A YOUNG SUCCUBUS NAMED DELICIA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 9 – THE PARIS COMMANDO

 

22:48 (Paris Time)

Saturday, August 30, 1941

Cabaret ‘Mille et Une Nuits’

34 Rue Saint-André-des-Arts, Quartier Latin

6th Arrondissement, Paris, France

The young German fighter pilot, having just climaxed himself, then pleased Mélanie by continuing to stimulate her with his hands and tongue, allowing her to climax as well a minute later. Smiling to the handsome blond pilot, Mélanie knelt beside him on the bed and, taking the spent condom off his penis and throwing it aside, used the bed sheet to clean up his genitals.

‘’You were a really caring lover, Rudolph: that deserves an extra.’’ She then grabbed his limp penis with both hands and started stimulating it manually, to the pleasure of the German pilot. As soon as it started again to harden, Mélanie started licking the tip of the penis, pinching the base once it became fully erect. With Rudolph now unable to ejaculate and with Mélanie applying all her experience and science of oral sex to stimulate him, the pilot soon was jerking with spasms of intense pleasure that turned into a near torture after three minutes of fondling, licking and sucking. After five minutes of this energetic treatment, Rudolph had to give up.

‘’S…stop, please! My…my groin…about to explode.’’

Mélanie then released at once her pinch on his penis, making a jet of sperm shoot up high while Rudolph nearly shouted in an explosive orgasm. The German laid panting on his back for a few seconds before he could speak again.

‘’M…mein Gott! This must have been the best sex I ever had. You are a true angel, Mélanie.’’

That made the teenager smile devilishly as she got off the bed to dress back.

‘’And you proved yourself to be a top lover, Rudolph. Don’t hesitate to come back anytime…and bring the rest of your squadron with you at the same time.’’ Rudolph made a face at that.

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‘’I’m sure that the other guys would love to come as a group, but we still have a war to fight, Mélanie, and these British are tough customers indeed. My unit is also going to be extra busy in the next few weeks, as we are going to be reequipped with a new type of fighter.’’

Hiding her immediate interest on hearing that information, Mélanie caressed the pilot’s face as he sat up on the edge of the bed, while activating her ‘Charm’ spell on him.

‘’And that new fighter, is it as pretty as you…or as me?’’

‘’Nothing can be more beautiful than you, Mélanie, but the Focke-Wulf 190 is indeed a racy-looking plane. It is also very fast and heavily armed.’’

‘’As heavily armed as you?’’ said Mélanie, smiling while caressing his penis, making Rudolph take in a deep breath while closing his eyes for a moment.

‘’Well, I don’t have two 7.9mm machine guns and four 20mm cannons between my legs, but thanks for the compliment. Uh, what time is it now?’’

‘’It is just past eleven o’clock, my dear Rudolph.’’

‘’Oops! I better get dressed quickly, before my wingmen depart for the base without me.’’

‘’And it would be such a terrible thing for you to be stuck here for the night?’’ replied Mélanie in a falsely hurt tone. Rudolph couldn’t help stare at her magnificent nude body and oh so tempting breasts before answering her.

‘’Hell, I wish I could stay more, Mélanie, but my commander would skin me alive if I am not back at base in the morning: he will need me to help receive our first new planes.’’

‘’Then, you really better hurry, Rudolph.’’

She then helped the young pilot to get back in uniform faster and kissed him one last time after he paid her, adding a very generous tip for her. Mélanie watched him leave with decidedly mixed feelings: on one hand, he was an enemy of France and would be a legitimate target for attack by her; on the other hand, Rudolph was actually a decent man, on top of being a good lover. Those mixed feelings then reminded Mélanie that, the more things went, the more she seemed to stray from the standard template of a Succubus: Demons were not supposed to care about the fate of simple Humans, or even about the fate of other Demons. Maybe that was one of the reasons why she had been run out of the Abyss. Sighing heavily, she picked up her pieces of clothing lying all around the guest room and went to her own room: she had a big and busy night still ahead, but not in a bed.

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Once in her bedroom and with the door locked, Mélanie went to the full-length mirror sitting in a corner and stood facing it, fully naked. Concentrating while looking at herself, she activated her ‘Polymorph’ power. A pale halo surrounded her body as it started changing shape according to the mental image she had formed in her mind. Less than twenty seconds later, she had turned into a fit, handsome and strong young man of the same height as she was as Mélanie. Looking critically at her new penis, she found it rather ordinary to her taste.

‘’Hell, if I can change shape at will, then I might as well be at my best in every aspect!’’

Concentrating further, she made her penis grow further, in length as well as in diameter, until she was satisfied with it.

‘’Now, that’s what I call a real dick! Time to jump to my secret cave and dress up as a British soldier.’’

