“Sie haben kein Glück gehabt,” the German said.
Sounded like no luck. That was the truth.
The officer stood back up and regarded Cartwright one last time before turning on his heels. Now there was only that lone guard who couldn’t be bothered to even glance at his prisoner. Just as well.
Cartwright tried to take a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Pain hit his lungs like knives. It almost took his mind off of the bloody gash where his knee used to be.
Almost.
Somewhere a little voice was telling him he needed to be working out some kind of plan, but all Cartwright had the energy to do was stare at the same nothing that the German soldier was focused on not ten feet away.
* * *
Morning brought the first sunshine Tiedemann had seen in days.
They were making progress. Gohler’s men had freed the truck and gotten it back onto the dirt road at last. The contraband explosives and weapons were now loaded onboard and ready to be hauled with them to Perpignan. And Tiedemann felt they had made a breakthrough in the events leading up to Hoffman’s murder. Completion of all these efforts meant he had netted about four hours of sleep which, an amazingly recuperative rest when no alcohol was involved.
Unsettled with hunger, Tiedemann made his way to the kitchen to scrounge for leftovers. Krauss had unmercifully joined him with his notebook. Even now he was nosing into the decision process about how to handle the prisoners.
“So now what do we do, Herr Hauptsturmführer? Those weapons. Some sort of organized resistance must be nearby for the British to airdrop cargo like that.”
Tiedemann was only partially listening as he rummaged through the storage cabinets. How could there be no food here? He would take anything--fruit, a bit of bread, or a random something that might let him avoid field rations. He had found some bits of cheese that had barely lasted longer than the time it had taken to shove them in his mouth. Otherwise, it seemed the Contis subsisted on thin air. He pulled open the next cabinet and saw some pans and crockery stored on various shelves. Nothing. Undeterred, Tiedemann moved on.
“Herr Hauptsturmführer?”
“What, Krauss?”
“Sir, my question.” Krauss’s voice was betraying his exasperation. “The clock is ticking. We should decide on a course of action. If the intended recipients of these armaments realize we intercepted them, they could scramble off into the countryside before we have a chance to go after them. They could be gone forever from our grasp.”
Tiedemann's eyes lit up when he opened a small wooden box on the countertop. It contained a basket of apples cleverly covered with a canvas bag to obscure someone who was hungry. Tiedemann pulled out a fat, green piece of fruit and took a large bite that sprayed juice into the air. It tasted so delicious that he immediately confiscated the entire basket.
“Sir!”
“Oh, Krauss, enough already. Leaving the family alone for another hour or two won’t hurt anything.”
Krauss blinked in silence, his mind unable to process the lack of urgency.
Tiedemann took another few bites and watched him. For all his book smarts, his lieutenant still had trouble with the obvious.
“Look, Krauss. We found weapons. Weapons to be used against us. There’s only one course of action.”
“And what is that?”
“We have to execute them. All of them.” Tiedemann bit into his apple again.
“Sir! We’ll be missing a golden opportunity! You can’t do that!”
Tiedemann stiffened. “You forget yourself, Obersturmführer.”
Krauss slouched apologetically. It took a moment to regain his backbone. “Permission to speak, sir.”
Sigh. “Yes.”
“Sir, the Contis are farmers. There are women here, and a child. Two of the men are either elderly or infirm. They got at us once when we let our guard down. Now, we control the house and are on the alert, and have them separated and controlled. They are prisoners. They are not an immediate threat. Do you agree?”
“Yes.”
Krauss straightened up. “So, if we just eliminated all of them for subversive activity, what would the ultimate outcome be? Strategically, I mean? They’d be replaced by someone else. The threat to German forces would still be here.
“The Contis are obviously just a single link in a very long chain. They’re simply providing a place to store contraband. To kill them outright would squander the opportunity to lure out the real threat. The Maquis. Resistance fighters hiding in the countryside. They’re the real opportunity. They’re the fighters who blow up railways or harass supply movements. The real enemy is not sitting upstairs.”
“Do you mean to lecture me now, Krauss?”
The lieutenant flushed. “No, sir.”
“I know all of this, Krauss. And I don’t disagree. But we are not the SD. We fight on the front lines, not conduct counterinsurgent operations. And we don’t have the luxury of spending any more time here.”
“But sir!”
“Believe me when I tell you, Krauss, I wish there was an option other than mass execution. I don’t look forward to killing a little boy. I don’t want to kill women. It’s probably just Robert Conti and Marc Rimbault who’ve orchestrated this arms underground. But we don’t know that for sure and we can’t take any chances. We need to exterminate the entire node. We need to set an example.”
“By shooting a ten year old—”
“Whose death will spare the lives of countless other ten year olds when their parents think twice about helping the Maquis.”
Krauss dropped his eyes to the floor.
Tiedemann let out a sigh. “Krauss, look. On a personal level, I’d love to focus retribution on a single culprit. If it was just Conti who killed Hoffman and was singlehandedly responsible for supplying arms to the enemy, I could rationalize just taking him out by himself. But with the discovery of those weapons, and without any conclusive outcome from our murder investigation, I have no other choice. Our time is gone. We’re overdue in Perpignan and the Allies could invade any day. We must move on.”
