The Young Lions

By the time the big car drove up to the town hall, in the basement of which the suspect was locked up, Christian had decided that the SS Lieutenant, whose name was Reichburger, was a complete idiot, and Christian would not have trusted him to conduct an investigation of a missing fountain pen.

The Lieutenant sprang out of the car and strode briskly and cheerfully into the ugly stone building, smiling his beer salesman's smile. Christian followed him into a bare, dirty-walled room, whose only adornment, besides a clerk and three peeling cafe chairs, was a caricature of Winston Churchill, naked, which was tacked on a piece of cardboard and used by the local SS headquarters detachments as a dart board.

"Sit down, sit down." The Lieutenant waved to a chair.

"Might as well make yourself comfortable. After all, you must not forget, you have been recently wounded."

"Yes, Sir." Christian sat down. He was sorry he had told the Lieutenant he could recognize the two Frenchmen. He detested the Lieutenant and didn't want to have anything more to do with him.

"Have you been wounded before?" The Lieutenant smiled at him fondly.

"Yes," said Christian. "Once. Twice really. Once badly, in Africa. Then I was scratched in the head outside Paris in 1940."

"Wounded three times." The Lieutenant grew sober for a moment. "You are a lucky man. You will never be killed. Obviously, there is something watching over you. I do not look it, I know, but I am a fatalist. There are some men who are born to be merely wounded, others to be killed. Myself, I have not been touched so far. But I know I shall be killed before the war is over." He shrugged his shoulders and smiled widely. "I am that type. So I enjoy myself. I live with a woman who is one of the best cooks in France, and on the side, she also has two sisters." He winked at Christian and chuckled. "The bullet will hit a well-satisfied man."

The door opened and an SS private brought in a man in manacles. The man was tall and weatherbeaten, and he was trying very hard to show that he was not afraid. He stood at the door, his hands locked behind him, and, by an obvious effort of the muscles of his face, wrestled a trembling look of disdain to his lips.

The Lieutenant smiled fondly at him. "Well," the Lieutenant said, in thick French, "we will not waste your time, Monsieur." He turned to Christian. "Is this one of the men, Sergeant?"

Christian peered at the Frenchman. The Frenchman took a deep breath, and stared back at Christian, his face a dumb combination of puzzlement and controlled hatred. Christian felt a small, violent tick of anger pulling at his brain. In this face, laid bare by stupidity and courage, there was the whole history of the cu

"Yes," Christian said. "That's the man."

"What?" the man said stupidly. "What? He's crazy."

The Lieutenant reached out with a swiftness that his rather chubby, soft body gave no evidence of possessing and clubbed the heel of his hand across the man's chin. "My dear friend," the Lieutenant said, "you will speak only when spoken to." He stood above the Frenchman, who looked more puzzled than ever, and who kept working his lips over his teeth and sucking in the little trickles of blood from the bruised mouth. "Now," the Lieutenant said, in French, "this is established – yesterday afternoon you cut the throat of a German soldier on the beach six kilometres north of this village."

"Please," the Frenchman said dazedly.

"Now, it only remains to hear from you one more fact…" the Lieutenant paused. "The name of the man who was with you."

"Please," the man said. "I can prove I did not leave the village all the afternoon."

"Of course," the Lieutenant said amiably, "you can prove anything, with a hundred signatures an hour. We are not interested."

"Please," said the Frenchman.

"We are only interested in one thing," said the Lieutenant.

"The name of the man who was with you when you got off your bicycle to murder a helpless German soldier."

"Please," said the Frenchman, "I do not own a bicycle."

The Lieutenant nodded to the SS private. The soldier tied the Frenchman into one of the chairs, not roughly.

"We are very direct," said the Lieutenant. "I have promised the Sergeant he will get back to his Company for di

"I do not even own a bicycle," the Frenchman mumbled.

The Lieutenant went over to the desk and opened a drawer. He took out a pair of pliers and walked slowly, opening and closing the pliers, with a squeaking, homely sound, behind the chair in which the Frenchman was tied. The Lieutenant bent over briskly, and seized the Frenchman's right hand in one of his own. Then, quite briskly, and carelessly, with a sharp, professional jerk, he pulled out the nail of the man's thumb.

The scream had no co

The execution was in the cellar of the town hall. There was a long, damp basement, lit by two bare, bright bulbs. The floor was made out of hard-packed earth and there were two stakes knocked into it near the wall at one end. There were two shallow coffins, made out of unpainted wood, that gleamed rawly in the harsh light, lying behind the stakes. The cellar was used as a prison, too, and other condemned men had written their final words to the living world in chalk and charcoal on the sweating walls.

"There is no God," Christian read, standing behind the six soldiers who were to do the shooting, and "Merde, Merde, Merde," and, "My name is Jacques. My father's name was Raoul. My mother's name was Clarisse. My sister's name was Simone. My uncle's name was Etie

The two condemned men shuffled in, each between two soldiers. They moved as though their legs had not been used for a long time.

The Sergeant in command of the squad gave the first order. His voice sounded strange, too parade-like and official for the shabby cellar.

The shots cut the smaller man's cords and he toppled forward. The Sergeant ran up hurriedly and put the coup de grace in, first to the small man's head, then to the other man's. The smell of the powder for a moment obscured the other, damp, corrupt smells of the cellar.

The Lieutenant nodded to Christian. Christian followed him upstairs and out into the foggy grey light, his ears still ringing from the rifles.

The Lieutenant smiled faintly. "How did you like it?" he asked.

"All right," said Christian, evenly. "I didn't mind it."

"Excellent," said the Lieutenant. "Have you had your breakfast?"

"No."

"Come with me," the Lieutenant said. "I have breakfast waiting. It's only five doors up."

They walked side by side, their footsteps muffled in the pearly fog off the sea.

The Lieutenant stopped and faced Christian, smiling a little.

"They weren't the men at all, were they?" he said.

Christian hesitated, but only for a moment. "Frankly, Sir," he said, "I am not sure."