He sprinted past the wounded German who was straight back on his feet, clasping his weapon. Michel flip-cocked the shotgun with one hand, the action fluid. He was a few yards past the German when Michel draped the shotgun behind him and without casting a backward glance he squeezed down on the trigger—kaboom!—finishing the man. He rolled the lever over.
Crack.
A soldier thirty yards ahead had lined Michel up, the bullet whizzing by with a high-pitched sound. He veered toward the German’s position and smashed through a low branch without flinching, then let rip.
Kaboom! The man dropped.
Two more rifles opened up, their position behind Michel and just on the border of darkness. The bullets ripped through the scrub either side of his body, but before he could turn to them there was still the soldier in front who had regained his feet in the wake of a body peppered with shot. Michel cranked the lever and aimed rough and ready.
Kaboom!
The blast of fire lit the scene for a fraction of a second and Michel caught sight of a man rushing from cover, Mauser at his shoulder.
Crack.
The German missed but he was already working the bolt. Michel cranked the shotgun’s lever, aimed fast and yanked down on the trigger. The hammer made a little tap sound; there was no explosion and no flame and no hot lead. He had run out of bullets.
Michel hurled himself to the ground just as the soldier squeezed off a well-aimed shot. The bullet hit the rubber heel of Michel’s boot as he rolled and came up with Ariane’s six-shooter. The German was thirty feet away. The other two behind him let off a volley, then German words rang out in the night and they began crashing through foliage.
They were making for the dam.
There was no time. The German in front of him fired and Michel threw himself into another roll. As he came up he triggered the six-shooter as his left palm cranked the hammer once, twice, three times, boom boom boom.
One of the rounds smashed into the German’s rifle, spraying his face with splinters of wood. He went down screaming, his eyes a mess. He was not dead, but it would do.
Two strides and Michel was sprinting toward the dam wall, variously dodging trees and crashing through low branches and bushes, his legs carrying him in huge bounds. He was gaining and could see the hazy shapes of two Germans weaving between the trees. He was no chance of hitting them with the six-shooter. Michel ran hard and closed to thirty yards, then twenty. He skidded to a stop, raised the revolver and lined up the closest.
But another was barreling through the undergrowth to his left. Michel swung around too late. The German hurtled headlong into Michel. He cartwheeled from his feet. The revolver knocked from his hand as he spun sideways into a tree where he stopped cold, his ribs taking the full brunt of the impact. The German sprawled on the ground, but he was back on his feet in an instant, scrambling for his rifle.
It felt like hot irons stabbing through his chest as Michel got to his feet and pushed off with all the power he had, his body screaming pain, bloody pain. One, two, three strides, but the German had his rifle and so Michel drove under, his shoulder plunging into the man’s solar plexus. The force lifted him off his feet and Michel tilted and pile-drove him into the ground.
Air puffed from the German’s lungs and the impact jolted the rifle from his hands. Michel wasted no time in scrambling forward to position himself over the German. He rained down punches, every one sending a stab of pain through his rib cage and into his chest.
The German fought back hard. He swung his arms and legs in wild arcs and his whole body writhed like a cut worm. Michel’s fists kept pounding, then an errant knee smashed into his side. It hit him like a bullet, a bolt of agony that momentarily took his senses and left his muscles a quivering mess.
The German knocked Michel onto his back and it was all the chance he needed. He went for his rifle. He had it in his hands and he was getting to his feet as Michel met him, one hand locking onto the barrel and the other onto the stock.
Neither could let go. Control of the weapon was life and death. Michel used his strength to raise the rifle above their heads, forcing the German to buckle. But the German, having seen what a blow to his opponent’s ribs had done, sacrificed the last of his balance to land a strike with his knee, just above Michel’s kidney.
Pain flared through Michel’s body, running from his shoulder through his chest and ending in his crotch. The German delivered the same again and again, and Michel buckled. A fourth and fifth time and Michel dropped to his knees, his hands still stubbornly holding onto the rifle, but all his strength had gone.