01:19 (Paris Time)

Sunday, August 31, 1941

Avenue Daumesnil, near the Fort of Vincennes

Forest of Vincennes, eastern suburbs of Paris

Having just left the Fort of Vincennes, one of the forts of the Thiers fortification complex built in the 1840s to defend Paris, the German motorized patrol rolled down the Avenue Daumesnil, heading towards the Charenton Gate and the 12th Arrondissement, which it was tasked to patrol on this night in

order to enforce the night curfew in town.

The small convoy, with a SdKfz 231 heavy armored car leading two Henschel 33

medium trucks loaded with infantrymen, was

going fairly fast as it travelled through this

deserted part of the Forest of Vincennes.

Only the headlights of the vehicles and the sparse light from a half moon illuminated the dark woods that the patrol was presently going through. With the poor ambient light and limited visibility provided by the narrow armored windows of his vehicle, the driver of the armored car did not notice two groups of cobblestones in the road which stuck out slightly from the rest of the pavement. The front right wheel of his 2.2-ton armored car

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rolled over one of those groups of elevated stones, triggering the antitank mine buried under the pavements.

BOOM

The front of the six-wheeled armored car flew up, while the vehicle rolled on its left side. It nearly immediately caught fire, its fuel tank ripped open by the powerful explosion. The unfortunate driver and gunner of the armored car, either stunned or unconscious because of the blast of the mine, were not able to get out in time and burned alive inside their vehicle. As the drivers of the two trucks following the armored car braked as hard as they could, the staccato of a machine gun came from between the trees bordering the road on the left side. The infantrymen in the rear of the first truck, holding to dear life to the sides of their vehicle as it braked brutally, were swept by the first machine gun burst coming from the left. Six Germans were killed outright, while four more were wounded and collapsed on the floor of the truck. A second burst swept the survivors as they hurriedly jumped out of the back of their vehicle, killing or wounding four more men. Four seconds later, a rifle shot rang from a position at least fifty yards away from the approximate location of the machine gun, downing one of the German soldiers about to jump out of the second truck. A second rifle shot followed, downing another German soldier. The surviving Germans who could jump out of their vehicles took cover inside the right-side drainage ditch along the road and started firing back in the direction the rifle and machine gun fire had come, with their young officer shouting orders. That officer suddenly stopped shouting in mid sentence and collapsed as a rifle shot rang from the woods on the right side of the road…from the back of the Germans in the ditch! Swearing loudly, the Germans divided their fire in three directions, still shooting blind at unseen enemies. More rifle fire came from the right, then the machine gun resumed firing from the left side of the road. Feeling overwhelmed and with their numbers dwindling steadily, the Germans did as best they could, redeploying inside the woods on the right side of the forest and forming a defensive circle there. A pair of primed grenades suddenly flew in quick succession from inside the forest, falling and exploding among the Germans and causing many new casualties. The survivors then heard short orders being shouted in English from inside the woods. Two Germans then saw an armed man wearing the distinctive steel helmet of the British Army and a khaki uniform and web gear quickly emerge out of the woods and run across the road. He

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disappeared among the dark trees as one German fired at him but apparently missed. A second armed man then ran across the road and into the left side woods under the eyes of the Germans.

‘’BRITISH SOLDIERS?!’’ exclaimed the most senior survivor, an obergefreiter24. ‘’HOW COULD THEY BE HERE, IN PARIS?’’

The obergefreiter then had to hastily throw himself down as the machine gun fired another burst, sweeping the woods at waist height. Then, the woods fell silent, except from the screams and moans of the wounded and the explosions from machine gun ammunition cooking off in the burning armored car. The obergefreiter waited a good minute, listening and looking, before he decided that the enemy must have retreated through the woods. Getting back up, he gave a few short orders to the nine men still alive and intact.

‘’Okay, let’s take care of our wounded before they bleed to death! Kruger, Schenck and Dittmar, you go take position in the woods on the other side of the road and protect our flank while we treat our wounded. Reinforcements should arrive soon from the fort after such a firefight.’’

The young NCO, still under the shock of that short but brutal fight, soon found out that his platoon had suffered a total of thirteen men killed and eleven more wounded, many seriously. To that had to be added the two crewmen of the destroyed armored car. He was having the dead soldiers lined up beside the road and covered with their ponchos when the noise of vehicles approaching from the direction of the fort made him look up. He then saw the headlights of no less than six vehicles approach fast on the road. Walking onto the road and standing on the right side of it, he waved at the approaching vehicles to slow down. The first vehicle, a SdKfz 222 light armored car, did slow down and stopped once level with him, with four trucks loaded with troops also stopping, but one armored car following the lead vehicle then jumped the line and started speeding along the left lane of the road, having probably been ordered by radio to go take a covering position ahead of the ambush point. Before the frantic obergefreiter, shouting and gesticulating hard, could make it stop, the armored car rolled on another antitank mine and blew up. The hauptmann commanding the relief column

 

24 Obergefreiter: German rank equivalent to master corporal.

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swore loudly as he watched the armored car catch fire, then looked down at the distressed obergefreiter.

