When Hell Struck Twelve

by James R Benn

I made for the Tuileries Gardens, trying for an easy view of the hotel. If the tanks got here soon enough, and if the German top brass wasn’t going to fight to the last bullet, there’d be a lot of Hände hoch going on right outside the front door. That would be my chance to collar Remke and find out what his call was about. And maybe make good on my offer to take him in to Colonel Harding, who’d be glad to get the inside story on the German Resistance.

  Plus, the Meurice would be one of the main targets for Leclerc’s force, which meant ambulances and army doctors wouldn’t be far behind.

  Something for everybody at the Meurice.

  As I edged through the gardens, I dropped flat at the sound of a revving engine and tank treads. Through the darkness, I saw two monsters advancing through the gardens, chewing up the landscape and settling in about fifty yards away.

  Panthers. Heavy German tanks. Somebody was ready to put up a fight.

  I backtracked, moving away from the Panthers and closer to the Louvre. Across the Seine, the sky glowed eerily red. Explosions sounded off to the west, but as the shelling stopped, another sound murmured and echoed from within the buildings on the Left Bank. It rose and fell several times and was unmistakable. It was the sound you heard even blocks away from a ballpark when some slugger hit a home run.

  Thousands of cheering voices.

  Thousands of Parisians cheering on la libération.

  I listened all night.

  At first light, I crawled under a bush and hid myself as best I could. Unlike the rest of Paris, where crowds surged in and out of fire fights as if it were a crazed circus, the rue de Rivoli was deserted.

  Deserted if you didn’t count the Germans behind anti-tank roadblocks and sand-bagged emplacements in front of the hotel, and the steel beasts stationed in the gardens. I’d hoped for a faster advance, but now it looked like there’d be a showdown right in front of me before too long. I thought about going back to check on Kaz, but I didn’t want to get cut off from my ringside seat. There was nothing I could do for him, but plenty Remke could do for me.

  An hour passed, with more sounds of fighting across the river. The dawning light filtered in between buildings, sending sharpened sunrays advancing like ghostly soldiers into the city. The growl of engines and tank treads grew from the direction of the Arc de Triomphe, and I shuddered to think of what more German reinforcements might mean for the fight shaping up.

  The Panther closest to me let out a high-pitched whirr as its turret traversed the approach. I listened again, and heard the sound of tank treads coming our way. Not from behind, not more Krauts. A distant crack split the morning air and a shell hit the Panther, exploding but not stopping it. Finally! Leclerc’s tanks were on this side of the Seine and moving in. The Panther fired, and within a second was hit again, this time with greater effect. Smoke billowed and the crew bailed, jumping out from every hatch and running for the hotel.

  The Sherman tanks moved closer, firing on the other Panther. One Sherman stalled, pouring smoke. The others kept on, hitting the Panther again and again until it exploded, sending spouts of flame out every blown hatch.

  It was over damn quick. No long last stand, just burning hulks of steel and running Fritzes.

  I stood and ran to the edge of the garden, watching as another column of tanks approached from the opposite irection. That meant they’d broken through to the Prefecture de Police, probably last night. That might have been the cheering I heard.

  I dove for cover as German machine guns behind a sandbag emplacemcent fired on the tanks headed for the roadblock. The tanks drove on, unleashing high explosive shells and blowing a hole through the defenses. The surviving Germans hightailed it for the hotel, and I spotted infantry moving in. A German half-track pulled out from a side street and fired on the French GIs, cutting several down. A flamethrower team ran forward, spraying fire at the half-track, engulfing it in seconds. They moved on to torch other German vehicles parked along the road, sending thick black smoke billowing. Every Kraut in sight was dead or running for cover.

  The tanks moved slowly forward, lobbing a few shells toward the Meurice. Infantry ran up the sidewalk, ducking between columns and returning fire. I ran closer, stopping when I spotted a German in a second-story window aiming his rifle at the troops. I sprayed a few bursts from the Sten, and he disappeared inside.

