Soldiers of ’44

Chapter Nineteen

December 21, 1944. Mont Reynard-Castle Rêve. Thursday, 2100 Hours.

“My shop’s in a street called Rue de Bas,” Henri Gervais said, examining a case of brandied cherries, the necks of the bottles gleaming with silver foil. “I haven’t seen this item since ’itler turned off the bloody lights in Paris. It’s right opposite the railway station, Yank, a bar and ’orehouse beside a packing plant.”

Larkin and Bonnard and the black-market dealer stood in the storeroom of Castle Rêve, Bonnard holding a lamp above his head, the light flaring across shelves stocked with foodstuffs and spirits. Gervais made an inventory on a note pad, occasionally stopping to admire the delicacies. He was small and compactly built, probably in his mid-forties, Larkin thought, wearing a black overcoat and a black fedora decorated with a spray of Alpine feathers. A smile flickered constantly below his narrow dark mustache.

Bonnard had explained that Gervais traveled with two sets of papers, one identifying him as a civilian employee of the German Army, the other as a technician assigned to a U.S. Army hospital unit. Gervais had come over from Liège on an ancient motorcycle, a thirty-odd-mile trip that took him more than four hours because, as he’d told them in his accented English, many stretches of road were under artillery fire.

Larkin tried to push away a morose conviction that he was getting in too deep, that his Irish ass would indeed be in a sling if Docker found out what he was up to. But he was as worried about this alley-smart Belgian prick as he was about his sergeant. He knew Gervais was out to shaft him, yet he still felt a need to please the man and earn his approval. And that confused and embittered him because in the cold storeroom surrounded by cases of foodstuffs whose names he couldn’t even pronounce, Larkin had gained an unwanted insight into the nature of class warfare, which wasn’t a war, he realized, wasn’t even a goddamn armistice, just a plain fucking surrender before a shot was fired by some slob scratching his poor man’s ass and hoping for a break from the shitty Gervaises of the world... He twisted the top off a bottle of Cutty Sark, and took a short pull from it, then said, “I haven’t heard any goddamn talk about money yet.”

“Wouldn’t be fair now, would it? I ask you, would it be fair, Yank, before I get the count on all these lovelies you’re selling?”

“Well, let’s snap a little shit.”

“Ah, there’s the soldier talking.” Gervais gave him an approving smile. “No wonder ’itler’s on the run with blokes like you nipping at his bloody heels.”

Larkin felt better then, warmed as much by Gervais’ conciliatory response as by the heat of the whiskey spreading through his body...

Bonnard went into the kitchens adjoining the storeroom to boil water for powdered coffee, and Gervais spent the next thirty minutes making a list of the merchandise. Then, after nodding thoughtfully at the totals, he squinted through cigarette smoke at Larkin.

“I might have missed the odd tin or two, but that could be in your favor as well as mine. Anyway, it’s the brandy and whiskey brings us home and dry.”

“Sure, in Paris a bottle of whiskey goes for thirty or forty dollars,” Larkin said.

“But we’re a long way from the Tour Eiffel and Pig Alley, aren’t we, Yank?” Gervais rubbed his fingertips together. “Payoffs every foot of the way. So, for the brandy and whiskey, for everything in the lot, I make it six thousand dollars. And that’s a fair price, take my word for it.”

“Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut?”

“I get your drift. Yes, I do, Yank. Shall we put it up to Bonnard?”

“No, I’m running this show.”

“But if the Heinies come back, who’ll be running it then? Dicey business, eh, Yank? I mean, who really owns this loot now? So I’ll tell you what. I’ll add a hundred to each of the three shares, makin’ it sixty-three hundred for the lot. Nothing could be fairer, Yank.”

It was probably a royal screwing, Larkin thought, but he said, “Then it’s half down now and half on delivery.”

“Sorry, Yank, I pay only on delivery. There’s a war on, don’t you see...”

“Yeah, that slipped my mind. But not a thing goes off my truck until I got my share of that cash in my hand, every fucking simoleon of it.”

Bonnard pulled open the door connecting to the kitchen, and Larkin immediately noted the tension in his face. “There’s a truck and jeep pulling up the drive, it’s your people, the sergeant and the big corporal—”

“Anybody with them?”

“I couldn’t see anyone.”

Larkin had known something like this would happen, a banana peel waiting for him to take a pratfall on. “You guys stay down here,” he said, and stuffed the bottle of Cutty Sark into his overcoat pocket. “Turn off the lamp and lock the door when I leave.” He ran through the kitchen and up the stairs to the big drawing room, and by the time he’d crossed the foyer and pulled open the doors facing the driveway and park Docker was climbing from the jeep, a small, dark-haired girl in his arms.

“What the hell’s going on?” Larkin asked him.

