‘Oh shit,’ Dawson muttered, immediately raising his hands high above his head, not easy in the slightly cramped front seat of the Morris, the two officers behind him following his example.
They were all armed with revolvers, and Dawson had his Lee-Enfield rifle beside him on the front seat, but facing six irritated French soldiers pointing rifles at them meant they had no choice but to do what they were told.
Using a combination of gestures and shouted instructions, the three men were ordered out of the vehicle. The fact that they were clearly wearing British uniforms made no apparent impression upon their captors, and all three of them had their revolvers removed by the French soldiers. Dawson’s rifle was also taken.
‘Believe it or not,’ Michaels said, once they’d been disarmed and were standing in a forlorn line beside the Morris tilly, getting steadily wetter as the rain continued to fall intermittently, ‘they think we’re fifth columnists, here to somehow help the Germans get across that bridge, or maybe to stop the French blowing it up. And according to that French corporal, we’re all now under arrest.’
‘This is bloody stupid, Andrew,’ Rochester said, glaring at the three armed soldiers who were now guarding them, rifles pointing at them. ‘We’ve got a job to do here. We can’t afford to let the French bugger us about like this.’
‘I know. I saw that one of those soldiers was detailed to go off somewhere, and hopefully the corporal told him to go and fetch an officer. Once someone of a higher rank arrives, I’ll tell him who we are and what we’re doing. My French is good enough for that. There’s no point in trying to get the corporal to change his mind, because once an NCO makes a decision, he tends to stick with it. No offence, Dawson.’
A few minutes later, the French soldier returned to the group with a man who was clearly an officer, judging by his uniform, walking alongside him. The new arrival spoke to the corporal for a couple of minutes, the NCO’s explanation of his actions punctuated by expansive gestures as he pointed at the three men standing patiently and damply alongside their staff car.
Finally, the officer nodded and strode over to the car.
‘May I see your identification, please?’ he asked in fluent English.
He briefly examined the documents they provided, then handed them back and took a step to one side, out of the line of fire of the French soldiers.
The fact that the officer spoke good English was a bonus they had not expected, but what he said next stunned them.
‘The corporal believes you three are spies or saboteurs,’ he said, ‘and he may well be right.’
‘What?’ Rochester demanded. ‘Look at our uniforms, and check our identification documents. They’re British. Even the bloody staff car is British.’
The French officer nodded, clearly unimpressed.
‘So you say,’ he replied, ‘so you say. What I see are three men wearing uniforms that look British, but I’m not familiar enough with British army uniforms to know if they are the real thing. And I don’t know what a genuine British army identification document looks like, any more than any of you probably know what a genuine French army identification document looks like. And the car is just a car, with the steering wheel on the wrong side.’
Those were, in fact, fair points.
‘There have been reports of German spies gathering information in this part of France, and fifth columnists pretending to be British officers working here as well, trying to spread confusion and disinformation. So how do I know that’s not what you’re doing – spying on us? Vielleicht wäre es das Einfachste für mich, dich jetzt zu erschießen.’
None of the three British soldiers reacted in any way to the sentence in German, and the French officer nodded.
‘I speak a little German,’ he said, ‘and I just told you that the easiest thing might be for me to have you all shot. As none of you even blinked, maybe you don’t understand the language, which does suggest you might be who you say you are. On the other hand, maybe you’re just three very good actors.’
Rochester opened his mouth to speak, but Michaels lifted his hand to stop him.
‘I understand your caution, Lieutenant, and in your position I would also be suspicious. But you must be aware that there are a lot of British troops in this area, and not all of them can be fifth columnists. So what do you need to convince you that we are on the same side?’
The French officer shrugged.
‘The first thing is for you to explain exactly what you are doing here, in the middle of Rouen in the rain, watching my men prepare to demolish a bridge to halt any possible German advance through the city. That is exactly the kind of activity a Boche spy would be involved in.’
Michaels quickly sketched out the orders that they had been given, but modified them to suit the situation. He made no mention of carrying out the demolitions, obviously, and simply explained that they were in charge of a group of some sixty British soldiers and had been tasked with providing a defensive force for the tank farms that lined the river.
‘That’s a good story,’ the French officer commented, ‘but it doesn’t explain why you are here, in the middle of the city, in the middle of the night. It also doesn’t explain why there are only three of you. Where are these soldiers you’re supposed to be in charge of? If they are supposed to be guarding the tank farms along the river, shouldn’t you be out there with them? On guard?’
‘We’ve just driven here from Le Havre,’ Michaels explained, ‘and our men should be meeting us here, as a rendezvous point, before we disperse them to the tank farms.’
Again, the French lieutenant looked far from convinced.
