The Young Lions (75 page)

Today, somehow, seemed different. It was not sunny, and he didn't feel lucky today…

Michael turned to Keane. "Let's get into the middle of the town and see if anything's happening there."

"OK," Keane said, putting away the pad he was writing on.

"You know me. I'll go anywhere."

I bet he would, Michael thought. He went over to Stellevato, and bent over and tapped on Stellevato's helmet. Stellevato moaned softly, lost in some warm, immoral iceman's dream.

"Lea' me alone," Stellevato mumbled.

"Come on, come on!" Michael tapped more impatiently on the helmet. "We're going to go and win the war."

The two Armoured Division soldiers came out of their hole.

"You leaving us here alone?" the pudgy man said accusingly.

"Two of the best-trained, best-fed, best-equipped soldiers in the world," Michael said, "ought to be able to handle eight hundred Krauts any day of the week."

"You're full of jokes, ain't you?" the pudgy man said aggrievedly. "Leaving us alone like this."

Michael climbed into the jeep. "Don't worry," he said, "we're just going to take a look around the town. We'll notify you if you're missing anything."

"Full of jokes," the pudgy man was repeating, looking mournfully at his partner, as Stellevato slowly drove across the bridge.

The town square, when they rolled cautiously into it, with their fingers on the triggers of their carbines, seemed completely deserted. The windows of the shops were covered with their steel shutters, the doors of the church were closed, the hotel looked as though no one had gone in or out for weeks. Michael could feel a muscle in his cheek begin to pull nervously as he stared around him. Even Keane, in the back seat, was quiet.

"Well?" Stellevato whispered. "Now what?"

"Stop here," Michael said.

Stellevato put on the brakes and they stopped in the middle of the cobbled square.

There was a loud, swinging noise. Michael jumped around, bringing his carbine up. The doors of the hotel had opened and a crowd of people was pouring out. Many of them were armed, some of them with Sten guns, others with hand-grenades stuck in their belts, and there were some women among them, their scarves making bright bobbing bits of colour among the caps and dark heads of the men.

"Frogs," Keane said from the back seat, "with the keys of the city."

In a moment the jeep was surrounded, but there was no air of celebration about the group. They looked serious and frightened. A man in knickers, with a Red Cross band on his arm, had a bloody bandage around his head.

"What's going on here?" Michael asked in French.

"We were expecting the Germans," said one of the women, a small, chubby, shapeless, middle-aged creature in a man's sweater and men's work boots. She spoke in English, with an Irish accent, and for a moment Michael had the feeling that some elaborate, dangerous practical joke was being played on him. "How did you get through?"

"We just rode into the town," Michael said irritably, annoyed unreasonably at these people for being so timid. "What's the matter, here?"

"There are eight hundred Germans on the other side of the town," said the man with the Red Cross on his arm.

"And three tanks," Michael said. "We know all about that. Have there been any American convoys going through here this morning?"

"A German truck went through here this morning," the woman said. "They shot Andre Fouret. Seven-thirty this morning. Since then, nothing."

"Are you going to Paris?" asked the Red Cross man. He had no cap, and his hair was long over the stained bandage. He was wearing short socks, his legs bare, sticking out of the baggy knickers. Michael looked at him, thinking: This man is made up for something, these can't be real clothes. "Tell me," the man said eagerly, leaning into the jeep, "are you going to Paris?"

"Eventually," Michael said.

"Follow me," the Red Cross man said. "I have a motor-cycle. I have just come from there. It will only take an hour."

"What about the eight hundred Germans and the three tanks?" Michael asked, certain this man was somehow trying to trap him.

"I go by back roads," said the Red Cross man. "I was only fired on twice. I know where all the mines are. You have three guns. We need every gun we can find in Paris. We have been fighting for three days and we need help…"

The other people standing around the jeep nodded soberly and talked to one another in French too rapid for Michael to follow.

"Wait a minute." Michael took the arm of the woman who spoke English. "Let's get this straight. Now, Madame…"

"My name is Dumoulin. I am an Irish citizen," the woman said loudly and aggressively, "but I have lived in this town for thirty years. Now, tell me, young man, do you propose to protect us?"

