For King and Country

by David Monnery

  The three of them were peering through the observation slit of a rectangular scrape high above the road from Colmar to St Dié. They had arrived a couple of hours before dawn to excavate the OP, and it was now mid-afternoon on a hot summer day. Five troop convoys had so far passed below them, one of them accompanied by two motorbike dispatch riders and a solitary staff car carrying what looked like a high-ranking officer. McCaigh had taken a photograph, but the distance was probably too great for identification.

  All their sightings had been entered in the logbook and conveyed via the ‘biscuit-tin’ MCR radio to the SAS camp, where someone was collating the information from this and the other six OPs before passing it on to Allied Command headquarters. It was vital work, but that didn’t stop it from being deadly boring.

  ‘What do you think’s going to happen after the war?’ Tobin asked, as the last lorry in this particular convoy disappeared from view.

  ‘I expect we’ll all go home,’ Rafferty said helpfully.

  ‘No, I mean…I was talking with this bloke in London, and he was saying that the peace after the last war didn’t work because we were too hard on the Germans, and they didn’t have any choice but to try and get their revenge. So he reckoned this time we should be easier on them…’

  ‘What, slap their wrists and tell them to go home?’ McCaigh asked sarcastically. ‘Tell them we understand how difficult it must be for them, bearing all that responsibility for starting the bloody thing?’

  ‘I think we should be harder,’ Rafferty said. ‘Make damn sure they can’t do it again.’

  ‘How?’ McCaigh asked. ‘What exactly would you do?’

  Rafferty thought about it for a minute. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘Not let ’em have an army for a start.’

  ‘They tried that after the last war.’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t know then. Break Germany up into small countries, like it used to be.’

  ‘When?’ Tobin asked, interested.

  ‘About a hundred years ago,’ Rafferty said airily, not at all sure.

  ‘I don’t know either,’ McCaigh said, bringing them back to the subject in hand. ‘Makes you think though, doesn’t it? We’ve been trying to beat the bastards for five years, and we still don’t have a clue what we’re going to do when it happens.’

  ‘The government must know,’ Rafferty protested.

  McCaigh snorted. ‘Like they did last time? If they knew, don’t you think they’d tell us? I tell you what my dad says: he says the trouble is, this war isn’t really for anything at all. It’s like someone hits you in the face and you hit him back and he hits you back and it just goes on and on until someone can’t hit any more. It’s like a fight to the death – only you can’t kill a country.’

  ‘I’m sure Bomber Command are doing their best,’ Rafferty murmured.

  ‘You can kill the people who started it,’ Tobin suggested.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s the whole point. The First War was about ending wars – or at least that’s what they said it was about – but this one’s just about winning. I mean, shooting Hitler’s not much of a war aim, is it? It’s like going somewhere just so you can go home again.’

  ‘There must be more to it than that,’ Rafferty said.

  ‘All right, but what? Do you think the world’s going to be a better place when it’s over?’

  ‘It will be for the Poles,’ Rafferty said, without much conviction.

  ‘If the Russians don’t roll all over them. But if you want a happy ending, my dad’s got another theory.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘He reads a lot. And he says being a parkie gives him a lot of time to think.’

  ‘So does this, but you don’t see Ian here thinking.’

  ‘Hey,’ Tobin said indignantly.

  ‘He calls it his accidentally-on-purpose theory. You remember what the boss said about that concentration camp north of here? Well, I told my dad about that and he wasn’t at all surprised. Apparently there’s been hints in the papers for a couple of years that the Germans are killing people in droves, and that the only half-decent reason for this war is to stop them.’

  ‘But how could we have known about that in 1939?’

  ‘We couldn’t, but that’s his theory. The politicians never have good motives, but if you look hard enough you can usually pick up one as you go along. That’s the accidentally-on-purpose bit – despite their worst intentions, something good usually comes out of it. The trick is to recognize what it is, and not let the bastards claim credit for it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Rafferty said. ‘Your old man hasn’t applied to join the Brains Trust, has he?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Tell him not to bother.’

