_WE WERE THERE_
AT THE
NORMANDY INVASION
[Illustration: _“The 82nd always wins its battles!” Slim said_]
_WE WERE THERE_
AT THE
NORMANDY
INVASION
Written and Illustrated by
CLAYTON KNIGHT
_Historical Consultant_:
MAJOR GENERAL RALPH ROYCE
U.S.A.F., RETIRED
[Illustration]
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
© CLAYTON KNIGHT 1956
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 56-5389
_We Were There at the Normandy Invasion_
Contents
CHAPTER
I Dangerous Business 3
II House-to-House Search 15
III Father Duprey’s Plan 26
IV Midnight Landing 34
V André’s Warning 41
VI Victor’s Mission 56
VII Tricolor over Ste. Mère 66
VIII Prisoners 73
IX Victor Disappears 82
X “Here Come the Tanks!” 86
XI André and the Nazi Pilot 98
XII Slim and the Trumpet 104
XIII The War from the Air 110
XIV Father Duprey’s Story 123
XV Battle for St. Sauveur 129
XVI André into the Fighting 139
XVII Patchou on the Battlefield 146
XVIII The Secret Tunnel 153
XIX The 82nd Finishes Its Fight 160
XX Bastille Day--1944 169
Illustrations
“The 82nd always wins its battles!” Slim said FRONTISPIECE
At a signal from the driver he went to the pump 5
He opened the door to find a Nazi officer frowning at him 32
The squad gathered up grenades, bazookas, and other equipment 70
André had learned half of Slim’s pet song 108
“My dear boy!” Father Duprey held out his arms 124
Marie came up through the old tunnel 156
_WE WERE THERE_
AT THE
NORMANDY INVASION
CHAPTER ONE
_Dangerous Business_
Toward sunset on the first day of June, a small black car rattled past
a crossroads sign in a tiny village in northwestern France. The sign
pointed to the near-by town of Sainte Mère Église, about two miles
farther inland. The coast of the English Channel was nearly three miles
back in the other direction.
Behind the wheel of the car sat a thin, anxious Frenchman. Hunched
beside him was a young, blond Englishman. The younger man was shabbily
dressed, and most of the lower part of his face was covered by a
bandage.
The car pulled up and stopped in front of a house with a weather-beaten
sign on it which read:
PIERRE GAGNON _Gas Tobacco Chocolate_
A lone gas pump stood between the house and the highway. Beyond the
house lay Pierre Gagnon’s farm.
The driver waited a moment and then honked three times sharply. Almost
immediately the door opened. A dark-haired boy of about twelve came out.
The man behind the wheel asked, “Is your father here?”
The boy nodded and politely explained, “If you want gas I can work the
pump.”
The driver frowned nervously and repeated, “Get your father.”
From the direction of Ste. Mère Église three German soldiers came
in sight, their heavy tread echoing in the stillness of the drowsy
village. Both men in the car and the boy glanced at them. When the boy
did not move, the driver spoke more sharply, “Your father, bring him
here.”
The boy turned and disappeared through the door.
The driver and his passenger waited. The younger man slid low in his
seat, his back toward the approaching soldiers.
Chatting among themselves, the Germans paid no attention to the car
nor to a girl of fifteen who had come to the house door. Behind her
stood her father, Pierre Gagnon, a burly man with a thick mustache, and
rumpled country clothes.
He brushed past the girl, and at a signal from the driver, went to the
pump. The driver left his seat and bent close to speak to him.
[Illustration: _At a signal from the driver he went to the pump_]
Pierre Gagnon listened carefully, then swung around and went back to
the girl in the doorway.
“Marie,” he whispered, “they want us to hide this fellow, another
downed flyer, for two or three days.”
The girl studied the youth slumped low in the front seat. She thought,
“He looks like all the airmen who are shot down over France--the
worried eyes, the peasant clothes that don’t fit, the bandages.”
“Who is the driver?” she asked. “Has he the right password?”
“Yes,” her father replied. “And he asks us to hide this English pilot
till the Maquis can find a way to get him over the border into Spain.
Do you think we can do it?”
* * * * *
In Normandy, that part of France which thrusts northward into the
English Channel, apple trees were in bloom. Warm, soft breezes played
across the green fields, over the thick hedgerows, and through the
orchards.
But in this beautiful spring of 1944 the people of Normandy could not
enjoy what they saw. They could only hear the tramp of German boots
over their land. Nazi armies had occupied France, and for the last
two years German camps had been set up over the countryside. French
property had been seized, and Nazi officers told the people exactly
what they could and could not do.
The town of Ste. Mère Église sits almost in the middle of what is
called the Cherbourg Peninsula. Most of the Norman people are farmers
or dairymen. Some are fishermen, but the Nazis would not let them fish.
Instead, the Germans set up barriers along the shore to prevent boats
from landing. And they lined the coast with huge guns. Also, the fields
were spiked with posts and barbed wire to keep American and British
gliders from landing.
For many months, the French people had been expecting British and
American armies to come in a great invasion that would drive the Nazis
out. But their hopes had always failed. No troops had come to liberate
them, and the Normans felt glum and often angry. More than anything
else they wanted to be free.
The only thing they could do was to cause all possible trouble for
the Nazis secretly. Those who banded together in “Underground” or
Resistance groups were called Maquis. If a Maquis was caught by the
Germans he was very likely to be shot.
Nevertheless, many French ran the risk of being detected helping the
British and Americans. Even very young men and girls operated in the
secret Underground.
The Nazis tried to watch everyone, but sometimes the most
innocent-looking car on the road was being used to trick them, even in
the quietest village.
