Operation Kingfisher

by Hilary Green

  She nodded, her throat suddenly tight.

  ‘Good luck, then. I’m sure we’ll be meeting again very soon. Goodbye, Madame. Thank you for your help. France will be grateful.’

  With a smile and a squeeze of her hand, he was gone, and she found herself abruptly cut off from everything that had become familiar over the last weeks. It was much harder than she had imagined it would be.

  Jeanette led her up to the private apartments on the top floor and opened a door.

  ‘This is your room. I wasn’t sure if you would have all your own things, so I’ve laid out a nightdress and there are some undies in the drawer. The bathroom is next door and I’ve put a toothbrush and some soap on the shelf. Is there anything else you need?’

  Christine hesitated. It was almost a month since she had left home and there was one necessity that was becoming ever more pressing.

  ‘Some S.T.s,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Oh, that’s no problem. I’ve got some in my room. I’ll fetch them.’

  Left alone, Christine looked round the room. It was prettily decorated, with floral wallpaper and a patchwork quilt in pastel colours, and there was a vase of fresh flowers on the dressing table. She glanced into the bathroom; a large fluffy towel was hanging on the rail.

  She felt a lump in her throat. Until now she had not been homesick. Life on the boat and in the camp had been so different that home had seemed to belong to another life. Now, she was vividly reminded of her own room, with its familiar comforts, and her mother’s voice calling her to come and eat.

  She washed her hands and splashed her face with cold water and by the time Jeanette returned, she had recovered herself.

  In the Bois de Montsauche, the Maquis Xavier was continuing its reorganisation. With the arrival of enemy troops in the area, security had become a priority. Xavier set up guard posts at the beginning of all the tracks leading up to the camp, which were manned night and day on a regular rota. Gregoire showed them how to set up trip wires on the narrower paths, attached to small explosive charges which would go off and alert them to the presence of intruders; but these had to be abandoned after a few days since they were regularly set off by the wild animals that inhabited the forest. After the whole camp had been jolted awake and leapt to arms in the middle of the night two or three times, it was decided that the explosives should only be connected up if there was an imminent threat of attack.

  Training continued, with the help of the two regular officers and the acquisition of more heavy weapons, partly from another parachutage and partly as a result of an ambush on the road to Château-Chinon. Luke found himself learning to use both a Bren gun and the German Schmeisser.

  Gregoire’s main objective was still the sabotage of German lines of communication and to this end, he selected a small group for more intensive training in the use of explosives and Luke was delighted to be one of those chosen. Their first objective was the railway between Decize and Auxerre at Tamnay, where the line branched towards Château-Chinon. They set out late one afternoon, intending to reach their target around midnight. There were seven of them, in two vehicles; Jean-Claude’s butcher’s van and a pick-up truck with a Bren gun mounted in the back. Luke, to his great pleasure, was put in charge of the Bren. They took the minor road through Ouroux and on towards Montigny.

  Coming to the edge of the forest they were brought up short by a barricade of tree-trunks across the road. Luke swung the Bren round to cover it, while rifle barrels appeared from the car windows; but to their relief a voice hailed them in French.

  ‘Qui-vive?’

  ‘Maquis!’ Gregoire shouted back, and half a dozen friendly faces appeared over the barrier. They had run into the edge of territory controlled by a new group; this was the Maquis Socrate and they were soon introduced to its leader, a good-looking young man who was delighted to make the acquaintance of the ‘famous’ Gregoire.

  ‘Not too famous, I hope,’ Gregoire murmured.

  Bottles of wine appeared from somewhere, and they all drank to victory and ‘death to the Boche’, and then the barrier was dismantled and they were on their way again.

