The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

Clothilde’s parents had for her. The love he had for Clothilde’s mother, even after she told him of what she had been forced to do. And finally, the love of Clothilde for her mother.”
    “So in the end, love does conquer all,” said Manners pensively. They were dining alone at a simple restaurant that overlooked the Vézère. “It’s a very moving story, Lydia, and you tell it marvelously well. I feel almost as though I had been there, but in a way I’m glad I wasn’t. Clothilde seems such a formidable woman, it must have been a shock to see her in such a raw moment.”
    “It’s not something that we often see, in peacetime.” She gestured vaguely at the river, the placid calm of it all. “It’s a shock to learn what happened here, in these picturesque villages, within living memory.”
    “It was a shock in Northern Ireland, to see all that hatred taking place in streets that had Woolworth’s and Barclays Banks and familiar British cars,” he said. “It was that kind of furniture, the streetscapes, the advertisements, the sound of the BBC, that made you think you were at home when you weren’t. Horror amid the familiar and normal things is the worst horror of all.”
    He paused and filled her glass. “And I must confess that there were times, when I was called out to see what had happened to one of my patrols in Ulster that had been blown up by a land mine, or saw one of my men shot down by a sniper in Bosnia when he was trying to keep the peace, when I felt that blind, terrible fury that probably consumed the Germans here. It needed all my training, all the codes of decency and discipline that a professional army tries to live by, to stop myself from reacting like a beast, like some SS thug.”
    Lydia looked at him solemnly, feeling that she had just been privileged to hear a very rare and private confession, and she admired him for it. This was not a man who would ever want to admit that his self-discipline had ever come close to bending. It was not something she would ever care to admit herself. Normally, their reticence was something she liked in the English, and she felt touched that he had chosen to break it with her. She nodded in sympathy.
    “As often as not, that barbarism is what they’re trying to provoke you into doing.
    Vengeance is self-defeating.” He learned back and took a photocopy from his jacket pocket. “Let me tell you what I mean.”
    “Listen to this. It’s from Horst’s research file, a message from the commander of the Das Reich division, General Heinz Lammerding, to his commander at 58th Corps. He sent it from quite near here on June tenth, the day he had initially been expected by the British and Americans to arrive with his tanks in Normandy. I’ll translate it as I go. ‘The region Souillac-Figeac-Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand is in the control of tenacious and well-armed bands, totally in the hands of terrorists. German outposts and garrisons are cut off and in many cases besieged, often reduced to a single company of effectives, and French government forces have been totally paralyzed by the terrorists. The paralysis of the German positions is absolutely scandalous. Without a brutal and determined repression, the situation in this region will become a threat whose scale has not yet been comprehended. A new Communist state is being born here, a state that governs without opposition and that coordinates its attacks. The task of eliminating this danger must be transferred to locally based divisions. In their fifth year of war, the armored divisions are too good for that.’ General Lammerding sent that message just a few hours before his men burned Oradour.”
    “He certainly delivered his brutal and determined repression. And he actually said that his armored divisions were too good for such a job?” Lydia inquired. “Good God.”
    “Yes, he did. And he was right. It wasn’t their business to go round chasing guerrillas or burning women and children in churches. Their job was to get to Normandy and throw the Allies back into the sea. So here you have an experienced general, knowing what he should do, and then through anger or vengeance or sheer frustration, he fails to do it. General Lammerding wastes time and energy. His tanks don’t leave Périgueux until June fifteenth, eight days after he was first ordered to Normandy. Some of his units don’t get there until June thirtieth. One of the best military formations in Europe arrives piecemeal, and is