Beyond Revanche, page 30
They thought the Tiger might have the guts to see justice done. The former Flying Squad men always referred to their founder, Clemenceau with what they would call reverence, but never, of course in his hearing. “He never liked Jean Jaurès, but he is a man to be trusted in the fight against the criminal fraternity…in all of its shapes and sizes.”
“And he will do the right thing when the time comes. Trust him.”
“It’s not the Tiger I distrust, it’s the law.”
The Chief exhaled his Gauloises through his nose and grunted. With Mathieu, he was able to tell it as it was, especially when the news was bad.
“We have a couple of problems on the horizon. Literally. Despite all I’ve done to keep him, Pascal has resigned. He stood down on Friday. Exhausted. He heard the news I’m about to tell to you and simply said, ‘I’m leaving today. There’s no more I can do. I’m too old. I’ll do what I can for my neighbors and friends, but that’s it. I’m finished.’ He walked through that door without so much as a goodbye. After all these years.”
“I wouldn’t take it personally, Chief. Pascal has been running on empty since the war started.” Mathieu knew they would both miss their friend. But it was the war, you see. “What else?”
“The Germans are planning a two pronged attack on the Capital. They’ve built squadrons of new bombers and we will have to deal with the fallout, literally. Military Intelligence, now confirmed by the Americans, claims that they have built a massive assault gun at Krupp’s factory which can hit major targets from one hundred and twenty kilometers out.”
“What? Impossible. That’s sheer propaganda. It’s nonsense.”
“It’s a fact.” The matter was finished.
“And who will replace Pascal?”
“You, of course, Captain.” He shook his prodigy firmly by the hand and Mathieu drew his six foot frame to attention to salute his chief. “Paul’s too old. Wouldn’t take the job.”
“Does everyone know that Pascal has retired?”
“No. I’ll let you tell the rest of the team. I’m also promoting Jacques to full lieutenant. It makes sense.”
* * *
One month later hell descended from the heavens and Paris had no defense. Mathieu was working late at number 36 because Agnès was busy at the hospital and he had yet to master the range of duties which he was expected to cover. A shiver of fear ran down his spine when air raid sirens pierced the sleeping city and heralded the first wave of airborne attacks shortly before midnight. Up on the rooftops newly trained officers, some police, some army, unleashed the high-pitched scream from warning klaxons, but one followed the other without coordination or meaning. Below, citizens suffered the bewilderment of blind panic in dark streets and friendless neighborhoods. Where should they go? Where was safe? Four squadrons of German Gotha bombers, newly designed biplanes with a range of more than eight hundred kilometers, lumbered across the black sky. They were slow and cumbersome, but could not be seen in the late January night. No moon. No respite.
Mathieu covered the one hundred and forty-one wooden stairs from his office to the roof of 36 Quai des Orfevres at double time, testing both ankle and leg against the uneven worn floor. He quickly negotiated the tiny passage between offices crammed under the skylights, where windows filled with disordered files were harvesting generations of dust and cigarette ash, coffee stains, and the residue of stale croissant flakes and out onto the icy rooftop where two others were already pointing towards the north west of the city.
“Can you see them?” he shouted into the wind, but one of the gendarmes shook his head without turning back.
“Occasional flashes but not much else.”
The Gotha engines grumbled towards them, growling from above like wild beasts foraging for their prey. An explosion much closer to the center caught them by surprise. Mathieu felt the force of the blast throw him to the side and learned that no matter how brave you might think it, standing unprotected when bombs were falling was stupid. All three climbed back into the building and headed for the ground floor, taking cover under a stout stairwell.
The first weak shaft of morning revealed the consequent damage. Across the river a house hung open, roof gaping, dust settling. The smell of fear became synonymous with the smell of the broken sewers. Scores of the living tried to reach out to the newly dead, crushed under the weight of vengeance from the angry skies. To the unarmed citizen, mainly the elderly and women with children, this was incomprehensible. Death in the midst of life is cruel; when life has hardly begun, it is sickening.
