by John Harris
‘Go ahead.’
‘And for the float?’ Reinach’s face was full of innocence. ‘It’s carried through the village in procession on Good Friday. The men get underneath it. You’d think it was on wheels the way it glides along.’
‘Cut the wood.’
‘And also for the plinth where the cross stands in the church? Since it’s a big cross, it’ll need to be a big stand.’
‘Were you also thinking of re-flooring the church?’ Klemens spoke sarcastically.
Reinach’s eyes widened. ‘Well, it’s certainly old, monsieur. One day someone will break his ankle.’
Klemens bent down, his nose within inches of Reinach’s ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve given you permission for your cross, and your float and your stand. Let that be enough.’
As the Germans turned away, the Frenchmen watched them go, straightening their backs for a moment.
‘We should have laid on an ambush,’ Sergeant Dréo growled, his smile gone at once, his eyes narrow and glittering. ‘My old chassepot could have done for the lot of them.’
When Klemens returned to the chateau he found a deputation waiting to see him, led by Gaudin the farmer from the west side of the village. Marie-Claude was among them.
‘We represent the agricultural interests of the valley, monsieur,’ Gaudin said. ‘Since wood’s being cut again in the forest, we’ve come to seek permission to use some of the branches for stakes. Our barbed wire fences haven’t been repaired for two years.’
Klemens considered. ‘I see no reason why not,’ he said.
Gaudin coughed. ‘That, of course, monsieur, leads to another point.’
‘Out with it.’
Marie-Claude stepped forward. ‘Some of us haven’t got any wire. Mine’s rusted completely away.’
Klemens looked at her. He saw a pretty young woman with an appealing smile, and he’d always had a soft heart for appealing young women. He turned to Tarnera.
‘I think we can help, don’t you, Tarnera?’ he said. ‘I think we might spare a roll or two of ours.’ He smiled at Marie-Claude. ‘Bring a cart down, madame. My men will load it for you.’
That night the platform arrived, driven by Marie-Claude and pulled by the Spanish war veteran Hercule - the same cart and the same same horse that only two nights before had been hauling arms from a huge new parachute drop. Four rolls of barbed wire, a little rusty but otherwise undamaged, were thrown aboard by two of Schäffer’s men. A bottle of marc produced two more rolls, and a joint of pork a third. Marie-Claude drove off with a tarpaulin over them, watched by the grinning soldiers.
The following evening, the platform was down again; this time with a load of logs. Reinach was driving it. It had been raining all day and he had a sack over his head and shoulders like a cape, and Hercule’s hide was streaked with water.
‘With our compliments, Colonel,’ Reinach said cheerfully. ‘The nights will soon be growing cold. I’m afraid there’s some acacia among it, and no self-respecting forester would normally include acacia in the firewood, but they’re the ends of trees we selected. It’s not bad for crates, you see.’
Klemens watched them unload the logs. Three men were already busy in the stable finishing the crates, and Reinach was working on the heavy new door. At his forge in the village, Dréo was hammering happily at the hinges and, as Klemens well knew, more than one horse had appeared surreptitiously for shoeing on the understanding that the Germans were paying. He leaned forward, smiling. He was enjoying the game he knew Reinach was playing with him.
‘You’re making sure you’re looking after yourselves too, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘A new crucifix, a float, a stand. And how about firewood? Have you made sure there’s some for yourself?’
Reinach grinned back, his wide foolish mouth empty, his expression indicating that he realized Klemens was a shrewd man. ‘A little, monsieur,’ he admitted. ‘Here and there.’
Klemens eyed him cheerfully. The season of cold nights with ground mists creeping from the river had started. And with the rain, the old chateau, without proper heating of any kind for two years, had a chill about it that got into the bones. That night, full of food and drink and enjoying the huge fire the mess orderly had built, he turned to Tarnera. ‘Let that fellow Reinach know that we wouldn’t be averse to more logs like these,’ he said.
