Murder's Art

by Christopher Nicole

  She stepped against him. ‘That makes me very happy. And I will make you very happy too.’

  He caught her wrists. ‘If you can do that, Sasha, you’ll be a miracle-worker. And it’ll have to keep until we can spare the time. Right now we have a lot to do.’

  They placed the wounded women on stretchers, and distributed them amongst those of the townsfolk who were prepared to have them. It was a heart-rending business, and more so for Sasha than himself, Tony reckoned, because these were members of her own company, who knew they were unlikely ever to see their comrades again. They clung to Sasha’s hands, and implored her to come back to them.

  ‘As soon as I can,’ she promised, and looked at Tony with anguished eyes.

  Then it was time to move out. The advancing Germans were clearly visible now, at a distance of hardly more than a mile, the tanks lined up, the infantry disembarking from their trucks and deploying to left and right. On the town perimeter, Ivanovic’s men were dug in and waiting; they had some machine guns and a couple of mortars, but they were not firing as yet, saving their ammunition for when the attack commenced. Behind them, the town was shuttered and quiet; even the cats and dogs had withdrawn from the streets in anticipation of the coming battle. The various other regiments were assembling to pull out, making way for the women who filed through them. There were exchanges of jests and quips, given and received in high spirits and good humour. Tito was there with his people, and shook hands with both Tony and Sasha. ‘Good fortune,’ he said. ‘We will meet in Foca.’

  Tony took his place at the head of the column, Sasha immediately behind him, and Draga and Anja leading the other officers. As they left the houses, they heard a stir of noise behind them. A German command car had rolled forward under a flag of truce. Tony could not hear what was being said, but presumably the Germans were calling for the surrender of both the town and the Partisans. And clearly the demand was refused. The women had left the town some half a mile behind them when the tanks opened fire.

  Shells screamed into and over the town, exploding with gushes of sound, often accompanied by equal gushes of flame and smoke. The rearguard immediately returned fire, and the gathering dusk was turned into kaleidoscopic cacophony. ‘Keep going,’ Tony told his women, not that they needed much encouragement. None of the shells had been thrown behind the town as yet, and they moved in perfect safety, reaching the prepared trenches and earthworks without loss. By then it was becoming quite dark, and Tony studied his plan with his flashlight, Sasha at his shoulder. They located their allotted position quite easily, and settled down to wait, the radio being set up so that they could listen for the word of command.

  Now they could look back at the town. They could see little of the battle because of the gloom, but there were already numerous fires, and the noise continued to be tremendous. Tony and Sasha moved up and down the ranks, encouraging the women and reminding them that they had a long night ahead of them. But soon they saw another regiment picking its way towards them, and then another, and a few minutes later there came the signal, ‘Go!’ Immediately firing broke out to the north as Asztalos went into action. ‘Pack up that gear,’ Tony commanded. ‘Move it!’

  He sent Sasha up to the head of the column while he remained behind to make sure everyone was coming out. Anja stayed with him, and once everyone was moving he left her in charge of the rearguard while he returned to the front. ‘Look there,’ Sasha said. Now they could see the flashes to the right, and they could hear the various tones of the different weapons being used. ‘I feel it is bad,’ she said, ‘that we should be moving in such safety while all around us there is fighting.’

  ‘We’re obeying orders,’ he reminded her. They marched into the darkness, Tony using his compass to keep them heading steadily just south of west, as instructed by Tito. The firing remained heavy both behind them and on their right, but began gradually to fade. After an hour Tony allowed them a ten-minute rest, and this pattern he maintained throughout the night; the women were very fit and full of spirit, and only a handful fell asleep and had to be slapped into wakefulness. They were following a rough track, which had once been a road, but now, although a useful aid to direction, was an uneven, potholed switchback. Progress was very slow in the dark, as people constantly fell into holes or tripped and sprawled on the earth, handicapped as they were by the bandoliers and cartridge belts slung around their necks and over their shoulders. No one complained about either the bruises they suffered from their falls or the weight they had to carry – they were all too afraid of being left behind.

