The Madagaskar Plan

by Guy Saville

  Madeleine remained in Cranley’s grasp. He was blank with shock. He let go, and she dropped away from him, landing on her side. There was no exit wound; Cranley patted his torso in disbelief.

  Burton watched a spot of burgundy expand around Madeleine’s stomach. She had shot herself in the same place that Patrick had taken shrapnel at Dunkirk. His friend had cursed and bellowed, lost pints of blood—but Burton had managed to sew him up in the basement of a bombed-out building. He had survived. Madeleine was lying in a hospital; they were surrounded by rooms of cotton batting and bandages and drugs.

  The rumble outside was deepening.

  Burton looked at his Browning: it was trembling across the floor toward him. He snatched it up before Cranley could.

  The walls started to shudder.

  There was a cracking, buckling sound from the fabric of the building.

  The skeleton in the corner toppled over. Microscopes and centrifuges crashed to the floor. The soldier who’d been guarding Burton looked round in bewilderment. Behind him, through the frosted glass, Burton saw the trees in the courtyard bow and vanish. A black wall surged upward, filling the window. Filling his entire view.

  The glass exploded inward.

  All the breath was punched out of Burton. He was underwater, pinned against the far wall by a bone-flattening force. Bubbles detonated around his face. There was nothing but deafening noise in his ears. Next instant his mouth was in the air again. He sucked in choking gulps of oxygen.

  The whole hospital shook. Fissures ran up the walls as the torrent churned through the room. The air was thick with the roar of water and stinking, stinging brine. Burton was whirled around. He refused to let go of his Browning and buried it under his belt. The soldier crashed into him, then vanished. Seconds later he saw Madeleine, semiconscious, jerking like a broken doll. Somehow he caught her, looping his arm through her bound wrists.

  A section of wall disintegrated. The water level dropped several feet, sucking them out of the room, into the corridor beyond. Burton felt as if he were running; then his feet hit the ground and he was splashing forward, the water frothing at his waist. His arm was still caught around Madeleine. There was no time to check her. He heaved her onto his shoulder and staggered forward.

  They were in a windowless passage, the water surging as it pumped from the room they had just been washed out of. A terrible sound—stone-screeching, disemboweling—rocked the air. So far the lights were unaffected; Burton feared trying to escape in pitch blackness. He waded to the end of the passage, the level rising the whole time, and turned into another corridor where the water was lower. There were doors on one side, a bank of windows on the other. At the far end, a sign indicated an emergency exit.

  Burton carried Madeleine toward it as another ominous rumbling began to build.

  He was halfway there when the windows darkened and burst inward. They went one after the other, as though detonated in sequence. Burton had a flash of memory: Tünscher idiotically drunk in Marseille; he’d gone to an aquarium and fired at a tank.

  He was swept off his feet, clutching Madeleine, positioning her body so she was knitted into him. They rolled and banged down the corridor, streaking past the emergency exit, one moment submerged, the next inches from the ceiling.

  Submerged—ceiling—submerged again—

  A plunging sensation … and they were dumped onto the floor. They bounced to a halt. Another corridor, the water inexplicably at knee height.

  Burton lifted Madeleine up. She was limp, her eyes closed. He pressed his fingers beneath her jaw and detected a weak pulse. He crushed his mouth against hers, blowing all the energy from his lungs. Her chest expanded; water flared from her nostrils. He breathed into her again: another lungful of life.

  A new roar rebounded through the corridor—elemental, unstoppable.

  The ground shook as if from an earthquake. Burton secured his Browning, hugged Madeleine tight into his arms. Braced himself.

  The wave broke over him as it had done on board the Ark. He cartwheeled, his nose and mouth charged with bubbles. There was no memory of Germania this time, no sweet ice cream breath or Maddie clambering on top of him. No whispered talk of the life they were going to share.

  Burton sensed that they were accelerating. Objects bobbed and battered around them; he tried to protect his head as best he could. He felt cuts along the length of his body. Every time he broke the surface, he could make out nothing except lights and rushing walls and the sheer force of the water. He heaved Madeleine into him in an effort to pump her chest and keep her airways open. She was as heavy as a corpse. They disappeared below the water.