‘’WHO ATTACKED YOU, OBERGEFREITER? FRENCH TERRORISTS?’’

‘’NO, HERR HAUPTMANN! IT WAS BRITISH SOLDIERS! WE SAW TWO OF THEM AS THEY RAN ACROSS THE ROAD WHILE RETREATING. THEY RAN INTO THE WOODS TO OUR LEFT, GOING ROUGHLY SOUTH.’’

‘’BRITISH SOLDIERS, HERE? BUT THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!’’

‘’I KNOW, HERR HAUPTMANN, BUT WE CLEARLY SAW THEM: THEY WORE BRITISH BATTLEDRESS AND HAD BRITISH STYLE STEEL HELMETS AND WEB GEAR. WE ALSO HEARD THEM EXCHANGE ORDERS IN ENGLISH.’’ The officer passed a hand in his face, taken off balance by that information.

‘’British soldiers operating in Paris… The High Command will go bonkers when they will hear about this. And I don’t want to think about the reaction of the Führer when he will learn about this attack.’’

‘’Well, sir, these British were deadly enough: we suffered a total of fifteen men killed and eleven more men wounded, many seriously. Our armored car was destroyed by an antitank mine, then we were engaged with machine gun and rifle fire as we were jumping out of our trucks. These British soldiers were well armed and were ready for our patrol, sir.’’

The officer gave another, somber look at the two burning armored cars and shook his head.

‘’When I think that Paris is supposed to be a rest and recreation center for our troops in France. DAMN!’’

01:42 (Paris Time)

Fort of Ivry, Thiers fortification complex

Ivry-sur-Seine, Southeast suburbs of Paris

The four German soldiers on sentry duty at

the main gate of the Fort of Ivry, which was part of

the complex of forts surrounding Paris and built in

the 1840s, jerked and turned around towards the

interior of the fort when an explosion resonated in the night. They were in time to see a ball of flames rise from one of the dozen or so medium trucks parked in the middle of the

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grassy area in the center of the pentagonal fort. Less than four seconds later, a second truck exploded into flames. One of the German sentries then saw a fleeting silhouette running behind the line of parked vehicles.

‘’THERE, BEHIND THE TRUCKS! I SEE AN INTRUDER! ALARM! ALARM!’’ Two of the Germans then started running towards the trucks as a third vehicle went up in flames, leaving two men to guard the main gate and its entrance tunnel. One of the running Germans then stumbled and fell to the ground as a rifle shot rang out. Tightening his teeth, his companion continued running as fast as he could but started zigzagging in order to become a more difficult target. That saved his life, as a bullet whistled past his ears three seconds later. Finally arriving nearly out of breath at the nearest parked vehicle, a VW staff car, he crouched behind it for a moment, time to catch his breath, then cautiously stuck his head out to try to locate the attackers. He barely had time to see a British soldier, with his typical ‘barber plate’ steel helmet, standing beside a truck and

pointing a rifle at him, before he

ducked down, barely avoiding

being shot. Taking a deep breath,

the German then rose and quickly

pointed his MP 40 submachine

gun, firing a short burst before

ducking down again behind the staff car. The explosion of a fourth truck made him cringe, while his blood froze on hearing the nasty staccato of a machine gun as it started barking with short, aimed bursts. From the sound of it, that machine gun seemed to be firing from atop one of the southern casemates of Bastion Number Three. The German was enraged to see one of the two men left at the main gate, one who was a good friend of his, topple after a machine gun burst. Things got even worst when more German soldiers, rudely awakened by the explosions and shots, started running out of their barrack block, a four-storey stone building with peaked roof. A brief flash from a small explosion in the air at waist level, followed by a concert of screams of pain and the toppling of many of the men running out of the barrack block, made the German sentry swear out loud.

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‘’TEUFFEL! S-MINEN25!’’

After a second S-Mine exploded, butchering more soldiers, the Germans attempting to leave their barrack block became a lot more cautious and started walking alongside the walls of their building, avoiding the grassy surfaces. However, that only made them ideal targets for the enemy, with a machine gun starting to fire from a fresh location and toppling more German soldiers. Grenades thrown from atop the casemate nearest the barrack building then caused more German casualties. Cautiously sticking his head out, the German sentry saw one British soldier, then another one, run from behind a small outer shed and enter Bastion Number Three, apparently withdrawing.

‘’THE ENEMY IS ENTERING BASTION NUMBER THREE!’’ His warning was heard by a number of German soldiers, who were now emerging in increasing numbers from the various buildings inside the fort, prompting them to converge on the entrance of that bastion with weapons at the ready. The sentry then ran to join them, gluing himself to the stone wall near the entrance to the bastion. One of the Germans already beside the door looked at him in the dark and asked a question in a less than assured voice.

‘’What the hell is happening? Who is attacking us?’’