It was happening now. Marie Gagnon nodded to her father. “Bring him
in,” she whispered. “I’ll get the room in the attic ready.”
“One moment,” her father said. “I’ll send André out of the way first.
What he doesn’t know he won’t chatter about.”
He shouted through the door, “André. Come here.”
There was a clatter of heavy shoes and the boy reappeared.
“Son,” his father said sternly, “have you taken the eggs to old Schmidt
yet?”
André hesitated and shook his head. “No--my bicycle--I could not get
the chain fixed.”
His sister snorted at him. “You are getting soft. It won’t hurt you to
walk. The eggs are on the kitchen table.”
André thought, “Sisters!” But a look at his father’s face sent him back
for the eggs.
As he turned down the road toward Ste. Mère Église his father went back
to the gas pump. André had not gone far when Patchou, his dog, caught
up with him. The puppy gave him a playful nudge as if to say, “I’m
sorry to be late, but I had to give that car a good, long sniff.”
After walking less than a mile, André turned off and came to a group
of camouflaged barracks. Inside the high wire fence, narrow buildings
stood in long rows. A German sentry, his rifle held loosely, guarded
the gate. He grinned at the boy and waved him inside.
As André entered, a Frenchman pedaling by on an ancient bicycle shouted
to him, but a burst of Patchou’s barking drowned out the greeting.
André went around a large group of military vehicles and mobile guns
parked under a protecting netted screen. Then he followed a winding
path up to one of the barracks.
Patchou, prancing ahead of him, leaped playfully at a middle-aged
German soldier seated on a bench outside, puffing on his pipe.
Gently pushing off the excited dog, the German saw André and called,
“Aha! It’s young Herr Gagnon.” He tapped the ashes from his pipe and
then added, “You have brought Papa Schmidt some more eggs, no?”
André held out the package. The German placed it on the bench and
carefully unknotted the big handkerchief the boy had brought.
Schmidt exclaimed when he saw the contents. “_Ach!_ and cheese, too.”
He held the cheese to his nose and inhaled deeply. “That’s goot. You
are a fine boy, André Gagnon.” With a twinkling smile, he added,
“Almost as goot as my own Otto.
“Look, I show you.” He reached into the pocket of his tunic. “Just
today a letter came from my home in Osnabrück--and pictures.” Pointing
to one, he said, “That’s my Otto. He’s like you, no?”
André studied the snapshot of a boy about his own age but with light,
almost white hair, frowning into the sun.
A little embarrassed, André could only say, “He wears funny clothes.”
The German chuckled. “If he could see you, he’d think yours were
comical too.”
Glancing at the letter in his hand, he sighed. “_Ach!_ but they are
having it bad in Osnabrück. The Englisher and the Americaner planes
they bomb, bomb, bomb our town. Part of my home is gone. My wife and
boy say they get no sleep.”
Almost to himself he muttered, “When will the war end?” Then, turning
to the boy, he said sadly, “_Ach_, how do you know, any more than me?
We smile, eh, while we can ... and enjoy the sunshine.”
Patchou had wandered off to one of the other barracks and started a
fight with one of the camp dogs. André called over his shoulder, “I’ll
be back again in a day or two,” and ran to separate the two animals.
By the time he and Patchou reached home, the last twilight had faded.
The house was dark, for blackout curtains were drawn across the
windows.
Inside, his sister sat hunched alone in the wide, stone-floored
kitchen, listening to music from a forbidden radio.
“Where’s Papa?” André asked.
Marie looked annoyed. “He’s gone off with Victor Lescot. That Raoul
Cotein is making trouble again. Now he says our cows broke into his
pasture. What an old weasel he is! Even the Germans behave better.”
Later, with supper over, she paused suddenly, and raised her hand for
André to be silent.
Breaking the stillness, the weird wail of air-raid sirens rose far away.
Marie looked tired. And there was fear in her eyes when she heard the
sirens, which meant that another air raid was beginning.
“_Again_ tonight,” she sighed, “and so early. It is not yet ten
o’clock.”
She went to the kitchen window and made sure the black curtains let no
light through.
“You run upstairs, André, and see that the curtains there are tight.
And stay with Mother,” she ordered.
Mme. Gagnon had been ill for several weeks. Now she lay in her big bed
upstairs, nearly asleep.
She opened her eyes as the sirens died away and then began again.
“Well, son,” she said, “did you eat a good supper?”
André nodded.
A little wind from the sea had sprung up, and somewhere a loose board
rattled. Also, there was a noise in the attic. “Must be a rat,” André
said to himself, and decided to take Patchou up there tomorrow. “He’ll
have some fun catching that little thief,” he thought.
His mother was roused again by the drone of plane engines coming in
high overhead. Their lofty beating made the air tremble. Antiaircraft
guns in near-by Ste. Mère Église began to boom. Their hollow _wumpf,
wumpf_, added to the din of the sirens.
In a slight lull, Mme. Gagnon asked, “Is your father home? I do not
like him to be away when there is an air raid.”
André shook his head and raised his voice above the racket. “He’s out
with Victor. Marie says Raoul Cotein is trying to stir up trouble
again.”
He wanted his mother to think of something other than the air raid, so
he laughed and added, “Marie says Raoul is a weasel.”
Raoul Cotein’s mischief-making was a village joke.
Mme. Gagnon sighed. “I wish your father would come home,” she said.
“The bombing might be bad.”
“Don’t worry,” André said wisely. “These are English planes. The
Americans only come in the daytime. You know, Maman, there aren’t any
big guns and bridges and war factories close to us here.”
But bombs were dropping, though at a distance. Several minutes later,
the coastal guns were still firing, but the sound of the engines had
begun to die away.