Those who could, screamed for help. An old woman, dazed and bleeding from her open skull, sat sobbing, “Christophe, Christophe, Christophe…” but no one answered. Her dress in tatters, her stockings shredded, she sat there on the broken rubble till dawn lit her death like a theatre spotlight slowly finding focus. Her blood had dried, coated in fine grey powder. She might once have been a cherub but she died petrified in dust, statuesque, noble but alone.
Chief Superintendent Roux held a mid-morning emergency meeting of all his specialist teams at 36.
“Captain Bertrand I need you to take over security around the prime minister. For as long as Clemenceau breathes, there will be no surrender, but we must keep a close watch on activists and these new Bolsheviks who are stirring trouble amongst the workers. We need the names of known agitators and we have to close down all talk of surrender or defeat.”
“Or peace?” Dubois asked. The room fell quiet. Was talk of peace to become a crime against the state? Paul Dubois had not intended this hiatus, but where was the line to be drawn?
The chief solved the dilemma by asking for common sense at all times. “If activists are using promises of peace to undermine production or start a riot or convince soldiers on leave not to return to their posts, arrest them. In fact, arrest them anyway and we can let the courts decide whether it was lawful or otherwise.”
Mathieu had found real comfort and companionship with Agnès, whose wisdom he greatly appreciated. He dared not call it love. He had not intended to move into her apartment, but it suited both of them to spend what little time they had, together. In bed, with the occasional moonlight washing her upper floor window, Agnès took care not to mention his past. She had seen men in every degree of distress try to cope with their fears. Those closest to death were often beset by their inner-torments as a last minute penance for a tortured conscience. She let him tell his tale in segments as he chose. Agnès had no need to know. Life was too precious and too short. She rarely shared her fears, either; what she had seen, what men did to men in the pursuit of some imagined victory. While vigilance, endless vigilance, was his stock-in-trade, her tireless work with the wounded and the dying gave her a greater appreciation both of what they had together and the possibility that it could end in the pulse of war. She liked to walk with him at night when the moon was high and the sky cloudless under the same stars which had blinked down on earth since the creation. Agnès didn’t care if the creation was by dint of physics or by an act of God. The sky at night remained a wonder.
“Do you think anyone out there knows we are here, tearing ourselves apart for reasons we have already forgotten?” she mused. They sat huddled together on a park bench near Eiffel’s tower, in love but afraid to say so, lest the fates heard and destroyed their chance of surviving together. It must end soon, they told themselves. The world is exhausted.
Raoul’s Story
Fear and Hope
Iwas very scared. Sirens first, then rumblings in the distance rolled into the city. The waves reminded me of that crushing sound when a storm takes hold. I will never forget the first time my cell shook violently without warning. Bombs. The Germans were bombing us. Bombing the city. What bastards. Obviously they didn’t care what or who they hit, but the irony of being killed by a German bomb while my wonderful brother pisses about in the sky, made me shudder. Why weren’t the famous espadrilles about which the newspapers write endless praise, up there, protecting Paris? This was the worst part of being locked in. There’s nowhere else to go. My cell on the ground floor made secret visits easier, but you might think that the wardens would take us all down to the underground cells for our protection. It’s not as if anyone would try to escape. Not during an air raid, anyway. Huh, they’re probably down there now, looking after themselves.
These fucking heartless Boches. They’d do anything to win this war. Nothing is sacred to them. First they burn the great churches and libraries of Europe, then they commit all kinds of atrocities against Belgian civilians and unarmed soldiers. Their submarine attacks on allied shipping has backfired, though. What joy. It spurred the Americans to declare war. It was only a matter of time…assuming that we had time.
Looking back last year was disappointing. Sometimes I wonder just how poor our Allied Generals are? The Englishman Haig was unmoved by the loss of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. He at least has back-bone born of privileged schooling, no doubt. The Italians have been sent packing. The Bolsheviks have seized power in Russia and rumors are rife that the bastard Joseph Caillaux has been secretly trying to find ways of making peace with Germany. Incredible. After the slaughter of millions how he could dare trade their gallant sacrifice for a so-called peace?
