his ribs. Now I know this wasnât kind, but you donât fight by Marquess of Queensbury rules, not in real fights, only when itâs in the boxing-ring, when you wantto lengthen it out and make a show of it. Itâs really kinder to fight dirty, because it gets it over quickly and ends the suffering.
So he turned grey and sat down on the path, and the Kid was nursing his knees. And I says, Arseholes, I says, to the people and their justice. Donât worry, I says, Justice you shall have but itâs going to be in my way. Vengeance is mine, says I, I will repay, says the Lord.
Well, they sat there on the ground for a while to nurse themselves and get their breath back. Presently they got up and helped each other off, and I couldnât help feeling sorry for the poor perishers. After all, they werenât like enemy, but what else could I have done?
Inside the cottage, the woman was standing there white and shaky-looking with her red hair all over her face and hanging on with both hands to the back of a chair. Her dressing-gown was pulled about too, so she was half-naked. So I straightens it up to make her decent-like and I puts my arm around her and I says, Pull yourself together, girl, I says. Thereâs no harm done you, and there wonât be neither. Donât forget, youâve got old Saul here to look after you.
She leaned against me until she stopped shaking, and then she lifts her head and says, Thank you, justlike that. Thank you. Now I will get your breakfast.
She stood at the stove and crumbled the oatmeal block into a little saucepan of hot water, with powdered milk and sugar.
Your name is Saul? she says. She had a nice voice, soft.
Yes, I says, Saul Scourby.
Saul Scourby, she says, SS. You know what that means, SS, in Germany?
Yuh, I says, Nazis, storm-troopers and all that.
Not alone that, she says, Hitlerâs janissaries. His Imperial Guard, but not like that of Napoleon, no. With the black dress uniform and the silver skulls. The âangels of deathâ, they call them. I knew one, he was a young officer, dark and gentle, so I thought.
She was putting out my porridge on a blue plate, with a drop of condensed milk. There was that faraway look in her eyes, like I began to know when she was remembering something, specially a lover.
I liked him very much. Then one night we were in a café by the river, the Seine, and he told me a story. There was this village in Poland where they were, and a German carâyou know, a kubelwagen ?âa small car it blew up and three officers were killed. It was maybe an old land-mine put down during the fighting, but the SS were angry to lose their comrades.So they went to each house in the village and took the oldest son, and they took the priest and the mayor and the schoolteacher, and they killed them with machine-guns in the church and set fire to the church. They took some of the young girls and they went away. And it was terrible because he made it sound so ordinary, like a summer holiday.
Did you still go with him after that? I says. And she says nothing. So again I says, Did you?
You know, she says, I had not much choice, but I did not love him any more.
You French lot disgust me, I says.
You do not know, she says, you should be glad you do not know.
Know what? I says.
The defeat, the Occupation. And again she has this sad, faraway look. I will cook your bacon, she says, and she opens the tin and begins to unwrap the strips of bacon from the grease-paper and lay it in an iron skillet with some onions and herbs.
She had an old radio on the dresser, so I turned it on and the power had come on, and I found the BBC newsâ¦
(He didnât say what was on the news, just as he matter-of-factly left out most of the backgrounddetail of the landings and the build-up. After all, we both knew all that. But it gave his story, as he told it, a curiously timeless and elemental feeling, as if it took place within a bubble of space
So he turned grey and sat down on the path, and the Kid was nursing his knees. And I says, Arseholes, I says, to the people and their justice. Donât worry, I says, Justice you shall have but itâs going to be in my way. Vengeance is mine, says I, I will repay, says the Lord.
Well, they sat there on the ground for a while to nurse themselves and get their breath back. Presently they got up and helped each other off, and I couldnât help feeling sorry for the poor perishers. After all, they werenât like enemy, but what else could I have done?
Inside the cottage, the woman was standing there white and shaky-looking with her red hair all over her face and hanging on with both hands to the back of a chair. Her dressing-gown was pulled about too, so she was half-naked. So I straightens it up to make her decent-like and I puts my arm around her and I says, Pull yourself together, girl, I says. Thereâs no harm done you, and there wonât be neither. Donât forget, youâve got old Saul here to look after you.
She leaned against me until she stopped shaking, and then she lifts her head and says, Thank you, justlike that. Thank you. Now I will get your breakfast.
She stood at the stove and crumbled the oatmeal block into a little saucepan of hot water, with powdered milk and sugar.
Your name is Saul? she says. She had a nice voice, soft.
Yes, I says, Saul Scourby.
Saul Scourby, she says, SS. You know what that means, SS, in Germany?
Yuh, I says, Nazis, storm-troopers and all that.
Not alone that, she says, Hitlerâs janissaries. His Imperial Guard, but not like that of Napoleon, no. With the black dress uniform and the silver skulls. The âangels of deathâ, they call them. I knew one, he was a young officer, dark and gentle, so I thought.
She was putting out my porridge on a blue plate, with a drop of condensed milk. There was that faraway look in her eyes, like I began to know when she was remembering something, specially a lover.
I liked him very much. Then one night we were in a café by the river, the Seine, and he told me a story. There was this village in Poland where they were, and a German carâyou know, a kubelwagen ?âa small car it blew up and three officers were killed. It was maybe an old land-mine put down during the fighting, but the SS were angry to lose their comrades.So they went to each house in the village and took the oldest son, and they took the priest and the mayor and the schoolteacher, and they killed them with machine-guns in the church and set fire to the church. They took some of the young girls and they went away. And it was terrible because he made it sound so ordinary, like a summer holiday.
Did you still go with him after that? I says. And she says nothing. So again I says, Did you?
You know, she says, I had not much choice, but I did not love him any more.
You French lot disgust me, I says.
You do not know, she says, you should be glad you do not know.
Know what? I says.
The defeat, the Occupation. And again she has this sad, faraway look. I will cook your bacon, she says, and she opens the tin and begins to unwrap the strips of bacon from the grease-paper and lay it in an iron skillet with some onions and herbs.
She had an old radio on the dresser, so I turned it on and the power had come on, and I found the BBC newsâ¦
(He didnât say what was on the news, just as he matter-of-factly left out most of the backgrounddetail of the landings and the build-up. After all, we both knew all that. But it gave his story, as he told it, a curiously timeless and elemental feeling, as if it took place within a bubble of space
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