“What about the Englishman? He is a prisoner of war.”
“We could treat him as a spy. His end would be a foregone conclusion.”
Krauss looked uncomfortable.
Tiedemann thought again to the lack of mud on Cartwright’s boots. While the theory changed by the hour, right now it seemed he was just a soldier caught up in circumstance. At least, thinking of him that way gave Tiedemann a sliver of much needed humanity. “Relax, Krauss. We’ll turn him over to the local police. He’ll be in a Stalag camp in a week.”
Krauss began to scribble in his little notebook as if he needed to capture his thoughts in writing. Tiedemann wondered what on earth he might have said that was worthy of putting down on paper. No doubt Krauss would commit all his words to memory, yet still lose the intent of what any of it actually meant.
Another bite of the apple finished it off. Tiedemann tossed the core nonchalantly onto the countertop and wiped his fingers with a nearby towel. He admitted to himself he hated the position he was in. He was a soldier who fought wars. This discussion made him feel nothing of the sort.
“It seems a shame, sir,” Krauss said. He finished writing and closed his notebook. “To not deal a blow to the Resistance here. Before we carry out your directive, is there nothing left for us to try? I’m not saying we start hunting partisans in the hills. But if we only had time to get more information, it could save German lives.”
“We have an hour or two before we mobilize,” Tiedemann replied. “If you have some ideas, be my guest.”
“I fear an hour isn’t enough time,” Krauss said.
“You’re probably right. War is hell.”
* * *
In the green bedroom upstairs, a room that had once been the guest quarters for visitors, Marc Rimbault sat back on his heels and pondered. Things were getting much worse, very rapidly.
The old man stared at the large fl
oor rug. It covered the loose floorboards and crawlspace where they had scrambled to hide the Englishman just two nights ago. The crawlspace was directly over the kitchen. The Germans’ voices had carried and Marc had heard it all.
Marc had lived a full life, had fought the Germans once before in the Great War. He knew the German language almost as well as Robert. His body might be frail but his mind was not. And he had to save his family.
Time was running out.
21
The guard at the door continued to glare at Gabrielle and her father. Silence was all he got in return since he had forcibly prevented Gabrielle and her father from speaking. Now they were sitting in opposite corners of the room. For a while, Papa had tried to communicate with her through hand gestures when the soldier’s attention wandered. But there was only so much one could get across without speech, and it proved to be not much of a dialogue.
It was just as well. Gabrielle didn’t feel like talking. She wanted to let her mind be free of thoughts, be numb, be forgetful of what had happened to her in the wine cave. Springer’s attack on her made her want to crawl into the corner alone and cry and now she had an opportunity to do so.
She had never felt this helpless before. To have someone take control over her and do what he pleased was so overwhelming it was almost too difficult to comprehend how it could have actually happened. She hadn’t been able to defend herself, nor had any of her family been able to protect her. Her whole identity had been debased so that she felt like an animal, dirty and used. The only way out of the darkness that she could find was to not think at all. The rare reconnection she tried to make with the real world was the occasional stolen glance at Papa, who before long was also staring at the floor lost in his own thoughts. Gabrielle wondered if he was reconsidering his definition of French patriotism.
Time seemed to stand still and they sat, father and daughter, on the floor in their corners. Gabrielle swung between mental emptiness and unwelcome flashbacks to being raped humiliatingly in the dirt. When more boot steps sounded out in the hall, Gabrielle surprised herself by not even blinking at this noise.
A pair of soldiers entered the room, pointed at her, and spoke with urgency to the guard on duty. “Wir sind gekommen, das Mädchen zu holen.”
Papa cleared his throat to get Gabrielle’s attention. When she looked over, he pointed first at the German, then her, then the door. They had come for her. But why?
The guard stationed in their room seemed reluctant to relinquish her. A short debate ensued, and Gabrielle thought for a moment that maybe she would be left alone. Then, finally, the guard snapped a salute and stood back against the wall. No such luck.
The soldiers went to Gabrielle in two giant strides and hauled her up by her arms. If she had been her normal self, Gabrielle probably would have screamed out in indignation. Right now it was too easy to remain detached. Merde, Springer could have her again for all she cared. The Germans couldn’t hurt her if her nurturing, caring soul was locked up far and away.
The soldiers dragged her out the doorway and carried her at such a pace that her feet barely touched the floor long enough to take a step herself. Off they went down the grand staircase, through the kitchen, down the spiral staircase to the cellar corridors. Why were they going down here? She stumbled past broken plaster and cobwebs until they entered the wine cellar. Once upon a time she had loved to play hide and seek with Philippe, with one of her favorite hiding places found in this very cellar among the racks that held her family’s personal collection of bottles. That seemed like such a long time ago. The reality of what was to be found here now was much different.
The Germans let go of her arms and she had to take an extra step to not fall forward. Springer stepped in front of her. There was no acknowledgement visible that he had done anything wrong to her. Gabrielle found him repugnant.
“I understand from your mother you’ve had some medical training?”
