He lowered the undercarriage and flaps and throttled back gradually, allowing the Hudson to sink towards the flarepath but ready to open the throttles again instantly if some obstacle loomed up out of the darkness. But the reception committee had done its work well and the approach to land was faultless and trouble-free, the flarepath seeming to expand and meet the Hudson as it sank through the last fifty feet. The pilot checked its sink rate with a gentle backward pressure on the stick and, with the flares rushing past the wingtips, allowed it to stall on to the ground.
The undercarriage hit the earth with a thud that rattled the entire aircraft. The Hudson bounced a little way into the air and the pilot fought to keep the wings level as it settled again. This time it stayed down, the pilot ruddering to keep it straight and applying the brakes cautiously. Mud or water, possibly both, splattered against the fuselage.
In the cabin, Douglas held his breath and looked out of the window apprehensively, seeing the flares rush past. Then the Hudson began to slow down and finally stopped altogether, its engines ticking over. A collective sigh sounded in the cabin as its occupants expelled their pent-up breath.
The wireless operator came back into the cabin and unlatched the main fuselage door. Douglas and his companions had already unfastened their seat belts. The SAS officer had no need to tell the others what to do. Led by him they tumbled out into the night, machine-pistols at the ready, and deployed in a line that extended outwards from the aircraft, flinging themselves prone on the ground.
Even at this moment of potential danger, the thought ran through Douglas’s mind that the moist earth and the clean night air had never smelt so sweet.
They lay there, MP-40s cocked, and waited. Apart from the rhythmic beat of the Hudson’s still-idling motors, there was no sound in the night. Then Douglas sensed, rather than saw, shadowy movement beyond the aircraft’s tail. He settled the butt of the MP-40 into his shoulder and prepared to open fire.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Montfort!’
The word came unexpectedly out of the darkness. It was Colette, lying next to Douglas, who provided the response.
‘Montségur!’
She levered herself upright and looked down at Douglas. ‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘They’re friends.’ The SAS men also rose and followed Colette to meet the reception committee. One of the latter, his features invisible, began to say a few words, only to have them drowned by the sudden roar of the Hudson’s engines. Douglas winced; the aircraft was making enough racket to wake the entire neighbourhood.
The roar died away to its previous idling rumble. A moment later, the fuselage hatch opened and the wireless operator jumped down.
‘I say,’ he said urgently, ‘we seem to be stuck. The skipper wants to taxi back down the strip so that he can take off into wind, or we won’t get off at all. Can you give us a shove?’
Colette quickly explained to the Maquis reception committee what had happened. Without a word, the Frenchmen — there were eight or nine of them — clustered around the Hudson alongside the SAS newcomers and laid willing hands on the aircraft at spots indicated by the wireless operator, who now jumped back on board. The pilot gunned the engines again, showering his helpers with mud as they pushed with all their strength.
After a couple of minutes, it was apparent that the Hudson was not going to come free. The wheels were sinking deeper into the waterlogged ground. At length, the pilot shut down the engines altogether and climbed down from the aircraft.
‘It’s no use,’ he told them dejectedly. ‘She’s bogged, and no mistake. We’ve already made enough noise to wake the dead. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Germans or the Vichy cops are on their way here now.’
Colette spoke again to the reception committee, some of whom immediately turned and ran off into the night.
‘They’ve gone to get some shovels,’ she said. ‘They always bring some with them in case it’s necessary to bury parachutes or other equipment. We’ll have a go at digging you out.’
The pilot sounded relieved. ‘That’s fine. But I don’t think I can risk giving it much more than an hour — say ninety minutes at the outside. If we haven’t got clear of the mud at the end of that time I shall have to set fire to the aircraft to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.’
A few minutes later, the Frenchmen returned with the shovels and a couple of picks, which they immediately applied to the mushy ground in an effort to dig shallow, sloping trenches to front and rear of the Hudson’s main undercarriage. It was difficult work in the darkness, especially as the trenches rapidly began to fill up with water. After a while the pilot, afraid that one of the picks might pierce a tyre, called a halt.
