CHRISTIAN felt like an impostor, sitting in the little open scout car, with his helmet on his head. He held his light automatic machine-pistol loosely over his knees as they sped cheerfully along the tree-bordered French road. He was eating cherries they had picked from an orchard back near Meaux. Paris lay just ahead over the ripples of frail, green hills. To the French, who must be peering at him from behind the shutters of their stone houses along the road, he looked, he knew, like a conqueror and stern soldier and destroyer. He hadn't heard a shot fired yet, and here the war was already over.
He turned to talk to Brandt, sitting in the back seat. Brandt was a photographer in one of the propaganda companies and he had hitched on to Christian's reconnaissance squadron as far back as Metz. He was a frail, scholarly-looking man who had been a mediocre painter before the war. Christian had grown friendly with him when Brandt had come to Austria for the spring skiing. Brandt's face was burned a bright red and his eyes were sandy from the wind, and his helmet made him look like a small boy playing soldiers in the family backyard. Christian grinned at him, jammed in there with an enormous corporal from Silesia, who spread himself happily over Brandt's legs and photographic equipment in the cramped, little seat.
"What're you laughing about, Sergeant?" Brandt asked.
"The colour of your nose," Christian said.
Brandt touched the burned, flaked skin gingerly. "Down to the seventh layer," he said. "It is an indoor-model nose. Come on, Sergeant, hurry up and take me to Paris. I need a drink."
"Patience," Christian said. "Just a little patience. Don't you know there's a war on?"
The Silesian corporal laughed uproariously. He was a high-spirited young man, simple and stupid, and apart from being anxious to please his superiors, he was having a wonderful time on his journey across France. The night before, very solemnly, he had told Christian, as they lay side by side on their blankets along the road, that he hoped the war didn't end too soon. He wanted to kill at least one Frenchman. His father had lost a leg at Verdun in 1916, and the corporal, whose name was Kraus, remembered saying, at the age of seven, standing rigidly in front of his one-legged father after church on Christmas Eve, "I will die happy after I have killed a Frenchman." That had been fifteen years ago. But he still peered hopefully at each new town for signs of Frenchmen who might oblige him. He had been thoroughly disgusted back at Chanly, when a French lieutenant had appeared in front of a cafe, carrying a white flag, and had surrendered sixteen likely candidates to them without firing a shot.
Christian glanced back, past Brandt's comic, burning face, at the other two cars speeding smoothly along on the even, straight road at intervals of seventy-five metres behind them. Christian's Lieutenant had gone down another parallel road with the rest of the section, leaving these three cars under Christian's command. They were to keep moving towards Paris, which they had been assured would not be defended. Christian grinned as he felt himself swelling a little with pride at this first independent command, three cars and eleven men, with armament of ten rifles and tommy-guns and one heavy machine-gun.
He turned in his seat and watched the road ahead of him. What a pretty country, he thought. How industriously it has been cared for, the neat fields bordered by poplars, the regular lines of the ploughing now showing the budding green of June.
How surprising and perfect it all had been, he thought drowsily. After the long winter of waiting, the sudden superb bursting out across Europe, the marvellous, irresistible tide of energy, organized and detailed down to the last salt tablet and tube of Salvarsan (each man had had three issued with his emergency field rations in Aachen, before they started out, and Christian had grinned at the Medical Department's estimate of the quality of French resistance). And how exactly everything had worked. The dumps and maps and water just where they had been told they would be, the strength of the enemy and the extent of his resistance exactly as predicted, the roads in precisely the condition they had been told they would be. Only Germans, he thought, remembering the complex flood of men and machines pouring across France, only Germans could have managed it.
Really, Christian thought playfully, at a time like this I should be humming Wagner. It is probably a kind of treachery to the Greater Third Reich not to be singing Siegfried today. He didn't like Wagner very much, but he promised himself he would think of some Wagner after he got through with the clarinet quintet. Anyway, it would help keep him awake. His head fell on to his chest and he slept, breathing softly and smiling a little. The driver looked over at him, and grinned and jerked his thumb at Christian in friendly mockery for the benefit of the photographer and the Silesian corporal in the back. The Silesian corporal roared with laughter, as though Christian had done something irresistibly clever and amusing for his benefit.
The three cars sped along the road through the calm, shining countryside, deserted, except for occasional cattle and chickens and ducks, as though all the inhabitants had taken a holiday and gone to a fair in the next town.
The first shot seemed to be part of the music.
The next five shots wakened him, though, and the sound of the brakes, and the tumbling sensation of the car skidding sideways to a halt in the ditch next to the road. Still almost asleep, Christian jumped out and lay behind the car. The others lay panting in the dust beside him, He waited for something to happen, somebody to tell him what to do. Then he realized that the others were looking anxiously at him. In command, he thought, the non-commissioned officer will take immediate stock of the situation and make his dispositions with simple, clear orders. He will betray no uncertainty and will at all times behave with confidence and aggressiveness.
"Anybody hurt?" he whispered.
"No," said Kraus. He had his finger on the trigger of his rifle and was peering excitedly around the front tyre of the car.
"Christ," Brandt was saying nervously. "Jesus Christ." He was fumbling erratically with the safety-catch on his pistol, as though he had never handled the weapon before.
"Leave it alone," Christian said sharply, "leave the safety-catch on. You'll kill somebody this way."
"Let's get out of here," Brandt said. His helmet had tumbled off and his hair was dusty. "We'll all get killed."
"Shut up," Christian said.
There was a rattle of shots. Slugs tore through the scout car and a tyre exploded.
"Christ," Brandt mumbled. "Christ."
Christian edged towards the rear of the car, climbing over the driver as he did so. This driver, Christian thought automatically, as he rolled over him, hasn't bathed since the invasion of Poland.
"For God's sake," he said irritably, "why don't you take a bath?"
"Excuse me, Sergeant," the driver said humbly.
Protected by the rear wheel of the car, Christian raised his head. A little clump of daisies waved gently in front of him, magnified to a forest of prehistoric growths by their closeness. The road, shimmering a little in the heat, stretched away in front of him.
Twenty feet away a small bird landed and strutted, busy with its affairs, rustling its feathers, calling unmusically from time to time, like an impatient customer in a deserted shop. A hundred yards away was the road-block.
