Once More Unto the Breach Page 9

  -Owain

  viii

  Henri

  There were advantages to wearing the garb of a Frenchman and having become so ingrained in the Resistance movement over the years. I was trusted, even revered. And when I pointed these hapless boys in the direction I wanted as if they were a weapon and pulled the trigger, they fired. But they were boys, French at that, uncouth and ill-trained and prone to fuck things up, so I observed and then took matters into my own hands.

  My bullet pierced the ambulance’s tire, but the woman was a daring driver, and she managed to lose me in the labyrinth of narrow streets. I smiled to myself. When I returned to my vineyards and my brushes, I would have to paint more women. I had always found it a challenge to capture both the ferocity and the gentle softness inherent in the female mind and form. So often they were underestimated, but they were so capable. And they had the most ruthless and devious minds.

  I eased off the throttle and motioned for the others to do the same. When the rumble of the motorcycles died, I closed my eyes and listened. “There.” I pointed. I could hear the ambulance’s engine still traveling east out of Vichy.

  I thought we had caught up with them when we reached the outskirts of town and a bullet took out my front tire. Before the motorcycle could flip out of control, I laid it down on its side and slid after it in the dirt. The two Frenchmen with me were not so skilled. Their shots went wild as they were catapulted from their motorcycles when the front tires were compromised by a precisely fired bullet.

  I stood and dusted myself off. The man propped against the stone balustrade leveled his rifle at me and pulled the trigger, but there was only a fruitless click. The rifle was out of bullets. I looked past him over the bridge. The ambulance was nowhere in sight. He was alone, and the man who so closely resembled Owain had slipped out of my reach. I knew where he was going now, though.

  I drew my pistol and walked over to the Frenchmen groaning as they sat up. One’s arm was broken. He looked up at me as I approached. “Henri—” I shot him, and the other man’s eyes went wide before my bullet snuffed out the fear and pain building in his gaze. They were both useless to me now.

  I turned back to the man on the bridge to find him watching me.

  “You are not French.” He spoke in German.

  “Nein.” It was such a relief to speak in my mother tongue I felt my knees weaken as I approached him. “Tell me about the man you were traveling with.”

  He was too weak for much movement, but he lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. “He is merely a father, seeking his son. He is no one to concern yourself with.”

  “That is for me to decide, sir.”

  He tilted his head and studied me. “I can tell you no more than that.”

  I drew a cigarette and lighter from my pocket and offered it to him. When he nodded, I tucked the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and cupped my hand around the lighter as I flicked the flame to life and lit the end.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a deep drag, coughing a little as he did so. “Danke.”

  “Bitte,” I said as I shot him in the head.

  The cigarette tumbled from his lips, and I retrieved it from the dirt and took a drag myself as I studied the road leading east.

  10 August 1941

  Dear Nhad,

  I have met a girl. Her name is Sévèrin.

  Perhaps one day, when this is over, I can bring her home.

  -Owain

  ix

  All was suddenly quiet, even the poodle, and Charlotte veered off the road into the trees. She stopped the vehicle, allowing the engine to idle quietly as if it were catching its breath after its own sprint. A single gunshot pierced the quiet, and Charlotte flinched. I hung my head and rubbed the back of my neck.

  We waited long moments, out of sight from the road but ears pricked. The quiet was all-encompassing; no engines rumbled in approach.

  Charlotte put the ambulance in gear, and we limped further into the shelter of the woods. When she parked, she turned to me, gaze on my shoulder.

  “The tire first,” I said.

  We changed out the rear right tire with the spare in silence, and then Charlotte bandaged the flesh wound on my shoulder in much the same fashion, both of us lost in thought. Otto whined in the back of the ambulance.

  “I want to take a look around,” I said, voice low.

  Hers was equally quiet. “No fires tonight.”

