Beacon of Vengeance

by Patrick W O'Bryon

  Calm, her hand in the bag. “They try to arrest you and they’re mine.” He heard the click of the safety.

  “Look, it’s my fight, not yours. I won’t have you take that risk.” Ryan strode out purposefully and approached the gendarme control.

  They noticed him immediately and ordered a halt. “Monsieur, your papers, please.” Ryan handed over his identity card for the man to examine. “And your destination?”

  “Heading south. Work permit and job offer are in here.” He gave the sergeant the letter promising employment, but the gendarme snatched the whole packet from Ryan’s hand and perused it carefully.” Ryan played nonchalant. “Hell of a mess here, don’t you think? The Allies almost destroyed your beautiful city.”

  “I’m from Rennes.” He refolded the paperwork. “Says there you were hospitalized. What for?”

  “Pneumonia, they think.”

  “You look healthy enough now, although you could use a bath.” He grinned at his colleague. “Our friend here says he’s heading south, yet we find him heading north? What a poor sense of direction! Hmm, do you find something familiar about him?” His partner rested his hand on a holstered pistol while the sergeant flipped through a clipboard. “Ah, here it is…” the corners of his mouth wrinkled, “Gestapo bulletin 3442. Unfortunately, monsieur, our German colleagues appear interested in someone who looks just like you. Probably your brother, right?”

  Ryan sent Nicole a mental message to stay put. He’d find his way out of this without gunplay. “I’m sure there’s been a mistake.”

  The gendarme nodded. “Agreed, they happen everywhere. Well, now, on the way with you.” Ryan reached for his papers but the gendarme made no effort to return them.

  “Mab ar c'hast.”

  Ryan pondered the garbled-sounding words. “What’s that you say, officer?”

  “Mab ar c'hast.” The man’s smile grew wider as he nudged his colleague.

  Ryan felt his shoulders tense. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t quite get that.”

  “Your identity card says you’re a native of Rennes, yet you speak no Breton? Now that’s something we find suspect.” He handed the packet of identification papers to his buddy. “I’m sure you’d agree, monsieur.”

  At that moment a motorcycle rumbled up carrying two more policemen. The driver pushed his goggles to his brow to address the control guards. “Trouble?” His partner extracted himself from the sidecar.

  “None at all. The checkpoint’s yours. Our wayward friend here will accompany us back to the station. It’s a little matter for the Gestapo. I’m sure the gentleman here will soon be back on his way—” he lifted an eyebrow to his comrades, “—south.” The officer in charge turned to Ryan. “By the way, in case you were wondering, monsieur—from one Breton to another—I called you a ‘son of a bitch’.”

  The handcuffs clicked shut and they called for a car. Ryan prayed Nicole wouldn’t tackle four armed gendarmes with that pitiful little handgun. Thankfully, she didn’t.

  Ryan rolled to his side to stretch his legs. One calf suddenly cramped and he bolted upright, grasping the limb, willing away the sharp pain. He massaged the sore muscles and waited it out. For a few precious hours he had actually managed to lose himself in troubled dreams, allowing much needed sleep to push reality from his mind. But now it returned in its all-encompassing threat, and the pain in his calf was the least of his worries. He jumped up and down on the tight leg in the narrow confines of the jail cell, insisting the seizing muscle surrender to his will. The soles of his feet were still scabbed and sensitive, so he quickly sat again on the foul-smelling cot.

  As the cramping faded, he thought of Nicole and wondered whether she had made it safely away. He half-hoped she would show up to somehow lend support to his story. No, he realized, better she returns to her friends in the south. There was nothing more she could do for him here. He knew her self-reliance and had no doubts she’d find her way back to Gascony.

  Her intensity reminded him of Erika on that fateful run for the Rhine and freedom. Nicole also seemed always distracted, distant, often unreadable. Nicole. All that beauty, but never the hint of a smile. At least Erika had relaxed toward the end as they sat together in the shack, believing they had escaped her husband’s wrath. What a wasted effort over intelligence which had never seen the light of day. Ryan reined in his thoughts again. Nothing should distract him from his current dilemma.

