“ARE YOU CERTAIN that your watch is at the hour?”
“No. But if it is wrong, the church clock is wrong also.”
The only remaining watch belonged to the padre. There were twelve minutes left, then ten minutes, then five. At last the hour was up. The cellar door did not slam open with a crash. No helmeted soldiers came for them. What did it mean? The six looked at each other more easily.
“I feel sure the Herr Oberst has persuaded them to do nothing. He knows none of us played any part in the killing. I felt certain, I said so, remember? I said he would get us out....”
Only the teacher was less sure. True, it was not like the Germans to be late, especially where death was concerned. Perhaps they had caught the murderer. If so, nobody would bother to tell them.
Half an hour passed. An hour. A little more than an hour. Above, telephones rang. Long discussions followed in German. After a while a car screamed to a stop on the Grande Rue outside. How strange, thought Monsieur Varin, that one’s hearing becomes so acute at moments like this. He could hear men walking on the hard floor above and distinguish footsteps, the slow pacing of the Feldwebel, the quick, brisk steps of the orderlies. Clack-clack, clack-clack, clack - clack... clack - clack - clack - clack.... Then silence.
They waited, tired now, weary from fatigue and anxiety and tension, drooping a little, all of them. They sat on the hard dirt floor, back against the stone wall, heads nodding.
At last the key turned in the lock and the cellar door flew open. At the top of the stairs stood a soldier with the usual submachine gun in his hands.
“Hinaus!” He beckoned them up. Horrible sound, thought the teacher. A horrible sound and a horrible language. I always disliked it and I always will.
The hostages rose clumsily to their feet. They’ll probably release us now. They have no evidence against us. The Herr Oberst knows we had nothing to do with the killing of the Hauptmann Seeler. Silently, meekly, they went up the stairs one by one. Just outside the cellar door stood the Feldwebel with a tall German officer, elegant in shiny boots, his chest covered with campaign ribbons and combat decorations. The hostages stared at them dully, drained now of all emotion.
The Feldwebel signaled a squad of soldiers and turned quickly away, unable to stand the look on those French faces, feeling their faith vanish as he gave the silent orders. The troops formed about them, half leading, half pushing the five men and the boy into the Grande Rue.
When the farmer Marquet, the first in line, was thrust outside, a wild shrieking arose. The prisoners stood for a few seconds blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight. All the women of Nogent-Plage, old and young, surrounded the steps of the Bloch villa in a semicircle. They were being held off by helmeted soldiers with bayonets attached to their rifles.
The women also were armed. They had brought brooms, shovels, pitchforks, and rakes. They brandished them before the soldiers, screaming as the hostages stepped hesitantly into the street.
“Marcel! Marcel! Mon bien-aimé....”
“Georges! Georges! Suis ici... ici....”
The wife of the fisherman tried to break through to her husband. A German soldier seized her and tossed her roughly to the pavement.
At this, like a kind of signal, the women attacked en masse. With their shovels and pitchforks, their rakes and brooms, they tried to break through the soldiers and reach the men and the boy. It was impossible for the Feldwebel standing on the steps of the Bloch villa to give the order to fire into the melee. To have done so would have meant the massacre of both townspeople and troops. For long seconds the street was in utter confusion.
Run! Run! Run! Run, you idiots, thought the Feldwebel, half hoping that the six would burst away in all directions. Surely a few would escape. But they were dazed so they did nothing. The Feldwebel blew a short blast on the whistle he had removed from his upper breast pocket, shouted crisp commands, and slowly the women were overpowered and forced back. Pitchforks were seized and tossed aside. The troops formed quickly about the prisoners and the column moved down the street. Only two, the Catholic and the Communist went with heads erect.
My God, thought the Feldwebel, I’m marching them to death. Just what I said I’d never do. How did I get here?
From the pleading women who stumbled along beside the column came sobs and screams. Impossible to think coherently, to act intelligently in that emotion. He glanced around.
The General Froelicher was bringing up the rear, there to see the sentence was carried out. He gave no orders, although the soldiers needed no orders. They had done it many times in other, distant lands.
“Charles! Charles!” shrieked the wife of the café owner. “Charles! Regard-moi.”
“Ah, mon fils,” cried the teacher, seeing his wife with the boy at her side. Jean-Paul had the white football under his arm. He was sobbing bitterly, tears on his face. “Adieu, Jean-Paul. Adieu. Et toi, chérie....”
No man, no woman was shouting to the farmer Marquet. Nor, indeed, did he expect anyone to. But the moment he had come out on the steps of the Bloch villa, his eyes searched the Grande Rue anxiously. What had become of Sebastian? Only a mangy dog trotting along beside the weeping women was now visible. The farmer knew what had happened. The villagers had led Sebastian away. No meat had been available in Nogent-Plage for a long time. They would shoot Sebastian at once.
The soldiers marched in cadence, their boots striking the concrete with that harsh sound. Suddenly Jean-Paul Varin burst away from his mother’s arm and rushed up to the Feldwebel at the head of the column.
“Jean-Paul!” cried Madame Varin. “Jean-Paul.”
Now he was attacking the big German, hitting him with clenched fists, kicking at his legs, weeping and shouting.
Instantly his mother was beside him, dragging him back to the sidewalk. Kneeling down, she held him tightly to her. He buried his head in her shoulder.
Quickly the column reached the end of the Grande Rue—and the low wall with its machine guns. A raging tide of women surrounded the troops, held back only by their bayonets.
Each hostage was blindfolded. They knew no hope at last. All illusions were gone. A quiet descended so deep you could hear the half slap, half crunch of the waves on the pebbly beach below. And the sobs of Jean-Paul tearing his body as he clung to the arms of his mother.
René Le Gallec next to the teacher reached out, groping for the hand of the older man. His anguished voice was plainly audible. “Will it hurt, Monsieur the Professor, will it hurt?”
And the reply of the man, distinct above the weeping that now swept the circle of waiting women. “Non, mon petit, it won’t hurt. You won’t feel it.” Then the teacher threw back his head and shouted with all his strength.
“Vive La France.”
The Feldwebel could stand it no longer. Then from behind came the voice of his godfather, composed, clear, crisp. “Schiessen!”
“Vive La....”
The rifles sounded in unison. They made a queer echo in the fog now approaching from the sea. Startled, the thin dog raced down the road, past the six crumpled figures on the sea wall, toward St.-Valéry in the distance.