Bright morning sunshine filled the car. Petain blinked a few times until he made out the form of a soldier in a camouflage uniform standing outside the door. A female soldier. One of the escaped prisoners from Rivesaltes? She stared up at the chained prisoners, bewilderment plastered on her face. One of his men shot her in the face.
Gunfire erupted up and down the line as the men in the trailing cattle cars slid open their doors and joined the fight. The attackers tried not to hit the prisoners, returning sporadic fire from weapons that made no sound. From inside the box car, Petain made out at least four soldiers gunned down in the ditch between the tracks and the wood line. He jumped backward when a bullet cracked into the side of the car sending a quick spray of splinters centimeters from his right ear.
Gunfire tapered, then ceased. Unwilling to risk hitting prisoners, the women backed out of view, leaving Petain’s men without suitable targets.
“Surrender,” Petain shouted from behind his human shield. “You have one minute.” He grabbed a young girl with dark, matted curls and pushed her between two of the adults, their chains rubbing as they adjusted. She clung to the man on the left. Petain positioned himself behind the other man and pressed his pistol to the back of the girl’s head. “Or we’ll kill your children.” Turning his head and speaking in a lower voice, he said to those in the car, “and if any of you try to interfere, I’ll kill them all anyway.”
A minute later he repeated the threat, irritated the soldier and his dogs didn’t bite. He waited another minute, then pulled the trigger. A spatter of blood fell upon his bare hand. The high-pitched screams of the children behind him made more noise than the fusillade of bullets that poured through the cattle car door. He backed away from the opening. Two Jews sagged in their chains, but the shield did not fall. Petain replaced the dead little girl with another one and waited. This time a scream came from outside the boxcar, beyond the tree line.
“D'accord! Nous nous rendons!” All right! We surrender! An unarmed man walked out of the woods, hands held high. “Nous nous rendons.” He stopped about ten meters from the tracks. Six female soldiers followed him out of the woods, one wounded and supported by two others.
“I count seven out there. Four more over here. Where are the rest of my prisoners?” Petain shouted.
“Not here,” the man replied. A flicker of movement in the woods caught Petain’s eye.
“Tell your accomplice skulking in the shadows that I’m a hell of shot.”
“He’s not one of ours,” the man said.
Petain fired off three quick rounds in that direction, though he doubted he hit the target. He waited a few seconds, not taking his eyes off the woods. Nothing moved except the mysterious man, six Jewish escapees, and the trembling little girl still clutched in his hand.
He pulled the girl back into the car and pushed her over to the others. “Seize them,” he said. “Search the area for any others. Send a few out that way.” His men wriggled though the human chain and jumped down from the boxcars.
A group of his men met the prisoners, searching each one for weapons. The others fanned out. Some headed toward the brush at the edge of the forest. A few walked the length of the train. Petain waited in the cattle car.
“All clear, sir,” his second in command, Sergeant Dubois, shouted. “Three burned up sidecar motorcycles over there in the brush, but no one else.”
More soldiers hid out there, he was sure. For now, he had what he wanted. Best to move on. “What about the rest of the train?” Petain slipped between the chained prisoners and jumped to the ground. He headed toward the locomotive. Black smoke billowed from something burning on the tracks in front of the train.
Dubois chose to explore the passenger car. Before Petain caught up, his second jumped out of the car. “Riddled with bullets, sir. All dead inside.”
Petain moved forward and found the engineer slouched in the space between the locomotive and the coal tender, the front of his uniform dark and wet. His assistant’s arm hung limp from the window. Two unfortunate losses. “Find me someone who can operate this train,” Petain told Dubois.
Dubois nodded and trotted off toward the men grouped near the second boxcar.
Petain walked farther up the tracks. A truck burned astride them. Lazy, black smoke drifted up from the blackened engine. In between the truck and train, a missing section of rails and ties left recesses in the ballast where the tracks began to curve.
He was disappointed with the troublesome soldier. Had he taken the truck out of his equation, the train would have derailed.
He considered sending his men to search for the rails. Even if they found them, no one on his team had been trained to place them. They would all have to go northeast, back the way they had come, to wait for the completion of the repair.
“Move all the surviving prisoners to the second cattle car. Throw anything dead or close to it in the first cattle car, along with the motorcycles. Strip the women of their equipment and put them in the cattle car with the other prisoners where they belong,” Petain said.
Dubois nodded and directed his men.
“What about this one?” Barre asked with his sidearm pointed at the kneeling soldier’s head.
Petain approached the man. “Quite a headache you and your dogs have caused.”
The man offered no response, his eyes sweeping the scene.
He doesn’t look at his women, does not pay any mind to the squeals of the children as they are pushed along toward their new cage. For a moment, Petain thought he looked like a man playing chess. Evaluating, calculating, preparing for the move to make next. Perhaps preparing for the tenth one down the line.
“He’ll be riding in the passenger coach with me.” Petain said. No need to risk any unforeseen situations that might arise if left in anyone else’s care. “The weapons too. And bring me anything interesting you find on the women.”
Within a few minutes, the men had relocated all the prisoners, both dead and alive. The troublesome man, now bound inside the passenger car, waited for interrogation. Petain climbed into the car, where Dubois and one of his men sat inside, weapons trained on the prisoner seated toward the middle of the car. A mix of blood and brain matter speckled the wall behind their captive. Petain took a seat across from him.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve done with the escaped prisoners?”
The man said nothing, but at least now he met Petain’s eyes.
“Fine. How about your name?”
Still the man kept quiet.
Before he could ask again, the door at the back of the car opened. “Sorry to interrupt sir. Radio call,” the radio operator said. Blood spatter covered the young man’s face, dotted his civilian clothing. “It’s headquarters relaying a call from Lieutenant Lebeau.”
Petain took the microphone and stepped to the rear of the car still focused on the soldier. “Who is this?” he asked, signaling Dubois to continue the interrogation.
Dubois’ fist connected with the soldier’s stomach. Petain smiled.
“Miss Brodeur, sir. There’s no one else here. Lieutenant Lebeau said he needs to speak with you.”
“Out with it,” Petain said, his patience faltering. He was anxious to break this prisoner who had caused so much turbulence in his department. He needed it.
“He says Inspector Locard, the German officer, and another man got into Locard’s car and left Saint Chamond heading north about an hour ago,” Rubi Brodeur said, her voice tinny. “They pulled off the road outside Roanne. They seem to be arguing. Says this is the first chance he’s had to call in.”