Michel wanted to tell the German to go fuck himself. He wanted to get up and pummel him. But he did not. Michel’s glowering countenance was a transparent mask to his unbearable humiliation. He answered the question.
“Gaston Chevalier. He was my instructor.”
Kranz nodded.
“I have heard this name. And you would be the knife’s Michel Poincaré?”
“Yes.”
“Your President is named Poincaré, is he not? Of course, there must be many Poincarés in France. But not so many with such a knife. Which Poincaré family are you from?”
“A different one.”
Kranz smiled. “Yes, I thought so. Are you enlisted, Michel Poincaré?”
Michel responded in German. “Of course I am. You think I would let scum invade my country and not fight?”
“Ah, he speaks the language of Saxon scum!” said Kranz in French and laughed, unperturbed by Michel’s insult. “Aren’t you clever? And what unit are you with? What do you do in this war? You are obviously no cook.”
Michel switched back to his native tongue. “I … I am with the British Army. Infantry.” He did not know why he was telling him the truth.
“Ah, interesting. And why is a Frenchman enlisted with the British Army?”
“I …” Michel tried to remember his story, the one he always gave, something about wrong place, wrong time, but it had been knocked clean out of his head. “I …”
“It is all right, Michel Poincaré. We all have our secrets. You can tell me another day. For now, I must go. I am an escaped prisoner, after all.” Kranz pushed off his knees and stood tall. “It has been a pleasure to meet on the field in an honest, old-fashioned fight. So much better than this war with its grandiose weapons. So impersonal. It takes the meaning out of it, and the fun. It was an honor to fight with you, Michel Poincaré. Chevalier taught you well. Not well enough, but well.”
Michel could not bear to look at Kranz. The humiliation and dishonor were all-consuming.
“Come on, get up,” said Kranz.
It was delivered without rancor, but there was no mistaking the order. Michel did as told. His vision was a little blurry and his head felt like it was being squeezed into a thimble while a man attempted to sledgehammer his way out from inside his skull. Nevertheless, he started to feel some of his strength return. His hands balled into fists. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to continue the fight.
But he did nothing. To lash out now was weak. It would be akin to fighting a man with his back turned. The German had accepted Michel’s defeat, had granted him clemency, and now Michel had to deal with it. So they pretended like neither man had just tried to kill the other.
Kranz plunged a hand into his pocket. He retrieved Michel’s knife.
“It would be wrong of me to take the knife a father gave a son. Here.”
Michel took the knife without saying anything.
“I hope we meet again someday, Michel. Perhaps you will have learned to control your chassé kick by then.”
Kranz offered his hand. Michel looked at it like it was putrescent meat. He felt nothing but disgust, and shook Kranz’s hand anyway. Kranz turned and walked away. He was beside the motorbike when Michel called out. “Wait.”
Kranz turned.
“Your name. So I know,” said Michel, spitting the words like a mouthful of venom. “For when we meet again.”
Kranz seemed to think for a second. He smiled a grim smile.
“Kranz. Colonel Wolfgang Kranz.”
16
“Henry! Where the fuck are you?”
Michel could hear him, but not see him.
“Michel! In the hole! I’m in the hole!”
Of course Henry is in a fucking hole, thought Michel. He threaded his way through the paper leaves, following Henry’s voice, which felt like a ball-bearing knocking around his head. He reached the hole and peered down. He could see the faint white of Henry’s face looking up.
“Michel!”
“For Christ’s sake, Henry. How? Fucking how?”
“I climbed in. The ladder broke. But look!”
Henry punched his hand in the air, showing a dark nugget.
“I found gold! There’s tons of it. Throw me a rope. Did you get the man?”
“No.”
Michel kneeled over the hole. He used both hands to pull up the ladder.
“What are you doing?”
Michel ignored Henry. The ladder looked fine till about halfway down. From there every wrung was snapped. Michel’s solution was a simple one. He turned the ladder over, and sent the good half down first.
“Listen to me, Henry. I want you to climb up the ladder, but make sure you put your feet as close to the poles as possible. I should be able to reach you from the top.”
Henry started up straight away. The ladder creaked as it had before, but it held. When he got to the last intact wrung, he reached his arm out. Michel lay belly down on the ground, elongated his body to get as much reach as he could and in that way he managed to fish Henry’s hand out. With a little effort, and a rush of wooziness, Michel dragged Henry to the surface.
Henry got to his feet and started flicking mud off his wet and dirty clothes. “I thought I might be stuck in there forever—like the moles in Wind in the Willows.”
“What are you talking about? The moles in that story live in houses, like humans,” said Michel.
“Really? That’s a bit funny. In houses? I just thought, they’re moles, so they’d live in holes.”
“Have you even read the story?”
“Not really. I’ve looked at the book.”
“You mean, you looked at the pictures?”
“Maybe I’m thinking of another book. Look at this!”
Henry thrust his hand into his pocket and retrieved a nugget. He beamed with pride. “Gold!”
Michel glanced down at the piece of rock covered with shiny metallic flecks. He looked back up at Henry’s excited face.
“Pyrite,” Michel said, matter-of-factly.
“Eh?”
“Not gold. Pyrite.”
