Victory In Normandy: The Emily Boucher Series, #1.2

By Janina Clarke

COURAGE…BRAVERY…RESILIENCE
D-Day and the Day of Liberation has arrived. Resistance groups around France are stirring into action. Victory in Normandy is the sequel to She Is Behind Enemy Lines, and another gripping read from Janina Clarke.

A realistic World War II novel inspired by real events how Winston Churchill's Secret Army helped to hasten the end of the war in occupied France. Fans of Wilbur Smith Courtney's War and Kate Quinn will love this novel.

June 1944 – D-Day and The Day of Liberation have arrived for Emily Boucher's Resistance group. The Allies are pushing south from the Normandy beaches. Emily and her friends are in action against the Nazi occupation, destroying trains and sabotaging anything that will hinder the German army's progression to stop the Allied front.

Emily is part of the Special Operations Executive and as a wireless operator is sending secret messages to London trying to find a different place each time to avoid capture from the Gestapo. She's being hunted constantly by the SS, Gestapo, and the dreaded Milice. She's already escaped once, but will she avoid capture now there's a price on her head?

As violence tears apart the country she loves, Emily and her réseau continue their struggle against tyranny and the Nazi occupation of Normandy. Her love for her new friends who become her family, brings her joy and heartache in their quest for freedom. Some lives are sacrificed in the conflict, but love and friendship endure.

It's a heart-wrenching tale of heroism and sacrifice, but there are winners and losers in this struggle to stay alive as the suspense builds toward the final victory.
 

'This story kept me gripped to the end.'  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'This is for wartime history buffs and drama-romance readers alike.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janina Clarke
• Release date: Jan 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645803945

Janina Clarke

Welcome to my author page. I love reading all types of books, which is why I love to write in the genres of historical fiction, suspense and action/adventure. Telling stories of forgotten heroines and the sacrifices they made during WW2. She Is Behind Enemy Lines is the first book and Victory in Normandy is the sequel in the Emily Boucher series I was born in Northampton, England, and worked for thirty years in Education. I emigrated to Perth, Western Australia in 2007. I live with my family and a menagerie of animals and I love to write and read all genres of books. My new book 'Cherry's War; and The Flying Nightingales' is out soon. It's an historical fiction romance - and based on real-life stories of the famous British nurses in the air during WW2 who kept severely injured men alive during their flight home - they were probably the first female paramedics.

Book preview

Victory In Normandy

The Emily Boucher Series, Volume 1.2

Janina Clarke

Published by Janina Clarke, 2021.

Victory

In Normandy

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Janina Clarke

Also by Janina Clarke:

She Is Behind Enemy Lines – Emily Boucher series book1

Victory In Normandy – Emily Boucher series book 2

Cherry’s War and The Flying Nightingales

Coming soon – prequel to She Is Behind Enemy Lines

Emily Boucher and Bletchley Park

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN 978-0-6458039-4-5

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Copyright © 2021 Janina Clarke

Second edition 2024

All rights reserved.

janinaclarke.com

DEDICATION:

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This book is dedicated to the women and men of the Special Operations Executive who fought for freedom against the German occupation of Europe, to the many Resistance groups who carried out acts of sabotage against the Nazis, and to the individuals who fought against the Third Reich in their own way and helped to bring about the end of World War Two.

Contents

CHAPTER 1 - JUNE 8th - D-DAY +2

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5 – D-Day +3

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14 – D-DAY +6

CHAPTER  15

CHAPTER 16 - D-DAY + 8

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19 – D-DAY + 9

CHAPTER 20 – D-DAY + 12

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23 – D-DAY + 13

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25 - D-Day + 15

CHAPTER 26 - D-DAY + 16

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER  30

CHAPTER 1 - JUNE 8th - D-DAY +2

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I look up through the old oak branches spreading protectively above me. I lay on my back and watch the twinkling stars in the night sky. There’s a myriad of flickering lights high above me, it’s mesmerising. Then I tense, because some of them are moving, could they be aircraft? I watch for a few seconds and realise I’m holding my breath.

