The Caves of Perigord

by Martin Walker

  “Where will you sleep now?” she asked.

  “Here,” he grunted. Near his new daughter. He owed his wife that much. If she cried, he could always move. All fires were open to the Keeper of the Bulls. He took a twig, peeled it, and began probing at his teeth where some of the fish was stuck. He should have saved one of the fish bones from his meal. That was the kind of thing wives remembered to do.

  “You need another woman now,” his sister said. She gestured at the baby. “Her mother would have been the first to say so.”

  “I know.” He looked into the fire. “I will speak to the Keeper of the Horses. He has a daughter, I hear.”

  “She is young. But comely.”

  “Too young?”

  “Girls are never too young, at least to warm your bed and tend your fire and your meals,” she said lightly, passing her hand softly over the beating pulse in the head of the baby at her breast. “But you want more than that. You want company, like you always talked to this child’s mother, talking and murmuring into the night. You never talked much with the other men, even when you were a boy. You always liked talking with women. And Little Moon is too young for that. She has everything you need except wisdom.”

  “All the better. I can teach her wisdom myself, my wisdom.”

  “You could, but then you’d never know if you were hearing her wisdom or just your own. You want more than that,” she said.

  He considered her, his youngest sister, whose eyes were as cool a gray as his own. She had always been close to him, since he was a youth and she was an infant, accustomed to crawling into his lap and settling there to sleep. He had taken great care over her marriage, entrusting her to the bravest of the young hunters, the one who would lead the hunting pack someday. That had not worked out too well, since her man had come back with a leg mangled after fighting some hungry wolves away from a new-killed deer. He walked with a limp, still the most cunning of the hunters, but he would never lead the pack. He shrugged; men could not order the ways of the beasts.

  “You remember Leaping Hare, my husband’s friend,” she said, almost carelessly. That meant she had something important to say.

  “He died, fighting the wolves. He saved your man,” said the Keeper. He remembered the sad trail of dejected hunters, carrying the corpse, the wounded man, and the reindeer they had saved from the wolves. They were exhausted as they staggered back to the river. He remembered the keening from the woman, the way his sister had run to meet the forlorn little band, her hand to her throat, and remembered the woman with her, who had sunk to her knees and cried the death song over her man in a high, shrieking voice. Not a voice he would want to hear at his fire each night.

  “He left a woman-Silver Eel,” his sister went on. “She has no children. She is a daughter to the fisher clan, and my friend. Still young, but wise. She will be a healer, some day.”

  “This Silver Eel, she has passed her time of mourning?”

  “Long since. And she needs a man.” She paused, considering whether to say anything else. He waited as she pondered. Finally his sister said, “She helped me all day with your baby.”

  “You said she was barren.”

  “No, I said she had no children. Not by Leaping Hare. But Leaping Hare sired no young. Whatever you say, we women know it is not always the woman who is barren.”

  “Summon her here to your fire tomorrow, before I go to the cave,” he said, his eyes on his new daughter. He trusted his sister’s judgment, but he remembered that high voice. “Say nothing to her. I would first see and talk with this comely young daughter of the Keeper of the Horses. I am in no hurry.”

  Farther down the riverbank, at a fire where the guts of fish still sizzled in the embers, the Keeper of the Horses studied his youngest daughter, his favorite. She had been a pretty child, and now she was as lovely as her mother had been. He loved to watch her, each movement graceful, even now as she turned to pick another bough, and placed it carefully on the fire. He had seen her help Deer down to the riverbank, before darting back here to his hearth. Deer and Little Moon, that would be an interesting match. Not a good match, for Deer had neither father nor mother still living, and no brothers. Deer would bring only himself to the family of the woman he took, no influence or honor, except what he could build for himself as the most talented of the apprentices.

  Thoughtfully, he probed his teeth with a fish bone. Deer was a gifted youth, and a clever one, clever enough to take his advice, and to display the right contrition. Deer could go far. He would be a Keeper soon, the youngest of them. That would be honor enough. Little Moon liked him, that was clear.

