that telephones were dangerous. ‘And there we are. You say there’s no change to my part in it – so that’s all right – and I’ve seen the girl’s father, meanwhile, he knows where to come. And I had a look at the place. So – if nothing goes wildly wrong between now and then, I don’t need to see you again before Saturday – do I?’

  Blinking at her. ‘I suppose – not…’

  ‘Fine.’ She pushed herself up. ‘If I don’t see Brigitte on my way out, say goodbye to her for me?’

  ‘There is one thing.’ Pushing himself up: it was an awkward movement, on account of that foot. ‘If you’d spare me another two minutes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s quite important, actually. Here, I’ll show you.’

  The map was in a drawer of the table; he got it out and spread it. ‘The question of our route in the gazo when we leave Perrot’s farm. Incidentally, I’ll be forcing the lock on his kitchen door, breaking it open – so if we were traced there it wouldn’t have been with his knowledge or permission.’

  ‘So I don’t need to know his name.’

  He looked surprised: then nodded. ‘You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that… Anyway, see here. The route I’ll take – as I showed you before – roughly like this. Using small lanes all the way – crossing the Aulne here – to Lennon, over the main road here, Ty-Baise – and skirting to the west of your village. See?’

  Through Quinquis-Yven, she noticed.

  ‘Then on up this way – quite a wide circle, a good radius from where they’ll all be falling over each other – all night, let’s hope – and eventually, Lezèle. Where you’ll have left your bike, eh?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s arranged.’

  ‘Good. But – if on the way north from Kerongués we had hold-ups – lengthy detours for instance if there were road-blocks – or patrols, or troop deployments – not likely but it’s possible – if by the time we were in the area of St Michel and – oh, suppose it was getting light and there were patrols around, that kind of situation – it so happens there’s a possible safe-house we might be able to make use of. At this little place, Quinquis-Yven.’

  ‘Marthe Peucat, d’you mean?’

  He lifted his hands… ‘I was going to ask – had you met her. Obviously you would have sooner or later, but—’

  ‘I’d no idea – of Marthe as—’

  ‘No. And until now there’s been no connection between me and her, in – this area. Socially, sure – she and Henri have known Brigitte since before she married. As I told you, this place belonged to her in-laws, the Millaus, and Henri was their doctor – brought Brigitte’s husband into the world, all that. Socially therefore we know each other well – but as far as anything else is concerned, I only happen to be aware – second-hand, you might say—’

  ‘Through Timo Achard?’

  ‘That’s clever of you.’ He reached for his cigarettes. ‘Although – well,
I couldn’t say – I don’t know of any connection there either…’

  * * *

  Rosie was to say much later – I felt sure there had been some such connection. Achard’s part in whatever it was – I’d guess an escape line – would have been transport; when there’d been escapers, shot-down airmen or whatever, to be moved through the area. I first suspected it – saw it, almost – the day she came rushing into her brother’s house with the news of the Achards being in Gestapo hands. She and Henri were both badly shocked – although he might have expected it you’d think, I’d seen Timo’s arrest and told him – and if he’d known of that involvement – well, surely… Have to hand it to him, he’d taken that very coolly. Cautiously too – being so careful to stay away, rather than go round to see Adéle. In fact one was beginning to conclude that there was more to old Henri than met the eye. But there’d been another element too, the day Marthe brought the bad news – an element of secrecy, secrets he and his sister weren’t sharing with me. I just felt it. You know, that atmosphere – the guarded way they looked at each other – almost trying not to… And come to think of it – I’d already begun to speculate about this – it seemed likely that Count Jules’ girlfriend in Paris, Leonie de Mauvernay, had some deeper involvement than merely having written a letter on behalf of Suzanne Tanguy. She’d have done that because Jules asked her to, but she’d have had to have been a Résistante herself for him to have put her at that much risk in the first place. Perhaps she ran a safe-house too. Part of the grounds for thinking on these lines is what he said to me about her being able to vanish at short notice – having said it he’d realized he might be saying too much, and clammed up. And a more basic element in this thinking – imaginative thinking, you might call it – is the old proverb ‘Birds of a feather flock together’. As we all know, active Résistants are few and far between, a tiny proportion of the population as a whole, but when you get to know one – well, close friends tend to be like-minded, don’t they…