by Mark Hebden
The firing went on sporadically as they waited, and they were all deep in conference again behind Dennis’ shop when Darcy, who had been directing the operations at the rear of the house, appeared.
‘Misset’s been hit,’ he said.
Pel rounded on him in a fury. ‘It would be Misset!’ he snarled. ‘What was he doing there? It was supposed to be the unmarried men.’
‘I think he was trying to save a bit of face. He must have slipped in.’
Pel scowled, then his natural concern for his men broke through. ‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘Not if we can get him away. He was just behind De Troq’ who was leading the rush with Aimedieu. The bullets missed them and hit Misset. One of Nadauld’s men was also hit but not seriously. Misset’s different. He seems in a bad way, but I can’t really tell because every time I stick my head up they start firing. De Troq’ shouted that they’re all crowded in the kitchen at the back of the house. We can’t get up the stairs and they can’t get down. He says it was the Ripka woman who got Misset.’
‘She’s with them?’ Brisard said.
Pel gave him a glare and, as he backed away, Pel sighed. He had been trying all the time to save people from being hurt, but now there was nothing more he could do. He was being forced on to the offensive. They all were. As Ney had said at Jena, the wine was poured and they’d have to drink it.
‘I’ll come,’ he said.
Eighteen
The builder’s yard was full of policemen. They were crouching among the piles of timber and tiles, and Nosjean and a group of plain clothes men were huddled with the man from the City Engineer’s Department against a steep-roofed garage that backed on to the wall which separated the area from the narrow yard at the rear of Number Ninety-Seven. Two ladders reared up against the side of the garage to show where the rear party had scrambled over.
Darcy gestured. ‘They went up the ladders, up the roof and down the other side. The wall of the yard of Ninety-Seven lifts about half a metre above the guttering at that side. We’re all right on this side – at least, we are up against the garage there, where we’re in dead ground out of their fire. We’re also all right on the roof but you have to go over the ridge double-quick and down to the wall. That’s when they could get you. You’ve got a bit of shelter by the wall, which is just high enough to protect you, so if they start shooting, lie down behind it in the gutter. When you reach the gutter, you have to roll over the wall double-quick and drop into the yard. It’s about three metres down.’
‘Just enough to break a leg or two,’ Pel growled.
A few shots were still being fired but the men inside the house were lying low now, though they didn’t seem to be running out of ammunition.
Darcy peered out from behind the timber. ‘When you’re ready, Patron,’ he said, ‘we’ll make a dash for the ladders. The boys here’ll keep their heads down, and as soon as they start firing, the guys in the Rue Mozart will open up, too. Right?’
‘Right!’
‘Let’s go!’
As the firing started, Pel and Darcy made a zigzag dash bent double across the yard. Out of the corner of his eye, Pel saw splinters fly from a dismantled door leaning against an old van without tyres, then he was with Darcy hard up against the garage wall alongside Nosjean, panting after the run. Darcy grinned.
‘Made it,’ he said.
‘So far!’
Darcy’s grin died. ‘So far,’ he agreed soberly. He jerked a thumb upwards. ‘We go up the ladders, then up the roof. Take it slowly, Patron, then when you get near the peak, make it fast. Over the ridge, down the other side and over the wall into the yard. The guys in the houses behind can see us and they’ll keep up the fire on the windows.’ He looked round him, frowning. ‘We’ve got to do something soon,’ he pointed out. ‘The people in those houses back there are growing restive. Their windows have been broken and their walls and furniture chipped. A child’s also been hit in the hand. Nothing serious, thank God, but they’re beginning to think it’s been going on too long.’
He took his cigarette from his mouth and tossed it aside. The stuffy heat had gone now and the rain was coming in a downpour that saturated their clothes.
‘We’ve asked for a doctor,’ he said. ‘A volunteer. Someone young. Doc Minet’s a bit old and fat for scrambling up ladders under fire. Nosjean here will explain what he’s to do. We have to communicate by shouting from the back door. But they can’t hit anybody there and they can’t hit anybody here, so long as we’re close to the wall. You ready?’
