Malevil, Page 56

  At last I found it, my precious relic. There was no mystery about it, it had been in the shirt pocket where I’d put it. I blew three short blasts at intervals of a few seconds, and eventually our guns fell silent.

  However, my whistle must have awakened an echo in Vilmain’s military soul, because from the ramparts where I was crouching I heard him yell at his men, “What are you firing at, you damned fools?”

  At which, on both sides, silence succeeded to the former tempest. Though to say dead silence would be misleading, since no one had been so much as scratched. The first stage of our battle had concluded in farce and stalemate. We on our side felt no necessity to emerge from Malevil in search of our enemy, and he for his part had no desire to invite annihilation by appearing in a breach only five feet across.

  The next events I did not witness personally. They were described to me by the three posted outside.

  Hervé and Maurice were in despair. An error had been made in the siting of their dugout. Because although it certainly provided a good side view of anyone approaching Malevil along the road, it did so only as long as those approaching remained upright. As soon as they lay down, as was now the case, they disappeared. The raised grass-covered shoulder of the road concealed them completely. So Hervé and Maurice were unable to open fire. Apart from which, even supposing that an enemy did raise his head, they didn’t know whether they ought to fire yet in any case, since Colin’s rifle still remained silent.

  Colin, on the other hand, was admirably placed. He was directly opposite Malevil, he had a view of the road sloping up in front of him right to the palisade. He could see all the attackers perfectly as they lay on their bellies along under the cliff. And when Vilmain, after my whistle blasts, raised himself on one elbow to yell, “What are you firing at, you damned fools?” Colin immediately recognized him from Hervé’s description of his close-shaven blond skull.

  So Colin decided to kill Vilmain. A good idea in itself. But when Colin told us later, with that mischievous smile, how he had set about putting it into execution, we were all horrified.

  For Colin there was no question of using his rifle. In order to strike terror into the attackers’ hearts, as he had put it, by killing without noise or smoke, he decided to use the bow so dear to his own heart.

  Colin was short, the hole was narrow, the bow was big. He realized he wasn’t going to be able to draw it in that “rathole.” Never mind! He jumped out of his hole, leaving his rifle behind, crawled three yards, bow in hand, over to a big charred chestnut stump behind which, for greater ease of movement, he stood up. Stood up! And calmly took aim at Vilmain’s back.

  As luck would have it, however, Vilmain turned to give an order just then, and the arrow, missing him by a fraction, embedded itself in the back of the man beside him, presumably the bazooka loader, since Colin saw two or three small shells fall from his hands and roll several yards down the road before coming to rest. The wounded man let out a horrible scream, stood up to his full height (becoming visible also to the two in the dugout at that point), and zigzagged off down the road, twisting himself around in an attempt to wrench the arrow out of his back. After a few yards he fell onto his stomach and lay there writhing and scrabbling at the earth with his hands.

  Terror had certainly been struck into Vilmain’s men, but the result was not decisive. Moreover Vilmain had been allowed time to see where the arrow had come from. He barked an order. And twelve rifles, his own included, spat simultaneously at the chestnut stump behind which Colin was now flattened on the ground, unable to strike back, since he couldn’t draw his bow lying down and his rifle was three yards away in the hole.

  From my position on the wall I could of course hear the sudden intense fire, but I couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t even know who was firing at whom, since all our outside men were equipped with exactly the same weapons as the enemy. I was mortally concerned, because any gunfight between our own three outside rifles and Vilmain’s twelve would be horribly unequal. Vilmain, thanks to his numerical superiority, could easily outflank our men with one maneuver. And there was nothing the rest of us inside could do to help them, except make a sortie, and that would be madness.

  The two in the dugout could still not see the enemy. And since they hadn’t seen Colin leave his hole either, they were puzzled as to why Vilmain was pouring his fire into the undergrowth like that. Nor could they understand why Colin’s rifle still remained silent, because they knew—or Hervé did anyway, since he’d helped Jacquet dig it—that the single hole provided an excellent view of the road up to the palisade.

