After the tears of the afternoon before, Mac found himself boarding the Casabianca, a French redoubtable class submarine, along the Jetee du Dragon, at the foot of the Citadelle in Bastia. The Casabianca was launched in 1935, as part of the French Navy, one of thirty-one redoubtable class subs, most of which were no longer in service. The bulk of the fleet was purposely scuttled off Toulon in 1942, as the French Vichy government was being forcibly annexed by the Germans. The Capitaine de covette Jean L’Herminier, then commander of the Casabianca, instead took his sub to sea, joining in with the Allies in Algiers. In 1944, by this time seriously needing modernization and refitting in America after participating in the liberation of Corsica, the classic submarine was relegated to doing a surreptitious ferry service between Bastia and various points on the coast of southern France. Despite constantly dodging the German and Italian Air Forces, along with friendly fire from their own planes, the sub was still seaworthy, and successful, mostly through the skill and experience of its Commander and crew.
The submarine was over three hundred feet in length, with eleven torpedo tubes, fully capable of battling whatever the German and Italian Navies could muster. A single 100 mm gun was prominent in front of the “sail” bridge, with a smaller, 13.2 mm machine gun pointed to the rear. The sub carried 79 men and five officers, and at 7 knots, it could travel 14,000 nautical miles, or up to 90 miles submerged. Given the distance between Corsica and France, a little over one hundred miles, the sub was effective in ferrying men across the distance, assuming that it could make most of the trip above the surface.
The interior of the cylindrical sub was cramped, with every space being effectively utilized with gauges, bunks, and torpedoes. The bulkhead doors between the different areas of the sub were small and rounded, so that they could be sealed by heavy steel doors in an emergency, which made it very difficult for a tall man to walk comfortably from one end of the sub to the other.
Given his height, Mac had to lean his entire body back to get through the outside hatch on the bridge without hitting his head on the heavy metal shell of the submarine, almost laying out prone on the metal stairs descending into the control room. He was able to walk through bulkhead doors, but only one leg at a time while simultaneously stooping forward into the shape of a partially closed jackknife.
“Welcome aboard, Commander,” greeted the actual Commander of the submarine, Capitaine Jean L’Herminier. “Watch your head, sir,” laughed the affable Frenchman, a cigarette hanging from his weathered mouth. “The trip will only be a few hours, but we will not be getting you ashore until after sundown. We will get you out of Bastia as soon as we can, but you might as well make yourself as comfortable as you can while we prepare to ship out. I hope you don’t get seasick. Fuel considerations will necessitate that we travel above sea until we get close, but the water seems calm today. Then we dive to approach the coastline, sitting offshore until conditions are right for you to disembark. You will be put ashore at Hyeres, just to the east of Toulon, where I assume friendly locals will meet you. Better you than me, Commander. Sounds dangerous.”
“Thank you, Commander, I will be alright. Not the first rodeo for this cowboy. If no one is there, I will make my way back to Nice. How far away is Nice from where I am being dropped?”
“It is a good ninety to a hundred miles,” laughed L’Herminier, “and the place is crawling with Krauts. You would not likely make it very far on your own. Just pray your guys are there to meet you.”
“Yeah, I see your point.”
“Go get yourself a cup of coffee, while we get ready,” said L’Herminier, pointing through the bulkhead door leading out of the control room. “It is actually pretty good, and the mess chief has prepared some breakfast muffins for the guys. Dig in, Commander.”
One of the French submariners showed Mac to the ship's mess hall, a narrow-curved room mirroring the walls of the sub. There were tables and benches bolted into the walls and the floor on one side of the mess, while there were bunk beds stacked along the opposite wall, over the cupboards. The beds were made up with canvas blankets so tightly tucked in, that you could bounce a quarter off them, as they say. Mac was provided with a cup of steaming coffee, as the sub was getting itself ready to leave the harbor, men running through from the rear of the sub to the control room, and back again. When the time came, Mac was summoned to the bridge at the top of the coning tower to witness the pulling out of the harbor, into the open sea, an occasion usually reserved for an important guest, and for the Commander himself. As Mac climbed the metal stairs to the bridge, he could see the Citadelle slowly fading into the distance, the sub gliding along the calm waters of the Mediterranean. It was a rather brisk morning, but the excitement of getting underway took any chill out of the air. Capitaine L’Herminier had switched to a cigar outside on the bridge, offering his passenger one, which Mac accepted. The two men blew rings, as they discussed the beauty of the day, the eventuality of the Allied invasion, and their respective families. Neither man knew anything for certain concerning the details of an Allied invasion, but they both knew it was coming. So did the Germans, for that matter, thus making their crossing to France even more dangerous.
Before Mac expected it, L’Herminier told Mac it was time to get below deck. The Commander was aware of the importance of his guest, and he did not want to take any chances getting too close to the coast of France, within distance of the Lutwaffe fighters.