“Listen,” said Mme. Gagnon in a relieved voice. “You were right, André,
they dropped no bombs on us.”
André heard his sister’s footsteps on the stairs. Then he thought he
heard the creak of the attic door. Presently she came bustling into the
room, carrying a small tray with a pot of chocolate and a cup.
Cheerfully, she said, “There, Maman, they’ve gone. Let’s hope we get no
more planes tonight. Here,” pouring the chocolate, “drink this and try
to get back to sleep.”
Her dark skirts swished around her knees as she fluffed up her mother’s
pillows and tucked in the coverlet.
Downstairs the front door opened and they heard Pierre Gagnon calling,
“Marie!”
Then someone spoke in another voice.
“Shh-h,” whispered Marie. “There is someone with Papa.”
Her father was saying loudly, “Yes, Herr Kapitan, I’m all right. No,
no, it is not necessary for you to come in.”
Before Marie and André reached the head of the stairs, the outside door
was slammed, bolted, and the stranger had gone.
The light from the hall lamp fell on their father as he turned to face
the stairs.
Across one of his cheeks stretched a deep red gash.
CHAPTER TWO
_House-to-House Search_
As the light fell across the wound on her father’s face Marie cried out
sharply.
From the bedroom Mme. Gagnon called, “Marie, what’s wrong?”
André ran back to her side. “Papa’s hurt,” he said, and then added
hastily, “but not badly.”
“But there were no bombs,” Mme. Gagnon exclaimed.
Pierre himself had lunged up the stairs and now burst into the bedroom
sputtering, “Don’t excite yourself, Maman. All is well. No harm is
done. That _cochon_!”
“Ah,” his wife cried. “So, it _was_ Raoul Cotein!”
“Who else but that son of Satan?” Gagnon’s eyes snapped fiercely. He
was red and breathing furiously, and flung himself into a chair beside
the bed.
“I contain myself,” he said firmly, clamping both great hands on his
knees like thunderclaps.
“No, Papa,” André grasped his arm, “do not contain yourself yet. Tell
us what has happened.”
“Marie,” said Mme. Gagnon, “run get some hot water and clean Papa’s
cut.”
Marie clattered quickly down the stairs and Mme. Gagnon went on, “Now,
Pierre, you get yourself slashed and perhaps poisoned over a cow. I
thought you had more sense.”
The farmer stiffened. “It was _not_ about a cow! Raoul sent for me
only as an excuse. Ask Victor. He also was there. At once Raoul began
to scream so loud, if it were not for the guns booming they could have
heard him in Ste. Mère.”
“Then what--?” began Mme. Gagnon impatiently.
“Then,” cried Pierre, “he began to shout charges against me.” He swept
out both arms. “Against all of us.”
Pierre swallowed angrily. “He accused me,” he said, “of being a
collaborator of the Nazis! He accuses us all--you, Marie, André--of
working hand in glove with them. It seems that only this evening he saw
André, here, entering the German camp.”
There it was--the black word, _collaborator_, he who helps the enemy!
It meant someone hated by all Frenchmen, more, perhaps, than the enemy.
“But Papa,” André cried angrily, “poor old Schmidt! He is not an enemy.”
Pierre shook his head. “He is. We have only been giving him a few eggs
and a little cheese because he is a tired old man. But Raoul can make
it sound wrong if he wants to.”
[Illustration]
Mme. Gagnon nodded encouragement. She thought of the many Allied flyers
this brave, shaggy man had secretly helped to escape from the Nazis at
the risk of his life. And of the boy in the attic. She glanced at her
son, who, so far, knew nothing about his father’s and sister’s work in
the Underground.
“I grew very angry when he called me a collaborator,” Pierre went on.
“How could I let anyone say such a thing to me? I punched Raoul and
he came back at me like a bull. We fell down, and my face struck the
stone wall. The result is not pretty, perhaps?”
“Why did that German captain come home with you?” André burst out. “Did
he get in the fight with Raoul?”
Gagnon snorted. “Not in the fight. Unfortunately he came along just as
Raoul picked up a stick and started for me. Victor was yelling at both
of us, and suddenly we saw the German coming. Naturally we all shut our
mouths like clams. Frenchmen do not fight Frenchmen in front of the
Nazis--not even Raoul.”
“Perhaps there will be no more to it,” said Mme. Gagnon soothingly.
“If they do not send soldiers to snoop around the house,” Pierre
grunted, “we need not worry.”
Marie returned, breathless, with a basin of water and clean cloths. Her
father sat on the edge of the bed, repeating the story, while the cut
was cleaned and gently covered with ointment.
“Your face feels better, Pierre?” Mme. Gagnon asked. “Good. Now we must
all sleep.”
A few minutes later the house was dark. Everywhere, from the kitchen
where André snuggled into his goosedown-soft, curtained bed, to the
attic, there was the sound of quiet breathing. And in the attic the
English boy turned restlessly on his narrow cot.
Before dawn the household roused to the day’s duties. It was not long
before they heard news. The weary, older German soldiers were being
removed. War-toughened young Nazis were going to take over the district.
Before the new troops had been in camp two days, proclamations that put
stricter limits on freedom were posted everywhere.
A curfew was ordered. People must not leave their houses between ten in
the evening and five in the morning. This did not bother André since he
usually went to bed well before ten.
A sad little good-by note from Papa Schmidt reached him. It thanked the
family warmly for their kindness and ended: “Be a goot boy. Someday I
bring my Otto to see you. _Auf Wiederzehen._”
André noticed that the German camp was a changed place. The new
regiment had chained vicious police dogs inside the wire fence. And
André was horrified when he heard that stray dogs belonging to the
village people had been shot.
