by Richard Wake
Five minutes.
The first lorry was set for six minutes, the next for five-and-a-half. The third would be set for five minutes. It really was an easy process — adjust the time, push a button, run. Leon was still there at the third lorry, waiting for me.
“You’re supposed to be gone,” I said.
“Don’t set this one,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just look where we are.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Just look,” he said.
I looked. The first lorry was at the front door or the barracks, the second a few feet behind the first, the third a few feet farther behind the second. The third was, in fact, not in front of the barracks at all, but in front of the next house.
“Look at this place,” Leon said, pointing at the house next door. “It’s made of matchsticks. It’ll go up in a second — and then the whole block will go up, and you know it. Don’t set this one. It’s the only chance of saving them.”
I didn’t have time for this. In my planning, I had given myself only a minute to spare. This was taking seconds. I didn’t have seconds. But maybe Leon was right. And maybe, if I listened to him, I could heal a part of the breach between us. I don’t know if that’s what I figured, or what. But I was starting to feel panicked and just said, “All right, get the fuck out of here.”
“Don’t set it,” Leon said.
“All right. Just go.”
I didn’t set it.
Two minutes.
The rest of it really was going like clockwork, you should excuse the expression. The bombs were all in place — easy to find, easy to work with. I had to check each one, at least in a cursory fashion, to make sure that none of the wiring had come loose in the jostling of the lorry ride, or the carrying. But they were all intact.
So it was set the clock, push the button, move to the next. Front door: set the clock for four minutes, push the button, move to the next. Side window: set the clock for three minutes, push the button, move to the next. Back door: set the clock for two minutes, push the button, move to the next.
It was all perfect, until I reached the final bomb. As I turned from the back of the house into the alley, I saw that there was a problem: there was a splash of light coming from the window on whose sill the bomb was sitting. As I approached, I could see in the reflection from the mirror above the sink that one of the German soldiers was sitting on the toilet, reading.
I checked my watch. I had about 90 seconds — and that was assuming that the British timers were as accurate as advertised.
My first instinct was just to run — leave the alley from the direction I had entered it and just disappear behind the barracks. But then I thought, what if that gave them an escape route out of the barracks? We had no idea what the inside looked like, and we were only guessing about the damage the bombs would do. You could argue that the other six bombs would be enough. But you also could argue that maybe, just maybe, leaving one side unexploded would make all the difference, that one side not burning would offer safe passage to who knew how many of them. And, well, fuck that.
I looked at my watch again. I had 75 seconds.
I just pressed myself against the wall and waited, peering up at the window over my left shoulder. I was going to have to decide in maybe 30 seconds. Just then, the light spilling into the alley was blocked — I could see, just barely, a soldier in a nightshirt. He stood there, scratched himself, kind of peering into the window of the house across the alley. I don’t know what he could see, given that the house was dark, and maybe he couldn’t see anything. Because then he walked away and switched off the bathroom light.
I had been counting in my head. I had 45 seconds. So I set the bomb for 30 seconds, pushed the button and ran out of the alley. I got to the street and knew I didn’t have time to reach my designated hiding spot. So I just dove beneath the front porch of the house next door to the barracks and covered my ears. I probably made it with 10 seconds to spare.
The explosions didn’t go in exact order; British accuracy, my ass. They went first vehicle, front door, second vehicle, back door, opposite side window, and finally the side window where the soldier had just been sitting on the toilet. The third German vehicle did not blow up, but it was moved about 20 feet and pitched over on its side by the explosion next to it. The most dangerous part for me was the flying car parts that peppered the front porch I was hiding beneath and skittered down the sidewalk trailing sparks.
As I crept out from my hiding place, I could hear screaming. The barracks was engulfed in flames, the air hot on my face. The screaming grew louder. The front door opened and two soldiers came out. They were both on fire. The smell of the burning hair and skin was something that would stick with me for a long time. The two of them tumbled down the front steps, then collapsed as they continued to burn. Behind them came two more soldiers. They were not burning. They were staggering, though, one naked, one in a nightshirt, coughing as they emerged from what had become a billowing, acrid cloud.
They, too, fell down the front steps. They were on their knees, choking, gasping. I approached them, trotting. I didn’t have a rifle like the others, but I did have a handgun in my pocket. And I stood above the two stricken German soldiers and put a bullet into the back of each of their heads.
Part III
31
The instructions had been to regroup at the lorry within 10 minutes of the explosions. That would give the men stationed behind the barracks a chance to make sure that no one inside was able to escape out the back. It also would give the town an opportunity to focus completely on the fire, clearing the periphery of any curious eyes. Maurice had said, “We won’t leave until we have everyone, but don’t fiddle around. Ten minutes.”
As I made my way back, I headed into the alley next to the bar across the street from the barracks. It was dark, but I could see Leon standing there, his face lit by the glow from the flames across the street.
“Come on,” I said.
“No, look.”
“I don’t need to see it.”
“You do need to see it,” he said. Then he grabbed me by both shoulders and spun me around to face what we had just done.
