The Road Between Us (34 page)

‘The locals do seem pleased to see us.’

‘Get in.
Vite!
’ He taps the steering wheel. ‘I have liberated this in the name of the French Republic.’

The two men look conspicuous as they join a convoy of ten-ton trucks, amphibious craft, ambulances and Sherman tanks leaving
the town past the hanging baskets filled with Mediterranean flowers, past the blur of terracotta roofs, past the cannons that line the crumbling mellow stone of the Citadelle.

A French uniform. A British uniform. A stolen American jeep.

The chinstrap on Lehague’s kepi is dangling and, when they swerve for potholes, it whips up like a spaniel’s ear, making him look, for the first time since Charles met him, frivolous.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Charles asks.

‘I’ve done all I needed to do here. My priority as liaison now is to get to Nancy as quickly as I can. Try and keep up with the advance. You will join me for the ride, won’t you?’

The pastel-coloured shutters on the tall seafront houses are being closed and the tricolours that were flapping lazily below the balconies are being gathered in. Siesta time. Charles breathes in deeply, enjoying the blue skies and the briny smell of the sea. His pleasure is short-lived. The bumps in the road jar and aggravate his thumb, making him curse under his breath each time they mount one.

As they head north-west towards Digne, they see evidence of the airborne assault that preceded the amphibious one: parachutes and gliders abandoned in meadows. And pushed to the sides of a lane lined with cypresses there are the parachute-borne dummies that were dropped by Allied planes, as well as tons of radar-obscuring chaff.

As they drive, Lehague points out with pride the sabotage work done by the partisans in the hours before the invasion: destroyed bridges and rail lines, telegraph poles blown in half, their wires tangled on the ground. There are also the vehicles which the retreating Germans abandoned as they ran out of fuel, their tyres shot or engines burned so that they cannot be used by the Americans. Some have careened over on their sides, or been tipped that way.

About thirty miles out of Saint-Tropez they see a column of hundreds of German prisoners, some wounded. They look old and tired: veterans,
Volksdeutsche
, relieved that the war for them is over.

Moving through agricultural land now, Charles takes in the threshing machines working in fields of wheat, and the dozens of dust-covered labourers stooking sheaves of straw. It strikes him as an incongruously bucolic sight in the middle of a war.

By the late afternoon, the convoy has slowed to a crawl as it negotiates narrow lanes flanked by high hedges. By nightfall it comes to a stop. Seeing the lights of a farmhouse, Lehague heads for it, cutting across a small vineyard. Charles waits in the jeep as Lehague strides up to the front door, knocks, enters. Five minutes later, he comes outside to inform Charles that they have beds for the night.

As they dine on bread and vegetable broth, and drink vinegary table wine, Charles enjoys listening to Lehague regale the farmer and his wife with stories of London. His French, he realizes with satisfaction, is just about good enough for him to keep up with the conversation.

The next morning they are woken at dawn by the sound of the convoy trundling past. While the farmer’s wife changes the dressing on his thumb, Charles hears Lehague outside trying to get a signal on his wireless transceiver.

By the time Charles joins him, Lehague has packed the radio set away and is sharpening a double-edged commando dagger on a stone as he waits in the shade of an avocado tree. The dagger is twelve inches long and has a serrated edge and a black foil grip. Charles eyes it apprehensively as he lowers himself into the passenger side of the jeep. ‘Any luck?’ he asks.

‘I could hear them,’ Lehague says, slipping the dagger into a sheath strapped to his belt and thigh, ‘but I’m not sure they could hear me. From what I could make out, the Germans are planning to withdraw as far as Lyon, then make a stand there. They are calling in reinforcements from Strasbourg to the east. The Resistance are going to try and blow up the bridges to stop them.’

By driving at speed they catch up with the tail of the convoy within ten minutes, but feeling frustrated by its lumbering pace they decide to make their own way to Grenoble. Though all the
signposts have been taken down, Charles tries to work out from their map which towns they bypass over the next five hours – Sisteron, Veynes, La Mure. He is starting to suspect that they are lost.

As they move up the Rhône valley they contemplate the rippling fields and huge skies. They also witness the damage caused by the roaming American fighters that have strafed the roads and bridges. Long German convoys have been destroyed and the entire zone is covered with a mass of burned vehicles, trains and the bloated corpses of cattle and horses. Lehague slows down when he sees a civilian dangling from a roadside tree like a piece of rotting fruit. ‘Vichy,’ he says with a shrug, before speeding away.

