Stranger at the Gates (26 page)

At St. Blaize itself the day passed quietly; Louise spent the morning with her father-in-law. He was in bed, complaining that he felt too tired to get up and dress; bad weather depressed him. He didn't want to read or play his gramophone, so she offered to read to him. He watched her from his pillows, his eyes changing focus as they slid to objects round the room. She had a soothing voice and her company was a comfort. He felt an atmosphere in the house which he didn't understand, but which disturbed him. The children had babbled excitedly of Germans being in the Château, an S.S. officer had paid him a visit—already the Comte was confused about its purpose. Old Marie-Anne, who had never been a favourite member of his staff in the old days, insisted on sitting in his room in spite of his request to go away. That morning his son had come to him, and he too seemed different, anxious and more solicitous than usual. The old Comte decided that the reason for it all must be himself, and sank into a fit of petulant despair. He decided he was ill and therefore dying and could not get up.

After Louise had been with him a little while, his mood had changed. He felt comforted and safe, petted by everybody. He reached a thin hand across the bed and squeezed hers, his mouth curved into a smile. When she put down the book she saw he was still smiling and asleep. The room was very still; the smell was a mixture of the slight fustiness of age, and the fresh scent of soap and cologne from his morning blanket bath. Marie-Anne looked after him like a child; she didn't seem to notice that he disliked her and was querulous and petty. He looked very old, his hair so white and thin that it was hardly visible against the linen, the blue veins on his forehead pulsing under the tight skin.

Soon death would come to him; Louise put the book away and sat still for a moment. Death would be dignified and peaceful, he would leave the world in gentleness with love supporting him to the end. A different kind of death would come to St. Blaize. A harsh staccato, bullets tearing through flesh, the crack of pistol shots along the line of fallen figures … The nightmare came at her in the silent room, and she fought unavailingly against it. When would they make the first arrest? Had anyone been taken from St. Blaize already? In God's name, she asked out loud, why couldn't Savage have gone that day instead of having another day and night to wait …?

She got up and the movement woke her father-in-law. He stirred and his eyes opened, filmed with age and sleep.

‘Louise? Louise …'

‘I'm here. Papa. You slept for a while.'

She pulled the sheet straight; his eyes watched her.

‘Where are the children?'

‘They're at school. It's not lunch time yet. Go back to sleep; there's something nice for your lunch.'

‘Not an omelette,' he said. ‘I had one yesterday.'

‘Veal,' Louise said gently. ‘Jean Pierre got a small cut specially for you. You'll like that.'

‘Yes.' He brightened at the idea of food. He pulled himself upright. ‘I'm so sick of eggs. Thank you for reading to me, my dear. The sleep was good for me; I'm feeling better.'

‘I'm glad, Papa.' She leaned over and kissed his forehead. ‘Perhaps you'll get up this afternoon.'

‘I think I will,' he said. ‘Then Paul and Sophie can come and play up here. When will they be home?'

‘About four o'clock. The usual time. I'll bring them up to you.'

The hours passed and the Comte de Bernard got up and dressed to wait for his grandchildren. Four o'clock came; he matched his pocket watch with the chimes of the bracket clock and they were in unison. He had a poor sense of time, but it seemed a short interval till he looked at his watch again and saw that it was long past five. And still the children didn't come.

There was no work for Minden to do. He and the rest of Brühl's staff were confronted with the wreckage that remained in the flooded cellar; the most cursory examination showed that nothing usable had survived. The worst tragedy from their point of view was the loss of the documentation. A massive filing cabinet, indexed and cross-referenced, containing nearly three years of experimental data and the latest developments on Formula XV had been penetrated by the water, and the contents were a congealed, sodden mess. At a conference called by Vierken at eleven o'clock that morning, it was decided to close down Brühl's section and return his staff to Germany. The Führer himself had ordered that the work should be resumed under the leadership of another scientist with a headquarters in the Fatherland. It was a useless decision, and Minden recognised its futility. He and his colleagues were given twenty-four hours to pack up, and issued with special passes, signed by Vierken without which not even an officer of the Wehrmacht could leave the area. The atmosphere in the mess at the Château Diane was gloomy; there was little conversation, except among the S.S. officers, who seemed in excellent spirits. Watching them, Minden supposed that, unlike himself, their activities were just beginning. He was sitting next to the redheaded Major who had questioned him the previous day. The Major was enjoying the food and the splendid wines and he was expansive, trying to talk to the disconsolate army officers and getting little response.

