way, son, you better tie up that hound of yours. He doesn’t seem to
know Americans are his friends, by the way he lit into my only pair of
britches.”
The little party moved slowly toward the Gagnon house, helping the
half-crippled captain.
Pale moonlight glowed on the windows and against dark walls. When André
saw the front door ajar, he cried happily, “They must have come home
while I was asleep.”
“’Fraid not,” the sergeant corrected. “We went through the whole
house--André. Want to know how I got your name?” Weller grinned. “Read
Marie’s note about your supper on the kitchen table.”
Immediately inside the house, the sergeant said crisply, “This room
okay, Captain? I guess it’s a sort of store during peacetime. I’ll get
you a table and somethin’ to sit on, pronto.”
André had run to light candles and draw the blackout curtains. Then
he dragged his mother’s best velvet chair from the parlor for Captain
Dobie, and brought cushions to prop up his leg.
Captain Dobie spread maps on the table before him, but paused to study
the boy.
André looked into his kind, thoughtful face and asked, “Do you think my
father and sister will be all right, sir? It would be awful....”
The captain nodded. “Nobody’d let them start out from St. Sauveur
tonight, son. They’ll be all right.”
But André’s worry was not so easily talked away. The thud of bombs and
firing inland was too continuous.
He heard a whine and rushed into the kitchen to a wet, pawing welcome
from Patchou. He tugged at the familiar warm fur and when Patchou had
calmed down, brought him a bowl of milk. Then, with a warning to be
quiet, he chained the dog to the fireplace grate.
At the front of the house he found that a strange, businesslike
disorder was mounting.
Just inside the door, bazookas, mortars, and ammunition of all sorts
were being pulled from “drop” bundles. Bulky, helmeted soldiers were
coming in from everywhere, receiving quick orders from the captain,
and clanking off in groups. Captain Dobie sent out a messenger for a
walkie-talkie, to make contact with his commanding colonel.
At one moment, everyone around the captain paused warily as the roar of
a low-flying plane shook the walls. Sergeant Weller and André darted
out to the doorway and stared up at the U. S. markings. As the plane
sped by, a shower of paper cascaded over the town.
“That’s one of our Flying Fortresses dropping leaflets, telling the
Frenchies to scatter ’n stay off the roads.” Weller shrugged. “That
means you, too, boy, y’know.”
For the next thirty minutes André sat and watched while dirty, hot men
clumped in and out on errands that made no sense to him. Some had been
wounded. Many, hurt in the jump, were being treated both by medics and
some of the village people. Slim pushed his way into the room, looking
leaner and sootier than ever--all his drowsiness gone.
André listened to his report. More troops were needed at once toward
the causeways. Glider troops had landed, but the Germans were putting
up a fierce fight. The Americans wanted all the reinforcements they
could get rushed up fast.
Captain Dobie turned to Weller. “Okay, Sergeant, take _all_ these men.
It’s our job to wipe out those bridgeheads!” When Weller hesitated, he
snapped, “What’re you waiting for?”
The sergeant blinked. “And leave you here alone, sir?”
“We’ve _got_ to get those bridgeheads. Move!” Captain Dobie pounded the
table. “Orders!”
Sergeant Weller turned on his heel, shouted commands to round up all
the men, and left.
But just outside the door he jerked Slim aside. “You stay,” he ordered.
“I’m not gonna leave the cap’n here alone with a broken leg. What would
he do if some Nazis came along?”
“You’ll get me courtmartialed yet, Sarge,” Slim objected.
“If you don’t beat me to it. Stay out of sight.”
The sergeant barked a command, and guns and men moved away through the
mud.
It was nearly full daylight now. When André turned back into the house
he saw by the clock that it was quarter to six.
What would his family say if they knew he had not been to bed at all?
He wondered sleepily whether to lie down quietly in a corner.
The captain was looking at his watch.
André had taken a step toward him when the house was shaken under a
dreadful blast of sound.
The sound rose, and he realized it came from the sea. Under the thud of
heavy shelling and bombing, objects on the walls and tables danced.
The captain looked up from his watch and smiled.
“They’re right on time,” he said.
Puzzled, André asked, “Who is, monsieur?”
“This is the _real_ Invasion, son, coming in now. This is what General
Eisenhower has been planning for two years. Hundreds of thousands of
men, tens of thousands of tanks, bulldozers, and trucks are moving
in--_now_, in over four thousand ships. The Navy’s shelling the coast.
We just came in ahead by parachute to get ready for them.”
André found himself too excited to say anything.
The captain spoke again, above the din.
