The Limoges Dilemma by Richard Wake

Author:Richard Wake [Wake, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manor and State, LLC
Published: 2019-06-11T22:00:00+00:00

29

We had a ration coupon between us, and that got us the first bottle of wine. We were suddenly flush with currency, after our escapade with the parachuted canisters, and that was enough to bribe the bar owner to give us a second bottle, sans ticket. Maurice, Leon and I sat at a table at the little bar that afforded us a view out of the front window of the place. Across the street was an apartment building that had been transformed into a German barracks.

It was late, well past dark, but between the light from the bar that spilled out into the street and the lit-up windows in the building across the way, it was easy to observe all the comings and goings. They seemed to work day hours, these soldiers, and they seemed to be all buttoned up by 8 p.m. From what we had seen before, and what we had been able to find out, there were 18 men who lived in the barracks. At night, there wasn’t even a guard out front. They just locked the doors — we actually saw the one soldier doing it, turning a key inside and then shaking the doors to make sure they were secure.

“Nighty-night,” Maurice said.

“You sure they’re all inside?” I said.

“I counted,” he said. “And they have three vehicles, and you can see them all parked on the curb.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “They only work during the day? What are they here for?”

“It’s a show,” Maurice said. “It’s a presence. They’re not trying to scare anybody — it’s like they’re trying to ingratiate themselves. You’ve seen the posters, right?”

“In Lyon, but not here.”

“I’m sure they’re the same.”

The posters were of German soldiers lifting happy French children in their arms, or playing with them, or holding their hands as they crossed the street, or taking off their helmets and letting one of the boys try it on. They were the joyful conquerors, the smiling occupiers. And if they spent most of their afternoons trying to round up young men for STO work details, well, don’t you see the joy that is work?

Sunny, cheerful, helpful — and we were going to kill them all. That’s what Maurice told us as we sat there.

There had never been any trouble in Mansle for the Germans, which was likely why they just locked the doors and went to bed. They didn’t push it, didn’t fraternize, seemed satisfied with the tone of friendly overseers. The bar owner said that the soldiers never came to his place to drink, instead purchasing fortification that they drank at home. One of the soldiers, making a liquor pickup, told him that they had turned one of the flats into their own private bar. And if there weren’t any women, well, as the soldier told him, “That’s what weekend passes to Limoges are for.”

Petain had come through on a tour about six months earlier, Maurice said. “The whole town came out. He drove through in an open car and they mobbed it.

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