  He surveyed his surroundings, as if they might have changed even slightly over the preceding hours. The cell was barely a meter-and-a-half wide and two deep. He could easily reach out to touch both slick side walls when standing at the iron door. The short cot left little floor space, and a small, barred window at the back allowed a slender shaft of light to track across the graffiti-laden walls as the day progressed. At head height he noted a series of smudges. Closer examination convinced him of the source—dried smears from a bloody head slammed repeatedly against the wall. He was now the guest of the Tours gendarmerie, awaiting an imminent visit from the Gestapo.

  They had taken all of his papers, but none of that mattered anyway. His adopted identity as Hervé Delacourt had been short-lived. He hadn’t had time to rid himself of the home-made razor knife and the trainman’s penknife, taken as further proof of his suspect motives if not of some as yet undiscovered guilt. He missed the pipe, too, even though he’d only smoked it once after escaping the rail car. He was thankful to keep his clothes, foul-smelling as they had become in the god-awful train ride beneath the tarp. And he had quickly turned his ring inward and closed his fists as they pulled out the cuffs, so the cameo stone had remained out of sight and the rest appeared to be a wedding band. If all else failed, he still had the lethal pill. With the Gestapo alerted and on its way, it would only be a matter of time before Horst had him in his grips again, and he would never get a third chance to escape torture and death. Could things get any worse?

  Nicole had watched in horror as they put Ryan in restraints and carted him away in a police van. Losing him now was out of the question. They had come this far together, and she had made a commitment to find his friends in Nantes. And here he was, stuck in police custody. Should he end up in Gestapo hands now, all bets were off. She was at wit’s end, but too much was at stake to stop now.

  At a newsstand she got directions to the nearest public baths. Once showered and her clothes shaken out as best she could, she applied lipstick and mascara and tied back her damp hair. Nothing could be done about the dark circles under her eyes, but overall she found herself presentable for the task at hand.

  A bicycle taxi brought her to the gendarmerie. The reception room was quiet in the late afternoon hour—a disheveled man with scraggly beard snored while cuffed to a chair, a prostitute examined her nails, two gendarmes smiled at some shared joke as they took a resigned-looking man toward the presumed holding cells. And the young officer at the desk rose immediately, clearly anxious to impress her. “Your business with us, mademoiselle?”

  “You hold in custody a certain Monsieur Hervé Delacourt, monsieur l’agent. He’s my cousin, and I wish to speak with him.” Had he not been in lock-up, Ryan would have been pleased to see Nicole could actually smile, though no warmth shown in her eyes. The policeman appeared anxious to please the young woman with the full red lips. His finger ran the recent entries in the booking ledger and the corners of his mouth dropped as he read a scrawled notation. “I regret, miss, but your cousin awaits an interrogation by the Gestapo. We cannot allow any visits at this time.”

  “But I must see him right away—his family deserves to know what’s going on.” She tilted her head to the side and smiled again. “Is there nothing at all you can do? I’d be most grateful.” She touched her hair, her lips forming a pout.

  “Let me ask, miss.” He disappeared into the back but returned almost immediately, his dejection apparent. “Mademoiselle…it’s the Gestapo, you do understand. Were it up to me…”

  Nicole turned for the door before he’d even finished,
a new plan coalescing in her mind. She would handle things differently. Success remained her only option.

  Day two in the tiny cell was a torture of its own. The first night’s dinner had been a crust of stale bread and a thin soup reminiscent of beets and onion. For breakfast on the second morning the same watery broth arrived enhanced with shavings of carrot and cabbage. A paltry smear of rancid butter accompanied the morning’s bread, and Ryan devoured everything with gusto. An enameled vessel held stale drinking water, a metal cup serving as its lid. His stomach still growled in hungry protest, and his mouth tasted of ashes. His teeth were coated. No one had come to empty the latrine bucket shoved beneath the cot and the stench was becoming unbearable. The lid was missing. Only a few squares of newsprint were provided for sanitary purposes.

  His protests to the guard who occasionally strode the aisle between cells brought no sympathy. He learned that the Gestapo would arrive by nightfall, or perhaps the next day at the latest, since an official in Bayonne was very interested in his case. “Once they get their hands on you, monsieur, you’ll wish you were back enjoying these fine accommodations of ours.”

