Let's Play Without The Six Of hearts

Tuesday October 17th, 1943

Until this date, I endured schooldays, craving excitement to cure tedium. If you ever yearn to escape boredom, stop, read my story and think again. Cherish boring for its comfort.

That morning the Bocage appeared sullen. Two grey tiers overhung Marcassin les Roseaux. Almost close enough to grasp, wisps of cloud, the drab colour of discarded sheep’s wool played catch me if you can across no-man’s-land between ground and higher cloud. Both layers fled before a constant wind, yet the lower smudges moved faster than the morose crumpled layer above.

From the classroom window, I saw nothing ungrey. Visible sections of the church presented unyielding grey granite walls crowned with grey slate. Grey paving covered the ground in front, a shade matched by the road separating the house of God from the centre of learning. Before the war, my playful uncle suggested grey, not green, made a better choice of colour to associate with Normandy.

Today, grey was the predominant hue of occupation. When Germans entered the village, they wore grey and moved in grey vehicles. Their printed notices turned grey and soup cooked from rations turned shades of grey. Even the thin coffee substitute was not black.

“Durand!” my name uttered with irritation, yanked my attention back to the class. “Do you intend starting this task today?”

We disliked Monsieur Lelièvre, our instructor, during the prolonged absence of teachers who had fought in 1940, now prisoners of war. Before Monsieur Lelièvre, we had not liked them, yet now, we would have exchanged our meagre rations for their presence without regret. Good at telling us what to do, less skilled at explaining how, he assumed our mistakes resulted from shortcomings of character or intellect, rather than how he transmitted information. He used physical chastisement to keep order and show when work failed to reach levels expected. His own personal marking scheme had a basic scale. Two slaps said, “Do it again, imbecile,” one slap “Not good enough.” No slap, at least ten out of twenty. I dipped my pen into bluish ink, knowing which colour it would dry to. After writing “Tuesday October 17th, 1943” on the off-white paper, I copied a long pointless paragraph, suppressing all qualifying adjectives. Under the new order, German for occupation, everything involved suppression.

When finished, I saw two classmates had beaten me. No single pupil ever told Monsieur Lelièvre they had finished because he provided another unengaging task. Worse, he slapped the last to finish even if they made no errors.

Class 3 had an unspoken code to show who had completed an exercise. When done, we placed a ruler sideways on the desk and pretended to work. After the last measure moved, all hands rose to inform Monsieur Lelièvre, avoiding slaps or extra tasks. Every suppressed human being fights back.

An angry commotion invaded the silent classroom, undermining my pretence at suppressive copying. It arose from close to the section of church out of sight; other pupils noticed. Monsieur Lelièvre appeared intrigued, which helped us. He marched to the window, pushed his head out, then observed what we wished to see. Rarely did Class 3 and its teacher find events they both enjoyed, but this started as a teasing win win for all. He satisfied his curiosity, knowing we could not gratify ours, thus reinforcing his authority. Meanwhile, Class 3 pupils seized the chance to be off task, unobserved.

My ears followed the drama, telling different voices apart, though my weak grasp of German failed to suggest anything with clarity. Most likely, Monsieur Lebatteux, who owned the farm next to ours, was in trouble; his pleading voice the only one I recognised. Our teacher alone saw the action as it unfolded.

Inside, inquisitiveness intensified to concern for those outside as unseen soldiers drew gun bolts.

We soon forgot this. Noises from within the building turned curiosity to fear as a rhythmic click…..click of army boots on ancient floorboards announced an unwanted approach. Brave when punishing pupils, M. Lelièvre trembled. Beads of sweat chased each other down his face, defying the cold. The colour retreated from his cheeks, leaving a shade matching the drab clouds outside.

“What a coward!” I remember thinking, “it’s just a few Germans.”

My classmates showed concern. Full panic did not come at once; it seeped into us, drawing energy from that click…… click, its volume intensifying as it descended the corridor. Inside Class 3, twenty souls willed that sound to continue forever if possible, providing it did not enter our door. To taunt us, the noise stopped short of the room where we cowered; relief now tempered by fearful curiosity. Despite an irresistible urge to ease my bladder, fear pinned me to my chair.

After a teasing respite, a loud crash increased our fear as an army boot opened an unused class. Again, the click… click resumed, coming ever closer. When it ceased again; everyone realised it had stopped outside room 3.

Those next ten seconds idled in the longest, loudest silence of my life. Though we paid no attention, M. Lelièvre moved to the back of the room. Forty eyes stared towards the door; forty ears strained to glean any hope those outside would move on. My eyes no longer saw the door; its handle became my entire world. Forever cold to the touch, that round shiny biscuit coloured lump of metal stood between Class 3 and these unwanted visitors.

All minds sent silent messages to the entrance, urging it not to open. A cloud of noise enveloped the door, which hurtled inwards. First into the room, a grey Mauser preceding a black boot. Next, one immaculate grey uniform, cladding an officer of the Third Reich, followed, accompanied by two soldiers.

This Uniform issued guttural German words we did not understand. However, a Mauser pointed at you then flicked towards the exit needs no translation.

