The Hazards of War

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  Gabrielle thought in the quiet moments that followed. She knew in her heart that her father was right. How hard it must have been for him to come to that conclusion, after his steadfast support of governmental change and the welcome of the German occupation. Now he had seen what was in store for their country, what the Nazis truly were. Their captors had clearly shown what sort of treatment would await them. The Contis would be considered criminals, torn away from their home, tried as partisans and then either imprisoned or executed. The remaining question was not if, but how.

  Gabrielle studied her father and despite his words saw a lingering uncertainty that remained. To say they needed to escape was one thing, but to actually risk it, with the stakes no less than the lives of their entire family, was another entirely.

  She felt her own resolve harden.

  “Papa,” Gabrielle said, “Mama’s right. Look at us. We won’t be able to move undetected. Even in this room, we need to whisper so that no soldiers in the kitchen hear us. We need a distraction.”

  “A distraction?” Papa said. He seemed to twist the idea around in his head until his eyes became focused again. The confidence in his voice rose. “Yes. A distraction.”

  Everyone in the room waited in anticipation but Papa did not speak. After nearly a minute Gabrielle shook his arm with the grip on his sleeve that she found she had never released. She started to become afraid of what her father had in mind. Why wasn’t he letting them in on the secret?

  Papa looked around the room at each of them.

  “I’ll slip out first. The rest of you, wait here for fifteen minutes, then go through the hole one-by-one. Drop into the kitchen and get out to the courtyard. Run as fast as you can to the vineyard, away from the wine barn. Away from it. Then stay low and make your way down the hill to the road north of here. Maybe we can regroup, maybe not, but try to get to Monsieur Dubois’ estate. It’s about ten kilometers, so it’s far, but doable. I’ll make sure there are no Germans watching that side of the house. All right?”

  The lack of specifics was worrisome. Gabrielle took a deep breath.

  “What are you going to do, Robert?” Girard asked. The words held a great weight coming from a man who rarely spoke.

  “Something long overdue. Give them a good fight.”

  Girard nodded, a small smile on his lips.

  Mama was crying again. “Robert! No! You must come with us!”

  Robert shook his head. “No, no. This is the only way. If something doesn’t keep the soldiers’ attention elsewhere, it’s too dangerous for all. It must be done.”

  “Papa?” Gabrielle asked.

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “What about Stefan?”

  “I don’t know where they’re keeping him, sweetheart. We don’t have time to help him.”

  “He’s in the cellar.”

  Her father’s face betrayed his curiosity. “Can he fight?”

  “Papa, the Germans… hurt him. They cut open his leg in some kind of torture session. He can’t walk.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” Robert thought for a moment and sighed heavily. “We’ll have to leave him.”

  “No, Papa.”

  Her father frowned at her. Gabrielle could see that his mind was unchanged. But that wasn’t enough for her, not now. She had already lost her grandfather, her innocence, her honor, and very soon potentially her life. She wouldn’t entertain the thought of leaving another human being with these Nazi monsters, especially when he was a soldier committed to fighting on the other side.

  “I’ll help him, then,” Gabrielle said.

  Papa emphatically shook his head.

  “It is my decision, Papa. Stefan risked his life to get weapons in the hands of the Resistance. We know what we’re up against now with the Germans. We’re not going to just leave him here.”

  Now her mother was really bawling. Girard hobbled over to her to first shush, then muffle her sobs as Gabrielle and her father stared each other down.

  “No. It’s unfortunate, Gabrielle, but if he’s hurt he’ll just put everything at risk. This isn’t a game where we can take that chance.”

  “If you don’t agree, I’m going to do it on my own. I’ll follow you to the cellar and get him myself. It’s that simple. Don’t test me, Papa. You know me too well.”

  A long, hard look was her reply. Papa didn’t say anything and it was clear that he wanted resolution quickly; with the rug rolled back and floorboards removed, they were sitting ducks if a guard decided to poke his head into the room to check on them. Finally, after a long minute and with no small amount of reluctance, he capitulated.

