by Théo Varlet
The fusillade died down, and fell silent. The two officers separated. Monocard went to draft his report, and his colleague followed Cipriani on a tour of inspection.
Thanks to skilful maneuvers, Renard succeeded in delaying a further meeting with the sub-lieutenant all morning. He took advantage of that to see Dupuy, whose absence had fortunately passed unnoticed.
“Dupuy, my lad, you’ve got us into a filthy mess. I don’t hold it against you; you couldn’t foresee the attack; but I want you—mark my words!—I want you to get rid of that wretched Machine. Dismantle it today, and fling the pieces in the Seille.”
He had still not found a plausible explanation for his absence. At the midday meal, in view of the presence of Jasmin and Saucisson, Monocard did not ask him any questions, but the unfortunate tourist felt his subordinate’s gaze weighing upon him, and lowered his eyes like a guilty man. Undoubtedly, his attitude and his silence must seem suspicious. De Lanselles was his comrade, but he did not trifle with matters of duty; he had the sword of an administrator of justice; perhaps he would...
No! It was absolutely necessary to say something.
At the evening meal, as at the midday one, Renard said nothing. Monocard remained equally taciturn, but a scornful curl of his lip replaced his initial anxious astonishment.
The next day, the situation became intolerable. The deadly Machine was still there, for Dupuy claimed that he had not had a minute to dismantle it. During the three hours that the two officers spent together in the office, during the afternoon, Monocard affected a mute and glacial politeness. He was about to go out when Renard made a desperate resolution. He sent the secretary away and said: “My dear de Lanselles, extravagant as this must appear to you, I want to make a confession: the other night, during the attack, I was...well, yes, this is it! I was in Paris…in Montmartre…at the Rat-Mort...”
The sub-lieutenant frowned, and then looked him full in the face.
“No, old chap, that’s childish—try to find something else. I’m not asking you for anything, mind. Your reputation for bravery isn’t at stake; it’s well-enough established. You had your reasons for not putting in an appearance during the attack, that’s all.”
And with a frosty salute, he drew away.
Too bad! Renard said to himself. I’ll tell him everything—and I’ll show him the Machine. I’ll take him for a trip, if necessary. Provided that Dupuy...
And he climbed up the steps of the tower, as fast as he could. Dupuy was alone on the platform.
“What have you done with the Machine?”
“The Machine?” the radio operator replied, in a mocking tome. “Why, I threw it in the Seille, as you told me to do, twice.”
“Damn it! You’re joking!”
“La la la! You’re getting carried away, Monsieur Renard. It’s still in its place, the Machine—I haven’t touched it. Do you want to go back to the Rat-Mort?”
“Shut up, damn it! It’s not that—it’s a matter of your coming to help me put it in order.”
IV. During the Attack
The adjustments were very scrupulous, and Dupuy checked the entire mechanism in detail. For additional security, he even replaced the accumulators with a battery that the motorcyclist had just brought him from Landremont, freshly recharged, intended for the wireless post. Finally, the needles, levers, handles and verniers were disposed according to Renard’s instructions; in order to operate the transfer, it only remained to push the starter button and release the safety-catch.
The electrician went away, convinced that he would be called back two or three hours later to accompany his lieutenant on a new expedition.
The latter, however, was only thinking about Monocard. “If de Lanselles doesn’t recover his confidence in me after this...” he murmured—and while Jasmin, hiding his curiosity, set the table with Saucisson, the waited impatiently for the sublieutenant to arrive.
At dessert—Monocard had not said a single word throughout the meal—Renard sent the orderlies away; then, repeating the previous evening’s affirmation, he added: “You don’t believe me, but I have a very simple means of demonstrating my good faith. That’s to make you try out the vehicle of which I made use. There it is: it’s the Englishman’s machine. It’s ready to take us away. You’ll operate it—I won’t touch anything. But, as I suppose that an expedition to the Rat-Mort in 1912 won’t seduce you, I’ve fixed 1920 for the time and place of the arrival, at the crossroads of the Arc de Triomphe. We’ll thus be informed of the outcome of the war.”
