Ahead of the invasion, most people fled. I should’ve fled. I had a little money, dwindling inheritance left to me by Papa after he joined Mama in the afterlife. But I didn’t want to run away from my home. I heard the British had landed to support us, to help push back the encroaching Germans. If a stranger from across the channel could come fight for my home, how could I not stay?
When the local militia began erecting a large canvas tent to house the wounded, I went down to volunteer. I thought I would be carrying water or cooking meals. The head of the militia asked me in quiet tones if I was a nurse. No, I told him. I wasn’t. He then announced to his men assembled there that they had the hospital’s first nurse. The twenty men gathered around on the street cheered.
And that’s how things are in war. In this new war. Concepts of chivalry and heroism vanish. Massive iron behemoths crawl across the ground, spitting death at targets almost across the horizon. There was no warning, no notice and no discrimination.
The day before a cafe on the other side of town had been boarding up, the owner wanting to secure the property before leaving town. The artillery shell pierced the wall in the apartment above his cafe, then detonated inside it. He and his family were turned into a fine red mist, nothing left of them to fit in a tin can.
“Fucking shit,” Frederique said, spitting onto the cobblestones.
“Father!” I said. “That is language unbecoming of a man of the cloth.”
“I hate this. I hate this waiting. I hate knowing that something is coming, something terrible,” he said. He looked up at the sky. “Is it the suffering, you think?”
“What?” I said. I’d been looking at a rat crawling along the other side of the street. It had a small piece of butcher’s paper in its mouth. It darted into the crumbling brick wall laced around an estate across the street.
“The point of all this,” he said.
“The point of what?” I said.
“The point of all this shit,” he said, waving his hands around. He was at his wits end. “Are we just meant to suffer? To make us better people?”
“What does the Bible say?” I said, trying to keep him focused.
“The Bible says precious little about artillery and poison gas,” he said, quietly. “What if we just ran?”
I laughed, full belly howls reverberating on the empty street. “Oh Frederique, I think it’s a little too late to do that.”
“Le Guin says he can arrange a boat. Right on the river,” he said conspiratorily.
“Le Guin is full of shit, and you’re an idiot for believing him. No boat is coming anywhere near this town,” I said. Frederique looked hurt, but I was too tired to care. His naivette was going to get him killed, sooner rather than later. “Besides,” I said, pointing to the tent behind us, “We have responsibilities.”
“What can we do for them? Joan, I had a man make me promise I would give this letter to his mother!” he said, pulling a letter out of his coat. “I don’t know who his mother is. I don’t know his fucking name! He’s dead now. What am I supposed to do?”
“Just be there for them, Frederique. That’s all any of us can do,” I said. The rat darted back into the street and ran down the gutter. Brave little bastard. Brave or greedy.
The next street over, machine guns guarding the bridge spun up, spitting lead at the Germans. They were joined by more small arms fire from our side, which intensified and didn’t let up. We heard screams coming from the canal, and we bolted through the estate garden to see what was happening.
Across the Mons-Conde canal, the outskirts of Mons was ablaze. The Germans had sacked and looted the few buildings, and now the smoke from the wreckage had obscured the German front lines. Under this cover, they’d regrouped and led a charge across the bridge half a mile down the canal.
Piles of German dead and wounded lay over the bridge, like a spoiled child who took too many lead soldiers from his toy chest. It was hard for me to grasp that those were all people, that so many lives could be extinguished because some general back in Berlin demanded it.
As the British guns began to relax, the Germans pulled back to lick their wounds and try again. The British soldiers cheered and hollered in triumph, taunting the retreating Germans. Their celebration was cut short as two hollow thuds emanated from behind the German line.
The telltale whistle of incoming artillery gave everyone notice to dive for cover. Frederique and I lay down next to the brick wall encompassing the garden. I covered my head and concentrated on my breathing.
The ground shook violently, and I crouched to peek over the wall. The British sandbags on our side of the canal had taken a direct hit. The machine gun nest had been obliterated, and the street was covered in tan uniformed bodies. A battlecry erupted from the German side as they ran across the bridge, closing the distance on the dazed and dying British soldiers.
I grabbed Frederique, but he was frozen in place, looking behind me. I spun around, and could see dust and smoke coming from the street where our hospital was.
I turned and looked over the brick wall. Further down the canal I could see German units advancing across the other bridges. Massive swarms of brown uniforms surging across towards our side of the canal. The sight filled me with terror and dread.
