The Betrayed

by Thomas Wood

  If Louis had even a shred of intelligence, there was no way that he would still be around, he would be on the first bus out of Chautillion later on that morning, to save himself as well as his family.

  “I’ll go back to him. I’ll plead innocence over what happened and try to accuse him of setting me up with the ambush from the resistance. If I stick true to my cover story, then I’ll be okay for a few days I’m sure. Hopefully by then you would have come up with something yourself.

  “We’ve got to put this to bed Alfie. It’s our duty to make sure this ends before we leave. Or we die trying.”

  As he tried to encourage and uplift me into some action, I felt a pride sweep over me as I appreciated the soldier that he had become, feeling like I had had something to do with the way that he had grown.

  After a few more minutes of silence, in which I took the time to think about what might lay ahead in the next few hours, I came round to the idea. It was our only option.

  “If only your Uncle Rupert could see you now eh, Jameson?”

  “My Uncle who?”

  19

  I was always rubbish at holding out against the temptations of my heart, it had always been innate within me, ever since I was a young lad. If ever I had wanted anything, I would make sure that I would get it by any means necessary, even if those means amounted to criminality, it would be mine whenever I wanted it.

  The desire, the need to have things as soon as the idea popped into my head had always been the one thing that landed me in hot water with everyone; my parents, teachers, even the local vicar when I broke into his church to have a sip of his wine. Once it was in my head, there was no trying to persuade me otherwise.

  It was why I was heading back into the village of Chautillion, having grown tiresome of spending my days kicking around the forest waiting for an idea to fall into my head like an apple on Isaac Newton’s head. I needed to at least feel closer to the action, to gauge the atmosphere around the village and hopefully become inspired by something to come up with a plan, even if it was totally futile.

  I wasn’t sure how long I was planning on staying there for, I wasn’t even sure if it was the best decision to have made, but there was one thing that I was absolutely certain of; there was no way that I was simply going to wait until Jameson somehow made contact with me, I needed to be proactive, to at least feel like I was doing something to help.

  For all I knew, Robert Jameson was already dead, buried in some shallow grave somewhere, maybe even in the churchyard across the road from Joseph’s house, and that I was already going to be working on my own from now on. The more thought I gave to the matter, the more I began to believe it, especially as I wasn’t entirely convinced that Jameson had developed enough to keep his cover story intact, if he was subjected to the barbaric techniques of torture that I was certain lurked up Joseph’s sleeves.

  If Jameson was already dead, then it was a fact that Baudouin would almost certainly be on the prowl for me now, hunting me down until the very last minute when it would be he himself who put the bullet in my skull. Then, there would be no more questions, no more searching in the dark for information on the man, no more feeling like he had to keep Geranium hidden in the depths of his mind, as he would be clear. The only people left alive with any knowledge of it would be Joseph Baudouin and Jimmy Tempsford.

  I made no attempt to conceal my arrival into the village as, in some way, I was hoping that one of the locals would rush up to me with a lead, or at the very least tell Joseph so that he would come looking for me.

  Although I was immediately surrounded by people that I vaguely recognised, as they went about their day to day routine, I was still experiencing the painful reminders of how isolated I truly was. I had become an island, and a small one at that, where the oncoming tide was threatening to encompass all of it and submerge it permanently to the depths of the ocean.

  As I walked around the green, I noticed that Blume’s butchers was up and running again already, a local entrepreneur clearly spotting a very specifically shaped hole in the market, which he was only too happy to fill. I wondered what Monsieur Blume’s widow and daughter would have to say about that, if and when they were ever released from wherever the Germans were holding them.

  I was desperate to see a friendly face, not even to talk to them but just to see them from afar if that was all that was possible. There was no guarantee either that they would be able to help me, and I was sure that most people would be totally unwilling to help me at all when they continued to hear all the bad fortune that I was bestowing upon people.

  Whatever the outcome, there was one face that I wanted to see more than any other, and the prospect of getting a glass of milk too buoyed me momentarily.

  I found myself staring at the exterior of his house at the thought that I might be able to speak to Louis again in a few minutes. As I did, I watched the rest of the world begin to whizz by, and it pleased myself no end to let everything slow down by a few thousand miles an hour, relishing in a world where bullets weren’t flying, or grenades weren’t bursting.

  For a few fleeting moments, I felt safe, like there was no war on and I was just meeting up with an old friend for a drink. For the few minutes that I stood there, watching as a pair of swallows bounced their way through the sky, nothing went through my mind, it was a totally blank canvas, a brilliant white. I felt the most content as I had done for years, even when I was back in Britain my soul had not been this restful.

  I even allowed myself a coy smile, as I caught sight of movement in the window of Louis’ kitchen. I gently scoffed at the thought that he had already spotted me standing on the far side of the road, and he was already busying himself by preparing me an ice-cold glass of milk, to quench my thirst with. I wanted to get in there and congratulate his son on a job well done a couple of nights before, and how he had made his father proud in the way that he had conducted himself, especially at such a young age too.