Pel nodded and, as Darcy gestured, began to climb one of the ladders with his head well down, while Darcy climbed the other. At the top they paused as firing started from the other side of the builder’s yard. Glass broke and shots came back from the upper windows of the house.
‘Ready, Patron? Now!’
Reaching for the top of the ladder, Pel scrambled up the last few steps. Missing his footing, so that he scraped his shin agonisingly on a rung, as he clung to the top of the ladder wanting to howl at the pain, Darcy called out.
‘We go up the roof together, Patron. It’s better that way.’
Firing from the house started again as they sprawled on the grubby tiles of the garage roof and glass tinkled to the ground. Bullets chinked off the walls and Pel could hear them whining away, some of them uncomfortably close.
‘Now!’ Darcy yelled.
Scrambling up the roof, Pel rolled over the ridge and down the other side until he was brought up sharp against a wall that rose beyond the guttering. A tile not far away shattered as a bullet struck it then the firing from the houses across the builder’s yard increased.
‘Over, Patron!’ Darcy yelled.
Scrambling over the wall, Pel dropped down into the backyard of Number Ninety-Seven where De Troq’ dragged him to his feet and shoved him unceremoniously through the back door.
Misset was lying on a stained mattress, propped up with coats. As Pel appeared he opened his eyes.
‘I think I’m dying, Patron,’ he said hollowly.
Pel glanced at De Troq’ who shook his head. ‘Shock,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s bad but not that bad.’
‘I was doing my duty, Patron,’ Misset groaned.
Pel frowned. It would be the most difficult and intractable member of his squad who’d been hurt – Misset, who’d been due to face the Chief and translation back to uniform. Pel could hardly do that to him now, but it was also typical of Misset, who was always more than willing to avoid both work and responsibility, to make a song and dance about doing his duty. Pel looked down at the fleshy handsome face. Misset had drunk too many beers and sat on his behind too much over the years and was running to seed. In another few years, the good looks would be gone and he would be just a podgy, too-fat man. All the same, he was badly hurt, spitting blood and in a state of collapse, and the least Pel could do for him was offer a few words of comfort.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll get you to the hospital.’
‘It’s going to be damn’ difficult, Patron,’ De Troq’ pointed out. ‘We can’t take him out by the front door because the woman’s watching the stairs and she shoots as soon as anybody puts his head into the hall.’
‘It’s all right,’ Misset moaned. ‘I can die here.’
Self-sympathy, Pel thought, killed almost as many as bullets did. He turned his head sharply.
‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ he snapped. ‘It’s an offence against the police code to die when people are trying to rescue you. You ought to know that.’
It so startled Misset he stopped moaning and lay quietly, his eyes on Pel, frightened, in pain, but no longer full of self-sympathy.
‘We’ll get you to hospital,’ Pel went on gruffly. ‘We’re getting a doctor to you. He’ll fix you up here and then we’ll strap you to a stretcher and get you out somehow. Never fear.’
This time Misset even managed to look grateful and brave.
Pel glanced round. The wounded uniformed man was
sitting in a corner, his back against the wall. De Troq’ and Aimedieu had bandaged his arm with handkerchieves, and though he looked pale and shaken, he was quite rational.
‘You all right?’ Pel asked.
‘Yes, Patron. I’m all right. It hurts but I can use it after a fashion.’
Pel patted his shoulder and drew Darcy, De Troq’ and Aimedieu to one side.
‘He’ll have to go over the wall,’ Darcy said.
‘How about through the wall?’ Pel asked. ‘Can’t we knock a hole in it?’
‘I thought of that one, Patron,’ Darcy said. ‘But the City Engineer type in the builder’s yard said the wall’s too old and if you removed so much as a couple of bricks, the whole lot would come down on us.’
Pel stared up at the wall. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll get him out the way he came in. I’ll go back and organise it. I’ll need a shove up. Then we’ll get ladders over with men on the roof. We can back up a van to the garage wall and get him down that way. Getting him up from here’s going to be the most difficult part, but we’ll double the numbers of marksmen in the windows opposite to keep their heads down till we’re clear.’
