A Kiss for the Enemy (19 page)

‘What else today?'

‘Not much, sir. Long march. Digging. Some shelling this side of the canal line. The lads were pretty steady.'

A soldier appeared with what looked to be half a cold
chicken. He saluted with the right hand and extended the plate with the left. An enormous, trusting grin.

Thank you, Verity. Thank you very much. I need that.'

But at that moment there was a sound like the approach of an express train. The whole dim interior was lit by a blinding light. At the same moment the mighty roar of an explosion was succeeded by the crash of falling timbers, plaster and masonry. Anthony found himself flat on his back seeing nothing, unable to breathe or to speak from the dust which filled throat and nostrils. He heard cries and shouts. He tried to move. Something was holding his right leg down. He felt warm dampness inside the right thigh. His own blood? ‘Oh God, Oh God, I can't shout, I can't move, I can do nothing to help them – them or myself for that matter!' The dust seemed a little clearer. ‘Am I alive and conscious, or dead or dreaming?' He tried his voice again. A croak came. There were cries, calls. He could distinguish voices. Some time passed.

‘One over here!'

Another croak.

Anthony found himself on a stretcher. He remembered little, afterwards, of the next bit. Lights, the Medical Officer's face, other voices. Frightful pain in the leg. He yelled. Voice recovered.

‘Take it easy, Anthony, you'll be all right. Splint will be fine now.'

‘What – what?'

‘Broken leg. Girder caught you when the roof came in. And you've cut your head.'

‘What happened?'

‘Direct hit. Bomb. You were right underneath it. Roof came in. You'll be all right. God knows how, it was only a few feet above you when it went off. We'll get you back to the dressing station as soon as we get hold of an ambulance.'

He presumed without interest that he was at the Regimental Medical Aid post in some other house in Vencourt.

‘How many –?'

‘Only two, we think. One or two scratches. Most of your chaps were lying down near the walls. Got away with it.' The Medical officer disappeared. An orderly moved in the background.

‘Cup of tea, sir?

Anthony nodded. He muttered – ‘Do you know who?'

‘The Sergeant, sir.'

‘Sergeant Chester?'

‘That's him. A good bloke, as everyone knew. And another private. Don't know his name. Now you take it easy, sir.'

It was Verity, of course. It had to be. Sergeant Chester and Verity. Before the drug took its merciful effect in the ambulance Anthony found tears running down his cheeks. It had been a long day.

‘One should, perhaps, be careful about believing atrocity stories about the other side,' said Frido softly.

Toni Rudberg looked at Frido with his sceptical half-smile. There were times – not many – when Rudberg reminded him of Werner, Frido decided, before lunch had progressed far. There was the same mocking confidence and – it had to be admitted – the same charm. But there were many differences. Werner, with all his easy manners, was a man of the north. He was at heart firm, serious. Could one say the same of this handsome, brown-faced, brown-eyed Austrian with his mobile features, his laughing manner to all, his apparent propensity to treat one as a confidential friend on first meeting? Was he not essentially frivolous, superficial? Rudberg had at once got on easy terms by reference to mutual acquaintances, relations even. About most he had something amusing, often something outrageous to say. He would accompany each remark with a delightful, satiric chuckle. He made his listener an accomplice. His gossip, his disloyalty were insidious. Frido found himself disapproving, wary, but he could not restrain his laughter. Rudberg's company was enjoyable.

The circumstances, too, were enjoyable. The last battles had found Frido's Division in Brittany. Thence they had advanced south, crossed the Loire, reached the great vineyards of the Gironde. And an armistice had been signed. There was peace. Most of France was to be left to French administration. It seemed reasonable to hope that the war would soon be over. Few people could understand why England refused to accept the verdict of arms in which the majority of sensible Frenchmen appeared happy to acquiesce. Why could the English not do the same? Then everybody could go home.

It was not to be. Instead there was talk of ‘fresh operations'. A new training programme was initiated. Leave was confined
to an occasional day pass. The life of the troops was still comparatively austere. The focus of public interest shifted to the Luftwaffe. If the English couldn't understand that a page of history had finally turned they would have to be taught.

