After Dunkirk Page 7

  “You can’t be pinning your hopes on me,” Jeremy said after several moments.

  “I’m a hopeless romantic, not a fool,” Nicolas said. He shook his head sadly. “Amélie will hate me forever if she learns of the choice I offered you, but no, you are not the only one. Tens of thousands of your soldiers were captured after Dunkirk and are being force-marched to Germany. But a lot got away. Local groups are trying to find and help them. We hope one or two of you might make it to England soon.”

  Just then, the old truck sputtered and shook. Nicolas looked down again at the gas gauge. Seeing that it registered past empty, he let the vehicle coast its remaining few inches to a halt. “This is as far as we ride,” he said with a wry grin. “Whichever way we go, we’re on foot, unless we get lucky.”

  He reached down and grasped a cloth bag containing bread and cheese. Slinging it over his shoulder, he climbed down from the driver’s seat onto the street. Without a backward glance, he started walking.

  As Jeremy clambered from the truck, he noticed that the gaunt men and women still clinging to its bed barely took note for having known so many starts and stops. Now, if they noticed Jeremy and Nicolas’ departure at all, they did so with blank stares.

  With Nicolas leading the way, they continued their trek, two more exhausted men trudging through the ruined countryside. After many hours, they came to a major road intersection outside of Le Mans. Nicolas halted.

  Turning to Jeremy, he pointed in the direction of a road headed south. “That way leads to Marseille,” he said. “It’s about a six-day walk, but we could probably get rides, and we have friends who will help us.” Then he indicated the road leading west. “That goes to the coast, to Saint-Nazaire. It’s about two days away on foot, and from this point on, I wouldn’t trust anybody.” He grasped both of Jeremy’s shoulders and looked directly into his eyes.

  Jeremy read the unspoken question. The ground below his feet seemed to buckle as if from a turbulent wave. Strength had momentarily deserted his legs. Blood drained from his face. For an instant, the cycle of memory took unbidden possession once again. Home. Family. War. Explosions. Small arms fire. Flight. Suffocation. Gritty sand. Burned-out war machines. Death.

  Then, rejuvenating rain. A bent figure. A warm place. Soft hands. Blurry faces. The smile of an angel. Amélie.

  Without a word, Jeremy shrugged off Nicolas’ grasp and trudged toward the setting sun.

  9

  One day earlier, June 14

  Dunkirk, France

  Amélie glared out the window at four German soldiers patrolling past the Bouliers’ garden gate. Since the first day of their appearance throngs of them had gathered on the beach with the task of searching and removing war materiel abandoned by the British and French armies. She glanced around for Chantal, and then remembered that her sister had gone to see if the bakery was open and selling bread.

  “Everything will resume as normal,” Hauptman Bergmann had announced at a public gathering the day before. “The schools, markets, churches, and all other public functions will reopen, and life will continue as it was before our arrival.”

  The irony of giving such a statement amid the city’s bombed-out relics seemed not to bother him. With a sweeping hand, he had indicated his soldiers. “My men are here to protect you. Respect us and we will respect you.” As he made his last statement, his ingratiating smile disappeared, and he cast a glassy eye at his audience. His implied meaning was clear and sent a shiver through the crowd listening with grim-faced stoicism.

  Amélie had attended the gathering with her father and Chantal. They did not stop to speak to anyone on their way home.

  As they hurried along, Ferrand growled to his daughters, “Nothing will open soon. There are no schools, shops, or churches to open.” He kept them moving at a fast pace. “Pay attention to this advice I give you. Avoid eye contact with German soldiers. Try to stay away from them, but if you cannot and you meet them in the street, greet them civilly. Never stop to talk. If they call to you, move on as if you didn’t hear them. Never trust them. They think of themselves as belonging to a superior race, but they are nothing more than conquering soldiers far from home, wives, and girlfriends, and some have more evil intent than others. Do you understand?”