Christian examined it carefully. It was squarely across the road in a place where the land on both sides rose quite steeply, and it was placed like a dam in a brook. There were no signs of life from behind it. It was in deep shadow, shaded by the rustling trees that grew on both sides of the road and made an arch over the barricade. Christian looked behind him. There was a bend in the road there, and the other two cars were nowhere to be seen. Christian was sure they had stopped when they heard the shots. He wondered what they were doing now and cursed himself for having fallen asleep and letting himself get into something like this.
The barricade was obviously hastily improvised, two trees with the foliage still on them, filled in with springs and mattresses and an overturned farm cart and some stones from the near-by fence. It was well placed in one way. The overhanging trees hid it from aerial observation; the only way you'd find out about it would be by coming on it as they had done. It was a lucky thing the Frenchmen had fired so soon. Christian's mouth felt dusty. He was terribly thirsty. The cherries he had eaten suddenly made his tongue smart where it had been burned a little raw by cigarettes.
If they have any sense, he thought, they will be around on our flanks now and preparing to murder us. How could I do it? he thought, staring harshly at the two felled trees silent in the enigmatic shadow a hundred metres away, how could I have fallen asleep? If they had a mortar or a machine-gun placed anywhere in the woods, it would be all over in five seconds. But there was no sound in front of them, just the bird hopping beyond the daisies on the asphalt, making its irritable, sharp cry.
There was a noise behind him and he twisted round. But it was only Maeschen, one of the men from the other two cars, crawling up to them through the undergrowth. Maeschen crawled correctly and methodically, as he had been taught in training camp, with his rifle cradled in his arms.
"How are things back there?" Christian asked. "Anybody hurt?"
"No," Maeschen panted. "The cars are up a side road. Everybody's all right. Sergeant Himmler sent me up here to see if you were still alive."
"We're alive," Christian said grimly.
"Sergeant Himmler told me to tell you he will go back to battery headquarters and report that you have engaged the enemy and will ask for two tanks," Maeschen said, very correct, again as he had been taught in the long, weary hours with the instructors.
Christian squinted at the barricade, low and mysterious in the green gloom between the aisle of trees. It had to happen to me, he thought bitterly. If they find out I was asleep, it will be court-martial. He had a sudden vision of disapproving officers behind a table, with the rustle of official papers before them and he standing there stiffly, waiting for the blow to fall.
"It's damned helpful of Himmler, he thought ironically, to offer to go back for reinforcements. Himmler was a round, loud, jovial man who always laughed and looked mysterious when he was asked if he was any relation to Heinrich Himmler. Somehow it was part of the uneasy myth of the battery that they were related, probably uncle and nephew, and Sergeant Himmler was treated with touchy consideration by everyone. Probably at the end of the war, by which time Himmler would have risen to the rank of Colonel, mostly on the strength of the shadowy relationship, because he was a mediocre soldier and would never get anywhere by himself, they'd find out there was nothing there at all, no connection whatever.
There was no movement behind the barricade. It lay low on the road, its leaves flicking gently now and again in the wind.
"Keep covered," he whispered to the others.
"Should I stay?" Maeschen asked, anxiously.
"If you would be so kind," Christian said. "We serve tea at four."
Maeschen looked baffled and uneasy and blew some dust out of the breech of his rifle.
Christian pushed his machine-pistol through the daisy clump and aimed at the barricade. He took a deep breath. The first time, he thought, the first shot of the war. He fired two short bursts. The noise was savage and mean under the trees and the daisies waved wildly before his eyes. Somewhere behind him he heard grunting, whimpering little noises. Brandt, he thought, the war photographer. For a moment, nothing happened. The bird had disappeared and the daisies stopped waving and the echoes of the shots died down in the woods. No, Christian thought, of course they're not that stupid. They're not behind the block. Things couldn't be that easy.
Then, as he watched, he saw the rifles through chinks high in the barricade. The shots rang out and there was the vicious, searching whistle of the bullets around his head.
"No, oh no, oh, please no…" It was Brandt's voice. What the hell could you expect from a middle-aged landscape painter?
Christian made himself keep his eyes open. He counted the rifles as they fired. Six, possibly seven. That was all. As suddenly as they had begun they stopped.
It's too good to be true, Christian thought. They can't have any officers with them. Probably half a dozen boys, deserted by their lieutenant, scared, but willing, and easy to take.
"Maeschen!"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Go back to Sergeant Himmler. Tell him to bring his car out on to the road. They can't be seen from here. They're perfectly safe."
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Brandt!" Christian didn't look back, but he made his voice as cutting and scornful as possible. "Stop that!"
"Of course," Brandt said. "Certainly. Don't pay any attention. I will do whatever you say I should do. Believe me. You can depend on me."
"Maeschen," Christian said.
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Tell Himmler I am going to move off to my right through these woods and try to come up on the block from behind. He is to cross the road where he is and do the same thing on his side with at least five men. I think there are only six or seven people behind that barricade and they are armed only with rifles. I don't think there's an officer with them. Can you remember all that?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"I'll fire once at them, in fifteen minutes," Christian said, "and then demand that they surrender. If they find themselves being under fire from behind, I don't think they'll do much fighting. If they do, you're to be in position to block them on your side. I'm leaving one man here in case they come on up over the barricade. Have you got all that?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"All right. Go ahead."
"Yes, Sergeant." Maeschen crawled away, his face ablaze with duty and determination.
"Diestl," Brandt said.
"Yes," Christian said coldly, without looking at him. "If you want you can go back with Maeschen. You're not under my command."
"I want to go with you." Brandt's voice was controlled. "I'm all right now. I just had a bad moment." He laughed a little. "I just had to get used to being shot at. You said you were going to ask them to give up. You'd better take me with you. No Frenchman'll ever understand your French." Christian looked at him and they grinned at each other. He's all right, Christian thought, finally he's all right.
"Come along," he said. "You're invited."
Then, with Brandt dragging his Leica, with his pistol in his other hand, thoughtfully at safety, and Kraus eagerly bringing up the rear, they crawled off through a bed of fern into the woods towards their right. The fern was soft and dank-smelling. The ground was a little marshy and their uniforms were soon stained with green. There was a slight rise thirty metres away. After they had crawled over that they could stand up and proceed, bent over, behind its cover.
