In their spacious and comfortable hotel, Rochester and Barber slept rather better than their compatriots in Canteleu, only a couple of miles distant. They were up, washed, shaved, dressed and breakfasted by 7.15 am, and waiting outside the British headquarters building half an hour later.
The meeting with the general officer commanding was short, friendly and frustratingly inconclusive. For some reason the additional information they were hoping to be given about the current tactical situation wasn’t available, and the required permission to commence the demolition operations was vested in the general in charge of the French district headquarters, not the British authorities, simply because they were French strategic assets. The British GOC himself arranged an appointment for the two officers with his opposite number, and then personally escorted them over to the French headquarters later that morning.
This was clearly a very different establishment to the British HQ. There, battledress was the order of the day, and the whole place had hummed with a kind of bustling quiet efficiency as the preparations for combat or evacuation were being planned and executed. Above all, there had been an almost palpable sense of tension, of knowledge that the enemy was approaching the gates, and that the peaceful atmosphere of Rouen was soon going to be shattered by bombs raining down from the sky and the crump of heavy artillery.
Inside the French headquarters, the atmosphere was utterly dissimilar. The pace was much more relaxed, almost languid, as staff officers in formal dress uniforms, most wearing a chest full of medals, strolled along the corridors. There was no sense, as far as Rochester could tell, that any kind of attack was imminent, or even that there was a devastating war being fought outside the elegant surroundings of the large and imposing building in the centre of the city.
Just like his staff officers, the French general was dressed as if he was about to go on parade or take a salute, his uniform immaculate and bristling with medals and decorations. As Rochester and Barber were conducted into his presence, they were both very conscious that their somewhat crumpled battledress made them look entirely out of place in such fine surroundings, like a pair of tramps at a garden party.
The general, a handsome, elderly man, spoke good English, as did his adjutant, who stood beside the general’s desk, ready to carry out any orders the senior officer might care to issue. They were received graciously, and the general listened politely as Rochester explained the demolition mission that he and the KFRE soldiers, waiting on standby in the transit camp at Le Havre, had been tasked with performing. The general seemed almost amused by the notion that the Germans would be able to defeat the Allied forces.
‘You may take it from me, Captain. With the entire might of the French army defending the Hexagon, Adolf Hitler and his jackbooted thugs will never get anywhere near Rouen. I expect them to be driven back across the border into Germany any day now.’
‘Hexagon?’ Barber asked quietly, as the French general paused for breath.
‘France. I think it’s a colloquial name for France,’ Rochester murmured.
‘So your mission here,’ the general continued, ‘is a waste of time. I am slightly surprised that London would bother sending over soldiers, and especially part-time soldiers, on such a foolish errand. Those oil stocks are vital to the French war effort, and I will not countenance their destruction.’
And that seemed to be that, but Rochester seized on the last remark the general had made and offered his own interpretation of the situation. Everyone appreciated exactly how important the oil was, he agreed, and even though the possibility of the German advance reaching Rouen was incredibly remote – and he was proud to be able to stand there and say that with a straight face – there was still the possibility of sabotage, of fifth columnists or German spies creeping into the tank farms at night and setting fire to them or doing other damage. As his soldiers were just sitting around at Le Havre doing nothing, wouldn’t a reasonable compromise be to station them at the tank farms to ensure that they were guarded against any such sabotage attempts?
That proved to be a much more difficult argument to refute, and after a few minutes of further discussion, the general agreed to this suggestion.
‘Very well, Captain. You may station your men at the installations as we have discussed. However, you will be directly under my command, and I will be issuing written orders specifying your duties and responsibilities in due course.’
‘Am I to liaise directly with you, sir?’ Rochester asked.
‘No. I will delegate my authority to my technical officer, the man who is responsible for the safety of the plants and the supply of fuel and oil.’
The general turned to his adjutant and issued a brief order in high-speed French. The officer saluted crisply and marched out of the room.
A couple of minutes later he returned, followed by another be-medalled junior officer, who was introduced by the general as an artillery captain named Laurent, and the man responsible for the supervision and safety of the tank farms.
The general briefed the new arrival in French, neither Rochester nor Barber understanding most of what he said, and then Captain Laurent escorted them out of the office, and the building, and they accompanied him in silence to his own office, located in a different building some distance away.
When they sat down opposite the captain, Rochester realized that their problems were only just beginning, because Laurent spoke only a few words of English, and both he and Rochester were a long way from being fluent in the language. That was an obvious difficulty, but the bigger problem was that the French captain clearly regarded them as English interlopers, and was both highly suspicious of their motives and extremely hostile to their stated mission.
He had his orders from the general, but Rochester knew he would not make their task easy, and the next thing Laurent said just confirmed his view. It took several attempts by the French officer, with Rochester suggesting words at intervals, but eventually the Frenchman made his position very clear: he was the man responsible for the safety of the plants – les usines – and he had already formulated all the contingency plans and actions necessary to achieve this. In his opinion, there was no need for the British troops to be on French soil at all, and certainly not to be involved in the defence of his tank farms and installations.
That, of course, was in direct contravention of the general’s orders – or what Rochester assumed the general had told Laurent – and for a few moments he considered walking straight back to the headquarters, with the captain, to get the matter clarified. Then he rejected the idea. He would be one Englishman arguing with a whole building full of French officers, most of whom probably would as a matter of course agree with whatever the general said and not with him, and who didn’t want him there in the first place. After all, the general had already told him that the Germans would never reach Rouen, so he might as well just pack up and go home.
But he had a job to do, and so he and Barber opted for diplomacy over confrontation, pointing out that it had been the general’s idea to station the British troops at the tank farms – which was a lie, but Rochester knew he could plead a misunderstanding because of the language barrier if he were ever to be questioned about it – that it would be a sensible use of available forces, and that it could release French troops for other duties.
The discussion seemed to last for hours, punctuated at intervals by the supply of cups of French coffee – thick, black and bitter, and to Rochester’s taste almost undrinkable as a committed tea lover – but eventually they seemed to come to a form of understanding. Despite the clear impossibility of German forces ever reaching Rouen, Laurent finally agreed that a few British troops could be placed at each of the refineries and tank farms, with a caveat that Rochester could not get him to drop.
Laurent insisted that the stationing of troops at the installations had to be agreed, on an individual basis and in advance, with the director of each establishment. All twenty-nine of them. Furthermore, he also insisted that he would have to be present at each of these negotiations because of his overall responsibility for the sites, and as he was a busy man, it would take a long time – Rochester guessed Laurent was thinking in terms of months or even years rather than days – to obtain agreement for every establishment.
That was the best they could do, and Rochester and Barber left his office feeling both frustrated and irritated.
‘I almost wish a bloody German Tiger tank would roll down this street and put a shell through his office window,’ Barber said. ‘That’d shake up the complacent little bastard.’
‘I’m with you on that,’ Rochester replied. ‘Now, we need to get an intelligence briefing on the tank farms, and then head back to Le Havre. It’s a bloody shame Andrew Michaels didn’t know how urgent his mission had just become. I don’t suppose he’s even started his surveillance yet.’