When Hell Struck Twelve

by James R Benn

  This was not going to end well.

  Kaz had most of the francs, which they found right away.

  Then they found my pistol, which seemed to rile them up, even though carrying a weapon with all these Krauts around should have been considered sensible. I could have been one of them.

  But the Milice identity card proved I wasn’t.

  Jarnac’s eyes went wide, and the briefest of grins lit up his face. He couldn’t believe his luck. Not only did his new friends believe his story, but I’d provided all the proof needed to seal the deal. There were only six FFI men left in the courtyard. But it was enough for a firing squad.

  Kaz managed a few words, something about checking the identity card and looking at the picture. It didn’t matter. The photo was close enough for this bunch, their rage and bloodlust running high. The guy behind me shoved me hard, forcing me to my knees. Then Kaz got the same treatment.

  Jarnac stepped forward. The men went silent, watching him, waiting to see how the chief of the Saint-Just Brigade handled himself when it came to dealing with traitors. Behind us, I sensed movement, the shuffling of feet as the fifis edged away from the mess about to be displayed on the cobblestones.

  “I am American,” I said, looking straight at the guy nearest Jarnac. “My friend is Polish. We are Allied agents. Not Milice.” I didn’t know if he understood but talking to Jarnac was a waste of time.

  He raised an eyebrow, a shimmer of curiosity on display. He looked at Kaz and placed one hand on Jarnac’s arm.

  A clunk echoed off the walls.

  “Grenade!” I shouted, grabbing Kaz and shoving him toward the staircase door.

  The German potato masher grenade rolled toward the main entrance as Jarnac and his pals dove for cover.

  The explosion was fierce in the enclosed space, sending shrapnel zinging off the granite walls and leaving my ears ringing.

  “Go!” I said to Kaz, pushing him into the vestibule, turning to check on who was watching us. He scrambled up the steps as a résistant advanced toward me, rifle at the ready. Two other fighters fired at a second-story window in the courtyard as another grenade sailed through the air. I scrambled into the staircase, hands up, with the FFI fighter following close. Another fifi slammed into us as we made a mad stumbling dash for the stairs. The grenade exploded, followed by a long scream. I raised my hands higher, blocking their view, as well as their aim, of Kaz scampering up the stairs.

  Aux toits, my friend.

  A rifle in my ribs got me going, my desire to give Kaz time for a clean getaway tempered by the notion of Germans coming after us as we climbed the narrow stairs, easy targets going up single file. I figured the Krauts must have come in through the windows, maybe hoisting themselves up from the top of the half-track and climbing in through the shattered windowpanes. By the number of guys behind me, they must have gotten a few of the fifis. And Jarnac? I could only hope.

  But right now, I had a bigger problem. I’d been granted a stay of execution, but what I needed was a full pardon. From these guys and the Krauts. At the head of the stairs, a small door hung open on its hinges, the darkening sky beyond. On the roof, I waited, hands visible at my sides, not wanting to give my captors an excuse to shoot me while escaping. They spilled out, four of them, one grasping his arm, blood seeping through his fingers.

  No Jarnac.

  Shots sounded from below. In the apartments, maybe. Nazis taking their revenge on the residents for helping us escape. Or maybe they were taking potshots at people in the street. Either way, they weren’t shooting at us. Cold comfort for those in the line of fire.

  “Avec moi,” one of the FFI men said, the same fellow who’d taken my pistol. He wore a dirty white shirt and an FFI armband marked with the Cross of Lorraine. Since he didn’t want to shoot me then and there, I decided it would be a fine idea to follow him and nodded my understanding.

  “Roger,” he said, which I took as a good sign, since executioners like to be anonymous. I told him my name was Billy but didn’t offer to shake hands. I didn’t want to push my luck.

