“What! How?”
“Yesterday I was in this very valley, Michel, and I thought I heard the sound of an engine. Once or twice I have seen a French plane flying up here, but you never know these days what is going on. So I watched the skies. All I saw was cloud, then two planes emerged from the white. Not just planes, Michel—these were flying monstrosities. I would not have believed such huge things could fly.
“And then I saw men dropping from the planes! Big half-balloons opened above them, and I swear to you, you know I have never told a lie in my life, they floated. I counted thirteen men like this, floating to the ground, higher in the valley.
“While these Germans were floating down, the planes headed for the valley beneath Lindarsen Peak. I scrambled higher and I watched them fly closer and closer to Lindarsen, till I could no longer see them. I heard two explosions. For about ten seconds, nothing, then the smoke rose up.
“You understand, don’t you? The big German planes crashed into the base of Lindarsen. And they meant to, there was no mistake. Both of them went to the same spot. There is no pass they could have been aiming for.”
A dozen questions buzzed Michel’s head, but Percy kept talking.
“All the floating men landed. I made higher ground and I saw them. Definitely soldiers. Germans. Twelve of them. There was a thirteenth, but he died in the fall. I watched them work their way north-east toward the pass. When they camped, I camped.
“This morning they started for the pass. I asked myself, what do these Germans want in my valley? There’s no war here. I went and found the dead German, the thirteenth. He was dangling from a tree, as dead as a strangled cat, so I cut him from his balloon—like a big round bed sheet, made of silk, I think—and I took this,” Percy said, patting a pistol tucked into his pocket. “Do you know what else I found?”
Michel had no idea. None of it made sense. He shook his head.
“Wait here,” Percy said. He walked off into the scrub.
Henry took the opportunity to ask Michel what was going on. He had figured out the old man was Percy, but there was clearly something afoot. Michel explained the best he could, for none of it made sense. The planes Percy described, so big that multiple men had fit inside, had to be the formidable Zeppelin bombers. A squad of German soldiers had parachuted into the valley. As for what it all meant, neither Michel nor Henry had any idea.
After a minute Percy returned with his horse. He dismounted and unhooked a pannier. He laid it out in front of Michel and opened the bag.
“You know what this is?” said Percy.
“Jesus,” muttered Michel.
“Dynamite. Now, what’s a stinking squad of Krauts doing in the mountains with a sack of dynamite? God knows how much the others have if they were willing to leave all this behind. Probably a hundred sticks! Well, what do you make of it? Hmm?”
Michel just stared and shook his head.
“They are going to blow up Pierre Dam!” said Percy.
“What? What dam? Why would they want to blow up a dam?”
“The dam! The big Pierre Dam!”
Michel tried to think, but it did not register.
Then Percy’s eyes opened wide and he said, “You don’t know what I’m talking about. Of course you don’t! The dam did not exist last you were here. Perhaps that says you’ve been gone too long. But that’s another matter. There is a stream that joins the River Meuse at Oraon; it is named after an old pioneer from many years ago, Henri Alcher.”
Michel nodded. He knew of the stream from having swum in its cool and clear waters near Oraon with Émile. He had never explored its source in the mountains, but he knew it was on the other side of the range, to the west.
“Four years ago, just before the war, they started building a dam to stop the waters of the Alcher up in the mountains. They said it was to ensure Oraon and the lower towns would never flood the way they did in ’11. And they said they would be able to make power out of the water, though that sounded like bullshit to me. Émile and I climbed Pieter’s Pass while the dam was under construction. We wanted to see if it was real.
“It was real, all right. Too real. A huge wall of rock and concrete that completely sealed the valley! They finished it two years ago, then at the end of last winter there was talk that the dam is almost full. I went to the pass again. Oh, it has to be seen to be believed. Its waters have swallowed everything. Hundreds of acres, gone, drowned. They must have enough water for all of France behind that dam. A travesty. And you know why they did it?”
“Oraon …” said Michel. It all made sense.
“Yes, Oraon! I don’t know how, but what they said was true. All day and night they make the water into electricity and send it to Oraon. And you should see Oraon now. It used to be a nice town. Not anymore. There are factories as far as the eye can see. Appeared overnight, like toadstools. Factories and railways and soldiers and everything. Because of that dam.
“I should have blown the worthless thing up myself. I should go give this godforsaken bag of bombs to the Germans so I make sure they do a good job!” said Percy, his saliva flecking the air. “But I will not, because you know what they make in Oraon? Bullets. And the big cannon shells, and lots of other things. Everything for the war. Do you see, Michel?
“That much water, if it comes down now, no one would survive. It wouldn’t be a matter of losing electricity. All the factories and homes would go! A wall of water one hundred yards high. It would be a thousand times worse than the last flood. It is why it is madness to build such a monstrosity. It is lucky you are here, Michel. We will go. We will stop them.”
Percy finally paused and Michel tried to take it all in. His mind throbbed with information; with the discovery that the war had followed him into the mountains. He tried to countenance what could be done—how Percy figured on stopping the Germans.
“You look dismayed, Michel. I thought you were a soldier. Come on, let us go,” said Percy. He put a foot in a stirrup.
