German U-boats were on everyone’s mind. A British destroyer escorting the convoy depth-charged what it thought was one. Every sailor on the Pierre L.D. stayed at action stations for hours afterwards. No torpedoes tore into the freighters, though. Two weeks after leaving Halifax, the convoy steamed into St. Nazaire. A.E. and Red met up with Shorty and Mamedoff on the pier. The other Americans’ travel had been every bit as delightful as theirs.
They’d hardly got off the docks before they realized everything in France had gone to hell while they crawled across the Atlantic. This wasn’t just a country fighting a war—it was a country losing a war, and losing badly. No one in St. Nazaire had time for four Americans washed up on the lee shore of disaster.
At last, they found a harried official who grudged them half an hour he clearly resented. “I can give you train tickets to Paris, but the train does not depart until Monday,” he said. “Until then, I can put you up here.” He sighed. “I suppose I can put you up here.”
Only they didn’t leave Monday. The French bureaucrats gave them three more days of grief. “Why should we help you?” the last one said. “According to your documents, your nationality is indeterminate. What are you?”
“We’re Americans. You know damn well we’re Americans,” Red Tobin snapped. His patience had worn very thin. So had A.E.’s.
“You have no passports,” the Frenchman said.
“Our government won’t let us travel to a war zone on ’em,” Shorty Keough said.
“I do. They didn’t worry about me.” A.E. produced hers.
The functionary gave it a fishy stare. “What are you doing with these men, Madame Poot-nahm?” What his accent did to her married name was a caution. “Are you their mother?”
“I’m a pilot, same as they are,” she answered, as evenly as she could. “Putnam is my ex-husband’s last name. Mine is Earhart.”
He needed a couple of seconds before that sank in. “Nom d’un nom!” he muttered, and then, “You are the famous Amelia Earhart?”
“That’s me.” A.E. didn’t like to trade on her fame, but it came in handy every so often. “So how about you let us have those tickets for Paris we’re supposed to get?”
She didn’t know whether the ploy would work, but they were on the next train to the French capital. “Gotta hand it to you, ma’am,” Andy Mamedoff said as they squeezed into a crowded car. “That was terrific.”
“Thanks,” A.E. said. “And for God’s sake call me Amelia. Otherwise I’ll think we’ve got that damned French pencil pusher along with us.”
He grinned at her. “You’re okay, you know that?”
“Well, I try,” she said, just as the train began to move.
From St. Nazaire to Paris was about two hundred miles. The train seemed to stop every half hour or so. One of the stops, at Le Mans, was very bad. A westbound train had also stopped, on the track next to theirs. Half the cars had been shot up from the air. They were pocked with bullet and shell holes; only a few windows still had glass in them. And half the French soldiers in the cars looked to have been shot up, too. They were bloody; they were bandaged; their faces were pale and full of pain. A fellow with a Red Cross armband tenderly helped a wounded man smoke a cigarette.
“Nazi bastards,” Mamedoff ground out.
“If we spotted a German troop train, or a column of trucks …” Red Tobin said slowly. “It’s war. This is what we signed up for.”
A.E. had thought about shooting down enemy pilots in 109s or 110s or bombers. She hadn’t thought about shooting up luckless foot soldiers who might not even be able to shoot back. But Red was right. That also came with the job.
After a mournful toot from the whistle, the train rolled on toward Paris.
The hotel in the City of Light was, not to put too fine a point on it, a fleabag. Tobin, Keough, and Mamedoff shared a room. It had one narrow bed. How they decided who got to use it, A.E. didn’t know. She had a room to herself. It was bigger than her cabin on the Pierre L.D., but not much. An almost equally tiny bathroom lurked down at the end of the hall.
No one slept the night after they got in. German planes bombed Paris. What sounded like every antiaircraft gun in the world tried to shoot them down. A bomb hit no more than 150 yards from the hotel. The noise was like the end of the world. The building jumped as if someone had kicked it in the behind. A.E.’s window rattled, but didn’t blow in.
