Having just extracted La Résistance agent Duplix from the clutches of the Nazis, MI6s Enhanced Unit are starting to make the dangerous journey across occupied France. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

France, September 1942

There is little detail that I remember about that mad dash across northern France in September 1942. We had just freed Duplix from the Le Château De Bourgoine and had made it as far as our hidden vehicle without being discovered, our problem was that it was oh one hundred hours and we were four hundred kilometres from our next contact in Le Tréport.

Madeline and I help Duplix into the backseat of the car and Doctor Jackal climbs in beside him. Madeline then leaps into the driver’s seat and I settle in next to her in the passenger’s. Sven takes to the air as a raven to keep an eye on the road ahead of us and provide an early warning to us so that we can try and avoid checkpoints and other vehicles.

On Doctor Jackal’s advice we head across country, Henry had studied several maps of the local area and with his memory he easily chose the least populated route. We pass through the village of Contrisson and head north to rejoin the main road, at one point Sven swoops down to warn us of an approaching vehicle and we hide off of the road as three German trucks trundle by.

As we approach the town of Châlons-en-Champagne we realise that there is no option but to risk passing through the town and bluff our way past the checkpoints. We are stopped on our way into the town and our papers are requested, we inform the guard that we are escorting a patient to Reims so that we can catch the train from there to Lille. The checkpoint guards seem far more interested in Madeline and myself, something that we both encourage with doe eyes and girlish laughter. After refusing two offers of staying for the night we are waved through the checkpoint, the guards had barely even looked into the back of the car.

We are stopped once again on the way out of the town, and this time the German Corporal in charge is more efficient. He checks our papers and questions us all in turn, we all stick to the story that we are travelling to Lille via Reims. When he tries to question Duplix all he gets is the mumbled code phrase that is all we have heard Duplix utter since we rescued him, Doctor Jackal leapt in quickly and pronounced that his patient was suffering from an extremely rare chromosome disorder that he was travelling to Lille to study. The Corporal looks a little worried and asks if it is contagious. Doctor Jackal says no, but the Corporal is quick to wave us through.

We hide in a field just outside of Reims until dawn and drive in. But this time the car is being driven by the German orderly Igor Swartz and there is no sign of the German nurse Heidi Klum. Madeline had gathered up any incriminating equipment, pistols and spare fake papers, and turned into shadow form under Duplix’s blanket. We pass through a significant checkpoint, but the guard sees that there are two German citizens in the car and waves us through with barely a check.

Sven drives us through Reims to the train station. We park up and are instantly accosted by a small luggage boy who expertly loads up his trolley with our bags. As we slowly approach the front of the station we realise that there are two Gestapo outside checking papers. The atmosphere gets tense but we walk straight up and Doctor Jackal hands over our papers when requested. I remember the Gestapo officer being a complete boudin, but Henry explained Duplix’s illness and the we were travelling to Abbeville at some length and we were once again waved through into the station.

Henry takes Duplix, with Madeline still hidden in shadow form under his blanket, to the station cafe to get some breakfast while myself and Sven head to the ticket office. We purchase a dozen first class tickets to Abbeville, enough to secure us an entire carriage, and are informed that our train will leave Platform three in twenty four minutes. Just enough time to purchase several packets of good French cigarettes and a coffee. We inform our luggage boy of the platform that we are leaving from and ask him to try and get us an empty carriage, he dashes off with our luggage towards the platform.

Fifteen minutes later we walk along platform three and join our luggage boy, as we are moving down the platform I acost the guard and inform him that we have purchased enough tickets to secure an entire carriage. He looks surprised, but I make a reference to him Germans think that they are important and he smiles and says that he will see what he can do for me. And he is good to his word and we secure the last carriage of the train all to ourselves. We tip the luggage boy handsomely and pull the blinds on our carriage for privacy, by oh eight thirty hours we are settled in smoking French cigarettes as the train pulls out of Reims station.

We set a watch and take turns in catching up on some much needed sleep. It had been a tense journey so far and now that we were moving the adrenaline drained out of our bodies and most of us fell into a deep sleep. While we sleep we pass through Laon and Tergnier and are woken up by Sven as the train pulls into Haute Picarde, there is a polite knock on the door and the train’s conductor informs us that we need to change here for Abbeville. I wave over another luggage boy and we disembark heading for platform two.

Yet again we take the luggage boys lead and stand where he suggests on platform two, I head off further into the station to purchase some provisions for the next leg of the journey and just enjoy the fact that I am back in my beloved France. For a moment I even forget about the war, that doesn’t last long.