There was a small continuous rustling in the wood. Two squirrels made a sudden racket leaping from one tree to another. The undergrowth tore at their boots and trousers as they cautiously tried to walk a course parallel to the road.
It's not going to work, Christian thought, it's going to be a terrible failure. They can't be that stupid. It's a perfect trap and I've fallen perfectly into it. The Army will get to Paris all right, but I'll never see it. Probably you could lie dead here for ten years and no one would find you but the owls and the wood animals. He had been sweating out oh the road, and when he was crawling, but now the chill gloom struck through his clothes and the sweat congealed on his skin. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. The woods were probably full of Frenchmen, desperate, full of hate, slipping in and out behind the trees which they knew like the furniture in their own bedrooms, furiously happy to kill more Germans before going down in the general collapse. Brandt, who had lived all his life on city pavements, sounded like a herd of cattle, blundering through the brush.
Why in God's name, Christian thought, did it have to happen this way? The first action. All the responsibility on his shoulders. Just this time the Lieutenant had to be off on his own. Every other moment of the war the Lieutenant had been there, looking down his long nose, sneering, saying, "Sergeant, is that how you have been taught to give a command?" and "Sergeant, is it your opinion that this is the correct manner in which to fill out a requisition form?" and "Sergeant, when I say I want ten men here at four o'clock, I mean four o'clock, not four-two, or four-ten, or four-fifteen, FOUR O'CLOCK, SERGEANT. IS that clear?" And now the Lieutenant was driving happily along in the armoured car, down a perfectly safe road, stuffed full of tactics and Clausewitz and disposition of troops and flanking movements and fields of fire and compass marches over unfamiliar terrain, when all he needed was a Michelin road map and a few extra gallons of petrol. And here was Christian, a dressed-up civilian really, stumbling through treacherous woods in an insane, improvised patrol against a strong position, with two men who had never fired a shot at anyone in their lives… It was madness. It would never succeed. He remembered his optimism out on the road and marvelled at it. "Suicide," he said, "absolute suicide."
"What's that?" Brandt whispered, and his voice carried through the rustling forest like a dinner gong. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," Christian said. "Keep quiet."
His eyes were aching now from the strain of watching each leaf, each blade of grass.
"Attention!" Kraus shouted crazily. "Attention!"
Christian dived behind a tree. Brandt crashed into him and the shot hit the wood over their heads. Christian swung round, and Brandt blinked through his glasses and struggled with the safety-catch on his pistol. Kraus was jumping wildly to one side, trying to disentangle the sling of his rifle from the branches of a bush. There was another shot, and Christian felt the sting on the side of his head. He fell down and got up again and fired at the kneeling figure he suddenly saw in the confusion of green and waving foliage behind a boulder. He saw his bullets chipping the stone. Then he had to change the clip in his gun and he sat on the ground, tearing at the breech, which was stiff and new. There was a shot to his left and he heard Kraus calling, wildly, "I got him, I got him," like a boy on his first hunt for pheasant, and he saw the Frenchman quite deliberately slide, face down, on the grass. Kraus started to run for the Frenchman, as though he were afraid another hunter would claim him. There were two more shots, and Kraus fell into a stiff bush and sprawled there, almost erect, with the bush quivering under him, giving his buttocks a look of electric life. Brandt had got the safety-catch off his pistol and was firing erratically at a clump of bushes, his elbow looking rubbery and loose. He sat on the ground, with his glasses askew on his nose, biting his lips white, holding the elbow of his right arm with his left hand in an attempt to steady himself. By that time Christian had the clip in his pistol and started firing at the clump of bushes too. Suddenly a rifle came hurtling out and a man sprang out with his hands in the air. Christian stopped firing. There was the quiet of the forest again and Christian suddenly smelled the sharp, dry, unpleasant fumes of the burnt powder.
"Venez," Christian called. "Venez ici." Somewhere inside him, with the buzzing of his head and the ringing of his ears from the firing, there was a proud twinge at the sudden access of French.
The man, his hands still over his head, came towards them slowly. His uniform was soiled and open at the collar and his face was pasty and green with fright under the scrubby beard. He kept his mouth open and the tongue licked at the corners of his mouth dryly.
"Cover him," Christian said to Brandt, who, amazingly, was snapping pictures of the advancing Frenchman.
Brandt stood up and poked his pistol out menacingly. The man stopped. He looked as though he were going to fall down in a moment and his eyes were imploring and hopeless as Christian passed him on the way over to the bush where Kraus hung. The bush had stopped vibrating and Kraus looked deader now. Christian laid him out on the ground. Kraus had a surprised, eager look on his face.
Walking erratically, with his head aching from the slap of the bullet and the blood dripping over his ear, Christian went over to the Frenchman Kraus had shot. He was lying on his face with a bullet between his eyes. He was very young, Kraus's age, and his face had been badly mangled by the bullet. Christian dropped him back to the ground hurriedly. How much damage, he thought, these amateurs can do. No more than four shots fired between them in the whole war, and two dead to show for it.
Christian felt the scratch on his temple; it had already stopped bleeding. He went over to Brandt and told him to instruct the prisoner to go down to the block and tell them they were surrounded and demand the surrender of everyone there, upon pain of annihilation. My first real day in the war, he thought, while Brandt was translating, and I am delivering ultimatums like a Major-General. He grinned. He felt light-headed and uncertain of his movements, and from moment to moment he was not sure whether he was going to laugh or weep.
The Frenchman kept nodding again and again, very emphatically, and talking swiftly to Brandt, too swiftly for Christian's meagre talent for the language.
"He says he'll do it," Brandt said.
"Tell him," Christian said, "we'll follow him and shoot him at the first sign of any nonsense."
The Frenchman nodded vigorously as Brandt told him this, as though it were the most reasonable statement in the world. They started out down through the forest towards the roadblock, past Kraus's body, looking healthy and relaxed on the grass, with the sun slicing through the branches, gilding his helmet with dull gold.
They kept the Frenchman ten paces ahead of them. He stopped at the edge of the forest, which was about three metres higher than the road and along which ran a low stone fence.