  I trekked back through the woods until I had a clear view of the road. I crouched in the undergrowth and watched and waited while the shadows lengthened. As the sun began to set, I stood, knees protesting, shoulder hot and throbbing, and walked the tree line for several kilometers in either direction. No one followed or searched for us.

  A purple and orange stain was left on the sky with the passing sun, and the shadows were a deep, cool blue within the trees as I made my way back to the ambulance. I saw the large square shadow first, and then I heard the soft murmur of Charlotte’s voice. I drew closer and finally distinguished her shape.

  She sat leaning against the replaced tire, Otto’s inky form appearing poured over her. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, and the poodle lay draped over them, his head tucked against her stomach. She drew her comb through his hair with tender care and spoke softly to him, her voice so gentle when the mourning dog whimpered that it made my throat tight.

  I knelt beside her and placed a hand on the dog’s side. His tail thumped.

  We did not bother with a meal, and when we climbed into the back of the ambulance, Otto settled onto the stretcher his master had occupied. Charlotte retrieved a long line of rope and tied one end to a looped protrusion of metal on the stretcher bearer before securing the other end around the dog’s neck. She adjusted the fit so it was loose enough for comfort but not so loose he would be able to slip his head free.

  “I hate to do this to him,” she said, though the poodle made no protest.

  “It’s for the best, it is.”

  She nodded and then leaned over and kissed the long muzzle before she climbed onto the top stretcher. I settled into the one across from Otto, the events of the day making my eyelids heavy even as my mind raced.

  “Where is La Balme-les-Grottes?”

  “I looked at the map, and it is less than a day’s drive east of Lyon.”

  “Is the area controlled by the Nazis or have the Allies made it that far east yet?”

  “I do not know. But either way, with the ambulance we should be allowed through.”

  Silence settled around us once more. We had left the ambulance doors open, and I watched the forest grow dark. The battlefield awaited me in dreams.

  Machine guns spit bullets in a ferocious line that ripped bloody seams across men’s torsos and cut them down like a scythe swept across a crop. I was uncertain which was louder: the guns or the screams.

  I crawled on, pulling myself with my elbows, propelling myself with my knees, scrambling through the hot holes left by shells and dragging myself over the sprawled and shredded bodies. Arthur crept after me, and I could hear the ragged sawing of his breath.

  I was almost at the tree line when the soldier burst from the cover of the woods and raced toward me with a roar. His rifle was held like a spear, the sun gleaming off the blade at the end. I scrambled to my knees and swung my rifle up to meet him. His bayonet glanced over my shoulder, but his forward momentum drove him straight into mine. After the brief resistance of uniform and flesh, the bayonet sank into his belly with the ease of a sharpened shovel piercing through wet soil.

  The soldier grunted, a soft, animal-like noise, and leaned frozen above me. The butt of my rifle dug into my stomach, and I braced it there as I staggered to my feet. The German appeared even younger than I, and he stared at me, eyes a pale, blank blue. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth and dripped down his chin.

  He leaned more heavily into my bayonet as I gained my feet, and I braced my hand aga
inst his shoulder. His eyes closed, and I wrenched the blade from his abdomen, then moved aside and let him fall.

  I stepped over his legs and met the next soldier with a roar of my own exploding from my chest.

  “Rhys.” A hand on my shoulder wrenched me from Mametz Wood, and I latched onto the wrist in a bruising grip. “Easy. It’s me. It’s Charlotte. You were dreaming.”

  Her voice and the pulse under my fingers were both steady and gentle. A canine whine and nudge brought me to full awareness, and I immediately released the punishing grip on the delicate bones. “I apologize. Did I hurt you?”

  “No. I did not mean to startle you, but you didn’t respond when I called your name.”

  I sat up, rubbing my hands over my face, and was startled by the ache in my shoulder before I recalled that this wound had been inflicted by a bullet rather than a bayonet. “I am sorry,” I said again.

  “There’s no need to be. Are you well now?”

  “Aye.”