Stood on the platform, Doctor Jackal looks down the length of it towards the main station entrance and sees a German patrol beginning to work it’s way along the platform checking papers. As he watches he can tell that they mean business and are being very thorough, and a little over zealous. They are less than fifty metres away, harassing a French family. Doctor Jackal tries to remain calm and whispers a warning to both Sven and Madeline. Sven looks down the platform at the patrol and wishes that his pistol wasn’t in shadowform with Madeline.

The patrol moves onwards leaving the family shaking in fear, and begin to check the papers of the next group. They are less than twenty metres away. A bead of sweat breaks out on Doctor Jackal’s brow. I arrive back at the group and very quickly realise what is happening. I start to look at my watch and pray that the train arrives very soon.

As the German patrol moves ever closer, and we get ever tenser, our luggage boy points down the track and says;

La voilà!

I have never climbed aboard a train so quickly and with so much relief. The German patrol were less than five metres from us, but as soon as the train was at the platform they moved off into the station. We did not have time to try and sort out a carriage to ourselves and so we shared the next part of our journey with a very elegant elderly French gentleman. We pass through Longeueau, Amiens, and pull into Abbeville at twelve fifteen hours.

Once more we encounter a Gestapo checkpoint exiting the train station. Doctor Jackal hands over our papers and informs the Gestapo officer that we have travelled from Meuse TGV. The officer meticulously checks through our papers and asks each of us in turn to confirm our details, we all answer to his satisfaction until he gets to Sven. The Gestapo officer asks Sven, or actually Igor;

You are Doctor Gebhardt’s orderly?

Sven answers that he is, but there is a little to much Norwegian in his German accent. The officer stares intently at Sven and then asks him very slowly and deliberately;

Are you not well?

As Sven manages to answer that he is tired in perfect German I notice that the vein in Doctor Jackal’s temple is pulsating rapidly. I hold my breath.

The Gestapo officer stares at Sven for a few seconds and then hands our papers back to Doctor Jackal and waves us through the checkpoint. When we get outside of the station Henry tells us that he was worried for a minute there, his blood pressure was getting dangerously high. We all breathe a sigh of relief.

I hail us a taxi from outside of the train station and we decide to get him to take us straight to Le Tréport. He looks a bit dubious until I show him five francs, he drives us out of town and we clear a very lax checkpoint. We are stopped once more on the outskirts of Le Tréport and again pass through without a hitch, the taxi drops us off in the centre of town and we head to the local cafe to decide our next move.

After fifteen minutes we are approached by fourteen year old girl who introduces herself as Marie. She asks us if we are looking for rooms, and then gives us the most unsubtle wink that I have ever seen. I reply that we are looking for accommodation and we follow her out of the village to an isolated, small, pale blue, farm house. Doctor Jackal gives the passphrase and we are hustled into the kitchen where Marie’s mother starts to cook for us.

Marie’s father tells us that he will be contacting the Allied Forces this evening, and that we can have the use of his barn to hide in. We settle in and Doctor Jackal once more tries to question Duplix. After a few minutes Duplix stops giving his coded response and starts saying;

Dijon. Toul. Metz. Saarbrücken. Frankfurt. Erfurt. Nordhausen. Dijon. Toul. Metz. Saarbrücken. Frankfurt. Erfurt. Nordhausen. Dijon. Toul. Metz. Saarbrücken. Frankfurt. Erfurt. Nordhausen...

In occupied northern France MI6s Enhanced Unit have just gained entry to Le Château De Bourgoine as part of their seek and rescue mission. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Le Château De Bourgoine, west of Lavincourt, France, September 1942

Madeline and I slide under the doorway and into a large hallway at the rear of the chateau, there is a doorway to our left, a large opening directly in front of us, and to our right is a smaller opening. Based on the fact that Le Blaireau said that the basement entrance was off a small passage at the rear of the building we head through the right hand opening. We immediately find a set of stairs leading downwards and so we slide quietly across the ceiling towards the basement.

The stairs lead out into the middle of a long corridor with several closed doors and a couple of openings, we slide right once more towards the opening at the end of the corridor. Through the archway we find a short corridor with a solid looking metal door in the middle of the right hand wall, it looks very much like a cell door but the is no obvious lock on this side of it. Even though the door is well fitted, Madeline manages to find a way underneath it and finds herself in a small guardroom with a solitary German guard sat at a table reading a newspaper.

