Christian edged toward the rear of the car, climbing over the driver as he did so. This driver, Christian thought automatically, as he rolled over him, hasn"t bathed since the invasion of Poland.
"For G.o.d"s sake," he said irritably, "why don"t you take a bath?"
"Excuse me, Sergeant," the driver said humbly.
Protected by the rear wheel of the car, Christian raised his head. A little clump of daisies waved gently, in front of him, magnified to a forest of prehistoric growths by their closeness. The road, shimmering a little in the heat, stretched away in front of him.
Twenty feet away a small bird landed and strutted, busy with its affairs, rustling its feathers, calling unmusically from time to time, like an impatient customer in a deserted store.
A hundred yards away was the road block.
Christian examined it carefully. It was squarely across the road in a place where the land on both sides rose quite steeply, and it was placed like a dam in a brook. There were no signs of life from behind it. It was in deep shadow, shaded by the rustling trees that grew on both sides of the road and made an arch over the barricade. Christian looked behind him. There was a bend in the road there, and the other two cars were nowhere to be seen. Christian was sure they had stopped when they heard the shots. He wondered what they were doing now and cursed himself for having fallen asleep and letting himself get into something like this.
The barricade was obviously hastily improvised, two trees with the foliage still on them, filled in with springs and mattresses and an overturned farm cart and some stones from the near-by fence. It was well placed in one way. The overhanging trees hid it from aerial observation; the only way you"d find out about it would be by coming on it as they had done.
It was a lucky thing the Frenchmen had fired so soon. Christian"s mouth felt dusty. He was terribly thirsty. The cherries he had eaten suddenly made his tongue smart where it had been burned a little raw by cigarettes.
If they have any sense, he thought, they will be around on our flanks now and preparing to murder us. How could I do it? he thought, staring harshly at the two felled trees silent in the enigmatic shadow a hundred meters away, how could I have fallen asleep? If they had a mortar or a machine gun placed anywhere in the woods, it would be all over in five seconds. But there was no sound in front of them, just the bird hopping beyond the daisies on the asphalt, making its irritable sharp cry.
There was a noise behind him and he twisted around. But it was only Maeschen, one of the men from the other two cars, crawling up to them through the underbrush. Maeschen crawled correctly and methodically, as he had been taught in training camp, with his rifle cradled in his arms.
"How are things back there?" Christian asked. "Anybody hurt?"
"No," Maeschen panted. "The cars are up a dirt side road. Everybody"s all right. Sergeant Himmler sent me up here to see if you were still alive."
"We"re alive," Christian said grimly.
"Sergeant Himmler told me to tell you he will go back to battery headquarters and report that you have engaged the enemy and will ask for two tanks," Maeschen said, very correct, again as he had been taught in the long weary hours with the instructors.
Christian squinted at the barricade, low and mysterious in the green gloom between the aisle of trees. It had to happen to me, he thought bitterly. If they find out I was asleep; it will be court-martial. He had a sudden vision of disapproving officers behind a table, with the rustle of official papers before them and he standing there stiffly, waiting for the blow to fall.
It"s d.a.m.ned helpful of Himmler, he thought ironically, to offer to go back for reinforcements, leaving me here getting my b.a.l.l.s shot off. Himmler was a round, loud, jovial man who always laughed and looked mysterious when he was asked if he was any relation to Heinrich Himmler. Somehow it was part of the uneasy myth of the battery that they were related, probably uncle and nephew, and Sergeant Himmler was treated with touchy consideration by everyone. Probably at the end of the war, by which time Himmler would have risen to the rank of Colonel, mostly on the strength of the shadowy relationship, because he was a mediocre soldier, and would never get anywhere by himself, they"d find out there was nothing there at all, no connection whatever.
Christian shook his head. He had to concentrate on the job ahead of him. It was amazing how difficult it was. With your life hanging on every move you made, your brain kept sliding around: Himmler, the rank, heavy smell of the driver"s body, like old laundry, the little bird hopping on the road, the pallor under the sunburn of Brandt"s skin and the way he sprawled, biting into the ground, as though he could dig a trench for himself with his teeth.
There was no movement behind the barricade. It lay low on the road, its leaves flicking gently now and again in the wind.