‘The tank farms are all out to the west of here,’ he pointed out. ‘So why drive all the way to Rouen to rendezvous with them? In fact, why have a rendezvous at all? Why not just drive to the tank farms in convoy?’
‘We’re still waiting for permission to deploy our soldiers,’ Michaels replied, very aware that even to him his story – despite being the absolute truth, at least as far as the deployment of his troops was concerned – sounded somewhat thin. ‘That’s why we needed to organize a rendezvous, and this was a convenient location.’
‘So where are they?’
‘I don’t know. They’re late. I can show you my orders from London, if that would help.’
The French lieutenant shook his head.
‘If you can fake identification and uniforms, I’m sure you can also fake official orders,’ he replied. He stared at Michaels for a long moment, and then shook his head again.
‘I’m not satisfied,’ he said. ‘I’m placing you all under arrest on suspicion of espionage.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Rochester said. ‘Don’t you know there’s a bloody war on, man?’
‘I do, Captain. That’s why I’m taking no chances with you three.’
The French officer barked out orders, and the three soldiers aimed their rifles at the British troops while another man approached the group, carrying a couple of sets of steel handcuffs.
But at that moment there was the sound of diesel engines from somewhere nearby, and a few seconds later the first of the lorries carrying the KFRE soldiers appeared around the corner and braked to a stop about 10 yards away. The first vehicle was followed by the others, one by one, all of which parked in a neat row. The drivers extinguished the lights and turned off the engines. Where the lorries had been, and why it had taken them so long to cover the fairly short distance to Rouen, Michaels had no idea.
In the sudden silence that followed, the air compressors having stopped working a few minutes earlier, Dawson turned towards the lorries and shouted a series of commands that carried all around the open area beside the stone bridge.
‘Everybody out. Fall in. Three ranks. Ground arms.’
Immediately, soldiers began jumping down from the backs of the trucks, each carrying a Lee-Enfield rifle and a Webley revolver, and quickly formed up in three ranks in front of the lorries, the butts of their rifles resting on the ground, their right hands holding the fore-ends of their weapons. Not overtly threatening, but everybody – including the French officer – knew that the rifles could be shifted from the ground arms position to ready and fire in about a second.
Lieutenant Barber walked briskly across the wet stones of the pavement and stopped beside Michaels.
‘Sorry we’re late, sir,’ he said. ‘Are you having problems?’
‘Not any more I’m not,’ Michaels said. Then he pointed at the sixty-odd men now standing and staring at the scene in front of them, and addressed the French officer again. ‘Those are my men, Lieutenant. Now can you stop this nonsense and let us get on with what we need to do? Or do you seriously think that this squad of soldiers, all wearing British army uniforms and carrying British army identification, are also part of some bizarre fifth columnist organization?’
The French lieutenant switched his gaze from Michaels to the British soldiers, whose arrival had instantly and dramatically shifted the balance of power. The armed KFRE men outnumbered all the French infantry there by about two to one.
For a few moments, he didn’t respond, then he stretched out his hand towards Barber.
‘Your identification, please,’ he snapped.
Barber handed it over, and after checking it thoroughly the French officer passed it back to him. Then he waved away the soldier carrying the handcuffs, who had been frozen to the spot ever since the British lorries had arrived, and ordered the three armed soldiers to fall out.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘That does seem to be in order. I apologize for detaining you, Captain, but I needed to be sure of your identity. I will instruct the corporal to return your weapons to you, but I would suggest that you leave this part of the city now and proceed to your assigned stations. We are preparing to demolish this bridge, should it prove necessary, just in case by some fluke the Nazi forces manage to break through our lines. As you know, it is very unlikely that this will happen, but we must obviously be prepared for the worst.’
The French officer saluted. Michaels returned the gesture and watched as the lieutenant strode away, snapping out orders as he did so. Moments later, two French soldiers appeared and returned all their weapons.
‘Thanks, Dawson,’ the captain said. ‘That was quick thinking.’
No longer under arrest, but still subject to suspicious stares from some of the French soldiers, Michaels and Rochester turned to Lieutenant Barber.
‘You took your time,’ Michaels said.
‘We had some problems,’ Barber admitted, ‘but we got here in the end. So now what?’
‘Dawn’s not that far off,’ Michaels said. ‘None of us has had any sleep tonight and we’re all wet through. Before we do anything else, we need to get our heads down for a few hours, and get into some dry clothes. That means finding a British unit big enough to accommodate all of us, because clearly a hotel is no good.’
‘According to the briefing I was given earlier today – make that earlier yesterday – there is a British unit not that far from here,’ Rochester said, unfolding his town map. ‘We can start there, and see if they can help.’
‘That’s a plan,’ Michaels agreed. ‘We’ll lead the way if your lads can follow in the trucks, David.’