Beyond Revanche, page 26
“Where is he?”
“Inside, Sir. Locked up.”
“So he should be. Bring him here.”
“Would you like a coffee, Sir?
“Nothing stronger?” A general sat himself comfortably in the center of the main room, an aide standing to his left. The prisoner was brought before him, dumbfounded.
General Messimy turned to face Mathieu. “You’ve been better dressed.”
This was no place to justify his appearance. “Sir?”
“Do you remember my last words to you in Paris?”
“I think you said that you’d have me shot if I disobeyed your orders.” The onlookers gasped.
“Correct. Bear that in mind always.”
Messimy turned to the lieutenant. “I can vouch that he is whom he says he is. Release him into my custody immediately. I assure you that if he takes one step out of line, he will be shot.” The general rose with imperial authority. He had what he wanted. With a curt word of thanks to the attendant military, he ushered Mathieu into an open-topped staff car. Barely two turns of the wheel later Messimy’s driver stopped abruptly and reversed back to the Town Hall. The general stood up, looked at no one in particular, and advised, “This brief stop will not be mentioned in any report. You understand? Anyone who thinks otherwise will find himself before a court-martial. Proceed.”
Barely five minutes later, the battle-hardened staff car turned into a lane and Mathieu was ushered to a second vehicle tucked behind an abandoned farm shed. Was this it? Mathieu had always found it difficult to determine which side the general supported. He was a pillar of the military establishment, yet the chief superintendent admired and trusted him.
“I understand from Bertrand Roux that you might think me one of the power-brokers behind the war. I am not. I am a loyal soldier of France, and yes, I wanted to put Germany in her place at the outbreak, but not on these terms. Not at this horrendous cost. Priorities have changed for the Bureau. You have to forget the black market for the moment. My good friend, Roux, who values your loyalty and ability, needs you to concentrate on other business. A certain French citizen called Basil Zaharoff is here about once again, protected by his old henchman. Apparently this man holds a grudge against you.”
Mathieu said nothing but raised an eyebrow. Messimy read the physical sign as clear understanding. “We, and I include myself, believe that the failure to blow Briey to kingdom come in August 1914 was a grave mistake, but direct action was forbidden by the highest military command. And those above them. Roux and I agree that even now, disruption to the iron and steel foundries would shorten the war and save hundreds of thousands of lives. There are those who would stop us any way they can, so we have to be quick and we have to be careful. I am going to introduce you to colleagues who are determined to blow the steel plants to hell. They need protection. They don’t know who can be trusted, because frankly, no one can be trusted. They don’t know the Comité des Forges. They don’t know Zaharoff’s close associates, and Roux is confident you do. Keep them safe, Lieutenant.”
Mathieu nodded but one thing puzzled him.
“How did you find me, Sir?”
“Ask Roux. I don’t think you were ever far from his view. I should be asking how he knew where I was. When we reach headquarters get yourself cleaned up smartly. The army cannot abide a mess, unless of course it is of their own making. Then it becomes someone else’s mess.”
Raoul’s Story
Black Nights
I had a plan.
Bourson and Giraud said they would be coming back to see me regularly. The warder told me so. Apparently they were upset when they last left my cell and argued with each other all the way to the governor’s office. Word was that they were most anxious to learn about an insurance policy I had. I laughed to myself. They thought themselves so clever, but my little exaggeration could not be easily dismissed. They demanded to know who I had been writing to after my arrest. There was only one letter, and that had been written on their instruction. Dictated, in fact. Now they wondered if I had written other epistles to my brother or bribed a guard to sneak one out of La Santé, perhaps? What joy! They had fallen for a half-truth and developed it into a full grown witch-hunt. Find the insurance policy was the new game in town…and there was none.
“Raoul,” Bourson began in a gentle tone, “are you sure that you made a record of events before Jaurès’ murder?”
“It wasn’t murder. It was mercy-killing. I crushed him like a cockroach to stop him blocking the war. I saved France from the embarrassment…”
“Yes, yes, of course you did. We understand. And we will prove it was a just killing…at the trial…”
“You have a date?” I had their measure. I should have been an actor.