"Keep covered," he whispered to the others.
"Should I stay?" Maeschen asked, anxiously.
"If you would be so kind," Christian said. "We serve tea at four."
Maeschen looked baffled and uneasy and blew some dust out of the breech of his rifle.
Christian pushed his machine pistol through the daisy clump and aimed at the barricade. He took a deep breath. The first time, he thought, the first shot of the war. He fired two short bursts. The noise was savage and mean under the trees and the daisies waved wildly before his eyes. Somewhere behind him he heard grunting, whimpering little noises. Brandt, he thought, the war photographer.
For a moment, nothing happened. The bird had disappeared and the daisies stopped waving and the echoes of the shots died down in the woods. No, Christian thought, of course they"re not that stupid. They"re not behind the block. Things couldn"t be that easy.
Then, as he watched, he saw the rifles through c.h.i.n.ks high in the barricade. The shots rang out and there was the vicious, searching whistle of the bullets around his head.
"No, oh no, oh, please no ..." It was Brandt"s voice. What the h.e.l.l could you expect from a middle-aged landscape painter?
Christian made himself keep his eyes open. He counted the rifles as they fired. Six, possibly seven. That was all. As suddenly as they had begun they stopped.
It"s too good to be true, Christian thought. They can"t have any officers with them. Probably a half dozen boys, deserted by their lieutenant, scared but willing and easy to take.
"Maeschen!"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Go back to Sergeant Himmler. Tell him to bring his car out onto the road. They can"t be seen from here. They"re perfectly safe."
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Brandt!" Christian didn"t look back, but he made his voice as cutting and scornful as possible. "Stop that!"
"Of course," Brandt said. "Certainly. Don"t pay any attention. I will do whatever you say I should do. Believe me. You can depend on me."
"Maeschen," Christian said.
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Tell Himmler I am going to move off to my right through these woods and try to come up on the block from behind. He is to cross the road where he is and do the same thing on his side with at least five men. I think there are only six or seven people behind that barricade and they are armed only with rifles. I don"t think there"s an officer with them. Can you remember all that?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"I"ll fire once at them, in fifteen minutes," Christian said, "and then demand that they surrender. If they find themselves being under fire from behind, I don"t think they"ll do much fighting. If they do, you"re to be in position to block them on your side. I"m leaving one man here in case they come on up over the barricade. Have you got all that?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"All right. Go ahead."
"Yes, Sergeant." Maeschen crawled away, his face ablaze with duty and determination.
"Diestl," Brandt said.
"Yes," Christian said coldly, without looking at him. "If you want, you can go back with Maeschen. You"re not under my command."
"I want to go along with you." Brandt"s voice was controlled. "I"m all right now. I just had a bad moment." He laughed a little. "I just had to get used to being shot at. You said you were going to ask them to give up. You"d better take me along. No Frenchman"ll ever understand your French." Christian looked at him and they grinned at each other. He"s all right, Christian thought, finally, he"s all right.
"Come along," he said. "You"re invited."
Then with Brandt dragging his Leica, with his pistol in his other hand, thoughtfully on safety, and Kraus eagerly bringing up the rear, they crawled off through a bed of fern into the woods toward their right. The fern was soft and danksmelling. The ground was a little marshy and their uniforms were soon stained with green. There was a slight rise thirty meters away. After they had crawled over that, they could stand up and proceed, bent over, behind its cover.
There was a small continuous rustling in the wood. Two squirrels made a sudden, deadly racket leaping from one tree to another. The underbrush tore at their boots and trousers as they cautiously tried to walk a course parallel to the road.
It"s not going to work, Christian thought, it"s going to be a terrible failure. They can"t be that stupid. It"s a perfect trap and I"ve fallen perfectly into it. The Army will get to Paris all right, but I"ll never see it. Probably you could lie dead here for ten years and no one would find you but the owls and the wood animals. He had been sweating out on the road, and when he was crawling, but now the chill gloom struck through his clothes and the sweat congealed on his skin. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. The woods were probably full of Frenchmen, desperate, full of hate, slipping in and out behind the trees which they knew like the furniture in their own bedrooms, furiously happy to kill one more German before going down in the general collapse. Brandt, who had lived all his life on city pavements, sounded like a herd of cattle, blundering through the brush.