He tied Patchou safely in the farmyard at the rear of the house, and
kept an eye on him.
Then came another dreaded order:
ALL ARTICLES OF BRASS OR COPPER MUST BE SURRENDERED BY THE CIVILIAN
POPULATION. A HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCH WILL BE MADE.
André’s most prized possession was a gleaming brass trumpet which he
had learned to play with some skill. It was not only dear to him, but
the only really precious thing he owned. “I must hide it in some very,
very safe place,” he thought.
Also, the coming search would be very dangerous to the rest of the
family. If the Germans came they would surely find the flyer in their
attic. And if an enemy pilot were found in their house they would all
be shot.
Marie and her father had been watching for the Maquis operator to come
for the flyer, according to plan. But for some reason he had not yet
appeared.
“Those Maquis! They are wasting their time in some café, enjoying
themselves, probably,” Mme. Gagnon said irritably.
But Pierre replied, “No. Not the Maquis. There is some good reason why
the operator has not yet been able to get here.”
It was not until June 4th, just before curfew time, that a Maquis
messenger slipped into the Gagnon house.
He said he could not come before because the new Nazi garrison had sent
patrols everywhere.
The plans of the Underground had all been changed. Pierre and Marie, he
said, must keep the flyer where he was until new arrangements to spirit
him away could be made.
That evening Marie and her father huddled in the dark little parlor to
talk over their situation.
Marie whispered wildly, “What _shall_ we do if the Nazis come here?
They will go to the attic too.”
Pierre shrugged, scowling. “We must find some way. We always have
before.”
But, more than an hour later, they still had no idea what to do.
“There’s no other way,” whispered M. Gagnon at last, “but to go ask
Father Duprey to offer some idea. He must be taken into the secret.”
Marie nodded.
The night was dark and rain began to fall.
Her father yawned. “I’ll go see Father Duprey tomorrow, first thing,”
he said. “Now off to bed with you.”
They rose, and stood tensely, startled by a creak on the stairs and
soft, padding footsteps outside the door.
The door opened and André stood there, clutching his boots and his
trumpet.
“Heavens, André, you frightened us,” Marie snapped. “We thought you
were in bed long ago.”
His father asked gruffly, “Where are you going at this hour?”
The boy moved nervously. “Papa,” he blurted, “why didn’t you tell me
that man was hiding in the attic?”
Pierre and his daughter exchanged quick glances. Pierre put a hand
protectingly on his son’s shoulder. “We thought it might save trouble
if you didn’t know,” he said. “But now it’s done.”
“But why shouldn’t I know?” André demanded stubbornly. “He’s the man
with the bandage who came in the car a few days ago, isn’t he? I talked
to him. And I like him.”
“You must be sure not to give us away,” André’s father ordered sternly.
“Say nothing about this man to anyone. Do you understand?”
André promised, and he laid his trumpet beside the lamp. “I found him
up there when I went to the attic to get this. I must bury it outside
somewhere before the Nazis come snooping around.” Then he gasped. “But
won’t they find Ronald?”
His father said, “Your sister and I are looking out for him. Now, about
this trumpet...?”
The horn _had_ to be hidden before another morning.
“I’ll bury it near the fence beside the lane,” André whispered as he
edged out into the stormy darkness.
An eerie stillness hung heavy on Marie and her father when André had
gone.
After a few moments Marie whispered nervously, “I don’t think I can
sleep until this is settled, Papa. Don’t you think you could slip out
and see Father Duprey tonight?”
Pierre frowned. “What about this cursed curfew? I do not want to be
caught. However, it will not be my first night job for the Underground.”
He slipped on his coat, pulled his cap low, and eased himself
noiselessly out of the house.
Marie sat alone, her eyes on the clock.
Her heart jumped a beat when an approaching patrol car whizzed down the
road. It passed the house. Again the dark silence.
The back door opened and André returned, his boots caked high with mud.
When he asked, “Where’s Papa?” she said, “He has gone out. Ask no more
questions and go to bed.”
“I will wait for Papa,” he replied firmly, and perched on the edge of a
chair, studying his sister’s face.
He had felt excitement growing among the others in the house. Now it
belonged to him, too.
They listened for outside noises through the sounds of the storm. André
said, “Ronald Pitt’s a fighter pilot, Marie. Did you know that?
“I never talked to one before,” he continued. “He told me his Spitfire
plane got hit, late one evening, and he parachuted down into a wood.
The Germans didn’t find him. He’s been hiding in the fields and towns
for two weeks.”
Marie nodded. “He’s one of the lucky ones--so far.”
André chattered softly on. “Those bandages were a fake, weren’t they?
He wasn’t really hurt. Somebody painted his jaw with iodine and put on
those bandages so he wouldn’t have to talk to any Germans.”
Her eyes on the clock, Marie said, “Shush now.”
André broke the next few minutes of silence with, “Ronald comes from
Nottingham, like Robin Hood--”
But Marie hissed, “Shh-h!” still more sharply, and rose to listen at
the door.
At a rap outside, she unfastened the lock.
Pierre slipped inside. His tired face had lighted up, and Marie smiled.
“Father Duprey will help us!” she cried eagerly.
Pierre motioned to the stairs and said, “We go talk to Maman quickly.
Come, Marie. You, André, clothes off and into bed. Lamps out, Marie.”
At Mme. Gagnon’s bedside a candle flickered. Pierre and Marie drew
close beside the pillow.
“The Nazis have already begun to search houses on the other road,”
Pierre whispered rapidly. “They are still a long way from us, but we
can’t lose any time. Father Duprey has a plan. It is this. He will
arrange with the hospital at St. Sauveur le Vicomte tomorrow for you
to go there in an ambulance to have treatments. And we will hide the
English flyer inside the ambulance.”
