Although Marcel had only been away from Erwan’s farm for a month, the lack of physical activity in that time had softened him. Consequently, the first few days of hard labor in the fields made his back muscles ache and blisters form on the palms of his hands. He welcomed the fresh air of the countryside and its spaciousness. As he breathed its sweetness, he remembered that the population of London smoked like a chimney. In every public building a gray-blue haze filled the air and caused the smokers, and the few non-smokers, to cough and wheeze and have watering eyes. Gold Flake, Woodbines, Players, and an assortment of self-rolled cigarettes were puffed during every waking hour. Londoners smoked to steady their nerves, to snatch a little pleasure while the bombs fell. They deserved their cigarettes.
Apart from his farm work Marcel was kept busy with Resistance activities. With Erwan’s help, he had to organize the farm as an official safe-house in the Brittany escape network. Hiding places in the various farm buildings had to be set up with mattresses, a change of clothes, a small stash of food and water, rudimentary medical supplies, and toilet facilities. The last amenity consisted of two buckets; one to wash in, the other for urination. Defecation by escaping airmen would be done in the farm outhouse, but only during the hours of darkness, so that they would not be observed crossing the farmyard.
Claudette did not like the new arrangements. Apart from the disruption to her daily farm routine and the increase in her household work, such as cooking and cleaning, she was fearful of being found out by the local Gestapo. She had heard stories about safe-houses being burnt to the ground and the occupants slaughtered. She was more than fearful, she was terrified, and, once again, she expressed her terror to Erwan in no uncertain terms. He was sympathetic to her fears, but explained to her that the men they gave shelter to were fighting to free France, and that some of their comrades had already died for France. Risks by the Breton people to help the Allies were necessary. The honor of France was at stake. Claudette did not care about honor; she cared about safety; to be dead with honor was still to be dead.
Marcel’s biggest task was planning the ground attack on the supply dump south of Rennes. SOE London said he would need twenty men to be ready by the end of March. Marcel and Jean did not have twenty men; only twelve remained after the ambush during the arms drop of early January. Finding additional fighters in the dark winter days of 1942, when Breton morale was low, proved to be difficult. However, by expanding the radius of his search, Marcel found four more willing men and two possible women. The men were part of the Rennes réseau, and became temporarily assigned to Marcel. To obtain these men, Marcel had to divulge some of the details of Operation Earthquake to the Rennes circuit leader, whose code name was Georges. Initially the leader was very angry about not being chosen by London to control and fully participate in this major attack. After all, the supply dump was in his area. He had suspicions that Marcel was trying to takeover his territory and organization. Marcel had to be very persuasive that this was not the case. He just happened to be in London when SOE first came up with the idea.
London had given Marcel a layout map of the dump just before he returned to France. The layout showed the relative positions of the various major items; heavy tanks, lightly armored personnel carriers, shells, torpedoes, mines, dynamite, diesel fuel, trucks, and vehicle maintenance equipment. Miscellaneous caches of arms and ammunition were scattered amongst the bigger items. The map also included the railway extension that came off the main Rennes to St Nazaire line right into the dump. The map had been compiled from different sources of intelligence at no small cost; RAF reconnaissance flights (two planes shot down), an infiltrated agent (captured and killed three months ago), and observations by local inhabitants that were passed on to an operator in Rennes. SOE London deemed the map to be about eighty percent accurate. What seemed to be missing or unclear were the road access point and guard posts. Marcel and Jean decided that an extensive but surreptitious reconnoiter of the supply dump had to be made. But how?
Assuming the roads were open to vehicles other than German ones, they could drive around the dump’s periphery in Erwan’s truck, but that would look very suspicious.
Jean suggested a direct approach to the access point. He could bicycle up the access road to the entrance gate with strings of onions around his neck and towing a small cart filled with miscellaneous vegetables and a few bottles of calvados. As he tried to sell the guards at the gate his produce, he could make a mental note of the strength of the post; how many men, how well armed. He should also be able to see whether the wire fence on either side of the entrance was electrified or would be alarmed if cut. It was a bold plan but Jean felt confident about it. Marcel, on the other hand, thought he could be arrested on sight and taken into the dump for some rough interrogation. However, he agreed with Jean that his plan was worth the risk.
Marcel’s additional plan required a moonlit night. He could walk the perimeter of the dump, observing when patrols were made either internal or external to the fencing. He could also look for weak spots in the fence, maybe even find a gap in the barbed wire, but he knew that would be wishful thinking; the German army was very thorough. Much of the periphery was right up against wooded areas, so Marcel would have good cover. It was decided that both plans would be carried out.
