Don't Look Back: SOE Circuit Fortunae Book 1

by Thomas Wood

  I talked myself through the process that Alfred had shown me; pulling back on the loading gate and swinging the cylinder out and over to the right-hand side. Inside, as there had been for the last few hours, were six eight-millimetre cartridges, all brightly glinting in the fading light of the day.

  I clicked the cylinder back into place but kept the loading gate where it was. Having it pulled backwards meant that the hammer was disengaged, which prevented me from accidentally putting a round into my own backside, while I was laying in the forest.

  It might have worked back in Alfred’s day, but shooting myself was not going to get me sent home. If anything, it was likely to prevent me from getting back home one day.

  It was the first time that I had ever really thought of home. I felt like I had nowhere to go now, after I had lost everything, but as I sat in that forest, waiting for whatever it was to come down the road, I realised that maybe, part of me did want to make it out of this alive, and that everything was not lost.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  I looked over at Suzanne, whose face had seemed to grow a little softer in the last hour or so, as if she was somehow warming to the idea that two British men could, in fact, be helpful to her.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, with a slight chuckle, “It was always one of Charles’ favourite sayings. He always said that I was locked in my own world.”

  I smiled back at her, softly, before turning to look back down towards the road that had become so ingrained in my eyes that I began to see it everywhere I looked.

  “Anyway, a penny for them?”

  I had nothing to lose by telling her. Besides, she had confided in me, it was about time that I repaid some of that trust.

  “I’m just thinking of home. I haven’t really let myself since I’ve been here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too distracting. I want to focus on what I’m meant to be doing here.”

  A bunch of flies began to want to use my face as a landing strip, as they fluttered around my mouth and nose, and more than one was sucked up and into my lungs. I flapped them away gently, not wanting to cause so much of a raucous that we would compromise ourselves. Everyone else was having to deal with it, so I should suffer with them.

  “But it is good to have something to focus on. A reward for doing what you’re doing.”

  “And what’s your reward?”

  She exhaled out of her nose sharply, and I couldn’t work out if it was because she was laughing at me, or simply trying to get rid of the pesky flies under her nostrils.

  “I would suppose that mine is very different to yours and Monsieur Houdin,” she changed her gaze, to look over towards Mike, and I wondered whether she was half-hoping that he would be listening in. But I didn’t think Mike could hear either of us, over the tension and rigidity that had taken over his whole being.

  “You and Michel are here because this is where you have been told to go. Your way of fighting is one of self-preservation. You want to do each mission as it comes, get through it, in the hope that one day you can see home again. You want to live. Am I right so far?”

  “Yes, quite…But you’re not like that?”

  “This is my country, Jean. There are people here running it now that would have no qualms in shooting us in the head if we looked at them the wrong way. They treat us as if we are dogs. We need them to be gone.

  “They have taken everything from me. I want to make their lives as uncomfortable as possible here. I want them to be looking over their shoulders all the time. I will not rest until they are either out of my country, or I am dead. Do you understand?”

  I understood perfectly but couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I had somehow just been given a dressing down. Her eyes were ablaze with passion as she spoke, and for the first time, I could see what it was that made so many men completely terrified of her.

  She seemed to believe every word that she was saying. It was either that or she was the best liar that I had ever come across. Deep down, I wanted to believe her, to trust her more, but there was an element to it all which seemed fabricated, an alarm bell somewhere in my mind. I wanted to believe her, to trust her, but I simply couldn’t. Not that easily anyway.

  She seemed to calm down hugely over the next twenty seconds or so.

  “So, do you have a family waiting for you back at home?”

  “Well…” I started, unable to really finish off the rest of the sentence.

  The obvious answer would be that I had a family. But the more complex, and troubling answer would be to the question that would inevitably follow.

  What happened to them?

  They died in a bombing raid in London almost a year before. Both of them. My new-born son and my wife. But it didn’t have to be like that.

  In my mind, they were far away from London, in Norfolk, where they filled their days with trips to the coast or on the canals. Henry would be learning to walk around about now, and I would be excited to get back home to see him again.

  But, in reality, none of that could happen. The chance to go to Norfolk, to live with Grace’s parents, had been rejected. Not because Grace hadn’t wanted to go, but on my own, foolish insistence.

  “They wouldn’t dare to bomb London,” had been on everyone’s lips at the beginning of the war, and the ferocity with which I had battled with German bombers over the south of England persuaded me that they would never really get close.

  I had wanted them to stay in London, so that it would have been easier for me to see them when I was stationed at Weald. The thought of them being several hours away in Norfolk saddened me to my soul.

  But then, the unthinkable began to happen; bombs fell on London. And they kept coming.

  But, by then it was too late. My insistence had seeped into Grace’s determination.

  No one else was running away to the country, so why should she?

  An Anderson shelter would suffice. Besides, we lived in Richmond, what was there to bomb anyway?

  I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out at first. Just a low growl.

