Under a War-Torn Sky (7 page)

Henry looked at the frail, mild man. He was obviously afraid. Henry's face burned with embarrassment. He'd learned a fierce independence from his parents. He didn't like asking for help, especially since it meant endangering a kindhearted old man. “I am sorry for the trouble,
monsieur
,” Henry mumbled.

“The world is a troubled place, young man.” The old schoolteacher stood up stiffly. “But the storks are back. There is hope.”

The teacher didn't return until twilight. Henry had slipped in and out of consciousness all day long. He was feverish, first burning hot, then teeth-chattering cold.

“You are worse,” grunted the old teacher. “The skin colour is very bad. We must go.”

He handed Henry a change of clothes. “You cannot travel in your uniform.” Henry was loath to give up his warm flight jacket for the scratchy sweater and trousers. But he put them on, carefully tucking his lucky marble into a pocket.

As Henry struggled with the pants, the teacher called down the staircase: “
Entrez.
”

A thick, sturdy man heaved himself up through the trap door into the tower, just missing the bell as he stood.

“Who is that?” Henry asked. He knew he could trust the teacher, but what about this fellow?

“This is the father of my best student. He has papers to carry goods on the canal in his boat. He can carry us.”

“Do you trust him?”

“When I told him I needed to go to Basel, he asked if I was in trouble. I told him I was. He said he needed to know what kind of trouble. I told him.” The teacher paused and put his hand on the man's shoulder. “He said he would help, ‘
pour François.
' François was his son.”

The large man nodded and echoed: “
Pour François.
”

He scooped Henry up and carried him down the narrow staircase. He and the teacher whispered back and forth in French. Henry searched their faces in the flickering light of the candle the teacher held. He could only understand individual words here and there. He could make no sense of their context.

“
Allemands…soldats…pots de vin…
” Did they mean they'd have to bribe German soldiers with money or did they mean they'd make money by turning him over to the soldiers? Henry trembled with uncertainty.

The boat master laid Henry in a wheelbarrow and patted him on the head as if he were a toddler. The tenderness of the huge man quietened Henry. Without another word the trio bumped its way down the dark forest path.

Henry caught the sweet, cool nighttime scent of water a few hundred yards before they came to a small dock. Spring frogs newly emerged from the thawing mud were peeping. A long, flat-bottomed boat bobbed on the water. It was heavily loaded with crates of red and white cabbages.

Henry hobbled on and squeezed himself down among the crates. The teacher sat beside him as the boat master pushed off with a long pole. He would punt the boat down the narrow canal.

“Basel is about sixty kilometres south,” explained the teacher. “We will reach it in morning. We must be silent. Near Basel you must crawl under here.” He pointed to a tiny cavern visible only from where Henry lay, built by carefully stacking the crates along their edges. “Sainte-Odile, Alsace's patron saint, escaped her father's cruelty by slipping into a hole miraculously opened in the rocks for her. We will try to be like Odile when the time comes, yes?”

Henry nodded.

The teacher handed him a large pretzel. Henry had little appetite, but he ate, looking up at the stars. It was a clear night. He knew the British would be up flying a mission. American crews would follow at daybreak.

Under any other circumstances, Henry would have enjoyed the ride along the still, quiet waters. They passed ancient dairy farms, gaggles of geese asleep in tall grass along the canal banks, and fields just beginning to sprout. His own father would be planting soon if the Richmond weather was good. Henry walked the farm in his mind to keep himself from worrying.

But after two hours, Henry could no longer stomach the constant pulse of pain up his leg. He injected his final syringe of morphine. If all went well he'd be in a hospital by the next night. Henry reassured himself his ankle would feel much better once it was properly set and immobilized. Rocked by the boat, lulled by the steady, soft
lap-lap-lap
of water against its hull, Henry passed into oblivion once more.

Slap-flop-flop-flop.

Henry was startled awake as the teacher dropped a freshly caught eel into a bucket right beside his head. The eel squirmed and writhed and set off the fish already swimming around the bucket. There must have been a dozen eels and fish in there. They made quite a commotion.

