A YOUNG SUCCUBUS NAMED DELICIA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 19 – PARIS UPRISING

 

19:47 (Paris Time)

Saturday, August 19, 1944

Underground command bunker of the F.F.I.

Deep under the Place Denfert-Rochereau

14th Arrondissement, Paris, France

‘’Colonel, the leaders of the Résistance cells of the 6th Arrondissement have arrived and wish to see you.’’

‘’Aah, good! Bring them here!’’ replied Colonel Henri Rol, Commander of the Paris Region Headquarters of the F.F.I., or Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (French Interior Forces), to Captain Réa, one of his staff officers. Réa nodded his head and turned around, leaving Rol near the table on which a large map of Paris had been pinned. The representative of General Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who was standing beside Rol, gave him a frustrated look.

‘’I must insist again, Colonel: starting an uprising now will only result in massive civilian casualties and extensive damage to the city. The approaching Allied ground forces are planning to bypass Paris, in order to avoid unnecessary street fighting, and won’t be able to help you, at least for a few more days.’’

‘’And we would give a free hand to the Germans to fortify their positions in and around Paris and to prepare the city’s main infrastructures for systematic demolition, like they did in Marseille? No thank you! Now is the time to take back our city, while the Germans are still confused and disorganized. Tomorrow, we will start occupying the various government buildings and newspapers’ offices, plus will put up barricades around Paris. We can do it either with you or without you, Monsieur Chaban-Delmas. Time for you to decide which side you are on.’’

De Gaulle’s representative reddened briefly with anger but finally relented, seeing that he would never be able to convince Rol to change his mind.

‘’Very well, Colonel. I will advise General de Gaulle of this by radio, but you will be responsible for the consequences of this decision.’’

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As the politician was leaving the operations center of the command post, he nearly bumped at its entrance into two men and one teenage girl, all armed. He gave a disbelieving look at the girl before looking at Rol.

‘’What is this young girl doing here, armed?’’

‘’She came here to get directives from me, Monsieur Chaban-Delmas. Miss Laurent is my main weapons supplier and also leads a very effective Résistance cell in the 6th Arrondissement. She has in fact been fighting the Germans for nearly four years now, longer than most of us here.’’

The Gaullist politician shook his head in disbelief at that but left without speaking further. That allowed Mélanie, Paul Romanov and another communist FTP cell leader to approach the map table. Rol smiled on seeing the armband worn by Mélanie around her left arm.

‘’I am happy to welcome the leader of the Groupe Paris Liberté cell in my command bunker, Miss Laurent. Are your people ready to fight?’’

‘’They all are eager to fight to free Paris, Colonel. Just tell us what you need to be done.’’

‘’Excellent! Gather around this map with Paul Romanov and André Boivin, please.’’

With all four soon gathered around the map table, Henri Rol pointed at the Place Saint-Michel, next to one of the bridges linking the Left Bank and the 6th Arrondissement to the Île de la Cité, the main island in the middle of the Seine River that had been the primitive core of Paris in the Middle Ages.

‘’Paul, your main task will be to block to the Germans the access to the bridges linking the 6th Arrondissement and the l’Île de la Cité, meaning the Pont Neuf, the Pont Saint-Michel, the Petit Pont and the Pont au Double. The goal will be to prevent the Germans from using those bridges to move reinforcements around Paris. Lilie’s cell will support you in that task, on top of being your main ammunition replenishment point. Can you confirm to me what you have available right now in terms of fighters and weapons?’’

‘’Yes, Colonel! I presently have 219 fighters, all armed with either a rifle or submachine gun, plus another 52 men individually armed with either a pistol or a submachine gun and manning twelve medium machine guns. We also have plenty of grenades and ‘Lilie’s Specials’ and a few antitank mines. My force will be able to solidly hold the approaches to the Pont Neuf, the Petit Pont and the Pont au Double. I will also

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provide some riflemen to support Lilie’s people, who will defend the approaches to the Pont Saint-Michel.’’

Those last words made Henri Rol look at Mélanie.

‘’And what is the Groupe Paris Liberté bringing into this fight, Lilie, apart from tons of ammunition and explosives?’’

‘’Colonel, the GPL will provide a total of six medium machine gun teams, manned by sixteen women and five men. Five of these medium machine gun teams will be in fixed positions, either in the Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret or in this building overlooking Place Saint-Michel and its bridge. I will personally lead a sixth medium machine gun team which will act as a roaming fire team and will reinforce various points as needed. By the way, I still have a sizeable quantity of captured German weapons hidden under the cabaret, along with our reserves of ammunition. Feel free to send us any willing man who still needs a weapon, and this preferably before next morning.’’ Henri Rol immediately snapped his head towards his chief of staff, who had been listening from the side.

‘’Lieutenant-Colonel Avia, assemble the men that we have who are trained but have no weapons yet and send them by small packets to the Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret, where they will get weapons and ammunition.’’

‘’Uh, how many weapons would still be available there, if I may ask?’’

‘’I still have enough German weapons to arm over 1,300 men.’’ answered calmly Mélanie, making Avia’s jaw drop wide open.

‘’My God! Those weapons will be truly providential to our cause. I will start marshalling our volunteers at once to send them to your cabaret.’’

‘’We will be ready for them, mister. Colonel Rol, what time did you choose as H-Hour for the start of our uprising?’’

‘’We will start fighting tomorrow at six in the morning. If all goes well, we will able to greet the Allies at the gates of a free Paris. VIVE LA FRANCE!

‘’VIVE LA FRANCE!’’ repeated in unison all the persons in the operations center.

Due to the German-imposed nightly curfew, Résistance fighters looking for weapons were slow at first to come to the cabaret, having to avoid the various patrols and check points run by the Germans and by the widely hated French Vichy ‘Milice’, a paramilitary organization of pro-fascist Frenchmen who had no compunction in hunting down Résistance members on behalf of the Germans. Once darkness fell, the flow

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increased noticeably, with men showing up in groups of four to six at a time. Once in the cabaret, the visitors were able to choose from the piles of weapons, ammunition, web gear and haversacks whim had been brought up to the show room. The bulk of the weapons were actually Mauser 98K bolt-action rifles, weapons which were simple to operate and were both accurate and powerful. Showing the basics of its handling and care to each group of visitors took only a couple minutes at a time to Mélanie. Supplementing those rifles were a few dozen pistols, 23 light and medium machine guns and hundreds of hand grenades, the latter item proving very popular with the would-be fighters. Once past midnight, Mélanie led a large group of now armed Résistance members down to the underground complex of tunnels, caves and crypts which connected with her secret weapons storage caves, so that she could guide them back to their districts on the Right Bank of the Seine. That avoided for them the need to try to cross the Seine’s bridges, which were watched by the Germans, while carrying weapons. By the time that the hour for action approached in the early morning, she had made three such trips down in the underground, safely leading a total of more than 400 armed fighters to the districts on the Right Bank.