“Wait, wait,” said Michel. “How do you mean to stop them? It’s too late. They have a half day start. Whichever way we go, it’s too late.”
“Rubbish! We go straight over the range. Right here. That way we beat them there. And I have the 45-70,” Percy said, patting the rifle that was powerful enough to bring down a bear.
“But Percy, there is no pass here. This escarpment is hell.”
Michel looked past the pines to the mass of gray beyond, where rock pushed from the earth.
“I know that face of rock can be climbed. I have done it before.”
“You climbed it?”
“Yes, many years ago, just after Émile was born. Back then I’d been like you boys. Young, free. But suddenly I had a child to look after. I panicked. Said I had to go hunt, get meat, but really I just came to the hut and felt sorry for myself and drank until I was numb. And then I did the stupidest, most reckless thing I could. I climbed the escarpment. Right here, no ropes, nothing. It was the most terrified I’d ever been in my life. And, God-willing, I should have fallen to my death with all that drink in me. But I made the crest. Maybe I was the first person to ever do so.
“But when I made it, I did not feel peaceful or happy. I felt stupid. Ashamed of myself. If I had died climbing those cliffs, where would my wife have been? God rest her soul. Where would my child have been? It was the most important moment in my life. A defining moment, when I finally became a man. Do you understand, Michel?”
Michel thought over Percy’s words, and he understood. In his own way, Percy was accusing him of being immature, perhaps even cowardly, in having run away from commitment and obligation. He had abandoned Maddy and what would have been a loving family in the Rabinauds because he was scared and confused with his place in the world, and never thought beyond himself. Now, with so much at stake, he had to become the man the war needed him to be.
“Fine. But I lead, Percy. I lead! I brought a length of rope with me. I will climb, then we set up a belay and you follow.”
“Enough talk,” said Percy, and it was decided.
Michel figured that they would not be up against any common soldiers. The Germans must have sent an elite unit—specially trained, disciplined and experienced. Twelve of them.
Against two, it was impossible. Against three was better, and perhaps still impossible. Michel began to explain the situation to Henry, who was coming whether he wanted to or not.
“This high-row-electricity dam, what is it?” said Henry, interrupting Michel.
“What are you asking?”
“The dam. High-row electric, the electricity. What’s that? Some sort of wall? A fence?”
“Jesus, Henry, you don’t know what hydro-electricity is?”
“No,” Henry said plainly.
“Hydro! Your country is a pioneer! One of the first! Have you never read a newspaper? The water flows from a dam and pushes turbines that make electricity. You’ve heard of that?”
“Rings a bell … So this making electricity, how exactly does it do that? What does it burn?”
“Jesus! It doesn’t matter how. What matters is that if they blow this dam many people will die, and the French war effort will be set back months. We must beat the Germans to the dam. That means climbing this range.”
“What?”
“Yes, we go over,” said Michel.
“Over that? No. Nooo, not over that. Let’s go the way they went. On our horses and that sodding mule. We’ll ride quicker.”
“This is the only way that is faster. We go,” said Michel.
“No bloody way! This was meant to be a week off from the war, and you’ve already nearly killed me once. No, I’m not going Michel. I don’t care what you say. And to hell with you, old man! Tell him to stop looking at me like that or … or I’ll pop him one on the chin. Tell him, Michel, bloody tell him. Yeah, you heard me, you old frog. You and your dumb mule both!”
Henry had said something similar two days ago, right before being thrown into the deep end of a violent P.O.W. outbreak. A look crossed his face. Michel smiled.
29
In the days when he was an elite soldier, before a bullet through the hip ended that career, it was the sense of anticipation that Kranz enjoyed the most. Whereas some men crumbled under the pressure or lost their stomachs or jabbered like idiots trying to calm their nerves, Kranz liked to quietly relish the feeling that was like a faint electrical charge running back and forth through his body.
It was the realization that despite even the best-laid plans, anything could happen. The prospect of something going wrong did not unsettle Kranz. It energized him.
In his makeshift camp in the Vitrimont forest, Kranz made his final preparation. It was a simple, seemingly banal act for such an important mission, but nevertheless essential. Lubricated with a little spit, Kranz rubbed the blade of the folding knife he had stolen the night before against the flat surface of a granite stone. He dragged it in neat little circles; one side, then the other.
To stab a man, a blade need not be particularly sharp. But to shave three days of stubble, a rusted steel edge simply would not do. Once he was in that munitions compound, Kranz knew his perfect French and ability to imitate accents was adequate to get him through unforeseen conversations. And his new set of clothes were those of an ordinary worker; he would blend in. But stubble? Some Frenchmen sported a trimmed beard or mustache. Unkempt facial hair, however, was out of the question.
As the afternoon sun dipped toward the western horizon, Kranz worked patiently at the blade till its length revealed shining steel. He scraped the fine edge along a fingernail. A filing of keratin started to spiral off, then the blade skipped. Not sharp enough.
Kranz added a little spit to the stone and went back to work.