Michael shook his head numbly. "I shall do everything in my power, Madame," he said, feeling: This war has got completely out of hand.

"You have ammunition, too," said the man with the Red Cross armband, peering hungrily into the back of the jeep where there was a jumble of boxes and bedrolls. "Excellent, excellent. You will have no trouble if you follow me. Just put on an armband like this, and I will be very surprised if they shoot at you."

"Let Paris take care of itself," Mrs Dumoulin snapped. "We have our own problem of the eight hundred Germans."

"One at a time, please," Michael said, spreading his hands out dazedly, thinking: This is one situation they never told me about at Fort Benning. "First, I'd like to hear if anyone actually saw the Germans."

"Jacqueline!" said Mrs Dumoulin loudly. "Tell the young man."

"Speak slowly, please," Michael said. "My French leaves a great deal to be desired."

"I live one kilometre outside town," said Jacqueline, a squat girl with several of her front teeth missing, "and last night a Boche tank stopped and a Lieutenant got out and demanded butter and cheese and bread. He said he would give us some advice, not to welcome the Americans, because the Americans were just going to pass through the town and leave us alone. Then the Germans were coming back. And anybody who had welcomed the Americans would be shot and he had eight hundred men waiting with him. And he was right," Jacqueline said excitedly. "The Americans came and one hour later they were gone and we'll all be lucky if the Germans don't burn the whole town down by evening…"

"Disgraceful," said Mrs Dumoulin firmly. "The American Army ought to be ashamed of itself. Either they should come and stay or they should not come at all. I demand protection."

"It is criminal," said the man with the Red Cross armband, "leaving the workers of Paris to be shot down like dogs without ammunition, while they sit here with three guns and hundreds of cartridges."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Michael stood up and spoke in a loud, oratorical voice, "I wish to state that…"

"Attention! Attention!" It was a woman's shrill cry from the edge of the crowd.

Michael swung round. Coming at a fair rate of speed into the square, was an open car. In it two men were standing with their hands above their heads. They were dressed in field grey.

The people around the jeep stood for a moment in surprised silence.

"Boches!" someone shouted. "They wish to surrender."

Then, suddenly, when the car was almost abreast of the jeep, the two men with their hands in the air dived down into the body of the car and the car spurted ahead. Out of the back of it a figure loomed up and there was the ugly high sound of a machine-pistol and screams from people who were hit. Michael stared stupidly at the careering car. Then he fumbled at his feet for his carbine. The safety-catch was on, and it seemed to take hours to get it off.

From behind him there was the sharp, beating rhythm of a carbine. The driver of the car suddenly threw up his hands and the car hit the kerb, wobbled, turned and crashed into the epicerie on the corner. There was a cymbal-like sound as the tin shutter came down, and the splintering of the window behind it. The car slowly fell on its side and two figures sprawled out.

Michael got the safety-catch off his carbine. Stellevato was still sitting, his hands on the wheel, frozen in surprise. "What happened?" Stellevato whispered angrily. "What the hell's going on here?"

Michael turned. Keane was standing up behind him, his carbine in his hand, grinning bleakly at the broken Germans. There was the acrid smell of burned powder. "That'll teach them," Keane said, his yellowish teeth bared with pleasure.

Michael sighed, then looked around him. The Frenchmen were getting slowly and warily to their feet, their eyes on the wreck. Two figures lay in contorted heaps on the cobblestones. One of them, Michael noticed, was Jacqueline. Her dress was up high over her knees. Her thighs were thick and yellowish. Mrs Dumoulin was bending over her. A woman was weeping somewhere.

Michael got out of the jeep, and Keane followed him. They walked carefully across the square, their guns ready, to the overturned car.

Keane, Michael thought bitterly, his eyes on the two grey figures sprawled head down on the pavement, it had to be Keane. Faster than I, more dependable, while I was still fiddling with the catch. The Germans could've been in Paris by the time I got ready to shoot at them…

There had been four men in the car, Michael saw, three of them officers. The driver, a private, was still alive, with blood bubbling unevenly between his lips. He was trying to crawl away, on his hands and knees, with stubborn persistence, when Michael got to him. He saw Michael's shoes and stopped trying to crawl.

