The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

which I witnessed at the cave at la Ferrassie, outside Le Bugue, on the night of June 9-10, 1944, as a captain in the British Army attached to the Special Operations Executive and working with the French Resistance. Along with Colonel Malrand of the Free French forces, and Captain James McPhee of the United States Army, we had gone to the cave to recover a cache of arms which we had stored there after German forces interrupted a parachute drop at Cumont nearby. I found the cave by chance, after German mortar fire knocked down a tree and opened the entrance. The guns were being appropriated by a leader of the FTP Resistance organization known as Marat, a devout Communist who had fought in Spain. Marat was accompanied by a Russian agent and two Spanish Communists. Determined to appropriate the guns, they attacked us, and in the subsequent shooting, Lieutenant McPhee was killed along with a French Resistance fighter attached to Colonel Malrand’s unit known to me only as Florien. Marat and his team were all killed. We left the bodies in the cave, sealed it with explosives, and took the weapons to Terrasson, where they were used in the attempt to deny the road to the SS Das Reich division. The cave was found to contain a number of remarkable wall paintings, probably many thousands of years old. In view of the highly charged political situation at that time in the war, Colonel Malrand and I took the view that it would be irresponsible to the Allied war effort to publicize the murder of an American officer by Communist militants, including a Russian agent, in their attempt to steal weapons. We took this decision on our own responsibility, and now make this written statement to affirm our joint wish that the existence of the cave and its remarkable paintings, along with the tragic events of that night, should be made publicly known after our deaths.
    Signed, John Philip Manners
    Witnessed, François Malrand Hervé Lespinasse
    Manners then unfolded the second sheet of paper from his father’s letter, a rough sketch map of the cave’s location, showing Cumont, la Ferrassie, and the track between them.
    “I believe we must have come very close to it,” he said, handing the map to Lydia with a smile.
    “Tell me about the paintings,” said Clothilde.
    “I imagine you’ll see them soon enough,” said Malrand. “But you will be gratified to learn that your theory is right. La Marche cave is not the only place where prehistoric man left images of human faces. It contains portraits, one of a man, the other of a woman. They are extraordinary. I have never been able to forget them. There is also a landscape, with animals depicted among trees and rocks and a sky, which I found very beautiful.”
    “I suppose I can understand why the two of you decided to keep the cave and the shootings a secret during the war when the Russians were still our allies,” said Lydia. “But why afterward, during the cold war?”
    “Politics, I’m afraid. I had embarked on a political career, and with French Communists getting twenty percent of the vote, I would not have had much future as a Gaullist who had shot some. And then there was the complication of the dead American. And for your father, my dear Major, a career in the British Army would not have been helped by getting involved in that kind of French political mess. It was not very brave, but I still think it was wise. We decided to let sleeping dogs lie. It was what you Americans call a cover-up.”
    “And now?” said Clothilde.
    “I’m not sure,” said Malrand. “I think I’ll leave it up to you. You can open the cave, publicize the paintings, revolutionize all our theories about art and prehistoric man, and provoke an interesting political drama, perhaps even a crisis here in France. The newspapers and the opposition will have a wonderful time. And I suppose it will increase the value of my memoirs.”
    “What do you want to happen?” Lydia asked him. She felt somehow that there was something missing from the story, something on which she could not put her finger, but that did not ring true. Malrand seemed too comfortable with all this, like someone retiring tactically to a reliable second line of defense after the first one had broken. At the same time, if he were getting away with something, she didn’t really mind. She had developed a soft spot for the old boy.
    “I have been thinking about that for a long time,” said Malrand. “I want two things, and the first is