“WE ARE THE MAQUIS”
Twirling my head rapidly about like an owl and glaring defiantly in all directions, I was delighted to see no uniforms converging upon my position. Well, whee and hot damn! I thought, and—arms full to overflowing with great quantities of parachute—I pulled a fine bead on the nearest fringe of forest and lit out like a scared jackrabbit. I was bound on gaining the tall timber where, once in, nobody would ever see me again.
While flying low through a corner of the barnyard, I spotted a girl halfhidden in the narrow doorway of a stone pigsty. The back of her hand was pressed tightly to her lips, and I could have hung my helmet on her eyeballs. When but a few paces from her, I slid to a halt, grinned and waved, and spoke to her: “Bonjour, mamselle! Je suis aviateur Americain . . .”
The cat had her tongue. I asked her if German soldiers were at the air-drome—at the same time checking back over my shoulder to see for myself. And still no answer. For a long moment the girl stared, and then gestured me out of the bald sunlight and into the pigpen where she found her voice and began sputtering much fast talk my way. All I could get from her was that she wasn’t speaking English, so I waved her down, requesting that she proceed slowly and in one-syllable words: so now, speaking my brand of French, she told me that the Jerries had all packed up and left their flying field after the last attack by British bombers. But only a kilometer from us were now a thousand German soldiers, which was all I wanted to know.
“Adieu, belle ami. Il faut partir!” One must leave, for at any moment would the Jerries be here, and that would prove to be extremely awkward for the girl and for me. So catching up straggling bits of silk and clearing my feet of the tangle of shroud lines, I peered over my clumsy bundle to again cast an anxious eye toward the deep forest. But now the girl shook her head and pulled me away from the doorway. Non-non-non-non! I must wait where I was. She would return in a moment. She cocked an ear and all outside was quiet, so she dashed away to return in short order with three people scuttling in close formation behind her. These were, whispered the girl breathlessly, “Grandmere, grandpere, and my husband, Maurice. They will help you!” I shook hands with each and gave each a smile. Well, the old folks were humpbacked and wrinkle-faced, and the old lady had an armful of tattered clothing which she thrust at me with excited gestures: I must put them on. Quickly! Quickly! So I peeled off my helmet—pausing from habit to scratch my head—then off with the Mae West and flying jacket, off with the flying suit and army shirt and pants, and then all I had to go was my pair of dapper khaki shorts. Whereupon I grinned sheepishly. The girl Helene laughed and waved: I need go no further. And as I donned the disguise, with everybody standing around jabbering at me, I tested out my new language and found it to be decidedly without fluency.
A much-patched pair of once-blue overall pants and a faded brown shirt I now wore, and a little old threadbare suitcoat with sleeves six inches too short. Maurice looked me over with a critical eye and whipped off his beret, which I draped nonchalantly over one ear. I chuckled and announced gaily: “Voila! Je suis un Français!”—Now I’m a Frenchman, as though by magic. And I hadn’t been on the ground for five minutes. Quite a system . . .
The old geezer, bless his thoughtful heart, had come to greet me clutching a bottle and tumbler which he now offered to me, friendly-like. With thanks I poured out four fingers of what I assumed to be white wine and tossed it off with one long, open-throated gulp. Later—and quite unnecessarily—I was told that people just don’t guzzle raw Calvados moonshine. They sip it. For high-octane fuel and a jet of flame had combined in my throat to explode with a dazzling flash in my gut. My breathing apparatus was rendered temporarily inoperative, and I knew immediately that I’d been duped; but with truly remarkable control I succeeded in keeping a straight face, and while the old man gazed at me with awe, I whispered hoarse thanks and passed around my cigarettes and lit everybody up with my zippo. The old woman snatched a smoke, took a couple of gleeful, pucker-mouthed drags, then snuffed it and tucked the butt carefully away in a little tin box she’d fished from her apron pocket. Then she scolded me: tobacco like that was much too dear to be offered so freely.
Fumbling nervously, Maurice stuffed my chute and flying gear into a gunnysack, and now he trotted for the woods with the stuff slung over his shoulder. I scuffed about in the manure to dirty my army shoes and thus complete my disguise. Now I was the one and original hillbilly, French-type, dismounted.