"Emile," the Frenchman called, "Emile… It's I. Morel." He clambered over the fence and disappeared from view. Carefully, Christian and Brandt approached the fence, and knelt behind it. Down on the road, behind the block, their prisoner was talking swiftly, standing up, to seven soldiers kneeling and lying on the road behind their barricade. Occasionally, one of them would stare nervously into the woods, and they kept their voices to a swift, trembling whisper. Even in their uniforms, with their guns in their hands, they looked like peasants congregated in a town hall to discuss some momentous local problem. Christian wondered what stubborn, despairing flare of patriotism or private determination had led them to make this pathetic, inaccurate, useless stand, deserted, unofficered, clumsy, bloody. He hoped they would surrender. He did not want to kill any of these whispering, weary-looking men in their rumpled, shoddy uniforms.
Their prisoners turned and waved to Christian.
"Cest fait!" he shouted. "Nous sommes finis."
"He says, all right," Brandt said, "they're finished."
Christian stood up, to wave to them to put down their arms. But at that moment there were three ragged bursts from the other side of the road. The Frenchman who had done the negotiating fell down and the others started running back along the road, firing, and vanishing one by one into the woods.
Himmler, Christian thought bitterly. At exactly the wrong moment. If you needed him, he'd never…
Christian jumped over the wall and slid down the embankment towards the barricade. They were still shooting from the other side, but without effect. The Frenchmen had disappeared, and Himmler and his men didn't seem to have any mind for pursuit.
As Christian reached the road, the man who was lying there stirred. He sat up and stared at Christian. The Frenchman leaned stiffly over to the base of the barricade where there was a case of grenades. Awkwardly, he took one out of the box and pulled weakly at the pin. Christian turned round. The man's face was glaring up at him and he was pulling at the pin with his teeth. Christian shot him and he fell back. The grenade rolled away. Christian leaped at it and threw it into the woods. He waited for the explosion, crouched behind the barricade next to the dead Frenchman, but there was no sound. The pin had never come out.
Christian stood up. "All right," he called. "Himmler. Come on out here."
He looked down at the man he had just killed as Himmler and the others came crashing down out of the brush. Brandt took a picture of the corpse, because photographs of dead Frenchmen were still quite rare in Berlin.
I've killed a man, Christian thought. He didn't feel anything special.
"How do you like that?" Himmler was saying jubilantly.
"That's the way to do it. This is an Iron Cross job, I'll bet."
"Oh, Christ," Christian said, "be quiet."
He picked up the dead man and dragged him over to the side of the road. Then he gave orders to the other men to tear down the barricade, while he went up with Brandt to where Kraus was lying in the forest.
By the time he and Brandt had carried Kraus back to the road, Himmler and the others had got most of the barricade down. Christian left the Frenchman who had been killed in the forest lying where he had died. He felt very impatient now, and anxious to move on. Somebody else would have to do the honours to the fallen enemy.
He laid Kraus down gently. Kraus looked very young and healthy, and there were red stains around his lips from the cherries, like a small boy who comes guiltily out of the pantry after pillaging the jam-jars. Well, Christian thought, looking down at the large, simple boy who had laughed so heartily at Christian's jokes, you killed your Frenchman. When he got to Paris, he would write to Kraus's father to tell him how his son had died. Fearless, he would write, cheerful, aggressive, best type of German soldier. Proud in his hour of grief. Christian shook his head. No, he would have to do better than that. That was like the idiotic letters in the last war, and, there was no denying it, they had become rather comic by now. Something more original for Kraus, something more personal. We buried him with cherry stains on his lips and he always laughed at my jokes and he got himself killed because he was too enthusiastic… You couldn't say that either. Anyway, he would have to write something.
He turned away from the dead boy as the other two cars drove slowly and warily up the road. He watched them coming with impatient, superior amusement.
"Come on, ladies," he shouted, "there's nothing to be afraid of. The mice have left the room."
The cars spurted obediently and stopped at the road-block, their motors running. Christian's driver was in one of them. Their own car was a wreck, he said, the engine riddled, the tyres torn. It could not be used. The driver was very red, although he had merely lain in the ditch when all the firing was going on. He spoke in gulps, as though it was hard to get his breath, two short, gasping words at a time. Christian realized that the man, who had been quite calm while the action was on, had grown terribly frightened now that it was over, and had lost control of his nerves.
Christian listened to his own voice as he gave orders.
"Maeschen," he said, "you will stay here with Taub, until the next organization comes down this road." The voice is steady, Christian noted with elation, the words are crisp and efficient. I came through it all right. I can do it. "Maeschen, go up there into the woods about sixty metres and you will find a dead Frenchman. Bring him out and leave him with the other two…" he gestured to Kraus and the little man Christian had killed, lying side by side now along the road, "so that they can be correctly buried. All right." He turned to the others. "Get moving."
They climbed into the two cars. The drivers put them in gear, and they went slowly through the space that had been cleared in the block. There was some blood on the road and bits of mattress and trampled leaves, but it all looked green and peaceful. Even the two bodies lying in the heavy grass alongside the road looked like two gardeners who were taking a nap after lunch.
The cars gathered speed and pulled swiftly out of the shade of the trees. There was no more danger of sniping among the open, budding fields. The sun was shining warmly, making them sweat a little, quite pleasantly, after the chill of the woods. I did it, Christian thought. He was a little ashamed of the small smile of self-satisfaction that pulled at the corners of his mouth. I did it. I commanded an action. I am earning my keep, he thought.
Ahead of him, at the bottom of a slope some three kilometres away, was a little town. It was made of stone and was dominated by two church steeples, medieval and delicate, rising out of the cluster of weathered walls around them. The town looked comfortable and secure, as though people had been living there quietly for a long time. The driver of Christian's car slowed down as they approached the buildings. He looked nervously at Christian again and again.
"Come on," Christian said impatiently. "There's nobody there."
The driver obediently stepped on the accelerator.
The houses didn't look as pretty or comfortable from close up as they had from out in the fields. Paint was flaking off the walls, and they were dirty, and there was an undeniable strong smell. Foreigners, Christian thought, they were all dirty.
The street took a bend and they came into the town square. There were some people standing on the church steps and some others in front of a cafe that surprisingly was open, "CHASSEUR ET PECHEUR" Christian read on the sign over the cafe. There were five or six people sitting at the tables and a waiter was serving two of them drinks on those little saucers. Christian grinned. What a war!