  But Deer was a wayward lad, too proud, too sure of himself. Too young to understand the ways of the Keepers, to accept that they had to show a proper respect for one another, even when their powers were fading. Or even when they had never had much talent in the first place, like the Keeper of the Bison. Deer as a Keeper would upset the delicate balance of respect inside the cave, unless Deer would consent to be guided by his wisdom. Deer’s talent, cautioned and schooled by the Keeper of the Horses’ advice to keep his pride and his temper under control. That could work. Deer had no father; he would listen to the father of his woman.

  Across the fire, Little Moon put a testing finger into the clay-lined hole in the ground where the water was warmed by hot stones. She took a clump of moss, dipped it into the warm water, and began to cleanse her face and neck before she slept. Always neat and clean, his Little Moon, with breath that smelled like honey.

  But could his advice and counsel be enough to control Deer from another clash in the cave? The Keeper of the Bulls was his friend, he supposed, certainly the most valued of his colleagues. But there was an ambition there, a sense of power. He virtually dominated the cave already. If not for me, he thought, the Keeper of the Bulls would decide everything, from the design of the cave to the colors they used to the choice of apprentices. There would be a clash, someday, between the Keeper of the Bulls and Deer. Keeper of the Deer, he corrected himself. A clash like that between aging father and growing son, between an old bull and the young one. Keeper of the Bulls would not content himself with this cave. He would want other caves, greater grandeur for his work, more honor to his bulls, more Keepers and apprentices to dominate. He already was the loudest voice in council, using the authority of the cave to push his views against the leaders of the fisher clan and the hunters and the flint men. He was hungry for power in a worrying way.

  “You went up the hill to the cave, my daughter, and came back with a limping man,” he said softly.

  “Deer could not walk, my father, after kneeling all day. I took him damp moss, and gave him my arm to come back to the village.”

  “While the rest of us were eating, you left with some fish rolled into bark.”

  “He had not eaten. We had plenty.”

  “You like Deer, my daughter?”

  “It was hard, to make him serve the women; and to take away his necklace so that he had no place among us.”

  “That is over now.” She was good at not answering questions, this daughter of his.

  “Deer will be a Keeper soon, a man with an honored place. And soon you will be of an age to take a man.”

  Silence from his daughter, a silence so dense he could almost touch it.

  “Your mother has talked to you of this, of taking a man, tending his hearth,” he went on.

  “Of course I have,” his woman snapped, her voice muffled from the skins she was wrapped in. He had wondered if she were really asleep. “If we had to wait for men to start telling their daughters about the life that awaits them, we’d wait forever. And what I have told her is to stay away from the bold young boys. But she’s your daughter-she never listens. Now you had better make sure she listens to you.”

  “You will listen to me, Little Moon,” he said. “You will not go to Deer again without my permission. You must not even think of him as a man until he becomes a Keeper. You will not go with any of the young men, but wi
ll stay by your mother all day and do her bidding. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Father. But it was staying by my mother that I met Deer, when you punished him by sending him to work with the women. So that must have had your approval,” she said boldly.

  No fool, his daughter. As quick of tongue as she was quick of foot. He smiled to himself; she’d be a handful for any man, just like her mother.

  “You know what I mean, Little Moon,” he said, leaning forward to dip the moss into the warm water and swab his face before he pushed the big log deep into the fire and crawled into the skins alongside his woman. “And there are many other men in the tribe beside Deer.”

  “But he is the best painter of all the apprentices. You said so yourself,” Little Moon said softly, almost to herself. “And he respects you most of all.”

  He gave no reply, easing himself alongside the curving, familiar warmth of his woman.

