Dawson nodded, wondering how much of a problem that was likely to be. Major Sykes, he decided, was the kind of officer who got things done by sheer force of personality and his obvious willingness to bend whatever rules were in force at the time – the fact that they were still driving around France in a truck that was technically stolen was proof enough of that. It would be interesting to see just how his particular brand of improvisation fared when he was confronted by a bunch of French army officers, who might regard Sykes and his mission in a very different way.
Chapter 6
8 September 1939
‘Make a right turn here, Dawson,’ Sykes ordered, as the convoy of lorries in front of them carried straight on at a crossroads on the southern outskirts of Lille.
Dawson nodded and sounded the Morris’s horn briefly as he turned the wheel. A couple of the soldiers in the back of the rearmost truck looked up and waved as their vehicle moved away.
‘Right. Stay on this road, and keep your eyes open. We’re looking for a village called Santes.’ Sykes spelt the name aloud.
A few minutes later, the major pointed ahead. On the right-hand side of the road was a sign bearing that name.
Dawson slowed down as the Morris entered the village, and started looking for any sign of an army camp.
‘Over there, sir,’ he said, pointing to his left, towards a field that bordered the road.
A small cluster of tents occupied one part of it, and a handful of vehicles was parked on the opposite side. To Dawson, though he didn’t recognize the make or model, the trucks looked unmistakably military.
‘Pull over there,’ Sykes instructed.
Dawson eased the Morris over to the opposite side of the road and braked the vehicle to a halt.
‘Come with me.’
The major led the way through an open gate and into the field, then strode swiftly across to a couple of officers standing beside one of the larger tents, Dawson a few paces behind him. As they approached, the two Frenchmen stopped talking and turned to look at the new arrivals.
Sykes stopped right in front of them and just stood there, waiting.
The two Frenchmen were junior officers, probably lieutenants, Dawson guessed, from their insignia and rank badges.
They looked Sykes up and down, and then finally seemed to recognize his rank, even if they didn’t know the man in the uniform. They both belatedly and somewhat casually saluted him – junior officers always salute their seniors – and Sykes acknowledged.
‘Bonjour, Major,’ one of them said – to Dawson the word ‘major’ sounded more like ‘ma – shore’. ‘Vous desirez quelque chose?’
Sykes replied with a barrage of high-speed colloquial French, which was completely incomprehensible to Dawson. But the two French officers clearly understood every word. They stiffened perceptibly, pulling their shoulders back and straightening their spines. And when one of them replied, his manner was clearly deferential.
Sykes fired more French at them and was again rewarded with a snappy response from one of the men, and what sounded like a series of directions. The major nodded and turned away, ignoring the two crisp salutes offered by the Frenchmen.
‘We’re in the right area,’ he announced to Dawson, as they headed back towards the Morris truck. ‘The officer I’m supposed to be meeting – or I think I’m supposed to be meeting – is actually over at one of the fortifications now. It’s only a couple of miles away.’
Dawson started the lorry and pulled back onto the road. Following Sykes’s directions, he took three turnings in quick succession, the road getting narrower and apparently less used with each change of direction, and moving deeper into a wooded area. Eventually, they started driving down a single-track lane where the branches of the trees on either side brushed against the cab of the Morris, and where the centre of the roadway was marked by a line of grass that had lifted and grown through the thin layer of tarmac.
The lane ran straight, like most French roads, with no signs of habitation on either side, but it wasn’t all that long. Less than a mile after Dawson had taken the last turning, the lane ended in a clearing in the wood, a circular area wide enough for vehicles to turn round. A military vehicle – a kind of open scout car, Dawson thought – was already parked on one side of the road.
‘Stick the truck next to that,’ Sykes ordered.
Dawson hauled the truck to a standstill and switched off the engine. Once the diesel had rattled into silence, the two men climbed out of the vehicle and followed a well-trodden footpath that wound deeper into the wood.
