At Three O'Clock by Paul Twitchell

Published by Our Navy Magazine 1943-10-15

Jim Ryan, Gunner's Mate, First Class, was rolling a cigarette as he planned to kill the Nazified Frenchman, Rodolph Gauiter, who say across from him drinking his wine from a small glass. The clock on the wall said five minutes to three. As he took a white leaf from the little book of cigarette papers he carried in his tunic, a still fear made his hands tremble. The wine glass! The wine glass! The wine glass! The words hammered through his brain until they became clanging, clashing cymbals! "About this poilu, Monsieur? Tell me, who is he?" the Frenchman said. "No!" Jim's reply was abrupt and definite. The Frenchman twisted his mustache with a sharp movement. His face flushed and he sat forward quickly. The wine glass was twisting nervously in his long fingers.

"It means your freedom! A pass to the coast! And a ship to safety!" His thin lips held a smirk. Jim suddenly laughed. He felt as if he were a cat toying with the mouse. He kept watching the glass go round and round! There was a symbol of death in the rich red wine. Then with hard mirthless eyes he stared at his companion. "A bargain is a bargain! There might be ways of bargaining with people like you!" Jim said. He turned to his cigarette smoking, shook the tobacco into the little trough of paper, glanced at the shadowy window on the fire-escape. It could be opened without making any sound. Outside in the cold drizzling rain, guards in Nazi gray patrolled the hospital grounds. It should have been called a concentration camp instead. Beyond the hedge he could see the gray wall where at three o'clock the doomed French soldier would stand blind-folded, to receive a bitter reward for his loyalty to his country. But Jim drew his mind back to his own problem. They had sent messages through to the American Red Cross headquarters in London that Jim Ryan was seriously wounded and being cared for at a base hospital in Vichy. He had been picked up at sea after being washed overboard. No American warship ever stops for "Man overboard" during war time. This message was probably accepted without suspicion that he was a prisoner. Rodolph Gauiter saw that his prisoner was thinking strange thoughts. He sat down his glass, said in a silky voice: "Have a German-made cigarette, Monsieur, you clutter the floor with tobacco." Jim Ryan said: "Don't bother, go ahead with you wine!" The room hung around him, a shadowy globed space. Through the curved window, as if more Nazi tricks were playing fantastic things with his mind, he saw one of his own American ambulances filled with German wounded roll through the gate. But always as before his roved farther on to the gray wall where death was to play its role. He let his glance come back to the smug Latin face and said again: "I prefer American milkweed to your best Nazi smoke!" The Frenchman flushed. His voice lost its easiness that had been trying to bait Ryan. He said: "Your precious American products will be a thing of the past when the New Order is established." Jim Ryan laughed. The clock had ticked off a half minute. The Frenchman rattled on: "I've been faithful to the party and under the old regime I would have had nothing!" Jim Ryan was silent. He was silent for several reasons. Good reasons, too! And the best one was to think. This Nazified Frenchman had kept him a prisoner for a cause. Somewhere in the building the condemned Frenchman was making his last prayers to God. And alone. The Nazis didn't believe in priests. Rodolph Gauiter was curious about this French soldier who had tried to help Ryan escape. The air was heavy with tension. He twisted the ends of the cigarette with slow grinding fingers, and said: "A man must be low to betray his country!"

The Frenchman thrust his hands forward in a quick nervous movement over the desk. His hands locked around each other and wrestled as though a dire something was clasped between them. The Frenchman said: "You Americans never have understood the European way of thinking and doing." Ryan lit a cigarette with a steady hand although inside of him was a rising fear. He stared long at the wine glass! Any moment now would come the sound of rifle fire. The clock upon the wall said three minutes to three. It would be well not to interfere with fate. He said: "I'll need your signature on a pass." A shadow fell upon the Frenchman's dark face, blurring its outline and the strange look it wore stayed in the American's mind. "I'll give you that pass if you'll answer one question for me." "I must have the pass first - " The hands unlocked. For a moment the pen scratches made the only sound in the room. The Frenchman thrust it across the desk, then drained his wine, and said: "This poilu. He is a member of a secret organization trying to assassinate Frenchmen who have turned to Germany for aid. I can counteract those orders for his death if you are willing to tell who he is and how I can find the others - " Ryan drew on his cigarette deliberately. His eyes moved from the Frenchman across to the window and to the clock. It was two minutes until three. He said: "You don't have time to counteract those orders now. The poilu will be dead in two minutes. He is Jacque Gauiter, your own son, who saved my life. To repay him for that I have placed in that last glass of port a tablet of bichloride of mercury that I stole from the medical room. At exactly three o'clock when your son dies for liberty, you'll die for treachery."

Cover image reference http://www.wartimepress.com/archivepublication.asp?TID=Our%20Navy%201943%2010%2015&MID=&q=702&FID=68 Original Text from http://www.littleknownpubs.com/Dialog_careers2.htm Republished 2014 by Santim Vah http://www.scribd.com/santimvah