The following evening, Reinach arrived with another cartload. As Klemens appeared he bobbed his head, reached under a sack on the platform, and produced a brace of pheasants.
‘For the colonel,’ he said. ‘In token of our appreciation. We got them with nets and, between you and me, monsieur, they belong to the Baronne.’ He gestured at the logs. ‘We had to cut a few small trees down especially, but I thought the colonel wouldn’t mind.’
Klemens was sufficiently impressed to hand over a bottle of good German wine. ‘Cut all you want,’ he said.
He’d had a fire in his bedroom the night before and was enjoying the permanent hot water for baths.
Unfortunately, the next morning, the well dried up. And not only the well but also the stream that had once turned the mill, which might have supplied an alternative source of water.
Klemens noticed it first when he went into the village. There were always a few women round the pump, gossiping and drawing water, and always soapy puddles from the public wash-house across the road. But this morning there were more men than women and, as Klemens’ car slowed down for the crowd, Father Pol stepped forward. He’d been working at the pump and the odour he gave off was at its fruitiest.
‘Monsieur le Colonel,’ he said. ‘There’s no water.’
‘Why not?’
‘The well’s gone dry.’
‘Well, use the stream.’
That’s dried up, too. I expect it comes from the same source.’
Klemens climbed from the car and solemnly inspected the bed of the stream that ran under the disused mill. The water had vanished, exposing the old cigarette packets and tin cans which rested among the stones and drying mud.
‘Why not get water from the river?’ he asked.
Father Pol looked indignant. ‘Do you realize, monsieur, how far the river is outside the village?’
Klemens shrugged. ‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’ he asked. ‘It’s your affair, not mine.’
But when he returned to the chateau at lunch-time he discovered it was his affair after all, because Corporal Goehr was complaining that there was no water to cook with.
‘Why not?’ Klemens snapped.
‘Well, you, Herr Oberst, had a bath this morning, and so did the Sturmbannführer and the Herr Major and the Herr Hauptmann. And so did the Baron and the Baronne and Heir Balmaceda. When we came to organize the lunch, there was no water left in the tank.’
‘Where’s Unteroffizter Schäffer?’
Schäffer appeared, looking worried. ‘There’s no water in the tank, Herr Oberst,’ he announced.
‘I know there’s no water in the tank,’ Klemens snapped. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I’m already doing what I can, Herr Oberst. I’ve been up to look at it. It’s empty. All that’s left are the jellified bodies of bats and a few dead beetles, and nothing else.’
Klemens scowled. ‘Where does the water come from?’
‘It’s pumped up from the village. Herr Oberst. The pump’s switched on every day. We’ve got it attached to one of our generators. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take more than about three or four baths to empty the tank. It’s far too small for a place this size.’
Klemens waved him aside and glared at Goehr. ‘What about the meal?’ he demanded.
‘Cold collation, Herr Oberst.’
‘I was expecting pheasant.’
There’s no water, Herr Oberst. We can’t prepare them.’
Klemens stared at him, his face reddening. Then he threw back his bead and shouted.
‘Tarnera!’
Tarnera appeared almost immediately. ‘There’s no water
,’ Klemens snapped.
‘No, Herr Oberst!’ Tarnera said. ‘I understand the tank’s empty. It’s pumped from the village -’
‘I know it’s pumped from the village and the well’s run dry! Find out why!’
They didn’t have to bother. Reinach appeared with a deputation, headed as usual by Balmaceda and the Baronne-Since it was an official visit, the Baronne wore her maire’s sash of red, white and blue.
‘The well’s dried up,’ she announced. ‘The notice, Trinkwasser , that you and your men had the gall to put on what is a French pump is therefore pointless.’
‘It’s the spring, monsieur,’ Reinach explained. ‘It comes from the hills. The source is up there somewhere and it’s stopped.’
‘Why?’
‘It does sometimes.’ Reinach shrugged. ‘Last time was five years ago, just before the war. We had a water engineer come from Dijon to look at it. He brought a geologist, and they said the hills are honeycombed with underground streams and sometimes the land settles and they change course. It might be months before it comes back.’