To our ears came the sudden, faint sound of an approaching motorcar, and instantly our little gathering broke up. Alone in the malodorous stable, I scurried to the darkest corner and crouched against the wall, pulling over me like a shield a rusty sheet of corrugated iron. And there I squatted for perhaps five minutes . . . my heart thumping audibly, the applejack percolating over the slow fire in my belly. And when the old man returned, croaking, “Aviateur! Aviateur!” I came from hiding and asked him what might be the score. An auto, he said, with German officers and soldiers had stopped at the farm to ask questions, for a parachutist had been seen to fall in the neighborhood. Guess who?
When my friends had all reappeared, I thanked them again for their help and again stated my belief that it was wise I leave them without delay. For should the Jerries come upon us now, there would be a little massacre, with four Frenchmen and one American as raw material. My friends were well aware that I spoke the truth, for the Germans were notoriously ruthless in their efforts to stamp out such resistance by the people of France. Maurice considered my little speech for a moment, then smiled and jerked a thumb toward his house. He was taking a long chance, and it took courage. The old man crossed himself, muttered something to his wife, and they bade me adieu. They scuttled across the farmyard and away.
So I made my first public appearance, walking across the little yard, and every step of the way I fully expected a heavy hand to clamp onto my shoulder. When we gained the kitchen, I was glad.
An ancient wood-burning cookstove was in the kitchen, and a hand-hewn table and chairs, and a broom made of twigs. A curly-headed baby girl lurched over to me, looked me up and down with her brown eyes, and peeped out: “B’jour, M’sieu.” The kid was about three, I guess, and a cute little rascal, so I found a bar of candy in my pocket and gave it to her. Helene snatched off the American wrapper and burned it. The baby took a serious nibble, looked up at us, and cried “C’est indescriptible!”—which was quite a two-franc word to come out of such a small child, and I chuckled. But Helene nearly wept when she explained that her baby had never seen such candy.
Helene dusted off her best chair and I sat at the table. Maurice fetched a bowl of fresh milk and a chunk of black bread. When that was gone, Helene set out a basket of cherries and a slab of salt pork, and I apologized for having eaten so much: I’d missed breakfast and had had a busy day. I looked at my watch. It was 8:30 a.m. on the eighth of June. Just four hours had passed since I’d climbed into the cockpit of the Joker back at Bodney, England. Now I sat in a farmhouse at the edge of a German airdrome, talking French to Frenchmen. With a flock of gestures and a complete slaughter of their native language, I told my hosts of the events of the morning’s flight that had led to my vertical descent upon their farm. When my tongue would mire down, I’d grab a pencil and make myself clear that way. By the time I’d finished telling war stories, I had a couple of sheets of paper covered with an amazing quantity of tiny stick-men, little P-5IS, big explosions, and a variety of other quaint symbols. My friends were intrigued.
Maurice and I retired to an attic room for a pow-wow, and I now discovered that I was situated some fifteen kilometers from the Channel south of Le Havre, and on the edge of Tricqueville Airdrome. And I was damned glad that my engine had given out when it had; for a few more minutes in the air with my bum navigation and I’d have been dropped right into the mouth of the Seine, subject to the guns of Le Havre. So I was quite a ways east of where I’d thought I’d been, but what the hell.
As to the Invasion, Maurice was in the dark—knowing nothing about it except that it had happened. I sketched up a map of the coast and showed him how it had begun and where the Allies were now fighting: the Americans on the west flank and the British on the east. The latter, under command of the much-advertised General Montgomery, I explained, were most likely slated to clean out the Channel Coast between Caen and Le Havre. In this event, Tricqueville should be liberated within the fortnight.
My plan of action, I told Maurice, was to hit the trail without delay: to walk to the general vicinity of Caen, to penetrate the German lines there, to meet the British and so proceed to London. All I’d need was a map of the Normandy coast and a little information. Maurice said he’d hide me out in the forest where I should wait until he brought to see me a friend of his who spoke English. Everything was under control!
The farm of Maurice Marais had suffered in the bombings of the adjoining airdrome. It was indeed miraculous that the house stood at all, for sticks of heavy bombs had fallen close by on either side. Fifty paces to the west were two half-demolished hangars, and fifty paces to the east was the rubble of a half-dozen flattened barracks. Every square foot of the house was pocked by fragments, and great cracks ran through the walls. Helene fingered the cross at her throat and said that there had been nights of terror, those nights when the bombers had come over.
