WWII Vets?

[Stewart R King]

Editor's note:
The pseudonymous author of the following war yarn
is Leroy Mafeking, an OSS Jedburgh team member who
worked with the Maquis of the Durance Valley in
southern France from December 1943 until they were
overrun by American forces in the late summer of
1944, as described. He accompanied the French
Forces of the Interior troops up into Alsace, then
worked with OSS through the rest of the war in
Europe.

This material is all original, not an "extensive quote"
or otherwise extracted from previously published or
electronically distributed material.

GLORY ONCE SEEN

"The glory of war." The phrase annoyed him: how
could anyone have invented so contradictory a
remark? What was glorious about killing people
and destroying property?

Surely nobody who had ever been in the killing
zone of a war could think of it as glorious. They
never talked casually to a man about the look or
the ground in front -- and the, when he didn't
answer, turned to find that something had taken
off half of his head. They never saw a rifle
thrust muzzle down into the soft soil of a grave,
where the helmet hung on the upended rifle butt
would tell the passing Graves Registration detail
whether the corpse underneath was a job for them.
Shakespeare's common soldier, talking in the night
before Agincourt, had a clear view: "I'm afeared
there are few die well that die in battle." So
those who talked of glory in war probably came no
closer to the reality than reading the inscription
on a marble tomb: "Here rests in honored glory..."

Marcus Tullius Cicero is reported to have written
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria more." When he
wrote it, he was probably in no danger of having
to do any of that sweet and proper dying he
praised. Also, that was long ago, when men wore
shining armor and followed bright banners.
Anatole France wrote a satire on French history,
where penguins become men recapitulate his
nation's history. At one point, a lame veteran-
penguin tells a traveler how their penguin-
Napoleon gave glory to the land. The visitor
points out that the leader did not seem to have
given freely: Penguinia and its inhabitants had
paid dearly for what they received. To this
commonsensical remark, the ancien-combatant
penguin has a superb reply: "La gloire, monsieur
ne se paye jamais trop cher!" (Glory is never too
expensive!)

Afar in days and distance, far off and long ago:
such indeed were the essentials of "la gloire."
As the French word drifted across his memory, he
thought of the line of the Marseillaise: "le jour
de gloire est arrive" (the day of glory has
arrived)

Only then did he remember that he had seen a day
of glory in war. That summer of 1944 was long
ago, just as the French Alps were far from the
Oregon Cascades. A single day only, but when it
came he had identified it and lived in its
reflected gleam.

The driver halted his jeep well below the skyline.
As soon as his three passengers had started
forward, he backed and half-turned the short,
squat vehicle. That way, they would be ready to
start back on short notice if anything looked
suspicious about the small village ahead. His
passengers agreed that the village was unoccupied,
but a quick, discreet look might prevent an error
that would be fatal for all four of them.

While he waited, the driver checked the jeep's
odometer, adding another figure to the road report
already forming in his mind. Beside the figure
was a note: "Adequate defilade for hull-down view
of village to north." he pushed back his helmet
to cool his forehead, then pulled it off for use
as a fan. Where sweat had not darkened his hair,
he looked blonder than most of the Germans they
had rounded up in the town behind him. The crop
of blonde supermen was a bit thin in southern
France that year.

His passengers had fanned out: the tallest of
them, Jean-Pierre, had already halted and was
checking the terrain ahead. Most likely it was no
different from the dry, sun-baked fields and
pasture land around them, but Jean-Pierre would
notice anything unusual; he had referred to it as
"mon village."

Off to the left, Marcel the school-teacher was
raising his rifle, not to fire but to peer through
its telescopic sight. On turning up that morning
with the Resistance people, he had identified
himself as an "ancien chasseur." Here in the
foothills of the Alps that surely placed him in
the mountain infantry. Most likely a sniper at
that, assuming he brought that rifle along when he
parted company with his unit. He looked to be
somewhere in his forties, so it could have been
either war. A long-jawed man, clean-shaven and
going bald, with heavy-rimmed glasses to give him
a somewhat owlish look. He wore a beret, pulling
it down to one side in chasseur-alpin fashion.
Not like the Basques, inventors of the beret.
They put them on straight, then pull any extra
material forward to form a sort of bill above the
eyebrows.

The third man was sweeping the ground through
binoculars, the small 6x35 kind the French
favored. He could have been a German youth in his
stout mountaineering boots, knee-length woolen
socks, and gray shorts that looked like
lederhosen. Moreover, his weapon was regular
Wehrmacht issue, one of those quick-firing machine-
pistols called Schmeissers by the Germans and
"burp guns" by the GI's. The bandoleer across his
chest was heavy with spare clips; the young man
called Le Mirage was certainly ready for a fight
if one started. He directed the local Resistance
people, as "adjoint" (assistant? deputy? -- the
meaning was unclear for the moment), to some chief
who remained invisible.

