by Will Belford
It was definitely German and even though his German was a bit rusty, Joe could tell it was a series of numbers being read as quickly as possible. He checked the frequency dial: he’d bumped it to a new frequency. He shrugged, the airwaves were open to anyone, and in this part of Europe he could be hearing a Dutch radio station announcing a train timetable. He walked down the hill and waited by the truck for his men. Kelly and Summerville came loping along the road from the south, a few minutes apart, but after five minutes there was still no sign of Jaroslek.
‘What the hell’s Dobro doing?’ asked Joe.
‘Maybe he’s having a call of nature,’ said Summerville. ‘Why don’t you call him on the radio? Never mind, here he is.’
Jaroslek came around the corner of the road, hobbling and grimacing.
‘What the hell kept you? Doing some spine-bashing?’ asked Joe.
‘I fall over and sprain ankle,’ the Pole replied, ‘I not walk so fast.’
‘Better get the MO to have a look at it when we get back to town. Get in.’
~ ~ ~
That evening, Joe paid a Uncle Pierre a visit and, to his surprise, found himself walked down to the local bar for a drink. Pierre Bendine was a tall, rapier-thin man with coal-black hair and a bushy moustache. He reminded Joe a little of his father. They walked in silence across the square to a set of steps that descended beneath a café. Cigarette smoke and the sound of conversation rose to greet them as they went down into a long, domed bar, whose tables flickered with the light of candles in red glasses.
Pierre indicated the nearest booth and went to the bar, returning with two glasses of green fluid.
‘Pernod. Salut.’ he said, and downed the green drink in a gulp.
‘Cheers,’ replied Joe and did the same.
After several rounds of this, Pierre got down to business.
‘Why are you here Lieutenant?’
‘I want to ask your permission to take Yvette out.’
‘I mean in France and in the British Army.’
‘I went in a competition at officer school for an overseas posting and won. It was the only chance to get ahead, there was nothing happening in the Australian army.’
‘So you are ambitious eh? That is good I suppose, though it is likely to get you and a lot of your men killed. And just what do you think you have to offer Yvette?’
‘Well, not a lot I suppose, except that I’m in love with her and would do anything for her.’
‘Ah, “in love”, the young are so romantic,’ said Pierre, then called to the barman, ‘Arnauld, deux Pernod s’il vous plait.’
‘I can’t help my age m’sieur, any more than you can.’
‘True enough Lieutenant. I don’t suppose it would be fair to ask what your plans for the future are; who here can answer that question with the Germans just over the border, hmmm?’
‘M’sieur, I only want to be the best officer I can be and get through whatever is coming, alive. But if you’ll permit me, I have never known anybody like Yvette and, well, I love her.’
‘And she tells me you want to take her away, eh? To some love nest in Diekirch of all places. And why should I agree to this escapade?’
‘Well m’sieur, if you don’t agree I’ll respect your decision, but Yvette’s not a little girl anymore, it’s ultimately up to her.’
‘So. You are showing proper respect by asking me in lieu of her father. This is good, but first you must understand a few things about Yvette my friend. Let me tell you a story.’
Pierre lit a cigarette and sipped his Pernod.
‘Twenty years ago in this town there were two people much in love: a beautiful young Jewish girl called Anna, daughter of the banker, and a dashing young cavalryman called Emile, son of a local doctor. They wanted to marry, but her family wouldn’t hear of it because he was a Roman Catholic and only a poor junior officer. Then the Germans came. Emile fought bravely for three years and won many medals. He returned home on leave in January 1918, and of course, spent the night with Anna before returning to the Front. A few months later, he was killed defending his post against the last great German assault.
‘By that stage, Anna had discovered she was pregnant. When she heard Emile was dead she went berserk and screamed for three days. She never really recovered. Then, when the child was born, her parents refused to accept it as their grandchild. The whole town turned against them, so they moved to Boulogne the next year to escape the scandal. How is all this relevant you ask? The young cavalryman was my brother Emile. My two other brothers, Alphonse and Charles were in the same regiment and were also killed in that last offensive. I only survived because I had been assigned to the artillery.
