A YOUNG SUCCUBUS NAMED DELICIA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 20 – THE ALLIES PUSH FORWARD

03:36 (Paris Time)

Wednesday, August 23, 1944

Forward command post of the 2nd Armored Division (Free French) Near Chartres, 35 miles southwest of Paris, France

‘’You wanted to see me, General?’’

‘’Yes! I have a mission of crucial importance for you and your unit, Captain Dronne. Generals Eisenhower and Bradley have finally authorized a push all the way into Paris, to be done by our division and by the American 4th Armored Division. Our mission will be to liberate the city, which has risen three days ago in open armed revolt against the Germans occupying it. Our division will start rolling towards Paris this morning, but I want to send your reinforced mechanized company forward as an advanced reconnaissance element. You are to go as fast as possible, avoiding points of resistance on your way, and get into Paris. There, you will liaise with the local Résistance forces and ascertain the situation in the city, then report by radio.’’ The young officer straightened up and his eyes glistened on hearing those words from Major General Leclerc: to be the first French soldiers to enter Paris would be a great honor indeed for him and for his men.

‘’You can count on me, General. Do we know if the Résistance is holding any part of Paris yet?’’

‘’We do! We are receiving regular radio messages from General de Gaulle’s representative in Paris, Mister Chaban-Delmas, who is at the Police Prefecture on the l’Île de la Cité. The FFI are presently holding the Prefecture, the city hall, the Montparnasse train station and a few minor locations. According to Chaban-Delmas, there has been some fierce street fighting around the city but the Germans are now said to be staying mostly in and around their barracks and have stopped venturing out in force. So, when can you move out, Captain Dronne?’’

‘’Give me one hour, time to refuel, rearm and resupply and we will be on our way, General.’’

‘’Excellent! Then, I can only wish you good luck in your mission, Captain.’’

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‘’Thank you, General!’’

The two men then exchanged a handshake, followed by a salute, before Dronne pivoted on his heels and walked out of Leclerc’s command tent. A 100-meter walk led him to his unit’s bivouac area, around which his three Sherman tanks and eleven M3 armored half-tracks were dispersed and camouflaged. Once there, he called up his subalterns for a quick orders group, passing to them Leclerc’s mission order, then sent them to complete their resupply. As promised to his general, Dronne’s lead tank started rolling out of their bivouac less than fifty minutes later and got on the main road leading northeast towards Paris, followed by the thirteen other armored vehicles of the unit.

19:42 (Paris Time)

Porte d’Orléans, southern outskirts of Paris

The Sun was still up when Captain Dronne’s half-track stopped just short of the Porte d’Orléans, one of the old fortified city gates of Paris which led into the 14th Arrondissement. Emotion nearly overwhelmed him when he looked at the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

‘’Paris, at last! It is so good to see it again.’’

From the happy shouts from his men, he could say that they were as overjoyed as him. Their trip, while quite dangerous, had been mostly combat-free, thanks to his deliberate avoidance of the potential enemy positions along his way. Now, he stood at the gates of Paris with all his vehicles still intact and his men in high spirits. However, the toughest part, navigating through Paris while avoiding German barrages and strongpoints, was still left to do, but he had an idea about that. Bending forward, he gently rapped the steel helmet of his halftrack’s driver, making the man look up at him.

‘’Manurin, you are from Paris, so I assume that you know its topography well, right?’’

‘’Know Paris well? Hell, Captain, I could take a job in Paris as a taxi driver without a sweat!’’

‘’I am glad to hear that. The FFI are said to be holding the Montparnasse train station. We are going to head there first, to liaise with the FFI and get some info on the present German deployments in and around Paris. Then, from there, we will take the safest way to the city hall, in the 4th Arrondissement.’’

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‘’Consider yourself there, sir!’’ replied the driver, grinning, before engaging gears and accelerating his half-track towards the city gate. The sight of a dozen men in civilian clothes, some armed, waiving French flags from atop the gate, made Dronne smile with pride: that the Parisians had risen to help free their city would go a long way to erase the stain of four years of collaboration by too many French citizens. It also was going to make his advance in the city that much easier.

Thirty minutes later, Dronne’s column arrived at Place Denfert-Rochereau, near the Montparnasse train station, where a group of armed civilians were waiting for him. One man approached his half-track as soon as it stopped on one side of the plaza and addressed Dronne.

‘’Welcome to Paris, Captain! I am Colonel Henri Rol, Commander of the FFI forces in Paris.’’

