Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 349: The last day of peace.

He sat on the edge of the table and pressed his fingers to his eyes. "We need their timing," he said. "We never get timing."

"We got two words," Ruta said. "Confirm concentration."

Janik lifted his hand and drew an invisible circle in the air. "And when we confirm it, we will be told to wait for a better line. We are always told to wait."

He stood. "I'll take the copy to the embassy pouch."

He pulled on his coat and went down the stairs.

In the stairwell he passed a man carrying a sack of flour.

They nodded at each other as if to prove nothing would change tonight.

At a village near the rail line, an old stationmaster checked his watch and then checked the tracks.

A boy asked if the late train would come.

The stationmaster said it would.

He had learned to be kind with lies.

A whistle sounded far off.

The boy smiled.

The stationmaster did not.

The train came in with only two lamps.

The cars were closed.

The doors did not open.

The engine made noise.

The boy waved at his reflection in the glass.

The train moved on.

The stationmaster wrote the time in his book and closed it.

Back at divisional HQ, the room felt smaller.

Men spoke in lower voices without deciding to.

Nowak stood at the window with his hands behind his back.

He looked at the yard, where two horses stamped and blew mist.

"Captain," he said.

"Sir."

"You have the standing orders. If they come across, you hold fire until they are on our side and inside our posts. If they fire, you return. If they run, you do not chase. If they blow a fence, you fix it in daylight. If they leave a story on the ground, you do not pick it up."

"Yes, sir."

The signals officer raised a hand. "Radio from the southern liaison. Slovak roads busier than usual. Trucks under covers. No insignia."

"Note it," Nowak said.

"And from the air arm night flights observed. No attacks. Patterns suggest staging."

"Note it," Nowak said.

He picked up the telephone and asked for Warsaw.

It took a long time.

He listened while the line scratched its way through the city.

"General," he said at last. "We have several small reports. Cut fences. Buried wire. Engine noise. Night flights. No fire. I recommend no public statement beyond 'calm readiness.' I recommend skeleton withdrawal begin tonight with guns and hospitals. I request authorization for bridge guards to lay charges with fuses cut and ready."

He listened to the breathing at the other end.

"Understood," he said. "Yes, sir. I will keep it quiet."

He hung up.

He wrote three lines on a pad, tore them off, and handed them to the captain. "Move the field hospital at dusk. One bridge guard gets fuses. The other gets a priest. Tell them both to sleep in their boots."

The captain nodded.

Nowak looked at the chalkboard portrait. "Madame," he said under his breath, "your pupils have grown up badly."

Night came early, pressed down by cloud. In the outpost, Kulesza told his men to keep their coats on. "No fires," he said. "Stoves out."

Białek walked the fence with a lantern shut to a slit.

He touched each post with two fingers.

He checked the culvert.

He stood very still and listened to the ground. It told him nothing.

At midnight the dogs on the far side barked once and stopped as if someone had put a hand over their mouths.

At one, a man in a long coat walked along the German side of the line with a clipboard and a watch.

He did not look over.

He did not need to.

At two, a car drove fast down a road on their side, without lights, and tore its tire on a hidden spike before the village.

The driver cursed, climbed out, and kicked the wheel.

A local man came out with a lantern and shook his head at the foolishness of city people.

At three, a train without lights moved on the far track, one lamp like a star that did not blink.

At four, rain began again, soft, steady.

In the HQ, the signals officer wrote the hour and the word quiet and underlined it twice.

In Warsaw, the night editor cut a paragraph and kept a verb.

At the embassy, Janik handed the pouch to a clerk and said.

"No receipts," and the clerk said, "Of course."

At five, Lewandowski woke from a cold doze and thought he heard someone breathing behind him.

It was only himself.

At six, the sky decided to be morning.

Kulesza stood, stiff. "Soup," he said.

The men lit the stove for a minute and warmed their hands over it before turning it out again.

Białek brought a report.

"Fence intact. Culvert intact. Ditch quiet. Tree line quiet."

Kulesza signed the paper. "Good," he said.

He looked toward the trees and spoke to them like a neighbor. "Stay that way."

He handed the paper to the runner. "Take it in. Don't slip. If you slip, the colonel will think you lied."

The runner grinned and set off along the track.

They watched him go a while.

Then they watched the line.

Then they watched their own boots.

Then they watched the line again.

The morning train did not come.

Lewandowski said, "He's late."

"The stationmaster will fix his book," Białek said.

"Fix it how?"

"He will write the time he wishes."

Kulesza lifted his binoculars and leaned on the post until it creaked.

Through the glass he saw nothing and everything, wire, grass, a flicker where the sun would be if it had any courage.

He lowered the glasses and rubbed his eyes with a knuckle.

"Today we do our jobs," he said.

He said it once, to the men.

He said it again, under his breath, to himself.

The day began.

The line held.

For the moment, it was enough.