Conquistadors of the Useless (12 page)

I rather doubt if Stéphane had any great faith in the strictly military value of these commando raids. No doubt he rightly sought to avoid any tendency to sink into apathy, and reckoned that these small exchanges would keep us on our toes and maintain our confidence. By the same token it should be mentioned that, apart from the occasional bombardment or burst of machine gun fire, the Teutons who faced us showed so little spirit of aggression that there was a real risk of boredom. It seems likely that if we had been content to leave them alone the whole winter would have passed by without a drop of blood being spilt, but this sort of passivity was in no way to the liking of our braves, who were on the lookout for scalps. Since the Germans would not come to us, Stéphane had no alternative but to seek them out in order to appease our thirst for action. This he proceeded to do with the greatest of intelligence and humanity, only involving us in affairs which were really more sporting than dangerous.

My first operation was a good example. I was detailed to assist the ‘Ops' group, under Captain Bouteret, to study the possibility of harassing the Germans on their Col de la Roue flank. For a normal sort of unit this narrow saddle, situated between two very steep summits, would have been quite out of the question as an objective: but it was obvious that if a group of mountaineers could succeed in climbing the Grande Bagne (a summit of some ten thousand five hundred feet which overlooked the col) by a face hidden from the enemy's view, they would be able to fire on him. He could hardly fail to be surprised and shaken by such an attack, coming from a quarter which would normally be judged inaccessible at this time of year.

From a purely mountaineering point of view the plan was not lacking in daring. It was now winter, the cold was severe, and the steep face which would have to be climbed was plastered with snow. But fortunately my section included a number of guides and skilled climbers, and I knew that with men like this it was possible to do things that would otherwise be out of the question. I assured the captain that we could get to the summit of the Grande Bagne and fire on the Germans from a range of about seven hundred and fifty yards, and although our chances of actually hitting anyone were pretty slim in the circumstances he gave the order to proceed. The climb went more easily than we had expected, thanks to a steep gully of hard-frozen snow and a slightly dicey corniced ridge. The most difficult part in the event was to persuade Bouteret to come with us along this last bit, which was admittedly very exposed.
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He was a jovial, likeable southerner, fonder of hunting skirts than climbing mountains. In his inimitable Bordeaux accent he called out to us: ‘You'll do me in with all this bloody climbing. You can shoot Huns just as well without my help – I don't wish the poor bastards any harm.' Our brave adjutant was cut short by several disrespectful pulls on the rope which soon brought him up to us, and eight or ten of us reassembled on the narrow summit.

The Germans were clearly visible almost directly below us. They seemed without a care in the world. Some were sun-bathing, others practising their skiing. At a range of seven hundred and fifty yards, and downhill at that, a light machine gun is of very limited efficiency. We had little real chance of hitting anybody, but Bouteret, once more conscious of his position as our commander, ordered us to fire a few bursts. The effect was spectacular. The enemy had no idea where the fire was coming from, and was thrown into complete disorder. Men ran in every direction in the snow, but no one seemed to be hurt. After a few minutes of this cruel game we grew weary of shooting at men who were unable to defend themselves and withdrew, satisfied at having carried out our mission.

During the course of the winter I took part in a number of other operations of the same kind, some of which were, however, rather more dangerous. One of these has been described by the writer-mountaineer Jacques Boell in his excellent book
A Ski-scout at War
.
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Boell was at this time attached to our brigade staff, and his account is evidently based on conversations with a number of those who took part. It is largely accurate as to fact, but interprets the tactical and psychological motivations behind our actions in rather a personal way. In effect he has made a serious military enterprise, intended to crack the enemy's will to attack, out of an escapade more sporting than warlike, mainly designed to relieve the boredom of life in the advanced outposts. To each his own version. From the headquarters in Modane it probably did look like that. To us who lived the adventure it seemed quite otherwise.