  Amélie had glanced at Chantal to see if her young sister grasped the import of what her father had said. Chantal’s wide eyes and wrinkled brow gave the sense that she fully understood.

  Now, seeing the time on her wristwatch, Amélie moved to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Chantal should be home soon. Then, standing in front of the window overlooking the garden, she noticed that the door on the shed was slightly ajar, unusual because her father was fastidious about keeping his tools put away and the door closed against the coastal weather. “The salt in the air will eat them up,” he reminded them frequently.

  Ferrand would be at his shop now or visiting friends. He was not home.

  As Amélie took note of the door, she thought she saw the shed shake slightly. Thinking she might have imagined it, she stared at the small wooden building.

  It shook again.

  Amélie stepped out onto the back porch, shielding her eyes against the noontime sun. The shed shook again, and then she heard grunting and a fearful wail. Chantal!

  Amélie flew off the small stoop, ran to the shed, and threw the door open. She was greeted by the sight of the prone, bare buttocks of a German soldier with his uniform trousers pulled down below his knees. Under him, he had one hand clasped over Chantal’s mouth while he maneuvered his body on top of hers.

  Chantal’s terrified eyes beseeched her sister.

  With sunlight suddenly illuminating the interior, the man turned his head, and Amélie recognized Kallsen, Bergmann’s orderly. He squinted over a churlish grin.

  On reflex, Amélie grabbed the shovel still hanging on the false wall and swung the flat of it down on Kallsen’s face. He groaned in pain.

  Stepping back to allow a greater swing, Amélie brought the shovel down again, this time hitting the edge across Kallsen’s throat at his Adam’s apple. He coughed, let go of Chantal, and tried to twist and sit up.

  The flat of the shovel struck again, this time high on his forehead. He fell back, writhing on top of Chantal, his yelps of pain loud as he fell onto his back.

  “Shut up,” Amélie shouted in French, and she stomped on his mouth several times before stepping back and bringing the flat of the shovel down hard against Kallsen’s nose.

  He lay still, but Amélie kept hitting until his body convulsed. She stepped back, watching Kallsen shake out his last moments of life. Then, the full import of what she had done intruded on her conscious mind.

  Chantal, still pinned under Kallsen’s legs, managed to push off his upper body. Her wails had turned into sobs as she continued to push against the corpse.

  Amélie dropped the shovel and helped her struggle from under the body to a sitting position. Sobbing, Chantal pulled her underwear up from around her knees and covered her legs with her skirt. Then she flung her arms around her sister.

  Amélie let her cry.

  After a few minutes, Amélie said with desperate urgency, “Listen. They’ll be looking for him.”

  Chantal stared at Amélie without comprehension.

  Amélie shook her. “Listen to me. We are going into the house. We must act normal at all times.”

  Chantal shook her head in protest, fresh tears running down her face.

  “Chantal, you have to be strong. There’s no time for self-pity, or we will be executed: you, me, father, our entire family.”

  By degrees, Chantal’s face hardened, and she nodded.

  “We are going into the house now,” Amélie said. “You will clean up, eat—”

  Chantal wiped her eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

  “But you must wash yourself. And when you leave the house, you can no longer go the back way through the alley. From now on you’ll go out the front and take the long way. If you see your friends,
you’ll act as if nothing happened. If you see soldiers, you’ll act just as Papa told us. Do you understand?”

  Chantal turned to look hard at Kallsen’s battered face. Then she wiped her cheeks and hugged Amélie. “I’ll be all right.”

  Later that afternoon, Ferrand listened grimly as Amélie recounted the details of what had happened inside the garden shed. “Did Chantal say how he got her in there?”

  “She said that she came home from the bakery and saw some of her friends. She spoke with them a while, and then turned off to come down the alley like she always does, and the others kept going to their houses. She had seen soldiers including Kallsen a little before the alley, and she behaved just as you instructed. She doesn’t know how Kallsen got to be behind her. She had already moved a ways into the alley when he called to her. She pretended not to hear and kept walking, but he kept calling and getting closer. She ran to the garden, but he caught up with her at the gate and forced her into the shed.”