04:03 (Paris Time)

Sunday, August 20, 1944

Show lounge of the ‘Mille et Une Nuits’ cabaret

Quartier Latin, 6th Arrondissement, Paris

When Mélanie returned from her third underground trip to the Right Bank districts, she was surprised to see that a large group of about sixty armed men were sitting and milling around the show lounge, apparently not intent on moving out. Intrigued by this, she went to her adoptive mother and got her to come to the kitchen with her, where they spoke in hushed voices.

‘’What are all these men still doing here, Mother? They all got weapons and ammunition, so why are they not joining back their respective cells?’’ Marie Laurent rolled her eyes, apparently also frustrated by this.

‘’Those men were sent here to get weapons, but were not told where to go or what to do once armed. I guess that some of the FTP cell leaders are not too efficient at briefing correctly their men. There are also quite a few of those men who don’t actually

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belong to a cell and are late-minute volunteers. They are thus basically leaderless right now. I was hoping that you could suggest to me what to do with them, Mélanie.’’ Instead of getting angry and ranting about that, Mélanie felt joy as she saw what those extra fighters could bring to her cell.

‘’Well, they now have leaders, Mother: me and you! While we have organized our cell into a total of six medium machine gun teams, we didn’t have any members left after that to act as riflemen and snipers. Now, we have enough riflemen to properly support our machine gun crews and to help hold our cabaret and the building we are going to occupy adjacent to Place Saint-Michel. Hell, I can even train a few of these men so that they could operate the four old Hotchkiss Modèle 1914 machine guns we still have down in my cave. Those Hotchkiss machine guns were deemed too heavy and too difficult to transport around by Colonel Rol, but they are still perfectly serviceable and could now be used to reinforce our fixed defensive positions. Let me go speak to those men.’’

Going back to the show lounge, Mélanie eyed for a short moment the group of riflemen huddled in the back section of the lounge. Some of them had grabbed either a French FM 24/29 light machine gun or a German MG 34 or MG 42 medium machine gun as their choice of personal weapon. That actually pleased her, as they were going to need as much firepower as possible in the hours and days to come.

‘’PLEASE LISTEN TO ME, MEN! I AM MÉLANIE LAURENT, THE LEADER OF THE GROUPE PARIS LIBERTÉ CELL. I WAS THE ONE WHO STOLE AND

COLLECTED ALL THOSE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION YOU SEE HERE. YOU MAY NOW CONSIDER YOURSELVES UNDER MY COMMAND DURING THIS COMING FIGHT TO FREE PARIS. NOW, HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE PREVIOUSLY SERVED IN THE FRENCH ARMY OR, EVEN BETTER, FOUGHT IN THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-18? THOSE WHO DID, PLEASE RAISE ONE HAND.’’ She felt satisfaction on seeing more than half of the men raise one hand at once.

‘’EXCELLENT! NOW, HAVE ANY OF YOU EVER OPERATED AND SHOT A HOTCHKISS MODÈLE 1914 MACHINE GUN?’’

Her satisfaction then turned into jubilation when no less than seven men raised their hand again.

‘’PERFECT! YOU SEVEN, I HAVE FOUR HOTCHKISS MACHINE GUNS STILL IN STOCK, WHICH YOU WILL BE ABLE TO OPERATE. I WILL ONLY NEED

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ANOTHER FOURTEEN MEN TO ACT AS AMMUNITION CARRIERS FOR THOSE FOUR NEW MACHINE GUN CREWS. WHO WANTS TO JOIN IN?’’ This time, she had more volunteers than she needed, so she selected in priority those with French Army experience. Next, she led her four new machine gun crews down to her now mostly empty secret cave, where she showed them the four heavy 8mm caliber, tripod-mounted machine guns still stashed into a corner, along with a large pile of boxes of 8mm ammunition strips meant for the Hotchkiss guns.

‘’These are now yours, men. Let’s take them up to the lounge, along with their ammunition boxes and cleaning kits.’’

As the men loaded up with the machine guns and ammunition, Mélanie thought for a moment about where she could best use those extra machine guns. By the time they were all back in the show lounge, she had a pretty good idea about that. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was now fifteen before five in the morning.

‘’Alright men: take fifteen minutes to review with the veteran gunners how those machine guns operate and give them as well a quick mechanical check to ensure that they are fully functional. In the meantime, I will go out discretely and do a

reconnaissance around Place Saint-Michel, to see if there are any Germans or militiamen around it.’’

Before walking out by the front entrance, she went to see her mother again.

‘’Mother, I will leave with you at the cabaret two of those Hotchkiss machine gun crews, plus twenty riflemen. Use them to reinforce the defenses of the cabaret. I will lead the rest to the fountain building on Place Saint-Michel at six. Have your riflemen post themselves equally in the attic and in this lounge and provide them with plenty of grenades and Lilie’s Specials. I will now go out and do a quick reconnaissance. Don’t worry about me: you know what kind of special powers I have.’’

‘’I do! Still, be careful, Mélanie.’’

‘’I will, Mother.’’

Mélanie then ran out by the front door, armed with a MP40 German submachine gun, a FN GP35 pistol and a large knife. Contained in a haversack slung across her shoulders were a few hand grenades and two of her ‘Lilie’s Special’.

It was still dark outside, with the first rays of twilight still being a good hour and a half away. The fact that electricity had been cut across Paris during the last few weeks and had been on only sporadically only added to the obscurity along the streets,

