‘This way,’ the Frenchman says, marching towards a hillside olive grove.
After about six miles, the conversation lulls as they fold into their own ruminations. Charles realizes he is getting blisters on his feet. His face feels sunburnt and he can see white lines of salt streaking his shirt. ‘Can we stop for a moment,’ he says. ‘I think I have something in my boot.’
He sits on the verge, unlaces his boot and massages his toes.
‘Why are you here?’ Lehague says, with a quizzical tilt of his head. ‘I mean, why really?’
‘I told you, my friend is in the work camp in Alsace.’
‘He must be a very dear friend.’
‘He is.’ Charles wants to change the subject. ‘Sounds like they are having fun up in Paris. You must wish you were up there with them for the liberation.’
‘I would rather be here in the south.’
‘Are your family still in Nancy? Wife? Children?’
‘My wife is dead. The Germans killed her. We didn’t have any children.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Lehague raises and lowers his hands. A few minutes later, as they are walking side by side, he adds: ‘They tortured her.’
Charles cannot think of an appropriate response. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats.
After a further mile they see two old bicycles parked outside a house and look at one another. Five minutes later, as they are cycling along a narrow lane flanked by high hedges, the two look at each other again and start laughing. ‘Is this how you imagined the invasion would be?’ Charles asks.
‘I feel like a naughty schoolboy,’ Lehague says.
Charles hasn’t heard his companion laugh before and the sound takes his mind off the purpose of his mission.
A mile further on, the hedges are replaced with fences. They are now cycling through rolling hills and lush pastureland dotted with grazing sheep, but there is still no sign of the convoy. Charles squints into the sun. He then notices up ahead what look like two giant grizzly bears standing on their hind legs in a frozen clinch.
As they get closer they see it is two French half-tracks that have reared up in an explosion and, with each supporting the weight of the other, they have been welded together as they burned. The rubber in their caterpillar tracks has melted. Wisps of smoke are still rising from it.
Charles and Lehague look at one another again as they dismount their bikes.
Lehague takes the safety catch off his Sten gun as he treads carefully around the side of the vehicles. He stops and, as Charles catches up with him, he sees why. The carbonized corpses of the crew are hanging down, their skulls black, their grins grotesque.
The stench of scorched metal is oppressive, but it is the smell of burnt hair and fat that makes Charles gag. He touches the scar tissue on his cheek as he looks down at what appears to be a bean-bag lying on the running board. It is another body, this one with its head crushed from ear to jaw. One of his legs has been rammed through the shattered glass of the windshield; the other has been lopped off at the thigh and has come to rest at a right angle to his torso, as if placed there meticulously. He has a fat-lipped wound in his side and his intestines are spilling from it like twisted water balloons.
Lehague taps Charles on the shoulder and says: ‘Binoculars.’
Charles removes the binoculars he has around his neck and hands them over. Lehague trains them on something he has seen in a nearby field. He starts walking carefully in that direction, assuming a crouching position and raising his hand as an instruction to Charles not to follow him. He does anyway and soon sees what Lehague has seen. About two hundred yards away there are three men, French soldiers, kneeling on the grass in a semicircle, their heads bowed as if in prayer. When they are fifty yards away, it becomes clear that they are dead and have been propped up in that position on their rifles.
Lehague comes to within five yards of them before stopping and paling in horror. Once he is alongside him, Charles follows his gaze. The dead men have had their genitals sawn off and placed on their own tongues like communion wafers. Flies are crawling over their papery cheeks.
‘Waffen-SS,’ Lehague says.
Charles cannot find his voice for a moment. Eventually he asks hoarsely: ‘How do you know?’
‘It’s what they do. They want everyone to know it was them.’ Lehague rolls the nearest body on to its side and attempts to straighten out its legs. Rigor mortis prevents him. Instead he removes as delicately as he can the genitals from the mouth of the dead soldier and places them back where they belong before tugging up his trousers and attempting to wipe the dark caked-on blood from his mouth. Charles does the same for the second one while Lehague moves on to the third.