Madeline also spots a second cell door as well as a metal bed frame wired up to an electrical supply. It appears that Duplix has been tortured during his stay at the chateau. Madeline quickly slides back out of the room and we head back to the stairwell together. We spend a few minutes quietly debating our options and finally decide that time is of the essence and we should go in. We both solidify, draw pistols and fit silencers, draw our favoured knives, and then shift once again back into shadow form ready to enter the guardroom.

Madeline goes first and slides under the guardroom door. She slides directly towards the table and the guard reading his paper. She flows under the table without being seen and then slips below the guards chair and up the wall behind him. Meanwhile, I have slipped in under the door and moved directly towards the cell door within. I slide under the cell door into a small room with a camp bed in one corner. On the bed is a man, but it is difficult to tell if it is Duplix due to the severe beating that the man has received.

In the guardroom Madeline solidifies behind the German guard and plunges her knife deeps into his vitals. She then plunges the knife once more just to be sure. Convinced that the guard is now dead, Madeline arranges the body so that it looks like it has fallen asleep at the table. I slip back out of the cell and tell Madeline what I have found, she searches the guard and discovers the cell door key. We unlock the cell and attempt to wake Duplix, but he remains unconscious. Madeline looks at me and says;

You had better fetch the Doctor!

Leaving Madeline in the guardroom I slip quietly out of the chateau and slide across the lake back towards Henry and Sven. Once I have explained the situation to them both Doctor Jackal insists on going in. I remember thinking that this could get interesting, but there was no changing his mind. So Doctor Jackal and myself started to jog the long way around the lake while Sven provided us with ariel cover in the form of a raven.

We make it to the rear door undetected and I turn back into shadow form and slide under it, once inside I close my eyes and reach out with my senses once more and can detect that the two enemy enhanced are still in their bedrooms on the first floor of the chateau. I unlock the rear door and let my colleagues inside, I wave them towards the stairs down to the basement and then I close the door once again but leave it unlocked. I lead them to the cell door and get Madeline to let us in, once they are inside I head back down the corridor to the stairwell to keep watch.

Madeline joins me on watch in the corridor and Sven stands guard in the guardroom leaving Doctor Jackal to do his work with Duplix. After several minutes Henry appears in the cell doorway supporting a now conscious Duplix, Sven gives Doctor Jackal a hand with Duplix and they join us in the corridor. As soon as they step into the light of the corridor it is obvious that Duplix, who just minutes before looked like he had taken a severe beating earlier today, now looked like it had been several days ago that he had been injured. Not even the Doctor is that good a physician. Is he?

Henry tells us that we will not be able to debrief Duplix here as he has suffered some kind of mental trauma and is unable to communicate. We adopt a leapfrog pattern to exit the chateau, with either Madeline or myself moving out in front and then waiting for the others to pass before moving on once more. In this fashion we make it to the rear door and exit the chateau, I lock the door from the inside and then slide under it. With myself and Doctor Jackal supporting Duplix we head northwest along the lake shore towards the fence in the woods. Sven once again covers us from the air and Madeline watches our tail and keeps us from being observed by covering us with patches of darkness.

We make it through the woods and over the fence undetected and once we are out of the woodland Sven transforms himself into a small pony and carries Duplix allowing us to make better time. We get back to where we had hidden the car and are overjoyed to find it undiscovered. I help Henry get Duplix into the back seat and then jump into the passenger seat next to Madeline who is at the wheel. With all of us onboard, and Sven in the air once again, we make our getaway.

I look around at my colleagues and point out how lucky we were that we didn’t disturb any of the other German troops billeted in the basement. It wasn’t until much later that we discovered why none of the German troops had been disturbed, Madeline had made sure that they would never be disturbed again.

In occupied northern France MI6s Enhanced Unit have just made contact with La Résistance as part of their locate and rescue mission. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Forêt de Massonge, France, September 1942

September 7th 1942, I remember that day as if it were just yesterday. That was the day that we first encountered the enemies enhanced. Le guerrier tête de loup.

The mission had started well and we had made contact with La Résistance at the Fortefan farm. Jean Fortefan had offered us some refreshments after our long journey and then suggested that we probably would like to rest. He offered us the loft in his farmhouse, but as it only had a single point of entry and no way of us being able to keep watch we politely refused and asked if we could make use of one of his barns. He was happy for us to hunker down there, and even though the family were up early and going about their business they kept the noise to a minimum so as not to disturb us.