We were bombed last night in Saint-Just by Allied bombers and Eve’s farmhouse was caught in the drop zone - even though it’s in the countryside a few kilometres from the town.

It’s been forty-eight hours since the call to arms for the French Résistance to sabotage the efforts of the Germans to get to the Normandy beaches.

D-Day or Le Débarquement and our town has been bombed by the Allies because the Nazis have dug in and are not letting go. Saint-Just and Saint-Lô have been decimated by Allied bombing trying to get the Germans out of the area. The Germans have been told to defend at all costs by their Fuhrer and to fight to the last man.

I look at Eve, asleep next to the fire. She is restless. Like me, tired, wet, and cold. I have no idea what time it is, my watch has stopped since I jumped into the river last night escaping the SS unit. If it hadn’t been for Eve pulling me out of the swirling torrent I’m sure I would have drowned.

I pull myself up against a log and try to boost some warmth into the fire by trickling bits of wood and twigs into it from underneath the trees. It still struggles to stay alight under the oak tree. Eve is my best friend, and I’ve only known her four months. I had never really had a best friend since school. Without her I wouldn’t have got this far. I certainly wouldn’t have lasted the six weeks they said a wireless operator in the field would last. Thanks to my training at the Special Operations Executive it helped prepare me for what lay ahead.

We rest for a few hours after the escape last night, but we need to get moving and get warm and dry. Eve stirs from sleep and coughs as the fire sends smoke her way, burning on damp wood. I can still smell the acrid smoke of bombs which has drifted from the town.

I start to shiver because I’m still wet from the river crossing. I lit the fire with my flint the way they taught me at the SOE. They gave me a Fairbairn- Sykes fighting knife which is to help me catch food and skin it. But I don’t see any rabbits tonight and I don’t really want to do that. So I hide the knife under my trouser leg attached to my calf. It’s seen action already and I’ve learned it’s better to have it to hand to defend myself.

I find some more dry twigs under the tree, eventually my little fire grows in strength, and it sends a low smoke trail through the wood and up towards the tree canopy.

The smell of smoke wakes up my friend, and she drags herself over to the fire. We huddle around it, not speaking, both feeling the effects of the trauma we have been through in the past few hours. The small fire thickens and throws some warmth back at us.

‘I can’t believe we managed to escape from the soldiers by the skin of our teeth,’ I say to her. ‘It’s sheer luck you found the stepping stones in the dark!’

‘La peau de mes dents?’ She looks at me with eyebrows raised.

‘Ce n’est qu’une facon de parler.’ It’s just a figure of speech.

Now the Germans have occupied Eve’s house, we can’t go back. We’re fugitives. But then I’ve been a fugitive since I parachuted in as a wireless operator for the Boulangerie circuit. I’m just trying to keep ahead of the Gestapo and their radio direction finding vehicles.

‘We need to find Pierre and Robert,’ she says weakly.

‘We will. I’m sure they’re okay.’ I try and sound more cheerful. ‘Pierre will be all right. He’ll be with the rest of the railway workers, sabotaging the railways.’

The warmth from the fire is finally getting through to my fingers and toes. I put my shoes back on even though they’re still wet.

‘We need to get moving.’

Eve looks at the glowing fire and hugs her clothes around her. She’s too tired to comment.

‘I have to report back to London,’ I say, trying to encourage her to move. ‘I really need to find that other radio on that hilltop.’

I stand up and try to encourage her to get going again.

‘Come on, let’s go and find Pierre and Robert. The other one in my bicycle basket won’t have survived that bomb last night!’

I don’t say anymore. We both witnessed the bomb blast that split Eve’s old cattle shed in two, destroying the whole shed, along with two German soldiers who’d gone to the top of the steps with a rocket launcher. Instead of shooting the aeroplane down, an American B17 got them first. Great for us because we managed to get away. Not so great for Eve’s farm.

‘Why would the Allies bomb us Emily?’ she says with emotion. ‘I have friends in Saint-Just, I don’t know if they’re alive or dead!’