Next morning, over croissants and strong coffee at a café around the corner, Red managed a crooked grin. “Boy, that was fun,” he said.
“Merde!” Andy Mamedoff had started picking up French.
That word, and others like it, came in handy when the Americans tried to get any Armée de l’Air officials to pay attention to them. They didn’t have much luck. In a way, A.E. understood it. The Germans were surging forward everywhere. Paris itself looked like falling soon. The British and French troops who hadn’t made it across the Channel to England had surrendered to the Nazis. In the face of catastrophe, who could get excited about a few possible pilots? All the same …
“Least they can do is give us a medical exam and put us in planes,” Shorty Keough groused. “How can we do worse than they’re doing already?”
“They haven’t got time for us,” A.E. said. “We’re uninvited guests in a house where someone’s dying.”
“Where everybody’s dying,” Red Tobin amended, and she didn’t try to tell him he was wrong.
She did say, “Something I’ve seen in French planes, you guys need to remember. You pull the throttle out for more power and push it in for less, right?”
“Sure,” Andy Mamedoff said. Shorty and Red nodded.
“Sure if it’s an American plane or an English one or even one from Germany,” A.E. said. “France and Italy do it backwards. With their planes, you push the throttle in for more juice and pull it out to ease back. You can kill yourself if you forget. I almost did once.”
“Thanks,” Red said. “That’s worth knowing, all right.”
“If we ever get into a French plane it will be, anyhow,” Shorty said.
“This country is going down the drain,” Mamedoff said, and nobody tried to contradict him, either. He went on, “I came over here to fight the goddamn Nazis, not to surrender to them.”
“None of us has proper papers. Except Amelia, I mean,” Red said.
Mamedoff exhaled through his nose. “Papers are the least of my worries if the Germans catch us.” He was Jewish. He didn’t make a big deal out of it, but the Gestapo wouldn’t care about that.
A couple of days later, they finally did get called in for medicals. The doc who examined A.E. was short and dumpy and bald with a fringe of gray. He spoke some English. Along with her bits of French, they managed to understand each other. Before long, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. “You are something out of the ordinary,” he remarked.
“I’m a pilot. I’m a good pilot. If I ever get the chance, I can help France,” she said.
“France?” He waved that aside. “France, c’est morte.” France is dead. It wasn’t a thought A.E. hadn’t had herself, but she hated hearing it from a Frenchman. She also hated the way the guy’s hands wandered. It wasn’t the first time that kind of thing had happened, but it was the first time in quite a while.
“Watch yourself, Charlie,” she snapped.
“If you are friendly, I promise you will pass the medical,” he said.
“Friendly, huh? I’m going to pass the medical or I’m gonna beat the living crap out of you. Your choice. How about that?” At five eight, she was at least three inches taller than he was. She was also in much better shape. She figured she could do exactly what she threatened.
By the way he licked his lips, by the way his eyes widened behind his steel-framed spectacles, so did he. “You don’t have to be so, so masculine about it,” he said.
“Just make sure my papers look the way they’re supposed to. I know enough français to catch you if you try to pull a fast one, too.” A.E. hoped she was right. That masculine made her want to laugh more than it made her mad. It wasn’t the first time she’d got called a dyke. Nowhere close. Way too much of the world thought any woman who tried to get ahead in a man’s profession had to be butch.
Despite passing their medicals, the Americans kept not getting sent anywhere that had airplanes. Andy and Shorty and Red went out and got magnificently smashed; their piteous state the next morning showed what a big one they’d tied on. Some of the things they stifled, not quite soon enough, when they noticed A.E. was in earshot made her sure they’d done some serious screwing to go with their serious drinking. That didn’t embarrass her—it amused her. Boys would be boys.
They’d surely long since run through the 2,500 francs they’d got in Halifax. One way or another, they kept themselves in funds without putting the bite on her. She liked them better for that.