The Tin Snail

by Cameron McAllister

  As I looked around, I noticed that two people were missing. Camille and Philippe.

  It wasn’t until the following day that I ran into them.

  Victor had decreed that the young people left in the village must continue their schooling, regardless of the imminent threat. Life would continue just as before—as far as it could, anyway.

  One small fly in this ointment was the fact that the village’s usual schoolteacher, a brittle spinster whose scrawny neck made her look like a vulture, had fled south to avoid the advancing Germans.

  Victor had a simple solution: Dominique, his wife, would step into her shoes. Dominique, I suspected, had little say in the matter. As for me, the idea of sitting in a classroom with Philippe didn’t exactly fill me with joy.

  To make matters worse, the village was basking in the first real heat wave of the summer, but my father insisted on me going. What else was there to do anyway, except worry about when the Germans might show up? So I set off, a knot of apprehension in the pit of my stomach.

  When I arrived at the classroom, I found to my surprise that it was deserted. I decided against hanging around on the off chance everyone would return, and wandered back toward the village, skirting the edge of the woods that led down to the river.

  I hadn’t gone far when I heard a scream, followed by another. I froze to the spot, straining to listen. It was Camille.

  I broke into a run, cutting through the woods and tumbling down toward the river. Heart thumping, I leaped over fallen branches and swept through the undergrowth. This stretch was well upriver from the spot where we’d lost Christian’s car, but as I careered down the hillside, I caught a glimpse of an old abandoned water mill just below, a huge wooden walkway jutting out above.

  Finally I burst out of the woods and found myself standing on the riverbank.

  To my astonishment, Camille, Philippe, the scruffy lad called Alphonse who’d crawled under everyone’s legs at Victor’s meeting and another younger boy I didn’t know were swimming. Now they all turned to stare at me, equally astonished.

  Camille, it suddenly became very clear, hadn’t screamed because she was in trouble, but because the water was freezing.

  A little farther away, on the same side of the river, Dominique was reclining on a towel, reading.

  “Angelo…,” she said, a little flustered. She sat upright and quickly fastened a button on her blouse—her one concession to the hot weather. “I didn’t realize you were starting today.”

  “Is school canceled?” I asked, trying to get my breath back.

  “Not at all. We were just doing a little…botany fieldwork.” I caught a familiar flicker of mischief in her eyes. I’d seen it once before, when she’d said how much she’d like to learn to drive.

  “Come in!” Camille called over. My eyes darted to Philippe, who had clambered out onto the riverbank. He looked across at me, rather less welcoming.

  I hesitated. “I’m not sure…”

  “Why not?” Philippe called over. “Or isn’t French water good enough for Italians?”

  “Philippe!” Dominique scolded her son before turning to me. “Please, join us. You must be melting in this heat.”

  She was right. After my little sprint through the woods, I could feel a film of sweat soaking the back of my shirt—and the water did look so refreshing.

  Without any further encouragement, I pulled off my shoes and shirt and rolled up my trousers. But nothing had prepared me for the shock of the icy water as I waded out into the river.

  “Just dive under!” Camille shouted, seeing the blood drain from my face. She grabbed her nose and plunged beneath the water, reappearing moments later, her long hair streaming with water. She flicked it behind her shoulders before turning to me, a look of malicious intent dancing in her eyes. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “Oh no you d-don’t…,” I stammered, backing away. By now the two younger boys were advancing on me in a pincer movement. As I glanced between them, I knew that my fate was sealed. Rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, I took the only honorable way out—and plunged into the freezing water.

  As I burst back out, my head felt like it would split open from the stinging cold. But it didn’t matter—it was exhilarating. Now that my toes weren’t quite so numb, I could feel the smooth pebbles on the riverbed.

  Philippe, who’d been watching from the side with a surly look on his face, called over to me again.

  “If you’re going to swim in our river, you have to pass our initiation test.” His eyes darted up to the wooden beam jutting out above the abandoned water mill. “You have to dive off that.”

  “He will do no such thing,” Dominique insisted. “And nor will you.” She scowled at her son. “In fact, I think it’s time we all headed back.”

  But Philippe didn’t move. His eyes were drilling into me, daring me. “Unless, of course, you’re too scared.”

  Until that moment my blood had felt frozen. Now I could feel it turning hot under his sneering gaze.

  “I’ll tell you what…” He smiled insolently. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  “Philippe, no…,” his mother protested. But he was already on his feet, scrabbling up the bank.

  “He’s only showing off,” Camille tried to reassure me. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

  “Have you done it?” I asked her.

  “We all have,” the youngest lad chimed in, smirking at me.

  By now Philippe was clambering up the rotten timbers and edging out onto the beam above.

  “Philippe, please,” his mother called to him, but still he ignored her. From where I was standing shivering at the water’s edge, the beam looked horribly high.

  “Surely the water isn’t deep enough?” I muttered.

  “Best not to ask,” Camille said. All at once I realized that if I didn’t do this, I would be the only one. The only one and the Italian. Not only was I a traitor in Philippe’s eyes; I would also be a coward. But as I squinted into the glare of the sun and saw him ready to leap, I knew I couldn’t do it. The very thought made my stomach churn.