‘’British soldiers: I saw a few of them as they ran around. They seem to want to use the caves and tunnels under the fort to escape.’’

The other German nodded his head in understanding: the Fort of Ivry had been built over an extensive complex of old underground quarries and tunnels which formed a true subterranean maze, a maze poorly known by the German garrison of the fort. On an order from a junior officer, four soldiers then rushed inside the bastion through its entrance door, only to be greeted by an exploding grenade which downed three of them. Someone then shouted from the inside in English, sarcasm in his voice.

‘’HEY, FRITZ, YOU LIKE TO PLAY HIDE AND SEEK? THEN COME AND TRY TO GET US! I HOPE THAT YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF THE DARK!’’ That enraged the junior officer, a young lieutenant, who rushed inside with more men while the latter delivered a withering covering fire. The Germans then found themselves

25 S-Minen: German designation for a type of anti-personnel mine designed to bounce out of the ground when activated and then explode at waist level, spreading shrapnel all around. The S-Mine was most feared by Allied infantrymen during WW2, who nicknamed it ‘Bouncing Betty’.

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near the opening of a stone staircase going down to the basement levels. The young lieutenant looked at two of his men and gave a few short orders.

‘’You and you, go get as many flashlights and lamps as you could find, and quickly! The rest of us will now go down this staircase to pursue those damn British! GO!’’

Leading by example, the young lieutenant then started running down the straight staircase, his Luger pistol in his right hand. He was about to get to the feet of the staircase, with a dozen men close behind him, when the deafening noise of a machine gun fired from inside the basement rang out. The lieutenant, along with five other Germans, was hit by the first long burst and collapsed on top of the stairs, bleeding and dying. The rest of the Germans hastily withdrew a few steps up, then threw a volley of stick grenades ahead. Four grenades exploded, deafening further the Germans, who then rushed forward, passing by their dead and wounded. To their utter frustration, they didn’t find a trace of their fleeting enemy, but they did hear another sarcastic taunt in English, coming apparently from another staircase going further down to the level of the upper network of caves and tunnels.

‘’WHAT? YOU GERMANS ARE AFRAID OF THE DARK, AFTER ALL?’’

A graying feldwebel26 swore at that and looked at the soldier following him.

‘’We will need more grenades, lots more, on top of flashlights. There are no lights down there and that maze is way too good to my taste at offering ambush opportunities to these damn British soldiers. The only way we will be able to flush them out is with liberal use of grenades. Now, go! You three, go help our wounded in the staircase and get medics to help them!’’

‘’Yes, Feldwebel!’’

The old senior NCO then exchanged a glance with the sentry from the main gate.

‘’We should have sealed all these damn caves and tunnels the moment we occupied this fort a year ago. Who knows where some of those tunnels end up.’’

‘’HEY, WE ARE STILL WAITING!’’ someone shouted in English from the lower levels, making the feldwebel swear.

‘’Himmel! If I catch one of those damn British, I will skin him alive!’’

 

26 Feldwebel: German rank equivalent to warrant officer.

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Six minutes later, soldiers arrived with extra flashlights and grenades. Once they were distributed around, the feldwebel, having taken one of the flashlights, pointed two of his men.

‘’Schmidt, Hartmann, you take point! If you encounter resistance, back off at once and let us throw grenades ahead.’’

‘’Yes, Feldwebel!’’ replied Schmidt, less than reassured, before cautiously starting to go down the stairs to the upper underground level. To his relief, nobody fired at him or threw a grenade at his feet and he soon

emerged inside a huge, dark cavern. His flashlight

could not in fact reach all the way to the end of the

old underground quarry and the place was

otherwise pitch black, putting additional stress on

his nerves. Sweeping the beam of his flashlight

around after emerging from the tunnel containing

the staircase, he suddenly jumped to the side with a shriek of terror: the beam of his flashlight had just illuminated a large pile of human bones and craniums stacked inside a wall niche of the cave. It took him a few seconds to make his heart slow down from his sudden fright.

‘’Mein Gott! This place is spooky as Hell!’’

The feldwebel arrived inside the cave a few seconds later and contemplated for a moment the piled bones.

‘’No need to be scared, men: these ones are long dead. It is the living we have to be careful about.’’

‘’YOU GOT THAT RIGHT, FRITZ!’’

A devilish laughter followed those words in English, making more than one German make the sign of the cross. With cold anger filling him, the feldwebel pointed in the direction from which the voice had come.

‘’Form an extended line and advance in that direction, men. You two, stay here and prevent any British from using that staircase.’’

One of the two men designated to stay by the staircase was the main gate sentry, who glanced at the pile of human bones before looking at his companion.

‘’To be honest, Hans, I haven’t been this scared in a long while.’’

‘’Ditto for me, Heinrich. What a sinister place!’’

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The two men then fell silent, anxiously looking at the darkness around them as their comrades formed up in extended line and disappeared towards the right-side end of the quarry.

