The Caves of Perigord

by Martin Walker

  “And another thing. That alert message, the fairy’s beautiful smile. There was no confirmation of that from our Bureau Central, nothing from General Koenig in the Gaullist broadcast. Whatever alert signal is coming from London is from you and the Americans-not from Free France.”

  “I have to follow orders, Francois. You know that. I’ve had the Plan Vert signal, which means an all-out attack on the rail network. I’m sorry about Terrasson but there’s nothing I can do.”

  “I have friends in Terrasson. So do you-people who’ve fed you when their own kids were hungry.”

  “The sooner the invasion succeeds, the sooner they’ll eat. You know that.”

  Francois stared at him fiercely. “So we don’t lay an ambush on the Terrasson road?”

  “What with? Bren guns and Gammon bombs, against the panzers and the artillery they’ll send out from Perigueux? As soon as they hear our bullets tapping on their frontal armor they’ll hit us with howitzers and mortars. We’d be wiped out.”

  “So we let the bastards get away with it, haul our friends back to the Gestapo dungeons?”

  “Francois, we carry on doing our job, which is keeping as many Germans as we can tied up down here for as long as we can. And if we have to stage suicide attacks, it will be for a better target than a reprisal column on Terrasson.” He knew Francois well enough to understand that the only way to get him off this track was to focus his quick intelligence onto something else.

  “SS Das Reich, you mean.”

  “That’s what Plan Vert means to me. We blow the rails so the Das Reich can’t use them. But then we have to stop an entire armored division coming up from the south by road. That’s why we still need Marat and his boys. I don’t care if they are Communists or Martians. We’ll need every man and every gun in Perigord because we can only hope to slow the Das Reich down with cannon fodder. We can’t destroy the tanks, so we have to use every bridge and every village, every bend in the road to lay ambushes on their infantry and their trucks. If we can’t stop the tanks, we can shoot up their fuel trucks. It’s the only thing we can do. If you have a better idea, Francois, then for God’s sake tell me.”

  “Even with bazookas, it’s a suicide mission,” said Francois. “And we haven’t even got bazookas.”

  The parachute drops were becoming routine, and despite the reprisals the Maquis morale was sky-high after the success of the ambush. But Manners told himself not to get overconfident as he carefully approached the rendezvous point by the water tower at Cumont. He felt edgy, that visceral knot of warning that he had learned in the desert never to ignore. The moon was rising, and Berger was already waiting. Francois had the laundry truck waiting at a farm in the valley. It amused him to use petrol the Germans had allocated to get their uniforms picked up and cleaned.

  “I could only get one tractor. A couple of farm carts and trolleys,” said Berger. “It should be enough. The fires are ready. Here.” He passed to Manners the inevitable flask of brandy, although the nights were warm now.

  “We’re starting to lose some men, you know. They’re leaving the Armee Secrete and joining the FTP. The Communists are saying the Allies will never invade and the Red Army is doing all the fighting.”

  “We’ve lost nobody. We get more all the time.”

  “Not in our group, no. But in Perigueux and Brive and Bergerac, it’s all FTP. They even claim Soleil is one of theirs. Round here, it’s different. We have the reputation, after that attack on the Brehmer Division. But Marat has been claiming the credit for his own group, with you and the American. The way Marat tells it, we might not even have been there. Our lads know better, but all those new recruits coming into the Maquis, they want to join the FTP Commies and have a crack at the Boches.”

  “It’s all the same to me, Berger,” said Manners. “FTP or Armee Secrete or even Soleil’s lot. You know London’s policy. We don’t care who gets the recruits as long as they get results.”

  “You’ve seen this?” Berger handed him a small, single-sheet newspaper. “Marat has a printing press somewhere that’s turning this out. He calls it ‘Audace,’ and to read it you’d think only the Reds were doing any fighting. He says the Germans call this region ‘Little Russia.’ Can you get me a printing press by parachute?”

