by Alexis Jenni
It was extraordinary, the massacre we executed in May 1945. Hands smeared with blood, we could once again rejoin the ranks of the victors. We had power. At the last minute, we took part in an indiscriminate slaughter that was entirely French in its virtuosity. Our participation was passionate, unbridled, a little sloppy, and above all open to all comers. The massacre was haphazard, probably fuelled by alcohol, marked by furia francese. Even as the dead of the great world war were being counted, we participated in the sort of indiscriminate massacre that offers nations a place in history. We relied on French ingenuity, which was utterly unlike that of Germans, who understood how to plan mass murders and tally the corpses, whole or in pieces. Nor was it like the British, distanced by technology, entrusting the responsibility of killing to huge bombs dropped from the night skies, who did not see the corpses vaporized in the phosphorus flash. We were not like Russians, who counted on the bitter cold of sweeping plains to ensure mass fatalities; nor the Serbs, with their wholesome village mentality, who slit the throats of their neighbours as they might a pig that they had fed and cared for; nor even the Japanese, their bayonets skewering the enemy with the precision of fencing masters as they uttered theatrical screams. This was our massacre, and at the last minute we rejoined the ranks of the victors by smearing our hands with blood. We had power. ‘Peace for ten years,’ said Général Duval. And the general was not mistaken. We had ten years of peace, give or take six months. After that, everything was lost. Everything. Them and us. Over there. And here.
I am still talking of France as I tramp the streets. This would be laughable were it not for the fact that France is a manner of speaking. France is the French language. Language is the landscape in which we are raised; it is the blood that we pass on, the blood that nourishes us. We swim in this language that someone has taken a shit in. We dare not open our mouths for fear of swallowing one of these linguistic faeces. We hold our tongue. We cease to live. Language, like blood, is pure movement. Language, like blood, coagulates when it ceases to flow. It forms small black clots that stick in our throats. Suffocating us. We hold our tongue, we cease to live. We dream of speaking English, a language that does not affect us.
We are dying of thrombosis. We are dying of an embolism. We are dying of the deafening silence filled with gurgling and rumblings and suppressed rage. This viscous blood has ceased to flow. This is France, this way of death.
Novel III
The Zouave regiments arrive in the nick of time
THE ZOUAVE REGIMENTS arrived from North Africa just in time. It was as well they came when they did. The machine-gunners had realized their limitations: the bullets from the French guns ricocheted like hazelnuts off the sides of the German Tiger tanks. The 11cm-thick armour plating was impervious to anything a single gunner could fire. What they needed was cunning: dig trenches like elephant traps across the road with iron spikes planted in the bottom; or spend days burning the convoys that brought them petrol and wait for their engines to croak their last.
Lying on the terracotta tiles of a rubble-strewn kitchen next to a hole in the wall, looking out on to the meadows, Victorien Salagnon dreamed up fantastical schemes. The square turrets of the Tiger tanks slipped between the hedges, easily flattening them. The long barrel, capped with a bulge whose purpose he did not understand, turned like the muzzle of a hound scenting its prey, and fired. The explosion made him duck as he heard a wall and a roof collapse, the timbers splintering as one of the houses rumbled to dust, and he did not know whether one of the young men he knew was sheltered there.
It was time for this to end. The Zouaves arrived in the nick of time.
The crumbling houses sent up thick clouds of dust that took time to settle; the diesel engines of the advancing tanks belched thick black smoke. Salagnon huddled closer to the thick door jamb, the sturdiest piece of stone in the ruined wall, shards of which already littered the floor or teetered, ready to fall. Mechanically, he cleared the patch of ground around him. Cleaning up the tiles. He gathered up shards of broken crockery fallen from the sideboard. He could piece them together using the blue flower pattern. A direct hit had devastated the kitchen. He glanced around, looking for pieces to fit together. He kept himself busy, so as not to have to look behind him at the figures buried under white rubble. The bodies were sprawled amid the remains of the table and the upended chairs. An old man had lost his cap; a woman was half hidden beneath a torn and charred tablecloth; two girls lay side by side; they were about the same height; two little girls whose age he did not dare to guess. How long does it last, a direct hit? A flash as it arrives, a fraction of a second as everything crumbles, although it seems to happen in slow motion; no more.