  But the most worried of all, needless to say, was the object of the fire. It was clear to him by now that he was trapped. He was completely isolated behind his charred chestnut stump, seventy yards from the enemy, without a gun, and all retreat was cut off by the gunfire nailing him to the spot. He could hear the bullets from Vilmain’s .36s hitting the other side of the tree stump with wicked little thuds, and even knocking off little chunks of bark very near his head. He had taken his decision. He was waiting for a lull to leap into his hole, which he could see, gaping invitingly, only three yards away, his rifle neatly propped against the brushwood lining. But the lull didn’t come, and when they didn’t actually hit the tree stump the bullets went whining past to his right and his left with terrifying accuracy. “It was the only time in my life,” he was to say later, “when I’d have liked to be smaller than I am.”

  According to our prisoners, Vilmain began by showing great anxiety when Colin’s arrow killed his loader and made him aware that he had an enemy in his rear. But when the enemy didn’t reply to his fire, he realized that he was weaponless and decided to flush him out from behind his tree. He detailed two veterans to leopard-crawl over to the hill and outflank Colin’s stump on his right, while four of the attackers’ best shots continued to nail him to the ground with their fire. But the two veterans had scarcely crawled more than a few yards when Vilmain recalled them. “As you were, men,” he said. “I’ll drop the bastard for us myself.” And he stood up. His intention, presumably, was to take advantage of what looked like an easy victory in order to re-establish his ascendancy over the veterans, after the rather shaky start to his attack.

  Anyway, he stood up, and because all his men were lying down, his upright figure immediately took on heroic proportions. At a nonchalant, swinging pace he set off down the road in order to pick Colin off from his flank. It didn’t require a great deal of daring, since Colin couldn’t shoot back and the jut of the cliff was protecting him from the possibility of fire from us.

  Until then, Vilmain had been just as invisible to Hervé and Maurice as all the others, but as soon as he stood up and began swinging off down the road, affecting the feline slouch of the old campaigner, he became the perfect target for them. Hervé, who was still waiting for Colin’s signal, watched him closely (he was to do an excellent imitation of his walk for us later) but made no move. Maurice, however, impelled by the icy hatred he felt for Vilmain, immediately took a bead on him, kept him carefully in his sights throughout his nonchalant progress along the road, and as soon as he saw him stop and raise his weapon to his shoulder, took careful aim at his temple and fired.

  His skull shattered, Vilmain fell, killed by the new recruit whom he had so carefully taught the principles of standing fire with support a month before. The firing at Colin’s tree stump ceased, and Colin leapt into his hole. Once there, he snatched up his .36, and from his well-camouflaged, well-protected burrow began to fire back. He was an excellent shot, rapid and accurate, and he killed two men with his first two shots.

  In a few seconds the situation had been completely reversed. Jean Feyrac, who, according to our prisoners, hadn’t been enthusiastic about the Malevil expedition anyway, now gave the signal for a retreat. And it was indeed a retreat, not a disorderly rout. A fresh salvo of bullets bit into the lip of Colin’s hole, forcing him to lower his head, and by the time he raised it again the enemy had vanished. Though not witho
ut taking time to collect the bazooka, the shells, and the dead men’s rifles.

  Colin uttered a triumphant whoooo! Never did the cry of an owl give me greater joy. It was telling me that the enemy had fled, and that Colin at least was unharmed.

  I told Thomas to get the main gate open and hurtled down the stone steps from the wall so fast that I almost fell and had to jump the last five. I landed with a jolt and set off at a run toward the Maternity Ward with Meyssonnier behind me.

  I shouted to him over my shoulder, “Take Mélusine!”

  As I ran, I clicked my safety catch back on and pulled the sling of the Springfield over my head. Evelyne, who had heard my voice, emerged from the Maternity Ward leading Morgane. I went in and took Amarante’s reins myself. She was in such a state of excitement that I was obliged to control my own. I took time to talk to her and stroke her. She made no difficulties at first. But when we reached the scattered debris of the palisade she sniffed and stopped dead, arching back against her stiffened forelegs, neck defiantly curved, head up, shaking her pale mane. The sweat poured down my face. I knew Amarante and her refusals!

