North of Marseilles, 1637 September 25, 1943
The sergeant waited. He was no longer a sergeant, but he still thought as one. He had checked in on his boys. The anti-tank riflemen had a good position behind some cover near a bend in the trail. Two rifles had a clear shot at the rail bridge three hundred yards away. The other two heavy rifles were able to provide overwatch along the slopes of the hill. Well over two hundred maquis were scattered up and down the side of the hill. Almost all of them had only joined the ever growing bands in the past three months. Enough had spent time in the military during their cohort call-ups but had been bounced for one reason or another before the great humiliation. The communists were the most common. They were good enough men, the sergeant just would not talk politics with them. A few others, he would trust with his sister's virtue. The rest had found ways to avoid being sent to German work camps. Four Free French advisers, including one naval officer who knew too much about the joys of high explosives, had parachuted into his command a month ago.
The slightly crazy naval officer and a dozen other men were finishing up their task now. The viaduct would be ready to come down soon enough. The collaborationist guards had been overpowered an hour ago. They had been disarmed and stripped naked before having their hands tied behind their back and ropes connecting each man to his peers by the neck. They would eventually be recovered by their peers, humiliated and made an object of public scorn. Four minutes later, the first explosions rumbled. A rock slide blocked the tracks on both sides of the viaduct. A minute later, five arches of the valley crossing bridge were breaking apart.
An hour after his command had started to create space between their latest act of destruction and the patrol bases of the occupiers, his well trained ear heard another set of rumbles. Another bridge was coming down. He smiled. The Germans would not be able to move men around. He did not know why there had been insistent orders to drop bridges and viaducts today, but the mission had been accomplished, and so far, he had not lost a man.