He clung to his Sten gun, he had counted the remaining bullets over and over. He watched the turrets of the Tiger tanks moving through the fields towards the village. They could not hold out much longer.
Sprawled in the rubble, a gaping wound in his belly, Roseval was struggling to breathe. Each breath produced a gurgling sound like a canteen being emptied. Salagnon did his best not to look at him; he knew from the sound that he was still alive; he toyed with the shards of crockery, clutched the metal stock of his weapon as it gradually grew warmer, watching the advancing column of grey tanks, as though sheer vigilance might save him.
And it came to pass as he had hoped it would. The tanks moved away. He continued to watch as the tanks wheeled around and disappeared into the fields marked out with hedgerows. He scarcely dared believe it. It was then that he saw the tanks of the Zouave regiments, dozens of small, green, rounded tanks with short, squat barrels – Sherman tanks, he later learned – and his first glimpse of them that day was an immense relief. At last, he could close his eyes, at last he could breathe deeply, without fear of being spotted and killed. Lying a few feet away, Roseval did not even notice. He was conscious only of his pain now; his whimpered in short, halting bursts, his death dragged on.
It had all started out well; but the Bataillons de Zouaves Portés arrived just in time. When their tanks came to a halt beneath the trees, among the bushes, among the half-ruined houses of the village, they could read French words on the green gun turrets. They had got there in time.
It had all started out so well. The June weather brought them back to life. They had had several weeks of armed freedom, which consoled them for the long grey winters. The Maréchal himself had given them that courage based on contempt that they so freely dispensed. On 7 June he made a speech which was distributed and pasted up all over France. The Colonel had read it aloud, as the maquisards lined up, dressed in their scout shorts. Their shoes were spit-polished, they pulled up their socks and tugged their berets over their ears in a gesture of French superiority.
Frenchmen,
Do not aggravate our misfortunes by acts which risk bringing tragic reprisals upon you. It will be innocent French citizens who suffer the consequences. France will be saved only by adhering to the most rigorous discipline. Therefore, obey the orders of the Government. That each may stand firm beside his duty. The circumstances of battle may lead the German army to take special measures in the combat zones. Accept this necessity.
An insolent whoop of joy greeted the closing words of the speech. With one hand, they each held the guns by their side; with the other they tossed their berets in the air. ‘Hurrah!’ they yelled, ‘let’s go!’ And the speech ended in joyful chaos as each boy hunted, found and donned his beret, keeping a tight grip on the rifle by his side as it clattered against the others. ‘You hear what he said, the mummified maréchal? There he is signalling from behind the glass, like a fish in a tank. But we can’t hear him, because he’s pickled in formaldehyde!’
The grass glittered in the June sun; a breeze rustled the beech trees. They laughed and vied with each other as they boasted and bragged. ‘What is he saying? That we should lie down and play dead? Even though we’re not? Are we dead? What’s he saying, the pickled old prick? To act like nothing’s happened? Let foreigners fight it out in
our country, to keep our heads down, to dodge the bullets, to say “Jawohl!” to the Germans? He’s asking us to play at being Swiss, while there’s a war on in our own backyards! No way! There’s time enough to play dead later. When we’re all dead.’
It felt good.
In crocodile formation, they tramped along forest paths, new-minted adults, as yet untainted by violence, but seething with an urge to fight that twitched in their limbs like steam under pressure. It rained that afternoon, a fine summer shower of fat raindrops. It refreshed but did not drench them, and was quickly absorbed by the trees, the ferns, the grass. This gentle rain released the musky scent of the earth, of resin and wood like a visible halo, as though wreathing them with incense, as though urging them to war.