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something which suited Mélanie, who could see just fine in the dark, thanks to her demonic nature and powers. Still, she proceeded cautiously and silently, not wanting to alert in advance some German soldiers or Vichy militiamen who could be standing guard around the Quartier Latin. Going eastward along the Rue Saint-André-des-Arts, Mélanie walked for about 120 meters before arriving at the Place Saint-André-des-Arts, a small plaza with a few trees situated at the intersection of the Rue Danton, Rue Suger and Rue Saint-André-des-Arts. Sticking her head past the corner of a building situated alongside the plaza, she looked around for any hostile presence nearby. Directly north, about 150 meters away, was the Saint-Michel Bridge, while the monumental Saint-Michel wall fountain stood about 25 meters east of her, forming the blind northern façade of a large, roughly triangular-shaped, six-storey building adjacent to the vast open space of Place Saint-Michel. That building, which contained a mix of shops, stores and apartments, had already been selected in her mind as her main strongpoint around Place Saint-Michel. Across the bridge over the Seine River, on l’Île de la Cité, stood the big complexes housing the Paris Police Prefecture and the High Court of Justice. While looking towards the bridge, she saw her first potential threat: in the middle of the bridge stood a German Army checkpoint formed by two barriers made of old steel drums full of gravel and forming a chicane that forced any vehicle crossing the bridge to slow down and make a zigzag between the barriers. Two sandbagged positions, one per bridge extremity, each protected by two soldiers manning a medium machine gun. Looking around carefully, Mélanie didn’t see anybody else, something that didn’t surprise her: very few Parisians dared violate the German-imposed night curfew, especially the way the Germans were now made tense and nervous by the advance of the Allied forces coming from Normandy. Gluing herself to the façades of the boutiques lining her side of the plaza and using also the cover of the few trees planted around, she covertly approached the northwest corner of the Place Saint-Michel, at the junction of the Rue Danton and of the Quai des Grands Augustins. As was only natural for Humans at such an early hour before twilight, the Germans guarding the checkpoint appeared tired and amorphous and they didn’t see her as she watched them from less than sixty meters away. Taking a decision after a last look around her, Mélanie then turned invisible and left her hiding place, walking quietly across the wide street running alongside the Seine River and approaching the German checkpoint while taking her large hunting knife out of its scabbard. Effecting a short teleportation jump, she rematerialized between the two lines of steel drums, just behind the machine gun positions covering the approaches of

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the bridge. A ‘Sleep’ spell then made the already sleepy Germans manning the checkpoints crumple to the ground like broken puppets. It was then child’s play for Mélanie to calmly slit their throats before dumping the bodies of the four Germans in the Seine, this after relieving them of their weapons and web gear. Those weapons and web gears were then left by her out of sight inside the sandbagged machine gun positions. Seeing no other hostile presence in the area of the Saint-Michel Plaza, Mélanie decided that now was a good time to go get her group of fighters and start placing them in various defensive locations, and this while it was still dark.

Returning via a short teleportation jump to the cabaret, she entered the show room and started giving orders.

‘’ALRIGHT, MEN: PLACE SAINT-MICHEL AND THE BRIDGE ARE NOW FREE OF GERMAN SOLDIERS. GET READY TO MOVE OUT AND FOLLOW ME TO THE PLAZA, WHERE I WILL ASSIGN FIGHTING POSITIONS TO YOU. MOTHER, ARE OUR WHEELBARROWS ALL LOADED UP AND READY TO GO?’’

‘’YES, MÉLANIE! WE WERE ONLY WAITING FOR YOU TO RETURN.’’

‘’THEN, LET’S GO!’’

Recuperating first her MG 42 medium machine gun and draping two bandoleers of ammunition across her chest, she then led a group of over fifty men and women, including three male and ten female employees of the cabaret, out by the front door and led them towards Place Saint-Michel. While her group included no less than fourteen machine guns, many of the men armed with rifles were also pushing a collection of wheelbarrows loaded down with either ammunition, explosives, mines, digging tools, canned food or water. It had been an idea from Paul Dujardin, the doorman and handyman of the cabaret, to acquire discreetly old wheelbarrows, an item that was not controlled by rationing and that now would prove invaluable in carrying lots of heavy supplies over short distances. With one wheelbarrow, a man of medium strength could easily transport a load that would have broken his back, especially since they would roll over paved roads and sidewalks. In one second-storey apartment across the street from the cabaret, the noise of the group moving out woke up a woman in her forties, making her look out and down through her window. What she saw then prompted her into going to shake her husband, still asleep in their bed.

‘’Léon! Léon! Wake up! A large group of people armed to the teeth just left the Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret.’’

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Her husband, made nervous over the last few days due to the suspense of when the Allies would come to Paris, woke up nearly at once.

‘’What? Armed people coming out of the cabaret? That doesn’t make sense! Are they Germans?’’

‘’No, they are French! Some of them even wear armbands with a French flag sewn on them. That little whore, Mélanie Laurent, is leading the group.’’

‘’WHAT?!’’ Nearly shouted Léon before jumping out of bed and running to the window. He looked down with incomprehension at the heavily armed men and women and their convoy of loaded wheelbarrows.

‘’What the hell is this circus? And I see a few of the stripper whores from the cabaret in that group, carrying weapons.’’

‘’How could that be possible?’’ asked his wife, equally mystified. ‘’Those whores were sleeping with German officers every night, entertaining them during the last four years.’’

Léon then understood at last how profoundly wrong he and his wife had been about the cabaret and its stripper girls. He lowered his head in shame while following with his eyes the group of armed people.

‘’I…I think that we have made a dreadful mistake about those girls, Jeanne: I think that they slept with those Germans in order to get secrets from them, not because they were pro-Nazi. They were in fact part of the Résistance: that’s the only explanation that makes sense to me now.’’

‘’Those whores…Résistance fighters? And what are they going to do with all those weapons?’’

‘’Fight the Germans, what else? Damn, I will need to go apologize to these people when I get a chance.’’

‘’What are we going to do now, Léon? Is there going to be street fighting in Paris today?’’

‘’Probably so, Jeanne. We better not venture outside today: the streets won’t be safe.’’

Léon then surprised his wife by going to his wardrobe closet and starting to get dressed.

‘’Why are you getting dressed, Léon? Where are you going?’’ Léon then gave a somber look at his wife.

‘’To the Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret, to present my excuses to Madame Laurent. I will see at the same time if she has still a weapon that I could borrow from her. If her

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stripper girls have enough guts to go fight the Germans, then I can’t in all conscience hide here at home and do nothing. If I can get a rifle, I will then use our balcony to snipe at any German or Vichy militiaman who will show up along this street. You better start putting away from the windows our family pictures and other souvenirs. Then, I will want you to go with our children into the kitchen and to stay there until I say otherwise.’’ Léon was soon on his way down, leaving behind his mortally worried wife alone with their three young children.

After making her large group of fighters cross Place Saint-André-des-Arts and the Rue Danton, Mélanie made her men and women crouch around her against the western façade of the fountain building, near the entrance to the Saint-Michel subway station.

‘’Alright, people, here is what we will do: we will split in a number of separate groups which will each be assigned by me to a building to defend and specific arcs of fire to cover. The goal is to create mutually-supporting defensive strongpoints which will sweep the approaches to the Pont Saint-Michel with multiple machine guns supported by riflemen. First off, did any of you hold a rank as an officer or senior NCO while in the French Army? Those who did, please raise one hand and state your past rank.’’ No less than eleven men raised one hand then, with three of them claiming to have been officers. Mélanie, quite pleased by that, pointed an index at the oldest of the three ex-officers, a solidly-built and still fit man in his early fifties who had stated that he had been an infantry major.

