Murder's Art

by Christopher Nicole

  But then one of the men stopped, and turned again, and his companion stopped also. There was a brief discussion, and the first man left the bridge and began to climb down the embankment. Once he got under the bridge he would clearly see the explosives. Tony glanced at Sandrine, and waggled his eyebrows. She responded by doing the same, showing she understood.

  The man was now standing beneath the bridge, hands on hips, looking up. He said something to his companion, who was standing above him. The upper man turned to look back down the column, and raised his arm to signal … and Tony pressed the plunger.

  The bridge went up first, carrying the two men with it, and spewing wreckage over the truck, which caught fire and then itself exploded, its other occupants tumbling across the road. Then all of Tony’s command opened fire, the chattering of the machine guns being interspersed with the louder cracks of the rifles and the gentler patter of the tommies. The men escaping the exploding truck were cut down in moments, and several of the tank captains, standing confidently in their cupolas, were also hit, although no damage was done to the tanks themselves. Further back, the lead infantry trucks were caught in the fire from A and B Companies. In several cases the drivers were hit in their cabs, and the trucks went out of control, some careering down the embankment beside the road, others crashing into those in front of them, while the men hastily disembarking were also chopped down by the wall of fire arising from the slip road.

  For some ten minutes all was confusion and glorious mayhem, then whistles blew and men began to take cover and form into ranks, while the tank cupolas turned from left to right and their cannon opened up on the hillside, sending shells thudding and exploding into the trees above the women.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Tony said, and fired his Verey pistol, at the same time grabbing Sandrine’s arm and dragging her away from their original position. And a moment later a shell burst exactly where they had been crouching.

  From their new position higher up the hill he surveyed the scene beneath him. The remains of the advance truck still burned, surrounded by its dead occupants. The panzers had definitely been halted; at the moment they had nowhere to go, although they continued to fire left and right into the low hills to either side. In several places the trees and bushes had been set alight, and smoke was drifting across the morning. The infantry trucks were still unloading their men; there were corpses and wounded scattered on and around the road, but the German officers had their men under control, and were advancing on Kragujevac behind a series of volleys.

  Tony fired his second Verey cartridge, and then again dragged Sandrine away, as he had again revealed their position. From his next point of view, he could see A and B Companies withdrawing out of the town; there were a reassuringly large number of them. On the far side of the road, Draga and her people were already lost to view amidst the trees and scrub of the hillsides. Anja and her company were all round him, also retreating in haste. Gratifyingly, they were bringing their dismantled machine gun with them.

  Sandrine remained at his side. ‘Go with Anja,’ he said. ‘Take command.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I have to make sure Sasha’s people get clear. I’ll be right behind you, as soon as they come out.’

  ‘If anything were to happen to you …’

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to me. Now go.’

  A last hesitation, then she crawled away to join the women. Tony waited for her to be out of sight, then ran along the hillside, bent double. The Germans were still keeping up a considerable fire, but from a distance. The odd shot crashed through the underbrush, but did very little damage, apart from setting up more fires. Now, indeed, he heard the whistles calling for a ceasefire, as it was clear that the Partisans were out of range, at least for the moment.

  A few minutes later he came upon the retreating members of A and B Companies, chattering amongst themselves as always, wildly exhilarated, and the more so at the sight of their commanding officer. ‘We killed them,’ one of the girls shouted. ‘Oh, we killed them!’

  ‘Well done,’ he said. He passed them and saw Sasha, who was commanding the rearguard, looking as neat as always; even her hair was still in place.

  She came up to him and saluted. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Well done,’ he said again. ‘Casualties?’ He had observed that she was not as ebullient as her girls, just as he had seen that, of the twenty-odd bringing up the rear with her, most were bleeding from hastily tied bandages.

  ‘What you see. There are seven dead. And …’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Three too badly wounded to move.’

  ‘You made sure they knew what to do?’

  She hung her head. ‘I could not do this. One of them came from my own village. We have been friends since we were girls.’

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘What did you do with them?’

  ‘I left them with the mayor. He promised they would be looked after.’

  ‘Well, it’s done. Let’s find the others.’

  ‘I have disobeyed orders. You are angry with me.’

  ‘I’m just sorry for your friends.’

  ‘Will you shoot me?’

  ‘Our business is shooting Germans. Not each other.’

  ‘And you?’ she asked, falling in beside him.

  ‘We did better. You had the post of honour.’

  ‘Sandrine?’

  ‘Up ahead with E Company. We’ll catch them up.’

  ‘Was it a victory, Colonel?’

  ‘Depends how you interpret the word. We did what we were told to do, and disrupted their movement. Now let’s get out of here.’

  The end of an engagement, when the adrenaline had stopped pumping and the excitement had faded, always left Tony feeling rather flat. And this time there was not even the compulsion of being pursued to keep the emotions stirred.

  The Germans had clearly been shaken by the ambush. They would in any event have to repair the bridge before they could get their tanks forward, and were no doubt using every man available to accomplish that, in order to try to keep to whatever was their schedule.

