“We have little time,” Christine finally said. “We must get to the canisters quickly. Come.”
She broke into a trot, pulling me along as the men ran through the fields, grouped protectively on either side of us, the big guy close by. We ran through calf-high plants that smelled of onion as we crushed them.
“What's happened?” I managed to say between breaths.
“One of the
Résistants
from the village has been captured,” Christine answered. “Cyril. He was with the group that met you.”
“Yes, I remember him,” I said. We slowed as we crossed a stream that divided the fields and made our way through the brush.
“He will talk,” she said. “He will tell them where the canisters are.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked before breaking into a run.
“Everyone talks,” she said as she led the men up the next hill. “It is only a question of when.”
I stopped asking questions.
The Resistance group from Coudray had used the weapons we gave them to attack a convoy. Cyril must have been captured during that attack, or another I didn't know about. I felt responsible, since we gave him and his pals the guns, but he was an eager volunteer. Maybe too eager, which was pretty much the story with a lot of guys fighting and dying today on the Normandy beaches. I tried not to think about what was ahead for Cyril. Torture until he talked, followed by a Gestapo cell or a bullet. Either way, he was a dead man.
We ran a race against time, a race pitting our lungs and legs against Cyril's stamina and willingness to suffer. There was no way to know if the race had already been won by the Germans, or if Cyril was neck and neck with death. The Germans would want to know about his group first. Names and locations. They might not ask about their weapons right away, but they'd get around to it. Sten guns meant supply drops, and the Krauts would want to know when and where. There was a chance our landing site would be compromised as well.
Christine signaled a halt. We'd reached a line of oaks that bordered one of the farmhouses at the edge of Coudray. A road led up the hill to where the canisters were hidden. To our left, the road forked, one lane going off into the woods and the other curving around the farmhouse on its way to the village. She held a whispered conference with the big guy, and in seconds one of the other men slipped off into the darkness.
“He is going to look,” she said. “What is the word? To go ahead and see?”
“Scout?” I suggested.
“Yes, he will scout. We cannot use the road in case the Germans have an
embuscade
, yes? Maurice is very quiet, a good hunter. He will see.”
“Was that Murat's idea? Is that him, the big man?” I said, pointing to who I guessed the commander was.
“Yes, it was Murat's idea,” she said, the wisp of a smile playing across her face as she watched the farmhouse. I might be slow at times, but I wasn't stupid.
“You are Murat,” I whispered.
“Oui,”
she said. “And if I die, there will be another.”
“You're not the first?” She shook her head and held up three fingers. It made sense. Murat would never die. It gave people a hero.
We settled in for the wait, listening for any movement or the distant approach of trucks. Wind blew the clouds to the east, leaving the moon bright as a searchlight. Another owl hooted, and then one of the
Maquis
hooted back, a signal that all was clear from the look on Christine's face.
Four of the men crossed the road and disappeared into the trees. We stayed in the woods on our side and worked our way up the hill, weapons at the ready, taking no chances. We found Maurice at the top of the hill, crouched at the side of the road, studying the downward slope.
He stood and shouldered his rifle.
“Personne.”
“Zéro,”
I said, remembering that
personne
meant no one. I'd picked up a few French phrases from the Canucks I'd rousted back in Boston, mostly French Canadians who'd had too much to drink on Saturday night, or gotten caught with stolen loot. Between that and what I'd learned in Algiers, I could make out a few words here and there, especially if they were about the black market, booze, or a good alibi.
Personne
was usually who could vouch for a proffered alibi.
“It seems we have beat the Germans, or that Cyril has held out,” Christine said.
“Let's hope they don't think he has any information. He's just a kid, after all. Come on,” I said, heading into the woods near a fallen pine I recognized. I tried to find the exact spot where we'd hidden them, at the base of a lichen-covered rock, covered in branches. Having lost my bearings, I headed back to the fallen pine and almost stumbled over the canisters. They were all there, unopened. Cyril and his people had kept their promise, leaving the bulk of the weapons for Murat.
We got the canisters out to the road, where Christine gave the men their marching orders. They snapped to, taking up the canisters and heading down the other side of the hill, leaving us alone.
“We have a hiding place, an old cellar, not far,” she explained. “Thank you for leading us here. The arms will be well used against the
Boche
, believe me.”
“I do. What next?”
“We walk back to
l'hôpital
,” she said. “I hide you there for the night. They are used to seeing me stay after curfew, so it is not dangerous. Not so much anyway.”
With that cheery qualification, we took the road back, staying in the shadows cast by the silvery moon. The landscape was silent, the only sound coming from our heels hitting the road.
Until we heard the engine. Grinding gears and tires on gravel, coming from the forest lane near the farmhouse. We bolted for the oaks, taking cover at a spot that gave us a clear view of the fork in the road.
“Looks like we beat them to it,” I said. “Too bad we didn't think to set up an ambush of our own.”
“It was too important to get the guns away,” Christine said. “If we lost men, they could not carry them.” Simple arithmetic. I began to see why she was Murat.
One truck emerged from the woods, followed by a second, beams seeping through the black tape covering their headlights. The first continued on to the village while the second braked in front of the house. The canvas flap was thrown back, and half a dozen men jumped out, rushing for the farmhouse door.
“Milice,”
Christine hissed. Their blue tunics and large floppy berets marked them as members of the French fascist militia, the
Milice française
.
Rifle butts pounded on the front door as the
miliciens
swarmed the house, covering the back. Soon they were inside, and shouts and screams echoed in the night. Shots boomed from inside the house, flashes of muzzle fire illuminating the progress of the search, until a final blast lit an upstairs window for a split second, leaving darkness and silence within the riven home.
