The Corsican (2 page)

“I should have never dealt with those American bastards,” he said softly, still looking into the garden.

“If you hadn't, someone else would have. The result would have been the same,” Auguste said. “This way, at least, we know more about our enemy. Don't blame yourself, Buonaparte. It's just that now we're forced to wait. That's always difficult.”

Sartene turned and walked along the veranda, his hands behind his back. After a few yards, he stopped abruptly.

“We'll wait. But we'll also act,” he said. He turned and walked back to Auguste and placed a hand on the smaller man's shoulder. “You've done much for me all these years. Now I have to ask you to do one thing more.”

Auguste's eyes did not move from Sartene's. He would do what was asked; there was no need for words between them.

Sartene slid his arm around Auguste's shoulder and guided him back to the study, speaking softly as they walked.

“You must go to Saigon and gather the information that we'll need when all this has ended,” he said. “They may think we're no longer strong enough to fight them and they won't be expecting you, but you'll still have to be careful. There are very few friends there we can still trust. But it's necessary. When this is over, no matter how it ends, I'll want to strike quickly.”

They stopped in front of a bust of Napoleon that sat atop a pedestal near a wall of books.

“It will be hard with all the powerful people involved.” Auguste's words held no resistance to the request. It was a simple statement of fact.

Sartene nodded. He was staring at the bust. “As my namesake once said, the situation doesn't require victory, it only forbids surrender.”

“What will you do while I'm gone?” Auguste asked.

Sartene smiled at him. “Are you afraid I won't take care of myself?”

“In part.” He avoided Sartene's eyes, not wanting to see the pain he knew he would find there, despite the humor in his voice.

“I'll wait for word and …” Sartene gestured toward a table across the room, then walked to it. The table held soldiers, horses, cannon and the various miniature accouterments of battle, arranged to show strategies used in campaigns of the past. Sartene picked up one of the five-inch wooden soldiers that dated back to 1792. He turned it in his bony fingers, his hand trembling slightly with age. “As my son used to say, I'll play with my toys,” he said. “And I'll study.”

He pointed to the battle scene that lay before him. It depicted the Leipzig Campaign of the autumn of 1813. The soldiers had been placed to show the position that had existed just prior to Napoleon's march on Dresden.

“The allied army under Schwarzenberg delayed its attack on the city and, in doing so, lost the battle.” He was speaking more to himself than Auguste, and he continued to stare at the table. “War is an art, like music or pure mathematics. It's disciplined. While I wait, I'll study it and I'll do the things that must be done here.”

Chapter 1

F
RANCE,
M
ARCH
1940

The cell was dark, and even during the day the narrow slit of a window near the ceiling gave just enough light to let them make out each other's darkened features.

It had been that way from the first. When the heavy steel door had swung open, the light from the corridor had blinded Auguste and he had not been able to see the face of the man who was pushed inside.

You can always tell French prisons by the stink
. Those had been the first words Auguste had heard him speak in his Corsican-accented French.

“You're lucky you arrived when you did,” Auguste had said. “They just emptied the piss bucket. Later it gets worse.”

They remained together for over two months in the dark sweating stench-ridden hole, talking about their homeland, their beliefs, their friends and families back in Corsica; everything except the actions, committed separately, that now brought them together. Often they spoke about women, because doing so made it easier to be without them. Sartene spoke of his wife back in Corsica, of their first meeting, their formal courtship and the birth of their son. He spoke more with a sense of reverence than passion, but in his words it could be seen that passion had been there as well. For Auguste the conversation was different. There was no wife, only the available women of Marseille and Bastia and the other seaport towns and cities that had taken up his youth.

Together they fought off the loneliness and despair with their words. And with their hands and feet they fought the rats that came out to compete for the dry meat and tasteless soup that was pushed through the narrow opening at the bottom of the cell door each evening. Sartene said there were five rats, insisting he had learned to distinguish them by the sound of their movements and methods of attack. The smallest and most devious he had named Napoleon, recalling that the king of Austria had once called the French emperor a Corsican gutter rat and had then given him his daughter for a bride.

Sartene's knowledge of military history had amazed Auguste at first; his discussions of battles and strategies seemed endless. Auguste had not been sure if the stories were accurate, but he had listened to them and discussed them, fascinated, like a small child hearing Bible stories told by nuns. And he had grown to respect the man's quiet sense of dignity. Despite the misery of the cell, he had never heard Sartene complain, other than expressing his contempt for French authority. He had simply accepted what had been forced upon him with the knowledge that he had the ability to endure.

It was June 21, 1940, when the cell door swung open again, blinding them. They were led down a long stone corridor, feeling their way with their hands, stumbling on the stone stairs that led up to even brighter light. Ten minutes passed before their eyes began to focus, the pain that had seared them fading into a mild throbbing in their temples. They were in a large stonewalled room, furnished only with a long writing table and a chair placed behind it. A French officer stood next to the chair, but they ignored him, staring instead at each other, two men who in the past months had become as close as brothers, clearly seeing one another for the first time in full light.

They were both filthy, their faces and hands crusted with dirt, their beards tangled with bits of food. Sores covered their faces and necks, and between the dirt and the pustules the fragments of skin showing through held the gray pallor of death.

Sartene was slightly more than average height, but he seemed taller. His lean, raw-boned body stood erect, and his severe dark eyes were accented by a classically curved nose. His hair, matted and knotted, showed flecks of gray through the filth, but his beard was dark and youthful, even though he was clearly in his mid-forties.

Auguste was shorter by several inches but had the same hard body, the same sense of physical strength common to the people of their island. His hair was thinner than Sartene's and small patches had fallen away from poor nutrition, but it was still dark even though he too was well past forty.