  Eventually the sounds of battle were only a dim rumble, and because of the hills they could no longer even see the glow of the burning town. It was past midnight when there was a challenge from out of the darkness. ‘Who comes?’

  ‘Deploy,’ Tony muttered, and the women spread out; the night suddenly filled with the rustle and clicks of their weapons being made ready for use. ‘Identify yourself,’ he commanded.

  Bearded men emerged out of the gloom; behind them Tony could discern the outlines of a rough barricade across the road. ‘We serve General Mihailovic,’ someone said.

  ‘And we serve General Tito,’ Tony replied.

  Sasha stood at his elbow. ‘They will have a machine gun,’ she muttered. Tony squeezed her arm.

  ‘You are fleeing Uzice?’ the Cetnik officer asked.

  ‘We are taking up a new position,’ Tony countered.

  The officer was now only a few feet away, and thus he could make out the flutter of Sasha’s hair; on the march it had emerged from its normal hiding place down her collar. Equally he could discern that the people immediately about her were also women. ‘You are the women’s regiment,’ he remarked. ‘We have heard of this. And you are fleeing.’

  ‘Yes, this is the women’s regiment,’ Tony told him. ‘And as I have said, we are changing positions. Move your people, and let us through.’

  ‘My orders are to permit no one to pass along this road,’ the Cetnik said.

  ‘And my orders are to move along this road,’ Tony said. ‘Which is what I intend to do. I have five hundred women at my back, every one armed.’

  ‘Women,’ the captain sneered.

  ‘You have five minutes to clear the way,’ Tony told him, and levelled his tommy-gun. The Cetnik stared at him for several seconds, attempting to decide how determined he was. ‘Four,’ Tony said. The officer turned, and ran back to the barricade. ‘Charge!’ Tony shouted. ‘Open fire!’ The women ran forward, tommy-guns chattering and rifles cracking. The Cetnik captain was struck in the back, and fell to the ground, the women trampling on him. The machine gun fired a single burst, and was rewarded with several shrieks of pain. In no time at all they reached the barricade, still firing, scattering men left and right. The brief battle lasted no more than a few minutes before the Cetniks had faded into the darkness, leaving a good dozen men dead, and three taken prisoner.

  ‘Casualties!’ Tony called.

  Anja reported a few minutes later. ‘We have three dead and five wounded, sir.’

  ‘You may bury the dead. Can the wounded walk?’

  ‘Three can. The other two have been hit in the leg.’

  Tony sighed, and went to the wounded women. One of them was very young, hardly more than sixteen, he thought, her face twisted with pain. The other was both older and calmer, although that she was in pain could not be doubted. He knelt beside them. ‘You know we must leave you.’ They stared at him with enormous eyes. ‘You will have a full canteen each, and a week’s rations,’ he said. ‘Here is some morphine, but keep it as long as the pain is bearable. You have your side arms, and enough ammunition to protect yourselves from robbers.’ He forced a grin. ‘Or itinerant Cetniks. We must take your rifles. But here is a string of grenades. If your situation becomes unbearable, or if the Germans come up to you, use them. Do not let yourselves be captured. Do you understand this?’

  They made brave attempts to smile. Tony straightened, and looked at Anja, whose compan
y they were part of. ‘I will just say goodbye,’ Anja said.

  Tony nodded, and returned to where Sasha was standing over the prisoners, who were all quite young and very frightened, sitting on the ground with their hands on their heads. ‘What do I do with these?’ she asked.

  ‘We cannot take prisoners.’

  ‘I know this.’ She licked her lips.

  ‘But we’re not in the murder business, Sasha. Not of our own people. Not right now, anyway. They were only obeying Mihailovic’s orders. Turn them loose.’

  ‘They killed some of my girls.’

  ‘As we killed some of them. I’ll not have them murdered in cold blood, Sasha.’

  She pouted, then smiled wickedly. ‘Has it not occurred to you that they may know of Sandrine?’ Tony frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. And it was extremely unlikely. ‘I will ask them.’ She knelt beside the youngest of the three, a boy in his teens, who positively blanched as she ran her finger down the faint fuzz on his jaw. ‘You know the name Sandrine Fouquet?’