  Philippe must have known, because he looked down at me smugly. Next thing I knew, he was running at full pelt. Beside me, Dominique clasped her hand to her mouth in fear; then Philippe was suddenly in midair. Muscular and sleek, he turned a full somersault before plunging headfirst into the water with barely a splash.

  For several seconds there was no sign of him. Dominique took a step forward, beginning to panic, but a moment later he burst out of the water. With a few effortless strokes, he swam to the side and clambered out.

  “Your turn,” he said, getting his breath back.

  I could feel my pulse racing. If I didn’t do this, how would I hold my head up in front of Camille?

  Fortunately the decision was taken out of my hands.

  “As your teacher, I forbid you to do this.”

  I spun round to find Dominique fixing me with a steely look. Normally she was mild-mannered, almost submissive. But she was looking anything but submissive now.

  “Everyone, back to class,” she said firmly.

  The others began silently tugging their clothes back on, avoiding eye contact with me. All except Philippe, who was staring at me, a sly smile of satisfaction on his face.

  “I know they’re not what they were, but you should still try them.”

  It was a few hours after my humiliation by the river, and I was now sitting in Victor’s bar, sulkily pushing one of Dominique’s macaroons around my plate. Christian was still in Paris, so it was just my father and me at the table.

  Since war had been declared, delicacies like chocolate and hazelnuts were rationed. Now they were almost impossible to come by, so Dominique had had to improvise, mainly by grinding up acorns from a nearby tree.

  Living in the countryside, getting enough to eat wasn’t as tough as it was in the cities. People simply grew their own. But clothes were harder to come by. I’d only just stopped wear
ing the flannel trousers my mother had forced me to wear when she’d first arrived in the village over a year and a half ago. As for the coveralls I’d ripped a hole in when I’d climbed into the old ambulance—that had long since been mended, though the patch had been joined by a colorful hotchpotch of others.

  Seeing me brooding, my father clearly thought he knew what was getting me down.

  “For all we know, the Germans have no idea we’ve been working on the car,” he reassured me. “They’re probably too busy trying to build their own. The Beetle, or whatever they’re calling it. Apparently even Hitler is driving one as his staff car.”

  “Bertrand says they have their spies everywhere,” I moaned. “And if they go to the factory, how long before they find out about the test track?”

  The more I thought about it, the more inevitable it seemed that they would come looking in the village. And if they found we had been hiding the prototypes, who knew how they might punish us—not to mention the villagers.

  My father sniffed dismissively, stealing my macaroon and planting it whole into his mouth. “If you ask me, you give those Germans far too much credit. Even if they do come, good luck to them. Because there’s nothing to find.”

  I couldn’t be sure if Papa was just saying this to put my mind at rest or because he really believed it. Either way, I didn’t share his confidence.

  Over the coming days and weeks, we carefully monitored the Germans’ every move—as far as we were able, that is. Every evening we would gather round Victor’s old Bakelite phone to speak to Bertrand. He was convinced that his phone calls, both at home and at work, were being listened in on by the Germans, so he went to huge lengths to call us from a different phone box each night. Sometimes it wasn’t possible to place a call—the Germans had pulled down many of the telephone wires. But when we did speak to him, he kept us up-to-date on what was going on.

  The Germans had arrived at the factory almost immediately after entering Paris and, as expected, announced that it was to be commandeered to make trucks for their own war effort.

  No official mention was made of looking for the Tin Snail, but on the third day a different officer had arrived—someone called Major Tobias Keller, who began questioning Bertrand closely. Too closely. Over several days he interviewed every single worker in the factory—even Madame Detrice, Bertrand’s long-suffering secretary.

  “What exactly did he want to know?” my father asked anxiously as we huddled round to listen to Bertrand’s call.

  Bertrand’s voice was thin and crackly at the other end.

  “He never said anything specific. Just wanted to find out about all our recent projects. But he knows something, all right.”

  As I heard this, my heart clenched. Glancing nervously at my father and Victor, I could see that they were just as worried.

  Whoever this Major Keller was, he was far too interested in everything Bertrand had been working on. But as Bertrand was only too pleased to point out, since a crater now stood where the offices had once been, all records of recent developments had been destroyed. There was no proof that we had been working on anything.

  Eventually the German officer had left. It would now be a waiting game to see if he knew about the test track and turned up in the village, or whether we were safe.

  Then, one evening, we got the news we had been dreading. Victor had spent the day in Boutonne on municipal business. When he stepped into the bar that evening, his best shirt was even more sweat-stained than usual. From the somber expression on his face it was clear that something was very wrong.

  “What is it?” Dominique asked, fearing the worst.

  “I’ve just come from the town hall,” he announced. “They’re expecting the Germans to arrive tonight.”

  As I heard his words, my heart turned to stone. If they were in Boutonne, only twenty kilometers away, surely they would come to Regnac? Possibly as soon as tomorrow.

  This was it.

  Victor immediately convened his war cabinet. In other words, a meeting that included my father, me, Félix, Benoît and whoever else was present in the bar at the time, presided over by himself, naturally.