  Somewhere far off, an engine backfired in the night. Too far to worry about. And Berger was experienced. He’d have sentries on the approach roads. Manners checked his watch. Any time now. Moonlight and scudding clouds, the scent of fresh horse dung mixed with Berger’s cigarette. He was taking another swig of brandy when he heard footsteps coming, and a whispered “Laval.” It was young Daunier, with someone behind him.

  “Good evening, comrades.” It was Marat.

  “What in the devil’s name are you doing here?” said Berger grimly. “And you, Daunier, back to your post.”

  “Come for my share. We can’t leave my lads defenseless,” Marat said. “I’ve got enough to make two more battalions of franc-tireurs, but I need arms. Come, Capitaine, you’re a reasonable man. Tell this Gaullist we’re supposed to be allies.”

  “We are allies,” said Manners tiredly. “But how did you learn about tonight’s drop? I’m more worried about security than the guns.”

  “Some of your men are not so greedy as Berger here. At least they understand we’re on the same side.”

  “You two sort it out between you. I’m going to check the sentries and the fires. The plane will be here anytime now.” Manners shouldered his Sten, checked the spare magazines in his pouches, and left them to it, angry at the endless politicking. He wondered if it would be the same in an England under occupation, different organizations for the conservatives and the socialists, and another lot for the liberals. And probably some more for different football clubs and county cricket teams. But there’d be no parachute drops for a British resistance, not with Canada and the U.S.A. so far away. They wouldn’t even be able to communicate by radio. Unless there were submarines offshore …

  The sound of aircraft engines stopped his wandering thoughts. Close enough. He lit the first signal fire, saw the next ones ignite, and as the roar of the bomber on its first reconnaissance run drowned out everything else, he waited for the plane to make its turn into the wind and for the parachutes to start spilling down. There was always a marker assigned to each container, and Berger had them posted downwind, where the parachutes invariably dropped. As the first one tumbled from the belly of the lumbering Halifax, whipping as the canopy opened, he began kicking the loose earth over his fire. They always made him nervous, these telltale beacons. A good even drop, holding steady as the plane’s momentum died, they began to drift downwind, one after the other. The markers were running, and he heard the engine of the tractor cough as it began to lumber down toward the containers …

  That was no tractor! Even before the thudding of the cannon began he knew the German armored cars had caught them. Running instinctively toward two of his men who seemed frozen in surprise he pushed them down and got them firing. They just needed telling what to do. There was only one German cannon firing so far, and no flashes of gunfire from infantry. The cars had raced in too fast for their support troops. Crouching and running toward the village he ran, literally, into Albert. He knew horses.

  “Get the carts loaded and get those guns down to young Francois. Cut the horses loose if they’re shot and push the buggers. Get the others moving. We can still get those guns. I’ll take care of the armored car.”

  Firing short bursts from his Sten as he ran, as much to identify himself to his men as for any good it might do, he sprinted and rolled to his left, where a Bren was firing in steady, controlled bursts. That was Lespinasse, a trained man who’d been in the Alpine troops. He wouldn’t need telling to cover the withdrawal. He was changing barrels when Manners flung himself beside him, and shouted, “Covering fire-I’ll go in from the left.”

  “Here-you’ll need this.” Lespinasse took a Gammon bomb from the haversack at his side. Manners clutched i
t to his chest, tried to control his breathing, counted to five as Lespinasse shifted position and locked in a new magazine, and began his sprint as the Bren opened up again, sounding puny against the bark of the cannon. Still no German infantry, the fools. They’d sprung the trap too soon.

  The armored car was moving cautiously out of the village, one of its crew squatting on the rear deck, braced against the curling stanchion that held the aerial, and firing a Schmeisser in random bursts at the gaps between the houses. Two small fires still burned where some of the boys had tried using Molotovs. The Gammon was awkward to throw, four pounds of plastic wrapped in tarpaulin and attached to an impact fuse. He sprayed the back of the car with his Sten, saw the crew man fall, set his gun down, and took the Gammon in the palm of his hand. Think cricket, he told himself, a long throw to the wicket keeper to stop that third run. It doesn’t have to hit the stumps; it’s a big target. He threw it hard but even as it left his hand he knew it was falling short. He picked up his gun and ran out of the village, fumbling for a new magazine as the German infantry turned up, and the first crump of mortar shells began falling between him and the drop zone.