  But then I noticed that his front door was ever so slightly ajar, with something in the way blocking it from being closed completely. The kitchen window that was always wide open, no matter what the weather, was tightly clamped shut, which was odd especially as it was the middle of the day. I had become frustrated with Louis the first time that I had met him, the window to his kitchen open nice and wide so that any passing German soldier could have peeped in and spotted me sitting there in a Royal Air Force uniform, or simply hear me speak English.

  The movement that I had spotted in the kitchen window was fast and urgent, not the calm and measured approach that Louis had normally sauntered around the room in. Something was off to me, it didn’t sit quite right in my stomach.

  I needed to go in, just to make sure that my old friend was okay, praying desperately that he had been switched on enough to move far away from this part of France, and that the figure I had seen moving about inside was just a looter, searching the premises for any missed treasures as the family scarpered.

  Subtly, I felt around in my trousers for my pistol, double checking that the two spare magazines of ammunition that Louis’ son had gifted us was still there and ready to be used if needed.

  I could feel the adrenaline begin to power through my body, but I refrained from charging across the road and bursting in. Instead I waited for a few more minutes in the hope that the crowds of people that had suddenly wanted to come down the street would quieten down somewhat.

  After about three minutes of waiting, I had my chance, with nothing coming down the road except an ancient farmer, his horse and a battered old cart that looked like it was going to fall apart if it had to put up with another day’s work.

  Striding across the road towards Louis’ front door, everything else on my periphery became hazy, as I focused on the building in front of me, searching all the window panes for any signs of movement or life.

  I had been right, the door was ajar, but I couldn’t tell what it actually was that was stopping it from closing completely.

 
I had fond memories of walking through his front door, which opened straight out into his sitting room, complete with an old grandfather clock in the far corner by the stairs, and a series of antique ornaments above the fireplace which were Louis’ pride and joy. He would spend hours polishing them as we enjoyed one another’s company of an evening, and spent even longer staring at them during the day, as if they housed some sort of secret that he was desperately trying to expose.

  My mind began to wander to what might be on the other side of that door now, if it wasn’t the friendly, chubby face of the little Frenchman who had been so willing to help me. As I did so, I leant into the door slightly, pulling the pistol from under my shirt and holding it in the shadows as the farmer trundled past behind me.

  I kept it low down, so as not to draw unwanted attention to myself, knowing full well that the locals around here would all be on edge after what had happened a few nights ago, and would quite possibly want to put up a fight of their own against someone that they saw as breaching the peace.

  I leant my shoulder into the door firmly, attempting to bring the pistol up slightly so as to have it ready to fire when I made it into the house, but the barrel of the pistol clunked loudly against the wooden frame of the front door.

  The door was still ajar, but it refused to budge from the position that it was locked in, as something was on the other side preventing it from being opened. I thought for a moment that a burglar had got in, and pushed something behind the door to prevent anyone from disturbing him while he took his pickings from the house. The bang on the door acting as the only signal he needed to make a quick exit from the building in any way that he could.

  I pushed into the door again with my shoulder, more forcefully this time, resulting in a slight budge but still not allowing the door to swing open triumphantly like I had been hoping. Grunting and grimacing, I forced the door open, revealing the welcoming and warm front room of Louis’ home. Everything seemed to be exactly where it should have been, including a lot of the ornaments and paintings that Louis had been so proud of a year ago.

  From what I could tell, no one had been here with any kind of criminal intent, as all of the family possessions were exactly where Louis would have left them, and I became confused as to why someone would barricade themselves in if they weren’t robbing the place.

  As I looked round the back of the door to see what I had pushed out of the way, I realised that whoever had been in here hadn’t been barricading themselves at all.

  I saw his hand first, and I thought for a moment that he was just sleeping, somehow managing to slump himself behind the front door on his way up to his bed. But then I saw his skull, which looked as though a deranged surgeon had had a jolly good crack at it, the back of his scalp completely torn away from the rest of his head and the white bone of his skull resting in fragments in a crater at the back of his head. The hair surrounding the hole was matted and blood-soaked, as was the back of his clothes from what I could see.

  The blood that was dribbled all over the floor on the approach to the door told me that the door hadn’t been barricaded deliberately. Louis Junior had been trying to escape, to make his way out into the street to survive, but whoever was in there beat him to it, bringing something heavy and blunt down on the back of his head, before repeating the motion over and over again until he ended up where he was now.

  He must have had his hand on the door handle when the fatal blows were delivered, he was that close to making it out.

  I didn’t touch his body, I didn’t want to try and work out if he was still alive or not, as I knew full well that even if he had survived, his life wouldn’t be worth living anyway.

  Closing the front door, I gave it a good push back into the frame, so that it wasn’t ajar, and a friendly neighbour wasn’t going to come around and ask them how they were doing. I was going to be in there for some time, especially as I didn’t intend on simply leaving Louis Junior’s body where it was, at the very least I wanted to find some sort of cover for him to give him some dignity back.