About a hundred yards from the clearing, the path ended at a grey concrete structure that appeared to be half-buried in the undergrowth. As they got closer to it, Dawson could see that the fortification was located in a commanding position right at the edge of the wood, the trees around it giving way to open farmland beyond. The land sloped away gently on both sides and more sharply to the front, which would provide a clear field of fire down the valley.
‘This isn’t a bad location at all,’ Sykes muttered, as they stopped beside the left-hand wall of the structure and surveyed the terrain beyond it. ‘What do you think of the design of the place, from a demolition point of view, I mean?’ he asked.
Dawson looked critically at the square, box-like structure in front of them and shrugged. ‘It looks to me like the walls are about two feet thick,’ he said, ‘and they’ll be made from reinforced concrete, so it’s pretty tough. But the design’s old-fashioned, with all these flat surfaces, and it looks old.’
‘It is,’ Sykes agreed. ‘This was probably built about twenty years ago. Is there a problem with flat surfaces?’
‘Well, yes and no, really. A long straight wall is easier to make than one that’s curved or has lots of corners, but it won’t stand up to sustained fire as well as a curved structure. I did a course on fortification design earlier this year, sir,’ he said, in answer to Sykes’s quizzical look. ‘The course dealt with how to build them, obviously, but we also covered the identification of weak points so we could blow them up as well.
‘The front elevation of this place is an easy target from down there,’ he continued, pointing into the valley below. ‘If attacking troops could aim a howitzer or something similar at it, and were accurate enough, three or four shells hitting in about the same place on the front wall would probably break through it. Job done. If they’d built it with a sharply curved front, that couldn’t happen.’
‘And if I told you to blow it up, to demolish it using dynamite or whatever, could you do it?’
‘Dynamite or maybe gelignite, sir. Yes, no problem. I’d need to take a proper look inside first, just to see what the internal design was like, but I’d probably drill a line of holes along the back and both sides, because the front wall is probably the thickest, stuff charges inside and blow them all at once. That should take away the roof support on three sides, and the roof would just collapse onto the remains. But it would take a lot of jelly to do it.’
‘Understood,’ Sykes said, ‘and that would obviously mean the place would have to be empty at the time. Suppose it was manned, and you had a group of soldiers with you. Could you still destroy it?’
‘Probably, sir, but I’d need something like RDX to do it.’
‘What the hell’s RDX?’ Sykes demanded.
‘It’s a German invention, actually. It’s a pretty powerful explosive, and we’ve been playing with it for a while now in the Corps, and so have the Yanks – they call it cyclonite, just to be different. It’s a kind of hard white stuff that’ll go bang if you hit it with a hammer, which isn’t a lot of use in most circumstances. But you can mix it with what’s called an explosive plasticiser, and that turns RDX into a kind of high-explosive putty. You can mould it to shape and then fire it using an electric detonator. If I had to blow this place, I’d ignore the walls altogether and just mould some RDX around the door. It’s made of steel, obviously, but that wouldn’t be enough to protect it. I’d fire the charge; the
door would collapse and then I’d lob in a handful of grenades.’
Sykes nodded. ‘It wouldn’t be pretty, and it’s certainly not an elegant solution, but it would obviously work.’
‘What would work?’ another voice asked. ‘And just who are you two?’
Sykes and Dawson turned round to face the speaker: a tall, slim French officer wearing an immaculate uniform with three gold bars on the epaulettes, standing a few feet behind them, flanked by two soldiers, both carrying rifles.
Sykes made the introductions. ‘I’m Major Sykes of the Royal Scots Greys, and this is my driver, Lance-Corporal Dawson, Royal Engineers. Are you Capitaine Marcel de St Véran?’
The French officer inclined his head slightly.
‘My superiors sent a signal to your regiment, explaining that I would be coming to this part of France. Did you receive it?’
‘I may have done,’ the French officer said airily. ‘I can’t remember. I have been extremely busy recently. What did you want here?’
Sykes glanced at Dawson before he replied, and managed to put a wealth of meaning into the look.
