Wherever there is war, you will find heroes.
That isn't entirely a good thing.
War creates heroes, almost by accident. Creates them, uses them, and discards them, usually without noticing and certainly without caring much. When stripped down to its barest, rawest essentials, war is nothing more than the strategic use of deliberately inflicted pain in an attempt to achieve a goal of some sort; whether that goal is a good or a bad one is largely a matter of perspective and is not especially relevant. And the question of, precisely, how much evil can be harnessed and used to fight evil before making a mockery of the good it is intended to salvage or midwife is one that will, in all likelihood, never reach a satisfactory conclusion.
War is pain, and little else. Pain inflicted and endured, turn and turn about. Sometimes that pain is necessary, because evil is real; cruelty and oppression are real, and about the best one can say for them is that, inevitably, someone will choose to resist them. Someone, sooner or later, will be driven to a point where there is no real choice other than to resist; to face the pain, to inflict pain in the hopes of a time when it will no longer be necessary, and, perhaps, to pay the price for that resistance. Thus, heroes.
The price is always, always, too high. Heroes know that going in. They also know that the cost of not paying it, not resisting, will be higher still.
They had paid, and paid dearly, that day.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*
If life were fair, it would have been something spectacular, something almost worthy of the incandescent soul it had claimed. It would have been something that altered the course of the war—no, no, something that won them the war. It would have been the sort of thing they told stories about. There might have been a movie, someday, with perfectly made-up actors exchanging some inspiring, poetic last words as the music swelled behind them, before expiring in a blaze of slow-motion glory. If life were fair, it would have been important. It would have meant something. It would have been almost worth it. Almost.
It wouldn't have been a banal, meaningless courier run and a lucky shot from a bucktoothed private with a room-temperature IQ and no real understanding of the war beyond a simple 'shoot everything that isn't wearing a uniform just like yours.' It wouldn't have been a pointless, useless, wasted sacrifice that accomplished nothing. It wouldn't have been a bullet in the gut and a grindingly ugly death with the smell of ruptured bowels hanging in the air and naked fear in the glazing eyes.
If war played fair, it wouldn't have ended like that. Not like that. Not for Tiger. She'd deserved better. She'd deserved so much better than that.
Of course, if war was fair, it wouldn't have ended at all. Hell, it would never have begun. She would have been home, sipping coffee in a Parisian café, carrying a lipstick rather than a Luger, and wearing couture rather than camouflage. Or something like that. It occurred to Hogan that he didn't even really know who or what she would have been, or what she would have been doing if there had been no Hitler, no war to shift her from that other life, and the realization hurt. He'd known Tiger. The fearless Resistance leader, the clever saboteur, the woman who was equally serene when facing Gestapo torturers or irritated American colonels… he'd known Tiger. He'd loved Tiger, or might have, if they'd had a bit more time and a bit less tension. Marie Louise Monet was essentially a stranger. He'd never known her, not really. And now he never would.
Somehow he'd always assumed that there would be a bit more time. If not now, then… someday.
One of her associates, a man named DuBois, had come to break the news to them. If he looked as though he had been crying, and he did, because he had, no one was judging him.
"We were able to retrieve her before the filthy Boche could do so," he said bluntly. "She did not die alone, or in their hands, thank God. We carried her to safety before they could take her. They probably saw that someone was shot; they may have seen that someone was killed. There is a remote possibility that they could even have seen that the person hit was a woman, although we do not think so. But they do not know that it was Tiger." He clenched a fist. "They must never know that it was Tiger. They must never learn that she is dead."
"You're going pull a fake on the Krauts? Say that rumors of her death were greatly exaggerated?" Hogan shoved his cap back, and didn't let his hands tremble as he did so. "You really think that's going to work?"
"Oui," he said. "Another person will be given the code name 'Tiger.' Another leader will issue orders in that name. It will work, because it must work."
"The queen is dead; long live the queen, is that your game?" said Newkirk, his voice a bit rougher, a bit harsher, than usual. "That's low, chum. Sure, someone else will need to take up her mantle, and that's a fact, but leave the poor girl her own bloody name, at least! Show a little respect for the dead!"
"Respect! You ignorant fool, I am showing respect! Tiger must be seen to live on. She is an inspiration; that light cannot be allowed to die!"
"Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?" Hogan couldn't remember any more of the poem. Trying to dredge up memories of freshman English Lit class was calming, though; it was better than thinking about… other things. "She was an inspiration. She was a bright light. You're not going to find another one like her anytime soon."
"Bah. I can have another Tiger in place by the end of the week. La Belle France has not much left to call her own," said DuBois, with a bitter chuckle. "She has lost her freedom and her treasures. We have very little food, and very few weapons. But France has no shortage of brave men and women who will fight to the last breath to regain our freedom. It is all we have left, and we will not betray her by leaving her work half-finished. I can promise you that much, at least. There will be another tigresse to carry on until we are all free."
"It won't be the same," said LeBeau. "It cannot be the same."
"No. It will not. But I know of no other way to honor her memory than to make certain that her life—and her death— was not in vain."
"Never in vain," said Hogan. "If there's anything we can do… we're at your service. And hers."
"Thank you, Colonel," said DuBois. He hesitated, then made up his mind. "And Colonel… you should know. She spoke of you sometimes. You were… she was very fond of you. She would sometimes say… as she was dying, I think she—"
Hogan held up a hand for silence. He took a moment, visibly considering and discarding several ways to phrase what he wanted to say. If he even knew what he wanted to say. If there was anything at all to say.
Finally, with a painful sort of dignity, he said, "I need you to understand. For the first time since I've been in command here… I want to know nothing. Not yet. Maybe not ever, but for now... not yet."
DuBois nodded. "Of course," he said quietly, and turned away. He offered no useless condolences, no salt-in-the-wounds sympathy. He just activated the lever to open the tunnel and swung himself onto the ladder. "We'll be in touch," he said brusquely. The kind of brusque that attempts to conceal tears, and fools no one. He had loved her, too.
Hogan stood there for a moment, his hands hanging helplessly at his side. Slowly, wordlessly, he walked to his office, shut the door, and sat down at his desk. Remembering. Tiger had stood patiently by his desk as Newkirk awkwardly tried to find a way to use his measuring tape without risking a slap, and while he, himself, had snarled at her, that first meeting so long ago; she would never stand in that room again. Why had he assumed that, if anyone was going to be caught and killed, it would be him? Why had he let himself believe that he would not have to face losing anyone else? Why had he convinced himself that he could protect her?
How was he supposed to go on with his work if he could no longer let himself believe that he could shield the ones he cared about? How was he supposed to go on with his war, with his life, as though nothing had happened?
He opened the shutters a crack, peered through the window. Past the huts, past the guard towers, past the fence. He stared at the forest just beyond the borders of their cold, vermin-riddled, miserable little barbed-wire world, just ever so barely illuminated by moonlight, and just for a second thought he saw the iridescent eyes of a great cat gleaming in the velvety shadows.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*
Author's note: 'Tyger, Tyger' is by William Blake; probably his best-known piece.