The Young Lions (12 page)

"At ten hundred hours," Christian said, "we made contact with the enemy on the Meaux-Paris road. The enemy had a camouflaged road-block and opened fire on our leading vehicle. We engaged him with nine men. We killed two of the enemy and drove the others in disorder from their position and demolished the block." Christian hesitated for the fraction of a second.

"Yes, Sergeant?" the Lieutenant said flatly.

"We had one casualty, Sir," Christian said, thinking this is where I start my trouble, "Corporal Kraus was killed."

"Corporal Kraus," said the Lieutenant. "Did he perform his duty?"

"Yes, Sir." Christian thought of the lumbering boy, shouting enthusiastically, "I got him! I got him!" among the shaking trees. "He killed one of the enemy with his first shots."

"Excellent," said the Lieutenant. A frosty smile shone briefly on his face, twisting the long, angled nose for a moment. "Excellent." He is delighted, Christian noted in surprise.

"I am sure," the Lieutenant was saying, "that there will be a decoration for Corporal Kraus."

"I was thinking, Sir," Christian said, "of writing a note to his father."

"No," said the Lieutenant. "That's not for you. This is the function of the Company Commander. Captain Mueller will do that. I will give him the facts. It is a delicate matter, this kind of letter, and it is important that the proper sentiments are expressed. Captain Mueller will say exactly the correct thing."

Probably, Christian thought, in the military college there is a course, "Personal Communications to Next of Kin. One hour a week."

"Sergeant," the Lieutenant said, "I am pleased with your behaviour and the behaviour of the rest of the men under your command."

"Thank you, Sir," said Christian. He felt foolishly pleased.

Brandt came over and saluted. The Lieutenant saluted back coldly. He didn't like Brandt, who never could look like a soldier. The Lieutenant made clear his feelings about men who fought the war with cameras instead of guns. But the directives from Headquarters down to lower echelons about giving photographers all possible assistance were too definite to be denied.

"Sir," Brandt said, in his soft civilian voice, "I have been instructed to report with my film as soon as possible to the Place de l'Opera. The film is being collected there and is to be flown back to Berlin. I wonder if I might have a vehicle to take me there. I'll come back immediately."

"I'll let you know in a little while, Brandt," the Lieutenant said. He turned and strode across the square to where Captain Mueller, who had just arrived, was sitting in his amphibious car.

"Just crazy about me," Brandt said, "that lieutenant."

"You'll get the car," Christian said. "He's feeling pretty good."

"I'm crazy about him," Brandt said. "I'm crazy about all lieutenants." He looked around him at the soft stone colours of the tenements rising from the square, with the helmets and the grey uniforms and the large, lounging, armed men looking foreign and unnatural in front of the French signs and the shuttered cafes. "The last time I was in this place," Brandt said, reflectively, "was less than a year ago. I had on a blue jacket and flannel trousers. Everybody mistook me for an Englishman, so they were nice to me. There's a wonderful little restaurant just round that corner there and I drove up in a taxi and it was a mild summer night and I was with a beautiful girl with black hair…"

"Open your eyes," Christian said. "Here comes the Lieutenant."

They both stood at attention as the Lieutenant strode up to them.

"It is agreed," the Lieutenant said to Brandt. "You can have the car."

"Thank you, Sir," Brandt said.

"I myself will go with you," said the Lieutenant. "And I will take Himmler and Diestl. There is talk of our unit being billeted in that neighbourhood. The Captain suggested we look at the situation there." He smiled in what he obviously thought was a warm, intimate manner. "Also, we have earned a little sightseeing tour. Come."

He led the way over to one of the cars, Christian and Brandt following him. Himmler was already there, seated at the wheel, and Brandt and Christian climbed in behind. The Lieutenant sat in front, stiff, erect, a shining representative of the German Army and the German Reich on the boulevards of Paris.

