After Dunkirk

by Lee Jackson

  He stood abruptly and issued swift, terse orders. “Get a platoon out here and secure this neighborhood. No one leaves. Detain anyone coming in. Get all these fine French citizens up.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “I want them on the street in their bedclothes in fifteen minutes.”

  Stone-faced, Bergmann paced along the line of frightened French residents standing in their pajamas, braced against the wind and damp night air. He stopped in front of a middle-aged man whose wife cowered against her husband while trying to constrain her weeping. This neighbor lived in the home preceding the Boulier house.

  “You must know something about Ferrand Boulier,” he barked in French. “You lived next to him for decades.”

  The neighbor shook his head rapidly, his eyes revealing his terror. “After his wife died, he kept to himself. He wasn’t the same. We all thought he would soon follow her.”

  “But he didn’t, and now he’s disappeared with both daughters, and I’m left with a missing soldier.” He pushed his face close to the man’s. “Tell me again what you saw.”

  “I only saw the soldier who was with you the day that you stopped by our house.”

  “Unteroffiziere Kallsen?”

  “If you say so. I didn’t hear his name. I saw him hurrying down the alley around noon. He wasn’t really running, but he walked very fast, almost at a trot.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone else?”

  “No. I had just come into our kitchen. Your soldier’s motion caught my eye, but he was then in the alley at the corner of our garden shed and continued behind it. I barely had time to recognize him.”

  “You weren’t curious about why he was in such a hurry?”

  “I know better than to take interest in the movements of your soldiers.”

  “If Monsieur Ferrand wanted to hide with his daughters, where would he go?”

  The man shrugged nervously. “The city is barely recognizable. I don’t know what still stands. I have no idea at this moment how to find any particular place in Dunkirk.”

  Bergmann stared at him. “Does he have family in the area?”

  The man closed his eyes as if reluctant to speak.

  “I asked if he has family here.” Bergmann enunciated each word.

  The woman looked into her husband’s face, her own a mask of fear. “Tell him,” she cried. “Tell him.”

  Bergmann grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her forward. “Tell me what?”

  “Leave her alone,” the husband cried hoarsely, and tried to step between his wife and the captain.

  A soldier standing next to Bergmann rammed the man in the stomach with the barrel of his rifle. The hapless man doubled over, and the soldier brought the butt of the weapon down hard on his back. He lay in the dirt, moaning and gasping for air.

  “Ferrand has a brother,” the wife sobbed. “He lives across town on a dairy farm.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Claude Boulier.” Her voice broke, and she tried to stoop to comfort her husband. Bergmann shoved her away with his boot. She too fell into the dirt.

  He turned to a sergeant standing close by. “Radio headquarters. Tell them to find that farm and send out a platoon-sized security detail immediately.” He gestured at the terrified couple lying in the road. “Bring them along, as well as every man here. The women may return to their houses, but keep security around this neighborhood. No one leaves. Detain anyone coming in.”

  “And you, sir?” the sergeant asked.

  “Bring the neighbors from the other side of Ferrand’s house. I want to interrogate them again. Here.” He glared at the couple still lying on the ground. “Then these two will guide me to the dairy farm. I’ll meet the security detail there.”

  12

  Chantal stumbled along in the dark, following her father and sister, barely aware of her surroundings. She clutched a single picture frame to her chest, one that she had grabbed from the living room before staggering through the kitchen and out the back door. The frame contained the black-and-white photo that Bergmann had viewed. It had been the last family one taken of the Bouliers that included her mother. Now, she held onto the memory.

  That had been four years ago when Chantal was ten, only weeks before Madame Boulier had contracted pneumonia and wasted away. Amélie had become Chantal’s surrogate mother, watching out for her schooling, monitoring which friends she chose, making sure she was fed and clothed.

  His wife’s death had crushed Ferrand. For months, he had gone through the motions of doing his work, but without enthusiasm. He had spent hours on a chair in the living room staring out to sea, and often, he had to be coaxed to eat.