Monocard’s skepticism was dented by affirmations of such clarity. He was obstinate in his refusal to examine the Machine and delve into the theory that the other was ready to explain to him, but he consented to try the experiment.
Renard was getting to his feet, elated by his success, when a jovial and familiar voice with a southern accent hailed him from the threshold, and Major Thévenard, wrapped up on his goatskin, advanced toward the table.
One of the soldiers wounded the day before—all of whom were still in the infirmary at Port-sur-Seille—had developed a temperature of 38.7° during the night, and a cyclist had gone to Landremont to alert the major. The latter had just arrived on his own bicycle to visit the patient.
“A touch of fever, that’s all, but no complications to fear,” affirmed the senior officer, stroking his fine black beard. “He became alarmed a little too soon, your medical orderly. I could have saved myself riding half a dozen kilometers in the rain. Fortunately, it’s good here, and I’m glad to see that you have a few bottles left.”
While pouring him a Cointreau, the two lieutenants exchanged a glance. With this pitiless chatterbox, they were in for at least an hour of conversation. De Lanselles smile ironically, as if the major’s arrival had been agreed with Renard in order to prevent the famous experiment. Renard, looking at the Machine in the corner, fidgeted impatiently.
The inconveniences of the evening were not yet over, however. As soon as Thévenard, finally put off by the monosyllabic coldness of his hosts, had remarked: “Eleven o’clock—time to hit the road,” the rattle of machine gun fire became audible.
“Zut! An attack!”
Hastily grabbing their equipment, the three men ran outside into the rain.
The luminous parabolas of red, white and green flares were streaking the black night. A fusillade was crackling on the bank of the Seille. Shells were beginning to fall. In the village, there was a stampede of men running to their posts.
“I shall have clients,” joked the jovial quack—and ran to the infirmary, while de Lanselles headed for the tower. Renard, anxious because he could not hear the machine guns—broken down again!—went into the tunnel.
It was not long before the noise of engines, approaching from the direction of Metz and mingling with the sound of detonations, momentarily gave rise to the fear of an aerial attack. The aircraft, however, did not release any projectile, and contented itself with circling, as if indecisively, during the further half-hour that the battle lasted. In the end, the Boche having given up, the shells ceased falling, the fusillade stopped, and four or five wounded me were carried away. The aircraft made its decision, and it was glimpsed in the obscurity, about to land in the open space behind the infirmary.
The lieutenants ran in that direction, guided by the shouts of the poilus. “A plane! A plane” they cried.
Totor ventured the historic remark: “A fine pair of boots coming down, perhaps!”
To which Dudule overbid: “And a nice waterproof leather overcoat. My brother’s an orderly; he had one like it—he got it from a Boche...”
Amid the general excitement, the airplane touched down, bounced and came to a stop. A crowd surrounded the pilot, who stood up in his cockpit.
“Hands up, or we shoot!”
A guttural but calm voice replied: “English comrade—don’t shoot!”
“Yes, old chap—all the Boche say that...”
Beneath the wings of the apparatus, however, it was indeed
the tricolor roundels of the Allies that were displayed by the electric torches—and the head of the aviator alone, once he had taken off his helmet, was sufficient to reveal his nationality. That clean-shaven face with prominent cheekbones, the massive lower jaw and the blotchy complexion could only have belonged to a son of Albion.
In precise and laconic terms, in French that was almost correct but deformed by an abominable accent, he introduced himself—W. R. Bennsbury, lieutenant aviator of His Britannic Majesty—and explained that he had just dropped his supply of bombs over Metz. He had gone astray during the return; the flares had guided him to Port-sur-Seille and he had waited for the battle to end before descending into the open space that he had glimpsed by the light of a window—that of the infirmary, facing the French lines.
After a brief conference with the two lieutenants, he decided to leave again at daybreak. In the meantime, he would rest for a few hours on one of the beds in the infirmary.