‘You've been to England, you know them, von Arzfeld,' Frido's brother officers would say. ‘What's the matter with them? Why the hell do they want to continue this war? It could be over. Nobody's threatening them if only they'll agree with the outcome here.'

Frido would shrug his shoulders. The English were certainly obstinate. They were, he thought privately, most unlikely to accept as final the result of
Sichelschnitt
, the German offensive in France and Flanders. He had, on his visits, found the English very agreeable; largely uncomprehending of the way history and events appeared to other nations including his own; firm in their prejudices, whether rational or no; but most agreeable. He suspected that one of these English prejudices, at the moment, was that the fight against Germany must go on – somehow, somewhere, for some reason; and felt pretty sure that after the air battles of the late summer this prejudice was likely to be ineradicable. He thought of Oxford, of his conversations with Anthony Marvell, of his visit to Bargate. He was disinclined to confide to his fellows the opinion that the English distrusted the Führer so deeply that they regarded negotiation with his Government as impossible. It was best to keep that sort of explanation to oneself.

Frido himself had, from its beginning, profound reservations about the War. He had always been upset by the strident mixture of populist heroics, peaceful protestations and sudden, brutal reversals of policy which had marked the Nazi era, had led to the invasion of Poland and had now made the Germans masters of Europe to the Channel ports. He often felt a sense of doom, of the whole German nation, family, friends, comrades, moving – chattering, laughing, singing – towards some unimaginable fate, deceived and self-deceiving: while even those who were not deceived had, it seemed, long given up hope of changing the course of events. Frido often thought of contemporaries of his father, old soldiers, rare visitors who sometimes appeared at Arzfeld, talking to Kaspar with long faces in low voices –

‘Of course it's mad – quite mad.'

But at other times – and Frido was too honest not to admit it – there appeared to be not only exhilaration but justice in the way matters had gone. One did not have to be a National Socialist, Frido reflected, to feel some satisfaction in this hour. The French had triumphed for so long, boasted so loudly, behaved often so viciously, exacted from others with such lack of compassion when victorious. Deep in the collective memory of Frido's family and neighbours were two – perhaps only two – other historic occasions, other summers which could compare. Once, one hundred and twenty-five years before, Hanoverian regiments had helped Wellington smash Napoleon's Grand Army on the field of Waterloo, join hands with the Prussians at the end of the day and finish for ever, as it was thought, French domination over Europe. And Frido could remember vivid tales of the second occasion, could remember listening in his childhood to Grandfather, General von Arzfeld, a white-moustached veteran who would be ninety-one were he alive to see this day. Grandfather von Arzfeld had enthralled small grandsons with his recollections of a September day in 1870, of German regiments, hot, exhausted, dazed with victory as the evening came, as they realized, half-disbelieving, that these Frenchmen, disorganized, shattered, their Emperor's sword surrendered to the King of Prussia, were, indeed, the all-conquering French, brought to the dust at Sedan. Frido remembered every sentence of his grandfather's descriptions, could see in imagination the camp fires blazing, could picture the sweat-streaked faces and blue uniforms of the
landser
illumined by the flames, could hear the great hymn ‘
Nun danket alle Gott
' go up from every throat, from every part of the field as darkness fell. Such moments dent the painted surface of history like the forceful imprint of some triumphant, giant thumb. Frido could not suppress the feeling that he, too, had witnessed the making of a mark.

Life still held private moments. There had been exchanges with Marcia. Frido's first letter from her had taken three weeks to arrive – not abnormal for the field post office he was to learn. He guessed at once it was from Marcia – the handwriting could have been perpetrated by no German, and she had promised to write. He tore it open – simple, affectionate, short – small
bits of news about Lise and his father. Could he attempt greater intimacy, risk professions of warmer affection? He doubted it. It was impossible to put that sort of thing in a letter if one had made no move when with the girl! And Frido had made no move. He answered, miserably aware that it was a poor effort. But ‘please keep on writing to me,' he ended, ‘life without letters from you would be much colder and emptier than it is.' So Marcia wrote again. Now his heart gave its familiar jump whenever he saw her spidery writing on an envelope. And he hoped every day.

