Death Train Read online

  “Not too much,” Mahoney replied.

  “That’s good, because they want you at headquarters right away. Get going.”

  “What’s the hurry?” Mahoney asked thickly. “I’ve just ordered another bottle of wine. We can finish it off and then go back together.”

  “An important message has come to you from England. You have to go back right now. Captain Montegnac will be very mad if you don’t hurry.”

  Mahoney made an angry gesture with his hand. “Aw, shit.” He stood up and put on his beret.

  The waiter came out of the kitchen with the bottle of wine. “M’sieu, where are you going?”

  “My wife just fell down the well,” Mahoney told him. “I must be going.”

  “Ah M’sieu, I am so sorry to hear that,” the waiter said, genuinely aggrieved. “I will pray for her.”

  “Put the cork back in that bottle. I’ll be back for it one of these days.”

  “Yes, M’sieu.”

  Mahoney took the butt of his cigar out of the ashtray and lit it with a match. He missed his trusty old Zippo, but it would appear peculiar for a French peasant to be walking around with an American cigarette lighter. Sticking the cigar into the corner of his mouth, he followed Leduc out of the cafe.

  It still was pouring outside. Mahoney buttoned his black oilskin slicker tightly around his neck and got into the old Renault Leduc had arrived in. Leduc sat behind the wheel and pressed the button that sent the old engine grumbling to life. They drove off through the main street of the village, which also was the only street in the village. They passed the white houses and soon were in the countryside, but Mahoney couldn’t see much because of the rain.

  What the hell do they want from me this time? he wondered as he puffed his cigar.

  “Phew, that thing stinks,” Leduc said, fanning the air with one hand.

  “Fuck you,” Mahoney replied, scowling.

  “You’re in a pretty bad mood today, no?”

  Mahoney didn’t answer that one.

  “I guess you must feel pretty bad about Celestine.”

  “Shut up about Celestine,” Mahoney said.

  “I understand how you feel, Perroquet. I have been in love in my life too, you know.”

  Mahoney pulled his beret over his face and closed his eyes. He thought he’d take a little nap for a half hour, because that’s how long it would take to get to the camp at St. Pierre.

  Chapter Five

  The camp at St. Pierre was on the site of an old Carthusian monastery built in the fourteenth century and now abandoned for many years. It consisted of four crumbling stone buildings on the top of a mountain interlaced with caves. To reach the monastery you had to park your car at the foot of the mountain and ascend a narrow path that in certain spots was quite dangerous. The Germans didn’t know that a Resistance unit was sequestered in the monastery, and even if they did know they couldn’t do much about it. They couldn’t mount a ground attack against the building because a handful of Resistance fighters could hold off a German Army on the narrow ascending path forever, and bombing would do no good because the caves were deep under the rock surface of the mountain. A parachute drop wouldn’t work because there wasn’t a very large landing area on top of the mountain, and an artillery bombardment would be as ineffective as bombs dropped from an airplane.

  The only way for Germans to deal with the guerillas would be to surround the mountain and starve them out, but that would take a long time because food and ammunition had been squirreled away ever since the fall of France in 1940, and the tiny garrison there could hold out for years. But these measures hadn’t been necessary yet, because despite the vast number of collaborators in Normandy, the camp at St. Pierre was still unknown to all except certain members of the Resistance and those American Rangers parachuted into France to work with them.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon when the Renault came to a stop at the foot of the mountain where the monastery was. Leduc looked in his rear-view mirror to make sure no one had followed him, then turned off the road and drove into the woods, where no one could see the car. He shook the shoulder of Mahoney, who had been snoring loudly.

  Mahoney stiffened and opened his eyes, while reaching for the pistol concealed under his shirt. His big brown eyes saw Leduc, and instead of grabbing his pistol he took a fresh cigar out of his pocket, placing it between his lips. He lit the cigar and got out of the Renault, slamming the door behind him. Leduc locked the Renault and ran to catch up with Mahoney, who already was on his way to the path that led to the monastery.

