The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

tanks to recapture the liberated Périgord. He died for France and we are very proud of him and will never forget him.
    Lydia read it again, and drank her coffee. So the Englishman and Malrand got the guns away and hid them in a cave. And Communists tried to steal the guns. What a drama must lie behind those simple words. So there was a cave, and from the tale of Little Jeannot the cave was near la Ferrassie.
    “Well, that settles it,” she said, rising. “Let’s go to la Ferrassie. The cave is obviously near there.”
    “This is awful,” said Manners, tapping Margueritte’s essay on the table. “I don’t like the sound of these bad things he says my father made them do to provoke the Germans. And this business about the Communists trying to steal the guns at the cave sounds ominous.” His brow was furrowed and his eyes were throughtful, but he rose decisively from his chair and Lydia watched, both sobered and fascinated, as this man she had just slept with visibly set his jaw and girded himself for action. It was alien, she thought, but distinctly exciting.

    They parked the Jaguar at la Ferrassie, on a small clearing off the Rouffignac road, where a green metal grill protected the earth beneath a large overhang of smooth rock, and Manners took a small collapsible spade from the trunk of the car. There was not much to see. The archaeologists’ diggings had been filled in, the ancient skeletons moved. Even to Lydia, it was a good site. There was a spring with fresh water, shelter from the elements, and a pleasant stretch of grass in front of the shelter.
    “It would drip a lot in the rain. And no protection from your enemies, but I’ve slept in worse,” said Manners. “Horst and I explored this gully behind the shelter pretty thoroughly. We went all the way up to the top of the rock, and then cast around on the other side, trying to keep to a grid pattern so we missed nothing. We concentrated on the bits Horst said looked promising for caves from the geological survey, but we didn’t find much. There wasn’t much time for more than a cursory look at the far side of the road, so I suggest we start off by finding that cart track Albert used to get down from Cumont. I marked it on the map, and it looks as if it has been paved since the war.”
    They left the car and set off up a winding, narrow road, whose center was crumbling with thrusting vegetation, and climbed steadily through thick woods to a plateau with a magnificent view over fold after fold of ridges. They strolled along a dirt track and into a field that stretched away to a small village dominated by a circular water tower. Cumont. This would have been the dropping zone. And if Albert got away down the track they had just climbed, the Germans had presumably come from the opposite direction. This was hopeless, thought Lydia, breaking off to admire a restored farm with a handsome pigeon tower, swimming pool, and the distant sounds of tennis balls being hit. A Mercedes with German license plates was parked in the driveway. Germans, here. How far away the war must already be, she thought, unless you had reason to relive it. The sheer amount of ground was far bigger than it had seemed on the map. Cumont seemed a long way off.
    “Now we know Albert got down to the rendezvous point, and there was no cave there, so it can’t be that way,” said Manners. “And since the Germans came from over there we can rule out that direction. And we know from Little Jeannot that the cart was empty when he brought the horses to la Ferrassie, so they must have unloaded it down there. So what we have to find is the other way down to the road. Through those woods.”
    He took her hand, and strode off along the track that led toward the Mercedes, and helped her over a gate into a wide meadow. Lydia was glad she was wearing slacks and training shoes, however unflattering. Manners had some battered green Wellingtons with his trousers tucked into their tops. The sound of tennis balls faded as they dropped down the slope, Manners with map and compass in hand. A formidable wood loomed ahead, and he marched them into it, stopping to check his bearing. Under the shade of the woods, the ground was soft, almost boggy.
    “Oh good,” said Manners. “It looks like we’ve found a stream. That’s the obvious way down, and our best starting point.”
    They pressed on downhill, arms up to protect their faces from twigs and branches, stepping carefully over patches of brambles