About a minute later, with the lights of the advancing Germans barely visible in the distance because of the numerous rock pillars supporting the cave’s ceiling, a rifle shot rang out, followed by the explosion of a grenade. Heinrich, his nerves put to a rough test, switched off his flashlight at once, in order not to be an easy target, and took two steps back before kneeling behind one corner of the staircase entrance, imitated by Hans. They now had only the light filtering down the staircase left as illumination as what sounded like a furious firefight, with multiple grenade explosions, erupted to their right. Hans frowned as he watched the fleeting flash from explosions and small arms fire in the distance.

‘’Himmel, our men must have encountered those damn British at last. I hope that they will wipe out those bastards.’’

‘’I hope so too! I…’’

A much larger and brighter flash than before suddenly made Heinrich blink, with the roar of an explosion following a second later. He then heard distant screams of pain that made his hair stand on his head.

‘’Teuffel! What was that?’’

His answer came a few seconds later, when a screaming human torch appeared between two stone pillars to his right, running towards him. The unfortunate man however stumbled and collapsed, still burning, well before he could get to the staircase entrance.

‘’Mein Gott! The British used an incendiary bomb on our men!’’ Petrified by fear and horror, the two Germans heard the firefight continue for a few more minutes before it gradually died down. With the cave now silent and dark, Heinrich and Hans looked at each other with dread.

‘’Don’t tell me that all of our comrades are now dead!’’ whispered Hans, close to panicking. Heinrich clenched his teeth before answering him.

‘’I’m afraid so, Hans. We better go get some reinforcements here.’’ He barely had time to get to his feet before an English voice came out of the darkness, taunting.

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‘’HEY, WE WERE HAVING FUN HERE! BRING SOME MORE FRIENDS TO THE PARTY!’’

Heinrich, who understood English but spoke it poorly, did not reply to that, except by firing a long burst from his submachine gun in the direction from which the voice had come. He then grabbed Hans by one arm and pulled him back towards the staircase.

‘’Let’s get out of here before those British come for us in strength.’’

‘’Good idea!’’

The two Germans literally ran up the stairs, stopping only once they were back at basement level. Gluing his back to the stone wall near the opening of the lower staircase, Heinrich took a number of deep breaths, trying to slow his heartbeat, then looked at his left hand: it was shaking nearly uncontrollably. Tears came next as he thought about all the friends and comrades he had just lost down there.

09:56 (Paris Time)

German High Military Command Headquarters for France Hotel Majestic, 19 Avenue Kléber

16th Arrondissement, Paris

General Otto von Stulpnagel, Commander of the German forces in France, grimly listened as his operations officer, a colonel, finished briefing him about the two night attacks at the Fort of Ivry and near the Fort of Vincennes.

‘’…In total, we lost 48 men killed, plus 26 other men wounded, General.’’

‘’And did any of those British soldiers got killed or captured, Herr Oberst27?’’ To Stulpnagel’s intense displeasure, his operations officer shook his head in response.

‘’None, Herr General! However, a number of them were actually seen and heard by our soldiers during the two attacks. There are little doubts that we were attacked last night by British soldiers, possibly commandos or paratroopers.’’ Stulpnagel then slammed his right fist on top of the big map table occupying the middle of his command’s operations center, letting out his frustration.

‘’AND HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT A BRITISH INFANTRY UNIT COULD BE OPERATING AROUND PARIS, A YEAR AFTER WE OCCUPIED IT?’’

 

27 Oberst: German rank of colonel.

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‘’Er, my best guess is that this is a small unit that was either parachuted recently close to Paris, or which was a stay-behind unit meant to create long-term harassment, Herr General. In view of the long months passed with no prior signs of this unit, I would lean towards it being a unit recently parachuted near Paris. Furthermore, the degree to which they proved dangerous makes me think that those British soldiers are either paratroopers, commandos or Royal Marines, all elite troops.’’

‘’Hum, you may be right about that, Herr Oberst.’’ said Stulpnagel, calming down somewhat. ‘’However good those British soldiers are, they still need a place to hide and rest between attacks. They also would need ways to get regularly resupplied and to move around discreetly. For all that, they would need some active support by local Frenchmen. Alright, here are my orders! First, I want a methodical sweep done around Paris of all the farms, forests, isolated houses, buildings and underground spaces which could be used by that British unit to hide and shelter. Second, I want the number of road check points around Paris to be doubled, so that we could catch those British soldiers while they travel to or from their objectives. Third, I want posters to be circulated around Paris, promising a reward to any French citizen who would provide valid information about the hiding places of that British unit. Those same posters will also state that anyone found sheltering those British soldiers will be executed. You have all that, Herr Oberst?’’

‘’Yes, Herr General! I will pass those…’’

The colonel was interrupted by one of his staff officers who had just answered a ringing telephone and who was now frantically signaling him with one arm.

