La Forêt

The night was calm and still, a light fog creeping through the forest towards the open field André was watching. The drop was late. He was expecting to meet a new contact, flown in from England, and take them to the city. The last contact who didn’t turn up had drifted a mile off track and had been shot before they’d hit the ground; André wondered if something like that had happened again. The soldiers were everywhere these days, and at all hours too. He checked his watch. The drop was definitely late.

André picked himself up, stretching his back as he did. He had been lying in the tall grass by the edge of the forest for almost an hour now, and the long hike back into the city would mean little sleep tonight. And for what? He cursed under his breath and began to move back along the edge of the forest, his eyes straining in a sweeping arc with every step. La Résistance could never be too careful.

His clothes were damp from the dew and as he walked André began to feel clammy. His body ached for a cigarette and he was growing hungry. He made a mental note to speak to Étienne and pass the message on that another London drop had failed. Soon they would need to try a different approach. As André grew nearer to the little farm on the southeast of the forest he slowed his steps further and ducked deeper into the treeline. The man who lived there was old — bound to be asleep at this hour — and sympathetic but you never knew. The soldiers were everywhere these days.

André walked on, his boots cracking twigs underfoot like gunfire, and after travelling safely past the farmhouse, paused. He thought he had heard something deeper in the forest. A branch snap echoing through the trees. He crouched instinctively. He was not alone.

This had happened two or three times in the past and on each occasion it turned out to be an animal but André scanned the woods all the same. Too many of his friends had been picked up by the soldiers to risk adding his name to that list. Only a few had ever returned and when they did they were panic-stricken, broken-fingered, and clearly turned.

It was difficult to see through the dense mesh of branches and the moonlight wasn’t strong enough to reach the forest floor with any clarity. André checked his watch again. It was nearly 3am. The air was soft and silent for a time and André strained his ears so hard he could hear little more than the thump of his own blood. And then there was another crack. And then one more. Footsteps. André’s eyes darted around the forest, trying to determine the direction the noise was coming from. This was definitely no animal and as if to confirm his realisation, André heard the whisper of voices carry through the trees.

‘Weitere?’

‘Nicht weit.’

André felt sure he would have a heart attack. The men were still some way off but if he could hear them, he thought, any noise he made may as well be a loud admission of his own presence. André made another mental note; to tell Étienne that there must be a mole in the group. How else would these soldiers know the exact location of the drop? André realised he was breathing too fast and shallow, and made an attempt to slow down and remain calm. He listened once more and heard the distant rumble of an engine. The men had not come alone.

André decided to move on and began slowly creeping back out of the forest, towards the field. He figured that moving through the long grass would be quieter than the branch-littered forest floor and it added important distance between himself and the soldiers. As he neared the edge of the forest, however, he saw a great beam of light sweep across the countryside and realised what they had done. He was penned in.

A truck sat idling outside the farmhouse to his right, panning its light across the field and forest, the fog seeming to grow denser under the harsh glare. Smoky tendrils were threading their way into the forest and the haze now reached midway up André’s shins. André heard another noise. To his left, a patrol searched the woods on foot, growing closer with every second. André panicked. He had to make a choice. He remembered going night hunting with his uncle once. How scared the rabbits had looked in the lamplight, how the bullets had cut through the night like talons. André cursed and opted for the forest again.

He crept deeper into the trees than before, hoping his thundering heart wouldn’t give him away. Each beat felt like a hammer on an anvil and André was sure the patrol would be able to hear it sounding against his ribcage. With every few steps André paused to listen and he quickly figured that he was safe to travel diagonally for now; further into the woods but also moving closer to the city. With any luck, he thought, he would be able to slip right past the soldiers. He moved like this for some minutes, placing each footstep delicately, moving beneath any outstretched branches. André was beginning to fall into the rhythm of the journey when the distinct feeling he was being watched crept over him.