  To my great surprise, however, and even greater relief, this time she yielded to no more than a few gentle tugs and two or three clicks of the tongue. Once Amarante was through, the two other mares followed placidly enough.

  I scarcely had time to count the four bodies and note that the enemy had removed their weapons when our three outside men all leapt out of the undergrowth onto the road at the same moment. They came dashing up, flushed, panting, excited. I hugged them all, but there was no time for reports or emotions. I helped Maurice up behind Meyssonnier, then Hervé, who seemed to me much the heavier, up behind Colin, whereupon I noticed that Colin had his bow still slung around him as well as his .36. It looked vast sticking out on either side of his little body and the top of it came way above his head.

  “Leave your bow here! It will get caught in the bushes!”

  “No, no!” Colin said, scarlet with pride.

  Just as I was about to mount in my turn, I realized we’d forgotten the tethers. And all that time lost if we went back for them!

  “Evelyne, you’re coming with us!”

  “Me!”

  “You can hold the horses.”

  She was so overjoyed that she turned to stone. I seized her by the hips and practically threw her onto Amarante’s back, then leapt up into the saddle after her. As soon as we had reached the forest track, I twisted around in the saddle, supporting myself with one hand on Amarante’s rump, and said in a low voice to Colin, “Be careful of your bow. We’re going to gallop!”

  “You bet I will,” he said with an air of tremendous virility and triumph.

  At that point I didn’t yet know what part he had played in the battle outside, but just from his expression I was sure it had been considerable.

  Amarante hadn’t been out of her stall for two days. She needed no urging to stretch those long legs. I felt the magnificent surge of her getaway between my legs, then a cooling flow of air on my forehead. Evelyne, tightly gripped between my arms, was in her seventh heaven of delight. She had an excellent seat, so she was barely holding the saddle pommel at all, and when I bent forward to avoid a branch, she simply gave beneath my weight, lifted her hands, and laid them lightly on Amarante’s neck. Our mount’s mane streamed in the breeze, and Evelyne’s long hair, almost the same shade of blond as the mane, streamed back too against my neck. No sound but the muffled rhythm of hoofs in the leaf mold and the lashing of the leaves brushed aside by Amarante’s chest and whipping at my legs. Amarante was galloping at full stretch, and behind her, more heavily laden and therefore slightly less swift, came Morgane and Mélusine. They were the perfect equine machines. But Amarante was fire, blood, the ecstasy of space. I had become part of her, I was horse myself now, her movements were mine. I rose and lowered myself to the rhythm of her back, with Evelyne light as a feather keeping time. And I experienced an unbelievable feeling of swiftness, of abundance, of strength. I galloped with the feeling of Evelyne’s little body against mine. I was galloping toward the annihilation of our enemies, the safety of Malevil, the conquest of La Roque. At that moment in time where I existed, neither age nor death could reach me. I galloped. I wanted to cry out with joy.

  I noticed that I had left the other two mares behind. I was afraid that if they lost their leading horse from view they might betray our presence by starting to neigh, so at the next hill I reined Amarante in to a trot. Not without difficulty, for she wanted nothing more than to go on sending the leaf mold flying with her powerful hoofs. At the top of the incline the track made a right angle bend, and again in order that the mares behind shouldn’t lose sight of Amarante, I came to a halt. On my right, giant bracken fronds rose well above my head, but through their lacy green, way below us, I could make out the gray windings of the La Roque road. Then suddenly, as I watched, Vilmain’s men began emerging from the farthest bend. They were spaced out slightly now, walking quickly, but already left far behind. Some were carrying two rifles.

  Colin and Meyssonnier rode up. I signaled to them to keep quiet and gestured down toward the group of men below. We held our breath, gazing down for a few silent seconds through the green bracken fronds at the men we were going to kill.