‘I took Anna and her daughter in; what else could I do? When the girl was twelve her mother finally lost her mind completely. They found her lying on her husband’s grave, not far from here. She had cut her wrists.’
‘Bloody hell.’ muttered Joe.
‘Oui. It was hard to explain to Yvette why her mother had abandoned her. She did not speak to anyone for a year. The year she finished school she came to me and said she wanted to be an archaeologist like me. I told her there was no such thing as a female archaeologist, but she wouldn’t hear of it and I would find her sitting in her room reading my books at all hours of the night. She applied herself to the study and to learning languages, which is why her English and German are so good. Most serious archaeology has been done by the French and Germans you know, but the British have managed to steal many of the results. All of this came at a price of course: she has always been independent and strong-willed, but never what I would call happy.
‘What I am going to tell you now you may not want to hear, but you need to know: Yvette has never had anything to do with any of the local boys. She has spurned every single one of them, scorned them for mere farm boys.’
‘But that’s what I am,’ said Joe.
‘I know Lieutenant, so why is she so interested in you, do you think?’
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photograph of a handsome young man in dress uniform athwart a black horse. In the background was the town square of Roubaix. It was not the uniform or the horse that drew Joe’s eye though, it was the face: he could have been looking at a photo of himself or his brother.
‘This is Yvette’s father when he was twenty years old, she took this picture in 1918 when he was here on leave; he returned to the Front the same day. It is the last picture ever taken of him. It usually sits beside Yvette’s bed.’
Joe studied the face. The resemblance was uncanny.
‘So you think she’s falling in love with me because I look like her father? Is that what you reckon?’ said Joe, somewhat put out.
‘I don’t claim to know her mind Lieutenant,’ replied Pierre, ‘only that she has never shown interest in any man before. Then suddenly you come along from the other side of the world, looking like her father, dressed in a uniform of the same rank. You’re just like every young officer I’ve ever known who doesn’t think he can be killed, but she doesn’t know that. All she knows is that by some mystery, her father’s spirit is back in her life.’
‘But I’m not her bloody father,’ cried Joe, appalled at the thought.
‘Of course not, you want to make love to her, as would any man, she is beautiful, non? You are perhaps the only man who will ever get that chance Lieutenant; is it my job to stand in the way? Since she met you she has been smiling and even singing while she does the washing. Sacre Bleu! It is unheard of. There is more to this than just a similarity of features, she clearly sees something in you she has not seen before.
‘War is coming and Hitler is not a man who believes in love or honour or respect. He understands only hatred. The few things that survived the last war will be utterly destroyed by the Germans this time. Yvette is half-Jewish, how will she conceal that from them? If you can make her happy for a short time before it all starts then I wish you luck Lieutenant, but hear me: if you intend just to use he
r and throw her away like a typical soldier, then I would rather you just returned to your unit now and forgot about her. The last thing she needs is to feel abandoned twice.’
Joe drained his Pernod and looked Pierre straight in the face with a grim expression.
‘I told you mister,’ said Joe with menace, ‘I love her. What part of that do you not understand?’
Pierre laughed and slapped Joe on the shoulder.
‘Ah-ha, a bit of aggression from the Australian bushman, eh? I was wondering when it would come out. Now, let’s see how you handle your liquor. Arnauld. Bring us the bottle.’
Two hours later, they stumbled up the stairs, crashing into the walls, Pierre singing ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’ in cracked English.
At the top, he turned to Joe and put his hands on his shoulders.
‘I hope you fight as well you drink my friend. Now, Lieutenant Dean, you must realise that this is all most unusual. Normally I would of course refuse to allow this assignation, but we are at war. War renders the social conventions that we live by meaningless. So take Yvette to Diekirch if she wants to go, make her a woman if you must, but bring her back in one piece, oui? Adieu.’