“But it’s gold.”
“It’s golden,” Michel said, with emphasis. “Like gold. And like pyrite.”
“Not gold?” Henry said, incredulous.
“Fool’s gold, Henry. Fucking fool’s gold.”
Henry was crestfallen.
“Let us go. Come,” said Michel.
They made their way from the crop.
“Where’s the bike?” asked Henry, looking around, then back to Michel.
Before Michel could respond, Henry noticed Michel’s arm.
“Jesus! What happened? Shit … that’s a big cut.”
Only now did Henry start to really look at Michel, taking in the welts and the dirt smeared across his face, the ragged look in his eyes—not to mention the bloody jumper and gash to his shoulder. It looked like Michel had received a terrible flogging.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a scratch. Listen, I crashed the bike, ok?”
“What? Shit … what happened? Are you all right? Not bloody surprised, though. The way you drive.”
Michel glowered. He considered his riding skills to be impeccable, but he could hardly hold to that now.
“I didn’t see a boulder. I swerved late, ran the bike into a tree.”
“Blimey. Can it be fixed? Should we go get it?”
“No. It’s wrecked. Come on. Let’s go see what the fuss inside was about.”
“And did that fellow get away?”
“I already told you. Yes.”
“The bastard … But you’re fine, apart from that cut?”
“Great,” Michel said through gritted teeth.
“What about our bags, where’s our bags?”
“They’re … lost.”
“What? How do you mean, lost? Lost where? Aren’t they with the bike?”
“No. They … fell out. Gone.”
“Fell out … but me cup was in there, and a jumper.
And my blanket!”
“Jesus. If you get cold, you can cuddle up to me. Don’t worry about it, Henry. We can do without that rubbish.”
“Well, if I get court-martialed for losing me cup you’d better be taking the blame.”
“Yes, fine. If you get court-martialed for losing a measly fucking cup, I take the blame. Come on, let’s go.”
♦
Entering Vitrimont compound was like walking the front during a cease-fire.
The gates to the camp were open and untended. If prisoners wanted to escape, they could, but most the men had chosen to stay put. There was nothing for them outside—only fear and desperation. One man trailed Michel and Henry into the compound. He had been swept up in the frenzy of the moment and escaped, but, once outside, he wilted. The camp was his refuge.
Most of the remaining men were civilian. They wandered about aimlessly, dazed and in shock. The cries of the wounded could be heard from one of the buildings where two German prisoners who had been doctors tended seared flesh and bullet wounds. Some of the prisoners had started to collect the dead, laying out bodies in the exercise yard. Michel counted twenty-three corpses, with more coming.
Smoke lingered in the air, though the fires had burned themselves out. Cinder and rubble still glowed red where three buildings had been reduced to piles of ash. Some men threw buckets of water, steam hissing off the embers. It was largely pointless, but it gave them purpose.
Perhaps the strangest thing was the chooks and guinea fowl roaming the grounds, indifferent to all that had happened, only concerned with scratching the dirt for grubs. It was surreal.
No one paid Henry and Michel any notice. Five guards milled in front of a building. They seemed lost and anxious. They had rifles, but made no effort to direct the Germans.
Michel gently grabbed the arm of a prisoner walking past.
“What happened here?” he said in German, a language he knew even better than English.
Stony-faced, the man glanced at Michel, then kept walking.
Michel asked another man: “What happened here?”
He did not even stop.
Henry and Michel approached the guards. For all the guards knew, Henry and Michel were just two more prisoners. One of them raised his rifle and pointed it at Michel.
“Don’t come any closer,” he said.
Michel raised his hands and Henry did likewise.
“I’m French—a French soldier in the British Army. This man is a British soldier, too. We heard the gunfire. We came to help.”
The guard lowered his rifle.
“Help who? They’re already dead. All of them are fucking dead!”
Michel did not know what to say to the man whose voice was as hysterical as his words. He would have liked to slap some sense into him.
“I see a telegraph wire. Has anyone got through to the reserve in Oraon?” said Michel.
A different man answered: “Yes. Reinforcements are on the way.”
“And who is in charge till then?”
“Don’t you get it?” said the guard, pacing back and forth. “No one is! The prisoners, there you go. The prisoners are in charge! Here.” The guard thrust his rifle into Michel’s hands. “You’re the soldier. You be a hero. You be in charge.”
The man leant back against the building and let himself slide to the ground. “What could we do? There were so many,” he said.
He looked to his comrades for reassurance and received none. He looked to Michel. “They would have killed us. They would have killed us all …”
17
Three lorries and fifty French reservist soldiers arrived at the compound half an hour later.
There was nothing more for Michel and Henry to do, so they took the first opportunity to get out of there in the back of a lorry. They shared the space with the bodies of fifteen dead French guards.
Henry had been willing to wait for a better ride, but not Michel. He wanted to be gone. And he needed to drink. That desire only grew as he looked at the bodies.
A few of the guards had been felled with a single bullet, but most of them were riddled with holes, flesh and bone showing through. Dribbles of thick dark blood still spilled from the cold corpses and red rivulets collected on the wooden decking of the lorry. Every time they went up a hill, blood washed down and stopped at the side of Michel’s boot. Then when they started to descend it washed back and disappeared under the pile of bodies.