Leon had been right. On the one side, the fire had spread to the next two houses, starting with the one whose porch had sheltered me. On the other side — either because of the wind direction or the fact that the third lorry had not exploded — the houses were not burning.
The street was full of people in their bedclothes — men and women, children and grandparents, generations witnessing the conflagration. The benefit of the multiple, cacophonous explosions had been to wake everyone and get them outside — at least, that was my hope. On the sidewalk and in the street, a dozen little dramas were playing out.
At the farthest burning house, a woman screamed as a man ran back inside. The third floor was just starting to go, but the two floors below it had not. The woman’s wailing was heart-wrenching — within seconds, the man rushed back out. He was carrying something, and he handed it to the woman, and the screams ebbed into sobs. It was a photo album, and she clutched it to her chest.
On the other side of the barracks where the fire had not yet spread, another woman pointed and cried. She was waving at the roof, beckoning someone to come down. Looking up, it was two someones. Lit by the flames across the narrow alley, you could see a man and a teenage boy standing on the roof, likely father and son. They were holding buckets, undoubtedly filled with water. The woman in the street was crying and waving for them to come down but they were staying, guarding against a stray ember that might float across the alley and onto their roof.
“Let’s go,” I said, and now it was my turn to grab Leon by the shoulders and turn him into the alley. He didn’t react. He just turned back and stared, his face bathed in the orange light. You could feel the heat of the fire, even across the street.
“Come on,” I said, and he did begin running then, jus
t as the wail of another woman filled the night. It was when we were running that it hit me: there was no one tending to the dead Germans out front, no yelling in the German language, no one in his bedclothes carrying a rifle. Eighteen soldiers. Eighteen dead soldiers. Fucking right.
Leon and I were the last two back to the lorry. The other six were ready and waiting, and their adrenaline was overpowering. They were keeping their voices down but there was a non-stop chatter nonetheless, excited, insistent, all back-pats and holy-shits and then some muffled cheers when I got into the front seat with Leon. Maurice was in the driver’s seat.
“All set,” was all he said. Then he shifted into first gear and we began, up quickly into the hills. At one point, after about five minutes, the road opened up on one side and we all could look down on the little town. I couldn’t see if the rest of the houses next to the barracks had caught fire, but the blaze was still lighting the night sky. Like the smell of the burning hair and skin of the German soldiers who had tumbled out the front door, I would never forget the particular shade of orange that painted the dark sky.
Maurice stopped the lorry for a few seconds so we could take it all in. After he restarted, he looked at me and said, “So what happened with the third lorry.”
“Didn’t explode,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Beats me. They’re not perfect devices. You saw how they blew up in the wrong order. I don’t know.”
“That was your lorry, right?” Maurice was looking past me now, addressing Leon. His reply was a silent stare.
We were quiet the rest of the way back to the camp. Introspection was not something I was seeking, so I made a point to try to listen to the chatter of the rest of the men in the back of the lorry. I could only hear snatches, but their excitement was still persistent. I had felt the feeling before during a sabotage operation — when the bomb exploded, it was as if everyone involved in the plan had just scored during injury time — and I understood it. Part of me felt it, too — a lot of me. Maybe the difference was that I had seen the neighbors in the street and they hadn’t. I honestly felt nothing about the Germans I had shot. It was the neighbors.
We pulled into the camp and Maurice announced, “The last case of Armagnac dies tonight!” The men cheered, and then they told those who had stayed behind all the details. Leon grabbed a bottle and motioned me over to the edge of the woods.
“You going to help me with my piss this time?” I said.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“What?”
“I can’t take this anymore,” he said. “I can’t stay.”
I had steeled myself for this. And I had told myself for the last few days that I had been ready to have the two of us part when I brought up joining Maurice’s group in the first place. I was hoping, deep down somewhere, that he would make the decision to join me, but I honestly believed at the time that it had been a long shot. I was ready.
But since he had agreed to stay with me, well, it made this a harder moment. I had, in just a short time, become used to our new arrangement: me more of the zealot, him more of the skeptic, but together.
“Why?” I said. “Just Maurice?”
“Not just Maurice.”
“Then what?”
“It’s you,” Leon said.
There was a long pause then. He seemed to be searching for the right words. I was searching for my breath, which had been forced out of my body as if I had been gut-punched by one of those Aryan specimens that I had shot on the sidewalk. Finally, Leon ended the silence.
“You set those bombs like the target was some railroad bridge, not a building full of people,” he said.
“Full of soldiers,” I said.
“And you shot those two Germans like it was nothing. You executed two choking, unarmed, on-their-hands-and-knees soldiers, and you’re not even shaking. You haven’t even mentioned it. To me, that’s a war crime.”
“At least you admit it’s a war.”
“I can’t take it,” he said. “I can’t watch what you’ve become. And when the reprisals come, I can’t—”
“We didn’t choose the fight.”
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t do it again. I just can’t. I’m going to Paris.”
“When?”
