Commander Amanda Nightingale

by George Revelli

  Chapter Twelve

  The dark woods winked with Christmas lights, and echoed to the lonely lost barks of patrol commanders. Along the main road, the convoy made a line, endlessly long; still silhouettes like sleeping beasts. Here and there, drivers lethargically wiped insects of the night from their windshields. In the stars above, Mosquito bombers of the R.A.F. drove along their set corridors to a rendezvous of fire over some city or other of the Third Reich. Every few minutes, N.C.O.s with metal plaques across their chests returned to the schoolhouse with reports. Captain Bernhard Mueller, in his shirt sleeves, was seated at Scappini's desk with a local road map in front of him, making indefinable deductions, indefinable because he was moved by objectives so complex he could scarcely have explained to himself what he was seeking or what he was running from, what was plausible in the whole episode or what was clearly false, what was cause and what was effect, where life ended and where death began. His eyes were glazed with weariness, cognac, and misery.

  A middle-aged officer, in a white medical coat stained with blood, came in and poured himself without reserve a tumbler of cognac from the bottle on Mueller's desk. He was a small, round, cuddly man who looked like Mr. Pickwick, and one felt that he laughed readily on other occasions. Mueller did not look up. It was as if he did not want to know. But when the little man showed no inclination for conversation, Mueller gave up. "Krug!" he shouted, still looking down at his maps. "Krug!"

  "Yes."

  "Why don't you speak?"

  "Because I am exhausted, fed up, and what's the use? The rope I wove all my medical life is of sand. The castle I built all my medical life is in the sky. The only thing I can say is that Scappini will pull through. Unfortunately I couldn't save his left arm. He asked me to. That is what hurt. Hurt me, not him. If he hadn't asked me to, I would not have minded so much taking it off. But he asked me to. But I couldn't. He said…" Mueller tried to laugh. In a theatrical voice he said, "For heem ze war is ended," adapting that familiar wartime line addressed inevitably by soldiers to enemies they have made prisoner. "Is he conscious?" Mueller asked.

  "No," said Krug. "I have put him out. If I have my way he will stay unconscious until we get him back to the Lazarett in Paris. He does not know Bimbo is dead. He asked me. I said, same as you, Heini, same as you."

  "Erika?"

  "Under sedation. By the way, the insides of her legs have bruises on them."

  Mueller laughed. "That, my dear Krug, is what we call revelling in the joys of flagellation."

  "I have never been able to understand you fellows doing that sort of thing," said Krug. "Doing it the way God intended has always been good enough for me."

  "Ah, Doctor, once you have sipped at the elixir of sensuality, a whole new world is open to you. Sex is for animals. Anyone can do it, even birds and bees. Sensuality is the intellectual appreciation of what one is doing and how one can improve on it. Try it. It won't hurt much. You're not too old."

  "I am too old a dog to learn new tricks," said Krug, lighting a pipe. "I stick it into the wife when I am home, in Karlsruhe, and use my good right hand when I am away. That way one saves money and avoids the clap."

  "The most predictable thing about war," said Mueller, "is its unpredictability. What a ridiculous situation this is. Scappini and Bimbo have been in constant combat since 1940. They fought in France, in Russia, and in Italy. They find themselves a quiet stretch of Normandy countryside, peaceful, beautiful. Far, far from the scene of strife and mayhem. They fiddle themselves a brief furlough to go fishing. They take a girl. What happens? Scappini has his arm blown off. Bimbo gets killed."

  "Bimbo is the lucky one," said Krug. "He at least has ceased to be at the mercy of the future. What on earth is going to happen to us Germans, Mueller?"

  "We will be wiped off the face of the earth," said Mueller complacently. "Nobody wants us around. Nobody ever did, of course, but there was nothing they could do about it. Now the world has us in the palm of its hand. We will be squashed like an ant."

  "I never asked you before, though I have often wondered," said Krug. "Do you by any chance have Jewish blood?»

  "No."

  "It's just that you look like a Jew."

  "I know a lot of Jews, who look like me too. At least I used to. I wonder where they all went."

  An Obergefreiter in steel helmet presented himself. "Heil Hitler!" he said, saluting.