  There were two sounds from the desert war that he’d never forget. There was the whip-crack of the high-velocity 88 cannon, which came with the instant relief that if you could hear it, your tank had not been hit. But you had no more than five seconds to get under cover before the next round. The other sound was the mortars. The Sobbing Sisters were the worst, six-barreled beasts that moaned eerily as they fell. They could demolish a platoon or even a tank squadron if they caught the men outside the tanks and in laager. But any mortar was bad, a closerange mobile artillery that every German infantry company seemed to carry with it as a matter of course. And they got them firing so fast. Just as soon as the machine guns made you take cover, the mortars blew you out of it. It was like being sniped with high explosive.

  He reached the trees, running wide to avoid the mortars. German machine guns were firing steadily, but from a long distance. Another armored car had joined the first, and was firing steadily as crew members milled about forming into a line. He saw the glint of a towing hawser in the moonlight. His Gammon must have hit a wheel. The mortars were increasing their range, stalking their way across the field, and he saw the old tractor wrecked and burning. Then he saw movement, a jolting, jerking movement and an appalling noise of pain. An old farm horse, its haunches on the ground, was trying to haul itself away from the madness by its two front legs, its neigh a scream as the weight of the cart kept it flailing uselessly. The cart must be loaded.

  He told himself it was the horse that made him do it, running out from his cover toward the cart, and firing a short burst into the poor beast’s pitching head. But he’d already thought it through. The cart had to be still for what he wanted to do. There was no possibility of saving the guns; they had to be destroyed. He took the first Mills bomb from his pouch. No, there was a better way. He removed the pin, keeping tight hold of the lever, and felt into the back of the cart. He jammed the grenade between two of the parachuted containers. He managed to push the second bomb between a container and the cart’s side.

  Then he turned and half-fled, half-fell down the slope into the woods, his gun held high before his face to protect him from the branches, until he slammed into a tree and seemed to bounce dazedly off it down the hillside. Tumbling and disoriented, when he finally came to rest his mouth was full of blood and he had lost his gun. He groped vainly in the dark until the mortar shells seemed to be hunting at random down the slope toward him, and he was nearer to panic than he had been since he came to France. The sickening sense of defeat and disaster unmanned him. He had no idea where he was, where his men were, how many were left nor where the rendezvous point might be. And the Germans were not finished yet. He heard himself sobbing as he scrambled like an animal to get away from the still-searching mortars, wondering how many men they’d lost, and which of them was the informer.

  When his boots felt the crunch of the road, Manners began to come back to his senses. He took out his knife and made two diagonal slashes into the bark of the nearest sapling to mark the spot. Then he stepped forward out of the tree cover, and into the faint lightness of the stars. Just enough light to see the blazes he had made in the tree. The moon was down, but there was the blessed, familiar Plow, with its two stars of the blade pointing forever north to Polaris. His sense of direction came back. The slope had brought him down to the Rouffignac road, which wound its way uphill all the way to the ridge above Savignac. Knowing he’d be safer in the hills than taking the road down to the river valley, he moved to the soft verge and began to trudge uphill. He paused every few moments to listen for the inevitable German patrols that would soon be sweeping this and all the other roads around the drop zone.

  The mortaring had stopped, but odd shots still thumped faintly in the distance, and then came one bigger, rippling explosion followed by an endless crackling of gunfire. He began to move again when it stopped, but had gone no more than five yards when a whispered “Laval” came from behind him.

  “Putain,” he replied automatically. And stood still, his arms by his sides.

  “Capitaine?” It was Lespinasse, his whisper urgent. Thank God the lad had made it.

  “This way, Capitaine.” His arm was grabbed and he was pulled off the road and felt the loom of rock, the movements of other people. “Were you hit?”

