In This Hospitable Land (49 page)

André moved to within inches and examined the captive’s face with scientific detachment. “So this is the enemy. He looks so normal and talks with the same accent. He’s no different from anyone else in the Cévennes—except that he’s a traitor.”

Maurice Vignie shook. “I didn’t know what that note contained—honest! I didn’t even know it was there! Please don’t hurt me! I won’t do anything like this ever again I swear! I’m for France too! I hate the Germans just like you do! The Nazis, the Gestapo: they’re the ones who have done this to us all! Spare me and I’ll do anything you say!” He sank to his knees. Albert and Guy let his arms drop. He clasped his hands together in the classic beggar’s attitude.

“
S’il vous plait
!” he moaned, drawing out the vowel sound miserably.

After what seemed an eternity, Max turned to his men. “You all know I trained to be a doctor, to save lives. And when this war is over I intend to complete my studies and heal as many as I can.” Suddenly he pulled out his pistol, crouched, and pressed the deadly weapon to Maurice Vignie’s left temple. “But I have not yet taken the Hippocratic oath. This is war and this man would betray his country—and us—to the Germans.”

Maurice could no longer move or even squeak let alone continue to petition for mercy.

Albert placed a hand on Max’s shoulder. “We should take him and his bicycle down to the bottom of the ravine and leave them both to rot.”

Max nodded. Albert and Guy grabbed Maurice under his arms and dragged him away.

“No no! Don’t do it! For the love of God!” the condemned man pleaded.

Max followed then called back to Alex, André, and Pierre to come too.

Pierre obeyed immediately if unsteadily. The Sauverins held back long enough to exchange a sharp look, both wondering,
Does Max really have what it takes to kill in cold blood?

André slowly followed the others into the ravine and Alex followed, wheeling the bicycle by his side. They both stopped halfway down the slope out of sight of the road. From there they watched the dark forms of the Maquisards drag shadowy Maurice Vignie into a small depression filled with close-growing broom bushes at the edge of a water course. There they forced him to his knees.

Albert said to Max, “Let me have your pistol. You shouldn’t have to do this.”

Taking it, he set the muzzle against the base of Maurice’s skull, pulled back the hammer and gritted his teeth.

“N-o-o-o-o…” Maurice Vignie keened.

Albert pulled the trigger. With a flash and a roar the bullet exploded into the skull. Maurice Vignie’s head snapped back as his body flopped into the ravine.

The slight light from the rising moon revealed a half-dozen stupefied expressions. Albert and Guy managed to scuff brush and twigs onto the inert body. Then they climbed up to Alex, removed the bicycle from his clutched hands, and rolled it down, twisting it to rest against the body.

Max led his squad slowly back up to the road. “Pierre?” he called. “Can you show us to the Vignie house?”

“Must we?” the schoolmaster asked even as he began guiding the group.

“The names of twelve good men are on that list,” Max said grimly. “If it were to get into the hands of the Gestapo they would be twelve dead men—including me and Albert.”

Approaching Vialas the group left the road to skirt the more populated areas. After some minutes they came out from under cover again near Soleyrols. The still-rising moon provided a bit more light. Stars shone brightly through the crisp, clear atmosphere.

They slipped off the road again just before reaching the first houses and began working their way along garden paths. A dog barked repeatedly and growled as the Maquis passed. Then it grew quiet again.

The schoolmaster held up his hand, stopping the little band awkwardly. “There,” he whispered excitedly. “That’s the house.”

The house’s shutters were closed tight for the night. A light was on over the front door. Max had André, Alex, and Pierre wait while he, Albert, and Guy crept closer.

The front door opened. A young man came out with a lantern and entered the outhouse, hanging his lantern on a hook beside the door.

The trio of Maquisards made their way in a crouch alongside the short path to the outhouse, careful to stay in the shadows of the house. They heard noises from within as Max slowly reached up to cut off the lantern light.

“
Merde
,” a voice groaned inside.

The outhouse door banged open. A hand grabbed for the extinguished lantern. Max seized it and pulled. Albert and Guy rose to snatch each of their victim’s arms. Faster than Thomas Vignie could cry out, Max stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth and clamped it tight.

Thomas struggled manfully but was quickly subdued. His captors dragged him up the garden path and down a little trail. André, Alex, and Pierre followed quickly to a listlessly meandering stream.

Max shined his flashlight onto Thomas’s face and then onto the list of Resistance names.

“Did you have anything to do with this?” Max demanded.

The youngster’s eyes popped wide in terror as he vigorously shook his head no.

“Your father said you did. Is this or isn’t this your handwriting?”

The unfortunate young man’s eyes bobbled wildly. Max gestured Pierre to come forward. Seeing his teacher, Thomas slumped.

“Well?” Max demanded of Pierre, showing him the list.

The teacher looked closely at the slip of paper and with obvious reluctance acknowledged, “Yes that’s his handwriting. Distinctive.”

Thomas struggled more forcefully, his eyes on fire and focused murderously on Pierre. The gag kept his shouts muffled deep within his throat.

“You have one chance to survive this,” Max informed the young man. “Agree to work with us rather than against us.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Pierre pleaded with his charge. “You have so much to live for.”

Suddenly a female voice called out from the house. “Thomas? Thomas?”

Turning toward the worried voice, Thomas stopped struggling.

“His mother,” Pierre confirmed.

