‘In Germany for two generations we have scraped and starved, but now you have seen for yourselves how the rich Dutch and Belgians and French have glutted themselves with good things through all those years. And why? Because they had Empire while Germany had not. It is our turn now, and once the final victory is won Germany's people will live in plenty for evermore. Heil Hitler! On with the war! Kill, crush, destroy!'
False premises, lying sophistry perhaps, but a subtle, poisonous doctrine which Gregory knew would find a ready hearing in the reddish, protruding ears of a host of blond, waxy-faced, pot-bellied Huns.
His driver was a dour, uncommunicative fellow, but the taxi was a good one and Gregory had promised the man a handsome bonus if he got the best mileage possible out of it, allowing for the conditions they met on the road; with the proviso that for any breakdown that might occur on the journey south twenty per cent was to be deducted from the promised reward. So the man had done his utmost during such time as he had had to ensure that his engine was in the best possible running order.
They ran smoothly through the deserted streets of Paris and out of the city through Mont Rouge and Bourg-la-Reine. A trickle of people was still moving along the road but not in sufficient numbers to prevent the taxi-man getting the maximum speed out of his car. As they reached the open country Gregory began to keep a good look-out for German patrols, since their advance units were reported already to be fifteen miles beyond the city; but the surrender of the whole Paris area had left a great vacuum in the battle-line so the country through which he was passing was for the moment no-man's-land. The first troops that he saw proved to be French detachments wearily marching south, so it seemed that the Germans, having been occupied all day in advancing through uncontested territory, had not yet caught up with their enemies.
Ten minutes after passing the first batch of French troops the taxi entered Etamps. The town was crowded with the retreating Army and Gregory thought that the men looked hopelessly beaten as they lay in groups on the pavements or stood drooping with weariness beside their vehicles. From that point on he was constantly passing units which were falling back to take up fresh positions behind the Loire, and he had also caught up with the tail-end of the vast civilian army that bad left Paris on foot the preceding day or in the slower vehicles that morning. The refugees were inextricably mixed with the retreating troops, causing great delay and confusion. Nevertheless, the taxi-man managed to keep up a fairly good pace by winding his way in and out among the moving column and they reached Orleans at seven o'clock.
The town had been bombed and a large part of the main street lay in ruins so they had to circumvent it by taking side-turnings until they reached the great bridge over the Loire, which was badly choked by the retiring troops. It was three-quarters of an hour before Gregory could get across; and the road south of the bridge was little better. At any moment he expected an officer to order him off the road altogether as it was a matter of vital necessity that the troops should reach their new battle positions before dawn, but apparently the refugees were so numerous and the military so tired that the officers responsible for keeping some sort of order on the roads had long since abandoned the uneven struggle.
He who shouted and swore got through, while he who did not got pushed into the ditch. Fortunately for Gregory his driver possessed a fine flow of argot and, urged on by the thought of the promised reward, he cursed without discrimination the unfortunate civilians and the weary soldiers who got in his way.
Twenty miles south of Orleans the pressure eased a little, as the troops became less numerous, and now that night was falling many of the refugees had drawn off the road to snatch a few hours' sleep before proceeding further. From ten miles an hour they were able to increase their pace to fifteen, and at a little before midnight they entered Tours. In spite of their good start the first hundred and twenty miles of their journey had taken them nine hours.
Tours had been the headquarters of the French Government for a short time after it had left Paris and in consequence the town had suffered appallingly. Many fires were still burning and several streets in the centre of the town were now only a mass of ruins. Weaving a way through the columns of refugees had been tiring work, and although Gregory had been feeding his driver with some of the things in his picnics-basket, by pushing them through the front window of the cab, he felt that the man deserved a rest; so they pulled up at a small cafe that had remained undamaged and was still open.
It was crowded with refugees, rich and poor jostling together; haggard-eyed women in expensive fur-coats, pot-bellied bourgeois round-shouldered Jews, officers, soldiers, workmen in blue overalls and children of all classes and all ages; some pathetically silent and some angrily complaining of their woes.
Among them Gregory saw a British R.A. Captain, so, having secured cups of hot coffee for his taciturn driver and himself, he asked the gunner if he had any news.
It transpired that he had heard the nine o'clock broadcast issued by the B.B.C. That morning the Germans had launched a fresh attack, west of the Saar, against the Maginot Line, but it had been repulsed with heavy losses. The 17,000-ton armed liner Scotstoun had been sunk by a U-boat, but a British airman had succeeded in getting a direct hit with a heavy bomb on the German battle-cruiser Scharnhorst while she was lying in Trondheim harbour. On balance it sounded not a bad day, if one ignored the fact that the Germans had that afternoon entered Paris.
However, the Gunner Captain was in a state of angry gloom or which he had good reason. He had been detached from the 51st Division some days previously, for special duties, and when he had endeavoured to rejoin his unit he had learnt that practically the whole Division had been scuppered.
British troops which had been re-landed early in the week had done their utmost to hold a line from Barentin, along the little River Saone, to the sea, in order to prevent the Germans reaching Le Havre; but the French on their right had let them down and, although the bulk of the British had been got off in a new evacuation, two brigades of the 51st Division had been cornered at Saint Valery. Some of Britain's most famous regiments had been there, including the Gordons and the Black Watch, and with the utmost valour they had fought unbroken in a desperate ring; but when at last their ammunition had run out their commander, Major-General V. M. Fortune, had been compelled to surrender, so six thousand of our best men had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
Gregory felt that this was a very different business from the ignominy of Dunkirk, where a quarter of a million men had been ordered to throw away their guns and baggage. In this case there had been tremendous odds against a few thousand infantry unsupported by tanks, heavy artillery or aircraft, and having fired their last shot before surrendering those splendid Highlanders had done all that was humanly possible, maintaining untarnished the magnificent record of the Glorious 51st. Nevertheless, it was yet one more grim act in the colossal tragedy which had been unfolding before his very eyes day after day these past terrible weeks.
He offered the Gunner a lift in his taxi to Bordeaux, which was gladly accepted, and running again through side-streets they came out on the road to Poitiers. It was now one o'clock in the morning and Gregory thanked his gods that he was making this part of his journey at night, as he had reached the area where even greater numbers of the refugees who had left Paris ahead of him were making their way south.