  The next hazard was the level crossing, where the line to Château-Chinon crossed the road just outside Chougny. It was dark by this time and the barriers were down. There were lights showing through the cracks in the blinds at the window of the crossing-keeper’s house, but there was no way of knowing what the man’s attitude would be to two vehicles breaking the curfew for no good reason. It was possible also, that he was not alone. The Germans had conscripted a number of men known as Gardesvoies, whose job it was to patrol the lines watching for signs of sabotage. It was likely that they had no more sympathy with the Nazis than the Maquis, but threatened with draconian punishment if anything went wrong on their stretch of line they could not be relied upon to co-operate. There might even be German guards manning the crossing, and with the van packed with explosives they could not afford to be stopped and searched.

  Alphonse, one of the older men, got out of the truck and went to knock on the door. They heard him call, ‘Ouvrez la barrière, s’il vous plaît.’

  There was a tense pause, then the door opened and Luke heard a low-voiced exchange between the two men. Finally, the heavy wooden barrier creaked up. Gregoire let in the clutch and Alphonse jumped aboard as they bumped across the lines, with the van close behind.

  They stopped eventually just outside Tamnay and gathered around Gregoire for a final briefing.

  ‘I will take Jean-Claude and Pierre with me. Our target will be the engine turntable just outside the station. Alphonse, you and François deal with the points where the lines diverge. Luke and Raoul, I want you to work your way down the line a hundred yards or so towards Decize. Alphonse and I will set our time pencils for a one-hour delay but I want you Luke, to fit yours with pressel switches. Once the damage has been done to the points, the first thing to come down the line will be an engine pulling trucks carrying repair equipment. Your charges will take care of that and make it even longer before the track can be made usable again. Understood?’ There was a murmur of agreement. ‘OK. Rendezvous back here at 01.00 hours.’

  Luke collected what he needed from the van and he and Raoul loaded it into rucksacks and set off along the tracks. Raoul was one of the recent recruits, who had been co-opted on to the explosives team because he had been apprenticed to an electrician and pronounced himself adept at all kinds of wiring jobs. This was his first operation and Luke noticed that as they walked, he was glancing apprehensively around him. Twice he stopped abruptly and whispered ‘What was that?’

  Luke, listening, could hear nothing but the normal night-time sounds, but his companion’s behaviour worried him. It was plain that he was extremely frightened. Luke considered his own emotions; he was excited, keyed-up to a point of extreme tension, but he was not scared. There seemed to be nothing to be afraid of at that moment.

  As soon as they were clear of the station, Raoul said, ‘This will do, won’t it?’

  Luke looked around. There seemed to be no reason to go further. He lowered his rucksack.

  ‘OK. You start on that side. I’ll do this.’

  He began to unpack his gear, then stopped and looked up. Raoul was standing stock still, as if paralysed by fear.

  Luke said, ‘Come on, Raoul! The quicker we work, the sooner we can get out of here.’

  The other man cast frantic glances to one side and then the other.

  ‘It’s my guts!’ he whispered. ‘I can’t … I need…. Sorry!’ And with that, he made a dive for the side of the track, slithered down the embankment and disappeared among some bushes.

  Luke stayed completely still for several minutes, listening for any sound that might suggest that Raoul’s hasty departure had raised the alarm, but the night remained quiet. It was clear that Raoul had no intention of reappearing, so Luke set to work grimly. He had twice as much to do now, and enough time had been wasted. It crossed his mind that Raoul might be a traitor who had delibe
rately infiltrated the group, and might even now be alerting the local Milice to what was going on; but he had no grounds for assuming that, so he told himself that the sooner he got the job done, the less chance there was of being apprehended.

  He crouched beside the track, withdrew a lump of plastique from his rucksack and began to wedge it between the sleeper ties and the rail. Once this was complete, he took out a fog signal and attached it to the rail. This was a small explosive charge which would be detonated by the wheels of the engine. Its original purpose was to warn drivers that there was some hazard ahead, but in this case it would be linked to a length of Cordtex, which would set off the larger explosive charge under the rails. He had almost completed the work when he heard the faint crunch of approaching footsteps.

  ‘Raoul?’ he called softly.

  There was no response and the footsteps came closer. Luke jumped to his feet and grabbed his rifle.