Just before the Invasion, our bombers had flown over to drop tracts, and Maurice brought out a little sheet of paper to show me. Signed by Ike, it was a warning to all French living in proximity to likely target areas to clear out and go live with their country cousins until the fireworks died down. So I asked Maurice why he hadn’t moved away from the German airdrome. Well, he explained, they’d always hated the Boches, and after the fourth bombing they’d abandoned the airdrome. He and his wife were happy to be rid of them.
Maurice sortied through the local area and returned. The coast was clear, so we headed out across the farmyard bound for the woods, each of us carrying an ancient axe and making like a couple of local boys out to chop a tree or two. Along a lane we went and over a fence, to drop to the bottom of a dry wash. Down the gully for a ways, and then up a steep and winding footpath that clung to the side of a timbered slope. Now we came upon a faint trail that we followed up the hillside until it terminated at a huge bomb crater. There we stopped and shared a smoke. Maurice faded back into the brush and I was alone.
Yellow clay and tangled roots exposed to the sun, rocks and bomb fragments underfoot, and all about the crater was thick underbrush and deep forest. Silence but for the rustle of leaves and the stirrings of rabbits and the occasional song of a bird. The overcast had burned away and the sky was deeply blue, and the sun focused hotly into the crater. I slid to the bottom and lit up a smoke. I sat and thought.
The squadron was back in England by this time, and right about now our Intelligence Officer, having inscribed a shaky “Missing in Action” after my name, was blotting his tear-stained mission report. And my old flyin’ pals, chortling ghoulishly, were at this very moment busily rummaging through my footlocker—throwing great handfuls of valuables into the air and gleefully trying on my uniforms for size. I was lonesome for the bastards, but now I was strictly hors de combat.
A few seconds more, I pondered, and I’d have had that red-hot Merlin engine jammed up my chimney. So I was here and I was lucky and what the merry hell. I would milk this misdeal for all the fun there was in it. And I uncorked my silver flask to permit a trickle of bourbon to splash down into the Calvados below. I set about checking my equipment, mumbling happily as I puttered: “. . . Yer engine coughs, yer wings fall off, but youoooo will neverrrr mind!” After twenty-odd verses of that one, I carried on from there. I was so happy I could hardly stand it, what with being alive.
I wasn’t badly off: three packs of smokes, a good lighter, and a damned good hunting knife; a roll of pound notes, a few shillings, and my trusty flask. Ripping open my Escape Kit, I took tally: 2,000 francs, a useless map, a hacksaw blade, two dime-store compasses, a needle and thread, a rubber water bottle and some tablets guaranteed to purify anything, a packet of benzedrine pills, and a short course in French. All that I had, plus a beat-up hillbilly disguise.
Gazing at the silk map for a while, I found it to be of too small scale to be of any value. And along the coastal regions of France was the hilarious warning: “Keep out of red-checkered areas! Heavy troop concentrations and coastal defenses!” The territory in which I now sat twiddling my thumbs was so heavily checkered that I couldn’t even make out the names of the goddam towns.
I stripped and sewed a dog tag into the waistband of my shorts. The saw blade went into a seam of my shirt and I sewed into my handkerchief my spare dog tag, Air Corps ring, wings, and collar insignia. I took another little swig, then spread out my clothes and lay down on them, naked as a jaybird and feeling quite content. For days I’d been losing much sleep and now I was bone-tired; so grateful for the luxurious sunshine, I fell into heavy slumber before being awakened by the sound of laughter. I opened my eyes to see Maurice and his ever-loving wife standing on the lip of the crater above. We shook hands all around and then I dressed—already falling in with the casual customs of this fair country.
Helene carried a basket, and beneath the gay cloth was a pan full of meat and potatoes and gravy, with cherries and cider to top off the feast, and I left not a crumb nor a drop. As they turned to leave, I gave Maurice a pack of cigarettes and had to twist his arm before he’d take them.
My parachute leg straps had dealt me a treacherous blow, and my upper inner thighs had turned to a delightful shade of vomit-green. To move became a painful effort, so I cut a couple of canes with which I could pole myself from a sitting to a standing position or vice-versa. I sat and thought and dozed with one eye open, and Maurice returned at dusk to escort me to the house, where Helene led me upstairs and showed me my bed. She indicated an alternate exit from the house, which I was to use in the event of trouble. And I plunged into three feet of feather quilt—comfortable gadget after the bottom of a bomb hole.