Each great new offensive ended in disaster dressed up as another “no gain.” But let me tell you, my friend, I never doubted the wisdom of my action. Imagine where we would be had Herr Jaurès been allowed to live? Think how he and his German accomplices would have stirred the workers to lay down their arms. Instead they wander around headless, like ghosts from the guillotine, holding rabble-rousing meetings in the suburbs, producing shabby leaflets and feeding soldiers on leave fresh Bolshevik propaganda. But they have no commanding voice. No hero to rally round. Thanks to me. Yet there is promise of better to come. From the deepest recess in the darkest hour we have had the courage to turn to a politician who will steady those who might waver; a politician worthy of La France.
You probably will not have heard of George Clemenceau, my friend. He is a politician who also owns newspapers. Clemenceau understands. Right from the start he criticized the weakness in our government. They censored his paper, so he changed its name and kept going. They tried to seduce him with the offer of a ministry. He snubbed them. You see, on one vital point he is utterly inflexible. Like me, like all of us in Action française, he is a patriot who will not rest until Alsace and Lorraine are returned to their motherland. How they hated him at first, the government. His journal, La Libertie, created a slogan they repeated day after day. It simply said, “Gentlemen, the Germans are still in Noyons.” It’s up in the northwest, you see. Occupied. In other words, until Noyons is free, France will never stop fighting. Brilliant. Isn’t it? It’s like the Roman orator Cato the Elder, who ended every speech with the words “Delenda est Carthago” or Carthage had to be destroyed, until Carthage was razed to the ground. It’s Latin, you see. I had the benefit of a Jesuit education.
I take it you’ve never met a Jesuit, my friend? Leave it that way. He’d break your back if he thought it would convert you. There is one concern, though. It was Clemenceau who created the mobile police, Les Tigres. That was his nickname, you see. Tiger Clemenceau. The mobile force was named after him. They were the ones who arrested me and tricked me all those years ago, after I had blown Jaurès’ head from his shoulders. My lawyers have warned me so many times to say nothing to them or allow them to interview me unless they are present. Apparently, every six months these bastards object to the extension of my trial date and the judge ignores them. Will Clemenceau support them? Surely not. He hates all the left-wing activists. They hate him, too. Best the Tigers concentrate on keeping him safe.
But the sirens? I hated the whining. More frightening than the bombs, until they start to get too close. Fear ruled the streets, while above, unseen bombers ploughed death from the night sky. You could sense the panic outside and in. No one was safe. Death dropped from the heavens through the clouds and exploded mercilessly on boulevard or backstreet, on grand villa or crowded slum. No one was safe, even those who had taken shelter. They started on the outskirts of the city because the barrage began some time before the explosions could be heard. As the noises came closer, booming, crashing, shaking the building, the walls shivered with fright, the dust of a cruel century disturbed from its settled slumber. I tried to anticipate the line of attack by the noise outside and crouched in the corner beside the rats. Rats. Where do they come from?
“Jesus Christ let me out of this hell.”
If you have heard stories of captives befriending vermin locked in with them, you didn’t hear it from me. Light flashed from the street, followed by an explosive blast which tore the heart from the house across the road. Bricks smashed against the prison wall, thrown violently into a whirlwind of destruction. Within seconds a fire erupted from the severed gas main. We were all going to be burned to death.
“Help! Fire! Fire! I thumped the cell door. Others followed until the landing was alight with terror. “Let us out. We’ll burn to death, you bastards!” Though I know it’s nonsense, I convinced myself that death had knocked on our prison door and was waiting to be let in. Truth and logic melted in the heat of the air-raid and give vent to irrational behavior.
“It’s ten times more dangerous outside, you ignorant peasants. Calm yourselves. You’re safer inside,” one of the warders screamed back from the far end of the corridor.
“Let me out, let me out.”