On the church steps there were three young girls in bright skirts and low-cut blouses.
"Ooo," the driver said. "Ooo, la, la."
"Stop here," Christian said.
"Avec plaisir, man colonel," the driver said, and Christian looked at him, surprised and amused at his unsuspected culture.
The driver drew up in front of the church and stared unashamedly at the three girls. One of the girls, a dark, full-bodied creature, holding a bouquet of garden flowers in her hand, giggled. The other two girls giggled with her, and they stared with frank interest at the two car-loads of soldiers.
Christian got out of his car. "Come on, Interpreter," he said to Brandt. Brandt followed him, carrying his camera.
Christian walked up to the girls on the church steps. "Bon jour, Mesdemoiselles," he said, carefully taking his helmet off with a graceful, unofficial salute.
The girls giggled again and the big one said, in French that Christian could understand, "How well he speaks." Christian felt foolishly flattered, and went on, disdaining the use of Brandt's superior French.
"Tell me, ladies," he said, only groping a little for the words, "are there any of your soldiers who have passed through here recently?"
"No, Monsieur," the big one answered, smiling. "We have been deserted completely. Are you going to do us any harm?"
"We do not plan to harm anyone," Christian said, "especially three young ladies of such beauty."
"Now," Brandt said, in German, "now listen to that." Christian grinned. There was something very pleasant about standing there in this old town in front of the church in the morning sunlight, looking at the full bosom of the dark girl showing through her sheer blouse, and flirting with her in the unfamiliar language. It was one of the things you never thought about when you started off to war.
"My," the dark girl said, smiling at him, "is that what they teach you in army school in your country?"
"The war is over," Christian said solemnly, "and you will find that we are truly friends of France."
"Oh," said the dark girl, "what a marvellous propagandist." She looked at him invitingly, and for a moment Christian had a wild thought of perhaps staying in this town for an hour.
"Will there be many like you following?"
"Ten million," said Christian.
The girl threw up her hands in mock despair. "Oh, my God," she said, "what will we do with them all? Here," she offered him the flowers, "because you are the first."
He looked at the flowers with surprise, then took them gently from her hand. What a young, human thing it was to do. How hopeful it was…
"Mademoiselle…" His French became halting. "I don't know how to say it… but… Brandt!"
"The Sergeant wishes to say," Brandt said smoothly and swiftly in his proper French, "that he is most grateful and takes this as a token of the great bond between our two great peoples."
"Yes," said Christian, jealous of Brandt's fluency. "Exactly."
"Ah," said the girl, "he is a Sergeant. The officer." She smiled even more widely at him, and Christian thought, amused, they are not so different from the ones at home.
There were steps behind him, clear and ringing on the cobblestones. Christian turned with the bouquet in his hand. He felt a glancing blow, light but sharp, on his fingers, and the flowers went spinning out of his grasp and scattered on the dirty stones at his feet.
An old Frenchman in a black suit and a greenish felt hat was standing there, a cane in his hand. The old man had a sharp, fierce face and a military ribbon in his lapel. He was glaring furiously at Christian.
"Did you do that?" Christian asked the old man.
"I do not talk to Germans," the old man said. The way he stood made Christian feel that he was an old, retired regular soldier, used to authority. His leathery face, wrinkled and weathered, added to the impression. The old man turned on the girls.
"Sluts!" he said. "Why don't you just lie down? Lift your skirts and be done with it!"
"Ah," the dark girl said sullenly, "be quiet, Captain; this is not your war."
Christian felt foolish standing there, but he didn't know what to do or say. This was not exactly a military situation, and he certainly couldn't use force on a seventy-year-old man.
"Frenchwomen!" The old man spat. "Flowers for Germans! They've been out killing your brothers and you present them with bouquets!"
"They're just soldiers," the girl said. "They're far away from home and they're so young and handsome in their uniforms." She was smiling impudently at Brandt and Christian by now, and Christian couldn't help laughing at her direct womanly reasoning.
"All right," he said, "old man. We no longer have the flowers. Go back to your drink." He put his arm in a friendly manner across the old man's shoulders. The old man shook the arm off violently.
"Keep your hands off me!" he shouted. "Boche!"
He strode across the square, his heels clicking fiercely on the cobbles. "Ooo, la, la," Christian's driver said, shaking his head reprovingly as the old man passed the car.
The old man paid no attention to him. "Frenchmen! Frenchwomen!" he shouted to the town at large as he stalked towards the cafe. "It's no wonder the Boche are here this time! No heart, no courage. One shot and they are running through the woods like rabbits. One smile and they are in bed for the whole German Army! They don't work, they don't pray, they don't fight, all they know how to do is surrender. Surrender in the line, surrender in the bedroom. For twenty years France has been practising for this and now they have perfected it!"
"Ooo, la, la," said Christian's driver, who understood French. He bent over and picked up a stone and casually threw it across the square at the Frenchman. It missed him, but it went through the window of the cafe behind him. There was the sharp crash of the plate-glass and then silence in the square. The old Frenchman didn't even look round at the damage. He sat down silently, leaning on the head of his cane. Ferociously and heartbrokenly he glared across at the Germans.
Christian walked over to the driver. "What did you do that for?" he asked quietly.
"He was making too much noise," the driver said. He was a big, ugly, insolent man, like a Berlin taxi-driver, and Christian disliked him intensely. "Teach them some respect for the German Army."
"Don't ever do anything like that again," Christian said harshly. "Understand?"
The driver stood a little straighter, but he didn't answer. He merely stared dully and ambiguously, with a lurking hint of insolence, into Christian's eyes.
Christian turned from him. "All right," he called. "On the road."
The girls were subdued now, and didn't wave as the cars lurched across the square and on to the road towards Paris.
Christian was disappointed when he drove up to the brown sculptured bulk of the Porte Saint Denis and saw the open square around it thronged with armoured vehicles and grey uniforms, the men lounging on the concrete and eating from a field kitchen, for all the world like a Bavarian garrison town on a national holiday, preparing for a parade. Christian had never been in Paris, and he felt it would have been a marvellous climax to the war to be the first to drive through the historic streets, leading the Army into the ancient capital of the enemy.
