Shaun Clarke - Night Fighters in France

‘Mad bastards!’ Callaghan muttered as he watched the jeep disappear around the first bend in the track, heading into the forest.

‘Lorrimer’s just having some sport,’ Greaves replied, grinning. ‘They’ll be all right.’

In the jeep, as Lorrimer slowed it down to a less suicidal speed, Jacko spread his legs and continued to steady himself by holding on to the grips of the twin Vickers. ‘Very good, Sarge!’ he bawled above the roaring of the vehicle. ‘A real smooth getaway!’

‘Designed to wake you up,’ Lorrimer replied. ‘And clearly it did.’

‘Bloody right,’ Rich confirmed, likewise holding on tight to his machine-gun.

‘Very quick! Most admirable!’ Pierre added, trying out his English. ‘We will be there in no time. Take this track, s’il vous plaît .’

Following the direction indicated by the Frenchman, Lorrimer turned off the main road and took the narrower track heading east, winding through dense, gloomy forest. The narrowness of the track and its many bends, and the overhanging branches of trees, slowed him down considerably, but he would have gone slower anyway to enable Jacko and Rich to thoroughly scan the forest for any sign of German snipers. In this task Pierre was even more of a help, knowing the forest intimately, but no movement was evident among the dense trees.

Ten minutes later they were, Pierre loudly informed them, approaching the next village.

‘Slow down when I signal,’ he managed to say in a mixture of French, English and sign language. ‘Stop, please, when I tell you.’

Lorrimer slowed down and stopped entirely when Pierre, at a bend in the narrow track around which they could not see, dropped his right hand with the palm face down. When Pierre indicated that they were going to walk the rest of the way to the village, Lorrimer executed a difficult turn on the narrow track, so that the jeep was facing back the way it had come. Having cut the engine and applied the handbrake, he picked up his 9mm Sten sub-machine-gun and jumped to the ground.

‘You, too,’ he said to Pierre, then turned to Jacko and Rich to say, as Pierre jumped down beside him: ‘You two keep manning those guns. If you hear us running back – or hear or see anything else indicating that we’re being pursued by Jerry – get ready to open fire. Understood?’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ both men replied, simultaneously swinging their machine-guns around on their swivel mounts until the barrels were facing the track at the rear of the jeep.

‘Good. Let’s go, Pierre.’

Lorrimer and the Maquisard walked away from the jeeps and turned the bend in the track, both with their weapons unslung and at the ready. At the other side of the bend, the track ran straight to the tiny village, and gave a partial view of the sides of several stone cottages with red-slate roofs. The village, Lorrimer noted, was only about five hundred yards away and smoke was coming out of the chimneys.

Using sign language, he indicated that he and Pierre should leave the track and advance the rest of the way through the trees. This they did, encountering no one and soon emerging near the backs of the cottages.

From the open window of one of the cottages, they could hear a crackling radio on which someone was speaking in French. Though not familiar with the language, Lorrimer understood enough to realize that he was hearing news of the Allied liberation of the country. The advance seemed to be going well.

Stepping up to the house and glancing through the open window, Lorrimer saw that the kitchen was filled with people, all seated around a huge pine table, drinking wine or calvados, smoking cigarettes and. listening with obvious pleasure to the news on the radio. That they were doing so was a clear indication that the Germans had already left.

Sighing with relief, but still not taking any chances, Lorrimer checked the rear of the other cottages in the row, and found similar scenes inside, so he let Pierre lead him out into the village’s only street.

The street was no more than a flattened earth track running between two straight rows of stone cottages and a grocer’s, animal feed store and saddlery, bakery, dairy, blacksmith’s, barber’s shop, one bar and, at the far end, a church, graveyard and school. Many of the locals – mainly farmers and their wives, most surprisingly plump and red-cheeked given the spartan existence they must have led during the German occupation – were sitting either on their doorsteps or on rush chairs outside the houses, taking in the sun, eating and, like those Lorrimer had seen in the kitchens, celebrating with wine or calvados.

When those nearest to Lorrimer and Pierre saw them, they came rushing up excitedly to embrace them, kiss them on both cheeks or shake their hands, and then plied them with bread, cheese, alcohol, all the while asking about the Allies’ progress. After refusing the wine and telling them as much as he knew, Lorrimer asked if all the Germans had left the village.

‘They left two behind as snipers,’ he was informed in English by a solemn-faced, gaunt man wearing an FFI armband. ‘But they didn’t last long.’ Straightening his shoulders and grinning, he turned away to point along the street. Looking in that direction, Lorrimer saw two German troopers sprawled on their backs in the dirt, their helmets missing – probably taken as souvenirs – and their heads a mess of blood and exposed bone where they had been shot. The FFI man patted the pistol strapped to his waist and smiled again at Lorrimer. ‘Me,’ he said proudly. ‘I killed both of them. There are no more Boche here.’

‘Good,’ Lorrimer said. ‘We intend bringing our men through here, so please send someone back to warn us if any Germans return.’

‘Naturally,’ the man said, clearly relishing his role as protector of the hamlet.

Lorrimer thanked the man and walked back along the village street, with Pierre beside him. ‘A good man,’ Pierre said. ‘He hates the Germans. And those who fraternize.’ They were passing a crowd that had gathered around the barber’s shop and walked over to see what was happening. An attractive young woman of no more than twenty was having her head shaved by the village barber while the excited crowd, mostly women and children, looked on, laughing and occasionally spitting at the weeping woman. ‘She slept with a German soldier,’ Pierre explained, smiling brightly at Lorrimer. ‘A collaborator bitch.’

‘Probably just in love,’ Lorrimer said, turning away in disgust.

Pierre shrugged. ‘In love…a whore…whatever – she still collaborated. That’s all we care about here.’

‘Let’s get back,’ Lorrimer said.

They returned via the narrow, winding forest track to the jeep, where Jacko and Rich were keeping the bend covered in silence.

‘The village has been cleared,’ Lorrimer told them, ‘so let’s get back to the squadron.’

‘They must have heard you coming,’ Jacko said.

‘And got scared shitless,’ Rich added.

‘Any more fancy remarks and you’ll be walking back,’ Lorrimer said as he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.

‘These lips are sealed,’ Jacko said.

‘Same here, Sarge,’ Rich added.

‘Glad to hear it, lads,’ said the sergeant, waiting until Pierre was sitting in the seat beside him before releasing the handbrake and heading back to the first village.

Twenty minutes later they emerged from the gloomy forest and drove into the centre of the sunlit village, where Lorrimer told Jacko and Rich to remain in the jeep until he had reported to Callaghan and Greaves. The two captains were sitting in the shade of a tree near the remains of the fountain, studying a map.

Though disgruntled at being prevented from again fraternizing with the pretty village girls, Jacko and Rich received some consolation when they hurried up to the jeep, gave them more bread, cheese and wine and began flirting with them. Shaking his head in mock exasperation, but unable to conceal a grin, Lorrimer ignored them while he crossed to the square, accompanied by Pierre, and knelt in the dirt beside Callaghan and Greaves.