We set watches and remained alert for trouble. By early afternoon we had all managed to get a good rest and so we took the opportunity to talk to the Fortefans. They were more than happy to show us around their small farm, and seemed particularly proud of their pigs. Jean told us that they are a cross bred of the local wild boar and a Duroc pig. It was at that point that yet again Doctor Jackal surprised us all, this time by announcing that he is a fully qualified veterinarian as well as a doctor. He gave the pigs a quick once over and declared them very fit and healthy.

I take the opportunity while we are spending time with the Fortefan family to reach out with my senses and see if any of them are enhanced. I strongly believe that they are not, it is still difficult to tell as I have not sensed any other enhanced apart from my own unit. Jean Fortefan informs us that Le Blaireau will be with us by late afternoon, he also shows us their arms cache under a loose floorboard in one of their barns. It is made up of few rifles and a MAB pistol, Madeline and Sven give it the once over but decide that it is of no use to us on our current mission.

A little after fifteen hundred hours a man in his early fifties rode into the farmyard on a bicycle. He dismounted and was introduced to us as Monsieur Julle Bretland, so this was Le Blaireau. We all went through into the farmhouse kitchen and sat down with coffee to discuss the situation. Only Jean Fortefan joined us, while the rest of his family went about their chores. Julle informs us that they have been able to confirm the Duplix is definitely being held at Le Chateau De Bourgoine, and he produces a rough map of the area.

Le chateau was built in the sixteenth century, but has not been used as a dwelling for years as it was kept as a museum. When the war broke out and France was occupied a German signals unit under the command of Major Offenhamp took control of le chateau. As well as the major the unit consists of two lieutenants, six signals engineers and six guardsmen.

About a month ago, a second unit moved in and seem to have taken overall charge. This second unit is a scientific/technical unit under the command of a Colonel Hund. The Colonel is always escorted by a lieutenant who appears to act as a bodyguard, and the unit is made up of twenty guardsmen. The unit are easy to identify from the signals unit by their unique insignia, that of a wolfshead.

Since the arrival of the new unit La Résistance have been encountering a number of problems with their operations. A hidden radio station in an abandoned farmhouse was discovered and destroyed, a couple of missions have had to be called off at the last minute as the number of enemy troops assigned to the chosen targets were increased at the last minute. Madeline points out that La Résistance may well have a double agent.

Julle goes on to confirm that he believes that Duplix was transported to Le Château De Bourgoine three days ago. Madeline and Sven question Le Blaireau about le chateau, troop movements, vehicles, and locals who work at the base. Julle confirms that la chateau has a significant basement and wine cellar, access to which is via a rear staff corridor, and informs us that if we require more detailed floor plans it will take him at least three days to get them without raising suspicion. Madeline tells him not to bother as we wish to move quickly given that Duplix has already been there for three days.

While the others question Le Blaireau, I close my eyes and once again reach out with my senses to see if Julle Bretland is all that he says he is. But once again the only enhanced that I can sense are my comrades.

Sven asks if they can provide us with a car for this evening. Julle says that he can but that he will have to move quickly to do so. He bids us farewell and cycles away. We return to our barn and discuss this new information. We all agree that it is going to be tricky to rescue Duplix, but Doctor Jackal insists that we try. I make sure that my suicide pill is readily available just in case I need to pass it to Duplix.

At nineteen thirty hours we hear the sound of a car approaching. We are all instantly on guard as a small, slightly battered Citroën drives into the farmyard. The driver gets out and says something to the Fortefan boys before walking back out of the yard and up the road. We come out of hiding and I check the car out, it is a little lived in but serviceable. Madeline climbs into the driver's seat, I get into the passengers side and Doctor Jackal climbs into the back. Out of sight Sven transforms into a raven and with him out front scouting we head off.

We retrace our route from the previous night with the intention of sticking to minor roads and taking a circuitous route towards Le Château De Bourgoine. As we are approaching the village of Mussey we spot a German patrol checking papers, Madeline continues to drive and when we are about forty foot from the patrol a Sergeant steps out into the road and puts his hand up for us to halt. Madeline does so and the Sergeant steps up to the window and in a rather bored manner asks for our papers in French.

To his surprise, Madeline responds in perfect German and hands over the papers for a German Doctor and two nurses, one German and one french. He looks momentarily confused and asks us where our destination is, at this point Henry leans forwards and says in flawless German;

Is there a problem Sergeant?