  Burton became aware of black clouds and humidity. They were fluming through trees.

  He caught hold of one, his fingers digging into the bark. The trunk was bending against the flood. He struggled to get a better grip. If it had just been him, if he had two hands to anchor himself, he might have held on.

  He saw the hospital behind them. Water surged and foamed around the building, blasting wide every opening, crumbling the structure, snatching up trees like they were matchsticks. The waves carried a cargo of flotsam. Burton glimpsed movement on one of the pagoda roofs. He thought it was Cranley: a huge black gecko, skittering over the tiles to the main building. With its deep foundations and solid walls it stood steadfast. Beyond, the night was black: every light in the Sofia Reservation had been extinguished.

  Burton’s grip weakened … and broke.

  The current dragged them away. All he could do was hold Madeleine as they were spun and whirled and ducked.

  Gradually the ferocity of the water began to subside, and they drifted through a steep-sided valley. Debris bobbed around them: timber, pieces of torn corrugated roofing, the broken spines of trees.

  And bodies.

  Hundreds of bodies: floating facedown, some with their clothes ripped free of their skin. The naked flesh was grotesquely white in the darkness.

  Burton grabbed hold of a wooden joist and used it to keep them buoyant. Madeleine spluttered and moaned. He used his good arm to beat against the waves, in the direction of the shore. Ahead, on top of a hill, was the Totenburg he’d spied earlier. A powerful searchlight illuminated it from behind, turning the granite towers into silhouettes.

  He aimed toward them, landing on a muddy bank. Burton heaved himself out of the water, then Madeleine. He leaned close, a grateful laugh exploding from him when he felt the tickle of her breath.

  He placed his hand on her forehead. “Maddie…? Maddie, we got out.”

  She opened her eyes; they were drained of color. “I’m cold.”

  He lifted her dress and examined the wound. It was a perfect circle, washed clean but pouring blood again. He pressed around it to feel how deeply the bullet had entered. Madeleine had fired at such close range that it hadn’t gained velocity: the shell was lodged close to the surface.

  Tears of relief speckled his eyes. He should be able to pry it out.

  It would be an excruciating procedure, but so long as he stanched the bleeding he could save her. More scars for them to compare one day. He bolstered himself with a glimpse into the future. They were in bed—goose down and warm, dry cotton—caressing each other’s war wounds, Burton insistent that a bullet to the belly was worse than losing your hand. And a lot more reckless.

  The water continued to rise. Madeleine’s calves were submerged.

  Burton glanced above at the Totenburg; the light gleaming from it had a serene, celestial quality. It would be a good place to shelter her. Then he would find a guard tower, an outpost, anything that had medical supplies, patch her up and get her back to Antzu. When he and Tünscher had first arrived at the city, they passed a primitive hospital. Burton wished his old friend were with him now, and not only for his medical training. He hoped he’d gotten away safely. Perhaps he was already in Nosy Be, being fussed over by nurses, smoking a Bayerweed.

  “I’m going to have to move you, Maddie. I’m going to carry you
up top.”

  She nodded weakly.

  He scooped her into his arms and trudged upward through the mud, struggling not to slip. The water chased him the whole way, lapping at his boots. Once he stumbled, and Madeleine let out a shriek of pain. He fought his way on. There was a rushing in his ears like the great rivers of Africa he had known: the Niger and Limpopo, the cataracts of Congo.

  Each step he took caused Madeleine to wince. He kept murmuring apologies until she placed her finger over his lips. Her hands were still bound.

  Burton managed another twenty feet before he had to stop. The slope was too steep now, slippery with mud and grass. His strength was deserting him. He laid her down and settled next to her, panting for breath.

  “You’re going to have to climb on me,” he said. The crest of the hill was a sickle of light.

  “Piggyback? Like with Elli on the farm?”

  “Like with Elli.”

