The Tin Snail

by Cameron McAllister

  Philippe obviously wasn’t expecting it: he was sent flying, thumping into the dirt with me still clinging to him like a demented attack dog.

  For a moment the pair of us were locked together, writhing around in the dirt as Camille shrieked at us to stop. Finally she managed to prize my arms off Philippe and drag me away.

  Suddenly free, Philippe sprang to his feet and was about to unleash another blow with one of his huge iron fists when Camille threw herself in front of him, eyes bulging wildly.

  “You want to get to him, you go through me,” she hissed venomously.

  “This is nothing to do with you,” Philippe seethed, his chest heaving.

  “He’s right.” I gasped, the pain in my jaw making me want to throw up. “He thinks just because I’m Italian I’m going to side with Germany.”

  “Aren’t you?” Philippe jeered.

  “Of course not!” I protested. “France is my home now, the same as you.”

  “You and me will never be the same! So why don’t you go back to where you came from. Traitor!”

  Before I could take my revenge, Camille had stepped forward, inches from Philippe’s face, her jaw hardening with hatred.

  “And I suppose I’m a Nazi spy, am I, because my father was German?”

  So it was true. Félix wasn’t her real father.

  Philippe fixed her with a cold, insolent stare. “You tell me….”

  Camille was about to slap him but, fast as lightning, Philippe grabbed her hand and held it menacingly before shoving it away. His eyes were burning with anger and jealousy, but there was something else there as well—a hint of shame. But if he was sorry for what he’d said, he wasn’t about to admit it. Giving me a last disdainful look, he turned and stalked away into the night.

  I took a deep breath, then coughed up another mouthful of dirt and blood as Camille held out her hand to me. I grabbed it and let her help me to my feet. For a moment I thought I was going to fall over again—my head was swirling sickeningly—but I managed to stay upright.

  “We should put some of Benoît’s home brew on that,” she said, eyeing the cut that was starting to throb on my lip. “You know it’s legendary for its healing powers.” But the thought of putting Benoît’s concoction anywhere near my mouth made my head reel again.

  “Come on.” She smiled at me. “We can still catch the results.”

  “I won’t be able to stay long,” Bertrand hollered above the noise of the axles crunching over the ruts in the road. It was several weeks after the beauty contest, and I was sitting in his car, bumping along the dirt road to the test track. He had popped down from Paris to pay a surprise visit to the workshop as soon as he’d heard our news.

  A few nights before, Christian had finally had the breakthrough he’d been searching for. He’d come crashing into the house, screaming so loudly I’d thought it was burning down. But when I scrambled downstairs, I found him dancing around the breakfast room with my father as though they had gotten into Benoît’s homemade brew.

  Lying on the table was a rusty old drainpipe.

  “What is it?” I asked, still groggy from being so rudely awakened.

  “It’s the new suspension system, of course!” Christian cried. Seeing my confusion, he grabbed it and proceeded to demonstrate by shoving a poker up one end. Inside was some sort of shock absorber. As the poker squeezed, the spring inside it forced a lever out the other end of the pipe.

  Christian and my father turned to me, grinning idiotically.

  “Isn’t it genius?” Christian exclaimed. “It’s so simple I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”

  “See what?” I asked, completely stumped.

  “Imagine the front wheel is attached to the poker. When it hits the bump, the shock forces the poker into the drainpipe like this.” He shoved the poker in. “Now, imagine the poker on the other end is connected to the back wheel. As the poker is forced out the back end, it pushes down on the suspension, tightening it so that it can’t bounce so high. It’s a miracle!” he cried.

  Slowly a smile crept across my face as I realized the full impact of what he was saying. If he was right, the front wheel would effectively be able to warn the back wheel that a bump was coming. In other words, they would be able to talk to each other.

  Suddenly there were not two but three people dancing around the breakfast room, shouting for joy.

  “Why do you have to go back so soon?” I shouted across to Bertrand as we approached the test track.

  “I have to be in Paris tonight. The board are meeting to discuss what we’ll do if war is declared. They want us to design a new six-wheeled gun tractor.”

  I felt a trickle of cold sweat down my back again. For months I’d felt cocooned from the real world, hidden away in the depths of the countryside. I’d been too busy working on the car to think much about the war. But now there was no escaping it. With Germany amassing a vast army of Porsche’s Panzer tanks, threatening to overrun its smaller neighbors, it was all too horribly real.

  Bertrand swung the car through the open gate and pulled up near the workshop. But before he climbed out, there was something I had been itching to ask him.

  “Camille…” I hesitated. “You never mentioned that her father was a German deserter.”

  “Who told you that?” he asked sternly.

  “Philippe.”

  Bertrand’s face clouded. “I should have known. But for the record, he wasn’t a deserter. His plane was shot down.”

  I gasped. “You mean, all those parts in Félix’s lock-up…?”

  “…were from his plane, yes. His name was Ulrich,” he explained. “After he was shot down, he staggered to Hélène’s house—that was Camille’s mother. The local militia were out hunting him, but Hélène refused to give him up. She must have felt sorry for him, I suppose.” He shot me a quizzical look from under his bushy eyebrows. “Do you think less of Camille now?”