  “You are your father’s daughter, it seems.”

  “Yes. I am.” She smiled grimly.

  “Very well, you come with me, Gabrielle. The rest of you, please listen. You must wait long enough for me to get into place. Girard, do you still have your watch?”

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  “Fifteen minutes. Then all of you slip into the kitchen and run north toward the Dubois estate. Get over the hill as fast as you can and you’ll be out of line of sight. Don’t bunch up, but try not to lose track of each other, either.”

  Between stifled sobs Gabrielle’s mother asked, “What about you, Robert?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll join you later.”

  Who knew if that would be true, Gabrielle thought.

  Her mother and father regard each other for a moment. Papa finally stood up and they embraced, rocking slowly back and forth under the tension of their arms.

  Gabrielle quickly inserted herself into their grasp, immediately followed by Philippe and Girard. For a brief, simple moment they were entwined in each other’s arms as a single organism. Muffled cries and free-flowing tears became lost in the huddle. It was the first time since the Germans had arrived that the family had been able to truly hold one another. It had been even longer since Gabrielle had really thought about how much all of these people meant to her.

  And then it was over. The huddle broke, Papa looked at Girard and tapped his wristwatch, and then silently lowered himself into the hole in the floorboards.

  24

  Cartwright sat awake and would have killed for a cigarette. He imagined taking a drag to savor the taste of smoke in his mouth for a few moments before exhaling with a long, slow breath. Then he’d watch the thin trail of smoke as it twisted around up into the air. There it would join the haze that had already collected along the ceiling from the previous ones he would have smoked until all of it gradually faded into the darkness. He sat and imagined and ached.

  It almost would have been better if he had remained unconscious. But somehow, apparently due to some past transgression against the Almighty, Cartwright found himself awake and alert of both his surroundings and the pain that very much still numbed his leg.

  The bandage around his knee indicated that apparently someone had taken pity on him. But Cartwright still had a grim idea of what his treatment indicated might be in store for him. Surely the Nazis weren’t interested in transporting a butchered enemy to the local hospital? Nor would he last in a prison camp if he was an incapacitated cripple. The most probable fate was as clear as the Death’s Head emblem on the collar of the guard.

  Soon even the imaginary cigarettes was gone, mere stubs of paper and tobacco that his mind found difficult to hold any longer. There was nothing left to watch, nothing left to do but sit idly and try not to think about the throbbing in his knee. He stared at the bottles in their racks, the rubble remaining from the Nazi’s excavation of the south wall, the worn leather of his boots on the other end of his numb feet. Everything seemed worth watching when one was living on borrowed time.

  On the other hand, the SS guard had moved out into the corridor and was now pacing back and forth. Perhaps he had grown tired of the smell of blood, urine, and vomit that still covered the cellar floor. Cartwright wouldn’t have minded being out in that corridor as well.

  A voice spoke in the corridor and Cartwrig
ht tilted his head to listen. The pitch sounded odd, far different than all of the barking the Goons had been doing earlier. But the sound did not carry and he couldn’t quite catch the nature of the strangeness. He sat and listened, wondering if this was the pronouncement of his end.

  Suddenly Cartwright realized what was so strange. The voice was female.

  As if on cue, the Frenchman’s daughter appeared in the doorway and walked towards Cartwright. She was carrying a bundle of bandages and a small carafe of water. Comprehension fought its way into the Englishman’s muddled brain. Of course the Germans wouldn’t have bandaged him up. It was the Contis. And now it was time to change the dressing? There was still too much pain to get a clear thought through, but when Cartwright looked down at the linen already wrapped around his knee he thought that it still looked pretty clean. Perhaps the padding underneath the wrap was bloody enough to need a change. Or maybe the girl was bringing cigarettes. Cartwright chuckled, sending him into an extraordinary hell of pain.