‘’HERR OBERST, ANOTHER ATTACK HAS JUST BEEN REPORTED! ONE OF OUR ROAD CHECK POINTS IN THE BOULOGNE FOREST WAS HIT BY BRITISH SOLDIERS. WE LOST SEVEN MEN THERE.’’

‘’TEUFFEL!’’ Swore Stulpnagel. ‘’WE CAN’T AND WON’T LET THOSE BRITISH OPERATE FURTHER! PULL THE 85TH INFANTRY DIVISION FROM ITS RESERVE ROLE NEAR THE CALAIS AREA AND HAVE IT COME TO PARIS TO REINFORCE SECURITY AROUND IT AND TO HELP IN OUR SWEEP.’’

‘’Er, yes Herr General!’’ could only answer the colonel.

14:05 (London Time)

Monday, September 8, 1941

Imperial General Staff Headquarters, London

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The three men, one civilian and two military, who had been called to the office of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, found an apparently annoyed Field Marshal Sir John Dill waiting for them behind his big work desk. Brigadier General Stewart Menzies, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Services, better known as M.I.6, and Admiral Roger Keyes, the head of the Combined Operations department of the War Office, saluted Dill at rigid attention once in, while Sir Frank Nelson, the director of the Special Operations Executive, or S.O.E., politely bowed his head. Dill then pointed to them chairs set in front of his desk and spoke in a dry tone.

‘’Have a seat, gentlemen: I have some questions for you.’’ Realizing at once that they had not been called in to get compliments, the three visitors sat down without a word and waited for Dill to speak again, which he did after eyeing them in turn.

‘’Gentlemen, I called you in so that I could resolve a mystery about something that has created some confusion between me and the Prime Minister.’’ Dill then picked up a document from the top of his desk and showed it to his visitors.

‘’This is a German High Command transmission from its Paris headquarters, intercepted and decoded by us two days ago and reporting multiple deadly attacks on German units around Paris in the last week, attacks reportedly made by uniformed British soldiers. The Prime Minister was one of the first to see that German message and congratulated me at once while asking me which of our units was involved. He was not exactly pleased when I could only tell him that I didn’t know about any such unit operating in France. Then, I had my staff check with your respective services, to find out who was directing those attacks in France. You can guess that I was not pleased myself when all three of your services claimed ignorance about a British unit operating in the Paris area. So, now that you all are here, I am asking this: who is controlling that British unit in Paris and what game are you playing, gentlemen?’’ The three embarrassed men looked at each other, hesitant to speak first. Admiral Keyes, a small and frail man with an iron will, finally spoke up first.

‘’Sir Dill, I can assure you that none of the units of my Combined Operations department are presently operating around Paris, or even in France. All my commando units are accounted for and in England.’’

Sir Stewart Menzies was next to speak.

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‘’On my part, Sir Dill, I can tell you that none of my personnel is involved in those attacks. However, the few agents I have presently in France have sent a couple of reports about the Germans in Paris having suffered a few violent attacks, but have no clue of who is responsible.’’

‘’Did your agents give some details about those attacks, Brigadier Menzies?’’ The head of the M.I.6 wiggled in his chair, visibly embarrassed, before answering.

‘’Uh, yes, Sir Dill! However, the reports I got were so fantastic and ludicrous that they gave me reasons to suspect that the Germans took control of my agents and are sending us disinformation.’’

‘’Well, what did those reports say, Brigadier?’’ asked Dill, becoming irritated.

‘’Uh, some nonsense about wild beasts attacking and killing a few Germans at night in Paris.’’

‘’Wild beasts?’’

‘’Yes sir! One report that did make more sense said that the Germans were distributing posters offering a reward to anyone who could give information about British soldiers hiding around Paris. Those posters also warned that any French citizen aiding or supporting those British soldiers would be executed. That is all that I know for the moment.’’

Dill was thoughtful for a moment before looking at the director of the Special Operations Executive.

‘’Sir Nelson, what do you have to say about all this? After all, the Prime Minister did order you to create mayhem around Occupied Europe and this sounds like what your agents could do. Do you have any agents in France who are operating in British uniform?’’

‘’None, Sir Dill!’’ answered the civilian bureaucrat. ‘’In fact, I presently have only half a dozen agents operating in France, with only one of them being in the Paris area, and I can assure you that they operate only in civilian clothes…or disguised as German soldiers.’’

‘’THEN, WHO THE HELL IS GOING AROUND PARIS IN BRITISH UNIFORMS, SHOOTING UP GERMANS?’’ shouted Dill at the same time that he slapped down his right hand on his work desk. His three visitors stayed quiet at that, until Admiral Keyes proposed an explanation.

‘’Sir Dill, if none of our services have directed such attacks, then I see only one possible answer to your question: that a group of British soldiers cut off from their units

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and unable to evacuate from France with them in 1940, have formed an ad hoc stay behind party and have now started to be active around Paris. Such an ad hoc group would obviously lack any long-range communications means, while their members were probably declared missing in action in 1940.’’