At their daybreak meeting, the driver introduced
himself as "Leroy", a reasonable adaptation of the
name on his dog-tags. He dropped that handy
custom a few weeks later, on learning that a
blacklist found in a Gefeldpo office listed his
full and correct name with the notation "Hold and
Report". Clearly the Secret Field Police wanted
to talk to him. He could guess why and he had no
interest in talking to them. Thereafter, he never
went into a forward area without clearing his
pockets and equipment of anything bearing his real
name. He still wore dog-tags, of course; it would
have been conspicuous not to. The name and serial
number on those tags would have mystified any
level of the U.S. Army's record bureaux.

Jean-Pierre came back first. He climbed into the
rear seat, settling himself somewhat awkwardly,
his long legs spread out and his upper body bent
forward. He could have spent his entire adult
life leaning down to speak; in a land of short
people, Jean-Pierre was noticeably over six feet.
His corduroy trousers and collarless shirt were
the indeterminate color of garments long worn and
seldom washed. He had shaved, possibly a week
ago, but there was no indication he had washed his
face since then. The only thing clean about him
was the long-barreled shotgun he carried tucked
under his arm. He lived by farming a parcel of
land west of the village. Marcel added a
reference to marvelous skills as a rabbit hunter
who produced game untouched by shot. The
implication of snares and poaching passed without
challenge, while Jean-Pierre waved a grubby paw as
though shooing away a persistent fly. He reported
everything calm, adding that he could walk into
the village as on any other day.

Marcel, the teacher-sniper, nodded confirmation as
he climbed in on the other side. "A few people
around, just as would be normal on a summer
afternoon. I looked for wheel tracks, nothing
heavier than a farm cart."

The final report came from Le Mirage. "Some
children off to the right are playing on and
around some old stone walls." The stocky young
man took his previous place in the front seat,
with one foot braced outside on the jeep's tiny
running board. He learned fast, this one;
yesterday he'd never seen a jeep, and now he was
riding one just the way the recon cav did. Maybe
it took a half-second off the time needed to jump
out in case of sudden enemy fire. That happened
at times; in any case, it looked dramatic.

The driver slipped on his helmet and began to turn
the jeep. Beside him, Le Mirage watched closely
to see how the gears were operated. "If children
are out, it must be safe. We'll go on; I'll cross
the ridge quickly, as I did before. Speak up as
soon as you see anyone watching us. Say where and
what the reaction is, remember we look a bit
unusual."

The village looked like all other such small farm
hamlets. Light-colored stucco walls that probably
covered solid masonry. Houses built right out to
the street, with only narrow sidewalks to separate
the front doors and windows from any wheeled
traffic. The width of that main street would be
critical, especially if the occasional cartwheel
guards were tall enough to provide an extra
problem. Up to two feet ('60 centimetres') the
truck bodies would clear those stone pillars. Any
taller, and those truck would have to go another
way.

"Those children on the right are pointing this
way." Le Mirage was still scanning with those
little binoculars, despite the inevitable bouncing
from the unimproved dirt road.

"Also, there's a woman at the end of the street.
I think it's ----- she knows me. I'll make myself
visible." Jean-Pierre stood, clinging to the seat
in front of him with one hand while he raised his
shotgun overhead.

"No difficult task for you, my dear dwarf."
Marcel's tone was dry. "And it will make our
passage so much more interesting!"

Interesting to the village folk, certainly.
Everyone seemed to know Jean-Pierre. People
hurried out of side passageways, popped out of
suddenly-opened doors, and leaned out of windows.
The growing crowd began to resemble the bow wave
of a ship. The tall man passed his shotgun to
Marcel, to leave both of his hands free for
greetings. Between handshakes, he called out the
news: "The Americans have come! Thousands of
them, with tanks and heavy artillery. The city is
liberated, without a shot fired. The Boches came
out like sheep. This officer of the American Army
arranged it all."

People began pushing closer as the jeep slowed.
Le Mirage had no success waving the people back;
it was Marcel who found the solution. "Let our
little man stay behind to explain everything. I
know the road the rest of the way."

Jean-Pierre climbed down at an intersection that
seemed to be the village center. A heavy-bodied
man leaned out of a cafe doorway to display a pair
of bottles. Le Mirage shook his head and pointed
north. Jean-Pierre needed no urging to take with
him one of the five-in-one ration cases, when he
heard he would find cigarettes inside. They left
him at the crossroads, his shotgun slung from his
shoulder and the ration carton in his hands.
Whatever he was yesterday, he was now a messenger
of victory, the center of admiration, and --
momentarily at least -- a hero in his home
village.