  The guard dutifully followed her into the room. It was obvious from the look on his face that he found the stench quite unpleasant. The girl knelt down and began unwrapping the bandage on Cartwright’s knee slowly, carefully, with the soldier standing right behind her and observing everything. The German was so intent, in fact, on watching the girl’s body as much as the medical treatment she was providing that he never noticed the shadowy figure skulking up behind him.

  A quick gleam of metal flashed across the guard’s throat in a violent spray of crimson.

  Cartwright inadvertently jumped. The guard fell heavily to the ground with to reveal Robert Conti standing in his place, holding a bloody knife in his hand. The girl glanced at her father and instantly started to rewrap Cartwright’s knee more tightly than it had originally been. Cartwright was at a loss.

  “How… what in the name of Christ is going on?” Cartwright gasped.

  Robert held his finger to his lips in an indication to be silent. He shuffled lightly back to cellar archway to listen for a few moments before finally deciding the coast was clear. Only then did he turn back around to give the Englishman his due.

  “It is time to get you out of here, monsieur,” Robert said with an accent so heavy that is was difficult to follow. “Your knee looks very poor. Can you walk?”

  To Cartwright, hearing English spoken by someone other than an interrogator was like a salve applied directly to his wounded knee. All the feelings he had abandoned the night before—pride, hope, and the prayers that he might continue to live—came flooding back into his empty heart. It was almost enough to make him think he could do anything, even walk.

  Almost.

  Pain warped his face as he tried to push off the floor. “No, I don’t think so. How did you get down here? Haven’t you been prisoners like myself?”

  Robert knelt down and used his thumb to probe how much damage the Nazis had done to the Englishman. The examination was nearly unbearable. Cartwright gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

  “We are still prisoners, at least the Germans think so,” Robert whispered. “They put all of us together in the green bedroom.”

  Cartwright wrinkled his forehead. It was so difficult to follow with the accent. “The one at the top of the stairs? With the hole in the floor where you hid me?”

  “Yes. We slipped out through the hole.”

  “Is it safe? Where are the Germans?”

  “They are all around, so we must hurry.” Robert paused with his hand around the bottom of Cartwright’s thigh. “I think you can still put weight on this leg, but it will need some support. We need a splint.”

  The Frenchman stood up strangely and looked around the cellar before his eyes settled on some scrap piled in the corner. He rummaged about until he returned holding a two foot length of angle iron.

  “We use this to build wine racks. It should make a good support for your leg.” Robert turned to his daughter. “Gabrielle, aidez-moi à placer cet appui contre sa jambe et à l'envelopper dans des bandages.”

  He knelt down and held the angle iron against the outside of Cartwright’s leg. The girl began to tear long strips from her bundle of cloth and tied them around his leg and the metal to make a single, stiff limb. Each knot made Cartwright wince at the growing tightness and accompanying discomfort. But it was a small price to pay for a chance at freedom.

  “Good,” Robert said at last. “How does that feel?”

  Cartwright tried to turn sideways and push himself up. Again, the pain was nearly overwhelming. But he gritted his teeth and was able to get up to a kneeling position, keeping his newly splinted leg rigid and immobile. “It’s… okay.”

  Robert and the girl looked hard at each other. Their expressions were grim.

  “What’s the plan?” Cartwright asked.

  “We are splitting up to make our escape. Gabrielle here will help you. She knows the area and obviously she speaks French. You’ll go out through the wine cave, out the barn and into the countryside. Once you’re over the hill, follow the main road north until you come to the next estate, Domaine Dubois. We have friends there.”

  Cartwright looked at the pretty girl kneeling beside him and managed a smile when he caught her eye. So that was his angel. Finally they had had an introduction.

  “So, you’re Gabby, are you? I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  She smiled back.

  “What about you?” Cartwright asked, turning back to Robert.

  Deep resignation wore on his voice. “I’m going to buy everyone some time.”