Henry seemed utterly indifferent to it all. Even the bumpy ride did not stop him from nodding off. He dozed most the way to Oraon.
Not Michel. His head was filled with pain and humiliation and anger. His solace was thoughts of the mountains. He so badly wanted to be among them now, for they were a place of sanctuary in a real and physical sense, but also, far more importantly, spiritually.
Michel began to think about his reading of history, insisted upon by an estranged yet conscientious father as part of a decent education, the sort of education that would stand him in good stead for a career in the public service. He thought of how it had always been true of Europe’s many wars that the mountains became pockets of sanctuary. Even in the eastern stretches of the Vosges where France and Germany had quibbled over a border for centuries, their respective armies had mostly given up on actual fighting after a few months of sorties, and a static front had abided for over two years now.
If it was a truism that mountains were for sanctuary, that meant the plains and low hills where farmers tilled fields and grazed herds were for the real fighting. Michel thought about why it should be so; it seemed blindingly obvious now that he bothered to turn his mind to it.
Head-on.
That was all there was to it. The places where it was easier to plow, sow seed and sweep a scythe were the same places it was easier to confront the enemy head-on, as if armies were going to meet like he and the German had in the forest, with blade and with fist, not with rotary gunfire and artillery that could destroy thousand-year old Cathedrals in a single blast.
The machinery of war has changed, and yet we men have not. Not the ones who plan it and not the ones who fight it. We dumb, blunt tools.
They were out of the woods, traveling a network of roads flanked by farms. Blood had started to seep through the leather of Michel’s boot and wet his sock. It felt cold and smooth. He knew that some of the butchered bodies at his feet probably belonged to the fields they passed.
Michel thought about the men of his own brigade, thinking they were fighting to protect territory or capture strategic targets or break through enemy lines and rout the Krauts all the way back to Germany. They were thoughts that made war palatable; naive thoughts thought by … well, perhaps not fools, but by men who existed in a state of willful ignorance. He had known better and still he had to be involved, perhaps making him the only real fool he knew.
What if I had just kept riding, like Henry wanted …
We could have already been at Amer Ami. And Maddy …
Just the thought of her was enough to make Michel’s eyes redden. Right then she was the only thing he could think of that was not mean and ugly and sullied by war. And yet thinking of her while surrounded by the bodies and blood and dark thoughts did not seem right.
Michel touched his hand to his jaw. It did not hurt so bad. But he needed a drink. He needed a whole lot of them.
18
“More whiskey. Double.”
Michel took the glass back to their table. It was late afternoon and Michel was on his fifth. Henry was only on his second beer, his attention focused on the stew he was wolfing down.
“I can’t really tell what’s in this, Michel, but it’s bloody good. Beats bread and oil, that’s for sure!”
“Fantastic. I’m very happy for you.”
“You should have some. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Henry, if I want a fucking wife I’ll marry one. Can’t you see I’m drinking?”
Michel swooshed some liquor around his mouth.
“Besides, n
ot everyone is like yourself. Jesus, is there no end to your gut?”
“What do you mean? I ain’t fat,” said Henry.
“You should be. Come on, finish that and drink. Drink!”
Michel gulped down the last of his whiskey. He had drunk the other four so fast the alcohol had not fully caught him up. His head still would not shut up. He just wanted to bludgeon it into submission.
“I’m going to get two beers. When I get back, that one had better be gone. Then we drink,” said Michel.
Henry finished the last mouthful of stew. He wanted to lick the bowl, but a residue of good manners prevented him from doing so. He ran two fingers along the rim, then licked the gravy from them. He raised his beer to drink and said, “This’ll be finished by the time you’re done wind-bagging.”
It was not often Henry got to wind Michel up. He enjoyed it when he did. While Michel went to the bar, Henry relaxed into his seat. He surveyed the room. Not a single woman. Not even an ugly or fat or fat ugly woman. A pub full of men.
Henry did not mind. His luck had held the night before, and now he felt utterly sated from food and drink and sex and the knowledge that for an entire week he would not become scattered bits of Englishman fertilizing what, sooner or later, would again be some French—or possibly German—potato field.
Henry retrieved from his pocket the nugget he had souvenired at Vitrimont. He held it close to his face.
“Looks like bloomin’ gold to me,” he mumbled to himself. “I’m keeping you, little fellow. See what Mom says when I get home. I think you’re gold. A big handsome gold nugget. Most handsome bloomin’ nugget I ever set me eyes on.”
Henry gave the nugget a polish on his shirt then a little kiss before putting it to bed in his pocket. Michel walked over and put the beers down on the table.
“What is wrong with you, Henry?”
“What?”
“I saw you talking to that hunk of worthless rock. And kiss it. You’re not going to fuck it, are you?”
Henry gulped down the last of his beer and reached for the fresh one.
“I might. Might take it home and melt it down and make it into a golden bride. And then make sweet love to her. And then she’ll have me some gold babies and I’ll sell them and become rich. And live in a gold house.”
Michel And Henry Go To War (The French Bastard Book 1) Page 10
