Her plan was to drop one baguette with Yves, if his boat was in the harbor, and another with Fleur, who babysat her broken mother in a house near the sea. Each of them was capable of dividing and delivering a loaf, while Emma continued with the remaining dozen to the command post north of Longues.
The Kommandant would see his order obeyed. The Field Marshal would have his sample. Either he would like the bread, allowing her to live, or he would taste the straw, and her days would end. In a few hours Mémé’s tea would run out, she would call for help, and no one would come. Gradually everyone who depended upon her network, from Pierre to Fleur, from Michelle to Marguerite, would lose the necessities that Emma provided. It was not a long walk to the command post, but a slow one with the roads so soggy.
Along puttered a motorcycle of the occupying army, splashing through the puddles. Emma stepped aside for it to pass, but the rider slowed. She gritted her teeth, ready to parry a flirtation or absorb scorn, as the motorcycle came to a stop. The rider lifted his hood and she saw that it was Captain Thalheim.
“Hello, Sergeant,” she said. The days of rapport, of morning visits to the baking shed, were long gone.
He did not so much as blink. “The Kommandant commands me for to give the baguette woman a ride.”
“He doesn’t want me to get wet? What a gentleman.”
“He doesn’t want the Field Marshal to receive soggy bread.” He thumbed at the space behind him. “Climb on.”
Emma had too many loaves. The two extras would give her away before anyone took a bite. As she deliberated, the rain fell sideways across her face.
“The Kommandant’s patience is thin today. Climb on.”
Emma had no alternative. There was no sidecar either, only the back half of his seat. “Look away,” she said, and when he did, she hiked her skirts and threw one leg over the saddle. Angling the umbrella to shield the bread, Emma leaned forward enough that she hoped not to touch him any more than necessary. But Thalheim revved the throttle and popped the clutch so that she nearly fell off, and she was compelled to grab him.
“No talk,” he said, bouncing through the ruts toward the command post, where there awaited the unsuspecting taste buds of a man who could end her life with a nod.
A guard lifted one hand, keeping the other on his machine gun’s trigger, and Thalheim slowed the motorcycle to pull back the hood of his slicker. The guard saluted, which tipped rain off the brim of his helmet, and waved them on. Emma held the captain’s shoulder, still shielding the bread, as they wove through the trucks and outposts to a wide wet field rounded by barbed wire. Finally they arrived at a guarded gate.
“Off,” Thalheim said, halting. “From here we walk.”
Emma dismounted, attempting to smooth her dress, though it was sodden. He led the way through a maze of wires, until they reached a tent in which there was a desk. A soldier there put down his cigarette to salute the captain. While they exchanged words Emma tried to sidle out. Perhaps she could drop two loaves behind a tent flap. But they finished their business quickly and Thalheim hurried past.
“Stay close,” he muttered.
As she followed, another guard tagged along. He sniffed his runny nose, and Emma observed that he was young, perhaps fifteen. He was carrying a strange gun, too—like an ordinary rifle but sealed in all openings except the barrel. He labored under its weight.
“What is happening?” Emma asked.
“An escort, in case you try anything foolish. This area is secure.”
Thalheim’s comment caused Emma to lift her gaze and survey the land around them. Vision blurred by the sideways rain, she could tell that it was vast, two wheat fields in addition to the unmown hay field they were marching across, but what stopped her midstride was the discovery that the farm had been converted into a massive battery. Steel-gray guns, their barrels easily ten meters long, poked out of fortifications that were shaped like giant helmets, but made of concrete two meters thick. Their roofs covered with branches and leaves, the pillboxes arced around the field so that the guns pointed out to sea in all directions, especially the long beaches that interrupted the bluffs and cliffs of coastline.
“Don’t delay,” Thalheim snarled. “No one here is in good humor.”
He stormed ahead, Emma trotting to catch up. But after a moment the young guard fell into step beside her. “I speaks your language,” he said. “I only needs practice of.”
“What is this place?”