THIS CERTAINLY WAS A MATTER OF GLORY, BUT THE
DRIVER ONLY REALIZED IT LATER.

Beyond the village to the north, the dirt road was
somewhat better. Few vehicles came to so small a
place, even in normal times. Those that did,
mainly the postal service and, in harvest season,
occasion produce trucks, seemed to have come off
the main highway from the north. Estimated
distance, eight kilometres equals five miles.
Check it from the jeep's odometer; add the figure
to the mental list that would fade and vanish as
soon as he found time to write it out.

They came down the final grade to the main
highway, completing the bypass around the enormous
German demolition job. To delay the American
advance along this road, some thorough German
engineers had blown down a whole cliffside.
Acting on an overheard discussion of "the old
road" the driver had asked Le Mirage to pick a
couple of men to accompany them. Now the road was
confirmed as passable for anything up to 2 1/2 6x6
trucks; the only task remaining was to get back
and write the report. Final figure, 4.8 miles to
the hard-surface highway. Check the distances in
reverse order on the way back.

The trip back quickly produced another passenger,
and a useful one. Through his binoculars, Le
Mirage spotted a man crossing fields from the
direction of the roadblock. "Georges" was the
local cantonnier, charged with road maintenance.
Where he found a problem beyond his tools and
abilities, he reported the facts to his superiors
in the Bridges and Highways department. What he
had seen on the national road had definitely
called for a report. Two large landslides had
either swept away the highway or buried it in
loose earth and rock. The rubble had also fanned
out into the river, not blocking it but backing up
its flow while the reduced summer current ate at
the loose rubble. Rather than risk crossing so
unstable an area, Georges had decided to take the
long way around.

The cantonnier Georges was happy to accept a ride,
and even happier to accept a cigarette. he
lighted it from an old-pattern storm lighter,
watching with interest while the jeep's windshield
was raised and locked into place. This would give
the smokers some protection from the wind, since
there was unlikely to be any need for a clear
field of fire on the way back. Georges leaned
forward to answer questions. he had seen no
Germans since the previous evening, after sunset.
They had laid no mines on any of the roads he had
checked. He knew about mines, having done his
military service in the engineers. "Like a big
plate," he specified. "Five kilos of explosive,
with a pressure detonator. Adjusted so a person's
weight will not activate it. A hundred kilos and
more."

"So all are safe walking, except the biggest and
fattest of soldiers." It was Marcel. "But tell
me, lieutenant, your speed dial reads in English
miles, correct?"

"Right, you know about them?"

"Ten of them make sixteen of our kilometres.
Thus, you're now covering more than a kilometres
each minute, at your reading of nearly forty."

"We could do better, but let's wait until we reach
the paved road. If I come charging back toward
the village at a hundred an hour, they'll think
the Wehrmacht is on our heels."

"They'll be watching for us, certainly. Have you
given thought to your speech?" Le Mirage asked the
question casually, as though it was a matter
already decided upon and settled.

"Let us hope they prefer to hear from the acting
chief of the Resistance, the Mirage become solid,
while I, the foreigner, deliver some obvious
slogan such as 'long live the Maquis and its
warriors!'"

Marcel cut in again. "Le Mirage become flesh! I
like that. And we mustn't forget Le Nain, our
Dwarf now grown to his real and visible height.
They've heard from him, be you sure, and they'll
want details on how you convinced our heretofore
occupation troops to surrender." After a moment
he went on. "In fact, I'd like to hear about that
myself. I missed it, having been positioned to
await that predicted exodus that never came."

"Agreed then. We'll make it short, since I should
return as soon as possible to tell our
headquarters about this road."

"Tell the peasants just that: say your general
waits impatiently. Then take a quick pastis in
the bar, say a few inspiring words, and 'until
tomorrow'."

Georges offered information, again useful. "if
the proprietor offers pastis, take care. He makes
his own; I know, for I've seen him gathering the
herbs. It is stronger than the legal kind; true
absinthe."

"Thanks for the warning; I'll have the 'one for
thirst' and no more. And help me avoid delay.
You could even say that I want you to report on
the damage to the colonel of our engineer
regiment."

"Do you have...?" Georges sounded anxious, but
Marcel cut him off. "Quiet friend, and let our
lieutenant plan his allocation. He doesn't seem
to need our warnings about anything. When there's
time, I intend to ask him what he did in life."

