Ernest Hemingway - The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

“Get them off the road quick,” I said. “And hide the four vélos .”

As I turned to watch the road one of the doors of the estaminet opened and two civilians wearing caps and working clothes came out each carrying two bottles. They sauntered across the cross roads and turned to come up in the field behind the ambush. They wore sweaters and old coats, corduroy trousers and country boots.

“Keep them covered, Red,” I said. They advanced steadily and then raised the bottles high above their heads, one bottle in each hand as they came in.

“For Christ sake, get down,” I called, and they got down and came crawling through the grass with the bottles tucked under their arms.

“ Nous sommes des copains ,” one called in a deep voice, rich with alcohol.

“Advance, rum-dumb copains , and be recognized,” Claude answered.

“We are advancing.”

“What do you want out here in the rain?” Onèsime called.

“We bring the little presents.”

“Why didn’t you give the little presents when I was over there?” Claude asked.

“Ah, things have changed, camarade .”

“For the better?”

“ Rudement ,” the first rummy camarade said. The other, lying flat and handing us one of the bottles, asked in a hurt tone, “ On dit pas bonjour aux nouveaux camarades ?”

“ Bonjour ,” I said. “ Tu veux battre ?”

“If it’s necessary. But we came to ask if we might have the vélos .”

“After the fight,” I said. “You’ve made your military service?”

“Naturally.”

“Okay. You take a German rifle each and two packs of ammo and go up the road two hundred yards on our right and kill any Germans that get by us.”

“Can’t we stay with you?”

“We’re specialists,” Claude said. “Do what the captain says.”

“Get up there and pick out a good place and don’t shoot back this way.”

“Put on these arm bands,” Claude said. He had a pocket full of arm bands. “You’re Franc-tireurs .” He did not add the rest of it.

“Afterwards we can have the vélos ?”

“One apiece if you don’t have to fight. Two apiece if you fight.”

“What about the money?” Claude asked. “They’re using our guns.”

“Let them keep the money.”

“They don’t deserve it.”

“Bring any money back and you’ll get your share. Allez vite. Débine-toi .”

“ Ceux, sont des poivrots pourris ,” Claude said.

“They had rummies in Napoleon’s time too.”

“It’s probable.”

“It’s certain,” I said. “You can take it easy on that.”

We lay in the grass and it smelled of true summer and the flies, the ordinary flies and the big blue flies started to come to the dead that were in the ditch and there were butterflies around the edges of the blood on the black-surfaced road. There were yellow butterflies and white butterflies around the blood and the streaks where the bodies had been hauled.

“I didn’t know butterflies ate blood,” Red said.

“I didn’t either.”

“Of course when we hunt it’s too cold for butterflies.”

“When we hunt in Wyoming the picket pin gophers and the prairie dogs are holed up already. That’s the fifteenth of September.”

“I’m going to watch and see if they really eat it,” Red said.

“Want to take my glasses?”

He watched and after a while he said, “I’ll be damned if I can tell. But it sure interests them.” Then he turned to Onèsime and said, “Piss pauvre Krauts, Onie. Pas de pistol, pas de binoculaire . Fuck-all rien .”

“ Assez de sous ,” Onèsime said. “We’re doing all right on the money.”

“No fucking place to spend it.”

“Some day.”

“ Je veux spend maintenant ,” Red said.

Claude opened one of the two bottles with the cork screw on his Boy Scout German knife. He smelled it and handed it to me.

“ C’est du gnôle .”

The other outfit had been working on their share. They were our best friends but as soon as we were split they seemed like the others and the vehicles seemed like the rear echelon. You split too easy, I thought. You want to watch that. That’s one more thing you can watch.

I took a drink from the bottle. It was very strong raw spirits and all it had was fire. I handed it back to Claude who gave it to Red. Tears came into his eyes when he swallowed it.

“What do they make it out of up here, Onie?”

“Potatoes, I think, and parings from horses’ hooves they get at the blacksmith shop.”

I translated to Red. “I taste everything but the potatoes,” he said.

“They age it in rusty nail kegs with a few old nails to give it zest.”

“I better take another to take the taste out of my mouth,” Red said. “ Mon Capitaine , should we die together?”

“ Bonjour, toute le monde ,” I said. This was an old joke we had about an Algerian who was about to be guillotined on the pavement outside the Santé who replied with that phrase when asked if he had any last words to say.

“To the butterflies,” Onèsime drank.

“To the nail kegs,” Claude raised the bottle.

“Listen,” Red said and handed the bottle to me. We all heard the noise of a tracked vehicle.

“The fucking jackpot,” Red said. “Along ongfong de la patree, le fucking jackpot ou le more.” He sang softly, the nail keg juice no good to him now. I took another good drink of the juice as we lay and checked everything and looked up the road to our left. Then it came in sight. It was a Kraut half-track and it was crowded to standing room only.

When you set a trap on an escape route you have four or, if you can afford them, five Teller mines, armed, on the far side of the road. They lie like round checker counters wider than the biggest soup plates and toad squatted in their thick deadliness. They are in a semi-circle, covered with cut grass and connected by a heavy tarred line which may be procured at any ship chandler’s. One end of this line is made fast to a kilometer marking, called a borne , or to a tenth of a kilometer stone, or any other completely solid object, and the line runs loosely across the road and is coiled in the first or second section of the trap.

The approaching overloaded vehicle was of the type where the driver looks out through slits and its heavy machine guns now showed high in anti-aircraft position. We were all watching it closely as it came nearer, so very overcrowded. It was full of combat S.S. and we could see the collars now and faces were clear then clearer.

“Pull the cord,” I called to the second outfit and as the cord took up its slack and commenced to tighten the mines moved out of their semi-circle and across the road looking, I thought, like nothing but green grass-covered Teller mines.

Now the driver would see them and stop or he would go on and hit them. You should not attack an armored vehicle while it was moving, but if he braked I could hit him with the big-headed German bazooka.

The half-track came on very fast and now we could see the faces quite clearly. They were all looking down the road where the point would come from. Claude and Onie were white and Red had a twitch in the muscle of his cheek. I felt hollow as always. Then someone in the half-track saw the blood and the Volkswagen in the ditch and the bodies. They were shouting in German and the driver and the officer with him must have seen the mines across the road and they came to a tearing swerving halt and had started to back when the bazooka hit. It hit while both outfits were firing from the two traps. The people in the half-track had mines themselves and were hurrying to set up their own road block to cover what had gone through because when the Kraut bazooka hit and the vehicle went up we all dropped our heads and everything rained down as from a fountain. It rained metal and other things. I checked on Claude and Onie and Red and they were all firing. I was firing too with a Smeizer on the slits and my back was wet and I had stuff all over my neck, but I had seen what fountained up. I could not understand why the vehicle had not been blown wide open or overturned. But it just blew straight up. The fifties from the vehicle were firing and there was so much noise you could not hear. No one showed from the half-track and I thought it was over and was going to wave the fifties off, when someone inside threw a stick grenade that exploded just beyond the edge of the road.