  I stopped myself from saying anything further, as I caught Mike’s eye as he turned to look at me. He wasn’t best pleased with the noises that I was making. I closed my jaw and looked down at the pile of dried leaves in front of me.

  But the noise kept coming.

  Suzanne began to shuffle around, drawing her weapon, a farmer’s shotgun, up to her face.

  Mike’s eyes were suddenly filled with jubilation and relief, as if this encounter with the enemy was all that he had been waiting for, his entire life.

  I squinted down towards the road, to see if I could make out the contraptions that we had laid down earlier on.

  Somewhere, down in the dusky darkness, the kind that could only come in the middle of a forest, were a series of spikes, embedded into the ground.

  Caltrops, to be precise. They were medieval-looking things, which was probably down to the fact that they had been used since the middle ages. Historically, the sharp metal would be buried into the ground, in the hope of stopping everything from foot soldiers, all the way up to the armoured vehicles of the day; war elephants.

  I winced at the terrible howls the magnificent beast would make as the poor thing trod on one of the sharpened spikes, sending its riders in a plethora of directions as it tried to shake them off. The thunder that would rumble around the ground as the stricken animal fell would be akin to an artillery shell exploding right beside you.

  But, that night, our target was not an elephant laden with explosives and soldiers. It was any kind of vehicle that we could lay our hands-on.

  We had buried five in the ground, on the approach road to the Château de Serrane. They zig-zagged across the path of any vehicle in the hope that we would catch at least one tyre and render the vehicle useless.

  As the motorcycle came sweeping around the corner, from the direction of the town, the purr of its engine began to develop nicely in my ears.

 
We were doing this with a handicap; we did not know if and when the Gernealfeldmarschall would return to the Château, but we assumed that he would do so around nightfall, in time for some supper before bed.

  The single torch beam of the motorcycle’s headlight bobbed its way down the centre of the road, the top half taped off slightly so that only a narrow beam could bounce on the track.

  Then, just above the noise of its revving engine, a voice.

  “He’s missed the first one.”

  “And the second.”

  I held my breath. If he missed them all, then we could be in for a very long night.

  But then there was the sudden sound of screaming. Not from a human, or even an animal, but the scream of metal as it ground its way along the road. The engine revved incredibly high, bellowing louder than the shriek of metal on gravel.

  The narrowed headlight spun around on the floor erratically, before coming to a stop. Then there was a silence.

  We waited for a moment, to make sure that no one was coming up behind him that would take all of us by surprise.

  But there was nothing.

  By the time that the rider had seen the caltrop, if at all, it had been far too late for him.

  Before I could so much as pull myself to my feet, there were already four Frenchmen surrounding the body, that had curled himself up tightly in a ball.

  This was where it all started. This was what I was enjoying.

  25

  By the time that I had made it to the fallen motorcyclist, he was already being dragged across the road, to the ditch where some of the Frenchmen had been laying in wait.

  It must have been pretty obvious to the German that we had been there for some time, as the eagerness with which he was being tugged across the road was with a force the likes of which I had never seen before.

  As they pulled him, he tried his best to find his feet, leaving great scuff marks from one side of the road to the other. Mike hastily retraced the two odd gauges in the dusty track, scuffing back over them to make sure that no one could guess at what they were.

  The man was quickly separated from various parts of his uniform, as a few others went and recovered the motorcycle that was resting some ten yards away from where he had fallen, the wheels still spinning gently.

  It was a useless trophy for us. There was no way that anyone could make any use of it. If they did, it would only act as a roaring beacon to the Germans over who had carried out the attack, and it wasn’t the kind of vehicle that one could take to the butchers, without turning a few heads.

  The leather satchel that was dangling around his waist was quickly whipped over his head, the contents of which was thumbed through vigorously, as if they expected to find something of great importance within it. But their search was fruitless.

  The MP40 that was tethered over his neck, and had been resting on his lap, was too taken from him, his eyes filled with sadness at the thought that, as a soldier, he was now practically naked.

  Everything was taken from him, including his helmet and dust goggles, which were hastily thrown over to me. I inspected them for a moment, running my hand around the inside of the helmet, trying to judge if it would be a good fit or not.

  As the motorcycle was wheeled towards me, I recognised it as the BMW R12, the same ones that I had seen plenty of back in Tours, with the number plate glued onto the front wheel arch precariously.

  It was a drab grey colour, as if somehow the machine was incredibly sad, and had wanted nothing more than to be crashed in the way she had been. The engine, beneath the rider, was exposed, which was why it made the most terrific purring noise as it trundled along.

  The two side saddle metal boxes, on both the left and right, were rifled through in much the same way as the leather satchel, as files and pieces of paper were quickly read, before being passed onto someone else.

  “Bitte…” the man began, as he realised that he was going to be in a fight for his life here. His eyes were forlorn and submissive, not wanting to look at anyone for too long. He looked around at us quickly, locking his eyes onto me. I must have had the kindest looking face. Or maybe it was just the fear that he could sense in me.