  Amélie had shouldered the care for both her father and sister while still attending school. Now, with one hand, she led Chantal through the rubble of Dunkirk’s streets and alleys while keeping a firm grip on her father’s arm with the other. After what seemed like hours, they approached the back of a brick building that was mainly intact despite the destruction to its immediate neighbors.

  “What is this place?” she whispered as they entered through a rear door.

  “It was a restaurant,” Ferrand replied. He smacked his lips in dismay. “No more. The front and the kitchen were destroyed. But it has an underground wine cellar.”

  He felt along the back wall until he reached a corner. Then, stooping, he knocked with a distinct rhythm against a wooden section in the floor.

  Moments later, the panel lifted, a dim light shined out, and a dark figure appeared. Without a word, he motioned for the trio to follow, and then held the trapdoor up while they descended ahead of him. Then, he lowered it in place and followed.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the two girls huddled together, Chantal still in shock, Amélie observing her surroundings. She could not see the full extent of the cellar, its walls leading into darkness, but she sensed that it was large and people moved quietly about. The wine shelves had been pushed against the walls for more room, the bottles still resting in them. Overhead lights remained dim, whether for security reasons or because that was the way they had always been, she could not tell.

  One element immediately surprised her: the people gathered in this place deferred to her father. He called to a woman and asked her to take the girls to another room where they could rest. Before they left him, a man approached and spoke to Ferrand in hushed tones. Other men and women came to inform or ask for guidance. As Amélie tugged Chantal to their resting place, she could only stare back at her father with wonder.

  Two hours later, Amélie awoke with a start as a hand pulled at her shoulder and called her name. She recognized her father’s voice.

  “Time to go,” he said gently. “Wake up Chantal. You cannot stay here. I’ve arranged travel to the south of France, but we must hurry.”

  Looking into his face through bleary eyes, Amélie perceived his usual kindness, but also an ethereal strength. “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll explain all of that, but hurry. Get your sister up. I’ll wait at the front.”

  He disappeared into the shadows.

  When Amélie and Chantal reached the entrance, they saw Ferrand conversing with their Uncle Claude. Both men fell silent as the girls arrived. A third man stood on the stairs ready to lift the panel.

  “Listen to me.” Ferrand’s urgency was intense. “Claude will take you to our cousin’s farm. You won’t stay there long, and then he’ll take you farther southeast. We’re trying to keep you out of the way of the German advance and the crowds of refugees.”

  As he spoke, Amélie stared at him. “And you, you’re coming with us.”

  Ferrand shook his head and shoved a set of papers their way. “These are your new identity documents. We prepared them while you slept. Study them carefully. You must become Monique Perrier, and your sister is Blanche.”

  “And you?” Amélie asked stonily.

  Ferrand inhaled deeply. “I won’t be coming, my dear daughters.” Tears filled his eyes. “We are in a war, and my place t
o fight is here.”

  Next to them, Chantal let out an anguished cry. “No, Papa. You cannot stay.” She lunged toward him and threw her arms around his neck, her body trembling. “I won’t go. If you don’t come, I won’t go.”

  Ferrand held her and guided her toward the stairs. “You must. I have a job to do, and I’ll do it better if I know you’re safe.”

  Amélie, who had moved with them, fixed her gaze on him. “What job?” Then she stopped and looked around the cavernous cellar. Tables from the restaurant had been brought down with chairs and set around the room as worktables, and furtive figures hovered over them, deep in conversation. “What are those people doing?”

  “Today was traumatic for both of you,” Ferrand said without replying. “Chantal was nearly raped and—” He looked deep into Amélie’s eyes. “You protected your sister, and a man is dead, a German soldier.”

  “And now we lose our father,” Amélie cried, wiping away tears.

