The ground was cold under me, the sun already warm on my head, my shoulders, my hands. Maurice lay elbow to elbow beside me. He had a way of keeping quiet and utterly still that I found very pleasant. Nothing about him was heavy, not even his presence. We had snapped off two little bushes that were in our way, and we waited without a word, eyes fixed on those sixty yards of straight road between the two bends. Colin could see farther than us, because the bend at the top curved away from him, and by turning around he had a view of a further thirty yards that were concealed from us by our embankment.
The first sound I heard puzzled me. It was a squeaking noise. It seemed to be moving up the hill toward us very laboriously. It couldn’t be made by an animal, a noise like that. It was mechanical. Except that it was intermittent, it made me think of a bucket being wound up from a well on a chain. But its intermittence was regular, with the squeak coming on every other beat.
I looked at Maurice and raised my eyebrows. Maurice leaned over and said in my ear, “A bicycle chain?”
He was right. And I wondered if perhaps it was the bicycle that Bébelle had hidden just outside Malevil, and that we’d neglected to search for. If it was, then we’d committed a serious error, and now we were paying for it.
I didn’t even need to ask Maurice who the rider was when he appeared alone around the lower bend. I remembered Hervé’s description. I recognized the black eyebrows running straight across his forehead in an unbroken line. It was Jean Feyrac. And as he entered the sixty-yard uphill straight that separated us, I made out the tube of the bazooka between his legs. He had tied it to the frame of the bike. The hill grew steeper; he was having difficulty. He began to zigzag. It looked as though he might even have to get off and walk. We had all the time in the world.
All the time for what? The sweat ran down my face. Feyrac was the new leader. And what was more, according to Hervé a man with considerable powers of leadership and no pity whatever. I ought to kill him. But if I did, then I was giving a clear warning to the body of the group only half a mile or so farther back. As soon as they heard my shot, they would all leave the road, take to the undergrowth, and who knows, perhaps stumble on Evelyne with the horses. But in any case, once they were in the undergrowth I had lost all my advantage. The odds would be equal again, except that they were seven to our five. It would be back to square one.
As I had foreseen, Feyrac dismounted when he reached the proclamation and bent down to push his bike under it. He was short-legged, thickset, with a scowling, unpleasant face. Looking at him, I thought with horror of the massacre at Courcejac. But I had made my choice; I was going to let him pass, despite his crimes, despite his bazooka. A leader without troops is less dangerous than seven hunted men fighting for their lives.
He was opposite me now. Separated from me by no more than the height of the bank. He got back onto Pougès’s bike and the squeaking of the chain began again, regular, maddening. He was nearly at the bend. Another second and he would be out of sight. My hands were clenched around the Springfield, and the sweat fell drop by drop onto the butt.
Feyrac entered the bend. I could no longer see him. What happened then was over so quickly that I could scarcely believe my eyes. On the other side of the road I saw Colin rise to his feet, take up his meticulous training-manual stance, left foot well forward, draw his bow, and take careful aim. A hiss, then a half second later the sound of a fall. It was maddening not to be able to see anything. Then Colin gave me a joyful thumbs-up and vanished back among the bushes. I was flabbergasted.
I was almost prepared to hail Colin as a military genius, and to think I was right to “let him get away with anything,” as Thomas had complained. At that point I still hadn’t heard how Colin had abandoned his dugout and rifle, outside Malevil, in order to entrust his life to his favorite weapon. Let us say, not to be too harsh, that it was a case of misapplication. And even when I did hear of it, it did nothing to modify the estimate of the bow in general arrived at after my expedition to L’Étang: a safe and invaluably silent weapon in an ambush.
I gradually recovered my calm. So the eighth man hadn’t been lagging behind as I’d thought. The eighth man had been Feyrac, valiantly preceding his troops in their retreat. And by my calculations, he couldn’t have been preceding them by much. There are some very steep hills between Malevil and La Roque, which meant that Feyrac could hardly have built up very much of a lead. So there were only very few minutes left ahead of me. They seemed interminable though, lying there on my belly in the bracken with Maurice beside me.
