A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) Read Free

happened? No one seemed to know – orwanted to admit knowing. Was Oradour-sur-Glane a reprisal for the killing of Helmut Kämpfe? Or was the execution of Kämpfe a reprisal for Oradour-sur-Glane?
     
    Catesby had been warned not to go to Oradour because the Germans were still in the area. But he needed to verify whether or not the rumours were true. It was a long cycle ride through the dark forests of Limousin warmed and scented by the summer sun. His fake identity papers were in order and his French was so fluent that he was sure he could talk his way out of confrontation with the Milice , the French paramilitary police who collaborated with the Gestapo. In any case, the Miliciens were pretty thin on the ground in a sparsely populated countryside dominated by increasingly well-armed resistance fighters. Just north of Limoges, Catesby rendezvoused with a Maquisard who accompanied him the rest of the way to Oradour. When Catesby asked him what had happened, the resistance fighter simply shook his head and remained silent. The news was unspeakable.
    It was the day after the massacre and the ruins of the village were still smouldering. The first thing that Catesby noticed was the overpowering stench of burned flesh. It was inescapable – and most of it seemed to be coming from the church. The second thing that he noticed was the large number of lost-looking dogs. The animals were prowling around sniffing with their tails down – probably, thought Catesby, looking for their owners. Other dogs were howling and whining in a chorus of despair. The sound made his flesh crawl.
    The people, on the other hand, were silent. There were fifty or so wraith-like figures poking through the ruins looking for loved ones. When people did speak it was in hushed whispers. Everyone seemed numb. Catesby heard one person whisper that the Germans had left only a few hours before and weren’t far away. Another said they were on their way back. But no one seemed afraid – and neither was Catesby. The enormity in front of them blanked out all other emotions. If a tank appeared in the village square and started firing, no one would have dived for cover.
    Catesby was drawn to the church whose ancient stone wallshad survived the flames within. He couldn’t resist its dark pull. He didn’t want to look inside, but he had to. The whispers he had heard were still echoing in his head: all the women, all the children; burned alive. He was later told that the church contained the bodies of 247 women and 205 children, but on the day he was unable to count – or even to recognise the charred corpses as women or girls or boys. In many cases, the only remains were blackened carcasses with thigh and upper-arm bones sticking out. The only thing that differentiated the bodies was their size. The smallest blackened bundles were obviously infants. There were other charred body parts that could have belonged to children or adults. It was a confusion of dead burned flesh that defied description. The smell in the church must have been terrible, although Catesby couldn’t remember it. It was as if some of his senses had been abruptly shut down. But the visual image stuck in his brain forever.
    Catesby had wanted to explore further into the church, only it was impossible to move forward without stepping on the bodies. The floor of the church was a singed carpet of women and children. He couldn’t member how long he stared at the horror. But it wasn’t a horror then; it was just dead bodies. The images on his brain were like a film that hadn’t yet been fully developed. Eventually, he felt someone touching his elbow. It was the Maquisard he had cycled with. He gestured for Catesby to follow him.
    There were more bodies to see: a bedridden elderly man burned alive in his bed and a baby baked alive in a bread oven in the village boulangerie . But most of the bodies, nearly 200 in number, were those of men who had been machine-gunned or shot in various barns and