Clash by Night (45 page)

“Of course, I understand. I’ll notify you when to transfer her.”

The intern nodded and left.

“What is this?” Kleinschmitt demanded. His French was quite good enough to follow the conversation. “You are not authorized to transport any non-military personnel.”

“Nonetheless, the lady in question will be traveling with me,” Becker said calmly.

“Lady? What do you mean? Are you toting along some tart for your amusement like so much baggage? This is most irregular...”

Becker seized the front of his uniform and dragged Kleinschmitt onto his toes so that their eyes were only inches apart.
 

 
“Keep a civil tongue in your head or I may be forced to teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget,” he said in a dangerous tone. He released the other man so suddenly that Kleinschmitt stumbled, blanching. He backed away hastily, adjusting his tunic.
 

“I shall certainly report this once I return to Berlin,” he sputtered. “Such conduct toward a fellow officer is a serious infraction of discipline, and I wouldn’t want to be in your place when...”
 

“You report whatever you damn please,” Becker interrupted, turning his back on him. “The woman goes with me. I’m taking her in my vehicle and I’ll shoot anyone who tries to stop me.”

He strode from the room, leaving Kleinschmitt to stare after him.

Lysette looked up as Becker arrived in her room, followed by two orderlies. She was dressed and sitting on the edge of her bed. She appeared dismayed when she saw the stretcher the attendants were carrying.

“Oh, Anton, that isn’t necessary,” she said. “I can walk.”
 

“Doctor’s orders, my dear,” he said firmly.

“But I’m feeling very well, really.”

He saw she was afraid he’d think her too weak to make the trip, and leave her behind.

“Relax, darling,” he said quietly. “I’ll take you with me even if I have to carry you myself.”
 

She smiled and said, “Where are we going?”

“North. Germany eventually, I assume. Does it matter?”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter.”

He turned to the orderlies and said, “Take her to the west wing door. My truck is waiting there.”

He watched as they assisted her onto the stretcher, and then grasped her hand when she passed him.

“Everything will be all right,” he said to her. “You’ll see.”

If she remembered his former dire predictions about the retreat she chose not to consider them now. She squeezed his fingers in response, and then let go as the orderlies moved on with the stretcher.

Becker looked after her for a moment and then went back to his quarters to pick up his things.

* * *

Brigitte pedaled her stolen bike toward Saint-Dizier at a frantic pace.
 

She had grabbed a scalpel from the surgery on her way out of the hospital and sliced through the lock on the first bicycle she saw. She’d chosen an alternate route to the main road to avoid the diminishing stream of German traffic leading out of Bar-le-Duc; they were almost all gone now but still monitoring the roads. She didn’t want to be stopped. Time was passing, it was late afternoon, and when she thought about what might await her she felt despair. It was all her fault and she knew it. Only her fierce determination to find Kurt kept her going.

As she approached the river she saw that the bridge was still standing, and knew with a sinking heart that Curel’s ambush had succeeded. The partisans were nowhere in sight. The car Kurt must have brought with him had vanished too, stolen no doubt by Vipère.

She ditched her bike by the side of the road in an unsettling silence. The earlier vehicle traffic had gone on ahead and the last of it was yet to come. She felt alone, and yet knew she couldn’t be.

She saw the bodies as she ran down the slope to the water. They were tossed under the trestle like dolls, the gray uniforms spattered with red.
 

It must have been a massacre.

Kurt was a little apart from the others and as she skidded to a stop on the slippery grass she fell across him. He groaned and stirred and she realized he was still alive.

Sobbing with gratitude, she pulled him into her lap and sat holding him against her shoulder, patting his cheeks. One of his arms hung crookedly, soaked with blood. His eyelids flickered.

“Wake up,” Brigitte said sternly.

His head lolled.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered, looking around for aid. Of course there was none.

He coughed.

“Open your eyes, soldier,” she barked in German.

He opened his eyes.

“Brigitte,” he said groggily.

“That’s right,” she said. “Can you stand up?”
 

He tried and managed to lurch shakily to his knees. “What…you doing here?”

“I figured out where you were and came after you. You must have been left for dead.”
 

“The others...” he began.

“I think they’re dead,” she said.

“See.”

Obediently she left him and futilely checked the other three men for signs of life.

“They’re gone, Kurt,” she said to him. She didn’t mention that so was the dynamite they must have been carrying. Vipère hadn’t missed a thing.
 

She sat next to him on the grass and supported him with her arm.
 

“They were waiting for us,” he gasped. “They knew...”
 

“They knew because I warned them,” she answered.

He looked at her, his blue eyes fogged with weakness and pain.

“You told me you wouldn’t be with the demolition detail,” she explained simply.

He sighed and shook his head. “You never...give up,” he whispered.

“Not so far,” she replied. “Do you think you can you walk?”

He tried to move and shook his head.

“Can’t,” he gasped.

“All right, all right,” she said soothingly. “Then we wait.”

“For what?”

“The rest of the garrison will be along sooner or later, won’t it?” she asked him.

He nodded wearily.

“They’ll help us,” she said, with more assurance than she felt.

It was entirely possible that Kurt would be dead by the time they got there, but she couldn’t move him and she couldn’t leave him. She had to wait.

Kurt slumped, and she saw that he had passed out again. She eased him to the ground and ripped out the hem of her uniform skirt. She unclipped her tape scissors from the holder at her waist and began to cut the material into strips for a tourniquet.