The Rennes réseau was contacted to provide information about any safe-house close to the dump. Marcel and Jean needed a temporary base for their survey operations, which could take three days or more. The village of Guichen, about seven miles south of Rennes, had a safe-house. From there the dump was a further five miles, and could be reached on a bicycle using quiet back roads.
* * * * *
On February 26, Jean made his way to Guichen, using a bicycle and pulling a small cart full of vegetables. It was a strenuous ride because of the load, but he covered the thirty miles in just under five hours. He was in good physical shape, thanks to the training course in Scotland. The safe-house in Guichen was a small cottage owned by the village butcher, Monsieur Chandon. Jean enjoyed a rump steak for dinner the day of his arrival, a delicacy he had not had for over a year. Staying with a butcher in time of war had distinct advantages. The following day he rode to the supply dump, feeling a little self-conscious with three strings of onions around his neck.
There was a lightly-manned guard post at the beginning of the access road, adjacent to the rural road that passed the dump. The rural road’s surface had been upgraded by the Germans for their heavy traffic. Jean had to inveigle the two guards at this first post in order to go up the access road to the main gate. He employed a mixture of flattery, humor and good bargaining skills with the guards, overcoming language difficulties by supplementing French and German phrases with much body movement, particularly in the arms and hands. He could have been an Italian. The guards liked Jean’s produce and bought a small selection. They were, however, reluctant to let him proceed up to the main gate. But then he produced a bottle of calvados and offered it as a gift. The bribe worked. He shook hands with the guards, mounted his bicycle and headed up the access road with a huge smile on his face.
When he reached the main gate, he immediately realized how heavily defended it was. The gate was not a simple counterweighted pole that could be raised and lowered by hand. It was steel mesh on a heavy frame, twelve feet high, forty feet wide and on motorized wheels. It was controlled from inside a large guard house, located on the right side of the gate. Outside the guard house were two machine-gun emplacements, one on each side of the road. One emplacement was a concrete pill-box with the muzzles of two guns poking menacingly out of a narrow slit. It would be impregnable in an attack with light arms. The other emplacement provided less protection to the gunners, being a stack of sandbags in a semi-circle four feet high.
Jean dismounted his bicycle fifty yards from the machine-guns, and waited. He almost lost his nerve and thought about a slow retreat, but he knew that he needed to get closer to see what was inside the guard house and what the buildings the other side of the fence were used for.
“‘ello, ‘ello, good Germans! I’m a poor farm worker selling a few vegetables. I need money to feed my family. Won’t you buy, good Germans?” pleaded Jean. There was no response for a few seconds.
“Hello, hello, good Frenchman! You don’t need money; feed the vegetables to your family,” said one of the Germans behind the sandbags. That is a logical reply, thought Jean.
“But my family also needs meat to go with the vegetables. Let me come closer to show you how fresh my vegetables are.” Jean took three steps forward.
“Halt, Frenchman. Don’t move or you’ll be shot.”
Two Germans cautiously approached Jean; one examined the contents of the cart while the other held his rifle on Jean. As the vegetables were turned over with the soldier’s bayonet, three bottles of calvados were revealed. The soldier laughed.
“You cook the vegetables in the calvados? Why do you French have to cook everything in alcohol. Water is for cooking; alcohol belongs in a glass, you peasant.” Jean did not argue.
The soldiers conversed for a while, and then beckoned Jean to follow them right up to the gate. He could not believe his luck. At the gate, three more soldiers came out of the guard house and started mocking and taunting Jean, speaking German very quickly, unintelligible to Jean, but with a meaning that was obviously not friendly. Jean played along with them, but all the time his eyes searched the surroundings; the guard house, the fence, the other buildings.
Suddenly an officer appeared; he was furious when he saw and heard what was going on. The soldiers quickly went back to their posts to await disciplinary action. The officer ordered Jean to return down the access road after he had explained that under no circumstances do German soldiers make purchases from local inhabitants while on duty. Jean thought of pleading the precedent set by the two guards at the other end of the road, but decided against it; he might possibly need their help again.
Jean returned to Guichen, satisfied that he had learned enough about the viability of the Resistance entering the dump by the main gate. It would be impossible. The machine-gunners would stop anyone on foot. The gate was too strong to burst through with a heavy truck. There were at least ten armed soldiers in the large guard house and maybe another fifty in the buildings on the other side; those buildings were army barracks. Outside the barracks were two more machine-gun posts, and to one side, with its gun pointing at the gate, was a panzer tank. Also, Jean had caught a glimpse of insulators embedded in the termination of the fence near the guard house, meaning that the fence was electrified and probably alarmed. Floodlights were mounted on tall wooden poles around the whole complex. Jean concluded that blowing up the dump should be left solely to the RAF. A ground support group would be slaughtered.