"The name of the man who was with you when you got off your bicycle to murder a helpless German soldier."
"Please," said the Frenchman, "I do not own a bicycle."
The Lieutenant nodded to the SS private. The soldier tied the Frenchman into one of the chairs, not roughly.
"We are very direct," said the Lieutenant. "I have promised the Sergeant he will get back to his Company for dinner and I intend to keep my promise. I merely promise you that if you do not tell me, you will regret it later. Now…"
"I do not even own a bicycle," the Frenchman mumbled.
The Lieutenant went over to the desk and opened a drawer. He took out a pair of pliers and walked slowly, opening and closing the pliers, with a squeaking, homely sound, behind the chair in which the Frenchman was tied. The Lieutenant bent over briskly, and seized the Frenchman's right hand in one of his own. Then, quite briskly, and carelessly, with a sharp, professional jerk, he pulled out the nail of the man's thumb.
The scream had no connection with anything that Christian had ever heard before.
The execution was in the cellar of the town hall. There was a long, damp basement, lit by two bare, bright bulbs. The floor was made out of hard-packed earth and there were two stakes knocked into it near the wall at one end. There were two shallow coffins, made out of unpainted wood, that gleamed rawly in the harsh light, lying behind the stakes. The cellar was used as a prison, too, and other condemned men had written their final words to the living world in chalk and charcoal on the sweating walls.
"There is no God," Christian read, standing behind the six soldiers who were to do the shooting, and "Merde, Merde, Merde," and, "My name is Jacques. My father's name was Raoul. My mother's name was Clarisse. My sister's name was Simone. My uncle's name was Etienne. My son's name was…" The man had never finished that.
The two condemned men shuffled in, each between two soldiers. They moved as though their legs had not been used for a long time.
The Sergeant in command of the squad gave the first order. His voice sounded strange, too parade-like and official for the shabby cellar.
The shots cut the smaller man's cords and he toppled forward. The Sergeant ran up hurriedly and put the coup de grace in, first to the small man's head, then to the other man's. The smell of the powder for a moment obscured the other, damp, corrupt smells of the cellar.
The Lieutenant nodded to Christian. Christian followed him upstairs and out into the foggy grey light, his ears still ringing from the rifles.
The Lieutenant smiled faintly. "How did you like it?" he asked.
"All right," said Christian, evenly. "I didn't mind it."
"Excellent," said the Lieutenant. "Have you had your breakfast?"
"No."
"Come with me," the Lieutenant said. "I have breakfast waiting. It's only five doors up."
They walked side by side, their footsteps muffled in the pearly fog off the sea.
The Lieutenant stopped and faced Christian, smiling a little.
"They weren't the men at all, were they?" he said.
Christian hesitated, but only for a moment. "Frankly, Sir," he said, "I am not sure."
The Lieutenant smiled more broadly. "You're an intelligent man," he said lightly. "The effect is the same. It proves to them that we are serious." He patted Christian on the shoulder. "Go round to the kitchen and tell Renee I told you she was to feed you well, the same breakfast she brings me. You speak French well enough for that, don't you?"
"Yes, Sir," Christian said.
"Good." The Lieutenant gave Christian's shoulder a final pat and went in through the large solid door in the grey house with the geranium pots at the windows and in the garden in front. Christian went round to the back door. He had a large breakfast, with eggs and sausage and coffee with real cream.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"BACK in Tulsa, when I was in high school," Fahnstock was saying, between slow strokes of the hammer, "they called me Stud. From the time I was thirteen years old my prevailing interest in life was girls. If I could find me an English broad in town here, I wouldn't even mind this place." Reflectively he hammered out a nail from the weathered piece of timber he was working on and threw the nail into the tin next to him. Then he spat, a long dark spurt of tobacco juice, from the wad that seemed to be permanently attached to the inside of his jaw.
Michael took out the pint bottle of gin from the back pocket of his fatigues and took a long gulp. He put the bottle away without offering Fahnstock a drink. Fahnstock, who got drunk every Saturday night, did not drink on week-days before Retreat, and it was only ten o'clock in the morning now. Besides, Michael was tired of Fahnstock. They had been together for over two months now in the Replacement Centre Casual Company. One day they worked on the lumber pile, taking nails out and straightening them, and the next day they worked on KP. The Mess Sergeant didn't like either of them, and for the last fifteen times he had put them on the dirtiest job in the kitchen, scrubbing the big greasy pots and cleaning the stoves after the day's cooking was over.
As far as Michael could tell, both he and Fahnstock, who was too stupid to do anything else, were going to spend the rest of the war and perhaps the rest of their lives alternating between the lumber pile and the kitchen. When this realization had sunk in, Michael had thought of desertion, but had compromised with gin. It was very dangerous, because the camp was run like a penal colony and men were constantly being sentenced to years in jail for smaller offences than drunkenness on duty, but the dull, ameliorating effects of the steady flow of alcohol through his brain made it possible for Michael to continue to live, and he took the risk gladly.
He had written to Colonel Pavone soon after he was put on the lumber pile, asking to be transferred, but there had been no answer from the Colonel, and Michael was too tired all the time now to bother to write again or to try any other avenues of escape.
"The best time I had in the Army," Fahnstock drawled, "was in Jefferson Barracks in St Louis. I found three sisters in a bar. They worked in a brewery in St Louis on different shifts. One was sixteen, one was fifteen and one was fourteen. Hillbillies fresh out of the Ozark Mountains. They never owned a pair of stockings till they worked in the brewery for three months. I sure did regret it the day my orders came through for overseas."
"Listen," Michael said, pounding slowly on a nail, "will you please talk about something else?"
"I'm just trying to pass the time," Fahnstock said, aggrieved.
"Pass the time some other way," Michael said, feeling the gin gripping the lining of his stomach.
They hammered at the splintery boards in silence.
A guard with a rifle came by behind two prisoners who were rolling wheelbarrows full of lumber ends. The prisoners dumped the lumber onto the pile. They all moved with a dragging, deliberate slowness, as though there was nothing ahead of them in their whole lives that was important to do.
"Shake your arse," the guard said languidly, leaning on the rifle. The prisoners paid no attention to him.
"Whitacre," said the guard, "whip out the bottle." Michael looked glumly at him. The police, he thought, everywhere the same, collecting their blackmail for overlooking the breaking of the law. He took out the bottle and wiped the neck of it before handing it to the guard. He watched jealously as the guard took a deep swig.
"I only drink on holidays." The guard grinned as he handed back the bottle.
Michael put the bottle away. "What's this?" he asked. "Christmas?"
"Haven't you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"We hit the beach this morning. This is D-Day, Brother, ain't you glad you're here?"