THE FELDWEBEL HANS, as the boy called him, sat on the stone steps of his billet in the pleasant spring sunshine. He rose and yawned. If the glorious Reichswehr, the German army, didn’t think much of him as a soldier, he, in turn, didn’t think much of the Reichswehr. He was hardly passionate about roll calls, drilling, medals, uniforms, saluting, family tradition, army tradition, national tradition—all this seemed to mean little to him. He could easily have obtained a commission through his connections, but the officer corps with its caste feeling nauseated him. Once you get to be an officer, even a lieutenant, he always said, everyone below you suspects you.
Now, with the thin dog near him and the boy as usual at his side, he picked up a clipboard with papers attached, stuck his empty pipe in his pocket, and walked down the Grande Rue and past the sign Juden Verboten, with the name of the general commanding officer underneath. The boy did not notice it. That sign banishing Jews had been there four years, which was forever to Jean-Paul Varin. It dated back so far he could not remember when it hadn’t been there. His father, he well knew, hated it, but there it was, part of the town like the Grande Rue and the cliff on which the town stood and the ocean below.
Down the street they walked, the French boy and the German supply sergeant. Since they were invariably together, nobody took this as strange. The Herr Oberst this morning was hardly Hitler’s ideal of a soldier of the Greater Reich. He wore a rather grubby tunic and an ancient garrison cap. If his bearing and general attitude did not express contentment, neither did he appear dissatisfied with his job. The boy beside him, he simply walked along greeting those who greeted him.
Clack-clack-clack-clack, his heels sounded on the concrete pavement. Not clack-clack, clack-clack, short, sharp, brutal, as those of most soldiers sounded, but leisurely, in a slow cadence. At the end of the village the sergeant and the boy reached the vacant lot beside the small church. The thin, lonely dog had scampered ahead and now was in the middle of the road, sitting and waiting. As often at this time of day, the Père Clement, the village priest, was coaching René Le Gallec with a football, or ballon, as the French called it. The Feldwebel Hans liked the padre, who had been retired to this backwater when the Occupation submerged everyone. Still active at seventy, he especially enjoyed coaching the football players, for he had been a great athlete himself in his youth.
This morning Père Clement’s soutane was tied up around his waist with a coarse rope so he could run. This arrangement disclosed thick cotton underdrawers, heavy black-wool stockings reaching to his knees, and rough peasant boots, badly scuffed and scarred. The padre in his time at Nogent-Plage had developed many young football stars, and the Le Gallec boy with whom he was practicing was the best of all. The Herr Oberst stood watching, sucking on his empty pipe, throwing in an occasional suggestion or word of advice. Finally he could no longer resist getting into it himself. Glancing up the street to make sure the new, fire-eating Hauptmann commanding the battery was engaged in his office, he yanked off his tunic, snapping a button in the process. The button bounced and rolled. He let it go, intending to pick it up later, placed his tunic on the grass, laid the clipboard beside it, and stepped forward.
Immediately something inside changed. Now he was in his world, in his element, master of himself. His big frame loose and coordinated, he controlled that round ball with his feet almost delicately, pushing a short stab over to the padre, taking it back, turning it across to the boy with an insolent accuracy beautiful to watch.
A spurt past the old man, a short step to the right to dodge the boy, then to the left to catch the pair off balance. All the time he was babying the ball until he had René and the Père Clement so confused that they were ducking first one way, then the other, totally unsure of themselves.
The boy in the blue shorts stood transfixed, his body moving as the Feldwebel moved, twisted, stopped, and ran. Two young women going past watched, fascinated.
“Ahhhh, ahhh...” they said in admiration. At Nogent-Plage, whenever the Feldwebel Hans played football with the boys a crowd gathered. If he was on the beach coaching the regimental team, a gang of the local lads always sat on the sea wall, commenting.
So this morning half a dozen younger boys suddenly appeared from nowhere the second he began to play. Now he was concentrating upon René’s moves.
“No, no, not with the right foot, the left.... You must learn to pass equally well with either foot.... Don’t shoot too soon.... Take your time, you have time.... Watch that ball... and keep your head down. Just watch the ball. Try to remember your teammates are all watching you. They will get it if your pass is a good one. Be careful, don’t lift your head. That’s better... lifting the head is always fatal.”
He was no longer the casual Feldwebel. Now he had become a wonderful, moving, vibrant force, the great athlete, the virtuoso of ball control, master of himself and his well-coordinated body. When he took the ball to explain what he meant with a cross or a kick, he seemed almost to caress it.
One of the young women watching glanced up the street as she heard a door slam. She saw the new commanding officer step out of the Bloch villa, heard a clicking of heels that resounded down the Grande Rue, observed the sentries presenting arms. “Herr Oberst,” she said. “Herr Oberst! Der Hauptmann kommt.” The captain is coming.
The athlete stopped instantly, picked up his tunic, hastily put it on, and, reaching to the ground for his pipe and the clipboard, again became the nondescript Feldwebel. His garrison cap on one side of his head, he sauntered off toward the blockhouse for the morning report—now an hour overdue.
The dog rose and followed him. At that moment the Feldwebel noticed the little Deschamps girl in the middle of the road, about fifteen yards ahead. Evidently the child had strayed from home. There she stood, a target for passing military vehicles. He got down on one knee and called to her.
“Hier Liebling.” Come here.
The child turned to look. She was adorable in her faded pink dress, the tiny skirt so short and shrunken from constant washings that it flared out from her thin legs. The big man held out his arms. It was not precisely the typical picture of a German soldier in France in the fifth year of the Occupation.
Instantly the child responded, toddling toward the Feldwebel, her arms also outstretched. Then the door of a house banged open, and the girl’s mother rushed up to the Feldwebel. Knowing she did not understand German, he said in French, “She was in the middle of the street.”
The woman took the child from him and began to scold her. Frightened, the little girl started to cry. Together they went into the house, leaving the Feldwebel Hans in the road, the stray dog at his side.
He walked briskly down the street toward the blockhouse, and as he did the dog again rose and followed along.