Under a War-Torn Sky (26 page)

Within moments the camp emptied except for the wounded and the village women who were tending to them. Claudette ran to Henry with tears of frustration on her face. “It is Pétain. He is in Saulieu. They go to intercept him as the coward flees south. They won't take me with them!”

Pétain and his Vichy-government cronies! If they could catch the head of the Hitler-controlled French government, maybe the
maquis
could force the Gestapo or the Milice to release some Resistance prisoners. Like Madame Gaulloise! Like Pierre's mother! “How far is Saulieu?” asked Henry.

Claudette stopped crying. “Ten kilometres. We could use the bicycles.” She laid her hand on his chest. “Will you help me, Henri?”

Henry looked down at the pretty face. It was no longer quiet. Her eyes blazed with a ferocity that had once unnerved him horribly. But after today's news of the slaughter of the Vercors people, Henry was in for a little revenge himself. He nodded grimly. “You betcha.”

The month he'd spent eating the Morvan's simple but regular food had strengthened Henry. They flew down the mountains on their bicycles, Claudette's skirts flapping loudly. Saulieu lay low at the edge of the Morvan, where the knotty woods gave way to the fertile fields of Burgundy. They could spot the cathedral of Saulieu long before coming to the town. The sun was rising slowly, washing the countryside pink. There was very little to hide them. But Henry refused to acknowledge the lunacy of what they were doing.

They left their bicycles propped against a stone wall encircling an ancient graveyard. He held Claudette's hand to slow her down and keep her against the wall as long as possible. She was trembling with excitement.

The town was already stirring. People hurried by them, carrying baskets of flowers, fruit, milk bottles, and loaves of bread. In the market square, a farmer led his horse to drink from the splashing fountain. A scroungy-looking dog chased a grey cat. A young girl swept the front stoop of her house. It seemed an ordinary morning. No high officials. No sense of impending conflict. Claudette left Henry to gossip with a shopkeeper. Maybe she'd learn what was happening.

Nervous, Henry sat down on a stone wall wrapping the edge of a closed café. A Nazi propaganda newspaper blew down the street towards him. He picked it up and buried himself behind it.

When he glanced over the edge of the paper he could see Claudette inside the bakery and an old woman sticking her head in and out of a glass case. He guessed she was responding to Claudette's questions about the contents. He'd seen Claudette do this a dozen times now, play-acting at being a customer, all the time wheedling information out of people without their ever knowing it. This time, though, he wished she'd hurry it up.

A good ten minutes passed. Then, up a road came the whirring sound of several bicycles, pedalled at breakneck speed. Henry forced his head even farther down behind the newspaper and hunched over.

Whoosh…whoosh…whoosh…whoosh.

Four German soldiers whisked past Henry and careened through the market, sharply turning on a street and disappearing into the labyrinth of village alleys.

Moments later, up the same road, rushed the whine and grind of a car being shifted into high speeds on tight curves. A jeep flashed into the courtyard. Four men clung to the back of it, a long machine gun stuck out the back.
Maquis
. Henry recognized the hodgepodge of uniforms and German and British guns. But he didn't recognize the band of men. The jeep circled the square, its driver trying to decide which spoke to take. But before Henry could signal the direction the bicycle patrol had fled, the jeep
vroomed
down the larger roadway on which he and Claudette had entered town.

C'mon Claudette, Henry fumed. Something's up. He was going to motion to her, when he heard more car sounds roaring towards the marketplace. This time two black Nazi sedans hurtled into the square and disappeared up another street.

Damn, that's enough of this, cursed Henry. He ran across the square, into the bakery, and grabbed Claudette. “We're leaving now,” he said, forgetting to speak French.

The elderly shopkeeper gasped.

Oh, God, thought Henry, don't make me have to do something to this old lady to keep her quiet. But the woman hurriedly shoved more bread loaves into Claudette's arms. “
Bonne chance, mes amis.
”

As Henry and Claudette opened the door to leave, the
maquis
jeep reappeared in the square then raced up the road the Nazi staff cars had just taken. Henry dragged Claudette across the square into the crook of an arched garden gate.