"In life, I was a taxicab driver in Washington,
our capital city. And a propos of driving, I
think I really do have something to say when we
stop. The way those people crowded in front of us
on the way through could get someone killed if a
column takes this road tomorrow. Help me spread
that warning, and I say that seriously."

The reception began at the entry to the village.
There the children seemed to have concentrated.
Inevitably, the boldest among them began to push
closer. Le Mirage shouted orders, which went
unheeded. By then, the jeep was down to a walking
pace; Georges vaulted to the ground without
difficulty. Marcel did the same on his side a
moment later. Their voices and their physical
presence cleared the way to some extent. The
driver decided to try his own luck at crowd
control. "Bonjour, les enfants!"

"Bonjour, monsieur." The standard reply came
raggedly. The children drew back a bit, as though
surprised at so ordinary a greeting from so alien
a being.

"We will stop at the crossroads for a short time.
Go tell everyone that we come." That brought
results; the children began to duck through the
crowd and the grownups followed hastily.

The tall farmer Jean-Pierre came toward them,
looming over the tide that flowed around him.
"You are all invited to stop at the cafe and take
something."

"We will have one for thirst, and thank our host
appropriately. Thereafter, we will tell him that
other population centers like his own await
liberation as eagerly as this one. In brief,
we're here but not for long. If that suits the
lieutenant, of course." Marcel turned for
confirmation, as solemnly as if he had not been
asked five minutes before to take just that line.
Clearly, Marcel was what those children would have
called a "pinch-without-laughing"; to an American,
a dead-pan humorist.

Jean-Pierre trotted alongside the jeep until they
came to the intersection. He pointed out the
cafe, then hurried away to find the proprietor.
The place looked small and dark, with limp
curtains half-hiding the interior. The big-
bellied man was indeed the cafetier. Holding out
his hand for the quick clasp of a French-style
handshake, M. Arjoux confirmed his invitation.

"We thank you M. Arjoux. We accept with pleasure,
but first..." The cafe would never hold anything
like the number of people now in sight. Instead
of climbing down to the ground, the driver stood
in place. "Greetings, citizens! I hope you can
all hear and understand me. If not, your men of
the Resistance who arrived with me can explain
what I am trying to say. Listen, I beg you,
because it is important. You know the Germans
dynamited the Route Napoleon. Our engineer troops
are coming to clear this landslide; until they do,
some of our columns may pass along this road.
Perhaps as early as tomorrow morning, you may see
the first of them. Be careful of them!" he
paused to try to emphasize the warning.

"The tanks represent the greatest danger: their
drivers cannot see widely or change direction
easily. Remember that any vehicle on treads
rather than wheels is a serious menace. Even the
trucks can be deadly; you will see some large
enough to embark my little wagon as cargo. They
will be full of ammunition or fuel or food, to the
point where a driver might see a risk to one of
you and still be unable to brake in time. Thus,
watch them pass, wave as you wish, but do not
approach any vehicle that has not stopped. We
want to be remembered as having helped in the
liberation, not as having crippled some child or
put some mother of a family in the hospital. And
now, since talking so much gives me a thirst, I am
going into the cafe of M. Arjoux. There, or when
I come out, I shall answer whatever questions I
can. I shan't be long.

The questions began even while he gathered
equipment to take inside. French troops, several
divisions of them, had come ashore to the west of
the Americans. They might be in Toulon by now, or
even Marseilles. (Take the submachinegun of
course; it's loaded and it's deadly, even if it
isn't an ordinary GI .45 calibre Thompson).

About Paris, anyone who listens to the BBC knows
more than I do. "London here; the French speak to
the French. Before giving you the evening
communique, here are some personal messages."
(They've heard that, all right, and now they know
I have too. Get the map-case; there's money in
there. If the proprietor tries to refuse, tell
him it's 'at the expense of the princess.' These
ordinary expressions seem to go over big when a
foreigner uses them.)

Children around my little truck? They can climb
over it or on it, anywhere except behind the
wheel. It can stand hard treatment -- in Italy, a
French noncom decided to name his jeep the "Ant
Devil." (That worked too, the pun between "Fourmi
Diable" and the way the French use "formidable"
for anything remarkable or unusual is too obvious
to get lost even in my accent. Duck into the cafe
now while they're laughing and passing that line
along. Sooner in; sooner out.)

The cafe filled quickly behind him. People kept
crowding into the doorway, to the point where M.
Arjoux wiped off a portion of the metal-covered
bar. He pointed, made a gesture of climbing up.
Onto the zinc? Why not? No room to stand, the
ceiling's too low. So I'll sit, and try this so-
notorious pastis that's said to be the real
absinthe. If so, it's really toxic, for more than
the alcoholic content. Milky appearance, strong
smell of licorice, and a most odd taste. Cooling,
but look out!

