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Authors: Alan Furst
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opened up, tracer sailing away into the far bank and the troops boarding the rafts. German machine guns answered— fiery red tracer that seemed slow at first, then fast. Some of it came through the slits, fizzing and hissing in the blockhouse with the smell of burnt steel. The French gunners worked hard, slamming the short clips into the guns and ripping them out when they were done. On the far bank of the river, some soldiers bowed, others sat down, rolling on the ground or curling up.
Then it stopped. A few rubber boats turned in the current as they floated away, a few gray shapes floated along with them. The silence seemed strange and heavy. Casson let the binoculars hang on their strap and leaned against the lip of the gunport. Just outside, he heard twigs snapping and pounding footsteps on the dirt path. Two French soldiers ran past, then three more. The sergeant swore and hurried outside. Casson heard his voice. “Stop,” he called out. “You cannot do this—go back where you belong.”
The answering voice was cold. “Get out of the way,” it said.
At dusk, a message on the field telephone: the unit had been ordered out. Degrave’s allies in Paris, Casson suspected, knew the battlefield situation for what it was and had determined to save a friend’s life. “We’re being sent south,” Degrave explained as they packed up the equipment. “To the reserve divisions behind the Maginot Line.”
They tried. But in the darkness on the roads leading out of Sedan nobody was going anywhere. Thousands of French troops had deserted, their weapons thrown away. They trudged south, eyes down, among columns of refugees, most of them on foot, some pushing baby carriages piled high with suitcases. Casson saw artillery wagons—the cannon thrown off, soldiers riding in their place—pulled by farm horses; an oxcart carrying a harp, a hearse from Mons, a city bus from Dinant, the fire truck from Namur. Sometimes an army command car forced its way through, packed with senior officers, faces rigid, sitting at attention while the driver pounded on the horn and swore. Let us through, we’re important people, retreating in an important fashion. Or, as a soldier riding on Casson’s running board put it, “Make way, make way, it’s the fucking king.” Then, a little later, as though to himself, he said “Poor France.”
Casson and the others moved slowly south, at walking speed. Back on the Meuse, the Wehrmacht was attacking again and whatever remained of the Forty-fifth Division was fighting back—floods of orange tracer crisscrossed the night sky above the river.
It was hard work, coaxing the truck forward among the refugees. They slept for an hour, then started up again. In first light, just after dawn, Casson spotted a road marker and realized they’d traveled less than twenty miles from Sedan. And then, prompt to the minute at 7:00 A.M., the Stukas came to work. They were very diligent, thorough and efficient, taking care to visit each military vehicle. Casson ran for the ditch and up went the truck—gasoline, cameras, film stock, canned lentils. He sat in the dirt and watched it burn, caught up in a fury that amazed him. It made no sense at all—they’d stopped him from making idiotic newsreels that nobody would ever see—but something inside him didn’t like it.
But, whether he liked it or not, that was the end of the Section Cinématographique of the Forty-fifth Division, decommissioned in a cow pasture near the village of Bouvellement on a fine May morning in 1940. The Peugeot had also been a victim of the Stukas, though it had not burned dramatically like the truck. A heavy-caliber bullet had punched through the engine, which could do no more than cough and dribble oil when Degrave tried the ignition. “Well,” he said with a sigh, “that’s that.”
He then gave Meneval and Casson permission to go, filling out official little slips of paper that said they’d been granted emergency leave. For
Then it stopped. A few rubber boats turned in the current as they floated away, a few gray shapes floated along with them. The silence seemed strange and heavy. Casson let the binoculars hang on their strap and leaned against the lip of the gunport. Just outside, he heard twigs snapping and pounding footsteps on the dirt path. Two French soldiers ran past, then three more. The sergeant swore and hurried outside. Casson heard his voice. “Stop,” he called out. “You cannot do this—go back where you belong.”
The answering voice was cold. “Get out of the way,” it said.
At dusk, a message on the field telephone: the unit had been ordered out. Degrave’s allies in Paris, Casson suspected, knew the battlefield situation for what it was and had determined to save a friend’s life. “We’re being sent south,” Degrave explained as they packed up the equipment. “To the reserve divisions behind the Maginot Line.”
They tried. But in the darkness on the roads leading out of Sedan nobody was going anywhere. Thousands of French troops had deserted, their weapons thrown away. They trudged south, eyes down, among columns of refugees, most of them on foot, some pushing baby carriages piled high with suitcases. Casson saw artillery wagons—the cannon thrown off, soldiers riding in their place—pulled by farm horses; an oxcart carrying a harp, a hearse from Mons, a city bus from Dinant, the fire truck from Namur. Sometimes an army command car forced its way through, packed with senior officers, faces rigid, sitting at attention while the driver pounded on the horn and swore. Let us through, we’re important people, retreating in an important fashion. Or, as a soldier riding on Casson’s running board put it, “Make way, make way, it’s the fucking king.” Then, a little later, as though to himself, he said “Poor France.”
Casson and the others moved slowly south, at walking speed. Back on the Meuse, the Wehrmacht was attacking again and whatever remained of the Forty-fifth Division was fighting back—floods of orange tracer crisscrossed the night sky above the river.
It was hard work, coaxing the truck forward among the refugees. They slept for an hour, then started up again. In first light, just after dawn, Casson spotted a road marker and realized they’d traveled less than twenty miles from Sedan. And then, prompt to the minute at 7:00 A.M., the Stukas came to work. They were very diligent, thorough and efficient, taking care to visit each military vehicle. Casson ran for the ditch and up went the truck—gasoline, cameras, film stock, canned lentils. He sat in the dirt and watched it burn, caught up in a fury that amazed him. It made no sense at all—they’d stopped him from making idiotic newsreels that nobody would ever see—but something inside him didn’t like it.
But, whether he liked it or not, that was the end of the Section Cinématographique of the Forty-fifth Division, decommissioned in a cow pasture near the village of Bouvellement on a fine May morning in 1940. The Peugeot had also been a victim of the Stukas, though it had not burned dramatically like the truck. A heavy-caliber bullet had punched through the engine, which could do no more than cough and dribble oil when Degrave tried the ignition. “Well,” he said with a sigh, “that’s that.”
He then gave Meneval and Casson permission to go, filling out official little slips of paper that said they’d been granted emergency leave. For
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