  “We don’t know for sure they’ll come to the village,” Papa tried to reason.

  “Our esteemed Italian friend is right.” Victor nodded. “Boutonne is the seat of local government. It’s only natural they would take over the town hall. They may just leave us alone.”

  Benoît’s two teeth rattled against his pastis glass. “Oh, they’ll come,” he said. “If nothing else, they’ll want to steal my wine.”

  “Then they’ll take the horses,” Félix grunted ominously.

  “What should we do if they do come?” I asked warily.

  “You must leave everything to me,” Victor said. “As mayor, I will handle all official communications.”

  “I meant, what if they start searching?” I interrupted.

  “Even if they do, we’re prepared. Everything is buried. And what isn’t, we have a perfectly innocent explanation for.”

  “We just have to hold our nerve and wait,” my father urged. “The worst thing we can do now is start acting jumpy—then they’d be bound to get suspicious.”

  “I’ve got to go to the market in Boutonne tomorrow to sell some wine,” Benoît croaked, nearly choking on a sip of pastis that had gone down the wrong way.

  “Good.” Victor nodded. “You can be our eyes and ears. See what’s going on. But whatever you do, don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  So it was agreed that Benoît would be our scout the following morning. He would report back if there was any sign the Germans were planning to take the bumpy little track toward Regnac.

  When morning came, Benoît didn’t look even remotely surprised to find me waiting for him as his horse-drawn cart rolled into the square.

  “Hop on,” he grunted, before coughing up a large gobbet of mucus and spitting into the dust.

  “You knew I’d be here?” I asked, surprised, as I climbed on board.

  “I figured as much,” he said with a smirk. “Reckoned she would be here as well,” he added, throwing a glance over my shoulder.

  I spun round to find Camille heading over. “I—I don’t understand,” I stammered. “Are you going to market as well?”

  “No,” she answered matter-of-factly. “I’m going to spy on the Germans, just like you. Didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun, did you?”

  Nothing had prepared me for the sight of Boutonne when we finally arrived. The center of the town was overrun with German trucks, scout cars and motorbikes. For months, years even, I had been imagining what the enemy would look like. Now here they were in the flesh, crawling everywhere like ants. At every street corner huge rolls of barbed wire were being unfurled as road blocks and checkpoints were erected. The air was thick with the sound of hammering as sentry posts were constructed on every corner. New signposts in German gave directions for yet more army vehicles streaming into the central square.

  I saw one of the soldiers hastily pasting a poster to the wall. It showed a smiling German storm trooper cradling a French child in his arms. All part of the Nazi Party’s campaign to win over the locals.

  Benoît gave me a nudge in the ribs as we trotted past. “Don’t stare so hard,” he growled under his breath.

  I quickly looked the other way, just as a German guard began to take an interest in us.

  “It’s OK,” Camille hissed a few moments later. “He’s not looking anymore.”

  I allowed myself to breathe again. But if I was this terrified now, how would I cope if they came sniffing around the village?

  When we reached the covered market, there was a sense of real panic in the air. Those who had ventured out were buying up meat as quickly as they could, loading everything they could manage onto carts and bicycles. Who knew how long before supplies ran out?

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” Benoît whispered, carefully watching a pair of German soldiers who wer
e starting to check people’s papers. “We should go.”

  “But we’ve only just got here,” Camille protested.

  “Let’s just say I don’t fancy explaining to that lot what I’ve got under my blanket.”

  I lifted a corner and peered underneath. There were several flagons of special home brew nestled under some straw. Benoît’s hand snatched the blanket from me and replaced it carefully.

  “You trying to get us arrested?” he snapped. His roguish charm had vanished. Instead, for the first time, I saw that he was scared. Having lived through one war, he had a much better idea of what to expect.

  He geed the horse on and we trotted away from the market before the German soldiers could reach us.

  Before long we were back at the turnoff for Regnac, just in time to see a troop of soldiers spill out of the back of a truck to erect a checkpoint. As we continued on our journey home, none of us spoke. Our mission may have ended much more abruptly than we’d expected, but I was relieved just to make it out.

  When I thought it was safe, I finally glanced back over my shoulder, half expecting to see the soldiers coming after us. They weren’t—for the moment, at least.

  That night I hardly slept at all. I kept imagining I could hear the distant rumble of enemy tanks rolling across the fields, flattening everything before them.

  When I ventured into the square the following morning, I fully expected to find it surrounded by barbed wire, with a sentry demanding to see my papers. But it was all as sleepy as usual. Hard to believe the might of the German army was so close. Yet as the day wore on, and then the next, still there was no distant rumble of caterpillar tracks descending on the village.

  The following day I went back to school. I had to do something, or the suspense of waiting for the Germans to arrive would drive me crazy. But by late morning Dominique announced it was time for another botany field trip—which was now official code for messing about by the river.

  Fortunately Philippe was helping out his father with council business: Victor was arranging for him to do an apprenticeship of sorts in the planning department down in Boutonne. But first he would have to sit some exams. It was the very last thing Philippe wanted to do, but since France was no longer at war, there was little choice.