  ‘I think he’s got a point,’ Tobin said. He was thinking about how the war had changed Megan and her friends, something which couldn’t have been uppermost in the government’s mind when they set the whole thing in motion.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Rafferty agreed. ‘But I still think we should carve Germany up into little bits.’

  ‘They’d still all be Germans,’ Tobin argued.

  ‘Just like this lot,’ McCaigh said, putting the black binoculars to his eyes as the first lorry of another convoy appeared round the bend in the road below. This time there were twenty-one lorries in the column heading west.

  ‘Do you think they know the war’s lost?’ Rafferty murmured, watching a Wehrmacht trooper in the last lorry flick a spent cigarette out on to the road.

  ‘They might know it,’ McCaigh said, ‘but I don’t suppose there’s too much the poor bastards can do about it.’

  Soon after dusk that evening Farnham started out alone to cover the two miles which separated the SAS and Maquis camps. It was fully dark by the time he arrived, but Yves was still sitting outside his tent, almost invisible but for the glowing tip of his cigarette. The Frenchman’s greeting was friendly enough, but his face, lit up by the glow as he dragged on the cigarette, seemed drained and worn.

  ‘Sometimes I just don’t know,’ the Maquis leader said, as if they were already halfway into a conversation. ‘I’ve just had some bad news,’ he went on. ‘The Gestapo have just executed a couple of sixteen-year-old boys in Corcieux.’

  Farnham gave a sympathetic sigh. ‘Were they with a Maquis unit?’

  Yves’ snort blended amusement and disgust. ‘No.’

  ‘So why…?’

  ‘Oh, one of them threw a rock at a Gestapo car. He hit it too, broke the window. One of the bastards in the back seat got his face cut by the glass. Not badly, but badly enough that nothing short of torturing two children to death would satisfy him.’ He took another drag on the cigarette and looked across at Farnham. ‘Did you ever hear of the see-saw?’

  ‘You mean the children’s thing?’

  ‘No, the Gestapo thing. You hang two people from the opposite ends of a suspended beam, making sure that both of them have their toes just off the ground. Of course they both struggle to get their feet down, and when one succeeds the other starts choking to death. Desperation makes that one stronger, and he in turn hoists the other man into the air. And so on, for a long time, until they are both dead. The Germans stand around joking that they haven’t killed anyone – the two poor sods have killed each other.’

  The dispassionate words seemed to hang in the darkness, and like light burned on to a retina they seemed slow to fade.

  ‘It was Ziegler again,’ Yves added. ‘By our tally he’s now been responsible for thirty-three murders since he took over the Gestapo operation in St Dié.’ He crushed the cigarette out beneath his boot. ‘I can’t understand people like that. I don’t mean the cruelty – I mean the stupidity. Doesn’t he know the war is lost? Doesn’t he realize this will all catch up with him? He surely can’t believe that once the war’s over everyone’s going to shake hands and forget what’s happened? I tell you, Robert, there’s enough Frenchmen with good reasons for fearing the peace, let alone Germans.’

  Farnha
m shook his head. ‘It’s a mystery to me,’ he said.

  Yves laughed suddenly. ‘I just hope none of them live to explain themselves in their memoirs,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me what your surveillance teams have discovered over the last couple of days.’

  ‘Lots of Germans. Most of them moving west, though. It doesn’t look like they’ve completely given up the idea of holding a line somewhere between here and Paris.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Yves agreed. ‘I don’t think they really know what they’re doing.’

  ‘You could be right. I heard in London that a lot of the prisoners taken recently have been claiming that it’s next to impossible to get the Wehrmacht High Command to OK any sort of tactical retreat. Everyone’s being told to stand and fight where they are, and that if they really want to win then they can…’

  ‘Ah, the power of the will,’ Yves interjected. ‘Nietzsche and all that rubbish. You know, I studied that at university twenty years ago, and even at the time I thought it was a joke.’

  ‘Yes, well, as long as they’re confused it’s our job to keep them that way.’

  ‘You still think the motorized raiding columns are feasible?’