“Prepare to dive,” yelled the Commander in French, as he and Mac came down off the bridge, closing the steel hatch behind them.
Loud clangs were heard, as the men began to run around the control room, securing the hatches by turning round metal wheels on the doors.
“Dive, dive!” yelled the Commander's second, as his men started pulling levers, checking the many gauges lining the curved walls of the sub, while holding themselves steady on whatever they could get hold of.
The sub began to tilt forward as it made further progress towards France, Mac holding on to the brass rail around the periscope housing. The sub-Commander ordered his crew to level off at sixty feet, some twenty feet above the tested depth limit of the submarine. The Commander yelled out “up periscope” as the submarine leveled off, while pulling up the brass periscope, and looking through the viewer. L’Herminier invited Mac to peek, but all he could see was open water ahead.
Mac now knew that he was being dropped after sunset, but he had no way of knowing when that would come, being underwater. He was to be guided ashore on a black rubber raft, where a band of Maquisards, a group of Resisters, was supposed to meet him. He would be secured and scurried off to a safe house somewhere in the mountains, off the coast of the Riviera. There would be no Palais this time. He would be hidden from sight during the day and conducting dangerous missions at night. Despite the risk, Mac was excited about what was ahead.
Mac understood through his conversations with General Devers, that the Resistance in France was collection of separate movements and groups that fought against the Nazi occupation of France, and against their collaborators, the Vichy French government. The individual members of each group were referred to as Maquisards, the group of Maquisards known as a Maquis, a romantic and defiant take on the Corsican word for bandits, Macchia. Early on, in the summer of 1940, the feeling was that resistance was futile in the face of the inevitability of a German victory. However, shortly thereafter, the reality of the German occupation of France began to take hold, with its strange and threatening environment. Swastikas flying everywhere, the new harsh rules, the militaristic culture, it was offensive to the laid-back French. Groups of resisters began to spring up all over the country, not organized nor centralized, but united in their feeling that something had to be done. As time went by, despite the increasing harshness of the German occupation, there was little these groups of resisters could do. They were not armed, nor had they any training sufficient to take on the German army, the Gestapo, and most of all, their own people who served as collaborators. In fact, by 1944, most young men in France who had not been killed had been captured in the invasion and sent to work camps, or they had been relegated to hiding in the woods and the countryside.
In July of 1940, the British had attempted to create the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to provide support and direction to these various loose groups of French resisters. There was a small number of agents of the SOE who landed in France to help organize, and direct the resisters, but most were caught, tortured, and killed by the Nazis.
Life in the Resistance was not easy. The volunteers, the Maquisards, were hiding in the woods and the countryside, with little or no food and clothing, not to mention arms. If they were caught, they were either shot on the spot, or they were interrogated, and then they were shot. They had to leave their families behind in most cases, and they could not encounter anyone other than fellow Resistors. They saw their life as romantic, however, and ultimately hundreds of thousands of men came to join a Maquis.
Many Frenchmen were eager to give up these provocateurs either for money, to curry favor with the Nazis, or to settle a score. The Maquisards were driven both by love of their country, bur more vigorously, by the Germans use of their women for their own pleasure. There was contact with Allied forces by radio or currier, but any contact was dangerous in and of itself. Being caught with a radio was certain death, but just being a young Frenchman not in service of the Reich was cause enough for death at that point. Any young Frenchman not working in the war effort for Germany was presumed to be up to no good, and subject to arrest, torture, and death.
Despite the dangers, and the discomfort under which they lived, the Maquisards spent their time engaged in intelligence as to troop placements, and supply routes and storage, along with carefully recruiting like-minded individuals. The meager supply of weapons they had at their disposal prior to 1944 allowed them to do little else. The English had been sending supplies and weapons where they could, but the airdrops had been sporadic at best.
By 1944, Mac was walking into a veritable hornet's nest. The turn of events in North Africa, Italy, and at the Eastern front had made the Germans even more onerous, as they knew full well that an invasion was coming somewhere, and soon. The Resistance was now more active in terms of planning and intelligence, preparing for an inevitable invasion, wherever it may come.
Mac got into the rubber dingy, dressed in peasant clothes, a flannel shirt, rumpled wool pants, scuffed shoes, and a beat up old felt beret. The well-worn brown wool waist jacket he was provided was something he could have picked up in Paris before the occupation. He looked the part, and he was confident that his French would fool any German he might come upon. The papers he had been given looked like they could have been in his breast pocket for years, and they indicated that he was a resident of Nice. His story was that he was a kitchen worker at the Palais, originally from Milan, Italy. Despite the good work on his papers, and the believability of his story, Mac was not kidding himself. A man his age in southern France at this time in the war would raise all kinds of questions. Either he should have been serving the Reich somewhere, or he should have been in a work camp in Germany, where the Nazis had sent all men his age still in France.
