The Road Between Us (32 page)

Because his back is to the Commandant, the prisoner cannot see him framed by the cast-iron ‘
Arbeit Macht Frei
’ sign that arches across the entrance to the camp. Nor can he see the Commandant now trying to steady his horse as he waits for the waltz, which Anselm recognizes as ‘The Blue Danube’, to build to a particular moment. When this comes – the furious major chords of the coda punctuated by cymbal crashes – the Commandant takes his sword from its scabbard and, pointing it in front of him, spurs the horse into first a trot, then from a slow canter to a fast one, and then, after twenty yards, to a swinging gallop that makes the camp echo to the rising drum of hooves. The horse’s mane and tail are streaming out in undulating horizontals. Spits of dirt are blurring its fetlocks. After forty yards the Commandant sits forward in the saddle and accelerates into a full charge. Then, as he closes in on the prisoner, he raises his sword above his head. As it catches the sunlight, it looks like an ocean roller frozen in the act of breaking. He then loops it around in a deft windmill and brings its blade down against the neck, decapitating the man with a single stroke.

He reins his beast back almost on its haunches before wheeling it about. On a second pass, he leans down low over the right side of his saddle to scoop up the severed head with the point of his sword. This he now raises, splashing his own face with blood. Tendons and muscles are bunching out of the neck in a thick white
cluster, like the congested petals of a sea anemone. The horse rears up and boxes the air, its nostrils flaring. The Commandant is laughing now, intoxicated by the smell and taste of blood, and, as the waltz comes to its gentle end, he tries to catch his breath. Prompted by the guards, the prisoners begin applauding, as if the brightness of the blood is a welcome splash of colour in the greyness of their lives. The Commandant stands up in his stirrups, sticks his chin out and acknowledges their applause with curt nods of his turning head.

The crossing, through the Sardinia–Corsica straits, has been calm. Now, as day breaks, the Riviera is in sight. As Charles looks out across the bay of Saint-Tropez with his binoculars, he finds the palm trees incongruous. This is ‘Delta Beach’ and convoys of ships with anti-aircraft balloons tethered to their sterns are converging on it from all directions, taking up their allocated positions.

The assault, he has been told, will be made up of three American divisions of VI Corps, reinforced with the French 5th Armoured Division. They will follow tomorrow. Major Lehague has arranged to go in with the US 45th Infantry a day ahead of his fellow countrymen. The Resistance are already there, divided into two factions, the non-communist Mouvements Unis de la Résistance and the communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans. Lehague has said that he is needed as go-between, which is why he is going in early. But Charles knows it is more a matter of him wanting a pair of French boots to be among the American ones landing on the beach.

The dawn is silver-edged, heavy with incense and cordite. As the sun crests the horizon, the sea glitters and gulls hang suspended above it, as if waiting as well, sensing that something of great import is afoot.

At 0600 hours, the naval guns begin bombarding the coastline, juddering the boat with each salvo. At the same time, two hundred and fifty Flying Fortresses begin their unopposed bombing raids on coastal defences and radar stations, sending up jagged flames and leaving glowing embers. The noise is numbing and the entire coast soon disappears in a pall of smoke and dust.

On board, Charles sketches men as they strip and oil their rifles. Some are yawning, an ironic effect of nerves. While a few shave their hair off to make it easier for medics to deal with head wounds, others slip condoms over the ends of their gun barrels to protect them from salt water. Charles smiles grimly to himself, thinks this symbolism apt.

He watches a young GI, no more than nineteen, tape a photograph of a loved one to the inside of his helmet. As a chaplain holds an impromptu service on the upper deck, administering bread, wine and absolution for future sins, a Pathé Newsreel crew sets up and films him. They then turn the camera 180 degrees and film men slinging bandoliers across chests, filling canteens to the brim, sharpening bayonets on whetstones.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Charles wanders over the slippery deck and listens in as the newsreel director questions a Doughboy about his training. ‘We’ve been taught how to kill a man silently by slicing through the jugular and the voicebox,’ he says in a Texan monotone, demonstrating with a mime. ‘And we had to crawl through the fresh entrails of pigs. I guess it was to toughen us up. Get us used to blood and all.’