Frederique started to stumble back towards the street where our hospital was. I stood up and ran after him, grabbing him by the arm as he tipped sideways and almost fell into a patch of blackberry bushes. The smoke ahead was still thick, and the surge of screams and gunfire behind us was growing in intensity.
As we ran past the brick walled garden, our eyes fell upon our makeshift hospital. Or what was left of it. A massive crater filled the center of the street, and charred ashy smoke choked our lungs, making it hard to breathe. I put a hand up over my eyes trying to see. I tried to see if there were any survivors, but I couldn't even make out any bodies. All those men were gone, all those men no longer existed. It was as if they never existed.
"Frederique," I said, not sure what else to say. I brought my hand up to my face, my vision going blurry. Damn these weapons and the men who use them straight to hell!
"Oh God. Oh God," Frederique said his, his hands pulling at his hair like a madman. He wailed in the street, kneeling at the edge of the crater. He looked around as if the twenty wounded men he cared for minutes ago would just walk out from behind a building. "This is not a battle for men. This is a battle for demons.“
"Frédéric, we have to go!" I said. I could hear more gunfire, it was getting closer. But more urgently, I began to hear German voices. Orders being yelled by officers. They were on our side of the canal, and they were going to sweep through to clear out any remaining resistance. "We have to go. Now," I said, pleading.
"Why?" He said in a whisper. "Where are we going to go?"
My hands went under his arms and I lifted him up. I began to run with him by my side, running as fast as we could. We darted down the street and ran between a pair of houses, trying to cut through the residential areas to make our way across the city as fast as we could.
I could hear Frederique crying next to me. It was the most sad sound that ever heard. The cries of a man who felt despair deep into his soul, who felt like his God had abandoned him. Shuddering moans escaped his lips and tears fell like from a faucet. We ran out across another thoroughfare, and Frederique stopped.
"I'm not going any further, Joan," he said. There was a bench next to us, the kind that people would sit upon as they strolled up and down this lush green thoroughfare. Lovers would sit on benches like these, scandalously close and whisper their promises into each other's ears. But now, Frederique sank into it like a prisoner sentenced to death. "I'm tired of running."
I heard rifles going off on the street behind us. "Frederique, we have to go. We can't stop moving now. The Germans will kill us." I said. My hands grabbed his arm but is he locked his hands around the arm of the bench. My knuckles went white, my arms pulled as hard as they could. I could not dislodge him.
>
"Go Joan!" He said. "Get out of here."
"Please," I said. I felt tears drip down my face my nose running in a blubbery mess. I hadn't considered I would have to go on alone. I couldn't go on alone.
I heard footsteps behind us advancing quickly, voices speaking sharply in German. I looked down at Frederique: his eyes were closed. He looked calm, resolute. At peace with his decision.
I crouched and ran behind a merchant's cart abandoned on the side of the street. Some sacks of grain were loaded into the back and I got into the cart, pulling the sacks over me. I saw Frederique sitting on the bench as calm as if he were waiting for a friend. He took out his cigarette case, and opened it.
As if slammed from an invisible blow, he folded forward as three rifle shots hit him from behind. His cigarette case flew out of his hand and clanked onto the cobblestones. Two German soldiers emerged from the gangway we had just come through. They spread out to check the rest of the street.
I put my hand over my mouth and screamed. Moments ago he’d been scared and tired, just like me. Now he was gone. All his dreams and hopes extinguished.
The soldier closest to me ran over to Frederique’s body and grabbed his cigarette case. Seeing it was empty, he threw it down onto the street. The other soldier called to him and they went further down the block.
As soon as they disappeared, I crawled out from the cart and ran the other way down the block. I ran from the Germans, from Frederique’s body. Lying in the street, accusing me of leaving him to die alone.
I never stopped crying. I wept for Frederique. I wept for Mons. But most of all I wept for myself. Even if I did escape Mons, what then? Was anywhere safe from these damned artillery shells? Machines that could throw death miles away, without regard for the victim.
At the end of the street I came to an intersection. I knew my only chance was to stay ahead of the Germans, to rush to the other end of the city and flee into the farmland on the outskirts. The thick foliage of the grape vines would hide me as I kept going, The grapes would feed me, and eventually I’d make it to Paris.
This was good, I told myself as I ran down the street. I had a goal, something I could work towards. Farther down the street, I saw a couple running away as well, suitcases in their hands. They reached the crossing of the next street and the woman screamed.
Someone shouted at them in German, and they ran into the middle of the street. Rifle fire tore through their clothes and suitcases, tiny puffs of fabric erupting out of them. They wilted onto the cobbestone street.