He froze. Slowly, he scanned all around him. The forest was still and silent. And yet the feeling remained. It couldn’t be a soldier, André reasoned; he would have felt the bullet before he had even heard it. But then who? The drop, perhaps? Maybe they had been blown off course but survived. André dared himself to whisper the code.

‘Coup, coup,’ he breathed.

The air hung silent and heavy. The fog rolled in. Some distance behind him, the sweep of the spotlight continued. André tried again.

‘Coup, coup,’ he said.

The forest filled with an appalling scream. Shattering the peace of the night, it seemed to come from all around him and André dropped to his chest in the dirt. He looked frantically as the sound died away but then there was a second scream, wetter and more horrifying than the first. The soldiers, André realised. It was coming from the soldiers.

Back in the direction he had come from, André could see the searchlight powering into the trees. He seized his moment and began to run. Darting between the trunks, André pushed on through clawing branches, stumbling only once or twice. He finally began to slow his pace as his lungs grew taught and breathless, only to hear a gunshot cut through the forest and for the tree next to him to suddenly explode with the bullet’s impact. André ran until he could taste blood in his mouth, the hot fizz of vomit building in his throat, and a second bullet missed him by centimetres as he hurdled a fallen tree. Behind him, André could hear the rev of the truck’s engines following him and the searchlight began to sweep closer and closer to where he was running.

When a third scream rang out through the forest André allowed himself to try to picture what was happening behind him. Something awful was happening to those soldiers. The wet, visceral sound of their cries implied to him an awful tearing of some sort. André’s thoughts didn’t dwell long on the subject though, as a second search light bloomed to life at the edge of the forest in front of him. Another truck. He was surrounded. Panicking, and with just milliseconds to think, André darted to his left, losing both searchlights for a moment; just long enough to bury himself in the hollow formed by the roots of a felled tree.

Quickly, André smeared his hands and face with dirt and he tried to cover himself with as much detritus from the forest as he could before the patrols caught up with him. It wasn’t even a minute before the sharp tread of military boots caught up with where he had previously been running. A series of shouts filled the air and the searchlights began to scan slowly.

André watched as a soldier came into view. He was older than André was used to. Usually there was a small pang of guilt when the resistance dealt with the soldiers because most of them were just boys, but this one could have been André’s own father. André saw the man’s breath steam around his mouth and held his own. The soldier wasn’t more than two metres away from him now and André watched as he turned in a slow circle, his eyes searching hard. In the tree hollow, André’s heart thudded into the dirt. Perhaps, if the man stood quite still, he would be able to feel the beat through his boots, André thought.

The man went to walk on but had only taken a step or two when he stopped again and crouched. He touched a hand to the forest floor and André knew at once. He had kicked up a track as he dived into the hole. The soldier followed the track with his eyes and lifted his rifle. André could see his eyes scanning the darkness when suddenly there was a small, quiet choking sound, and then the man was wrenched to his feet. André watched, horrified, as the man clawed at his throat — his fingers frantically scratching as if a rope were tightening there — until the flesh of the soldier’s Adam’s apple burst open in a gush of blood and gristle.

The man dropped to the ground, lying twitching next to his rifle, and André saw that stood in his place was a dark figure; a ghost in the forest fog. At first, André supposed that it could be the London drop. They were never told if the drops were radio operators or soldiers but he had heard rumours of highly trained operatives being dropped into the towns outside Paris.

‘Coup, coup,’ came André’s voice, a hoarse whisper. The hot smell of blood filled the air and André waited, hopeful that the figure would finish the line of poetry.

Instead, it stepped closer and André realised that the figure was no soldier; it was not a man at all, in fact. As the spotlight washed over the pair of them, André caught a glimpse of its face. The scream caught in his throat as he was wrenched from the hollow, the figure’s claws unnaturally strong around his neck. André’s last words spilled out through his trachea onto the woodland floor, and years later the soldiers who had operated the searchlight would swear under oath that they were simply following orders, that they had never personally killed anyone, and that monsters live in the forests of France.