When Hell Struck Twelve

by James R Benn

  “A killer? This is a city full of killers. Who? And what has he done?”

  “Listen, Monsieur Leduc, for all I know you could be a Vichy sympathizer. A member of the fascist militia, or an informant for the Gestapo. I’m not going to tell you anything I wouldn’t want the Germans to find out.”

  “Then we are at an impasse,” Leduc said.

  “No, we aren’t,” I said, standing again. “I have to find my friend. Shoot if you must, but I’m leaving. If you’re a decent shot, give me a few steps to get off your carpet, and I’ll bleed on your wood floor.” I walked to the door, tensing as I stepped off the carpet.

  Leduc laughed.

  “I will help you, Billy Boyle. A man who risks a bullet to find a friend is worth trusting. You may even have your little pistol back,” he said, handing it to me after he walked around his desk.

  “Thank you,” was all I managed. “You believe me?”

  “Oui. You seem très américain. I will escort you to the Metro. It will be safe once we get there, but we must watch for boche patrols. But first, you cannot walk about in that shirt. And you have an odor about you.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. He opened a file cabinet and produced a folded white shirt and a pair of socks. Clean socks.

  “Here. I keep some clothing for emergencies. Take these and wash yourself,” he said, pointing to a door at the far end of the office. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I scrubbed myself in the tiny sink and put on the new socks and shirt. Leduc was a little bigger than me, but it was a good enough fit.

  I came out a new man. Fresh clothing, a new pal, and a head full of zing. What more did I need?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Leduc went left, and I was immediately glad he’d decided to take me. I’d planned on going right. He motioned for me to stay behind him as we walked to the corner, where he leaned against the wall and checked for anyone watching before removing his fedora and craning his neck around the side of the building.

  “All clear,” he whispered. The guy knew what he was doing. Not like some private eyes I’d known back in Boston. Clumsy fellows who used brawn and bribes to get by. Sure, there were some good eggs, but they were rare. Maybe Paris fielded a better brand of detective, or maybe I’d gotten lucky.

  I ran after Leduc as he darted across the street.

  “It is not far,” he said on the other side. “But we must take the longer way through the back streets. It is much safer.”

  As if to make his point, shots sounded ahead of us, impossible to pinpoint as they echoed off the granite buildings. It sounded like a moving gunfight headed our way. Leduc grabbed my arm and pulled me into a small bar, the red diamond-shaped sign above the door reading Tabac. He waved to the barman, who nodded as if he knew him and was not surprised to see Leduc make for the back door with a stranger in tow.

  “You are with the Resistance, aren’t you?” I whispered, as we took to the alleyway that connected to the next street, away from the sound of rifle fire.

  “Why deny it?” Leduc said. “Tomorrow our ranks will triple. By the time the Allies come, everybody will be a résistant.”

  “I’m supposed to see a Doctor Durand at the FFI hospital,” I said. “Do you know him?”

  “Oui,” he said, stopping as we came to the street. “Not his real name, of course. He organized the hospital, such as it is. He will find your friend, if he is there.”

  Shouts arose from down the street, and Leduc pulled me back into the shadowy alleyway. Sounds of heels hitting cobblestones filled the air as a crowd of young men and women ran by. Running away, or running to somewhere? It was impossible to tell.

  “We will wait a minute,” Leduc said. “In case.” Of what, he didn’t need to say.

  “Tell me,” I said, slumping down against the cool stone. “Have you heard of the Saint-Just Brigade?”

  “What? The Brigade Saint-Just? Is the killer you seek one of them?” I should’ve picked a dumber detective. Leduc didn’t miss a beat.

  “Let’s just say I’m very interested in them.”

  “Do not let them know,” he said. “They are very dangerous.”

  “Good fighters?” I asked.

  “Bien sûr,” he said. “The Communists all fight. Ever since Moscow told them to. I grant them their courage, but many are slaves to their masters in the Soviet Union. You know of the FTP, yes?”

