So, at dusk that night, about fifty of us were herded into vehicles—mostly horse-drawn carts stolen from farms. But there were a few Renault taxis as well. I found myself crammed into one of the latter. And that—like being away from Narbonne—was another novelty. I had never been in a motorized vehicle before. But I had little time to think about it. I was on my way to war. At last…at last…I kept looking around at the other soldiers bumping up and down in that truck with me. Were they as full of fear as I was? I probably might have been a little reassured to see that it was so. But most of their faces…were rigid masks. Their eyes…like conduits to nowhere. The captain in the taxi with us kept barking orders. Telling us what to do. How to proceed when our motley caravan reached its destination. Those woods edging the chateau. It sounded so easy. Like child’s play. Like a nighttime game of capture the flag or something. Just a straight shot through the woods. A walk around the perimeter of some ruins. There might not even be Germans there at all any more. Just dead ones…
When we disembarked from the truck, there was Andre, again. He had been lucky (or unlucky) enough to pull this detail as well and had been in the other Renault taxi behind. The dark woods loomed before us like some kind of dream. Like that Wood of the Suicides in Dante’s Inferno. Although it was austerely quiet now (the shelling of the chateau had ceased about four hours earlier) it was almost as if I could hear ghosts crying out to us from those woods.
‘Andre,” I whispered, ‘Do you think there are any Ger…?’
He cut me off, bringing an index finger up to pursed lips. He shook his head—slowly, grimly—in the affirmative. As if it were as certain as my love for Lucie.
Yes. There would be…Germans.
And, he was right. No sooner had we entered those woods—with their naked hornbeams and beeches—walked thirty meters (perhaps?) when shots exploded. And pale faces—helmeted faces—seem to rise up. Everywhere. Like animals emerging from burrows. I saw a Stone Man in front of me go down, clutching his throat as if he had just been stung by a hornet, gurgling his Last Will and Testament in nonsense. The rest of our contingent immediately followed his unintentional lead. Hit the hard, cold ground.
And then, they were on us. More Stone Men. The demons prophesized in my long-ago nightmares, spiked horns growing from their helmeted heads. I cannot tell you, Henry, how many of them there were. Twenty? A hundred? A thousand? Some of them had rifles tipped with bayonets, but it seemed as if most of them were armed with the same implements that men have used across cold centuries to slaughter each other with: swords; hatchets; coshes; clubs. I saw one of my brothers rise up, try to get a good shot with his carbine, only to have his head almost hacked off by one of\ the Germans, grasping what looked like an Indian axe in his bloodless fist. I tried to stand, myself, but before I could elbow my way to a crouch, I felt something hard strike me across the vertebrae and send me sprawling. White-hot sparks seemed to shoot out to all the borders of my body. The blow broke or ruptured something inside of me. But there was no time to dwell on that misfortune. I knew that if I did not manage to roll over and grapple with my opponent, I would be dead. I would be…”
Another pause. He chuckles once again—this time a long, sardonic sound.
“And here we are, Henry. Two dead men, eh? It has its pleasant…And its UNPLEASANT aspects. N’est-pas?”
And I would have to agree. Better dead than…
Really DEAD.
“So, that is what I did then without thinking. I summoned up all my energy, gritted my teeth, and brought my body around so I was now lying on my damaged back. The pain was like some volcano. Like some Vesuvius exploding, taking out the top of my head as it went. It was all I could do to NOT to scream out over that mastery of pain.
Immediately, as I rolled over, someone was there astride my chest. I looked up, through clouds and stars of pain. Miles away was a face. A face that seemed to be composed mostly of ash. Like the Antichrist or Devil had gone and smudged it out with one scaled thumb in some great parody of Ash Wednesday or something.
Blue eyes blazed down at me from that cypher of a face. Blazed with hateful, triumphant intensity. The only true color there.
Murder was in those eyes…
I brought up my arms, instinctively, just in time. In time to arrest two more arms arcing down. Smudged hands clutching a trench shovel. The thing that had struck with such force against my back. I fought as hard as a I could to keep those arms, those hands, from descending. Ending my existence. My love. I thought I was I was going to pass out from the pain in my back but still I fought and fought, strained against that reaper’s iron force. Fought like Able probably fought against his brother among the panicked sheep.
And some perverse imp of a voice rose up in my mind as we continued to struggle there in the dark woods:
Just give up. Let him have his kill. Just give…
But no. Lucie’s sweet face materialized now and silenced that voice. I could see her. Her long red hair. The way she had of blowing errant strands of it away from her forehead, when she was puzzled or exasperated. The lace dress she had worn on our wedding day, a crown of baby’s breath in her hair. A thousand little things, little sweet tendrils. Her gentleness. Her kindness. I was NOT going to die here in the cold cold woods of northern France. I was going to triumph. I was going to be with my Lucie.
Adrenalin surged through my body. I doubled my efforts against my foe whose weapon was probably less than two inches away from my throat. I screamed up at him. With my arms I tore wildly at him. The pain was excruciating but I was going to live. I was going…”
Geyer rubs his beard and beams that mocking smile of his, yet again.
“I tried. I did. And I might have managed it. Yes…It seemed that I was really beginning to get the upper hand. Surprising him with my indomitable ferocity. I don’t know. Maybe that same imp was whispering in his ear as well. ‘Give up. This is not worth it.’ Our battle was finally decided really by a sound. By a scream. I heard a blood curdling scream behind me. I don’t know how far. The sound of a man being murdered. And I knew…It was as if that German had already severed my head with his damned blade…
It was Andre. Andre Cochin was dying…
Even in its extremity, I recognized that voice as the voice of my dearest friend. A man I had known practically my entire life. Since we had been students together in parochial school. The man who had been chief witness at my wedding. The man who had done so much to console me when my parents died…
Andre was dying…
Maybe I blinked. Maybe I turned my head toward that sound if only for a second. Less than a second. But that infinitesimal amount of time was all it took for that soldier to get his arms free from my grasp. I thought that he would bring that blade down immediately. Crush my larynx and worse. End it. I met his eyes—his fierce blue eyes—as he rose up now to do so. Our eyes connected. And it was as if he was able to glean my whole history in that decisive moment. A history probably not too dissimilar from his own. My little life in Narbonne. The sea air. The roll of the drums…
He blanched then. Turned that shovel and brought the back end of its iron blade against my skull.
13.