Christine gasped so loudly I was afraid the killers must have heard. I rested my hand on her shoulder, and she grasped it tightly. Moments passed, and then the silence was broken by the smashing of glass, the
thuds
of furniture being overturned, the desecration of a family's patrimony. Laughter rippled through the house, the forced jocularity of those who needed to convince themselves that all was well, their actions right and just, even as they stepped in the blood of the slain.
Men stumbled out the front door. Bottles were handed around, brandy or calvados from the kitchen cupboards. Flames ate at the curtains lit in an attempt to further punish the dead before the
miliciens
climbed into their truck and motored off.
Without a word, Christine bolted to the farmhouse, her coat flapping as she ran. I followed, racing up the stone steps and through the open door. She was pulling at the curtains in the sitting room, stomping out the fire. I went through to the kitchen. The farmer was on his back, mouth open, his body wreathed in blood from two shots to the chest. On the stairs I found a boy, fifteen or so, the back of his head blown away. In the bedroom, a woman was huddled in the corner as if she'd run out of places to hide. She'd been shot in the neck, her hands still clutched around her throat in a futile attempt to staunch the blood as it pumped out of her dying body.
“There's a girl as well,” Christine said. “She'd hidden in the closet.”
“Dead,” I said, not bothering to make it a question.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It is simple. Cyril is from this village. God only knows what they are on their way to do now. Come, we must see.”
“Wait, Christine,” I said as I followed her out of the charnel house. “What can we do? We have nothing but our pistols.”
“Nothing but bear witness. For now. Go back if you wish, but I must see.”
I looked back at the house. A sign was posted at the door, a requirement of the German occupiers. Names and ages of the residents within. Clara had been eighteen, Jérôme fourteen. There was nothing else I could do. I followed her, taking the road I'd traveled not so long ago with the
Résistants
of Coudray, joyfully celebrating their new weapons and white silk.
We left the road and circled around the village, finding a vantage point along the stone wall surrounding the churchyard cemetery. The two
Milice
trucks were parked in front of the church, the militiamen patrolling the main street with its whitewashed houses and dark slate roofs. The houses crowded the roadway, close enough for the men to tap the darkened windows with their rifles and taunt the inhabitants as they passed.
“What's going on?” I asked. The leisurely approach was at odds with the attack on the farmhouse. The growl of approaching engines gave the answer. Reinforcements.
“Mon Dieu,”
Christine whispered. From the other side of the village a column came into view, led by an open staff car. Headlamps were on full beam in defiance of the blackout. The harsh lights reflected off the stone church and the white walls of the houses and shops, creating an arena of garish whiteness, as frightening as it was unexpected.
“Le SS.”
A German officer stood in the staff car, barking out orders in French and German. The
Milice
scattered to the perimeter, forming a cordon around the village. One of them was about twenty yards from us, but his gaze was fixed in the opposite direction, seeking those who might try to escape.
Troops in dappled camouflage smocks and hobnail boots descended from the trucks, smashed their way into houses, and dragged out the inhabitants. Shots rang out from behind the buildings, picking off those who tried to escape.
“They are from the Twelfth SS Panzer Division,” Christine said. “See the emblem on the trucks?” I didâa skeleton key set against the runic letter S. “Hitler Youth, the
Hitlerjugend
division. Fanatic Nazis.”
“They're going to kill everyone,” I said, not able to believe what I was witnessing. Christine didn't need to answer. I wanted to bury my head in my hands and pretend such things didn't really happen. But I couldn't, not with Christine locking her eyes on the scene in front of us, taking it all in.
As the women and children were dragged into the church, screams slashed the air. Mothers and wives reached for their men and boys, who stood with their hands held high in front of the houses where they had gone to sleep that night, counting the days until liberation. One mother broke free, running to her young son. Her arms and her nightdress enfolded him in a final gesture of protection. The SS troopers looked about the same age as the boy, but stared at the scene with indifference, their faces masks of darkness and reflected light.
The officer leapt from his vehicle and shouted at his men to hurry.
“Macht schnell,
macht schnell.”
The woman and her son were hustled into the church, joining about thirty others who had been herded inside. As the heavy door was slammed shut, silence draped itself over the tableau, broken only by a truck parking in front of the church steps. The village men, a couple of dozen by my count, were pushed back against the walls of the buildings across the street.
The officer waved his arm, a languid, almost graceful motion.
Gunfire ripped the night. Submachine guns, rifles, pistols, all let loose into the gathered Frenchmen. Their bodies twitched, tumbled, and fell back against the white walls now spattered with crimson. It was over in seconds, and when the shooting stopped, cries of anguish rose up from within the church, even more terrible than the volley of fire that still seemed to echo off the stones.
The truck pulled away from the church, revealing two of the
Hitlerjugend
upending jerricans of gas at the wooden door. Other troopers surrounded the church as the officer stepped through the pile of corpses, delivering pistol shots to any that moved. There was no further need for orders; everything was going according to plan. The gas cans had been hidden from view, so the men wouldn't guess what was planned for their women and children. They'd awaited their fate quietly, accepting it as best they could.
Whump.
An orange explosion ignited at the church door, sending a cloud of black smoke swirling into the night sky. Flames licked at the stout wooden door and lit the inside of the church as the fuel that had flowed under the door torched the interior. SS troopers shot out the stained glass windows and tossed grenades through the narrow shattered openings, the explosions drowning out the pleas for mercy and the terrified screams of the burned and dying.
Hands clawed at the windows, only to be beaten back by shots and more grenades. A woman threw a small child out one window. She screamed at the nearest soldier, cursing him while flames licked at her back. Two troopers shot at her, and she vanished into the inferno. The small form lay still and smoking between the two SS men, who kept firing at the windows until the interior was fully engulfed, the centuries-old wooden pews burning like kindling in a stove.