  “Sure. The Francs-Tireurs et Partisans,” I said.

  “Yes. Many of them are working people who believe the promises of Marx. I do not agree, but I understand them, and know they are not afraid to strike at the boche. Even the police have FTP within their ranks.”

  “But the Saint-Just Brigade is different?”

  “Oh, they fight, have no doubt,” Leduc said, stepping out into the street and cocking his head for any sound of trouble. “But they brook no disagreement with Moscow. If Stalin orders it, it is done.”

  “Marcel Jarnac,” I said, deciding to trust this mec who’d given me his shirt, if not off his back, from his desk drawer.

  “Jarnac? Is that who you seek?” I nodded. “He is a man with blood on his hands. Much boche blood. The blood of collabos as well, such as the Vichy militia and right-wing politicians. But he has been linked to the executions of fellow Communists. Several who are not sufficiently pro-Soviet have been found recently floating in the Seine. Their hands were bound behind their back and they’d been shot in the head. A trademark of the Brigade Saint-Just.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked, as I watched him scan the street once again.

  “I know people who know things. That is how a detective works, n’est-ce pas? Come, there is no one following. Those young people were probably heading for the barricades along the rue de Rivoli.”

  We ran across the street, veering right and taking an arched passageway through a large apartment block. We emerged into a courtyard to see French tri-colors and what looked like homemade American flags hanging from the windows. We cut through the main entrance, out onto the street, where the residents were more circumspect. It was mainly laundry hung from balconies, along with curious residents leaning on their railings and shouting questions to people below.

  “They want to know if anyone has seen de Gaulle yet, and if the Germans have attacked the barricade at the end of the street,” Leduc said. In answer to one of those questions, a burst of machine gun fire sounded from the next block. Leduc quickened his pace, drawing his revolver from his waistband. People came out of their buildings, a few of them armed, a few of them wearing red cross armbands, but most of them bearing nothing but gleams of apprehension and anger in their eyes.

  By the time we got to the barricade the lead was flying fast, the machine gun firing at those who dared show themselves and at the windows overhead, shattering glass and sending shards of stone spinning like shrapnel into the crowd. Those who were hit and those who didn’t want to be backed away to the safety of doorways or their homes. Everyone who was armed found a spot at the barricade. Leduc, who seemed to know many of the fighters, directed several young men and women into a building to take up positions overlooking the Krauts. They were armed with captured German rifles and submachine guns. One guy carried a sack of Molotov cocktails, the deadly bottles of gasoline and kerosene clanking as he ran.

  I chanced a look over the barricade as the machine gun fire drifted higher, aiming for the top floor facing the street.

  “Shit!” I said, ducking.

  “Merde!” Leduc echoed.

  A Panther tank sat in the middle of the intersection, its hull-mounted machine gun spitting fire as the turret traversed, seeking targets. Next to it a burning truck lay on its side, dead Fritzes scattered around it.

  “I thought this was the safe route,” I said, covering my head as more debris showered down over us.

  “No, I said it was safer,” Leduc said. “Thos
e words are different, are they not?”

  I was about to say the safest thing would have been not to run to the barricade, but it seemed like Leduc was a part of this, and I couldn’t expect him to skip out on his friends to babysit me.

  “Listen, just tell me where to go from here,” I said. “I can’t help much with my little Ruby. Stay if you need to.”

  “I must,” Leduc said. Then the tank fired.

  The cannon shot blew a chunk off the corner of the building to our right, the one the fighters had entered. The whine of the turret sounded as two bottles crashed to the street, Molotov cocktails thrown from the roof. They fell short, the bursts of flame pluming in front of the tank, a shimmering wall of fire.

  The Panther fired again, higher this time, the cannon shell bursting near the top floor.

  The FFI fighters at the barricade fired, even as Leduc screamed at them, waving his arms to warn them to get down. From what I could see, it was only the tank shooting at us, and there was no sense in wasting small arms fire on that armored monster.