  ‘Who’s there. Stop, or I fire!’

  The steps halted and a voice from the darkness said, ‘Take it easy. I’m on your side. I don’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Come here, where I can see you.’ Luke’s hands were shaking and he hoped that his voice did not betray his fear.

  The newcomer walked forward and in the light of his torch, which lay on the rails where he had been working, Luke made out a solidly built figure wearing the armband of the Gardes-voies.

  Luke said, ‘There’s nothing for you to do here. Push off, before you get your head blown off. My colleague will have you covered.’

  There was a soft chuckle. ‘No he won’t. I heard him crashing down the embankment and when I last saw him he was skedaddling back towards the town as fast as his legs would carry him. That’s what alerted me to your presence. Look, I meant it when I said I’m on your side.’

  ‘Oh yes? That’s why you’re wearing that armband, I suppose.’

  ‘This? You don’t think I’d really work for those bastards, do you? I’m a railwayman. I work in the marshalling yard at Decize. I belong to the union and we are all one hundred per cent behind the Resistance. We’ve no quarrel with you fellows blowing holes in the tracks, we just don’t fancy going up with them. So we patrol the tracks to keep an eye on what you are up to. Forewarned is forearmed. Right?’

  ‘I see your point,’ Luke said dubiously. ‘OK. You’ve seen what I’m doing. Now you can make yourself scarce.’

  The stranger looked down at the track.

  ‘Fog signals, eh? So you are not just aiming to blow up the track. Has it occurred to you that the first train through here in the morning will be packed with civilians going to work?’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ Luke said. ‘It’ll be a repair train going to make good the damage further up.’

  The man glanced over his shoulder. ‘Ah. So you’re not working alone. Now I get the picture. A repair train? OK, fair enough. But you do realize that you’re not laying that in the best place?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re not local, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not. If you were, you’d know that about 200 yards further on the railway crosses the River Trait. Set your charges there and with any luck the engine and the trucks it is pulling will end up in the river. Have you got any more of that stuff?’

  Raoul’s discarded rucksack lay where he had dropped it. ‘Yes,’ Luke said.

  ‘Come on then. I’ll show you.’

  The man picked up the rucksack and started down the track with it. Luke followed, his rifle at the ready. It was possible he was being led into an ambush, but his instinct told him otherwise. He remembered that some of the other Maquisards had told him that the railwaymen were supporters who could be relied on. After a short distance, the embankment fell away and he realized that they were on a bridge with the river below them. His companion walked to the middle of the bridge and stopped.

  ‘Here should do nicely. You get busy. I’ll keep watch.’

  Luke looked around him. The rails gleamed faintly in the moonlight along the length of the bridge. There was nowhere to hide there and to either side there was only the void. It was a very unlikely place for an ambush. He took the rucksack from the other man and crouched down to insert the plastic explosive. His hands were cold and still shaking slightly and it seemed to take a long time to connect up the charge and the detonator. In the middle of doing it a sudden thought caused him to freeze.

  ‘What?’ the railwayman asked.

  ‘I’ve just thought. The driver of the repair train will be a Frenchman, won’t he? And his fireman?’

  ‘I wondered if you’d thought about that.’ A pause, then in a softer tone. ‘Don’t you worry about that, lad. I told you why I’m doing this job. I know all the drivers back at the depot. I’ll find out who is going to drive the repair train and warn him. He and his mate can bail out over there, before the start of the bridge, and the engine will keep going under its own steam. You won’t have them on your conscience.’

  Luke looked up at him gratefully. ‘Thanks. I’m glad you came along.’ He finished connecting the charge and stood up. His watch told him that he had twenty minutes to get back to the rendezvous. ‘I’d better get going.’

  ‘Me, too.’ The man stuck out his hand. ‘Bonne chance, mon ami!’