‘’Commandant Drouet, you are the most experienced combat leader in this group. I thus make you my deputy for this fight and am putting you in charge of occupying this building and of preparing it for defense. I am allotting you seven of our machine gun crews, including the two Hotchkiss guns we have with us, along with twelve riflemen. Disperse them inside this building at various levels, so that they cover with their fire the Rue Danton, the entrances to the Rue Saint-André-des-Arts, Suger, Saint-Sévérin and De la Huchette, the Boulevard Saint-Michel, the bridge and the corners with the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Quai de Montebello. Once you will have positioned your fighters, we will start placing anti-tank mines and directional shrapnel charges to block any German column approaching down the Rue Danton and the Boulevard Saint-Michel.’’

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‘’What about the rest of our group, Miss Lilie?’’ asked one of the other ex-officers, who had been a captain of the artillery branch.

‘’They will take position in various buildings around Place Saint-Michel, so that they can provide machine gun crossfire in support of Commandant Drouet’s men inside the fountain building. You, Captain Boivin, will take three machine gun crews and six riflemen and will take position in the building housing the Hotel Royal Saint-Michel. Your job will be to cover the Boulevard Saint-Michel southward, the entrance to the bridge and the Place Saint-Michel. Captain Mitiviers, you will also take three machine gun crews and six riflemen and will establish yourself in the block at the northwest corner of the Place Saint-Michel. Your task will be to cover the approaches to the bridge down the quays. As for me, I will start laying our anti-tank mines and directional charges. Once the biggest part of the job of preparing our defenses will be done, we will go get more reserves of ammunition and food at the cabaret. My own defensive position will be on the bridge itself, where there are two German machine guns available and waiting to be used by us.’’

‘’The Germans abandoned their checkpoint and left their machine guns behind?’’ asked Commandant Drouet, incredulous. Mélanie grinned maliciously at that question.

‘’They didn’t abandon them: I killed those Germans, Commandant. The British First Special Commando Unit, whom I worked with extensively, taught me a few useful tricks in the last three years.’’

That earned her quite a few astonished looks around her.

‘’Okay, let’s start positioning ourselves. We will try as much as possible to occupy empty rooms, but don’t sacrifice a good firing position just because some coward doesn’t wish to get involved in the coming fight. On the other hand, if you encounter people who will tell you that they want to help fight the Germans, then tell them to go get a rifle at the cabaret. Any questions? Then, let’s split now! We will hold a command meeting in three hours in the fountain building, unless of course the Germans attack at that time.’’

The next couple of hours proved to be very busy ones for Mélanie, who had to direct the emplacement and burying of her anti-tank mines, the positioning of her directional shrapnel charges and the passing of command detonation wires between the charges and the firing positions which would control them. Placing her stolen German Tellermine 35 anti-tank mines involved removing first a few cobblestones from the street

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pavement, then digging a hole for the mine and placing it before arming it and covering it back with the cobblestones. Since it took a minimum pressure of about ninety kilos to set off a German Tellermine, that job was less risky than one would think at first, unless of course you were mad enough to start jumping up and down on top of it. Her fighters were in the process of stringing field telephone wires between her various buildings, in order to connect together the few German Army field telephone she had stolen in the past couple of years, when Louise Thibault, manning the MG 42 machine gun on the bridge that covered its northern approach, shouted a warning to Mélanie.

‘’MÉLANIE, THREE FRENCH POLICEMEN ARE APPROACHING THE BRIDGE FROM THE PREFECTURE. THEY ARE WAVING A WHITE FLAG.’’ Mélanie, who was busy putting in place an anti-tank mine at the southern extremity of the bridge, got up at once and grabbed her MP 40 submachine gun before starting to run towards the northern end of the bridge. She slowed down to a walk once past the chicane and stopped thirty feet in front of it, waiting for the policemen. She had little good feelings towards the French police, which had too often collaborated closely with the Germans during the occupation, including when they were helping them to hunt down and collect Jews, who had then been deported and sent to their deaths in camps like Auschwitz, a place that had left a very bitter taste in Mélanie’s mouth. She thus was barely polite to the policemen when they stopped in front of her, eyeing with dismay her weapons.

‘’What do you want?’’

The senior policeman was taken somewhat aback by her tone but managed to stay impassive and answer back in a calm voice.

‘’We are here to inform your group of Résistance fighters that the Police of Paris has gone on strike a few days ago and that we have occupied yesterday the Prefecture and intend to resist any effort by the Germans to retake control of it. However, we are armed only with a limited collection of handguns, plus a few rifles. We saw from the Prefecture building that your group appears very well armed and my commander sent us to see if you could provide us with some weapons. Anything will be useful, as we have word that Germans are approaching in force from the Prince Eugène Barracks, with tanks spearheading their column.’’

While she relaxed a bit on hearing the man’s reply, Mélanie couldn’t help being still suspicious of him. She however decided that it was in her interest to believe him.

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‘’Yes, we can provide you with some weapons, mister. However, we have no anti-tank weapons and our stocks of anti-tank mines are very limited. Go get more policemen, so that they can carry what I will give them, and bring them here. As a gesture of goodwill, I will actually let you go back with one of my machine guns, along with its ammunition and three Mauser rifles. LOUISE, YOU WILL HAND OVER TO THESE POLICE OFFICERS YOUR MACHINE GUN, ITS AMMO, THE THREE RIFLES AND THE SETS OF WEB GEAR WE CAPTURED.’’

The senior policeman, not believing his luck, bowed his head in salute to her.

‘’Thank you for your help and comprehension, miss. May I ask for your name?’’

‘’You may, mister: I am Mélanie Laurent and I work as a stripper at the Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret. Me and the girls there actually are a Résistance cell which has been active in intelligence gathering since 1940.’’

The policemen exchanged incredulous looks at those words, taken completely aback. The senior policeman then broke out in laughter.

‘’The Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret, the home of a Résistance cell? Who would have thought so? All your neighbors were swearing at you and cursing you for being collaborators and German-lovers.’’

‘’Well, all those morons were wrong. Now, you better hurry and get some more of your officers here, so that they could go collect some weapons at the cabaret: the Germans may show up at any time now.’’

‘’True! Pierre, Félix, grab the machine gun and its ammunition! I will take the rifles.’’

The three policemen, heavily loaded with weapons and ammunition, were soon walking back towards the Prefecture, a huge four-storey building sitting just across the Seine from the Place Saint-Michel. They were back less than ten minutes later with forty more policemen, all armed with nothing more than a dozen handguns. Leaving her own MG 42 with Louise Thibault while keeping her MP40 submachine gun and GP 35 pistol, Mélanie then led the contingent of policemen across the Place Saint-Michel, then down the Rue Saint-André-des-Arts. Marie Laurent gave a suspicious look at the policemen when Mélanie led them inside the show lounge via the front entrance door.

