CHAPTER 2   

Mikel Sabarte had his own reasons for helping downed Allied airmen move from place to place until they were once again safe. He had his reasons for visiting Daniel every chance he got at either the farmhouse or the orphanage. He had his reasons for loving Anja.

And he kept every one of those reasons to himself. He had been born to a life in the shadows, and now he chose to live that way.

He was Basque and as such knew all about what it felt like to be behind enemy lines even in his own country, what it felt like to grow up in a world that labeled him “different,” what it meant to put his own life on the line to make sure that his only child had a chance at a better life than the one he had known—as Anja did every day.

Anja’s Quaker faith made her more of an optimist. She believed there was good—or what she called the Light—in every human being. How she could believe such nonsense after witnessing the death of her daughter and husband was a mystery to Mikel. But it was one of the traits of her character that had drawn him to her. She had hope when he had long since abandoned any notion that there was more good than evil in this world.

On this night, he had waited for her train to arrive, knowing that a plane was down near her grandparents’ farm, knowing that this meant the Germans would be searching every house and outbuilding for miles around the wreckage, knowing that her instinct would be to find any American crew member or evader still hiding out and get him to safety. He could only hope that the fact that her son, Daniel, was spending the weekend at the farm would keep her from taking too many risks. She knew the dangers as well as anyone—better than most.

As the train pulled into the station, he’d seen her sitting next to a window, her head resting against the glass. He hoped she had managed to get some sleep on the ride from Brussels, for the likelihood was that she would not get much sleep once she reached the farm. He had information for her to pass on to the baker. The Nazis had discovered and raided one of their safe houses. One of her main jobs with the escape line that ran out of Brussels and the surrounding countryside was locating places where the evaders could stay for a few hours or perhaps a few days. Moving these men from one safe house to another—often right under the noses of the Nazis—was perhaps the most dangerous part of their work. But Anja insisted that as a nurse she had the perfect cover for going in and out of houses and visiting farms in the region.

Once the train came to a stop, he had waited for her to disembark and then started pushing the luggage trolley down the platform close to where she was walking. He had pressed the note that contained the address of the raided safe house into her palm without a word. All of this had been done in the blink of an eye. They had been two strangers passing in the growing darkness of a late November night. But for Mikel that single moment of contact and the news of the plane down near the farm formed the foundation of hours they might spend together in the coming weeks. For the Allied crew that had fallen from the sky would need help, and he and Anja would become their lifeline to freedom.

Peter was shivering so hard that he could barely keep himself from emitting low moans. At the same time, he felt as if he had a raging fever. He fought to stay conscious, to listen for sounds of anyone coming. Not that he was capable of doing anything but surrender should the enemy discover his hiding place. Truth was, they would probably shoot him without asking any questions, or worse, they might accidentally kill him by probing the stuff covering him with their bayonets.

Focus, Trent.

He tried to remember as much as possible about the terrain he’d been able to see from the plane and then again as the boy helped him drag himself across the field to the ditch. There had been smoke rising. Was that from the downed plane or a house? And what about the rest of the crew?

Mentally he tried to reason out their fates. Haversole was definitely dead. Walker—the pilot—would probably have not had time to bail out before the plane hit and exploded. Peter knew that the man wouldn’t think twice about trading his life for the safety of innocents living in the area. Peter was sure that he’d heard a burst of machine-gun fire coming from the direction of the trees where Simpson had landed. There were four other crew members he couldn’t account for. He hoped they’d managed to land safely and get to a hiding place. Focusing his attention in the direction of the road where he’d seen the military trucks passing, he heard more traffic. The wind carried the smell of burning oil and gas from the smoldering plane in his direction. He closed his eyes.

So tired. So very …

A sound nearby brought him immediately alert. Judging by the darkness, time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Instinctively he tried to flatten himself farther into the ditch. The action sent a shot of pain burning its way the length of his leg. He bit down hard on his lower lip and waited.

“Ici,” a woman whispered to someone with her in what he thought was French. If a woman had come, then she must be local and perhaps he might not be shot.