  She stood and placed a hand on my uninjured shoulder before she climbed back onto the stretcher bearer.

  Otto nudged his head against my chest, and when I reclined again, he followed me onto my bedroll. There was barely room for me on the stretcher, but the dog squeezed himself into the remaining space and settled his head on my chest. He sighed as I rubbed his ears, and under his muzzle I felt my heart begin to slow. This time as I slipped into slumber, the dreams were held at bay.

  _______

  We left our hiding place before dawn, and before we exited the shelter of the trees, I walked along the road in either direction until I was satisfied no trap awaited us. My head, jaw, and back felt better than they had since the attack in Paris, and though my shoulder burned, it was just as I told Charlotte: a flesh wound, more nuisance than injury.

  The land soon began to undulate, and the tree growth thickened into forest. We stayed away from the main routes and traversed narrow country lanes.

  I had awakened with Otto still curled against me, and when I untied him and allowed him to walk with me as I patrolled the area, he had not made any attempts to run. When I told him, “Fuss,” he fell into step at my left side, his shoulders staying perfectly aligned with my left leg as we moved. Now the poodle sat between us, tongue lolling, gaze and nose vigilant.

  We reached Roanne by late morning and crossed the Loire once more. On the eastern side of town, we risked the chance of driving the N-7, and by mid-afternoon we reached the outskirts of Lyon.

  As we drew closer to the city center, we passed increasing numbers of people in the street. They pressed in the same direction we did, ever-widening streams flowing toward an unseen confluence. We were forced into a slower and slower pace until we were crawling along in the midst of a mass of people.

  Unease gripped me as the crowd milled around us.

  Charlotte leaned her head out of the ambulance and asked a passerby, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

  “Les Américains sont ici!”

  She settled back into her seat. “This could—”

  Pounding on the back doors of the ambulance interrupted her, and Otto growled low in his throat, lips curling back from his teeth.

  “We need to get out of this crowd.” I grabbed the doorframe and held onto Otto as people began to converge on the ambulance, beating on the sides, rocking the vehicle back and forth. Hands grabbed at my legs, and I shook them off.

  “Rhys!” Charlotte was pulled to the edge of her seat by a rough hand on her forearm and another wrapped around her thigh.

  Before I could even move in her direction, Otto lunged across her snarling, teeth snapping. The man trying to drag her out of the vehicle yelped and fell back, narrowly avoiding having his face ripped apart by canine teeth.

  Charlotte lurched back into her seat and spun the wheel to the left, veering through the crowd, narrowly missing a farmer pushing an empty cart. Otto stayed draped over her lap, baring his teeth at anyone close as she maneuvered us through alleys and side streets until we were away from the mob.

  “Stop the ambulance,” I said once we had reached a quiet side street.

  When she slowed the ambulance to a halt, I caught her right hand, hushing Otto when he emitted a protective rumble. I drew her arm across her body and examined the slight limb. A red handprint marred the pale skin of her forearm, close to the juncture of her elbow, the outline of fingers already turning purple at the edges.

  “It’s fine,” she said, though there was a tremor in her voice. “I was more startled than anything. It’s fine, Rhys, I promise. I bruise easily.”

  I relinquished my hold on her arm with some reluctance, and she put the ambulance in motion. “The Americans are here? Is that what they said?”

  She nodded. “I think we have interrupted a liberation.”

  We pressed on toward the city center, detouring around the gaunt masses gathering in the streets. We reached the river at its oxbow, where the Saône and the Rhône curved in parallel arcs through the heart of the city.

  “What…”

  Charlotte slowed the vehicle, and I jumped down before the ambulance had fully stopped. The river appeared green in the midday sun, and the trees were thick on the opposite bank, girding the lower half of the buildings in such a way that it made the structures appear clad in verdant skirts. I picked my way carefully across the bridge until I was forced to come to a halt.

  I felt a hand on my back as Charlotte reached me, Otto at her heels. She stared downriver. “They are all destroyed,” she whispered.

