The Young Lions

"Get away from here," Christian said.

"Keep smiling, Beauty." Brandt was busily snapping a series of angles. "And don't give it to them until I tell you. Just hold it out and make them reach for it."

"I would like you to remember, Soldier," Christian said, gri

"Art," said Brandt, "above everything. I wish you were blond. You're a good model for a German soldier, except for the hair. You look as though you once had a thought in your head and that's hard to find."

"I think," said Christian, "I ought to report you for statements detrimental to the honour of the German Army."

"The artist," said Brandt, "is above these petty considerations."

He finished his pictures, working very fast, and said, "All right." Christian gave the chocolate to the children, who didn't say anything. They merely looked up at him solemnly and tucked the chocolate in their pockets and wandered off hand-in-hand among the steel treads and the boots and rifle butts.

An armoured car, followed by three scout cars, came into the square and moved slowly alongside Christian's detachment. Christian felt a slight twinge of sorrow when he saw it was the Lieutenant. His independent command was over. He saluted and the Lieutenant saluted back. The Lieutenant had one of the smartest salutes in military history. You heard the rattle of swords and the jangle of spurs down the ages to the campaigns of Achilles and Ajax, when he brought his arm up. Even now, after the long ride from Germany, the Lieutenant looked shiny and impeccable. Christian disliked the Lieutenant and felt uncomfortable before that rigid perfection. The Lieutenant was very young, twenty-three or four, but when he looked around him with his cold, light-grey, imperious stare, a whole world of bumbling, inaccurate civilians seemed to be revealed to his merciless observation. There were very few men who had ever made Christian feel inefficient, but the Lieutenant was one of them. As he stood at attention, watching the Lieutenant climb crisply down from the armoured car, Christian hastily rehearsed his report, and felt all over again the inadequacy and sense of guilt and neglect of duty that he had felt walking through the forest into the trap.

"Yes, Sergeant?" The Lieutenant had a cutting, weary voice, a voice that might have belonged to Bismarck when in military school. He didn't look around him; he had no interest in the old closed buildings of Paris; he might just as well have been on an enormous bare drill-field outside Konigsberg as in the centre of the capital of France on the first day of its occupation by foreign troops since 1871. What an admirable, miserable character, Christian thought, what a useful man to have in your army.

"At ten hundred hours," Christian said, "we made contact with the enemy on the Meaux-Paris road. The enemy had a camouflaged road-block and opened fire on our leading vehicle. We engaged him with nine men. We killed two of the enemy and drove the others in disorder from their position and demolished the block." Christian hesitated for the fraction of a second.

"Yes, Sergeant?" the Lieutenant said flatly.

"We had one casualty, Sir," Christian said, thinking this is where I start my trouble, "Corporal Kraus was killed."

"Corporal Kraus," said the Lieutenant. "Did he perform his duty?"

"Yes, Sir." Christian thought of the lumbering boy, shouting enthusiastically, "I got him! I got him!" among the shaking trees. "He killed one of the enemy with his first shots."

"Excellent," said the Lieutenant. A frosty smile shone briefly on his face, twisting the long, angled nose for a moment. "Excellent." He is delighted, Christian noted in surprise.

"I am sure," the Lieutenant was saying, "that there will be a decoration for Corporal Kraus."

"I was thinking, Sir," Christian said, "of writing a note to his father."

"No," said the Lieutenant. "That's not for you. This is the function of the Company Commander. Captain Mueller will do that. I will give him the facts. It is a delicate matter, this kind of letter, and it is important that the proper sentiments are expressed. Captain Mueller will say exactly the correct thing."

Probably, Christian thought, in the military college there is a course, "Personal Communications to Next of Kin. One hour a week."

"Sergeant," the Lieutenant said, "I am pleased with your behaviour and the behaviour of the rest of the men under your command."

"Thank you, Sir," said Christian. He felt foolishly pleased.

Brandt came over and saluted. The Lieutenant saluted back coldly. He didn't like Brandt, who never could look like a soldier. The Lieutenant made clear his feelings about men who fought the war with cameras instead of guns. But the directives from Headquarters down to lower echelons about giving photographers all possible assistance were too definite to be denied.

"Sir," Brandt said, in his soft civilian voice, "I have been instructed to report with my film as soon as possible to the Place de l'Opera. The film is being collected there and is to be flown back to Berlin. I wonder if I might have a vehicle to take me there. I'll come back immediately."

"I'll let you know in a little while, Brandt," the Lieutenant said. He turned and strode across the square to where Captain Mueller, who had just arrived, was sitting in his amphibious car.

"Just crazy about me," Brandt said, "that lieutenant."

"You'll get the car," Christian said. "He's feeling pretty good."

"I'm crazy about him," Brandt said. "I'm crazy about all lieutenants." He looked around him at the soft stone colours of the tenements rising from the square, with the helmets and the grey uniforms and the large, lounging, armed men looking foreign and u

"Open your eyes," Christian said. "Here comes the Lieutenant."

They both stood at attention as the Lieutenant strode up to them.

"It is agreed," the Lieutenant said to Brandt. "You can have the car."

"Thank you, Sir," Brandt said.

"I myself will go with you," said the Lieutenant. "And I will take Himmler and Diestl. There is talk of our unit being billeted in that neighbourhood. The Captain suggested we look at the situation there." He smiled in what he obviously thought was a warm, intimate ma

He led the way over to one of the cars, Christian and Brandt following him. Himmler was already there, seated at the wheel, and Brandt and Christian climbed in behind. The Lieutenant sat in front, stiff, erect, a shining representative of the German Army and the German Reich on the boulevards of Paris.

Brandt made a grimace and shrugged his shoulders as they started off towards the Place de l'Opera. Himmler drove with dash and certainty. He had spent several holidays in Paris, and he spoke a kind of understandable French with a coarse, ungrammatical fluency. He pointed out places of interest, like a guide, cafes he had patronized, a vaudeville theatre in which he had seen an American negress dancing naked, a street down which, he assured them, was the most fully equipped brothel in the world. Himmler was the combination comedian and politician of the company, a common type in all armies, and a favourite with all the officers, who permitted him liberties for which other men would be mercilessly punished. The Lieutenant sat stiffly beside Himmler, his eyes roaming hungrily up and down the deserted streets. He even laughed twice at Himmler's jokes.