He felt the branches and straw that covered him being cleared away and heard the rustle of silk. A man’s voice—deep and husky—gave directions also in French or some dialect close to French. He and the rest of the crew had been told that Belgium was a multilingual society—French, Dutch, and German were all common. They had joked that the only language they hoped to hear was English.

Buying precious seconds to assess his situation, Peter remained as motionless as possible. Of course, now that he was fully exposed to the wind and cold, it was hard not to shiver. Someone touched his shoulder, startling him, and he jerked away. Having revealed that he was alive, he tried to push himself to a sitting position.

“Lie still,” the female said now, speaking in English. “We will roll you onto the parachute. Just be very still, all right?”

He grunted as he noticed the man folding the parachute into layers and placing it next to him. The man’s movements were those of an old person—stiff and slow. The woman moved quickly, and she was very small—surely no more than a teenager. Perhaps she was the man’s granddaughter and the sister of the boy who had found him. How she and the old man were going to move him, he had no idea. Then he saw the cart—a rustic old wooden wheelbarrow-type, but deeper.

“Which leg is hurt?” she asked.

“Left,” he replied, wondering how she knew. The boy of course. He had sent them. He had kept his promise to go for help. “I was hit—wounded.” He realized that he could no longer feel his leg.

It was so dark that he could not read her expression, but he saw the way she glanced at the man, who shrugged as the two of them knelt on the ends of the parachute to keep it from blowing and together slowly rolled him out of the ditch and onto the smooth, cold fabric. The morphine was wearing off but still had some value. At least he was able to remain mostly silent as they moved him.

Next she instructed him to make himself as small as possible, and in spite of the pain, he eased his knees closer to his chest and tucked his arms close to his body. The old man brought the cart closer and tilted it, dumping out a pile of straw while the girl wrapped the chute tightly around Peter. Then the two of them bent and lifted him into the cart, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

He could not swallow a yelp.

“Shhh,” she ordered and then began quickly covering him with straw that she and the old man scooped up with both hands.

“Let’s go,” the girl said, her voice betraying her nervousness. She led the way while the old man pushed the cart. The ride was bumpy, and twice the cart almost turned over. But after what seemed like a very long time, Peter saw the glow of a lamp through the mat of straw that covered his face. Then he saw a woman standing in the doorway of a small house, her arms around a boy.

The boy broke away and ran to meet them. He blurted out a question in French. Peter’s French was of the high school variety, but he understood the word mort. The kid was asking if he was dead.

“Non.”

Well, that was good news. He had begun to wonder if all of this was some kind of delirium—a dream that would precede him freezing to death. The way his head was swimming and his eyes refused to focus, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Instead of wheeling the cart up to the door, the old man headed around the side of the house toward a dark outbuilding, and once the girl had pulled the door open against a drift of snow blocking it, he rolled the cart inside. Using the slickness of the parachute for leverage, the man and girl turned Peter until he was facing backward, and as the man tipped up the cart, Peter slid out and onto a pile of fresh and fragrant hay.

The woman from the house was now standing in the doorway of the shed with a lantern, and the last thing Peter saw before he passed out was the face of the girl as she knelt next to him and gently unwrapped him. She was quite beautiful, and when the boy bent to help her, calling her Mama, Peter realized that this was not his sister—this was the boy’s mother.

The man was heavy, but Anja was more concerned about his height. She was already thinking ahead, making a mental checklist of what they would need to do to move him along to the next stop on the escape line. His height meant that he would stand out even in disguise. Americans tended to be taller than most Europeans with a lanky build that was in direct contrast to the bulkier physique of even the most athletic males in Europe. But she was getting ahead of herself. Before they could get him moving on the escape route, he would have to be able to walk—to hike long distances over rough terrain. She stood over him, hands on her hips, as she reasoned out what they needed to do over the next few hours.

He had finally lost consciousness—whether from loss of blood, sheer exhaustion, or a combination was hard to say. His dog tags identified him as Trent, Peter S. Numbers were stamped under his name and what she assumed was his blood type—O+. In the lower right corner was the letter P to indicate that he was Protestant. She wondered if he was a religious man or had simply indicated the faith he’d been raised in as a boy.