  "Heil Hitler!" said Mueller.

  "We have found tyre marks in the road, one kilometre to the east. My patrol is following the tracks, but the lieutenant fears they may be too far ahead of us, and have dispersed."

  Mueller nodded, and dismissed him. He was in a philosophical mood. "There is the fate of Germany for you. Either they are too far ahead of us, or they press us too closely. Stalingrad and El Alamein finished us."

  The schoolhouse was filling up now, with corporals and sergeants, who saluted their officers and made for the cognac, or for the great pot of coffee that simmered on the brazier. One soldier entered looking more than usually excited. "May I see you outside, gentlemen?" he said to Mueller and Krug. "I could have brought it in, but it is strange, and I'm not sure what it all means. It's in a box."

  Mueller exchanged a glance with the doctor. "Frog?" he asked. "Bluebottle? Butterfly? The head of John the Baptist?"

  They followed the soldier out into the night. He had set a large cardboard box on the bench and in it something gleamed. Mueller dipped his hand into it, drawing out a fistful of long blonde tresses. "Well, I'm damned," he said. "They did it. Just as I warned her they would."

  "I don't understand," said Krug, running his fingers through the hair. "I don't understand anything."

  "My wisdom astounds me," said Mueller. "I stand dazed and blinded before the brilliant light of my own personal prescience."

  "That is why you have advanced to the rank of captain," said Krug. "But will you be so kind as to inform me whose hair that is, why she has it no longer, and what the lady whose hair it is was doing without it?"

  Mueller smiled and began to chuckle. Then he roared with laughter. "The Dummkopf can't say I didn't warn her." He slapped Krug on the back. "Come inside, and I'll tell you the whole ridiculous story. Oh Krug! Oh Krug, old friend! It will take a long telling, and at the end you will disapprove completely."

  * * *

  Amanda stood in the middle of a circle, her teeth bared with fear. They had brought her to some kind of cow barn, and a naked yellow light gleamed on her bald pate. Women armed with shotguns had joined the party, and laughed at her, but the men were not yet finished with her.

  Georges of the huge nose, his eyes puffed into hideous slits, stood before her, and she knew by his expression that this was the end. She had to die, and for that realization she gave thanks. She had no further interest in living, no desire to look at the world again. Georges raised his hard farmer's hand and smacked her face so hard that she reeled across the room. A second blow, coming the other way, stopped and straightened her, and a thin trickle of blood crept down from her nostril. She stood for a moment swaying, and yet her brain had never been clearer. She thought of Bimbo with affection. Pain did not matter to her any more. Bimbo had only pretended to hit her hard. This was really hitting, with the full force of a brutish man, and she could appreciate his strength. Amanda was a connoisseur. She was dying rather as people in the Old Testament died when they were stoned. Her churchgoing had never taught her what the physical impact of being stoned to death was like, death by successive thuds of pain. A knee in her belly made her give a loud eructation, and she went down on her hands and knees, winded. Through her bruised eyes she saw the boots and sandals of her tormentors. She was kicked in the ribs and on the breast. Then carefully her skirts were lifted and laid on her back. Lasciviousness, she knew, was gone from the people around her. They had had their pleasure when they shaved her. Her pants had already been removed, so they could only want her buttocks bare in order that, when the heavy boot was used, it would reach its tar
get unimpeded by cloth. It came, thudded against her pelvic bone and fresh scar. Amanda grunted, went sprawling, and, at last, fainted.

  How long she lay there, in the straw and the clay, she had no idea. Perhaps it was no more than a few minutes or even seconds. But as consciousness crept back into her she was aware that there was a difference of condition about the men who stood over her, as though a change had taken place. Georges was talking, as he had been talking all the time, but in a new way, as though to a stranger. "It's a German collaborator," she heard him say. "She was living with them in the requisitioned schoolhouse at Cuverville. We killed her boyfriends and we have been teaching her a lesson."

  A voice spoke that seemed to breathe new air. Someone was looking down at her, and she could feel the gaze of indifferent contempt rolling over her back. "Now you have had your sport with her, let's return to important business. This whole area is crawling with Germans. What is the word on the rendezvous? Bad, I gather."