The German kicked him hard in the chest and Michel’s grip slipped. He fell backward onto the ground. The soldier whipped the gun up and aimed at Michel’s face, but then he reeled around with the rifle, for there was somebody else coming fast.
“Leave him alone!” screamed Henry, as he swung his one good arm with all the force he could muster, cracking the German’s skull with a jagged lump of rock. The rifle dropped with the soldier’s body. He lay on the ground and did not get up. The blow had dented his skull and instantly turned the man into a dribbling mess of limbs and orifices.
Henry stood over him with his rock raised high. His arm trembled. He swallowed and closed his eyes and gritted what was left of his teeth as he prepared to deliver the death blow, but then there was the sound of bone splitting and Henry looked down.
It was done. Michel’s fingers uncoiled from the handle of his knife. He had plunged six inches of cold steel into the German’s fiery heart.
Henry dropped the rock. “Jesus, did he get you? Are you all right?”
“Quack,” replied Michel through clenched teeth and strained eyes. He pushed himself to his feet and Henry gave a steadying hand.
“But two more, Henry, making for the dam. Must hurry.”
Michel picked up the German’s rifle and started off. He tried to run, but he could not. A coil of agony was wrapped around his lungs, squeezing mercilessly with every movement he made. He could only walk and hardly that. Henry jumped to his side and draped Michel’s arm around his shoulder, taking some of his weight.
It did not matter. Michel knew he would be too late. It was up to the women now. To Maudette and Damia and Ariane. They were brave. They were resolute. But were they whites-of-eyes killers?
40
As the battle raged in the forest of the southern shore, a different kind of battle flared between Maudette and Damia.
Damia was a pragmatist. She wanted to open up the 75mm on the Germans based on where they saw the muzzle flashes. She accepted there was a chance of hitting Michel and Henry, but it was a matter of sacrificing the few for the many.
Maudette had fought her, refused to allow it, for she said it was not humane and not right. If they chanced to kill their own, they would be no better than the Germans with whom they were at war. She did not know for a fact that Germans would be more ruthless, but she felt it must be true.
And then the window of opportunity passed. After the last gunshot rang out, they had no idea if Michel and Henry were still alive. Nor did they know how many Germans were headed their way.
A sudden flash of bright blue light lit the shore near the southern side of the dam wall. A few seconds later a warm glow flickered to life, casting a faint red hue on the trees. The women could not see the source and were at a loss. Maudette wondered if it was a fuse burning down. She waited, impotent in the face of whatever course of action had been set in motion.
♦
Seventy yards away, beneath the concrete wall, a German was latched onto the steel ladder. Twenty thousand volts of electricity coursed through his body.
He had died almost instantly, but the current forced his muscles to contract, and thus his corpse held onto the ladder in grim death as his organs started to boil and then his hair and clothes crackled with flame, casting that pleasant red hue.
For the last German standing, and the last man with a leather pouch filled with dynamite slun
g across his chest, it was the grisliest of deaths to witness. He had been inches from following. Now he scrambled up the rock embankment.
He looked for any other obvious traps. He saw none. He stepped onto the gravel road and slung the Mauser from his shoulder. He checked there was a round chambered then raised the weapon, aimed carefully and placed pressure on the trigger till it was a hair away from firing. He started to slowly exhale and squeezed the last millimeter. The bullet left the muzzle at thirty-two-hundred feet per second.
♦
In the time it took Damia to realize the flash was gunfire, the bullet had entered Maudette’s breast and exited through her back. Maudette’s head jerked and her body followed. She crashed backward to the ground, where she did not move, except for the almost imperceptible subsidence of her chest as the last air of an incomplete breath escaped.
Damia stared at her dead friend. She needed to work the cannon, but her brain had stopped thinking and her body had stopped moving. She was in shock. She was frozen. She sucked in little gasps of air without exhaling. A strained sound came from her throat, a cry stifled by fear.
