“Christ, Frenchy.” Dermot sniveled and wiped his eyes on his shoulder. “You really don’t want to know.”
Dermot let go. Arthur dropped like a stone, sliding down the wet walls, screaming as the fall jarred his bones. Then there was silence below. Had Arthur blacked out? Had he killed him? But Dermot’s thoughts moved on. He was thinking again about what he had seen over the crater lip. He wasn’t worried about the Germans at all.
Beyond the crater rim was flat gray ground and the boiling yellow cloud. They were attacking. His side! And they were sending over the gas. The weapon they feared more than any other, more than bullets or knives or bombs. The weapon that killed in silence; the air that melted the skin.
Dermot ran to the scattered soldiers’ bodies he’d taken the gun from, going through their kits, searching, searching frantically, casting a look back over his shoulder but remembering to keep crouched down.
One! There was one. He tore at the box for the mask. But that was it, no others. There weren’t any more. Dermot looked to the edge where the trenches were, then back once again to his own, and he saw the first tendrils spin in the air as they mounted the crater’s wide brim.
“Merciful God. Please no.” The yellow curls looped like incense trails, bidding his prayers up.
Dermot ran, sprinting now to the hole, the yellow air only yards away. He slid on his belly and wriggled inside, sliding face down into the tunnel. It was a short wild descent. He landed on top of Arthur. Arthur must have been unconscious, but the shock of being fallen on brought him around.
“Sorry, Français.” Dermot apologized, rolling off him into the slurry of water, “but please shut the hell up. I’m trying to think here!”
Dermot stared up into the chimney, into the dribbling rain. He had seconds only, he knew, and his arms were starting to shake.
“Christ God!” He clenched his hands, trying to stop it, his whole body shaking in fear. He sat and squeezed his arms tight round his legs. Think, think, think, man, think! It would be coming any second; it would come and spill right in. The gas, he knew, was heavier than air, and it would seep into any low space.
Dermot pulled out their only mask and pulled it over his own head. It was different from the kind he was used to, which tied around the face. “Arthur, I’m sorry.” His own voice was suddenly louder. It was this, or both of them dead.
Dermot had a plan. He took his shirt off and then pulled off Arthur’s too.
“Dermot, if I don’t make it...”
“Shut the hell up, Français.”
“Dermot, promise me please...”
He found their one lone jacket next, long abandoned on the floor. The Irishman climbed back into the chimney, and it was then he felt the sting.
He saw nothing, no obvious change. The hood made everything cloudy, but nothing was obviously yellow. He forced himself up. The flesh of his wet dirty chest now sizzled, like cold batter dropped into a pan. He wailed as if scalded yet pressed ahead, and worse the pain became. His hands seared now, his finger tips most of all, as if a too-long-lit match had run down to his nails, but he bore it and still labored on.
He was at the top now, sucking hard breath, and then he put his head clear out. From rim to rim he could see nothing more, for the cloud had consumed all the earth. Quickly Dermot spread out the wet shirts and jacket he had brought. He erected a tent to cover their hole and keep the foul air out. A good half he got done – the jacket was good, but the shirts were proving too small.
“Bastarding Jesus!” he cursed out loud, and sobbed at the pain in his hands. He made his best efforts to cover it up and could finally bear it no more. With the shirts in place he lowered himself, and once more their prison was dark.
“Arthur! Don’t you dare die!” He pulled the Frenchman up, getting a wheezing breath from the unconscious man – and then hope. There was a gap now, a tiny thing in the wall. A hole through the caved-in tunnel behind him that hadn’t been there before.
Dermot fell to his knees and shoveled with his hands. He could feel the air start to sting around him. He dug with his blistered pin-pricked hands as Arthur coughed sharply behind him.
“Please!” He shouted though the widening gap to the rescuers on the far side. “Quickly now!” There was someone there, and they were coming for them! A shaft appeared that became a small channel, perhaps only two feet around.