‘’And I am Captain Jacques Dronne, of the Free French 2nd Armored Division. General Leclerc sent me ahead as a forward element, with mission to get to the city hall and liaise with the leaders of the Résistance there. I am also to send him a report on the present situation in Paris. How are things in the city?’’

‘’Tense but relatively calm at the moment. The Germans tried at first to crush our uprising but got their nose bloody in a few places. They then withdrew to their barracks and main centers, where they took defensive positions. Right now, the main German centers are the Palais du Luxembourg, the École Militaire, the Invalides, the Palais Bourbon, the Prince Eugène Barracks and the area around the Tuileries and the Majestic Hotel. On our side, we hold firmly this area around Montparnasse, the city hall, the Prefecture and most of the 4th, 5th and 6th Arrondissements. We also have established numerous barricades across the main streets, in order to hamper German movements.’’

‘’Then, could you provide us with a guide who would know where those barricades are and who could show us the best way to the city hall, Colonel?’’

‘’With pleasure!’’ replied Henri Rol before looking at one of his aides beside him. ‘’François, you will lead Captain Dronne’s unit to the city hall. Take the safest route possible.’’

‘’Yes, Colonel!’’ said the man, who ten climbed in the back of the half-track, where he shook hands with Dronne.

‘’François Marigny, at your service, Captain. Are you ready to roll?’’

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‘’I sure am, Mister Marigny! You may sit beside my driver in the front cab.’’

‘’Thank you!’’ said the FFI before swinging one leg over the edge of the steel partition between the front cab and the rear of the half-track, then swinging his other leg over before sitting in the front cab beside the driver. Once there, he spoke briefly with the latter, explaining to him which way to go.

From the Place Denfert-Rochereau, the Free French column rolled northward along the Avenue Denfert-Rochereau, then continued along the Rue Saint-Jacques, thus avoiding the nearby Palais du Luxembourg. They soon crossed the wide Boulevard Saint-Germain, continuing along Rue Saint-Jacques until they arrived at the intersection with the Quai de Montebello, running along the Left Bank of the scene. Before making the driver turn right on the Quai de Montebello, Marigny looked up at Dronne while pointing towards the Saint-Michel Bridge, some 150 meters away to the west.

‘’A word of caution if you have to go later to the Police Prefecture: the area around the Saint-Michel Bridge is heavily defended by one of our cells, which has planted anti-tank mines across the streets on the Left Bank leading to the bridge. These guys and girls performed heroically and destroyed many German vehicles, including four tanks, on top of killing hundreds of Germans. The leader of that cell also provided us the majority of our weapons, which she stole from the Germans.’’

‘’She? A woman is leading that Résistance cell?’’

Dronne’s incredulous response made Marigny grin with malice.

‘’Not a woman: a teenage girl. Her name is Mélanie Laurent and her nom de guerre is ‘Lilie’. She truly should get the Légion d’Honneur for her exploits. She also happens to be about the most beautiful girl I ever saw.’’

‘’Wow! I will definitely have to meet that girl later…when I get the time for that. So, which way now?’’

‘’We go east along the Quai de Montebello, then will cross the Seine on the Pont au Double, pass in front of the Notre-Dame Cathedral and cross to the Right Bank on the Pont d’Arcole. You will then be at the city hall.’’

‘’Then, let’s go!’’

Dronne finally arrived at the city hall at around nine in the evening, after sunset, where he met with the head of the National Council of Resistance, Georges Bidault, and the commander of the Paris Committee of Liberation, André Tollet. There, Dronne passed

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on the news that the 2nd French Armored Division and the 4th American Armored Division were on their way to Paris, something that greatly raised the spirits around the city hall. After collecting as much information as he could from the two Résistance leaders, Dronne sent by radio a report back to General Leclerc, including in it the main points he had learned about the situation in and around Paris. Once his message had been acknowledged by his divisional headquarters, Dronne got back in his half-track and, still guided by Marigny, headed for the Police Prefecture. Cheered along the way by ecstatic Parisians and FFI fighters, his column rolled west along the Right Bank and turned left at the Place du Chatelet, crossing the Seine on the Pont au Change. Their passage there attracted some isolated rifle fire that wounded one man, proof that they were now quite close to German lines. Return fire by the heavy machine guns of the halftracks however silence quickly enough those German snipers and the column rolled to a stop along the Boulevard du Palais, with the Police Prefecture to its left and the Justice Palace to the right. Coming out of his half-track again, Dronne went inside the Prefecture, where he was able to see that it was solidly defended by hundreds of French policemen armed with an assortment of machine guns, rifles and submachine guns. He was still looking around him when the representative of General de Gaulle in Paris, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, came to him, shaking his hand profusely.

