Close Quarters

by Thomas Wood

  It had been brushing the ground searching for something. Something that Diehl knew was right near him.

  The first that I knew about it was the feeling of the solid wooden receiver connecting with the side of my skull, just above my cheekbone in the area that always felt softest.

  I fell sideways onto the ground, soothing myself in a puddle of cold water for nothing more than a moment.

  Only adrenaline was keeping me going now, as I felt my body beginning to falter, and show the first few signs of wanting to give up.

  The stars, that had blinded Diehl a few seconds ago, were now blighting me and, as I rolled, I could not distinguish any of the faint outlines that I could see.

  I based all my next movements on the light that I could just about make out.

  A large, looming darkness suddenly encompassed my entire vision.

  Rolling to one side, I thrust my hand in my trouser pocket, gripping the tiny pistol that I had stowed away. I hadn’t wanted to use it, for fear of making too much noise, but that ship had already sailed.

  With no time to draw it out from my pocket, I simply levelled it towards the shadow that was coming down on me and squeezed the trigger as many times as my battered fingers would allow.

  All in all, I think five or six rounds must have been ejected. I did not know how many had actually entered Diehl’s body. All I could tell was that at least some of them must have.

  Diehl flopped to the floor, his rifle landing with a clatter and with one arm resting over my own.

  There was no movement from him. I couldn’t even hear him breathing.

  Fully aware that I did not have an abundance of time at my disposal, I painfully heaved myself onto my knees, and vomited onto the ground.

  The stars were still bursting in my eyes as I woozily got to my feet.

  27

  There seemed to be a ripple effect as the sounds that had echoed slowly bounced off the walls one by one, reaching my ears but struggling to make themselves known. I strained for a moment or two to try and hear something else, holding my breath and earnestly hoping to hear a noise that would fill me with hope, rather than dread.

  But, as I knew full well, nothing came. No one was coming to my rescue. My fate lay solely in my hands and mine alone.

  I looked at them for a second, palms facing the sky as if in some kind of prayer. They were soaked in blood, with skin hanging off the heel of my hand as it had grazed along the floor. The only pain that I felt was as I looked at them, the searing agony in my skull taking over the second that I looked away.

  It was odd though, as I debated which pain I would rather focus on for a prolonged period of time, my knuckles a bubbling blue and beginning to swell, that I did not feel all that tired. I was in more pain than I had ever been in my life previous, and yet I still felt fired up enough that another Diehl could come stumbling through the door, and I would feel ready for another fight instantly.

  It was probably just as well, as the ruckus that we had caused would more than likely have alerted at least one person to the proceedings of workshop four and, depending on how much they valued Diehl’s life, they would be making their way towards me rather soon.

  I began to stagger, my legs a wobbling mess despite the fact that they had perhaps come off better than any other part of my body. I was fighting the desire to turn around, stumble to each of the machines one by one, to make sure that Diehl had not been able to fiddle with any of the charges and disable any of them.

  But I knew that I was running out of time. Even if the Germans weren’t on their way, the bomber boys were, and the sounds of falling bombs was tripping tantalisingly close.

  With a huge sigh, I pushed myself off one of the machines, confident enough that Diehl possessed neither the know-how nor the presence of mind to have gone about deactivating all of the Clams, in the short space of time that he had been inspecting them.

  In one, final act of defiance, Diehl made it excruciatingly difficult for me to be able to move his body, as the last few gasps of air that still lingered ineffectually in his lungs, passed over his vocal cords to allow his final moan of life.

  His eyes were set half-open, in a stare that looked straight through everything, seeing plenty, but unable to register a thing.

  Pulling his arms high above his head, his rapidly-cooling body was tugged just under the nearest rigged machine, as I struggled to prop him up against it. By the time that I had finished, his head was a matter of inches away from the very explosive that he had seemed so keen to investigate.

  There was an element of sadness that hovered in the back of my throat as I positioned him there, as it was only innate human curiosity that had ended up killing him. Now, all being well, his body would be long gone, along with the explosions that he would have ultimately tried to prevent.

  I would have done exactly the same thing as him. We weren’t really all that different.

  With little time to recover, I began searching around in my pocket for the pistol, which was still a little lukewarm from suddenly being called into action.

  My eyes were marginally better, but I still struggled to feed the new ammunition into the magazine of the pistol, as the stars continued to burst in my direct line of sight. Fortunately, I had fed small rounds into the magazine so many times that I could do it with my eyes closed, which was what I ultimately found myself doing.

  Leaning against one of the production tables, I felt around until I found a rag, oily and greasy after many hours of wiping down the profiling machine. Brushing it against my face made the gaping wound in my cheek burn intensely, and I could feel loose bits of skin hanging carelessly and stubbornly refusing to let go.

  Wincing, I did all that I could to try and get rid of as much blood as possible, and it even helped ever so slightly with the stars that were still twinkling.