“Brilliant, no? These guns can hits a target twenty kilometers away. And their shelters can takes a direct hit from guns as big as they.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Thalheim barked. “Don’t give her any kind of information.”
“Yes, sir.”
But the captain could not help speaking himself. “You are a pathetic, weak people,” he said to Emma. “We are the greatest military power in the history of mankind, and you are insects. We can crush you at any time.”
She trudged through the wet grass, her dress heavy, the bag of bread an awkward burden with its umbrella. But the exertion warmed her, as did the annoyance of Thalheim’s blabbering. With the young guard huffing alongside, however, Emma could not see any way to shed the spare baguettes.
“Of course our leader knows the waters are narrowest between Dover and Calais,” Thalheim continued. “He built there the launching sites for our new rocket missiles, like inviting an invasion. That is how certain we are of superiorities. The one bad element is that if the Allied attack comes there, we here will miss the action. We will be deprived of the opportunity for glory.”
“There is no such thing as glory,” Emma said.
He laughed at that, one harsh bark. “Not for you people, no. But our E-boats engaged with your Allies in April, very near to here, and sank all their ships, every one. That was glory.”
Emma did not reply. The young guard with the big rifle did, though. “Glory for our navy, perhaps yes, sir, but not so much for we soldiers here on this lands.”
“If your friends attack here,” Thalheim told Emma, “it will be at high tide, when the beaches are narrow and the exposure is limited. I personally heard the Field Marshal say so.”
They were nearly across the field. Emma could see officers clustered beside a construction zone, a rain canopy over their heads. They kept their backs to the wind, and to the men laboring with shovels a few steps away.
“You people,” Thalheim continued, raising his voice against the weather, “are lazy, passive, and weak. The wine, the climate, the women.” He shook his head in dismay. “But we have the wisest commanders, the greatest discipline, the best armaments.”
“Begs to differ on that last item, sir,” the young guard said.
Thalheim pulled up short. “Excuse me?”
“This weapon I carries here, sir, for example.”
“Gewehr 41, excellent rifle. Very powerful, very accurate.”
“But heavy, sir. Almost impossible to runs with.”
“Which makes it ideal for these circumstances, defending high ground.”
Emma marveled at the debate between them, conducted in her language and therefore somehow for her benefit, though why they would care about her opinion was a mystery.
“Well, what about the single-shot bazooka I were issued at my regular post, sir?”
Thalheim nodded. “The iron fist.”
“Impossible to aim and therefore useless for guardings. From what I see in training, it is nearly suicidal to operate.”
“Nonsense. Your comments are treasonous.”
“But I’ve heard you yourself, sir, speaks of problems with using captured weapons, and our less excellent models.”
“Naturally our best matériel must go to the Eastern Front, where the enemy is stubborn and strong. Nonetheless . . .” Thalheim recommenced striding, chest out as they crossed the last of the field. “Nonetheless, I say, our weapons are finest of quality. Our leaders make no wrong decisions, provide no wrong leadership. And you. Be careful what y
ou say. You are very disloyal.”
The three of them reached the edge of the canopied area. At the last moment Thalheim stopped, adjusted his helmet, tugged down on the ends of his sleeves, and cleared his throat. As the officers turned and cleared a path for him, Emma deduced what this moment was actually about: impressing people. Thalheim had brought her quickly in order to impress the Kommandant, who in turn had commanded Emma to bring the loaves in order to impress the Field Marshal.
That man, however, stood aside, not speaking, his trimness and stillness a form of contained menace, like a land mine. He turned to an aide, who provided a set of field glasses without the Field Marshal needing to ask. Emma recognized the aide with a surprising surge of venom: it was the officer with the pencil-thin moustache, the one who had struck her father with a club. Emma marveled that he could not feel the heat of her yearning for vengeance. He merely bowed and moved away. The Field Marshal raised the binoculars to his face and inspected up and down the coastline. Emma wondered if there was anyone whom he needed to impress.
“I have brought the bread woman,” Thalheim announced.