Panting, they peeped around its edge. They would be completely exposed trying to escape along the road on which they had entered town. “Do you know another way out?” he whispered.

Claudette shook her head.

“Do you know what's going on?”

“They missed Pétain. He made it out before dawn with six hundred Milice guarding him.”

“Six hundred! Was there a fight with Martin?”

“I don't think so,” Claudette said with irritation. “I think they completely missed him. The fools.”

“But what's all the hubbub about?” asked Henry.

“What means hub-bub?”

“Why the staff car, the bicycle patrol, and
maquis
jeep? Who's chasing whom?”

Before Claudette could answer they heard the sharp crack of rifles and the loud chattering of the machine gun.

Dropping the bread, Claudette pushed away from Henry and ran back through the square. Henry dashed after her. They weren't armed. They didn't know where they were heading. They just ran on like hound dogs crazed by a fresh scent.

The fight was over before they got anywhere near it. The
maquis
jeep rushed past them yet again, the Frenchmen triumphantly shaking their rifles and cheering. Claudette and Henry had to press themselves up against the buildings for the vehicle to pass. In the back of the jeep was a bloodied Vichy officer.

Claudette was ecstatic. She ran after the car, shouting back at Henry, “Come!”

At the edge of town, they came across a crowd of people, shouting, jeering, shoving. Eagerly, Claudette pushed her way through them. Henry followed gingerly. There was something terrifying about the seething anger of the mob. Henry could feel it rippling towards a tidal wave of violence.

When Henry squeezed his way through to the centre of the throng, he saw a teenage girl. Accused of collaborating with the Nazis, her hair had been shaved off, her dress torn open. Bald, half-naked, vulnerable, she quaked before the people who spat at her and called her vulgar names. A pregnant woman held a long horsewhip and stood before the girl. She was asking who in the crowd would be first, the first to whip her captive.

Disgust choked Henry. This was crazy. This was a witchhunt. There'd be no telling what these people might do. Henry needed to get Claudette out quick.

He reached her just as she shouted, “
Cochon!
” Before he could stop her, she jumped into the circle. She pulled a knife out of the belt of a man standing nearby.

“Kill her,” Claudette shrieked in French. “I will kill her for you. She has betrayed all of us.”

“
Oui, oui! Tuez-la, tuez-la!
” the crowd began to chant.

Henry recoiled. He couldn't believe Claudette's bloodthirsty rage – that the murderous person holding the knife was the same girl who had comforted and kissed him so tenderly just hours before. He couldn't let her do this. She'd never be able to live with herself later if she slit this teenager's throat. Claudette would be as dead inside as if she had been killed.

Henry tackled her from behind and held her fast. “Don't do this, Claudette. Don't.”

Claudette screamed and kicked and cursed him. The crowd shouted at him. But Henry held fast. “Look at her, Claudette. Look at her. She's just a kid. Maybe she fell in love with a young soldier stationed in town, some homesick boy who before the war probably would have been embraced by the whole town as a great match. Maybe she fell for him because he was strong and brave and could treat her to some decent meals on his soldier's pay. Maybe he loved her enough to write her poetry. Love probably made her stupid. She's going to have to live with what she's done. She'll be shunned here the rest of her life. That's punishment enough.”

Claudette still struggled. “Let me go. Coward! Coward!”

“Think of André, Claudette. Don't dishonour him with this. He died for France's freedom, not for this. And if you kill her, you're as bad as the Nazis. The one thing I've learned from all this hate and death is that when the war is over, it has to be over. If it's not, we'll just have another bloodbath in a few years. Don't do this, Claudette. You're better than the Nazis. I know you are.”

The crowd went silent, waiting.

Claudette's hand trembled. The knife dropped to the ground. Claudette went limp and covered her face.

Henry carried her out of the crowd and laid her down on the grass.

“I hate you,” she mumbled. But she held onto his sweater and buried her face in it and cried. Henry heard her whisper a prayer asking forgiveness from God.

He was only able to cradle her for a moment before someone cried out, “
Les soldats!
”

Henry looked up and saw a German truck barrelling down the crowd from the village. Another one approached up the country road. The trucks screeched to a halt. Soldiers jumped out the back, guns up and ready.