  The Panther lurched slightly closer, its machine gun raking the windows where the firebombs had come from. The turret swung again, and this time the muzzle of the cannon fixed on the barricade.

  Leduc tapped my arm and ran off into the wrecked building as a shattering explosion hit the barricade behind us. I followed him up the staircase, realizing what he was up to. That sack had contained half a dozen bottles, but only two had been thrown.

  We got to the top floor and saw why. The shell had exploded beneath the roof, collapsing it into this room. Bodies were tangled in the debris, the scent of gas thick in the air.

  “Broken,” I said.

  “No, look,” Leduc said, pulling a bag out from under an upturned couch. The flooring gave out from underneath him, sending furniture and debris sliding into the street. I held onto his arm, pulling him back into the hall.

  The sack held two intact bottles.

  “Got a light?” I asked.

  “Yes, but the Panther is still too far away. If we miss, we are fini.”

  I didn’t like the look in his eye. I stepped back into the shattered room and leaned out, spotting the tank as it fired again. He was right, it was a long shot from up here. The good news was I didn’t spot any Kraut infantry.

  “Okay,” I said. “Lead on.”

  Leduc took me up the final flight of stairs, which led to the roof. We crossed over to the neighboring building and dropped through an open skylight, onto a table set up beneath it. It looked like a well-traveled route. Then down the steps and out a side door, up to the edge of the building where we had a fine view of the Panther. A side view, which was much more pleasing.

  “No infanterie allemande,” he said, pointing to a thick-trunked tree near the burning truck. I nodded, and we took off, each of us carrying a Molotov cocktail and pumping our legs like madmen, which wasn’t far from the truth. Homemade firebombs against the heavily armored Panther was a fool’s errand, and I sure was the right man for the job.

  We slid to the ground behind the tree, which gave us a perfect view of the Panther’s ass end. “We’ve got to hit it on the rear panel,” I said. “The exhaust fans and air intake go right to the engine.”

  The Panther fired again, the explosion punching a hole through the barricade.

  Leduc set his bottle on the ground and offered me a box of matches.

  “No, you light them,” I said, worried about the shakes, even though I couldn’t feel them right now. He struck the match and lit the two kerosene-soaked cloths corked tight in the neck of each bottle. With a nod, we ran for the tank, hearing the clank of its treads as it began to move, over-confident about vanquishing the feeble opposition. With a burst of exhaust, it began to pivot on one track.

  Ten yards away, I skidded to a halt.

  “Now!”

  We threw the bottles with their burning wicks. Mine hit the rear low, sending a blossom of flame beneath the tank. Leduc’s hit the rear of the turret, and the flames erupted across the engine compartment. The back end of the tank was a sheet of fire, but it was still moving, still pivoting on its treads, turning to face this new threat.

  We ran back to the tree, hiding behind it and the smoke from the burning truck. The Panther lurched toward us, leaving flames licking the pavement where my throw had fallen short. Its forward machine gun fired wildly, searching out any target, blindly striking back.

  The turret swiveled, the cannon fixed on our tree, a linden, which suddenly seemed terribly small.

  The driver’s hatch door popped open, followed by the commander’s hatch on the turret. Black-clad tankers tumbled out as flames from the engine compartment burned brightly. One of them pulled a pistol from his holster and fired in our direction. Leduc took aim and fired twice, the Kraut spinning and clutching his side. I joined in with my Ruby, figuring any amount of noise might scare them away.

  The five crewmen ran away, headed for the street opposite the barricade. I was shocked that we’d driven them off, but then the fuel tank went up, sending columns of fire out every opening. They’d been wise to run.

  “The ammo’s next,” I said, not waiting for Leduc to reply. He was hard on my heels all the way across the street and back into the safety of the building. Explosions rocked the burning tank as the stored shells cooked off one after another.

