DESPITE THEIR AGES, now it was Gisèle who took charge. Madame Bonnet had stormed, slapped, threatened, but in the end she had collapsed, said nothing to the German patrol. She knew she was beaten. Gisèle was boss. Not only did she do the cooking, with her mother helping, she gave orders to her parent who, often with a frown on her face, obeyed.
“Passe-moi le sel. Now the parsley. Cut up the carrots.”
Madame Bonnet, not answering, did what she was told.
Thus it was Gisèle who went to market with a black string bag over her arm, her braids fluttering as she walked, leaving Madame at home to clean and make beds. Gisèle it was who spent the afternoon walking miles up and down the country road in the rain to find food. At a lonely farm well back from the main highway she got a scrawny chicken, next a small piece of cheese and a loaf of bread at a half-ruined épicerie, and some endives from a neighbor’s garden. The Sergeant could merely guess at what it cost, because food was impossible to obtain in such chaos and disaster.
He was unable to sleep that night. It was good to be on the road again, to be leaving, to lift the cloud of danger from the old veterinary and the two women. Yet he felt regretful at parting from them, going on to safety, and leaving them in continual danger. However, any move was vastly better than no move, better than sitting helpless and idle under enemy eyes. This was the job of a soldier, this was his duty—to escape and reach England. But he hated to leave the family and especially the Girl Scout, who had risked her life for two strangers to whom she owed nothing.
Over and over again as he lay in that tiny attic he asked himself the same question. “Would my family do the same? Would we risk our lives for two French soldiers trying to escape in a foreign land?”
It was raining harder the next morning. There was a cold wind from the water, but the red-tiled kitchen, polished by the two Englishmen, was cozy with the fire burning in the stove. They had also helped the veterinary with his many sick animals, then on hands and knees had washed and scrubbed the office. It hadn’t, he declared, looked so clean for years. They believed him.
About noon, after washing at the pump outside, they returned to the kitchen where the women were preparing what each man hoped would be his last meal in France. Both women wore black aprons. Gisèle bossed her mother, and Madame Bonnet grumbled but obeyed her with quick hands and deft fingers. The girl came over during a calm moment and sat on the arm of the Sergeant’s chair, ruffling his blond hair. He liked it.
“You need a haircut,” she said.
Penelope sometimes sat on the arm of his chair at home and said the same thing.
The girl inspected him closely. “Ah, if I had some sharp scissors, I would cut it myself.... Attention, Maman, attention. The soup is boiling over.”
For the first time the Sergeant had an insight into the amount of time and tender work that went into the preparation of a French meal. There was a lot of effort, yet both women—and especially Gisèle—seemed happy as they moved from stove to table, from table to pantry, from pantry to table again. At moments the girl even hummed a song. There was more than care and attention going into that meal. There was love mixed up with everything cooking.
Early in the afternoon the strong winds off the Channel dissipated the storm clouds, and the July sunshine swept over the red-tiled kitchen floor. Gisèle put a blue-and-yellow tablecloth over the table, got out the napkins to match, placed a huge bunch of freshly picked sweet peas in the middle. When dinner was nearly ready, she raced upstairs, reappearing in a flowered cotton dress.
Her best, thought the Sergeant, observing that in her frock she certainly didn’t look like a Girl Scout any more. She was a Frenchwoman.
About three they all sat down to a thick soup of leeks and potatoes, which both the Englishmen liked. Gisèle noticed this. “Ah... you like? Yes? Good?” She rose and refilled their plates from the covered soup tureen.
Then came the tiny chicken—small indeed for five persons—a salad, the cheese, and a bottle of Normandy cider, which the old man brought up from the cellar. Afterward he held out a crumpled box, broke the one thin cigar in two, and extended each half, a few inches long, to the two guests. Fortunately the Sergeant didn’t smoke, so the veterinary puffed on it with visible pleasure.
At four they were still talking when Gisèle moved to the window and stood watching. Outside could be heard the tramp-tramp of German patrols along the Calais Road. From where she stood it was possible to observe the enemy coming and going. Finally she nodded to her grandfather, who brought out a small portable radio from his office closet. Working over the dials for some time, he produced merely static at first, then torrents of French, Dutch, and German broadcasts, until at last it came through. Gentle and low, with the radio turned well down and Gisèle still beside the window, the words came clearly from across the Channel.