Brandt made a grimace and shrugged his shoulders as they started off towards the Place de l'Opera. Himmler drove with dash and certainty. He had spent several holidays in Paris, and he spoke a kind of understandable French with a coarse, ungrammatical fluency. He pointed out places of interest, like a guide, cafes he had patronized, a vaudeville theatre in which he had seen an American negress dancing naked, a street down which, he assured them, was the most fully equipped brothel in the world. Himmler was the combination comedian and politician of the company, a common type in all armies, and a favourite with all the officers, who permitted him liberties for which other men would be mercilessly punished. The Lieutenant sat stiffly beside Himmler, his eyes roaming hungrily up and down the deserted streets. He even laughed twice at Himmler's jokes.

The Place de l'Opera was full of troops. There were so many soldiers, filling the impressive square before the soaring pillars and broad steps, that for a long time the absence of women or civilians in the heart of the city was hardly noticeable. Brandt went into a building, very important and businesslike, with his camera and his film, and Christian and the Lieutenant got out of the car and stared up at the domed mass of the opera house.

"I should have come here before," the Lieutenant said softly.

"It must have been wonderful in peace time."

Christian laughed. "Lieutenant," he said, "that's exactly what I was thinking."

The Lieutenant's chuckle was warm and friendly. Christian wondered how it was that he had always been so intimidated by this rather simple boy.

Brandt bustled out. "The business is finished," he said. "I don't have to report back till tomorrow afternoon. They're delighted in there. I told them what sort of stuff I took and they nearly made me a Colonel on the spot."

"I wonder," the Lieutenant said, his voice hesitant for the first time since 1935, "I wonder if it would be possible for you to take my picture standing in front of the Opera? To send home to my wife."

"It will be a pleasure," Brandt said gravely.

"Himmler," the Lieutenant said. "Diestl. All of us together."

"Lieutenant," Christian said, "why don't you do it alone? Your wife isn't interested in seeing us." It was the first time since they had met a year ago that he had dared contradict the Lieutenant in anything.

"Oh, no." The Lieutenant put his arm around Christian's shoulders and for a fleeting moment Christian wondered if he'd been drinking. "Oh, no. I've written to her a great deal about you. She would be most interested."

Brandt made a fuss about getting the angle just right, with as much of the Opera as possible in the background. Himmler grinned clownishly at one side of the group, but Christian and the Lieutenant peered seriously into the lens, as though this were a moment of solemn historic interest.

After Brandt had finished they climbed back into their car and started towards the Porte Saint Denis. It was late afternoon and the streets looked warm and lonely in the level light, especially since there were long stretches in which there were no soldiers and no military traffic. For the first time since they had arrived in Paris, Christian began to feel a little uneasy.

"A great day," the Lieutenant said reflectively, up in the front seat. "A day of lasting importance. In years to come, we will look back on this day, and we will say to ourselves. 'We were there at the dawn of a new era!'"

Christian could sense Brandt, sitting beside him, making a small, amused grimace, but Brandt, perhaps because of the long years he had lived in France, had an attitude of cynicism and mockery towards all grandiose sentiment.

"My father," the Lieutenant said, "got as far as the Marne in 1914. The Marne… So close. And he never saw Paris. We crossed the Marne today in five minutes… A day of history…" The Lieutenant peered sharply up a side street. Involuntarily, Christian twisted nervously in the back seat to look.

"Himmler," the Lieutenant said, "isn't this the street?"

"What street, Lieutenant?"

"The house you talked about, the famous one?"

What a ferocious mind, Christian thought. Everything is engraved on it irrevocably. Gun positions, regulations for courts-martial, the proper procedure for decontamination of metal exposed to gas, the address of French brothels carelessly pointed out in a strange street two hours before…

"It seems to me," the Lieutenant said carefully, as Himmler slowed the car down, "it seems to me that on a day like this, a day of battle and celebration… In short, we deserve some relaxation. The soldier who does not take women does not fight… Brandt, you lived in Paris, have you heard of this place?"

"Yes, Sir," said Brandt. "An exquisite reputation."

"Turn the car round, Sergeant," the Lieutenant said.

"Yes, Sir." Himmler grinned and swung the little car in a dashing circle and made for the street he had pointed out.

"I know," said the Lieutenant gravely, "that I can depend upon you men to keep quiet about this."

"Yes, Sir," they all said.