  “Oh? And how is it that you’re going to do that?”

  Robert stood wearily and hobbled over to the guard’s body. Cartwright saw how he hunched to his left, his posture crumpled into a vision of frailty. The Frenchman took great effort to squat down and untangle the strap of the machine gun with his one good arm. When he stood again, he awkwardly held the weapon and attempted to prop the barrel on an elbow that seemed welded to his ribs.

  “Robert—no. You’re not serious?”

  “I—this is something I should have committed to long ago.”

  “Maybe so, but you pull that trigger and it’ll knock you over onto your arse. You can barely stand.”

  Robert’s eyes narrowed. “What would you have me do, Stefan? This is the only way to buy time for the others.”

  Cartwright turned to Gabrielle. She looked a lot like her father—same chin, same nose, same eyes. Definitely the same eyes. They contained an identical level of determination and grit.

  He thought back to Simon, Donner, McCoy. Their Dakota had gone down on one wing, a fireball in the night. There had been no time to go back into the plane. Nothing he could have done would have saved them.

  Maybe here was a chance to make up for it.

  “Let me take care of your distraction, Robert. I’ve got just the idea for the job.”

  “What?”

  “The Germans found the explosives from the air drop, didn’t they? But they don’t seem to have found the domestic vintage.”

  Robert stared hard at him. Then understanding flashed into his eyes, and he actually smiled.

  “It’s even on the way,” Cartwright added.

  “You can’t walk well.”

  “Gabby will be helping me.”

  The Frenchman’s frown returned. “That was the plan when you were running away from the distraction.”

  Cartwright forced himself upward until he was on one knee and not in danger of tipping over. “Robert, it’s the best way. We’re wasting time debating it. Get back upstairs and get your family out. I’ll get the Goons off the trail and we’ll meet you at your friend’s place.” He turned his head to Gabby. “I’ll take good care of her. I owe you.”

  Robert looked like he might throw up, but he allowed for a pale nod. He quickly explained the change in plans to his daughter. To Cartwright’s relief, she didn’t flinch but actually looked even more motivated.

  They finished doctoring his le
g. With Gabrielle’s help, Cartwright hoisted himself into a standing position and tested his weight on his leg. The vertigo was immediate. After a moment of stabilizing himself, however, his head cleared and he tried again. The angle iron did its job and allowed for a basic, if minimal, level of locomotion.

  “All right, it is time,” Conti concluded.

  Cartwright took the machine pistol from his host and stuck his head underneath the strap. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to use it.

  “Robert.”

  The Frenchman paused awkwardly. “Oui?”

  “I know you didn’t want me here. I know Monsieur Rimbault forced it upon you. I—”

  Robert waited.

  “Thank you.”

  Robert smiled. “What is important now is to get you away from this house, you and Gabrielle. Take care of her. Please.”

  “I will.”

  Robert clasped Cartwright’s shoulder before turning and hobbling back through the arch. Cartwright put his arm over Gabrielle and leaned heavily on her. She took the weight and put her own arm around his back. Cartwright grunted and thanked God he had this chance.

  25

  The three former prisoners stepped carefully and quietly through the ancient corridor, always listening for the sounds of boot steps or other signs that the Germans were coming. Mercifully there were none. Yet. Robert went with them as far as the entrance to the wine cave. Then he grabbed Cartwright and Gabrielle by their arms and brought them close.

  “I’m headed back to the kitchen. That’s where the others are coming out. Please, whatever you do, you’ve got to hurry. There’s no telling when we’ll be out of time.”

  “If you’ve got to run, then run,” Cartwright replied. “A late diversion’s better than none.”

  Robert turned to Gabrielle and said some soft words of encouragement that Cartwright could neither hear nor understand. She stared him in the eye and nodded as he spoke. Cartwright realized she was crying. Hell, he probably should be, too. Robert kissed his daughter on each cheek and her forehead, turned to give Cartwright one last glance.