Towards the end of December 1944 it was my section's turn to relieve the advanced post of Challe-Chalet, about seven thousand feet up on a north-facing ridge. It was difficult to hold and to supply, and could hardly have been more uncomfortable. Jacques Boell has described it thus: ‘It was by far the most rudimentary I have ever seen. It consisted of two trenches in the snow linked by a filthy little hovel, inside which it rained and snowed just as much as if one had been outside. The lads who occupied it had given it the picturesque name of ‘Tin-can Palace'. Less than two kilometres away across a small valley the Germans were installed on the Col de l'Arondaz, which commanded our position. I am sure that the enemy could have made life there impossible, whenever he wished, by means of mortars, heavy machine-guns, and night patrols. In point of fact practically nothing happened at all. Although it was in a most vulnerable position the post was never attacked; only, no doubt to keep his eye in, Jerry would occasionally send over a few mortar bombs or bursts of machine gun fire. It can't have been too bad, anyway, because in several months there were no deaths and very few wounded.'

Without wishing to put on heroic airs, life at Challe-Chalet was distinctly unpleasant. Day and night it froze hard enough to do mortal harm to a brass monkey, and on some nights the thermometer fell as low as minus thirty-three degrees Centigrade. We had only one stove to warm thirty men, and the draughts were such that six feet from the stove wine froze in the bottle. As we had little equipment of the right kind it goes without saying that this permanent frost made us suffer considerably. Apart from a bit of skiing on the one unsuitable slope sheltered from German fire, and the hour-long lugging of food, wood and ammunition on our own backs, we had absolutely nothing to do. After a few days of this sort of existence we became profoundly bored, and a mixture of boredom and cold is very hard to bear.

To the right of the Col de l'Arondaz rose two small rocky peaks marked on the map as points 8020' and 7986'. On 8020, which was the closer to the col, the Germans had installed an observation post from which they could not only see all that went on at Challe-Chalet, but could also direct the heavy artillery which from time to time they turned on Battalion H.Q. in the village of Charmaix, or the mortar fire with which they sprinkled the supply columns going to the Lavoir fort. There was no doubt that Point 8020 was a serious asset to the enemy, but it had to be admitted that he used it with moderation. All in all the post didn't really matter to us too terribly, and anyway there seemed to be no way of stopping him using it.

One morning when, for something to do, we had spent an hour or two banging off our mortars at the Col de l'Arondaz and Point 8020, the exasperated Germans replied by firing a few rounds at Tin-can Palace. My cousin Michel Chevallier called out:

‘If only we could get at them up there, the Jerries wouldn't look so bloody clever'.

I replied jokingly, ‘Well, why shouldn't we?'

‘What the hell are you going to do about it?' replied my cousin, ‘They're in an absolutely impregnable position.'

Carried away by the spirit of the argument, I said: ‘I don't know so much, it's not as bad as all that. The face of Point 7986 is out of sight of the Boches, so we could probably get up there. From there to the other top is easy enough to do by night if necessary. You'd only have to climb 7986 in the afternoon and attack the observation post just after nightfall, before they could get help from the Col de l'Arondaz. If you left fixed ropes on the face there'd be ample time to retreat, and it would really put the wind up them.'

Chevallier's rather wan grey eyes began to shine. Frowning with interest, he said: ‘It would be terrific if one could do it, but do you really think we could get up the face? It looks pretty hard to me, and when it's as cold as this you can't do much.'

But I replied imperturbably: ‘As far as climbing the face is concerned, leave it to me and we'll get there. I made a recce over there the other day, and there's a gully you can't see from here which makes the first two-thirds easy. Given enough time we can always get up the last bit. It would be more fun than dying of cold here, and anyway think of the look on the faces of the Boches!'

And so it began. Starting with a frustrated argument between a couple of climbers, the idea grew and grew. The next time Captain Stéphane came to see us, Chevallier, who was a sergeant-major, told him of our project. Stéphane, who knew nothing about climbing, was rather sceptical at first about our chances of climbing Point 7986, but after we had assured him that this was the least of our problems he grew very keen on the idea and promised to discuss it with Lieutenant-Colonel Le Ray. The colonel was an experienced mountaineer and an old climbing friend of Michel Chevallier's, and after having thoroughly investigated the whole matter he gave his permission.