  I waved, jumping and yelling like an idiot, caught up in the rapid advance, the heady scent of victory, and the grim thrill of revenge. The soldiers waved back, then moved closer. I paralleled them, watching for any Krauts still hidden in the gardens. I knew enough to steer clear of the infantry squads working their way up a city street. They had their own rhythm and pace, born of closeness and combat. A stranger in their midst would only be in the way.

  They quickly advanced on the hotel lobby and tossed in smoke grenades. Gray clouds billowed from the entrance as they ran inside, firing. More shots seconds later. And then quiet. Sherman tanks roared up, pivoting and turning their guns outward.

  The battle for Paris was all but over.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I tried to go inside, but a French officer stopped me. I pretended I understood what he was saying and walked out into the street, where a bunch of French tankers and infantry were gathered around a Sherman, passing around a bottle. In minutes, the empty street had filled with civilians, cheering and celebrating with Leclerc’s men.

  I accepted the bottle, took a long swig, and passed it on.

  One of the tankers chattered at me, and I explained I was an American.

  “Excellent,” he said in strangely accented English. “We are all internationalists here, comrade.”

  “Sorry?” I said, not getting this at all.

  “We are La Nueve, the 9th Company. Made up of Spanish volunteers. Many of us fought in the Spanish Civil War and continue the fight against fascism with General Leclerc. You have heard of us in America?” He took a long drink of wine and smacked his lips as even more civilians gathered around. I noticed his tank was named Guernica, after the Spanish town the Germans had leveled with their bombers.

  “No, I hadn’t,” I said, wondering how many more times I’d hear about the Spanish Civil War. I did give him all the names I’d run across in the investigation. Only when I mentioned Lucien Harrier did his expression change.

  “Many of us were anarchists,” he growled. “Every good anarchist knows of his crimes. He is dead, you are certain?”

  “He’s dead, and it didn’t come easy.”

  “Good.” He gathered his men and told them the news. They were grim-faced, not unhappy to hear it, but unhappy to relive the memory of what he’d done to their comrades and loved ones. I knew how they felt.

  They all patted me on the back, welcoming me as an honorary member of La Nueve, since I’d brought them welcome news of an old enemy. Soon they got orders and pulled out, waving aside the growing crowds as they rumbled off.

  Meanwhile, a column of trucks pulled up to the hotel entrance. For the prisoners, I was informed by a young lieutenant. Because to march them through this growing throng would be a death sentence, not that he had any problem with that.

  I positioned myself near the trucks so I could spot Remke, although how I’d separate him and keep him in once piece I hadn’t yet figured out. I looked around for a red cross, but no ambulances were in sight.

  The hotel door opened.

  A few young German officers with a lot of fancy braid and tailored uniforms came down first, guarded on either side by French troops. Behind them was a portly fellow. General von Choltitz himself. He looked stunned. He must have known what was coming, but it looked like the reality of it had punched him in the gut.

  The crowd roared and jeered, hurling insults, shaking their fists, letting the pent-up fury of the past four years out in volley after volley of spitting invective. Hands reached between the guards, striking Germans as they made
for the trucks. Right behind von Choltitz was a German sergeant, carrying a suitcase. The general’s, undoubtedly. A long arm grabbed it and pulled the suitcase into the crowd to much laughter and derision. Uniforms and underwear flew into the air, ripped apart in seconds. The sergeant looked like he was about to faint. The crowd pressed closer, squeezing the lines of guards closer together, threatening to break through on either side.

  The first truck was full and pulled away from the curb, people pounding on its side in unrestrained fury. Guards herded the prisoners to the next truck, cries and taunts increasing as more Germans were marched out.

  I saw Remke. He came down the steps, tall and erect, a knapsack over his shoulder. We made eye contact and I moved closer. It was impossible to speak and be heard. I waved, signaling him to come forward.

  Remke was within an arm’s length, only a guard between us. The throng pressed forward again, jeers and curses filling the air. I reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

  “What did you tell Kaz?” I shouted. “I’ll help you, but please tell me now.”

  He clasped my hand, held onto me, and began to answer.

  A gunshot exploded from behind me, just over my shoulder. Then another at my side. Remke fell to the ground as screams rose up around us. Two more shots went off, but I was on the pavement with Remke, our hands still clasped.