‘’Captain, you can’t know how happy we all are to see you and your men here in Paris. So, when could we expect the Allies to enter Paris in force?’’

‘’Both the French 2nd Armored Division and the American 4th Armored Division should be at the gates of Paris by the end of tomorrow, sir. General Leclerc sent me ahead to assess the situation in advance and get details about the German deployments around Paris.’’

‘’And you shall get plenty of such information from us, Captain. But please, let’s go to our command center, where we have detailed maps of Paris: I will be better equipped to brief you there.’’

Dronne followed Chaban-Delmas with good grace, but took the time to tell one of his NCOs to have his armored vehicles refueled and maintained while he spoke with de Gaulle’s representative.

That NCO, a warrant officer, went out of the Prefecture and passed on the orders from Dronne to his men, then went to a senior police officer standing nearby, saluting him.

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‘’Excuse me, sir, but would you know by chance if we could find some extra fuel for our vehicles in this prefecture?’’

‘’You are in luck, mister: Miss Lilie, who provided us with most of our weapons and ammunition, also provided us some gasoline as well for our own trucks and patrol cars.’’

‘’Miss Lilie? Who’s that?’’ Said the warrant officer, raising an eyebrow. His question seemed to amuse the police commander.

‘’Well, about everyone in Paris now knows about Miss Lilie, but since you are new here, I can understand your ignorance. Miss Lilie is the nom de guerre of a teenage girl named Mélanie Laurent. She worked as a stripper at a nearby cabaret and luxury bordello but also formed and led a Résistance cell of her own, the Groupe Paris Liberté, which specialized in intelligence gathering and in the systematic theft of German supplies and weapons. She is rumored to have worked closely with that mysterious British commando unit that made life hell for the Germans around Paris during the last three years.’’

‘’A teenage stripper… Is she pretty?’’

The police commander grinned from ear to ear at that question.

‘’Is young Mélanie Laurent pretty? Hell, you would sell your soul to the Devil just to have a chance to be intimate with her! She is in fact by far the most beautiful girl I ever saw. She however proved to be as well a very brave and skillful fighter. If the rumors about her are true, she managed to destroy by herself four German medium tanks, using demolition charges she improvised with grenades and high explosives. She in fact could still have some reserves of gasoline that you could use. Our own reserves don’t amount to much right now but you are welcome to them.’’

‘’And where could I find that famous ‘Miss Lilie’, sir?’’

In response, the police commander pointed an index towards the nearby Saint-Michel Bridge, on which a chicane-type barrage stood.

‘’You may find her at that barrage. If not, the girls manning it should be able to tell you where to find her. In the meantime, I will get my men to bring out to your vehicles what we have available in terms of fuel.’’

‘’Thank you, sir! That is much appreciated.’’

Saluting again the police commander, the French warrant officer then walked down to the bridge, where a pretty redhead standing behind a German MG 42 medium machine gun greeted him with a warm smile.

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‘’Good day, sir! What may we do for you?’’

‘’I am looking for Miss Lilie, miss. I am hoping that she could provide my unit with some spare gasoline. Is she around?’’

‘’She is presently in the fountain building, discussing with her deputy, Commandant Drouet. I can call for her right now: we have functioning field telephones. One moment, please!’’

Turning around inside her sandbagged position, the redhead grabbed the handset of a field telephone lying atop the parapet and cranked the telephone’s small dynamo handle.

‘’Yes, this is Mary Gillies, on the bridge. I need to speak with Mélanie… Mélanie? I have here at the barrage a Free French soldier who wanted to ask you if you would have some gasoline for his unit’s armored vehicles, which just arrived at the Prefecture… I will pass the word to him… Yes, we can guide him to the cabaret. Bye!’’ The redhead then put down her handset and turned around to smile again to the warrant officer.

‘’Mélanie says that she still has some gasoline stashed inside her secret cave and that she will be happy to give it to you. I will now guide you to our cabaret, where Mélanie will join you soon. We have people at the cabaret who will be able to carry that gasoline to your vehicles.’’

‘’We could roll up to your cabaret, if that could make things easier, miss.’’

‘’Uh, I wouldn’t counsel that, mister: we have a double row of anti-tank mines buried just past the south extremity of this bridge. Digging them out and disarming them could take hours.’’

‘’Oh, I see! Then, show me the way to your cabaret.’’

The redhead nodded her head once, then looked at one of the two other women manning the barrage, a very pretty blonde close to thirty.