Keyes’ suggestion calmed considerably Sir Dill, who sat back in his chair, thoughtful.

‘’Hum, that makes a lot of sense, Admiral Keyes. Certainly more sense than stories of wild beasts attacking Germans at night. And how effective to date in their attacks would have been these soldiers?’’

‘’Effective enough to make the German High Command in Paris scream bloody murder, sir. Pardon the pun but those soldiers appear to be doing a bang-up job around Paris, Sir Dill. It would be nice if we could either resupply or reinforce them, but we don’t have a single clue about where they are hiding around Paris, thus are unable to help them in any case.’’

‘’I see! Well, if any of your three services get some hard info about those left behind soldiers, let me know at once: the Prime Minister really wants an answer to that mystery. You are dismissed, gentlemen!’’

The three visitors got up as one and saluted or bowed, then turned around and left Dill’s office. Once out of the big office, the three men exchanged confused looks.

‘’Could lost and forgotten soldiers really be able to hide from the Germans for a full year like this, then strike with such efficiency?’’ asked Sir Nelson, making Admiral Keyes shake his head in disbelief.

‘’It is hard to believe, but if it’s true, then they would deserve some very high decorations indeed. Whoever they are, let’s count ourselves lucky in having them making life hard for the Germans in Paris.’’

00:40 (Paris Time)

Wednesday, September 10, 1941

Local Paris headquarters of the Abwehr28 Hotel Lutetia, 45 Boulevard Raspail, 6th Arrondissement Paris, France

 

28 Abwehr: German Army Intelligence during WW2.

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On a hand signal from one of his radio operators, the Abwehr officer on duty this night at the radio-goniometry section of the Paris Abwehr headquarters, lodged in the luxurious Hotel Lutetia, approached quickly the operator in question.

‘’What do you have, Helmut? Is someone transmitting clandestinely around Paris?’’

‘’Uh, no, Herr Leutnant, but one of our radio-goniometry trucks, Unit Number Three, has just sent a very short message that was cut in mid word by what sounded like an explosion or a shot.’’

The senior lieutenant frowned at once on hearing that: with those damn British commandos being active around Paris and causing all kinds of mayhem, this could well mean serious trouble for that radio truck.

‘’Try to contact it! If it doesn’t answer, then contact our other trucks on patrol to check on their status.’’

‘’Yes, Herr Leutnant!’’

The officer stayed standing behind his operator as he repeatedly called Unit Three, without success. He became truly alarmed when another radio truck on patrol failed to answer the calls from its headquarters.

‘’I don’t like this at all. I am going to wake up Hauptmann Schumann about this.’’ The senior lieutenant then walked to his small duty desk, on which a battery of telephones and radio repeaters lay, and grabbed one of the telephones’ handset. Before he could compose the number for Schumann’s room, someone briefly opened the door of the room and threw something inside, then closed back the door. The German officer felt his hair rise on his head when he saw and recognized the two smoking objects now rolling on the floor, towards the center of the room.

‘’GRENADES!’’

Before he or the five operators on duty could either run out of the room or find some illusory cover, the grenades exploded in quick succession. The overpressure alone from the blast waves of the German-made offensive stick grenades was enough to kill or mortally wound the six Germans present in the small room on the eight-floor of the hotel, while also blowing out its window. Before dying, the officer had time to see a British soldier enter the room and then shoot up the precious radio sets, already damaged by the explosions, with his revolver. The British then left with not so much as a single glance at the dying German.

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In his room three floors down from the radio-goniometry section, Dietrich Mannerheim woke up abruptly at the sound of explosions and shots from within the hotel. Swearing to himself, he threw away his bed sheets and started to dress up as quickly as he could, his pistol near him on the bedside table. More shots and explosions kept resonating as he was putting on his uniform.

‘’Himmel! It must be those damn British commandos! They got some big balls to come and attack this hotel in the middle of Paris.’’