“You’re running out of time,” Max told the prisoner.

Thomas’s eyes glistened with tears but he made no gesture of renunciation.

His mother called his name again more loudly.

At another nod from Max the Maquisards dragged Thomas farther down the stream. Then Max led them along pathways that emerged from a thicket onto a small spit of land declining steeply toward a ditch.

Guy Chauvert pulled out Max’s pistol, stepped to within inches of Thomas Vignie, and asked softly, “Now will you see reason?”

Again Thomas shook his head no.

Max hissed into his ear, “You want to end up dead like your father?” The young man curled up into a tightly wrapped ball of flesh. André felt sick to his soul. “Get him up on his knees,” Max ordered.

Albert and Guy forced Thomas into a squat at the edge of the ditch. Albert took the pistol and with his mouth firmly set looked to Max, who held up his hand.

Thomas hung his head limply.

“You know what you’ve done,” Max said bitingly.

Albert placed the pistol against the back of Thomas’s head. Just like his father.

“Work with us,” Pierre begged his student. “You know in your heart we’re right.”

After a long motionless silence Max nodded and Albert pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot was muzzled by flesh. Thomas’s head jerked forward and bounced back. The dead body made a soft plop as it smacked into a slimy patch of alluvial mud.

“Someone will find them both,” Max said huskily, recovering the revolver from Albert and slipping it into his belt. “They’ll know what all this means.”

André wasn’t the only one struggling not to become sick.
Damn this war!
he thought helplessly as they crossed the small stream and moved through the woods to avoid the little gathering of homes. He didn’t like swearing even to himself but if ever there was a moment in his life…

Damn!

They slept fitfully in the hayloft, leaning against a wall or braced by a pile of musty hay, berets pulled over their ears. But that little cover couldn’t block out the voice of troubling conscience.

Max was especially distressed and remorseful. He had done what he had to and for the sake of his men had managed with great effort to maintain a façade of certainty and strength. But left to his own devices in the dark how could he quiet his roiling mind? Would he keep this from Fela or should he? Someday he knew he would have to tell her everything. But not until he had sorted through his feelings and forgiven himself.

A muted light began to suffuse the barn. The little frost that had formed on the straw overnight melted quickly in the warmth of the rising autumn sun. A few of Max’s men began to stir. André and Alex sat side by side picking wisps of straw out of their clothes and hair.

Max gathered his soul-sick self and said, “Better return to Le Tronc this morning. Now.” The brothers looked at him blankly, too worn to process a thought. “We’ve all got a better chance if we separate. Once those bodies are discovered…” Max turned to Pierre Jabot. “The same goes for you. Go down to your own place. Tomorrow go back to school. The children expect you and it will raise too many questions if you don’t show up as usual. Just don’t talk about this to anyone. That goes without saying.”

Pierre’s face was drawn, bone-white. There were heavy dark circles under eyes that contained a faraway look. His unresponsiveness caused Max to call his name sharply.

Shaking his head slowly Pierre muttered, “How can I ever go back to school, look into those young hopeful faces, faces like Thomas’s? But if I don’t go back what will I do when I run into them? They’ll talk when his body is found. They’ll look at me and wonder,
Did you know? Did you have a part in this?
And they’ll guess the truth no matter how I try to hide it.” He buried his face in his hands.

“It won’t be anything like that,” Max said gently. “Unless you let it happen.”

A sorrowful silence weighed heavily on them all. But Albert and Guy slept on undisturbed.

When Pierre finally looked back up, André said softly, “Last night will always be with us. But what you—what we—must constantly bear in mind even when we’re old men called at last to account for our actions is that killing those two men saved at least a dozen others and who knows how many more, considering all the good this dozen brave souls will yet do for a free France. Did we have a choice? No. Would it even be possible for us to go on with our lives in good conscience had we acted otherwise? Again I say no.” André took off his glasses and wiped the dirt from them with his great blue handkerchief, now a worn-out hole-riddled rag. “I saw the results of killing during the Great War. People who, like us, had killed up close and were never able to forgive themselves going through life as automatons. Others who had done the same put their terrible experiences into a broader perspective: they did not like themselves for taking others’ lives but saw what they had fought against come to an end and acknowledged the small but vital role they had played in bringing the horror and suffering to a rightful conclusion. Then they began to live again. They tried to do more—to contribute more—to make up for the lives circumstance forced them to snuff out. And they went on working to make a bigger difference still: to create a good that simply could never have come to be if not for the dreadful actions fate had forced upon them.” André put a hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “Now you must make a decision: to dwell eternally on the terrible fact of what we did last night and allow it to paralyze you, or to rejoin the struggle to make a better future for you, your students, and all those you can continue to have a powerful positive impact on. Nothing could be harder and no one can help you. But we can encourage and stand beside you.” André released Pierre as if to leave him the room he needed to decide. “Either way you must go home now and resume your routine so you don’t give us away. Besides, those children need you. They need to hear and learn of the good and the right. Of values and belief. Of the importance of faith. About men—real men and true freedom. Of thoughtful, unfettered inquiry. Of the necessity to dream and to explore and to work toward a future far better than man has ever known. For as bad as the present may be it’s the same as every bad time in history, such as the torture and killing of the Huguenots: it can’t last. Not forever. And only you,
monsieur l’instructeur
Jabot, can give your students the knowledge, hope, and courage required to build that better future of which we all dream.”