A few minor questions came and went; at a
momentary pause he decided to go over the matter
of the German surrender. "You have certainly
heard that we rounded up the garrison back in
town. All 147 of them, with no worse problem than
talking for an hour or two. I did the talking,
and you know by now that I am no renowned orator.
My strength lay in having the facts available,
many of them supplied by your Resistance fighters.
To begin, they sent out a non-commissioned
officer. I was able to tell him to go back,
because when he said he was in charge of the
garrison, your gendarme, who had taken the risk of
going in to seek their commander, shook his head
just a little. I also told the 'stabst' to warn
his officer against more such delays; I did not
command this combat group, and our general was not
willing to wait. Only later did it occur to me
that mild and patient fellows do not become
generals, in our army or any other. I once heard
that called a 'stairway' humorist, the guy who
only thinks of clever remarks while going down the
stairs after leaving a party.

Time for another sampling of this home-brewed
poison, said to start eating away nerves after
extended drinking. Don't set the glass down; one
is definitely going to be plenty. "So it went,
step by step. The German officer doubted we had
the armor and artillery I warned him about. He
had heard of American and British soldiers
arriving by parachute to advise and stiffen the
local 'bandit gangs." It was no trouble to show
him weapons heavier than the most fortunate of
maquisards ever possessed. Then, my German
adversary said he would set fire to the town and
fight his way out if we began shelling his
outposts. I asked how far he thought he would go
with his two old trucks and one command car, when
his best line of retreat was cut off behind him.
I asked him what he thought would happen to his
wounded when he left them to those 'bandits' whose
town he had destroyed. And for those who escaped,
there would be our aircraft hunting them down like
rabbits -- and when had he seen any Luftwaffe
passing overhead? If finally he won to the Rhone
valley, he could expect to fall into the hands of
the First French Army. They, of course, took
prisoners -- except for the Moroccans and the
Senegalese, who were reported to settle for
simpler trophies. For my part, I could assure him
that the Americans held firmly to the
international treaties. Like a mathematics
student who knows him formulae by heart, I was
able to prove my theorem. He could choose to die
uselessly and as unpleasantly as chance might
decree -- or he could start now for a camp
supervised by the International Red Cross, whence
he would return to his homeland at the end of the
war."

Marcel the schoolteacher stood by the doorway. He
raised a near-empty glass of pastis. "Quod erat
demonstrandum," he intoned. "I shall propose you
for the gold medal in military arithmetic. Until
that hour, another pastis, good proprietor, for
our guest and ally."

"Say rather a credit against my next stop here.
There may be a few more questions as I go out.
Therefore, I shall save myself, with all who can
find places aboard my formidable small Ant Devil."

M. Arjoux at first waved off payment, but he took
the bill on a whispered explanation that it was
official funds. He also accepted the suggestion
that he take the money as an advance on
hospitality he could offer to other Americans who
might pass this way.

Jean-Pierre had his own minor question, though he
would not be riding any further. He and his wife
had identified most of the products in the ration
box. He patted his shirt pocket to call attention
to a package of cigarettes. However, they had
found one can that they could not guess at. He
had brought it back; the shape of the container
was enough. Jean-Pierre was assured he could deal
with it as pressed mean, more or less edible as it
came from the can. The origin of that meat was
somewhat questionable. A minority opinion
described it as remains of old, broken-down
cavalry horses; French soldiers quickly know it
for "monkey-meat."

This term "singe", French Army slang for any
ration meat, touched off Marcel. He was well into
his second pastis, the one said to be for taste.
Or was he beyond the second, where they are all
for drunkenness? "That does it. You spoke of
French troops in Italy; were you with them, that
you know so much military argot?"

"At no time, they were fighting up in the
Apennines, mountain troops mostly." That should
have diverted a chasseur-alpin -- but it didn't.
Marcel the schoolteacher continued on his own line
of curious inquiry.

"The where -- surely not the Legion."

"It's true you don't ask a Legionnaire what he did
in life. One of their demi-brigades, the
Eleventh, I think, had two Americans in it. 'Just
waiting for a sheriff to die back home,' one of
them said. Since you ask, I assure you I was not
one of those two. We were the brigade of General
Leclerc. That was in 1943; before that --" he
made his way to the door while he was talking.
Through it he could see Le Mirage sitting behind
the wheel, apparently studying the jeep's
dashboard and driving controls. "--in 1942 at Bir
Hacheim and at El Alamein. That was the First
Free French Brigade, under General Koenig. In
1941, escape into Switzerland with the help of the
local Resistance people. My second escape
attempt; the first try was so stupid I should have
ended up eating dandelions by the roots. As to
why I was trying to evade any further German
hospitality, I would have to go back still
further. Perhaps that will suffice."