  I followed her gaze and took in the destruction of the bridges along the Saône. They appeared like a row of cracked and splintered ribs, the center of each buckled into rubble half swallowed by the river. They were all impassable.

  “The Germans would have destroyed them as they retreated,” I said.

  “There must be a way across.” Otto followed her as she retreated from the broken bridge and approached a woman pushing a cart down the street.

  I walked to the edge of the jagged rent in the bridge and stared down at the river. The water was white where it flowed over the drowning sections of the dynamited central arch as if in an effort to sooth the gaping wound. Nausea churned in my stomach.

  I dragged my gaze away and retreated from the precipice when Charlotte called my name. “She said that downriver the Americans have been working on a bridge since they arrived this morning.”

  We took the quai south, following the curve of the Saône around the city center’s peninsula until it converged with the Rhône. The meeting of the rivers marked the confluence of the crowds. The quai was inundated up to the barricades erected in a large half circle around the American troops on the shore. We pressed through the crowd, the milling masses giving way to the ambulance like winter wool parting around sharpened shears. Even so, it took us an hour to reach the makeshift barrier to keep the crowd from pressing the troops into the river.

  A soldier spotted the ambulance and raised his hand.

  “We were sent down from Paris,” Charlotte called to him.

  He waved for us to continue and opened the barricade wide enough to permit us entry. He closed it immediately after us and then approached Charlotte’s side of the vehicle. “Private Cole, miss, of the 36th Infantry Division.” He was young, and his voice was a slow drawl that held a note that reminded me of a plucked string on a fiddle.

  “Will we be able to cross the river, Private?”

  “Yes, miss.” He pointed toward the men working in the middle of the Rhône. “They’re finishing the bridge now.”

  I exited the ambulance to watch the process, and Charlotte joined me, shading her eyes against the sun. A powerboat guided the last raft of three pontoons into place. Once it was lined up with the rest of the floating bridge, men set to work locking the timbers in place on the gunnels.

  “And it will be strong enough for a vehicle to cross?”

  The private answered me as he leaned over to pet
Otto. “Yes, sir. The M4 can bear the weight of a tank.”

  A short, stocky man stood on the bridge overseeing the construction. When the last balk was in place, he walked the length of the bridge, inspecting each pontoon. He turned back toward the western bank, and the private raised his hand. The man strode toward us, his boots echoing hollowly over the bridge as he approached.

  The private snapped a sharp salute. “Colonel, this ambulance team has been sent down from Paris.”

  A sharp patter of gunfire erupted across the river, and my hand went to the Luger hidden beneath my shirt.

  The colonel shook his head. “We’ll need more than one ambulance. It’s like a revolution in the streets here.”

  “Is it the Germans?” Charlotte asked.

  “No, ma’am. The damn FFI are quick on their triggers and shooting at everything that moves. Best have a care.”

  “Colonel!”

  The shout drew our attention to the man racing across the bridge.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” the colonel called.

  “They fired a tracer into a hospital, sir, claiming there were Germans inside,” he said in the midst of a salute. “The building is burning, and there are still wounded within.”

  “Goddamn frogs.” The colonel bit out the words. “Sergeant, you and the private stay here with the others and control the flow of traffic over the bridge.”

  Charlotte was already climbing behind the wheel of the ambulance. “The back is empty. We can grab men as we go.”

  The colonel opened the rear doors of the ambulance and rode standing on the fold-out steps as we crossed the bridge. Charlotte drove cautiously over the planks, and I kept an eye on the water as we crossed. As the private had promised, it held and did not buckle beneath our weight, though the slight undulation under the tires made me uneasy. I released the breath I did not realize I held when we reached the other side.

  Gunfire echoed through the heart of Lyon, and as Charlotte navigated the streets, the colonel barked orders to the soldiers we passed. They jumped into the back of the ambulance when Charlotte slowed.