Blood Oath Part 12

They waited. Fifteen minutes. Twenty-five. Houston's throat felt raw from cigarettes. "What's taking them so long?" he said.

"Big war," Andrews told him, shrugging.

The clatter of the teletype began: reply to status query.

STEPHEN SAMUEL HOUSTON. Pause. THIRD ARMY.

"Patton," Houston said and didn't understand his growing excitement.

SECOND INFANTRY DIVISION. THIRTEENTH REGIMENT. SECOND BATTALION. D COMPANY.

Pause. FIFTH PLATOON.

"Strike one. Let's try for two," Andrews said and resumed typing: MUCH OBLIGED. HAVE SECOND QUERY. STATUS. WORLD WAR TWO.

Andrews glanced down at the sheet of paper on which Hutchin-son had left his father's name. He typed, paul andrew hutch-inson.

They waited. This time, the wait was shorter. third army.

SECOND INFANTRY DIVISION. THIRTEENTH REGIMENT. SECOND BATTALION. D COMPANY.

Pause. FIFTH PLATOON.

The skin on Houston's neck went cold. "They're the same."

"You figured they wouldn't be?" Andrews said.

"I figured I was crazy! I hoped I was wrong! Two missing graves! Pierre de St.

Laurent is linked to both of them! And now we find out that my father and this Hutchinson were both in the same company! h.e.l.l, in the same platoon!"

"Too much coincidence. You're right," Andrews said. "I don't like it. What do we do now, though? Should I sign off? Have you got some other questions?"

"Mr. Andrews?" Simone said. Startled, they turned to her. "Please ask if they'll wait," she said.

They studied her. Her smooth, curved face, her strong, high cheekbones seemed more elegant than ever. Houston watched her full lips purse in thought.

"What is it?" Andrews asked.

"I don't understand the military," she replied. "Explain it to me. All those categories. That's the breakdown?"

"That's right. Army, then division, regiment, battalion, company, and finally platoon."

"How large is a platoon?"

Andrews shrugged. "It varies. About fifty men."

"In wartime?"

"It depends on the number of casualties. But even with replacements, we can bet they weren't at total strength. Let's be conserva- tive and guess at thirty. Could be less, but let's say thirty. There's a further subdivision into squads. An even split. Let's say there were fifteen men in each."

"Then I suggest we do two things. First, we determine which squad Peter's father and this Hutchinson were in." The room was absolutely silent.

"And?"

"We get in touch with the relatives of the other men in the squad and learn how many of those soldiers died at St. Laurent."

"But don't have graves," Pete said. And suddenly was frightened.

Chapter 22.

They worked all day. Since the communications room had no windows, they failed to realize that dusk had come. Houston had the sense that he was held in stasis, that day and night were parts of a forgotten, lost, irrelevant dimension.

Finally his tension was too much. He stepped outside.

The dusk was lovely. Standing by Simone's Renault, he heard her walk up close beside him. He kept staring at the hills, the fields, the golden grain, the orchards studding the horizon.

He turned to face her.

"You know, I tell myself that if I wish with all my might, I'll blink and see Andrews showing me my father's grave. I'll thank Andrews, and I'll pay respects to my dead father. Then my life will go on as it should have. Back home. Back to teaching, writing. Living to a ripe old age with Janice. It's as if I only need to concentrate, to think of how things could have been."

He breathed with frustration and nostalgia. Simone did not reply. She only looked at him as if until this moment she had never truly seen him. Then she slowly moved her lips in what was possibly a mournful smile. She shrugged with little movement, and at last she took his hand, squeezing it gently. They returned to the building.

"It's all here," Andrews said when they came back inside the claustrophobic room. He swung to face them, pointing toward the sheets of print across the table. But his voice contained no hint of victory.

Houston braced himself. The weary lines on the superintendent's face communicated everything he soon would know. "Show me," he said.

Andrews pointed. "On this sheet are the names of all the men in that platoon.

I've drawn a line across it. Below are the members of the second squad. It turns out my guess was on the nose. Fifteen men."

"My father. And there's Hutchinson." Although the other names had no significance to Houston, he read down the list. "All right, go on," he said.

"Now this bottom list, that's where I had some trouble. Tracking down the relatives, for one thing. So many transatlantic calls would have been questioned by my superiors. I've got a buddy in the States. He owes me several favors, so I phoned him, and he did the job. I had to promise I'd pay his phone bill. I don't care about the cost. The main thing is he did it."

Houston didn't rush him. They were each adjusting in their different ways to what they'd learned. For now, it was the superintendent's story. Let him tell it his way.

"The fifteen men in the second squad," Andrews said. "You understand, we're just talking now about the men who were alive before the battle here."

"I follow. What about them?"

"h.e.l.l, they died."

"What? Every one of them?" Simone said.

"To a man. The whole d.a.m.n squad."

"Jesus Christ," Pete said.