Putting on his officer’s cap last, Dietrich then opened his entrance door and cautiously looked left and right down the corridor, his pistol at the ready. What he saw was a number of other Germans running around or standing inside their door, watching like Dietrich the confusion around them. Closing his door, the Abwehr officer started heading towards the nearest staircase, intent on investigating what was happening. However, before he could walk down to the end of the long corridor and get to a staircase, a loud explosion came from that staircase, along with a cloud of plaster dust and debris. A dead German soldier then rolled down the stairs, landing on the floor level where Dietrich was. Quickly taking cover as best he could inside a door frame, he saw with a jump of his heart a khaki shape come down the stairs and bend over the dead German soldier, grabbing the man’s MP40 submachine gun and its spare magazines after shouldering his rifle. Anger filled Dietrich at that sight and he pointed his pistol at the British and shot twice. Inexplicably, he missed with both shots, despite being a recognized pistol marksman, and saw his bullets pierce the wall behind the British. The latter then snapped his head up and looked at Dietrich with a cold expression while raising the MP41 he had just grabbed. Unfortunately for Dietrich, the doorframe proved to be a very poor cover indeed, while the door itself was locked, and he felt the impact of at least one bullet when the British fired a short burst at him. A sharp, burning pain from his right arm made him drop his pistol, while his right leg suddenly gave up, sending him crumbling down on the carpet of the corridor. Looking at his leg, Dietrich saw an expanding red blotch staining his trousers’ right leg and understood that he actually had been hit at least twice. Unable to move quickly and with his pistol a few feet away, he could only watch with dread the British soldier who had shot him walk towards him, his submachine gun pointed. Dietrich clenched his teeth, expecting to be shot dead in the next seconds but, to his utter surprise, the British, who wore the ranks and insignias of a lieutenant of the Royal Marines, simply looked down at him with a somber expression. After a second of suspense, the British officer then took out from a pouch of his web

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gear an army field dressing bandage and threw it down on the carpet, next to Dietrich, before speaking in good German.

‘’You better bandage that leg before you bleed to death, Fritz. Nothing personal though: this is war.’’

The British, who was heavily loaded with grenades, spare ammunition and a Lee Enfield rifle on top of his captured German MP40, then ran back to the staircase and headed down, disappearing from sight, to the relief of Dietrich, who couldn’t believe his luck. Then remembering that he was bleeding profusely from his right leg, Dietrich grabbed the bandage left behind by the British and did his best to apply and roll it around his wounded leg. The loud detonations of shots and explosions continued around the hotel, coming from many directions, as Dietrich patched himself up. Three armed and very nervous German soldiers finally showed up and, seeing him, went to his help. The senior soldier, a gefreiter, examined him quickly and took his own field bandage to patch Dietrich’s arm while his two companions watched both ends of the corridor.

‘’We are going to bring you down to the main lobby of the hotel, where the wounded are being assembled and treated, Herr Hauptmann. With those British soldiers roaming the hotel on multiple levels, we can’t leave you here without risking that a British find you and kill you.’’

‘’Do you know how many British there are inside the hotel, and how they got in, Gefreiter?’’ asked Dietrich, clenching his teeth in order not to scream in pain while the soldier bandaged his right arm. The gefreiter shook his head grimly at that question.

‘’I am not sure, Herr Hauptmann, but there are quite a few of them inside the hotel, spreading mayhem on multiple floors at once. There must be at least a full squad of them, if not a whole platoon.’’

‘’Well, the one who shot me was a lieutenant of the British Royal Marines, an elite unit, so my bet is more on a platoon-sized enemy unit.’’

‘’It could very well be, sir. We are going to pick you up now, so brace yourself.’’

‘’WAIT! Get my pistol for me first, please.’’

The gefreiter nodded his head and went to pick up the Luger, then put it back in its holster hooked to Dietrich’s belt and secured its flap. The three soldiers then picked him up as gently as they could before starting to head down towards the lobby of the hotel. As they were going down the stairs, a ringing alarm suddenly started, making them briefly stop. Dietrich understood first what it was about.

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‘’The fire alarm: those damn British must have started a fire somewhere in the hotel. Damn, that’s going to complicate things quite a lot.’’

‘’The more reasons to get you down to the lobby as quickly as possible, Herr Hauptmann.’’ replied the gefreiter. Dietrich did not object to that most sensible declaration and clenched his teeth, enduring his pain as his saviors carried him down the stairs.

In the lobby, the group found quite a few more wounded Germans, along with a number of dead ones covered with blankets. The noise of shots and explosions finally subsided and stopped after a good seven minutes, allowing the Germans to concentrate their attention on their casualties. Another fifteen minutes later, the first fire truck from the Paris Fire Department arrived and extended its ladder in order to start dousing the fires which had been lit on the upper floors. More fire trucks quickly followed, along with a full German infantry company that started combing the lower floors, searching for any British soldier left in the hotel. To everyone’s anger, not a single British was found either dead or alive, with only empty bullet casings littering the floors and proving that they had gone around the hotel. On his part, Dietrich was soon evacuated towards a nearby local French hospital in the 6th Arrondissement, along with 28 other wounded Germans. There, he later learned from his visiting superior officer that the British attack had cost the Abwehr no less than 53 dead, plus had destroyed by fire or explosion much precious equipment and files. Also destroyed were three precious mobile radio-goniometry units, which had been vital tools in triangulating the positions of the clandestine radio transmitters used by enemy agents and French Résistance members. Overall, that night raid left the Abwehr services in Paris disorganized and mostly ineffective for weeks, a welcome respite for the British agents and French Résistance fighters who had been hunted down by the Abwehr. However, that British success caused in return a very unwelcome reaction from Berlin.