For a while I lay awake, mulling over various fantastic schemes designed to fish my tired carcass from the fire, and then to sleep: whereupon, in about the third reel of dreams of flak and related short subjects, I was suddenly shaken awake. And I thought, Hi-ho . . . just another lousy briefing . . . but what was this babe doing in my hut? Then remembering who was in what barracks and where, I bounced out of the sack, on the alert.
Helene, with fear in her whisper, reported that les Boches were all around us! “Allez! Allez! Pas accelere!” I must skeedaddle, and right now. So with aches and pains forgotten in the danger of the night, in a moment I was dogtrotting briskly through the brush, flying blind toward the crater. I’d had a hunch that the featherbed was too good to last. Shivering, I counted stars, then watched the dawn to welcome the warmth of the sunrise; and at noon Maurice showed up to report that at dawn German troopers had searched the farmhouse and outbuildings. Right now German officers were inspecting the battered corpse of the Joker—and at midmorning two collaborateurs had approached Maurice, offering him 15,000 francs cash for information about the parachutiste allie. Not all the news was bad, however, for the English-speaking friend was on his way and we’d rendezvous with him in the farmhouse cellar.
I was soon perched upon a barrelhead in the dank and gloomy hole beneath the bomb-scarred house, wine kegs and spider webs and a musty odor all about me. Hearing the snarl of fighter engines, I peered from a tiny barred window to watch a flight of four efficient-looking Messer-schmitt 109s race past at treetop level. I went back to my barrel, eager to meet the man who spoke my language. Son of a gun! I’d be on my merry way before long. This man would have a map and a masterful plan and I’d be patrolling Piccadilly within the week!
Now overhead a door slammed . . . squeaks traveled across the ceiling. With a shuffle of shoes on the stairway, Maurice appeared and with him was a character: a guy about thirty-five or forty with thinning brown hair and a dull face but for a set of bright blue eyes which twinkled at me through thick bifocals. This was Gabriel, who spoke English!
We shook hands. Gabriel began to talk, slowly and with extreme agony, pulling out each word with a whirligig gesture of his hand. I laughed like hell and Gabriel grinned and gave up; for his English was a frightful concoction of Dutch, Flemish, French, German, a word or two of English, plus a few sounds he’d made up all by himself. Rooked again!
So out came my pencil and paper for more stick-men and maps. Gabriel was of no help whatsoever, but he was a good egg. He told me that he hailed from up around the Frisian Islands in the Netherlands, but that he’d lived for seven years in Normandy and had just married a beautiful queen. What a farmer!
I explained again: all I wanted to do was to walk to the general vicinity of the beachhead. Didn’t anybody have a map? Well, Gabriel knew a man who could really speak English, and he’d bring him here to see me!
Gabriel had brought along a litre of Calvados and as we passed the jug back and forth, I told flying stories, complete with grand convolutions of both hands. By now I could understand why it was that Frenchmen always had to wave their hands when talking: it was vital if any degree of comprehension was desired. By mid-afternoon we were thicker than thieves and about halfway fried, and Gabriel was quite unsteady. He waggled a finger under my nose. “You shleep at my housh tonight, m’frien,” said he, and with that he staggered away. I retired to my forest home and spent the rest of the afternoon reconnoitering the area, and at sundown two girls came along. One was Gabriel’s new wife and the other was a chum who’d just wanted to see what an American aviator looked like. Politely swallowing her disappointment, she shook hands and offered me a basket of cherries. The three of us set out through the woods, walking a little road past the wrecked hangars until we turned in at the gate to an ancient farmhouse. We kept to the shadows and slipped into the house.
In the kitchen, a cozy room lit by candles stuck in bottles, Gabriel sat by the stove nursing along a bottle of vin rouge. In line with Dutch custom, I presumed, he invited me to shed my shoes and pull up a chair. He explained that this was a two-family house and the other people were of doubtful patriotism, so it would be dangerous if I were heard or seen by them. So we talked in whispers while drinking dry a few quarts of red ink. He showed me his family album and he showed me his radio—worthless because the Jerries had cut off the power some years before. And just for the hell of it, I asked Gabriel why he was risking his neck to help a stranger. His theory was that I’d been helping France so it was his turn to give me a hand.
At midnight Gabriel led me up a steep flight of narrow stairs to a little room, and he whittled a peg with which I could wedge the door latch from within. He would knock in the morning, like so: two quick and two slow, and for any other signal I was to lay low.