He looked at Sartene and smiled. They were opposites in appearance. Sartene's features were sharp and aristocratic, while his were the flat wide features of a peasant. The same was true of their hands. Sartene had the long slender fingers of a pianist. His were wide and stumpy, a butcher's hands. Yet despite the physical differences, they were the same in spirit. And they both smelled bad.

A faint smile formed beneath Sartene's ragged beard, almost as though he were reading Auguste's thoughts. “You need a bath, Auguste,” he said.

Auguste nodded solemnly, then glanced at the French officer, who took a step back to the window, opened it, then remained there, away from the stench.

Sartene noticed the movement and stepped toward the desk. He was immediately followed by Auguste.

A look of displeasure flashed across the officer's face. He was a colonel, dressed in full uniform, the blouse heavy with the ribbons of past decorations. He was tall, also in his mid-forties, with a long, skinny neck, and his head was pear-shaped, ending in a receding hairline that made it look as though it came to a point.

He drew a deep breath, then seemed to regret that he had. He seemed nervous and embarrassed, and he opened the conversation with a stiff abruptness.

“I have called you here because the government of France is prepared to grant you each a pardon in return for certain services. I assure you they are services that any true Frenchman would be honored to perform.” The colonel spoke the words as though struggling to overcome his uneasiness.

“We're not French. We're Corsican,” Sartene said.

“Corsica is part of France,” the colonel said, his voice softer.

“Only according to the French,” Sartene said.

The colonel drew a heavy breath and then winced as if trying to remind himself not to do it again. “The point is moot,” he said. “Perhaps you're not aware of certain events—”

His words were cut off by Sartene's laughter. “No, colonel, I'm afraid we are not.”

The colonel colored, then drew himself up and turned to the window. It was all becoming too much for him. The army, his army, had crumbled within days. The cowards within it were handing France to the Germans like a Christmas package. And now these new orders. Recruiting these men to fight for France. These filthy arrogant thieving bastards.

“Perhaps you could tell us the latest news, my colonel,” Auguste said. He had widened his eyes, feigning deep interest.

The colonel raised his chin. He allowed himself to look at them down the length of his nose. “Today,” he said, struggling for dignity, “traitors within the government and the army of France have signed an armistice with Germany. Those traitors, led by Marshal Pétain, plan to establish a separate and illegal government at Vichy. But the fight against the Boches goes on. It is for this that I'm asking your help.” The final word seemed to catch in his throat.

Sartene turned to Auguste and shrugged. “I wasn't aware that France and Germany were at war. Since I've only been here a little more than two months, it must have been an unusually short war,” he said.

The muscles along the colonel's jaw danced against the bone, and his left eye fluttered in a nervous spasm. “As I said, the war continues and
will
continue until France is free.”

“I've heard Corsicans speak those same words all my life, colonel,” Auguste said. “It seems to have changed very little. As always, the big fish eats the smaller fish, only in turn to be eaten by still a bigger fish. Perhaps we're reaching the final result in Europe. Bouillabaisse, with a German chef.”

Sartene's laughter broke the silence that followed. “I, for one, never cared much for German cooking.” His cold eyes found the French officer, “But then I always found that French cooks were like French politicians, a bit overbearing. Why don't you tell us what kind of stew
you
have in mind, colonel?”

The colonel looked into Sartene's eyes, then glanced away, uncomfortable with the cold hardness he found there. He reached out and took two sheets of paper from the desk, looked at the first and then across the desk at Auguste. The document seemed to give him some sense of confidence.

“According to the records provided by the warden, you, Auguste Pavlovi, can expect to spend the next ten years in this not too pleasant place.” He switched the papers, then, pursing his lips, looked back at Sartene. “You, Monsieur Sartene, are expected to be the guest of the government for the next seven years.” He hesitated, eyeing the report again. “There's also a footnote, however, indicating that Buonaparte Sartene may not be your true identity and that if another suspected identity could be proved, that sentence would be greatly increased.” He smiled at Sartene, trying to appear friendly. “If I'm not mistaken, Sartene is the name of a small, rather insignificant village in the south of Corsica, is it not?”

“Everything that isn't French is insignificant to Frenchmen,” Sartene said. “But you're not here to discuss geography, colonel, you're here to
get
something from us.” There was a faint smile on Sartene's lips that contrasted with the look in his eyes.

The colonel shuffled the papers in his hands, then returned them to the desk, folded his hands behind his back and turned toward the window. His left eye had begun to flutter again.

“The government of France is prepared to offer you each a full pardon for all past offenses under any identity, if you agree to lead resistance forces in an area north of Marseille.”

“Which government of France are you speaking about?” Auguste asked.

“The government of Free France,” the colonel said, ignoring the insult. “You will be expected to lead partisans who would attack both Nazi and Vichy forces, as well as Italian troops that are presently preparing to occupy the Alpine zone along the Italian border.”

“And for this we get pardons that may be useless if Germany continues to occupy France.” Auguste shrugged. “Perhaps Buonaparte and I should wait to hear what Vichy has to offer,” he said.

The colonel turned on Auguste, his voice harsh for the first time. “You may regret such a choice,” he said.

Auguste stuck out his lower lip and nodded. “What will you do, colonel?”

Sartene raised his hand, watching the colonel struggle with the humiliation he felt. “Why is it when governments despise certain people they always try to make their actions sound generous when they find they need those same people? If I'm not mistaken, colonel, you simply need men who can act violently and then hide from the authorities. Now, I don't mind killing Germans rather than remaining here,” he said. “The possibility of killing
wayward
Frenchmen also doesn't offend me.” He paused to smile at the colonel. “But I won't do it just for a pardon. In addition to some piece of paper that says my so-called crimes no longer exist, I want one thing more.”