  The rain still was coming down in torrents, and Mahoney’s feet still hadn’t dried out completely since his trek down the path in the morning. As he ascended the path with Leduc, he wondered when the rain would stop. The constant rain and the death of Celestine were combining to make him more gloomy and irritable than he usually was. He wanted to see the sun again, and wondered how long it would be before he could sleep with another woman. Maybe another few days for both the rain and his period of mourning, he figured.

  It took forty minutes of slogging through mud and stumbling over rocks to reach the top of the mountain. The old monastery was wreathed in rain and mist. Mahoney always felt strange about living in a monastery because he was a lapsed Catholic. He’d had sufficient Catholic training to feel guilty about having broken, at one time or another in his life, all of the commandments except the one that said to honor your father and mother, and the abandoned church was a constant reminder of his many spiritual transgressions. Sometimes at night when he’d drunk too much wine he’d see the old Carthusian monks wandering around the buildings and the grounds, their faces hidden by hoods and their arms folded like Chinamen with their hands tucked into voluminous sleeves. He imagined that the ghosts of those monks didn’t want him living there, either. Sometimes in the echoing chambers of the decrepit buildings he thought he heard the monks chanting their daily prayers, and it scared the shit out of him. Once he was about to fall to his knees on the stone floor to pray to God, but Celestine had happened along, and they smooched it up a little in a dark corner.

  Ah Celestine, Mahoney thought. They don’t make many like you, kid, and that’s a shame.

  Now Mahoney and Leduc entered the monastery and made their way through the damp corridors to the room that Captain Montegnac used as an office. It also was the room where radio communications were transmitted and received. Inside, they saw that Captain Montegnac wasn’t there, but old Topinard was sitting at the radio, listening through headphones to the crackling of the atmosphere.

  “Where’s Montegnac?” Leduc asked.

  “He went out to take a leak.”

  Mahoney puffed his cigar and sat on one of the old wooden chairs in front of Montegnac’s desk. He felt nauseous and sleepy. He could also use a meal—and had hoped to enjoy one in the little cafe—but now he’d have to settle for the standard beans and tinned meat ration served nearly every day at the monastery.

  Montegnac returned to the office, a tall lanky man wearing gray slacks and a brown sweater. He was thirty-five years old and had a black mustache resembling the one worn by Charles de Gaulle. His face was long and somber, and reminded Mahoney of a horse.

  “Ah, so here you are,” Montegnac snapped at Mahoney.

  “What’s the problem?” Mahoney asked.

  “There’s been a message for you from England.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Read it yourself.”

  Montegnac lifted a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to Mahoney. The message already had been decoded by Topinard and Mahoney was glad because he didn’t feel up to going through that shit just then. He squinted his eyes and puffed his cigar as he read the message. It was addressed to Parrot and was from SHAEF Headquarters, sent via OSS transmitters to St. Pierre. It ordered Parrot to destroy the railroad bridge between St. Lo and St. Jean-de-Daye by no later than 1800 hours tomorrow, which was June 4. He was to report the success of his mission immediately upon i
ts successful conclusion. That was all the message said.

  Mahoney scratched his nose and read the message again. He looked at his watch and noted that 1800 hours tomorrow was less than twenty-four hours away. He held the slip of paper out to Captain Montegnac. “You read this?”

  “Of course I read it.”

  “Do you know what bridge they’re talking about?”

  “Come here—I’ll show it to you.”

  Montegnac led Mahoney and Leduc to the large map he had on the wall. He pointed his finger to the bridge. “There it is.”

  Mahoney looked at the bridge and immediately saw its military significance. He looked at his watch again. “We don’t have much time.”

  “We would have had more time if you hadn’t been getting drunk in Aiglemont,” Montegnac said drily.