  "Very bad. Riri met the plane but was seen by the Germans and killed. We didn't find out about that until morning. Then we watched the Boche convoy and saw the two Englishmen being taken away."

  "How about the girl?"

  Amanda, still lying with her face in the comfort of the cool dirt, was aware of a stricken silence which must have lasted seconds, or minutes, or hours, and of eyes looking down at her aghast. The voice of Georges when he spoke was almost comical enough to make her laugh. All he said, feebly, was "Girl?" The voice seemed to cover and clothe Amanda, her bald head, and her buttocks soft and white under the yellow light bulb.

  "There was a girl, a radio operator, called Yvette, a blonde, with long…"

  The sentence was not even finished when Amanda felt herself being lifted to her feet by men's hands holding her very gently. The babble of noise made a terrifying contrast to the gentleness of her treatment. Men were shouting in voices as shrill as girls. "It was Georges. She spoke in English, but Georges said it was German and wouldn't listen. He made us shave her."

  Georges yelled, "She is a German collaborator. I call on every man in this room to testify that she broke down and had hysterics when we killed her German pals. Ask every man here…"

  "She had been tortured by the Germans. We saw her scars. She's been branded. But Georges wouldn't listen…"

  "I call on every man in this room… I swear it to you, she even vomited. Look at her clothes. Ask every man here, Lucien, I insist you do…"

  Somehow Amanda, bewildered, found herself able with difficulty to focus her eyes, and she looked into the sunken exhausted eyes of Lucien Schneider. He wore a beret, a peasant's corduroy jacket, and he was unshaven and smelled of cow dung. A submachine gun was slung over his shoulder and he looked about fifty years old. He was staring at her in disbelief. He mouthed the word «Amanda» and, although no sound came, it seemed to be a scream.

  "Hello, Lucien," Amanda said and started to giggle uncomfortably, through rubbery, swollen lips. It would have been impossible to define the thoughts that tumbled through Lucien's head as he contemplated the monstrous freak in front of him, with the fantastic egg-shaped dome, the two black eyes, the blood that had hardened under her nostrils, the tweed jacket stained with vomit. He had chosen her suit himself in London from the wardrobe department at Baker Street. But Amanda fell into his arms and as her head bone touched his cheek, he shuddered in revulsion, then hated himself for shuddering. He closed his eyes to fight down the blind, homicidal fury which he feared would make him lose all control of himself, make him line every single man up against the wall and spray them with his submachine gun. Amanda, in his arms, giggled again. "Please don't look at me, darling," she said. "I must look a perfect fright. Although I feel quite well, considering. It's only where that brute kicked me in the ribs that really hurts." Lucien had thought of nothing but Amanda since they had parted, of Amanda with her long blonde hair stroking his chest.

  "Every one of you up against the wall," he said. "Men and women alike." He spoke with a savagery that made the others bump into each other and trip over their feet. There were some thirty men and half a dozen women crowding the barn.

  "Oh, the women!" Amanda said, waving her hand airily. "They were worse than the men. They were the ones that shaved me."

  Suddenly Amanda stopped giggling and became sane. "Lucien! The Germans are coming! They know all about the rendezvous."

  "I guessed that," said Lucien, "as soon as I heard you had been captured. They have occupied the schoolhouse at Cuverville where you were held."

  "Yes, but they have a plot to trap us, all of us, and especially you. They are coming up from the south, from Thury-Harcourt to cut you off."

  "What!"

  Consternation.

  "Yes, we were all captured, and the dreadful Canadian man told them everything. They didn't even have to torture him or anything. It was quite a bad show, in my opinion. The Gestapo sprang a trap for us all."

  She swayed, but Lucien held her upright. "Keep talking, Amanda," he said.

  "Do you have a map?"

  A map was produced, and Amanda consulted it gravely. "There you are," she said pointing. "They are coming down route 813 from Cabourg…"

  "They already have."

  "But they are also coming up by N. 162, and are basing themselves on Fleury sur Orne, and plan to close in and get you between the two claws."