At dawn Gabriel was there with my breakfast, and he handed me the tray and went away. He had a hangover and seemed a little startled at actually finding me in his upstairs bedroom. I locked the door and grinned at myself in the mirror. This wasn’t such a tough racket. The morning of my third day in Occupied France, and breakfast in bed. Fried eggs, gently blindfolded; toast and coffee and a shot of applejack. I poured the booze into the coffee, improving the taste of both, and went back to sleep. At noon Gabriel hustled me back to the bomb hole. And in a little while Maurice came along with the welcome news that a banquet was on the fire. Some people were coming to see me. We were off again!
A dapper citizen by the name of “Hope-so” was waiting for me in the living room of the farmhouse. He was the landowner—Monsieur le Patron—and he dressed like it. The country-gentleman type, in plaid jacket and grey tie, corduroy britches and leather puttees, he welcomed me to Tricqueville. In his exceedingly broken English he started in on the Jerries, and his sad cry made my heart bleed. For Hope-so’s main squawk was that the Wehrmacht had discovered his secret cache of 500 litres of vintage wines and had made off with the entire stock. Hope-so offered me money and information, of which I accepted the latter with thanks. He didn’t have much to offer, but the old duffer was extremely courteous about the whole thing.
Now the door banged open and a guy and a gal burst into the parlor, and the woman immediately took over the meeting. Blonde, vivacious, and laughing-eyed, she jabbered some fast French at Maurice and he jabbered some right back. She pumped my hand and, speaking excellent English, she welcomed me to Normandy. She christened me “Tayo,” said that her partner’s handle was “Canoe,” and that they all called her “The Flea” because she’d been biting the Germans for four years and the Gestapo had never been able to catch her. And right then and there I had the sinking feeling that I was involved with the famed outlaws of the Underground.
As her sidekick stood giving me the once-over, Flea spoke up: “We are of the Maquis, Tayo. There came the rumor of an American parachutist near Tricqueville, and here we are, come to fetch you! Quick work, no?” She added that she was always sent out to track down such tips, for she was the sole member of the Maquis who could speak English.
In England I’d been briefed on ways and means of escape and evasion. The Underground, it had been said, was impossible to find if one went looking for it: but that through their network of agents they would always pick up a wandering airman. We’d been advised to follow implicitly the orders of the Maquis, for they had shuttled many of our jettisoned pilots down to southern France and had put them on the tortuous trail over the Pyrenees to Spain. But the picture had changed, to my way of thinking. Spain was one helluva long walk from here. Some seventy miles to the west of Tricqueville lay the beachhead. I was completely confident that, with a good map and a few hot tips from the local patriots, I could scuttle away through the brush and gain the British lines. I was not about to spin my wheels with a wildcat outfit around here. I wanted to head for Caen, and the sooner the better. The adventure struck my fancy, dead center. And that’s just the way I put it to Flea.
When Flea translated that to Canoe, he blew his top. He was a rawboned gent, very tall and very skinny and with a sly and cagey manner about him. Now he muttered furiously, and Flea translated back to me. The sum of his muffled tirade was that my plan was crazy and so was I. To get through the German lines was impossible, and so was I. And further-more, he didn’t think that I was an American: I was too thin and too blond. “What the hell’s eatin’ him?” I inquired of Flea, digging out my hanky and flopping it on the table beneath Canoe’s long and crooked nose.
“Canoe, he is suspicious of his own mother,” Flea laughed. The Gestapo had often disguised their agents as parachuted airmen in countless efforts to infiltrate the Maquis organizations and to ferret out their leaders. Flea, with the light of adventure shining in her blue eyes, said that my plan was risky but possible. She would take me to see César, the chief of the Maquis. César, she promised, would advise me and would have made for me the counterfeit papers that would take me safely past the German sentries who patrolled every highway.
Well, hot damn! Now we were getting somewhere. I told Flea that on those conditions I would accept with pleasure her invitation to parley with the head man.
Everyone having had his say, we sat down to the banquet prepared by Helene. Fried bunny, excellent salad, and plenty of bread and butter: and Hope-so had evidently discovered a bit of wine overlooked by the thirsty Jerries, for the table was loaded with bottled goodies. The corks began to pop. “Vive la belle France!” I proposed.