Henry pulled Claudette to her feet. They scrambled through some bushes and ran – ran with all they had – ran to the cemetery where they'd left their bicycles. Maybe they could pedal to safety.

The bikes were gone. Henry could hear tramping feet doing double time up the gravelled road. There was nothing to do but hide behind the gravestones and pray they passed.

He and Claudette huddled together behind a huge stone topped with an angel. It was missing a wing. Henry looked at Claudette. Terror was all over her face. She looked so young. He couldn't let the Nazis get her. He couldn't.

The gate squeaked open. Henry chanced a look. Two young soldiers were threading their way through the tombstones. They'd find him and Claudette for sure.

Henry looked again. The soldiers looked scared. New recruits, Henry reckoned. Still, there were two of them with two guns. They'd make a racket even if he did manage to jump them. Then the rest of the troops would be on them within seconds.

There was nothing else to do but for Henry to draw them away from Claudette, just like he'd seen mother quails do when someone approached their nest. He cupped Claudette's face in his hands. He didn't know if he'd ever see her again. He kissed her gently. “Stay here,” he whispered. “When they run after me, run for the hills.”

Henry crawled from grave to grave. When he neared the gate, he stood up in plain view.

“Halt!”

Henry bolted. He ran back towards town. He looked over his shoulder to make sure both soldiers were chasing him. They were.

He glanced back again. In the distance he saw Claudette creep out of the cemetery and disappear up the hill. The soldiers chasing him saw nothing.

So long, Claudette, Henry thought. Be good now.

He gritted his teeth and ran on.

A shot rang out behind him.

Another one twanged into the ground beside him.

“God, give me wings,” Henry prayed. He imagined the fields back home where he'd run pell-mell into the March winds, arms out, waiting to be lifted off the face of the earth, up, up, into the blue.

Another shot. But it was way behind him now.

He'd done it. He'd outflown them. Now all he had to do was get out of town and find someplace to hide.

Henry darted around a corner.

He came face-to-face with a German squadron.

Two months later, Henry just knew his life was over. He'd never get home, never hold Patsy, never see his mother and father. He had watched for every opportunity to escape from the Germans who held him and there had been none, absolutely none. They'd transported him northeast from towns to fields to villages to mountains in their wild, disorganized retreat. American fighters had strafed them.
Maquis
groups had ambushed them. Many of the German soldiers in the convoy had died along the road. And all the while Henry remained shackled to the back of a camouflaged truck.

These Germans were regular army. They had treated him pretty well. He'd eaten once a day. They didn't bother to ask who had helped him. All they focused on was retreating. Worn-out, afraid, ill-supplied, dogged by their enemy, they had scurried eastward, back to Germany.

But now they were meeting up with other German columns and massing. Clearly Hitler was preparing some sort of counterattack to the Allied invasion. The last road sign Henry had seen had been for Metz. He remembered from his flying days that Metz was pretty close to the German border, not far south from Luxembourg.

Henry could sense the growing desperation of his jailers. They were heading for a do-or-die fight. Waiting, watching, hoping for some kind of miracle, Henry had written dozens of letters home in his mind:

Dear Ma,

Try not to be too sad when they tell you I'm gone. I got to skim along winds just under heaven. I also got to see the very best of people – even as I witnessed the very worst in them. Remember how you told me that people would amaze me? So many people risked everything to help me. There was a young French mother who took me in who reminded me a lot of you. She was kind and pretty and brave and a real good cook. She loved her son fiercely, with all her being. Just like you. Look for me in the clouds, Ma, because I hope to fly there now in peace. I'll be watching you.

Dear Pats,

I wish I had told you I loved you before getting shipped over. I guess I didn't recognize it until I was here without you. Your pretty face followed me everywhere. Your beautiful letters kept me going. Many times when I was afraid I thought of you and the joy we shared as children and could have shared as adults. I wish I had a whole life to spend with you. Go swim in our creek for me once in a while. I'll be waiting there in spirit to hold you in my arms. My body may not have been able to walk home but I know my soul will fly there. I do love you.