As they made their plans, the firing increased again and they heard someone scrambling across the roof and the thump of feet as a man dropped into the yard. It was Doctor Lacoste. His face was grey with fear and his dark eyes were huge.
A policeman, crouching behind the low wall against the roof, lifted himself long enough to drop the doctor’s bag to him, then ducked down again as tiles jumped and danced under the firing from the windows above their heads. Then, as the covering fire from the Rue Mozart blazed up, he jumped to his feet, scrambled up the roof and rolled over the other side.
Lacoste, who had caught the bag like a rugby ball, was leaning against the wall, trying to get back both his breath and his nerve.
‘What do you want?’ Pel snapped.
‘They called for a volunteer.’
Considering how terrified he’d been when he’d first seen him and clearly still was, Pel couldn’t help feeling admiration for him. He gestured at Misset, and Lacoste bent over him. After a while he rose to his feet, wiping the blood from his hands on a handkerchief.
‘The bullet has entered his chest,’ he said. ‘It struck a rib, glanced along it and came out at his side. He’s bleeding internally. We need to get him to a hospital.’
‘And if we don’t?’
Lacoste shrugged.
Pel glanced at Misset who was lying back, almost seeming to enjoy the attention he was receiving.
‘We’ll get him to the hospital,’ Pel said, ‘if you can patch him up to make him fit to go. He’s going to have a nasty trip over that roof.’
Lacoste looked startled. ‘Isn’t he going out through the front door?’
‘Try that,’ Darcy said, ‘and you and another two or three’ll probably end up like him.’ He jerked a thumb at the wall opposite the back door. ‘That’s the only way.’
Lacoste frowned. ‘It’s dangerous,’ he said.
‘Do you think we don’t know that?’
‘I mean, it’ll be dangerous for him.’
‘Doc,’ Darcy said, ‘it’ll be dangerous for all of us.’
‘I’m going to organise more marksmen to cover the windows,’ Pel said. ‘I’ll also bring up more ladders and get a stretcher over. Then we hoist him up here and down the other side of the roof. Think he can survive that sort of treatment?’
Lacoste frowned. ‘I’ll make it so he can,’ he said. ‘We shall have to be quick, and handle him carefully but I’ll stay with him all the way.’
‘You don’t have to, once he’s patched up.’
‘I’m a doctor,’ Lacoste said stiffly.
‘Very well.’ Pel nodded. ‘Right, you get on with your job. I’ll get on with mine.’ He looked at Darcy. ‘Is it possible to organise radio contact?’
‘Not from here,’ Darcy said. ‘The houses block off the signals. But Nosjean’ll hear if we shout loud enough.’
‘So will everybody else,’ Pel said dryly. ‘Right, then you’d better give me a push up.’
‘Make it fast, Patron,’ Darcy advised. ‘It doesn’t pay to stand around whistling and playing the piano.’
Aimedieu, Darcy and Pel edged outside the door, and stood hard up against the wall of the house. ‘Right,’ Pel said. ‘Now!’
He ran to the wall opposite and stood facing it, his arms raised. As Aimedieu and Darcy grabbed his feet and heaved, he went up with a rush that landed him across the top of the wall with all the breath knocked out of his body. Scrambling to his feet, he scuttled up the sagging roof of the old garage with its broken tiles, to roll over the top and down the other side.
He was going so fast, he took a length of ancient guttering with him and went straight over the edge to fall into the builder’s yard without any further effort. Fortunately, his fall was broken by a policeman and the two of them sagged in a heap against the wall of the garage.
‘More ladders,’ Pel panted, as Nosjean dragged him to his feet. ‘Plenty of ladders. Two up the roof on this side. Two for down the other side. And two to drop into the yard. Then we need a stretcher and a van backed up against the garage here. That’s the only way we can do it. Get on with it, mon brave.’
The policeman standing by the entrance to the apartments in the Rue Mozart overlooking the builder’s yard and the back of Number Ninety-Seven gestured as Pel appeared. The owners of the apartments were standing outside in an agitated group and as they saw him they surrounded him at once.
‘When’s it all going to finish?’ one man yelled at him. ‘My windows have been shot out and my furniture’s full of holes. It’s time someone did something!’