  ‘Good luck to you, too,’ Luke replied. He shouldered the two now empty rucksacks and turned to walk away. After a few paces, he looked back. It was still possible that the stranger was only waiting for him to leave before dismantling his work; or that he intended to head straight for the nearest phone to alert the authorities. But he was striding away along the track, in no apparent hurry. Luke calculated mentally; in less than an hour, the time pencils attached to the other charges would go off. So even if the man intended to betray the whereabouts of the one on the bridge, there was no chance that the others would be found before they exploded. He could only hurry back and hope that everything would go according to plan.

  He set off as quickly as possible, keeping below the top of the embankment so that he did not present a target against the faint light from the sky. At the point where he had laid the first charge, he stopped and called softly, ‘Raoul?’

  There was no response. He called again, twice, then went on. The railwayman had said he saw Raoul heading for the town, but perhaps he was only making a detour in order to get back to the rendezvous. If not, the rest of the group could be in the hands of the Gestapo by now, but there had been no shooting and he did not believe that they could have been rounded up without at least one bullet being fired. Nevertheless, it was sensible to approach carefully. Heart thumping, he climbed the fence beside the track and edged his way up to the point on the road where they had left the vehicles. To his intense relief, a shadowy group of figures was standing near them. He drew breath and whistled softly, the musical phrase that they used as a recognition signal. Gregoire’s voice came quietly from the group.

  ‘Luke? Come on. Where the hell have you been? We began to think you’d got lost. Where’s Raoul?’

  Luke lifted his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. He got into a blue funk and ran off, just as we were about to start laying the charges. I thought he might have come back here.’

  ‘Merde! No, we haven’t seen him. Did you manage to lay the charges anyway?’

  ‘Yes, but.…’

  ‘But what? No, never mind. Tell me later. If that little swine Raoul has gone rushing off to tell the authorities, they could be on us at any moment. Into the cars, everyone. Let’s get out of here.’

  The men scrambled back into the two vehicles and a minute later they were heading for the comforting shelter of the forest. As before, when they were well away, Gregoire stopped at a vantage point where they could look back into the valley.

  ‘Any minute now,’ he said, looking at his watch.

  As he spoke there, was a bright flash and the roar of an explosion.

  ‘That’s the turntable,’ he said, with grim satisfaction.

  The
big explosion was followed by a series of smaller ones.

  ‘There go the points,’ said Alphonse.

  ‘I wish we could see mine go up,’ Luke said wistfully.

  Gregoire squeezed his arm. ‘Never mind. I’ll make sure someone goes to check tomorrow and I’ll let you know the result. You were going to say something about it. You did set the charges correctly?’

  ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure about that,’ Luke said. ‘It was where I set them that I wanted to tell you.’ As briefly as possible, he described his encounter with the railway guard and the advice he had given him.

  ‘Of course!’ Gregoire said when he finished. ‘I should have thought of that.’

  When they got back to the camp, Luke’s euphoria gave way to a sense of emptiness. When he had returned from previous missions, Christine had always been there to welcome him and ply him with questions; now she was gone. They had parted that afternoon in an offhand manner that was partly the product of English restraint, but largely due to Luke’s disapproval of her decision and her determination to go ahead. Now he felt he had been ungenerous and wished he had given her a warmer send off.

  Next day, Gregoire arrived back from one of his unexplained absences and slapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Total success! The bridge collapsed and the engine and two trucks ended up in the river. It will take Jerry days to repair the railway. So well done!’

  Chapter 19

  As the days passed, Christine settled into her new life at the Beau Rivage. Mme Bolu only required her to work in the evenings, when dinner had to be prepared and served to the little group of permanent residents, so she was free during the day. Jean Claude dropped off her bike on the second evening, so from then on she spent most of her time cycling around the area. Madame played her part with enthusiasm, inventing errands that would take her to different places, as required by her new duties.

  Every morning, she was careful to leave a note with that day’s date and her initial in the tobacco tin in the ruined building and sometimes there would be a slip of paper waiting for her: ‘Can we meet in Brassy tomorrow?’; ‘I have to go to Ouroux. Can you meet me there?’