  His eyes fluttered. Two wounds in his chest spread blood across his dress uniform like a flame burning through parchment.

  “Geh zu den Schweden,” he gasped, a look of shock on his face as he tried to focus his eyes on mine.

  “What?” I asked. “I don’t speak German, what are you saying?”

  “Ilse,” he said, but he was no longer speaking to me. His eyes gave a final blink as he spoke her name once again with his final breath.

  “Goddamn!” I roared and stood, forcing my way through the pressing crowd. “Which way did he go?” I shouted, although I doubted anyone in this baying horde cared about one dead German more or less.

  I saw him. Paul Lambert, easy enough to spot with his bandaged hands, pumping pinkish white as he ran steps behind his brother, who was holding the pistol he’d shot Remke with.

  I ran, clutching my Sten, thankful for the load of zing in my head that was doing a good job of fooling my legs into running this fast. Of course he’d have to kill Remke, he was the one man who could prove Jarnac to be a traitor.

  Had they even seen me in the crowd? Maybe not. It might give me an edge.

  I stayed on their heels through the Tuileries, jumping shell holes, and weaving around the still-smoldering Panther. Only when we neared the bridge spanning the Seine did Lambert turn around. From the look on his face I knew he hadn’t expected to see me. I’d been right. They had no idea I’d been next to Remke, their eyes focused on their quarry, waiting for the right moment.

  Lambert shouted to Jarnac, who turned quickly, his face twisted in rage. He pushed his brother behind him, raised his pistol, and fired. Then he knelt and steadied his aim for another shot.

  It happened in a split second. I saw the blood seeping down my sleeve. I didn’t feel a thing. I felt my finger steady on the trigger, hardly heard the burst, hardly heard the clinking of smoking shells as they bounced off the cobblestones.

  Jarnac was down, but not dead. His legs moved as if he wanted to rise but couldn’t get the rest of him to cooperate.

  Paul Lambert was down. Dead, with a bullet in the head.

  Jarnac groaned, stitched up with bullets from the gut to the shoulder. He didn’t have long.

  “Your brother is dead, Jarnac,” I said, walking to stand over him. “If you’d stayed upright you would have taken that slug. But you wanted to kill me so badly, you gave your brother a bullet to the brain.”

  He tried to speak. He moved his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “You started this, Jarnac. What begins in blood ends in blood.”

  He didn’t hear a word I said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I walked back through the gardens, avoiding the gaze of the charred tanker who’d made it halfway out the turret hatch before the flames consumed him. He looked surprised. Maybe it was the empty eye sockets that gave him that expression. Or maybe everyone’s surprised at the end, even a bastard like Jarnac. Moments after murdering a prisoner and trying to kill me, he probably couldn’t imagine breathing his last next to the corpse of his brother. But there he was, his blood running between cobblestones, another body to be forgotten in the midst of jubilation. Maybe he’d be remembered as a hero. That would be a fine joke.

  People poured into the streets and flowed into the Tuileries, dead Germans only adding to their joyous celebrations. Cheers, singing, church bells, laughter, and the steady clanking of tank treads rose in a crescendo of celebration, louder than anything I’d ever heard short of an artillery round hitting next to my foxhole. The air felt compressed, as if it couldn’t contain any more noise, the joyous racket bearing down on me like a blanketing fog.

  I looked at my right arm, puzzled. A red gash showed through torn fabric, Claude Leduc’s white shirt soaked in red from the elbow down. Funny, but my hand wasn’t shaking.

  Across the Seine, throngs of civilians and soldiers massed along the embankment, making for the bridges, the tanks carrying FFI fighters armed with flowers and bottles of wine along with rifles and Sten guns.

  I stumbled through the crowd, heading for the Meurice. When I got there, German prisoners were loading their own dead into trucks under the watchful eye of French soldiers who were protecting them from the onlookers as much as guarding them. I couldn’t spot Remke. I don’t know why I even looked, maybe to find a death worth mourning. Maybe because I felt a kinship of sorts. He was a military man who knew when to follow orders and knew when disobedience was the better course.