‘We should bury them,’ Charles says.
‘With what?’ Lehague heads back to the road. ‘Come on. Let’s try and find a farmhouse before it gets dark.’
Charles takes off his backpack, unstraps his easel and throws it away. He picks up one of the French clip-fed MAS-36 carbine rifles instead and, slinging it over his shoulder, removes the magazines from the other two rifles, stuffing them in his pocket. He buckles his pack again and hefts it on to his shoulders before breaking into a jog to catch up with Lehague.
For the next half-hour, as they cycle down the road in silence, they do not encounter any traffic, though Lehague keeps looking over his shoulder as if he has heard vehicles approaching. Eventually he stops and raises his hand. ‘Listen,’ he whispers.
Unable to hear anything, Charles pulls a puzzled face. He is conscious of the rifle strap chafing his shoulder.
‘Singing,’ Lehague says, leading the way off the road again and heading for a nearby hill. By the time he has reached the top of it, the singing has stopped. He raises the binoculars to his eyes and studies the landscape in a 360-degree sweep. He stops, adjusts the focus and, handing the binoculars to Charles, says: ‘There.’
Rising from a copse about a quarter of a mile away is a thin trail of smoke.
‘You think it’s them?’
‘Let’s take a closer look.’
They move in a crouching position at first and, when they are on a knoll halfway to the wood, they get down and crawl. They can hear the singing again and can make out that the voices are German. ‘I can see four of them,’ Lehague says. ‘And no sentry.’
Once he has adjusted the focus on his binoculars, Charles sees them, four figures drinking from the necks of bottles as they sit around a campfire. Three are wearing camouflage, one a leather trench coat. All four have their tunics unbuttoned. One is wearing a black field cap with what looks like the Totenkopf above the scalloped front on the turn-up. But he cannot be sure. Another is wearing a French kepi. A trophy. ‘Are they SS?’
‘Tank crew is my guess. SS Panzer Division. I think they might be deserters.’
‘I think they might be drunk.’
Lehague cocks his Sten gun and, nodding at the rifle in Charles’s hand, whispers: ‘Do you know how to use that?’
Charles nods.
Lehague mouths the words ‘cover me’. As he crawls forward, Charles pulls back the bolt on his rifle as quietly as he can and aims it at the nearest of the Germans. They are close enough to smell the woodsmoke.
By the time Lehague has taken cover – behind a tall tree with knotty roots on the edge of the wood – it is dusk and the four Germans are almost silhouetted against the flames of their campfire. They are still singing and taking swigs from the bottles they are passing between themselves. Three of their rifles are arranged in a tripod, their muzzles together. There are four empty bottles on their sides, one of them broken. The fire is crackling and sparking as they stir it with sticks. Though they are unshaven, they look young, teenagers. Their heads are shaved at the sides.
One stands and walks towards the tree behind which Lehague is concealed. Wondering whether the Frenchman has seen him, Charles adjusts the sights on his rifle by a couple of clicks and takes a bead on the German. Though he did some rifle trainin
g in the RAF, he has never killed a man before, and the gun feels heavy and dull in his hands. A trickle of sweat stings his eyes and he rubs them with his sleeve. He can feel the knots in his back and taste the hot bile in his throat, the sour tumult of his gut. A mosquito is singing around his ears and neck and, as he waits for it to bite, he feels his awareness of his surroundings intensifying: the snapping of twigs, the rustle of leaves. He tries to remember if he has pulled back the bolt on his rifle. Does it have a safety catch? He looks up and, for a panicked moment, realizes he can no longer see the German.
Then a man’s shape looms up. His steps are faltering, as if he is unsure where the ground is. When he reaches the tree he unbuttons his flies and, swaying slightly, starts to urinate. Charles watches as Lehague slips his commando dagger from its sheath, stands and, in a single fluid movement, lunges at the German, covering his mouth with one hand while stabbing the blade firmly into his gut with the other. He twists it as he withdraws it before stabbing him twice more in quick succession.
