The next, a distant thrum caught his ear—an engine, but what sort? Something made of wood shattered, and then no more than twenty meters away, a full-grown hornbeam tree split into three pieces before his eyes. Petra’s face twisted as he waved Domingo to a shallow limestone cave.
A massive metal apparition nosed through heavy brush, sending a shudder under their feet. Thick slatted rubber sheets around revolving spigots moved the monster forward.
A tank, a German tank, here in this peaceful countryside. Wonder and terror flattened Domingo’s arms against the side of the cave.
Oh mon Dieu, non. Not on the Causse de Gramat, so near the farm of Gabaudet.
Petra wasted no time jerking Domingo up a raw stone cliff. “See that jeep—an officer, look at his lapel.” In the incessant roar, Petra’s hiss barely reached Domingo.
“Beside him sits a gendarme—a collaborator, as my name is Petra Couderq.” A half-sob issued from his throat. “Oh no, mon ami, they’re steering straight for the farm we just left.”
Half a kilometer away, two hundred new recruits prepared for the night. Domingo and Petra had just met them, young men who heard about l’Invasion, ready to contribute to the fight.
Concern and rage forced uncontrollable energy through Domingo. “We must warn them.”
Petra slammed him back against the rock. “Not enough time—you know it as well as I.”
His eyes swam with tears. Domingo turned away, his head throbbing. But then a rush of heat swamped his chest and his collar became a noose. They ought to have killed those feldgraus the other day, but he’d failed Petra, failed the cause.
“No. We can try.” Ignoring the shadow over Petra’s face, Domingo raced away from the tanks, circling toward the farm’s far reaches and the flood of volunteers.
The two of them might still be there right now, in the path of those tanks. Surely, God sent them ahead for a purpose. Domingo’s espadrilles carried him faster, faster, his weariness vanished in the urgency of his need.
When Domingo and Petra left, those young recruits had been preparing straw for beds and helping with evening chores. An air of gaiety prevailed, for word reached them that every Lot railroad line had been cut, and the Allies brandished their way into the Normandy countryside. Relieved grins and jokes filled the air.
Domingo panted as he flew over rocks and brush. No guard had been posted at the farm. Those good-natured garcons, some no older than Gabirel, would startle at the terrible rumbling and run for shelter, but where could they hide?
Though another deep inner voice told him Petra was right, Domingo could only run. Foolhardy—who could outrun SS tanks? This dim awareness accompanied his blind rashness, and another understanding, too. Petra followed him. Petra, with his solid head to think things through and act with prudence, would not let him go alone. Yes, he heard the footfalls behind him, but he dared not turn his head, no, not for a second.
Now he spotted the barn roof. Then he heard a wall crash and saw men flee the courtyard only to be shot down. Young fellows rocketed into the air from the force of the tanks. Terrified barn animals shrieked and screamed, audible even above the roaring engines.
Petra pulled Domingo back. “Come. For now, we can only watch.”
An advancing tank crushed someone like an insect. Another. Severed human legs flew upward like whirring matchsticks. A wild, incessant vibration sucked everything under the behemoth’s treads.
Smoke erupted as the hated Bosche fired the farm buildings. A young recruit scampered across the scrub at Domingo’s feet, stared up wild-eyed, and scrabbled on.
Swastika armbands and rifles flashed as the soldiers pursued the partisans. Some partisans fell, others they rounded up in lines. Germans hoisted the captured partisans onto the tank fronts and tied them with wire. Domingo went for his gun.
“No. They outnumber us by far. Someone must help the wounded and carry word of this.”
Carry word. The bitter realization showered Domingo with shame—that seemed to be all he was fit for, carrying word. He crouched low as an inhuman shriek lanced the early evening air. He sped to the brush to forfeit whatever remained in his stomach. When he duck-walked back, Petra laid a hand on his forearm.
“Those men on the tank fronts serve as hostages. All along the way, the Maquis will be poised to attack the tanks, but think of their terrible choice. How can they, with our own men strapped on them?”