‘It’s typical of you French dimwits,’ Klemens snapped, ‘not to have done anything about it before. What happens now?’
‘Last time, we rigged up a temporary pipeline from the dam to the stone gully from the hills. It was built centuries ago but it’ll still carry water.’
‘Rig it up again.’
Reinach’s shoulders lifted to his ears in another vast shrug. ‘The rubber piping’s perished, monsieur. But, if monsieur will help us a little -’
‘Don’t worry,’ Klemens growled. ‘I’ll get the Wehrmacht engineers up from Dijon.’
As they left, he snatched up the telephone and rang headquarters. ‘General Dannhüber,’ he said, ‘we’re having a little trouble here. Water supplies have dried up. Something to do with the spring. I’m wondering if the engineers -’
‘No!’ General Dannhüber didn’t hesitate for a second. They can’t! Arrange something yourself, Klemens. Every engineer we’ve got is south of Dijon. The damned Maquis have started blowing bridges down there and General von Weizsache borrowed them. I’ve also got a group near Beaune repairing a railway line that was sabotaged, and two groups at Auxonne shoving a derailed engine back on the rails. And I’ve got to keep some by me in case we have trouble ourselves. Use watercarts.’
There was a crash as the telephone was replaced. Two minutes later the deputation was back.
‘It seems the engineers are - ah - engaged elsewhere,’ Klemens said. ‘You’d better get on with it yourselves. Can you produce enough for drinking?’
Reinach shrugged. ‘We don’t drink water, monsieur,’ he explained. ‘We use it for sprinkling on the ground outside the bar to lay the dust. Of course, perhaps the children will need a little now and again and perhaps the women, but it’ll have to be boiled first because the only hose we’ve got has been used for pumping out cesspits.’
‘Let Captain Tarnera know what you need,’ Klemens said hurriedly. ‘I’ll send lorries to Dijon to collect it.’
By the following afternoon, men were working up in the woods by the dam, laying reinforced rubber pipes to the ancient stone gully that ran down the hillside. From the bottom, more pipes were laid to the village square where a big canvas tank was being erected.
‘We need a flat stone base for it,’ Reinach decided. There’s plenty of slate in the quarry.1
‘Then get it,’ Klemens said.
When Klemens went up to the dam, Reinach and Dring had already rigged up a heavy pump and were pumping water out in a steady stream. By evening at the chateau it was just possible to cook and wash. Despite the problems. Klemens considered he’d done a good job. Every water cart in the district - and most of the farms had one - was going to and from the dam in a regular stream, and Klemens noticed that they all brought back bundles of the sharpened stakes for the new fences. There was already a large swathe cut into the forest where thick fir branches lay in heaps, heavy with the smell of resin.
There was a marked difference in the air traffic over the valley now. The aeroplanes were all moving north, and many of them were Junkers 52s.
‘Carrying wounded,’ Neville said.
‘Or German generals abandoning their troops,’ Urquhart suggested.
According to the rumours, parachute drops were coming all the time to the south now. British, American and French officers, openly wearing uniforms and carrying arms, were arriving with them. The countryside down there was said to be stuffed with every kind of illegal weaponry imaginable, from rifles to field guns. There were stories of German cars being destroyed by phosphorous bombs, and of prisoners taken.
‘All claiming to be Poles, Cossacks, Austrians, Czechs and Pomeranians forced to fight for the Nazis,’ Guardian Moch reported. ‘It makes you wonder where the Germans have got to.’
The reports from the battle front grew wilder. The American 7th Army was approaching Dijon and Besançon and units of the 3rd Army from the north were now approaching Auxerre and Chaumont, en route for the Vosges and the Belfort gap.
Then Moch brought news that German civilian workers and clerks were leaving the area and trains were moving north through Dijon, Besançon and Vesoul towards Belfort and Mulhouse and the German border.
‘All packed with women clerks and loot,’ he said. ‘They say the guard’s vans are full of pictures.’