  “No, no, I’m O.K. Just stunned by a fall.”

  Berger and Francois were suddenly at his side, putting a flask to his mouth. He gagged, the spirit stinging on his torn lip. He tasted blood and brandy, and then the stars seemed to swirl and he blacked out. When he came to, he was sitting on the ground. He pulled himself to his knees. Then, gingerly, he stood up.

  “Where are the guns?” he asked.

  “Here. We saved two carts,” said Francois. “Six containers. The lads did well.”

  “Here? Right by the road? They’ll be sending patrols any minute.”

  “The carts are empty. Little Jeannot has gone for a couple of horses. The containers are under cover. It’s the best we can do.”

  “Is anybody at the rendezvous point in case of stragglers?”

  “That was Lespinasse. That’s where he found you. He’s gone back.”

  “How many of us here?”

  “Just six,” said Berger. “Us three, Florien and Pierrot. And Lespinasse, when he gets back. Albert has gone back up to the plateau to look around. Marat was here with Carlos but they thought they’d better try for le Bugue when the mortars hit the truck.”

  “Six? We had nearly thirty at the drop zone.”

  “Most of them scattered. There wasn’t much of a pursuit after you got the armored car, except for the mortars. Then the cart blew up. Lespinasse said that was your doing.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Wait for Jeannot and the horses, then he and Florien take the empty carts back to the farm at dawn. The rest of us go up this gully and over the ridge toward Rhode. Then we scatter, lie up for the day, and head for Rouffignac. We’ll come back for the containers with a truck when the Germans move on.”

  Manners looked around, trying to get a sense of the place. He felt smooth rock to one side, and open ground on the other. He paced the distance to the road. Five meters to a thin fringe of saplings and bushes. Jesus, this wouldn’t do. He followed the line of the rock, under a steep overhang, and his boot hit one of the containers.

  “We can’t leave these here. It’s too near the road. We’d come back to find an ambush or a booby trap.”

  “There’s nowhere else, not without transport and we dare not use the road. And we can’t get them up the gully. And besides, the sign makes it so obvious the Germans probably won’t give it a second glance.”

  “What bloody sign?”

  “La Ferrassie. The big sign for the national monument,” said Francois. “It’s an old caveman burial site or something. There was a big archaeological dig here, ba
ck at the start of the century.”

  “I may have something better. Get Lespinasse back here on the double.” Manners considered. Only six men, and each container weighed well over a hundred fifty pounds. Three men to each container. Three trips. It could be done. He went across to the first cart. The long leather straps they used to lift the containers were still there. That made it easier.

  It had been the bloody mortars that had done it, the first thing he ever had to thank them for. Plunging down onto the slope to explode in the trees and blast lethal wood and metal splinters everywhere. Except this one had landed at the base of an old tree and blown a crater that sent the tree toppling sideways down the slope, levering out a great chunk of earth with its wrenched roots. It was the tangle of roots that had stopped Manners’s plunge down the slope, and as he tried to get to his feet the earth had given way beneath him and he had slid down farther. That was where he discovered that he had lost his gun, had begun groping with his hands and found the smooth rock on both sides and then curving to meet above his head. The air had been cool and dry, the ground smooth and gently sloping uphill, but almost level underfoot as he crept in farther, his outstretched hand following the line of the rock. Turning, he looked back to see the slightly fainter darkness of the night through the hole. The roots of the fallen tree made a kind of natural ladder that he was able to scramble up, back to the open air.

  He had turned back into the cave, thinking that the tree must have grown at the very entrance, its roots distorted and forced to the downhill side of the slope by the rock. With all its roots on one side, the tree had been too precariously embedded to resist the force of the mortar blast. He went further into the cave, down what seemed to be a tunnel, high enough for him to walk without bending, and not quite two arms-widths wide. The tunnel went for about ten meters, still sloping gently uphill, and then widened again. It was pitch black and utterly quiet. Safe, he had said to himself. Safe. And slumped down to wait the night out.