Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

Time passes. The heat is stifling now in midafternoon, though it is surely more bearable up amid the leaves of the tree than down on the fairground. Rainy’s legs begin to cramp. A bicycle comes rolling down the main street of Oradour, passing into and out of shadows, the cyclist seemingly unaware.

“My God, it’s my father!” Philippe says a bit too loudly for Rainy’s taste. She glances in the direction of the German encirclement and sees nothing but a wisp of cigarette smoke.

In the town a German soldier grabs the arm of Philippe’s father and hauls him off his bike. He appears to be protesting, but the German gives him a shove toward the assembly and he is lost to view. His bike is left in the road, and it is that fact that causes Rainy’s heart to pound faster. Germans are orderly people, not the sort to leave a bicycle in the middle of the street.

Not normally.

German soldiers can be seen pushing in doors and often emerging with booty—women’s dresses, bottles of wine, a small, intricately carved wooden end table. These they stack in the street or carry away to the trucks.

A group of people comes into view, a hundred, maybe two hundred, all men, all being driven away from the fairground. They are hurried along by soldiers who still laugh and saunter as if this is nothing but a rather dull way to spend a brilliant Saturday afternoon.

A second group emerges, heading in the other direction. These are all women and children. They are shepherded toward the church.

A half-dozen soldiers come from the direction of the trucks, carrying two machine guns, chatting as they go.

On the main street the group of men is divided into smaller groups of twenty or thirty each, and marched away by soldiers. It is then that Rainy spots Bernard, being furtively pushed away by an older man who keeps pointing toward the church. A German intervenes, pulls Bernard by the collar and kicks him in the backside. Bernard slinks toward the church.

“Thank God,” Rainy whispers.

The older man—perhaps Bernard’s father—watches the boy leave and makes the sign of the cross over his chest. Rainy sees others doing the same. She quickly loses sight of most of the groups of men, but she sees the group with Bernard’s father and yes, Philippe’s father as well, as they are directed into a barn.

“No,” Philippe whispers.

Three German soldiers begin to set up a machine gun.

“But why?” Philippe cries.

The machine gun opens up. Cries of pain and outrage float on the air between bursts. The firing goes on and on, and now from other parts of the village come answering machine guns, firing and firing.

B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t!

The men of Oradour are being murdered.

Philippe is listening to the sounds of his own father being killed. He is as still as if he were a painting, a handsome young Frenchman standing in a tree while his father is gunned down within hearing.

And he can do nothing.

B-r-r-r-

r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t!

At least, Rainy thinks, Bernard is safe with the women and children in the great stone church. Even the SS wouldn’t murder women and children. Certainly not in a church.

On and on the machine guns fire, and Philippe weeps openly, sagging to his knees on the hard branch. Rainy grabs his shoulder, afraid he will fall.

The church is much nearer, right in plain sight, though they have a side-on view of the front door. From within the church Rainy hears cries of anguish, questions, Why, why? Wailing voices, crying babies, women crying, My Pierre. My Joseph. My Thomas. My Charles.

They know, the women, they know even if the children do not yet understand, the women know their husbands and fathers and brothers, their uncles and cousins, their friends, their neighbors are being massacred.

B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t!

The Germans have set up a machine gun outside the church door, in the middle of the small plaza where no doubt the congregation gathers to exchange news on Sunday mornings after Mass.

Then Rainy sees two Germans carry a box with cords dangling from it into the church, and now the cries of fear come louder, more frantic, Pourquoi, pourquoi?

Why? Why?

The Germans come rushing back out of the church and just behind them comes the first black smoke.