Moral of the work
In War: Resolution
In Defeat: Defiance
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will
–Windston Churchill
Pierre sat in a pastry shop as the rain pounded the cobblestone street outside the leaded windows. He was a stout, 5’10” young man in his mid 20s who was politically lost. It was 1939 and a good portion of the French government was negotiating with Hitler for survival and wealth. After WWI, many European countries adopted a treacherous political mantra. They experienced the devastation of a World War, and it would never happen again–or so they thought.
Some countries destroyed weaponry under false pretense. After eight months of inactivity on both sides, the British and the French, the Hitler inrush of a vast offensive, led by spear-point masses of cannon-proof or heavily armored vehicles, startled the world. They broke up all defensive opposition, and for the first time for centuries, and even perhaps since the invention of gunpowder, they made common artillery almost impotent on the battlefield.
Pierre, with his beret, dark bushy hair, and wiry mustache, sipped a small cup of espresso in the Cambria coffee shop, and tapped the mahogany table relentlessly. He was terrified and didn’t know which way to turn. His Peugeot motorcycle waited in the rain at the curb, dripping with impatience. A messenger was due to arrive, but who could he trust?
In this sector, however, the Siegfried Line, with its well-built concrete pillboxes mutually supporting one another and organized in depth with masses of wire, was in September 1939, already formidable. By the third week in September, the Polish campaign had ended. The fleeting French numerical superiority in the West was passing. Poland was lost and France wavered.
His girl resided in Paris some 100 miles to the south. He contacted her and convinced the beautiful little redhead, Michele, to meet him in a small coastal berg and make shipping arrangements. He was determined to reach England, and one man who was certainly trustworthy, Winston Churchill. He had read much, and just this man, a WWI admiral, was determined to waken the spirit of determination in the free world.
Why did the French remain passive until Poland was destroyed? In 1938, there was a good chance of victory while Czechoslovakia still existed. In 1936, there could have been no effective German opposition. In 1933, a rescript from Geneva would have procured bloodless compliance.
Pierre’s mind was cluttered with confusing thoughts. The French resistance wasn’t formerly established. He was just a lone rider with a mission, an uncertain one. A fellow concerned Frenchman, a school yard boyhood friend, contacted him the week before and told him of some information he encountered near the frontier defenses on the border of France and Belgium from a Belgium soldier who recently returned hurriedly from the front lines between Germany and Belgium. He didn’t know what to do with the military information, but in Pierre’s heart, his fate was determined.
Pierre’s dire thoughts of Michele consumed him. He read underground reports of Jews being mistreated by the Nazis in Germany. There were overt threats, and chest pounding about the destruction of Jews, and lots of negativity about the Jewish faith and heritage. Michele’s mother was part Jew, and Pierre loved her too much to allow her to stay in harm’s way. He had to convince her to take the voyage across the English Channel with him.
The rumble of another single-cylinder motorcycle broke his doldrums. Alain rode up to the quiet café and dismounted in the driving rain. He was thin as a rail, and his wirey features were soaking wet and gaunt. Pierre ordered a fresh brewed cup of steaming coffee and a croissant for his childhood friend, but they didn’t speak. His friend’s brilliant blue eyes darted around the small empty café, then came to rest on Pierre’s sea green gaze. He wrapped his wet leather gauntlet gloves around the hot cup of coffee and shivered as he lifted it to his lips.
When he was sure they were alone, he slipped Pierre a note in a small envelop from inside of his heavy leather coat. Pierre carefully opened it and read the type-written words: By September 18 Germans had mobilized at least 116 divisions of all classes, distributed as follows; Western front, 42 divisions; Central Germany, 16 divisions; Eastern Front, 58 divisions. Germany had in all from 108 to 117 divisions. Poland was attacked by 58 of the most matured.
There remained 50 to 60 divisions of varying quality. Of these along the Western Front from Aix-la-Chappelle to the Swiss frontier, there stood 42 German divisions. Hitler was sure that the French political system was rotten to the core, and that it had infected the French Army.
The words made him shake in abject fear. War was so close, eminent, and he knew only one thing. He needed to find his girl and escape to England for help.