At a frightened look from Mme. Gagnon, he went on hurriedly, “Marie
will ride with you, and Father Duprey will sit up with the driver.
He thinks if we make a big parade of it the Germans will not be so
suspicious.”
“But St. Sauveur is beyond Ste. Mère Église ... so far away,” whispered
Mme. Gagnon.
“But that is good, Maman,” Marie protested.
“It is the nut of the whole idea!” Pierre’s voice rose excitedly. “St.
Sauveur is out of this district, and you will be safely away from these
new Nazi troops. Some Maquis will meet us near the hospital. They will
spirit our flyer out of the ambulance and hide him until he can be
moved on. It is a good plan, Maman?”
“I do not like it,” she protested.
CHAPTER THREE
_Father Duprey’s Plan_
Even next morning when Father Duprey arrived to go over the plan again,
Mme. Gagnon was still protesting uneasily.
Father Duprey clasped his hands, beaming. “Think of the good that will
come to all.”
Marie’s mother nodded her head doubtfully.
The next step after preparing Mme. Gagnon for her role was to instruct
the flyer in his part.
Leaving Marie on watch downstairs, Pierre and the priest, trailed by
André, clumped up the dark staircase to the attic.
Ronald Pitt listened to them quietly and shrugged when Father Duprey
asked, “You agree, my son? It is a good scheme, you think?”
“Well, I’m in your hands,” the young Englishman replied. “But I’d
certainly feel foul if I got you into trouble. Of course, I’m willing
to take any kind of chance. The sooner I get back to my squadron the
better. I think you can guess what’s up in England. It’s my bet the
invasion is coming any day now.”
“It can’t come too soon,” Pierre said eagerly.
Soon after that, work on the farm began as on an ordinary day. In spite
of the Gagnons’ desire to appear untroubled, however, they paused often
to listen and look around them.
Rumors of the Nazi search party reached them from all sides. The
village women trundled from house to house bemoaning the loss of their
copper cooking pots.
At two o’clock that afternoon the priest’s housekeeper brought a
package. A message said that all arrangements had been completed. At
exactly four o’clock the ambulance would arrive before Pierre’s house.
Mme. Gagnon was to be ready to leave instantly. The party must arrive
at a point near the hospital at _exactly_ five o’clock.
Marie packed clothes for her mother and laid out her own best dress.
Even though she would be returning that same evening, she also prepared
a small lunch basket. The hospital was only about eighteen miles away,
but food might be difficult to find and expensive to buy.
André was given the job of coaching Ronald Pitt. He climbed the attic
stairs filled with excitement but also full of laughter. For the
disguise that Father Duprey had chosen for the flyer was a nun’s
outfit of clothing.
When the young Englishman had put on the long, full, black robe, André
stood back and studied him, his eyes dancing. And from under the
starched headdress that framed his narrow face the flyer’s blue eyes
danced just as gaily.
André said, “You make a pretty nun.” And grinning, he finished, “I did
not think Spitfire pilots were so _chic_.”
Then recalling the serious instructions his father had given him for
Ronald, he repeated them. “Be ready to come downstairs just before four
o’clock. Get into the ambulance quickly, right after they put Maman’s
stretcher in. The family will try to surround you. The driver is a
Maquis and he’s used to this kind of business.
“Now,” André finished, “my father says to be sure you don’t leave
anything behind you for the Germans to find. And Marie will come in a
few minutes to put the cot and all this stuff away.”
“Splendid.” Ronald looked down at the boy. “I’d hate to see _my_ young
brother exposed to all this danger you’re so cheerful about. Well,
now I must practice a bit.” He took a sedate turn between the cot and
the window, grinning at the French boy. And he practiced sitting down
demurely.
It had been raining gustily all day but stopped about three, and the
wind dropped.
For some time the village had been quiet--the Nazi squad busy among
outlying farms.
As four o’clock neared, Mme. Gagnon was upstairs, dressed and wrapped
in a shawl, ready to be hurried onto the stretcher.
In the shuttered little parlor, a dark-robed figure stood in the shadow
beside the hallway door.
André stood watch at a window on the road, and his father and Marie
paced the stone-floored kitchen.
Then, electrically, the silence was broken by the rumble of an
approaching car. André drew the curtain aside a little.
At his stifled cry Marie and her father rushed to the window.
A German army truck crammed with armed soldiers was slowing up on the
road. And at that same moment, from the opposite direction, the closed
black ambulance rolled up to the Gagnon door.
Almost before the ambulance had braked to a stop Father Duprey’s tall,
erect figure swung down from the front seat, and Pierre rushed to admit
him. The driver immediately began to back the long vehicle close to the
door.
Marie cried softly, “Heavens, Father, what a calamity! The Nazis! What
can we do?”
“We can act sensible,” said Father Duprey, “and waste no time moaning
about what we can’t help. Those men are evidently going to search the
Julliard farm next door before they come here. Let the driver in with
the stretcher, daughter, so we lose no time getting Mme. Gagnon away.”
The driver sidled in and M. Gagnon seized the stretcher. The two men
hurried up the stairs.
A few seconds later the creaking steps warned André that his mother was
being carried down. He signaled Ronald to be ready for his dash.
“Now,” said Father Duprey to Marie, “sob a little, but not enough to
draw much attention.”
André held the door while the little procession puffed and brushed
through. Mme. Gagnon was lifted easily in through the ambulance door.
And a moment later, Ronald, clutching his awkward bundle of skirts as
naturally as he could, climbed in and crouched beside the stretcher.
His face was hidden by the width of his headdress, and he bent gently
over the sick woman.