‘’Hey, Lisa! Could you take my place at this machine gun? I have to guide this gentleman to the cabaret.’’

‘’Sure, Mary! You may go now.’’ replied the blonde as she walked out of the other machine gun position, where another young woman was smoking a cigarette while standing behind a second machine gun. As the warrant officer followed the redhead, he was barely able to make out a number of spots on the pavement of the adjacent street where a number of cobblestones appeared to be sticking up slightly.

‘’Nice work on camouflaging those mines, miss: they are barely noticeable.’’

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‘’Thanks! We planted more anti-tank mines across the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Quai de Montebello, about sixty meters down on each side of this bridge. You better warn your drivers about them.’’

‘’I will!’’

Going down Place Saint-Michel, the duo then went down the Rue Saint-André-des-Arts and arrived after ninety meters at the façade of a six-story building with racy posters displayed in its ground level windows. The warrant officer however didn’t miss the muzzles of at least two machine guns sticking out from windows on the upper floors. The redhead then pointed the main entrance of the building.

‘’The Mille et Une Nuits Cabaret, the sexiest little establishment in Paris. We will now go see its manager, Madame Marie Laurent, who also happens to be the adoptive mother of Mélanie.’’

The warrant officer took a moment to admire the poster of a ravishing teenage girl in a vaporous Persian outfit before entering the cabaret behind the redhead. Entering a large lounge, he couldn’t help notice the sandbags, piled bricks and thick wood panels protecting the inside of the windows. Two men with rifles stood behind windows, while a very pretty young Asian woman stood behind a MG 34 medium machine gun mounted on an anti-aircraft tripod and pointing out through a window near the entrance door. A mature woman in her forties came at once to greet the duo, shaking hands with the warrant officer.

‘’Welcome to Paris, mister. I am Marie Laurent, manager and owner of this cabaret. You are truly a nice sight for us. Have the Allies entered Paris in force yet?’’

‘’Not yet, Madame Laurent! Our mechanized company was sent ahead by General Leclerc, who should arrive in Paris late tomorrow with his armored division. I was told that you may have some reserves of fuel in your basement which could help refuel our tanks and half-tracks.’’

‘’You were told right, mister. We in fact still have a few hundred gallons of gasoline stashed in a cave under our basement.’’

‘’A few hundred gallons?’’ exclaimed the NCO, not having expected that much. ‘’That would be more than enough to completely refill our fuel tanks.’’

‘’And we will be most happy to give you that fuel, mister. Let me call down some help to carry that fuel. Where are your vehicles parked, by the way?’’

‘’In front of the police prefecture.’’

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‘’Right! HEY, GUYS, COME DOWN TO THE LOUNGE: I NEED LOTS OF MANPOWER TO MOVE FUEL OUT.’’

Within a minute, some fourteen men came down the stairs, gathering around Marie Laurent, who then gave them a few orders.

‘’I need you guys to go down to our secret cave and bring up the jerrycans of gasoline that we still have in storage there. We will then use our wheelbarrows to transport that fuel to the police prefecture, where some French Army vehicles are parked. Follow me!’’

Following right behind Marie Laurent, the NCO went through a large kitchen, then went down a set of stairs leading to a basement containing a few old boxes and pieces of furniture, where Marie pushed aside a large wooden locker with the help of a man, revealing a hole in the masonry wall behind the cabinet.

‘’The secret entrance to what Mélanie calls her Ali Baba cave.’’ explained Marie with a smile before going down a set of apparently very old stone stairs. Following her closely, the NCO ended up in a large cavern containing dispersed piles of crates and containers of various sizes. He was then led to a corner where an impressive number of jerrycans were piled away from the other objects in the cave.

‘’Our reserve of fuel. Take whatever you need, mister. ALRIGHT GUYS, LET’S START MOVING UP THOSE JERRYCANS TO THE SHOW ROOM!’’ Not ready to stand idly by, the NCO grabbed himself two of the jerrycans and started up the stairs with them. Even for a fit man like him, those two full jerrycans represented quite a heavy load and his arms were quite fatigued by the time that he put the jerrycans down in the middle of the show room.

‘’Phew! It will take quite of lot of efforts to carry all that fuel to the prefecture.’’