Keane looked at the three officers. "Dead," he reported, smiling his sick, humourless smile. "All three of them. We ought to get a Bronze Star, at least. Get Pavone to write it up for us. How about that one?" Keane indicated, with his toe, the wounded driver.

"He's not very healthy," Michael said. He bent down and touched the man's shoulder gently. "Do you speak French?" he asked.

The man looked up. He was very young, eighteen or nineteen, and the froth of blood on his caked lips, and the long lines of pain cutting down from his eyes, made him look animal-like and pathetic. He nodded. The effort of moving his head brought a spasm of pain to his lips. A gob of blood dripped down to Michael's shoes.

"Do not move," Michael said slowly, bent over, speaking softly into the boy's ear. "We'll try to help you."

The boy gently let himself down to the pavement. Then he slowly rolled over. He lay there, staring up through pain-torn eyes at Michael.

By now the Frenchmen were grouped around the wrecked car. The man with the Red Cross armband had two machine-pistols. "Wonderful," he was saying happily, "wonderful. These will be most welcome in Paris." He came over to the wounded boy and briskly yanked the pistol out of the boy's holster.

"Good," he said, "we have some.38-calibre ammunition for this."

The wounded boy stared dumbly up at the Red Cross on the Frenchman's arm. "Doctor," he said slowly, "Doctor. Help me."

"Oh," said the Frenchman gaily, touching the Red Cross, "it is just a disguise. Just for getting past your friends on the road. I am not a doctor. You will have to find someone else to help you…" He took his treasures off to one side and began to inspect them minutely for damage.

"Don't waste any time on the pig." It was the voice of Mrs Dumoulin, stony and cold. "Put him out of his misery."

Michael stared disbelievingly at her. She was standing at the wounded boy's head, her arms crossed on her bosom, speaking, Michael could tell from their harsh faces, for the men and women grouped behind her.

"No," Michael said. "This man is our prisoner and we don't shoot prisoners in our Army."

"Doctor," said the boy on the cobbles.

"Kill him," said someone from behind Mrs Dumoulin.

"If the American doesn't want to waste ammunition," another voice said, "I'll do it with a stone."

"What's the matter with you people?" Michael shouted.

"What are you, animals?" He spoke in French so that they could all understand, and it was very difficult to translate his anger and disgust in his high-school accent. He stared at Mrs Dumoulin. Inconceivable, he thought, a plump little housewife, an Irishwoman improbably in the middle of the Frenchmen's war, violent for blood, outside the claims of pity. "He's wounded, he can't do you any harm," Michael went on, furious at his slow searching for words. "What's the sense in it?"

"Go," Mrs Dumoulin said coldly, "go look at Jacqueline over there. Go see Monsieur Alexandre, that's the other one, lying there, with a bullet in his lung… Then you'll understand a little better."

"Three of them are dead," Michael pleaded with Mrs Dumoulin. "Isn't that enough?"

"It is not enough!" The woman's face was pale and furious, her dark, almost purple eyes set maniacally in her head. "Perhaps enough for you, young man. You haven't lived here under them for four years! You haven't seen your sons taken away and killed! Jacqueline was not your neighbour. You're an American. It's easy for you to be humane. It is not so easy for us!" She was screaming wildly by now, shaking her fists under Michael's nose. "We are not Americans and we do not wish to be humane. We wish to kill him. Turn your back if you're so soft. We'll do it. You'll keep your pretty little American conscience clean…"

"Doctor," the boy on the pavement moaned.

"Please…" Michael said, appealing to the locked faces of the townspeople behind Mrs Dumoulin, feeling guilty that he, a stranger, a stranger who loved them, loved their country, their courage, their suffering, dared to oppose them on a profound matter like this in the streets of their town… "Please," he said, feeling confusedly that perhaps she was right, perhaps it was his usual softness, his wavering, unheroic indecision that was making him argue like this. "It is impossible to take a wounded man's life like this, no matter what…"