The plan we finally decided on was no longer to storm Point 8020, but simply to fire at the look-out from Point 7986, which was some hundred and fifty yards away. There were to be only three men in the team: Chevallier, the Chamonix guide Laurent Cretton, and myself. Nothing was left to chance. Cretton and Chevallier, who were both excellent shots, spent several days down at the range practising with a target at a hundred and fifty yards, while I selected the necessary ropes, hammers, pitons and ice axes.

The day came. After three hours of difficult going on skis we reached the foot of a forty-five-degree couloir. Skiing was out of the question on a slope of this angle, so we continued on foot, sinking up to the waist in light powdery snow which would certainly have avalanched but for the bitter cold which bound the crystals together. After a while we came to rock, where the plaster of ice and snow made climbing a delicate matter. The last pitch of all was really dangerous, consisting of a smooth slab topped by a cornice which was ready to come down at any minute. On my first attempt I fell about ten feet, but was able to stop myself before I came on the rope. It was only towards noon that we emerged from the face, which had been rendered much more serious than usual by the snow on the rock and the absolutely arctic cold.

Only a light depression in the ridge now separated us from the enemy post a hundred and fifty yards away on Point 8020, and we could see it very clearly. To begin with we took great pains not to be seen, but some time passed and there still seemed to be no signs of life. We hung on thinking that the garrison must be comfortably warming themselves inside, but, despite the bright sunlight that sparkled off the snow, the icy wind made our position almost intolerable. The chill went right through us and our feet began to lose all feeling. Soon we could stand it no longer. It seemed obvious that the Germans had temporarily gone down, probably for Christmas Eve festivities. We were just about to clear out when a sentry appeared, not on Point 8020 but on the Col de l'Arondaz. He was over three hundred yards away, and our chances of hitting him were pretty poor. Chevallier nevertheless decided to let him have a burst; but, when he pulled the trigger, the hammer would not come down sharply enough to fire the round. Although we had taken the greatest care of it, the gun was jammed by the temperature of minus-thirty degrees Celcius. In spite of numb fingers and the problems presented by stripping down a light machine gun on a ridge where a strong wind was continually whipping up the snow, Chevallier and Cretton toiled for over an hour to clear their weapon. It was no use. We could stick it out no longer, and there was nothing for it but to get down.

Jacques Boell depicts Chevallier as having been in despair over the frustration of our mission, but I can say that this is a great exaggeration. Neither he nor I had any real desire to kill the German sentry pacing up and down on the col, all unconscious of the danger that menaced him. We had long realised the slight military value of all this fighting in the Alps. Life in the front line had ceased to be a patriotic mission so much as a big game of cowboys and Indians, made all the better by the fact that it was played out among our beloved mountains. On the patrols and raids for which we always volunteered we did not really set out to slaughter Germans or anything of that sort. What we enjoyed in this pointless and obsolete form of war was its resemblance to mountaineering. We sought adventures where courage, intelligence and strength might enable us to overcome apparently impossible obstacles; action in a world of grandeur and light which appeared different from that of grubs crawling around in the mud.

These actions seemed no more serious to us than trying to climb mountains by their most difficult faces. But if, therefore, it was no more than sport, we carried it to the limit in just the same way. Reaching the summit is not the point of a climb, only the whistle for end of play. Very often the last few feet of climbing are not very exciting or difficult, but, for all that, real climbers go on to the top. In the same way, the actual game is not the underlying motive of hunting yet no hunter likes to return empty-handed. Thus shooting at the enemy was not for us the sole purpose of our operations so much as a simple rule of the game we played. And so, in the coppery light of that radiant evening, we arranged the ropes for the first rappel with quiet minds, conscious of having done all that was humanly possible towards the accomplishment of our task, and happy in the experience of a splendid adventure.