  When it was over, fighters emerged from behind the barricade to strip the bodies of weapons and ammo. We did the same, and I got a nice Walther P38 automatic from a Kraut lieutenant who had no further use for it. I took the belt and holster, along with several clips of 9mm ammo.

  “Here,” I said, handing Leduc the Ruby. “A souvenir.”

  “Thank you, Billy. A private detective needs a well-hidden pistol now and then,” Leduc said. He spoke with one of the fighters, adjusted his fedora, and gestured for me to follow. “On to the Louvre.”

  “We were lucky, Monsieur Leduc,” I said, as we left the celebrating FFIs behind. Smoke swirled from the smoldering vehicles, rising against the ruined buildings. Fighters were rebuilding the barricade, and there were bodies to be buried. Still, they cheered themselves on. Liberation was a heady drug. Almost as good as the Pervitin surging in my brain.

  “Please, call me Claude,” he said. “Now we are comrades. We have taken down a boche tank together.”

  “Sure, Claude. But we were still very lucky. My firebomb wouldn’t have stopped them. Yours did.”

  “Of course,” Claude said with a laugh, slapping me on the shoulder. “Did you think that was my first Molotov cocktail?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Claude and I made it to the Louvre Metro station without encountering any more Panther tanks. There were plenty of people, many of them armed since the museum and the makeshift hospital were both strongly defended. A truck pulled up in front of us, and the wounded were unloaded. Kids, mere boys and girls, wearing FFI armbands and hastily applied bandages. An elderly woman, a mother cradling a crying child wrapped in a bloodstained blanket, and one German with bandaged eyes and a blackened face.

  I prayed von Choltitz wouldn’t order the plunger to be pushed. There was enough carnage in Paris as it was.

  Claude took me down the steps, under the ornate Metro sign. Belowground, every space was given over to cots, beds, and blankets as white-coated medical personnel scurried from patient to patient. Claude asked for Docteur Durand, and a harried young woman greeting the new arrivals pointed down the hall.

  “He is on the next platform,” Claude said. “They are using the cars as a surgery. You will find him there. Adieu, Billy, I must go.”

  “Good luck,” I said as we shook hands.

  “Bonne chance to you,” Claude said, setting his white fedora at a rakish angle and dashing up the stairs.

  I made my way through the wounded to the platform entrance. Beds were set up along the wall,
and the Metro cars had their doors open, each one turned into a cramped operating theater or recovery room. The patients here were more severely injured than those in the entryway. None of them looked like they’d be out of bed soon.

  “Durand? Doctor Durand?” I asked as a nurse headed my way, looking like she wanted to shoo me out.

  She pointed farther down the platform, unleashing a stream of French that I didn’t understand except for the tone, which communicated the fact that she was busy, and I was on my own. I went in that direction, passing the last of the beds and coming to an alcove. There was a table, two chairs, and one tired-looking surgeon. He was unshaven, his smock was splattered with blood, and he drew on a cigarette as if it were life itself.

  “Doctor Durand?”

  “Que voulez-vous?” he said, barely looking at me.

  “Do you speak English?”

  “Anglais? Un peu,” he said, looking at me more closely. “You are américain?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for a friend. A Polish fellow, about my age.”

  “The américains are here?” Durand said, kicking his chair back and standing.

  “No. Not yet. Just moi. I’m looking for my friend. Suzette said if he’d been injured he might have been brought here,” I said, speaking slowly and trying to calm him down.

  “Suzette? She is well, oui?”

  “Yes, I saw her at the rue Volney barricade. Now, do you have a Polish mec here? Slim, wears glasses, and has a scar?” I traced a line down my cheek. It was a hard scar to forget.

  “Ah, yes, the baron,” Durand said.

  “He’s here? Is he hurt badly?” I rested my hand on the holster at my belt, trying to steady the increasing shakes. I didn’t know what I’d do without Kaz.

  “He is resting, come,” Durand said, grinding out his cigarette and beckoning me to follow.