‘You know why. Saint-Lô and Saint-Just are too strategically placed, if they can destroy any German resistance, it will open the gateway to Paris and the south.’

She sighs and I put an arm under her to help her up.

‘I suppose your spy training helps you understand the senseless loss of life.’

It doesn’t. But we need to have a passionate belief in a cause. It’s that which keeps me going.

I don’t remind her either that the messages for the locals warning them about the impending bombing, drifted away into the wind. What a catastrophe! I feel guilty too, because I should have found a way of letting the citizens know the bombers were coming. With all that happened yesterday we just didn’t get the chance.

The past twenty-four hours have been catastrophic for the citizens of Saint-Just. It was heart-wrenching to see the flames burning the town last night in the distance.

It’s been a wet and windy start for the Allied soldiers storming the Normandy beaches, and the Allied planes have bombed our area. Bayeux was handed over without a fight from the Nazis. Further south it’s a different story.

The Germans are digging in, determined not to give up the country they conquered four years before. They have been living the good life while the French citizens have been starved into submission. Now they realise the Allied invasion has started, the Nazis in Saint-Just hide from view, biding their time so they can destroy the Allies when they enter their trap.

‘Come on,’ I put the fire out with a kick.

‘I’m thirsty,’ she complains.

‘Me too.’

Dawn is coming, there’s a ribbon of light above the trees starting to spread.

‘What time is it?’

‘Time we moved on,’ I say. ‘We need to find Pierre and the Maquis.’

I don’t add I’m worried sick about Robert. I have an awful feeling something happened to him yesterday. If he has been killed, he’s left it up to Eve and me to organise the local Boulangerie réseau to sabotage anything the Germans find useful. Power stations, train stations, fuel dumps and communication centres are being attacked across Normandy after being given the signal by London. By now, the Third Reich will realise the Allies have invaded and send a barrage of troops and tanks towards the beaches.

We’re so exhausted after our roller coaster ride since D-Day that we hurry to make our way through the forest looking all the time for the Maquis – groups of Résistance living in the forests nearby, just in case they know where Robert and our friends are. But we don’t see any of them.

We turn towards Saint-Just continuing through the forest as the sky gets lighter in the east. As we approach the town, the red glow of the fires is gone. The sky is streaked with grey and pink as we walk towards the town, giving it a ghostly hue.

CHAPTER 2

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A mix of smoke and fog hangs over the area of Saint-Just. The Allied bombing has stopped for now, but the scene of destruction is cataclysmic. As dawn approaches Robert pulls himself up, able to see better through the trees, and although in pain, he makes his way towards the edge of the forest towards houses still standing on the edge of Saint-Just.

Robert, the leader of the Boulangerie circuit, struggles through the trees at the edge of the forest and collapses under a low-hanging tree as he comes to the edge of the town. The smell of sulphur is in the air; gas mains have probably broken under the bombing raid. The smell of smoke and burning makes his eyes smart. He spent a dazed night lying on his front because his shirt was ripped off during the bombing yesterday. He managed to cut his bonds free on a sharp stone. He keeps going – because he knows he is lucky to be alive.

When he crawled through the rubble to the forest, he hid under a bush and drifted in and out of consciousness during the night. Robert’s wounds from yesterday still disable his ability to move and think clearly. The flesh on his back is red raw and bleeding, he has been whipped within an inch of his life by Gorilla, Major Weber’s vicious assistant. He staggers painfully towards a house on the edge of the town.

This is the side of town where rich people live, and ironically most of the houses are still standing. It’s like they had a pact with the devil because the bombs missed them on the edge of the forest.

Robert is the only one who has managed to escape from the bombed-out gaol in the town of Saint-Just. His friends were unable to get away during the Allied bombing of his town yesterday. He hopes Benoit and Gilbert managed to escape after hiding in the bulrushes at the Vire bridge when he was captured yesterday.

Robert is exhausted, after scrambling through the remains of buildings and hiding whenever he saw someone that could be a Nazi, he kept going until he came to the edge of the town. He sees a German staff car drive through town from a distance and swears to himself. His back is strong from being a baker, and because he served in the French Army, but he lacks sleep and the ability to cover his wounds.