He drove slowly through the lounging troops and the stacked rifles to the base of the monument. He signalled to Himmler in the car behind him to stop. This was the rendezvous point at which he had been ordered to wait for the rest of the company. Christian took his helmet off and stretched in his seat, taking a deep breath. The mission was finished.
Brandt leaped out of the car and busied himself taking pictures of troops eating, leaning against the base of the monument. Even with his uniform and the black leather holster strapped around his waist, Brandt still looked like a bank-clerk on vacation, taking snapshots for the family album. Brandt had his own theories about pictures. He picked out the handsomest and youngest soldiers. He made a point of picking very blond boys most of the time, privates and lower-grade non-commissioned officers. "My function," he had once told Christian, "is to make the war attractive to the people at home." He seemed to be having success with his theories, because he was up for a commission, and he was constantly receiving commendations from propaganda headquarters in Berlin for his work.
There were two small children wandering shyly among the soldiers, the sole representatives of the French civilian population of Paris in the streets that afternoon. Brandt led them over to where Christian was cleaning his gun on the hood of the little scout car.
"Here," Brandt said, "do me a favour. Pose with these two."
"Get someone else," Christian protested. "I'm no actor."
"I want to make you famous," Brandt said. "Lean over and offer them some sweets."
"I haven't any sweets," Christian said. The two children, a boy and a girl who could not have been over five years old, stood at the wheel of the car, looking gravely up at Christian, with sad, deep, black eyes.
"Here." Brandt took some chocolate out of his pocket and gave it to Christian. "The good soldier is prepared for everything."
Christian sighed and put down the dismantled barrel of the machine-pistol. He leaned over the two shabby, pretty children.
"Excellent types," Brandt said, squatting, with the camera up to his eyes. "The youth of France, pretty, undernourished, sad, trusting. The good-natured, hearty, generous German sergeant, athletic, friendly, handsome, photogenic…"
"Get away from here," Christian said.
"Keep smiling, Beauty." Brandt was busily snapping a series of angles. "And don't give it to them until I tell you. Just hold it out and make them reach for it."
"I would like you to remember, Soldier," Christian said, grinning down at the sombre, unsmiling faces below him, "that I am still your superior officer."
"Art," said Brandt, "above everything. I wish you were blond. You're a good model for a German soldier, except for the hair. You look as though you once had a thought in your head and that's hard to find."
"I think," said Christian, "I ought to report you for statements detrimental to the honour of the German Army."
"The artist," said Brandt, "is above these petty considerations."
He finished his pictures, working very fast, and said, "All right." Christian gave the chocolate to the children, who didn't say anything. They merely looked up at him solemnly and tucked the chocolate in their pockets and wandered off hand-in-hand among the steel treads and the boots and rifle butts.
An armoured car, followed by three scout cars, came into the square and moved slowly alongside Christian's detachment. Christian felt a slight twinge of sorrow when he saw it was the Lieutenant. His independent command was over. He saluted and the Lieutenant saluted back. The Lieutenant had one of the smartest salutes in military history. You heard the rattle of swords and the jangle of spurs down the ages to the campaigns of Achilles and Ajax, when he brought his arm up. Even now, after the long ride from Germany, the Lieutenant looked shiny and impeccable. Christian disliked the Lieutenant and felt uncomfortable before that rigid perfection. The Lieutenant was very young, twenty-three or four, but when he looked around him with his cold, light-grey, imperious stare, a whole world of bumbling, inaccurate civilians seemed to be revealed to his merciless observation. There were very few men who had ever made Christian feel inefficient, but the Lieutenant was one of them. As he stood at attention, watching the Lieutenant climb crisply down from the armoured car, Christian hastily rehearsed his report, and felt all over again the inadequacy and sense of guilt and neglect of duty that he had felt walking through the forest into the trap.
"Yes, Sergeant?" The Lieutenant had a cutting, weary voice, a voice that might have belonged to Bismarck when in military school. He didn't look around him; he had no interest in the old closed buildings of Paris; he might just as well have been on an enormous bare drill-field outside Konigsberg as in the centre of the capital of France on the first day of its occupation by foreign troops since 1871. What an admirable, miserable character, Christian thought, what a useful man to have in your army.
"At ten hundred hours," Christian said, "we made contact with the enemy on the Meaux-Paris road. The enemy had a camouflaged road-block and opened fire on our leading vehicle. We engaged him with nine men. We killed two of the enemy and drove the others in disorder from their position and demolished the block." Christian hesitated for the fraction of a second.
"Yes, Sergeant?" the Lieutenant said flatly.
"We had one casualty, Sir," Christian said, thinking this is where I start my trouble, "Corporal Kraus was killed."
"Corporal Kraus," said the Lieutenant. "Did he perform his duty?"
"Yes, Sir." Christian thought of the lumbering boy, shouting enthusiastically, "I got him! I got him!" among the shaking trees. "He killed one of the enemy with his first shots."
"Excellent," said the Lieutenant. A frosty smile shone briefly on his face, twisting the long, angled nose for a moment. "Excellent." He is delighted, Christian noted in surprise.
"I am sure," the Lieutenant was saying, "that there will be a decoration for Corporal Kraus."
"I was thinking, Sir," Christian said, "of writing a note to his father."
"No," said the Lieutenant. "That's not for you. This is the function of the Company Commander. Captain Mueller will do that. I will give him the facts. It is a delicate matter, this kind of letter, and it is important that the proper sentiments are expressed. Captain Mueller will say exactly the correct thing."
Probably, Christian thought, in the military college there is a course, "Personal Communications to Next of Kin. One hour a week."
"Sergeant," the Lieutenant said, "I am pleased with your behaviour and the behaviour of the rest of the men under your command."
"Thank you, Sir," said Christian. He felt foolishly pleased.
Brandt came over and saluted. The Lieutenant saluted back coldly. He didn't like Brandt, who never could look like a soldier. The Lieutenant made clear his feelings about men who fought the war with cameras instead of guns. But the directives from Headquarters down to lower echelons about giving photographers all possible assistance were too definite to be denied.