A murmur of approval went through the cluster of men, a space opened, and Emma stepped beneath the canopy. At once she experienced how much pleasanter life was out of the downpour.
She scanned the soldiers despite the close quarters, till her eye lit upon the Kommandant. Emma slid the canvas bag from her shoulder. Perhaps his desire to impress the Field Marshal would mean that he did not notice the extra loaves. Perhaps she would not be revealed.
“I tried my best to keep them dry,” Emma said, setting the umbrella down without taking the time to close it. Trembling all over, whether from fear or the chill, she took a moment to imagine herself still alive in an hour, walking home in the rain.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” the Kommandant growled, handing his gloves to Thalheim without a word, as if the captain were a side table, placed there to hold house keys or the day’s mail.
“I brought her as quickly as I could, sir,” Thalheim said.
The Kommandant made no reply, sliding two baguettes from the bag and passing them to an aide. “Distribute these,” he ordered. “The Field Marshal first, of course.”
“Sir,” the aide said, bowing.
Now, Emma thought. Now he will pay attention to his superior’s appreciation of the bread, and I will be safe.
But the Field Marshal held up a gloved hand, making the aide wait while he continued to study the equipment and defenses on the beach below, taking time to deliberate. Emma suspected he was imagining a battle down there, probing his plan for any weakness. She wanted to tell him, “Don’t worry, don’t bother. They will never come.”
The Kommandant removed two more baguettes, slid them out like swords from scabbards, half turned to give them to Thalheim for distribution, then caught himself. Emma watched his face as he calculated: two loaves to the Field Marshal, plus one now in each of his hands, plus the baguettes remaining in the canvas sack, one for each finger, poking out like the noses of ten popes.
With an expression of honest perplexity, the Kommandant looked into Emma’s rain-drenched face for the first time since she had arrived.
“Fourteen?”
Chapter 20
The Field Marshal chose just that moment to call for the Kommandant, who stared at the baguette in each of his hands as if they were grenades, then pressed them against the chest of the guard with a gruff order. The young man took the loaves with wide eyes, as if he were being chastised, while the Kommandant hurried to present himself at the Field Marshal’s elbow, announcing his arrival with a clack of boot heels.
The Field Marshal was explaining something in soft tones, his hands relaxed while he pointed here and there, as if it were a casual conversation rather than preparations for savagery. The aide with binoculars at the ready stood by his side as tense as a violin string, and another remained a single step behind, holding one of Emma’s baguettes. The Kommandant listened intently, his back taut like a drawn bow, eyes darting wherever the Field Marshal gestured, leaning closer so as not to miss a word.
“Come,” Thalheim said, speaking from the side of his mouth. “See how strong we are.”
Emma found that it took an effort to look away from the Field Marshal, wondering when he would eat her bread, and whether he would taste the straw. For the moment he continued to gesture up and down the beach.
“Don’t mind them,” Thalheim said. “They are discuss gun sighting, and the need to finish building of observation platform. Come observe, and despair.”
Emma followed him to the side of the tent nearest the bluff and the slate-gray water below. It teemed from the rainfall, a billion eyes winking. The captain lit a cigarette, then spoke in low tones, a billow of smoke appearing with his words.
“See the iron barriers, there in the shallows? They have artillery shells attached to their tips, which we removed from the armories of your defeated army. Anything that touches them will be explode. The waters conceal at present, but likewise one hundred meters past low tide, we have driven logs into the sand with mines at their tips. Also railroad ties cut in half, rough end up, to rip the hull of any craft lucky enough to miss mines. We expect few if any ships to reach shore.”
He pointed while he spoke, in unconscious imitation of the Field Marshal, continuing as coolly as if he were reciting the alphabet. Emma glanced at the Kommandant, who hovered at the Field Marshal’s elbow, nodding every few seconds. The Field Marshal noticed the aide with a baguette, which he took without interrupting his speech. Rather, he continued lecturing, but instead of using his hand to gesture, the Field Marshal pointed with the long loaf of bread. Emma found it comical, that her life was at stake and the bread was serving as a pointer.