‘I’m afraid it’s hopeless,’ he said. ‘Look — she’s sinking even deeper. The bottom of the fuselage is just about resting on the ground. I’m just going to have to burn her,’ he ended mournfully.
Suddenly, a warning shout sent the group around the Hudson scattering to retrieve their weapons. One of the Frenchmen, who had been acting as lookout, thought he had seen some movement beyond the flarepath. He was right; in the flickering light of the flares, some figures approached cautiously. The lookout, gun at the ready, ordered them to put up their hands and come closer. Whoever they were, Douglas thought, it was apparent that they were not Germans.
They turned out to be men from a nearby village. Alerted by the roar of the Hudson’s engines, they had defied the local curfew to see what was going on. Colette spoke to them in low tones; after a couple of minutes they hurried off.
‘That’s a stroke of luck,’ the woman told Douglas and the pilot. ‘They’ve gone to fetch some horses and oxen. They say they’ll be back inside an hour.’
She had a hurried consultation with the Frenchman who appeared to be in charge of the reception committee, then turned back to address Douglas.
‘All this is making us late,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see what we can do. The Maquisards are determined to stay here until the Hudson is either airborne or set on fire; in the latter case, the last thing they want is for the RAF crew to roam around the countryside until they are taken prisoner, which would almost inevitably happen. If things do go wrong, they’ll be taken with us. And since we can’t go a step further without the help of the Maquisards, we’ll just have to wait with them. There’s no alternative.’
Douglas nodded. ‘Right. But first of all I suggest you get somebody to extinguish the flares, at least until those villagers come back. I don’t think there’ll be much flying under the cloud tonight, but we can’t risk being spotted. Also, I’m going to deploy my men around the aircraft and well away from it. If the Germans do turn up, at least we can give them a hot reception.’
Out there in the darkness, lying a few yards next to Olds, Douglas tried vainly to relax as he waited for the return of the villagers. Every small night sound made his nerves jump, and his eyes began to ache and smart with the effort of peering into the shadows. The minutes, ticked off by the luminous hands of his wrist watch, crawled around the dial with the speed of a lame snail.
Olds, with his keen hearing, was the first to detect the jingle of harness, and alerted Douglas with a warning hiss. Suddenly, by the edge of the field, a light flared, followed by another and another.
‘Oh, my God,’ Douglas groaned. ‘They’ve lit torches! What the hell do they think this is — bonfire night?’
‘It will be, if we don’t get that plane out of the darts,’ said Olds practically. ‘Anyway, they must be pretty certain there are no Jerries around.’
They stood up and watched the approaching cavalcade. It seemed almost that the whole village had turned out to help. The two groups of Frenchmen, villagers and Maquisards, greeted each other with much hand-shaking and back-slapping. The throng milled around the stranded Hudson for a while, then sorted itself out into some kind of order; a team of draught horses was harnessed to the undercarriage legs, and the work of freeing the aircraft began once more.
Despite th
e combined efforts of men and animals, it was another thirty minutes before the Hudson finally came clear of the mud with a gigantic sucking sound.
The crew lost no time in boarding the aircraft, the Maquisards scattering to relight the flarepath as the horses were unharnessed. The Hudson’s engines coughed into life and the aircraft began to move, the pilot turning cautiously and starting his taxi run to the downwind end of the flarepath. Douglas glanced at the sky, and saw with some apprehension that the cloud layer was beginning to break up, increasing the risk of the flarepath being spotted by any aircraft that chanced to be in the area. It would also increase the hazards the RAF crew might have to face on the long flight home.