  He licked his lips. ‘I have heard it.’

  ‘She is worth a lot of money. Thousands of dinars. Do you know this?’

  Another lick of the lips. ‘There was a poster …’

  ‘Yes,’ Sasha said. ‘You have seen the poster. Now tell me what you know of her.’

  ‘I? I know nothing of this woman. I have never seen her.’

  ‘You did not see her yesterday morning?’

  ‘No. How could I see her? She is …’ His eyes rolled over the women, who were gathering to look at him.

  ‘Were there not Cetniks south-east of Uzice yesterday?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Sasha said. ‘Do you know what I am going to do if you do not tell me the truth?’ From the sheath on her belt she drew her knife. ‘I am going to pull down your pants, and then I am going to cut off your balls, one after the other. Then I am going to slice your prick, right up the middle. That is what I am going to do.’

  The boy gasped. ‘I do not know what happened in the south,’ he gabbled. ‘We have been in position here for two days.’

  ‘Remember, you have brought this on yourself,’ Sasha said, and unbuckled his belt.

  The boy screamed in terror and anticipated shame. ‘Enough,’ Tony said. Sasha turned her head to look up at him; her handsome face was distorted with passion. ‘Let him go,’ Tony said. ‘Let them all go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is telling the truth. He does not know what happened in the south, and thus what happened to Sandrine. Let them go. That is an order.’ Reluctantly, Sasha sheathed her knife and stood up. ‘Get up,’ Tony said. The three men scrambled to their feet. ‘Get back to Mihailovic. Tell him we now regard him as an enemy, and that he will pay for this treachery. Get out.’

  The Cetniks faded into the darkness.

  The women marched all night, again with a ten-minute rest in every hour. Sasha no longer walked beside Tony, but with one of the other companies. He gathered that she was angry at the way he had overruled her, but he didn’t expect it to last.

  By dawn they were quite exhausted, but they were also close to a stream. ‘We’ll take a two-hour break,’ Tony said. ‘Then we start again.’

  Predictably, quite a few of the women stripped off and went for a bath. Tony had a drink of water, refilled his canteen, and sat down some distance away from the rest, eating some smoked chicken. And five minutes later watched Sasha walking towards him. She had been bathing, and was naked, water still dripping from her hair; her uniform was slung over her shoulder, together with her belts and weapons and haversack. She made an entrancing, if – remembering the events of the night – somewhat terrifying sight. But she was smiling. ‘So, I am forgiven,’ he suggested.

  She dumped her gear on the ground, knelt, and spread her blanket beside his. ‘You are my commanding officer,’ she pointed out. ‘I obey your orders.’ She lay down beside him.

  ‘And now you have come to claim your rights.’

  ‘Do you not wish me to do this? Do you not find me attractive?’

  ‘I find you very attractive.’

  ‘Well then …’ She took his hand, and placed it on her breast, stroking it up and down the hardened nipple. ‘I am yours.’

  ‘Would you really have tortured that boy?’ he asked.

  ‘I wanted to. Then. I can be very passionate.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Have you never felt that destructive urge? The urge to inflict pain, to hear somebody scream in agony, to know that he is at your mercy? Or perhaps you would prefer it to be a woman?’

  ‘I have never felt that urge.’

  ‘But you are a soldier. A famous soldier. How many men have you killed?’

  ‘I have no idea. But however many, it has always been in combat. Him or me. Never in cold blood.’

  ‘You killed that German woman in cold blood.’

  ‘I did not. I admit that I was going to shoot the general. I did not like it, but like you, I obey orders. It turned out badly.’

  ‘You mean it turned out exactly as Tito wanted. He has his full-scale war. And we are being killed for it.’

  ‘Do you believe in what he is doing?’

  ‘I believe in fighting for the federation, yes.’

  ‘By that do you mean Yugoslavia?’

  ‘Yes. As things are at present.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you would like to see an independent Bosnia?’

  ‘Why should I not? Is not England independent?’

  ‘England has been independent throughout its history, give or take the odd foreign conquest. Has Bosnia ever been independent? If it wasn’t ruled by the old Serbs, it was ruled by the Turks. And if it wasn’t ruled by the Turks, it was ruled by the Austrians.’