‘’I suppose that they have joined our side, for you to lead them here like this.’’

‘’You are right, Mother. They say that the police is now on strike and has occupied the Prefecture in force. They, like most people around Paris who now wish to

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fight the Germans, are however critically short on weapons, so they asked me if I would provide some to them and I said yes.’’

‘’Very well, my dear daughter! Let them have what they want in our pile. By the way, more and more of our neighbors are streaming to our cabaret to ask for a weapon. That has given us up to now over thirty extra shooters who will fight from as many locations around the cabaret, with more coming in at intervals.’’

‘’Excellent! If the Germans or the Militia ever tries to roll down this street, they will be warmly welcomed indeed.’’

‘’Well, that’s not the best part, Mélanie. The best part is that the word is now spreading around the neighborhood that we are not collaborators and German-lovers after all. That is relieving a big concern I had about the safety of our girls once Paris is liberated.’’

Mélanie herself let out a breath of relief on hearing that.

‘’Thank Lucifer for that! I was also very worried about that. Well, I better go explain to those policemen that our Lilie’s Specials are not some kind of pastry rolling pins.’’

08:32 (Paris Time)

Saint-Michel Bridge

With exchanges of fire having started to be heard north of the police prefecture building and in other locations around the city about half an hour ago, Mélanie and her three S.O.E. female agents were fully alert and manning their two MG 42 medium machine guns. Standing inside the two sandbagged positions built between the two rows of barrels forming a chicane in the middle of the Saint-Michel Bridge, they had both good protection and excellent fields of fire for their machine guns. Mélanie, with her supernatural senses, was the first to see something coming down the Quai des Grands Augustins towards the bridge she was guarding. Raising to her eyes the pair of binoculars she had taken from the German sergeant who had commanded the bridge guard detachment, she made a mean smile after a few seconds.

‘’Heads up, girls! I see a column of German Army trucks coming our way, probably coming from the Palais Bourbon, one of the main German strongpoints on the Left Bank. Thankfully, I don’t see tanks or armored vehicles as part of that column.’’

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‘’Thank God for that!’’ said Mary Gillies, who served as loader for Mélanie’s machine gun. ‘’Without any proper anti-tank weapons save for our few mines, stopping German tanks could prove to be a bloody proposition.’’

‘’True, but we won’t have another choice but to try if they do show up.’’ replied Mélanie before picking up one of the three field telephones set inside her sandbagged position, then turning quickly its small cranking handle.

‘’Hello, Captain Mitivier? This is Mélanie! Do you have in your sights the convoy of nine German Army trucks approaching down the Quai des Grands Augustins?... Good! I will fire the first burst once I judge them to be where I want them to be. You will then wait for their infantry to jump out and start walking down along the façades before opening fire with your machine gun. Whatever happens, don’t let them get near our anti-tank minefield blocking your street.’’

Putting down that field telephone, she then called in succession her two other officers to give them a brief warning about the incoming truck column. Once that was done, she shouldered the butt of her MG 42, whose bipod rested on top of the western stone parapet of the bridge, and carefully aimed her weapon. Once the first truck reached the corner with the Rue des Grands Augustins, about 200 meters away from the bridge, she fired one short burst at it, aiming for the driver’s cab. Even though her burst went on for less than a second, the stupendous rate of fire of up to 1,200 rounds per minute of the German MG 42 machine gun meant that fifteen 7.92mm bullets hit the leading truck, disabling the engine, killing the driver and the officer riding in the cab and killing or wounding a number of the German infantrymen riding in the back of the truck. Suddenly out of control, the truck veered left and crashed into the low stone parapet of the quay overlooking the Seine River. As the surviving infantrymen from that truck hurriedly jumped out to find some cover, the second truck of the column brutally braked to a halt, forcing the remaining seven trucks behind it to do the same. As close to 150 German soldiers were jumping out of their vehicles, Mélanie’s second burst, a longer one than the first, swept down the column of trucks, causing more casualties. Knowing that this was the perfect occasion for her, with the German soldiers still bunched up and confused, she emptied her first 250-round belt in a series of aimed short bursts, while Louise Thibault added the fire of her own MG 42 machine gun. With running German soldiers being bowled over by the dozen while trying to find any kind of cover from the murderous fire, the two young women loaded a second belt of ammunition in their machine guns and fired it away, then proceeded to change their now hot barrels with

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fresh ones, a procedure made easy and quick by the design of the MG 42. The hundred or so German soldiers who were still intact then used that half a minute of respite to grimly run forward, staying close to the façades of the buildings lining the south side of the street while taking occasional pot shots towards the bridge. The first German soldiers were nearly at the corner with the Rue Séguier when Captain Metivier had his machine gunner facing west open fire. The MG 34 fire, walking down the column of German infantrymen and taking them in enfilade, dug big holes in the enemy ranks and also killed the officer leading them. As German machine gunners were finally

responding to his fire, Mélanie and Louise opened fire again. Caught in concentrated enfilade fire by three machine guns firing from a distance of less than 120 meters, the Germans suffered heavily, with their numbers dwindling by the second. They were however pouring themselves a sizeable volume of fire, especially from their own machine guns. Bullets whizzed by or ricocheted against the stone parapet of the bridge, forcing Mélanie and her three S.O.E. agents in ducking down a number of times. Captain Metivier then delivered the coup de grace to the advancing Germans, firing up the directional shrapnel charge set up earlier by Mélanie at the corner of Rue Séguier and the Quai des Grands Augustins. Oriented so that its shrapnel would sweep down the sidewalk along the buildings’ façade, the half pound of RDX explosives molded into the bottom of a large, used can of tinned ham, exploded, projecting forward in a tight cone over five pounds of old nails, screws, steel nuts and other small metallic objects. Every German within thirty meters of the directional charge and within the cone of shrapnel was swept off, killed or gravely wounded by the deluge of steel and iron, while more soldiers were killed or wounded up to 75 meters away. Having had enough by now, and with machine gun fire still raking down their ranks, the surviving Germans started a hasty retreat on foot back the way they had come. Some of the Germans tried to help and recover a few of their wounded comrades but neither Mélanie nor Captain Metivier’s men were in the mood to show mercy to them: the Germans had committed too many atrocities and abuses during their four-year occupation to deserve mercy. Less than twenty Germans survived to flee back to the Palais Bourbon via side streets. That victory fired up Mélanie but she still retained her tactical sense and called Metivier at once.

‘’Captain Metivier, this is Mélanie! Can you spare a few of your riflemen so that you could send them to recuperate the machine guns left behind those retreating Germans? Anything that would augment further our firepower would be welcomed…

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Thanks! Bring those machine guns and their ammunition to Commandant Drouet: I suspect that he will be the next one to face a German push.’’