“Protection,” said the teacher with a smile.

Before Henry could ask what he meant, he heard dogs barking and shouts in German. “Quickly,” the teacher whispered, smiling a frozen, made-for-show smile.

Henry shimmied into the hiding place among the crates, careful not to topple any. As his feet disappeared, the teacher wedged a final crate into the hole, sealing Henry in.

Beneath the big, round heads of cabbage, he could not hear well. But Henry felt the barge turn towards the side of the canal after soldiers yelled several commands in German. The sound of his enemy's language sent chills through Henry.

With growing horror, he realized the soldiers were going to board the boat with the dogs. They'd sniff him out in an instant. Henry started to panic, feeling trapped, like a scared rabbit down a hole. He swallowed hard and tried to dispel the image of how hunting dogs back home tore apart a rabbit when they caught it.

Stamp, stamp.
The boat tipped and rocked. The soldiers had boarded. Henry heard panting and the hot, heavy breathing of dogs excited by new smells. But so far, they were held back on leashes.

“
Wohin gehen Sie?
” one soldier demanded.

“
Au marché à Bâle
.” The boatman answered in French that he was heading to market in Basel.

The soldier switched to French himself: “
Pourquoi est-ce que vous ne vendez pas les choux dans votre village?
”

“
Personne n'a de l'argent pour acheter des légumes.
” The teacher truthfully told the soldiers his neighbours were too poor to buy the cabbages.

“
Ah, oui?
” the soldier asked sarcastically.

Without warning –
SLASH!
– a bayonet jabbed through a cabbage and down through a slat in the crates. Its point stopped just inches above Henry's heart. The steel tip withdrew. Henry held his breath, bracing for another stab.

SLASH!

The bayonet ripped through the cabbages again, this time just missing Henry's eye.

“
Quelque chose en-dessous?
” the soldier snarled. “
Des Juifs, peut-être?
”

His companion grabbed a crate and threw it into the water, splashing the teacher. The two soldiers laughed. The boat rocked. The dogs barked ferociously.

SLASH!

The bayonet rammed down next to Henry's knee.

Henry glared at the bottom of the crates above his head. They were going to tear apart the boat. What did they suspect?
Juif
– was that the word for Jew? Henry glimpsed the soldiers' boots circle the crates, saw their fingers reach through the top rung of the top tier of crates. They'd only need to lift one or two more before they could spot him through the cabbages.

Henry clenched his fists, holding them up in front of his face like a boxer – the way his dad had taught him to fight. At least they wouldn't get him easy.

Henry heard the teacher offer to help move the crates so the soldiers wouldn't destroy the cabbages in their search. The teacher shuffled and clumsily lifted a crate himself. What are you doing, old man? Henry anxiously wondered.

Then Henry heard him trip and stumble into one of the soldiers.

SLOSH.

The bucket of fish toppled over, too, spilling water and eels everywhere.

“
Oh, pardonnez-moi,
” the teacher cried.

The dogs went berserk, barking and jumping and snapping at the fish that flopped about the boat. In the mayhem, the dogs' leashes wrapped round and round the soldiers' legs.

“
Verflucht!
” The soldiers cursed and reeled, yanked around by the crazed dogs. They hit and kicked at them, finally heaving the dogs off the boat onto the dock.

The boat almost pitched over as the soldiers jumped out as well.

“
Avance, vieux idiot! Vas vendre tes sales choux ailleurs!
”

The teacher ignored the insult and followed their orders to shove off. “
Merci, messieurs!
” he called innocently and waved as the boat swung out into the water.

Henry felt the boat jerk forward with great heaves as the boatman pushed with the pole. The boat skimmed quickly along the water. Gradually, Henry's heart stopped knocking in his ears.

After ten minutes, the teacher whispered, “We are all right. We are past sight. But remain under until I tell you.”

“Will you have the same trouble with the Swiss border guards that you did with those Germans?” Henry whispered back.

