It didn’t take long to get out of the port area of Cherbourg, and in a few minutes they’d cleared the town limits and reached open countryside. Some distance ahead of them, a small column of British army trucks, perhaps five or six vehicles in all, was heading in the same direction. Dawson accelerated to match their speed, then glanced across at the major, who was still studying the map.
‘This Maginot Line, sir,’ he said, making a conscious effort to get the pronunciation correct. ‘It’s just a line of forts, then, is it? I mean, something like those big round buggers out in the sea near Portsmouth?’
Sykes lowered the map and looked up. ‘I suppose it’s a similar concept, yes,’ he replied. ‘The structures you’re talking about are the Napoleonic Forts. They were intended to protect Britain’s most important naval bases from attack by the French, hence the name. Britain’s an island, and from a defensive point of view that’s a huge advantage. It means that any attack has to be launched from the sea, and that severely limits the options for an invader. A lot of our coastline is completely unsuitable for a landing – places like Dover, for example, apart from the port itself, because of the cliffs.’
‘They could fly in, I suppose. Land troops from aircraft,’ Dawson suggested.
Sykes nodded. ‘Agreed, but you can’t launch a successful invasion by air. Aircraft are too fragile and vulnerable to attack, and can’t carry enough men and supplies to make them a viable option. The best you could hope to do with a purely airborne invasion is seize a specific objective for a fairly short time, and even then you’d need resupply and back-up quite quickly. To take control of another country you need troops on the ground, obviously, but you also have to have tanks and trucks and armour and a whole supply chain to support them. And you can’t do that only using aircraft – it’s just not feasible. So if we can protect our ports and beaches, we can always withstand any invasion attempt.
‘But the problem the French have is different. Their country is virtually surrounded. It shares land borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. The chances of the Swiss or the Belgians invading are probably pretty slim, but they reasoned that Germany and Italy might well try their luck, especially after the Great War, and that was why they came up with this idea of a fortified border. And, of course, with Adolf the house-painter strutting about Europe in his shiny new jackboots, we now know that they were right.’
‘Do you think it would be enough to hold off the Germans, then?’
‘That’s what we’re supposed to find out,’ Sykes replied. ‘Personally, I doubt it, because it was conceived in the aftermath of the greatest land war the world had ever seen. It might well stop a conventional frontal assault, but the people who planned it took no account of the rise of air power. Tactically, I think that when the Germans decide to invade France – and they will, there’s not the slightest doubt about that – they’ll identify the weakest point, parachute troops in behind it and hit it from two sides simultaneously. And when they’ve destroyed one section of it, they’ll use that as an access point for their army and ignore the rest of the fortifications.’
‘So the Frogs would have done better to have just strengthened their armed forces?’
‘Perhaps. But it’s not quite that simple. I’ve not seen any of the fortifications, but I know a lot about them. The French haven’t just built a line of forts. In some places the Maginot Line defences are twenty kilometres deep, a proper layered defensive system that would be very difficult for any army, no matter how strong, to break through. Before they launch any attack, the Germans will send up reconnaissance aircraft, and maybe even infiltrate patrols into the border region, to assess the strength of the fortifications. They’ll be able to identify the strongest and the weakest points, and that will give the French an obvious advantage.’
‘Obvious, sir?’
‘It’s simple. There are sections of the Maginot Line that only an idiot would attempt to breach, and whatever you might think of Adolf, he’s not an idiot, and nor are his commanders. Obviously the Germans will hit a weak point, and if they manage to break through that’s where they’ll send the rest of their troops. That means the French can predict where a German attack is likely, and mass troops on their side of the border to counter it.’
‘Got it, sir. An ambush.’
‘Exactly. So even though the Maginot Line probably wouldn’t stop an invasion, it might at least help slow down a German advance into the country. And this idea of a defensive line isn’t unique to the French and the Belgians. The Germans have got one too. They call it the Westwall, though we’ve nicknamed it the Siegfried Line. It’s a line of fortifications running along the western border of Germany from Switzerland north up to Luxembourg, intended to protect Germany from attack by the French.’
‘So right now the French are sitting behind the Maginot Line looking at the Germans, who are sitting behind the Siegfried Line and looking straight back at them? Is that about right, sir?’
‘In a nutshell, Dawson, in a nutshell.’