Did it matter? In her experience it did. If the man died, she hoped he would do so having felt himself held in the Light—or whatever version of God’s Spirit that would bring him peace in his final hours.

But he wasn’t dead—at least not yet. So in spite of her own weariness, she pushed herself into action. Her grandfather had tied up the horse that usually occupied this stall outside. Daniel had brought extra blankets from the house. And Ailsa had brought some broth and a bottle of iodine. Anja suspected the man was seriously dehydrated. Hours had passed since Daniel first found him, and who knew how long before that it had been since he’d taken in any liquids or nourishment. She worried that he might also be suffering from hypothermia, but her first concern had to be that leg.

With the experience of having hidden dozens of Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines, she cut away the leg of his uniform and held up the lantern to examine the wound. The bullet had done more than graze him; it was embedded. The area was also covered with dried blood as well as dirt and debris. She cleaned it as best she could then doused the whole area with the iodine and bandaged it. For now she had done all she could, so she covered him and arranged the hay so that he was invisible in the corner of the stall. Extinguishing the lantern and working without light, she settled herself next to him and cradled his head in her arm. She wondered if he was married—if he had a wife and children back in America who were unknowingly depending on her and the others to bring him back to them. Surely, even if he were single, he had parents and siblings, not to mention friends.

Using an eyedropper that her grandmother had brought rather than a spoon, she placed a tiny amount of the broth between his lips. Instantly his tongue came out to capture the liquid, but he did not wake. She repeated the process a half dozen times, thinking as she did so that this was so very like the way her late husband had fed a sparrow they had found in the park when Daniel was just a baby. The little bird’s wing had been broken. Her husband—her Benjamin—had nursed that little bird back to health and set it free. She wondered if Peter Trent would be so blessed—if he would ever fly again.

As she waited for him to wake and take more of the liquid, she stroked his dark sandy hair. It was thick and at the moment matted with sweat from his ordeal, and he was definitely running a fever. When she had held the lantern over him, she had noticed a bruise on his cheek and a variety of minor cuts and abrasions on his face and hands. She suspected that there would be more injuries, but her primary concern had to be infection. By now her grandfather would have sent word for Josef to come as soon as possible, but when Josef would arrive remained anyone’s guess. No doubt the Nazis had set up extra roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the area. It was perfectly normal for Josef to come to the farm during the day. He came to buy eggs and milk for the café. But it would not be light for hours yet, and for Josef to travel before dawn would raise suspicion.

Ailsa had told her that while Anja and Olaf were out rescuing Peter Trent, there had been gunshots and then shouting. She and Daniel had watched from an upstairs window as the Germans captured four men—presumably members of the crew—and marched them off toward town. “One of them seemed badly injured,” she reported in a whisper.

Recalling once again the body she had seen hanging in the tree and the unlikely chance that the pilot had survived the crash, the prisoners being marched off to town accounted for all of the crew—but one. And if there was even one man missing, Anja reminded herself, the Nazis would not rest until they found that missing crew member—the man lying next to her moaning softly in his sleep.

Figuring that Josef would not be able to reach the farm for hours yet—if at all, given the activity and the certainty that checkpoints were on high alert, Anja prepared to spend what was left of the night in the shed with her patient. If he woke and was disoriented, he might try to escape in spite of his wounds. If the Nazis found him anywhere near her grandparents’ property, they would no doubt take the entire household—including Daniel—into custody. She had escaped from them once before. She had been reunited with her grandparents. She had found her son. She was determined to outlast the Nazis.

And if they come back and find me here with Peter Trent? She closed her eyes. It wasn’t difficult at all to imagine the officer aiming his gun carefully at her head—at Daniel’s head. Will this terrible war never end?

She pulled the blanket higher around the airman and then pulled the parachute free. It was evidence of the most incriminating type, and while it had served them well in moving him here, it had to be destroyed. With the shears they kept hanging in the shed that she’d used to cut the evader’s trouser leg, she began methodically cutting the silky fabric into strips. The task was tedious, for she could not risk simply tearing it lest someone be lurking outside and hear the rip of the fabric. Cutting it up into strips that could be used for bandages would pass the time and hopefully keep her alert until her grandfather came to relieve her at first light.