“It is all going like clockwork, madame,” he whispered. “Don’t be
frightened.”
“I--I’m afraid,” murmured Mme. Gagnon, “more for Pierre, for Marie and
André....”
Standing by the road, Pierre looked with mounting anxiety at the
soldiers prowling through the farm next door. They were not spending
much time there.
In all his later life André never forgot the next few minutes.
Mme. Gagnon called, “Pierre! Pierre, please come with me.”
And just then Raoul Cotein bicycled briskly up, shouting, “_Mon Dieu_,
Gagnon, what are you up to now?”
He set his bicycle against the wall and stared into the open end of the
ambulance.
“What’s the trouble here?” he demanded loudly as his eyes rolled toward
the strange nun.
“Get on with your business, Raoul,” M. Gagnon ordered. “My wife is ill,
as you well know, and you are not needed here.”
Father Duprey’s black eyes were traveling swiftly from the hunched
figures in the dimness of the ambulance to the Germans only two or
three hundred yards away.
André boosted Marie in beside her mother, and M. Gagnon closed the door
upon them. Father Duprey said calmly, “You may as well come along,
Pierre. It will comfort your wife. I’ll see that you and Marie get home
tonight.”
“But André--” Pierre whispered.
André tugged at his arm. “Go. Go, Papa,” he urged. “I can take care of
everything--only go.”
Down the road, the Nazis were piling back into their truck and the
starter whined.
[Illustration: _He opened the door to find a Nazi officer frowning at
him_]
Father Duprey seized Pierre’s arm and whipped him swiftly forward and
up to the seat in front.
He had no more than slid into the seat himself when the Maquis driver
rocked the old ambulance into action with a crash of gears. The machine
swayed into a turn and roared away toward Ste. Mère Église.
André watched it go for a long minute.
The German army truck started, but halted a little distance off, and
the sharp voice of the officer giving commands drifted toward them.
Raoul Cotein shifted his feet. “Uh--I have things to do,” he cried
suddenly. He flung a leg over his bicycle, and peddling furiously, was
soon gone.
André moved idly toward the house. Once through his own door, the boy
trotted quickly into the kitchen.
He untied his dog and put him in the dimly lit cow barn. As he snapped
the door fastening, he spoke warningly, “Not a sound out of you,
Patchou. Remember!”
He got back into the house just in time to answer a loud thumping
at the front door. He opened it to find a Nazi officer and several
hard-faced soldiers frowning down at him.
CHAPTER FOUR
_Midnight Landing_
André stepped quickly aside as, without a word, the Germans tramped in.
Three of them were ordered upstairs while the others set to work poking
into every cupboard and drawer on the first floor. When they had
emptied the kitchen of its copper they trooped off to the outbuildings.
André waited uncertainly in the hallway at first. Later, he edged his
way to the farmyard door and anxiously watched the search through the
barns. Not until he saw that none of the men went toward the lane where
his trumpet was buried did he begin to breathe easily.
At last, the officer came from the loft over the cow barn, shouting to
his men to return to the truck.
He strode into the kitchen and asked André, “Your father and
mother--where are they?”
“They are all gone to the hospital with my mother, who is sick,” André
explained.
“Well, then, when your father returns,” the officer snapped, “tell him
I am putting men with machine guns in that loft overlooking the road.
And advise him that it will do no good to protest.”
André’s heart sank. What would the family do with a lot of Nazis
underfoot? Did they suspect that the Gagnons had been working with the
Underground?
Now, for the first time, he felt desperately alone. He nodded silently.
When the Germans had gone--with his mother’s copper kettles--André ran
back to the barn. Patchou lay in his dark corner under a manger, as
quiet as a mouse.
“Come into the house, Patchou,” he said. “We’ll have to keep you there
now.”
For an hour or so André went about doing his father’s chores and his
own. The heavy, low-lying clouds began breaking a little.
He had just finished milking the cows when the German truck returned
with a dozen rough-looking gunners and the sharp-faced officer. Machine
guns were unloaded and hauled up the stone loft steps.
Some time later the officer and some of the men piled into the truck
and drove away.
“They must have left at least six up there,” André said to himself.
He must go up the road later, and warn his father and Marie about the
hidden gunners.
[Illustration]
He opened the front window so that he might be warned of an approaching
car.
André ate the cold supper Marie had left under a cloth for him. The
minutes dragged by. By nine o’clock there had been no sign of his
father and sister, and no word. For a while he sat on the floor beside
his dog. Tomorrow was June 6th--Patchou’s first birthday. André
hoped Marie would keep her promise to bring back some sort of toy to
celebrate the occasion.
When the clock struck ten he went out into the deepening twilight to
stare into the gloom toward Ste. Mère. What if the Nazis had opened
the ambulance and found Ronald? Perhaps the Maquis had failed to meet
them.... He tried not to think of such things.
Now it was eleven o’clock and long past time to go to bed. From several
directions there was strong antiaircraft firing, and the echo of bombs.
In spite of the curfew order, André began to walk stealthily down the
road. Those Nazi gunners might open fire on any vehicle bringing his
family home.
Halting, listening, he picked his way to a bend of the highway. After a
little while he began to realize how tired he was.
Drowsily he looked for a sheltered spot in the hedge, and sank down
among the ferns and the tall grass. The rich smell of earth and spring
growth rose around him. A few fields away a horse whinnied, and
from far in the distance came the long, high-fluted note of a train
whistle....
Some time later he awoke with a start, and wondered where he was and
how long he had slept. All around him hung thick, velvety blackness.
Something had wakened him. It was the sirens and fire alarms in Ste.
Mère.
And then he heard the planes.