  “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”

  “We can make it, Madeleine. You’ll have to fight for every hour, but we can make it.”

  Her voice was bleak. “Jacoba was right. There’s no way off this island.”

  “We use the fishing fleet at Varavanga.”

  She was silent for several moments, her face buried in the mud, then asked, “What about the hospital?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you think the twins were—”

  “Nothing can happen to them anymore.”

  “I wish you’d seen them, that I could have passed them from my arms to yours. Just once.”

  “We’ll mourn them when we’re far away.” He lay flat. “Climb on, we’re nearly there.”

  At first he thought she was refusing or had given up and wanted to wait and die; then he realized she was building herself up to it. She rolled on top of him, crying out before she settled, her hands gripping his shoulders.

  Burton continued upward, half-crawling on his hands and knees. They had left the waterline, but their clothes were soaked and heavy. Every time his stump disappeared into the earth, a shard stabbed through him. The ascent was agonizingly slow, the mud as sludgy as fresh cement.

  Suddenly Madeleine’s weight was gone.

  He watched her flailing legs disappear over the brow of the hill, into the light, as she was lifted up and away. Burton struggled after her—before a huge, brutal hand was thrust into his face.

  “Take it,” said a familiar voice.

  Burton was too exhausted to fight. He let out a sigh that emptied his throat, then grasped hold. There was something almost reassuring about its strength and solidity. He looked up: a single black eye bored into him, as black as the devil’s hangman.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Diego Suarez

  21 April, 05:10

  SALOIS HAD FAILED.

  The heavens were full of planes—but they were Me-362s, their tail fins spotted with swastikas. He watched them take off from the runway at Kap Diégo in silver pairs, then circle low over the base. A cauldron of jet engine roars, repeating over and over, with moments of quiet before the next fighters screamed past. Their vapor trails were gray threads against the lustrous sky.

  Rolland would not be able to sail thousands of fresh troops to Africa; the war on the continent would slaughter itself to a stalemate. America, the distant hope of every Jew, would remain a bystander to their extinction.

  The last wisps of green smoke for the bombers were fading. Salois tightened the tourniquets that were keeping his life trapped inside his legs. He felt no anger. Or injustice or blazing disappointment.

  Yet he was aware that something had been extinguished inside him. Should he have heeded Madeleine and Burton? In preparation for Diego, Cranley had commissioned an intricate model of the base for Salois and his team to study. At the end of one briefing, Cranley rested his hand on it.

  “When it’s over, I’ll have this installed at home, to remind us of our achievement.” He offered a smile to Salois, and for once it was full of humor. “Much better than a medal.”

  Why come all this way on a pretense? During their last radio contact, Cranley said he was in position near Mazunka. His raid could have failed; he could have been captured or killed. A storm front might have swept across the Mozambique Channel, forcing the bombers back to the base. Or maybe they had run into a random Messerschmitt patrol. Salois thought how often he and his fellow guerrillas had stumbled across Nazis in Kongo and the intense gun battles that followed. Battles that left the jungle littered with bodies, while he remained untouched.

  Salois searched himself and knew that Cranley hadn’t betrayed him.

  Across the water in Weissfelsenbucht, the aircraft carriers had slipped their moorings and were reversing out of port, heading toward the darkness and security of the ocean. The arsenal on the quayside below had spent most of its munitions; it sounded like a wet log dumped on a fire now: thrumming with heat, popping and cracking occasionally. Its beauty was no longer spellbinding—but cruel. A reminder of how close he’d come to success. Teams of firefighters doused the blaze. Yaudin watched the scene without triumph.

  “You should go,” Salois said to him, “while there’s a chance.”

  “Where to?” replied the Jupo chief. “I’ll never escape. As soon as you didn’t surrender, Major, I knew it was up for me.”

  “You could have stayed in Antzu.”

  “Just because we don’t want to fight the Nazis doesn’t make us cowards.”

  Salois wondered who Yaudin had been in his previous life. His rough accent could encompass anything: builder, tram inspector, hoodlum.

  “What will happen to your family?”