Trankic stood beside the truck, a hand on the open door. Docker put the child in the cab, tucked a blanket around her knees, then crossed the driveway to Larkin.

“Schmitzer told me you were up here,” he said.

“Yeah, I took a break to pick up a jug.” Larkin pulled the bottle of Cutty Sark from his pocket. “You want a belt?”

“Put it away. Matt.”

“What the fuck’s eating you?”

“Trankic and the Belgian, Jocko, picked up a report on the Lepont transmitter. There’s a German tank and recon car headed this way. It was spotted near Stavelot a couple of hours ago. The little girl is Jewish. The schoolteacher told us there’s a convent outside Lepont, the Sacred Heart, where she’ll be all right. I can’t spare the jeep. I need the radio at the guns.”

“Which leaves me and the truck and the Jewish kid, is that the deal?”

“It’s not an order, Matt.”

Larkin sipped the cold whiskey. “But you’re sure as hell asking for volunteers.”

“Right. You’re the best wheel man in the section, if you’d put that bottle down.”

“Jesus, you don’t have to lie to me, Bull... Women and children first, right?”

“Yes or no,” Docker said.

It would be yes, of course, Larkin thought. Had to be. But wasn’t this just what he wanted? A truck, handed to him like a gift from heaven? With Bonnard’s help, he could load up, drop the Jewish kid wherever he was supposed to, then head for Gervais’ warehouse in Liège. It was like fate or something, and he was just one little cog being pushed around by whatever you wanted to call it, the stars or just dumb luck. So why not grab it and thank God for it? But he couldn’t take it like that, because he knew there had to be a catch in the deal somewhere, an ace up somebody’s sleeve; he’d been a loser so long he didn’t believe that things would ever fall in place for him... So this had to be just another little joke. Docker was offering him everything he’d wanted on a silver platter, a stake for the future, an opportunity to walk the streets of his old neighborhood without forever scratching a poor man’s ass. But Docker had added a catch to the deal, maybe without even knowing it, but it was there, a price tag that somehow would break him... Docker and Trankic, he noted, were clean-shaven in spite of the freezing weather, first-class field soldiers, helmet straps tight under their jaws, cartridge belts with grenades hooked to the webbing, rifles slung across their shoulders. They were soldiers with jobs to do and he wanted to be with them on the hill with the guns. That was the price he would pay for being a thief, the certain knowledge that he wasn’t good enough to be there with them... Docker had picked the most useless man in his section to chauffeur this Jewish kid to some godforsaken convent. And it wouldn’t have taken him longer than a finger-snap to make that decision. Linari and Dormund, dumb shits with IQs that wouldn’t break a hundred put together, they couldn’t be spared. Or Shorty Kohler, or Tex Farrel, or Solvis. Christ, no. And don’t even think about Schmitzer or Trankic. So naturally, that left Larkin. And could you blame Docker? Larkin with the drunken uncles, the cough of a boozer, the week-old beard and a bottle of whiskey in the pocket of a dirty overcoat. Would you pick him for a soldier’s job that took brains and guts? Or put him in the lifeboat with the women and kids?

“All right, Bull,” he said. “All right.”

“Okay, go down the hill to Lepont, make a right at the river and head out about nine miles. Look for gray stone walls, an iron gate on the right side of the road past a pair of oak trees. It’s the Sacred Heart Convent, Sacré-Coeur. The mother superior is Sister Gabrielle. You got that now?”

“For Christ’s sake, you think I’m some kind of dummy? What’s the kid’s name?”

“Margret. She’s the little girl we met the night we were heading for Werpen.”

“With the old guy we bought vegetables from?” And when Docker nodded, Larkin went on quickly, “Sure, I remember... he wanted Belgian francs, he didn’t want the Invasion currency, and he had some carrots and beets and I was thinking about making some kind of sauce if I could find some fresh eggs. And the same night...”

Larkin’s voice trailed off, and he realized he’d hardly been aware of what he was saying, but like a child trying desperately to keep an adult’s attention he had been talking because he didn’t want Docker to go, or Trankic either, didn’t want them to leave him alone here at the castle in the snow and dark.

“You guys better take off,” he said.

Trankic tossed him the truck keys. “Take care of yourself.”

They climbed into the jeep. Docker looked at him. “Be careful. Matt,” he said.

Larkin laughed. “Sure, I’ll be careful. I want to get home as much as the next guy. In fact...” He started to laugh again. “... maybe a little more than the next guy. Bull.”

Docker nodded. “Sure you do, Matt.”

When the jeep turned out of the driveway and started down the road to the gatehouse, Larkin said a Hail Mary for all of them, for himself and the soldiers on the guns and the little girl he could see staring at him from the cab of the truck, but he couldn’t hear the words because they were blown away by the winds coming across the wide gardens of the castle.