The Devils of D-Day Read Online Free PDF

for us, anyway?’
    ‘He never clearly explained, monsieur . He was gagged by your oaths of
secrecy.
    Apart from that, I don’t think he truly understood himself
what it was he was required to do.’
    ‘But the tanks – the black tanks-”
    The old priest turned towards me, and I could just make out
the rheumy gleam of his eye.
    ‘The black tanks were something about which I cannot speak, monsieur . I
have done all that I can for thirty long years, to have the tank taken away
from Pont D’Ouilly but each time I have been told
that it is too heavy, and that it is not economical to tow it away. But I think
the truth is that they are too frightened to disturb it.’
    ‘Why should they be frightened?’
    Father Anton opened his desk drawer and took out a small
rosewood and silver snuffbox. He asked, ‘You take snuff?’
    ‘No, thanks. But I wouldn’t mind a
cigarette.’ He passed me the cigarette box, and then snorted two generous
pinches of snuff up his cavernous nostrils. I always thought people sneezed
after they took snuff, but all Father Anton did was snort like a mule, and
relax further into his creaky revolving chair.
    I lit my cigarette and said, ‘Is
there something still inside that tank?’
    Father Anton thought about this, and then answered. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know what.
    The Reverend Taylor would never speak about it, and when
they sealed down the turret, nobody from the whole village was allowed within
half a kilometre .’ ‘Did they give any kind of
explanation?’ ‘Yes,’ said Father Anton. ‘They said there was high explosive
inside it, and that there was some danger of a blast. But of course none of us
believed it. Why should they need a vicar to sanctify the sealing of a few pounds
of TNT?’
    ‘So you believe that tank has something unholy about it?’
    ‘It’s not what I believe, monsieur . It’s what your Army obviously
believed, and I have yet to meet anyone more sceptical than a soldier. Why should an Army call in a cleric to deal with its weapons? I
can only assume that there was something about the tank that was not in
accordance with the laws of God.’
    I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but the slow
and lisping way in which he said it, the way the words came out in that freezing
and sepulchral room like dead flowers, that was enough to make me feel chilled
and strangely frightened.
    I said, ‘Do you believe in the voices?’
    Father Anton nodded. ‘I have heard them myself. Anyone brave
enough to go near the tank after dark can hear them.’
    ‘You heard them yourself?’
    ‘Not officially.’
    ‘How about unofficially?’
    The old priest wiped at his nose with his handkerchief.
‘Unofficially, of course, I made it my business. I last visited the tank three
or four years ago, and spent several hours there in prayer. It didn’t do my
rheumatism a great deal of good, but I am sure now that the tank is an
instrument of evil works.’
    ‘Did you hear anything distinct? I mean, what kind of voices were they?’
    Father Anton chose his next sentence with care. ‘They were
not, in my opinion, the voices of men.’
    I frowned at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Monsieur, what can I tell you? They were not the voices of
human spirits or of human ghosts.’
    I didn’t know what to say after that. We sat in silence for
a few minutes, and outside the day grew grainier and darker, tinged with that
corroded green that always threatened snow. Father Anton seemed to be deeply
buried in thought, but after a time he raised his head and said, ‘ Is that all, monsieur ?
I have studies to continue.’
    ‘Well, I guess so. The whole thing seems like a real
mystery.’
    The ways of war are always a mystery, monsieur . I have heard many stories of strange and inexplicable
events on battlefields, or in the concentration camps.
    Sometimes, holy miracles occur, visitations by saints. I
have a parishioner who fought at the Somme, and he swears he was visited every
night by