  ‘I think they’re worth a shot.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, my friend. We’ve taken the decision to just watch and wait for a couple of weeks until we’re certain which way the wind’s blowing. Your air forces haven’t left us much to do in any case, and now that Ziegler’s killing at least ten hostages every time we make a move, we’re not going to give him an excuse just for the sake of it.’ He extracted half a cigarette from a pocket and lit up. ‘The war is almost over, and people are more reluctant to take risks. No one wants to die on the last day.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘And Maquis leaders don’t want to risk their men on that day either.’

  ‘I think we’re still quite a long way away from the last day.’

  ‘Maybe. Like I said, we’re taking a two-week holiday. Now, about your drop zone. It looks fine – the nearest Germans are in St Dié.’

  ‘Good. I’ll get on to London when I get back, and try and arrange the drop for tomorrow night. I’ll let you know…’

  Someone was coming towards them through the trees, someone with light footsteps and a graceful walk. All Farnham could do was sit there, his heart blocking his throat.

  She was less inhibited. As she made out the two figures in the gloom she seemed to hesitate for an instant, then broke into a run, flinging her arms around his neck and pulling him close. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she whispered after a while.

  Yves had disappeared into his tent. ‘I have things for him,’ she said, ‘and then we can…’ She finished the sentence with a kiss.

  Inside the tent Yves smiled up at them, and Farnham had the feeling that for some reason the Maquis leader was genuinely pleased to see the two of them so in love. Perhaps it was just that the war had brought them together, the disease creating its own anti-bodies. Love was an antidote to horror. To see-saws.

  Madeleine delivered her report, but Farnham only half listened to the news of German movements, the upcoming rail schedule, the bombing reports, all of which would soon be on their way to London. Every now and then she would glance round at him, as if to make sure he was still there. Why me? he wondered. What had he done to deserve someone like this?

  Once she had finished they both took their leave of Yves, and started back down the path to Le Chipal, frequently stopping to kiss and hold each other. They managed to get about two hundred yards beyond the camp sentries before desire overwhelmed them, and in a glade some fifty yards from the path they tore off each other’s clothes, searched each other’s eyes and clung naked to each other in a long, hungry kiss, before tumbling to the soft ground and entwining their bodies in the wonderful throes of passionate love.

  Twenty-fours later Farnham was standing in the meadow chosen for the re-supply drop. Half of the SAS unit were present, as were Yves, Henri and several other Maquisards. The SAS men were spread out round the field, eyes turned outward in search of possible German interference, but the Frenchmen were standing in a group nearby. They had only come, Farnham suspected, for the novel experience of seeing motor vehicles dropped by parachute.

  The planes – the RAF had found a second at the last moment – would be due in a few minutes. For the moment the silence of the night and the stillness of the vast forested slopes was broken only by the murmur of the Frenchmen and the shuffle of his own feet.

  ‘What sort of range do these jeeps have?’ Yves asked at his shoulder.

  ‘They used to have a basic range of 250 miles,’ Farnham answered him, ‘but now they’ve squeezed in several extra tanks, and more than doubled that.’

  ‘I can hear them, boss,’ McCaigh said at his side, and a few seconds later so could Farnham. By this time the Londoner had plugged in the directional aerial on the S-phone and was aiming it in the general direction of the distant drone. Farnham gave the signal for the red triangulation lights to be turned on and scoured the north-western sky for the dark silhouettes of the approaching planes.

  After a while he had them – two specks flying out of the low-slung Plough towards the Eureka-Rebecca’s homing beacon. He began flashing a Morse confirmation with his white light, continuing until McCaigh had established radio-telephone contact with the pilots. Soon the leading Halifax was overhead. The first four parachutes bloomed on the corners of the first crated jeep and the whole package drifted down, landing on its underside airbag with a noise like a deflating rubber cushion. More followed, and Farnham had a mind’s-eye picture of the men in the planes above dragging the crates across the floor and heaving them out into the night.

