The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [44]
“You ought to know I was against your coming so soon,” he said to Jack and McPhee, his eyes swiveling to take in François. “But since you’re here, we have to make you useful.” He turned to the man leaning against the door and beckoned him over.
“Call this man Yves. He’s a foreman at an aircraft propeller factory in Figeac. They turn out three hundred variable-pitch propellers each week for the Luftwaffe. It’s a small plant, so the RAF haven’t much of a hope of hitting it. Yves reckons he can do the job with some small explosive charges on a couple of key machine tools they brought in from Germany, but sometimes they are searched going in and coming out. I want you to give him some plastic, some detonators, and show him how to use them. Today, just as soon as we are done.”
He finished his apple, sipped at some water, and took out a clean white handkerchief to pat his lips. “I suppose I should have said welcome to France. And thank you for bringing me in another radio operator. My own is getting tired and I’m worried about her security,” he went on. “Then I want you out of those uniforms today. We can’t have you wandering around dressed like that. It’s insane, whatever London might say.” He gestured at Christophe. “Berger here—and I want you to call him nothing but Berger from now on, because that’s how I know him and London knows him—is taking you on first. He’ll get the uniforms back to you when you start training his boys. Then you’ll be shipped back down to my area to do the same. Again, you must travel in civilian clothes.”
“In the meantime, we’ll be sending people to you for special explosives training. We’re going to cut every railway line and every telephone line between Toulouse and Paris in the course of this spring, and keep them closed until the invasion. Berger has the list of targets, and the sooner you hit them the better. I want the first two taken out within the next twenty four hours. The Germans get edgy if a plane lands and nothing happens—they like to think there’s logic to things. Blow something up and they’ll feel they know what’s going on.
“We are going to demolish as many bridges as we can to stop the Germans sending reinforcements from the south. We have a whole German army based down here, including one SS panzer division, and that’s where we want to keep it. And that’s where you chaps come in. Blowing bridges will slow them down, but armored divisions carry their own bridging equipment. So you’ll be training the boys with the bazookas and the mortars who will be ambushing those tanks and their soft-skinned transport every time they move. An armored division covers forty miles of road when it moves, so there’ll be no shortage of targets. Under normal circumstances, they could use road and rail and get those tanks from here to the bridges over the Loire in a day, maybe a day and a half. I don’t think we can stop them, but I think we can keep them stuck down here for a week or more. An SS unit is half as big and strong again as a conventional panzer division. If we slow them down, it could make the difference between the invasion succeeding or getting thrown back into the sea.”
He stopped, looked up at the woman, and then rose courteously to ask her to leave. He gestured Yves to follow her and the man with the Sten gun, until just the five of them were left.
“Right, end of pep talk,” he said. “Two things I want to raise. First with you, Berger. These three chaps are a team and I want them to stick together. I know your brother can be useful in your network and I know you have jobs lined up for him. Don’t do it. I know your men and mine want to see British and American soldiers on the ground here working with them, but most of all they want to see the Free French in uniform. He may be a brother to you, but for my chaps he’s a symbol of de Gaulle and a French army. You lose him on some freelance operation and I’ll never forgive you.
“Second, for you two. Consider me now to be putting my military hat and badges