Clearly, this SS unit aimed to destroy everything in its path—peasants’ farms, Maquisard holdouts, helpless villages. They would head toward the town of Loubressac, north between les Quatre Routes and Saint-Céré, where he and Petra had helped cut the rails.
Traveling between Argentat and Noailles, these dull green killers would finally reach Tulle. Their obvious route swam before Domingo. This impossible reality raked his throat hoarse, but even now, Petra thought one step further.
“They will attack Tulle, the crossroads between Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand, where partisans proclaimed liberation on Jour-J. The Bosche seek revenge. In the morning, I think they will re-take the city.”
Domingo sank to the earth. “What can we do?”
Petra rubbed his chin stubble. “We could run all night. But we have seen how futile that is, oui?”
Heat enveloped Domingo’s face—yes, utterly futile.
“Let’s go down when they leave, provide first aid, and perhaps...” Petra’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Perhaps we can find a cycle or a lorry still in working order.”
“We should have killed those men the other day.”
Petra grimaced. “Who knows whether killing them would have made any difference?”
The tanks finally rumbled north, and the peasant’s family rose, one from the well, one from a manure pile, one from a shed’s burning rubble. A woman wept over a little girl’s shattered body.
A man stood shell-shocked, blood steaming from his arm, but anything they might use as dressings had been razed. Domingo tore off his jacket, ripped his shirt into strips, and bandaged the wound.
At one point, as he held another man’s head and tended his dying rasp, from the corner of his eye, he noticed Petra slip off. Domingo closed the eyes of another youth and tucked another’s gun into his own boot.
He knelt beside another victim, not much more than a boy, and looked up into the eyes of a woman swaddling a younger child in her arms. The child’s leg dripped blood.
Then Domingo remembered Sancha’s scarf. Feeling like an automaton, he pulled out the orange mass and stretched the flowing silk lengthwise.
“Here, let me bind up her leg.” He knelt, and the mother did her best to help. Then he spied another child with a mangled forearm and bent to help. Earth and blood and sweat mingled with crushed garden onions. Their paper-thin skins littered the yard with shiny translucence and clung to the boy’s bare feet.
Domingo’s shirtsleeve made a hasty bandage around the little fellow’s neck, and the lad quieted when he plastered cool mud over the wounded arm. He carried the child across the gutted farmyard toward another woman.
Far too many lives sacrificed—in a daze of horror, Domingo turned a slow circle.
Then someone clasped Domingo’s shoulder. Amid this hopeless scene, Petra’s low, controlled voice sustained him.
“I’ve found an old lorry. There are plenty here to bury the dead.”
Domingo reached for a knife lying nearby, though Petra could see he already had knives and guns aplenty. But it seemed to Domingo he could not amass enough weapons.
Petra faced him. Forced him to meet his eyes. “Come, then.”
Chapter Sixteen
A thin moon cast enough light to remind Domingo of a distant goodness. Otherwise, he and Petra moved through an endless, starless bowl of shadows and intrigue. At every sudden sound that penetrated over the racket of the lorry engine, Domingo’s head swiveled like an owl’s.
Intent on one goal, Petra urged the rattletrap to the high road. “The tanks will avoid the Causses—these
limestone ridges would slow them down too much.”
The wide elevated path, largely untraveled, had its faults, especially where heavy spring rains rearranged the already bumpy surface into gullies and drop-offs. The inky night lent its dire message: in such a time, your loved ones could disappear like sighs on the wind.
Yet Petra’s confidence thrived here—his assurance throbbed between them on the stained seat. How, in this peculiar mix of petrol fumes, limestone dust, and urgency, could such a thing be true? It was as if Petra possessed special powers that kept him focused in the middle of fury.
Domingo willed his spirit to embrace Petra’s ability to trust, like Père Gaspard’s faith. One could borrow another’s assurance, he’d learned, until your own had time to revive.
Though the engine had taken precious minutes to roll over, they burbled along now with the wind whizzing by and the road taunting, “Conquer me.” Potholes defied them to maintain a steady course, but Petra charged ahead.
