RENÉ HAD MADE his confession, yet his blond head remained bowed. At last he looked up, still on his knees before the padre. There were tears in his eyes.
“My parents don’t even know where I am. They think I went swimming. I told them I was going swimming with Michel.” Then he voiced the thought of everyone in that cellar. “Why doesn’t the Herr Oberst do something? Only this morning he told me I should use the left foot more. You remember, don’t you, Père? He said I had an excellent left foot. Why doesn’t he do something? Now he must be in command here. He has always been good to the people of Nogent-Plage, always....”
He broke down, sobbing, staggered by the brutal injustice of what had happened. Half an hour before he had been free, outside in the sunshine kicking his precious football, the one the Herr Oberst had obtained for him. Now he was locked up in the cellar of the Bloch villa, soon to be sentenced to a German prison camp for life. Or something worse, though he could not quite bring himself to believe the Germans would really shoot six innocent people.
Except for the farmer, the men stood talking in knots, Monsieur Lavigne and the teacher leaning against an iron stanchion, the fisherman saying something softly, all shaking a little. All thinking much the same thing. It simply can’t be. Things aren’t like this. We’ve never had anything like this before in Nogent-Plage, never. The Herr Oberst knows us all. He has worked miracles before. He got us out of trouble so often these past years. Surely he will today.
Their faith in the Feldwebel Hans was touching. Only the teacher was dubious. “You’ll get out of this mess,” he remarked to the café owner. “It will be all right for you, not for me. To the Germans, I am a Jew.” He held out his hands in a little Gallic gesture of despair.
At this point they were interrupted by sudden noises overhead. A whistle blew shrilly. The boots of running soldiers above thudded on the floor. They heard the voice of the Herr Oberst shouting orders in that guttural German. His voice had changed. Now it was the tone of all the many officers who had garrisoned Nogent-Plage during those long years of occupation.
Far down the street a machine gun gave a stuttering bark, fell silent, barked once more. Monsieur Varin quickly reached the top of the wooden box beside the window. Jean-Paul and the other football players had scattered. Peering out, he could see about fifty feet of the Grande Rue.
The door at the top of the cellar stairs opened with a crash. A soldier stood there pointing a gun at the hostages below. “Nicht bewegen! Nicht bewegen!” he shouted. Don’t move.
Nobody moved. Nobody had any intention of moving. All were far too frightened to move.
The teacher knew immediately what was happening. The Underground was mounting an attack on the Bloch villa in a desperate attempt to free the six prisoners. Unfortunately, the Germans directed by the Feldwebel Hans were ready. Upstairs they began firing out of the windows facing the street. A heavy truck roared past on the Grande Rue, firing in turn.
Below another machine gun went into action. Bullets bit into the walls of the Bloch villa, sending stone splinters flying. Windowpanes shattered, showering glass onto the pavement. Then came bursts of firing the teacher assumed to be from the rescue truck. Finally he heard it racing off in the direction of Varengeville.
The soldier at the head of the cellar stairs lowered his gun as the noise died away in the distance. The sound of the door closing and the key turning in the lock was painfully definitive. The teacher leaned as far as the little window allowed. He saw German troops moving up the street with the body of a French civilian on a stretcher, the arms of the dead man hanging over the sides. Soon two more bodies went by, then a badly wounded German limping along and assisted by two comrades.
The young football players, not entirely unaccustomed to the sound of machine guns in recent years, returned to the lot and stood watching the activity on the Grande Rue. There was too much commotion in the street for the Germans to pay any attention to them.
“Jean-Paul!”
The boy turned, startled. He grabbed the football from a comrade and kicked it toward the low cellar window, then trotted after it casually. Meanwhile, Monsieur Varin hastily untied the worn leather strap of his watch from his belt and, taking it out of his pocket, tossed it through the barred window on the ground before his son. The boy leaning over for the football scooped up the watch in one deft movement and kicked the ball hard against the house, letting it rebound. His father stood admiring the quickness and ease of the boy’s movements, so utterly free and natural, so unconscious, and watched him stuff the watch into his trouser pocket of the ragged blue shorts.
Pray God nobody was looking. Nobody was. The boy raced off home, down the street. At least he was safe. Monsieur Varin stepped down from the box.
“Ahhhh,” he said, shaking his head.
That futile rescue attempt had cost three lives and completely failed. “Ahhhh!” he exclaimed in despair. He leaned down and picked up the block of paper, with his small, precise writing, and slumped to the bench.
The farmer Marquet, his head in his hands, still sat motionless. Still he had written nothing.