Dermot could not open his hands. His bare skin felt basted, as if they’d been plunged into hot oil; seizures started, a helpless trembling that ran up both his arms. No, please! he pleaded to no one. Some more time is all!
“Gas!” said a voice from in front of him, and then two hands gripped his own. Dermot was pulled hard forward, sucked headfirst into a straw.
“Out you come!” said the voice close by.
He was through to the other side.
“There’s a man alive back there,” he choked. “I’ve left my friend on the other side.” He lay on the floor, shaking hard, his body now losing control.
“Gas! Gas!” The cry went out, and there were legs around him everywhere.
“Go back if you want,” the voice told him, “but I have to seal up that hole.”
Dermot managed to lift himself and slide the hood back off his head. He rolled over and looked through the tiny gap that was smoother from his passing. Through the tube there was a clear view to his friend at the other end.
He saw Arthur slumped on the tunnel wall, coughing and broken and torn. His shoulders, perhaps, were too wide for the pipe, and the poisonous mist settled lower.
Dermot’s tears now ran freely, unhindered down his face. “I’m sorry, my friend, I’m sorry,” he sobbed. The miners closed Arthur in.
7
A Malenfer Funeral
By tradition, the Malenfers buried their dead on a Wednesday. No one was quite certain why. The unkind would observe that a Malenfer funeral was as far from the Sabbath as possible; they let the implications hang in the air. But whatever the reason behind it all, the practice brought complications.
For this reason it was much easier for all concerned (the departed perhaps excluded) if a Malenfer died on a weekend. This afforded appropriate time to make ready the preparations. Over the generations, such a consideration solidified into ambition; indeed it was not unusual for the eulogy to be colored by the deceased’s regard to timekeeping. Rightly or wrongly, Malenfers everywhere conspired to expire on a weekend.
The tradition was superstitious, unorthodox, and possibly heretical. It was nonetheless true for all of that. A Malenfer understood that dying prematurely led to storage in the root cellar, molding slowly like a fine blue cheese, hidden out of sight.
Any priest who values his daily crust knows well the habits of his benefactors. A priest of Darmannes (in which the noble estate lay) is careful of his appointments. When infirmity lingers over that tribe, he curtails his Wednesday diary. It would be rash of a cleric to book out that day with baptisms or weddings.
Rationality must take a parlor seat when visiting such traditions. In one form or another, these are rife in older families, a curiosity to those outside and a burden to those who serve them. Reason might present its card at the door, but admittance will never be granted.
So it was that on Wednesday, the twelfth day of February in the nineteenth year of the new century, Master Michel Malenfer was to be brought by carriage to the St. Jérôme Chapel. Horses dark as Alsace coal mines towed the hearse in which he rode, each mare plumed in ostrich feathers dyed to match her coloring. The browbands of the blackened bridles shone with burnished silver. The quarantine on the house had been lifted and the family was free to attend.
The coffin itself was walnut, a sarcophagus lying flat in the bed. The pale, gaunt boy that rolled inside was out of proportion to its scale. And yet Michel barely fit in that large polished box, for to be buried with him was his name.
Eight men it took to hoist the casket into the wagon bed. The chapel was only a short ride away in the village of Cheve
cheix. The hearse moved off with a rumble of wheels, and two coaches followed behind it.
The family sat in the first of these, which they shared with their local priest. Madame and Sophie sat together across from Simonne and Father Meslier. He, like they, wore flowing black robes, but alone eschewed a veil. Father Meslier, a jowly man, clasped the Good Book between sweaty hands and gripped it tightly to his lap. They said not a word through the whole trip; Michel’s coffin made more noise.
