Liquidate Paris (4 page)

'You're crazy,' said Heide, in disgust. 'You get caught at that game and you'll be for the chopping block and no questions asked... What the hell's the point, anyway? You can't believe a word they tell you even when you've got them.'

Porta held up a hand.

'Put a sock in it, for Christ's sake! This is it coming through now.'

Sounds as of someone striking a heavy gong; very deliberate and menacing. And then the cold, correct voice of the B.B.C:

'Ici Londres, ici Londres. B.B.C. pour la France...'

Of course, what we didn't then realize was that practically the whole of the French resistance movement was also listening in to the broadcast.

'Ici Londres, ici Londres... May we have your attention, please. Here are some personal messages: "Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne." I will repeat that: "Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne" (The long sobs of the autumnal violins).'

It was the first line of a poem, "La Chanson d'automne", by Verlaine. The message for which everyone had been waiting for many weeks. Oberleutnant Meyer, at the XV Army HQ, whose task it was to monitor all B.B.C. broadcasts, excitedly and in some haste informed the Military Governor of France, and also the commanders-in-chief in Holland Belgium. He was treated with the contempt that it was felt he deserved. Important messages, indeed! Just a load of drivel about autumn. The man is obviously a cretin. Oberleutnant Meyer hunched his shoulders and went on listening.

'Ici Londres, ici Londres. We are continuing to broadcast personal messages: "Les fleurs sont d'un rouge sombre. Les fleurs sont d'un rouge sombre" (The flowers are dark red).'

'That was the signal for the Resistance network in Normandy.

'"Helene epouse Joe. Helene epouse Joe" (Helen is marrying Joe).'

The signal for the entire region of Caen. It set off a whole series of sabotage attempts, many of which were successful: bridges collapsed, railway lines blew up, telephone connexions were severed. At the XV Army HQ it was now generally accepted that something, somewhere, was very seriously wrong.

'Can you make nothing of it, Meyer?' demanded General von Salmuth, anxiously.

Meyer just hunched a shoulder and went on listening.

For three days there was silence, and then the messages .started up again with renewed vigour and inventiveness.

'Ici Londres, ici Londres... "Les des sont jetes" (The dice are cast). I repeat: "Les des sont jetes." '

And as a result, many unsuspecting German sentries lost their lives, knifed in the back and their bodies flung into rivers or into the marshes.

' "Jean pense a Rita"' (John is thinking of Rita). "'Jean pense a Rita."'

The speaker enunciated his words very slowly and carefully, with a pause between each.

Porta laughed in delight.

'What a load of bullshit! John's thinking of perishing Rita... I don't suppose the chap's doing anything of the sort. Who the hell are they, anyway? Who are this John and Rita? Sounds like a kid's story to me.'

'It's a code,' explained Heide, who always claimed to know everything. 'I was a radio operator once. They use messages like that all the time.'

' "Le dimanche les enfants s'impatientent" ' (On Sundays the children grow impatient). '"Le dimanche les enfants s'impatientent." '

That was directed to Resistance members who were|awaiting the arrival of parachutists in Normandy.

'Ici Londres. We shall be sending further messages in one hour.'

THE LAST HOUR

We wrapped the dead in canvas shrouds before burying them, and by the side of each corpse we left an empty beer tin containing the man's personal papers. Sooner or later, perhaps when the war was over, we reckoned that someone would have to see about proper cemeteries with real graves and row upon row of little white crosses, and when that time came, and they were ploughing up the decomposing dead from the ditches and the cornfields, it seemed best they should know the identity of each corpse as they unearthed it. Hence the beer tins and the papers.

It seemed to us a positive necessity for both sides to have decent graveyards filled with dead heroes. Otherwise, what could they show in the future to impress new young recruits?

'Now, you lads, these are the graves of our glorious dead who fell for their country in the last war... Beneath this cross here lies Paul Schultze, a humble private soldier who had both his legs blown off by a grenade but who nevertheless remained at his post and held off the enemy. This humble private soldier saved an entire regiment. He died in the arms of his commanding officer, a patriotic song on his lips.'