30
Their first obstacle proved an unexpectedly taxing one, mainly because of Henry. They merely had to cross a bed of sheared rock: thousands of jagged blocks, some small, some enormous, that had crumbled from the surrounding rock-faces, forming what looked like a giant bed of dry rapids.
Henry did not possess any climbing technique or natural ability and required a hand up with even these simple climbs. It did little to convince Percy they had made the right decision bringing him. As Henry became slower and slower, his strength sapped by inept attempts at rock scrambling, Michel became less and less patient, till he bodily dragged Henry up some of the bigger blocks.
Percy forged further and further ahead. By the time he reached the base of the first cliffs, Henry and Michel lagged almost thirty yards behind. When they negotiated the final few boulders, Percy said, “So slow! You understand we must make that saddle before dusk, yes? So we must move. If you cannot keep up, I will go alone.”
Michel did not reply to Percy with words. He looked at him with brooding intensity, then he turned to Henry, who was a quivering mess of slender muscle.
“Henry, I climb first, then Percy, then you. At the top of each section, I’ll find footing then drop the rope down. You fasten it to your body like this.”
Michel showed Henry a simple way of looping the rope around his legs and waist and tying it off. In this, at least, Henry was competent.
Michel made it clear that the cliffs were too tall and many for him to pull Henry up. He simply had to climb, or they would not make it. Michel would be on the other end of the rope taking some of his weight—but only some.
Henry said nothing. He did not need to. His face expressed all his horror and hatred for what he was being put through.
Michel set off with the rope draped around his chest and the shotgun slung across his back, neither of which made the climb any easier. The first section was long and mostly straightforward. It went straight up over about thirty yards, with one long fissure running diagonally across three-quarters of the height of the rock face, then it went vertical to the top of the cliff. The good thing about the cliff was that it was ragged, offering little knobs of rock that Michel could use for handholds.
To Henry watching below, it seemed like Michel glided up the cliff with next to no effort, though that was simply the illusion of technique being applied with steely concentration.
Michel wedged one boot and both his hands in a deep fissure as his other boot smeared over the rock face, trying to gain enough friction so he could take the next lunge upwards. Rock climbing was about using the lower body for power and upper body for balance, but Michel had no choice other than to use his arms to help haul himself up. By the time he reached the first ledge, his shoulders were fatigued and his forearms burned to the point of pain. He immediately sent the rope down.
Percy fixed it to his waist and started up the same route. Climbing had always been a young man’s game, but Percy attacked the cliff with youthful vigor. By Michel’s reckoning, Percy’s assent was intemperate bluster. Was the old man trying to better him? Was he trying to prove time had not cowed him? Though there was no denying Percy’s ability, he moved too quickly to be properly assessing each individual grip.
“Slow down, Percy!” yelled Michel.
Percy reached the vertical section of the fissure. Whereas till that point Percy had climbed without assistance, with the rope around his waist merely there as a precaution, Michel now applied tension, taking at least thirty pounds of pressure from the old man. Again, he moved up the cliff-face with speed. When he hauled himself over the precipice onto the ledge, Michel was fuming.
“Damn it, Percy, are you trying—”
Michel stopped. He realized the old man was in a bad way. His face was bright red and he was covered in sweat. He gasped a mix of short and long breaths. Michel took a second to compose himself.
“Percy, we must be more careful, and we must go slower. It is dangerous to push yourself like this.”
Percy got to his feet. “You just worry about that Englishman. I was climbing before you were born.”
Percy u
ntied the rope from his waist and threw it down to Henry. Henry secured himself, then stood looking skyward, a small man looking up to his temporary gods.
“Just follow the same way we came, Henry. Keep your foot in the crack, and you’ll be ok,” yelled Michel.
Henry did not whine. His will was utterly broken, and he followed orders. This time Michel kept tension on from the beginning. By taking about fifty pounds of pressure—no easy feat—Henry had less than one hundred pounds of his own weight to pull up the cliff.
He started. With constant instruction and reassurance yelled from Michel, Henry slowly progressed up the rock wall. Unlike Percy, Henry was very careful. Each foot tested its placement, each hand felt for a firm grip. Slowly but surely, he made it to the vertical section of the fissure without so much as slipping—but that was the easy part.
Henry tried copying the technique Michel and Percy had used. Two hands and one foot in the crack, one foot spread across the rock face, push up.
He did not move. He simply did not have the strength. Three times, four times, five times Henry tried, but he was stuck. He started to panic, his head twisting left and right, as if he might find another way out, perhaps a convenient stairway down.
“It’s all right Henry, just wait. It’s all right. We’re going to pull you up. Percy, I need your help. Percy!”
Michel turned his head to where Percy had been resting. He was not there. He could not crane his neck while holding onto Henry, but Michel knew that if he looked to the skies he would see Percy, already making his way up the next cliff. Michel was furious.
“Hold on and climb when you can, Henry! I’m pulling you up!”
Michel gritted his teeth and panted like a beast as, one hand after another, he dragged Henry up the cliff. It took everything he had left, to the point that his head was shaking with the strain by the time two small hands grabbed at the ledge. Henry pulled himself to safety.
No Trench To Rest (The French Bastard Book 1) Page 14