“Down there observe a section of the Atlantic Wall,” Thalheim continued in her ear. “If anyone through miracles should survive our obstacles, the wall stops them. This barrier spans from Norway to Spain, four years of work thanks to our highest commander’s brilliant vision. Thousands of tons of concrete, hundreds of thousands of steel rods. Also we have hundreds of kilometers of trenches, thousands of kilometers of barbed wire, millions of mines strung along the coast like a necklace of pearls. This requires manpower, materials, leadership.” He squeezed one hand into a fist. “Above all else, discipline.”
He drew on his cigarette and held the smoke in. Emma realized he was waiting for a reply. “Formidable,” she said.
“Formidable? It is impenetrable.” He exhaled, pointed over one shoulder. “The invaders deserve your deepest pity. Around this command post we have build twelve strong points, armed with 88s, 74s, and mortars. Those holes in the ground with tank turrets in them, those are Tobruks, and we have dozens. We place artillery in pillboxes above the beaches, concrete two meters thick. We have made install guns at angles to the beach for flanking fire. Most important, we have soldiers who are all educate and drill in following orders. They will not improvise, or feel fear, or leave their posts. They will do precisely as told.”
Emma swallowed audibly. “Like a machine.”
Thalheim put his hands on his hips, smoke from the cigarette in his mouth causing him to squint. “Right now the Field Marshal is ordering for 88s to be presighted, for maximum lethality. Rather than calculating a shot, gunners will use those wooden posts—you see? there in sand?—to know their range in advance. They wait for target to enter their sights. Then they destroy.”
Emma noticed that Thalheim had never spoken her language with greater fluency. His chest was puffed out, his head high.
“This is entirely horrifying,” she managed to say at last.
“You begin to understand. I pray your Allies attack here, the more to our greater glory. This is the place our enemy commits an extravagant suicide.”
He waited, thumbs hooked in his belt. “For one time the smart miss has nothings to say to Captain Thalheim?”
“They will never come,” she answered. “Sergeant.”
&n
bsp; He raised a hand as if to strike her, but an exclamation from his right interrupted the impulse.
“Exzellent,” the Field Marshal was proclaiming, his mouth full and his words spewing crumbs. “Exzellent.”
The Kommandant broke into a huge smile. Emma thought it looked like he had peed himself with relief.
The Field Marshal waved one hand in a circle—a magnanimous gesture she recognized from Odette’s café as signifying that the person will buy a round for the house, but which in this case the aides and guard understood to mean that they should distribute the rest of the bread among everyone under the canopy. Thalheim ground out his cigarette and bulled past, Emma’s impudence forgotten as he muscled toward the Kommandant to receive his share.
The young guard handed away the two loaves in his hand, then waved Emma over. She weaseled through the men, all large and wearing bulky foul-weather gear, to hand him the canvas sack. He tried to pull out a baguette, but it was too long to remove completely with his gun in the same hand.
He glanced to the side, spotted a table covered with maps, and leaned his rifle against it. Then he turned and began working his way forward through the crowd of officers, holding baguettes up so that they could tear portions off for themselves.
First, Emma felt relief. The fact of fourteen loaves was forgotten, the straw undetected. But as the men began eating, laughing and jostling one another, comparing the size of their portions of bread and bragging if they’d received a larger one, she experienced a second realization: they had forgotten her.
Emma was female, one of the local people, too weak to be feared, too small to notice. So sure were the men of their power, she had become invisible. No one was looking, no one protecting. Meanwhile the young guard’s rifle leaned against a table not two steps from her right leg.
Emma had never fired a gun before. She could remember holding one on three occasions: once assisting Philippe when he bagged a deer and wanted to dress it where it fell, and twice when her father had managed to shoot a rabbit in spite of his bad eyesight, and needed both hands to put the carcass in his hunting sack. But she also remembered the lesson the drunk corporal had been giving to his friend when they accidentally shot the pig that never existed. It was a matter of aiming and squeezing, and using the impact of one shot to decide where the next should go.
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