The subtle sounds of the sea gently lapping against the shore gave cover to the noise of the rubber dinghy's approach. Mac got out on shore, walking away from the water, as the boat pulled back into the darkness of the sea. A lighter flash came from the bushes across the expanse of the sandy beach, beckoning Mac in that direction.
“Bonjour, mon ami,” Mac heard from the bushes, as he approached. “Allons-y.”
Mac silently followed the man in the bushes into the thick brush. The man was an older Frenchman, with a gray beard and a long-tattered wool coat. The hat on his head resembled a beret, but it was tugged down securely over his gray curls. The boots on his feet were unpolished and worn. After a short hike into the woods, they came upon a small group of other Frenchmen, no one saying a word. Mac was given a sten machine gun by one of the waiting men, which he strapped over his shoulder, as the men took him in.
“Come, we need to get out of here,” one of the men in the group said in French. “There are Germans all over the place.”
Mac was led further into the woods, past the thick brush, to a secluded country road, rutted by centuries of use. The men uncovered an old diesel truck, seemingly as old as the rutted road itself, removing the brush that had been put there to provide camouflage. Some of the men got in the back of the canvas covered truck bed, while Mac was invited into the cab, with the driver and another partisan.
“We are about two hours out from here,” said the driver, the same man who had met him on the beach. “We must travel with the lights off, and in silence. If we come across Germans, we either outrun them, or we jump out of the truck, and we outrun them through the woods. You stay with me no matter what happens. Getting lost out here means you are as good as dead.”
Mac grabbed a tighter hold of his sten gun now resting butt-end on the floor of the truck, between his legs. He knew the man was not kidding, but he wanted to laugh nevertheless, a nervous laugh. Mac had been through tough times in Sicily, but nothing like this. There was no Don this time. He was thinking that he would surely never get home.
The roads were dark, the silence only broken by the crunch of the tires on the gravel below. There were no towns to go through, no intersections to navigate, just a straight path up the side of the mountains into the countryside lightly blanketed with white snow. The scrub pines of the shoreline gave way to mature pine trees and shrubs. The truck was cold, as Mac was still wet from the beach, and his clothes were not warm enough to protect him from the elements. He closed his eyes, dreaming of his time with Carla.
The man next to him awakened Mac, as the truck slowly rolled up a long dirt driveway, lights still off, being guided only by moonlight. The stone farmhouse at the end of the driveway was dilapidated, and it had not been painted in many years. There were no lights visible in the windows, the house looking empty. The men left the truck behind the rear of the building, quietly making their way to the heavy wooden back door. No one said a word until they were all inside the farmhouse.
“Welcome Harvard,” said the driver, who had obviously been made aware of Mac's code name from his days at Camp X. “I am Pierre. You will be living here with us, at least for the time being. This is my brother Jacob, and this is Seth, my cousin's son. That is Etienne over there in the corner, and that is Jean, the fat guy with his head in the icebox. We are your brothers. Anything you need, ask, but do not expect it,” laughed Pierre, the others joining in.
“Merci Pierre; fellows,” responded Mac, nodding his head in each of their directions. “I cannot say that I am happy to be here, but I am happy to have you here with me. Where are we, by the way?”
“It is better that you do not know specifically, for now, anyway. You are in the Alps north of Nice, near Monaco. The Germans do not come here looking for trouble, but nowhere in France is ever completely safe. The Vichy French are not our friends. Many would give you up at the drop of a hat. The first rule we have here is that we stick to ourselves, no outside contact. We get our orders, perform our missions, and come back to the farm to rest up for the next one. The second rule is, should you ever get caught, you must hold out for at least twenty-four hours, so that those not caught can get out of here. Everyone breaks, Harvard. It is only a matter of how much you can take. We are committed to each other to last at least twenty-four hours. Can we get your promise on that?”
“Well, I certainly do not plan on getting caught, but I would rather die than give up my men. You can count on me.”
“That is all well and good, but even the strongest bend under heinous torture. Just give us twenty-four hours to move on.”
“I will, Pierre.”
“That is your bed over there by the stove. There is an outhouse out back, and fresh running water in the pump well out front. We do not make fires during the day, nor do we wander far from the farmhouse. We have a radio that we keep hidden under the floorboards, under the sofa over there, but we never use it before dark. There is some food in the cabinets, mostly canned provisions, but once a week one of us goes out to secure fresh milk, eggs, meat, and vegetables from a local sympathetic farmer not far from here. Obviously, he does not have much himself, so we are grateful for whatever he can spare. We help ourselves to some of what we need when we go out to accomplish our missions. We do what we must do to survive.”