Once, he reached over and jabbed Domingo’s shoulder, as if to say, ‘Stay with me.’ Another time they jolted off the road onto a wagon path so rutted it seemed impassable. But Petra kept on, ever northward toward Tulle. Domingo braced his feet against the floor, wishing he could do the same against the fresh recollections diving at him like phantoms in this strange, insufferable night.
Human eyes crazed with terror, human limbs hanging at odd angles—the raw scenes hovered close, though Domingo attempted to fill his mind with the future. How many kilometers did they still have to travel to Tulle? What would they do there?
But only past and present existed, with Petra here beside him in this musty cab. Peeling leather seats emanated grease, sweat and manure, farm air, full of richness and promise, humble odors. Feeling split leather beneath his palm soothed him, somehow.
Though Petra gunned the engine as fast as he could, Domingo had the sense that they sat still. And as long as they remained in this small space, together, en route to somewhere, he could maintain this mock serenity.
But Tulle. The city would be sleeping. Should they canvass the streets like madmen, then, banging on doors, shouting the alarm? Yes, Domingo’s heart said. But surely Petra had his own ideas, better by far.
Finally, the arthritic lorry reeled to a shaky halt at the edge of a village—or some sort of habitation. Domingo yanked his numb legs upward. No spire marked the town. Maybe this was an encampment, then. Perhaps they’d come to the camp where the Gaboudet organizer had sent them with their messages before the tanks arrived. He’d forgotten about that.
Petra left his door hanging open and approached a faint light as if he knew his destination well. Always purposeful, that Petra.
Domingo got out to stretch. No use attempting to shake off the grisly sights of Gaubodet that clung to him. He had learned his lessons well—only time could cause such images to fade.
The cool night air invigorated him and intensified his determination. When he returned to the lorry, Petra held out bread and cheese.
“Eat.”
An hour earlier, Domingo couldn’t have managed, but a sudden ravenous streak bade him attack the hard crust. He snorted. Some foudre he had proven, resisting conflict and then running madly to no avail. He averted his eyes.
Petra leaned against a tree, watching. He refrained from asking, “Are you all right?” But Domingo read his thoughts: Will you control your impulses from now on? Will you act the soldier and fight with a will?
“They told me the road out of Argentat runs through a break in the ridges. Who knows if the Germans will choose that way, but if so, we’ll hear them and abandon the lorry. If we make for the ridges, we can wait for them to pass.” Petra scratched behind his ear. “But we’ll do our best to beat them there.”
A partisan brought a petrol can. “Use what you need.” He flicked on his torchlight while Petra removed the metal cap and poured. The sickeningly sweet chemical odor filled Domingo’s nose and tainted his tongue.
When he finished, Petra handed the partisan the can. “Merci. You will be repaid some day.”
The man’s chortle stopped short. “Here’s the favor I ask—shoot that collaborator if you see those tanks. Shoot him dead for me.” He stood back. “I hear something.” He turned southwest. “Is that what they sound like?”
Domingo closed his eyes. Far away, a low, distant growl wafted through the darkness. As it died away, Petra confirmed the man’s suspicions.
“You say the officers and that collaborator rode in an open jeep? Surely other collaborators wait for them along the way. Perhaps we’ll give them a midnight startle.”
“With my blessing. That is, if you have long-range weapons. Otherwise, what good will it do for you to draw your last breath under a tank track?”
The partisan’s thinking lines deepened, and the small muscle above his jaw worked as Petra sought more information. “How far away is Tulle, and what can we expect to find there?”
“Several hours by foot. We heard that when the FTP took the city, the German garrison fortified themselves in the normal school for girls. The Maquis attacked and liberated some of our men.
“One report said thirty former Maquis prisoners identified nine members of the Sicherheitsdienst, Gestapo members known to have committed atrocities. Before the Maquis burned the school, they took those men to the graveyard and shot them.