People were crowding to follow him out the cafe
door. He stepped aside to let them pass. "Now I
must go, but one thing first. You probably know
this rifleman beside me. If so, you've learned,
as I have this day, that he is a real joke-maker.
On the way here, he said a think that was both
correct and serious. Further on to the north,
people are waiting for us to help them get rid of
the Germans. If I return to our headquarters soon
enough, we will have moved forward a little the
day of their liberation. So let us get on with
our jobs; I'll tell my people that your road will
carry our traffic until the Route Napoleon is
clear again; while you make sure our tanks and
cannon and trucks can move through here without
any accidents. And, as we go our ways, let us
sing the finest national anthem in the world."

For an instant there was a dead silence. He
almost laughed as he realized why. They were
wondering if he thought they knew the _American_
national anthem! He spread his hands, raising
them to invite and encourage a group effort.

"Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire
est arrive....n'est-ce pas?"

Then they caught on; he walked over to climb into
the jeep. The villagers hardly seemed to notice
him as they sang the Marseillaise. From then on
through the day, he moved in a shimmer of glory,
knowing it for what it was.

THE DAY OF GLORY: DAY OF GLORY: GLORY.

Glory came to the Resistance people, those
guerrilla fighters recently redesignated as
"French Forces of the Interior". An imposing
title, intended to give them some measure of
protection if captured. Instead, the initials FFI
came out as "Fifis," a term of contempt and
dismissal for those "resistants of the final hour"
who emerged as patriots when it was quite safe to
do so. "Maquis" was more accepted, especially in
the Midi, where people knew it referred to the
scrub growth on the Corsican hills, where wanted
men hid from the police. Thus the maquisards saw
their time of glory, especially where liberation
came without fighting.

Glory likewise came for their leaders, both of
them. Le Mirage came down from the hills with him
armed men, to meet openly with his chief. The
younger man was even able to add another element
to his day of glory. He came into town driving an
American vehicle, with his key liaison agent
sitting beside him. His close watch on the
details of jeep-handling had been a give-away; he
had a license and had driven French army vehicles
during his military service. Once they had
dropped off Marcel and Georges at the first maquis
outpost, a few minutes sufficed for him to master
the basics. No need to explain about the four-
wheel drive and the low-speed range. He said, too
casually, that his maquis group had a contact
point further along this west-trending road. The
real reason became obvious when he returned from
the farmstead with a different kind of passenger.

The girl Arlette had carried messages between the
hill-maquisards and the chief in the city. Prize
vegetables and fruit from the farm where she
worked had served as a cover, figurative and even
literal, for those messages. She was not a pretty
girl, and this very plainness may have helped to
protect her from too-close scrutiny.

Those food deliveries went to the real chief of
the maquisards, who had the best cover for
receiving them. To add a touch of hilarity to the
glory, this maquis chieftain was to some extent a
real 'chef,' in the sense that the word had
crossed into English. His shop, "Etablissement
Bonnadieu; Epicerie et Primeurs" retailed
groceries and fancy foods. It also had a few
tables in a back room. There, M. Benjamin
Bonnadieu served small parties, including -- until
today, German officers who liked good French
cooking. He was well known for this apparent
collaboration, and cordially detested for it.
What neither the German officers nor the ordinary
townsfolk knew was that M. Bonnadieu, a plum small
Provencal storekeeper, had a fair knowledge of
German from duty in the Rhineland after World War
I. With help from Marcel the schoolteacher, he
had polished that command of German to a level
where he picked up details of strengths and
assignments of the German occupation forces while
he served food to his guests in the back room.

When the jeep came up to him, M. Bonnadieu stood
talking to Marcel and those few maquisards who
knew him for what he was, rather than what he
seemed to be. He climbed happily into the front
seat, as soon as Arlette made a place for him.
Senior officers should have ridden in back, but
this pair of chieftains had no need for such
protocol. Some of the bystanders already knew
their real activities; those less well-informed
would hear the news quickly enough.

Behind the lone vehicle came the maquisards, their
passing more a migration than a parade or even a
route march. An armed crowd, weapons slung, they
came to see and to be seen as they completed an
informal takeover of the town. They flowed across
the main square heading for the building next to
the smaller town hall. At dawn that morning, the
building displayed a large sign in the Gothic-
lettered black-on-white that seemed to be German
Army regulation. Now the former Feldkommandatur
was under new management; its noticeboard was a
pile of smashed lumber in the street. It looked
like good material for the bonfire that would mark
the high point for the local resistance. Their
town was free, it was completely unmarked by war,
and the local liberators had lost no men to
achieve this notable victory.