“You see why we have to clear the enemy out of those bridgeheads? To
let the men landing on the beaches come through. As soon as the Navy
finishes this shelling, British, Canadian, and American troops will be
landing on sixty miles of beach from here to the River Orne!”
CHAPTER SIX
_Victor’s Mission_
Remembering the rolling crashes of the worst thunderstorm he had ever
heard, André thought it had been nothing compared to this noise.
He braced himself by the door frame and looked toward the sea. A pall
of dense, black smoke was drifting inland, blotting out the newly risen
sun. Fires flared over the tree tops.
He saw Slim grinning back at him from behind a thick lilac bush.
On the other side of the road, the Lescots’ front door opened. Victor,
in nightcap and corduroy pants drawn over a blue nightshirt, darted
out, picked up one of the dropped leaflets, and shot back into the
house.
From other houses people ran out and raced away into the fields.
Bombers darted in and out of the curtain of smoke. A barn less than a
mile away broke into flames.
Through a lull in the battle sounds André heard the outraged moo of a
cow.
“Poor old beasts,” André thought, “they must be scared to death. I’ll
go talk to them, and milk.”
He looked again for Slim and saw that he had turned his back to the
fury of the coast and was staring toward Ste. Mère. As André stepped
out Slim whirled and shouted, “Tell the cap’n--two Nazi tanks comin’
this way!”
But André had already heard the ominous clank of the tanks. Even
through the battle sounds their threat rang out--a new danger.
As Slim raced toward him, André broke into a run for the house,
shouting, “TANKS, mon Capitaine. Nazi tanks coming!”
Captain Dobie had risen and stumbled a step toward the window.
“Blast it!” he shouted. “Help me, Cimino.”
André then saw a new man in the room--a soldier with a walkie-talkie,
who must have arrived by way of the farmyard.
Slim plunged through the door and snatched up a bazooka from the pile
of arms in the hall. Cimino, the walkie-talkie operator, slipped out
of the straps holding the instrument. He flung himself toward Slim to
serve as second man on the bazooka.
“Help me to the window, André,” Captain Dobie ordered, picking up a
Tommy gun. “Then stay out of range.
“Slim,” he barked, “fire at the front drive sprocket and the gas tanks,
center, low. You can’t penetrate that forward armor, remember.”
[Illustration]
The bazooka muzzle thrust out the window, Slim knelt in tense firing
position. Cimino stood ready to reload.
The captain braced himself at the second window, Tommy gun leveled.
André heard the rumble of the tanks draw nearer.
The explosion of fire from the windows and the fierce back-flash of the
bazooka joined with the grinding screech of shattered metal, outside.
Then came the hollow scraping of steel on steel.
Over Slim’s head André had seen the first tank’s turret. Then the
second tank tottered over the first. And like a huge apple peel, a
tremendous snakelike steel tread whipped through the air.
“Good,” snapped Captain Dobie. “Second one’s piled up on the first.
Shoot overhead, once.”
When the firing from the house stopped, there came a shout of
“_Kamerad!_”
The captain poked his weapon farther out the window and shouted, “Get
out and put your hands up fast. You’re all covered. Okay, Slim, get
your prisoners.”
[Illustration]
Cimino stacked the bazooka against the sill, and whipped out his .45
automatic. Slim swept up a carbine and strode outside.
The crews were already out of the tanks.
“All right. Hands on your heads!” Slim shouted.
As his captives moved toward him, Cimino lifted their side arms from
holsters, pushing the prisoners swiftly toward the house.
“Get in there, quick,” Slim commanded.
He had only just herded them into the hall when his voice was drowned
out by the explosion of the gas tanks in one of the wrecked vehicles.
The captain and André ducked as ammunition, set off by the flames,
sprayed the outside of the house.
When it was over, the captain leaned out the window, and André asked,
“Did it wreck my father’s pump?”
“Just knocked down the sign that said ‘_Chocolate_,’” the captain said.
“That’s all right,” André laughed shakily. “We did not have any left to
sell, anyway.”
Captain Dobie wiped the sweat from his face, and with André’s help,
hobbled back to his easy chair and cushions.
The Germans, lined up against the wall, stared at him silently,
open-mouthed.
“Are there any more tanks coming this way?” demanded the captain.
One of the Nazis, with sergeant’s stripes, said, “_Nein_--no more,”
with surly shortness.
“Be respectful,” snapped the captain coldly. He turned to Slim. “Take
them out to the yard and stand guard, Slim,” he said. “Cimino, try to
raise someone on the talkie. If you can’t, get a runner to locate the
colonel and tell him where _we_ are.”