There were so many bodies waiting to be buried that we didn't have enough beer cans for all of them. After a morning's hard work as grave-diggers we were allowed half an hour for food and were then packed off on a mine-detecting expedition.

That was worse than grave-digging by far. The life of anyone working on mine clearance was generally accepted as being pretty bloody short and by no means sweet. The mines were magnetic, set to go off at the approach of the smallest and most insignificant piece of metal. We therefore abandoned every metallic object that we had about us, even stripping off our buttons and replacing them with odd bits of wood. We were not supplied with rubber-soled boots and for the most part had to make do with rags wrapped round our feet, but Porta, our tame scavenger, had had the good fortune to lay hands on a pair of genuine American boots of yellow Rubber.

It was impossible to rely upon the mine-detecting device: it reacted not only for mines but also for the minutest particle of metal, so that in the end, according to individual dispositions, we either grew mad with perpetual fear or apathetic through over-familiarity. Either way, it was asking for trouble. To stand even a small chance of survival when working with mines a man needs to be continually alert, to have nerves of steel, and to act always with the greatest caution and the steadiest of hands. There where it looks safest might lurk the greatest danger.

Of course, it was Rommel who pioneered the innocent-seeming death-trap and brought it to such a high degree of perfection. The door that opens and blows up in your face; the wheelbarrow that bars your way, so that step to one side and the earth opens up beneath you; the cupboard door that remains ajar, and produces such a fury when closed that a whole row of houses goes sky high. Then there's the almost invisible wire, cunningly hidden beneath a carpet of leaves: the leading men tread on it and there's half a company wiped out in a split second.

We had learned a great deal about mines, and the more we learnt the less we liked. We'd met the P.2s, wired in relay, which set off a whole chain reaction of explosions. And that mines that had to be destroyed by detonating. And those--perhaps worst of all---that must be taken carefully to pieces, bit by bit until you come to the detonator, made of the thinnest possible glass... If you had a death wish and that sort of mind that could happily spend a whole hour looking for a single piece in a jigsaw-puzzle, then you were O.K., you could enjoy your work. But if you were anything like me, sweating with fright and hamfisted into the bargain, then without doubt were a very square peg in a very round hole.

We advanced slowly in line, testing out the ground step after step, never too happy even when you were at the tail end and could expect to be reasonably safe. Every ten minutes we changed the leader (and the rubber boots). In this way, only one man's life was risked at a time and each man knew that his period of endurance at least had set limits. We kept a safe distance between each one, and each one trod carefully in the steps of the man before him. For a few seconds all would be well, your heart would begin to slow down its mad canter, your sweat glands would start taking things a bit easier--and then, with a blood-chilling shriek, the man at the head of the column would wave his hands in a frenzy and halt us in our tracks. The mine detector was reacting again...

We all come to a stop. The man unfortunate enough to be in temporary possession of the boots holds out the detector to the front, to the side, to the rear. He pinpoints the spot which is causing all the trouble, reluctantly crouches down beside it, begins timidly to scrape away the topsoil. Five minutes pass. Five minutes of sweat and terror. And all he unearths is a piece of shrapnel, a shell fragment or part of a grenade. Always the same story. Or nearly always.

We relieve our various tensions in bursts of ill temper and foul language directed towards the prisoner who declared the area to be heavily mined, towards the Information Service who passed on the news and were therefore responsible for our being here. Quite obviously the prisoner was lying, the Information Service were a bunch of gullible fools.

We press on at a slightly faster pace, angry and muttering. A sudden explosion cuts us all short. The miserable man who happens to be leading us is blown sky-high and comes back to earth in a thousand unrecognizable pieces.

So the prisoner was not lying, the Information Service is not staffed by gullible fools but by highly intelligent people doing a grand job of work... and getting us blown up in the process. Perhaps it's a T mine, fashioned specially with tanks in mind. If that's the case, you've certainly had it: hardly anyone survives a T mine. If it's an S mine, on the other hand, the outlook isn't quite so grim: you might well survive with only the loss of your legs. Well, that's not such a very great tragedy in these days of warfare. They'll fit you up with a pretty good pair of artificial limbs, and if you're not actually a certifiable cretin you'll probably be accepted for an N.C.O.'s training course. There are quite a few legless men in training nowadays. It could be worse. You can sign on for thirty-six years, expect to be a Feldwebel after perhaps fifteen to eighteen years, retire at sixty-five with a fat pension.