“Right now.” Leon stood up, took a drink, and handed me the bottle. He said, “You remember the name of the bar, right?”
I did. He had told me about the place years earlier. For the first couple of years of the war, it was where I sent him coded letters when I lived in Lyon. The bartender at The White Oak on Rue Suger could always get him a message, he said.
“Take a drink,” Leon said, and I did. He reached over and I handed him the bottle. Then he turned and walked down the little dirt logging road, away and into the night. My instinct was to call after him, but I didn’t. If he couldn’t see that this was a war, a real war, then maybe we both had been kidding ourselves all along.
When I walked back to the cabin, Maurice was inside, in full regaling mode. He had gotten to the point of the story where he was describing the explosions at the barracks, and he thrust both arms upward and yelled, “BOOM!” He yelled it six times, once for each of the bombs that went off, and all six were greeted immediately by a cheer from the circle of men at his feet. With each yell, and each upward thrust, another ounce from the bottle of Armagnac that he was holding in his right hand sprayed into the air.
32
Richard was sent out on a reconnaissance mission the next day. He left at noon. It probably should have been earlier, but the Armagnac made that impossible. Maurice wanted one of the young kids to go with Richard, but he insisted on going alone.
“I can’t even consider the roads, even the smallest roads,” he said. “This is all back-country, through the woods. Alone is better. You can see that.”
Maurice relented. We spent the day nursing our hangovers and waiting for word. The radio was no help — the Germans must have changed their frequencies, and we never stumbled on any of their transmissions. I avoided Maurice until I couldn’t. He obviously knew Leon was gone. As he liked to say, it’s not like this was a battalion.
“Did he say why?”
“Yeah,” I said. Then I waited.
“You going to tell me?”
“No,” I said. I waited some more.
“Your friend, your problem,” he said. “But he’s not going to give us up, is he? I mean, you still trust him?”
“With my life,” I said. And I meant it. I meant it more than anything I had ever said. I think Maurice sensed that too, or maybe that’s just what I was hoping. Whatever, he just walked away.
Most of the food we had was spoiled, or near-spoiled. What was the difference? Spoiled meat smelled at arm’s length. Near-spoiled meat required you to put the filet up to your nose. But either way, the instructions from Maurice were the same: “Just cook the hell out of it.” It was the same for the potatoes and vegetables. Everything we ate that evening was cooked to charcoal. But it was all we had, and there was none left at the end of the meal.
Richard returned at about 7, scratched up a bit from his journey through the forests but otherwise unharmed. The first thing he did when he arrived was give Maurice a handbill that he had ripped from a wall in the town.
“It was still wet when I got it,” he said. “The German soldier had a bunch of them, along with a bucket and a brush. He was slopping them up on every block of buildings. I followed behind him and it peeled right off.”
“Well, that was fast,” Maurice said. He read the paper and then passed it to me, and the rest read the headline over my shoulder as I held it:
WANTED FOR THE MURDER OF FOUR BRAVE GERMAN SOLDIERS
WHO WERE DOING THEIR DUTY
AND PROTECTING THE PEOPLE OF MANSLE
The handbill went on to call for anyone with information to report it immediately at a new German barracks on Rue Vert.
“Where’s Rue Vert?” I said, seeing out Richar
d.
“Two blocks from the explosion,” he said.
“And what’s it look like now?”
“The fire’s out,” he said. “Everything on the block to the left of the barracks is burned down — about six houses altogether. Everything to the right is fine. It smells terrible all over the town. People are just wandering around — and the people in front of the burned-down houses are just kind of standing there in a daze.”
“Soldiers?”
“Everywhere,” Richard said. “Going house to house. Walking around with their rifles in their hands, held out in front of them, not slung on their shoulders. Vehicles checking everyone coming in and going out at the end of the main street. The soldiers look pretty shaken up.”
“I hope so,” Maurice said.
“But how can it only be four brave soldiers?” I said. “There’s no way it was only four. There were four on the sidewalk out front. Nobody saw any of the rest leave, right?”
I looked around. Everyone nodded.
“It’s propaganda,” Maurice said. “They can’t admit to 18 dead because it makes them look too weak, too vulnerable. So they admit to the four on the sidewalk who everybody saw, and that’s it.”
I had avoided reading to the bottom of the handbill because I suspected what was coming. Finally, I forced myself. It was just one sentence, again in all capital letters:
AS A MATTER OF SIMPLE JUSTICE, 10 FRENCH PRISONERS WILL BE EXECUTED FOR EVERY GERMAN LIFE LOST.
“Forty in reprisal,” I said to no one in particular.
“It’s usually worse,” Maurice said.
“It’s still not nothing,” I said.
“It’s still a war, last time I checked,” Maurice said. Then he put his arm around Richard and they walked off by themselves for more conversation. The rest wandered away, all except the guy everyone called JP. I didn’t know his real name. He was the one who had used Clarisse to deliver the letters to his girlfriend in Limoges.
I asked him, “Where are they even going to find 40 people in Mansle? I mean, that would be about half the town.”