The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

about tonight’s drop? I’m more worried about security than the guns.”
    “Some of your men are not so greedy as Berger here. At least they understand we’re on the same side.”
    “You two sort it out between you. I’m going to check the sentries and the fires. The plane will be here anytime now.” Manners shouldered his Sten, checked the spare magazines in his pouches, and left them to it, angry at the endless politicking. He wondered if it would be the same in an England under occupation, different organizations for the conservatives and the socialists, and another lot for the liberals. And probably some more for different football clubs and county cricket teams. But there’d be no parachute drops for a British resistance, not with Canada and the U.S.A. so far away. They wouldn’t even be able to communicate by radio. Unless there were submarines offshore …
    The sound of aircraft engines stopped his wandering thoughts. Close enough. He lit the first signal fire, saw the next ones ignite, and as the roar of the bomber on its first reconnaissance run drowned out everything else, he waited for the plane to make its turn into the wind and for the parachutes to start spilling down. There was always a marker assigned to each container, and Berger had them posted downwind, where the parachutes invariably dropped. As the first one tumbled from the belly of the lumbering Halifax, whipping as the canopy opened, he began kicking the loose earth over his fire. They always made him nervous, these telltale beacons. A good even drop, holding steady as the plane’s momentum died, they began to drift downwind, one after the other. The markers were running, and he heard the engine of the tractor cough as it began to lumber down toward the containers …
    That was no tractor! Even before the thudding of the cannon began he knew the German armored cars had caught them. Running instinctively toward two of his men who seemed frozen in surprise he pushed them down and got them firing. They just needed telling what to do. There was only one German cannon firing so far, and no flashes of gunfire from infantry. The cars had raced in too fast for their support troops. Crouching and running toward the village he ran, literally, into Albert. He knew horses.
    “Get the carts loaded and get those guns down to young François. Cut the horses loose if they’re shot and push the buggers. Get the others moving. We can still get those guns. I’ll take care of the armored car.”
    Firing short bursts from his Sten as he ran, as much to identify himself to his men as for any good it might do, he sprinted and rolled to his left, where a Bren was firing in steady, controlled bursts. That was Lespinasse, a trained man who’d been in the Alpine troops. He wouldn’t need telling to cover the withdrawal. He was changing barrels when Manners flung himself beside him, and shouted, “Covering fire—I’ll go in from the left.”
    “Here—you’ll need this.” Lespinasse took a Gammon bomb from the haversack at his side. Manners clutched it to his chest, tried to control his breathing, counted to five as Lespinasse shifted position and locked in a new magazine, and began his sprint as the Bren opened up again, sounding puny against the bark of the cannon. Still no German infantry, the fools. They’d sprung the trap too soon.
    The armored car was moving cautiously out of the village, one of its crew squatting on the rear deck, braced against the curling stanchion that held the aerial, and firing a Schmeisser in random bursts at the gaps between the houses. Two small fires still burned where some of the boys had tried using Molotovs. The Gammon was awkward to throw, four pounds of plastic wrapped in tarpaulin and attached to an impact fuse. He sprayed the back of the car with his Sten, saw the crew man fall, set his gun down, and took the Gammon in the palm of his hand. Think cricket, he told himself, a long throw to the wicket keeper to stop that third run. It doesn’t have to hit the stumps; it’s a big target. He threw it hard but even as it left his hand he knew it was falling short. He picked up his gun and ran out of the village, fumbling for a new magazine as the German infantry turned up, and the first crump of mortar shells began falling between him and the drop zone.
    There were two sounds from the desert war that he’d never forget. There was the whip-crack of the high-velocity 88 cannon, which came with the instant relief