Crack.
Another bullet sizzled through the air, but this time it came from the rifle of Ariane. She ran, calling: “Damia! Damia!”
Ariane worked the bolt and pulled the rifle to her shoulder. She fired blind.
“Damia!” she called again, now just yards away.
Another shot cracked and Damia shuddered a little where she stood, but nothing else happened. Arian stopped next to her.
“Fire, Damia! Fire at him!”
Ariane propped on a knee and raised her rifle to her shoulder. She aimed at the gut of the German who had his own rifle pointed at the women. Ariane did not settle or steady, knowing there was no time, but she was sure the German was in her sights. She fired, yet the bullet missed by a yard, ricocheting from boulders. It threw out splinters of rock and the German flinched. He dropped a hand and his aim, but he wasted no time bringing the rifle back to his shoulder.
Ariane worked the bolt on her rifle, but now the German fired. As he did, the frozen figure of Damia fell rigid and slow, like a grand statue yanked from its moorings by rope and chain attached to a team of horses. She crashed directly onto Ariane and her rifle, and if she was not dead when she fell from the earlier bullet that had entered just beneath her armpit, she was dead when the German’s second bullet tore open half her spinal column and fragments of lead shredded the cavity of her chest.
Ariane’s rifle discharged into the ground and was now pinned beneath Damia. Ariane was knocked back. She wriggled forward, keeping a low profile.
“Damia? Damia?” she called.
Though she was not familiar with the face of death, when Ariane saw Damia’s open mouth, unmoving eyes and slack face, she instinctively knew she was dead. But there was no time to think about it.
Ariane tried to push Damia’s heavy body up and over to free her rifle. She struggled, raising the corpse a few inches. Then she heard the German’s rifle crack and felt Damia’s body shudder. It was accompanied by a toneless thud. Damia had become a sandbag protecting Ariane’s position.
Ariane was horrified and angered. She fought harder to roll Damia away, but dead weight was awkward and her own strength was slight. Another bullet thumped into Damia’s body.
Ariane knew that as the German reloaded she had a brief window of opportunity. She jumped up and ran to the cannon. She hastily adjusted the 75mm’s aim to a few yards beside the German, not trying for a direct hit given an explosion could set off the dynamite. A rifle cracked and a bullet zinged from the cast iron guard of the cannon. Ariane reflexively ducked, then she yanked the firing pin.
Fire and smoke exploded from the barrel of the cannon. A fraction of a second later, the earth erupted beside the German, sending him sprawling. His rifle went flying.
After a few seconds, he got up. He was groggy. He wobbled. It took him two attempts to snatch his rifle from the ground. Then he started loping forward. He nearly fell several times, but his pace quickened and momentum kept him upright. He continued to gain speed until he was running.
Ariane slammed another shell into the chamber, then adjusted the cannon’s aim. She hesitated, unsure of what to do. The German was now on the wall. She had to fire to save the dam and the people of Oraon, but if she did it might send them all to their deaths anyway. It was impossible.
The German stopped when level with the master’s hut. He raised his rifle. Ariane ducked behind the cannon, trying to protect herself. But before the German could fire, a body lunged from the stairwell and a huge iron wrench slammed into his neck. The glancing blow slid down and knocked the raised rifle, causing the German to fire harmlessly into the concrete. The recoil and surprise sent the Mauser flying from his unsteady hands.
Ariane realized that it was Becquerel, the dam engineer. Before he could deliver a second blow, the German tackled him to the ground. The sight of Becquerel jolted Ariane to action. She ran to where Damia’s body lay. This time she positioned herself on Damia’s other side. She grabbed her limp arm and lent back and used her legs to heave, and with the extra leverage she managed to roll Damia away from the rifle.
Ariane brought the 8mm to shoulder and cheek. She waited for a clear target, for the figures were intertwined and wrestling—but not for long. Even in his groggy, half-beat state, the German was much stronger than Becquerel. He gained the upper hand and positioned himself over the engineer.