“I understand, Pierre.”
“Would you like a drink, Harvard? We have some nice cognac we pilfered from the Germans. They left it on the platform at a train station we came to destroy, the bastards. They will never miss it in the rubble that we left behind.
“I would love a drink,” said Mac, as he was shown to a chair at an old farm table in the middle of the room. The names of all the men were carved into the wooden table. Stupid, Mac thought, as they were implicating themselves if this place were ever raided. He supposed that none of his fellow resisters were thinking that they would ever be taken alive anyway.
The other men took the rest of the mismatched chairs, while Pierre retrieved one of his prized cognac bottles from a closet by the kitchen. The house was not big, but it was certainly large enough for the purpose it was being used for at that moment. The one room had hewn wood floors, a large stone fireplace matching the exterior stone of the farmhouse, and windows blocked by blackout shades. There were few decorations on the wooden mantle, or on the simple wooden tables in the room. Pots and dishes were in the sink, but it only seemed to be a day's worth. Six beds were scattered about the room with enough space between them for each man to have his own personal space. The mattresses were all covered with heavy wool blankets and soft pillows, but no sheets. The men had hand made wooden lockers under their beds where they kept their clothing, and their personal items. The room was relatively warm, given the temperature outside, the fire in the fireplace having just been lit when they came in. The flame was low, and the smoke kept to a minimum, but the warmth in the room was amplified by cumulative heat of six human bodies.
The men themselves were clean, but somewhat disheveled. The bulk of their clothing was already on their backs, their coats hung on pegs by the front door. They wore flannel shirts and work pants, well-worn boots, and warm woolen hats, which most still had on their heads inside the house. They all had beards, having no need to groom themselves, nor any razors to do so. Their hair was unfashionably long, and unkempt.
A chipped ceramic tumbler was placed in front of Mac, and in front of the other men, except Jean, who did not drink. Cognac was poured, and Pierre offered a toast, while Jean lit a cigarette, looking at Mac with suspicion.
“To Harvard, may he live long and prosper…otherwise we will obviously be in trouble ourselves,” laughed Pierre, along with the other men. “No, in all seriousness, welcome to our little band of not so merry Maquisards. We are happy to have you here to help us in anyway you can, as we will help you in your mission.”
“Thank you,” responded Mac. “I am here to do whatever I can to help. We all know that an invasion is imminent. Let us work together to pave the way for our guys. I have the ear of the people in charge over there. Let me know what we need, and I will not only pass it on, but I will see to it that you get it. We have important work to do here. You cannot build a house without tools. I get it. Let's get to that first.”
“Sounds great,” said Etienne, while Jean was shaking his head silently in agreement. “We need guns and explosives. I am sure that they will want us to take out various targets in preparation of the invasion. With what?”
“I hear you,” replied Mac. “Let's make a wish list of what we need, and let's see what we can get. Now is the time to ask, gentlemen. I am here with the blessing of my President, and of the Supreme Allied Commander of the Expeditionary Force, General Eisenhower. They need us now, gentlemen. It is imminent. How do you get your supplies here?”
“We get airdrops, maybe once a month,” said Pierre. “They tell us when it is coming. It is at night, obviously. It has been better since the Allies took Corsica, I must say. We are getting more regular drops, just not necessarily what we really need. We have some weapons now, but as for explosives, they are harder to come by.”
“I will press them for the need of explosives. How about weapons, what do we have now?”
“We have some machine guns, a few handguns, some knives, but that is about it,” said Jacob. “We could certainly use more handguns, and grenades, maybe smoke canisters.”
“I will ask for that as well. Anything else?”
“Prime rib would be nice,” laughed Jean, while munching on a chicken leg he had pulled from the icebox, getting more comfortable with the new man.
“Very funny, mon ami,” said Mac. I will ask for food provisions, as well. We will take whatever they send us.”
The six men sat around telling stories the rest of the evening, sipping cognac, rolling cigarettes, and making lists of things to do, and supplies to request. It was decided, given that they would have to wait for their supplies, that the group would get Mac down to the shoreline, so that he could report back what he was seeing. The consensus was that St. Tropez was the preferable landing site on the list provided to Mac back in Bastia, given its wide sloping beach, its dearth of high points from which the Germans could defend, and the nearness of the travel routes north, be it by river or by road. The group would show Mac Marseille and Toulon, but they felt that was a waste of time, as was Nice, which Mac already new. The need for a sparsely populated area, along with the previously mentioned considerations, was the key element to the decision.
At Midnight the men radioed their contacts in Corsica, this time with Mac doing the talking, mostly in code. He set forth their needs, which he said he expected would go to General Devers himself, and he expressed the hope that he would hear about this the following day, given the circumstances.
The men were impressed with the take-charge nature of their new guest. Now he had to deliver.