When his boots felt the crunch of the road, Manners began to come back to his senses. He took out his knife and made two diagonal slashes into the bark of the nearest sapling to mark the spot. Then he stepped forward out of the tree cover, and into the faint lightness of the stars. Just enough light to see the blazes he had made in the tree. The moon was down, but there was the blessed, familiar Plow, with its two stars of the blade pointing forever north to Polaris. His sense of direction came back. The slope had brought him down to the Rouffignac road, which wound its way uphill all the way to the ridge above Savignac. Knowing he’d be safer in the hills than taking the road down to the river valley, he moved to the soft verge and began to trudge uphill. He paused every few moments to listen for the inevitable German patrols that would soon be sweeping this and all the other roads around the drop zone.
The mortaring had stopped, but odd shots still thumped faintly in the distance, and then came one bigger, rippling explosion followed by an endless crackling of gunfire. He began to move again when it stopped, but had gone no more than five yards when a whispered “Laval” came from behind him.
“Putain,” he replied automatically. And stood still, his arms by his sides.
“Capitaine?” It was Lespinasse, his whisper urgent. Thank God the lad had made it.
“This way, Capitaine.” His arm was grabbed and he was pulled off the road and felt the loom of rock, the movements of other people. “Were you hit?”
“No, no, I’m O.K. Just stunned by a fall.”
Berger and Francois were suddenly at his side, putting a flask to his mouth. He gagged, the spirit stinging on his torn lip. He tasted blood and brandy, and then the stars seemed to swirl and he blacked out. When he came to, he was sitting on the ground. He pulled himself to his knees. Then, gingerly, he stood up.
“Where are the guns?” he asked.
“Here. We saved two carts,” said Francois. “Six containers. The lads did well.”
“Here? Right by the road? They’ll be sending patrols any minute.”
“The carts are empty. Little Jeannot has gone for a couple of horses. The containers are under cover. It’s the best we can do.”
“Is anybody at the rendezvous point in case of stragglers?”
“That was Lespinasse. That’s where he found you. He’s gone back.”
“How many of us here?”
“Just six,” said Berger. “Us three, Florien and Pierrot. And Lespinasse, when he gets back. Albert has gone back up to the plateau to look around. Marat was here with Carlos but they thought they’d better try for le Bugue when the mortars hit the truck.”
“Six? We had nearly thirty at the drop zone.”
“Most of them scattered. There wasn’t much of a pursuit after you got the armored car, except for the mortars. Then the cart blew up. Lespinasse said that was your doing.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Wait for Jeannot and the horses, then he and Florien take the empty carts back to the farm at dawn. The rest of us go up this gully and over the ridge toward Rhode. Then we scatter, lie up for the day, and head for Rouffignac. We’ll come back for the containers with a truck when the Germans move on.”
Manners looked around, trying to get a sense of the place. He felt smooth rock to one side, and open ground on the other. He paced the distance to the road. Five meters to a thin fringe of saplings and bushes. Jesus, this wouldn’t do. He followed the line of the rock, under a steep overhang, and his boot hit one of the containers.
“We can’t leave these here. It’s too near the road. We’d come back to find an ambush or a booby trap.”
“There’s nowhere else, not without transport and we dare not use the road. And we can’t get them up the gully. And besides, the sign makes it so obvious the Germans probably won’t give it a second glance.”
“What bloody sign?”
“La Ferrassie. The big sign for the national monument,” said Francois. “It’s an old caveman burial site or something. There was a big archaeological dig here, back at the start of the century.”
“I may have something better. Get Lespinasse back here on the double.” Manners considered. Only six men, and each container weighed well over a hundred fifty pounds. Three men to each container. Three trips. It could be done. He went across to the first cart. The long leather straps they used to lift the containers were still there. That made it easier.
It had been the bloody mortars that had done it, the first thing he ever had to thank them for. Plunging down onto the slope to explode in the trees and blast lethal wood and metal splinters everywhere. Except this one had landed at the base of an old tree and blown a crater that sent the tree toppling sideways down the slope, levering out a great chunk of earth with its wrenched roots. It was the tangle of roots that had stopped Manners’s plunge down the slope, and as he tried to get to his feet the earth had given way beneath him and he had slid down farther. That was where he discovered that he had lost his gun, had begun groping with his hands and found the smooth rock on both sides and then curving to meet above his head. The air had been cool and dry, the ground smooth and gently sloping uphill, but almost level underfoot as he crept in farther, his outstretched hand following the line of the rock. Turning, he looked back to see the slightly fainter darkness of the night through the hole. The roots of the fallen tree made a kind of natural ladder that he was able to scramble up, back to the open air.
He had turned back into the cave, thinking that the tree must have grown at the very entrance, its roots distorted and forced to the downhill side of the slope by the rock. With all its roots on one side, the tree had been too precariously embedded to resist the force of the mortar blast. He went further into the cave, down what seemed to be a tunnel, high enough for him to walk without bending, and not quite two arms-widths wide. The tunnel went for about ten meters, still sloping gently uphill, and then widened again. It was pitch black and utterly quiet. Safe, he had said to himself. Safe. And slumped down to wait the night out.
It was duty that called him back to himself. Or at least that part of it which was composed of guilt. Even as he thought of safety, he thought of his men, wounded and frightened and scurrying through the night with Germans on their heels. His men weren’t safe. And every code he had lived by, every lesson he had learned in eight years as an officer and nearly five years of war, warned that he had no right being safe when his men were in danger and demoralized without him. Alone in the blackness, he confronted himself and rolled to his feet, stretched his hand out to the rock and directed his feet firmly downhill through the tunnel to the tangled roots that made it so easy to climb back into his duty and his war.
“Here’s Lespinasse,” said Francois, his voice wary and uncertain.
“Right, Lespinasse. Any other men turn up? No? Very well. Take me back to the spot where you first saw me. The exact spot, mind you. And then we creep slowly downhill, looking at every single tree for two knife slashes I made. Understand? Francois, Berger, you get those containers loaded into a cart. That will make it easier. When we come back, I’ll lead you to the best hiding place in France. Then we go and look for our wounded.”
He followed Lespinasse back down the road, the trudge farther than he had thought. Afraid of speaking, Lespinasse clutched him and pointed to himself and the spot where he had been waiting. Then he led Manners to the place he had first seen him. Manners nodded, stayed on the same southerly side of the road and began walking slowly, scrutinizing each tree. Ten meters, twenty, fifty, a hundred. His eyes were seeing spots with strain when Lespinasse tapped his shoulder. Manners looked back. There were his blazes on the tree. He had missed them. He slapped Lespinasse on the back and told him to stay right there.