When next they stop for a break, an hour later, Charles records the sights he has seen in his sketchbook. While he does this, Lehague crumbles oatmeal blocks into water and cooks them over a biscuit tin filled with earth and soaked in petrol. When the porridge is ready he serves it with hardtack biscuits, powdered egg and margarine. They eat in silence using their hands and afterwards Lehague lights up a cigarette and slips some headphones on as he tunes in his transceiver. ‘The Germans are in full retreat,’ he announces excitedly, speaking too loudly. ‘We’re chasing them in a great arc. If we don’t hurry up, the war will be over and we won’t have fired a single damn bullet!’

About ten miles from Grenoble, the jeep begins to make a crunching noise, as if trying to clear its throat. ‘Don’t like the sound of that,’ Lehague says. He pulls to the side of the road as the jeep lurches to a halt. He taps the fuel gauge. ‘Empty.’

Charles lights a cigarette. ‘What do we do?’

‘We could wait here for the next convoy. See if anyone has any spare cans; which they won’t have.’ Lehague studies a map and takes a compass bearing. ‘Do you fancy a walk? Grenoble isn’t far.’

Charles looks up as he hears bombers droning high overhead. He shields his eyes and sees they are American B-24s leaving a trail of white vapour. ‘Well, it looks like the war is that way,’ he says, slinging the map tube containing his art materials over his shoulder.

A mile down the road they come to a fork. As Charles watches
Lehague consult their map again and take a sighting on his compass, he feels a sense of camaraderie with him that he hasn’t felt before. The diminutive Lehague seems to have grown in stature since returning to his homeland. His eagerness to fight the enemy is infectious.

‘This way,’ the Frenchman says, marching towards a hillside olive grove.

After about six miles, the conversation lulls as they fold into their own ruminations. Charles realizes he is getting blisters on his feet. His face feels sunburnt and he can see white lines of salt streaking his shirt. ‘Can we stop for a moment,’ he says. ‘I think I have something in my boot.’

He sits on the verge, unlaces his boot and massages his toes.

‘Why are you here?’ Lehague says, with a quizzical tilt of his head. ‘I mean, why really?’

‘I told you, my friend is in the work camp in Alsace.’

‘He must be a very dear friend.’

‘He is.’ Charles wants to change the subject. ‘Sounds like they are having fun up in Paris. You must wish you were up there with them for the liberation.’

‘I would rather be here in the south.’

‘Are your family still in Nancy? Wife? Children?’

‘My wife is dead. The Germans killed her. We didn’t have any children.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Lehague raises and lowers his hands. A few minutes later, as they are walking side by side, he adds: ‘They tortured her.’

Charles cannot think of an appropriate response. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats.

After a further mile they see two old bicycles parked outside a house and look at one another. Five minutes later, as they are cycling along a narrow lane flanked by high hedges, the two look at each other again and start laughing. ‘Is this how you imagined the invasion would be?’ Charles asks.

‘I feel like a naughty schoolboy,’ Lehague says.

Charles hasn’t heard his companion laugh before and the sound takes his mind off the purpose of his mission.

A mile further on, the hedges are replaced with fences. They are now cycling through rolling hills and lush pastureland dotted with grazing sheep, but there is still no sign of the convoy. Charles squints into the sun. He then notices up ahead what look like two giant grizzly bears standing on their hind legs in a frozen clinch.

As they get closer they see it is two French half-tracks that have reared up in an explosion and, with each supporting the weight of the other, they have been welded together as they burned. The rubber in their caterpillar tracks has melted. Wisps of smoke are still rising from it.

Charles and Lehague look at one another again as they dismount their bikes.

Lehague takes the safety catch off his Sten gun as he treads carefully around the side of the vehicles. He stops and, as Charles catches up with him, he sees why. The carbonized corpses of the crew are hanging down, their skulls black, their grins grotesque.

The stench of scorched metal is oppressive, but it is the smell of burnt hair and fat that makes Charles gag. He touches the scar tissue on his cheek as he looks down at what appears to be a bean-bag lying on the running board. It is another body, this one with its head crushed from ear to jaw. One of his legs has been rammed through the shattered glass of the windshield; the other has been lopped off at the thigh and has come to rest at a right angle to his torso, as if placed there meticulously. He has a fat-lipped wound in his side and his intestines are spilling from it like twisted water balloons.