  Mahoney scratched his nose and looked at the map again. He thought Montegnac was a tight-assed chickenshit bastard, and someday when the war was over he was going to punch him right in the mouth.

  “How many of your men are you going to let me have?” Mahoney asked Montegnac.

  “How many do you need?”

  “As many as I can get.”

  “You mean if I had a thousand men here, you’d want them all?” Mahoney grinned. “Sure. The more the merrier, as they say in my country.”

  Montegnac frowned. He didn’t know why the Americans sent him this brute, instead of a professional soldier. Mahoney belonged in a prison, not an army, but of course Montegnac had to admit that Mahoney had successfully completed every mission he’d gone out on. Montegnac thought for a few seconds.

  “I can give you eight people, and with Cranepool and yourself, that makes ten,” Montegnac said. “That should be enough, don’t you think?”

  “If you can’t give me any more, I guess it’ll have to be enough. Does anybody know what this bridge looks like?”

  “I do,” Montegnac replied. “It’s a trestle bridge around two hundred meters wide built in a gorge around one hundred meters deep.”

  Mahoney closed his eyes and did the computations in his head. “I’ll need about ten crates of TNT,” he said.

  Montegnac raised his eyebrows. “Ten crates? Did you intend to blow up all of Normandy?”

  “No, just that bridge. I like to do a thorough job, Captain.” Mahoney winked fiendishly at him.

  “But we don’t have ten crates, Sergeant. We only have six crates, and I need two for another operation.”

  “What other operation?”

  “You don’t have to know.”

  “Why don’t I have to know?”

  “Because what you don’t know, can’t hurt me.”

  Mahoney wanted to grab Montegnac by the throat. Montegnac was an officer in the French regular army and he was a stickler for abiding by rules and regulations even when they made no sense. He was a graduate of St.-Cyr, the French version of America’s West Point.

  Mahoney calmed himself down, because he’d learned that Montegnac became more stubborn when faced with yelling and screaming, or the threat of physical violence.

  “I have a feeling,” Mahoney said softly, “that this bridge operation should take precedence over any other operation being mounted by this command. The message said urgent in case you didn’t notice. They wouldn’t have given me a deadline of 1800 hours tomorrow if it wasn’t urgent.”

  “My message was marked urgent also,” Montegnac replied.

  “But my message came after your message. In my book that means it supersedes your message.”

  Montegnac raised his chin in the air. “You’re entitled to your opinion, and I’m entitled to mine. But I’m afraid that my opinion will have to carry more weight than yours because I’m in command here.”

  Mahoney felt his self-control disintegrating. He pointed his big forefinger at Montegnac. “Someday I’m going to shoot you, you son-of-a-bitch!” he said through clenched teeth.

  Montegnac stiffened his spine and raised his chin higher in the air. “I ought to court-martial you, Mahoney. In fact, I should have court-martialed you long ago. You’re continually challenging my authority here, you drink too much, you quarrel with everybody, and you’re always bothering the women, many of whom are married. You may be a master sergeant in the American Army, but in the French Army you wouldn’t last a week.”

  Mahoney harumphed. “That’s interesting, because the French Army didn’t last a week against the German Army. And I think I also ought to mention that although other nations have signed armistices with the Germans, and some nations surrendered in the field, France is the only nation that has collaborated officially with the Nazis.”

  Montegnac turned red, and then it appeared as though he was turning a pale shade of green. “You’re dismissed, Sergeant Mahoney,” he said in a voice that he was struggling to maintain on an even pitch. “I’ll send the eight Frenchmen you need to help you on your mission to your quarters within a half hour. You may pick up your TNT at the supply room.”

  “I’ll need two vehicles,” Mahoney said.

  “Leduc will take care of that for you. Is there anything else, Sergeant?”

  Mahoney realized Montegnac was trying to put their relationship on a military footing, where he felt most comfortable and held the most rank. “No, sir,” Mahoney said.