Salagnon wore his machine gun slung between his shoulders, while behind him Roseval carried a rucksack full of cartridge clips. Brioude led the march and twenty of them followed behind, breathing deeply. As they emerged from the woods, the clouds parted to reveal the blue depths of the world. They lay down behind a tall thicket of ferns overlooking the road. Droplets of rain beaded on the fronds, dripped on to their necks and rolled down their backs, but the dry straw beneath their bellies kept them warm.
They opened fire the moment the grey Kübelwagen rounded the bend, followed by two army trucks. Salagnon kept his forefinger pressed on the trigger, emptied the first clip and replaced it, something that took only a few seconds, then went on firing, barely varying his aim. The munitions man lying next to him kept one hand on his shoulder and with the other passed him a full magazine. Salagnon fired; it made a glorious racket, and this thing pressed tightly against his body grew hot and jolted, while in the distance something in the crosshairs of his sights disintegrated, toppled beneath the rain of invisible blows, crumpled as though deflated from within. Salagnon took an intense pleasure in firing; his willpower was emitted through his eyes and, with no contact, the car and the trucks were hacked to pieces like logs with an axe. The vehicles crumpled, the bodywork buckled, the windows shattered into glittering clouds, flames began to appear; all this he could do with a simple impulse in his belly, focused by his eyes.
When the firing stopped, there was not a sound to be heard. The ruined car teetered over the hard shoulder, one truck lay in the middle of the road, its tyres blown; the other was ablaze, smashed into a tree. The maquisards crept from brush to bush, then stepped out on to the road. Nothing was moving now except the flames and a slowly rising column of smoke. The drivers, lacerated by bullets, lay dead, hunched uncomfortably over their steering wheels; one of them was burning, the stench was appalling. Beneath the tarpaulins of the trucks were sacks of mail, crates of rations and huge bales of grey toilet paper. They left everything. In the car there were two uniformed officers, a man of about fifty and another of about twenty, their bodies thrown back, heads lolling against the seat, mouths open, eyes closed. They could have been a father and son parked in a lay-by and taking a nap. ‘They don’t send their crack troops around these parts,’ muttered Brioude, bending over them. ‘Just the old men and the kids.’ Salagnon mumbled his agreement, trying to keep his composure as he studied the bodies, pretending to check under their feet for something or other – something important. The younger man had taken only a single bullet in the side, which had left a small red hole, and he seemed to be asleep. This was surprising, because the chest of the man behind the wheel was slashed to ribbons; his jacket looked as though it had been ripped open by sharp fangs, exposing the brutally masticated crimson flesh from which rows of white bones protruded at impossible angles. Salagnon tried to remember whether he had fired at the left side of the vehicle. He could not recall, and it did not matter. Grimly, he traipsed back into the forest.
An airdrop of weapons arrived that night; invisible planes roared overhead. The boys lit petrol fires around the vast meadow and suddenly a series of white flowers bloomed in the ink-black sky. The fires were extinguished, the rumble of the planes faded and they had to fetch the metal tubes that had fallen on the grass. They carefully folded the parachutes, the silk already wet with dew. Inside the containers they found crates of equipment and munitions, machine guns and cartridges, a British machine gun, hand grenades and a field radio.
And from the wilted silk flowers they saw men scrabble to their feet and calmly unhook their harnesses. When they moved forwards to get a closer look, they were greeted in broken French. They led the men to the large barn that served as an HQ. In the flickering glow of the paraffin lamps, the six commandos sent by the British looked very young, blond and rosy-cheeked. The French boys clustered around them, eyes shining, laughing easily, calling to each other loudly, gauging the effect of their movements and their raucous cries. Unflustered, the young Englishmen explained to the Colonel the purpose of their mission. Their faded uniforms fit them perfectly, the threadbare fabric following their movements; they had lived in them so long they were a second skin. The eyes in their young faces barely flickered, maintaining a strange, fixed stare. They had already survived something very different. They had come to train the French in radically new killing techniques developed outside France in the months while they had been hiding in the woods, while others had been fighting elsewhere. All this they were easily able to explain. Their rudimentary French hesitated over words, but flowed slowly enough for them to understand and even to gradually comprehend what it really meant.