Then had come the unexpected moment when he was given a two-day pass and permission to visit Paris. It was the desire of every German soldier to do so: so far Frido had been unlucky, and had not pushed his application. His heart was at Arzfeld, and he hoped for Christmas leave. But the chance was too good to miss. As he signed the register at the hotel in the Avenue Foch a hand took his arm.

‘It is! It must be the brother of Werner von Arzfeld. I am Rudberg! Toni Rudberg!' And of course Frido had to respond with friendship and correctness. They had mutual relations. Rudberg spoke as one who knew Werner.

And was he Marcia's lover?

They chatted. ‘We're in the north,' said Rudberg. ‘I've been to Paris quite often I'm delighted to say. I'm getting to know it pretty well!' He chuckled.

‘Almost everything said about French girls is true. They're enchanting! Just imagine that some people are actually posted here!'

Frido nodded politely. He felt puritanical, unsophisticated.

‘Let's lunch together tomorrow! I insist. I know we've got a lot to talk about. My cousins in Vienna are always talking about Arzfeld, about your family and your home.'

Of course Rudberg knew exactly the best place to lunch. They talked at length about the events of May and June. It was now the middle of September.

‘Well, what about the next step? Are we going to cross the ditch? Or are we going to be able to shake hands with the English and all go home?'

‘Neither, I think,' said Frido. ‘It doesn't look as if the Luftwaffe have had things their own way. Unless the sky is
clear of English planes I can't see the attempt being made. And it gets later every week.'

‘Perhaps you're right. And won't they come to terms, then? Won't their honour be satisfied?'

‘I don't think so. I don't think they'll agree to let us be – agree to the order of things we've imposed here –'

‘A perfectly honourable armistice? Fair, generous terms for France?'

‘The British won't see it like that. They'll demand restitution of everything before they abandon the war – Polish frontiers, everything –'

Rudberg shrugged his shoulders.'

‘I expect you're right. Then it looks like a long, rather unprofitable business. We can't exactly get to grips with each other now they've all bolted from France! I can't see them coming back. And if we can't go there, what next?'

‘I suppose it's up to the Luftwaffe. And I suppose the Italians will carry on attacking them in Africa, for what that's worth.'

‘Ach – the Italians!' said Rudberg with one of his chuckles that wrinkled his entire face, most attractively. ‘The Italians!'

Then he said, ‘Let's go on talking about the English. There were some dirty things done at the end in France. There's been an inquiry over one incident, but it didn't really establish anything or lead to punishment. There's no doubt our dear “
Totenkopf
” Division, our SS friends, lined up a lot of Tommies, machine gunned them! Not quite in harmony with what we've been taught about the honour of the Wehrmacht!'

‘Disgraceful!'

‘Yes, but the “
Totenkopf
” say that the English shot some prisoners of their division first. At Arras.'

Frido made his remark about credence given to atrocity stories. He added,

‘Anyway, it excuses nothing. Even if true.'

‘Of course not, my dear Arzfeld! But military discipline doesn't entirely drive out human nature, does it! Even in the Wehrmacht!'

Frido, pacific, humane, self-questioning, felt the presence of Kaspar von Arzfeld and a long line of forbears behind his shoulder.

‘If by “human nature” you mean acts of cowardly brutality, outside the rules of war and inspired by vengeance, then my answer is “Yes, military discipline should most certainly drive it out!”' He felt priggish, uncompromising and angry. Toni Rudberg was laughing.

‘Well said! In the best “Prussian tradition”! I'm not sure, however, that it's going to be that sort of war. But I like talking about human nature – with all its frailties, it's more agreeable to contemplate than military correctitude if you don't mind me saying so! Of course you're right, my dear fellow, but I'm sure you understand me. And now let me ask you something.' His face, so quick to change expression, looked suddenly serious, almost for the first time, as he said –