by Stuart Clark
On and on barked the commandant. His lecture consisted of the same basic information delivered repeatedly and more forcefully with each iteration. Next he began to list the petty crimes that had occurred in the camp: insubordination, curfew-breaking, fighting over food …
Freundlich’s attention returned to his smarting jaw until there was a stirring in the ranks around him. People were fidgeting nervously. Had he missed something? The guards were preparing for something and watching the ranks as if they expected trouble.
‘I repeat,’ said the commandant, ‘if your name is called, step forward.’
So this was it, thought Freundlich. Punishment.
The list began; his own name was close to the top. He knew the guards had not believed him when he explained why he was chasing the boy. The old woman had disappeared, sensibly deciding that a lost sausage was preferable to a tangle with authority.
He trudged over to join the group of miscreants. One was a young girl clutching a teddy bear. What could she possibly have done? Loathing for the guards spiked within him.
‘Robert Mechau,’ thundered the commandant.
A cold hand gripped Freundlich’s heart and he looked back at the ranks. His young companion was shaking so violently he was having trouble walking. Mechau stumbled and fell. Guards rushed forward and hauled him from the ground. Freundlich took him from them. Soon they were herded away at gunpoint.
As he walked, Freundlich’s mind flooded with images of Käte. He had promised her so much. They had only been married a little over a year. What he hated most about this pointless ending was that he would not be able to apologise to her for messing it all up.
5
Diksmuide, Belgium
The German advance into Belgium was swift and utterly brutal. It cut through the land; it cut through the people. It forced the exhausted defenders back towards the French border and then came at them again, determined to slice through to Paris.
But, somehow, the Belgian line was holding, or at least it had been.
The columns of marching men were glimpsed first by the lookout on the church tower. Soon, their advance was being watched by the entire garrison from the defensive line in front of the town.
The new arrivals followed the road over the flatlands. The poplars that lined their way had been green when Georges Lemaître arrived there a month ago. Now they were golden, their leaves just clinging to the branches. There was at least some comfort in that. In Lemaître’s twenty years, he could remember times when the lowland trees had been stripped bare overnight and the slide into autumn had been overtaken by a plunge into winter. He prayed to God that this would not be one of those years.
He was lying on the ground behind an earthen mound, rifle trained straight ahead.
‘Reinforcements,’ said the soldier next to him, revealing a toothy smile.
The approaching soldiers were indeed wearing Belgian uniforms, but Lemaître could see the dirt on their faces and the weary way they swung their arms. ‘They’re not reinforcements.’ The sentries lifted away the wooden poles that served as roadblocks and stood rigidly to attention as the fighters passed. The wounded came into view; some walking, with dirty bandages on their arms, legs and heads; others carried on stretchers. One man was slung over a horse, the officer atop the beast resting a hand on his back.
It could mean only one thing: Antwerp had fallen.
The realisation spread through the garrison like an earlymorning frost.
‘Just us left,’ whispered Lemaître.
Later that day, he prowled the defeated army’s makeshift camp. The soldiers were huddled around campfires, blankets around their shoulders, united by the smell of simple food and wood smoke.
Lemaître scanned every face, his frustration growing. A man with one arm in a sling was spooning food from a tin plate.
‘Do you know Jacques Lemaître?’
With a curt shake of his head, the wounded man looked down at his meal and scooped another mouthful.
The dusk was gathering, but the thought of spending another night without having found his brother chilled Lemaître more than the autumnal air.
‘I know him,’ said a soldier. ‘He was stationed at the bridge, rigging explosives. I saw him as I crossed … The Germans knew we were planning to blow the bridge and were determined to take it.’ The man bit his chapped lower lip. ‘It was bad back there …’ Lemaître turned away before the man could say any more and stumbled on. Not watching his step, he let his boots became entangled in some guy-ropes. Beside him, men cursed as their tent collapsed to the ground.
‘Sorry. I’m looking for my brother.’
A hand came into focus. ‘Let me help you.’
‘Jacques,’ he breathed.
The face was lined and weary but the boyishness remained. They embraced roughly, slapping each other hard across the back. When they released each other, Jacques looked him up and down. ‘Nice clean uniform.’ His own was encrusted with mud.
Lemaître nodded, brushing off the dust from his tumble. ‘Thank God you’re alive. I can only imagine how it was in Antwerp.’
‘A bit … difficult at times.’ Jacques tried to flash a grin but it twisted horribly. He ended up looking away into the distance.
‘They’ll be coming after us, you know.’ Lemaître nodded.
‘Ypres is still free, but it’s here that the Germans really want.’
‘I know, Jacques.’
Diksmuide was all that stood between the Germans and Nieuwpoort, the only Belgian port still unconquered. If the Kaiser’s forces reached the coast, they would be able to slice westwards into France, outflank Ypres and swallow the remains of Belgium whole. Fear knotted itself around Georges’s core. ‘We don’t need to talk about this now,’ he said.
‘I can’t believe we’ve lost everything in less than two months.’ His brother sounded angry.
‘I don’t think the French thought we’d even last a week. Plus you’re forgetting something: it’s not over yet.’