Why would this monster be asking her or her mother such a question? Yes, she had spent two months training as a nurse’s aide when it had become apparent hostilities were coming between France and Germany. Her country’s participation in the war had not lasted long enough for her skills to be needed.
“Do you have medical training?” Springer shouted.
“Oui,” she replied.
“Then get to work in patching up your guest.”
Springer grabbed Gabrielle’s shoulder and shoved her to the right, making her stutter step yet again. As she regained her balance she saw a man propped up against the far wall. His legs were straight out in front of him and his chin slumped down. He looked like he was dead.
It took a moment before she realized she was looking at the Englishman. Gabrielle rushed over so fast that she ended up tripping on the floor after all.
Cartwright was filthy. His pale face was covered with bruises and he stunk to high heaven. Gabrielle knelt beside him and patted his cheeks with growing forcefulness. When no reaction came, she grabbed his sweat-soaked hair and pulled his head upright. His jaw was slack, his eyes closed. The realization hit her that the floor was very wet where she was kneeling. What had happened here? Some of the wetness had gotten on her skirt and provided a dull, rusty color. Blood? No, there was too much of it. Spilled wine? She thought that must be it until her eyes fell onto his knee.
Gabrielle shuddered. It looked as if someone had cut away nearly all of the flesh around the joint. Skin and sinew hung out from a gaping wound as if it had exploded from within, and there seemed to be parts… missing. Gabrielle was squatting down in a puddle of Cartwright’s own blood. How long had he been left like this? All night? What a naïve fool she was. Panic welled up inside of her at the thought of this poor man dying on their basement floor.
But the panic lasted only for a moment. Adrenaline took over and Gabrielle quickly assessed the damage to Cartwright’s knee. He was undoubtedly in shock. The wound wasn’t bleeding much, which meant all of the major arteries and veins were probably intact. Whoever had done this must have known—sickeningly—what they were doing.
“I need some bandages,” Gabrielle announced, standing up as straight as she could for maximum presence. She was still a quarter of a meter shorter than any of the Germans in the room. “This knee… I need to wrap it up immediately.”
“Make do with what you have here,” Springer said. “Use his shirt for a bandage if you need to.”
“No, it has to be clean.”
“Then use your shirt,” the Nazi said. He folded his arms across his chest and smirked.
Gabrielle fought to keep her hands from trembling. Humiliation was replaced with anger. She would have loved to punch this Boche in the face or otherwise claw his eyes out. But she knew better. She thought to the blanket she had set out the window upstairs. The fight to be had was not here in the basement.
“Monsieur, you brought me down here to keep this man from dying. I’m sure that must be an order from your leader. Are you going to cause me to fail? Will the captain be pleased with that?”
Springer narrowed his eyes. Gabrielle hoped she had touched the right nerve.
“Very well. Get what you need. You have one minute.”
Without delay, Gabrielle dashed out of the cellar until she was almost back to the pantry at the base of the spiral staircase. She knew there was a supply of kitchen cloths and linens stored there, from a time when her family entertained visitors as guests rather than thugs. She had to find some material clean and soft enough to be used as packing for Cartwright’s wound.
The pantry’s natural coolness from being underground made an ideal location for storing food and other related supplies, though since the day France had fallen there seemed to be less to go around for her family to put there. Gabrielle took a quick visual inventory of what remained. The shelves were mostly bare, though there were actually still a few cans of vegetables that had miraculously escaped the Germans’ gorging. A small wooden chest containing their good silver for special occasions
that had long since ceased. Three round wicker baskets pushed into the corner to store table cloths, linen napkins, and spare dishrags. That was what she needed.
Gabrielle stepped forward to rummage through the baskets and paused. Her eyes focused inadvertently on the spot on the floor where she had found the letter.
The paper had been wadded up and tossed away unwanted by one of the soldiers. It was written in German, so she hadn’t understood it, but judging from the handwriting it looked as if a woman had penned it. It bore the lines of having been folded and unfolded, read and reread many, many times. The letter was odd enough that Gabrielle had picked it up to investigate later and perhaps ask her father to translate it. For a German soldier many miles from home, she was sure something like this would be treasured by its owner, not casually tossed away in the corner of a basement. But Springer had confiscated it and the opportunity was gone.
The passing thought of Springer alone with her made Gabrielle shudder.
Gabrielle snapped back to the present and quickly rummaged through the baskets. She pulled out dishrags and linens into a pile at her feet and tried to think through how she would create the bandage needed. The softer cloth would pack the wound, while she could use the stronger, stiffer linen napkins to tie the dressing in place and keep pressure against the gash. Assuming Stefan survived, the bandages would need to be changed periodically to prevent infection. But that was getting ahead of herself.
She made a small bundle of cloth and picked it up. As she turned to leave the pantry, her eyes fell on the stairs to the kitchen.
I could climb that staircase. Exit out into the courtyard, and run away into the night. Find shelter with Monsieur Dubois, or some other neighbors on the road to Dijon. The Nazis would never find me. They might not even bother to look. All I have to do is leave and I’d be safe. The more distance between me and the Germans, the better.
The Hazards of War Page 15