Drumming overhead, throbbing so that the earth shook under his feet, he
heard them coming.
Then he saw them. A brilliant moon outlined their wings.
He ran across the road and struggling through a hedge, scrambled
quickly up the tallest of a clump of trees.
And now he saw that the planes were coming in from the west, lower than
he had ever seen them fly. They were twin-motored, scooping below the
clouds to right and left, filling the sky.
They were bombing Normandy! Ste. Mère! Perhaps a bomb would drop on
him--NOW!
The din of the German guns was incessant, and the roar of the plane
engines was deafening. He must descend and find a ditch. His arms
ached, but he could not let go. He had climbed as high as there were
limbs to support him, and now he clung to the solid trunk.
He noticed one particular plane coming directly toward him. It was
etched sharply against a luminous patch of cloud, and he could clearly
see the three white stripes that banded each wing.
As he watched, he saw the open door at the rear of the fuselage, and
instantly something dark dropped from it. Then another dark blob and
another.
Expecting the whistle of bombs, he shut his eyes, pressed his face into
the rough bark, and prayed....
After a few seconds he opened his eyes.
Other than the guns and the throttled beat of the engines, there had
been no sound. No bombs were exploding.
André threw his head back and glanced quickly skyward. In the
moonlight, speckled in every direction across the sky, hung hundreds
of mushroom shapes that were floating gently earthward as silently as
apple petals.
Suddenly he saw that they were parachutes!
And below nearly every one, a soldier swung. From the lowest he could
make out the jut of rifles.
CHAPTER FIVE
_André’s Warning_
Clinging to his uncertain perch, for the first few seconds André felt
stunned. Could this be his own Normandy sky? He watched the flicker of
moonlight here and there on the parachutes drifting down through the
scudding clouds.
“The Invasion!” he thought.
He had turned to stare across at his father’s barn in the distance,
wondering about the Nazi machine gunners, when the tree beside him was
torn by a crashing of branches. His heart leaped into his throat. The
topmost branches were entwined by a great, pale, crumpled parachute.
And, dangling from the shroud lines, hung a figure that swung like a
pendulum.
In the meadow beyond, other dark shapes were pelting into the hayfield,
their chutes collapsing around them like punctured balloons.
The noise was spreading. Isolated shots and short bursts of machine-gun
fire drummed, stopped, and drummed again. From the far-off German
camp near Ste. Mère came the wail of a Klaxon horn. And there was
the distant growl and whine of speeding motors. The echo of distant
explosions increased.
High overhead, planes whose cargo had been dropped, droned away toward
England. And everywhere antiaircraft fire was spitting even more
frantically.
Who were these men dangling from parachutes? If they had started the
Invasion, all Maquis ought to help them. “Then that means me, too,”
André thought.
He braced his foot in the crotch of the tree, lowered the other to feel
his way down.
He dropped to another branch--and it snapped!
Just then the moon sailed from under a cloud and touched him as
brightly as a searchlight.
A hoarse cry came from a few feet away. “Look out! Sniper in that tree!”
André saw the glint of the gun barrel swinging up toward him.
But a louder voice from the man dangling in the tree shouted, “_Hold
it._ Hold it, Slim. It’s just a kid. I can see him. Don’t shoot. Say,
somebody come over here and cut me down.”
[Illustration]
André’s stiffened body relaxed, and he began to feel his way among
the dim branches. Several men had gathered at the foot of the tree,
whispering, and one of them lifted his voice angrily. “What’s a kid
doin’ in a tree this time of night? Something funny here.”
“Okay. _Okay._ We’ll find out. But get me down before this harness cuts
me in two.”
André called, “Don’t shoot me. I’m coming down. I want to help.”
He slithered more quickly now from limb to limb, and jumped. Instantly
a flashlight blinded him, and a drawling voice said, “Well, what d’ya
know! A little shrimp!”
The flashlight had been turned to the ground. As soon as his eyes had
grown accustomed to it, André gaped at the men. Never had he seen such
frightening figures: torn uniforms, faces blackened with soot, each
one bristling with every kind of small arm and grenade, topped off by
helmets festooned with leafy twigs.
He gasped in amazement. “Are you Americans?”
The most tattered of the men grinned. “Sure. Who you expecting? Say,
how come you’re talking English?”
“My sister and I learned a lot of English from Father Duprey,” André
replied, “just in case.”
“Case of what?” demanded the suspicious one.
“To help you when you came,” said André. “But sir, shouldn’t we get
that man up there out of the tree?”
“It’s about time!” came from the branches near by.
André shinnied quickly up above the dangling trooper and disentangled
the chute. A moment later the chutist was on the ground, unstrapping
his Tommy gun.
A stocky, bristling soldier had been looking out over the highway
uneasily. Now he said, “Say, Slim, we gotta get movin’. We’re supposed
to get to the causeways across the flooded part. Give ’em the signal,
Risso.”
Softly then, André heard a little rasping cricket-sound that was
repeated almost at once from the meadow.
More helmeted men crept up to the group. They said, “Hi, Sarge, what
now?”
The stocky sergeant had been studying the darkened scene around him.
Now he said, “We’re too far inland.” He looked down at André. “Listen,
kid. You really mean you want to help us Americans--you aren’t up to no
tricks?”
André frowned. “I’ve been waiting to help for a long time. It is my
country here.”
The sergeant’s face softened a little. “Okay, I believe you. But
listen. Where’s your folks?”
“My family has gone away,” André explained. “But they’ll be home soon.
What do you want me to do?”
“You just tell us how far it is to the nearest road across that
lagoon--”
André interrupted excitedly, “First, I must tell you, there are at
least six Nazis in our barn. They have machine guns trained on the
road. I’ll show you the way around the back wall. You could catch them
from behind.”
