The Kindly Ones

At that moment, I heard a great din coming from Kochstrasse. People were shouting, running, splashing frantically. A man passed by crying, “The Russians! The Russians are in the tunnel!”—“Shit,” Clemens belched. He and Weser aimed their flashlights toward the station; German soldiers were surging back, firing randomly; I could see the muzzle flashes of machine guns, bullets whistled by, cracked against the walls or hit the water with soft little thwacks. Men were yelling, falling into the water. Clemens and Weser, lit by their flashlights, calmly raised their pistols and began firing round after round at the enemy. The whole tunnel echoed with cries, gunshots, the sounds of water. From the other side, machine-gun fire volleyed back. Clemens and Weser made to switch off their flashlights; just then, in a fleeting burst of light, I saw Weser catch a bullet under the chin, rise as if lifted up, and then fall straight backward in a huge splash. Clemens bellowed, “Weser! Shit!” But his light had gone out and, holding my breath, I dove underwater. Guiding myself by holding onto the tracks rather than swimming, I headed toward the cars of the makeshift hospital. When my head emerged from the water, bullets were whistling around me, patients screamed in panic, I heard French voices, curt orders. “Don’t shoot, guys!” I shouted in French. A hand seized my collar, dragged me, dripping, toward the platform. “You’re one of ours?” went a cocky voice. I was breathing hard and coughing, I had swallowed water. “No, no, German,” I said. The man let off a volley of rounds next to my head, deafening me just as Clemens’s voice resounded: “Aue! You son of a bitch! I’ll get you!” I hoisted myself onto the platform and, striking out with hands and elbows at the panicking refugees to clear a path for myself, found the stairs, which I fled up four at a time.