0n the whole, therefore, when we weren't actually engaged on the job, we regarded mines as mixed blessings. On the one hand, you stood to lose your life; on the other hand, you stood only to lose your legs--with the enormous advantage of being invalided out of the front line once and for all. But let there be no mistake about it: it was no use losing one leg, or one arm. It had to be both or nothing. There were many one-legged men at the front, while those with one arm were so thick on the ground that you regarded them as entirely normal, well-equipped human beings. Major Hinka, for example, had waved his right arm goodbye a couple of years ago, and he had been in the thick of the action ever since.

And now, for the moment, it was me leading the column, me wearing the boots, me risking life and limb. With my nerves alert for the first sign of danger, I cautiously bent down and flattened a clump of thick grass. Something there... something metallic? Directly behind me, Porta and the Legionnaire came to a halt. A strong temptation to turn and run. Unfortunately impossible. Slowly I bent down and laid my ear to the ground. Did I hear a faint ticking, or was that merely my coward's imagination? Was it a magnetic mine or a delayed-action mine? Already I was soaked with sweat, my teeth clacking nervously together, my knee-caps dancing a jig. It was a mine, all right. Silent, for the moment, but none the less dangerous on that account. A cobra was less to be feared. The tips of my fingers felt the shape of the invisible, antennae, the rounded dome, the shatteringly thin panel of glass. It was a classic T mine.

This is the moment. Control yourself, overcome fear if you want to go on living. Remember everything they taught you... Two fingers under the dome, two turns to the left... but slowly, slowly... Break the glass and that's the end of you, Sven, my lad! Pray to God there's no hidden wire, that it's not linked up to other mines. They use their cunning, the sods that lay these death-traps
...
Two turns. That's that bit done. Now--two millimetres higher up, three turns to the right... It's not moving! The bastard's not moving! What in blazes is that supposed to signify? A new sort of mine? One they haven't told us about? Christ Almighty, let me get out of here! To hell with their courts martial and their charges of cowardice! I want to go on living. With any luck the war: will be over before they have time to sentence me.

My mind tells me to turn and run. Coldly and deliberately, my body stays exactly where it is. All right, I'm still here. So what do I do next? Take the damned thing out before I've defused it? Why not, it's only tantamount to suicide?

All the time I'm sitting doing nothing, the damn mine is lying there smug in the earth. Staring up at me. Mocking me. And then a new and horrific idea occurs: could it be a delayed-action bugger? Still gripping the dome with my right hand, I slide my left underneath the body of the mine. With my teeth, I begin tearing away the tufts of grass on either side. Why don't they train bloody monkeys to do the work? They could use their feet as well as their hands. And probably make a better job of it, too, not having to battle with fear all the time. Why hasn't anyone thought of it before? They already make, use of pigeons and dogs, and horses and pigs, so why not monkeys? (We used pigs in Poland. Used to drive them across minefields in order to dear the way. Trouble was, pigs got to be worth their weight in gold and it was eventually decided men were more expendable.)

With agonizing slowness, I drew the mine out towards me. It was heavier than I had anticipated, but at last it out in the open, exposed in all its horror. Great ugly thing. I longed to give it a mighty kick and send it flying, it that pleasure would have to be deferred until such time as I'd succeeded in defusing it.

I called to the others to come up to me. Porta and the Legionnaire crawled across. Porta, with no formal learning on the subject, was nevertheless a mechanical genius, and after one glance at the mine he threw me a look of contempt.

'Bloody idiot! You've been turning the perishing thing the wrong perishing way! It's not a normal French thread, I should've thought even you could've seen that.' He turned and waved at Little John. 'Bring us a Swedish key!'

The key duly made its arrival. Porta studied the mine for a while.

'O.K., screw it up again.'