With that, he turned and lurched off across the square, singing in a cracked voice.
‘There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Doolan was ‘is name, of poor but honest parents, ‘e was born in Castlemaine ...’
Joe shook his head and started up the road to his billet. He had succeeded, but he was going to pay for it in the morning. He looked at his watch, it was just after midnight; the little date square showed an eight.
‘The 9th of May, 1940 eh? And here I am in the bloody British Army, in France and in love. Who’d’ve thought it?’ Joe slurred to himself as he lurched drunkenly along the road.
Chapter Thirteen
Luxembourg, 10 May, 1940
At exactly 0400 hours, the Unteroffiziers walked around the tents in the woods yelling at the tops of their lungs ‘Raus! Raus! Parade in drei minuten.’
Along the line, panzer grenadiers struggled half-awake into their hob-nailed boots, donned helmets, grabbed their rifles and tumbled out to form up in the darkness. In one tent, Private Reiner Schemmel muttered to his comrade.
‘Ach, they’ll have us shooting at people next. What is it about German officers that they insist on making life miserable for poor foot-soldiers?’
Private Erich Grensch, ignored his marching companion’s grumblings and buckled his belt, running his hand over the ‘Gott mit uns’ inscription under the buckle for luck. Erich had carried and loaded the ammunition into his friend’s MG34 Spandau machine gun throughout the Polish campaign, and before that in Spain with the Condor Legion. He was used to Reiner complaining: it was a foot soldier’s right to complain after all, indeed, his only right. When did anything good ever happen to a foot soldier? You were either being ordered to ‘charge for glory’, which meant leaving a nice safe hole and advancing into enemy fire, or being told to ‘hold your ground to the last man’, or more often, to do some pointless training exercise to ‘keep up your morale’ and ‘stop you getting restless’.
Outside, Erich and Reiner aligned themselves on the unit’s scratch, touched the shoulder of the man on their right to get their spacing, then stood with feet apart, left hand down, right hand on the rifle strap, staring forward into the darkness. The HauptFeldwebel came down the line, counting the men and ensuring their spacing and trim was exact. When he reached the end of the last platoon he turned on the spot, stamped a boot down and shouted ‘All men present and accounted for, sir.’
A line of tanks faced the men. These were the latest models, the Panzer III and IV, and their shapes loomed menacingly out of the pre-dawn gloom, seeming to the men shivering in the cold to be the embodiment of demons, risen from some frozen hell.
The Oberst of the regiment walked out on to the impromptu parade ground and climbed up onto the turret of one of the tanks.
‘Panzer Grenadieren, Achtung!’ yelled the HauptFeldwebel, and a thousand jackboots stamped in perfect unison.
‘Men of the 1st Panzer Division, Panzer Grenadiers.! Today, you are privileged to be the leaders of the Fuhrer’s next great step in his vision for a Germanic future. Many of you have been tested in battle in Poland and have proven yourself to be worthy of the title ‘veteran’. Today you will have the opportunity to add to your glory and the glory of your regiment, because today we finish what we started in Poland.
‘One hour from now you will be the first unit to invade Belgium. Behind you lies the might of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe. We will fall upon those unsuspecting Flems and Walloons and drive them before us to the sea, then we will turn south and show the French that 1918 was no victory for them at all, only a postponement of the inevitable. Today you follow in the footsteps of your forebears, many of whom trod these same roads to victory in 1870.
‘You men are the spearhead of the most powerful force in the history of the world. I expect you to drive through any and all opposition put before you. And when I say drive through, that is what I mean. We will not be stopping to mop up defenders, we leave that to the stubble-hoppers who will be walking behind us. General Guderian likes to keep things simple, so he has given me just two orders. Only two, but they are orders that I think you will all understand.’
The officer drew a piece of paper from his pocket and paused for effect.
‘His first order is about how you must fight. He says “Smash them, don’t tickle them!”
That brought a cheer from the assembled troops.