The man sent by Captain Metivier to lead the weapons looting party, a grizzled old warrant officer who had fought in the Great War of 1914-18, found a rich picking indeed among the dead and dying Germans strewn down the Quai des Grands Augustins.

‘’Well, well! Look at all those nice weapons, boys! Start looting, guys: in the meantime, I will go inspect those abandoned trucks.’’

Skipping the first truck, which was now burning thanks to its fuel tank having been turned into a sieve, the old warrant officer went to the second truck, looking first inside its front cab. He found the driver dead behind his wheel, along with an equally dead German NCO. Picking up their MP40 submachine guns, spare magazine carriers and grenades and putting them down on the pavement near the cab, he then went to check the back of the truck, his pistol at the ready in the case a living German would still be inside. What he found in the back was two dead Germans and a third one severely wounded and moaning. He debated for a moment what to do with the wounded German but, remembering all the innocent Parisians who had been executed as hostages by the Germans, finished off the wounded with the bayonet of one of the two dead Germans. As he was moving one German corpse to take off him his web gear and ammunition pouch, he uncovered two strange objects lying next to a few piled ammunition boxes. While he recognized the ammunition boxes as containing 7.92mm bullets and belts, plus a few boxes of 9mm parabellum bullets and of hand grenades, he could not identify at first the two steel tubes tipped with large conical heads. Seeing that he would need more manpower to take away all this, he called to one of his men outside and told him to go get more men to help carry away all the weapons and ammunition to be found in and near the trucks. With a whole city to liberate, they would need all the weapons and ammunition they could lay their hands on to arm those willing to fight the Germans. The warrant officer however grabbed the two unidentified tubes and got out of the truck with them before going to the next truck. There, he found more reserves of ammunition, along with four more of the strange tubes. The inspection of the six remaining trucks turned out even more ammunition and tubes. The ecstatic old senior NCO also saw that his men had been able to recuperate no less than nine medium machine guns, along with dozens of rifles, submachine guns and pistols, plus plenty of ammunition and

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grenades, a true treasure trove for the weapons-starved FFI. Nearly twenty men sent by Commandant Drouet soon arrived to help carry away all that. The old warrant officer however made sure that all the strange tubes found stayed together and, using six men to carry them, led them towards the bridge. That young Mélanie Laurent apparently knew a lot about German weapons and plans, thanks to her intelligence work at her cabaret, so he was hoping that she would be able to tell him what those tubes were exactly. The reaction of the teenager when he approached her sandbagged position while carrying two of the tubes then confirmed to him that his idea had been a good one.

‘’YOU FOUND PANZERFAUSTS?’’

‘’Uh, what is that…panzer thing?’’

‘’The Panzerfaust is a short-range anti-tank weapon that you throw away after firing its rocket. A German infantry officer who was visiting our cabaret bragged in bed about how effective it was against Allied tanks and even described briefly to me how it was used. He in fact said that it was so simple to use that a boy could fire it. How many of them did you find?’’

‘’Thirteen!’’

‘’Hell, this is like a Christmas gift to us! Let’s go see Commandant Drouet with these Panzerfausts, so that I could show his men how to use them. Uh, on second thought, leave two of them with my girls here: we may have to face German tanks coming down from the Right Bank.’’

‘’You’re the boss, miss! By the way, where did you learn to fight like this? Your knowledge of tactics is quite impressive, I must say.’’

‘’I learned from the British commando unit that has been hiding and operating around Paris during the last years.’’

‘’Oh, I see!’’

Making one of his men drop two of the Panzerfausts inside one of the sandbagged machine gun positions and letting Mélanie take a minute to explain to her three companions how to use them, the warrant officer then followed her to the fountain building with his men carrying the other Panzerfausts. They found Commandant Drouet nearly drooling over the mass of weapons and extra ammunition pilfered from the defeated German truck column. He smiled to Mélanie when she showed up with the warrant officer and his group of men.

‘’Hell, Mélanie, I am wondering how I am going to use all these extra weapons! I don’t have enough men to use all of them, or even all these extra machine guns.’’

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‘’How many could you realistically use then, Commandant Drouet?’’

‘’Four of them, actually. I will however have to quickly train some of my riflemen on how to use them.’’

‘’Then, I propose that we send the remaining five MG 42 we just grabbed to the policemen holding the Prefecture, along with plenty of ammunition and a few of those captured rifles and submachine guns.’’

‘’That sounds fair. After all, they are our main buffer between us and any German counter-attack force coming down from the Prince Eugène Barracks or from the Tuileries Gardens. I will send a party to bring those extra weapons to the Prefecture.’’

‘’Excellent! I do have another gift for you, thanks to that German truck convoy: our first true portable anti-tank weapons.’’

Mélanie then took one of the Panzerfausts carried by the warrant officer’s men and showed it to Drouet.

‘’This is a Panzerfaust 60, a one-shot, throwaway anti-tank rocket launcher with a range of sixty meters. To aim it, you hold it under your right armpit and flip up that front sight, then point it by lining the sight with the rocket’s conical nose and the targeted tank. Then, you press the trigger, igniting the propellant charge and firing off the warhead, which is supposedly powerful enough to destroy any known tank. Its drawback is its short range and its backblast, but we sure could use these Panzerfausts in our fight.’’ Drouet took the weapon from Mélanie’s hands and looked at it as if it was a gift from God.

‘’This could actually prove invaluable in defending our positions against German armored vehicles. With a German mechanized unit known to be at the Palais du Luxembourg, less than 800 meters from here, we may need these Panzerfausts sooner than later.’’

‘’I agree! Could you designate a few of your men, so that I could explain to them how to use these anti-tank weapons while you send a work party to carry our excess weapons and ammunition to the Prefecture?’’

‘’No problem, Mélanie!’’ replied the graying ex-infantry officer before giving a few orders to his NCOs. Mélanie was soon teaching ten men how to use a Panzerfaust, as another 26 men left for the Prefecture with six wheelbarrows heavily loaded with weapons and ammunitions.

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That work party barely had time to return to the fountain building before a German mechanized column was signaled approaching from the southwest along Rue Danton, while a truck column approached from the southeast along Boulevard Saint-Michel. With no German force seen approaching along the Seine and with Mélanie’s concurrence, Drouet then decided to temporarily shift the position of his machine guns covering the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Quai de Montebello, while Captain Boivin did the same with his own machine guns. This ended placing a total of fourteen medium machine guns in positions that covered the Rue Danton and the Boulevard Saint-Michel with crossfires, a staggering amount of firepower to face for any enemy infantry or soft-skinned vehicles approaching from the South. That did not even include Mélanie’s two machine guns, still positioned on the bridge. The FFI were thus quite confident as the Germans rolled cautiously towards them.