Lehague taps Charles on the shoulder and says: ‘Binoculars.’

Charles removes the binoculars he has around his neck and hands them over. Lehague trains them on something he has seen in a nearby field. He starts walking carefully in that direction, assuming a crouching position and raising his hand as an instruction to Charles not to follow him. He does anyway and soon sees what Lehague has seen. About two hundred yards away there are three
men, French soldiers, kneeling on the grass in a semicircle, their heads bowed as if in prayer. When they are fifty yards away, it becomes clear that they are dead and have been propped up in that position on their rifles.

Lehague comes to within five yards of them before stopping and paling in horror. Once he is alongside him, Charles follows his gaze. The dead men have had their genitals sawn off and placed on their own tongues like communion wafers. Flies are crawling over their papery cheeks.

‘Waffen-SS,’ Lehague says.

Charles cannot find his voice for a moment. Eventually he asks hoarsely: ‘How do you know?’

‘It’s what they do. They want everyone to know it was them.’ Lehague rolls the nearest body on to its side and attempts to straighten out its legs. Rigor mortis prevents him. Instead he removes as delicately as he can the genitals from the mouth of the dead soldier and places them back where they belong before tugging up his trousers and attempting to wipe the dark caked-on blood from his mouth. Charles does the same for the second one while Lehague moves on to the third.

‘We should bury them,’ Charles says.

‘With what?’ Lehague heads back to the road. ‘Come on. Let’s try and find a farmhouse before it gets dark.’

Charles takes off his backpack, unstraps his easel and throws it away. He picks up one of the French clip-fed MAS-36 carbine rifles instead and, slinging it over his shoulder, removes the magazines from the other two rifles, stuffing them in his pocket. He buckles his pack again and hefts it on to his shoulders before breaking into a jog to catch up with Lehague.

For the next half-hour, as they cycle down the road in silence, they do not encounter any traffic, though Lehague keeps looking over his shoulder as if he has heard vehicles approaching. Eventually he stops and raises his hand. ‘Listen,’ he whispers.

Unable to hear anything, Charles pulls a puzzled face. He is conscious of the rifle strap chafing his shoulder.

‘Singing,’ Lehague says, leading the way off the road again and heading for a nearby hill. By the time he has reached the top of it, the singing has stopped. He raises the binoculars to his eyes and studies the landscape in a 360-degree sweep. He stops, adjusts the focus and, handing the binoculars to Charles, says: ‘There.’

Rising from a copse about a quarter of a mile away is a thin trail of smoke.

‘You think it’s them?’

‘Let’s take a closer look.’

They move in a crouching position at first and, when they are on a knoll halfway to the wood, they get down and crawl. They can hear the singing again and can make out that the voices are German. ‘I can see four of them,’ Lehague says. ‘And no sentry.’

Once he has adjusted the focus on his binoculars, Charles sees them, four figures drinking from the necks of bottles as they sit around a campfire. Three are wearing camouflage, one a leather trench coat. All four have their tunics unbuttoned. One is wearing a black field cap with what looks like the
Totenkopf
above the scalloped front on the turn-up. But he cannot be sure. Another is wearing a French kepi. A trophy. ‘Are they SS?’

‘Tank crew is my guess. SS Panzer Division. I think they might be deserters.’

‘I think they might be drunk.’

Lehague cocks his Sten gun and, nodding at the rifle in Charles’s hand, whispers: ‘Do you know how to use that?’

Charles nods.

Lehague mouths the words ‘cover me’. As he crawls forward, Charles pulls back the bolt on his rifle as quietly as he can and aims it at the nearest of the Germans. They are close enough to smell the woodsmoke.

By the time Lehague has taken cover – behind a tall tree with knotty roots on the edge of the wood – it is dusk and the four Germans are almost silhouetted against the flames of their campfire. They are still singing and taking swigs from the bottles they are passing between themselves. Three of their rifles are arranged in a
tripod, their muzzles together. There are four empty bottles on their sides, one of them broken. The fire is crackling and sparking as they stir it with sticks. Though they are unshaven, they look young, teenagers. Their heads are shaved at the sides.