He touched his friend’s hand and stood. With a nod of encouragement, the best he could muster, he folded the thick Manila paper, stuffed it in the small folded envelope and slipped it deep in one of his thick leather leggings. He departed the leaded glass café doors, donned his leather riding attire, his thick cream-colored cashmere scarf, and kicked his motorcycle to life. It was already freshly refueled and he knew he could reach the outskirts of Paris on the 20-horsepower engine without refueling. Then with another tank, he could almost make it to the small seaport town of Cherbourg, where he would collect Michele and secure passage on a small vessel across the English Channel to Plymouth or Bournemouth.
Hugging the motorcycle as if it was a sick dog, he rumbled along the rough cobblestone and sand roads on crude tires at just over 40 mph. His single headlamp was dim and the weather obscured visibility as he crept along slippery roads through small villages. He had no notion of the famous French underground, resistance, or Marquis forming in the years ahead; he just had a single mission to reach someone who believed in freedom.
As he spotted the lights of Paris ahead, he noticed another light sparkling off the polished stones around him, and then he heard the cadence of another flathead engine firing in counterpoint to his own. He had no rearview mirror, no gun, just a short stiletto knife tucked in his coat. He was cold to the bone, and tucked as close to the 1930 P107 248 cc motorcycle as possible. In his icy, fearful state, he was frozen to the rectangular gas and oil tanks, and vibrating handlebars of the motorcycle. It was all he could do to turn the mechanical throttle and increase his speed to the maximum, 88km/h (55 mph).
As best he could, he sped along the rough roads looking for his turnoff to head northwest toward the Colline de Normandie. With each slippery turn, he sensed the following motorcycle bearing down on him. He pressed the throttle harder and his single roared in the night. The following motorcycle could be a twin, with much more power. It seemed to track him as if pushing him to his limits.
With the lights of Paris on his left, he spotted a petrol station at a highway junction, and took the chance to slip under the flapping awning in the midnight wind. The other motorcycle sped past, and he was relieved. In the driving rain, low lights, and limited visibility, he could only make out a darkly painted frame, a tucked in rider, and flames pouring from his countryside open exhaust. It was truly a two-wheeled locomotive. It disappeared into the night.
“Je ne suis pas du coin, c’est bien la route de Cherbourg?”
The attendant responds: “Oui, continuez dans cette direction. La côte est à 250 miles à l’ouest. Soyez prudent.”
“I’m not from around here, is this the road to Cherbourg?”
The attendant responds: “Yes, you’re on track, just follow this highway 250
miles west to the coast. Be careful.”
He gassed up, kicked the single to life, pumped an extra lubricating blast of oil into the system, and straddled the quivering machine. He released the clutch and steered the frail frame in the same direction as the rider who had passed him moments ago.
Soon he was roaring along the highway toward Cherbourg in the driving rain and against the wind. He wasn’t sure his gas capacity would take him 175 miles to the coast. He tucked in as close as he could and was relieved to ride along without the ominous presence of the cyclist who had been following him.
The road through rural hillsides wound into an open valley, then wove into some soft hills where the twists and turns became more severe. He struggled to keep the flimsy motorcycle upright as it entered slippery turns paved in cobblestones stuck together with sandy grout. The stones were intensely slick, and the sand was like oil on soft rocks.
He crested a mild rise where the road straightened, and twisted the mechanical throttle; suddenly he faced a treacherous decline. His goggles fogged and he pulled them aside. He blinked his eyes to clear the moisture and sand for enhanced visibility, but didn’t dare apply his feeble mechanical drum brakes.
At the bottom of the hill, he came face to face with a hairpin curve and felt himself slipping into the oncoming lane. Unexpectedly the road narrowed and he spotted the glint of something metal in the road’s center. It was the brass sleeve around the hub of a wooden spoked wheel. A large wooden vegetable cart, with massive wooden wheels on either side rolled to the center of the street. He had no time to react, brake, or find an alternate route. He yanked his Peugeot single sideways, and down. He slid against the cobblestones sideways toward the rear of the massive wheel wrapped with cast iron strap at over 45 mph. Sparks flew.
