by S C Brown
Birdsong and muffled conversation carried across the courtyard. Clement looked at his watch and smiled as the men began to line up for departure on time, without any verbal encouragement. With his beret on his head, Clement stood erect and, despite his years, felt fit and strong - and glad to be getting on with the war again. Clement smiled, nodded at his men and with that, they started to file past, grim and set for action. Clement and Saxon joined the trudging line of men and as they left the farm, the sun shining low through the trees to warm them.
* * *
Walking through the forest, amongst the company of allies, Saxon felt free for the first time since his return to France. Forgetting for a moment that he was on his way to a raid, Saxon allowed his head to fall back slightly, listen to the wind whistle through the trees. He began to get a true appreciation of the enormity of this forest. Boots crunched on and on, creating a mesmerizing rhythm. The path widened and the men moved into double file, creating the impression of greater security, savouring the protection of the woods. Some, noted Saxon, were happier than others: the nervous ones held their rifles at the ready, the confident ones slung their rifles over their shoulders to affect a breezy nonchalance, just like old Clement up ahead. But every rifle was held at the ready when they reached the edge of the forest.
The sudden sunshine was quite brilliant, Saxon squinted to see ahead. All was quiet and the men trudged on, hidden amongst the high hedgerows. At every junction and crossing, a sentry of the Resistance waited anxiously for them to pass. Saxon watched Clement give every sentry a grin or a boisterous slap on a shoulder, exuding confidence and the thrill of the hunt, his pipe gripped between gritted but smiling teeth.
An ice-blue sky awaited the men as they crested the ridge and in silence, fanned out left and right to take up their positions along the ridgeline. Saxon, leading the demolition party, knelt down opposite where the railway line was to be cut. Clement and Saxon both looked at their watches – they were on time. As rehearsed, everyone lay still in the wet grass for a few moments, listening for any hints of a patrol in the area. The sun warmed their faces, birds sang loudly, the smell of the dew brought the men to life. Cows dawdled in the fields on the opposite side of the valley. The task that brought them here seemed oddly distant during this most tranquil moment. Saxon looked again at his watch, it was time to go. With that, the grim business began.
Clement took a long rope from his rucksack, slung it down the steep escarpment in front of him and secured it around a heavy-looking rock. Clement signalled the rope was ready; Saxon looked his men in the eye quickly and with that he was off, crouching backwards down the slope hand over hand. He shared one last smile with Clement before disappearing out of view.
Down onto the track, Saxon’s panting demolition team looked and felt very vulnerable on the flat and wide expanse of the railway, their dark clothing contrasting starkly against the silvery gravel under the tracks. Wasting no time, Saxon led his men along to nip behind the cover of a high earth mounds. Kneeling down, Saxon removed his own backpack and the others did the same, pulling out the explosive charges. The team divided into two, with Saxon taking the first party out onto the track to show them exactly where he wanted the charges placed. He then paced out 25 yards and called the second group of men to him to fix the remaining charges there. Saxon watched both parties of men work and realised that he must have trained them well: they were working like seasoned professionals despite this being their first proper day on the job. Clement beamed down upon him like a proud father, before theatrically looking at his watch.
Walking up and down, Saxon was satisfied with the men’s work. He felt the eyes of all the men above upon him as he laid out the firing cable and fix the detonators into place, concentrating hard – detonators were notoriously unstable. With everything in place, he covered over any wires he could make out and then, in a crouching, backward walk, paid out the cable back to his rucksack behind the earth mound.
He took a moment to listen. All remained still in the valley. Saxon nodded towards the cable drum, one end of which was passed to him to hold whilst one of the gang tied the other end of the cable around his waist and started climbing up to Clement. Saxon gestured the remaining men to follow him up in turn. Having felt three deliberate tugs of the cable from above, he turned and connected his end into the firing circuit, twisting the bare copper ends together, the sharp barbs pricking into his thumbs. Saxon stood up, had a quick look around to check he had left nothing behind and then set off up the rope himself. He scaled the cliff as a trained Commando should and was soon at the top, stopping briefly at the crest to listen once more, the sweat beginning to trickle between his shoulder blades.
