The Tenth Man (4 page)

‘Never been far out of Paris,’ Janvier said, and then by a stretch of imagination he added, ‘Fontainebleau. I went there one summer.’

‘You don’t know Brinac? It’s on the main line from the Gare de l’Est.’

‘Never heard of it,’ the young man said sullenly, as though he was being accused of something, and he gave a long dry cough which sounded as though dry peas were being turned in a pan.

‘Then you wouldn’t know my village, St Jean de Brinac? It’s about two miles out of the town to the east. That’s where my house is.’

‘I thought you came from Paris.’

‘I work in Paris,’ the lawyer said. ‘When I retire I shall retire to St Jean. My father left me the house. And his father left it to him.’

‘What was your father?’ Janvier asked with faint curiosity.

‘A lawyer.’

‘And his father?’

‘A lawyer too.’

‘I suppose it suits some people,’ the clerk said. ‘It seems a bit dusty to me.’

‘If you had a bit of paper,’ Chavel went on, ‘I could draw you a plan of the house and garden.’

‘I haven’t,’ Janvier said. ‘Don’t trouble anyway. It’s your house. Not mine.’ He coughed again, pressing his bony hands down upon his knees. He seemed to be putting an end to an interview with a caller for whom he could do nothing. Nothing at all.

Chavel moved away. He came to Pierre and stopped. ‘Could you tell me the time?’ he said.

‘It’s five to twelve.’ From close by the mayor grunted malevolently, ‘Slow again.’

‘In your profession,’ Chavel said, ‘I expect you see the world?’ It sounded like the false bonhomie of a cross-examiner who wishes to catch the witness in a falsehood.

‘Yes and no,’ Pierre said.

‘You wouldn’t know by any chance a station called Brinac? About an hour’s run from the Gare de l’Est.’

‘Never been on that run,’ Pierre said. ‘The Gare Montparnasse is my station.’

‘Oh, yes. Then you wouldn’t know St Jean …’ He gave it up hopelessly, and sat down again far from anyone against the cold cement wall.

It was that night that the shooting was heard for the third time: a short burst of machine-gun fire, some stray rifle shots and once what sounded like the explosion of a grenade. The prisoners lay stretched upon the ground, making no comment to each other: they waited, not sleeping. You couldn’t have told in most cases whether they felt the apprehension of men in danger or the exhilaration of people waiting beside a sick-bed, listening to the first sounds of health returning to a too quiet body. Chavel lay as still as the rest: he had no fear: he was buried in this place too deeply for discovery. The mayor wrapped his arms around his watch and tried in vain to deaden the steady old-fashioned stroke: tick tock tick.

3

IT WAS AT
three the next afternoon (alarm clock time) that an officer entered the cell: the first officer they had seen for weeks, and this one was very young, with inexperience even in the shape of his moustache which he had shaved too much on the left side. He was as embarrassed as a schoolboy making his first entry on a
stage
at a prize-giving, and he spoke abruptly so as to give the impression of a strength he did not possess. He said, ‘There were murders last night in the town. The aide-de-camp of the military governor, a sergeant and a girl on a bicycle.’ He added, ‘We don’t complain about the girl. Frenchmen have our permission to kill Frenchwomen.’ He had obviously thought up his speech carefully beforehand, but the irony was overdone and the delivery that of an amateur actor: the whole scene was as unreal as a charade. He said, ‘You know what you are here for, living comfortably, on fine rations, while our men work and fight. Well, now you’ve got to pay the hotel bill. Don’t blame us. Blame your own murderers. My orders are that one man in every ten shall be shot in this camp. How many of you are there?’ He shouted sharply, ‘Number off,’ and sullenly they obeyed, ‘… twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.’ They knew he knew without counting. This was just a line in his charade he couldn’t sacrifice. He said, ‘Your allotment then is three. We are quite indifferent as to which three. You can choose for yourselves. The funeral rites will begin at seven tomorrow morning.’

The charade was over: they could hear his feet striking sharply on the asphalt going away: Chavel wondered for a moment what syllable had been acted—‘night’, ‘girl’, ‘aside’, or perhaps ‘thirty’, but it was of course the whole word—‘hostage’.

The silence went on a long time, and then a man
called
Krogh, an Alsatian, said, ‘Well, do we have to volunteer?’

‘Rubbish,’ said one of the clerks, a thin elderly man in pince-nez, ‘nobody will volunteer. We must draw lots.’ He added, ‘Unless it is thought that we should go by ages—the oldest first.’