But they didn’t.
29
March 1918 – The Death of Innocence
Paris was once more at the mercy of the skies. The powerful Gotha bombers brought nightly terror in March. People needed reassurance. Roux’s command was straightforward. “Get out there and manage the mayhem as best you can.”
Mathieu and Jacques went to the19th Arrondissement because it had been hit several times as the blind bombers felt for the major Parisian railway stations beneath. Within thirty seconds of emerging from the metro, the streets were shaken by air-raid sirens. A throng emerged from the surrounding streets seeking safety where it could be found. Ahead, the entrance to a church crypt was quickly overwhelmed by desperate citizens and the great medieval doors to Christian charity closed abruptly.
“Full up. Use the cellars under the church of St Alphonse,” a warden advised, pointing to the far corner of the square but the crowds pressed forward relentlessly.
Fights broke out. Innocents were injured. Few cared. “There are twice as many people inside than there should be already,” Jacques pleaded.
“The sign says it’s a shelter.” A mother pointed urgently to the enormous banner above the door, barely able to control her anger.
“Use the metro,” was the given advice.
Mathieu stood at the top of the steep entrance to the Bolivar metro, one of the city’s safest and most cavernous stations, directing the crowd. “Take care, the steps are steep. Take your time, please.” Reason was a breath wasted. Bolivar on Line 7 dived under the towering Maison Usse which lay between Rues Secrétan and Bolivar, a magnificent homage to the Third Republic. The classy bar-café with adverts for Biere De Maxeville and Tabac draped from the railings on the first floor, was a popular haunt for the local bourgeoisies. Six stories of expensive apartments layered above like a Japanese watchtower. A hand-painted banner proclaimed that the station below-ground was open to all. But the Gothas were upon them and bombs started to explode nearby.
Jacques, standing on the first landing, insisted that prams should be left behind. “No exceptions. People only. Carry the child, for god’s sake, woman.”
“It’s alright for you, standing there giving directions. Help me,” she pleaded.
He deserved the blistering scorn for the woman was terrified, but worse, she realized that she had lost control of her brood. “Justine.” Her command turned to a scream. “Justine?” “Justine, WAIT!” Suddenly her feet gave way. Like dozens of others, she had not registered Mathieu’s warning that the steps to the metro line were exceptionally steep. In the bare half-light of the weak electric lamps, both Jacques and Mathieu saw her disappear under the crush of human desperation.
She tried to catch her balance and hold onto her baby, her other children somewhere ahead. Strangers rushed past, ignoring her plight, motivated by that most friendless of instincts, self-preservation. The noise ahead was deafening. Cries of fright turned to screams of panic and torture. Behind the policemen, others continued to charge down in a rush to find safety. But they could no longer move freely. Something was very wrong. They were trapped.
“Back,” an older woman shouted to no one in particular. “We have to go back!”
But reversing against the flow of desperate people, each believing that their survival depended on getting down the stairs safely, was impossible. “The gates, the gates…”
Screams of fear turned to screams of anger. “Back, back off…the gates.”
The crush continued to force everyone forward. Mathieu and Jacques were caught in a human whirlpool, sucked downward yet physically unable to move. The electric light flickered as the bombs above struck close to the entrance, then failed, and darkness swallowed them all. They suffered the terror of entombment. Incomprehensibly, the log-jam broke and the iron platform gates below gave way from the center letting a wave of bruised humanity spew onto the platform. People continued to pour forward and fall. Even Mathieu failed to piece together the hell they had entered.
“Who were those idiots lying at the bottom of the stairs? What am I standing on? Get up you fool!” Though the station itself was modestly lit by older gas lamps, no one could change direction, stop for courtesy or make an allowance for a fallen citizen. The mother Jacques had ordered to hold her baby in her arms, lay close to the iron gates, crumpled like a discarded doll condemned to the rubbish heap. Her right arm clung to the wrought iron as if to claim sanctuary. There was none. Metro workers appeared from the opposite platform, yelling and waving.