‘Your English is very good, Capitaine,’ Sykes replied, ‘but I can speak French if you prefer.’
‘My English is fluent, of course,’ St Véran shrugged. ‘I was unfortunate enough to have been sent to school in England for some years. So let me ask you again. What are you doing here?’
‘If you’d read the signal, you’d know why we’ve come,’ Sykes replied, his tone now noticeably sharper. ‘My superiors have instructed me to visit this part of the border to look at the existing fortifications.’
‘Why?’
‘So that we’d have a good idea of the likely strength of this border in the event that the Germans decide to invade France from Belgium.’
St Véran’s reply was a snort. ‘Why should you or you superiors make such a stupid assumption? Why do you think the Germans have any designs on France?’
‘The fact that the French government declared war on Germany five days ago might be a clue,’ Sykes replied mildly.
‘Let me tell you this,’ St Véran said, stepping forward and tapping Sykes’s chest lightly with the end of his swagger stick. ‘Paris may have declared war on Germany, but that doesn’t mean we actually have to fight a war. I am confident that reason will prevail, and that we’ll soon reach an accommodation with Berlin. We have much more in common with the Germans than you might imagine.’
‘Don’t do that,’ Sykes said, knocking the stick to one side, his voice rising in anger. ‘I note your opinion, but I have my orders, as you will no doubt also have yours, if you can be bothered to check. Now, in accordance with my orders, we’ll inspect this fortification. Get out of our way, Capitaine. And kindly remember your manners. I’m the senior officer here, and you will accord me proper respect.’
For a few seconds, the two officers stared at each other, then St Véran stepped back and gestured towards the concrete bunker. ‘If you must,’ he murmured, giving a somewhat casual salute, and then added ‘sir’.
Sykes nodded, and waved for Dawson to follow him.
‘What an arrogant, self-important little shit,’ Sykes muttered, as they walked towards the entrance to the concrete fort. ‘“Unfortunate enough to have been educated in England”, indeed. That’s one of the problems we’re going to face, Dawson. A lot of French officers have a strong dislike of the English, and quite a few of them would far rather see France uniting with Germany than joining us to fight against Hitler. Some of them are openly pro-German and even pro-Fascist. If he’s typical of the officers in this area, we could have problems.’
The steel door at the rear of the bunker was open, and they walked over to it and peered into the darkness inside. There was a bank of light switches beside the door, and Sykes reached out and turned them all on. Bulbs flared into life throughout the structure.
It wasn’t that big. There were three small rooms at the front, separated from each other by thick concrete dividing walls, but no doors. The centre one had an opening for a fifty-millimetre mortar, and the weapon itself was located directly in front of the opening in the concrete front wall. The two side rooms each had a couple of narrow slits through which rifles or machine-guns could be fired down the valley.
Behind these three firing rooms were six even smaller rooms – a basic kitchen, two bunk-rooms, each with six bunks arranged in two tiers of three, a lavatory and a wash-room, plus an ammunition store and armoury protected by a thick steel door.
Sykes looked into the latter and scowled. ‘Equipped for, but not with,’ he said cryptically as he stepped outside again.
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘I mean, Dawson, that France is at war with Germany and has been for nearly a week, but that armoury hasn’t got a single mortar round in it, and I could only see a couple of boxes of machine-gun ammunition and, predictably enough, no machine-guns. I know this is the French border with Belgium, I know France only just declared war, and I know that Hitler’s so far made no move against either country. But I also know how devious that little Austrian bastard is, and how quickly his forces can move, so I really would have expected this fort to be not only fully prepared for battle, but fully manned as well.’
Sykes stopped just outside the concrete bunker and turned back to look at it again. ‘It might just as well not even be there,’ he said, his voice low and angry. ‘Typical of the bloody French, and especially of Kraut-loving bastards like St Véran over there. He’s supposed to be in charge of the preparations and readiness in this sector. If this is the best he can do, we might as well all just give up and go home right now.’
