Michel kissed each of the women on the cheeks. He gripped Percy’s hand and embraced him roughly.
“Good luck, Percy. There is much to talk about after this. And maybe a few bottles of your wine to share.”
“Much. Now, let us go kill these pig fuckers. They are probably looking for this,” he said, patting the German pistol in his pocket, “and I intend on returning it.”
Percy turned and made for the northern shore. Michel set about explaining to Henry his role. The Englishman listened attentively, periodically shaking his head and muttering, “Jesus, Jesus,” slightly lisping the “s” due to the gap in his teeth.
“Henry, I know you can do this. You have to do this, because they will not stop till they have either blown this dam or all of them are dead. Think about it. Where is their escape? Back through the mountains into Switzerland or Germany? They would never make it. Into France, blend in, make their way to the front? Their swine stench would be sniffed out in seconds. No, there is no escape for these Germans. It is as good as a suicide mission, which means they are not afraid to die. And so we must be ready to kill, Henry. Kill without hesitation. Are you with me?”
There was something about Henry that Michel knew, something that had always been left unsaid. Henry had never killed a man. When they were on the frontline, Henry almost never fired his Lee–Enfield. When he did, he was a cannily bad shot. Germans would have to jump ten feet in the air to be sniped by Henry. Even when he was in that bunker in Rinay with Michel, fighting for his life, the stain of killing somehow escaped his hands. But there would be no escape from it today.
“You can rely on me,” said Henry.
“Good, good.” Michel extended a hand. “I wish you luck, my friend. I will see you on the other side. And Henry, whatever you do, do not touch the steel rail below.”
Henry climbed the ladder and toggled a switch. The spotlight came to life, the filament glowing a warm orange. After a few seconds, a fierce white luminescence took over, equivalent to twenty thousand candles. He swung the spotlight around so that it was aimed at the base of the cliffs, two hundred yards away. The beam broadened out to illuminate an area five yards wide. With refraction off the rock face, the entire beachhead was visible. Any German running the gauntlet would be lit up like a rabbit in headlights. Then, with a little luck, Maudette and Damia would send him to the big Reich in the sky.
33
Verdun: no-man’s-land.
All afternoon, as he waited for darkness, Émile had lain perfectly still and silent, so much so that the German sniper picking off survivors could not distinguish him from the corpses. But he lived—Émile was sure of that much, for the pain in his shoulder was brutal.
He was one of the lucky ones. The unlucky were the bloated corpses strewn across the field. The unlucky were those better off dead than living—jaw blown away from a single bullet, legs mangled in a hail of machinegun fire. Even if they survived, they might wish they had not.
The unluckiest of them all was the soldier given his salvation only to be stripped of it a short while later. A few corpses beyond Émile, there lay a boy who had become a man to fight for his country. He had survived the machinegun fire that cut the assault to pieces before they were within fifty yards of the German trenches. Whether he tripped and had the good sense not to get up or had simply tried to save himself when all was lost, the boy lay with the dead without so much as a scratch on him. He was blessed.
Blessed and tired. The 21st had been on the front for a rotation of eight days before being dropped behind the lines for rest. The first day of rest saw bursts of sleep punctuated by artillery bombardments and the nightly swarming of rats that gnawed through hessian and canvas to steal a soldier’s rations, and once they had done with rations went on to molest rigid corpses and sleeping men alike.
There had been no time, let alone any facility, to clean up, shave, wash clothes, pick the mud from one’s socks and boots—anything that made a soldier feel human again. There was fitful sleep, then on the second day of scheduled rest they had been thrust back into the trenches. There were not enough new recruits to take the place of the dead. The army’s schedule had not figured on an entire brigade being wiped out in a single day.
So the men of the 21st were tired and depleted of ranks, but that was the way of things. They rejoined the front where the decimated regiment reformed with soldiers from other similarly depleted units. A devastated company of the Canadian 3rd infantry division temporarily came under command of the French, helping complete the 21st beside soldiers from the 112th and 42nd regiments of the French infantry. An assortment of war-weary men rejoined the frontline, tired and beat and disabused of their thirst for war, but war’s thirst for men demanded their presence.
When the 21st was sent over the top in the mid-afternoon, there was every hope the artillery had destroyed the German embattlements. But if they had, the delay between the bombardment and the subsequent assault was enough for the Germans to re-establish their lines and set up half a dozen machineguns. When the call came, the Germans let them reach within one hundred yards of their trenches before they opened up. That way there was no escape, even if they tried to retreat. The last of the 21st had been obliterated, and no-man’s-land was a field of death.
But the boy had survived, unscathed. Like Émile, he had lain as still as he could through the afternoon, waiting for the cover of darkness. But he was tired and, with stinking corpses all around him, the boy slipped into sleep.
For a few precious moments there was no artillery and no rats and only the occasional gunshot, and so he slept well. He had been on his back all afternoon. He came out of his slumber just enough to readjust his body, bringing his legs up. He was as comfortable as could be hoped for and again started to drift off. That is when a German sniper sent a bullet from a high-powered rifle through both his raised knees.