  ‘And now it is ruled by the Nazis. It is time we were given a chance.’ She rolled across him, straddling him with her legs. ‘I did not come to you for a political argument. I came to make love. I am sorry you do not approve of my behaviour last night. I got worked up. I have been worked up ever since we ambushed the German column. I need you inside me.’

  ‘Because I’m the only man around?’

  ‘Because I am your woman now.’ She reared up to rest on her haunches while she unbuckled his belt.

  ‘Well,’ he said, looking past her at the rest of the regiment, several of whom were looking at him. ‘Let’s at least get under the blanket.’

  ‘Message from General von Blintoft, Herr Major,’ Albrecht said.

  Wassermann sat up, and looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. ‘Yes?’

  ‘He has taken Uzice. He says there is work for you.’

  ‘Very good. Wake Captain Rimmer, and tell him we move out in an hour. And bring me a glass of schnapps.’ He dressed himself; in anticipation of a sudden summons, he had taken the precaution of shaving before lying down, and was ready to go in fifteen minutes. He drank his schnapps, and listened to the stealthy sound of the camp coming to life, the growl of engines as the various vehicles were started. Albrecht himself drove the command car, and Rimmer was waiting for him.

  The two officers sat in the back. ‘Was there any word on casualties?’ Rimmer asked.

  ‘None,’ Wassermann said. ‘We will be there in a few hours.’ The motorcycle outriders zoomed away in front, and the command car followed, with the column following them in turn. They used their headlights, both because the surface was bad, and because the road they took led round the hills rather than into them. In view of what was happening, or had happened, in Uzice, Wassermann did not suppose there would be Partisans around.

  He preferred to think of what he would find when he got back to Belgrade, which, with fortune, could be in a couple of days. There was Angela, certainly. He had everything he could wish from Angela … almost. She was a lovely girl, and possessing her body had to be a joy. Except that, sexually, she was utterly boring. She never responded, never attempted to do anything to him or for him. She liked to
be manhandled, even violently, and she liked him to pretend to torture her. But even to those fantasies she rarely responded in any wildly demonstrative way, preferring to lie there with her eyes closed, uttering little moans of pleasure. He fully intended to marry her, not only for her looks and the secrets they shared, but because she was Blintoft’s daughter. As the general was clearly going places, to be his son-in-law had to be the road to success. But he was already accepting that for really enjoyable sex he would have to look elsewhere.

  For this reason, Sandrine Fouquet loomed larger. He did not know what the distant future might hold – that depended to a large extent on the success of this operation, and his part in that success – but the immediate future lay before him with glittering attraction. He did not doubt that beneath that composed exterior Sandrine Fouquet was an emotional bomb; she had proved that often enough in battle. She was going to respond, in the way he liked. And when he tortured her, there would be no make-believe involved.

  The darkness began to fade just as they saw the glow in front of them. So, Wassermann thought, the Partisans had elected to fight for the town after all. How remarkable, and personally satisfying, it would be if Davis had also been taken. Tito would be a bonus.

  An hour later, as the sun rose, they reached the city itself. There was a roadblock about half a mile away from the first houses, but the barrier was raised as soon as the swastika flag on the bonnet was seen. Wassermann had Albrecht stop anyway. ‘Is there still fighting?’ he asked the sergeant.

  ‘One or two snipers, I believe, Herr Major. They are being flushed out.’

  Wassermann nodded, and replaced his cap with his steel helmet; he had no intention of being killed by a sniper’s bullet. Albrecht drove on, more slowly now. In front of them the town was a shattered wreck, brilliantly illuminated in the bright sunlight: the clouds had for the moment cleared. More than half the houses were damaged, and quite a few were in flames. No attempt was being made to put out the fires, and there were masses of people gathering in the various squares and just outside of the town, many carrying pitiable bundles of food or clothes, or clutching their pets – cats and dogs and caged birds – gazing at what had once been their homes. Albrecht used his horn to clear a path through the people, who gazed at him sullenly. One or two even shook fists, but no one attempted to interfere with the column.