‘No, no,’ one of the others said, ‘that would be unjust.’

‘It’s the way of nature.’

‘Not even the way of nature,’ another said. ‘I had a child who died when she was five …’

‘We must draw lots,’ the mayor said firmly. ‘It is the only fair thing.’ He sat with his hands still pressed over his stomach, hiding his watch, but all through the cell you could hear its blunt tick tock tick. He added, ‘On the unmarried. The married should not be included. They have responsibilities …’

‘Ha, ha,’ Pierre said, ‘we see through that. Why should the married get off? Their work’s finished. You, of course, are married?’

‘I have lost my wife,’ the mayor said, ‘I am not married now. And you …’

‘Married,’ Pierre said.

The mayor began to undo his watch: the discovery that his rival was safe seemed to confirm his belief that as the owner of time he was bound to be the next victim. He looked from face to face and chose Chavel—perhaps because he was the only man with a waistcoat fit to take the chain. He said, ‘Monsieur
Chavel
, I want you to hold this watch for me in case …’

‘You had better choose someone else,’ Chavel said. ‘I am not married.’

The elderly clerk spoke again. He said, ‘I’m married. I’ve got the right to speak. We are going the wrong way about all this. Everyone must draw lots. This isn’t the last draw we shall have, and picture to yourselves what it will be like in this cell if we have a privileged class—the ones who are left to the end. The rest of you will soon begin to hate us. We shall be left out of your fear …’

‘He’s right,’ Pierre said.

The mayor refastened his watch. ‘Have it your own way,’ he said. ‘But if the taxes were levied like this …’ He gave a gesture of despair.

‘How do we draw?’ Krogh asked.

Chavel said, ‘The quickest way would be to draw marked papers out of a shoe …’

Krogh said contemptuously, ‘Why the quickest way? This is the last gamble some of us will have. We may as well enjoy it. I say a coin.’

‘It won’t work,’ the clerk said, ‘You can’t get an even chance with a coin.’

‘The only way is to draw,’ the mayor said.

The clerk prepared the draw, sacrificing for it one of his letters from home. He read it rapidly for the last time, then tore it into thirty pieces. On three pieces he made a cross in pencil, and then folded each piece.
‘Krogh’s
got the biggest shoe,’ he said. They shuffled the pieces on the floor and then dropped them into the shoe.

‘We’ll draw in alphabetical order,’ the mayor said.

‘Z first,’ Chavel said. His feeling of security was shaken. He wanted a drink badly. He picked at a dry piece of skin on his lip.

‘As you wish,’ the lorry-driver said. ‘Anybody beat Voisin? Here goes.’ He thrust his hand into the shoe and made careful excavations as though he had one particular scrap of paper in mind. He drew one out, opened it, and gazed at it with astonishment. He said, ‘This is it.’ He sat down and felt for a cigarette, but when he got it between his lips he forgot to light it.

Chavel was filled with a huge and shameful joy. It seemed to him that already he was saved—twenty-nine men to draw and only two marked papers left. The chances had suddenly grown in his favour from ten to one to—fourteen to one: the greengrocer had drawn a slip and indicated carelessly and without pleasure that he was safe. Indeed from the first draw any mark of pleasure was taboo: one couldn’t mock the condemned man by any sign of relief.

Again a dull disquiet—it couldn’t yet be described as a fear—extended its empire over Chavel’s chest. It was like a constriction: he found himself yawning as the sixth man drew a blank slip, and a sense of grievance nagged at his mind when the tenth man had drawn—it was the one they called Janvier—and the
chances
were once again the same as when the draw started. Some men drew the first slip which touched their fingers: others seemed to suspect that fate was trying to force on them a particular slip and when they had drawn one a little way from the shoe would let it drop again and choose another. Time passed with incredible slowness, and the man called Voisin sat against the wall with the unlighted cigarette in his mouth paying them no attention at all.

The chances had narrowed to one in eight when the elderly clerk—his name was Lenôtre—drew the second slip. He cleared his throat and put on his pince-nez as though he had to make sure he was not mistaken. ‘Ah, Monsieur Voisin,’ he said with a thin undecided smile, ‘may I join you?’ This time Chavel felt no joy even though the elusive odds were back again overwhelmingly in his favour at fifteen to one: he was daunted by the courage of common men. He wanted the whole thing to be over as quickly as possible: like a game of cards which has gone on too long, he only wanted someone to make a move and break up the table. Lenôtre, sitting down against the wall next to Voisin, turned the slip over: on the back was a scrap of writing.