“Control of the train station passed back and forth, with some innocent watchmen murdered by the Germans. When the Bosche attempted to leave, the partisans used the confusion to attack with automatic weapons and take prisoners.
“Sixty or seventy surrendered, and the Maquis circled the weapons factory and the Souilhac school to the south. They created a public show, like the one at Cajarc. One thing is sure. These tanks will bring terror down on the city.” He hesitated and angled his head. “You’re certain they’re going that direction?
“Yes, from Gabaudet.”
The partisan worked his jaw back and forth. “I want to sneak up and untie those poor men, even if they’re dead. They deserve an honorable burial.”
“If you ask my opinion, daylight becomes our comrade in this instance. The tanks bulldoze everything in their paths, and morning may help us think more clearly.”
The man hurried back to headquarters and Petra leaped into the cab. “With luck, we’ll arrive soon enough to warn them.”
The lorry lurched forward again, and more than an hour passed before the motor sputtered. Then the vehicle gave a disheartened cough and died completely, Petra steering it off the road with a sour look.
“We’re better off on foot, eh? I’ve known hatred to fuel a run as powerfully as love.”
He might be describing the night of Sancha’s murder, such a combination of hatred and love. Domingo held his peace and padded after him into the blackness. At the first inkling of light in the eastern sky, they sped even faster. When dawn half-lit the horizon, Petra halted, panting.
“A few minutes.” He drank and ran his sleeve over his mouth. They separated to relieve themselves, and Domingo refilled the bladder at a stream. He peered west, but saw nothing of the tanks. Better yet, he heard nothing.
Petra spoke first. “They must have gone around, along the Correze River.” His eyes flashed. “We might beat them there yet.”
“Always, you think we’ll make it, and I doubt that we will.”
“Yet you keep moving ahead. That’s what counts—it’s all we can do.”
Morning broke with light infiltrating thick foliage. They ran on in silence, as if racing with the end of the world. The plateau’s peacefulness beckoned to Domingo, but how could he shed last night’s memories so quickly?
Unbidden, the words Père Gaspard intoned after Sancha died came to him. “Some things we must accept, though the evil appalls us. Only thus do we prevent them from reigning over us forever.” But how to accept the utter devastation at Gaubodet?
Farther down the trail, Petra collapsed. “Forgive me ... I must rest.”
/> Domingo’s legs also begged for respite, but after long years of traipsing these hills and valleys, Petra knew his limits. These men Domingo accompanied over the past months had all vanished, but he must not let that happen with Petra.
The glance Domingo stole at Petra crumpled at the foot of a tree revealed his age—glints of silver in his hair and such immense shadows under his eyes. How was it they could spend so much time together, yet not really see each other?
This time, fate had reunited them, so they must stay together. After a few minutes, Petra stirred, drank water, and seemed to take strength from the rising late morning temperature. They fell into rhythm again, and ran until midday became midafternoon.
At last, steeples slit the blue northern sky. They hurried even faster, but about a kilometer away, Petra held up his hand, and Domingo squatted with him to listen. Nothing. Then, at Tulle’s outskirts, a distant thrum they knew all too well singed his ears.
After an uphill sprint, they reached a church and found an unlocked door. Domingo thrust aside the heavy wood like paper, flew to the belfry and pulled on the rope. Clanging filled the air. A priest exited into the courtyard, staring up, looking confused.
Through an arch, Domingo watched Petra grab the man’s shoulders. Without hearing, he knew what Petra said. “Tanks, German tanks, they’re out for the kill...”
The priest cocked his head before hurrying toward the rectory. Across the street, a citizen came out his front door, scratching his beard. Petra shouted the news and the man spun into action.
Petra raced down the street while Domingo still swayed on the rope, watching the scene unfold. Finally, he let go and stood staring at the homes surrounding the church. Evening descended, and lights gradually graced their windows as that distant thrum increased to a muffled roar.
People called to each other and closed their doors against the sound. And then, in the cool shadow of the belfry walls, Domingo viewed the second SS Division, Das Reich, storm in from the west toward the city’s heart.
A Purpose True Page 14