‘You think we can defend this stretch?’ Jacques’s voice held a touch of sarcasm.
‘Why not?’
‘You don’t know what it’s like. You can’t think for all the noise and the chaos; mud flying; smoke in your eyes. They’re inhuman. They pound you with artillery night after night – can’t sleep a wink – then they come marching towards you and nothing can stop them.’ He took a great pull on the cold air, then spoke in a faltering voice. ‘It’s all so terribly noisy. My ears ring all the time now. Sometimes, when it’s quiet, I think I’ll go mad from them screaming at me, inside my head.’ He regained his composure. ‘Got any cigarettes?’
Georges pulled a crumpled packet from his breast pocket and handed it over. ‘Bit battered, I’m afraid. I try to keep them for weekends. But you can have them.’
‘How do you even know what day of the week it is?’
Georges did not like to mention the boring monotony of his days so far. It was all so regimented here that, during his time off,
he had even made a fair amount of progress through the textbooks he had brought with him.
Jacques lit the cigarette in a single fluid movement that took Georges by surprise. The last time they had smoked together, his younger brother had been a clumsy beginner trying to look suave.
Papa used to tell them off when they came home smelling of tobacco, though he was hardly ever without a stub in the corner of his mouth himself.
‘Do you think about Mama and Papa?’ asked Georges.
‘All the time.’
‘Me, too.’
‘It can’t be easy for them. They’re not young.’
Georges imagined the familiar Brussels streets brimming with German soldiers, his parents trying to conduct some sort of normal life around them.
‘All these weeks I’ve been thinking of things to say to you, and now we’re together I can’t think of a single one.’ Jacques took another deep drag on the cigarette.
‘Then let’s not talk.’
Jacques smiled, weariness filling his face. ‘Sounds good to me.’ They squatted on the packed mud and watched the very last vestige of the day trickle from the land. There was a bloodstained sunset and, when that too disappeared, it left only the aromatic comfort of the tobacco smoke.
The German forces attacked at dawn two days later, not long after Georges and his patrol had arrived in one of the dykes in front of the town. At first he thought the sound was thunder, but there were no clouds in the sky. There were, however, silhouettes on the horizon, jagged outlines where the day before there had only been straight, flat land. Puffs of light erupted from the silhouettes and the roar of the artillery rolled across the plain shortly after.
Unexpectedly, the fear in his stomach subsided. At least the waiting was over.
The first explosions reached his ears as the shells crashed to earth and the air filled with the smell of damp grass. From the fountains of dirt off to his left, he saw that the rounds were falling short of their mark.
Another volley split the air and the field erupted again, closer this time, producing some nervous shuffling on the duckboards around him. ‘Don’t worry lads, nothing dangerous yet. Stay calm,’ called the sergeant, an avuncular man who had been a butcher before the war.
Lemaître tried to picture him in a blue-and-white striped apron, chatting to housewives and slicing ham. Another volley of artillery fire brought him crashing back to the present.
He was part of a volunteer unit with only basic training. Clutching his spindly rifle as the shells ploughed up the field, Lemaître realised just how outclassed they were by the German guns.
The Belgians had some heavy weapons – they were barking from behind the dykes in response to the attack – but the shells were falling well short of the enemy lines. The German bombardment was edging closer and closer to its mark.
Noise and confusion engulfed him. Stones and dirt were flying through the air, thudding off his shoulders and tin helmet. A second almighty blast came and he was blown backwards into the earthen wall. He lost his footing and found himself on the duckboards, pushing his glasses back into place. Around him, his companions were in similar disarray.
A third muffled explosion shook the trench. This time he saw a column of earth rocket into the air, a maelstrom of dirt in which he could just make out larger, whirling patterns. With sudden comprehension, Lemaître recognised the shapes as men being blasted off the ground.
The soldier next to him began to scream. Lemaître jerked round and made a quick inspection through mud-spattered glasses.
‘You’re fine! Not a scratch on you.’ Still the soldier wailed.
A fist shot past Lemaître and struck the frightened man on the cheek. His eyes widened in surprise and the moaning stopped.
‘He said, you’re fine,’ said the sergeant, withdrawing his clenched hand.
German shellfire raked the trenches back and forth all day and all night. Under the cover of darkness the invaders crept closer, and by the next morning Lemaître could see individual soldiers moving about the enemy ranks if he squinted hard enough. They stayed just beyond the reach of the Belgian artillery.
The German guns fired, a rattling cacophony that shattered the air and sent Lemaître and his colleagues diving for cover. The ground erupted around them, blow after blow, explosion after explosion, each concussion sending shockwaves through the air to batter their eardrums.
As the last of the dirt fell back to earth, the ground began to quake unlike anything Lemaître had experienced before. He straightened his helmet and peered across the field.
Dear Lord have mercy …
The sound was coming from a thousand pairs of enemy feet charging towards them.
‘All right, lads. Wait for it,’ barked the sergeant.
Lemaître levelled his gun at the rushing horde. A quick glance left and right told him that his comrades were doing the same.
They waited as the enemy charged unchecked.
‘For king and country! Fire!’ yelled the sergeant.
