by Richard Wake
“That’s not how they do it,” JP said. “They pretty much clean out the jails and kill those poor bastards. They’ll go through every little town around here and scoop up every wife beater, every armed robber, every vandal, whoever they have locked up. They’ll do that, and they’ll get the rest from Limoges if they have to.”
“And then?”
“And then they just shoot them,” he said.
By that point, Maurice was back. He asked JP to leave.
“Richard says they found the unexploded bomb,” he said.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning he was hiding in a doorway across the street when they turned the unexploded vehicle back on its four wheels and found the bomb lying on the street. He said they all ran away when they saw it, and then they waited for someone with a special shield and big gloves to get close to it. Richard said he thought the guy kind of took it apart right there on the street and then brought the pieces over to someone in an officer’s uniform.”
“So?” I said.
“So, now they know a couple of things. They know what kind of explosive we used. They know what kind of detonator we had. They know that the timer was made in Britain.”
“And that it’s an imprecise piece of shit.”
“Regardless,” Maurice said. “They know some things now. It isn’t the end of the world — it’s not like they didn’t know the Brits were supplying the Resistance. I’m sure planes have crashed making deliveries. I’m sure they’ve come across a lost canister somewhere along the line. But it’s sloppy. That’s how you give yourself away. We can’t be sloppy. You got it?”
I got it. But I still didn’t care. At least half of the block, the part to the right of the barracks, was still standing. And if Leon had been there, instead of on the road somewhere between the logging camp and Paris, I would have told him that he had won me over on that part, if nothing else.
But I couldn’t tell him what I was thinking, just as I couldn’t tell Manon what I was thinking. And so it went, another endless night.
33
We needed to eat. That was the imperative. The berries-on-the-bushes thing was really only an emergency tactic when you were on the run, but Maurice still had the men take turns going on hour-long excursions in the woods to bring back whatever they could find. Besides the berries, there weren’t enough squirrels or rabbits in the woods — not that we had the ammunition to waste on them, or the desire to be firing weapons and potentially giving away our hiding place.
We had money, thanks to the canister that fell from the sky, but that was only half of the equation. We needed ration tickets, too. There was a farmer’s market every Thursday in Saint-Claud, about 10 miles to the west, and you really needed the coupons to make it work. From what JP said, you could maybe bribe them for an extra cabbage or two, but that was it.
“Everybody knows they’re scamming,” JP said. “They’re supposed to turn over everything they grow, every animal they harvest, but even the Germans know that they don’t. They’re willing to live with the farmers keeping a little extra for their families, and their friends, and maybe even a little for the black market. But one of the farmers told me the last time, when I tried to bribe him, ‘Sorry, brother, but I can’t be a pig about this — because the pigs get slaughtered.’”
So they needed ration tickets. But seeing as how they were all away from home, and fugitives besides, it wasn’t as if they could present themselves in their hometown city halls for the monthly ration paperwork. It just wasn’t worth the risk — because the Germans watched the ration bookkeeping with the sharpest of eyes. It was the best way for them to keep track of people in occupied France because everybody needed the tickets, and everybody needed to provide a current address to obtain them.
Unless, of course, you were willing to forge them or steal them. On this day, our choice was stealing and our town was Saint-Claud. The city hall would likely be sleepy because it was the middle of the month, still almost two weeks before the next coupons were issued and the queue would wind out onto the dusty sidewalk.
“You never know what the reaction is going to be when you try this,” JP said. It was for that reason that Maurice always liked to go on these excursions, even though, in the worst case, it was just going to be a little smash-and-grab operation. It wasn’t as if these city halls were banks. They didn’t have big safes. In general, the ration tickets were locked in a small metal box that, as often as not, was locked in one of the mayor’s desk drawers. And the truth was that, even if the mayor or the other town workers were Vichy sympathizers, nobody was going to get themselves killed over a handful of ration cards.
We drove in the back way, as per usual. You wondered how the Germans caught anybody, given the number of unmarked dirt roads. We parked, we walked the two blocks to the city hall, and we went right in the front door. The three of us were armed with pistols but they were all concealed in our coat pockets.
The woman at the front counter sensed there might be an issue almost before the “can-I-help-you” had escaped from her lips. But she was smiling easily, which was a good sign. Her call of, “Mr. Mayor, a minute of your time please,” was made without a hint of alarm.
The mayor, overweight and with a cigarette dangling from his lips, arrived at the counter, took one look at the three of us, and said, “Gentlemen,” directing us into his office.
“She comes, too,” JP said. And so, the clerk walked with us.
We sat down and the mayor pulled out a bottle from a cabinet behind a desk. This was going to be fine.
“I only have three glasses,” he said.
“None for me, Mr. Mayor,” the clerk said.
“That’s fine, then. I’ll drink out of the bottle. Not like it’s the first time.”
So he poured, and we all drank. The mayor took a second long sip then asked, “So what will it be today, gentlemen?”
“Ration tickets,” Maurice said.
“The supply is almost exhausted, I think.” The mayor looked over at the clerk, questioning with his eyes.
