18

It was an old hut, unremarkable in almost every respect. Built square and squat, its roof now sagging, and with the opaque glass eyes of a man on his deathbed, there was very little that distinguished it from any one of a hundred such dying structures dotted throughout the bush. Its mouth was a large and crooked front door from which a decaying and pockmarked veranda rolled out like a diseased wooden tongue. Like most dwellings in the area, it was steadily being reclaimed by the surrounding land. Set in the throat of an isolated valley, thick roots and branches were slowly lifting floorboards and crawling between planks. A latticework of green and black vines hung over the roof while termites and other insects worked together to digest and gnaw away at the bonds that held it together. It was unexceptional in almost every sense.

Every sense, but one.

The entire structure, every inch of board, was coated in a heavy floor paint commonly used to protect exposed brick porches from the sun. What made this so notable was its colour.

Originally a deep claret, it had now faded to the colour of fresh blood. Small sections of the hut that had been shielded from the worst of the sun retained much of the original shade and now appeared like darkened scabs on an open wound.

The hut was not merely dying; it was bleeding to death.

Xavier sat on the edge of the veranda and stared out into the bush. They weren’t quite in the middle of nowhere, but they were within sight of it. His arms were still tired and stiff from all the sawing, but it had been well worth the exertion. In all his time behind the rifle, he had never seen such ivory, never even heard of such remarkable bones. Nobody had, he was certain. He had already contacted his top buyers and would spend the next few days playing them off against each other until he finally received a bid he was satisfied with. At a time when so few elephants remained, the haul almost defied belief; it was one final storm before the drought. But in spite of his good fortune, he remained regretful of one thing. He had failed to bring down the matriarch, and it was burning him. Her tusks alone would’ve set him up for the rest of the year. The fact that she had nearly killed him and his brother only worsened matters. It made the smouldering fire in his chest glow knuckle-white.

‘I think something’s broken,’ Requin complained, limping out onto the veranda. Bare-chested, his arm was cradled around his stomach, his hand hovering over a large purple bruise on his shoulder. ‘My chest is killing me.’

Xavier kept his back turned. ‘What’ve you done with them?’

‘The ivory? It’s out back, just like you asked.’

‘Is it covered?’

‘Oui. Oui. Xavier, I think I need a doctor. It’s not getting any better. It feels like something’s cracked–’

‘How did you cover them?’

‘Same as always.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes,’ he hissed, his eyes half-mast. ‘Are you even listening to me?’

‘You’ll live,’ Xavier replied, and then added, ‘unfortunately.’

Requin groaned, self-pity distorting his features even further, and then sat down on the steps. Uninterested in his brother’s complaints, Xavier looked down at his arms and noticed they were coated in a veil of fine white powder – sawdust from the ivory. He wiped them down with the bottom of his shirt and watched as a dark-blue tattoo reappeared on the inside of his left wrist – the French Foreign Legion’s insignia. He glared at the emblem, deeply regretting that he had ever allowed it to desecrate his body. And then, suddenly, decided it was unacceptable to him. He would no longer tolerate it. That of which he was once a part now sickened him. The tattoo was a constant reminder of the war and how the Legion had betrayed and deserted him. As his mind drew back to that time, he felt the familiar seeds of anger twist and screw in his blood. He reached for his hunting knife and pressed the freshly sharpened blade against his skin. He would not allow his own body to torment him. ‘Requin,’ he called out, ‘bring me some fishing line. And a hook.’

Before Leiden Castle was a prison camp, it was a sanatorium. More than two hundred years old, it was as much a dominating feature of Dresden as the distinctive River Elbe that flowed through it. Made largely of natural stone and built deep into the side of a mountain, it was chosen by the Germans as a prison camp for several reasons, but most notably because more than half of it existed beneath the ground. Underneath the towers and parapets, Leiden Castle was a vast catacomb of caves and chambers, dank cellars interconnected by a series of narrow passages and tunnels, black veins that coiled and burrowed under the town’s skin. Initially used to store food and supplies, and later some of the region’s most disturbed minds, in the war it was home to many of Germany’s notorious prisoners. It was a place where ranking officers who knew things were persuaded to part with their knowledge. Where men of infamy, guilty of either atrocities against Germany or renowned for their ability to escape capture, were brought to account for their sins. Not only did Leiden Castle virtually guarantee that these men would not escape their shackles and would be kept out of sight but, once they were underground, prison guards were free to act without discretion.

In short, Leiden Castle was a torture chamber. Half of those who entered never left. Many who perished did so by their own hand, embracing death over torture.

Xavier and Requin had been brought to the castle after being captured in France. The only reason they had been kept alive was because of Xavier’s rank in the French Foreign Legion. German informants believed he was privy to important information pertaining to various incursions and were determined to find out what he knew.

And so the torment began.

There was nothing subtle about it. No veiled threats, no false intimidation. Within an hour of arriving, German guards strapped Xavier’s left hand to a chair and took to it with a hammer. When that didn’t work, they strapped down Requin’s hand and repeated the assault. Unlike his brother, Requin screamed and begged for his life, crying to be left alone. Xavier simply closed his eyes and remained silent. They were then both chained to a wall and beaten intermittently for hours. Requin pleaded with his brother to speak, to offer up what he knew, but Xavier refused. Even when their interrogators revealed how members of his own command had betrayed him, he remained quiet. On their fifth day they were dragged out into the yard with a small group of fellow prisoners and lined up in front of a firing squad. They were given a final opportunity to save themselves. Again, Xavier said nothing. But, instead of being executed, when the command to fire was given, they were both spared. Instead, the men standing on either side of them were shot and killed. Despite surviving the ordeal, it was a mental assault from which Requin would never fully recover. They were then dragged back underground for further, more elaborate, interrogation. And so the torture persisted. For days they were beaten, left naked without any food or water and made to sleep on a dank and cold stone floor.

And while their captors continued to try to pry information from Xavier, what they did not know was that he was never going to talk. His silence no longer had anything to do with his loyalty to the Legion, but was instead an act of personal defiance. He had always been able to endure abuse and suffering, and was capable of withstanding unnatural amounts of pain. The Germans believed he was nearing his breaking point, but they were mistaken. As far as Xavier was concerned, the only true breaking point was death. The notion of pleading mercy did not exist for him. After seventeen days of purgatory, Xavier had still not said anything. Not one of his captors had even heard his voice. It was a silence that would endure for another three months. For an entire season, Xavier did not utter a single word.

Not even to his brother.