For a long time, the boy screamed. It took all Émile’s self-control not to risk crawling over. Eventually his screams reduced to cries. If the boy survived there was no facility for reconstructive surgery in the field hospitals. He would surely lose the first leg the bullet went through, and maybe both.
Would he still be one of the lucky ones?
It made Émile sick to the gut to think that in a war where death was served up on an industrial scale, where a single battle could produce tens of thousands of dead, there was nevertheless a German sniper compelled to stalk a solitary French boy all afternoon, just so he could maim him.
As darkness settled over the battlefield, Émile waited for his chance.
34
Per instructions, Kranz waited till the onset of night. It was dark and gloomy in Oraon, but the compound was well lit and there were still many workers on-site. Kranz reasoned that his best chance was not to go unnoticed, but to go unchallenged. Just another anonymous old man headed to or from the factory line.
He waited for a lull in the movement of people, then for a patrolling guard to pass. He ran for the fence, knowing that this was the most dangerous part. If he got through, everything else would fall into place. He pulled out a pair of stolen wire cutters and quickly cut the strands, snip, snip, snip. The guard was one hundred yards away. Kranz knew he would turn soon.
For the sake of speed and in the hope the hole might go unnoticed, Kranz only cut a small section. He squeezed his thin body through the gap, but as he tried to stand a wire caught the back of his shirt. He wriggled to try and pry it free, but it remained caught. There was no time to mess around. He forced up, ripping away a small piece of fabric. He strode from the fence without looking back.
After four or five steps, Kranz slowed his gait to a comparative crawl. The guard turned and Kranz fell within his line of vision. He moved casually, posture completely at ease. The guard watched him. Kranz was closer to the fence than to any building.
The guard drew on a cigarette. Its tip blazed a pretty glow. It was down to the nub, so he let it drop and ground it out with the heel of his boot. The guard
reached for another and lit up. Kranz continued on his way.
He walked past a truck parked in the loading bay of a building filled with thousands of shells. Two men were manhandling crates, talking noisily. He thought he caught one of the men watching him. Kranz turned his head and met the look.
“Bonjour,” called Kranz.
“G’day,” replied the man.
Kranz added a smile and a nod to his greeting. He kept walking as he took a mental snapshot of the warehouse. Apart from the two men, the building seemed deserted. Various apparatus hung from the scaffolding and rafters. Crates lined the floor, and toward the rear of the building there were batches of drums. He could see an open door at the rear and another large set of sliding doors ajar, opposite the explosives factory. The explosives factory was still busy manufacturing, as smoke and steam billowed from the chimneys.
Kranz decided to keep walking and double around the back of the warehouse, to enter the back door. There was a good chance he could set a long fuse to a crate of dynamite, then evacuate without being detected. But he had the feeling he was being watched by the men he had passed. He held his pace and kept his calm. He thought he was safe.
“Hey, mate!”
Kranz kept walking.
“Oi!”
Kranz stopped and slowly turned. There were thirty yards between them.
“You speak English?” the man called.
He smiled. “A little.”
“Where you off to?”
“I have to … speak to the boss,” said Kranz.
“Any chance it can wait a few minutes?”
It appeared the man was not challenging him. Kranz decided to play friendly. “I suppose.”
“Listen, would you mind giving us a hand loading the truck? I’m already overdue, and it’s just the two of us. Be quicker with three. Can you lend a hand?”
Kranz smiled a faux-friendly smile. “Of course.” Perhaps there would be an opportunity in this.
“Thanks, mate. I’m Ernie,” said the unusually large anglophone.
“I’m …” and Kranz was about to give his fake identity, to say Hinrich Vlass, but he suddenly realized he could not give the name of an escaped German prisoner, and then his mind went momentarily blank. Of all the things that might catch him off guard, a stupid name had done it. A half-second passed, an eternity of silence, and Kranz’s hand was already in his pocket, his fingers wrapping around the steel of his switchblade. A name, a name, just any French name …
“… Michel,” he finally said, for that was the only name that came to him.
The big man smiled. “Don’t say? Got a mate called Michel. Be a funny bloody name in Australia. I suppose there’s a million of you in France. Mick back home. Or Mike, Michael, Micky if you’re a bit of a dickhead. You get the picture.”
The two shook hands. Another man on the back of the truck arranging crates poked his head from behind the canvas.
“Hi. Thanks for the help. I’m Vicq,” the man said in French.
“Evening,” replied Kranz. “I’m Michel.”
“So listen, Mick. We’ll haul the crates up to Vicq, but they’re dynamite, so be careful. Don’t want the whole bloody place to go up in smoke. You see the ones with the blue markings?” said Ernie.
Kranz nodded.
“They’re the ones we’re loading. Right, let’s get stuck in, and maybe I’ll finally get out of this place.”
Ernie and Kranz set to work.
35
Michel waited behind the concrete at the edge of the northern wall, scanning the shores of the lake. He could barely see thirty feet. If the Germans came—and Michel considered it a certainty they would—he was hoping instinct would alert him to their presence, otherwise he might be dead before he knew the fight was on.
