“Watch him.” The female soldier standing beside his window walked off and another took her place.
Two soldiers ran after the men on the other side of the clearing. A scuffle broke out and several individuals raised their voices to protest. After a few seconds passed, all the guards charged with babysitting Petain drifted over toward the fight to assist.
Petain opened the car door nearest the woods. No one seemed to notice. He climbed out of the car, inched around the door, and backed toward the woods.
“Petain!” a woman said.
“It has been a delight, but I must be going,” he said as he turned and ran.
“Stop the captain!” another woman said, her voice deeper than the first.
“Irene, stay with the trucks,” one of the soldiers said.
“He went this way. Use the NVGs.”
Petain knew better than to take off at a full run in the woods at night. Trees, rocks, thick brush, and uneven ground would defeat him if he moved too fast. So he turned to the left and tried to head back toward the main road, which he hoped would take him toward the border.
The armed women near the trucks refocused on Petain. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
He kept moving, his stride minimal to avoid any misstep. Debris cracked beneath his feet calling out his location to those following him, but he refused to stop moving.
At last he stepped out onto the road leading to the town and thence to the Swiss border beyond. An occasional flicker of light from the closest tower caught his attention. Someone lighting a match perhaps. What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette.
Behind him, a voice called out. “Captain Petain, stop!”
“I think I’ve had enough of this game,” he said. “I’ll take my chances with the border guards.”
“Stop or I’ll fire,” the woman said.
“I don’t think you will,” he said. “If you fire your weapon, the men up in that tower will see the muzzle flash. Then your precious Jews back there will be prisoners once more.”
Petain picked up his pace. The sooner he made it to the border, the better.
The woman didn’t fire. For a moment, he thought he imagined her. Then, he heard her running toward him. Petain waited to turn and grab her when she got close.
Petain bear hugged her and swung her around his body. He swept her legs out from under her and let her fall to the ground. She tried to roll away, but he fell down on his knees on top of her back, straddling her at the waist. He pressed her face down into the ground. She squirmed and kicked.
“I told you I didn’t want to play.”
She grunted beneath him.
“I’m going to do you a favor, right here, right now Madam. I’m going to put you out of your misery. All of your friends back there, all of those people you believe you’ve saved, are all going to die. But you, you don’t need to see it. You’re a fighter. I like that. So, I’m going to do this for you.”
“Bastard,” she said. At least, that’s what Petain heard.
He grabbed the woman by the hair on the back of her head and slammed her face into the ground. After the second time, she stopped moving. Petain got up and ran into the night.
55
0125 hours, Tuesday, August 18, 1942, Les Alliés, Doubs Department, Occupied France
Hiram circled the empty Citroën. “Where’s Petain?”
“Disparu,” Danette said, morosely.
Deborah said, “She says he escaped.” She looked at him but said nothing. Without Petain, their chances to get everyone into Switzerland lessened.
Danette continued, her words flying out fast. Deborah translated, no doubt condensing the story. “She was distracted when three of the prisoners decided to make a break for the border on their own. They realized Petain was gone and Isabelle went after him. He roughed her up, knocked her out. Danette and Irene stopped to help her. They lost track of Petain. Denise found a doctor among the prisoners. He’s with her now.”
“Petain could raise an alarm. We need to get everyone out of here,” Charlotte said.
“Not yet. No need to incite panic. Which way did the captain go?” Hiram asked.
“She thinks he’s headed toward the town,” Deborah said after consulting with Danette in French.
“Probably heading for the border,” Hiram said. “He has as much reason to get out of France as we do now, but we don’t need him alerting anyone that we’re not far behind. We’ll find him. I put a tracker on him when I first captured him. Get someone to watch his movement. Worst case, someone does notice him. He’s not in uniform and I’m holding his papers. He’s going to have a hell of time getting someone to believe him. Don’t worry about Petain for now.”
Hiram turned to his two drone operators. “Charlotte, Simone, what did you find?”
Charlotte nodded and positioned her C2ID2 display so Hiram and the team leaders could see. Deborah translated. “The ravine appears to be the straightest shot to the border. With two checkpoints at the ends of this ravine, both manned by French soldiers and the machine gun nests here, here, and here, I think we need to find a better route” She handed the display over to Simone.
“The border is about one hundred meters beyond the top of this slope. It’s a double barbed wire fence, three meters tall and topped with concertina wire. French soldiers patrol the northwestern side on foot, Swiss soldiers on the southeastern. A patrol road runs along our side of the fence, though I didn’t see any vehicles using it. A fixed tower is positioned every hundred meters. Every fifth tower has a machine gun. Soldiers with rifles in the rest.” Simone pointed out the towers with the heavy firepower. “I saw a few small warming huts in between, but no one’s using them this time of year.”
Hiram ran through Simone’s assessment in his head, trying to find the best option for his soldiers and the truckloads of refugees. He zoomed out and searched for anything Simone might have missed. “What about this structure here?” He pointed to a building about six kilometers northwest of where the ravine exited the woods.
“Swiss barracks,” she said.
“So, no nearby reserves,” Hiram said.
Simone shook her head.
Hiram turned to face Deborah and Danette. “I need an honest assessment of whether or not these people can make the hike to the base of the ridge, climb up to the top, and then walk another kilometer or so to safety on the other side.” Deborah translated for Danette.
The two women looked at each other. They exchanged a few words, their voices strained, angry.
“No,” Danette said, and she stepped in between Deborah and Hiram. She spoke fast and her hands flew up dramatizing her rant.
Deborah waited until she stopped speaking to translate. “She worries about them all. She doesn’t think we can get five hundred people up that ridge. Many of them are exhausted and weak. Some of the older individuals need assistance walking on a paved road.”
“What do you think?” Hiram said.
“If Petain’s no longer an option, then we need a Plan B?” Deborah said.
Simone spoke and Deborah translated. “What if we take out their communications? Jam their radios?”
“Might slow down the response from towers farther away. I assume they have field telephones at the checkpoints, machine gun nests, and guard towers. We’d have to take everything out at the same time,” Hiram said.
“There’s not enough of us,” Charlotte said.
After the desertion of Barbara and Maxime and the deaths of Nora and Catherine, seventeen soldiers remained, including himself and Trembley. Diane and Isabelle were in no state to fight. Rosette refused to leave her children.
“What about them?” Deborah pointed to their intended refugees, some now milling about around the trucks.