  He went first, running low along the spine of the apartment building, the gray zinc roof slanting off in either direction. At the next building, we had to make a small jump over a thin alley. It wasn’t far, except for the way down. We grabbed onto chimney pots as we made our way across to the next rooftop, this one a full story lower. Roger hung down and let himself drop, clutching at a chimney and dancing around a skylight, barely keeping his balance. He called for one of his pals to come down next, which showed me he was still suspicious, or at least smart. After him, I dropped, and Roger caught me, passing me off to the other fighter, who kept his arm on mine. A discrete but unmistakable reminder that they wouldn’t lose too much sleep tonight if they had to toss me into the road.

  The wounded man was let down, the last résistant lowering him by his good arm.

  We moved off, keeping away from the edge and being as quiet as possible, although I wondered about people in the attic apartments hearing us. Probably used to it, since it was an easy way to avoid patrols after curfew, or if you didn’t have the right papers.

  I looked around for any sign of Kaz, glad I didn’t spot him, happy he got away, although it left me feeling lost without him. But this rooftop ramble kept me too busy to feel sorry for myself, since the next building looked like a killer. It went back up in height, and the roof was slate, pitched at a steep angle. I got dizzy looking at it.

  A drainpipe at the edge of the building was the only way up. Roger grabbed hold of it and shinnied up, pulling himself onto the roof as something metallic gave way. There was a ping, and a small hunk of metal slid down the slate and vanished into the darkness below.

  From our vantage point, the sky held lingering light, but below, the streets were pitch-black. Paris was still under a German blackout, but parts of the city glowed with faint lights, marking the boundaries of neighborhoods held by the Free French.

  Roger beckoned me to come up next. I told myself it was a sign of trust, knowing full well that he wanted me—instead of one of his own men—to test out the drainpipe. I took hold of it, feeling the tremor in my hand and cursing the damned shakes. They’d left me alone when I was on my knees about to have my skull aired out, so why kick in now?

  I inched my way up, making the mistake of looking down. Maybe the shakes were smarter than me. I went up, hand over hand, feet wrapped around the pipe. I felt Roger tap my shoulder and offer his hand. I took it and he pulled me up, grimacing as he moved back, keeping to the ridge, his legs straddling it. Nothing else popped off the drainpipe, and he signaled for the next man to climb up.

  I took a deep breath and nodded my thanks. I inched backward, watching the wounded guy being lifted by two men. This was getting tricky. Roger leaned forward, his long arm extended to reach his friend’s hand. He clasped it, grunting as he pulled him up. I reached over Roger, finding an elbow and pulling. We got him up and over onto the roof, and I scuttled back, out of the way.

  Roger swung one leg over the peak, holding onto a chimney pot as he pulled the wounded guy along. He leaned forward, and I saw his body shift as he reached out for the next chimney pot. It was too late, his hand merely brushing against it as he slid down the slanted slate roof, trying to dig in his feet to halt the pull of gravity toward the dark cobblestones below.

  I launched myself in his direction, one knee hooked over the peak, the rest of me headed down in the same direction, catching him by the wrist. His weight felt like it would pull my arm out of its socket, but I was more worried about my knee coming over the peak and the two of us taking a swan dive.

  The wounded kid reached out with his good arm, but he had nothing to hold onto. Then he slid to the chimney pot, wrapping his legs around it and bending as far as he could in Roger’s direction.

  He got his other hand.

  I felt the pull lessen on my own arm as he
took some of Roger’s weight. I caught a glimpse of another guy coming up and over the edge, and he joined in to pull Roger up. We laid against one another, breathing heavily, our bodies balanced on the thin peak, the dividing line between life and death.

  For a moment. Then we were on our way, Roger in the lead, looking a bit wary, but still pushing ahead. The next building was lower, and we jumped to a wide ledge, then down onto the flat rooftop.

  The tip of a cigarette glowed in front of us.

  “Bonsoir,” the voice said. It belonged to a man wearing a vest over his collarless shirt, sitting in a chair at the edge of the roof, next to a knee-high brick wall. He sounded like he expected us. The guy in the vest pointed to the street below, his cigarette dangling from his lips. It was a barricade, manned by dozens of the FFI, illuminated by lights shining from houses and cafés below. The gent nodded in the direction of his door, inviting us to descend through his apartment.