  “Now see what you’ve done, you old fool,” his woman murmured fondly, taking his hand to fold it to her breast. “Always meddling, that’s you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Audrix Plateau, Perigord, 1944

  The elderly Lockheed Hudson ground through the night, the engines hammering so loudly that Jack thought every German in France must hear them. He was cold and he knew he was frightened, and wondered if he looked half as calm as Francois and McPhee had done as they pulled themselves easily into the plane ahead of him. McPhee was still cursing good-humoredly at the waste of all his parachute training. Expecting to drop into France, they learned at the briefing that they would land on a makeshift grass strip, then the aircraft would load up with a return group of passengers to fly back to RAF Tempsford. It felt too ordinary, Jack thought, to mark his first foray onto enemy-held soil. Well, the first in Europe, at least. He had been behind Jerry lines often enough in the desert, if anybody was ever really sure where the lines were.

  “Three minutes.” The curtain behind the cockpit was flicked back and a head came out to shout the warning. They had been flying for nearly four hours, as calmly and as quietly as if it had been one of those prewar flights from London to Paris. No sudden maneuvers, no hard turns or dives, and not a trace of flak. It seemed almost too easy. Slowly the plane tipped over onto one wing. That meant they were circling, looking for the lights of the landing zone. They had devices these days, he knew. S-phones that let the copilot talk to the reception team on the ground, and Eureka sets that brought the aircraft in precisely to a ground beacon. They were carrying two more Eureka sets on this trip, for delivery to the French, part of the cargo that was strapped down behind him. Guns and radio sets, ammo and grenades and plastic explosives. He knew the stuff was safe enough without a detonator, even in a crash. At least he knew that in theory, but his flesh still crawled at the thought of the potential explosion piled up behind him. Silly, really. In a crash, the cargo would crush him into a pulp long before any explosion. The plane leveled out and then turned again on to the opposite wing. The pilot must have seen the three landing lights, got the right recognition signal showing it was the Digger network waiting down there and not the Germans. The engine note fell back as they lost height and he felt the flaps go down, heard the grinding of the undercarriage as they prepared to land.

  “Jean-Marie, the dog has had three black puppies.” Jack bet that was theirs. Among all the usual lists of family messages and snatches of poetry that came with the news bulletins on the BBC French services, he suspected that was the one to prepare the reception committee for this night’s landing. He had felt some unconscious echo of recognition for Jean-Marie’s puppies. It was almost a tradition before the teams flew out, listening to the previous night’s radio messages and wondering which was theirs. He imagined the Germans listening in frustration as they heard these public broadcasts beaming out from the powerful British transmitters, knowing they were hearing coded orders and alerts and confirming drop zones for the secret war in France, and not having the slightest idea what they meant.

  The engines were throttled back sharply. A thump, a bounce, and they were down, careering jerkily along some French plateau. And if they were lucky, not a German within miles. Don’t speak too soon, he told himself. A German ambush never opened up when the aircraft was landing, only when it was down and they could bag the lot.

  The landing went on, it seemed forever, as the aircraft lurched like a tractor over a plowed field. He tried to look at Francois, give him a thumb’s-up, but he could see nothing in the darkness of the plane’s hold. Then he felt a friendly slap on his knee as the plane slowed, and began its turn. McPhee. He leaned forward, gave a thump on the broad back in return. The engines revved again. The pilot would taxi back all the way to his landing point, ready to take off into the wind with the minimum of time on the ground.

  This was the most uncomfortable ride he had ever had in his life, worse than a tank going over ditches. His mouth already dry with tension, he made himself gulp and breathe deeply. The flight hadn’t bothered him at all; it would be too shaming to get travel sickness while taxiing, or to throw up at his first sight of France. Finally, they stopped, the engines just ticking over. The copilot came out to open the hatch and guide them out. The two radio operators went first, each reaching up for the suitcases that held their sets. Then Francois, McPhee, and then him. Francois was already embracing somebody on the ground. Shapes dashed past him, reaching up into the belly of the plane to take out the cargo. Another figure loomed at his side, slapped him on the shoulder, and hustled him away, muttering words of welcome amid gusts of garlic.

