by Bodie Thoene
The question was asked: Where did Madame Rose meet this famous fellow?
She had been washing his shirts for years.
24
A Diligent Defense
When Paul Chardon unrolled the map on the desk in his office, the three senior cadet captains found themselves looking at a detailed chart of the Lys River and the immediate area around the Ecole de Cavalerie.
“More war games, Captain?” Gaston inquired in a tired-sounding voice. “With respect, sir, my command is exhausted from just juggling their studies, the care of the horses, and the demands of Sister Mitchell.”
Paul said with exasperation, “Gaston, the military education at a military school does not stop because you are tired, overworked, or underappreciated!”
Gaston exchanged questioning looks with Sepp and Raymond. The fictitious defense of the school and the banks of the stream had been enacted every year that the boys had attended.
It was said that the same simulation had occurred every year since the school’s founding, except in 1918, when it became actual fact. In that last year of the Great War, the kaiser’s forces had made a push toward the sea. A herculean effort by the Allies had stopped them near that very spot, but only after the cadets had been evacuated.
The same thought seemed to strike all three student officers. What if history repeated itself, and the Ecole was again in the path of the Germans?
Paul read their minds. “I am not saying that it will come to that, but it is possible. Certainly an invading army would want to seize the Channel ports, and Lys is right on one probable line of advance. My intent is to develop the plans for defending this sector, so that the Regular Army will have them to study, should the need arise.”
Gaston looked crestfallen. “We practice the resistance for someone else to perform?”
Paul almost gave an angry retort but caught himself. He addressed the three boys in a kind tone. “We all have a role to play in defending France. What does it matter if you actually fire the shots, so long as the strategy we have worked out succeeds?” He studied their faces, getting a ready smile from Raymond, a quick understanding nod from Sepp, and a grudging squint from Gaston.
“Look now,” he said, directing their attention back to the map. “I have already made unit assignments, and it will be your duties to work out the detailed plans. Gaston, to you is given the area of most immediate danger: the direct assault on the town from across the river. You must develop the defense of the bridges and their demolition . . . if opposition is no longer possible.”
The fact that Gaston had no comment convinced Paul that he had gotten through to the young cadet about the seriousness of the responsibility. Besides, Paul remembered, in the history of the school, no war games had ever included demolishing the bridges. No one ever built a retreat into their plans.
The artillery barrage at the Maginot was called the Matins Salute, because every dawn about the time of morning prayers, the “heavies” began to murmur explosively on the wind.
The booming was distant and mellow. Mac commented that they were probably howitzers, judging from the dullness of the reverberating echo. Mac and Murphy felt no urge to flop out of the car and dive for cover.
There was no other sound or evidence of activity along the line. The highway passed between two green mushroom turrets on the hilltop that identified strongpoints of the fortifications. Mac and Murphy drove onto a narrow plateau in the highlands of the Moselle River. From there they could plainly see the muddy yellow military roads that branched off into the opening of Maginot tunnels. At each entrance gates were painted like barber poles, indicating that no unauthorized visitors were allowed. All around were piles of rusted metal and dumps of weathered concrete left over from the construction of this new Wall of China. Beyond the bastions was a thicket of tank traps. Known as asparagus patches because they sprouted up in stalks, these were painted a harmonious green to match the landscape. But there was no sign of life, no indication that anyone was really inside the turrets or beneath the mushroom buttons that topped the hills.
Murphy shuddered in the car. “It’s too cold for them to be out. But it’s a whole lot better than the last war, when our guys were left to shiver in the rain, isn’t it?”
They left the restricted military area and drove along the Thionville Highway. Coming to a control point, Mac geared down and moved slowly through a barbed-wire chicane. A surly French lieutenant with a stubby, Hitler-like mustache examined their passes as if they were spies. Fortunately he was too wet and cold to argue. He waved them on to the muddy barrier of Evrange, their last stop before crossing into neutral Luxembourg.
It was pouring. The road leading to the frontier came to a stop at a lonely concrete barrier. A single guard manned the blockade that was enfolded by sandbags. Sloppy spirals of concertina wire ambled off down the hill.
It was Murphy who first commented on the carelessness of this outpost. The Maginot simply stopped somewhere back down the line. It was as if no one in the French government imagined that the Germans might possibly come through little Luxembourg to cross the border.
“Is this it?” Murphy said incredulously.
Mac nodded. “And it’s pretty much the same all the way along the Belgian border, too. I asked Prime Minister Daladier’s assistant why the Maginot only went partway along the frontier. He told me that the French didn’t want to insult the Belgians, didn’t want the Belgians to think that France didn’t trust them. The nation of Belgium is the rest of France’s line of defense. Get it?”
Murphy rolled his eyes and shook his head in frustration. It was as if the minds of French politicians were also made of concrete.
A man in a heavy oilskin coat stepped out of the door of the customs shack and crooked his finger at Mac and Murphy. Would they please enter the office? And would they bring their luggage?
It was at this outpost that France had stationed her toughest three officials. Perhaps it was believed that if the German army breached Belgium and Luxembourg, the French customs officials would stop them at the border. Perhaps it was true.