  We were in a Free French neighborhood, which was better than a Nazi-controlled area. Except for the fact that it didn’t necessarily mean I was free.

  We descended the staircase. Armed and bloodied men didn’t seem to alarm anyone, so I figured a lot of folks were taking the rooftop express. The barricade, which looked out over a four-way intersection, was built of paving stones, furniture, barrels, and sandbags. It looked like it would do a fine job of stopping a bullet and a lousy job of stopping a tank. Men, women, kids, everyone was strolling around like it was one big block party. Which, judging by the second barricade at the other end of rue Volney, it was.

  A woman in a light blue dress, wearing a German helmet and a canvas sack filled with grenades over her shoulder, seemed to know Roger. She summoned help for the fifi with the bad arm, and a bunch of medicos wearing the same kind of red cross smocks I’d seen earlier scurried over. They sat him down and got to work cutting away his shirt.

  Roger and the lady with the grenades had a talk, with a lot of gestures tossed in my direction. I figured my chances of not being shot out of hand were fairly good, but beyond that I had no idea what to expect.

  “You say you are américain?” she said, tipping the helmet back on her head and studying me with narrowed eyes. She was maybe forty, with a round face and more curls than I’d ever seen under a Kraut helmet.

  “I am. Sorry, but I don’t speak much French. My name is Billy Boyle,” I said, flashing a smile and trying to work up some boyish charm. But I didn’t have much energy left for it.

  “Mister Billy Boyle, why do you have this carte d’identité from the Milice? You are not Charles Guillemot, are you?” She studied the card again, glancing at my face and shaking her head. “Or perhaps you are, and it is a poor photograph?”

  “No,” I said. “I was shot down two weeks ago over Belgium. The underground smuggled me as far as Amiens, but they lost contact with the group that was supposed to get me through the lines. So, they gave me this and suggested I make my way to Paris and wait for the Allies.”

  “This worked?” she asked, slapping the identity card with her hand.

  “Yes. It passed a security check on the train. And it almost got me killed, right Roger?”

  Roger nodded. They whispered to each other while I tried to fill in my phony story about being shot down. I’d be a fighter pilot, maybe with a couple of kills to my credit. I didn’t think it would help my case to lay out the whole story of Jarnac and the map, not after the way Roger and the others had acted around him. I couldn’t tell if they knew him or just knew of the Saint-Just Brigade. Either way, I couldn’t match that kind of clout.

  “Then why did Marcel Jarnac call you traître?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, giving my impression of a Gallic shrug of indifference. “Perhaps he knew of Charles Guillemot and thought I was him.”

  “Roger tells me he denounced you before seeing your papers,” she said. This was one smart lady.

  “I am sorry, of course. Yes, he did so immediately. I can’t say why, although the man was in some pain. Whatever happened to him, madame?”

  “Roger says he fled into the apartments, which was a bad idea, since the boche were there as well. I am Nicole Lalis, Monsieur Boyle, if that is your real name. Roger tells me you saved his life tonight.”

  “He was in a tight spot,” I said. She furrowed her brow at that, so I explained what I meant.

  “Ah, oui,” she said. “That was good of you. Still, the leader of the Saint-Just Brigade would not make this dénonciation without reason. You will be our guest tonight. Jarnac may find his way here, since there are many members of the FTP in these streets.”

  “And in the morning, if he does not come?” I asked.

  “We shall see,” Nicole said.

  “Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” a young girl said to me as she walked by. She wore a red cross armband, one of the medical team patching up the kid with the bad arm.

  “For what?” I said, not even thinking. She looked puzzled and spoke to Nicole, who I was beginning to understand was the chef around here.

  “She says you ran out under the guns of the boche to rescue a wounded man,” Nicole said, eyeing me with what I hoped was newfound respect.

  “I’m a fighter pilot, what can I say?” I tried the charm routine again, failing once more when Nicole didn’t swoon.

  “Roger will give you food. I will see to you in the morning,” Nicole said, turning away and stepping up on a pile of cobblestones to peer out into the gloom. I was the least of her problems. There were a few thousand German troops in Paris who were a bigger headache right now.