When they went in, the major looked him over with a professional eye, and before Renard and de Lanselles could do anything to interfere, he grabbed the Englishman’s wrist, learnedly, and pulled a face.
“Hmm! Pulse rapid and unsteady. Advanced arteriosclerosis. You’re in a bad way, my friend. Let’s see your wound.”
“I’m not wounded,” the islander protested, phlegmatically.
“Dysentery, then? Take two spoonfuls of paregoric elixir with meals.”5
It required Renard’s intervention to protect W. R. Bennsbury from the zealous Thévenard’s medication and to procure him a simple tot of rum and a bed—after which the two lieutenants took their leave of the aviator and left the major to his patients; one of them had caught his finger in the breech of a light machine-gun and Thévenard was talking about amputation.
“I’ve never seen such an instrument!” he grumbled. “Another war profiteer who’s succeeded in placing his shoddy goods. Enough! You’re going to bed, you two? Well, I won’t disturb you. I’ll be here for another half-hour, after which I’ll have a little nap before going back to Landremont. Perhaps it won’t be raining as hard tomorrow morning. Goodnight.”
After a last glance around the village, where order and tranquility reigned once again under the downpour, de Lanselles insinuated negligently: “It’s too late, isn’t it, for your little experiment? Tomorrow evening...”
“Tomorrow? Why? Everything’s ready, I tell you—nothing but two buttons to press. And we still have enough time to convince you. A matter of five minutes in total. I only ask your permission to have a drink beforehand, for I’m literally frozen.”
“Me too, and I hope our orderlies have prepared us a hot drink. Then…five minutes, you say? All right, then—I confess that I’d be curious to spend five minutes in 1920, at the crossroads of the Arc de Triomphe.”
Since the beginning of the attack, the two orderlies had taken advantage of their officers’ departure to go back into the cellar, in order to tidy up a bit, as they did every evening. They were not sorry, moreover, to go underground; during the previous attack, which they had spent in their beds on the ground floor, a shell had fallen less than fifty meters away, on the other side of the street.
“It would be truly absurd,” Jasmin declared, as he began to clear the table, “when we have such a comfortable situation, to go and get ourselves killed in that manner.”
“You said it!” sniggered Saucisson—who was installed in front of the roaring stove, drinking the liqueur from the glasses that the officers had abandoned. “Listen to the machines shaking the overcoat. They’re making quite a racket! Yes, it’s warm outside.”
“It’s warmer in here,” quipped the witty Jasmin. “There’s no two ways about it, we’re lucky. We’re the only two tranquil souls in Port-sur-Seille right now.”
“You’re forgetting the cameraman—what’s he called? Oh yes—Lénac. He’s nothing to shoot this time, since it’s too dark.”
“But he doesn’t have a cellar like ours.”
“And when it happens by day, he has to get busy. I’ve seen them during attacks, these cameramen, who aren’t dug in. They’re often exposed, those fellows.”
After having waxed lyrical on the subject of their cushy billet, the two orderlies, having delivered the final flick of the broom, set about warming up some wine.
“Tell me,” said Saucisson, “you were here this afternoon when your boss was working on that machine with the radio operator—you must have heard what it does.”
Jasmin straightened up. “What it will do, rather! I was going to talk to you about that. You know that my lieutenant is an inventor, like his father, who manufactures Orange cars. Well, thanks to the black notebook we found in the trunk, my lieutenant has discovered what criminal use the Boche spy—the fake English engineer who was shot in ’14—intended to make of that machine. It’s a powerful engine—unprecedented statistics—that would have ravaged square leagues. Port-sur-Seille, Dieulouard, even Nancy, would have been annihilated. But my lieutenant’s in the process of fixing that, with the radio operator, and turning the device against the Boche. Everything’s ready. Within a fortnight, the forts of Metz will be blown up, and then it’ll be the turn of the town. And in the meantime, we’ll have constructed twenty, thirty, fifty of these machines—the necessary number. The whole enemy front will be overturned, smashed...”