  He tripped over something metallic and noisy, hurting his leg, Barbed wire! No, bicycles. Then came a whiff of warm engine oil and he saw the shape of a farm tractor. At the far side of the bicycles, a group of people in coats began walking toward the Hudson for the long flight back. One of them was a woman. Perhaps he should warn her not to bother taking back French perfume. The girls back at Tempsford and in Baker Street got so much that they used it in their cigarette lighters.

  Apart from the pitch darkness, the field was like a busy station platform when the express was about to leave. There seemed to be people everywhere, a whole village turned out for the event. He heard children’s laughter. Men rushed about with trolleys, calling to one another. The tractor started up. He was pushed aside as women picked up bicycles. The plane’s engines built into a roar. Another push on his shoulder, and then he saw the glow of the cigarette and recognized Francois. McPhee was with him and a man with his arm around Francois’s shoulder led them away from the bicycles, through a gap in a hedge into a field that was heady with the rich stench of manure, and where there was a small truck. They were all piled into the back, banging into milk churns and trying to untangle their legs as the truck moved off, gears grinding. He no longer heard the plane, but it must be off by now. England was a long way back, and his nausea had passed, although his stomach was tight. And suddenly, as if on a signal, they all began to laugh, great gusts of it as they pounded each other’s shoulders and backs. The Jedburgh team was down safely and racketing along some country lane. Somewhere in France in a truck that stank of sour milk and dark French tobacco. All according to plan.

  The barn was dry but cold, the straw banked against the walls, their rucksacks leaning against them. The man who had led them to the truck reached behind one of the straw bales and pulled out a bottle of cognac and a small, thick glass. Francois drank it first, and then the Frenchman, and they embraced again.

  “My brother Christophe,” said Francois, introducing them. “We call him Berger, the shepherd.”

  Berger stood back, looked at his brother in khaki, his hand stretching out to finger the Cross of Lorraine on one sleeve, and then looked at Jack in his English battledress, at McPhee in his olive drab. He was dressed like a farmer, in a flat cap and moleskin trousers, a patched old overcoat that was held together with string. His hands were dirty, but Jack noticed that the nails were well cut. And when he spoke, it was the French of an educated man.


  “My God, what are we to do with three men in uniform?” he asked. Jack thought it was a fair question. But that was policy for the Jedburgh teams. They were not spies, to skulk around pretending to be Frenchmen. They were not meant to go near towns, but to stay out in the countryside with the Maquis. Their uniforms were deliberate, to boost the morale of the cold and hungry French boys who had taken to the hills and woods rather than be conscripted to go and work in German factories, to remind them that they were soldiers. It should also mean, with any luck, that if Jack or McPhee were captured they would not be shot as spies.

  “You put us to work, Christophe,” said Francois kindly. “You take us to every group of Maquis you know from here to Limoges and down to Cahors, and we call in the arms drops and we show them what to do.”

  “So the invasion is that close?” his brother asked eagerly.

  “I doubt it, not this early in the year. But we need time to teach them, time to organize, time to rebuild. The Gestapo has been busy. Apart from you and Hilaire, there are not many networks left.”

  “You know Hilaire is coming up to see you?”

  “And you know these suspicious Allies of ours,” Francois grinned. “The gentlemen of Baker Street want to make sure their star agent keeps a close eye on dangerous Gaullists like you and me. The same with our two Anglo-Saxon friends here. Baker Street needs you and me to set up the network, Christophe, but they send these two Francophones along to watch us.” Francois winked, to take the sting out of the remark, but Jack didn’t think he was joking. Nor, from the level way he looked at Jack and McPhee, did Christophe.

  “But equally you can keep an eye on us, Francois,” said the Englishman. “Make sure we don’t call in any arms drops for those Communists you’re always grumbling about.”