Ariane hunched beside him. She sucked on a strand of long curling hair. There was something childish and endearing about it, but it made Michel uneasy. Could this woman with the nervous tic of a child take a man’s life if she had to?
Ariane gently touched his arm. “Michel,” she whispered. She had the revolver in her hand. “I want you to take this. If you go out there and fight them, you will need it more than me.”
Michel nodded and took the revolver. He flicked open the cylinder, saw there were six bullets loaded, then flicked it back into place and tucked it into his belt.
“Officer issue,” he said, his voice mostly air. “Where did you get it?”
Ariane’s eyes cast down. “My husband’s.”
Michel nodded. He did not need to ask anything more. Ariane’s husband had fought—and died.
“A cuirassier. His father, too, a long time ago. The war with Prussia,” said Ariane.
“Cuirassiers … hmm, different then. Men on horses could turn the tide. Fighting was old-fashioned. Simpler,” said Michel.
“Yes. And little boys idolize fathers. Timoleon and his brother joined the same regiment. He was so graceful on a horse. They both were,” said Ariane, and smiled. “Then when the war broke out … Can you imagine, two brothers following in their father’s footsteps? Of course I worried, but not so much as I felt proud. I did not know. No one knew.”
“It’s not the thing we thought. Maybe it never was,” said Michel.
Ariane swallowed. “He was one of the first from our town to die in battle. Everyone told me how noble Timoleon’s sacrifice was. Why do they say noble? I am proud of what he did, fighting for us, but what happened was not noble. It was cruel. Cruel and pointless. I wrote a letter every week, telling him silly little things. Plans for life when the war was over. About the changing season. Stories of home. For two months I wrote with no reply before they returned all my letters. Three years ago, Michel. He was dead and the war had only just begun. For nothing. He died for nothing.”
Ariane stared intently at Michel. “The gun is what was left. His brother brought it back. And I hate it. I hate that gun. But until today, I carried it everywhere. I could not stand to part with it.”
Michel placed his hand on her shoulder. “Then I will use it well. Thank you.”
And if those bastards try to hurt you, I shall slaughter every last one of them.
Ariane’s intense eyes were bloody and hot and accusing and needful. Michel had to turn away. He had to keep his focus.
He looked out along the bank. Percy was there, somewhere, ready and waiting. So too the Germans, of that he was certain. It was only a matter of time.
36
An hour passed with Percy nestled behind a rocky outcrop. His grizzled mug was pure concentration. The fore of his 45-70 rested in the groove of one of the rocks. The rifle butt tucked snug into his shoulder. His cheek pressed up against the worn stock and his finger floated next to the trigger. He was ready. He had been ready all his life.
A sound.
Percy’s finger wrapped around the trigger. He waited, his eyes bearing into the darkness.
Nothing. Moments ticked by.
He heard it again. Still nothing showed.
Percy made the snap decision that he needed to move. Yes—he would take the fight to them. He did not care how many there were. He would always be better stalking than being stalked.
Ever since his father took him on that first hunting trip into Rabinaud Valley fifty years ago, Percy had practiced the art of hunting. All those days creeping through snow, watching for tiny signs, disappearing into the breeze—it had all been leading to this. His life as a hunter was one long preparation, and now Percy was ready to hunt the ultimate game. He very slowly inched away from his cover, imperceptible to Michel below.
A water vole munching on clumps of grass near the lakeshore made just enough noise to sound like a man skulking through the undergrowth. Percy pressed on, taking a line up the slope, away from the water. There were about fifty yards of good tree cover from the lakeshore before the foliage thinned out to bushes, grass and rock. He proceeded slowly and watchfully. He controlled his breathing to a regular and even rhythm. He gave away nothing
and took in everything.
He had been on the move for fifteen minutes, creeping inch by inch. Calculating distance at night was nigh impossible, but Percy knew he had not gone far. He figured one hundred and fifty yards, given he was not yet in line with the cliffs lit up on the distant side of the lake. He stopped and listened.
He heard nothing. Too much nothing. The crickets had gone quiet.
A whooping owl called, then pushed into flight, soaring across the surface of the lake. Percy moved stealthily to a position where a gray fur stood next to an outcrop of stone. He eased himself into a crouching stance, raised his rifle and waited.
Somewhere ahead, a dry twig snapped. Percy had to suppress a sharp intake of breath as the adrenaline tore through his body. He did not let his mind stray from the simple focus on outside stimulus. He trusted what it was his senses were telling him—and they were telling him they were coming.
And close. Percy’s finger wrapped around the rifle trigger. He had one in the chamber, four in the magazine. With the German pistol he had souvenired, that made thirteen bullets.
A shape. Percy blinked rapidly to wash away the haze of an old man’s weakening focus, but it was still there. A phantom tempted the edges of darkness forty-five yards away. Percy breathed and turned his head to the side to use his peripheral vision. Still there.
The indistinct mass very slowly formed into the shape of a man. The green camouflage of the German tunic gave off almost no reflection, but at forty yards Percy saw the unmistakable outline of a face. Two yards beneath the first, a second phantom filtered from the night. Percy thought he heard others. Two, maybe three.
No Trench To Rest (The French Bastard Book 1) Page 16