  Six large crates came out of each plane, and several smaller ones. As the roar of the engines faded the SAS men were already splitting open the crates and putting together the armoured jeeps like a bunch of fanatical hobbyists. A pair of twin Vickers K guns and a half-inch Browning heavy machine-gun were mounted on each of the four-wheel-drive jeeps, in-built radios and fuel tanks quickly checked for damage and spare fuel canisters loaded aboard. Other modifications had obviously been made recently, and Farnham was pleased to see both an armour-plated bumper guard and a bulletproof windscreen. The designers had even added a single K gun for the driver to use with his non-driving hand. The whole thing might look like an eight-year-old’s dream, but it was hard to fault as a tool of men.

  While most of the men had been getting the jeeps ready for travel some had been carting off and burying the pieces of wooden crate in pre-dug holes just inside the trees. Once this was done, and all the various equipment had been loaded aboard the jeeps, Farnham invited Yves into the lead vehicle and the column set off, sounding alarmingly noisy in the open meadow. Once inside the trees it followed an already-scouted path for about half a mile before debouching on to a little-used farm track, which it then followed west.

  Each bend in this forest track offered the chance of running, quite literally, into a German patrol, but the possibility was too remote to dampen the enormous sense of exhilaration which Farnham experienced in the lead jeep. It was partly the success of the drop, the beauty of the night, even the lingering joy of his evening with Madeleine, but there was also something else at play, something new, and eventually he realized what it was. They were no longer skulking around on an enemy-occupied continent – they were driving down the bastards’ roads as if they owned them.

  Early the next morning Farnham briefed the unit on what came next. The first light of dawn was filtering down through the trees, and as his eyes scanned the men gathered round him – some sitting cross-legged, some with their backs to trees, some squatting on their haunches – he remembered the Robin Hood stories of his childhood, and a particular illustration of the outlaw leader addressing his Merrie Men in a forest glade like this one.

  ‘The jeeps have all passed inspection,’ he began, ‘so we’ll be leaving tonight. We’re going to split up into two equal groups, six jeeps and sixteen men to each.
Group B, under Captain Hoyland, will head south. That group’s primary objective will be the railway which runs through the Belfort Gap between Belfort itself and Mulhouse. As far as London can tell, all the German units who were stationed south and east of Paris will have to withdraw along this line, so it’s vital for them to keep it open. As a consequence, it will probably be heavily patrolled. Unfortunately, this railway does not run through a convenient forest, so several days’ observation may be necessary before a suitable plan of action can be drawn up. Once the railway has been put out of commission then the unit will be free to patrol on a more aggressive basis.

  ‘Group A will head north. There are three east-west railway routes north of the St Dié–Strasbourg line – one double-track line through the Saverne Gap and two smaller-capacity lines through the northern Vosges – and we shall attempt to interrupt traffic on all three for as long as possible. The northernmost of the three is about sixty miles away as the crow flies, a lot further by the roads we shall be using, but I’m assured that each jeep has fuel for six hundred miles.’

  ‘We could drive straight to Berlin,’ a voice said.

  ‘We could drive home,’ someone else suggested.

  ‘We’ll probably end up doing both before we’re through,’ Farnham told them. ‘But first you all have this adventure holiday in France. The current plan is for the two groups to meet back here in eighteen days’ time, but circumstances may change, some irresistible opportunity may present itself…’

  ‘We might even catch sight of a woman,’ someone said mournfully.

  ‘Not one that’d give you an opportunity.’

  Farnham grinned. ‘The two groups will be in radio contact with each other, so the rendezvous can always be brought forward or put back. OK, any questions?’

  ‘Are we travelling by day or night?’ a trooper asked.

  ‘Good question. We’re going to start off by night, but there are good arguments for both. We’ll obviously be less visible in the dark, but the Germans may be doing most of their driving at night to avoid air attacks, and if so we’ll be more likely to run into them. But of course if we travel by day then we run more risk of being seen, not to mention the possibility of being attacked by our own planes. It’s a bit of a toss-up. One thing we’ll have in our favour is a decent moon – it’ll be full in six days’ time. So we’ll be able to drive without lights.’