Behind the hearse and both the carriages walked the servants of Malenfer Manor. Following them came a larger host, who were the tenants of the estate. In this parade arranged for the dead they paid their collective respects, or failing that, at least ensured their attendance was duly recorded. They walked at the pace of a slow-beating drum, and many would wait outside when they got there, for the Chapelle St. Jérôme was tiny and could hold but half their number. Already it was nearly full, and the coffin had only moved off. It was swollen with the ranks who came up from town and dignitaries from wider: bankers and creditors, men from the guilds, and a flavor of elected officials. The Army was present out of respect to Madame and the family’s history of service – for Madame’s husband, the Colonel, and her son Arthur and the others who had served before them. Newspapermen hovered nearby, drawn by the whiff of celebrity.
* * *
In the middle of this procession, alone in the second carriage, sat the fine, polished figure of Monsieur Crevel, a neatly groomed gentleman of fifty. Crevel held the distinguished title of Mayor of Darmannes – an impressive badge susceptible to tarnish if the influence of the municipality was appreciated. Crevel seldom let that bother him, and certainly not on this occasion.
Today he sported a long wool overcoat that he had chosen to leave unbuttoned, a concession to his peacock pride in his chest of medals. A gleaming array of trinkets and trophies were on view upon his doublet, worthy baubles of civic service and serving the rank of his title. They hung from his neck and were pinned to his breast and dangled from his lapels. His suit had been pressed till its edges cut, and then starched for extra crispness.
Crevel at this moment sat in thought. His manicured fingers twisted and rolled his carefully waxed mustaches. He was thinking about the small speech he was to give at the service for Michel and how well it would go. He mused pleasantly on the accolades he would receive from it, and the tone he should take in reply.
His carriage, his private carriage (the other one being at home), Crevel shared with his only offspring, Robert. They were alone together, father and son; Crevel’s wife had gone some years before and so missed out on this occasion. It was a shame, he mused, for in her time she had always loved a good funeral.
Crevel had raised the boy the best he could, which is to say, not quite so well at all. He was a man committed to his professional life and to “getting on in the world,” and in grieving the loss of his passing wife, he’d redoubled his ambitions.
Crevel was not indifferent to the boy – he had not, for instance, delivered him wholesale to the care and affection of a wicked housekeeper – but the chore of raising a child exasperated him, and he thought himself ill-suited to it. Understanding his own deficiencies in the matter (which he did not underestimate), he ameliorated them by the traditional remedy and packed Robert off to boarding school. Crevel now had ample time to advance his aspirations, and he pursued his political goals without further distraction.
As Crevel’s fortunes improved, so did Robert’s schools, and the familial bond was renewed at holidays when he came home between the terms. He consoled himself with the certain knowledge (when the need infrequently required) that many a father had done worse for a boy, and damned few had done much better.
For Robert’s part, he adapted to the change as children of an age do – he accepted it as normal. One day he had a mother, the next not. One day he had a home, the next a dormitory. If he was sad and lonely and cried every night for the first week or month, he scarce remembered it ten years on.
When he was seventeen and his days at school were almost up, the War had already started, and all the boys of his acquaintance were giddy to join in. His entire final year was spent enrolled in the Officer Training Corps, and he and his friends enjoyed tremendously the shouting, marching, and dressing up that went along with the performance. Robert had expected to take a commission when he came of age, but then found himself excused from service. The University had beat the Army’s letter and offered him a place. He duly reported to the Sorbonne in Paris, but dropped out after only one year.
This event did not entirely disappoint his father. Like many parents, he extolled the value of an arts education as long as his child took up medicine or the law. In the summer of 1918, Robert gave up city life and returned to his home in Darmannes. Crevel greeted his son’s return (and the money it saved him) with tears of fatherly joy.
Robert’s time away had blessed him with the makings of a fine education and given him connections aplenty. It was a sound enough base upon which, to his father’s eye, a career could be built. It was Crevel Senior who arranged for a position inside the municipal administration, a job with prospects, yet not too demanding, that would serve well his son and heir. Most importantly, the job Robert fell into was designated as Protégé – protected. In the Byzantine world of the French civil service, the position carried an unspecified strategic worth: a stamp of gold, richly prized, for its occupant could not be spared. Robert was kept from the army’s grasp; Crevel had showed his affection.