Lemaître twitched his finger and felt the thump of the recoil. The ignition of his weapon’s gunpowder conjured the smell of fireworks and utterly misplaced memories of family laughter and hot beer.
The Belgian artillery fired too, blasting small pockets of the attackers into the air.
Lemaître fired again, but the shakes had started. As he squeezed the trigger, the gun jumped skywards.
‘We’re not shooting pigeons!’ the sergeant shouted.
Lemaître reloaded, choked down his fear and re-sighted his weapon. This time the enemy were so close he could see round pink faces under the spiked helmets, and he found it harder to pull the trigger. With the piercing crack of rifles, the shouts of the advancing troops and the drumming of their feet, a sense of unreality was growing inside him, as if he were a spectator to this surreal exchange.
Defensive fire from a machinegun off to his right jarred him back to his senses. He planted the rifle-butt in his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. A figure fell from the advance, but there was no way for Lemaître to know whether it was his bullet or another that had found its mark. There were men dying all along that breaking wave now. Yet still their combined mass bore down on the town.
The machinegun sounded again.
There was movement that Lemaître could not comprehend. He squinted for a better look, and with a desperate recognition saw that invaders were being ripped apart every time the machinegun chattered. They could just have been uniforms cut to shreds, except for the red wetness that exploded out of them.
Lemaître’s insides heaved. He spat foul-tasting bile from his mouth and angrily blinked back tears.
The sergeant’s hand rested on his shoulder for just a second.
‘No time for that, Georges,’ he said quietly, then returned his voice to full volume. ‘Ready, bayonets!’
But before Lemaître could fumble his bayonet into place, the attackers began to disappear from view, seemingly sucked down into the very earth itself. They were taking cover in the craters that their own artillery had dug.
‘Grenades!’ warned the sergeant.
Sure enough, dark shapes arced through the air. The pop of the detonations was strangely comical next to the thump of the big guns, but the effect was just as devastating.
Time became meaningless. Everything blurred into a continuum of gunshots and men screaming. Lemaître became an automaton, shooting by reflex every time he saw a shape appear over a crater rim or his sergeant called for a defensive volley so that the Belgian grenadiers could lob their own deadly packages. There was no thinking involved any more, just reaction.
They targeted the German defensive positions one by one. The machineguns ploughed up the field, cutting lines across the hiding places, scything down anyone unfortunate enough to choose that moment to look up. The Belgian grenadiers hoisted small explosives in the same direction, and one by one the enemy nests were destroyed.
The shrill sound of whistles cut through the din, and with a final furious barrage of German grenades, the enemy began to retreat. Some men around Lemaître began to scramble up the dyke wall.
‘Stick to the line, lads. Stick to the line,’ shouted the sergeant.
‘Don’t follow them. Let them run.’
Lemaître watched the Germans along his gunsights until they became too distant to see as individuals. He could not bring himself to fire during the retreat – not into a man’s back.
He dipped his head and pushed back the brim of his helmet. He felt sick, but the feeling was soon displaced by trembling exultation; every part of his being sparked with energy and he wanted to shout in triumph.
Ashamed of his reaction, he was glad to be detailed to help remove the bodies. He dragged corpse after corpse to the tumbrils, each one feeling a little heavier than the last. He tried not to look, but it was impossible not to recognise some of his friends. His exultation turned to horror and, with frightening speed, threatened to overwhelm him. He foun
d himself gasping for air and ran a dirty cuff across his nose. The scratch of the wool distracted him from the urge to run.
Rubbing his hands angrily together, he reached down and grabbed the closest pair of blood-spattered lapels. They belonged to a middle-aged man with an immaculately styled moustache.
‘Come along, you lucky sod. Look on the bright side, the war’s over for you.’ He heaved the body on to his shoulders.
Around him, the German bombardment resumed.
6
Berlin
‘You must think I’m very silly, Herr Einstein, insisting you come with me today.’ Käte regarded him with an uncertain expression.
‘Not at all,’ he said, concealing his discomfort at being back in the train station. Perhaps the memory of Mileva and the boys was rendered more acute today because a letter had arrived, carrying another unfamiliar return address. His wife had become nomadic since her return to Switzerland, flitting from one friend to another.
Käte wore a long black overcoat and held her handbag tightly with both hands in front of her. She sported a widebrimmed hat, bought especially for the occasion.
The train announced its arrival with a hiss of opened valves and drew to a stop amid a cloak of billowing steam. A tall figure appeared. Käte made a small sound and leapt into motion, black hat flying from her head.
Her husband opened his arms and she slammed into him.
‘I thought I’d never see you again.’ She buried her head into his chest.
Freundlich encircled her with his arms and rested his head on hers.
Einstein scooped up her hat and turned away, their reunion evoking strange feelings. He found himself thinking of the letters he had written to Mileva years ago, after his graduation had forced them apart.
She had been back in Serbia with her parents and he had been in Italy with his. Mama had been doing her best to dissuade him from pursuing Mileva, convinced that the Serb was beneath him racially and intellectually. He had poured out the injustice of his predicament to Mileva in letter after letter of ungloved passion, until finally they had been briefly reunited in the spring sunshine of the following year at Lake Como.