  Mahoney saluted, and Montegnac saluted back in his funny French way. Mahoney did a smart about-face and marched out of Montegnac’s office. Leduc, who was not officially in anybody’s army, didn’t salute, preferring to wink goodbye to Montegnac and old Topinard, who was sitting with his mouth hanging open at the radio.

  Leduc followed Mahoney into the dark corridor. “You shouldn’t talk to him that way. You know how upset he gets.”

  “Fuck him,” replied Mahoney, lighting the cigar butt held in his teeth.

  “You could get more out of him if you were more conciliatory.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Mahoney said. He made a fist and held it in front of Leduc’s face. “This is the only thing people respect.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “Let me know what cars I can use, will you?”

  “Very well.”

  Mahoney watched Leduc walk the opposite way down the corridor. He liked Leduc and regretted the disparaging remarks he’d made about France and the French Army, but Montegnac’s phony artistocratic bullshit pissed him off. He figured Montegnac acted that way because he felt ashamed of France’s poor performance in the war so far, therefore compensating with an excess of staff officer foolishness, but unless French officers like Montegnac came back down to earth, the French Army never would amount to shit in this war.

  Mahoney walked to his room through the old stone corridors of the monastery. If his mother could see him now she’d be overjoyed to know he was in such a holy place. She might even be moved to say a few prayers. Wind whistled through the open windows of the monastery, and Mahoney thought he heard those monks chanting again. It was the weirdest thing, the way he kept hearing them. Nobody else ever mentioned it—could he be the only one? Those nuns at St. Catherine’s School on the East Side really must have warped his mind, if he was hearing monks who’d died hundreds of years ago.

  “Mahoney,” said a voice in the shadows.

  Mahoney jerked his head around and saw Odette standing in a doorway. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She was a busty blonde in her late twenties, a little on the heavy side. She had one of those French noses that made her look like a bird of some kind. “I was waiting to see you,” she said.

  “What about?”

  “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was to hear about Celestine. I know you cared for her very much. You must miss her quite a lot.”

  Mahoney looked down into her blue eyes. She had been one of Celestine’s closest friends, and yet she’d made love to Mahoney when Celestine wasn’t around. The men and women garrisoned at St. Pierre lived every day with the knowledge that they might be dead before sundown, and that tension made them do thin
gs that they ordinarily wouldn’t do in civilian life.

  “Yes, I miss her,” Mahoney said. “You must miss her, too.”

  “Oh, I do,” she said, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “We’ve known each other ever since we were little girls. We went to the same convent school together.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Mahoney, hugging him tightly and resting her cheek on his stomach. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, placing his big hands on her back.

  “But—you know—Celestine was alive this time yesterday. I had a talk with her about her aunt, who is sick. And now Celestine is dead. I can’t believe she’s dead.”

  Mahoney stroked her hair and tried to comfort her. “We’re all going to be dead someday,” he said. “Nobody gets out of this world alive. Celestine is lucky in a way. She doesn’t have to put up with this goddamned war anymore, but we do. If there’s really a heaven, Celestine is in it. She was a good person, maybe an angel even. May her soul rest in peace.”

  Odette began to sob. “I feel so guilty,” she murmured.

  “About what?”

  “About you and me.”

  “What about you and me?”

  “You know.”

  “You mean the times . . .?”

  “Yes.”

  Mahoney shrugged. “Well, Celestine and I weren’t married or anything like that. You shouldn’t feel too guilty about it.”

  “But Celestine was my best friend, and you and she were supposed to be lovers.”

  “Listen, these things happen, Odette. There’s a war on and everybody does crazy things once in a while. If it wasn’t for the war, you never would have let me seduce you.”

  “I wouldn’t?”

  “No you wouldn’t. You would have slapped my face and told me that I was a scumbag, because Celestine was your best friend, right?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you would have. But the war is twisting everything around.”

  “Sometimes I imagine that Celestine is looking down at me from heaven, and she’s mad.”