MI6s Enhanced Unit, having journeyed across occupied France with La Résistance agent Duplix, are now laying low and awaiting further instructions. 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 Tréport, France, September 1942

We spend the afternoon resting up in the Dacourt’s barn, while Sven scouts out the local area in the guise of a seagull. He identifies a number of escape routes just in case we have to make a swift exit, but when he returns just before dusk he informs us that all looks very quiet.

That evening, Jean and Marie Dacourt invite us to join them and their daughter, also called Marie, to join them for dinner. We happily accept and are very well fed. Over dinner, and probably due to his very full stomach, Henry asks if there is anything that we could do to help out to pay them back for their great hospitality. They both say that there is nothing that we can do and so we return back to the barn and get settled in.

Just after twenty two hundred hours Jean Dacourt comes into the barn and informs us that he has made contact with the British forces and has relayed the situation, he then tells us that he is expecting an answer tomorrow evening and so we will have to sit tight. Jean stands there for a moment as if weighing up saying something, eventually he does. Jean explains that he didn’t want to say anything in front of his wife and daughter, but the local resistance has information on the German’s transporting a large amount of armour and field guns via the rail network.

The local resistance have planned an operation to sabotage a number of rail lines but there is one train that they do not have a team to cover. He asks if we would be able to assist if we are going to be around? Madeline says that getting Duplix back is our first priority, but if time allows then we will definitely assist. Jean thanks us and says that the operation is planned for two nights time.

Madeline and I spend most of the next day cleaning up Duplix and getting him into the new clothes provided by the Dacourt family. And late that evening Jean visits us again in the barn to inform us that he has heard back from the Allied Forces and that we are to be picked up in two days time. He tells us that we will be transferred thirty five miles off of the coast of Le Tréport at 50º14’59.6”N 0º50’26.2”E. The local fishermen will hide us in several of their boats and head out to sea, during the course of the day we we all be transferred into a single boat and we will stay out at sea when the rest of the fishing fleet return.

The greatest risk will be being discovered by a German patrol boat, but there is not a lot that we can do to avoid that potential problem. Jean gives us his best Gallic shrug and says;

As you will be here tomorrow evening will you help us?

We all nod our agreement. Jean looks pleased and says that he will contact the head of the local resistance and get him to visit us tomorrow morning.

The following morning we meet Pierre D’Accan, the head of the local resistance. He isn’t what we expect, but this war has made soldiers out of the strangest people. Pierre explains that they have gathered intelligence that the Germans are moving a mass of armour and field guns south using the rail lines and that they intend of sabotaging the lines tonight. The plan is that we are to hit one of the trains just west of a small village called Serqueux, approximately forty miles south of Le Tréport.

The target train is due to pass through some woodland just after twenty three hundred hours, and within the wood is branch line overlooked by a signal box. The branch line is disused, and in fact ends at a set of buffers not far from the signal box. La Resistance had intended on taking out the German guards at the signal box and blowing the line at that point to derail the train. They then planned to cause as much damage as possible before slipping away into the woods. Pierre says that he can provide us with a vehicle and enough explosives to blow the track.

Pierre says that he will get a car left for us at twenty hundred hours in a stand of trees about a twenty minute hike from the Dacourt’s, that will put in beyond the German checkpoint at the entrance to the village. Pierre then shows Doctor Jackal what he believes to be the best route to the target avoiding major checkpoints. Henry studies the maps for a few minutes and commits it all to his remarkable memory. Just before Pierre leaves us Sven asks if he has any safe houses in the area of the target, just in case things go south, Pierre says that he doesn’t as it is outside of his region but he does give Sven a double pass code that la resistance use to determine friend from foe. Pierre then takes his leave of us and rushes off to make the arrangements.