‘You're going home, I hear,' he said to Minden.

‘Yes. We're all leaving tomorrow morning.'

‘Better than sticking around here,' the Major said. ‘Nothing for you to do now.'

‘No,' Minden answered.

‘We won't be here long either.'

‘Oh? Have you caught the murderer?'

‘Not yet; we've searched all the villages, we've questioned hundreds of people. No doubt he came from St. Blaize—that's where the plane was circling and where the car came from. They haven't turned anyone in. But by tonight they'll change their tune!'

‘Why? What are you going to do?' Minden didn't really want to know; he didn't want to talk at all. The question was a reflex and immediately he wished he hadn't asked.

‘Operation Herod,' the S.S. Major said. He laughed; several of the other S.S. officers joined in. ‘I'll give the Standartenführer credit for a sense of humour. He thought of the name for it.'

‘What does it mean? Operation Herod …'

‘Think about it; didn't you ever read the Bible?' There was a general laugh at this; the S.S. Major tipped his chair back and raised his wine glass.

‘We'll teach the swine a lesson! They won't be so eager to help the English after this …'

‘I don't understand,' Minden said. ‘Operation Herod. There were several Herods.'

‘It's a riddle.' The Major leaned towards him. ‘I'll give you a clue. It's not the one that pissed himself over Salome!'

Minden didn't finish his lunch. He took a piece of cheese and cut it into squares, waiting until the senior officer present gave the signal to leave the table. He went outside and smoked a cigarette; the sun was shining and he walked slowly down a short avenue of trees to a stone seat. It faced a small fountain which no longer operated. The water in the basin was a stagnant pool a few inches deep, and the lead dolphin with two rollicking putti on his back was crusty with dried slime.

Herod. Minden threw his cigarette away. He knew the Bible well. Herod the Tetrarch had cut off the head of John the Baptist. Herod, King of Judea, had ordered the massacre of the children. Operation Herod. He looked at the putti, plump and joyous, riding the dolphin's back, and felt a surge of nausea, so strong that he choked into his handkerchief. The children. The children of St. Blaize. That was what they were going to do. Not hostages, not a few hundred adult males to be shot, but the children. ‘By tonight they'll have changed their tune.' Tonight. His hands and neck were clammy, the hair stuck to his forehead. Hostages were logical; an enemy population had to be disciplined or no German soldier could walk the streets. Minden accepted that. He approved of it. If he had seen the mayor of the village and the priest and the doctor and anyone else in authority die he wouldn't have thought twice about them. But children. Sophie and Paul de Bernard.

‘Major Minden—come and play ball … Major Minden, this is my drawing I did at school today …' The feel of a hand clutching on to his; Sophie sitting on his knee with her arms round his neck.

And the boy, the brave, open-natured child that reminded him of his own sons, the boy who didn't look at him with fear or hostility. Who accepted him and admired him. Tonight, that butcher had said, with his pansy laugh. Minden stood up. He wiped his hands and face and fastened the top of his collar. It was two-thirty-eight; by three o'clock he was in the back seat of his army car, the pass signed by Vierken in his briefcase, travelling at top speed towards St. Blaize en Yvelines.

The teacher was a widow; she had been born in St. Blaize, the daughter of the village notary, and married in 1940. Her husband had been killed during the German advance, and she had returned to her job at the school, a woman already old at twenty-six. There were twenty children in class that afternoon headed by the daughter of Camier, the Mayor, she was a clever child of eleven, responsible and studious, the idol of her family. Michele Giffier, the teacher, was in the middle of a geography lesson; she was unwilling to let Paul and Sophie de Bernard leave with the German officer. Her first reaction had been refusal; the officer appeared so agitated that she became afraid. But she accepted his explanation that their mother had sent for them, her reluctance overcome by the children's delighted welcome when they saw him, and at three-forty-one exactly they left the school building and climbed into the Major's car. Both children threw their arms round him; Sophie smudged a kiss on the side of his face. Even Heinz the driver looked over his shoulder and muttered something friendly.