  Anger and despair tinged Ferrand’s countenance. “They will come here, to our house,” he said. “The soldiers with him will remember that he turned down our alley and that Chantal was ahead of him. Did you clean up the shed?”

  Amélie nodded. “The body is still in there, but I shoveled dirt in to soak up the blood and tilled it into the flower garden. Then I spread some dry surface dust on the floor. We’ll have to move the body and do some final cleanup, but it will look like a normal garden shed.”

  “At dusk,” Ferrand said. “They will miss him by this evening, and the days are long. We can expect a knock on the door tonight.”

  10

  The knock came just past midnight. When Amélie peered through the window, Bergmann stood at the door, a new orderly at his side and two men behind them.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour,” he said when Amélie let him inside. “We are searching for a missing soldier. You might remember him. He was my orderly when I came by the other day.”

  “Yes, I saw him, in the alley this afternoon.”

  Chantal appeared in the hall by the kitchen, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “What’s all the noise?” she murmured. Then she saw the soldiers and Bergmann and drew back.

  “Chantal,” Amélie said, “these men are looking for Hauptman Bergmann’s orderly. Did he say where he was going when we saw him today?”

  Chantal shook her head and yawned. She hoped her pretense looked real. Her heart beat unmercifully. “I had just arrived home from the bakery. You were gardening. He chatted with us a moment and went on down the alley. He didn’t really say anything besides hello, telling us what a nice garden we have, and goodbye.”

  Ferrand appeared in the hall dripping wet and pulling a towel around his waist. Bergmann looked askance at him, slightly amused. “Isn’t this a little late for a bath?”

  “I’m having a hard time sleeping,” Ferrand replied stonily. “It’s been that way since your forces advanced on Dunkirk. How would you react if an invading army destroyed your town and took your country?”

  Bergmann regarded him silently. He turned slowly to study the details of the room, taking in the family pictures on the piano. Then he reverted his attention to Amélie and Chantal. “You saw Kallsen here?”

  The sisters nodded in unison. “He called to us just as I opened the gate,” Chantal said. “We returned his greeting, and then he continued down the alley. We didn’t see where he was going.”

  Bergmann crossed his arms and cupped his hand over his chin, his brow furrowing in thought. “All right,” he said after a few moments. “That is consistent with other reports we’ve had. Did any of your neighbors mention seeing him?”

  The Bouliers glanced among themselves. “We didn’t think to ask,” Amélie said, shrugging.

  Bergmann took a breath and exhaled rapidly. "No matter. We’ll continue down the street with our inquiries. My soldiers will need to check inside your shed.”

  “But of course,” Ferrand said. He gestured with a sweeping palm toward the kitchen. “Be my guest.”

  The new orderly flicked his hand, and the two accompanying soldiers bolted for the back door. They returned momentarily and shook their heads.

  “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you,” Bergmann said, inclining his head toward each of the Bouliers in succession. “Please let me know if you hear of anything.” With that, he departed with his entourage.

  “It’s not over,” Ferrand told his daughters after Bergmann had left. “They will determine that you were the last ones to see Kallsen, and they will keep after us until someone confesses.” He walked over to the piano, scanned the family photos absently, and dropped his forehead onto his curled fists. “I’ll be taken in for interrogation soon.”

  Chantal ran to him, alarmed. “But you didn’t do anything,” she blurted.

  Ferrand wrapped an arm around her and drew her to his chest. “You mean aside from disposing of the body? It wouldn’t matter. They’ll come for me.” He drew back and alternated his look between them. “It was good you had the bath ready. I was filthy. You did good work on cleaning up the sand and dirt through the hall and kitchen.”

  “Where did you put him?” Amélie asked.

  Ferrand sighed. “When they find him along the beach in several days, he’ll look like the sea pounded him on some rocks. That might buy us enough time for what we have to do.” He regarded his daughters with doleful eyes.