A group of Frenchmen completed their task of filling in the holes which the Hudson’s wheels had dug into the airstrip, and ran clear as the pilot revved up his engines to full power. He released the brakes and the aircraft began to gather speed, its momentum slowed by the weight of the thrown-up mud that caked it. Half way down the strip, with the tailwheel only just clear of the ground, the pilot felt with sickening certainty that he was not going to make it. The Hudson’s take-off speed was ninety miles per hour, and with the flare that marked the far boundary rushing closer, the airspeed indicator showed only fifty.
Then the miracle happened. The Hudson hit a bump and lurched into the air. Somehow the pilot kept it flying, teetering on the edge of a stall, and flew between two trees at the far end of the field. There was a crunch as its wingtip sliced through some branches, and then it was climbing away into the night.
Back on the field, Colette came to stand beside Douglas as the drone of the Hudson’s engines faded.
‘I hope they make it,’ she said softly. ‘They are very brave men.’
‘I hope we all make it, but we won’t unless we get a move on,’ Douglas reminded her. ‘What’s next?’
‘I’ve had a word with the Maquis leader,’ she told him. ‘We’re being taken to a farm a couple of miles away in the first instance. After that I don’t know. It seems we have to meet somebody. We are completely in their hands, for the time being at least, so we will just have to go along with them. I’m afraid that one or two of them are a bit suspicious of you and your men. You’re something out of the ordinary, so I expect there will be questions they want to ask.’
The Maquisards, having seen the villagers safely on their way home, led the way to their destination along a track that wound its way through sparse woodland. They marched in single file, carefully spaced out, keeping the SAS men in the middle.
Presently, the trees thinned out and gave way to an expanse of scrub — the maquis from which the French Resistance movement had taken its name. As they went on, Douglas noted that one of the Frenchmen took care to fall in close beside him. The man reeked of stale sweat and garlic. Douglas took an instinctive dislike to him, even though he had no doubt that the Frenchman was simply obeying orders and would, without hesitation, slit the SAS officer’s throat if the need arose.
They crossed a narrow dirt road and, after a few more minutes, a cluster of low buildings loomed out of the darkness. The group made straight for the biggest one and halted outside while the Maquis leader went forward and rapped sharply on the door. He called something out in a low voice, there was a response from inside, then a rasping sound as bolts were drawn. The door swung open, revealing an aged woman in a long black dress silhouetted against the light of a lantern. She waved them inside and snapped something at the French leader in a shrill tone.
Colette, who was in front of Douglas, gave a chuckle and half turned. ‘Roughly translated, the old woman wants to know where the hell we’ve been,’ she explained. ‘She says that she’s been up half the night cooking for us, and now the food is nearly ruined.’
They filed quickly into the building and one of the Frenchmen closed and bolted the door behind them. Douglas saw that they were inside what appeared to be a timber barn or storehouse of some sort, with a high roof and beams running from wall to wall. A lantern hung from one of the beams, and sacking had been hung over the windows to prevent its light being seen from outside. The interior of the barn was acrid with smoke that curled from an ancient stove.
‘They’ve done us proud,’ Colette whispered to Douglas. ‘Look at the table.’
Douglas did so. A long table, with benches on either side, had been carefully laid with best crockery and embroidered napkins. There were even real crystal glasses.
‘This must have been collected from every home in the village,’ Colette said. ‘It’s the kind of stuff that only appears when there is a grand occasion, such as a wedding, baptism or funeral.’
‘Well, I hope it isn’t our funeral they have in mind,’ Douglas remarked sceptically. ‘I’ve just noticed that most of our French friends seem to have disappeared.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about that,’ she told him. ‘I overheard their leader tell them to mount guard around the village. It might be to stop us getting out as much as to prevent the Germans getting in, though,’ she admitted.
Only two of the Maquisards remained in the barn, and Douglas now had his first chance to study them closely. The first man was their leader. He was short, with a sallow face framed in dark stubble and thin, rather cruel lips. A black beret was tilted forward over his brow. Douglas saw that he was armed to the teeth with an assortment of weapons, including a Sten gun, a pistol and a long combat knife.