"Sir," Brandt said, in his soft civilian voice, "I have been instructed to report with my film as soon as possible to the Place de l'Opera. The film is being collected there and is to be flown back to Berlin. I wonder if I might have a vehicle to take me there. I'll come back immediately."
"I'll let you know in a little while, Brandt," the Lieutenant said. He turned and strode across the square to where Captain Mueller, who had just arrived, was sitting in his amphibious car.
"Just crazy about me," Brandt said, "that lieutenant."
"You'll get the car," Christian said. "He's feeling pretty good."
"I'm crazy about him," Brandt said. "I'm crazy about all lieutenants." He looked around him at the soft stone colours of the tenements rising from the square, with the helmets and the grey uniforms and the large, lounging, armed men looking foreign and unnatural in front of the French signs and the shuttered cafes. "The last time I was in this place," Brandt said, reflectively, "was less than a year ago. I had on a blue jacket and flannel trousers. Everybody mistook me for an Englishman, so they were nice to me. There's a wonderful little restaurant just round that corner there and I drove up in a taxi and it was a mild summer night and I was with a beautiful girl with black hair…"
"Open your eyes," Christian said. "Here comes the Lieutenant."
They both stood at attention as the Lieutenant strode up to them.
"It is agreed," the Lieutenant said to Brandt. "You can have the car."
"Thank you, Sir," Brandt said.
"I myself will go with you," said the Lieutenant. "And I will take Himmler and Diestl. There is talk of our unit being billeted in that neighbourhood. The Captain suggested we look at the situation there." He smiled in what he obviously thought was a warm, intimate manner. "Also, we have earned a little sightseeing tour. Come."
He led the way over to one of the cars, Christian and Brandt following him. Himmler was already there, seated at the wheel, and Brandt and Christian climbed in behind. The Lieutenant sat in front, stiff, erect, a shining representative of the German Army and the German Reich on the boulevards of Paris.
Brandt made a grimace and shrugged his shoulders as they started off towards the Place de l'Opera. Himmler drove with dash and certainty. He had spent several holidays in Paris, and he spoke a kind of understandable French with a coarse, ungrammatical fluency. He pointed out places of interest, like a guide, cafes he had patronized, a vaudeville theatre in which he had seen an American negress dancing naked, a street down which, he assured them, was the most fully equipped brothel in the world. Himmler was the combination comedian and politician of the company, a common type in all armies, and a favourite with all the officers, who permitted him liberties for which other men would be mercilessly punished. The Lieutenant sat stiffly beside Himmler, his eyes roaming hungrily up and down the deserted streets. He even laughed twice at Himmler's jokes.
The Place de l'Opera was full of troops. There were so many soldiers, filling the impressive square before the soaring pillars and broad steps, that for a long time the absence of women or civilians in the heart of the city was hardly noticeable. Brandt went into a building, very important and businesslike, with his camera and his film, and Christian and the Lieutenant got out of the car and stared up at the domed mass of the opera house.
"I should have come here before," the Lieutenant said softly.
"It must have been wonderful in peace time."
Christian laughed. "Lieutenant," he said, "that's exactly what I was thinking."
The Lieutenant's chuckle was warm and friendly. Christian wondered how it was that he had always been so intimidated by this rather simple boy.
Brandt bustled out. "The business is finished," he said. "I don't have to report back till tomorrow afternoon. They're delighted in there. I told them what sort of stuff I took and they nearly made me a Colonel on the spot."
"I wonder," the Lieutenant said, his voice hesitant for the first time since 1935, "I wonder if it would be possible for you to take my picture standing in front of the Opera? To send home to my wife."
"It will be a pleasure," Brandt said gravely.
"Himmler," the Lieutenant said. "Diestl. All of us together."
"Lieutenant," Christian said, "why don't you do it alone? Your wife isn't interested in seeing us." It was the first time since they had met a year ago that he had dared contradict the Lieutenant in anything.
"Oh, no." The Lieutenant put his arm around Christian's shoulders and for a fleeting moment Christian wondered if he'd been drinking. "Oh, no. I've written to her a great deal about you. She would be most interested."
Brandt made a fuss about getting the angle just right, with as much of the Opera as possible in the background. Himmler grinned clownishly at one side of the group, but Christian and the Lieutenant peered seriously into the lens, as though this were a moment of solemn historic interest.
After Brandt had finished they climbed back into their car and started towards the Porte Saint Denis. It was late afternoon and the streets looked warm and lonely in the level light, especially since there were long stretches in which there were no soldiers and no military traffic. For the first time since they had arrived in Paris, Christian began to feel a little uneasy.
"A great day," the Lieutenant said reflectively, up in the front seat. "A day of lasting importance. In years to come, we will look back on this day, and we will say to ourselves. 'We were there at the dawn of a new era!'"
Christian could sense Brandt, sitting beside him, making a small, amused grimace, but Brandt, perhaps because of the long years he had lived in France, had an attitude of cynicism and mockery towards all grandiose sentiment.
"My father," the Lieutenant said, "got as far as the Marne in 1914. The Marne… So close. And he never saw Paris. We crossed the Marne today in five minutes… A day of history…" The Lieutenant peered sharply up a side street. Involuntarily, Christian twisted nervously in the back seat to look.
"Himmler," the Lieutenant said, "isn't this the street?"
"What street, Lieutenant?"
"The house you talked about, the famous one?"
What a ferocious mind, Christian thought. Everything is engraved on it irrevocably. Gun positions, regulations for courts-martial, the proper procedure for decontamination of metal exposed to gas, the address of French brothels carelessly pointed out in a strange street two hours before…
"It seems to me," the Lieutenant said carefully, as Himmler slowed the car down, "it seems to me that on a day like this, a day of battle and celebration… In short, we deserve some relaxation. The soldier who does not take women does not fight… Brandt, you lived in Paris, have you heard of this place?"
"Yes, Sir," said Brandt. "An exquisite reputation."
"Turn the car round, Sergeant," the Lieutenant said.
"Yes, Sir." Himmler grinned and swung the little car in a dashing circle and made for the street he had pointed out.
"I know," said the Lieutenant gravely, "that I can depend upon you men to keep quiet about this."
"Yes, Sir," they all said.
"There is a time for discipline," the Lieutenant said, "and a time for comradeship. Is this the place, Himmler?"