Suddenly the metal tracks hummed in an unmistakable song. It was the train.
Saxon crested the hillside and threw himself flat on the floor. Clement rolled onto his back and started to pull up the rope. ‘
We have little time,’ he said as he glanced deliberately to a small box down by his right leg. ‘The exploder is just there and I have made it ready.’
Reaching across, Saxon grabbed the control cable and then the exploder and screwed them together. With that done, he placed the exploder between himself and Clement and lay down to watch for the approach of the train. Saxon breathed out slowly to stop his hands shaking. To his left and right he could see the faces of to the Resistance men, some determined, some pale with fear, some more ruddy with the excitement of what was coming next. Heads tilted in unison to peer through rifle sights as puffs of vertical smoke appeared above some distant trees.
Coughing with effort as it climbed the gradient, the black locomotive and tender came into view. Out of the corner of his eye, Saxon noticed Clement check his watch, grinning with the satisfaction that the intelligence on the train and German punctuality had been spot on. The train picked up speed up as it started to cross the level viaduct.
Saxon watched the driver dangle his right arm over a ledge. Behind the locomotive, flat rail cars came into view. The first carried an anti-aircraft gun with a lounging crew, their heads swaying in unison to the clickadeclack of the train. Then, on the following flats, Saxon could make out the newly made railway points, tethered tightly and covered roughly with a tarpaulin. Behind that was a crane that Saxon assumed would be used to place the points at Rouen. After the crane, two more wagons carried the heavy artillery barrels Clement had heard so much about. The last wagon, like the first, carried an anti-aircraft gun, accompanied by another equally bored looking crew. One of the soldiers stood taller, pretending to be on sentry but, with his head slightly back in the breeze, happily enjoying his surroundings.
Saxon took hold of the exploder and in an action he had rehearsed so many times before, released the safety catch without looking. The train drove on. Saxon let the locomotive just clear the first set of explosive charges before twisting the handle of the exploder.
All the birds in valley took to the air. The cows bolted and the slopes flashed with a brilliant white light. The valley began to rumble.
The locomotive lifted inches into the air, its wheels cut into the wooden sleepers as it landed off the rails. The first anti-aircraft gun rocketed skyward out of a plume of smoke and dust. The locomotive wove from side to side, the rails below it splintering. Suddenly it jolted, as if hit from the side by an immense and invisible sledgehammer, veering right to ram itself into the hillside. Saxon felt the collision, like an earthquake, ripple the ground beneath him. Momentum took over. The rest of the train collided with the back of the locomotive, crushing it against the cliff wall. With nowhere else to go, the train spilled outwards in a curve towards the ledge and then gradually over it and out into the thin air of the valley. The train seemed to hang in the air for the briefest of moments, then gravity took over and the rail flats plummeted down into the valley side. The arm of the crane flicked up into the air, free from its tether. Somehow all the parts of the train held together and as railflats and wagons progressed downhill, the locomotive was
yanked backwards, away from the hillside and into the descent.
The men dipped their heads against flying debris as they watched the wrecked train plummet down the hill, flailing like the throes of a dying snake. A lone gun barrel cartwheeled downhill. Faster and faster it went, swiping and snapping trees before finally crashing into the river below. As it hit the river, the locomotive’s firebox exploded. Hot, jagged metal screamed through the air. And then, with the train seemingly dead, there was silence.
Splintered tree boughs and bits of train came down to thud into the ground or smack against the surface of the river. Dust began to settle and the steam drifted away slowly in the breeze. The white volcano of boiling water gradually became still. Up ahead, reduced their panicked trotting to a walk and then stopped to eat grass.
‘I’ve seen some trains derailed, Saxon, but never like that,’ shouted Clement joyfully, getting to his feet and signalling ‘forward’ with his left hand. Men sprang to their feet, threw new ropes down the hillside, slung their rifles and climbed down to the scene of the explosion. Saxon put his backpack on and followed them.