They appeared, straggled out along the road, flushed, sweating, panting, their boots ringing on the metaled surface. I looked down at their peasant faces, their red hands, their heavy laboring limbs: the cannon fodder of every war the world had ever known, including this one. If my big Peyssou had been there he would have felt he was shooting at himself.
A group of three headed the line, still quite fresh, it seemed to me. Then two more a few yards behind, then two more farther back still, having difficulty keeping up. According to my firing orders, the three leaders and the two stragglers were our victims. The strongest and the weakest.
I put the whistle between my lips and laid my cheek against my rifle butt. It had been agreed that Colin and I should cross our fire so as to avoid trying for the same target. I was to set my sights on the man nearest the far side of the road, Colin on the one nearest my side. With the exception of those two, Maurice was free to choose. Meyssonnier and Hervé, lower down the straight, had the same agreement as ourselves.
I waited until the leading group had passed the wire. When the middle two reached it I gave a long whistle blast and fired. Our shots all rang out simultaneously, and the only one that could be distinguished from the general detonation was Meyssonnier’s .22, whose sharper, fainter crack came very slightly after the rest. Five men fell. They didn’t fall quickly, the way they used to in war films, but very, very slowly, as though in slow motion. The two survivors didn’t even think of throwing themselves onto the ground, they just stood there, every reflex numbed. It was only after two or three seconds that they raised their hands. It was high time. I gave three brief blasts on my whistle. It was all over.
I turned to Maurice and asked in a low voice, “Those two, who are they?”
“The short balding one with the pot is Burg, the cook. The thin one is Jeannet, Vilmain’s batman.”
“Recruits?”
“Yes, both of them.”
In a loud voice, without showing myself, I shouted, “Emmanuel Comte, Abbé of Malevil, here! Burg! Jeannet! pick up your comrades’ rifles and place them under the notice.”
Haggard and petrified, hands trembling at the ends of their raised arms, they were just two young lads, ashen beneath their tans. They jumped violently when they heard me. They raised their heads. On the two embankments boxing in the road on either side not a leaf stirred. They looked around them, bewildered. They even looked at my proclamation, as though my voice might have actually come out of that. I was here, when they’d just been besieging me in Malevil! And I’d called them by their names!
They obeyed slowly, fumblingly. Some of the rifles were caught under their owners’ bodies, so they were forced to manhandle the corpses in order to retrieve them. I noticed that they did so with great gentleness, and also that they took care not to step in the dead men’s blood.
When they had finished I gave another three blasts on my whistle. I slid down the bank onto the road, followed by Maurice. Colin did the same. Then Hervé and Meyssonnier appeared forty yards lower down.
“Hands on heads,” I said curtly, and the prisoners did as they were told. I saw that Meyssonnier was methodically examining the five fallen figures to make sure they were quite dead. I was grateful to him for that. It wasn’t a task I’d have liked to take on myself. No one spoke. Although I was sweating profusely, my legs were cold and numb. I took a few paces along the road. I didn’t go far. Blood everywhere. I looked down at it and breathed in
its strong but insipid odor. The red of it seemed to me very bright on the slate-gray road. But I knew it wouldn’t be long before it became dulled and black. Incomprehensible human race. That precious blood that in the world before we had divided into groups, collected, stocked in banks, while elsewhere, at the same time, we were spilling it in profusion over the earth. I looked at the young dead men. On the pools in which they lay, not a fly, not a gnat. Fine red blood poured out onto the ground, useless to everyone—even to insects.
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” the thin prisoner said suddenly.
“Never mind Monsieur l’Abbé.”
“Can I take my hands down? I’m sorry, I’m going to be sick.”
“All right, lad.”
He staggered over to the shoulder, fell on his knees, and took his weight on stiffened arms. I watched his back heave as he retched, and I felt somewhat queasy myself. I shook myself.
“Hervé, go and fetch the bicycle and bazooka. And make sure Feyrac is quite dead.”