The Sergeant says no, but we are a little off of the main road. To which Henry responds;

Women drivers!

The Sergeant laughs and waves us through. We are stopped once more on our journey in the village of Vassincourt, but Madeline turns on the charm to the German Corporal and he is far too busy staring into her eyes to even notice what is written on our papers.

We cross the main road at Saudrupt and pass through the village of Haironville before Sven locates a good place for us to hide the car just before the village of Rupt-aux-Nonains. We then head cross country the last few miles to le chateau, approaching it from the west with Madeline on point and myself leading Henry while Sven covers us from the air. We successfully make it into the edge of the woodland unseen as far as we can tell. It is now twenty two hundred hours.

Sven carries out an initial fly over in raven form, he is gone for about twenty minutes and on his return he informs us that he has spotted two guardsmen in the gatehouse, one guarding the doors at the front of the main house, and a patrol of two guardsmen moving around the perimeter fence. Doctor Jackal recalls the map that Le Blaireau showed us and suggest that we head for the smaller copse of trees directly south across the lake from the main chateau.

We move through the larger wood and make a dash low across the open ground to the smaller of the woods, Madeline and I transform into shadows and slide forwards to investigate the fence. We find that it is old and in poor repair, there are also many trees that reach over it. We bring Henry and Sven forwards and assist Henry in climbing over. We move quietly forwards to a point where Henry can see through the trees to le chateau and then camouflage him with branches. At that moment the two man patrol passes by us, but they do not detect our presence. We all breathe once more.

We allow five minutes for the patrol to pass, and then Madeline and I once more transform into shadows and slide out across the lake towards Le Château De Bourgoine, while Sven takes to the sky once more to attempt to get a look through le chateau’s windows. We agree to regroup at Doctor Jackal once we have carried out our sweeps. Crossing the water is a very odd feeling, it is like constant ripples moving through me almost as if I were suffering from mild seasickness. I feel much more comfortable once we make it to dry land on the other side of the lake.

I sign for Madeline to stay at the edge of the lake and slide quietly across the short stretch of grass to the rear doors. I close my eyes and reach out with my senses but detect nothing. I slide along to my left about twenty foot and again close my eyes and reach out with my senses. I pick up an enhanced within my range. As I know that Madeline is by the lakeside I know that it must be someone new. I reach out once more and discover that whoever it is, they are located on the first floor of le chateau.

I don’t mind admitting that I panicked a little. I dashed back to Madeline and whispered to her what I had discovered, she convinces me that we need to check the rest of the outside of the building. I agree and head back to the side of the building with Madeline, literally, shadowing me. I continue to move around the building searching with my senses. I am shocked when my senses reveal another enhanced on the first floor of the building. I don’t mind admitting that the panic started to build at that point. I had never come across any others like us, and now I had potentially found two enemy enhanced. That scared me.

Madeline and I head back to Doctor Jackal’s position and find that Sven is already there, I inform them of what we have discovered. Sven relays what he was able to see, the first floor is mostly bedrooms and he had seen two German officers in their rooms, when I identify the locations of the two enhanced he quickly heads off once more to get a closer look through their windows.

Sven reappears a short while later and tells us that in the rooms corresponding with where I believe are the two enemy enhanced he discovered a large, heavily muscled German with greying hair sat on the edge of a bed. Thrown over the back of a chair in the room is a jacket with Lieutenant markings and bearing the wolfs head insignia. In the second room his view was obscured but he did manage to catch a glimpse of a German officer in his fifties hanging up a Colonels jacket.

We decide that we need to find the basement, and Duplix. So Madeline and I once more head back in shadowform, we reach the back doors and I once more reach out with my senses to make sure that the way is clear. It is and so we both slide in under the door into a large hallway. It is twenty three fifteen hours and we have made it into Le Chateau De Bourgoine.

Hut 17B in Hanslope Park is currently the scene of intense planning. MI6s Enhanced Unit are preparing to carry out a locate and rescue mission in occupied France. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Hanslope Park, England, September 1942

After ten days of intense training and planning, during which we decide upon Port Le Trepor as our final extraction point and prepared our cover identities, we are visited by Captain Ledman. He informs us that La Résistance have discovered where the Germans are holding Duplix. There was little information, but it appears that he is being held at Le Chateau De Bourgoine just west of the village of Lavincourt.