These three men were dressed in blue serge uniforms trimmed in silver braid. Before the war their kind had made the lives of tourists miserable at every entrance and exit of France. Now, with the war on, they exercised their duty with a double dose of diligence. They refined the harassment of tourists to a high art. Their lives were dedicated to increasing the mental anguish of every traveler to a level that matched the court officials of the Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Stained mustaches drooped over teeth yellowed by smoke from years of confiscated tobacco. And this trio knew well how to strip a suitcase to the lining in search of smuggled chocolates.
As the shadows of afternoon lengthened, the officials provided Mac and Murphy with in-triplicate forms. Private life, military status, reasons for traveling to a neutral nation were all scrutinized. Authority for leaving France, the right to drive an automobile, and the permit to take petrol out of the country all received careful examination.
Sharp-eyed from years of searching for illegal cigars and contraband liquors, the eldest of the officials caught a flaw in the documents of Mac and Murphy. “You will notice that your papers state that you are to leave France by the route of Sierck. This is the gateway of Evrange. That is not in order.”
“There is a slight battle in Sierck,” Murphy offered.
The customs official looked stunned. “Is that so? And how do you know this, Monsieur?”
“We were turned back and unable to enter Sierck,” Mac explained.
The officials conferred. “This is military information you ought not to have, Monsieurs. Yet you expect to be allowed to pass out of France and into a neutral nation where the enemy also has access?”
The Queen from Alice lurked in Mac’s mind. At any moment he expected them to begin shouting, “Off with their heads!” He drew himself up and addressed the clerk as “Chief,” in hopes of using flattery to turn the tide.
“If the French are fighting the Germans at Sierck, then surely the Germans know it very well, and the information is no longer a military secret.”
It made sense, did it not?
Mac and Murphy were taken to a small anteroom heated by a potbellied stove. The door was shut and the lock turned. There they baked slowly for three hours while the customs officials, bastions of the gates of France, checked their story.
Finally the officials returned. “I have telephoned Paris. Your papers are now in order,” one of them declared.
At last they were set free with a slight apology. They had to repack their clothes and reinsert the insoles of their shoes. The cuffs and sleeves of their topcoats had been carefully slit. They were given the name of a tailor in Luxembourg.
It was after dark when they entered the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. They were tired and almost convinced that at the French outpost of Evrange, perhaps the Germans would not pass after all. At least not easily.
War games at the Ecole de Cavalerie were like an elaborate contest of king of the mountain. For the exercise, two-thirds of the cadets were to play the part of the German army. One-third, under the command of Paul Chardon, were to defend the school and the north bank of the Lys River as part of an examination in military strategy.
But was it only a game?
The town of Lys, little more than a mile wide along the river of the same name, narrowed to a point as it climbed the hill north of the stream and ended against the military school.
From a knoll above the village and the river, Paul pored over a topographical map of the area that showed each point of defense in the battle that had taken place here during the last war. Officer Cadet Raymond was at his side.
“Our responsibility,” Paul said, “extends from the bridge at Rozier downstream to a mile upstream, where the banks are too steep for armored vehicles to climb out.”
The chart showed the island in the middle of the river over which the main road into Lys passed. Connected to both shores by bridges, the island was the first line of defense against attack. “Gaston is planning the protection of the island,” Paul said, “and Sepp will figure the coverage for the banks of the stream in front of the town.”
“And me?” Raymond asked.
Paul knew Raymond was aware that there had to be a reason his assignment had been saved to last. Paul reflected a moment. “This is just for practice. You understand that it will probably never be needed and certainly would never involve you actually in the defense.”
Raymond nodded.
Paul stabbed his finger on the downstream crossing of the Lys, five miles away from the school. “This bridge must also be defended. But if a withdrawal had to be made, it is a long way back. For that reason, I want your plan to include the horses. We will need our vehicles elsewhere, but I do not want to leave you—the defender—without a means of escape.”
Raymond looked Paul in the eye. The young man was the finest horseman at the school. The assignment was an honor. “Understood,” the cadet replied as Paul struck out to inspect the positions of Sepp and Gaston.
Halfway down the hill toward the river, Paul and Raymond spotted Sepp with four younger cadets of his command. They were outside the Church of St. Sebastian and embroiled in an argument with Father Perrin and the mayor, Jacques Fontain.
“But Father,” Sepp appealed, “we must climb the bell tower of the church in order to see across the river.”
“You are spotting landmarks on the far bank to use for range finding,” complained the priest. “I forbid it.”
“I, too, forbid it,” said the mayor, an elderly man who shook his cane in Sepp’s face. “I will not have Lys turned into a battleground.” Then, spotting Paul’s approach, the frail, bent man said angrily, “You are the cause of this, Chardon!”
“I did not start the war,” Paul defended.
“No, but you will bring it here,” the mayor replied.
“It is only an exercise in strategy. Like every other year,” Paul soothed. “A way of preparing the cadets for some future situation.”
“Lys wishes no future situations with the Boche. Ever,” spat the mayor.