  The pain was beginning to set in. It was no longer just in my skin or on the tips of my fingers, but it was being pumped around me, as if my blood was toxic and was infecting every part of me. Even my bones were beginning to bruise and scream with pain.

  I needed to move. Run it off had always been the mantra of every player in the St John’s first eleven football team. I would need a bit of that spirit now to get me through.

  As I reached the door of the workshop, there was one last cursory sweep of the room that would soon be nothing more than rubble. A final resting place for Diehl.

  I could make out little, but it gave me the satisfaction of a job well done nevertheless, despite the fact that there was almost certainly another few hours before I could relax.

  I felt my way through the corridors, as my eyes continued to struggle with the one purpose for which they were there.

  It helped tremendously that I had been here before, and had paid close attention to every minute detail, every nail that stuck from the wall, every light switch that marked a few paces closer to my end goal.

  I had spent hours poring over the plans that Peintre had given to us and felt like I knew the factory better than the man who had worked there for thirty-odd years. I moved quickly, with purpose and determination, which was surprising considering my energy was dropping significantly with every pace that I managed to muster, each one taking me by surprise now.

  The ringing in my ears slowly began to subside, although the headache that it had induced remained with no sign of wanting to leave. But what filled the void that had once been a numbing ring, left me with such a dread that I longed for the deafness to return.

  The air raid was continuing to thump on overhead, and I supposed we must have been on the third wave of bombers by now. I guessed that the bomber boys had been stockpiling much of their ordnance for a month and were now unleashing pure fury in order to never have to fly here again.

  I could make out the sound of shattered glass twinkling to the floor as I passed by offices and smaller workshops, as the glass that had flexed so defiantly was finally giving way.

  The bombs too were adding to the cacophony o
f noise, as for the first time they began to connect with the walls of the factory, shaking the ground with such a force that I expected it to open up at a moment’s notice.

  I stopped. I had felt the last row of switches. Two side by side with another slightly below the first.

  Reaching out blindly to my left, I gripped the door handle. It was chilled and quite refreshing to my sweaty and bruised hands, but I could not bring myself to turn it.

  I needed to prepare myself.

  Faintly, somewhere in the background, I could make out the soft crackle and pop of a fire that had started up some way down the corridor. I hoped that it was contained, for now, but, owing to the possibility that the bomber boys had dropped incendiaries in order to guide the others to the target, I had to assume that it wasn’t.

  Up until that moment, I had been in the relative safety of the factory. I knew my way around, even if half-blind. But, outside the door was a world of fury and hatred, and not just from the Germans. As soon as I stepped outside, I would be more susceptible to the debris and destruction that surfed around in the night sky.

  I exhaled. My eyes were still no better, but I knew I could not risk staying inside a second longer, I could already feel the heat beginning to gently warm my clammy skin.

  I yanked at the handle sharply and flung it open, taking half a second to allow the icy cold stream of midnight air to pummel me in the face. The noise ratcheted up ten notches as I stood there, as the purer sound of aircraft engines was infused with the sound of fires and running water.

  Men shouted from all directions as they poured whatever they could on the inferno that was heating the entire town. The bomber boys had already made a big mess.

  I knew that I was in an alleyway, that ran down the side of the factory and towards the two large generators that Cluzet had shown us previously.

  But I wasn’t expecting any movement.

  Sensing something in front of me, a man an inch or two shorter, I pulled the pistol up in front of me. I braced myself.

  I squeezed the trigger, the pads of my fingers bulging as I applied the pressure. The figure said nothing in the short second or two that it had taken me to level the weapon towards him and apply a force to the curved steel of the trigger.

  But then, a grunt. One that I could recognise.

  “Jean?”

  Instantly, the pistol slipped from my grip and clattered to the floor, me along with it, as I realised that the voice belonged to none other than the man who had been alongside me for so many years; Mike.

  I tried to say his name, but nothing would grumble from my mouth.

  I felt several other pairs of hands grip me under my arms and heave me back to my feet.

  “Come on, we had better get you out of here.”

  I stumbled as the two men either side of me tried to take some weight off my feet. It had only been a handful of seconds, but I had already started to feel the benefits of being able to relax.

  “Did everyone get on alright? All the Clams were set?”

  “Yes, they got on a lot better than you,” Mike returned, as my vision got less hazy and I could make out his pistol-wielding hand, as it led our advance through the alleyway.

  “It was Diehl,” I said, letting out a low moan as one of the men inadvertently brushed my cheek.

  “Diehl?” Mike said, chuckling sadistically. “Blimey, if that’s what a drunk German is able to do to you, I’d hate to see what a sober one will do.”

  “Shut up. I got all my charges set. That was the job, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. But that was meant to be the easy bit!” I could make out his toothy smile looking back at me, with which I could only return with a bloody grin. I was in pain, but I felt on top of the world.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, as Andrew and Jules set me down on top of a pile of discarded equipment.

  “Good, because you’re on your own after this bit.”

  “Fine. I’m okay.”

  There was a momentary pause, in which a huge eruption suddenly bawled from the direction of the front of the factory.

