The Field Marshal chose just that moment to call for the Kommandant, who stared at the baguette in each of his hands as if they were grenades, then pressed them against the chest of the guard with a gruff order. The young man took the loaves with wide eyes, as if he were being chastised, while the Kommandant hurried to present himself at the Field Marshal’s elbow, announcing his arrival with a clack of boot heels.
The Field Marshal was explaining something in soft tones, his hands relaxed while he pointed here and there, as if it were a casual conversation rather than preparations for savagery. The aide with binoculars at the ready stood by his side as tense as a violin string, and another remained a single step behind, holding one of Emma’s baguettes. The Kommandant listened intently, his back taut like a drawn bow, eyes darting wherever the Field Marshal gestured, leaning closer so as not to miss a word.
“Come,” Thalheim said, speaking from the side of his mouth. “See how strong we are.”
Emma found that it took an effort to look away from the Field Marshal, wondering when he would eat her bread, and whether he would taste the straw. For the moment he continued to gesture up and down the beach.
“Don’t mind them,” Thalheim said. “They are discuss gun sighting, and the need to finish building of observation platform. Come observe, and despair.”
Emma followed him to the side of the tent nearest the bluff and the slate-gray water below. It teemed from the rainfall, a billion eyes winking. The captain lit a cigarette, then spoke in low tones, a billow of smoke appearing with his words.
“See the iron barriers, there in the shallows? They have artillery shells attached to their tips, which we removed from the armories of your defeated army. Anything that touches them will be explode. The waters conceal at present, but likewise one hundred meters past low tide, we have driven logs into the sand with mines at their tips. Also railroad ties cut in half, rough end up, to rip the hull of any craft lucky enough to miss mines. We expect few if any ships to reach shore.”
He pointed while he spoke, in unconscious imitation of the Field Marshal, continuing as coolly as if he were reciting the alphabet. Emma glanced at the Kommandant, who hovered at the Field Marshal’s elbow, nodding every few seconds. The Field Marshal noticed the aide with a baguette, which he took without interrupting his speech. Rather, he continued lecturing, but instead of using his hand to gesture, the Field Marshal pointed with the long loaf of bread. Emma found it comical, that her life was at stake and the bread was serving as a pointer.
“Down there observe a section of the Atlantic Wall,” Thalheim continued in her ear. “If anyone through miracles should survive our obstacles, the wall stops them. This barrier spans from Norway to Spain, four years of work thanks to our highest commander’s brilliant vision. Thousands of tons of concrete, hundreds of thousands of steel rods. Also we have hundreds of kilometers of trenches, thousands of kilometers of barbed wire, millions of mines strung along the coast like a necklace of pearls. This requires manpower, materials, leadership.” He squeezed one hand into a fist. “Above all else, discipline.”
He drew on his cigarette and held the smoke in. Emma realized he was waiting for a reply. “Formidable,” she said.
“Formidable? It is impenetrable.” He exhaled, pointed over one shoulder. “The invaders deserve your deepest pity. Around this command post we have build twelve strong points, armed with 88s, 74s, and mortars. Those holes in the ground with tank turrets in them, those are Tobruks, and we have dozens. We place artillery in pillboxes above the beaches, concrete two meters thick. We have made install guns at angles to the beach for flanking fire. Most important, we have soldiers who are all educate and drill in following orders. They will not improvise, or feel fear, or leave their posts. They will do precisely as told.”
Emma swallowed audibly. “Like a machine.”
Thalheim put his hands on his hips, smoke from the cigarette in his mouth causing him to squint. “Right now the Field Marshal is ordering for 88s to be presighted, for maximum lethality. Rather than calculating a shot, gunners will use those wooden posts—you see? there in sand?—to know their range in advance. They wait for target to enter their sights. Then they destroy.”
Emma noticed that Thalheim had never spoken her language with greater fluency. His chest was puffed out, his head high.
“This is entirely horrifying,” she managed to say at last.
“You begin to understand. I pray your Allies attack here, the more to our greater glory. This is the place our enemy commits an extravagant suicide.”
He waited, thumbs hooked in his belt. “For one time the smart miss has nothings to say to Captain Thalheim?”
“They will never come,” she answered. “Sergeant.”
He raised a hand as if to strike her, but an exclamation from his right interrupted the impulse.
“Exzellent,” the Field Marshal was proclaiming, his mouth full and his words spewing crumbs. “Exzellent.”
The Kommandant broke into a huge smile. Emma thought it looked like he had peed himself with relief.
The Field Marshal waved one hand in a circle—a magnanimous gesture she recognized from Odette’s café as signifying that the person will buy a round for the house, but which in this case the aides and guard understood to mean that they should distribute the rest of the bread among everyone under the canopy. Thalheim ground out his cigarette and bulled past, Emma’s impudence forgotten as he muscled toward the Kommandant to receive his share.
The young guard handed away the two loaves in his hand, then waved Emma over. She weaseled through the men, all large and wearing bulky foul-weather gear, to hand him the canvas sack. He tried to pull out a baguette, but it was too long to remove completely with his gun in the same hand.
He glanced to the side, spotted a table covered with maps, and leaned his rifle against it. Then he turned and began working his way forward through the crowd of officers, holding baguettes up so that they could tear portions off for themselves.
First, Emma felt relief. The fact of fourteen loaves was forgotten, the straw undetected. But as the men began eating, laughing and jostling one another, comparing the size of their portions of bread and bragging if they’d received a larger one, she experienced a second realization: they had forgotten her.
Emma was female, one of the local people, too weak to be feared, too small to notice. So sure were the men of their power, she had become invisible. No one was looking, no one protecting. Meanwhile the young guard’s rifle leaned against a table not two steps from her right leg.