The month he’d spent eating the Morvan’s simple but regular food had strengthened Henry. They flew down the mountains on their bicycles, Claudette’s skirts flapping loudly. Saulieu lay low at the edge of the Morvan, where the knotty woods gave way to the fertile fields of Burgundy. They could spot the cathedral of Saulieu long before coming to the town. The sun was rising slowly, washing the countryside pink. There was very little to hide them. But Henry refused to acknowledge the lunacy of what they were doing.
They left their bicycles propped against a stone wall encircling an ancient graveyard. He held Claudette’s hand to slow her down and keep her against the wall as long as possible. She was trembling with excitement.
The town was already stirring. People hurried by them, carrying baskets of flowers, fruit, milk bottles, and loaves of bread. In the market square, a farmer led his horse to drink from the splashing fountain. A scroungy-looking dog chased a grey cat. A young girl swept the front stoop of her house. It seemed an ordinary morning. No high officials. No sense of impending conflict. Claudette left Henry to gossip with a shopkeeper. Maybe she’d learn what was happening.
Nervous, Henry sat down on a stone wall wrapping the edge of a closed café. A Nazi propaganda newspaper blew down the street towards him. He picked it up and buried himself behind it.
When he glanced over the edge of the paper he could see Claudette inside the bakery and an old woman sticking her head in and out of a glass case. He guessed she was responding to Claudette’s questions about the contents. He’d seen Claudette do this a dozen times now, play-acting at being a customer, all the time wheedling information out of people without their ever knowing it. This time, though, he wished she’d hurry it up.
A good ten minutes passed. Then, up a road came the whirring sound of several bicycles, pedalled at breakneck speed. Henry forced his head even farther down behind the newspaper and hunched over.
Whoosh…whoosh…whoosh…whoosh.
Four German soldiers whisked past Henry and careened through the market, sharply turning on a street and disappearing into the labyrinth of village alleys.
Moments later, up the same road, rushed the whine and grind of a car being shifted into high speeds on tight curves. A jeep flashed into the courtyard. Four men clung to the back of it, a long machine gun stuck out the back. Maquis. Henry recognized the hodgepodge of uniforms and German and British guns. But he didn’t recognize the band of men. The jeep circled the square, its driver trying to decide which spoke to take. But before Henry could signal the direction the bicycle patrol had fled, the jeep vroomed down the larger roadway on which he and Claudette had entered town.
C’mon Claudette, Henry fumed. Something’s up. He was going to motion to her, when he heard more car sounds roaring towards the marketplace. This time two black Nazi sedans hurtled into the square and disappeared up another street.
Damn, that’s enough of this, cursed Henry. He ran across the square, into the bakery, and grabbed Claudette. “We’re leaving now,” he said, forgetting to speak French.
The elderly shopkeeper gasped.
Oh, God, thought Henry, don’t make me have to do something to this old lady to keep her quiet. But the woman hurriedly shoved more bread loaves into Claudette’s arms. “Bonne chance, mes amis.”
As Henry and Claudette opened the door to leave, the maquis jeep reappeared in the square then raced up the road the Nazi staff cars had just taken. Henry dragged Claudette across the square into the crook of an arched garden gate.
Panting, they peeped around its edge. They would be completely exposed trying to escape along the road on which they had entered town. “Do you know another way out?” he whispered.
Claudette shook her head.
“Do you know what’s going on?”
“They missed Pétain. He made it out before dawn with six hundred Milice guarding him.”
“Six hundred! Was there a fight with Martin?”
“I don’t think so,” Claudette said with irritation. “I think they completely missed him. The fools.”
“But what’s all the hubbub about?” asked Henry.
“What means hub-bub?”
“Why the staff car, the bicycle patrol, and maquis jeep? Who’s chasing whom?”
Before Claudette could answer they heard the sharp crack of rifles and the loud chattering of the machine gun.
Dropping the bread, Claudette pushed away from Henry and ran back through the square. Henry dashed after her. They weren’t armed. They didn’t know where they were heading. They just ran on like hound dogs crazed by a fresh scent.
The fight was over before they got anywhere near it. The maquis jeep rushed past them yet again, the Frenchmen triumphantly shaking their rifles and cheering. Claudette and Henry had to press themselves up against the buildings for the vehicle to pass. In the back of the jeep was a bloodied Vichy officer.
Claudette was ecstatic. She ran after the car, shouting back at Henry, “Come!”
At the edge of town, they came across a crowd of people, shouting, jeering, shoving. Eagerly, Claudette pushed her way through them. Henry followed gingerly. There was something terrifying about the seething anger of the mob. Henry could feel it rippling towards a tidal wave of violence.
When Henry squeezed his way through to the centre of the throng, he saw a teenage girl. Accused of collaborating with the Nazis, her hair had been shaved off, her dress torn open. Bald, half-naked, vulnerable, she quaked before the people who spat at her and called her vulgar names. A pregnant woman held a long horsewhip and stood before the girl. She was asking who in the crowd would be first, the first to whip her captive.
Disgust choked Henry. This was crazy. This was a witchhunt. There’d be no telling what these people might do. Henry needed to get Claudette out quick.