As if helping an elderly patient, Lehague supports the man as he sinks to his knees. He then dips back behind the tree. Charles watches as the German remains poised, encircling his wounds with his hands, as if wanting to draw attention to them. His eyes then roll back in his head and he falls forward with a groan. When the others hear the dull slap of his face hitting the tree root, they look up and, no doubt thinking he has passed out from drinking, cheer.
When the remaining three start singing again, Lehague emerges from behind the tree and, crunching pine cones underfoot, advances at walking pace towards them, his Sten gun cocked at his hip. One looks up with confusion in his eyes and stops singing. A second later, as he fumbles for his rifle, Lehague shoots him with a sustained burst that produces flame-licks from the muzzle of his gun. In their shock, the other two raise their hands.
Charles gets to his feet and runs into the wood. He then stands guard over the prisoners while Lehague rummages in his haversack. When he produces a length of rope, Charles wonders for a moment if he intends to lynch the men, and is relieved when he cuts off two lengths instead and uses them to tie the prisoners’ hands behind their backs.
Lehague makes them kneel and studies them for a moment before kicking the nearest on the shoulder, forcing him to roll over on his side and knock the other one off balance too. He lifts them up again by their hair and circles them.
‘Parlez-vous français?’
The men do not answer. With their heads bowed they look like errant schoolboys awaiting a caning outside a headmaster’s office. One of them spits to the side.
‘Charles, ask them if they attacked the French convoy.’
‘Habt ihn den Französichen Konvoi angegriffen?’
When the men still do not answer, the major picks up the kepi one of them had been wearing and, with his other hand, grabs the nearest German by the hair, raising his head so he is forced to stare at the cap. He then tosses it on the ground, unbuckles his revolver from its holster and, as he walks behind the two men, slowly and deliberately loads its chamber with six metallic clicks. He cocks it and presses the barrel to the back of the first prisoner’s head.
‘No!’ Charles says, levelling his rifle at Lehague.
Without looking over at Charles, Lehague says: ‘This does not concern you, Artist.’
When Charles does not lower his gun, Lehague looks at him. The prisoner kneeling nearest them turns his head towards Charles and looks up as well. His eyes are cold and feral. There is no fear in them. Instead his expression is serious and thoughtful, as if in deep concentration. He then snaps his head so that he is facing forward again, composing himself for what is to come.
Without taking his eyes off Charles, Lehague squeezes the trigger. A shot leaves deafness in its wake and the young German slumps forward, his body in brief convulsion. There is a neat hole in the back of his head. Smoke wisps out of it followed by blood that pulses softly into his hair. The other prisoner does not look at his fallen comrade, but he is shivering now. Lehague takes a step towards him and, still staring at Charles, pulls the trigger again. The second German falls sideways on top of the first and the two look like they are children cuddling up to one another in their sleep.
Lehague walks up to Charles and puts a hand on his shoulder. He then crouches down and stokes the fire. A smell of blood cloys the damp night air for a moment. Charles is still staring at the bodies, awed at how lives can end so politely, with so little fuss.
Rumours are beginning to swirl around the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp like lampshades and chairs in a tornado. The Americans have invaded southern France. They are about to meet the Allied forces advancing down from the north. They will be here soon, to liberate the camp and punish the hated enemy.
But, for Anselm at least, there are worrying signs and portents also. Something has happened to the Commandant. He hasn’t been seen for weeks. Summoned to Berlin? Sent to the Eastern Front? Arrested? Promoted? Who knows? Perhaps he is kaput. The Commandant had intrigued him and chilled him in equal measure. He had grown used to his fearful presence, had come to admire his strength, his Teutonic dignity. Without him he has no protector.
His replacement is about to arrive and he has orders to oversee the evacuation of the entire camp. There is to be a forced march across the German border to Dachau. Only the sick will be left behind.
Anselm tries to summon Charles’s face, but it has hardened and dried. Cracks have begun to appear across its surface. The sensual lips are turned downward. The glitter in the eyes has faded and the wide brow now suggests the skull beneath. It has become a stranger’s face.