  Maybe I’d hoped for inspiration.

  Geh zu den Schweden.

  What the hell did that mean? I repeated it over and over, making sure I’d get it right to tell Kaz.

  Kaz. He had to be okay.

  He had to.

  The small plaza in front of Le Royal Bar was a mass of people. American GIs were mixed in with Leclerc’s men, and all of them were being kissed by every Parisian who could lay their hands on a piece of khaki and pull the guy close.

  Everyone was delirious with joy. Tears coursed down cheeks, the grimy unshaven cheeks of tankers and the creamy pink cheeks of young girls. It seemed the whole city was on the brink of madness. The bitterness of the past four years expelled by the struggles of the last few days and the undeniable might of the armored columns storming into the city and shattering the last remnants of the hated Nazis, leaving only charred corpses and cowed prisoners.

  The bar was jammed, filled with GIs, FFIs, and more of the slightly wounded. Berthe took hold of my hand and guided me to the rear, where a medic took my weapon, ripped my shirt sleeve off, and cleaned my wound. As she applied a compress and wrapped it, I studied Kaz.

  His head was bandaged. He was still pale, but his breathing seemed a little steadier. He was propped up against the wall, and I prayed he’d open his eyes. If all the racket inside and out didn’t wake him, I didn’t know what would.

  I got the medic to understand I wanted my bandage wound tight. She made a sewing motion, and I nodded. Yeah, I knew it would need stitching, but right now I wanted it to hold together so I could get Kaz out of here. American GIs mixed up in this big party meant that it wasn’t Leclerc’s forces alone that had barged into Paris. Those GIs wore the ivy leaf shoulder patch of the 4th Infantry Division, the unit that had been near Rambouillet a few days ago. Which told me Colonel Harding and Big Mike would be with them and out looking for us.

  “Kaz,” I said, kneeling once the bandaging was done. “Kaz, can you hear me?”

  I took his hand and repeated his name.

  Nothing.

  Berthe
joined us, shaking Kaz’s shoulder.

  “Baron, s’il vous plaît,” she said, her tiny voice insistent.

  Kaz squeezed my hand.

  Berthe saw it and clapped for joy. She kissed his cheek, and his eyelids fluttered open.

  “Kaz, can you hear me?”

  Another squeeze.

  “We’ve got to go. Can you walk? Never mind, I’ll carry you.”

  “Billy,” he said, his voice a ragged whisper. Berthe scooted off and was back in seconds with a glass of water. She put it to Kaz’s lips and he drank, releasing a great sigh. His eyes opened wider, and he gave me a nod. Let’s go.

  “Geh zu den Schweden,” I said. “Remke said that. What does it mean?”

  “The Swedes,” Kaz managed. “Go to the Swedes. He told me . . .”

  “Told you what?”

  He tried to say something else, but it was too much. His eyes closed and he was out. I felt for his pulse. It was there, but it didn’t seem right, fluttering like a butterfly in the wind.

  Time to go. I took Berthe’s hand and explained, as best I could, that we had to leave. I knew she didn’t understand, not the words anyway, but I thanked her for being Kaz’s friend. I told her she was brave, then I scooped Kaz up, struggled for a second to keep my balance, and gave Berthe a nod goodbye.

  She’d been silent the whole time, her lower lip betraying a quiver. But when she spoke there were no tears.

  “Merci pour le vélo,” she said. That I understood. Thank you for the bicycle.

  I turned away as people parted to let me through, keeping my head down and avoiding their eyes. Of all the things I’d seen and heard in Paris, why did it take a child’s simple thank-you to bring me to tears?

  I stumbled through the surging multitudes, making for the rue de Rivoli and the Hotel Meurice. It was slow going, but I kept Kaz close to my chest, his dangling legs taking a few hits from oblivious celebrants. We made it to the steps of the Meurice, which were being kept clear by sentries who looked like they’d much rather be out in the streets drinking wine and kissing girls. I backed up to the wall next to the steps and slid down, still holding Kaz. He felt like a child in my arms as I cradled his head with my hand.