One spectator had not yet found his place in that
aura of glory. The cantonnier Georges Lerroux
never took part in the Resistance. When he saw
armed men moving about at odd hours, he kept quiet
about it while he went on with his work. He knew
where they met, where they camped, and where they
hid their supplies and material. Even when he
appeared the next morning, it was only to start
back toward his ordinary duties.

The American armored force was preparing to move
north; "saddling up" as any old horse soldier of
the reconnaissance cavalry squadron would have
said. A good proportion of the maquisards had
also turned out. They were ready to take the
noticeable risk of riding on the outside of the
light tanks and armored cars. The Americans were
making them welcome, since the American infantry
division was still somewhere to the south. Coming
soon -- like the end of the war, like the mail
sack, like the Messiah. Until those truckloads of
infantrymen came rolling up, any and all
volunteers would receive rations, fire-cover, and
first pick of anything the task force might
capture. They only had to hold on tightly and be
ready to jump down on the first indication of an
enemy presence ahead.

These details called for some swift explanations.
They must divide into teams, since no more than
five men, and preferably three or four, could find
suitable handholds. Above all, they must not hold
onto the radio aerials, which were harmless when
the operator inside was merely listening. Should
he start transmitting, anyone who touched an
aerial above the insulators was certain to receive
a nasty high-frequency burn. Furthermore, the
shock might knock him off the vehicle into the
path of the following one.

Neither maquis chieftain had turned out to help in
this instruction task. When the cantonnier
Georges appeared, he brought evidence that the
chief who was really a chef was up and at work, in
both his fields. After the ritual greeting and
handclasp, Georges handed over one of the pair of
musette bags he was carrying. "M. Bonnadieu says
that he knows your army is well-fed but this might
make a change from the usual fare."

The sack had a loaf of good white bread protruding
from one end, the fine shape something between a
baguette and a flute. At the other end, the cork
of a wine bottle was barely visible. Between them
was a French army standard messkit, its cover
firmly secured but still emitting a smell of some
sort of tasty soup or stew. Like the mess officer
of the cuirassier regiment in Tunisia, M.
Bonnadieu clearly believed in providing a good
soup first, even when the main course was bully-
beef or monkey meat with trimmings.

Georges had arrived armed; he was carrying a
German machine-pistol and a bandoleer of spare
clips. Both items looked very much like the gear
Le Mirage had been carrying the previous day.
Maybe the same, but no need to inquire. Georges
was most grateful for the offer of a ride. "I
could come along as far as the first grade-
crossing. I know the crossing-guard there, and M.
Bonnadieu told me to say that they are all former
under-officers in our army, and thus able to
supply military information if needed. They have
telephone connections to the other crossings, and
can call ahead if that seems advisable."

Again, some rapid arrangements were required,
since the armored force headquarters took up the
suggestion of running the day's advance by
telephone. Marcel turned up at the last minute
before the jeep was to move out. Casual as ever,
he explained that he had been called up late in
1918 and had never seen action before the
armistice. Then, in 1940, he had been recalled as
a reservist, to spend his time climbing the Alps
and watching for the people he called,
contemptuously, "the spaghettis." They never came
into range, any more than did the garrison of his
town whom he had been stationed to pick off the
previous day. Thinking over the balance-sheet of
two wars and a Resistance with no real fighting,
he decided to make one more effort. he wanted at
least one clear shot at a German; thereafter he
would hang up his carefully-tended sniper's rifle
and resume his teaching duties.

That day the armored column with its volunteer
temporary contingent of light infantry advanced
ninety kilometres through what had been enemy-
occupied country. The highway and the rail line
were almost braided together along the narrow
river valley. At each grade crossing were traffic
gates, worked manually by employees of the French
National Railways. Each crossing tender had a
small neat house, presumably built by the SNCF.

At each crossing, a jeep that was not part of the
advance point would pull ahead, swerve to a halt,
and drop off a man. The armored car and the
machinegun jeep would take covering positions,
with a 'getaway' jeep observed from well to the
rear. According to the recon cavalry joke, this
last vehicle had an assigned function: to report
where the bodies could be picked up.

No such report was required that day. The extra
jeep would retrieve its passenger, the driver
would signal All Clear, and point forward. The
rest of the point vehicles would come charging
along at top speed. The armored car's radio would
crackle with reports; it carried no maquisards to
risk an encounter with the powerful transmitter
current. They were back with the main column,
some even riding with the gun crews of the self-
propelled 105mm cannon.