After several minutes, Cimino reported, “Some sergeant thinks our
colonel’s over near the first bridgehead. He’ll pass the word along.”
André, at the captain’s suggestion, went out to survey the road and
report any sight of the enemy. “Here, take my helmet,” offered the
captain. “There’s too much stuff falling out of the sky.”
The thud of heavy explosions beyond the village continued to rock the
earth.
André had been on watch but a few minutes when he sighted a car. He
called back through the window, “Jeep coming, sir--from the coast.”
Slim, who had been relieved of his guard duty by Cimino, rushed out to
join André.
The little car swung in toward the two, and braked with a screech. Slim
shouted, “Weller! Where’ja get that!”
Sergeant Weller was eyeing the wrecked German tanks.
“Well, Texas,” he smiled approvingly, “good thing I left you here.”
He slid out of the seat. “Lucky those two tanks didn’t get through
to hit us from behind,” he said. “We’ve sure had our hands full down
there. The Heinies came at us from all sides. But, for some reason, one
of the causeways across the swamps was unguarded.”
“We got some prisoners for you, out back,” Slim announced. “And you
better report to the cap’n,” he added. “He’s restless as a hungry
puppy. Ain’t had a word from anybody higher up. Didn’t come across our
colonel, did you?”
“That’s what I came back for,” said Weller. “Saw him and told him about
this command post. He’s feelin’ good. We’ve taken two bridgeheads.”
“But _where_ did you get the jeep?” André asked.
Weller patted the mud-splattered windshield. “I ‘liberated’ her from
a smashed glider, son.” He turned a thumb to the heaps of K-rations
packed in the rear of the jeep. “Near time we ate,” he said. “But,
right now, I’m in need of gas, kid. I bet you got some in that pump.”
“A little,” André said.
Slim and Weller clanked off to the house while André connected the hose
to the jeep tank and began to pump. His eyelids were drooping.
It takes a long time for this Invasion to get going, he thought. He
had already grown used to the _thrump_ of big artillery, the bark of
machine and rifle fire scattered across all of Normandy. He had heard
Cimino say that the 82nd Airborne were getting on well around Ste.
Mère, though the Germans were fighting bitterly. The Liberation was too
big. André could think of it no more.
And through his weariness he heard the cows again. Milking time
was long past. In the barn the cows turned their sad eyes on him
accusingly. He rested his forehead on their soft, warm bodies while he
milked, and both he and the frightened beasts were soothed. He saw to
it that they had fresh hay and water. The open pasture was no place for
them today.
Finally the job was done; the last of his strength was gone. He put the
pails of milk to one side and sank into a pile of fresh straw.
“I’ll take them to the springhouse in a minute,” he promised himself.
And he wriggled flat in the fragrant hay and spread out his arms
peacefully.
All battle sounds were muffled by the thick old stone walls. The
familiar rustle and stamping of cattle were like a familiar song....
He woke with a hand shaking his shoulder.
Someone was saying, in French, “Wake up, André. Wake up! The _Invasion_
has started.”
André opened his eyes and saw Victor Lescot bent over him.
“Shame on you, André,” he scolded. “Milk getting sour. War going on all
around, and you sleeping.”
André sat up. “You’re supposed to be shut up in your house, Victor.
What are you doing here?” he said crossly.
“I can’t stay home now,” Victor bristled. “I’ve got to go get my new
cart--before it is destroyed.”
Now wide awake, André said with disgust, “You can’t go out into the
fighting.”
“But I _must_,” Victor interrupted shrilly. “My new cart will be blown
to bits if I leave it at Jacquard’s. Then what?”
André could not believe his ears. “Would you rather be blown to bits
yourself?” he demanded.
“But we do not need to thrust ourselves into danger,” Victor protested.
“We’ll make our way to Jacquard’s village by the cowpaths, you and I.
We know them well, eh?”
“_WE?_” André echoed. “_Who’s_ going with you?”
“But you, naturally, my little friend, I may need you to speak English.”
“Where is the cart?” André asked.
“At Jacquard’s workshop, on his farm. I have told you about it on
numerous occasions.”
André smiled. “Victor Lescot, Jacquard’s shop is right near the coast,
where the fighting is. Who knows, there may be a battle going on in
Jacquard’s own courtyard right now.”
Victor’s eyes flickered. “Ah, but I have a plan.”
“There is no sense to it.” André shrugged and got to his feet.
“No sense!” Victor cried, as though he were about to hurl a bolt of
lightning. “You forget. The cart is _mine_. _I paid for it_ yesterday.”