After feeding Peter Trent the drops of broth, she had gently guided him so that he could rest his head in her lap. As she sliced through the fabric, she felt the warmth of his calm steady breath on her hands. Later she would try to give him a little more liquid. For now she would let him sleep—and wait for whatever might come next.

But first she would do one thing more—she would sit in silence and wait for God to reveal His plan for Peter Trent.

Peter fought his way back to consciousness, swimming upstream against the dreams and images that filled his mind. Images of the little town where he’d grown up in the foothills of the Appalachians in southwestern Virginia. The town sat down in a valley and had a railroad running through the middle of Main Street. Most every man living there worked at “the plant”—shift work round the clock, each shift’s ending and beginning announced with a whistle. He supposed when this was all over he’d be working there as well. Every man in his family had worked there.

But he’d always had bigger dreams for himself. He’d longed to learn what lay beyond those hills and that little valley. It was one reason he’d volunteered. The promise of a military career with its opportunity to travel and see the world was something he had just not been able to resist. At the time he’d joined up, everyone had been sure that the United States would never get into the war. But then had come that Sunday in the Pacific—the Japanese attack on the US base of Pearl Harbor. After that there was no turning back.

He smelled chicken and felt something wet and warm on his lips. He captured the drops with his tongue—chicken soup. His mind went instantly to the little tavern near the base in England where he and the others had stuffed themselves the night before the mission with potpies thick with potatoes and onions and broth but not much chicken. He saw the faces of the others—Walker, Haversole, and surely Simpson….

Reality hit him. All three were dead now, and he was no longer dreaming. He wondered if any of the others had escaped and were still out there. Before opening his eyes, he focused on the smells and sounds around him, searching for clues. There was fresh hay, and he was reasonably warm. His leg had gone numb. His cheeks rested against some soft, thick fabric—wool, he thought. Close to his ear, he heard the rhythmic clicking of metal on metal and something more. Then he felt something light touch his face, like a feather brushing his skin or a gnat that he was inclined to swat away. But he remained still, trying to remember more of the rules that Johnstone had read to him from the RAF guidebook on survival. Not that he hadn’t had similar training and preparation, but somehow it was easier picturing Tommy lecturing him.

He had certainly managed the first steps: he had not pulled his rip cord until the last possible second, and he had hidden his parachute. He had not been carrying any incriminating papers that could give Allied positions or details that could help the Nazis, so that wasn’t a concern. What else?

Endeavour to get clear of a five-mile radius of the downed aircraft. Searches rarely cover beyond that.

He concentrated on the events of the last several hours—the boy finding him, the ditch, the kid’s mother and old man coming for him, the ride in the cart. It had been a long, torturous journey, but there was no way he had moved five miles.

As you run for cover, carry out any minor alterations to your uniform to make it resemble, as far as possible, civilian clothing.

That was the part that he had completely forgotten. He’d ditched the goggles, helmet, and flight suit along with the parachute and harness, but that had been more out of a sense of the need to be free of any constraints than a conscious move to disguise his identity. He’d swallowed the caffeine pills for energy and taken the first-aid kit with him. He had no idea where that might be now—maybe still in that ditch. He had managed to use the morphine in the syringe to dull the pain in his leg, but he’d used only about two-thirds of the dose in the face of the need to stay alert and get himself to a better hiding place as soon as possible. What he wouldn’t give to have the rest of that medicine now.

He’d been so focused on his mission that he had completely forgotten about tearing off his insignia or finding other ways he might disguise his uniform. He reached for the insignia patch and clawed at it, searching for a loose corner that would make it easier to rip it free. But he stopped as soon as he felt someone else’s hand covering his.

“You have decided to come back to us then,” a female voice murmured, and he felt her brush back his hair from his forehead and lay her palm there as his mother had done when she wanted to see if he was running a fever.

He opened his eyes to darkness and waited for his vision to adjust to the interplay of light and shadow that is present even in the blackest night. “Who …?” His voice was raspy, and she stopped further conversation by pressing her finger against his lips.