So we toasted, in rapid succession, l’Amerique, l’Invasion, la parachu-tiste par accident, and vive le Maquis César! And after each toast, a round of hand-shaking.
With a tasty rabbit leg poised for the initial bite, I heard the squeal of brakes and nobody had to tell me to shove off; for before anybody could make a move I was out the back door and flying low across the yard, and I took a headlong dive into the first big bush I came to. Upon closer examination, this thicket I saw to be nettles, and I sat and scratched until Maurice came out looking for me.
A truckload of soldiers, it seemed, had stopped to ask road directions, and my quick departure had pleased even Canoe. I saw, alas, that my place at the table had disappeared—these Frenchmen no doubt thinking of the awkwardness of the situation should a suspicious Gestapo officer find six places set at the table with but five visible guests.
Since I was to leave the farm of my good friend Maurice, I had him lead me to the place where he’d concealed my flying stuff. I wanted a souvenir. So I cut out a panel of my ‘chute and took along four or five stout shroud lines, figuring they might come in handy sometime. Recovering my army uniform, I put it on beneath my civilian disguise. Unable to part with my helmet and goggles, I stuffed them into a pocket of my flying jacket, which I also put on, and finally I had everything but my parachute draped around my thin body.
Now Flea gave me a short course on how to act like a Frenchman—an amusing briefing on Gallic customs. Canoe inspected my disguise—tucking a bit in here and hitching up a bit there, and he scuffed up my shoes a little more. Flea sewed up a few rips in my tattered suitcoat, through which my uniform had been exposed, and then it was time to put our show on the road. I had Flea relay my gratitude to Maurice and Helene, and to her flowery speech I added my handshake and a few words.
Canoe hauled from his hip pocket a snub-nosed .38 revolver, and he looked down the barrel and twirled the cylinder. Flea laughed gaily and nudged me, and damned if she didn’t reach into her brassiere and snake out a little .25 automatic. Well, whee! I was knockin’ around with the one and original pistol-packin’ mama!
The arsenal having been checked and stowed away, we strode boldly out into the brilliant afternoon sunshine, opened the barnyard gate, and trudged away down the blacktop highway. For the first hundred paces I was a bit leery, but that wore off. I couldn’t see any Jerries and the countryside appeared to be peaceful enough. As I thought things over, a gay humor bubbled up in me. This was a hot one! A raunchy old throttle-jockey, kicking gravel along a country road in the middle of enemy country, and with two Grade A characters for companions. I looked at Canoe and chuckled. He stared at me and wanted to know why I was laughing so much. I had Flea tell him that I was always laughing at something, and for him to forget it. But Canoe was a comical sight. As he walked, his seven-foot length of skin and bone inclined forward like a poplar leaning before a gale; and he continually darted furtive glances from port to starboard and over his shoulder.
I laughed at Canoe, and then—reflecting upon my own appearance—laughed again. Hiking under a 90-degree Normandy sun, I was dressed for a trek to the Pole, and a steady trickle of sweat dripped from my chin. Over a woolen uniform I wore a flying suit—for which I’d laid out twenty-five bucks in NYC and wasn’t about to abandon—and over the flying suit, an alpaca-lined, fur-collared flight jacket. Overall, my corny disguise topped off with a rakish beret. To further the illusion of innocence, I carried a wicker basket covered with a flowered cloth, and beneath the edge protruded the long necks of three wine bottles. Had not Canoe such a desperate air about him, we would have resembled nothing more than a rustic trio en route to the hayfield.
An hour out and we left the tar road in favor of the country lanes. Past fields and farms and through cool little patches of forest we trudged, resting once atop a quaint arched bridge above a musical creek to roll cigarettes and to kill off a jug of wine.
Flea and I by now were comrades. I’d indulged in wholesale flattery during our hike from Tricqueville, figuring that it would be to my advantage to have her on my side during the forthcoming negotiations with the Maquis chief. I’d guessed Flea’s age as twenty-eight, admired her frock, and praised her wine: I’d extolled the beauties of the countryside, told her how much admired in the outside world was the brave and dangerous work of the Maquis, and when she’d asked me about my squadron, I’d spun a string of war stories and modestly accounted for some two-thirds of the Luftwaffe. Flea was mightily pleased, too, but suspicious. Canoe was still shooting shrewd and sidelong glances my way. I laid in wait, finally, to meet his next surreptitious look with a deadpan wink.