  “No,” I answered honestly.

  “Good,” he said. “Because her father was a good man. He was just on the other side.”

  “What happened after that?” I asked.

  “Hélène hid him in a secret cellar under the floorboards for months on end—till the war was over, in fact. During that time they must have gradually fallen in love.”

  “And after the war?”

  “They moved away. Far enough away for no one to know Ulrich’s true identity. For years I didn’t hear anything—until one day, out of the blue, Hélène came home…with Camille. She must only have been a year or so old.”

  “Where was her father?”

  “He’d died. Something to do with the mustard gas they’d used during the war, I think.”

  “And Félix?”

  “Hélène married him a few years later. An old tractor he was working on had toppled over backward and would have killed Camille if Félix hadn’t put himself in harm’s way.”

  “Was that how he got his limp?” I asked, suddenly piecing everything together.

  Bertrand nodded. “He was so strong and kind, Hélène couldn’t help but love him for it.” He smiled to himself as he recollected. “How he doted on that child. He couldn’t have adored her more if she’d been his own. But then, a few years later, Hélène became ill and died as well. Some say she’d never really got over losing Ulrich.”

  He paused to stuff a little tobacco into his pipe, then lit it. “Now, enough gossip. We have work to do.”

  Perhaps there was more to this story, but for the moment I felt I’d intruded enough.

  I followed him round to the front of the workshop, where we found Christian puffing on one of his exotic cigarettes. When he saw us, he almost swallowed it in shock.

  “What are you doing here?” he spluttered.

  “We’ve come to inspect the car,” Bertrand announced brightly. “I assume it’s ready.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey,” Christian told us abruptly. “It’s not finished yet. You should have given us a fe
w more days.” But I could tell from his caginess that he was hiding something.

  Bertrand obviously thought the same.

  “Can’t we at least look at it? After all, I’ve come all this way.”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I’ll call you as soon as there’s news.”

  There was no doubting it—Christian was acting very oddly. What was it he was so desperate to hide?

  Before Bertrand or I had a chance to ask, the sound of a car noisily starting up made us turn toward the workshop.

  “Why are the doors closed?” Bertrand asked suspiciously.

  “We’ve run into some problems with the water-cooled engine again,” Christian blurted.

  “What kind of problems?”

  “The water froze.”

  “But it’s nearly summer,” Bertrand retorted.

  For a moment Christian looked lost for words before finally sighing. “All we need is a few more days. We’ve had some teething problems…with the styling.”

  “The styling…?” Bertrand echoed, looking confused. “What styling? This is supposed to be a functional machine for farmers.”

  But before Christian had a chance to explain, the doors to the workshop flew open, and a car unlike anything I had seen before burst out and slewed to a halt in front of us.

  At the wheel sat my father, grinning from behind a set of grimy goggles.

  “Well? What do you think?” he asked proudly, leaping out.

  Bertrand glanced at Christian, who was now looking uncharacteristically sheepish.

  “This is what you wouldn’t show me?”

  Christian shrugged, and without a word Bertrand went over to examine the car.

  Like the earlier model, it was made from panels of corrugated iron. But instead of the flatbed trailer, the new prototype boasted four makeshift seats and a roof that swept down toward the back. On either side, two bright yellow wheel arches concealed the rear wheels so that only the bottom peeked out.

  Bertrand slowly paced his way around the car, his expression giving little away. “Something about these yellow panels…,” he noted dryly. “They seem strangely familiar.”

  My father smiled. “I made a little trip down to the river.”

  I glanced back at the car and realized that he had stripped much of the bodywork from Christian’s bright yellow sports car, still buried in the riverbed.

  “I also see the countryside has influenced your design,” Bertrand observed, arching an eyebrow.

  “What makes you say that?” Papa frowned.

  “Simple,” Bertrand announced. “From the front it looks like a toad and from the back like a constipated duck.”

  “I think it looks more like a snail,” I ventured, then quickly realized my mistake when my father glared at me.

  “A tin snail, perhaps,” Bertrand suggested by way of a compromise.

  “It’s certainly distinctive,” Christian chimed in.

  “It’s that, all right. But do farmers and bakers need distinctive?” Bertrand mused.

  By now my father had heard enough. “Yes!” he snapped irritably. “They deserve to have something of their own. Something that says they may be farmers or bakers or postmen, but they are also French citizens who are proud of their country and will fight to defend it.”

  I hadn’t seen my father this fired up in months—years, even. The old forest creature was crashing through the undergrowth again.

  “I may be Italian,” he continued triumphantly, “but the style of this car will be uniquely French! And by my honor, if there is a war, it just might win it for us!”

  With that, he turned and strode toward the workshop, his head held high, as if he were a conquering general.

  For a moment no one spoke. I’m not sure any of us fully understood what my father meant, but his words were rousing nonetheless.

  Finally Bertrand turned to me. “What do you think?”

  “Me?” I asked, thrown.

  “Of course. The entire project is your doing. You must have the final say.”