“You are safe,” she whispered. “For now. A doctor will be here soon. He can see to your leg. My name is Anja, and this is the farm of my grandparents.”

“The boy?”

“He is my son.” She turned and retrieved a bowl. “You need to eat and drink. This is chicken broth—cold now but …”

He realized that he was ravenous, and his throat felt as if he’d been in the desert for a week. He took the bowl from her and drank the contents down. “Thank you.” He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand as she took the bowl from him. “My name is Peter Trent. I’m American.”

“I know. Do you have other identification on you beyond this?” She pointed to his dog tag.

“Just this patch,” he said.

Expertly she snipped a corner of the insignia and then worked it free. “Once the doctor has seen to your injuries, we will get you civilian clothing and burn the uniform.”

“You speak excellent English,” he remarked. They were talking now in low tones that were above a whisper but not yet at the volume of normal conversation.

She ignored the compliment. “You have heard of the line?”

“I … what do you mean?”

“There are a number of groups working in this part of Europe to help you and others get back to your units. We work through a series of safe houses and contacts to move you from place to place through France, over the mountains to Spain, and on to Gibraltar.”

The journey she outlined was hundreds—even thousands—of miles. He had heard stories of such escapes, especially from the Brits, but he’d discounted them as impossible in spite of the proof of several airmen who had made it back to England and in spite of the similarities to the Underground Railroad that had moved slaves north before and during the Civil War in America. “You work on this escape line?”

“You don’t ask questions like that—in fact, you mustn’t ask questions at all. I have already revealed more than I should have. Names are not to be used—ever. The safety of those who will help you will depend on your discretion as much as anything. Anonymity is vital—in case someone is arrested. The less information a person has, the less likely that person is to incriminate others.”

A door squeaked open at the farmhouse, and she went absolutely still, her hand resting on his arm more as a warning than in a gesture of comfort. He realized that all the time they’d been talking she had continued to cut up the parachute. Now, with one smooth motion, she gathered the strips and rolled them into a ball, which she hid under a pile of hay and debris in the corner of the stall before she went back to waiting—and listening.

He observed the way she cocked her head to one side and knew that she was mentally recording and identifying every sound. Someone was coming across the yard, the snow that had turned to slush and ice crunching underfoot. He saw the silhouette of the person, stoop-shouldered and moving slowly, and knew it must be Anja’s grandfather. The old man bent to clear the low opening of the shed and handed Anja a tin bucket with a cover. He muttered something in a dialect Peter did not know before picking up a shovel and going back outside.

“He will keep watch now,” she said, setting the tin bucket on the ground near Peter. “My grandmother has prepared this breakfast for you. Take your time eating it so you don’t become ill.” She gathered some blood-stained fabric that he realized was part of his trouser leg, wadding it into as small a bundle as possible. “I’ll burn this in the kitchen stove.”

“My leg …”

“Our friend is a doctor, although these days he and his wife run a café in Brussels. He will be here when he can. Then we will see to your leg and get you some other clothes.” She made it to the door and then looked back at him over her shoulder. “You must trust that we know what we are doing and not try and get away, or you will get us all shot.”

As if he could move well enough to make it from the stall to the door of the shed.

She was a bossy little thing. He’d had a drill sergeant in basic training that he would put her up against any day. He still hadn’t gotten a good look at her beyond that first glance when he regained consciousness. In that moment, he had thought she was possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But he would have believed the same of anyone he’d seen who was not a Nazi. Besides, the lantern her grandmother had held the night before had cast long shadows, and she had extinguished it once she had apparently satisfied herself that he was going to live.

He pulled the blanket that smelled like a horse around his shoulders like a shawl and opened the tin bucket. When he removed the lid, he paused to sort the contents—a fairly sizable chunk of the stuff that passed for bread over here, a hard-boiled egg, and a tin cup filled with ersatz coffee. But there were luxuries, as well. The bread was buttered and coated with jam, and there was a piece of white creamy cheese. In this place and in these times, he had before him the makings of a feast. He wished that he could give the meal the respect it deserved. But suddenly he was sweating profusely, the world around him was swirling like a carousel, and he knew that he was about to pass out.