“No, not yet. You know we have to wait on the government.”
Giraud barged into the conversation in a more menacing tone. “Stop your nonsense, Raoul, and answer the question. Are you sure you put plans on paper before you shot Jaurès? You were told not to do that…”
“Was I?” So they were in cahoots with Monsieur George at Action française. They reported back to him. Indeed.
“Well, as I explained before, I have taken out an insurance policy to make sure that no unforeseen circumstance impedes my acquittal…and my life afterwards.
“And where is this supposed document?”
“Let it be, Maitre Giraud. The word of Monsieur George is suffice, I do believe, but should anything happen to him, I have to…you know…protect myself”
“Did you send material to you brother, perhaps?”
“Perhaps, yes…but unlikely. He has disowned me. I have more loyal contacts.”
I watched their eyes widen. Such a good word, contacts. “But don’t worry. My mouth is shut. I will keep my promise. I will never betray Monsieur George. I promise. On my life.”
“Indeed.” Giraud turned on his heels and Bourson followed. Creeps. They made me feel small.
And the nightmare followed. I began to shrink. Very slowly at first. My clothes grew in size. They must have belonged to someone else. But no. They were mine. I felt diminished. I was speaking quite normally to the warder and I heard my voice lose volume. Strange. He noticed, too.
“Are you well, Raoul? Do you have a problem with your throat?”
It was like a child’s fantasy; except it was happening to me. I began to fall though my shirt and pants and almost throttled myself on my undergarments. Did they really smell so bad? And the Warder had gone. I was physically disappearing and he had walked out on me? What discourtesy.
As all night fears do, they disappeared in the morning gloom leaving me depressed. So what had I learned? Bourson and Giraud were little more than agents for Monsieur George and Action française. They were spying on me, weren’t they? Bastards. Presenting me with the illusion of care while they checked on my state of mind.
Dirty bastards, every last one…
24
Touching the Untouchable
Within an hour Mathieu had bathed in warm water, shaved, put on his clothes which some unknown batman had attempted to clean, and swallowed a bowl of thick vegetable soup. Ah, the benefits of being fed by a general’s cook. He was collected by Messimy’s aide and taken down to a basement room. The smell of wine from ageing casks ached like a forlorn temptation. Messimy introduced him to yet another general, Guillaumat, who had served in Paris before the war began.
“Ah, here’s young Lieutenant Bertrand. Now at the Deuxième, I understand.” Guillaumat’s smile was infectious and refused to hide behind a greying moustache.
If this is a conspiracy, Mathieu thought, at least it’s high-level. He remembered them at the War Ministry in the last days of peace. Bernard Roux had been their close confidant. Of course. They had created the new structures before being transferred back into the military. These were the men who put Roux into number 36. He was amongst friends, which spoke volumes for the three others who were seated around a make-shift table. Dressed in officers’ uniforms which bore the distinctive badge of the Service Aeronautique, they, too, shared a confidence of trust. He felt it instinctively.
The airmen were introduced as Pierre, Paul René, and Marcel, sous-lieutenant pilots based at Lemmes. Formalities over, General Messimy summarized the discussion.
“Pierre-Etienne Flandin and his comrades here want to bomb the blast furnaces at Briey and end the war within six months.”
Mathieu recognized the name and then the face behind it. “You’re Depute Flandin, are you not? From the Assembly. You worked with the generals before the war.”
Flandin blushed. “And I’ve seen you somewhere else.” Mathieu was sure of that…but where?
Guillaumat continued. “These gentlemen want me to authorize the attack on the German iron and steel foundries around the Briey basin, and take the flack if it goes badly.” He was laughing at them. The meeting would not have been called if it did not have the blessing of both Generals. “Flandin knows the area intimately. These are his drawings.” He pointed to a series of meticulous pencil-drawn sketches of the blast furnaces, mines, canals, factories, and railway sidings which were wrapped around the area.