The sergeant stiffened. “You, Slim, stay here with the kid, out of
range--and both of you _keep down_,” he ordered.
Several shapes moved quietly off into the black field.
André looked up at the gray shape of the lean, rangy fellow slouched
against a tree. The soldier held his Tommy gun easily. A thumb was
hooked in the belt festooned with grenades, and a wicked-looking sheath
knife was strapped to his leg.
André cleared his throat and asked, “Slim--is this the--Invasion?”
The paratrooper smiled. “Well, son,” he drawled, “it’s a start, anyhow.
Quite a parcel of us has been dropped from Heaven, and I reckon
there’ll be an awful lot more tomorrow when the gliders get in. All I
know is, son, I’m a long, long way from Pecos, Texas.”
After that, for a moment, André thought the man was going to sleep.
Presently he noticed that the trooper’s face was half turned away and
that he was listening intently.
A dog barked, and André cried softly, “That’s my Patchou. The men must
be coming into our farmyard.”
Suddenly, an explosion of shots, grenades, and hoarse shouts came from
the direction of the house.
“Got ’em,” sighed Slim. “They’re good, our boys are. Especially at that
sneaky stuff. Better keep down there. Might be bullets flyin’ ’round. I
_do not_ like flyin’ bullets.”
As the racket continued, the two stretched out among the ferns. “May’s
well rest,” Slim murmured drowsily. “Doubt if there’s gonna be much
time from now on.”
A few moments later there was a crackling in the hedge, from a
direction away from the farm.
Slim shot into action like a snake, Tommy gun aimed, body tense. The
faint sounds continued. After a moment Slim called, “Halt! You out
there. Stay where you are.”
A gusty sigh came through the undergrowth, and then a voice. “You from
the 505th?”
Slim kept his gun steady and answered, “Check. Who’re you?”
There was a soft groan. “Captain Dobie.”
Slim stared at the man pushing toward them, then sprang forward.
“You hurt, sir?” He helped the officer to get to his feet and took his
arm. With André on the other side, they helped him stagger into the
shadow of a tree.
“We thought we’d lost you sure, Cap’n,” Slim said sympathetically.
“Broke my leg when I landed on a stone wall, I guess,” the officer said
fretfully. He stared around him and asked, “What’s happening? We should
start toward the coast--we’re much too far in.”
Slim nodded. “I know. But Sergeant Weller’s cleanin’ out a machine-gun
nest in the barn yonder. He’ll be back with six or seven men shortly.
They must have finished over there by now. Some Nazis was in this kid’s
barn.” Slim directed a long thumb at André, and added, “He’s puny, but
he’s real sharp.”
In spite of the fact that he was evidently in great pain, the captain
managed to smile at the boy.
Slim had helped him to sit down, braced against the tree. André saw
that he was watching--Slim, André himself, the road, the meadow. And he
was listening to the distant noises--for the return of his men.
“Should be nearly a hundred men in these meadows right here,” the
captain said. “We’ve got to get our parachuted equipment together. As
soon as you can, send someone for gear I saw drop near where I came
down. One lot’s caught in a tree--right across that open space. We need
those bazookas quick. German tanks are likely to be coming along any
minute.”
“This kid might be able to tell us somethin’ about the Nazis around
these parts,” Slim said.
“There’s a Nazi camp half a mile down the road,” André replied eagerly.
“And another big one near Ste. Mère Église, if you know where that is.”
[Illustration]
Captain Dobie nodded and turned his head to catch the sound of a motor.
“That car’s coming this way fast!”
André was startled by the smooth swiftness with which Slim and his
captain acted then. Thrusting his Tommy gun into the captain’s
outstretched hand without a word, Slim detached a grenade from the
cluster at his belt. He slipped into a tense, waiting position closer
to the road.
The captain ordered, “Down flat!” and André obeyed.
The roar of the approaching car grew loud. Slim called softly, over his
shoulder, “Nazi staff car,” and raised his arm.
The explosion and the repeated crack of the Tommy gun beside him shook
the ground under André. As another grenade followed the first and took
effect, Captain Dobie said, “That’s one car won’t stop the freeing of
France.”
Slim crossed the road and returned to report solemnly, “Okay, sir.”
The captain nodded, then glanced quickly to one side as a voice said,
“Good work, Slim.”
“Oh, it’s you, Sergeant!” the captain exclaimed in relief.
“Captain,” Weller said. “We were worried about you. What you got there?”
“A broken leg, I think, worse luck,” Captain Dobie explained angrily.
“If you see a medic, send him back here. But you men get going now. If
we don’t pick up that dropped ammunition and equipment soon, we may
be in for trouble. Meanwhile, have you seen any place I can use for a
command post around here?”
“You can use my father’s house,” André offered eagerly. “My father,
he’s a part of the Resistance, so it’s all right.”
The captain turned to Weller.
“Yes, sir. Solid stone, handy to the road, plenty of room, barns. No
bomb damage,” the sergeant reported, and added, “Nobody but this kid
home, since we cleaned out the loft.”
“Yes?” The captain looked sharply around at the boy. “How’s that?”
André explained quickly. “And my father and Marie should have come back
by now,” he finished.
The captain shook his head. “Not from St. Sauveur, they won’t. Not
tonight. Our men must have all the roads beyond Ste. Mère blocked off.”
While a couple of men watched the road, others were sent to retrieve
the dropped weapons. Sergeant Weller examined the captain’s injury. He
found that a bone was cracked above the ankle. A shot of morphine from
a first-aid kit was given Captain Dobie to ease the pain. Then splints
were found, and the leg bound with strips of torn parachute silk.