"There is a time for discipline," the Lieutenant said, "and a time for comradeship. Is this the place, Himmler?"

"Yes, Sir," said Himmler. "But it looks closed."

"Come with me." The Lieutenant dismounted and marched across the sidewalk to the heavy oak door, his heels crashing on the pavement, making the narrow street echo and re-echo as though a whole company had marched past.

As he tapped on the door, Brandt and Christian looked at each other, grinning. "Next," Brandt whispered, "he'll be selling us dirty postcards."

"Ssh," said Christian.

After a while the door opened and the Lieutenant and Himmler half-pushed, half-argued their way in. It closed behind them and Christian and Brandt were left alone in the empty, shaded street, with night just beginning to touch the sky over their heads. There was no sound, and all the windows of the building were closed.

"I was of the impression," Brandt said, "that the Lieutenant invited us to this party."

"Patience," Christian said. "He is preparing the way."

"With women," said Brandt, "I prefer to prepare my own way."

"The good officer," Christian said gravely, "always sees that his troops are bedded down before he is himself."

"Go upstairs," Brandt said, "and read the Lieutenant that lecture."

The door of the building opened and Himmler waved to them. They got out of the car and went in. A Moorish-looking lamp cast a heavy purple light over the staircase and hanging tapestries along the walls inside.

Himmler pushed open a door and there was the Lieutenant, his gloves and helmet off, sitting on a stool with his legs crossed, delicately picking at the gold foil on a bottle of champagne. The bar was a small room, done in a kind of lavender stucco, with crescent-shaped windows and tasselled hangings. There was a large woman who seemed to go with the room, all frizzed hair, fringed shawls and heavy painted eyelids. She was behind the bar, chattering away in French to the Lieutenant, who was nodding gravely, not understanding a word of what she was saying.

"Amis," Himmler said, putting his arms around Brandt and Christian. "Braves soldaten."

"The French," the Lieutenant was saying, sitting stiff and correct, his eyes now dark green and opaque, like sea-worn bottle glass. "I disdain the French. They are not willing to die. That is why we are here drinking their wine and taking their women, because they prefer not to die. Comic…" He waved his glass in the air, in a gesture that was drunken but bitter.

"This campaign. A comic, ridiculous campaign. Since I have been eighteen years old, I have been studying war. The art of war. At my fingertips. Supply. Liaison. Morale. Selection of disguised points for command posts. Theory of attack against automatic weapons. The value of shock. I could lead an army. Five years of my life. Then the moment comes." He laughed bitterly. "The great moment. The Army surges to the battle-line. What happens to me?" He stared at the Madam, who did not understand a word of German and was nodding happily, agreeing. "I do not hear a shot fired. I sit in an automobile and I ride four hundred miles and I go to a brothel. The miserable French Army has made a tourist out of me! A tourist! No more war. Five years wasted. No career. I'll be a Lieutenant till the age of fifty. I don't know anyone in Berlin. No influence, no friends, no promotion. Wasted. My father was better off. He only got to the Marne, but he had four years to fight in, and he was a Major when he was twenty-six, and he had his own battalion at the Somme, when every other officer was killed in the first two days."

Two girls came into the room. One was a large, heavy blonde girl with an easy, full-mouthed smile. The other was small and slender and dark, with a brooding, almost Arab face, set off by the heavy make-up and bright red lipstick.

"Here they are," the Madam said caressingly. "Here are the little cabbages." She patted the blonde approvingly, like a horsedealer. "This is Jeanette. Just the type, eh? I predict she will have a great vogue while the Germans are in Paris."

"I'll take that one." The Lieutenant stood up, very straight, and pointed to the girl who looked like an Arab. She gave him a dark, professional smile and came over and took his arm.

Himmler had been looking at her with interest, too, but he resigned immediately to the privilege of rank, put his arm around the big blonde, and went off with her saying, in his ferocious French, "Cherie, I love your gown…"

The Madam made her excuses and left, after putting out another bottle of champagne. Christian and Brandt sat alone in the orange-lit Moorish bar, staring silently at the frosted bottle in the ice bucket.