  “Bitte…Ich habe eine Familie…Bitte…”

  I spoke a little German, not much, but enough to know that what he was saying was the usual drivel that our instructors had used back when we were training in the Highlands.

  Please, I have a family.

  It was the kind of tosh that anyone would try on their captors, even if it wasn’t true. And if I had been taught anything during my training for this work, then it was that the Germans would do and say anything to try and get out alive.

  His gaze on me held firm, even as he was dragged towards the side of the road and up the bank. Scrabbling together, with a pair of hands under each armpit, the German knew that he was in trouble. He needed to get away from us in the next sixty seconds, or he might not be getting away from us at all.

  He began writhing around and struggling, like a recently caught fish that was doing all it could to get thrown back into the water. But he was having very little luck.

  Eventually, he kicked out, catching one of the Frenchmen in the groin, which seemed to anger a lot more people than just his victim. Mike was one of those, incensed that he would have the audacity to try and take us all on, rather than curl up and take what was coming.

  Mike stepped forward, his knuckles glowing white, and delivered a firm blow into the gut of the German, his leather jerkin being sucked into the vortex of air that it created. The German, grunting, doubled over in pain, with the Frenchmen who gripped able to do nothing to stop him.

  Mike leant over him, “Now you are going to do as you’re told. Got it?”

  The German, to his credit, was not going to give up without a jolly good fight.

  As he heard Mike’s voice, he shot upwards, knowing full well where Mike’s face would be. The back of his head connected wonderfully with Mike’s face. I couldn’t tell where, but to the German, none of that mattered. As long as he injured as many of us as possible, the finesse of his moves mattered not a jot.

  Mike recoiled from the German, clutching at his face somewhere, as Suzanne appeared in front of him. I could tell that he was already experiencing the headache as a result of his assault on Mike, but at that moment, his biggest headache was going to be the small, but towering, figure of the Frenchwoman that now stood in front of him.

  She took a step backwards, as if inspecting his face, but in reality just guarding herself from the same sort of fate that had just come upon Mike, who was still clutching at his face.

  Using the back of her hand, she delivered one of the most vicious slaps that I had ever seen in my life. The German simply stared back at her, defiantly, if not a little bit worried that he was being punished as a child would be.

  “Der Generalfeldmarschall. Er ist heute Nacht hier?”

  Her German sounded inch-perfect to me, almost as good as her English had been. Even Mike, whose cheek was a sticky scarlet mess, looked up to me, concerned at her eloquence in the German tongue.

  The German, whose earlier courage and determination had waned considerably quickly, refused to answer.

  She repeated herself.

  The Generalfeldmarschall. He is here tonight?

  Still, nothing.

  “Deine Familie. Du willst sie wiedersehen? Sprechen.”

  To the German’s credit, it did not seem like he had lied earlier on, as Suzanne’s little threat, spat through gritted teeth, had had the desired effect.

  Your family. You want to see them again? Speak.

  “Dreiundzwanzig Uhr. Er kehrt vom Abendessen zurück.”

  “What is he saying?” Mike said, his tongue sounding ever so swollen.

  I went to tell him, but Suzanne got there first.

  “He is due to return at eleven this evening. He has been out to dinner.”

  Suzanne continued to talk to him, while I looked back at Mike.

&nb
sp; “You alright, mate?”

  He looked at me, furious that I had even asked.

  “Little swine made me bleed,” he muttered, his pride in tatters. “If she hadn’t stepped in, I would have killed him.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said with a smile, “You really looked like threatening him from where I was standing.”

  “Leave off, will you.”

  Suzanne backed away from the German and made her way over to us. I sensed that we had all the information that we needed from the motorcycle rider, and that now was the time that the real work began.

  “Hide that bike in the bushes somewhere!” I called out to the three men who stood around it, marvelling at the engineering work and wondering how they were going to restore it back to working order. “And make sure that you can’t see it from the road! If you can see it, so will they.”

  Spinning around, I urgently called out to all the others, who had been nothing more than bystanders in the whole affair.

  “Back up the hill. The lot of you wait there for us.”

  I checked my wristwatch, as Suzanne and Mike, who had managed to stem the blood flow down his cheek, came over to join me, in the middle of the road. It was just before ten o’clock. We still had a reasonably long wait ahead of us. But that was fine.

  It meant that we could now come up with a plan, and then run through everything in our heads, to work out where it might falter.

  I stared down at the caltrop that the motorcyclist had struck, one prong driven into the ground with three more, sharpened edges, protruding in three different directions. One towards the house, another southwards back down the track towards the town and one final one, pointing straight up to the heavens.

  Judging by the way that one of them was all bent out of shape, I guessed that the motorcycle had struck the one that was pointing back towards the town, and that he had been going at some speed to have bent it.

  “That’s that one finished with,” I said, bending down to inspect the broken rod.

  “What rot,” Mike said, his bloodied face joining mine down by the caltrop. “That could still take out a tank, that could. Besides, there are four others that he could still hit.”