He experienced a sense of calm as he collided with the steel strap. The cart rattled and his motorcycle spun like a pinwheel against the wet stones. He pushed away from the screaming machine as it launched itself off the road and into a deep ditch alongside the road. He dove for the low shrubbery on the other side of the ditch. He tucked and rolled in the tall grass. As soon as he stopped, he checked his limbs for breaks, then wanted to know immediately the condition of his machine.
As Pierre scrambled to his feet, he heard something moving in the grass. He spun as best he could, while still in shock, and discovered a man coming after him, then he heard a shot fired and saw the flash from the mussel. He dove back into the grass, and scrambled in no determined direction.
He heard footsteps charging, when he came across something in the grass, a motorcycle wheel. He yanked it free from it’s muddy grave, turned and tossed it in his previous path and covered, then crawled quickly a few more feet, before he ducked behind a fallen tree trunk in the thick weeds.
He listened carefully above the noise of the driving rain and whistling wind for the boot steps in the soft grass. They kept coming, then stumbled, and he heard a squeal, pulled his dagger, and jumped out from his hiding place. He had no formal close-quarters training except a self-defense class from and older gentlemen, an American, who taught him a couple of moves.
A lesson Pierre always remembered was to attack, get close, in order to gain some level of control. He charged almost blind in the dark, and ran into a dark form. They scuffled in the grass and mud. He heard the hammer of the weapon move and the cylinder rotate. It was that close. He drove his dagger into the form at waist level. The gun went off, but as he twisted the blade, he felt the other man weaken and collapse.
Pierre moved away quickly, and winced. As he scrambled to find his bike and get the hell out of harms way, a pain shot through his left thigh. He reached down and felt warm liquid. He couldn’t see in the rain, under the cloud-covered sky. He found his motorbike in the weeds, minus his mangled front wheel and pulled it towards the road’s edge. He ran his gloved hand along the girder front end and discovered a broken tube. He couldn’t ride the single. His heart sank, but the pain in his leg awaked his drive, and he backtracked until he found the road.
In the dank shadows, he spotted a nearby tree and discovered the twin 1933 Peugeot 515 behind it leaning against the tree. Peugeot developed the first 500cc double-overhead cam-driven twin. The diminutive key was still in the ignition behind the handlebars. He discovered a way to keep rolling and calmed. He returned and searched around his bike, feeling in the dark, to retrieve his leather-pocket tool kit.
He could feel the hole in his pant leg and wrapped it with his long cream-colored cashmere scarf. It was painful, but he couldn’t tell how much damage was inflicted or how deep the projectile protruded below the flesh. He thought about the attacker. The man was desperate to stop Pierre’s progress. Did someone know of his mission? He returned to the body, retrieved the Sauer 38H, a small semi-automatic pistol made in Nazi Germany from 1938 by J. P. Sauer & Sohn, then based in Suhl, Germany. He immediately noticed it was not a French pistol. The “H” in the model number denoted “hammerless”—the pistol used an internal hammer.
He searched the man for papers or identification. He discovered he was a Gestapo agent, the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police. Most “H” pistols were distributed to various German police agencies. These pistols were stamped by those agencies and Pierre discovered the small clip-on leather holster and an additional magazine. Sauer 38H pistols presented to Nazi officials often featured custom engraving, ivory grips, and often gold inlay.
Pierre discovered a tin can beside the road. He siphoned the gas from his motorcycle and topped off the twin fuel cells. He carefully primed the carburetor and prayed this motorcycle was unharmed. He kicked it twice, nothing, and then noted a small flash of light. The sparkplug wire was disconnected and arched across his cast iron cylinder. He reattached the copper wire, and kicked it again, and again. In the dark, he scoured the bike for additional mechanical maladies. His leg throbbed, but he kept searching.
Then he remembered what an old mechanic told him about flooded cylinders and to allow the chamber more air to mix with the fuel. He pulled the throttle wide open and kicked, nothing, but on the second kick, it roared to life. He couldn’t wait to get away from the scene, plus his girl was waiting. He advanced larger clutch lever, ground the foot shifter into first gear and the bike started to roll.