“The Boche are finished, then!”
“…And it’s the great leap forward, the great offensive, the mass attack, my dear! We’re in Berlin, victorious, and my lieutenant is promoted to colonel, general, Maréchal de France!”
“Fuck! You’re talking about a big brain, the fellow who found that trick. So, the war will be over in three weeks?”
And with respectful admiration, Saucisson went over to the Machine to examine it. Jasmin, proud of his importance, gave him a detailed account of the astounding engine of war.
“What’s this thing?” Saucisson interrupted, pulling the cursor of the “slide-rule” along its entire course. “What does it do?”
“Can’t you read? It’s written above it: PERIMETER. Pour-y-mettre: ‘put it there.’ It’s for launching the torpedoes, for targeting them.”
The demonstration continued, and Jasmin obligingly brought a number of the levers and buttons into play.
“Me, I can’t see this without getting thirsty. I’m going to have a drink.”
But footsteps were approaching through the communication tunnel.
“Damn! The bosses!” And the two orderlies stood to attention in front of the stove.
Renard breathed the air in satisfaction. “You’ve made us hot wine? Excellent-you think of everything, Jasmin.”
“It was Saucisson’s idea, Lieutenant. We’ve driven them back, then, the filthy Boche? No serious losses to deplore?”
“No, don’t worry—a few minor wounds. In the meantime, pour us the hot wine and go get some sleep. You’ve earned it.”
Left alone, the two officers emptied their glasses as rapidly as the temperature of the liquid permitted. Monocard affected a casual smile and a complete indifference, but deep down, the delay had irritated his curiosity, and his haste to participate in the singular experiment was almost equal to Renard’s.
The lamp was on its usual hook, over the table, but the lieutenant did not take the trouble to pick it up in order to illuminate the Machine as he had during the two previous excursions. The settings were all fixed in advance this time; he would be able to see clearly enough to show Monocard the two controls for the decisive maneuver. To give his triumph the maximum amplitude, he did not want to touch anything himself. As for civilian clothes, Monocard would not lend himself readily to such a disguise, and besides which, to spend five minutes at the Étoile at one o’clock in the morning, such a precaution would be superfluous. He did not even mention it,
“When you wish, old chap—the honor is yours.”
They both installed themselves in the Machine’s seats and Renard, guiding his companion’s hands, placed one
on the starter button and the other on the safety catch.
“En route to the world after the war!” he added, with a nervous laugh. “With your left hand, press down gradually.”
More excited than he wanted to appear, Monocard obeyed.
As on the other occasions, the oval indicator lit up with an intense violet gleam, and a trepidation caused the apparatus to vibrate—but the customary hum had an extraordinary, redoubtable intensity, and the crackling sparks sprang forth visibly from the framework of the Machine, seeming to weave around them a network of effluvia that filled the cellar.
It must be because we’re going into the future instead of the past, Renard said to himself, anxiously. In order not to spoil the effect, though, he immediately added, in a firm and peremptory tone: “Everything’s fine. The right hand now—go!”
What a thunderbolt! They thought they had been caught in the blinding explosion of a mine, borne away, compressed, crushed in a fiery whirlwind. They thought they were dead, annihilated...
Perhaps they even lost consciousness, for an indeterminate lapse of time...
When they came round, de Lanselles took a deep breath, and then adjusted his monocle. He paraded his gaze around him, and in a tone of irritation, pierced with irony, said: “Permit me to tell you, old chap, that you have a detestable taste in practical jokes. It wouldn’t have taken much for your petard of dynamite to blast us to Kingdom Come! As for 1920 at the Étoile...”
Alarmed, Renard considered the cellar, which still surrounded them with its walls garnished with bottles. The lamp was burning above the table. The pan of hot wine was simmering on the stove. To all appearances, the Machine had not budged.
“I assure you, old chap,” he stammered, “that I…everything was set...you, yourself...” Then he uttered an exclamation.
The air-vent, through which the inky blackness of night had been visible before, was now open on a clear blue sunlit sky.