“Not completely exhausted,” she said.
“Quickly, then,” he said. The clerk looked at Maurice for permission — even having said almost nothing, everyone automatically knew that he was the leader — and he nodded. She got up and left the room. Maurice looked at me and flicked his head toward the door, and I followed her. There was a telephone on the counter, after all. As it turned out, the strong box was kept unlocked and unhidden on a shelf below the front counter. There were ration coupons available for six adult males, one pregnant woman and one young child.
I handed them to Maurice. Pregnant women received a larger monthly ration of most foods, and that was a prize. But Maurice held up the young child’s coupons and grinned like, well, like a young child. “Milk,” he said. “My God, I can’t remember the last time I drank a glass of milk.”
“We need to go,” JP said, tapping his wristwatch. It was nearly noon and the farmers would be packing up and heading home in a few minutes. Hopefully, they hadn’t been picked clean — but Maurice had even thought of that. On the ride down, he said, “It’s the time of the month when people are stretching the coupons they have left. They don’t have as much to spend as at the beginning of the month. We should be fine.”
“Wait a minute — you can’t just leave,” the mayor said. I didn’t get it, but Maurice and JP looked at each other and smiled.
“There’s some rope in the storage closet over there,” the mayor said. “And hurry.”
I quickly realized what was going on. And so, as quickly as we could, we tied the clerk to one chair and the mayor to another chair. This was all for the benefit for the people who eventually discovered them and, more than that, for the Germans.
“How long do you think you’ll be here?” I said.
“Oh, less than an hour,” the mayor said. “The police chief and I have lunch most days at about 12:30. He’s just down the street. I’m supposed to meet him in his office for
a sandwich. When I don’t show up, he’ll come looking.”
We were done and getting ready to leave. The mayor said, “Gag us both.” And when that was done, he managed to talk through the gag and said, “One more thing.”
Maurice stopped him. “Are you sure?” he said.
“Positive.”
Maurice sighed. “Not her,” he said.
“No, just me.”
“Where?”
“The right side of my face,” the mayor said. “That’s my bad eye, anyway.”
Maurice looked at JP, and JP shrugged in return. He looked around and grabbed a heavy book off one of the shelves in the corner. It was the municipal manual, or some such thing, heavy and bound in black leather. JP took one big swing and clocked the mayor on the right side of his face, the binding making solid contact a little below the cheekbone.
The mayor closed his eyes as JP began to swing. The blow toppled him over and he laid on his side, still tied to the chair. The right side of his face was flat on the wood floor, and soon there was blood pooling — but it wasn’t gushing out of his mouth. Hopefully nothing was broken except for maybe a tooth — but the evidence would be sufficient for anyone, German or otherwise, who might have any questions.
Maurice and JP made for the door. I leaned over and took one last look at the mayor before we left. Just then, he opened his eyes.
“Vive la France,” he said, through the gag that was stained red, the stain only growing.
34
As it turned out, the farmer’s market had been less well-stocked than we had hoped. We did manage to get enough meat and vegetables to feed all of us a decent meal for about three days — or at least what had come to pass for decent — along with some fruit for breakfast. But there was no milk, and Maurice was in a mood for the entire ride back to the logging camp.
The first meal was cooked up as soon as we returned, a veal stew with new potatoes and carrots. We were finished eating by about 3 p.m. and, as was our perpetual state, exhausted. With full stomachs, and without comment, everyone found a place to lie down and nap. Most chose the cabin, but the thought of spending a few more hours in a closed room with a dozen snoring, farting men left me seeking a spot outdoors, beneath a tree.
I found one, maybe 100 feet from the cabin. Richard obviously had the same idea — he was doing what I was doing, sitting and leaning against a tree trunk about 50 feet away. I thought I might be halfway asleep, a minor miracle for me — especially in the middle of the day — but I really wasn’t. I was just staring into the green expanse on the far side of the cabin. It was then that I saw it, a quick shiny glint in the afternoon sun. I saw it once, then twice. It was moving, and I attempted to predict its next location, and I did. And in a small gap in the brush, I saw it, probably a button on the uniform of a German soldier. I couldn’t see the button, but I did see the soldier, just for a half-second.
My first instinct was to signal Richard somehow, leaning against the tree down the way, but I swallowed it. The last thing I wanted to do was signal what I had seen. The next-to-last thing I wanted to do was stay sitting in the same spot. So I stood up and began unbuttoning my pants as I walked, as if I was headed for a piss. I walked along the trees and sought a spot about 20 feet away, calculating the angles in my head and praying that I was now going to have the cabin in between me and the shiny button I had just seen.
I must have calculated well because there was no gunfire as I made a quick right turn and sprinted for the cabin door. I got inside and went directly to Maurice. He was snoring. I shook him and leaned over and whispered what I had seen, and then he went from man to man, rousing them as quietly as he could.
That’s when the firing started. They had Sten guns, and the rotted wood walls of the cabin were exploding as we stood there. Within seconds, there was a six-foot hole in the wall. At least two men were down. The rest, me included, fled out the only door and into the woods. Richard was there already, hiding behind a tree.