I dove into a stairwell leading to a building basement. I landed hard on my shoulder, bending my head sideways at a painful angle. Fire shot up my forearm all the way to my shoulder. I held my arm close to me, listening for the Germans to move past.
Eventually they did, heading back towards the canal. I emerged from the stairwell and realized my shoulder was dislocated. I couldn’t run. Even walking too quickly made my shoulder howl out in pain. I grit my teeth and walked as quickly as I dared, holding my limp left arm with my right hand.
I passed by the couple, shot dead in the street. They lay face down, their backs full of small holes. Their clothes had been rifled through, their suitcases looted for valuables. A few photographs and letters lay in the street, A wind came through, picking them up and scattering them further down the avenue.
“I’m still alive,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m still alive.”
In front of me, the massive Bibliotheque du Mons towered over the nearby buildings. Thick stone blocks made up it’s three story walls, and the French flag flew from the roof. Basement windows peeked up from the street, papered up to keep prying eyes out.
Just past the library was the main road out of Mons. I could see the farmland off in the distance, stretching to the horizon. Rows of purple grapes, acres of bright yellow sunflowers. It seemed untouched by war, a place of refuge.
I hurried across the boulevard, the tall library casting a shadow over the street. The gunfire had become intermittent. I hadn’t heard any artillery shells in hours. That told me that the resistance had either fled or been destroyed. There would be no survival staying here in Mons.
I crept further along, seeing the edge of town get closer and closer. I would have to make a sling for my arm once I made it to the fields. I knew Paris was southwest from Mons. If I walked at night and hid during the day, I should be safe.
At the rear of the building, I heard a rumbling coming down the street that ran behind it. Hurtling towards the intersection was a truck full of German soldiers. The truck bristled with weapons, like an angry porcupine.
My heart sank. I wouldn’t get across the street in time. I would be shot dead if I tried. There would be no salvation for me. I fell down, leaning back against the library wall. My right hand curled up and slammed downwards with all my might.
Instead of it hammering against the stone of the wall, it smacked something and pushed through. I looked down and saw the basement window, yawning open. Dusty volumes of books blocked the view into the room.
Ahead, the truck screeched to a halt in the intersection, men piling out as orders were shouted in German. I pushed the window open further and slid into the dark room. For a moment I was in freefall, crashing through towers of books. The floor rushed up at me, knocking the air out of my lungs. No air in my lungs meant I couldn’t scream as my left arm was bent back behind me, fully out of socket.
Everything went black.
My eyes opened slowly, and it took them a moment to adjust to the darkness of the store room. My face was pressed against a thick leather bound tome. I tried to pick myself up off the ground and hot lances of fire shot through my shoulder and neck. I grabbed a book with my right hand and put it in my mouth, biting down as my left arm shifted forward. Like a machine with broken gears, it came forward reluctantly. I breathed through flared nostrils, large life affirming breaths. I spat the book out.
“I’m still alive,” I said.
As I stood up I held my dangling arm close to my body. The room began to sway and so I sat back against a table covered in books. Once my vision had returned to normal, I walked to the other side of the room and listened at the door.
I couldn't hear anything outside. I opened the door and went into the adjoining hallway. Everywhere I looked there were shelves of books. Encyclopedias, law books, fiction books, poetry and anything else a reader could want. I'd never come down here to the storage room before, but the public areas above I knew had many more books. Several doors were closed along the hallway, leading into other storage rooms. At the end of the hallway was a door to the stairway leading up to the main library.
I shuffled down the hallway headed towards the stairwell. I could smell the musty scent of moldy books and old leather. Outside I could dimly make out vehicles moving. Occasionally there were gunshots and sometimes yelling.
I got to the stairway door and turn the knob. It opened with a loud creaking sound. I stuck my head out in the stairwell and could see sunlight pouring in from the windows in the main library above. I slowly ascended the stairs, listening as I went, listening for any sign of German presence. The marble stairs were solid, my feet quiet against them. I got to the top of the landing, a wooden door with a small window that looked out into the main area of the library. I edged over to the door and looked in.
The main area of the library was full of dark hardwood tables, each adorned with handcrafted scrollwork on the edges. The chairs were plush leather and equally magnificent. Dark paneling ran along the walls and several fireplaces were scattered on the outside of large room. During the winter, learned men would come into the library to talk about the news, debate politics and enjoy a pipe before bedtime. It was always clamoring and bustling part of the city. Now it was empty, which was unsettling in a new way. I wondered if it would ever be enjoyed again.
Beck (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 4) Page 144