  Ferrand closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and exhaled. “You’ll never lose me, but you can’t stay here. The Germans will come looking for you. I need for you and your sister to take care of each other in a safe place. I can work better then.”

  Amélie looked around again, gestured at the people moving about, and locked her eyes back on her father’s face. “You’re building an organization. To fight back.”

  For a moment, Ferrand only returned her gaze. Then he nodded grimly. “No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves. You have to go.”

  13

  Two days later, June 17

  Hauptman Bergmann strode into the morgue, his eyes fixed in anger. A nervous French policeman hurried to keep up. German soldiers stood guard inside and outside each entrance while a stooped, white-haired man wearing thick spectacles waited at a set of swinging doors. Bergmann swept past him without so much as a greeting and walked directly to a single gurney in the room. On it, a covered corpse lay flat.

  Bergmann pulled back the sheet and stared. Then, he dropped the cover and addressed the white-haired man who now hovered over the body on the opposite side of the gurney.

  “Are you the medical examiner?”

  The man nodded.

  “How long has he been dead?”

  “At least two days. Maybe three. He was in the water for most if not all of that time, so it’s hard to be sure.”

  Bergmann turned to the policeman. “Where was he found?”

  “On the north end of the beach.”

  “Were there any rocks there?” As Bergmann asked the question, he spun around to a German sergeant. “Send out a patrol to search the area.” Then he focused his attention again on the French policeman. “Well?”

  “There are no rocks to speak of, sir. Not in that area.”

  Bergmann stared down at the dead man’s mangled head. “Then how,” he asked without looking up, “did he get this flat bruise on his forehead and this long one on his neck?” He threw a withering glance at the medical examiner. “What was the cause of death?”

  Before the man could reply, Bergmann added, “I will have your work checked by our own medical examiner when he arrives. Meanwhile, I want this body kept well preserved. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it,” came the nervous response. “The cause of death appears to be blunt-force trauma, but I have yet to perform an autopsy.”

  “Not drowning?”

  “I believe not. No water drained from his lungs. I’ll know for certain when I open him up.”

  “On second thought, just store him,” Bergmann snapped. “I need competence. Our own pathologist will perform the autopsy.” He wheeled about and walked briskly out of the room.

  “Take me to the jail on Rue Henri Terquem,” he ordered his driver as he climbed into his vehicle. “They call it the maison d'arrêt.” Meanwhile, he radioed his headquarters. “Arrest everyone from that row of houses where Kallsen was last seen. Bring them to the jail at Terquem.” He listened a moment. “I said everyone,” he barked. “Men, women, children. We can’t have people thinking they can kill a German soldier without consequences.”

  He fumed as the vehicle rolled through the streets. His commander had pressed him for details pertaining to Kallsen’s disappearance, and he had been unable to provide any. The situation had been complicated by the Boulier family having vanished.

  When he had arrived at Claude Boulier’s dairy farm on the night Kallsen went missing, it had been recently and hurriedly abandoned, with unwashed dinner plates still in the sink, beds stripped of blankets, and empty hangers lying on the mattresses. In the hay barn, his men found a root cellar, its trapdoor left wide open. In another barn, the milk cows stirred restlessly, their udders full. Bergmann ordered that they be confiscated for German army use.

  Over the next two days, investigations conducted by the feldgendarmerie, the German equivalent of the US Army’s military police, revealed that Ferrand Boulier’s extended family had uprooted hurriedly, and even some of their close friends had vacated their homes. Bergmann ensured that he was informed of developments in the investigation as they occurred. Meanwhile, news trickled up from the south of acts of resistance by the populace. At Normandy, partisans had reportedly blown up fuel-oil tanks to keep them out of German army hands. And here, our soldier is murdered by the French. That cannot be allowed to pass unpunished in my area of operation.