‘But not yours,’ Neville pointed out. ‘Not yet. Where are the Americans?’
‘South of the Doubs. They’re shelling Valentin.’
The next afternoon, Urquhart cycled to St Seigneur to find the radio operators. He returned with the news that the Americans had reached Troyes.
By this time an impromptu system of. communication had sprung up so that they always knew exactly what was happening elsewhere. Messages were carried by travelling salesmen like Moch in their ‘valises diplomatiques’, by priests moving from village to village to celebrate mass, by anglers heading for the rivers, by train drivers and guards, by fanners in town looking for seed. They were also sent by the railway telegraph and the post office in a crude code that everyone but the Germans understood. Villages were re-referred to by their nicknames and figures were indicated by the number of windows there were in a church, or the height of a tower. To people brought up in the area, it was simple and highly effective.
The day after Urquhart had been to St Seigneur they learned that Vangouillain was full of German soldiers, and then they knew that the Wehrmacht was in full retreat. Vangouillain was jammed with them because a continuous stream was passing along the Dijon-Langres-Nancy road. Most of them were going straight through the village, stopping all other traffic, forcing the people indoors, their heavy vehicles frequently battering the houses as they turned the sharp corners. A few were stopping to get water from the pump, or to try to buy milk or fruit.
They look exhausted,’ Moch reported. ‘I saw them. I was down there on the petrolette.’
‘Were they well behaved?’
‘They were quiet. But they seemed worried. It was a good sight, Neville. Their clothes and transport looked as though they were only held together by dirt.’
That night they heard a dull thump over the hills and guessed that someone was at work somewhere with explosives. They soon learned where.
‘Someone blew the bridge at Assômes,’ de Frager informed them. ‘I heard it at the chateau. They retaliated by taking twelve men, including the maire, and shooting them in the square. They’ve got engineers on the bridge now. It’ll be working by tomorrow.’
That night, German cavalry passed through Néry. tough-looking men on tall horses. American Thunderbolts caught them the next morning at Cheuny and when Neville cycled over with Reinach, all they found were half a dozen dead horses by the roadside, a little scattered equipment, and a man spread-eagled in the bushes staring up into the trees, the flies on his dead eyeballs.
‘The war’s coming closer,’ Neville said bleakly. ‘Let’s hope they don’t decide t
o make a stand here or you’ll get all the fighting you’ve been wanting.’
There was an air of apprehension in the village when they returned. Gaudin’s wife had been accused by a passing group of Germans of sheltering Maquisards and punished by the removal of all the food in the house.
‘It was an excuse, that’s all,’ Marie-Claude said, ‘Someone was hungry.’
The following day they saw Germans moving north of the village to the Langres-Belfort road, passing close to the Crete St Amarin, and two days later Jean-Frédéric Dréo and Gaston Dring found six of them lying dead in the swampy grass at the other side of the ridge. No one knew who’d shot them. They seemed to be only boys and someone had removed their weapons and boots.
German traffic was now building up on the side roads to the south of the plateau as the drivers tried to avoid the crush on the Dijon-Langres road.
They watched them from the tall grass on the hillside and could see that the men in the lorries were beginning to look tired, their uniforms dirt-encrusted and creased, and there was a strained look of defeat on their faces. Many of the vehicles were old or filched from French civilians and they were battered, worn-out and rickety.
‘They’re from south of Dijon,’ Guardian Moch said, searching with a pair of black market field glasses for divisional and regimental signs with the shrewdness of an army intelligence officer. ‘I saw them down there last week. They’re beginning to evacuate.’
‘They’re blowing the bridges after them, too,’ Reinach said bitterly. ‘Couldn’t we do something?’
Moch shook his head. ‘It’s not the same as shooting two engineers on their own. These days they’re working in the middle of their own army.’
The cellar was finished the next morning, and Reinach asked Klemens to inspect it. He’d carefully repaired the outer door and replaced the broken one inside, while Théyras had rebuilt the pillars that held it in place and filled in the barred windows.