  Thus a general air of mental and physical exhaustion had set in, and Tony and Sasha had a lot to do to prevent straggling. The women had marched all night, and a good deal of their stamina had dwindled along with the exhilaration of combat; soon they began to remember those they had left behind, whether dead or seriously wounded. Meanwhile the less seriously wounded now became a problem, as two of them found they could no longer walk and had to be carried on improvised stretchers – after what had happened at Kragujevac, he did not suppose the women would obey a command to abandon them – and the others groaned or wailed continuously.

  Sasha was a tower of strength as she roamed around her command, chivvying, bullying, on occasion even slapping faces to keep people moving. But she was as glad as anyone when, at dusk, they found themselves at one of the many streams which coursed down from the hills, and Tony, sure they had gained a sufficient lead to escape any pursuit, and equally that they would be back in Uzice and in position long before the left-hand pincer could come up, called a halt for the night. ‘May we light a fire?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but control it.’

  He watched most of the women stripping off to plunge into the water. Sasha’s expression was quizzical. ‘Does this disturb you?’

  ‘They’re a handsome bunch.’

  ‘Am I allowed to go in also?’

  ‘That would just about make my day. But that water must be pretty cold.’ The little valley was filled with shrieks and squeals.

  ‘Won’t you join us?’

  ‘You mean I wouldn’t be gang-raped?’

  ‘I’d protect you.’ She seemed to be perfectly serious.

  ‘Maybe later. I need to have a look around.’ He left her, and climbed higher up the hillside to the best available vantage point. Once there he unslung his binoculars, and looked back along the way he had come. He could not resist a quick inspection of the bathing women,
and particularly Sasha, her body somewhat ruddy – so unlike Sandrine’s in that respect – but equally voluptuous, with large, low-slung breasts and huge nipples, gleaming as she waded into the water.

  Her invitation had been fairly obvious. There was no way of knowing whether that was personal attraction, a desire to get close to her CO, or the sheer animal sexuality created by having been in combat. That was common to most men, so there was no reason for it not to be similarly common to most women.

  He remembered how, when they had been on the run together, Elena Kostic and Sandrine had shared his favours, Elena with perfect contentment, but Sandrine always searching for possession. He did not doubt that Sasha Janitz would willingly take on the Elena role – one of the big problems of war, and more especially this war, so nearly a civil conflict, was the utter breakdown in morality it engendered. Nor did he doubt that she would be just as exciting in bed as the big Croat woman.

  But Sandrine would never go for it. She might like to consider herself a child of the Left Bank, but in many ways she had the viewpoints of a middle-class matron. And he had no intention of doing anything to upset Sandrine. If she was a one-man woman, he was the man for her. He wondered where she was. Only a few miles further on, he reckoned.

  His main business was with what might be happening behind him. It was now quite dark, and there was nothing to see. Kragujevac was long out of sight – even the hillside fires seemed to have burned out – and if he could just make out the road, there was nothing on it. In any event he did not suppose the Germans would continue in the dark – even if they had managed to repair the bridge – given the obvious possibility of another Partisan ambush. He wondered if, the advance of their pincers having been disrupted, they would modify, or even call off, their plan. But that was wishful thinking. The damage he had caused had been only a pinprick.

  He returned to the encampment, where a fire was glowing and food was being prepared. The November night air was chill, and the women were all dressed again – to his relief. ‘Is all well?’ Sasha asked, handing him a tin plate of roast sausage and beans, and sitting beside him with her own.

  ‘Seems they’re nursing their wounds. Probably literally.’

  ‘Do you think my girls will be all right?’ He preferred not to reply. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘If they are taken they will be shot, no matter how badly wounded they are.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s likely. It’s what may have happened to them before that which bothers me.’

  ‘What was I to do?’

  ‘You did what you had to do,’ Tony told her. ‘When you command men, or women, your first duty is to the task in hand. Once you have done that to the best of your ability, your second duty is to the people under you, to see to the well-being and safety of the majority. No one can ask anything more of you, and this is what you have done.’

  She shivered. ‘Would you have left them?’

  ‘Yes. But I would have advised them to shoot themselves before allowing themselves to be taken prisoner. Now, I’m afraid the lives of the mayor and his family may be in danger.’

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she said. ‘I have fucked everything up. Why don’t you shoot me?’

  ‘I happen to prefer you alive.’

  She digested this for several minutes, then she said, ‘I wanted to fight in this war. I wanted to kill Germans, for violating our fatherland. I did not expect—’

  ‘No one does,’ he said, wondering what her nationality was. He had deliberately adopted Tito’s point of view, never inquiring into the backgrounds of any of his people, determinedly regarding them all as Yugoslavs, and as patriots rather than either Communists or monarchists. But suddenly he was curious about this so attractive young woman, who, like them all, had found herself in a situation she could not have envisaged in her wildest nightmares only a year ago. ‘Is Belgrade your home?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no. I am from Sarajevo.’

  ‘You mean you are a Bosnian.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ he said, not altogether truthfully; he could not help but remember that it had been a shot fired by a Bosnian schoolboy that had started the First World War, of which this was surely only the second round.