“What the—” he said.
“Just run,” I said.
And run we did, for probably a half-hour at a trot, not stopping, not looking back, not going near a road, just burying ourselves deeper and deeper in the trees. No one spoke. We simply followed in a line behind Maurice, and we didn’t stop until he finally did, in a tiny clearing that was maybe 50 feet on each of its four sides.
As everyone collapsed on the ground, exhausted, I did the quick math. There were still 10 of us. One of the two who were missing was the young kid who had been crying himself to sleep. The other was Ronny, the idealistic one who got drunk with Leon and I after the council meeting in Saint-Junien and brought us to Maurice.
Maurice saw me counting on my fingers.
“They were both dead,” he said. “Both got it in the head. I saw that much. Goddamn—”
“I wonder—”
“I don’t know,” Maurice said. “I don’t know.”
He looked around and began checking on each of the men. Everyone was supposed to have a knapsack packed at all times, including a pistol and ammunition. Seven of the men had managed to grab theirs on the way out, and the one they called Roger had the biggest prize: the bag containing the radio, the hand-cranked battery recharger, and the remainder of the money. I still had my pistol and Maurice had his. So that left us with nine small guns, the money, the radio, and pretty much nothing else. Food in particular.
“Take the radio,” Maurice said. He was looking at me. “Scan around. Try to find a German frequency. Try to find anything. You know how, right?”
“Like riding a bicycle,” I said.
“What’s Morse code for W?”
“Dot-dash-dash.”
“Off you go, then.”
“And what if they use a code?”
“Then we’re screwed,” Maurice said. “But if they’re in the field, or in a hurry, sometimes they don’t bother.”
I cranked the crank for about five minutes, which would give me 15 or 20 minutes of listening time. I put on the headphones, switched on the radio and waited for it to warm up. The dial glowed in the shade of the woods, and then the static began to come through. I twisted the dial slowly, and the static got louder and softer, louder and softer, but I wasn’t coming up with anything. Five minutes, 10 minutes, nothing. I was getting ready to quit for a few minutes and begin the recharging process when I heard a transmission through the headphones, faint by definite. And after a few letters, I knew it was definitely in German.
I didn’t hear much. I had pretty clearly come upon the end of a transmission. The part I heard lasted maybe three or four minutes, but I was sure about what I did hear. It really was like riding a bicycle. It was, “…two dead. Repeat, two. Identification papers for two more. Eight rifles. Two Sten guns. One lorry. The setup was as we had been told. Full report later. Over and out.”
There was that one sentence, and that was the one I couldn’t shake. I repeated it over and over to make sure I would remember it exactly. I yanked off the headphones and ran over to Maurice — repeating it, repeating it. And then I told him what I had heard:
The setup was as we had been told.
“You know what that fucking means,” I said.
“Calm down, Alex.”
“But you can’t be—”
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions,” Maurice said. “Mostly because I like you. But you have to know who the most likely candidate is.”
Leon. God, I hadn’t thought of it.
“There’s no fu—”
“Like I said, calm down,” he said.
“But there’s—”
“Stop it — of course there’s a chance,” Maurice said. “He might have gotten captured, tortured. Or he might have just given us up because he thinks I’m some kind of dangerous animal. The reason doesn’t matter.”
Leon. My God, Leon.
“But like I said, no jumping to conclusions,” he said. “It could be Leon. Or we could have been spotted leaving Mansle after the
explosions. Or we could have been spotted leaving Saint-Claud with the food. Let’s just relax for a second.”
“Relax?” I said. “How can we—”
“We’re safe for now. Nobody knows where we are. The 10 of us will stay together for today. Tomorrow, I was leaving for a trip to Limoges anyway — another Resistance meeting. You come with me. I’ll ask around when we get there.”
When Maurice told the plan to the rest of them, Richard was upset that he wasn’t going to Limoges.
“Sweet on that whore?” I said. He just stared through me.
“I need you here,” Maurice said. “You keep the money. You can work the radio. Somebody has to be in charge, and you’re the only one who can do it.”
He put an arm around Richard’s shoulders and they walked away, Maurice chopping the air with his free hand as he recited the orders for what to do when he was gone.
35
The meeting in Limoges had been very much like the meeting in Saint-Junien — everyone sitting in a circle, although in chairs this time and not student desks, and everyone offering as little truth about their own operations as was humanly possible while still professing a spirit of cooperation.
My back muscles were tied in a complete knot, mostly because of the lorry in which Maurice and I had been secreted for the drive into Limoges but partly because of the flimsy chair that I was sitting in. I was in the second concentric circle of chairs around the imaginary center. There was a third circle, too — well, a semi-circle behind us — in which the low men from a couple of the groups were sitting.
We were in an abandoned wing of a porcelain factory. There weren’t enough men in town anymore to run the place at full capacity — it was a problem for almost every business, and it made for an abundance of available meeting places. But this place meant that everyone would have white porcelain dust on their shoes for the rest of the day.