“Germans? Those were not Germans. Those were Swiss soldiers. They thought we hid Jews.
Certainement,
some of them are as bad as the Nazis.”

Henry and the boatman waited at a pier for a long time, bobbing among many other barges. The schoolteacher had walked to his cousin's house.

Henry remained tucked under the cabbages, hungry, hurting, hot. He felt like he couldn't breathe. His only view of the world was through the slats of the crates. Repeatedly, he heard voices nearing, nearing, and then receding. German voices, completely incomprehensible to him.

To keep still, Henry tried mentally reciting snippets of history:
In 1400 and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…
He worked through the table of elements his chemistry teacher had drilled into him the previous spring:
Aluminium, Al, thirteen atoms. Calcium, Ca, twenty atoms…
He even travelled back to third grade to work through the multiplication tables:
9 x 10 is 90; 9 x 11 is 99; 9 x 12 is 108…
Anything to keep himself quiet, sane, less aware of his dangerous circumstances.

Finally, when he thought he would scream from anxiety and the pulsating throb up his leg, the old teacher reappeared, carrying a basket. He was alone.

“
Quitte le quai,
” he told the boatman.

When they were back on the canal, floating south, he explained, “My cousin was afraid to help, afraid he could be deported if caught. But he gave me food. He said to stay on the water. Down the Rhein to the Aare. Then the Aare canal into Bern. It will take a day. Have you more medicine?”

“No,” Henry answered. He knew he was in trouble. If his ankle wasn't set correctly soon, his foot might never be normal again. He couldn't bear the thought of hobbling the rest of his life.

“I am sorry. You must have courage,
oui?
” He passed Henry a bottle. “Drink. It may ease the pain.”

It was a fruity brandy. Henry gasped as the liquor ripped down his throat. He'd never drunk much of anything alcoholic before the Air Corps since he was underage. He didn't much like the way it made people stupid-sounding either. Tonight, however, Henry gulped the liquor to numb the ache and ease the claustrophobia of his cage of crates. The brandy quickly lulled him into a stupor. The boat rocked, Henry's head whirled, and the night slipped by.

Henry came to, standing. He was between the boatman and schoolteacher, his arms across their shoulders; theirs around his waist. They were trying to walk him forward. It was still dark, dark and foggy.

“The hospital is near,” whispered the schoolteacher.

Hospital? Henry tried to focus on the old man's face. Hospital? Why did he need a hospital? Henry took a step and felt his leg on fire. His stomach turned viciously. The world spun.

“
Lève-le,
” the teacher told the boatman. “
Vite, vite.
”

Henry felt himself hoisted, cradled like a baby, jostled, hurried. He tried to look about him. Tall buildings with ornate stone facades leaped up into the night sky. He heard a bell chime the hour. Twisting his head around he saw life-size bears and a knight marching in front of a ghoulish-looking clock face. “This has got to be a nightmare,” Henry steadied himself.

“Be still,” hissed the teacher.

Suddenly, they stopped. Henry was lowered and propped up against a column.

“Stay,” the teacher said. “
Bonne chance.
”

“Wait,” Henry called out. “Where am I?” But there was no answer. The old man and his giant companion had vanished.

Click, click, click, click.
Something was coming. What was it? Henry peered into the fog.

Click, click, click, click.
Voices droned.

Henry searched the swirl of mist. No bodies that he could see.

Click, click, click, click.

Henry used his good leg to shove himself up the stone column. Whatever it was, he'd face it standing.

Out of the mist drifted two figures in white. White veils fluttered about their heads. Henry rubbed his eyes and looked again. There were red crosses on the brims of their veils. Red crosses. Could they be nurses? The old man had said
hospital.

The figures – one young, one old – drew near, heels clicking along the stone pavement. The young one noticed him first. She stopped her companion abruptly with her arm. The old nurse shrugged her off.

She asked Henry something gruffly in an unfamiliar language.

Henry forced himself to think calmly. What should he do? Pretend to be a French-speaking Swiss?