With the claw of fear clutching at my insides, I fought to escape my chair, then stuttered for the door. My eighteen classmates made similar efforts.

M Lelièvre did not follow; he had found a space behind the stock cupboard. On bent knees, head level with his belly, he studied his shoelaces. In a toddler’s “If I cannot see you, then you cannot see me” pose, he waited for the room to clear.

“Still a coward,” I thought again.

Whether Uniform could see him, he smelt fear. With five strides, it crossed the floor before the free hand gripped his collar, dragging him into a semi-upright stance. The weapon inflicted the same chastisement on his left cheek we had all suffered under his instruction.

In normal times, I would have enjoyed seeing the tables turned on our tormentor. Now, I only felt relief at his role of lightening conductor, drawing danger from us. As occasional tears of red fell from his face, with hands cupped across his nose, head stooped forward, our instructor followed his charges.

Consumed by a desire not to provoke the enraged Uniform, we fell out of school like drunken chain smokers fumbling for cigarettes in the dark.

In the road, two further grey cloaked shapes stood erect. Uniform, having relinquished M Lelièvre, snapped out further orders we did not comprehend. Brandished with conviction, his Mauser helped by speaking a wordless language we understood. With dark, glistening patches on some shorts, Class 3 lined up along Marcassin’s church wall as required. I had not considered I might die, now the idea someone might, chased other notions away.

With the same technique which removed our teacher from classroom three, Uniform brought Lebatteux in front of us. His second victim displayed less terror.

What a relief! Again, Germans focused on an adult. Because it offered fragile reassurance about why the grey soldiers had taken children outside with no care, I hoped our role might be passive, not active. Then I surveyed the grey uniforms with rifles, which undermined my faith in remaining safe.

Cell by cell, fear tightened its grip on me as I found an absurd coping mechanism. How mother would react about the clean shorts supposed to last until Saturday filled my thoughts, while some classmates emitted faint whimpers and others supported these sounds of terror with erratic breathing. Dread in two-way harmony.

In search of warmth beyond the north wind, my hands burrowed into wet trouser pockets. Uniform noticed and shouted. Perhaps, he meant, “Stand still.”

Turning, he screamed at Lebatteux in German, then waved his pistol at our fearful line. When Lebatteux said he did not understand, another soldier appeared who spoke a form of French. “You have a horse. Requisitioned by the German army, all horses are.”

“But I have no horse.” Further German preceded French, which arrived in an accent disguising many words.

“We know you have a horse.”

“But I have no horse,” my neighbour said, giving a confused glance in our direction.

Any remaining colour on faces belonging to Class 3 now vanished, chased away by growing belief we could die.

“Just give him the horse,” ran through every mind, though only one blurted it out loud. Uniform, who spoke no French, thought it contained something unpleasant about him. Shouting as he moved, he strode towards Jérome. He showed gratitude for this helpful advice by hitting my classmate across the face. This was no Lelièvre style slap. The sight of blood from his mouth, combined with the sound of his nose breaking, drove more fear into us. Danger, up to now carried by adults, reached out to the pupils. I stopped caring for others as my survival alone counted. Without success, we tried to master our terror, while Uniform saw no need to control its anger.

As Lebatteux studied his twenty neighbours, most of Class 3 guessed his mind; none of his five children were there. Desperate to keep the comforting notion my role was that of observer; I missed the implication.

Then Uniform spoke its German again. Turning ninety degrees to face our pitiful line, it pushed the arm holding the pistol up and out towards us. When the weapon reached in front of its right hip, it drew the bolt with a click, inducing greater terror than any words. Next, the gun rose to its eye line. The barrel looked at Jérome, Pierre and me. Prior to an attempt to implore forgiveness for his sins, Pierre crossed himself; subjugated by terror, he could not force sounds to leave his mouth. The same emotions prevented Jérome or I getting that far. The prospect of death infiltrated us all. Uniform’s shouts frightened us, but the gun bolt’s click induced greater terror.

Lebatteux, conveying calm, said, “Monsieur, I have no horse.” Then, taking brazen to new levels, “I swear on my child’s life.” Those words detonated in my ears. Inside my head, a picture appeared from two days earlier. I saw him sitting at our kitchen table after curfew, one hand clutching cider, a large glass of calvados on the table, his free hand waving as he spoke. Boasting of concealing his prized gelding a few days before, when German soldiers combed the area requisitioning horses, he sounded cheerful.

As I returned my mind to the square, I wanted to shout it was not true, but my mouth formed no words.

“I swear on my child’s life,” meant, “I swear on the lives of my neighbours’ children.

While the soldier changed Lebatteux’s lies into German, a hen waddled between Uniform and Class 3. I remember the bird looked unconcerned. “Lucky chicken,” I thought.

Next, Madame Fleurot, Monsieur Lelièvre’s sister-in-law, came round the corner, chasing the bird using the same side- to- side stride pattern. Stopping halfway down the line, her face moved right and left. Then she saw a desperate row of children, and Uniform’s drawn pistol. Her impatience with the hen transformed in a flash to a level of dread equal to mine.