Some men have their eyes closed, though they are clearly wide awake, while others write last letters or attach kits of bandages, sulfa tablets and syrettes of morphine – ‘one for pain, three for eternity’ – to the backs of their camouflage-netted helmets. Most are behaving like schoolboys on a trip, chattering excitedly, trying out French phrases on their tongues, experimenting with the shape of them, preparing for their oral examination. Charles can hear one of them talking in a southern accent about ‘gittin’ me some French pussy’.

As the rum ration is passed around in a stoneware flagon, the convulsion caused by the naval bombardment all but stops, with only what sounds like a few shunting freight trains still audible in the distance. In the relative silence, a colonel with liquid brown eyes gives his men a pep talk.

‘I will not lie to you about what it will be like at the beachhead,’ he says. ‘It’ll be ugly. Look to the man to your left and right. By the
end of this day, it might be that only one of you is still alive. Your chances of being that one will depend on you keeping going forward across the beach. If you stop, you are either a dead man or a man who is going to die.’

Signals are being silently flashed between the ships. The tannoy comes to life. ‘Now hear this! Crews report to their assault craft!’

It is time.

Charles is carrying his art equipment – rolls of paper, pencils, charcoal sticks, inks, pens – in a leather map tube that looks like a small mortar. With a strap buckle at either end he can sling it over his shoulder, and he has been assured the container is watertight. His fold-up easel isn’t as easy to carry, but he thinks he has found a way to secure it to the backpack he now shrugs higher on to his shoulders. As an official war artist he is not supposed to carry a gun, but he has decided to anyway. He has read in the papers that Ernest Hemingway, who is working as a war correspondent attached to the American forces converging on Paris, carries an automatic, and so Charles has a gun, too, a standard-issue British Army Webley break-top service revolver. It is in a holster attached to his Sam Browne belt.

When he sees the short, moustachioed Lehague making his way to the assembly point, trying to keep his French dignity as he is almost carried along by a crowd of jostling infantrymen, he shouts: ‘You go on ahead. I’ll catch up in a minute.’

Feeling jittery, Charles has decided he needs to make his third visit to the head in an hour; the sound of water sloshing around must be contributing to his urge to go. The latrines smell of wet metal and rust and he finds himself wrinkling his nose at them. A minute later, as he emerges carrying his pack in front of him, he loses his footing and holds out his hands to break his fall. As he does this, his thumb is caught between the wood of the easel and the metal of the doorframe, pulping under his own weight.

At first he stares in puzzlement at his thumbnail. It is in the wrong place, half an inch to the right of where it should be. Then the blood appears and with it comes a rolling wave of pain.
Numbly, he watches the blood splash on the floor at his feet. The pain has bubbled up to his throat now and black spots are dancing before his eyes. Realizing he is about to faint, he sits down.

His brow is damp with sweat, but he does not curse. Instead he remains rooted to the spot, transfixed by the sight of his own blood. Think. Think. He needs to staunch the bleeding. Pressed tight, his hanky serves as a tourniquet.

The medical room. It is near here.

As he makes his way to it, Charles holds his hand up to reduce the flow of blood and simultaneously let the men coming the other way know he is there. But their eyes are down, their helmets on. They are too distracted to notice him walking against their tide. He stands to one side. When he reaches the medical room he stumbles again in his rush to get out of the way of the advancing men. He takes off the handkerchief and worries that, if he touches it, the nail will come off altogether. He looks around for some morphine, but the shelves, full an hour ago, are now empty. He sits on the bed. The blood is on his trousers. Think. He cannot let this stupid accident prevent him reaching Anselm.

‘You bin hit?’

‘It’s my nail. I …’ He feels embarrassed to say it. ‘I tripped.’

‘Let me see.’

Charles takes in the man’s Red Cross armband. The medic is perhaps fifty, with weathered features, freckles and horn-rimmed glasses.

‘Can you patch it up quickly, I’m supposed to be in the first wave.’

‘You’re not going anywhere with that, buddy. You’re going to have to sit this invasion out. Consider yourself lucky.’

‘But I want to go. I need to.’

‘Look,’ the medic is preparing a syringe, ‘you can whistle “Dixie” if you think I’m letting you down those nets with that. You would be a danger to the other men.’

The medic presses a swab around it. Charles winces. ‘You’re a Limey, ain’t you?’

Charles nods, his face now wet with sweat. He thinks he is going to be sick.

