The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [53]
“That reminds me. Among the microfiche I went through was something called the order of battle for Army Group G, under General Von Blaskowitz, in charge of defending southern France. It assigned him three armored divisions, one motorized and thirteen infantry divisions. How many troops would that be, Manners.”
“We normally reckon about ten thousand to a division, but armored divisions tend be larger and an SS panzer division would have twice that number. Then there are the troops attached to corps and army HQ. At least two hundred fifty thousand troops, but that was to hold down the whole of southern France, which contained something close to twenty million people. Not all of the troops were Germans, as Morillon said this afternoon. And a lot of the German infantry units were composed of old men or convalescents from the military hospitals. They had entire battalions of ulcer sufferers—it made it easier to organize their diet. Even the SS panzer division was being filled up with Volksdeutsch, the ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Alsace-Lorraine. Some of them didn’t even speak much German. And the troops were spread out, guarding the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, controlling the big cities like Lyon and Marseilles, the industrial centers like Clermont-Ferrand, patrolling the railways. Bear in mind that Périgord was not terribly important to the Germans, except for the rail and transport links. Not much industry, no great population centers, just a handful of important factories. They had the Vichy police and paramilitaries to do most of the patrols—and the dirty work.”
Their foie gras arrived, just long enough in the pan to toast the outside and warm the flesh within, with a steaming portion of onion confiture on one side of the plate, and a tender bed of baby leeks on the other. She took some liver. It had the taste of luxury. She sipped her Monbazillac. Sweet gold.
“I think just one restaurant meal a day from now on, Manners,” Lydia said. “I don’t mind putting on weight in a good cause, but this is too princely.”
“Grand, I call it. What’s the point of coming to the home of the best food in France if we don’t enjoy it?”
They finished their liver, sat back and cleansed their palates with the mineral water, and then leaned forward to address themselves to the lightly grilled fish. Hearing a burst of laughter, Lydia looked casually around the room. There was a loud and jolly English family talking of plonk and fizz, some serious French tables concentrating on their food, a table of three businessmen talking in low voices, and a rather fetching pair of young lovers, their heads close together and eyes sharing secrets. The laughter had come from the English family. From behind her came a murmur of what might have been German, except for the constant sound of throat clearing. Must be Dutch. I wonder what they all make of me and Manners, she mused. Not lovers, certainly, but not married either. Friends, then, which is what she supposed they were becoming. Or allies, which is what they were. Or possibly, she smiled to herself, adventurers. What kind of adventure would be up to her.
And that, she told herself with a thoughtful glance at the rather appealing and likeable Manners as he tasted the Pomerol and pronounced it sound, was how it should be!
CHAPTER 8
The Vézère Valley, 15,000 B.C.
The great hunt was always the day after the sun and moon had appeared together in the sky the previous evening, in the time when the river waters were at their highest and the bears lumbered sleepily from their caves and the first flowers came on the trees that would give the sweet and tiny fruit. In the days of the ancestors, it had always been a hungry time, when all the men and boys of the tribe and all the younger women would take to the hunt at once. But now that the reindeer flocked so thickly on the hills and valley to the north