She turned, then tried her best to run. Uniform’s attention left us and followed her shuffling flight. It called on her to stop. Oblivious to the German used to convey the order, she did not comply. It swivelled forty-five degrees to the right, closed one eye and raised the pistol at her receding body. The corner of the church prevented me from discerning the accuracy of the shot which echoed round the granite walls of the village centre, lingering in my ears forever.

A scream of pain, fused with fear, announced the bullet had found human flesh.

Everyone froze, even Uniform who held the shape of the firing pose like a golfer admiring his drive: its lips moved into a smile of satisfaction. I felt the church wall’s rough, cold granite pushing into my back, but I dared not run as my mind urged.

White and grey fumes drifted from the end of the gun, the sole movement in the square. As the post shot odour drifted down the line of Class 3, its smoke, pungent but not unpleasant, recalled metal farm machinery being repaired. The question, “would I die?” now started with the word “when.”

A long, tense pause followed. Then Uniform turned ninety degrees left before looking into Lebatteux’s face. It spoke more German.

Before the translation arrived, three women appeared. They acted like hens with a fox in their coop, failing to bring the calm we needed.

The sight of our semi crumpled bodies, held upright by the force of a pistol, deepened their distress further. I recognised Pierre’s mother, then Véronique’s. They knelt with clasped hands before Uniform, imploring it to free their own children. Who would plead for my release?

As Uniform spoke in German, Veronique’s mother walked towards the line. Two soldiers held her back before throwing her onto Church Road, grazing her knees.

“Please, I will take my daughter’s place,” each word interrupted by uncontrolled sobbing.

While I watched, a soldier moved her further away with savage kicks. I became semi-detached from events, as if they were happening around me, not to me. Fear is not something you process, it processes you; suffocating any capacity for action as it seeps outwards from the innermost parts of your being.

I have read many accounts of heroes responding to dread with superhuman efforts. What rubbish! Total helplessness consumed me; I sensed I could not affect whatever followed. Almost in slow motion, a sparrow landed on the corner shop’s litter bin, chirped, then flew off. It did not mean to taunt us, but I envied its freedom.

“But I have no horse,” Lebatteux said again, “I swear.”

A soldier spoke to Uniform. I supposed he asked if he should check on Madam Fleurot because he marched off, following her groans. Her pain laden whimpers continued throughout the rest of the incident.

Uniform pulled Lebatteux to him. Auguste Lebatteux, a Norman peasant farmer with a powerful stocky physique, would have seen him off in a straight fight. Now the small piece of shiny metal protruding from Uniform’s hand trumped Lebatteux’s strength. It gripped the Bocage forged neck muscles of its prey, then compelled him to look at the trembling bodies lined up against the church wall. It pointed the pistol at his face, those last traces of smoke disappearing into French nostrils, then turned it towards my face. Terror reached a new level when it forced the farmer’s gaze down the barrel towards us. “Pferd cheval, (horse)” it screamed. “Sofort.” Now certain one of us faced death, I wondered who.

I later told people I prepared myself to die for my Patrie. In fact, I was inert, like the eviscerated wild boar which hung upside down outside Monsieur Leberk’s butchers. I could not comprehend perishing for a horse; at least I should be shot for a heroic deed. Now convinced my death was imminent, like Pierre, I tried and failed again to make peace with my maker. My mouth was too dry for speech. To induce saliva, I rasped my dry tongue along the roof of my mouth, sandpaper against grit. Does that count as tasting fear or touching it?

I remember asking myself. “What will it be like, dying? Will it hurt? Will I know?”

A new sound, similar but slower and less menacing than German army boots, came from Baudry road. Who made it? What new mental torture did it bring?

Led by my father, a horse in dire need of grooming appeared. A noise of heavy farm horseshoes on solid granite reverberated round the square, loud enough to drown out Madame Fleurot’s cries of pain. My prayers answered! The animal emitted a strong whiff of sweaty horse, a smell more joyous than grandma’s best cooking.

Word had reached him. Knowing every inch of this part of the Bocage, he guessed where our neighbour had concealed the creature responsible for such terror.

The square contained one French face betraying no emotion: his. Without speaking, he led the saddleless horse towards Uniform. In front of our nemesis, the animal emptied its bowels, the sound of its provender hitting the granite cobbles the only noise. The smell masking vestiges of gun smoke. Normal ten-year- old boys giggle at such sights, no one laughed.

Bareback was no obstacle, as Uniform ordered Lebatteux to cup his hands to help it onto a disinterested mount. Then it looked down on his defeated protagonist with a mixture of complete contempt and total triumph. Next, Uniform rode a haphazard victory lap of the church. The solid farm work horse, not intended for riding, took slow, defiant steps round the course. Even he feared Uniform. Still, no one moved.

Lebatteux glared at my father to the power of three. Dad shrugged his shoulders and smiled at me.

When Uniform halted next to Lebatteux, it directed the pistol downwards two centimetres from a face now devoid of swagger. It pulled the bolt; that double click effaced the horse’s erratic snorts. Waiting for a sound we had heard once too often, I closed my eyes