  Even as Amanda spoke, there was a sound in the night air outside, distant as yet, of motorcycles, trucks, half-tracks. The men and women against the wall stirred and began to make whimpering noises, like confessions.

  "Wait," said Lucien. "We can disperse along the side roads, by Giberville, Mondeville, and La Gueriniere." He turned to Georges with a voice so empty it was beyond hate. "Who are your circuit leaders?»

  Georges replied in kind. "Jean-Marc and Yvon." Between them there was a score to settle that bleached emotion white.

  "They will lead their own men away and disperse as quickly as possible. My men will make for Caen and hole up until we get more instructions." He turned to all the men and women present. "Go now. Follow the circuit leaders. You!" to Georges. "You stay here." Georges nodded.

  For Amanda, the effort had been too much. She became silly again. She felt her skull and giggled. "Do you think it will grow again? It's я woman's crowning glory you know."

  "Toubib!" Lucien shouted, feeling sick. "Where's the medic? For God's sake give Yvette a shot and put her out. This girl has been through hell."

  "Not really," Amanda reassured him. "It's all been quite exciting."

  A man pressed through the dispersing crowd with a medical bag. "Give her a knockout shot, one that will put her to sleep as quickly as you can. Then take her to the lorry and examine her."

  Amanda tried to hold on to sanity. She lifted a finger solemnly in Lucien's direction to command his attention.

  "What," she said. "Wait. Wait. I have some extremely important intelligence that I must deliver personally in London."

  "Something I should know?" Lucien looked into the one blue eye of Amanda that showed, and his feelings were agonizing. He wanted to love her, kiss her, and be sick.

  "I don't know. I can't remember. But I'll be all right in a little while. I don't feel at all badly, except where that horrible man kicked me in the ribs."

  "There is a Lysander taking off just before dawn. I got a message that Flight Lieutenant Fawcett is flying in. I intended to tell them to cancel it in view of all the German activity, but I think we'll risk it to get you away."

  "Will you be on it?"

  "No, I have work to do here. But don't worry."

  "Oh, I don't worry," said Amanda. "Not when you are around, darling." She sniggered. "You beautiful beast."

  "Doctor, hurry up," said Lucien. "What are you waiting for?"

  He had been holding Amanda upright, in his arms, while the doctor kneeled to insert his needle into Amanda's buttock. He was looking up now, his face grey, his needle poised in midair. The doctor had lifted her skirt. A si
ngle fold of vaginal skin, normally covered by hair, ran obscenely two inches up her satiny smooth front from the top of her thighs. She was completely depilated, but the flesh itself was black as though it had been handled by dirty fingers. "Jab her and drop her skirt," said Lucien. Thirty seconds later the doctor carried the inert woman from the room.

  "She was a collaborator, Lucien," said Georges.

  The sound of German armour was louder now, but Lucien did not seem to hear. After a certain time of contemplation, he took a deep breath and nodded, as though he were agreeing with himself on decisions he had reached. "Follow me," he said.

  He walked out into the warm night that was loud now with wheels and engines and tank treads. Blue lights, dimmed though they were to escape spotting by aircraft, made a faint Aurora Borealis in the sky. Lucien's travelling headquarters, a grocer's van, was parked outside the barn. To his men he said simply, "Démerdez-vous," and they vanished into the night. To Georges, he said, "Wait."

  He climbed into the van at the back, where Amanda lay unconscious under two blankets. The doctor sat beside her, so deep in thought he did not seem to hear the approaching Germans.

  "Well?" Lucien asked.

  "I haven't been able to examine her too closely because of the bad light." The doctor chose his words carefully, before speaking. "In the long run, no harm done, I should think. Her hair will grow again. The bruises will disappear. But she has taken a pitiless thrashing."

  "From our boys?"

  "Partly. But mostly from the Germans."

  "I suppose I could be almost thankful for that."

  The doctor said, "I am afraid what I have to show you will be a shock to you, particularly as you are so fond of her." He pulled back the blanket, under which Amanda lay, nude apart from bandages tied around her rib cage and her thigh. Lucien looked down at her, appalled, speechless. He pointed to the bandage on her rib. "The Germans?" he asked.