“Of course. Certainly. Only for military theory, you see. What would you have our cadets do? Welcome the Boche with open arms? Invite them to take all the wounded in the hospital as prisoners?”
The mayor appeared to think that over. Was this really just the game of a few hundred students at the Ecole? “It is a British hospital,” he said finally.
Even Father Perrin looked shocked at the mayor’s statement.
Paul stepped between the mayor and the cadets. “We are simply making a study of how the town can be defended if need be. None of us wants—or expects—that to happen. But you remember the Great War, Jacques. Should we remain unprepared?”
The mayor fell silent. “No,” he said at last. “I thought we taught the Boche a lesson when they called here twenty years ago, but perhaps they are stupid and will try again.”
Sepp and his group gained entry to the church tower, and Paul and Raymond continued across the stone bridge to the island. Gaston, sounding like a drill sergeant, was barking orders to a dozen subordinates about the placement of the school’s two antitank guns. “One here to cover the bridge. The other farther back to guard against the loss of the first.”
“How is it progressing?” Paul inquired quietly.
Gaston jumped at the sound of his commander’s voice. “I did not see you coming.” He thumped his broad chest in a gesture of relief.
“It is a good thing we are not Germans, Gaston,” Raymond teased and then ducked as Gaston cuffed him.
“All right then.” Paul broke up the tussle. “Your situation, Gaston, if you please.”
“Hardly enough heavy weapons. Any chance of adding tanks or artillery to this plan?”
“Nothing we can count on.”
“What about the 75 mm piece up at the schoolyard?”
Raymond laughed. “You mean the one Colonel Larousse was afraid to fire even as a signal gun, for fear it would blow up?”
“You are doing fine work, Gaston,” Paul encouraged. “Keep it up. Take good notes. If the enemy were to advance this far, their defeat might depend on the information we could supply to our army.”
“Captain,” Gaston said as Paul turned to leave, “according to the Principles of Modern Warfare, how many defenders are required to guard this length of river?”
Paul thought a moment. “Fifteen thousand—provided they have adequate artillery support.”
“And how many cadets remain at the school?”
“Nine hundred,” Paul replied.
25
German “Tourists”
Perhaps the best view of the war was in the Luxembourg village of Remich on the terrace of the Hotel Bellevue. The Bellevue was owned by a former vaudeville performer named Lucien Klopp. After the last war, Klopp had retired from the London stage for peace and quiet. The quaint establishment he managed was in the area known as Luxembourg Corners, where a point of the Grand Duchy jutted out to touch the borders of France and Germany.
Klopp’s terrace overlooked a valley so picturesque it might have been lifted from a fairy tale. An ancient castle with turrets, moat, and drawbridge topped a ridge on the left. Vineyards for creating sweet Moselle wine climbed the bluish hills. Along the river in both directions were clustered little white villages with perfect white church spires rising against the cloud-studded sky.
The river wound gently in the sunlight, a shining ribbon of light, before it left Luxembourg and flowed away. Beyond the border of the neutral country, the Moselle was the tangible dividing line between France and Germany. From Klopp’s patio, tourists could see the beginning of the purple mass of the Maginot fortresses and the Siegfried Line across from it in Germany.
With the aid of binoculars the batteries of both sides were plainly visible: barbed wire, earthworks, and machine-gun-studded pillboxes. Right there, on display from the peaceful promenad
e, was The War.
Mac and Murphy came out onto the terrace. “They’ve taken an intermission,” said Larry Beavers of the Post.
Four other newsmen were leaning on a stone wall, looking off to where the Schengen Bridge crossed the wide blue river.
Mac could hear birds chirping in the cleft of the hill. There was no artillery, no smoke. The peace of little Remich was tangible.
Bill Cooper, the stout, round-faced AP correspondent from Berlin, had turned his field glasses skyward. “You guys missed it. We had five airplanes up there a while ago. Two of Hitler’s and three of Chamberlain’s. Nothing happening now, though.”
Murphy laughed and patted Bill on the shoulder. “So, Bill, things must be boring in Berlin, too, huh?”
“Deadly dull. The Führer’s off in Bavaria with his band of Merry Men. If you ask me, I’d say everybody’s about to forget about this war business and sign an armistice. Any takers?”
There were a few comments about the lack of news. Everyone standing in Klopp’s garden had come here hoping to pick up at least a small story. Hotel Bellevue had ringside seats, but the bout appeared to be called on account of weather.
“It’s too cold to fight.” Murphy pulled up the collar of his coat. “It’s too cold to stand here and wait.” He retreated sullenly into the drafty breakfast room of the Bellevue.
Mac guessed that about now John Murphy was longing for foggy old London town and his wife sitting by the fire. The war, the separation, and the evacuation were turning out to be a lot of bunk. Not one bomb had fallen on London, yet Murphy had endured being apart from his family for months. The strain on this normally phlegmatic guy was definitely showing . . . now all the trouble of crossing from France into Luxembourg and probably nothing to show for it but days of groggy conversation with a bunch of rheumy-eyed journalists.