  Meyssonnier brought Mélusine up beside Amarante, leaned toward me, and said in a barely audible voice, “But there are only seven. What’s happened to the eighth?”

  I counted. It was true. There were only seven.

  “Lagging behind, I expect.”

  I urged Amarante forward again. Though this time I held her down to a canter. I had noticed when we stopped that the white mares were blowing. Besides, the ecstasy of that first gallop could never be recaptured now. Victory had lost the abstract exaltation that had given it such charm. Now it wore the face of those poor wretches sweating and toiling along the road.

  Ah, there was my last marker across the track. I noticed it at the very moment we broke it. We were there.

  “Evelyne, you see that little clearing? That’s where you’re going to keep them.”

  “All three? Can’t we tie them up by their reins?”

  I shook my head. The two mares caught up to us, the four riders dismounted, and I showed Colin and Meyssonnier how to knot the reins over their mounts’ neck so that they shouldn’t catch their feet in them.

  “Are you just going to turn them loose?” Meyssonnier said.

  “They won’t go far. They won’t leave Amarante, and Evelyne is going to hold Amarante. Colin, you show them where it is.”

  They left, and I waited behind to give Evelyne her final instructions. In case Amarante became uncontrollable, she was to mount her and walk her in circles.

  “Can I give you a kiss, Emmanuel?”

  I leaned down, and at the same moment Amarante decided to pull her favorite trick, which was to push me in the back with her head. I fell on top of Evelyne, or rather onto my elbows. We were both in such a state of tension that it didn’t even occur to us to laugh. I got up again. Evelyne as well. She hadn’t let go of the reins. Her face was old with anguish.

  “Don’t kill them, Emmanuel,” she said in a low voice. “You promised to spare their lives on your poster.”

  “Listen, Evelyne,” I said in a voice that I could scarcely control, “there are eight of them and they have very good guns. When I see them, if I shout, ‘Surrender yourselves!’ they may very well decide they’d rather fight. And if they fight, then there’s a good chance that someone from Malevil will be wounded or killed. Do you want me to run that risk?”

  She lowered her head and didn’t reply. I left her without kissing her, but after I had gone a few yards I turned to wave, and she waved back immediately. She stood there in the clearing, a little patch of sun on her hair, the little “dagger” hanging from her belt, tiny and frail among the enormous animals whose rumps I could see beginning to steam. It was such an idyllic scene, and my heart sank as I looked at it, knowing the s
laughter I was about to unleash so short a distance away.

  The others were waiting for me above the road. I went over the orders briefly. No shot to be fired before a long blast of the whistle. Cease fire after three short blasts. Then our positions. The wire from which my proclamation was suspended bisected the road more or less halfway along a straight uphill stretch. Colin and I were to take up our positions twenty yards uphill from the notice on the La Roque side, Colin on the far side of the road, myself on this. Meyssonnier and Hervé would be concealed twenty yards downhill from the notice on the Malevil side, Meyssonnier on my side of the road, Hervé on Colin’s.

  We took up these positions quickly and silently. The trap was set. The two steep banks on either side of the road were completely covered by our crossfire. All retreat was cut off. All escape forward was equally impossible.

  I could still communicate visually with Colin, who was scarcely more than the width of the road away from me, and I kept Maurice beside me so that if the need arose I could send him with a message down to Meyssonnier forty yards below, who could then pass it on to Hervé opposite.

  We waited. The wire from which I had hung my proclamation was still intact. That morning at dawn Vilmain’s men must have just ducked under the obstacle for want of a pair of pincers to remove it. They would be ducking under it again in a few minutes. And that moment was their rendezvous with death. There was no wind. My proclamation hung there motionless and peremptory, barring the way, the square of drawing paper dazzlingly white in the sun. If I had been carrying my binoculars I could have read the letters I had printed on it. I thought of Evelyne. And I was only too conscious of the savage irony in shooting Vilmain’s men down like rabbits at the very foot of that bright white square promising them their lives. But Evelyne herself was one of the reasons I had to destroy them. How could I forget what “wiping out” Malevil would have entailed?