Under the pretence of getting prepared we return to the barn, once we are out of sight Sven transforms into a raven and takes to the skies to scout out our target. As soon as Sven has left us I discuss with Doctor Jackal the possibility of ‘borrowing’ Duplix’s knowledge of the northern French railway. Henry is unsure if Duplix’s mind is too damaged to be of any use, but he agrees that it would be a very interesting experiment to observe. So I start to ask Duplix questions about the train lines, I initially get just his code word answer, but eventually he switches to saying;

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

At this point I attempt to ‘borrow’ his knowledge. It is a success, to an extent. I have gained a lot of knowledge about the French railways, but it is riddled with holes like Swiss cheese. I talk this through with Doctor Jackal and he believes that it is indicative of Duplix’s damaged mind.

Two hours later a slightly puffed Sven steps into the barn, he sits down and tells us what he has discovered while I grab him a cup of coffee. Just as Pierre had said, there was a signal box in the centre of the wooded area just where the line branches. Inside the signal box was what appeared to be a French civilian signalman and two German troopers. The Germans had a portable radio set with them, and a motorbike and sidecar armed with a machine gun parked outside. There was no road lead to the signal box so we assume that the bike must have followed the train line to get to there.

By the time that Sven has finished his debrief it is nineteen thirty hours and so Henry gives Duplix a sleeping draught so that he does not stir while we are away and we set off to hike to the car that has been hidden for us. As promised, we locate a small Citroen beyond the checkpoint. Doctor Jackal climbs into the driver's seat, Madeline and I both transform into shadows and slide into the backseat, while Sven turns into an Alsatian and curls up in the passenger seat and is soon fast asleep.

Doctor Jackal sets off initially following the route suggested by Pierre, but soon he diverts from that route using his phenomenal memory to plot what he believes to be a better route. As we pass through the village of Grandcourt we encounter a German patrol who are checking the papers of locals, Henry ignores them and drives straight through the village like he belongs there and in turn is ignored by the patrol.

And that was as exciting as that journey got. We made it to the woods south of the train line and Henry found us a spot to conceal the car. Once we had stopped I jumped out and began to camouflage the car, Sven handed his silenced pistol to Madeline and flapped up into the air in the guise of a raven once more.

It is twenty one fifteen hours and myself and Madeline turn into shadows and follow Sven in the direction of the signal box. Doctor Jackal gives us a minutes head start and then follows.

When Madeline and I make it to the edge of the woods looking out into the clearing around the signal box it is obvious that Sven has engaged. There is a German trooper face down in a pool of blood at the edge of the tree line. It looks like he has had his throat ripped out by a wild animal. I scan the area and can see a raven sat on the roof of the signal box, I signal for the raven to join us and he flaps in our direction. Sven lands and tells us that he was lucky as one of the Germans had stepped out to relieve himself. Madeline hands Sven his pistol and he turns around and starts walking towards the signal box.

Madeline and I follow on as shadows, as Sven turns and starts to head up the steps to the signal box door he is no longer Sven, he is the image of the dead German. From outside the signal box we hear a German voice say;

About time Hans!

There is a pfft! And the German falls forward dead with a bullet to his head. The French engineer shrieks and throws his hands up. Sven gestures for him to sit down with his pistol and then backs out of the signal box. Myself and Madeline become solid and then step in out of the night. We start to question the engineer in French, who gives his name as Claude, about the train transporting the German armour.

It slowly dawns on the engineer that we are La Resistance and he looks relieved, he asks about the fact that the German trooper shot his colleague. We just say that a big bribe will change a man's mind. We inform Claude that we wish to make the train take the branch line without them knowing it. He looks concerned and says that if we do that the train will crash, by this time we have been joined by Doctor Jackal and Sven, as himself, and we all say;

We know!

He then goes on to tell us how we can change the points and rewire the signal so that it does not alert the train. As he is running through how we can rewire the signals I lean across and touch his forearm to ‘borrow’ his skill. We then tie and gag him and leave him a few hundred yards down the track.

Sven and Madeline remove the machine gun from the motorcycle and sidecar and set up a machine gun nest in the edge of the woods to the southeast of the branch line, while I rig explosives either side of the points. I run one of the detonator wires to Sven and Madeline’s machine gun nest and the other I take and I hide in the woods to the north of the signal box. We settle in and wait.

Just after twenty three hundred hours I spot the train racing towards the points. It lurches left onto the branch line travelling way to fast. It bursts through the buffers and derails.