The other Frenchman was the individual who had marched alongside Douglas. In contrast to his leader, he was tall and lanky, with brutal, simian features and close-set eyes under beetling brows. The ends of a sparse moustache dangled past the sides of his mouth. He stood leaning against the wall by the door, casually picking his fingernails with the tip of a stiletto, staring at Douglas with an unwavering, hostile gaze.
Douglas smiled engagingly at him and murmured to Colette, ‘Who is the chap with the charmless stare?’
‘Do not worry, my friend. That is just Jean-Pierre’s way. He means no harm.’
The words came from the Resistance leader, and took both Douglas and Colette by surprise. Neither had realized until now that the man spoke English. Douglas felt somewhat relieved; it was going to make things a good deal easier.
The Frenchman, Douglas discovered, called himself Raoul. He invited the SAS men and Colette to be seated at the table, and the old woman served them with generous helpings of an omelette from two pans on the stove. Raoul fetched some bread, and made the sign of the cross on the back of each loaf as he cut it. Then he poured some wine into the glasses from a large pitcher and stood back from the table, watching them as they ate and drank.
The old woman hovered over them throughout the meal. She seemed to have taken a particular fancy to Conolly, who whispered something in her ear, causing her to cackle shrilly. Apart from that, few words were spoken until the dishes were cleared away. Then Raoul indicated a pile of blankets in a corner of the barn.
‘Sleep now,’ he told them. ‘In the morning I will take you to where you have to go. You, Mademoiselle, will spend the night with my mother.’ He inclined his head in the direction of the old woman. Douglas felt a niggle of suspicion.
‘Are you sure that’s all right?’ he asked Colette.
She smiled. ‘Perfectly. There’s no need to worry. Besides, it means I won’t have to share that bucket with you.’ She pointed to a rusty object by the wall. There was a small pile of torn-up paper beside it. The Maquisards, it appeared, had thought of everything.
‘No one is to leave the barn until we come for you,’ Raoul warned. ‘Now, sleep well. Tomorrow there may be danger.’
He went out, followed by Colette and the old woman. The brutal-looking Jean-Pierre showed no sign of leaving, so Douglas rose from the bench and made to go towards him. Conolly placed a restraining hand on his arm.
‘Leave it to me, sir, if you don’t mind. I know his type. Besides, I speak some French.’
Douglas nodded. Conolly ambled over and stood a foot or two in front of
the Frenchman, then said something in a low tone, smiling amiably as he did so. Jean-Pierre turned and spat on the floor, then resumed his original stance by the door.
The Irishman spoke to him again, a little more sharply. This time, the Frenchman flattened himself against the wall, knees slightly bent. His right hand came up to the level of his chest, the stiletto blade pointing towards Conolly. The latter smiled again and spread out his hands, as though in apology, and turned away as though to rejoin the others. A sardonic smile of triumph crept over the Frenchman’s dull-witted face.
The next instant he was on the ground, writhing in agony and clutching at his genitals, where Conolly’s kick had just landed. Strangled noises came from him. The Irishman bent down, scooped up the fallen stiletto, and tossed it to Barber, who caught it deftly. With the other hand he seized Jean-Pierre by the jacket and hauled him upright. Opening the door, he tossed the Frenchman out into the night, then shot the bolts into place.
‘Nasty piece of work, that,’ Conolly said. ‘I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble from him, though. He was just testing us, to see how far he could go.’
‘Well, now he knows,’ Douglas remarked. ‘I hope you’re right about him not causing any more trouble. By the way, something has just struck me. Barns usually have bolts on the outside of the door. Here it’s the other way round.
Conolly shrugged. ‘Probably the Resistance hold meetings here, and it’s a safeguard against uninvited visitors,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it means nobody can creep in on us in the night.’
‘Nevertheless, you and I will keep watch while the others get their heads down,’ Douglas told him. ‘The more I see of this set-up, the less I like it. Stan, I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.’
Attack at Night Page 6