  “Excuse me, Nicole,” I said, following her to the barricade. “You said there are a lot of FTP people here. Maybe some are in the Saint-Just Brigade? Could you ask them to put out the word that I’d like to speak with this Jarnac fellow? To set the record straight about who I am.”

  “I am FTP myself. But not of the Brigade Saint-Just. Tell me, why would you invite such trouble?” Nicole said, hardly taking her eyes off the intersection.

  “I don’t know how long it will be before the Americans get here, and I don’t want a false accusation hanging over me,” I said. Besides, I couldn’t find Jarnac in time, unless I tempted him with some bait. Me.

  “Certainement,” she said, after a moment’s thought.

  Roger tapped me on the shoulder and signaled me to follow him. I did, as Nicole called out to several of her people. A glance in my direction told me she was granting me my wish. Like the beat of jungle drums in a Tarzan movie, the message would reverberate among the FFI and the Reds, telling them an American was waiting to speak to Marcel Jarnac.

  My guard, escort, or whatever Roger was, led me to a café lit by a few candles. There were no waiters or bartender. The place had been taken over as a mess hall for the fighters, doling out what food they had. We ended up with plates of boiled potatoes and mashed turnip, washed down with a couple of glasses of red wine.

  “Veux-tu aller?” Roger said in a whisper, after slugging down the last of the wine.

  I didn’t get it.

  “Aller!” That I got. He was offering to let me go.

  “Non,” I said. “Merci, my friend, but I will stay for now. May I have my pistol?” I made a shooting motion with my hand and then mimed opening a paper. “Carte d’identité?”

  “Non, mon ami,” Roger said. He was ready to let me slip away, but not to explain to Nicole where the pistol and papers had gone when morning rolled around. Fair enough.

  On the wall behind us was a large-scale street map of Paris. I got up to look. It had the usual landmarks for tourists. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and Sacré-Coeur, the white-domed church on the hill in Montmartre. The map was marked in pen with German strongpoints as well. The Hotel Meurice, the Senate, and more.

  “Moulin Rouge?” I asked, tapping the map in the area of Montmartre. Roger grinned at the mention of t
he famous nightclub with the naughty cancan dance. He pointed to the boulevard de Clichy, where Krauts had been lining up for years to see the dancers. In a few days, the crowds would be khaki, and the show would go on.

  “Where are we?” I asked, pointing to each of us and then the map. Roger showed me rue Volney, tucked between two major thoroughfares. All the twists and turns on the pavement and across rooftops had led me back to within a block of the opera house. Which, I noted, was among the German strongpoints on the map. No wonder Nicole was keeping such a close watch.

  Roger led me upstairs to a crowded apartment. Résistants were sprawled everywhere, weapons stacked against the wall. Some sleeping fighters lay with their arms curled around hard-won rifles. A kid of about ten handed us threadbare blankets and pointed down the hall. He was excited, having the time of his life sharing his apartment with the men and women of the Resistance.

  Me, I was nothing but dog-tired. The room was a small study, with a young girl in the single easy chair, a Sten gun in her lap. Asleep, she looked about sixteen. Roger pointed to the corner and took a stretch of floor by the door for himself. Guarding the exit, after a fashion. He covered himself with his dusty suit jacket, laid his rifle at his side, and bunched up his blanket to use as a pillow. He pulled my pistol from his pocket and laid it next to the rifle. It was a small automatic, but still uncomfortable to sleep on.

  I rolled up my jacket for a pillow and lay on half the blanket, pulling the other half over me. Roger said bonne nuit, and I followed suit. The girl murmured it back to us.

  Strange how the normal patterns of life assert themselves in the most abnormal situations. It was almost soothing. But I would have felt a lot better if I knew I’d wake up before Jarnac stood in that doorway and said hello with a bullet.

  I clenched the blanket, my hand quivering against my cheek as I willed it to calm down. I wondered where Kaz was. I wondered where Leclerc was. I wondered where Jarnac was, and if Kaz had been able to stop him. How he could have, I had no idea.