He reached her just as she shouted, “Cochon!” Before he could stop her, she jumped into the circle. She pulled a knife out of the belt of a man standing nearby.
“Kill her,” Claudette shrieked in French. “I will kill her for you. She has betrayed all of us.”
“Oui, oui! Tuez-la, tuez-la!” the crowd began to chant.
Henry recoiled. He couldn’t believe Claudette’s bloodthirsty rage – that the murderous person holding the knife was the same girl who had comforted and kissed him so tenderly just hours before. He couldn’t let her do this. She’d never be able to live with herself later if she slit this teenager’s throat. Claudette would be as dead inside as if she had been killed.
Henry tackled her from behind and held her fast. “Don’t do this, Claudette. Don’t.”
Claudette screamed and kicked and cursed him. The crowd shouted at him. But Henry held fast. “Look at her, Claudette. Look at her. She’s just a kid. Maybe she fell in love with a young soldier stationed in town, some homesick boy who before the war probably would have been embraced by the whole town as a great match. Maybe she fell for him because he was strong and brave and could treat her to some decent meals on his soldier’s pay. Maybe he loved her enough to write her poetry. Love probably made her stupid. She’s going to have to live with what she’s done. She’ll be shunned here the rest of her life. That’s punishment enough.”
Claudette still struggled. “Let me go. Coward! Coward!”
“Think of André, Claudette. Don’t dishonour him with this. He died for France’s freedom, not for this. And if you kill her, you’re as bad as the Nazis. The one thing I’ve learned from all this hate and death is that when the war is over, it has to be over. If it’s not, we’ll just have another bloodbath in a few years. Don’t do this, Claudette. You’re better than the Nazis. I know you are.”
The crowd went silent, waiting.
Claudette’s hand trembled. The knife dropped to the ground. Claudette went limp and covered her face.
Henry carried her out of the crowd and laid her down on the grass.
“I hate you,” she mumbled. But she held onto his sweater and buried her face in it and cried. Henry heard her whisper a prayer asking forgiveness from God.
He was only able to cradle her for a moment before someone cried out, “Les soldats!”
Henry looked up and saw a German truck barrelling down the crowd from the village. Another one approached up the country road. The trucks screeched to a halt. Soldiers jumped out the back, guns up and ready.
Henry pulled Claudette to her feet. They scrambled through some bushes and ran – ran with all they had – ran to the cemetery where they’d left their bicycles. Maybe they could pedal to safety.
The bikes were gone. Henry could hear tramping feet doing double time up the gravelled road. There was nothing to do but hide behind the gravestones and pray they passed.
He and Claudette huddled together behind a huge stone topped with an angel. It was missing a wing. Henry looked at Claudette. Terror was all over her face. She looked so young. He couldn’t let the Nazis get her. He couldn’t.
The gate squeaked open. Henry chanced a look. Two young soldiers were threading their way through the tombstones. They’d find him and Claudette for sure.
Henry looked again. The soldiers looked scared. New recruits, Henry reckoned. Still, there were two of them with two guns. They’d make a racket even if he did manage to jump them. Then the rest of the troops would be on them within seconds.
There was nothing else to do but for Henry to draw them away from Claudette, just like he’d seen mother quails do when someone approached their nest. He cupped Claudette’s face in his hands. He didn’t know if he’d ever see her again. He kissed her gently. “Stay here,” he whispered. “When they run after me, run for the hills.”
Henry crawled from grave to grave. When he neared the gate, he stood up in plain view.
“Halt!”
Henry bolted. He ran back towards town. He looked over his shoulder to make sure both soldiers were chasing him. They were.
He glanced back again. In the distance he saw Claudette creep out of the cemetery and disappear up the hill. The soldiers chasing him saw nothing.
So long, Claudette, Henry thought. Be good now.
He gritted his teeth and ran on.
A shot rang out behind him.
Another one twanged into the ground beside him.
“God, give me wings,” Henry prayed. He imagined the fields back home where he’d run pell-mell into the March winds, arms out, waiting to be lifted off the face of the earth, up, up, into the blue.
Another shot. But it was way behind him now.
He’d done it. He’d outflown them. Now all he had to do was get out of town and find someplace to hide.
Henry darted around a corner.
He came face-to-face with a German squadron.
Two months later, Henry just knew his life was over. He’d never get home, never hold Patsy, never see his mother and father. He had watched for every opportunity to escape from the Germans who held him and there had been none, absolutely none. They’d transported him northeast from towns to fields to villages to mountains in their wild, disorganized retreat. American fighters had strafed them. Maquis groups had ambushed them. Many of the German soldiers in the convoy had died along the road. And all the while Henry remained shackled to the back of a camouflaged truck.
These Germans were regular army. They had treated him pretty well. He’d eaten once a day. They didn’t bother to ask who had helped him. All they focused on was retreating. Worn-out, afraid, ill-supplied, dogged by their enemy, they had scurried eastward, back to Germany.
But now they were meeting up with other German columns and massing. Clearly Hitler was preparing some sort of counterattack to the Allied invasion. The last road sign Henry had seen had been for Metz. He remembered from his flying days that Metz was pretty close to the German border, not far south from Luxembourg.