It was full dark before Brigitte saw the lights of the German convoy in the distance. She dragged and prodded a protesting Kurt up the hill, and by the time they reached the road the first car had stopped at the bridge, with the others slowing behind it.

“I have a wounded soldier here,” she said in German to the driver of the staff car, as he approached her. Kurt was leaning heavily on her shoulder. “Three others are dead.”

The corporal turned to look at the truck behind him. Becker emerged from the cab, his erect carriage unmistakable. The two Germans met and conferred quickly, then the corporal moved to Kurt’s other side and took his weight from Brigitte. Becker walked over to Brigitte and peered at her in the glow of the headlights, taking in his aide’s condition at the same time.
 

“Mademoiselle Duclos,” Becker said.

She looked back at him, waiting.
 

“How did you come to be here?”

Brigitte was silent.

“I see,” Becker said. “I don’t know how I could have missed it. You are Hesse’s ‘friend’, is that not so?”

Brigitte bit her lip. This unreadable man had Kurt’s fate, and hers, in the palm of his hand.

“Have you been struck dumb?” Becker said sarcastically. He turned and issued a couple of curt orders, telling the corporal to put Hesse in his car and then get others to help him retrieve the bodies. As the man ran to obey Becker added to Brigitte, “How very incestuous we have all become. Did you engineer this ambush?”

She still didn’t answer.

“Your efforts were in vain, Mademoiselle Duclos. I will simply report this unfortunate development and another detail will be sent out later to blow the bridge. A little less efficient, I grant you, a little more time consuming, but I don’t think Hesse’s life was worth the candle, do you?”
 

“He’s not dead yet,” she said hoarsely.

“No thanks to you and your assassins,” he answered harshly. He watched as the dead men were carried up the hill. “Does this look like it was a fair fight to you?”

“We fight fire with fire,” she replied, holding his gaze.

They both turned to look as Hesse was eased into the back seat of the corporal’s car.

“I could arrest you,” Becker said to her flatly. “I could bring you back to Germany in my custody.”

“And what would happen to Hesse then?” Brigitte challenged, remembering Kurt’s affection for his boss, which she assumed was returned. “He can’t go on with you, he’ll never make it to wherever you’re heading. There’s a clinic just down the road in Saint-Dizier. Let me take him there.”

“And why should I do that?” Becker asked.

“To help Kurt,” Brigitte replied.

“It will not help him to be taken prisoner when the Americans arrive,” Becker responded.

“I can handle that. I’ll tell them he was working with me, with the Résistance. The others in the organization will back me up.”

“Can you guarantee so much, little lady?” Becker asked archly.

“I can,” Brigitte replied, raising her chin. “My reputation is very solid. They remember my brothers and they will do it for me.”

Becker studied her a moment, then made up his mind. “Bachman,” he said to the corporal, who had returned to stand at his side. “Take the car and bring Hesse and this woman where she directs you, then follow after us and catch up with the convoy. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the corporal said, obviously surprised.

 
Brigitte held her breath. Becker was taking an awful chance. For all he knew this could be a setup; she might be plotting to lead his man and his vehicle into a trap.

Becker turned back to her. “The boy means a lot to me,” he said. “I must be assured that he will receive the attention he needs if I leave him in your charge.”

“He means a lot to me, too. You have my word that I’ll take care of him, Colonel,” Brigitte replied.

Becker examined her once more. Then he said quietly, “I think your word will be good enough.”

 
He got back in the cab. “
Adieu, Mademoiselle
,” Becker said in farewell from the window, and gestured for the convoy to move on.

Brigitte climbed into the back seat of the car with Kurt and carefully lifted his head into her lap. He was semi-conscious, almost dazed, either from confusion at what was happening or loss of blood. She stroked his hair soothingly and he settled down, breathing more evenly.
 

Brigitte checked his bandage and was happy to see that the bleeding had slowed considerably. But he needed treatment immediately. As the driver turned away from the convoy and toward Saint-Dizier she tried to remember the name of the doctor she knew at the clinic.

He would help. His family had lived in Fains when he was small and he’d gone to school with Thierry.

Resnais, that was his name. Charles Resnais. He had brown hair and a mole on his cheek.

She would find him.
 

Brigitte planned her next move, settling back for the ride.
 

Chapter 14

Dan Harris shifted the position of his bad leg on its cushion and reached through the mosquito netting surrounding him like a diaphanous cloud. He groped in the dark for the cigarettes on the metal stand beside his hospital bed, trying to shift his weight silently as his fingers closed on the half empty packet.

Gotcha, he thought. He slipped a cigarette out of the wrapper and felt around under his pillow for the matches. At the same time he glanced down the aisle of sleeping patients, alert for the flash of white or the swish of a uniform skirt that would indicate the approach of the nurse. The rules here were worse than in boot camp and a guy had to be pretty ingenious to cop a smoke.
 

He shielded the flare of the match with his hand and lit up, sucking in a gray lungful, closing his eyes with pleasure. He rested back against the pillow and concentrated on the sounds coming through the screened window behind his head, the litany of the Pacific theater: the murmur of banyan trees soughing in the trade winds, waves pounding rhythmically on the distant beach, the parrots and macaws calling nocturnal messages to one another in shrill, staccato bird language. No one listening could guess that just beyond the soothing lullaby of surf and rustling palm fronds raged the ugly cacophony of war.