Dawson nodded.
‘Now you’ve seen inside it, what do you think about the structure?’ Sykes asked. ‘Could you destroy it using charges – RBX or whatever you called it?’
‘That’s RDX, sir, and yes, I could. The design’s not that good. If I had time to do a proper job I could turn it into a pile of rubble, but with plastic explosive I could sneak up and blow a big enough hole in it to take it out of commission.’
‘Right.’
‘Satisfied?’ St Véran sneered when they walked back to rejoin him.
‘That’s not the word I’ll be using in my report,’ Sykes retorted, ‘and I will be reporting this to both your superiors and to mine, Capitaine. That report will discuss both your attitude and the complete lack of proper preparedness here.’
St Véran gave an expressive Gallic shrug of his shoulders, but didn’t respond.
‘There’s not the slightest point in having a place like that unless it’s fully manned and properly equipped, and that’s neither. Why is that, Capitaine?’
‘We have plenty of time to move men up here – they’re based only five kilometres away. And the ammunition and weapons are on their way. We should have them here later this week, so there’s no need to worry.’
‘I’m not worried, Capitaine, but you should be. Are all the fortifications in this sector as poorly prepared as this one?’
St Véran stood in silence for a few moments. ‘I don’t accept that we are poorly prepared, Major. But even if there is some substance in what you’re saying, I still don’t see what it has to do with you.’
‘If you bothered to read your orders, perhaps you’d find out,’ Sykes hissed. ‘Apart from this place’ – he jerked his thumb towards the concrete bunker – ‘what other defensive measures do you have here?’
‘None,’ St Véran said sharply. ‘We’re satisfied that this fortification would be entirely adequate to halt any German advance, unlikely though that scenario is, as I’ve already pointed out to you.’
‘Tell him, Dawson.’
‘With respect, sir, that’s total bollocks,’ Dawson said, ‘and you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I could blow this place apart with a few pounds of plastic explosive, and any competent gunner with a howitzer could take it out from way down there in the valley with half a dozen rounds. It’s over twenty years old
and the world’s moved on a bit since then. This is all show and no substance. It wouldn’t hold up a German advance for more than about half an hour, tops.’
St Véran’s eyes widened slightly. He stared at Dawson for a few seconds, then switched his gaze back to Sykes. ‘Who is this, this person standing beside you? And how dare he speak to me in that manner?’
‘That person, as you put it, is Lance-Corporal Dawson’ – Dawson gave an ironic half-bow as Sykes said his name – ‘and he’s an expert in explosives. If you had the slightest bit of sense, you’d listen to what he tells you. But somehow, I don’t think you will.’
‘You’re clearly both ignorant and insubordinate, Corporal Dawson. Now you will apologize to me.’
Dawson shook his head. ‘No fucking chance. I’ll stand by what I said. If you don’t like it, tough.’
St Véran looked as if someone had slapped his face, his furious gaze shifting between the two British soldiers.
‘Major Sykes,’ he began, when he found his voice. ‘You will order that man to apologize.’
‘I won’t, and don’t you dare stand there and try to give me orders, Capitaine. I think Dawson said it quite well. “No fucking chance” seems to about cover it. Now piss off out of my sight, you incompetent piece of crap.’
For a moment, the French officer just stared at Sykes and Dawson, then he turned on his heel without another word, gestured to his two men and stalked away.
‘That went well, I thought,’ Dawson said, as he and Sykes followed the trio of Frenchmen – at a distance – back towards the clearing where they’d left the Morris truck. ‘So what do we do now, sir?’
‘We’re obviously wasting our time here,’ Sykes muttered. ‘These defences are just a joke, and that French idiot has no idea what’s going on. We’ll try and find where that convoy of soldiers has been billeted and see if we can stay with them overnight. I’ll have to find a radio or telephone and contact my boss to explain the situation. And then, I suppose, I’ll do whatever he tells me. As for you, I’ve no idea, but I’ll ask.’
To Do or Die Page 4