Yet he still feels in his gut that Charles will come for him, as if it is ordained.
He also feels that the resentment that has been building up among his fellow inmates over the past few months – at his preferential treatment, at his collaboration with the enemy – will surely erupt soon. The camp feels a colder and darker place. He knows revenge from the other prisoners is coming because of the space they leave around him. No one will meet his eye. He is toxic. Contaminated. He has never felt more vulnerable.
It happens at night. They come out of the gloom without a word, and as he feels something heavy – an iron bar perhaps – across his back, he sags to his knees with a grunt. The heavy object is smashing into his mouth now, breaking his teeth and splitting his lips like cooked sausages. Kicks and punches follow. A clog drives hard into his stomach, draws back and strikes again in the same place, pushing the breath from his lungs and causing a purple-pink bloom of pain to open up around his heart. He hears his own nose break with a pop. Then the clean snap of bone.
There must be a dozen of them. Fleetingly, he can see the prisoner’s stripes on their arms as he curls up into a ball. As he cannot will the pain away, he absorbs it. A fist hits hard into the bone below his eye. The toe of a boot tears the cartilage in his knee. There is a taste of iron in his mouth. He knows they will not stop now until he is dead, and he prays that this release will come sooner rather than later.
III
FOR NINE DAYS, THE PANZERKORPS, UNDER THE COMMAND OF THE monocle-wearing General Heinrich von Lüttwitz, have been tenacious in their defence of Nancy. Though they are outnumbered, they still hold all the approaches to the Moselle, the river dividing the city, and, thanks to this advantage, they have managed to repel two crossing attempts by the US XII Corps, one in daylight, the other at night.
The Americans are under the command of Manton S. Eddy, a major general who favours round, metal-framed glasses and a pistol worn in a shoulder holster on the outside of his bomber jacket. He has ordered a change of tactic. There is to be an encircling manoeuvre with simultaneous attacks on the north and south of the city. The Battle of Nancy, he has predicted, will be over by the end of the day and leaflets are now being dropped by the USAAF over the town. They invite the Germans to agree to an honourable surrender.
It had been hoped that, for symbolic purposes once more, the 1st Free French
Division could liberate the town, as they did Lyon a fortnight earlier in the balmy end days of August. It had, after all, been two French officers who, for the benefit of the news cameras, met thirteen miles west of Dijon three days earlier on 11 September: one representing Operation Overlord, the campaign in the north, the other representing Operation Dragoon, the south. Their handshake, as their jeeps met and they leaned over their bonnets, closed the last escape route for the Germans in the south and west of France.
But the Free French soldiers, along with the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur, as the Resistance has now officially been renamed, are pinned down on a mist-shrouded hillside overlooking one of Nancy’s main bridges. And the sun has gone down.
For the past three weeks Major Lehague and Charles have been attached to them. And as the American artillery bombardment of the past hour is answered by a salvo from the German self-propelled guns positioned either side of the bridge under camouflage nets, Charles wishes he were anywhere else on earth.
The fury of the shelling is cold and mechanized, and he can feel in his bones the intense shock waves it is causing in the ground around him. As the barrage creeps closer, he finds himself instinctively hardening his muscles in an attempt to defy the jagged, burning teeth of the shrapnel. The shells are like molten furies screaming through the night air, turning it liquid, sucking away their very oxygen. When he finds himself covered in half an inch of soil and branches, he crawls to the twisted body of a nearby French soldier and takes his helmet from him. Half the man’s face is flapping off the bone.
After crawling back to his foxhole, Charles takes off his beret, stuffs it in his tunic and puts the helmet on, leaving the chinstrap dangling loose. The wet, splintered smell of fir bark is being diluted by the less sharp smell of blood.
Some of the French militia around them who have practised combat only with blank ammunition are now learning something which Charles has already learned: that you cannot train for the noise on a battlefield; that it paralyses thought. They are finding it impossible to communicate, even with sign language. One man in a trench about five yards away is curled into a foetal position and is sobbing.
The Road Between Us Page 27