Why in G.o.d"s name, Christian thought, did it have to happen this way? The first action. All the responsibility on his shoulders. Just this time the Lieutenant had to be off on his own. Every other moment of the war the Lieutenant had been there, looking down his long nose, sneering, saying, "Sergeant, is that how you have been taught to give a command?" and "Sergeant, is it your opinion that this is the correct manner in which to fill out a requisition form?" and "Sergeant, when I say I want ten men here at four o"clock, I mean four o"clock, not four-two, or four-ten, or four-fifteen. FOUR O"CLOCK, SERGEANT. Is that clear?" And now the Lieutenant was sailing happily along in the armored car, down a perfectly safe road, stuffed full of tactics and Clausewitz and disposition of troops and flanking movements and fields of fire and compa.s.s marches over unfamiliar terrain, when all he needed was a Michelin road map and a few extra gallons of gasoline. And here was Christian, a dressed-up civilian, really, stumbling through treacherous woods in an insane, improvised patrol against a strong position, with two men who had never fired a shot at anyone in their lives.... It was madness. It would never succeed. He remembered his optimism out on the road and marveled at it. "Suicide," he said, "absolute suicide."
"What"s that?" Brandt whispered, and his voice carried through the rustling forest like a dinner gong. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," Christian said. "Keep quiet."
His eyes were aching now from the strain of watching each leaf, each blade of gra.s.s.
"Attention!" Kraus shouted crazily. "Attention!"
Christian dived behind a tree. Brandt crashed into him and the shot hit the wood over their heads. Christian swung around and Brandt blinked through his gla.s.ses and struggled with the safety catch on his pistol. Kraus was jumping wildly to one side, trying to disentangle the sling of his rifle from the branches of a" bush. There was another shot, and Christian felt the sting on the side of his head. He fell down and got up again and fired at the kneeling figure he suddenly saw in the confusion of green and waving foliage behind a boulder. He saw his bullets chipping the stone. Then he had to change the clip in his gun and he sat on the ground, tearing at the breech, which was stiff and new. There was a shot to his left and he heard Kraus calling, wildly, "I got him, I got him," like a boy on his first hunt for pheasant, and he saw the Frenchman quite deliberately slide, face down, on the gra.s.s. Kraus started to run for the Frenchman, as though he were afraid another hunter would claim him. There were two more shots, and Kraus fell into a stiff bush and sprawled there, almost erect, with the bush quivering under him, giving his b.u.t.tocks a look of electric life. Brandt had got the safety off his pistol and was firing erratically at a clump of bushes, his elbows looking rubbery and loose. He sat on the ground, with his gla.s.ses askew on his nose, biting his lips white, holding the elbow of his right arm with his left hand in an attempt to steady himself. By that time Christian had the clip in his pistol and started firing at the clump of bushes too. Suddenly a rifle came hurling out and a man sprang out with his hands in the air. Christian stopped firing. There was the quiet of the forest again and Christian suddenly smelled the sharp, dry, unpleasant fumes of the burnt powder.
"Venez," Christian called. "Venez ici." Somewhere inside of him, with the buzzing of his head and the ringing of his ears from the firing, there was a proud twinge at the sudden access of French.
The man, his hands still over his head, came toward them slowly. His uniform was soiled and open at the collar and his face was pasty and green with fright under the scrubbly beard. He kept his mouth open and the tongue licked at the corners of his mouth dryly.
"Cover him," Christian said to Brandt, who, amazingly, was snapping pictures of the advancing Frenchman.
Brandt stood up and poked his pistol out menacingly. The man stopped. He looked as though he were going to fall down in a moment and his eyes were imploring and hopeless as Christian pa.s.sed him on the way over to the bush where Kraus hung. The bush had stopped vibrating and Kraus looked deader now. Christian laid him out on the ground. Kraus had a surprised, eager look on his face.
Walking erratically, with his head aching from the slap of the bullet and the blood dripping over his ear, Christian went over to the Frenchman Kraus had shot. He was lying on his face with a bullet between his eyes. He was very, young, Kraus"s age, and his face had been badly mangled by the bullet. Christian dropped him back to the ground hurriedly. How much damage, he thought, these amateurs can do. No more than four shots fired between them in the whole war, and two dead to show for it.
