The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

SOE’s security.
    Just after dawn, they had left the barn and driven south in the small truck over a country road, crossed a larger road when the coast was clear, and darted across a small bridge and railway line into a thick apple orchard. They left the truck hidden, and walked half a mile through wooded country until they reached what had once been a formal garden, laid out with gravel paths, with a small château at the end of the drive. The shutters on the narrow turret windows were all open, which Berger said meant all was well. They went into a side door, which led to the cellars smelling of oak and long-spilled wine, where a middle-aged man with a mustache and Sten gun nodded deferentially to Berger, and gave a vast grin when he saw François. He gestured at a table where a bottle of wine and some water stood beside a big loaf of country bread, some apples, dry sausage, and a large cheese.
    “Strange bread,” said Jack, swallowing a mouthful of the yellow-brown dough.
    “Made from chestnuts, which is the flour the peasants used around here for centuries,” said François. “Now there is a shortage of wheat again because the Germans take it. So people have gone back to the old ways. Try the sausage. It’s sanglier, wild boar.”
    Another door opened and a woman came in quickly, tall and gaunt with gray hair and a distracted look. François leaped to his feet and hurried across the room to embrace her. She began to cry quietly as she looked at him, patted his cheek, rubbed the rough British serge of his uniform. Berger joined them and kissed her on both cheeks. Jack suddenly realized that this châeau was François’s family home, a frightening risk to take however little time Berger had been given to set up the meeting.
    “My mother,” François introduced her. Jack stood, somehow constrained to bow. But then a short, squat man with a round head and a dimple in his chin followed her into the cellar, moving fast but lightly on the toes of his feet like a boxer. His hair was short and neat, his gray trousers pressed, and his shoes polished. But for the open collar, he looked like a prosperous lawyer. Behind him, another man came in wearing a dark suit and carrying a revolver. He closed the door and leaned against it.
    “Hilaire,” said the short man, putting out his hand to the woman. “Madame, I thank you for the hospitality.” His French was good, but with an accent that Jack could not place. Very northern, perhaps Belgian. He moved to the table, took an apple, and sat down.
    “You ought to know I was against your coming so soon,” he said to Jack and McPhee, his eyes swiveling to take in François. “But since you’re here, we have to make you useful.” He turned to the man leaning against the door and beckoned him over.
    “Call this man Yves. He’s a foreman at an aircraft propeller factory in Figeac. They turn out three hundred variable-pitch propellers each week for the Luftwaffe. It’s a small plant, so the RAF haven’t much of a hope of hitting it. Yves reckons he can do the job with some small explosive charges on a couple of key machine tools they brought in from Germany, but sometimes they are searched going in and coming out. I want you to give him some plastic, some detonators, and show him how to use them. Today, just as soon as we are done.”
    He finished his apple, sipped at some water, and took out a clean white handkerchief to pat his lips. “I suppose I should have said welcome to France. And thank you for bringing me in another radio operator. My own is getting tired and I’m worried about her security,” he went on. “Then I want you out of those uniforms today. We can’t have you wandering around dressed like that. It’s insane, whatever London might say.” He gestured at Christophe. “Berger here—and I want you to call him nothing but Berger from now on, because that’s how I know him and London knows him—is taking you on first. He’ll get the uniforms back to you when you start training his boys. Then you’ll be shipped back down to my area to do the same. Again, you must travel in civilian clothes.”
    “In the meantime, we’ll be sending people to you for special explosives training. We’re going to cut every railway line and every telephone line between Toulouse and Paris in the course of this spring, and keep them closed until the invasion. Berger has the list of targets, and the sooner you hit them the better. I want the first two taken out