"I'm no expert in statistics, but I can't believe the fighting was so bad here that not one of them survived. Oh, sure, I read the pamphlets we hand out. This battle wasn't any picnic, but it wasn't D-Day either. Just to check, though, I went through the regiment's report about the battle. All that stuff is here so we can answer questions from the visitors. The casualties averaged thirty percent. Some units had it rough, while others got away with just a scratch.

Okay, an average. Thirty percent. So was this squad so d.a.m.ned unlucky that not only four or five of them went down but all of them? A hundred percent mortality rate?"

Houston had trouble breathing. "Finish it."

"I checked our burial records, and I found exactly what I should have if the situation had been normal. Of those fifteen men, I learned that six of them are out there in the cemetery."

"And the others?"

"You tell me. Your guess would be as good as mine. I phoned the cemetery fifty miles north of here. No dice. The bodies simply disappeared. Now here's the clincher. I had someone check the disposition on each name here. Those six soldiers buried out there are described as killed in action. The remaining nine are missing in action. It was never proven that they died."

"Deserters? You think they ran off?" Simone asked.

"What else can 1 think?"

"But wouldn't there have been investigations?"

"You can bet there were," Andrews said. "But here in wartime France, so much to do, too little time to do it, the investigators would have quickly been distracted. Lord, just think about that summer. D-Day was in June, and by September most of France was liberated. There were mop-up operations, armies moving everywhere. In all of the confusion, anything could happen. If they deserted, where would they have gone? And why? They would have had a better chance if they'd stayed with their unit. That's what the investigators would have thought, and they'd have dropped the issue. You can bet, though, if your father showed up on your doorstep, he'd have been arrested very shortly. I'll lay odds that, for a while at least, your mother and yourself were under military watch."

In Houston's mind, he saw the house where he had lived. He saw his mother and himself come out the door and down the porch, and as that tiny version of himself walked down the street beside his mother, Houston stepped out from another house and followed. He had never understood the youthful world in which he lived. Its innocence was tainted.

"That still leaves us with a question," Houston said. "If they deserted, where in G.o.d's name did they go? And why?" He thought his mind would crack. "We really haven't proven anything."

"You're wrong," Andrews said. "The families of those missing men each received a letter."

"From the War Department?"

Andrews grimaced. "From Pierre de St. Laurent."

Chapter 23.

They heard the church bell in the darkness. They had not yet reached St.

Laurent, but the periodic far-off tolling echoed through the night. The stars were brilliant. Houston's headache persisted. He had rolled the driver's window down. The cool air flowed over him; the bell notes resonated even at this distance.

"Services this late?" he said and glanced down at the luminous dial on his watch. "A midnight ma.s.s?"

"It's not a special feast day," Simone said.

Houston counted silently from one to four. On five, he heard the low vibration tolling once more. Then he counted again and this time murmured, "Five," precisely as the bell struck.

She had heard him. "What's the matter?"

"The bell hits every five seconds. Consistent, regular. Maybe it's not from the church. Is there a village clock with a bell that sounds the time?"

"No. Anyway, the people in the village don't stay up late. They'd be wakened by the bell. They wouldn't want it."

"Then there's got to be a reason, something so important that it justifies the nuisance."

"Some emergency?"

"But what would "

"A fire?"

Houston shoved his foot on the accelerator. The Renault lunged forward. Wrist still swollen, Simone was not yet capable of driving. Houston's shoulder had been stiff all day, and his ribs ached, but he ignored his pain as he steered around a corkscrew curve, his headlights piercing the darkness. He drove so fast that the black of night was like a wall he hurtled toward. He searched the star-specked sky. He saw no red, no glow above the black horizon.

"We should see it," Houston said. "We're almost there."

"If it's not a fire, what else could it be?"

"We'll know d.a.m.n soon."

The bell kept tolling, louder now as the Renault surged past the first signs of the village cottages, then shops. Lights were on in many houses.

"One thing's in our favor," Houston said. "If that bell woke all these people, then it had to wake the priest. I don't intend to go to him tomorrow. I want to see him now. He can't refuse us this time. We've got too much evidence. He has to understand that this is more important than his silence."

"You're not a Catholic," Simone said. "You still don't understand."

"I understand that something crazy happened thirty-seven years ago. I understand my wife is dead. That priest is going to tell me what Pierre de St. Laurent confessed. I don't know how, but I'll make him tell me. He's got to!"

"His vow of secrecy is too important. If he told, the villagers would never trust him in confession."

"There has to be a way! The answer's close, and he's the only man who knows it!"

He aimed the car across the old stone bridge, smelling the night mist from the river, seeing it shimmer among the trees in the park.

Straight ahead he saw the hotel, its every window lit as if a celebration were in progress.

She was stunned. "I've never seen it like this. What on earth has happened?"

He didn't bother parking at the side, but stopped abruptly at the hotel's entrance and rushed from the car, ignoring how his ribs and shoulder tortured him.

Simone preceded him. She hurried up the ancient steps. The wide oak doors were open. Guests peered toward the bell that sounded from the darkness.

Monsard stood among the guests, still dressed in evening clothes, his wrinkled face drawn tight. Simone embraced him.