A lot has happened in twenty-four hours, he has lost some good friends; some compatriots from his days defending Dunkirk. But he shakes himself out of his reverie, he doesn’t have time to be sad.

As he struggles to his feet he limps through the trees in the dark, making his way towards the forest where he can hide from the German army. Some citizens are emerging amongst the smoking remnants of bombed houses. They are moving their injured to the local hospital. As the organiser of the Boulangerie réseau he must find a way to get to the Maquis in the forest.

He sees some Gendarmes and other citizens helping neighbours to put fires out with blankets, boards, and buckets of sand - but there is no water. The Germans removed the last of the water hydrants last week. He must get some clothes for his back, then he can get back into the fight with the rest of the Maquis who survive in the local woods and forest.

Robert comes towards a house separate from the houses on the other side of the street. This one is not damaged, and it is a smarter house than the others. It has clean net curtains that twitch indicating someone is looking out. He knows he’s in a bad way, he can’t go much further, he limps towards the front door hoping someone will help him.

A woman comes out of the door and runs towards him. She’s been watching him struggling along the edge of the trees. Her long blonde hair flows behind her as she runs and grabs him under the arm, he allows himself to be led through the door and she closes it quickly behind him.

‘Robert!’

He tries to straighten his back, but it hurts like hell. ‘Juliette!’

He recognises her immediately as she helps him into the kitchen. She’s an old girlfriend he hasn’t seen since Saint-Lô town square a few days ago when he and Emily had been secretly transmitting from the top of the tower. Before that it was years ago. They were sweethearts at school. She sits him down and closes the shutters. He slumps on his chair, then rounds his back in pain.

‘What in God’s name?’ she exclaims when she sees the bloody state of his back. Robert sits in painful silence, gritting his teeth, while Juliette leaves for a moment. He keeps his face down, the perspiration from his forehead dripping onto her clean floor. He hears cupboards banging, then she returns.

Juliette goes behind him, he leans over, and she carefully cleans the lacerations on his back. Tears run down his face unchecked as he grits his teeth. He is embarrassed about showing pain as she cleans his wounds, but he can’t help himself. She is overcome with emotion, her long blonde hair brushes against his shoulders. He smells her perfume, and it brings back memories, so he starts to relax.

‘You were lucky it was only a few lashes, Robert. How did you get them?’

He stays silent.

‘I’ll bandage them to protect the cuts, so they don’t get infected. But first we wait for the salve to sink in. She disappears for a few moments and comes back with food.

‘Sit up and eat this. It’s soup. Not too hot.’

He does as she bids. He starts to feel a bit more human.

Then she goes away and comes back with a shirt. He looks up to see a shirt of her husband’s on a chair.

‘I hope Francois doesn’t mind me using his shirt?’

Robert doesn’t like Francois. He’s a black marketeer. He remembers him as a liar and a cheat, in the old days he didn’t trust him one bit. Robert first knew him before Francois and Juliette were married when she was seventeen; he was untrustworthy even then.

Robert remembers how he fell in love with the beautiful blonde when they were in school, all the boys were besotted with Juliette, but she chose him, and he did everything he could to earn money to keep her happy. He remembered having two jobs just to buy her the things she wanted. But it was never enough. Then Francois came on the scene driving a car and she immediately changed allegiances. It was a hard lesson to learn. He was so upset she dropped him so easily that he joined the army and was sent to the battlefields of Belgium.

It was the harsh realism of war in the trenches that made him get over her quickly when he saw comrades die on the battlefield and in ditches from disease. He learned that money did not make him happy. He vowed he would never make the same mistake again. He escaped at Dunkirk, returned home, and married, and Mila was born nine months later. But seeing Juliette again with her lovely hair brushing his face and smelling her perfume makes the memories of his younger days come flooding back.

‘How is Francois these days Juliette? Still selling contraband to the Nazis?’ he asks her sarcastically.