He was tentative at first. He didn’t know this motorcycle, but it was newer than his, and this model was capable of 118 km/h. His leg pounded with pain, and he might have killed a man. He just knew one thing. He had to share his information with someone who cared about the future of France.
He roared along, trying to carefully judge every moving part on the 6-year-old motorcycle. Transportation advanced significantly since his 1930 motorcycle was new. Each year, the motorcycle industry improved with more cylinders, transmissions with additional gears, generators, and electrical lighting. He could swear this popping exhaust note was louder. The twin felt more balanced and much faster. As his confidence grew, he sped up.
His mind whirled with thoughts of his petite redhead. Michele was short and cute as a polished marble button, with bright eyes, and a never-ceasing drive for whatever she desired. She graduated early from a Paris culinary institute, and went to work for a sue chef in a fine floating river restaurant immediately. It motored quietly beside Notre Dame de Paris (French for Our Lady of Paris), also known as Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris. The cathedral treasury housed a reliquary with the purported Crown of Thorns.
Michele was also terribly concerned about the future of her country, and determined. When she heard from Pierre, she immediately jumped at the chance to be proactive. She carefully investigated small shipping vessels, and then at a party she met a girl who dated the British ambassador to France. She spoke very highly of him, so Michele took a chance.
“Can I meet him?”
“I’ll set it up,” the woman said and took Michele’s phone number.
Careful to judge the ambassador’s political position, she approached him with caution when she was summoned to the embassy.
“How do you feel about the attack on Poland?” Michele asked.
“I’m concerned for our survival,” the ambassador said.
“If someone could help, can they come to you?” Michele asked cautiously.
“Anything,” the ambassador returned. His eyes brightened, and then he looked toward the door to his reception area.
“I need a boat to England,” Michele said, “But I can’t tell you anymore.”
“I understand,” the Ambassador said. “I suggest we go for a ride.” He motioned for her to follow him.
She was petrified, but had no choice. She previously researched all she could about the ambassador, but his staff members were not as cooperative. The receptionist seemed fearful, huddled over her vast carved oak desk. Her blue eyes barely made contact with Michele, then darted along the marble floor.
A burly assistant stood immediately outside his office door, and stared intently at Michele. He was big, muscular, blond, with hard features. They were chauffeured in his official limousine away from the government building.
“I can’t speak at ease in the headquarters,” the ambassador said. “The Vichy government has forced me to use their staff members. I don’t think we will man the British Embassy much longer. I may follow you shortly.”
He hand-wrote some instructions on a sheet of paper and slipped it to Michele. His eyes were firm but sincere.
“I would suggest you move as quickly as possible, and speak to no one, except the captain of this vessel. You will be met at the dock in England and immediately escorted to a safe place. I will see to it.”
“I can’t take you home,” he said and motioned for his driver to pull over. Michele stepped out onto a damp street.
“I’m not sure it would be wise for you to go home, at this point,” he said and shut his car door.
Pierre pushed his new motorcycle as hard as he could along another rainy, winding road. His tank would take him under 100 miles. He watched his time closely. At two hours out, he slid into a petrol station on the edge of Lisieux and refueled. It was a quiet town. He respectfully rolled out of town as quietly as possible. The unceasing rain didn’t back off, but the gray clouds seemed like heavily laden pillows filled to the brim with moisture. Pierre could not wait for daylight. He pressed on.
It was after midnight when his tires slipped in the mud, and sparked all his senses back to full alert as the mud from the rain-soaked hillside escaped to the rough road’s surface in a torrential mudslide. It grew colder as he rolled into the town of Caen, the capital of the Basse-Normandie region, just 15 km (9.3 miles) from the English Channel. He passed a small ceramic sign announcing the distance to Cherbourg at 200 km (124 miles).
Up ahead in the dim light along the road’s edge under a lone street lamp, he could see a small form standing under the rain-shrouded glow and waving. As he neared, he discovered it was Michele, tightly wrapped in an overcoat holding a tin gallon can of gas. She stuffed a Thermos of coffee, a couple of croissants and a chunk of cheese in her coat.