The medic can smell whiskey fumes on Charles’s breath. ‘Dutch courage, eh? Don’t blame ya.’ He opens the compress. ‘Good. It’s clotting. The nail should stay on, but the end of your thumb looks broken. I’ll give you an anaesthetic into the thumb then I’ll try and reattach the nail.’ He pushes the needle of a syringe into the base of the thumb. ‘This will take twenty minutes, then you won’t feel a thing …’ He checks his watch. ‘Shit. I gotta go.’

‘Don’t wait for the anaesthetic, Doc. Just do it now.’

‘You don’t want that kind of pain, I’m telling you. The nerve endings in the cuticles are …’

‘I’ll be fine.’

The medic looks at the skin graft on Charles’s face and nods. ‘Well, I guess you know about pain.’

‘Yes.’

The medic takes the patient’s hand in his and turns his back on him so that he is shielded from view. As he pushes the nail back into place, embedding it and ignoring the blood, Charles breathes deeply and scrunches the blanket tight in his other hand.

‘All done,’ the medic says. ‘You’re a brave guy. That’s how the Gestapo torture prisoners.’

Charles manages a smile, relieved he hasn’t fainted. His thumb is still throbbing with pain, but already the pressure is ebbing. ‘Well, thank goodness I didn’t talk.’

The medic laughs. ‘It should seal itself, but you gotta keep it dry.’ He pours iodine on to gauze and presses it on to the nail, then wraps a bandage tight around it. ‘Why you so desperate to be in the first wave?’

‘Long story.’ They listen to the dull, muffled thunder of artillery as the bandage is taped up. A French frigate somewhere is playing the Marseillaise over its tannoy.

‘On a mission, huh?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well, good luck. If you get yourself on one of the craft they’re
lowering over the sides, you won’t need to use the nets. But keep that bandage out of the water, otherwise it will go septic. And take these antibiotics.’ He tosses over a small bottle rattling with pills. ‘Three a day. If you remember. Gotta go.’

Ten minutes later, Charles manages to negotiate a space on one of the flat-bottomed landing craft about to be lowered from davits. It is as ungainly as a hippopotamus and, as it slips unevenly on its chains, its blunt bows clank against the side of the ship. It lands with a splash that nearly pitches Charles over the side, and then, with a snort, it goes to join two others from its herd. All three circle each other, their great jaws closed tight against the water.

As they set course for the beach, waves slap against the forward ramp sending up cascades of spray that drench and shock in like measure. Soon their feet are wet too as a pool of water sloshes from one end of the craft to the other. Charles can feel the salty wind in his face. He can taste it, too.

Heavy shells have started screaming overhead again, creating a vacuum in their wake. The men in the troop-well watch open-mouthed as the water rises up and follows their course before dropping back into the sea. As the craft pitches and rolls, one soldier, his face as grey as the boat, vomits. There is a geyser of water not far away as a German shell explodes; either that or it is an Allied shell landing short.

Charles’s bandaged hand is shaking as he tries unsuccessfully to keep it dry. With his other hand he fumbles for the hip flask in his pocket. He stares at the initials engraved in flowery lettering on the side – ‘HR’ – and then takes three big gulps. He offers it around and, when there are no takers, screws the lid back on before taking a grip of the rope that runs along the side of the craft. Every slap of every wave jars his bones.

Not long now, he thinks. Stay alive, Anselm. Stay alive.

II

WHEN THE VALKYRIE FAILS TO COLLECT ANSELM AFTER THE
morning roll call, he goes in search of her. ‘He has gone,’ she says brusquely when he finds her smoking behind the administration block.

Anselm is taken aback. ‘I had an appointment with him. A sitting. Do you know when he will return?’

‘No.’ Her tone does not soften. ‘And if I were you, I would lie low.’ She draws a finger across her throat and gives a thin smile.

An hour later, Anselm is in the square for the roll call when he hears an order he has not heard before.

‘All prisoners with the pink triangle will remain standing at attention.’

As the other prisoners disperse, the pink triangles look at one another, their throats dry. The guardhouse door of the command tower opens and two SS doctors stride forward. They are accompanied by a senior SS officer Anselm hasn’t seen before. All three are talking earnestly as they walk. The detail sergeant barks: ‘One hundred and seventeen deviants present as ordered.’