We angled steadily eastward, passing a few groups of farmers and pausing once while Canoe drained his crankcase—chatting all the while with Flea in the best of Continental fashion. Being no Frenchman, despite my costume, that beat the hell out of me. It could take a little practice.
At last, and proceeding now with caution, we gained a height commanding a view of the picturesque village of Pont Audemer. We stumbled and slid down along a narrow, eroded gully to emerge on a hillside cobblestone lane some three hundred yards above the main drag. Passing a cemetery gate and a few little shops, we were close to the intersection when a blue-uniformed gendarme stepped suddenly into view, saw us, and stopped to stare, his thumbs hooked into his pistol belt.
“Vichy!” whispered Flea, and our expedition stalled out. I was already window-shopping, having become deeply engrossed in a fine collection of tombstones displayed behind the glass of a little store. A hurried, whispered scheme was evolved. Canoe sauntered on down the lane, while Flea and I moseyed slowly back up the hill and ducked into the cemetery gate, to wait while Canoe engaged the gendarme in innocent chatter and led him away from the area. Flea explained that half the local police were Vichy and the rest good Frenchmen: we’d run afoul of a Nazi.
Our lanky desperado soon returned, drifting through the cemetery gate with such a guilty look about him that I fully expected to see a platoon of Jerries trailing him. Canoe, slinking past our bench, gave us a sidelong look and with a slight jerk of his head motioned us to fall in behind. A little gnome-like citizen, perhaps eighty years old, now brought up the rear of our procession. He was the caretaker of this marble-orchard, and he was in on the conspiracy. He smiled at me and nodded and rubbed his gnarled old hands together and led me over to a little corner plot where there were a dozen white crosses, each with a little bouquet of fresh flowers.
On each cross was carved “Aviateur Americain-inconnu” or “Aviateur Anglaise-inconnu,” with the date of each airman’s death. Flea told me that the Maquis had collected these people, and that always fresh flowers were brought to their graves. Canoe jerked a thumb toward two grey Maltese crosses that were half hidden by weeds, and he spat the word, “Boches,” and then he just plain spat.
The hunchbacked old geezer went into his act designed to mislead the folks who puttered about in the graveyard. He trotted along the pathways, pausing at each grave. At each grave he’d stoop ‘way over, squint at the inscription on the headstone, and read it off to us. After each stop we’d shake our heads sadly and move along to the next stone for a repeat performance. Never finding out where old Uncle Pierre was planted, we did, however, eventually find ourselves right up against the rear wall of the cemetery. The ancient caretaker cackled once or twice and took off. Canoe told us to wait while he took a looksee, and he flung his lanky carcass over the five-foot wall and disappeared.
The sky had clouded over, and with a rumble of thunder came a spatter of raindrops to drench us. Flea and I sat down upon a handy tombstone and uncorked a bottle and rolled a smoke. And between the wine and the rain we were soon wet as hell inside and out. I backed off and took a mental snapshot of myself, and when I saw the print I busted out laughing. Since Flea seemed startled, I explained that I considered the situation to be rather humorous: a fighter pilot and a blonde on a tombstone in a French cemetery, drinking wine in the rain. Ho ho ho! I chuckled merrily. Flea sighed and said that heretofore they’d always picked up bomber pilots.
Watching the wall, we soon saw a black beret appear, then two guilty eyes cased the cemetery for a moment: our dramatic friend Canoe was back with us. The coast was clear so I hoisted Flea up over the wall and followed along, and soon we were on a little dirt street that cut through a corner of Pont Audemer. The few people we passed paid us no heed, but near the edge of town I cast my roving eye upon a sexy little wench who smiled down at us from a dormer window. “Flea,” I muttered, “hide me there until the liberation.” But she just told me that American airmen were all alike, and we kept right on until we were out of town.
We’d been walking steadily for four or five hours, and I was getting damned tired of it. But it was after sundown when we left the road to crawl through a splintery wooden gate. We set out along a muddy wagon trail and a couple of hounds staked out in the wet meadow set up a frenzied barking. Canoe quieted them with a gruff shout. A few minutes later we approached a rambling ranch-house style building, and in the dusk an air of mystery seemed to hang over it. Invisible in the shadows of the eaves, Canoe pounded on the door.
And as I stumbled inside, it was as though I’d been whirled suddenly back-ward through Time!