Read Chapter 15: The Radio

The farmhouse sat at the end of a dirt track bordered by tall hedgerows, its roof sagging in the middle like a tired horse. Henri pressed his back to the wall beside the door and gave Jack a look. No lights inside. No sound but the wind.

Jack nodded. Henri drove his boot into the lock. The door gave with a splintering crack and they went in low, Jack's carbine sweeping the dark room. Kitchen table, cold hearth, a pile of kindling. Smell of boiled cabbage and wood smoke. Empty.

Henri crossed to the far wall and pulled a curtain aside, revealing a narrow flight of steps. “The old man who lives here ran messages for the Resistance in forty-two. He has a set in the cellar.”

“Greedy or loyal?” Jack asked.

“Loyal until it costs him. He is gone—hiding in the woods with the others. But his radio stays.”

They descended. The cellar was damp, earthen walls braced with rough beams. A workbench sat against the far wall, and on it, beneath a horse blanket, was the radio: a heavy British set with a crank generator and coils of wire.

Jack wasted no time. He dropped his pack, shrugged out of his field jacket, and felt the fresh pull of the wound in his shoulder. The bandage Henri had re-tied in the hollow was dark with seepage. He ignored it and sat at the bench, checking the frequencies while Henri climbed the stairs to watch the approaches.

“If the SS is triangulating,” Henri called down, “we have minutes, not hours.”

Jack pulled the crank. The generator whined. He spoke into the handset, giving his call sign twice, then his name, rank, and serial number. Static. He repeated it, slower.

A voice cut through, tinny and hard-edged. “Shady Grove, this is Redbird Control. Reading you weak but clear. State your situation.”

Jack's jaw tightened. Actual command. He keyed the handset. “Redbird, this is Sergeant Jack Calloway, 2nd Ranger Battalion, attached to the 101st for drop ops. I am separated from my unit. Two days behind enemy lines. I have intel on the demolition of the bridge at Saint-Ferréol-sur-Ode. DZ west of the town. Say again, north of the town. Sir, the Germans have wired the pilings with enough explosive to collapse the whole span. They are prepared to blow it on order.”

Static hissed. Jack thumbed the mic, waiting, watching the needle dance.

“Calloway, we have you. We have no record of a second demolition order. The airfield bombing runs are scheduled for dawn. If the bridge is standing when they go in, it will be taken by ground units within twenty-four. The main force is moving. We need that bridge intact. You understand?”

Jack closed his eyes. He could feel Henri's presence at the top of the stairs, listening.

“Sir, with respect, the bridge is wired. If they blow it before the bombing runs, your ground units are crossing a river. The demolition charges are set and armed. I have the explosives to destroy the bridge myself—if it becomes necessary—but I don't have detonators.”

“Detonators?”

“Lost en route. I can get them, but I need support. A squad, air drop, anything. We have a local contact with resistance ties. But there is a Gestapo unit hunting us now. Active pursuit.”

Silence. Jack counted seconds. Five. Ten.

“Calloway, we don't have assets to spare. The air is thick with gliders and troop transports. I can't put a squad down without risking the whole corridor. You are the asset on the ground. Hold the bridge. If it's wired, you have two tasks. One: prevent the detonation. Two: if it becomes unsalvageable, deny the enemy the crossing.”

Jack exhaled. “Can I get supplies?”

“You can get a frequency. Call back at 0400. Use the same channel. If you go dark, we will assume you didn't make it. Do I make myself clear, Sergeant?”

“Clear, sir. One more thing.”

“Go.”

“There is a boy. French. Held at the bridge. He may be in the way when the charges come.”

“Understood. Call back at 0400. Redbird out.”

The hiss of static filled the cellar again. Jack sat back, letting the handset drop to his chest.

Henri came down the stairs, his eyes dark. “They will not send anyone.”

“They can't,” Jack said. “Not right now. But I gave them the frequency. I'll call back at 0400. Maybe by then the situation's changed.”

Henri's mouth was a hard line. “And the detonators?”

“The farmer. You said he's east of here. How far?”

“Three kilometers past the orchard. A man named Gérard. He doesn't fight for anyone. He sells to whoever pays. But he has fuse and caps. I've used his goods before.”

“Then we go tonight. Before the SS tightens the net.” Jack stood, and the world tilted for a moment. He caught himself against the bench, his hand slick with fresh blood. The wound in his shoulder had opened again.

Henri was at his side in an instant, pulling the collar of Jack's field jacket down. The bandage was soaked through, red to the elbow. He swore in French and pulled the dressing away. The bullet had torn a groove along the deltoid, ugly and raw, but not through the joint. Muscle, tendon, flesh. Not fatal, but weakening.

“You will not make three kilometers bleeding like a stuck pig,” Henri said.

Jack hissed as Henri pressed a clean pad of cloth into the wound. “We don't have a choice.”

“We have a choice. We stop at Claire's first. She is a nurse. And then we go for Gérard, but you will not go in half-dead.”

Jack shook his head. “Every hour we spend hiding, the Germans are bringing more explosives to that bridge. They know we took the cache at the château. They'll double the charge to compensate.”

Henri held his gaze. “Then we go to Claire. Ten minutes. She'll stitch you. Then we travel fast.”

Jack wanted to argue, but the floor was tilting again. He was losing more blood than he'd admitted. Henri was right. He couldn't run a three-klick cross-country sprint with his arm dangling.

“Fine,” Jack said. “But if anyone's watching her place, we keep moving. I won't risk her.”

Henri nodded. He finished the dressing, tighter this time, and helped Jack back into his field jacket. The blood soaked through within seconds, dark against the wool.

They climbed out of the cellar, and Henri pulled the curtain back into place. The radio sat silent beneath its blanket. Jack paused at the threshold, looking back at it. Such a thin string, he thought. A voice in the dark. No promises, no rescue. Just an order: hold the bridge.

He pocketed the frequency notation he'd scribbled on a scrap of paper, pressed against the inside of his palm.

They slipped out into the night.

They moved east, keeping to the hedgerow shadows. The moon was half-full, and the clouds raced overhead, offering moments of cover. Jack's shoulder ached in time with his pulse. The tip of his fingers tingled from blood loss. He kept his breathing even, matching Henri's pace through the wet fields.

They were halfway across the second pasture when Jack heard it: the low growl of engines, coming from the road to the west. They dropped to the damp grass, pressing flat. The convoy passed on the road a hundred meters away. Trucks, half-tracks, a staff car. Long columns of them, headlights out, moving slow and deliberate.

Toward the bridge.

“More explosives,” Henri whispered. “More men.”

Jack watched the tail lights shrink into the dark. He checked his watch. The luminous hands said 0230.

He thought of the boy, Émile, somewhere in the middle of all that tonnage. He thought of the detonators lying in a greedy farmer's shed. He thought of the radio, silent now, its operator dead on the air.

He had ninety minutes until the 0400 call. And a world of ground to cover.

“Move,” Jack said, and they broke into a jog toward the farmstead that might still hold a boat, a rebel, a shot at the bridge—wounded, hunted, and out of options, but not yet out of time.