Again André could only shake his head.
“I’ll put this milk where it is cool,” he said, and started off with a
pail in each hand.
Victor dived for the other pail and followed. “La Fumée, my mare that
you have always been so fond of, you know,” he chattered, “she’s all
harnessed and impatient to start off. You know how she loves adventure.”
Just then there was a definite lull in the shelling. André set the
pails into the cool, stone-lined spring, taking Victor’s from him.
Victor caught his eye. “The noise is not so loud,” he said. “There is a
trifling din, true, but it is less.”
“Perhaps the worst is over,” André said. “We could just start out, and
if they tell us we can’t proceed, we can turn back....”
Victor’s pink face crinkled brightly. “But of course. Anything else
would be gross stupidity.”
André fretted: Now he thinks I’ve promised to get his cart no matter
what happens.
But the Americans would turn them back at once--so no harm would be
done.
“Okay, Victor. I will start out,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
_Tricolor over Ste. Mère_
André hesitated. “You wait for me at your house,” he said. “First, I
have one thing to do.”
Victor stole a searching glance at the boy, then, almost reassured, he
nodded and left the springhouse at once.
André filled a pitcher with milk and started for the kitchen door.
Ranged along the barnyard wall lounged half a hundred German prisoners
surrounded by a semicircle of muddy guards bristling with carbines and
Tommy guns.
André found a mug in the kitchen, and carried the milk in to Captain
Dobie.
He noticed that the officer’s leg was badly swollen, but the captain
seemed unaware of it.
The room was crammed with soldiers. Several neighbors, men and women,
pressed through the crowd, begging to give help. Many wounded
villagers lay sheltered under the trees, they said. But they and the
small neighborhood children were being cared for and fed. The captain
welcomed them and advised the elders to get deep cellars ready. They
must keep the children close to them in case the fighting broke out in
the village.
“The Germans are fighting hard everywhere, and we must silence each
Nazi gun no matter where we find it,” he explained. “Until we get a
solid foothold here, we cannot help liberate your country.”
André listened, and when he caught the captain’s eye, offered his jug
of milk. With a grateful smile, Dobie drained the jug thirstily.
“Are things going all right, sir?” André asked.
The captain seemed reluctant to reply. But after a moment he said, “The
landings are the hardest, son. The Nazis made the coast tough with
their underwater obstructions, and the sea has been a lot rougher than
we’d planned on. But it’s going along well. You ought to be seeing
heavy equipment coming along the roads soon.”
Sergeant Weller clumped in with two soldiers and a battle-weary young
Frenchman. “Look, kid,” Weller shouted to André. “D’you know who
this character is? I can’t make head or tail what he’s sayin’. _He_
says he’s speakin’ English, but, boy, it’s nothin’ I ever heard in
Brooklyn.”
The young Frenchman called to André in French, “You are Pierre’s son,
no? Tell them quickly who I am. Make them see my urgency, I beg you.”
André looked at the man’s flashing eyes, the beaked nose, the shock of
dark hair.
“Yes, I know him,” he said quickly. “This is François, the famous
Maquis leader. You can trust him.”
“You sure?” Weller demanded.
“I’m sure,” André said. “I have seen him and heard my father describe
him often. One moment--”
In French, François told André his story: “I was coming to your father
to get more Resistance help. My band is too small. We discovered Nazis
coming up behind your father’s orchard with a mobile gun. They are
going to blow up this house because it is an American headquarters.”
“Translate so far,” Weller said, and André obeyed.
Weller scowled. “Yeh? Well, in that case....”
He made his way to the captain, and a moment later André heard him
shouting orders.
When Weller returned he put out both hands and the Frenchman shook them
warmly.
The squad Weller was forming was hastily gathering up grenades,
bazookas, and other equipment.
André asked the Maquis anxiously, “Can you tell me anything about St.
Sauveur? How is the battle going beyond Ste. Mère?”
François looked solemn, but answered quickly. “St. Sauveur, we think,
is still mostly outside the fighting. Not all of Ste. Mère has been
cleared of Germans yet. But the center of the town is under control.
At least, the Americans have the French flag flying from Ste. Mère
Église’s town hall. None of the Allied tanks have come through yet and
they are badly needed. Also, in some places the Americans are running
short of ammunition. And the Nazis are building up their forces near
the bridges over the Merderet River, west of Ste. Mère.”
He broke off at Weller’s signal, and with the sergeant’s squad slipped
out through the barnyard.
“_The French flag flying from Ste. Mère Église’s town hall!_” André
repeated it aloud. And a familiar voice at the doorway echoed the great
words.
