Read Chapter 22: The Gallows

The military police had Félix spread-eagled against the ammunition cart before Émile even knew they were there. Four of them, gendarmes with white brassards and rifles at the low ready, had come up through the communication trench like wolves. They didn't ask questions. They never did.

Émile watched from the shadow of a collapsed bunker thirty meters away, his heart a dull hammer against his ribs. Félix’s face was already battered—one eye swollen shut, blood dried in a crust beneath his nose. They must have caught him an hour ago, maybe two, somewhere between the lines. He’d been looking for Émile. That was the worst part. Félix had been looking for him.

“Last time,” the sergeant said, his voice carrying flat across the ruined ground. He pressed a pistol to Félix’s temple with the casualness of a man checking his watch. “Where is Marchand?”

Félix spat. The sergeant backhanded him, and Félix’s head snapped sideways but he didn’t go down. He laughed instead, a wet, broken sound.

“You think I know? I’m just a body with a shovel.”

The sergeant stepped back, nodded to his men. They hauled Félix upright and marched him toward the timber gallows that had been erected near the reserve depot. Émile had seen it from a distance that morning, silhouetted against a sky the color of old pewter. He’d assumed it was for show. A deterrent. Something for the men to fear more than the Germans.

They were actually going to use it.

Émile’s fingers found the iron key in his pocket, cold and heavy. Lucien’s key. Antoine’s key. Everything pulled him downward, always downward, toward the green door and the priest and the brother who had chosen the deep over the surface. But Félix was here. Félix was above ground, and he was going to die because he wouldn’t give Émile up.

The gendarmes tied Félix’s wrists behind his back and looped the rope over the beam. A crowd had gathered at a cautious distance—sappers, runners, a few officers who watched with the flat disinterest of men who had seen too much to feel anything anymore. Félix stood straight, his swollen face turned toward the trench line, as if he expected rescue to come from no-man’s-land.

Émile moved before he could think. He stepped out of the shadow, hands raised, and walked toward the gallows.

“I’m here.”

The sergeant turned. His eyes narrowed, scanning Émile’s mud-caked uniform, the sapper’s badge on his collar. “Marchand?”

“Yes.”

“The deserter.” The sergeant’s voice was flat, almost bored. “The murderer.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Émile said. “But you know that. You don’t care.”

The sergeant considered him. For a moment, Émile thought he might actually listen. Then the sergeant nodded to his men, and two of them broke from the formation and seized Émile’s arms, wrenching them behind his back. Rough rope bit into his wrists.

“No!” Félix shouted. “I never said—he came for me, you bastards, he came for me and you’ll hang us both!”

The sergeant ignored him. He was looking past Émile, toward the command bunker, where a figure had emerged into the gray light. Lieutenant Moreau. Émile recognized the cut of his uniform, the way he carried himself like a man who owned the ground beneath his feet. Moreau walked toward them slowly, hands clasped behind his back, and the crowd parted like water.

“Monsieur Marchand.” Moreau’s voice was soft, almost gentle. “How good of you to rejoin us.”

Émile said nothing.

“You’ve caused considerable trouble,” Moreau continued. He stopped a few feet away, studying Émile with the dispassion of a man examining a broken tool. “Desertion. Murder. Consorting with the enemy. And now you surrender yourself for this—” he gestured at Félix, at the gallows, at the whole sordid tableau, “—this gesture of sentimentality.”

“He didn’t do anything.”

“He harbored a deserter. He lied to my officers.” Moreau shrugged. “Guilt by association. The army has no room for sentiment, Marchand. You should know that by now.”

Émile felt the rope bite deeper into his wrists. The gendarmes were already walking him toward the gallows, toward the beam where Félix stood with his ruined face and his stubborn, defiant eyes.

“Wait,” Émile said. “I have information. About the tunnels. About what’s beneath us.”

Moreau raised an eyebrow. “You’ll tell me now? After everything?”

“I’ll tell you. But only if you let him go.” Émile jerked his chin at Félix. “He doesn’t know anything. He’s just a boy with a shovel.”

Moreau was silent for a long moment. The wind picked up, carrying the stench of cordite and decay from no-man’s-land. Then he smiled, a thin, bloodless expression.

“Very well. Release the prisoner.”

The gendarmes untied Félix’s wrists. He stumbled forward, caught himself, and turned to stare at Émile with an expression that was equal parts gratitude and horror.

“Émile—“ he started.

“Go,” Émile said. “Go back to the tunnels. Find the British sap under Zwinge. The wire runs through there. Cut it if you can.”

Félix’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, but Moreau raised a hand.

“Take him away,” Moreau said. The gendarmes seized Félix again, dragging him toward the trench line. Félix struggled, shouting Émile’s name, but they were stronger. They always were.

Moreau turned back to Émile, and the gentleness was gone from his voice. “Now. Tell me about the tunnels.”

Émile told him. Not everything—not the green door, not the Brotherhood, not Antoine—but enough. Enough about the ammonal, about the firing circuit, about the collapse that would bury both armies. Moreau listened, his expression unreadable, and when Émile finished, he nodded slowly.

“Interesting. A German plot, no doubt. A final act of desperation.” He reached into his coat and produced a cigarette, lighting it with a match that flared briefly in the gloom. “You’ve been useful, Marchand. I’ll see that your family is notified of your sacrifice.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think I’d let you live, did you?” Moreau took a long drag on the cigarette. “You’ve seen too much. You know too much. And you’re a deserter.” He waved a hand, almost lazily. “The firing squad is assembled.”

Émile’s blood went cold. The gendarmes marched him to the wall of the ammunition depot, the same wall where Félix had been spread-eagled minutes before. He faced the squad—six men, rifles at the ready, their faces blank and featureless as stones. Moreau stood to the side, watching with the detached interest of a man attending a theater performance.

“Ready,” Moreau said.

The rifles came up.

“Aim.”

Émile closed his eyes. He thought of Antoine, of the photograph, of his brother sleeping peacefully in his narrow bed. He thought of the tapping, the voice, the green door that moved with the tides. He thought of Félix, who was probably already halfway to the tunnels by now, running with a message that would save them all.

A shot rang out.

Émile flinched. But the pain didn’t come. Instead, he heard a sound like a wet cough, and then a body hitting the ground. He opened his eyes.

The squad leader lay crumpled in the mud, a neat hole punched through the center of his forehead. For a moment, no one moved. Then the remaining five soldiers dropped their rifles and dove for cover, scattering like roaches.

Moreau shouted an order, but his voice was lost in the chaos. Another shot cracked, and the dirt erupted at Moreau’s feet, sending him stumbling backward. Émile didn’t wait. He ran, low and fast, toward the nearest trench, toward the darkness that was waiting for him with its patient, tapping voice.

Bullets whined past his ears. Someone shouted his name. But he was already at the lip of the trench, already dropping down, already falling into the cool embrace of the earth.

Above him, the machine guns fell silent. The French would assume a sniper. They would comb the shell holes and find nothing. They would never know that the shot had come not from no-man’s-land, but from beneath it.

Émile ran through the darkness, the iron key cold against his chest, and he did not look back.