The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [38]
Two of the guards moved off silently with the three prisoners. They got into the jeep and disappeared down the road. Fritz turned his head to watch them go.
The four men in their olive drab stood facing the lone German and the stony pasture beyond him. The sergeant stroked his mustache. TTie German's face was gray, but he stood stiffly, as if at attention.
“Start running,” the sergeant said. He pointed across the pasture to the forest
TTie German did not move. The sergeant gave him a shove. “Run,” he said, “well give you a good start.” He pushed the German onto the pasture grass, spinning him so that he faced the forest. Hie sun was gone, and there was no color on the earth, only the grayness of falling twilight The forest was a long dark wall, far away.
The German turned, facing them again. His hand went to his collarless shirt as if searching for some dignity. He looked at Mosca, then at the others. He took a step toward them, off the grass and stone. His legs trembled, and his body wavered for a moment, but his voice was steady. He said, “HerrMosca, Ich hab’ eineFrau undKinder”
On the sergeant's face came a look of rage and hatred. “Run, you bastard, run.” He rushed to the German and struck him in the face. As the German began to fall he lifted him and shoved him toward the pasture. “Run, you kraut bastard.” He shouted it three or four times.
The German fell and rose and turned to face them again, and again he said, not pleading this time but as if in explanation, “Ich hob’ erne Frau und Kinder” One of the guards stepped forward quickly and struck him in the groin with the butt of his carbine and then, letting the weapon dangle in one hand, smashed the German's face with the other.
The lines in the wrinkled face sprang leaks of blood. And then, before he began to walk across the stony pasture toward the dark wall of the forest he gave them one last look. It was a look of lost hope and more than fear of death. It was a look of horror, as if he had seen some terrible and shameful thing in which he had never believed.
They watched him walk slowly across the pasture. They waited for him to run, but he walked very slowly. Every few steps he turned his body around to watch them, as if it were some game, breeding a childish distrust They could see the white of bis collarless shirt
Mosca saw that every time the German tinned to watch them and then turned back again his course veered a little to the right. He saw the slight, rocky rise of ground that led to the forest. The trick was obvious. The men knelt on the dirt road and raised the carbines to their shoulders. Mosca let his hang barrel downward to the dirt road.
As the German made his sudden dash for the gully, the sergeant fired and the body had begun its fall as the other shots rang out The fall carried his body over the slight ridge, but the legs remained in view’
In the silence that followed the sharp, scattered reports of the carbines, under the gray wisps of smoke that spiraled above their heads, the living men froze in the positions from which they had fired. The acrid smell of powder floated away on the evening air.
“Go in,” Mosca said. ‘Til wait for the trailer. You guys go in.” No one had noticed his not firing. He turned from them and walked a few steps down the road.
He could hear the roar of the jeep as it moved away, and he leaned against a tree, staring across the stony pasture, and over the dangling legs to the black, impenetrable wall of the forest In the coming night, it seemed very near. He lit a cigarette. He felt no emotion, only a slight physical nausea and internal looseness. He waited, hoping the trailer would arrive before it became really dark.
In the now complete blackness of the room Mosca readied over Hella's body for the glass of water cm the night table. He drank and leaned back.
He wanted to be completely honest ‘Tt doesn't bother me,” he said. “It's just when I see something