Raoul Cotein stood just outside the door. His arm and forehead were
bandaged, and in his hand was a package wrapped in a napkin.
He took a step forward. “My wife--well, she is troubled because your
mother and sister are not here. If you will just accept these few
sandwiches?”
[Illustration: _The squad gathered up grenades, bazookas, and other
equipment_]
André took the packet with a puzzled “Thank you,” and stared at his
suddenly subdued neighbor.
“W-what happened to you?” he asked.
Raoul looked down at his arm bandage. “You mean this?” he replied.
“_Tiens_, André. Do you know, I found I was almost the only man in this
village who was not of the Resistance? I have merely been remedying the
situation.”
“Do you know now my father is a Maquis and not a collaborationist?”
André demanded, and Raoul nodded. “I have discovered so. I--”
If he had meant to apologize further for his past bad behavior, his
words were lost. A shell overshot the house and everyone ran for cover.
When André slid out from his hiding place, Raoul was gone.
For a moment the boy stood alone. “Well, now, what is my duty?” he
considered. “Victor? No.... Patchou.”
He went to the kitchen, gave the dog food and water, and hastily ate
Raoul’s sandwiches. Meanwhile Patchou gamboled for a few minutes around
the room.
André thought that he had better go to Lescots’ and tell the old man,
once and for all, how foolish his plan was. Even Victor would see that
now.
* * * * *
Victor stood near his barnyard gates crossly watching the distant
scene.
A broad, fawn-colored Percheron stood harnessed beside Victor. A
shotgun was strapped to the horse’s back-pad alongside the looped-up
traces.
André slipped over the wall and whistled.
At the sound, Victor jumped, steadied his glasses, and chattered, “Oh,
it’s you at last. La Fumée is beside herself with impatience.”
André interrupted firmly. “I came only to tell you the thought of going
toward the coast is an insanity. The fighting has grown intense.”
Victor fanned out his hands. “Then my cart ... you think it is a trifle
to be ignored....” His eyes snapped. “Which _I have paid for_, please
recall!”
“But Victor--” André sighed.
“From infancy I have indulged you, because of my love....” Victor
chided gently.
He patted the mare’s smooth flank and climbed up on her back. “There
will be many Americans down there, I presume. No doubt they will help
an old man.”
“Victor, you know I can’t let you go alone,” André exploded. “Pull me
up behind you.”
A few moments later, André, clinging to Victor’s ribs, was mounted and
jogging around a corner of the farm wall.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_Prisoners_
As a very small boy, riding on the broad platform of La Fumée’s back
had been André’s delight. But La Fumée had not then quivered at the
whine and roar of shells, or the nerve-shaking rattle of machine guns.
And the fields had not been spiked with wicked barbed-wire glider traps.
“Now, we zigzag,” explained Victor as he turned the mare into a
hedge-lined path at the next field. It was necessary to round barns and
ponds and areas marked in German: “_Achtung--Minen!_” “Beware--Mines!”
to avoid even the smaller country roads.
They covered nearly a mile at the Percheron’s steady plod. Then a shell
crashed a hundred yards away, and the horse cowered under a shower
of falling debris. Victor and André had flattened themselves on the
Percheron’s vast back. With his head still buried in Victor’s rough
coat, André begged, “Surely it is wiser to turn back, Victor.”
The old man sighed. “But it is now such a little way. It is a pity.”
Both sat up cautiously.
The marshes glowed beyond a broken orchard, just across the
Paris-Cherbourg road. Far to the northeast, from a German pillbox sunk
beside the flooded land, swiveled guns thumped, and were immediately
answered by other, unseen guns.
Before they could move again, André cried, “Listen!”
[Illustration]
A tremendous explosion, close to the sea, was followed by a shattering
series of rolling reverberations. And immediately, from almost on the
horizon, a fleet of planes swept upward sharply over their heads.
“Dive bombers,” André cried. “They must be finishing off those big
German guns on the sea bluff.”
Then, added to the shock and noise of the bombing, rose all around them
a fury of gobbling protest. Turkeys which had been roosting in the
trees screamed and fluttered insanely. In the grass, a family of small
white pigs ran helter-skelter toward the hedges.
La Fumée stood stiff, with rolling eyes.
At length the last wave of bombers passed. The air over the orchard
reeked, and smoke seeped inland from the marshes.
The turkeys continued to scold, their voices dropping to an angry
gurgle.
“There, that is over,” Victor said firmly. “Jacquard’s is so close, we
may as well go on.”