Down onto what was left of the railway, the men fanned out, looking for survivors and finding none. Charred, shattered and ruptured bodies lay scattered on both sides of the two craters where the track once ran. Clement pointed to what was left of one of the anti-aircraft guns some 50 yards away, its barrels pointing in four different directions.
Saxon set off on his own along the railway track and out onto the viaduct. He put down his rucksack and pulled out two round landmines, larger than dinner plates and as thick as a man’s fist. Using a small shovel brought especially for the job, Saxon dug down under the rails and placed the mines, removed the safety pins and then covered them back up. Hiding the mines under stones the sun had already dried for camouflage, Saxon clapped the dust and dirt from his hands, fixed his rucksack on his back and walked along towards Clement.
No one spoke - the ferocity of the explosion had shocked them all - but every man had a smile on his face. The men stood, collected their things and having not fired a shot, they prepared to leave, knowing full well the Germans and Rumanians would not take long to react to an explosion like that.
Michel walked up and, quietly enough to make sure that no one else could hear, muttered, ‘Congratulations. That will have woken every German in France. They won’t take that lying down.’
‘Thank you Michel, I thought it was good too.’ Clement was evidently in too much of a rush to really care and patted Michel’s shoulder.
‘No pleasing some people,’ said Clement to Saxon with a grin. ‘That was spectacular, my friend, I don’t know how you do it but that was truly remarkable. I think we shall award ourselves, as your Mr Churchill would say “a brief moment of celebration” this evening.’
‘What’s up?’
Saxon gestured at a gathering of some of the men further down the line. Clement and Saxon’s boot crunched on the gravel as they stepped to avoid steaming debris. Clement gently cleared a path through the group of men who had formed a circle, looking down at the ground. Michel was suddenly amongst them.
Saxon could see a body, burned and twisted. The trousers were still reasonably intact.
‘Oh no,’ said Clement sombrely.
‘Who is it?’ asked Saxon.
‘This is, or rather that was Luc: one of the boys from the village. He was a train driver and he wasn’t supposed to be on this one.’
‘We’ve killed one of our own,’ Michel said slowly.
One of the men went to cover Luc’s body. ‘Don’t do that,’ said Clement. ‘Giving him special treatment will let the Germans know we knew him.’
As one, the men stopped looking at the body and turned to look at Clement. Saxon sensed trouble.
‘We must leave poor Luc as we found him. I will make sure Yvette is told. Now, we’d better get back up that hill before the Germans arrive or start cutting off our escape routes. Come on,’ he said, gently.
It was a slow climb back up the valley and the men were quiet on their way back to the farm.
* * *
Michel had been insistent that this job was his, but looking across the small shunting yard to the railwayman’s cottages, he began to regret his earlier enthusiasm. He watched a small engine shunt wagons across the marshalling yard, whilst some children played games on the empty tracks. The cottages sat lazily in the background, smoke rose slowly from stunted chimneys.
‘I want you to wait outside,’ Michel said to Paul, who had volunteered at the last minute to come along too. ‘Keep at a respectful distance and keep an eye out for me, understand?’
Michel could see that Paul wasn’t too happy with this suggestion. ‘Of all of us, I knew her best at school. If she hadn’t had eyes for Luc, maybe it would be my house she’d be in right now.’
You’re quite sure you can do this on your own?’ asked Paul. ‘I mean, it may look a little better if we both go. No single man seen entering the house and all that?’
‘No. I want to do this alone. Don’t worry, I won’t be long. Keep an eye out, maybe the Police will come to tell her.’ Michel turned, determined, towards the door.