Henry could sense the growing desperation of his jailers. They were heading for a do-or-die fight. Waiting, watching, hoping for some kind of miracle, Henry had written dozens of letters home in his mind:
Dear Ma,
Try not to be too sad when they tell you I’m gone. I got to skim along winds just under heaven. I also got to see the very best of people – even as I witnessed the very worst in them. Remember how you told me that people would amaze me? So many people risked everything to help me. There was a young French mother who took me in who reminded me a lot of you. She was kind and pretty and brave and a real good cook. She loved her son fiercely, with all her being. Just like you. Look for me in the clouds, Ma, because I hope to fly there now in peace. I’ll be watching you.
Dear Pats,
I wish I had told you I loved you before getting shipped over. I guess I didn’t recognize it until I was here without you. Your pretty face followed me everywhere. Your beautiful letters kept me going. Many times when I was afraid I thought of you and the joy we shared as children and could have shared as adults. I wish I had a whole life to spend with you. Go swim in our creek for me once in a while. I’ll be waiting there in spirit to hold you in my arms. My body may not have been able to walk home but I know my soul will fly there. I do love you.
Dear Dad,
You and I have never had a real good talk. But I learned a lot about you over here. This war has taught me that people sometimes do the wrong things for the right reasons. I think you treated me harsh to prepare me for this. Well, I’ve got to admit it helped. Love’s got responsibilities, like you always said, things you’ve got to do even when you don’t really want to. I understand that now. I put up a good fight but, you know, Dad, they play for keeps in a war.
It was an old regimental sergeant who came to get him. Henry had seen him before. He had brought Henry meals many times. The man clearly had no affection for his Nazi commanders. He never did that to-the-sky salute and he always seemed to fume after they left him. But he followed orders, loyal to his homeland. Given the man’s age, Henry figured he had served in the First World War, too.
When the old German came to get Henry, he carried a shovel. He wouldn’t look Henry in the eye. Henry’s stomach lurched. The sergeant’s orders must be to take the American out and shoot him, after making Henry dig his own grave.
In the field, Henry scratched out a trench very, very slowly, trying to buy himself some time, time to think, time to live. Maybe he could whack the old man with the shovel and run. He could hear the distant rumble and grind of tanks, the shouting of men. Somewhere, towards the west, mortar shells were exploding. If he ran straight into a battle would they really bother chasing him?
Henry looked up to the sky. Locked in the truck, he hadn’t really seen the daylight sky for weeks. It was a clear, crystalline blue, stretching up forever, with a bright day-moon shining. The autumn air was crisp, invigorating. What a day for flying, thought Henry. Up in the sky he’d be away from all this killing and pain. There’d be no dead-end alleys, no bullets to stop him. Would the air lift him up into silent, soaring glory if he wished it hard enough?
Henry closed his eyes and tried to smell a breeze. If he made himself light, shed the war and his fear, maybe he could just slide up into the heavens like a kite, the way he had pretended to do a million times over as a kid. He opened his eyes and focused on the translucent day-moon, the boundless blue that reached towards it. Without really realizing what he was doing, the words of his favourite poem came out of his mouth like a prayer: “‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed…’”
As he recited, the words vaulted Henry’s soul into the clouds, to freedom. For a few moments, he hovered, strong, unafraid, on the winds. But when his words stopped, his flight did, too. Henry remembered his own grave lay at his feet. His eyes fell from the sky to the dirt. Slowly, sadly, Henry turned to face his executioner.
The sergeant’s resolute expression had turned to a troubled, conflicted one. He sighed heavily and shook his head. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out a thin sheet of paper folded many times. He handed it to Henry.
It was orange and carried American and British seals. The top half was written in German. The bottom half translated: The German soldier who carries this safe conduct is using it as a sign of his genuine wish to give himself up. He is to be disarmed, to be well looked after, to receive food and medical attention as required, and to be removed from the danger zone as soon as possible. Signed, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force.
Henry looked up in surprise. The German’s weather-beaten face seemed softened by a mix of compassion and remorse and plain old weariness. Allied planes must have dropped the leaflet. Hope flared in Henry. Were the Americans really that close? Was the Nazi defeat really that inevitable? Clearly the old German thought so. Maybe he even hoped so.
The sergeant kicked dirt into the empty grave to fill it. He undid Henry’s shackles and pointed his thumb west. “Auf, geh heim.”
Henry wasn’t sure he understood. Was it a trick? Could someone in this hellish war still have that much mercy? Henry backed away tentatively. He looked to the sergeant for approval. “Home?”
The old German nodded and repeated, “Auf. Geh heim.” He lifted his rifle and fired it once into the air to make the officers back at camp think he’d shot Henry. The sound reverberated in the chill air. Then he turned and walked away, very slowly, to his own unit.
Henry was alone, free, just a few miles from American troops. All he had to do was skinny through enemy lines, avoiding detection and the bombs of his own countrymen, then walk up to tanks rolling into battle and give himself up without getting shot.
Somehow, on that clear, cold morning – when his enemy had chosen to spare Henry’s life rather than kill him – the journey seemed completely possible.