Pierre slid to a stop, and they embraced as if they would never have seen each other again. He stared into her sparkling hazel blue eyes, as if her gaze eliminated all the evil in the world, all the cold, and hunger. Suddenly, he was no longer soaking wet, or chilled to the bone; he was warm and dry.
“There’s shelter up ahead,” she said, hugging him.
“Why didn’t you meet me in Cherbourg,” Pierre aked?
“I was scared,” Michele said. “I didn’t want to go without you. It could be very dangerous.”
“Get on,” Pierre said and rode the Peugeot under a dark wooden bridge. She held him like a damp rat grasping a log in a swirling river.
The discovered a small hidden shelter, tucked the motorcycle behind it and shared a hot cup of warm espresso.
“How much time do we have?” Pierre asked.
“We must be on board before 3:00 a.m.”
Then she spotted his blood-soaked scarf tied around his thigh. As Pierre filled his gas tank once more, she dressed his wound. It was already 1:00 a.m. She didn’t ask, but the projectile had already worked its lead weight close to the surface. With the point from a broach pin, she removed the 7.65 mm bullet, cleaned the area and made a bandage pad from her small cotton handkerchief, holding it in place with the long scarf once more. He nearly passed out from the pain.
They climbed aboard the Peugeot twin once more and peeled toward the coast. This twin model beat the world 24-hour record on the Montlhéry circuit, with an average speed of 118.747 km/h (nearly 75 mph) in 1934. Pierre quickly calculated that he could arrive in Cherbourg in a tad over 1.5 hours, but he was packing the lithe Michele. He put her 100-pound weight out of his mind and twisted the throttle.
They sensed the nearby English Channel as the offshore salt air picked up and the rain seemed to slice sideways. Pierre pulled on the throttle, leaned the motorcycle against the wind and hard on the tanks, and Michele held on for dear life. The land flattened and the wind whistled over stone hedgerows separating fields from sheep grazing lands.
An hour passed blazing through fields, and suddenly he could see the lights of Cherbourg in the distance. The glow made him pull on the throttle even harder. The twin felt completely different from the single, hammering out its compression not like a hammer against a 16-penny nail. It was tough and determined, where as the twin was a team of pistons creating balance in the crank. The torque was smooth and strong, almost like the sound of a single piano on stage versus a quartet.
Cherbourg resided on the Contentin Peninsula, and was conquered by Vikings around 1066 and became a port. With each mile, Pierre familiarized himself with this new machine. It felt organized and strong. The levers worked seamlessly and the clutch felt secure. But as the road lifted slightly and he overlooked the town, he realized that he had no notion of the port’s location, but he kept moving along the two-lane highway, until he noticed a shipping truck looming ahead. When it turned off the highway, Pierre followed and spotted a Porto ceramic sign. He was on the right track.
The truck rumbled slowly and spewed diesel exhaust, then the single brake light illuminated in the downpour and the lumbering vehicle with the tarp cover slowed. Pierre pulled to the side and discovered a roadblock entering the port. His mind whirled with options as he scanned the concrete block guard towers, the armed guards, and the pivoting barrier. He had no papers and no documents on the motorcycle.
Michele tapped his back and thrust her slender wrist in front of his gaze. Her dripping tiny watch held to her delicate wrist was partially covered by her soaking wet thin leather glove. She pulled the gauntlet flap aside so Pierre could read the face dripping with moisture. The delicately thin nickel-plated hands indicated 2:45.
Pierre gunned the motorcycle and dropped the clutch lever as the gate arm rose for the truck. He sped around the truck and under the striped steel arm. With one hand on the throttle, and Michele hanging on for dear life, he reached in his jacket and pulled out the Gestapo identification and flashed it at the guard.
“Gestapo!” He shouted, and blazed into the port.
He had no notion as to the affect his overt announcement would have on the guards, but he had no time to consider his options. He attempted to sound official, but there was no way he could sound German. He needed to find a ship, but what ship? Just then, Michele tapped on his shoulder again and whispered in his ear.
“We need to find the Bibi,” Michele whispered. “Hurry!”