Pel rounded on him coldly. ‘If you care to come back with me over those roofs, volunteers are very welcome.’
The man edged away hurriedly, and Pel began to climb the stairs.
What he’d been told was correct. Windows had been broken and the plaster inside the rooms facing the besieged house had had chunks shot out of it. The police marksmen standing by the windows gave him a grim look.
‘They seem to move about between the two upper windows,’ one of them said. ‘Sometimes they come down a storey to the second floor.’
As he spoke, there was a flurry of shots and the policeman gave Pel a shove. As he reeled away, glass fell out and there was a solid thump as a bullet hit the opposite wall, gouging out plaster in a shower.
‘Pays to keep your head down,’ the policeman said.
‘I’m sending you reinforcements,’ Pel said. ‘I want the firing from that house smothered. We’ve got a badly wounded man in there and we’re going to try to get him out over the roof.’ He pointed to Nosjean in the builder’s yard. ‘The type with the light jacket there will wave a handkerchief when things are happening on the other side. When you see that, give it everything you’ve got.’
Heading back to the Rue Daubenon, he conferred with the Chief.
‘We’ve got all the ammunition you’ll need,’ the Chief said. ‘I’ve got more men, too. Take as many as you need.’
By the time Pel returned to the builder’s yard, Nosjean had collected the ladders, which were lying on the ground hard up alongside the garage. Pel explained his plan.
Ten minutes later they were ready. As firing started from the Rue Mozart, chunks of brick leapt from the walls of Number Ninety-Seven and splinters flew from the furniture the besieged men had propped against the windows. The fact that they were still there and full of life was clear from the shots that came back at them.
As the firing swelled, Pel nodded and policemen swarmed up ladders to the wet roof, dragging more ladders with them. Lying flat, they edged the ladders to the apex until they overbalanced and slid down the other side. More ladders were pushed up to them and over the ridge.
Lying on the blind side of the roof in the pouring rain, Pel explained again what he wanted. ‘Two ladders a metre apart,’ he said. ‘So we can dr
ag the stretcher up between them. Two more, the same, at this side. Then two over the wall into the yard. We’ll place them in position from there.’
He looked at the tempestuous sky and spat rainwater from his lips. ‘I wish to God this rain would stop,’ he complained. ‘Where’s the stretcher?’
‘Ready, Patron,’ Nosjean said. ‘We’ll pass it up when you’re ready. I’ve got a van round the corner. We’ll back it up to the garage as soon as you’re clear.’
‘Right. Let’s go.’
Despite the covering fire, shots kept coming from the windows of the besieged house as the ladders were pushed into position beyond the roof peak. Scrambling down them to the raised wall, uniformed men slid two more ladders down to the yard.
As the stretcher was hurried forward, Pel waved away the men on the roof.
‘Get under cover!’ he yelled. ‘Wait for orders!’
There was a rush to the safe side of the roof, then Pel slipped over the peak, slid down to the projecting wall and rolled over it into the puddled yard of Number Ninety-Seven. Once again, De Troq’ dragged him to safety.
For a moment, drenched and gasping, he sat just inside the kitchen door, trying to get his breath back. For some reason, he thought of Madame Faivre-Perret. Doubtless, he decided, she’d hear eventually what they’d been up to.
It might even do him some good – unless of course, it wasn’t enough to put her off policemen for the rest of her life.
Nineteen
Doctor Lacoste had done a good job on Misset. The doctor seemed quite calm now, his fear gone as he had become absorbed in his work. Misset was silent, his eyes closed.
‘I’ve killed the pain,’ Lacoste said. ‘And the wound’s well padded and bandaged. I’ll be there to keep an eye on him.’
As they strapped Misset to the stretcher, Pel studied the men with him – Darcy, De Troq’, Aimedieu, two uniformed men, Lacoste and the man who’d been hit in the arm. Lacoste would be fully occupied with Misset, so De Troq’, who was the smallest, had to go up first with the lightly wounded man. Darcy, Aimedieu and the uniformed men could do the lifting, because they were the strongest, and he would bring up the rear himself.