When she got word by field telephone of the new threat, Mélanie took only a second to take a decision. Grabbing her haversack containing two ‘Lilie’s Special’ and a few grenades and passing its carrying strap across her chest, she then took the Panzerfaust laid near her while talking to her three S.O.E. agents.

‘’We have word of German tanks coming up Rue Danton and of trucks coming up the Boulevard Saint-Michel. You girls stay here and hold this bridge, while I go tank-hunting.’’

‘’Can’t we go with you, Mélanie?’’ asked Lisa Van Houten with commendable eagerness. Mélanie shook her head soberly at that.

‘’Sorry but no, Lisa! I don’t want to insult you, but you would only slow me down. Right now, speed is of the essence.’’

She deftly vaulted over the sandbags and steel barrels full of gravel despite all her weapons and ammunition, then started running at a sprinter’s speed down Place Saint-Michel, heading towards Rue Danton. The three S.O.E. agents could only watch her run away with disbelief.

‘’Do you see how fast she is?’’ said Mary Gillies, incredulous. ‘’She must be carrying at least forty pounds of weapons and ammunition, yet she runs as if she is carrying nothing.’’

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In the fountain building, Commandant Drouet and half of his men were able to see Mélanie as she ran past their building in a flash, holding her MP40 and a Panzerfaust and with her haversack flapping against her side.

‘’My God! Her ass must be on fire!’’ exclaimed one FFI, making Drouet smile.

‘’Actually, I believe that she intends to put some German asses on fire, although I would agree that her ass is very hot indeed. Pass the word to our gunners: we have a friendly going forward towards the enemy tanks. Be careful on who you are shooting at.’’

Drouet then muttered to himself.

‘’Hell, I didn’t expect to fight in the company of some kind of Joan of Arc!’’

10:56 (Paris Time)

German column advancing north along Rue Danton

Major Anton von Battenberg’s heart was not in this mission as he directed part of his battalion north along Rue Danton, heading towards the Saint-Michel Bridge with the goal of taking it in order to cross the Seine to go crush the French resistance at the Police Prefecture. He was no diehard Nazi and was actually a distant cousin of British Admiral Mountbatten, whose original family name had been Battenberg, and fully realized by now that Germany was in the process of losing this war. However, he had received orders and a good German officer obeyed his orders. He knew little about the enemy he was to face, apart from the fact that the French had a number of machine guns and were positioned around the Saint-Michel Bridge. To help him in his mission, a truck-borne unit of French Vichy militiamen was presently advancing on a parallel course to him, following the Boulevard Saint-Michel, while a battery of medium mortars deployed on the grounds of the gardens of the Palace of Luxembourg stood ready to support him on call. Spearheading his column were four Panzer IV medium tanks accompanied by dismounted infantrymen from Anton’s unit. With luck, his supporting tanks would be enough by themselves to disperse the enemy ahead and send them running.

His column was still advancing slowly and cautiously, leery of sniper fire and ambushes, and was getting to the intersection with the Rue Serpente, some sixty meters from the Saint-Michel Bridge, when a sudden puff of white smoke and a short detonation

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from the corner of the intersection on the right side of the column made Anton’s head snap around as he stood in the back of his SdKfz 251/6 armored command half-track. Less than two seconds later, as his infantrymen were starting to react, a violent explosion against the right side of the lead Panzer IV shook the 27-ton medium tank. The hot plasma jet from the shaped charge of the Panzerfaust, as it had to be a Panzerfaust according to its launch signature, then burned through the armor of the tank and touched off the 75mm shells stored inside. A terrifying explosion and fireball ensued, projecting high in the air the tank’s turret, which then crashed down on the pavement amidst the infantrymen frantically scrambling to get out of the way. Two of them were out of luck and got smashed to a red pulp by the falling turret. As a dozen enraged infantrymen opened fire, spreading bullets around the building corner from where the Panzerfaust had been fired, the second tank in the column started going around the flaming wreck of the first tank, its turret slewing to the right to point its 75mm gun down the Rue Serpente. As it was passing ahead of the destroyed tank, a huge blast right under the belly of the second tank made it literally jump up in the air by a few centimeters. Its relatively thin steel belly ripped open by the blast, the shockwave from the explosion penetrated inside the tank, killing instantly its five-man crew and setting off by sympathetic detonation its stored shells. The turret of the second tank also flew up atop a big fireball, while the shockwave from the explosion under the tank hit the legs of the German infantrymen who had been closely following the armored beast, ripping off or mangling the legs of the soldiers nearest the tank and bowling over the soldiers further away. That scene made Anton smash furiously his fist on top of the armored side of his half-track.

‘’GOTT UND HIMMEL! THESE BASTARDS LAID ANTI-TANK MINES ALONG THIS STREET!’’

He was actually wrong about that, as Mélanie, turning temporarily invisible, had rolled one of her ‘Lilie’s Special’ under the tank after priming the charge, then had teleported out of the danger zone of the blast. With only a narrow lane just wide enough for a tank still unblocked along Rue Danton, Anton shouted orders to his men.

‘’INFANTRY, TAKE THE LEAD! WATCH FOR ANTI-TANK MINES!’’ Then, inexplicably, the third tank of the column also shook from a belly explosion a few seconds later, even though it was not moving and could not have initiated an anti-tank mine. Now utterly confused, Anton grabbed his radio microphone and shouted in it.

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‘’REMAINING TANK, BACK OFF! LET THE INFANTRY CLEAR THE WAY FORWARD!’’

To his dying moment, Anton never understood what happened next. As the sole remaining tank of his unit was reversing gears and backing away, its commander sticking his head out through his open hatch so that he could guide his driver, Anton saw the tank commander jerk and then fall inside his turret as a pistol detonation could be heard. A sheet of flames coming seemingly from nowhere then shot down through the opened hatch. The inside of the armored vehicle next turned into an inferno, with the four surviving crewmembers screaming horribly as they burned alive while trying to get out of their doomed combat vehicle. Only the driver managed to get out, but he was by then a human torch and he died screaming while rolling around on the pavement. Seeing no targets for their bullets, Anton’s shaken infantrymen reacted out of long combat experience and took firing positions under what cover they could find, in order to secure the head of the column, now minus its four tanks. They then pushed forward in short tactical sprints, allowing the bulk of the battalion to resume its advance, albeit very slowly and deliberately.