Robert was like his father in many ways and yet in others not. At college, in the company of friends, he had pursued a feckless lifestyle. Rumors persisted of bacchanalian nights and smoky parlors of poor reputation, all of which contrasted sharply with his father’s rural conservatism. Crevel Senior cultivated a public persona that was puritanically straight-laced – his public expecting nothing less – and what he did behind closed doors was no one else’s business.
Physically they were more closely matched. Robert was a fit young man with a mane of curly dark hair, hair that he let wild. He didn’t wear it neat, like his father did, or cut it short, and this alone was distinctive for it obviously wasn’t army. Beneath this ruffle was a strong chin, and when he smiled, which was often, his teeth showed straight and even. His father liked the look of him; he called his Robert “honest.” If consensus is a truth of sorts, then Robert was handsome without a lie. His features might have come from his father, but to their arrangement he was indebted to his mother.
News of Robert’s return soon spread fast about the town. Many a girl looked on his lips – on a woman such lips would be termed “full” – and thought wistfully of them romantically employed, pressed hard against her own. Many a mother of a girl of Darmannes had exactly the same sordid thought. Maidens all, devoid of adventure; all the men gone off to fight.
It wasn’t just that he was pretty to look at (though he was), but he carried a scent of the exotic. His wardrobe from the capital was a little more fashionable than that of the local men, and there were unfounded rumors that flitted about of a dangerous passionate past. Robert wore this aura well, charmingly unconcerned by how he stirred the hearts of ladies in these rural parts.
* * *
Back in their carriage, Robert stretched out wide across the bench. He tapped a foot against the door and wrung his hands out like a towel. He couldn’t settle down. He glanced out the window before staring back down at his palms. At twenty years of age, other men might have outgrown their youthful impatience or mastered its physical displays, but Robert was different in this respect and wore his temperament on his sleeve. He laughed out loud at that which amused him and scowled deeply at every frustration. Robert, then, was an open book – a frustration to his father, for Crevel could be unreadable when he wished and considered it a quality worth having. Right now something obviously bothered Robert, and it was interrupting his father’s reverie.
“What’s the matter with you, then?” There was little point in
asking him to sit still.
Robert paused. He had wanted to talk for quite a while, but he knew his father would fill his ear. He wasn’t sure where to begin and didn’t know if he should start. He found the courage, and in the long tradition of bad news bearers, did his best to soften the blow.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Robert said, “and when you calm down I’m sure you’ll see it’s for the best.”
But by the look on Crevel’s face he wasn’t so sure anymore.
“And what,” Crevel spoke slowly, annoyed already despite his best efforts, “have you been thinking about?”
“Simonne,” said Robert. Mademoiselle Simonne, his fiancée.
“Simonne?” Crevel was caught unawares; he’d expected another entreaty on moving back to Paris or joining the bloody Army.
The war’s over now, son, you’ll have to wait for the next one. You can thank me properly then.
“What about Simonne?” he asked, suspicious.
* * *
Robert had met Simonne one month after his return to Darmannes.
It was expected that Robert stay in his father’s house in the center of town, and so he did. There, after only two weeks back from the city, he was already bored to tears. To salvage the little he could from this life, Robert did what he could to have fun. He made it his conscious duty to attend every concert, every dance, every play. He shamelessly courted invitations to parties when they didn’t come his way. Being the exotic son of the Mayor, his calendar was naturally soon filled. If there was a paucity of society in Darmannes, it was only in quality and taste.
Of all the unlikely places, it was at a church lunch that he met Simonne. Robert was enduring the dreadful event, one he’d been pressed into attending for some war cause or another. “I hate these things,” she’d said to him. “They think they’re actually helping.”
Murder at Malenfer Page 7