He didn’t know where to go, the layout of the port. It bustled with activity, truck traffic, carts, pallets, and longshoremen in rubber rain gear darting in front of him. The streets were lined with a spider web of train tracks. He had to sense the direction to the docks by the movements in the streets, but as he passed a warehouse, a black sedan pulled in front of him and slid to a stop. The rear suicide doors shot open and to massive gangster types stepped out of the vehicle and cocked MP35 (Maschinenpistole 35, literally “Machine Pistol 35”). It was a submachine gun (SMG) used by the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS and German police both before and during World War II.
“Halte!” The tall trench coat wearing angelo shouted. He looked like he could be a Gestapo officer. The vehicle he sped at faced to his right, and he had no notion of which way to go. He weaved, leaned hard to the left and his rear tire slid on slick wet and oily railroad tracks. He thought the motorcycle was going down as it screamed toward the agent. It startled the man and he jumped on the floorboards of the vehicle and the automatic weapon spit rounds into the sky.
Pierre weaved around pallets, trucks, carts, and dockworkers, looking for the Bibi as the sedan turned around and sped after them, bullets whistling through the air. He was terrified for Michele holding firmly to his torso. He had to find the Bibi quick, plus he was rapidly running out of time. He passed one pier, then another, then he could see the end of the road ahead as he was forced to turn left or right, or end up in the shallow Cherbourg port water. Michele studied each pier, each vessel for a sign.
Pierre weaved on the wet tar soaked lumber, when he heard another burst from the machine gun, and a dockworker stumbled and fell beside him.
“There it is!” Michele shouted, and pointed to the right.
A bullet sliced through her arm and it went limp, and she screamed. With his left hand, he grabbed her arm and held on tight as he kicked the motorcycle down one gear and leaned the motorcycle as hard as he could to make the right turn onto the pier.
The ship’s stern line hit the water, and Pierre’s heart sank, but his determination didn’t wane. The Peugeot motorcycle handled the turn and darted behind a shipping truck, which blocked rapid-fire bullets. He could see the large BiBi letters on the stern and line handlers dropping the large hemp line eyes from the mammoth horn cleats from the pier into the briny sea. The ship’s steam horn announced its departure as Pierre sped along side the rusting cargo ship housing multiple cranes.
Then he spotted a final cargo gangplank rolling toward the pier’s abutments.
“Michele,” he hollered still holding her left hand with all his might. “Lift your right leg as high as you can!”
At that moment he kicked down on his rear brake and the bike slipped immediately into a sideways slide and Pierre kicked away from the motorcycle, which slid to the end of the pier and spit, tumbling into the bay.
Pierre reach, and grabbed the gang plank railing, but couldn’t hold onto the railing and Michele. He spun passed, grabbing at the underside of the heavy steel structure made from I-beams and wooden planks, just as the ship pulled away from the dock. The gang plank was hoisted off the creaking dock toward the main deck.
A long burst of 9×23 mm bullets pepper the side of the thick iron ship, and the crew retrieved the gangplank automatically with a manually operated ship’s hoist. Members of the crew hiding behind bulkheads peered over the side for the two folks off the motorcycle in the water, but they were nowhere to be found.
The ship sounded one final blast from its steam powered horn and motored toward open sea of the English Channel. Outside the port, the captain hurriedly stepped down his metal stairs to the main deck and approached the gangplank on its secure carriage over the steel cargo hold doors.
“Michele?” he asked tentatively.
“Captain Lamboeuf?” A slight female voice whispered in the dark.
The couple rolled out from under rusting gangplank.
“Permission to come aboard sir?” Pierre said and saluted.
“You are most welcome,” the captain said. “Mr. Churchill is extremely anxious to meet with you on Downing Street. It will take us just three hours to reach Portsmouth, and a car will be waiting.”
He then noticed Pierre’s crimson leg bandage and the wound to Michele’s upper arm, but both smiled broadly.
“May I show you to sickbay?” the captain said leading the way.
How the English-speaking peoples, through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm–Winston Churchill
inspired by a vintage postcard from Paul Garson