  “But the bucket…”

  “Cleaning lady’s day off, monsieur. Just shit less often, and tomorrow will be here before you know it.” He laughed his way down the hall. Ryan had seen the other prisoners taken from their cells with buckets in hand to empty them in a toilet somewhere, so knew he was getting special treatment.

  As the day progressed. he gave more serious thought to the K-pill hidden in his ring. Or L-pill, as others called it. “K” for “kill.” “L” for “lethal.” Whatever the name, the capsule promised a quick end before Gestapo torture broke the oath of silence they’d all sworn. His spirits were flagging as his body drained of energy.

  How his life had changed since ‘29, and what an idiot he’d been! He had arrived in Germany a naïve dilettante. Life to that moment had been so sweet, and promised to continue down that welcome path—a success at every academic and social endeavor, fêted at aristocratic parties for his linguistic skill and quick wit, mingling with the nobility at the von Haldheim mansion. Behind the scenes, he’d played the foreign correspondent, risking his own life and losing that of his friend, exploring the seediest underbelly of Berlin, posing as Nazi or Communist to get a good story. He had it all—his dashing good looks the women loved, a sharp mind, and the determination that whatever he set his mind to, he would get.

  But that light-hearted romp of a life was showing cracks, revealing its own vicious and treacherous underside. As the Nazis consolidated their power, as his beloved Germany opened its arms to hatred and persecution, criminal rule and war, Ryan found himself demonstrating his academic worth earning a doctorate from Marburg, gradually recognizing that his old Germany was no more. Then a careless romance—one of so many—had given him a son he barely knew, his boredom with academia had drawn him back for adventure, and his shortcomings nearly destroyed the friends he tried to save.

  God, what a fuck-up I’ve been! The stolen protocol. His moment to make a real difference in a world surrendering to tyranny and racial hatred. And there, too, he’d failed miserably. In the past years he’d grown wiser about the ways of evil, hardened, and substantially more cautious, and yet his whole mission had been a grand joke, a manipulative play directed by a master sadist.

  Had he really made any difference at all, had he affected any lives positively? Certainly not his own.

  René and Erika were clearly safe without him, obviously doing just fine on their own, making a difference fighting for the cause of freedom. They had no need of him now. And that meant Leo was well looked-after and as safe as any child could be in an occupied Europe now run by the fucking fascists.

  In ’29 he had left his family to find his own life. Now his family had moved on. His parents had passed away quietly in ‘39, a year after his return to teaching. Cancer took his father first, likely from x-ray exposure in his dental practice, since few had ever suspected the necessity of lead shielding. His mother had passed a few months later, either from heart disease or loneliness after their forty-five years of marriage.

  Sure, Edward would miss him, but Ed had his own family: a rich wife, an influential father-in-law, and two young kids. He would move on from the sadness and loss, telling himself Ryan never did learn to follow the rules.

  How simple it would be. Open the little compartment. Crush the rubber of the capsule between his teeth and hear the crack of the tiny glass vial. Invite death in and escape this hell of a life filled with torture and deprivation. What pleasure in refusing Horst his ultimate personal vengeance, in foiling these sick monsters who take personal pleasure in the suffering of others and destroy an entire people to promote a personal agenda.

  Ryan thought of Nicole. What in hell could she possibly have experienced to drain her life of all hope and beauty? She could kill without hesitation or emotion, yet protest vehemently against men and their wars.

  But then, from the depths of his depression, Colonel Donovan’s speech to the country hit home, his call to fight while resistance was still possible and friends still able to fight side-by-side for the world’s freedom. Am I really a quitter, a gutless deserter without convictions? He imagined the untold suffering of those already under the bastards’ guns, of families torn asunder by rabid hatred and unbound cruelty. His own dilemma, his misery in that cell, paled in comparison. Hitler and his Nazis had to fail, and Ryan knew he must do his part after all. Perhaps the pill would come later, but for now, he would find some other way.