  She took their empty plates to the stream to rinse them, and returned with two cups of strong black coffee. ‘Listen,’ she said, kneeling beside him. ‘Let me sleep with you tonight.’

  He turned his head to look at her.

  ‘I want to be held in your arms,’ she said. ‘I want to feel you in me.’

  ‘Me? Or any man?’

  ‘You. I am so afraid.’

  ‘You are not afraid.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ she said. ‘Not of what may happen to me. I am afraid of what I have done. Condemning those three girls to death. Please help me, Colonel.’

  Not for the first time in the past six months he realized that this war contained situations never envisaged at Sandhurst. ‘You can sleep in my arms,’ he said. ‘But we’ll keep our clothes on.’

  ‘Because of Sandrine?’

  ‘It’s a cold night,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Wassermann!’ General von Blintoft marched into the major’s office. ‘I have just received a radio message from Brigadier General Leesing. He has encountered strong enemy resistance at the village of Kragujevac.’

  Wassermann frowned. It was late afternoon, and he had spent the entire day assembling his people and making sure they knew what he wanted of them. Now he was thinking only of a hot bath and an early night, after a last dinner with Angela; he did not even intend to bed her tonight. He knew the next few days were going to be exhausting.

  ‘Apparently there has also been enemy activity in the north,’ Blintoft went on. ‘This has been brushed aside. It is in the south that the situation is serious. Leesing estimates that he will be at least six hours late in arriving at his rendezvous. How did they know he was coming? There has been treason.’

  ‘It is possible, sir, that the Partisans worked out how we would attack them. The plan was, after all, fairly, ah … It has been used before,’ he said, in preference to the word ‘hackneyed’.

  Blintoft glared at him. ‘Are you criticising my dispositions, Herr Major?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Wassermann lied. ‘Not at all. The plan has proved eminently successful in the past, and against a variety of opponents.’

  ‘Then you are suggesting that this man Tito is some kind of military genius.’

  ‘Not at all, sir,’ Wassermann said again, less convincingly. ‘He has been lucky in that he has made counter-dispositions that have turned out successfully. Will this delay cause any change in your plans?’

  ‘I have been considering this, and I do not feel a change is necessary. Leesing claims that he was opposed by overwhelming force. Well, he had five thousand men. You told me that Tito only commands three thousand.’

  ‘I would say that Brigadier General Leesing is exaggerating, sir.’

  ‘Well, he was certainly attacked. Even if by only a few hundred men. But he claims that the dead Partisans, and the few that were taken prisoner, are all women. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Perhaps another exaggeration, sir.’ Wassermann was beginning to wonder if General Leesing had gone mad.

  ‘Well, in any event, whoever composes the Partisan force, its very existence means that those people, male or female, cannot at the same time be with Tito in Uzice. He will be weaker by that number. And even if Leesing is six hours late, he should still arrive in time to cut off the Partisan retreat. No, no, we will carry out our plan. However, there are two things I require of you. The first is that, as it appears certain that Leesing will be late reaching his rendezvous behind the Partisan lines, Mihailovic will have to take a more active role. Contact him by radio, and tell him to move some of his people up to the south-west of Uzice, just in case the Partisans try to escape through there. He will hold that position, and if necessary check them until Leesing comes up.’

  Wassermann
pulled his nose. ‘He won’t like it.’

  ‘Are we supposed to worry about his likes and dislikes?’

  ‘He will not like it to be publicly known that he is obeying our orders.’

  ‘Oh, come now. This will not be public. Just see that it is done.’

  ‘Yes, Herr General.’

  ‘Then I wish you to get down to Kragujevac and sort things out. Find out who betrayed us. See that they are made an example of.’

  ‘Yes, Herr General. May I have that command in writing?’ Blintoft raised his eyebrows. ‘It is a formality, sir. I may have to shoot one or two civilians – or people who will claim they are civilians, at any rate.’

  ‘Oh, very well. You shall have your instructions in writing.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I may also need additional forces.’

  ‘Use Leesing’s people. He is still there. I can spare you no one else. We commence our advance at dawn.’

  As you have told me a dozen times, Wassermann thought. He was gaining a distinct impression that the general was nervous. He summoned Ulrich. ‘We are moving out,’ he said. ‘Have everyone ready to go in an hour.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Nothing we can’t handle.’

  Ulrich saluted and left. Wassermann gazed at the radio transmitter in the corner of the room. He could not give any instructions to Mihailovic, because he had never actually given any orders to Mihailovic, only to those of his subordinates he could control. That was a mistaken assumption on the part of the general which he had never corrected; the suggestion that he had the Cetnik commander in his pocket had enhanced his standing. He did not know if Mihailovic was aware of the liaison between one of his captains and the Germans; Matovic had never given any indication that he was acting other than on his own, and it was not a relationship Wassermann intended to expose. He could contact Matovic, he supposed, but someone like Matovic would hardly be able to influence events at this stage. After all, he reflected, it is not always that easy to make radio contact; sometimes it is impossible. So perhaps a few of Tito’s people would escape and join the Cetniks. He reckoned that would quickly involve sufficient internecine squabbling to be self-destructive, especially if the Partisans felt they had not properly been supported.