The Stone of Idris: Actions and Consequences.

I was riding behind my great-great-grandfather’s eyes again. It was dark. Cannon fire was constantly exploding. Flares were being fired regularly. Four other helmeted soldiers and I were creeping toward a rambling farmhouse.

Keeping low, we crossed under a sign and across a road. The sign read Andlau. 1500 habitants.

‘World War II,’ I thought. My grandfather had fought in this war. Andrew Neville Smithson, everyone called him Nev, as his father was also Andrew Neville.

“You say three families are hiding there, Smithson? Nine women, only four old codgers and three male kids to protect them?”

“Yes,” my grandfather answered.

Dismayed, I thought, ‘Fuck, here we go again.’

I knew my grandfather to be a kindly, gentle old man. He even shooed spiders outside instead of swatting them like everyone else I knew.

Eldrick was controlling another of his offspring.

Still mouse quiet, my grandfather’s troop surrounded the building. The three younger males went to garrotting wire without making a sound.

Two of the four older males were also outside on patrol. They went to knives.

My grandfather banged on the front door loudly. In perfectly accented French, he shouted, “Soldats! Tout le monde debout! (Soldiers! Everyone up!)”

The door opened. As it did, grandfather booted it in. The soldiers rushed into the building. The last two older men were quickly disarmed.

The families were gathered in the lounge. The house was searched from top to bottom. “All are here, Sergeant,” One of the men snapped.

I could almost feel my grandfather listening. Touching a finger to his lips, he indicated the fireplace. It was unlit and cold. Running his hands along the lintel, grandfather found the release mechanism.

Ripping the door to the hidden room open, Nev grabbed the arms of the two older but still too young to be recruited boys hiding in there and ripped them out into the room.

Both boys were quickly disarmed of the World War I revolvers they held.

The women of marriageable age were quickly sorted from the rest of the families. There were six all up.

The rest were made to pack some quick supplies and were rushed out of the house.

“You know where the next farmhouse is,” my grandfather told them. “Turn back, and we’ll be forced to kill you all.”

I thought, ‘Well, at least that’s something.’

It wasn’t. The sergeant waited until the families had almost reached the back hedge before opening up on them and mowing them all down.

“You’re too soft, Smithson. No witnesses. I barely got off last time.”

They went back into the house. The six remaining women were hysterical. The eldest was screaming, demanding to know where her mother and father were. I could understand them because my grandfather could.

One of the others would faint, come to see the soldiers, and then faint again.

“Shut them up!” the sergeant yelled.

Rifles were raised to club the women senseless, all the easier to rape them.

“No need for that,” my grandfather crooned softly.

The stone’s chorus played softly through the room as if it was coming from thousands of miles away. It was over 5,500 of them back in California. The distance made no difference to the stone’s power.

“We are your saviours. We saved you from being viciously defiled by the Germans. You’re very grateful to us for saving you, aren’t you? So grateful you want to take your clothes off and make love to us, don’t you?”