“We all know that the entire Briey basin should have been wiped out in the first hours of the war. Without the iron and steel, Germany would have no guns by now. We have to stop them getting their raw materials in France. And we can. From the air.”
“What do you know that we don’t, Lieutenant?”
Mathieu looked at Messimy for permission before launching into the story of Zaharoff, his henchmen, the secret meetings with other Deputies, and a line of complicity which appeared to stretch beyond the president’s office. Mathieu hesitated but had the courage to raise the issue which no one dared mention.
“It is important that you all know that this goes far beyond politicians and industrialists. The men who control Briey, the men of power, hide behind international companies and secret agreements. Do you imagine that key generals don’t know what is going on? They pass on orders. They play the game.”
“Name one,” Paul René demanded, his indignation roused by disbelief.
“I know for a fact that Papa Joffre’s aides attended their meeting in Paris…” Mathieu’s words were cut short by a hiss of disgust.
“Never.”
“Rubbish.”
“That’s treason. Papa Joffre would never…”
“I’m not pointing directly at Joffre, and I don’t want to believe that he is part of the conspiracy. Honestly, I don’t. But the company that Zaharoff keeps includes the president of France, the prime minister of England, and military leaders on the Allied side. Who knows if they stretch as far as Berlin? These people have immense power and money. I was removed from the Zaharoff case because my own boss wanted to protect me. Even the Deuxième has to take every precaution against these people.” He stopped, lowered his voice, and added, “I’ve told you too much already. Once you have crossed their path, you will be in great danger. You have to know this.”
They looked from one to the other. Even the generals were taken aback. Mathieu understood. They didn’t believe him. They couldn’t.
General Guillaumat turned to his own men. “Pierre-Etienne. You came to me with these plans. You were adamant, you all were. Briey had to be destroyed; wasted even. This and this alone could end the bloodletting within months. You asked me to risk my career. I am prepared to do that, though with General Messimy’s support, I will survive. The government could not afford to have a public scandal. But the forge-masters and the industrialists will come after us if they can. The option is this. Do it tonight and face what comes…or forget it.”
* * *
“Merde, merde, merde, merde. What am I doing here?”
Mathieu Bertrand was a detective, not an aviator. He kept his feet on the ground. Nature had not intended him to travel at over eighty miles an hour, two thousand feet above sea level, closer to the sun than he had ever been in his life. The story of Icarus flashed through his mind, but he wasn’t so much afraid as terrified.
No sooner had the decision been taken to go ahead with the immediate bombing of the Briey basin than a major problem emerged. There were three pilots and a member of the Deuxième Bureau already involved, but the two Caudron G.4 twin-engine bombers available required a total of four airmen. If they tried to enlist another flyer from the base at Lemmes, time would be lost and the secret mission might be compromised. As the generals had pointed out, time was against them.
“Look, there’s nothing to it. You hold the bombs out over the airplane and when I prod you, you let them fall.” Mathieu had agreed to accompany Marcel, the other pilot. It sounded simple. Even he could release a twenty pound bomb. And a fully loaded Caudron G.4 carried a total of twelve. They had him kitted up with jacket and headgear, buoyed by his eagerness, delighted that the mission was underway. To his amazement, the bomber’s seat was positioned out front of the twin-engine airplane. He had a fixed machine gun to play with, if necessary. Such was the extent of his training.
Mathieu had no regrets until the twin engines revved up and the entire world began to shake convulsively. Coherent speech was impossible from that moment onwards. He learned later that it was being phased out of service because of its high casualty rate, but blissful ignorance saved him unnecessary worry. Marcel swung the biplane onto the grass track and powered confidently forward. Mathieu watched the trees at the end of the field rush towards him until the Caudron raised its nose and headed into the clouds. He imagined that had happened but in fact he saw nothing. His eyes were firmly closed as he gripped the side of his seat and prayed that the belt which secured him to the mainframe had been properly attached. Why had he agreed to this stupidity?