‘His second order is about what you must achieve: “In three days to the River Meuse, on the fourth day across the Meuse.” I want you to repeat that to yourselves until it is etched in your brain. You will either cross the Meuse four days from now or you will be dead. Alles klar? Let us go then and write a new history in these Belgian fields, the history of the Third Reich. Sieg Heil!’
‘Sieg Heil!’ roared the ranks of soldiers, ‘Sieg Heil!’
‘Grenadiers, mount up,’ yelled the Hauptmann.
‘Grenadiers, mount up,’ yelled the HauptFeldwebel, and at his command, the men broke ranks and raced to the half-tracks parked alongside the road. One by one, the engines burst into life, while across the road, the black-uniformed tankers started their engines and began clawing their heavy beasts onto the road.
Within the hour the clearing was empty of vehicles and the field staff were packing up the tents, loading the last of the fuel barrels and ammo crates and taking the reverse-swastika down from the flagpole. By the time the earth had rolled a few degrees towards the sun, the campsite was nothing but trampled grass and tracks in the dirt.
~ ~ ~
The overnight express carried Joe and Yvette in a velvet cloak to the city of Luxembourg.
The further the train had taken them from Yvette’s home town, the more excited she had become. After dinner they had lain together in the cramped bunk of the sleeper. They had kissed, touched, talked. She had felt him, pressing hard against her lower back as he cupped her breasts and kissed her neck, but they both knew that it was not the time.
A connecting train took them further east into the hills of the Ardennes, and an hour after sun-up, they pulled into Diekirch.
‘Smell that,’ cried Joe, stepping down onto the platform and taking a deep breath. The air was redolent of pine needles, brisk and refreshing after the stuffy train carriage. He held out his hand to Yvette as she stepped down, looking about her keenly.
With Joe lugging their bags, they wandered out of the station and into the main street. To the right, the road curved south and crossed over a small river on a stone bridge; to the left, the street rose gently up the hill until it disappeared into the forest. On both sides, hotels, cafés, bars and shops of all kinds lined the street and people promenaded in the morning light, looking into windows, stopping for coffee. It was Friday, and all were enjoying the prospect of the coming weekend.
‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful Jo
e? Quick we must drop our bags so we can sit ‘ere and watch the people. What was the ‘otel called again?’
‘Hotel Bitche,’ said Joe, ‘Funny sort of name that. Who’d call a hotel after a female dog?’
‘Silly. It’s a town in France not far from ‘ere where they ‘ave a big fortress. It’s famous for ‘olding out against a German siege in 1870; and it’s pronounced ‘beach’ by the way,’ she corrected without malice.
Joe watched her out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t care how you pronounced it. God she was gorgeous, it was impossible he could be here with her. It was also hard to believe that this animated beauty was the solitary girl her uncle had described a few nights before.
‘Joe?’ she said, clutching his hands, ‘do you know I’ve never been this far from ‘ome before? Even with Uncle Pierre. Look at all the people, is it not fabulous?’
Their hotel was a three-story building with a turret room overhanging the street. After the night in the train they were both hungry with expectation, and the woman at reception eyed Joe suspiciously while she listened to Yvette’s explanation that he was a distant cousin visiting from Australia. She accepted his money readily enough though when they booked two adjacent rooms.
She handed over two keys and pointed up the stairs saying something Joe found incomprehensible.
‘She has given me the turret room and you the one beside it,’ said Yvette in English, ‘do you think she suspects?’
‘I’m sure she suspects, but do I give a bugger? Non.’ said Joe, following her hips as she sashayed up the staircase.
They had breakfast at a café near the bridge, where the chatter of the passersby mingled with the babble of the river and the creak of the old mill’s water wheel. Occasionally a horse and cart laden with farm produce would clop by on its way to market, the farmer encouraging the swaying beasts with a prod.
Looking up from his breakfast, Joe asked, ‘What do you say we go for a ride in the hills? Then we can come back to town for lunch and have a look at these ruins of yours after that.’