  He scratched fitfully at the bedbug bites and inhaled the disgusting stench of his cell, and suddenly he knew what he must do. Dropping to the filthy floor beside the cot, barely able to reach into the tight space, he pushed aside the stinking latrine bucket with the crusted rim and felt around in the dark beneath the bed. His fingers rapidly found the stiff carcass he had spotted earlier. It was a rat with matted fur, a fellow prisoner that had found dying the only way out their shared cell. Perished from starvation or lack of water, he hoped, and not from poison. What irony if this rat had met death by cyanide.

  Under the pale moonlight he removed from his lapel the slip of razor blade. His trembling fingers worked carefully to avoid the sharp edge. With repeated strokes he sliced off the head and tail and slit the belly lengthwise, then drew the skin back toward the neck to expose the meager flesh below. From gullet to crotch he carefully shaved small strips of meat, adding the liver and heart to the finished pile on the bed. He rejected the string of intestines. The stench betrayed decomposition even before he brought the scraps to his lips.

  The dissection complete, he held the tin cup ready and forced down the handful of flesh and organs, avoiding chewing, then chased the wretched mouthful with water. It took all his inner strength not to vomit. When the foul meal was done, he downed a second cup of water, then rinsed out his mouth and spit. He buried the torn cadaver in the latrine bucket where the guards shouldn’t immediately look.

  And then he waited. Within minutes his stomach churned and he felt coming the response he had hoped for. He fought back the gag reflex, dry-swallowing repeatedly and waiting, mentally encouraging the rat flesh to do its damnedest. His face already felt clammy, perhaps just his mind at work, revolting at what he’d just eaten. A half hour passed before the violent retching began, so fierce he could no longer resist and thought he would die, wished he would die. He held his belly and vomited repeatedly until nothing followed but stringy mucous. His throat was raw, and now the sweat and chills were undeniably real.

  “Help! Au secours!” His cries sounded pitifully weak to his own ears.

  He beat the tin cup against the cell door until a neighboring prisoner awoke and added to the clamor: “For God’s sake, guard! Save us from this obnoxious fool!”

  They found Ryan collapsed across the fouled bedding. Despite the agonizing stomach cramps and drenching sweats, Ryan felt relief when they conferred and agreed an ambulance should deliver him t
o the nearest hospital.

  Should he survive that vile meal, he would at least find hope again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tours, Occupied France

  21-22 August 1941

  The night in the ward passed in gut-wrenching agony. A policeman cuffed him to an ancient metal bed, its enamel chipped by years of use. His filthy clothing was gone, his flimsy cloth gown open at the back. The long room housed a dozen other patients, some conscious, some asleep and snoring, others moaning and crying out for attention. The man in the next bed coughed blood into a towel and intermittently demanded pain medication in a shaky voice. Lost in his own misery, Ryan took little notice of his neighbors.

  Through the dark hours he continued to retch, even though his stomach had long since surrendered anything of substance. The short, middle-aged nurse, her hair prematurely silver, was solicitous and compassionate, emptying the vessel she held to his lips to catch the bile and afterwards wiping his brow and face with a cool, damp cloth. After he soiled the sheets for a third time she gave up on the bedpan and gave him a sponge bath before wrapping him in a cotton diaper. The abdominal cramping was so debilitating that all he could do was fight through the sweats and chills, hoping he hadn’t bitten off more than he could chew.

  A gendarme kept constant watch over him, as if Ryan might somehow escape the cuffs binding him to the bed frame. The policeman’s face was ruddy and sullen, his hair greasy under the uniform cap. He wore a perpetual sneer and treated the hospital personnel as servants, demanding they bring him coffee and sandwiches. Ryan’s nurse had to evict a patient from the bed directly opposite the policeman’s prisoner. Once all linens were removed, he claimed it as his observation post. This guard made no effort to hide his anger at having to care take a prisoner destined for Gestapo hands, especially such a foul-smelling, vomiting captive as this one. He made sure that miserable Ryan knew he was a bother. Whenever Ryan drifted into restless sleep, the guard beat his nightstick on the uprights of the bedframe and rattled him awake, much to the aggravation of the nursing staff and other patients on the ward.