‘Why are we going home?' That was Paul, always the practical one. ‘What does Mama want us for?' Minden was very pale; he looked grim and the children stared at him, suddenly anxious. ‘What's the matter?' Paul said. On an impulse Minden put an arm round each of them.

‘Nothing,' he said. ‘Nothing's the matter, little ones.' The driver started the car and as it moved down the street there was a harsh engine roar from behind them. Minden looked back. An armoured car, the iron crosses painted black and white on its sides, was pulling up outside the school. S.S. troops armed with submachine guns spilled out of the back and ringed the building. Minden gripped the children tightly. Minutes; there had only been minutes to spare.

‘Home, Heinz,' Sophie called out. ‘Home please, Heinz.'

‘We're not going home,' Minden said. ‘We're going to have a surprise. We're going to Paris to see your Aunt Régine.'

‘Cries and lamentations filled the land,' remarked the biblically minded Major. ‘It was Rachel mourning her children.' He grinned and lit a cigarette. A ring of S.S. troops encircled the school; the entrance was blocked by the armoured car. The machine gun mounted in its turret swung slowly round, sweeping across the crowd which was gathered outside the school, kept back by the automatic weapons of the troops. There was a noise, a cry without words, coming from the mass of people, men and women of all ages. Fear, pleading, agony, frustration. The major saw Vierken arrive in a staff car; he spat the cigarette out and sprang to attention. The crying sound stopped suddenly; in silence Vierken stepped out of his car, flanked on each side by S.S. guards with guns at the ready. It was nearly sunset. He walked to the armoured car and stopped in front of it. There was a rush from the crowd.

The Standartenführer didn't move; he knew his men. They wouldn't be allowed to get near. He saw a small, fat man with a grey head, struggling with one of the soldiers, arguing and begging. The man turned to him and shouted.

‘I am the Mayor! Let me speak to you, sir! For the love of God, let me talk to you!' Vierken made a signal. Albert Camier came stumbling forward; his pace suggested that he might fall on his knees. His face was streaked with tears.

‘Standartenführer—why have you done this? Why are the children under guard? What have they done?'

‘The children, Monsieur Le Maire, are quite innocent,' Vierken said. ‘Unfortunately, it is often the lot of the innocent to suffer for the guilty. You are all guilty here.'

‘But we've done nothing,' Camier cried out. ‘Nothing!'

‘You harboured a murderer, a saboteur,' Vierken said. ‘He was dropped here and sheltered; by someone. Now you are going to be punished. I'm going to make an example of the people of St. Blaize.' He turned, as if there was nothing more to say. Camier seized his sleeve; his eyes were wild, his mouth slack and quivering.

‘My daughter is in there. Let her go. Shoot me; shoot any of us, as many as you like! But for the love of Christ, let the children out!'

Vierken pointed to him. ‘Put him back in the crowd. And bring me the hailer.'

When he began to speak there was a shiver and then silence from the crowd. Some of the women had been sobbing hysterically; even this was stilled.

‘People of St. Blaize.' Vierken's voice came loud through the speaker. ‘Two German officers have been murdered. A serious act of sabotage has been committed. We know that the criminal responsible for this was harboured in your area. He has not been found and no one has come forward. Therefore, it has been decided to punish you. You have shown yourselves enemies of the Reich, and while it would suit you to see a few of your fellow citizens shot for this outrage, this is not enough. You are going to learn that German blood is precious. German property is precious. As precious as your children. As a reprisal for your treachery, the children of this village are going to be deported to Germany. You will never see them again.' He put the hailer down and turned back to his car. There was a scream, one high-pitched shriek from the middle of the crowd; a woman fought to the front and ran at him, both hands outspread, the fingers curved into claws; she was screaming incoherently. Vierken paused for a moment. There was a single shot, and she fell, sprawling face downward. The revolver in his hand had a thin wisp of smoke curling round its barrel.