Cannon and infantrymen alike were needed where the
90-kilometre rush ended. There, a larger German
garrison showed no disposition to surrender. On
the contrary, it was expecting reinforcement from
the north. The American column arrived first, and
the result was separate small fights, first to
force the garrison of the departmental capital to
lay down their weapons, and thereafter to hold off
the relieving columns. Small engagements truly --
but the dead were just as dead as if they had
fallen in a great battle.

By day's end there was victory; over 800 prisoners
in the town, and the two enemy columns smashed and
scattered by artillery and air attacks. No
prisoners from either of those forces; they were
Siberian Russians, captured in the East and
liberated to serve in the Wehrmacht. The French
called them "les Mongols," considered them as the
reprisal and atrocity troops of the poor-quality
occupation forces, and dealt out summary justice
to any who surrendered. Few did. Nearly at
sunset, an American infantry regiment came rolling
up from the south.

There the day ended. Victory indeed, to a level
that made a brief sentence in a military summary
of the liberation of France.

Victory -- not as on the previous day. That was
glory.

EPILOGUE

Long afterward, he was asked if he had ever
revisited the area. He had not; when pressed for
a reason, he referred to a strange novel by a
young writer who used the Alain-Fournier. The
narrator and central figure of the novel tries to
find again a manor house he visited in a dreamy,
misty region of the upper Loire valley. Led by
his schoolmate, a tall, odd character named
Meaulnes, the meet children of their own age who
dressed in period costumes provided for them by
some unseen benefactors. The children had
masquerades, played games, and amused themselves
innocently during their brief holiday. Thereafter
in the novel, the narrator lost contact with his
friend Meaulnes. After long searching, he located
the place -- and only that. The manor house had
been demolished, the host family was dead or
scattered, and the strange interlude out of time
was forgotten or barely remembered by the peasant
folk of the neighborhood. The novel "Le Grand
Meaulnes" had no sequel; its author was killed in
action during September 1914.

Thus, the American never went back along the "old
road" where he once had passed with a trio of
maquisards. Perhaps he was afraid he might find
only a vague tradition, or nothing at all, in that
place where, during a war long ago, he once saw a
day of glory.

FURTHER QUESTIONS

1. The town where the German garrison surrendered
without a fight is Sisteron

2. The main highway that was blocked by the
landslides is the Route Napoleon [ed note, I
believe this is the N85]

3. The farm road we reconnoitered is "le vieux
chemin de Gap." [ed note, I believe this is the
D951/D104, which would make the village Melve or
La-Motte-du-Caire]

4. The town we fought for is Gap, chef-lieu of
the Departement de Hautes-Alpes.

5. The brief sentence in the military history
(which one, I don't recall) read something like
this: "Task Force Butler broke free, advancing a
hundred miles in three days toward a junction with
the forces of General Patton."

Further personalia: I slept in my usual place,
rolled up in a blanket and a shelter half under
the jeep. Minimal trouble, and good insurance
against being run over by some stray vehicle
moving about under the usual blackout conditions.
My sleep was interrupted by one of Butler's aides,
who said the general wanted to see me. A lean,
smallish, sharp-eyed man, this (Brigadier) General
Butler. He wanted assurance that I'd been over
the road myself. He also wanted the maquis to
come along as infantry; I'd quoted Le Mirage as
saying he could supply about 100 men on a half-
hour's notice. I relied on the statement -- and
went off to make sure he could come up with the
men he'd promised. Le Mirage heard me out, talked
to several of his men, and leaned back in the
office chair to reach me a cup of coffee. The
maquisards appeared at daybreak; I never saw Le
Mirage again. Nor his chief, the chef. Nor the
farmer-poacher they called the Dwarf because he
was so tall. Nor the school-teacher after the
shooting started at Gap. Nor the pretty girl who
brought be a green salad at one temporary halt.
The books call it mobile warfare; not conducive to
long, deep friendships. "Le souvenir d'une jolie
fille, le souvenier d'un brave copain..."

Gap had its own oddities. I saw men in German
uniforms launching German mortar bombs to slow the
advance of a column of men also in German uniforms
-- where neither defenders nor attackers were
Germans. Some of the prisoners at Gap were Poles,
forcibly taken into the Wehrmacht and quite happy
to lay down those nasty rebound shells on the
"Mongols."

Until asked, I recorded none of these things. I
had no intention of trying to write what I did in
the (Second) Great War. At best it would be
mostly fiction; who can recall the words of a
conversation of even one year ago, much less
fifty? Reality is my trip along a road with three
maquisards, and something of what it led to.
Thus, I set out to separate a day from the grim
succession of five years' time. Having done so, I
say STOP.