  The door making such a slam, I dropped to one knee and brought the pistol up and into my eyeline, just listening for a while to the sounds of the house, trying to determine if anyone was still there, but I could make nothing suspicious out.

  I stood up slowly, sweeping the pistol right the way around the room to make sure no one was going to jump out on me. It was as I scanned the mantelpiece above the fireplace that I noticed something else amiss.

  The family heirlooms, that Louis had polished within an inch of their lives, were missing on one side of the mantelpiece, like someone had started to stuff them in a loot bag but been disturbed.

  It was only when I manoeuvred my way around the other side of the settee that faced the fireplace, that I saw where the ornaments now were. They weren’t in some petty thief’s loot bag, but had fallen to the floor, every one of them lying on their side solemnly. If Louis was to see them now, he would have flown off the chain, ranting and raving about how anyone could let his most prized possessions come to be on the floor, in the state they were now in.

  Especially now that they had a decent covering of blood over them, that would take a jolly good polish to get them back up to the standard that Louis had had them at.

  Louis’ wife was a pretty woman, a few years younger than him and far better looking than he was. She had been a quiet lady, and I had got the impression more than once that she wasn’t exactly approving of Louis’ shenanigans, and that she tried to distance herself from them at any opportunity that she could.

  Now though, the youthful glint in her eye, and the beautiful smooth pink skin that she possessed was a mere memory, as it looked as though each of her facial features had been systematically removed from her face.

  Her lips were so bloodshot and swollen that they simply moulded into the rest of her face, her nose so heavily bloodied that it was almost impossible to distinguish it from any of her other features. It was her eyes, the ones that had shone brighter than any woman’s eyes than I had seen before, that caught me the most.

  They were now elderly, half closed as if she couldn’t carry on anymore, wanting every second to be her last on the earth. They were bloodshot and weary, but most strikingly of all, they were completely unblinking.

  It was odd, as they looked like they were still there, still working, but as I removed my hand from just under her jawline, I realised that they weren’t. She too, was dead, having grabbed at the mantelpiece as she was murdered, pulling some of Louis’ possessions down with her.

  The blood that flooded the floor was copious, and there seemed like there was so much of it, that it would never fully be absorbed by the floorboards and foundations of the building. She had been stabbed multiple times through the ribs, with one, presumably the final blow, to the heart. Whether that was before or after the murderer had had a go at her face I did not know, but it didn’t change the outcome.

  Numbed by the bloody scene before me, I felt motivated to carry on, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, Louis had been out at the time and that he was still there, waiting for me in the kitchen, large glass of milk in his hand.

  He was the only one that I had left now, especially as I was expecting the same of Jameson as had happened to Louis’ family. I needed him alive. I wasn’t sure what I would do to myself if he wasn’t to survive, especially as it would have been me who had brought all of this upon his household.

  Louis was sat at the kitchen table, in the very chair where I had been sat whilst waiting for Joseph to appear at the beginning of the year. As I inched closer to him, noticing that the back door was flapping about in the breeze, I found it impossible to determine whether he was alive or dead.

  There was nowhere near as much blood surrounding him as had been his wife and son, but that wasn’t to say that he was still alive.

  Standing in the doorway, I gave the back of his house a quick scan, before closing and securing the back door, again to prevent the friendly neighbour
hopping over and accidentally discovering the butchered family.

  Making sure all the housekeeping was taken care of, I moved my attention back to my friend, who was slumped over the table, arms outstretched above his head, like he was bowing to someone.

  As I got closer, I realised that he had large, sturdy nails put through the palms of his hands, securing him to the kitchen table, as if he was being crucified. The table around his hands was drenched and upon looking at his skin could only deduce that someone had been pouring kettle after kettle of boiling water over them, they were that pink and blistering.

  I felt possessed to see what they had done to him, so pulled his head up softly to inspect the damage to his face. There wasn’t an inch of skin that was recognisably human, every inch of it was either a deep troubling purple or a desperate blue in colour, the odd cut and broken skin the only thing that was breaking up the attempt at impressionism with his face.

  The bones around his right eye were highlighted as black lines around the eye socket, his eyeball itself physically bulging as if it was trying to make an escape from its housing of its own accord. As I pulled him up into the light of the kitchen, his pupil didn’t react at all, which meant that either Louis was dead, or he had gone blind in that one eye.

  His left eye was so badly swollen that I couldn’t actually tell if he had an eyeball in there or not, because of all the swelling around it, and I didn’t much fancy opening it up to reveal the horrors of what lay within.

  His mouth hung open pathetically, as if he hadn’t had the energy to clamp it shut to protect himself from the beating, which had left his teeth all cracked and broken, some of them even decorating the kitchen table quite nicely as I had picked his head up.

  To top it all off for him, his nose was leaking blood at the same rate that the Titanic took on water, and it was all bent and yanked out of shape that it looked closer to his ears than it was to the centre of his face.