  “Christopher’s going to be mad if that was his café,” Andrew quipped, a ripple of laughter half-heartedly forcing itself out into the air. “I guess we should say goodbye.”

  “Yes, and make it quick,” Mike said, as a series of handshakes were exchanged, while Cluzet set the final few charges on the imposing generators.

  “Cluzet,” Mike said, holding out his hand. “Don’t go home, my friend. Find somewhere safe to hide. Just don’t go home.”

  Cluzet chuckled, wiped his hand down his boiler suit and took Mike’s hand.

  “My friend, I have nowhere else to go.”

  28

  The incandescent rage of the air raid continued to swell all around me, as if a sleeping giant had been sedentary for thousands of years and had finally been prodded into action. I had never heard a cacophony of destruction and pain quite like it.

  There was a rawness to it, one that struck me through the heart with a piercing arrow, at the thought that people were dying all around me, good people, when if we had succeeded the first time around, none of this would have been happening.

  Fires continued to rage, and windows burst from their panes without a bomb blast’s encouragement. The flames were licking so tempestuously that even the glass needed to dive out of its path.

  Curtains, now streaks of flame, danced from open windows, as bricks seemed to glow a deep orange as they stored an incredible amount of heat.

  We began to run, as fast as we possibly could, the sweat dripping off me a result of my efforts, but also down to the awe-inspiring heat that chucked itself from every direction.

  “This way!” called Mike, as he tried to guide me through the streets, my hazy vision now blinded by the vibrant colours of a burning town. It was back to the way that I liked it; just Mike and me.

  I would have preferred it had it not been the middle of an allied air raid, but there was a security when it was just the two of us, one that had long comforted me.

  The comfort seemed to extend to the pain of my injuries; the pounding headache courtesy of Diehl’s rifle still present, but not nearly so debilitating. The stars too had begun to fade further, my eyes slowly regaining their focus as if I had been asleep for many days.

  My cheek, however, was still pouring blood, the flaps of skin flailing as we pounded through the streets and I could not help but wonder what kind of things Diehl had left in there for me.

  At the thought, I wiped at the hole with the back of my sleeve, hoping to get some of the disgusting saliva out of my body. The thought was enough for me to convince myself that I would die, so I quickly filled my mind with anything other than that.

  A body suddenly clattered into me, sending me into a pile of bricks that had been hastily swept to one side to keep the road clear. I fell hard, my knee splitting as it crashed into the mountain of pain.

  Up ahead, Mike continued to run, his silhouette disappearing into a cloud of dust and smoke.

  I looked at the man that had collided into me, who was sobbing over something as he tried to bundle it back into his arms. He had no uniform on, apart from that of a French civilian, and so I felt it my duty to check if he was alright.

  “Monsieur,” I shouted over the incandescent noise, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  He did not register that I was stood with him, instead silently scooping up the object in his arms and turning to run away from all the madness. I felt sorry for him, as I realised what it was, he was so desperate to get away from all of this, but I was certain that his dog had already been killed.

  I felt the smoke around me clear as I sucked in huge lungfuls of the stuff, as I charged to catch up with Mike. It threatened to stick in the back of my throat and refused to reinvigorate me, until I was soon choking and spluttering as I ran.

  I did not stop though, I could not, and before too long I saw Mike, craning over his shoulder as he soug
ht me out.

  “Come on!”

  It was only as he shouted that I realised that he had stopped running, and he was waiting for me with a bicycle in hand. He pushed it towards me, and, in unison, we swung our legs over and started to pedal.

  We had stashed them behind a large bush that marked the boundary of Besançon in the hope that they would help spur us on the final leg of our journey to peace. Jules and Andrew had done the same, on another road, so that the possibility of the bikes being found, or the men for whom they were intended being discovered, was minimised somewhat.

  It was a futile attempt at making ourselves feel better, a mild way of suggesting that the Germans were not as clever as we had hoped. But the thought of four bikes hidden in the French countryside, easy to find, but allowing four saboteurs to make haste from the scene of a crime, filled us all with an incredible amount of glee. It was the nearest thing to entertainment that we could get out here.

  My knee ached tremendously as my legs bounced up and down, the pedals flying round in circuits until I could keep going no longer. My thighs felt as though acid was burning inside of them and, after a few seconds of rest, I continued on in my fury.

  The incline of the road grew slightly, to the point where it would have almost been better if the two of us dismounted and walked up the hill. But it meant that we were nearing our destination, and soon we would be able to stop.

  At the thought of making it back to Jules’ house, I could not help but want to pedal all the more, as I thought of the small, six-year-old boy who was hopefully in the trench at the bottom of the garden, alongside Christopher.

  I wanted so desperately to talk to him, to reassure him that the rest of his war would be different now, that he might possibly be able to go to sleep knowing that this corner of France would no longer be the frontline of a bomber’s war.

  But most of all I wanted him to know that a repeat of what had happened to him alongside his mother was now all but impossible.