  I looked at the car, searching for an answer. There was no doubting it: it did look uncannily like a duck crossed with a tin snail. But it had something else too—something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then I got it.

  It had attitude.

  “I love it,” I declared at last.

  “Very well,” Bertrand concluded. “Then there isn’t a moment to lose.” He turned to an astonished Christian. “We must go into production as soon as possible. Otherwise we won’t have a factory left to build it in!”

  “B-but the suspension…,” Christian stammered. “We haven’t tested it yet. What if the car blows up like the last one?”

  “Then you’d better test it quickly,” Bertrand told him gruffly. “Because one way or another, the Tin Snail is going into production. Call me as soon as your tests are complete.” With that, he turned and stalked back to his car.

  Christian and I were speechless. We turned and surveyed the strange little car sitting in front of us, bolted together out of odd panels and parts salvaged from the wrecked car in the river.

  True, it had a certain quirky charm. But quite how it was going to win a war was completely beyond me.

  Victor brought a tray of lagers over to the table and settled down to join our poker game.

  It was two days since Bertrand had issued his ultimatum, and Christian and my father had been working on the car night and day. If Christian had been unsure about my father’s styling, that was forgotten now. All that mattered was making sure that the new suspension system worked perfectly.

  Christian had arrived at the bar an hour or so before, dripping with sweat from an unusually humid evening in the workshop. During the winter months it was like a fridge, offering precious little protection from the icy blasts from the north. Now, as the first really hot days of summer were upon us, the workshop had become a metal oven. Opening the doors would have helped, but Bertrand had insisted on total secrecy. So we had been forced to endure rocketing temperatures.

  As he pulled up a chair and joined us, Christian looked exhausted. He still wasn’t entirely happy with the suspension system and had spent the day painstakingly tweaking it. But it was too late and he was too tired to do any more tonight. Tomorrow would be another day.

  Two hours later, the game was still going strong; it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. Even with the doors wide-open, the air in the bar felt stale and heavy. Piled up on the table in front of us was a mound of dog-eared notes—easily our largest “pot” yet.

  Having spent most of the evening grumbling over his poor hands, my father now seemed confident that he was on to a winner. Sneaking a glance over his shoulder, I saw that he already had two queens. Another queen was sitting faceup in the center of the scuffed table.

  One card was yet to be revealed. If it was a queen, my father would have four, an all-but-invincible hand. But if, by a stroke of almost unimaginable luck, Victor was concealing under his squat, hairy fingers the king of clubs, he would have a royal flush—the highest hand possible. So high that in all the months I had lived in the village, I had never seen it.

  Christian and then Félix folded, tossing their cards into the pile. Next up was Benoît. He threw in his cards, but like the others, he wasn’t about to leave. Not till I had dealt the last card.

  My father blinked slowly, his face a mask of calm that hid his tension. I knew there was much more at stake for him than the winnings. This was about reputation, but more than anything, it was about beating Victor.

  Victor smiled at him, showing his nicotine-stained teeth. “Your call, I believe.”

  My father pushed all his remaining chips, coins and cash into the center.

  “All in.” He was gambling everything, or almost everything, as I was about to discover.

  I watched closely as the smile faded from Victor’s lips. In the background, Dominique had stopped clearing tables and was now watching closely like the rest of the locals.
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  With a nod from my father, I took the top card from the pack and discarded it as usual. The next would seal Papa’s fate one way or the other. I slowly put it down next to the other three that lay faceup on the table.

  It was all I could do not to punch the air. It was the queen of diamonds!

  As my father spread his cards out on the table, a gasp went up from the assembled onlookers as they realized he had four queens.

  All eyes were now on Victor as his stubby fingers picked up his cards and placed them on the table.

  For a moment there was a murmur of confusion, and then a collective intake of breath. The unimaginable had happened. It was a royal flush—the highest possible hand.

  I blinked repeatedly, as if my eyes were deceiving me, and craned closer to see. “It can’t be…,” I breathed.

  “I assure you it can,” Victor purred as his face cracked into a broad grin.

  My father remained rigidly still, numb with shock. The nigh-on-impossible had happened.

  Victor began to scoop up all his winnings hungrily.

  “I hope you’ll give us a chance to win it back,” Christian said, eyeing him with suspicion.

  “Of course,” he replied. “But not tonight. My luck can last only so long.”

  My father sat brooding as Victor rose to his feet, struggling to carry all his winnings.

  “There is, of course, the matter of the bet you made with Angelo,” Papa suddenly announced. As the bar fell silent, I darted an anxious look at him.

  “You’re ready to show us this new car of yours?” Victor asked, intrigued.

  “Papa, no! It’s too soon,” I warned him.

  Christian too was looking alarmed now. “Luca—we still need another day or two.”

  But my father wasn’t listening. He was staring straight at Victor. “Double or quits?” he asked coldly.

  As Victor raised a curious eyebrow, I grabbed my father’s arm more urgently. “We haven’t finished all the tests.”

  Victor smiled smugly. “Maybe you should listen to your boy. Even he seems to have no faith in it.”