"Yes, Sir," said Himmler. "But it looks closed."
"Come with me." The Lieutenant dismounted and marched across the sidewalk to the heavy oak door, his heels crashing on the pavement, making the narrow street echo and re-echo as though a whole company had marched past.
As he tapped on the door, Brandt and Christian looked at each other, grinning. "Next," Brandt whispered, "he'll be selling us dirty postcards."
"Ssh," said Christian.
After a while the door opened and the Lieutenant and Himmler half-pushed, half-argued their way in. It closed behind them and Christian and Brandt were left alone in the empty, shaded street, with night just beginning to touch the sky over their heads. There was no sound, and all the windows of the building were closed.
"I was of the impression," Brandt said, "that the Lieutenant invited us to this party."
"Patience," Christian said. "He is preparing the way."
"With women," said Brandt, "I prefer to prepare my own way."
"The good officer," Christian said gravely, "always sees that his troops are bedded down before he is himself."
"Go upstairs," Brandt said, "and read the Lieutenant that lecture."
The door of the building opened and Himmler waved to them. They got out of the car and went in. A Moorish-looking lamp cast a heavy purple light over the staircase and hanging tapestries along the walls inside.
Himmler pushed open a door and there was the Lieutenant, his gloves and helmet off, sitting on a stool with his legs crossed, delicately picking at the gold foil on a bottle of champagne. The bar was a small room, done in a kind of lavender stucco, with crescent-shaped windows and tasselled hangings. There was a large woman who seemed to go with the room, all frizzed hair, fringed shawls and heavy painted eyelids. She was behind the bar, chattering away in French to the Lieutenant, who was nodding gravely, not understanding a word of what she was saying.
"Amis," Himmler said, putting his arms around Brandt and Christian. "Braves soldaten."
"The French," the Lieutenant was saying, sitting stiff and correct, his eyes now dark green and opaque, like sea-worn bottle glass. "I disdain the French. They are not willing to die. That is why we are here drinking their wine and taking their women, because they prefer not to die. Comic…" He waved his glass in the air, in a gesture that was drunken but bitter.
"This campaign. A comic, ridiculous campaign. Since I have been eighteen years old, I have been studying war. The art of war. At my fingertips. Supply. Liaison. Morale. Selection of disguised points for command posts. Theory of attack against automatic weapons. The value of shock. I could lead an army. Five years of my life. Then the moment comes." He laughed bitterly. "The great moment. The Army surges to the battle-line. What happens to me?" He stared at the Madam, who did not understand a word of German and was nodding happily, agreeing. "I do not hear a shot fired. I sit in an automobile and I ride four hundred miles and I go to a brothel. The miserable French Army has made a tourist out of me! A tourist! No more war. Five years wasted. No career. I'll be a Lieutenant till the age of fifty. I don't know anyone in Berlin. No influence, no friends, no promotion. Wasted. My father was better off. He only got to the Marne, but he had four years to fight in, and he was a Major when he was twenty-six, and he had his own battalion at the Somme, when every other officer was killed in the first two days."
Two girls came into the room. One was a large, heavy blonde girl with an easy, full-mouthed smile. The other was small and slender and dark, with a brooding, almost Arab face, set off by the heavy make-up and bright red lipstick.
"Here they are," the Madam said caressingly. "Here are the little cabbages." She patted the blonde approvingly, like a horsedealer. "This is Jeanette. Just the type, eh? I predict she will have a great vogue while the Germans are in Paris."
"I'll take that one." The Lieutenant stood up, very straight, and pointed to the girl who looked like an Arab. She gave him a dark, professional smile and came over and took his arm.
Himmler had been looking at her with interest, too, but he resigned immediately to the privilege of rank, put his arm around the big blonde, and went off with her saying, in his ferocious French, "Cherie, I love your gown…"
The Madam made her excuses and left, after putting out another bottle of champagne. Christian and Brandt sat alone in the orange-lit Moorish bar, staring silently at the frosted bottle in the ice bucket.
"I feel sad," said Brandt. "Very sad. What was it the Lieutenant said?"
"Today is the dawn of a new era."
"I feel sad at the dawn of the new era." Brandt poured himself some wine. "Did you know that ten months ago I nearly became a French citizen?"
"No," said Christian.
"I lived in France for ten years, off and on. Some other time I'll take you to the place on the Normandy coast I went to in the summers. I painted all day long, thirty, sometimes forty, canvases a summer. I was developing a little reputation in France, too. We must go to the gallery that showed my stuff. Maybe they still have some of the paintings, and you can take a look at them."
"I'll be very happy to," Christian said formally.
"I couldn't show my paintings in Germany. They were abstract. Non-objective art, they call it. Decadent, the Nazis call it." Brandt shrugged. "I suppose I am a little decadent. Not as decadent as the Lieutenant, but sufficient. How about you?"
"I am a decadent skier," Christian said.
"Every field," said Brandt, "to its own decadence."
The door opened and the small dark girl came in. She had on a pink wrap, fringed with feathers. She was grinning a little to herself. "Where is the Boss?" she asked.
"Back there somewhere." Brandt waved vaguely. "Can I help?"
"It is your Lieutenant," the girl said. "I need some translation. He wants something, and I am not quite sure what it is. I think he wants to be whipped, but I am afraid to start unless I know for certain."
"Begin," said Brandt. "That is exactly what he wants. He is an old friend of mine."
"Are you sure?" The girl looked at both of them doubtfully.
"Absolutely," said Brandt.
"Good." The girl shrugged. "I will essay it." She turned at the door. "It is a little strange," she said, a hint of mockery in her voice, "the victorious soldier… The day of victory… A curious taste, wouldn't you say?"
"We are a curious people," Brandt said.
He stood up and Christian stood with him. They walked out.
It was dark outside. The blackout was thorough and no lights were showing. The moon hung over the rooftops, though, dividing each street into geometrical blocks of light and shadow. The atmosphere was mild and still and there was a hushed, empty air hanging over the city, broken occasionally by the sound of steel-treaded vehicles shifting in the distance, the noise sudden and harsh, then dying down to nothingness among the dark buildings.
Brandt led the way. He was wobbling slightly, but he knew where he was and he walked with reassuring certainty in the direction of the Porte Saint Denis.