The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

polite I am being to our grumbling American, difficult as it is.”
    “McPhee’s all right,” Manners said. “He was just cold and tired and irritable this morning. So was I.”
    “That I understand,” said François. “Let’s hope that is all it is. But I get the feeling that he likes needling me.”
    “So do I,” grinned Manners, to take the sting out of the remark. “So would anybody who knows you. You’re rich, a famous writer, handsome, and a war hero. Don’t be surprised if the rest of us mere mortals try to take you down a peg or two, François. If you were as dumb and ugly as me and Berger here, you’d have no trouble.”
    “You see why I like this cunning Englishman?” François smiled at his brother. “Even when he disciplines me, he flatters me.”
    “He didn’t flatter me,” said Berger flatly.
    “Well, you haven’t seen him fight yet. I did, in North Africa. He has our French élan, and their German thoroughness. We’re lucky to have him on our side.”
    “We had good teachers,” said Manners, making a joke of it. “We’ve been fighting you bloody Frenchmen since 1066.”
    Berger and Manners walked down the path to the road and crossed the rails to use the cover of the trees to reach the building. They had fifty yards to go when Berger stopped and turned and looked grimly at the Englishman.
    “He calls himself Marat, and I don’t trust him very far,” said Berger quietly. “He used to be a railway man, but went off to fight in Spain with the Communists. He came back to France in 1939, and then disappeared. If you ask me, I think he went to Moscow. He came back in late 1941, after Hitler invaded Russia. He claims to have men everywhere, in Brive and Périgueux and Limoges, even Bordeaux. I think what he has mostly is his old friends on the railways and in the rail unions. And a lot of Spaniards, refugees from Franco who fled here when the fascists won. His information has been good on the rail system and convoys. He wants arms, but there’s no sign of their using them against the Germans. On the other hand Hilaire said I had to take you to him and arrange supplies. So I follow orders. I won’t speak much.”
    “He and François are old enemies?”
    “He and François have never met. They just hate each other on principle. If they met, they’d start to argue. François calls himself a socialist—they hate the Reds more than anybody. They’d probably try to kill each other.”
    “Does this Marat have access to a radio?”
    Berger shrugged. “Not one of ours. He always dealt with your F Section, that special French section of SOE you used to deny having, the one that deals with Communists and others who oppose de Gaulle. I presume he got supplied by one of their networks in the north. You probably know more of this than I do.”
    “So why does he want to meet me?”
    “Because he wants more arms and explosives, to stockpile for his precious revolution. And you heard Hilaire back at the château. London wants the Communists supplied. But they are not using my drop zones nor my people. Anything you want to set up for them, you have to do it alone.”
    “So why have you set up this meeting? If you wanted to keep me away from him, you just had to say the meeting place was unsafe.”
    Berger eyed him steadily. “You don’t know much about the secret world, do you?”
    “I suppose not.” Manners felt very small and rather lost, as if the war he had been fighting had taken place in some altogether different dimension. But he put his question again. “Why are you helping me to meet him?”
    “First, Hilaire told me to do it, and I trust Hilaire. Second, if any arms are going to the Communists, at least I’ll know when, where, and who has them. Third, even if this Marat won’t use his supplies against the Germans, more and more of his people will know he has them and will want him to use them. Some of them are French first, Communists second.”
    “This is a vipers’ nest you people have built for yourselves.”
    “True, but we had some help from Hitler. And from Stalin.” Berger closed his eyes and grimaced. When he opened them his eyes were clear but curiously empty. “It’s time you met Stalin’s representative in this part of France.”

    Marat was of average height, thin and balding, wearing round spectacles and smoking black tobacco in an old and much-charred wooden pipe. A beret and scarf and cloth shopping bag were on the battered table at which he sat