* * *
With the chores complete, Yvette Lavier perched sprucely on her chair. She looked with pride at the small pantry, everything was aligned, dusted and clean. Her Luc liked everything to be clean when he returned from work; it was a welcome relief to the dust, smoke and grime of the locomotive. She smiled as she looked through smear-less windowpanes to a garden that boasted the same primness as the cottage’s interior. The unused playpen had gone and was now home to a chair that Luc himself had made. Luc was like that, making functional use of what had been a painful reminder. Neither of them had been able to move it for months but they had agreed before Luc went off to work this time that it was time to make that change. Settled into her chair, Mrs Lavier reached down to pick up an embroidery ring, with a blank linen stretched across it in preparation for a new pattern. She heard boots striding down the path, Luc must be early. She put the ring back down and patted down her apron.
With a second tug from the inside, rosy-cheeked from the heat of the hearth, she hauled the creaking door open to greet her husband home. Her joyous greeting took Michel quite by surprise.
‘Oh! I am so sorry Michel, I was expecting Luc.’ She patted down her apron once more. ‘He’s due home later but I thought it might just be him. Is it Luc you are here to see?’ she smiled.
‘Hello, Yvette. No, no it’s you I have come to see, actually. Can I come in?’
‘Of course, come in.’
Michel needed no more encouragement and as Yvette heaved the door shut, stopping short as she noticed Paul standing like a naughty schoolboy by her gate avoiding eye contact. Bowing her head, the woman pushed the door latch into place and walked silently, head down, to her chair and felt herself beginning to pant. As he walked past, Yvette sensed the tension in Michel.
Michel shifted his feet, clutching his cap in his hands. The room was just as he remembered it, with the brass tools gleaming next to the fire.
‘What is it, Michel? What’s the matter?’
‘I have some bad news about Luc.’ Michel could feel himself blurting the information out. ‘The train he was driving--’
Yvette surprised herself; the groan she had made had been audible.
‘As I was saying,’ continued Michel, ‘I have some bad news about Luc’.
For a moment, she felt nothing, she really had no idea what to do next. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Michel bracing himself to say something more but she wasn’t ready to listen just yet.
‘You’ve killed him, Michel, haven’t you?’ It was more statement than question.
‘Not me personally, please understand that, Yvette. We did not kill your husband directly. He was driving the train that we attacked and he was sacrificed in the explosion.’ Michel was relieved to be back onto his pre-arranged spiel.
Yvette knees crump
led a little beneath her. ‘We?’
‘I am sorry?’
‘You said “we”. You said “we did not kill your husband directly”. Who’s this ‘we’?’ Yvette’s voice, like her hands, began to tremble. She reached down to pick up her embroidery hoop once again, holding it might stop the trembling.
‘We are the Resistance, the Maquis. The train your husband-’ Michel only narrowly avoided saying ex-husband, ‘- was driving was carrying German war supplies, key war materiel. We set explosives on the track. Luc wasn’t supposed to be driving that train. There was no way of warning Luc what we were up to. We had to destroy the train. We only knew Luc was driving it when we found his bod--, when we found him afterwards.’
Yvette’s trembling silence was about as much as Michel realised he was going to be able to take.
‘I am so sorry, Yvette, really I am.’
‘How did it happen?’ she asked slowly, her eyes darting across the pantry floor.
‘The train was carrying important items for the railway system that the Germans were desperate to repair. It was also carrying some guns destined for the coast. We have been able to capitalise on the damage done in the recent air raid to halt or severely hamper German plans for this sector.’
‘Oh God, you’re even beginning to start to sound like a soldier. You romantic fool.’
‘Yvette, I-’
‘You be quiet. Don’t speak, don’t bring your playing-at-soldiers in here and expect me to, what, understand?’ She could feel the hatred building in her. ‘What gave you and your little friends the right to decide whether my husband dies today or not? And you dare give me that rubbish of him laying down his life for his country. You understand? Don’t you dare try to speak. Luc had no knowledge that you were planning your little attack I suppose – he had no way of escaping and saving his life. Our life. My life.’
Yvette was rapidly shifting between lucidity and dumbfounded shock. Michel looked nonplussed, as if he had not expected this and had not rehearsed any satisfactory answers. Regardless, he pressed on with what little he had prepared. ‘We will of course support you with money. We know how difficult it is for widows to survive at times like this’. He smiled imploringly, like a child seeking approval.