Sitting in a circle, they listened to the Englishman’s lesson. The young man whose wispy hair floated in the slightest breeze demonstrated the ‘break-neck’ knife, of which a crateload had been sent. It looked like a standard Swiss army knife. It could be used for picnics; there was a blade, a can opener, a nail file, a tiny saw. But also, concealed in the handle, was a metal punch as long as a finger. This awl is designed for ‘break-necking’, which, the young blond man explained in slow, halting words, entails creeping up on the enemy, clapping the left hand over the mouth to stop him screaming and, with the right hand, plunging the awl into the depression at the base of the skull between the muscle walls; this hollow, which you can feel at the base of your skull with your finger, seems designed to be punctured, like an opening placed there deliberately. Death is instantaneous; breath rushes out as air rushes in; the enemy goes limp and crumples silently.
Salagnon was troubled by this simple weapon. It fitted the hand like a penknife and its flawless design was a tribute to industrial practicality. An engineer had sketched a design, calculated how long the awl needed to be to fit its purpose; he might work with a skull on his desk, so he could check the details. He took measurements using a calliper rule he allowed no one else to touch. When his pencils were blunted by his sketching, he sharpened them meticulously. Later, using his plans and calculations, a machine tool had been set up in Yorkshire or Pennsylvania so that the ‘break-neck’ knife could be mass-produced in the same way as a tin cup. With this in his pocket, Salagnon considered the people around him differently: he pictured the small door at the base of their skull, which, although closed, could be opened, could let out their breath and let in the cold air. Every one of them could be killed in an instant, by his hand.
Another commando, red-haired and ruddy-faced like a caricature of an Englishman, explained the commando knife. If thrown, the weapon always landed point-first. It was sharp enough to stab deeply and could also be used to slash. To use it, it was important not to grip it in the fist like Tarzan fighting crocodiles, but with the thumb aligned with the blade, the way one might hold a steak knife. After all, in both cases the purpose is to carve meat. So the approach is similar.
The slowness of the explanations, the halting French, their determination to ensure they were understood, left more than enough time for everyone to realize what they were really talking about: the atmosphere was pervaded by a vague unease. None of the young men was larking or boasting now: they handled these simple objects with a slight awkwardness. They were careful not to touch the blades. They greeted the discussion on explosives with
relief. The plastic explosive, like children’s plasticine, had a comforting feel unconnected to its purpose. And the wiring used to detonate it was an abstraction. Thankfully, it is impossible to think about everything all of the time. Technical details are a welcome distraction.
The attack on the convoy of trucks crossing the Saône Valley was more serious. It felt more like a battle. The thirty trucks filled with German footsoldiers were caught in a hail of bullets from the machine guns hidden in the undergrowth of the valley’s steep slopes. Leaping from their trucks and diving into ditches, the seasoned troops returned fire, attempted a counter-attack, only to be driven back. Bodies lay slumped on the grass and on the road between the burnt-out trucks. When their clips were empty, the attack stopped. The convoy beat a somewhat ignominious retreat. The maquisards let them go; they surveyed the extent of the damage through binoculars and then they, too, retreated. A few minutes later two planes arrived and raked the valley slopes with machine-gun fire. Their hefty bullets laid waste the shrubs, dug up the ground, branches as thick as forearms were sliced away and fell. A large splinter buried itself in Courtillot’s thigh, as long as a man’s arm and as sharp as a blade, it was still dripping with sap. The planes made several passes above the smoking debris, before finally departing. The maquisards headed back into the forest, carrying their first wounded casualty.
* * *
Sencey was captured. It was easy. They simply marched forwards, keeping their heads low to avoid being hit. The machine guns were trained on the main road but the bullets whistled uselessly overhead, hindered by the steep incline. In the dazzling glare it was just possible to make out the gun emplacement, the perforated muzzle of the German machine gun, the curve of helmets peeping above the sandbags, just out of range. Their bullets zipped through the warm air with a long, shrill whine that ended in a dull thud as they hit stone. They kept their heads low as the white walls towering over them crackled, sending out small clouds of chalky dust and a smell of limestone being broken in the blazing sun.