I turned back to the prisoners, told them to lower their hands, and allowed them to sit down. They needed to sit very badly. Now let’s think. Yes, the little balding fellow with the pot was Burg, the cook. Very lively dark eyes, shrewd by the look of it. And the gawky lad whose nerves had given way, that was Jeannet. They gazed at me with superstitious awe.
I learned a great deal from them. Armand had died the previous morning from Pimont’s knife wound. The first thing Vilmain had done after moving into the château was to eject Josepha. He didn’t want to be waited on by a woman. So Burg did the cooking and Jeannet waited at table. When Vilmain moved in, Gazel also moved out of the château, but of his own free will. He was outraged by the murder of Lanouaille.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I made them repeat that piece of information. Bravo for our asexual clown! Who would have foreseen he’d display that much courage?
“It wasn’t just the butcher,” Burg said. “It was also that Gazel didn’t approve of the ‘excesses.’”
“The excesses?”
“Well, the raping,” Burg said. “That’s the word he used for it.”
Hervé returned, pushing the bike with the bazooka still tied to it. The cheeks above his little black beard were white, his whole face drawn. He leaned the bike against the bank, unburdened himself of one of the two rifles he was carrying, and came over.
“Feyrac isn’t dead,” he said in a toneless voice. “He’s in terrible pain. He asked me for water.”
“So?”
“What should I do?”
I stared at him. “It’s quite simple. Just take the Renault, drive into Malejac, call the hospital and ask for an ambulance, then next Sunday we’ll all go and take him some nice oranges.”
Yet strangely enough, shaking with fury though I was, even as I spoke those words from another world, a great sadness engulfed me.
Hervé lowered his head and scraped at the tarred surface of the road with the toe of one shoe.
“I don’t like it at all,” he said in a muffled voice.
Maurice came over. “I can go, if you like,” he said, his black eyes glittering from between narrowed eyelids as he looked at me. Maurice hadn’t forgotten. Nothing. Neither his friend René nor Courcejac.
“No, I’ll go,” Hervé said, as though he had just woken up.
He slid the sling of his rifle off his shoulder and walked back toward the bend with steps growing gradually firmer as he progressed. I realized what had happened. Feyrac had asked him for water. And instantly the reflex particular to the human animal had come into play: Feyrac had become taboo.
I turned back to the prisoners. “Now where were we? Armand dead, Josepha out on her neck, Gazel out from choice. So who was there left, up in the château?”
“Well, Fulbert, of course,” Burg said.
“And did Fulbert eat at the same table with Vilmain?”
“Well, yes.”
“Despite Lanouaille’s murder? Despite the ‘excesses’? You, Jeannet, you waited on them.”
“Fulbert, he always sat in between Vilmain and Bébelle,” Jeannet said. “And all I can say is he didn’t do any less drinking or eating or laughing than they did.”
“He laughed?”
“With Vilmain mostly. They got to be thick as thieves, those two.”
Well here was an entirely new light on the whole situation. And I wasn’t the only one who had appreciated the fact. I could see Colin’s ears prick up and Meyssonnier’s face harden.
“Listen, Jeannet,” I said, “I’m going to ask you an important question. Try to answer the absolute truth. And above all, don’t try to say more than you really know.”
“I’m listening.”
“In your opinion, was it Fulbert who urged Vilmain on to attack Malevil?”
“Oh, as far as that’s concerned, yes!” Jeannet said without hesitation. “I could see what he was up to all along!”
“How do you mean exactly?”
“Always telling him what a wonderful stronghold Malevil was. And how Malevil was crammed with provisions and everything fit to bust.”
And Fulbert had wanted to see us “busted.” For two very good reasons: it would get Vilmain off his back in La Roque the whole time, and he would have flushed us out of Malevil for good and all. The only unfortunate thing was that his active complicity with the mass murderer Vilmain was hard to prove, since none of La Roque’s inhabitants had been present at the meals during which they had been “thick as thieves.”