  “The same as Antzu.” He was choked with anguish. “As the whole of Madagaskar. It’s a disaster—”

  Salois cast his eye over the intact base. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”

  “We both failed, Major. There are terrible days ahead; Globocnik will ship us to the reservations for this. Or worse.”

  “That could still bring the Americans.”

  A bitter snort. “Is that the best you Vanillas can wish for? To soak this island in blood and hope that a distant land might save us? We’ll never defeat the Nazis; we can only try to live with them.”

  “A dupe’s promise.”

  “Before I left Antzu, I gave my wife two pots: one of poison, one of honey.” His voice was plaintive now. “Honey is so rare, I’d been saving it for a special occasion. If the worst happens, I told her, mix it with the poison … for her and the family to feast. I don’t want them to suffer or starve; I don’t want my children to see murder. Let them go quietly.”

  “That’s the best you can wish for? To go quietly?”

  “All I wanted was to preserve the thin slice of life we have. To keep death at bay.”

  “The hardest punishment of all,” replied Salois.

  He reached for the tourniquets around his legs, unbuckled the first belt—but didn’t loosen it.

  “I don’t want you to see me die,” he said.

  Yaudin moved away, to the edge of the steps: a shadow against the fulgent light of the bay and the dying flames. Jet fighters continued to patrol overhead, flying so low that the missile battery trembled with each pass.

  At least mine won’t be a quiet death, thought Salois. He undid the belt around his left thigh, then the right. Immediately he felt heat soaking through his trousers, spreading across the ground, as if he were an old, incontinent man. A mortal man. And behind it the first hint of a deep, pitiless cold. So this was the hand of death.

  He had been dazed by the speed with which Frieda’s body lost its heat. It leached out of her, out of the whole room, till the air numbed him. Of all the deaths he would come to witness, hers was the most pointless. The most meaningless. He had killed Frieda over what to call the child growing inside her.

  He had been named after his father and his father’s father, a choice that veiled the family background; it was a tradition he expected to continue. Frieda
was too free a spirit for such conventions; she was proud of her heritage. She had something else in mind.

  —So now you don’t like my name, he’d said. His temper was slipping, flaring. He enjoyed the power it gave him.

  —Of course I do! That’s why I want us to marry, so I can take it.

  —But not my first name.

  —I want to call the baby Reuben.

  —What if it’s a girl?

  —He’s a boy. Frieda patted her belly. He’s a Reuben. She smiled, but he saw that she was nervous. Listen close and you’ll hear him say it.

  He wouldn’t be contradicted. No son of mine will ever be called that. He’ll sound like a Jew.

  —We are Jews.

  —The world doesn’t need to know.

  She looked so crestfallen; it enraged him further.

  —We’re not calling him Reuben, he had yelled, the devil rising in his heart.

  They were the last words Frieda Salois, the woman who was going to be his wife, heard.

  Troops with machine guns had gathered at the base of the steps leading to the missile battery. They began to climb.

  A band of intense orange dawn was breaking over the ocean. There was a whiff of ylang-ylang in the air.

  Salois took out Madeleine’s knife. She’d wondered if he’d been spared for some great deed; she was wrong. There was no redemption. His death would be as meaningless as the millions before his, and the millions after. At least she and Burton and Abner had Kap Ost and the boat to freedom. He cut open his trousers, then peeled off his jacket and hurled it away. He was naked except for his boots. Blood continued to gush from his legs. When the Nazis found him, he wanted them to see the color of his skin. Somewhere on his forearm, lost among thousands of other digits, was his own number. He had gladly let it be obscured: it was a number that belonged to a man who never existed.

  When he had arrived in Algeria to begin his service—the “ride on the tiger” they called it—all recruits were instructed to adopt new identities; it was the Legion way. That suited him well; the life he’d once lived was over. No one—his family, his few friends, the authorities—would be able to trace him. He stood in line, the sun hammering down on him, waiting for the clerk d’engagements to fill in his papers. It was hotter than he had ever known, hot as hell. A fitting location for his penance.