A few minutes later the convoy reached a small French town called Valognes. As the first of the lorries rumbled through it, inquisitive locals appeared on the streets, attracted by the unfamiliar sound of big diesel engines echoing off the stone-built houses. Somebody watching their progress apparently identified the vehicles as British, and loud cheers rang out. By the time Dawson’s lorry reached the centre of the small town, the pavements were thronged with people cheering and waving, a few even clutching Union flags.
‘They seem pleased to see us, sir,’ Dawson remarked.
‘Yes,’ Sykes replied. ‘It makes a change for the French to think of us as the good guys. They probably see the British as their saviours against the German hordes. What they don’t know is how ill-prepared we are to fight this war, and how stretched we’re going to be for the next few months. The BEF is more of a token show of force than a serious attempt to counter the Germans.’
‘Some of the lads on the way over told me we’re sending a whole crowd of troops over here, and not just to Cherbourg.’
Sykes nodded. ‘And they’re quite right. In fact, the BEF will be using four separate ports to disembark troops in France – Brest, Nantes and St Nazaire, as well as Cherbourg. There’s only a handful of soldiers here now, just the advance guard, as it were, and the rest will be arriving next week. As far as I know, they’ll be assembling down at Le Mans, which is pretty central for those locations, before they move up to support the French forces in the Lille area.’
‘Lille again.’
‘Exactly. There’s a perception that if the Germans decided to attack sooner rather than later, they’d probably send their invading armies through Belgium, avoiding most of the French Maginot Line. That’s why the BEF will move up to Lille. But it wouldn’t be anything like enough, Dawson. I know the German military and I know that, if Hitler’s armies do somehow bypass the Maginot Line and invade France next week, the best we could hope to do is to delay them. But in the end, his troops would roll right over us. It would be a disaster.’
‘We’d all better make sure the Maginot Line does what it’s supposed to do, and keeps the Jerries out.’
‘Hope springs eternal, Dawson. Me, I’ve got my doubts.’
The trucks rumbled on through the afternoon. As soon as he was certain the vehicles were all heading the same way, Sykes abandoned his map and slumped back in the seat. Pretty soon his head fell forward, and the sound of gentle snoring filled the cab.
Just after six in the evening, when the convoy was approaching a village named Les Hayons, about five miles south-west of the town of Neufchâtel-en-Bray, Dawson saw the truck in front of him start to slow down and ease over to the side of the road. Moments later, he realized that the leading vehicles of the convoy were driving into an open field. He changed down and turned off to follow them, the Morris bouncing over the rutted ground as it left the road.
‘Sir,’ Dawson said, raising his voice and glancing at the slumped figure in the seat next to him. ‘They’re pulling over.’
‘I am awake now, thank you,’ Sykes murmured, stretching uncomfortably in his seat.
Dawson stopped the Morris beside the last vehicle in the group and switched off the engine with a sigh of relief.
Sykes pulled on his cap, climbed down out of the cab and strode away towards a group of British soldiers who’d just appeared from their vehicles. Five minutes later, he was back and walked over to Dawson, who was standing beside the Morris.
‘We’re all going to the same place, which is convenient. This lot are a kind of advance guard of the BEF and they’re heading for Lille to liaise with one of the French regiments there, so we’ll tag along with them. Right, food. Is there anything in the back of the truck – any rations, I mean?’
‘No, sir. I’ve already checked. There are half a dozen jerry-cans of fuel, but that’s all.’
‘Pretty much what I expected, so it’s just as well I told the officer in charge that we’d be eating with him and his men. Grab your mess kit and follow me. Oh, and Dawson – if you talk to any of these soldiers, don’t tell them what we’re doing in France. This is supposed to be a classified operation.’
About half an hour later, Dawson was looking at a portion of slightly lumpy stew that he’d just spooned into his mess tin from a large black cooking pot. But at least it was hot and, washed down with a couple of mugs of strong tea, didn’t even taste all that bad. Sykes was sitting some distance away, with the handful of officers in charge of the convoy, and eating pretty much the same meal.
After they’d eaten, the soldiers around him started smoking and talking, but Dawson felt whacked – he hadn’t slept for long on the troopship the previous night, and he’d been driving almost all day. He thanked his fellow soldiers for letting him share their meal, walked back over to the Morris, washed his mess tin and utensils, then pulled a sleeping bag out of his kitbag, unrolled it and laid it out on the floor of the loading area of the lorry, and climbed into it.
Despite the hard and cold steel underneath him, within a couple of minutes he was sound asleep.