On the Boulevard Saint-Michel, the Vichy Militia unit rolling towards the bridge stopped on hearing the explosions and gunfire along Rue Danton, two street blocks to its west. The commander of that Militia unit, a brutal thug with little real military training or experience and who was more accustomed in hunting down Jews and arresting people in their homes than in real fighting, hesitated for a moment about what to do next. He finally decided that, since the Résistance fighters seemed to concentrate their efforts against the German column in Rue Danton, he could use that diversion to get to the Saint-Michel Bridge unimpeded. He however had enough sense to realize that his men would be sitting ducks to snipers if they stayed inside their trucks, so he ordered his 300 militiamen out and formed them in two long parallel columns, one along each sidewalk, then had them advance on foot. The commander himself however stayed in his own light truck, which rolled behind the men on foot, while the trucks of the unit fell behind the command vehicle. At first, nothing happened as the militiamen, encouraged by the lack of enemy reaction against them, quickened their pace while a loud fight continued on Rue Danton. The first militiamen were less than thirty meters from the intersection with the Rue Sévérin and had the bridge in sight when the boulevard seemingly exploded in dense machine gun crossfire. With six medium machine guns firing a total rate of 95

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rounds per second down the boulevard and with seventeen riflemen adding their aimed fire, the militiamen started falling down like bowling pins on both sides of the street, while the trucks following them also received multiple hits. With their numbers quickly going down, the Vichy militiamen simply broke and ran in utter panic without firing a shot, many of them throwing down their weapons in order to flee more quickly. However, the FFI showed no mercy to those hated militiamen, who were rightly considered traitors to France and who had been too happy to commit countless atrocities and abuses in support of the Germans. Rifle and machine gun fire pursued the fleeing militiamen, downing them one after the other, until the few survivors disappeared into side streets. Those who raised their hands in an attempt to surrender were coldly shot down where they stood.

On Rue Danton, the Germans were not having an easy time of it, having to contend with heavy long-range sniper fire from the innumerable windows of the buildings ahead of them. Normally, their commander would have ordered his infantrymen to systematically check and clean up of opposition every building along Rue Danton, but that would have taken lots of time and a lot more men than he had now. His orders were also specific: to get to the Saint-Michel Bridge quickly and secure it in order to attack the Police Prefecture. However, as he kept steadily losing men, Major Anton von

Battenberg was starting to seriously question the wisdom of his orders. Of his initial force of over 400 infantrymen and nine armored vehicles, he now had left with him only about 350 infantrymen, five half-tracks and zero tanks.

Just as von Battenberg thought that things could not become much worse, they did, with at least six medium machine guns suddenly opening fire in concert, sweeping down the Rue Danton with a hail of bullets. The armored protection of the five half-tracks of Battenberg’s unit saved many German infantrymen walking behind them but, being open-topped, those inside the half-tracks proved highly vulnerable and started crumbling down inside their vehicles. Anton von Battenberg was shot at that moment, first with a bullet to his right shoulder, then with a bullet through the chest. He slumped down, dying, in the back of his command half-track as his men did their best to respond to the enemy fire. Then, one directional shrapnel charge placed along Rue Danton was command-detonated as the advancing Germans were about to pass it. The

concentrated hail of shrapnel dug bloody holes in the German ranks and stunned the

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survivors into seeking cover at once. Then another directional charge was detonated, but this time on the opposite side of the street, sweeping with shrapnel the sidewalk not affected by the first charge. Over sixty German infantrymen fell to these two charges alone, a rate of loss that proved unacceptable to the hauptmann who was now the sole surviving officer in the column. With incredibly dense machine gun fire still decimating his surviving soldiers, the hauptmann ordered an orderly retreat, with the half-tracks backing away on reverse to continue to offer protection to the men on foot. The hauptmann also called in for mortar support fire, asking his mortar men to lay a smoke screen across Rue Danton in order to cover his retreat. Only 245 infantrymen out of an initial force of 420 men returned safely to the Palais du Luxembourg, with their five half-tracks full of dead and wounded men.

In the fountain building, Commandant Drouet knew better than to celebrate too quickly that significant victory. The Germans had a number of artillery pieces around Paris and were probably going to indiscriminately shell this whole area soon. He thus shouted a series of urgent orders, passing them as well by telephone to the other buildings occupied by his fighters.

‘’I WANT ALL THE THREE TOP FLOOR VACATED AT ONCE! MOVE DOWN OUR MACHINE GUNS AND SNIPERS TO THE FIRST AND SECOND FLOORS! EXPECT ARTILLERY FIRE SOON!’’

Looking at one of his NCOs, he asked him a question while putting down the receiver of the field telephone he had just used.

‘’Has young Mélanie Laurent returned from her foray down Rue Danton?’’

‘’Uh, I don’t know, Commandant.’’

‘’Then check on that and give me a firm answer!’’

‘’Yes, Commandant!’’ said the man before running away. That left Drouet alone, hoping that the teenager had made it safely.

Mélanie actually stopped by the cabaret on her way back, wanting to both check on it and to grab more Lilie’s Specials at the same time. To her immense relief, she found the cabaret intact, with no sign of combat around it. Marie Laurent gave an emotional hug to Mélanie when she walked in via the front door.

‘’Thank God, you are okay!’’

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‘’Don’t thank that uncaring one, Mother: he prefers to judge rather than to help people. Well, it seems that we gave a couple of really stinging lessons to the Germans today. I was able to destroy four German tanks down Rue Danton and they never got close to the Place Saint-Michel and the bridge. How did it go here?’’

‘’Things thankfully stayed quiet around the cabaret. We did not have to shoot once. However, this is only the first day in this fight, and that day is not over yet.’’

‘’You are too right, Mother. Since things are quiet over here, how about temporarily freeing Sylvie and Stéphanie from their machine gun servant duties, so that they could cook some food and bake some bread for our fighters? I suspect that our men and women will be quite hungry by noon. I still have quite a large reserve of canned food and flour down in my cave. Feel free to use what you need to feed our fighters.’’

‘’An excellent idea, Mélanie. On your part, tell our fighters to send two men teams with wheelbarrows, so that they could collect the food we will prepare.’’

‘’Will do! See you soon, Mother!’’

‘’And be careful, my dear daughter!’’

On that, Mélanie walked out after grabbing two demolition charges and a few extra 9mm bullets for her submachine gun. Marie couldn’t help make a silent prayer then, asking for the safety of her adopted daughter.

Less than ten minutes later, German artillery shells and mortar bombs started falling at a slow rate around the district, with their fire centered on the Place Saint-Michel and the Police Prefecture. To that, the FFI could only take cover and hope for the best. The shelling continued sporadically until the evening, when it stopped, to the relief of everybody in the district. Anticipating a surprise night attack on foot by the Germans, Mélanie and Commandant Drouet made sure that the posted sentries and watchers stayed vigilant, something helped by the welcomed distribution of hot coffee from the cabaret. Thankfully, that night attack never came, but the night still reverberated with the sound of shots and explosions around Paris, keeping everyone nervous and apprehensive, everyone that is except Mélanie, who truly thrived on emotions.

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