‘Your wife?’ Voisin said.

‘My daughter,’ Lenôtre said. ‘Excuse me.’ He went over to his roll of bedding and drew out a writing pad. Then he sat down next to Voisin and began to write, carefully, without hurry, a thin legible hand. The odds
were
back to ten to one.

From that point the odds seemed to move towards Chavel with a dreadful inevitability: nine to one, eight to one: they were like a pointing finger. The men who were left drew more quickly and more carelessly: they seemed to Chavel to have some inner information—to know that he was the one. When his time came to draw there were only three slips left, and it appeared to Chavel a monstrous injustice that there were so few choices left for him. He drew one out of the shoe and then feeling certain that this one had been willed on him by his companions and contained the pencilled cross he threw it back and snatched another.

‘You looked, lawyer,’ one of the two men exclaimed, but the other quieted him.

‘He didn’t look. He’s got the marked one now.’

4

LENÔTRE SAID, ‘COME
over here, Monsieur Chavel, and sit down with us.’ It was as if he were inviting Chavel to come up higher, to the best table at a public dinner.

‘No,’ Chavel said, ‘no.’ He threw the slip upon the ground and cried, ‘I never consented to the draw. You can’t
make
me die for the rest of you …’

They watched him with astonishment but without enmity. He was a gentleman. They didn’t judge him by their own standards: he belonged to an unaccountable
class
and they didn’t at first even attach the idea of cowardice to his actions.

Krogh said, ‘Sit down and rest. There’s nothing to worry about any more.’

‘You can’t,’ Chavel said. ‘It’s nonsense. The Germans won’t accept me. I’m a man of property.’

Lenôtre said, ‘Don’t take on now, Monsieur Chavel. If it’s not this time it’s another …’

‘You can’t make me,’ Chavel repeated.

‘It’s not we who’ll make you,’ Krogh said.

‘Listen,’ Chavel implored them. He held out the slip of paper and they all watched him with compassionate curiosity. ‘I’ll give a hundred thousand francs to anyone who’ll take this.’

He was beside himself: almost literally beside himself. It was as if some hidden calmness in him stood apart and heard his absurd proposition and watched his body take up shameful attitudes of fear and pleading. It was as if the calm Chavel whispered with ironic amusement, ‘A grand show. Lay it on a bit thicker. You ought to have been an actor, old man. You never know. It’s a chance.’

He took little rapid steps from one man to another, showing each man the bit of paper as if he were an attendant at an auction. ‘A hundred thousand francs,’ he implored, and they watched him with a kind of shocked pity: he was the only rich man among them and this was a unique situation. They had no means of comparison and assumed that this was a characteristic
of
his class, just as a traveller stepping off the liner at a foreign port for luncheon sums up a nation’s character for ever in the wily businessman who happens to share the table with him.

‘A hundred thousand francs,’ he pleaded, and the calm shameless Chavel at his side whispered, ‘You are getting monotonous. Why haggle? Why not offer them everything you possess?’

‘Calm yourself, Monsieur Chavel,’ Lenôtre said. ‘Just think a moment—no one is going to give his life for money he’ll never enjoy.’

‘I’ll give you everything I’ve got,’ Chavel said, his voice breaking with despair, ‘money, land, everything, St Jean de Brinac …’

Voisin said impatiently, ‘None of us want to die, Monsieur Chavel,’ and Lenôtre repeated with what seemed to the hysterical Chavel shocking self-righteousness, ‘Calm yourself, Monsieur Chavel.’

Chavel’s voice suddenly gave out. ‘Everything,’ he said.

They were becoming impatient with him at last. Tolerance is a question of patience, and patience is a question of nerves and their nerves were strained. ‘Sit down,’ Krogh rapped at him, ‘and shut your mouth.’ Even then Lenôtre made a friendly space for him, patting the floor at his side.

‘Over,’ the calm Chavel whispered, ‘over. You weren’t good enough. You’ve got to think up
something
else …’

A voice said, ‘Tell me more. Maybe I’ll buy.’ It was Janvier.

5

HE NEVER REALLY
expected an offer: hysteria and not hope had dictated his behaviour, and now it took him a long moment to realize that he was not being mocked. He repeated, ‘Everything I’ve got.’ The hysteria peeled off like a scab and left the sense of shame.