  The Bouliers’ next door neighbor who had been arrested on the night Kallsen went missing had been useless. The man had been afraid of his shadow, but even threats against his wife yielded no information. The two had observed no unusual activity, seen no unknown visitors, or witnessed anything to indicate that the Bouliers had been involved in Kallsen’s disappearance. And yet the Bouliers and their extended family and some close friends had deserted their homes, apparently within an hour of Bergmann’s visit on that street less than two days ago.

  An hour after leaving the morgue, Bergmann walked down the wide, second-tier corridor of the jail. Keys jangled and metal doors clanged as he entered the cell where Ferrand’s neighbor was held. On seeing the German captain, the prisoner cowered in a corner, holding an arm over his battered face.

  Bergmann mocked him. “Your time with us is coming to an end. I have your confession.”

  The man peered at him through bruised eyes. “But I didn’t confess to anything. I don’t know anything.”

  “Ah, but you did. I have three witnesses who will swear that you admitted to seeing Ferrand Boulier attack and beat Kallsen to death with some sort of instrument, and you aided his escape by failing to report immediately and then by delaying your confession. Come along. Your friends and family are waiting to see you.”

  Two guards grabbed the hapless prisoner under his armpits and manhandled him along the walkway behind Bergmann, down a flight of stairs, and into a courtyard. Assembled in a fearful group at the other end were his neighbors and wife. She burst into tears on seeing him and tried to run to him, but she was restrained by the guards.

  Halfway between the trembling cluster of neighbors at one end of the courtyard and the cringing prisoner at the other end, a squad of soldiers had spread out in a line. They held their rifles at their sides.

  The two guards who had dragged out the prisoner stood him against the wall and tied his hands behind him. His body shook and he sobbed uncontrollably, looking alternately between his wife and the captain.

  Bergmann strode to a position in front of the huddled neighbors. “I told you that you must respect my soldiers. This man confessed to witnessing your neighbor, Ferrand Boulier, deliberately beat and kill the one who went missing in your neighborhood two nights ago. We cannot and will not tolerate such violent criminal acts.”

  With a quick nod of Bergmann’s head, a sergeant took charge. The two guards holding up the prisoner retreated behind the firing squad, leaving him weeping and wobbling.

  After three quick commands, the courtyard erupted in gunfire that echoed from the walls. Children sc
reamed and covered their ears. Women shrieked, turned their eyes, and buried them in kerchiefs. Their husbands stood, their faces devoid of expression, emasculated.

  A thin cloud of smoke lifted into the air, spreading the smell of gunpowder. The prisoner lay in a heap on the ground. Behind him, a thick spray of blood ran in rivulets from the wall to the ground.

  Bergmann spoke again. “Go back to your homes. Take care of your children. We want only peace between us. And remember, we will keep order, one way or the other.”

  When Bergmann returned to headquarters, the orderly at the security desk told him that his commander wished to see him immediately. Surprised at the apparent urgency, he navigated the corridors of the office building that had housed the local school administration building. That function had been moved to an empty warehouse, the superintendent and staff told to make do.

  On arrival at the office of Oberstleutnant Meier, the battalion commander, a corporal announced Bergmann and showed him in. Meier looked less than pleased. He was a tall man, slender, with thinning hair, a narrow face that dropped into a strong jaw, and piercing eyes.

  He left the captain standing at attention. “I’ve been informed of your initiative,” he said. “You executed a man without clearing or even informing me of what you intended to do.”

  “Sir—”

  “I’m not done. I’ll tell you when you may speak.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your action will inflame the population to take more extreme measures against us. Our job here is to secure this objective, and we don’t do that by generating more enemies where they did not exist.”

  “They were in place already, sir.”

  “You interrupted me.” Meier shot the captain a stern look. “We have the feldgendarmerie to carry out investigations. They’ve been doing their jobs. You know, and I know, that we had trouble with Kallsen. He’s assaulted women before. You might be interested to know that his comrades were questioned, and that around noon on the day he disappeared, he followed a young girl home from a bakery. He had leered at her when she walked by, and he told his patrol members that he intended to get her.”