Christian felt the scratch on his temple; it had already stopped bleeding. He went over to Brandt and told him to instruct the prisoner to go down to the block and tell them they were surrounded and demand the surrender of everyone there, upon pain of annihilation. My first real day in the war, he thought, while Brandt was translating, and I am delivering ultimatums like a Major General. He grinned. He felt lightheaded and uncertain of his movements, and from moment to moment he was not sure whether he was going to laugh or weep.
The Frenchman kept nodding again and again, very emphatically, and talking swiftly to Brandt, too swiftly for Christian"s meager talent for the language.
"He says he"ll do it," Brandt said.
"Tell him," Christian said, "we"ll follow him and shoot him at the first sign of any nonsense."
The Frenchman nodded vigorously as Brandt told him this, as though it were the most reasonable statement in the world. They started out down through the forest toward the road block, past Kraus"s body, looking healthy and relaxed on the gra.s.s, with the sun slicing through the branches, gilding his helmet with dull gold.
They kept the Frenchman ten paces ahead of them. He stopped at the edge of the forest, which was about three meters higher than the road and along which ran a low stone fence.
"Emile," the Frenchman called, "Emile ... It"s I. Morel." He clambered over the fence and disappeared from view. Carefully, Christian and Brandt approached the fence, and knelt behind it. Down on the road, behind the block, their prisoner was talking swiftly, standing up, to seven soldiers kneeling and lying on the road behind their barricade. Occasionally, one of them would stare nervously into the woods, and they kept their voices to a swift, trembling whisper. Even in their uniforms, with their guns in their hands, they looked like peasants congregated in a town hall to discuss some momentous local problem. Christian wondered what stubborn, despairing flare of patriotism or private determination had led them to make this pathetic, inaccurate, useless stand, deserted, un-officered, clumsy, b.l.o.o.d.y. He hoped they would surrender. He did not want to kill any of these whispering, weary-looking men in their rumpled, shoddy uniforms.
Their prisoner turned and waved to Christian.
"C"est fait!" he shouted. "Nous sommes finis."
"He says, all right," Brandt said, "they"re finished."
Christian stood up, to wave to them to put down their arms. But at that moment there were three ragged bursts from the other side of the road. The Frenchman who had done the negotiating fell down and the others started running back along the road, firing, and vanishing one by one into the woods.
Himmler, Christian thought bitterly. At exactly the wrong moment. If you needed him, he"d never ...
Christian jumped over the wall and slid down the embankment toward the barricade. They were still shooting from the other side, but without effect. The Frenchmen had disappeared, and Himmler and his men didn"t seem to have any mind for pursuit.
As Christian reached the road, the man who was lying there stirred. He sat up and stared at Christian. The Frenchman leaned stiffly over to the base of the barricade where there was a case of grenades. Awkwardly, he took one out of the box and pulled weakly at the pin. Christian turned around. The man"s face was glaring up at him and he was pulling at the pin with his teeth. Christian shot him and he fell back. The grenade rolled away. Christian leaped at it and threw it into the woods." He waited for the explosion, crouched behind the barricade next to the dead Frenchman, but there was no sound. The pin had never come out.
Christian stood up. "All right," he called. "Himmler. Come on out here."
He looked down at the man he had just killed as Himmler and the others came crashing down out of the brush. Brandt took a picture of the corpse, because photographs of dead Frenchmen were still quite rare in Berlin.
I"ve killed a man, Christian thought. Finally. He didn"t feel anything special.
"How do you like that?" Himmler was saying jubilantly. "That"s the way to do it. This is an Iron Cross job, I"ll bet."
"Oh, Christ," Christian said, "be quiet."
He picked up the dead man and dragged him over to the side of the road. Then he gave orders to the other men to tear down the barricade, while he went up with Brandt to where Kraus was lying in the forest.
By the time he and Brandt had carried Kraus back to the road, Himmler and the others had got most of the barricade down. Christian left the Frenchman who had been killed in the forest lying where he had died. He felt very impatient now, and anxious to move on. Somebody else would have to do the honors to the fallen enemy.