Ariane had her target. She pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
She had not reloaded. She worked the bolt, but the spent round was jammed. She rammed the bolt forward so the little steel claws could get another grip on the cartridge, then pulled back. Still it did not come. She repeated the action again and again, looking up as she did to see the German raining heavy blows upon Becquerel.
The engineer tried to shield himself with his hands. He turned his face toward Ariane and called: “The cannon! Fire the cannon!” The German kept pounding at his head. “It will hold! Tr—” and a heavy blow knocked him unconscious. The German kept punching, his fists making dull thudding sounds on Becquerel’s face.
Ariane dropped her rifle and dashed to the 75mm as the soldier got to his feet. She aimed the cannon low, directly at the dam wall where the German was. It would kill Becquerel, but there was no saving him now. No saving any of them.
The German got to his feet. He did not pick up his rifle. Instead, he unbuckled a holster and drew his pistol. He stepped forward and took aim.
Ariane ducked. A pop was followed by the zing of a bullet against the plate metal of the 75mm. Another pop, another zing.
Ariane peeked above her cover. The German was getting closer, walking steadily.
Pop, zing!
Her heart was pounding so hard and quick that her hand shook as she gripped the firing chain. She had to trust Becquerel knew what he was talking about. What option was there? She closed her eyes and pulled.
41
Slumped on the banks of the northern shore, his face red and burned, Percy had the perfect view of the dam wall and the subsequent explosion that engulfed it.
There had been two blasts, almost impossible to differentiate, the smaller shell-burst setting off the German’s pouch of high explosives. Percy closed his eyes, for he knew now they had failed and he did not want his last sight to be of a wall of water rushing down the valley to consume the friends he had known all his life.
The aging vintner let his weak body fall. His thoughts went back to his dear Maddy, to Émile, to his father and mother, to his beautiful wife Olivie who had been taken too soon. It all coalesced around Amer Ami: the place where his life had been conceived, the place where he had raised his own family. It had always been home.
At no moment in his life had Percy ever doubted that one day it would also be the place where he took his final breaths. Now he knew that was wrong. He would die on the shores of a dam he hated, emptied of every last drop of its cursed cha
rge. Yet if death beckoned now, he would not fight it. He might resent the terms, but he was ready.
As the last pieces of debris splashed into the water and the final echo of the explosion bounced back from the mountains, the valley fell into silence.
Silence?
Percy opened his eyes. He struggled to push his body upright. Above, the clouds had cleared a gap that revealed a sliver of moon, which in turn cast a patina of silver upon the lake. Yes, the lake.
Percy strained, wondering if his mind deceived him. It seemed that not a drop of water gushed from the reservoir. That the dam wall stood, holding back a flood. That the concrete arch remained whole—terrible and magnificent and whole.
Then he saw them. Two figures, huddled together, slowly making their way onto the edge of the wall. Percy knew it had to be Michel.
It was an enormous comfort to know he was alive—that Michel had returned and would be there to look after his Maddy. As for Émile, he would look after himself. He may well be at Verdun, but Percy knew, somehow, his only son would make it through.
Percy lay back and closed his eyes. There was no more fight in him. His last thought was that he had lived a good life and he would leave behind a good son and good daughter. A man could ask for no more.
There was a smile on his face as he slipped away.
42
Kranz retrieved his knife from the chest of the guard and dragged his body behind the truck. He grabbed a jimmy bar he saw hanging on the wall and ran past crates till he was in the middle of the warehouse. He jammed the sharp edge of the bar under a lid and worked the nails loose, just enough to push the bar further under. With his good hand, Kranz used brute force to lever the lid off, revealing hundreds of sticks of dynamite. He took a single stick and leant it against the side of the crate.
He dug into his pocket and retrieved a length of fuse and a box of matches, stolen the previous night. He could hear the commotion nearby. It sounded like female voices, but the guards would not be far off.
No Trench To Rest (The French Bastard Book 1) Page 19