A shot rang out. It sounded inordinately loud, I thought, and made me feel strangely relieved. I could read the same feeling of relief on the faces of Colin, Meyssonnier, and Maurice. And even on those of the prisoners. Could it be that they felt safer now that the last Feyrac was dead?
Hervé returned. He was carrying a belt with a revolver in a holster attached to it.
“It’s Vilmain’s,” Burg said. “Feyrac took it off him before he gave the signal to retreat.”
I took their ex-commander’s weapon. But I felt no desire to wear it myself. And when I questioned Meyssonnier with a look, it was clear that he felt the same. However, I knew someone else the pistol would send into ecstasies.
“It’s yours by right, Colin,” I said. “You killed Feyrac.”
With flushed cheeks, Colin buckled belt and pistol martially around his slender waist. I noticed that Maurice was smiling, and that there was a mischievous glint in his jet black eyes. At that point I didn’t yet know that he had killed Vilmain. And when I found out later, I was grateful to him for his silence and the concern for Colin’s feelings that lay behind it.
It was time to be moving.
“The prisoners will go through the dead men’s pockets and collect all the unused ammunition. I am returning to Malevil to fetch the cart. Colin comes with me. Meyssonnier, take over command here.”
Without waiting for Colin, I set off up the embankment, and as soon as I was out of sight of the road, hidden by the undergrowth, I broke into a run. I reached the clearing. Evelyne was there, her head scarcely reaching Amarante’s shoulder. Her blue eyes fastened on me with a blaze of joy that overwhelmed me. She threw herself into my arms and I hugged her tight, very tight, against me. We didn’t say anything. We both knew that neither of us would be able to go on living without the other.
We heard a crackling of twigs and a swishing of leaves. It was Colin. I pulled away from Evelyne and said, “You take Morgane.” I looked at her again and smiled. Our moments of joy were brief but intense when they came.
I climbed into my saddle and left her to do the same without my help, which despite being so small she did very quickly and very neatly, with an agility I watched in admiration, since she even disdained using an old nearby stump to diminish the distance to the stirrup, or making use of the slope as Colin did. Though it’s true that he was by now weighted down with a whole arsenal of weapons, his .36 rifle, the bow, a quiver he’d made for himself, Vilmain’s pistol around his waist, and on top of everything,
slung around his neck, the binoculars that he’d “forgotten” to hand back to me.
Since the undergrowth was pretty dense just there, I kept Amarante down to a walk at first so Colin shouldn’t get into difficulties with his bow. Morgane walked directly behind me, her head almost resting on Amarante’s rump. Amarante, vicious though she was to hens, never kicked her stable companions. The most she allowed herself was to give them a nip on the shoulder now and then to show who was boss.
I could feel Evelyne’s eyes on me. I twisted around in my saddle and read the question in her eyes. I said, “We took two prisoners.”
After that I urged Amarante on into a gallop. As we approached Malevil, Peyssou suddenly emerged from cover on the side of the road where he had been on guard, and I saw the anxiety on his face. I shouted to him, “All safe and sound!” And at that he howled with joy and waved his gun above his head. Amarante promptly shied, Morgane followed suit, and Mélusine gave a little jump that bumped Colin up and out of his saddle onto her neck, where he clutched with both hands at her mane. Luckily, however, Mélusine stopped when she saw the other two mares being reined in ahead of her, and Colin was able to get back into the saddle, though he looked very comical doing so, feeling his way backward with his buttocks till they felt the pommel and slipped over it. We all laughed.
“You damned great idiot!” Colin said. “Just look what you nearly did!”
“Hey, what’s up with you?” Peyssou riposted with a vast grin. “I thought you knew how to ride!”
I was laughing so much that I decided I’d better dismount. It was totally childish laughter that took me back a good thirty years, as did the thumps and punches that Peyssou began showering on me as soon as I was in range, like some vast hound puppy unaware of its own strength. So I began shouting at him too, because he was hurting me, the stupid great bastard, with those huge fists of his. Happily I was spared much more of his affection by the arrival of Catie and Miette, who had run out along the road to meet us.