Though newly recruited to the Regiment, Druce was no stranger to the SAS’s means of waging war. He remained determined to get the right men, machines and weaponry dropped in, so as to wreak havoc.
Following Lieutenant LeFranc’s departure on his vital mission, news reached Druce that Robert Lodge was dead. There was some confusion as to how exactly the German-Jew-turned-SAS-veteran had died. His body had been delivered by the enemy to the house of the local priest, Abbé Gassman, who was ordered to dispose of the corpse.
A second body was brought to the priest. As yet unidentified, Abbé Gassman feared it was also that of a British parachutist. Druce decided he needed to go and see for himself. With Mme Rossi’s help he dressed himself in the kind of worn and workmanlike clothes a local might wear, and set off on the quarter-mile journey into the village.
Druce had walked these hills before. He spoke French like a native and he figured he could talk his way out of most trouble. More to the point, the dead and the missing men were his men . He may not have known them for more than a few days, but they were soldiers in a unit under his command. Druce felt a burning sense of responsibility; plus he needed to know exactly how many fighters he had left alive.
Druce was also spurred to act by Mme Rossi’s description of the key role that Abbé Gassman fulfilled in the village. As with Albert Freine, the gamekeeper-cum-Maquis intelligence chief, the Moussey priest was playing a dangerous and duplicitous game. Ostensibly a ‘good Frenchman’ and a friend to Nazi Germany, Gassman was in reality the linchpin of the Moussey Resistance.
‘Without him,’ Mme Rossi commented, darkly, ‘things might have turned out very differently around here.’
Moving through the woods under cover of night, Druce made it to the rear of Abbé Gassman’s house unchallenged. The Moussey priest seemed remarkably unfazed by the SAS captain’s arrival at his back door. Cool as a cucumber, he invited Druce in and insisted he be his guest for dinner. Though they conversed mostly in French, Druce learned that Gassman spoke almost perfect English, and he was immediately intrigued by the man.
Gassman had the air of a cleric of ancient times, when the calling of holy man was more often closely allied to that of a warrior. Tall, lean and cadaverous, his warrior-monk demeanour was softened by a merciful and ready smile, and a gentle humour. Gassman was an intensely human individual. This was a man who had witnessed the very heights and the depths of his fellow man’s behaviour, making the risks that he was taking in his present role seem paltry by comparison.
Gassman treated Druce to a hearty dinner, after which the grim details of Lodge’s death were recounted. On the evening of 20 August, Lodge’s body had been delivered to the church for ‘disposal’. Gassman had detailed some loyal churchgoers to dig the grave and assist with the burial. He reckoned that Lodge had been dead for less than twenty-four hours, and he noticed bayonet wounds to his stomach, plus a gunshot wound to the head, seemingly inflicted at close quarters.
At first Druce figured that Lodge, wounded and faced by imminent capture, had taken his own life. ‘If he was about to be captured, he might well have committed suicide,’ Druce mused. ‘The talk of bayonet wounds and things . . . I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Lodge had blown his own brains out. He was a Jew. He knew . . . and I think he would have decided that, well, it’s time to blow my own brains out .’
From Gassman’s description of the second body, it appeared to be that of Gerald Davis, Hislop’s fellow Phantom. According to the priest, Davis’s corpse had been delivered to the village churchyard after its retrieval from Schirmek. Davis had a small, half-inch-wide bullet hole in the front of his skull, and a large exit wound at the back. Davis too seemed to have been shot in the head at
Following Lieutenant LeFranc’s departure on his vital mission, news reached Druce that Robert Lodge was dead. There was some confusion as to how exactly the German-Jew-turned-SAS-veteran had died. His body had been delivered by the enemy to the house of the local priest, Abbé Gassman, who was ordered to dispose of the corpse.
A second body was brought to the priest. As yet unidentified, Abbé Gassman feared it was also that of a British parachutist. Druce decided he needed to go and see for himself. With Mme Rossi’s help he dressed himself in the kind of worn and workmanlike clothes a local might wear, and set off on the quarter-mile journey into the village.
Druce had walked these hills before. He spoke French like a native and he figured he could talk his way out of most trouble. More to the point, the dead and the missing men were his men . He may not have known them for more than a few days, but they were soldiers in a unit under his command. Druce felt a burning sense of responsibility; plus he needed to know exactly how many fighters he had left alive.
Druce was also spurred to act by Mme Rossi’s description of the key role that Abbé Gassman fulfilled in the village. As with Albert Freine, the gamekeeper-cum-Maquis intelligence chief, the Moussey priest was playing a dangerous and duplicitous game. Ostensibly a ‘good Frenchman’ and a friend to Nazi Germany, Gassman was in reality the linchpin of the Moussey Resistance.
‘Without him,’ Mme Rossi commented, darkly, ‘things might have turned out very differently around here.’
Moving through the woods under cover of night, Druce made it to the rear of Abbé Gassman’s house unchallenged. The Moussey priest seemed remarkably unfazed by the SAS captain’s arrival at his back door. Cool as a cucumber, he invited Druce in and insisted he be his guest for dinner. Though they conversed mostly in French, Druce learned that Gassman spoke almost perfect English, and he was immediately intrigued by the man.
Gassman had the air of a cleric of ancient times, when the calling of holy man was more often closely allied to that of a warrior. Tall, lean and cadaverous, his warrior-monk demeanour was softened by a merciful and ready smile, and a gentle humour. Gassman was an intensely human individual. This was a man who had witnessed the very heights and the depths of his fellow man’s behaviour, making the risks that he was taking in his present role seem paltry by comparison.
Gassman treated Druce to a hearty dinner, after which the grim details of Lodge’s death were recounted. On the evening of 20 August, Lodge’s body had been delivered to the church for ‘disposal’. Gassman had detailed some loyal churchgoers to dig the grave and assist with the burial. He reckoned that Lodge had been dead for less than twenty-four hours, and he noticed bayonet wounds to his stomach, plus a gunshot wound to the head, seemingly inflicted at close quarters.
At first Druce figured that Lodge, wounded and faced by imminent capture, had taken his own life. ‘If he was about to be captured, he might well have committed suicide,’ Druce mused. ‘The talk of bayonet wounds and things . . . I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Lodge had blown his own brains out. He was a Jew. He knew . . . and I think he would have decided that, well, it’s time to blow my own brains out .’
From Gassman’s description of the second body, it appeared to be that of Gerald Davis, Hislop’s fellow Phantom. According to the priest, Davis’s corpse had been delivered to the village churchyard after its retrieval from Schirmek. Davis had a small, half-inch-wide bullet hole in the front of his skull, and a large exit wound at the back. Davis too seemed to have been shot in the head at
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