He laid Kraus down gently. Kraus looked very young and healthy, and there were red stains around his lips from the cherries, like a small boy who comes guiltily out of the pantry after pillaging the jam jars. Well, Christian thought, looking down at the large simple boy who had laughed so heartily at Christian"s jokes, you killed your Frenchman. When he got to Paris, he would write Kraus"s father to tell him how his son had died. Fearless, he would write, cheerful, aggressive, best type of German soldier. Proud in his hour of grief. Christian shook his head. No, he would have to do better than that. That was like the idiotic letters in the last war, and, there was no denying it, they had become rather comic by now. Something more original for Kraus, something more personal. We buried him with cherry stains on his lips and he always laughed at my jokes and he got himself killed because he was too enthusiastic ... You couldn"t say that either. Anyway, he would have to write something.
He turned away from the dead boy as the other two cars drove slowly and warily up the road. He watched them coming with impatient, superior amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Come on, ladies," he shouted, "there"s nothing to be afraid of. The mice have left the room."
The cars spurted obediently and stopped at the road block, their motors idling. Christian"s driver was in one of them. Their own car was a wreck, he said, the engine riddled, the tires torn. It could not be used. The driver was very red, although he had merely lain in the ditch while all the firing was going on. He spoke in gulps, as though it was hard to get his breath, two short, gasping words at a time. Christian realized that the man, who had been quite calm while the action was on, had grown terribly frightened now that it was over, and had lost control of his nerves.
Christian listened to his own voice as he gave orders. "Maeschen," he said, "you will stay here with Taub, until the next organization comes down this road." The voice is steady, Christian noted with elation, the words are crisp and efficient I came through it all right I can do it. "Maeschen, go up there into the woods about sixty meters and you will find a dead Frenchman. Bring him out and leave him with the other two ..." He gestured to Kraus and the little man Christian had killed, lying side by side now along the road, "so that they can be correctly buried. All right." He turned to the others. "Get moving."
They climbed into the two cars. The drivers put them in gear, and they went slowly through the s.p.a.ce that had been cleared in the block. There was some blood on the road and bits of mattress and trampled leaves, but it all looked green and peaceful. Even the two bodies lying in the heavy gra.s.s alongside the road looked like two gardeners who were catching a nap after lunch.
The cars gathered speed and pulled swiftly out of the shade of the trees. There was no more danger of sniping among the open, budding fields. The sun was shining warmly, making them sweat a little, quite pleasantly, after the chill of the woods. I did it, Christian thought. He was a little ashamed of the small smile of self-satisfaction that pulled at the corners of his mouth. I did it. I commanded an action. I am earning my keep, he thought.
Ahead of him, at the bottom of a slope some three kilometers away, was a little town. It was made of stone and was dominated by two church steeples, medieval and delicate, rising out of the cl.u.s.ter of weathered walls around them. The town looked comfortable and secure, as though people had been living there quietly for a long time. The driver of Christian"s car slowed down as they approached the buildings. He looked nervously at Christian again and again.
"Come on," Christian said impatiently. "There"s n.o.body there."
The driver obediently stepped on the accelerator.
The houses didn"t look as pretty or comfortable from close up as they had from out in the fields. Paint was flaking off the walls, and they were dirty, and there was an undeniable strong smell. Foreigners, Christian thought, they are all dirty.
The street took a bend and they were out into the town square. There were some people standing on the church steps and some others in front of the cafe that surprisingly was open. "Cha.s.seur et Pecheur" Christian read on the sign over the cafe. Hunter and Fisher. There were five or six people sitting at the tables and a waiter was serving two of them drinks on those little saucers. Christian grinned. What a war.
On the church steps, there were three young girls in bright skirts and low-cut waists.
"Ooo," the driver said, "ooo, la, la."
"Stop here," Christian said.
"Avec plaisir, mon colonel," the driver said, and Christian looked at him," surprised and amused at his unsuspected culture.
The driver drew up in front of the church and stared unashamedly at the three girls. One of the girls, a dark, full-bodied creature, holding a bouquet of garden flowers in her hand, giggled. The other two girls giggled with her, and they stared with frank interest at the two carloads of soldiers.
Christian got out of the car. "Come on, Interpreter," he said to Brandt. Brandt followed him, carrying his camera.