The two Caudrons flew side by side. Paul René waved confidently across and pointed ahead to the sky. His antics appeared to indicate that Mathieu should be on the lookout for enemy airplanes and keep his hands on the machine gun in readiness for a sudden attack. No one had mentioned this when he agreed to be the fourth man. For thirty minutes the bombers flew eastward. Mathieu marveled at the world below with fields and towns, canals and rivers seemingly emptied of people. Verdun sat clearly to his left, its great defenses like a miniature model he once saw in the Parc Borely in Marseilles. He turned to see the pilot already engaged in complex navigation. They shouted to each other in vain. Communication was limited to lip reading and gesture. They flew over the front lines, pockmarked black and brown, as if smallpox had ravaged the world and disfigured the face of the earth for all time. Trench lines ran so close together that it was impossible to establish friend from foe. An occasional shot was fired from below, more for effect than real purpose. The airplanes began to lose height and Mathieu felt a sharp tap from behind.
The landscape had been turned into a vast industrialized complex colored by its own debris. Pierre-Etienne’s plane circled over eight blast furnaces belching acrid smoke and brimstone into the sky. The second Caudron followed close behind so that, from the ground they must have looked like a pair of scavenging buzzards. Sulphur spat into Mathieu’s eyes despite his protective goggles. He began to loosen the first bomb from its catch but it stuck fast. He pulled it free with both hands but it spun from his grasp and almost hit the floor. Jesus. That would have been a fitting epitaph. Blown up in midair over the blasted furnaces of hell. His heart rate raced faster than the engine’s thrust.
Focus. Focus, you idiot, he told himself.
Ahead, Paul René began to drop his explosives at regular short intervals. Mathieu did likewise. He could feel the shockwaves from below but concentrated on his own delivery.
Surrounded by noise, the detective did his utmost to deliver destruction from the air. He could not imagine the surprise below. For the first time since August 1914, war reached over the border and smote the industrial complex on the Briey basin. Incredibly, this unexpected assault was the first attack on a crucial target which lay less than thirty miles from Verdun. The planes regained height quickly and turned back towards Lemmes.
“Keep your eyes open,” the pilot must have yelled in Mathieu’s ear because he thought he heard the instruction. Behind them the furnaces continued to flare wildly.
The return journey was uneventful. Save for the moment Mathieu realized that the Caudron was about to land, he enjoyed the experience. What damage had they inflicted? He was eager to know and was contemplating jubilant headlines when the plane descended rapidly and lost speed. Sitting out front it seemed impossible that anyone could control the landing. The wind buffeted the aircraft with increasing effect as it lost height. Unconsciously Mathieu prayed to his guardian angel for instant protection. Miraculously, the sturdy Caudron glided onto mother earth and trundled to a standstill. Inside his head Mathieu swore an oath. Never again.
He wanted to leap to the ground, do cartwheels and cerebrate a life preserved, but the others were so clearly nonchalant that he had to internalize his joy. He also had to extricate himself from the front of the Caudron and was last to reach the ground.
“How much damage did we do? Anyone see?” He tried to sound nonchalant.
“Reconnaissance will find out in the morning. Right now, we deserve a quality bottle of wine.”
“Let’s go.”
Barely ten minutes and two kilometers later, the four “bombers” had uncorked a bottle of Cotes de Toul in an old auberge partially hidden from the adjoining road by a copse of trees.
“This Pinot Noir,” Paul-Rene proclaimed, “is the king of the regional reds,” before pouring a generous glass for each of his companions. “To victory…and an end to this slaughter.”
“To the downfall of traitors who have protected the forges from hell,” Marcel Villain replied.
Pierre-Etienne raised his glass in response. They toasted healthily on the rich-blooded red and ordered a rabbit stew for which the proprietress was famous. The detective in Mathieu obligated him to ask about black market tins of Atlantic salmon to the amusement of the others. Once more a blank. Sometime before the second bottle of Pinot Noir had been completely quaffed, an officer interrupted their repast. He saluted them with, “Excuse me, gentlemen. Have I the honor of addressing sous-Lieutenants Flandin, Dumer, et Villain? And Lieutenant Bertrand?”