Captain Ledman also provided us with the cover papers that we had requested. A German Doctor for Henry, Doctor Karl Gebhardt; Sven as a German orderly, Igor Swartz; Madeline as a German nurse, Heidi Klum; and myself as a french nurse, Nicole Boudet. We also get an extra set of papers made up for a rich, French industrialist so that we smuggle Duplix across France disguised as a patient.

It had been ten days full of training, as well as undergoing parachute and glider training, some of the unit take the time to learn several military hand signals from Sergeant McKay so that we are able to operate silently and efficiently when infiltrating enemy targets. I had also taken it upon myself to make sure that everyone in the team was aware that we could not implicitly trust everyone in La Résistance, it was imperative that they knew the risks of double agents.

Finally, Ledman provided us with the necessary pass phrase for a resistance contact in Port Le Trepor and gave us a full description of Duplix as well as his old handling code word so that we could confirm his identity with some confidence. Captain Ledman told us that we were due to depart early tomorrow evening and so we should make final preparations and get some rest.

Sixteen hundred hours the following day and we all climb into the back of a canvas covered truck heading for Biggin Hill. We then transfer to the General Aircraft GAL.48 Hotspur glider and are towed up into the night sky by an RAF Dakota. With Doctor Jackal in the copilots seat navigating we head out over the English Channel, three hours later and the Dakota crew let us know that we are fifteen minutes from release.

Bois de Maurupt, France, September 1942

Henry guides us in and I bring the glider in gently to land approximately two miles from the forest edge, as soon as we are stationary we exit the glider and run for the forest’s edge. We regroup at the forest’s edge, I remember being somewhat surprised at how fit Doctor Jackal had become over the recent weeks, we quickly split Sven’s gear between the remaining unit members as Sven transforms himself into a raven and takes to the night sky heading towards Trois-Fontaines.

Once again we regroup at the edge of the forest and are joined a few minutes later by Sven. He has scouted out the village of Trois-Fontaines and has discovered a car parked next to one of the farmhouses. The car is also conveniently parked at the brow of a hill and so we will be able to roll it down the hill before starting it up. Leaving Madeline and Henry at the edge of the forest Sven and I sneak into the village, we both make it to the vehicle at which point Sven spots the rather large dog asleep on the farmhouses doorstep.

I slip into the unlocked car and realise that the keys are in the ignition. I slowly release the brake and Sven starts to push the car towards the crest of the hill, at that moment he slips on some loose gravel and ends up on his backside staring eye to eye with the big dog who has woken up. To this day I don’t know if it was Sven’s affinity with animals or just that the dog wasn’t a very good guard dog, but it just stood there staring at Sven and didn’t bark. It just watched us push the car away.

We all climb into the car and when we are far enough away I start it up and we head north and then east towards Robert Espagne, we then pass quickly through Tremont-s-Sauix and turn northwards once more. We ditch the stolen car just outside of the small village of Mussey and head for a bridge that crosses the river at the village of Varney on foot. Sven heads out in front once more as a raven to scout the bridge, all is quiet with the exception of a loan motorbike and sidecar travelling northwest from Bar-Le-Duc. Once it has passed has waves us across one by one.

Just as we are about to cross the main road Madeline urgently waves us into cover. We dive into the roadside ditch and Madeline throws up a cover of darkness over us just in time before two trucks packed full of German infantry pass us. Once they are out of sight we quickly cross the road and head into the Foret De Massonge. Once we are approximately two miles away from the farmhouse we dig in and Sven goes ahead to scout out the area and make sure that it isn’t a trap.

Sven finds a traditional two story farmhouse nestled into a small clearing in the forest with pig pens running off behind it into the woods. Seeing nothing untoward, Sven heads back to us. Next Madeline heads in for an internal sweep, inside the building she finds a late middle aged couple asleep upstairs as well as what appears to be their two sons asleep in the other two bedrooms. Finding nothing to cause concern she heads back to us and gives us the signal for all clear.

By oh three hundred hours Madeline and I are knocking on the door of the farmhouse, me with my dagger held unsheathed behind my back, after a couple of minutes we hear a man’s voice ask;

Qu'est-ce?

I quickly answer;

Le Blaireau est un adversaire redoutable!

A moments silence and then;

Il est aussi fort qu'un bœuf!

The door is opened and we are met by the middle aged man and two young men, who we assume are his sons. Madeline turns and waves in Henry and Sven, we are quickly ushered into the farmhouse and shown into the kitchen where the older man introduces himself as Jean Fortefan. He then introduces his family in turn, his wife Marie and his two sons Jean-Luc and Claude. We have made contact with La Résistance.