‘’Well, we have half a dozen wheelbarrows which will greatly help that effort, mister.’’ replied Marie. On an order from her, six men went to the back of the cabaret, returning within minutes with six wheelbarrows. Those were then rolled out into the street before being each loaded with three full jerrycans. The remaining men of the group then grabbed more jerrycans, with two men assisting each other to carry a jerrycan. With a total of 22 jerrycans of fuel with him, the jubilant NCO led the group up the street, then across the bridge, to finally drop their loads beside the parked tanks and half-tracks. They next returned to the cabaret for a second load of jerrycans. The men were tired but satisfied when they dropped their second load near the armored vehicles, where Captain Dronne thanked them and shook hands with them.

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‘’Thank you for your help, men. That gasoline will be of great help to us. And thank Miss Lilie on my part for that.’’

‘’Well, you will be able to tell her that directly, sir: here she comes!’’ All eyes then went to a tall teenage girl approaching in the dark. She was armed with a submachine gun and a pistol and wore an armband around her left arm. The soldiers of the mechanized company, like Dronne himself, were all instantly mesmerized by her great beauty and sexiness as she stopped in front of the captain to shake hands with him.

‘’Welcome to Paris, Captain! I am Mélanie Laurent, in command of the Groupe Paris Liberté Résistance cell. I see that you already have the fuel you asked for.’’

‘’I indeed do, miss. By the way, I heard a lot of nice things about you. How did you manage to find so much fuel, weapons and ammunition, if I may ask?’’

‘’You may! Actually, this is the product of four years of cautious but systematic pilfering of German reserves and supply trains. I was also helped greatly in that by the British First Special Commando Unit, which operated until recently around Paris.’’

‘’Operated? Where are they now?’’

‘’They left Paris after the landings in Normandy. It was actually an ad hoc unit formed out of British stragglers and of men cut off from their units during the 1940 debacle. They did a great job while in Paris and caused massive casualties to the Germans. They also taught me a lot about fighting and military tactics.’’

‘’I see! Still, what you did with your cell was astounding. Be assured that General Leclerc will get words about your exploits.’’

‘’Exploits… Let’s just say that I did what was needed to be done to help free Paris from the Germans’ yoke. So, what is your next planned move, Captain?’’

‘’Uh, I haven’t really had time to think about that yet. With my report sent by radio to my division, I only need now to wait for the rest of the 2nd Armored Division to arrive here, which should happen sometimes late tomorrow.’’

‘’Then, I would advise you to avoid the area around the Palace of the Louvres and the Tuileries: a German tank unit equipped with Panther medium tanks is deployed there and they are keeping the Rue de Rivoli and the portion of the Left Bank facing the Quai des Tuileries in the sights of their guns.’’

‘’Hum, a useful information indeed, miss. Now that we are here, would you mind if we disarm and remove the anti-tank mines you planted across the southern extremity

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of the Saint-Michel Bridge? That would then permit us to roll on the Left Bank if need be.’’

‘’By all means, Captain! In fact, I will help you with that task.’’ Dronne nearly protested then, having difficulty in accepting that a teenage girl would do such a dangerous work. However, he managed to hold his tongue…barely, not wanting to insult her.

‘’Very well! I will get a few of my men to help you with that job.’’

‘’Thank you! I will start uncovering these mines right now, to make the job easier.’’

Mélanie then turned around and walked back across the bridge, followed by Dronne’s eyes.

‘’What a girl!’’ said softly the French captain to himself.

As expected, the lead elements of the French 2nd Armored Division and of the American 4th Armored Division started entering Paris from the West and the South in the afternoon of the next day, with the main parts of the two divisions following in the morning of the 25th of August. Even though they now had no hopes of winning, the Germans entrenched around the École Militaire and the Invalides fiercely resisted, causing some casualties to the Allies. However, that resistance crumbled by the end of the morning and a large French flag was then hoisted atop the Eiffel Tower, to the collective cheers of the Parisians. In the afternoon that day, the German commander of the Paris region, General von Choltitz, went to the Montparnasse train station, where General Leclerc had set up his headquarters, and signed an official act of surrender at about three in the afternoon. The German occupation of Paris was now officially over! Two hours later, General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French Forces, arrived in Paris and met both Leclerc and the main leaders of the Résistance in Paris. That evening, General de Gaulle gave a rousing speech from the steps of the city hall to a huge crowd of cheering Parisians. The following day, a Saturday, de Gaulle led on foot a triumphal march down the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, towering over the other marchers, then went to the Notre-Dame Cathedral, where he took part in a Te Deum. Mélanie, her mother and the girls of the cabaret participated in that triumphal march, invited thanks to the warm recommendations of Captain Dronne to General Leclerc. That proved by far to be the best day of the war for

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them, with more than one war correspondent or photographer eagerly taking multiple pictures of the girls, who still wore their FFI armbands and had their weapons with them.