  Seeing his expression, Chantal gasped. “We have to leave, don’t we?” she cried. “And it’s my fault.” She leaned into her father with tears running down her cheeks. “I am so sorry.”

  “There, there, little one,” he consoled her. “You did nothing wrong. Unfortunately, evil lives among us. We’ll have to fight it every way we can.” He stroked the side of her face. “And in the end, we will win.”

  “Oh, Papa,” Chantal said, burying her head in his chest. “You and Amélie are brave.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m not.”

  “Ma cherie,” Amélie said, embracing them both. “You’ll be the bravest among us. You’ll see.”

  Ferrand gazed at his daughters as if from far away. After a moment, he said, “Let’s go. Get dressed. Take only the clothes on your back and something to stay warm. We leave in five minutes.”

  The girls stared at him, and Chantal looked anguished as tears welled in her eyes. “Now?” She glanced around the warm room, at its furnishings and family photos, the fireplace with smoldering coals. “This is our home.”

  “It’s a house that is no longer safe, no longer a home,” Ferrand muttered. He leaned over to comfort Chantal. “It’s dangerous for us now. We must go.”

  Amélie regarded her father as if seeing someone she had never known. His eyes pierced, and he set his jaw. His back even seemed straighter, his shoulders squared. When he spoke, his voice was laced with command, mixed with his usual kindness.

  “We have to go,” he said firmly. “Get ready.”

  Amélie stood and tugged her sister to her feet. “Let’s go,” she said, leading her by the hand into the back of the house. “Papa knows what he is doing.”

  11

  An hour later, Bergmann turned on his heel and retraced his steps in front of the row of houses that included the Boulier home. Despite the time of year, the air was cool, almost frigid, owing to the overcast skies, heavy rain, and winds blowing in from the sea. With his orderly and the other two soldiers, he had reached the last house along the row, awakened its residents, and completed his initial inquiry.

  Among the residents past the Boulier house, none admitted to seeing Kallsen. I must speak with Ferrand and his daughters again. He glanced at his watch in irritation and then smirked as he thought of Amélie. I like that one. She’s the perfect age.

  The houses on the street were dark, so he was surprised when he neared the Bouliers’ dwelling and a dim light still shone. Remembering his amusement at Ferrand’s wet body wrapped only in a towel, he thought maybe the old man might still be trying to relax himself. He needs to
keep his hostility to our army in check. Then Bergmann sighed. He’ll learn. They’ll all learn.

  For half a second, he thought of delaying his second round with Ferrand for the following day, but then thought better of it. Since he’s up, I might as well do it now.

  He recalled with relish the French mademoiselle he had courted into his rooms in the sumptuous house he had commandeered on entry into Dunkirk. This way, I’ll have more time with her.

  He opened the garden gate, strode to the front door, and knocked loudly. When he heard no answer, he tried the knob and found it locked. He stepped in front of the window and peered inside. The peaceful scene gave no hint of anything amiss, yet a sense of foreboding formed in the pit of Bergmann’s stomach.

  He moved aside and ordered the soldiers to break in the entry. One of them stepped forward and slammed his boot against the door. It shook but did not give. The soldier repeated his action until the door creaked and light filtered through a crack. Then, both soldiers put their shoulders to it and crashed it open.

  Needing no instruction, they proceeded into the recesses of the house while Bergmann stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. Coals in the fireplace still gave off a bit of warmth. Light emanated from a fixture in the hallway. His new orderly headed toward the kitchen. “I’ll check out the garden shed,” he said.

  Minutes later, all three soldiers had returned to the living room. “Their clothes are here, but the beds have not been slept in,” one reported.

  “Nothing in the shed,” the orderly interjected. “We should look again in daylight.”

  Bergmann walked over to the piano and studied it. “There was a family photo here,” he mused to no one. “I noticed it the other day when we stopped by.” He cocked his head in thought. “It was there earlier this evening.”