“Ici Londres.” It was the French transmission of the British Broadcasting Company in London with the evening news. The Sergeant realized it was France’s sole contact with reality and the outer world.
“Ah, voilà,” said the old man in a contented voice.
The commentator was a Frenchman speaking to the French, so rapidly that most of what he said was unintelligible to the Sergeant. But it was interesting to watch the expressions change around the table. He could catch words, phrases, sentences, enough to understand a little and see their effect upon this isolated family. Berlin was bombed by the R.A.F. They were pleased. The German Army had reached and sealed the Spanish border. They groaned. The British Navy had defeated the Italians in a sea battle off Taranto. The Australian cruiser Sydney had sunk the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni. Expressions of joy and delight went around the table, in which even Madame Bonnet joined.
“Ah, les macaronis,” said the old man with contempt.
He snapped the radio off as the broadcast finished. Gisèle returned to her place at table. The old man leaned across to the Sergeant, speaking slowly and distinctly. England, he declared, would never give in; no, never. She had not surrendered to Napoleon, alors! Napoleon, like Hitler, had stood on that cliff out there and looked across at the houses of Dover, yet never reached them. No, England would not fall to Hitler; he was sure, he knew it.
In their hearts, the two Englishmen did also.
While they were eating, the Sergeant had been uncomfortably aware that these people had given their food, had shared their last bread, something more valuable than money. What could he do for them in return? Nothing, perhaps, except leave—for better or worse. Perhaps this gift of safety was the best present he could bestow.
They reached the end. The toasts had been drunk in old brandy—to France, to England, to Churchill, to the Royal Navy. Next, everyone, even Madame Bonnet, kissed the two men on both cheeks. A month before they would have flinched at this curious custom, now they accepted it without embarrassment because of their affection and gratitude for these people who had sheltered and protected them.
Gisèle went to a cupboard, yanked out a straw hat with an elastic, and put it on. The hat was a kind of symbol of the day’s importance, a round yellow hat with a curled-up brim and a red ribbon hanging down the back of her neck. The hat sat on the back of her head at a jaunty angle, characteristically smart and somehow defiant.
They stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. Once the little old man with the wispy beard on his chin had seemed ridiculous. Now they knew him for what he was—strong, brave, unyielding. Courage, the Sergeant realized, wears many uniforms.
He turned at the gate. “Merci, Madame Bonnet. Merci beaucoup, merci. Merci, Monsieur Dupont, mille fois merci. One of these days you’ll see us again, be sure of that!”
Even Fingers was thanking them in French. “Adieu, mes amis, adieu.” The old man stood at the gate, waving, as they went off with Gisèle down the road. He was no longer a strange, almost pathetic figure. He was a man, strong with the strength of France.
“Adieu... et bonne chance” he shouted. A German patrol was coming up the road, their boots rasping on the pavement, but the veterinary paid no attention.
Beside the Sergeant trotted the Airedale, obviously superior to the colleagues around the house whom she was leaving behind. She was proud to have attached herself, by the force of her character, to someone who understood and loved her. Indeed, there was no question of leaving her. She was one of them, had shared their dangers and their loneliness. Well she knew it.
Between the two men, serious as ever, walked Gisèle in that flowered dress. Under one arm was a small bundle, wrapped in a newspaper and tied with stout string. The Sergeant knew it was food for their journey, what they both prayed was the last stage of all. This food she had scrounged from heaven knew where or how. Should he accept it and deprive them of something they needed? No, that was hardly the question. The question, rather, was how to refuse it.
He glanced mechanically at the freshly pasted posters on the ruined walls. For the first time he realized exactly what these posters, which he had hardly read before, were telling the people of Calais.
Avis aux Citoyens de Calais. A warning to the citizens of Calais.
“Yesterday at dawn the citizen Henri Descailles, rue Pasteur, 4, was shot by the authorities for having concealed a British soldier in his home.”
Underneath, again: Avis aux Citoyens de Calais.
If the girl noticed it—and she must have, for they passed several such signs—she gave no indication. Instead she pushed on until they reached the block of houses by the port. The tiny bell of the café tinkled as they entered, the dog squeezing in at the heels of the Sergeant. Behind the zinc bar a blowzy woman was washing dirty tumblers in a pail of questionable water.
They glanced around in the dimness. The café was empty.
“Bon soir, Madame,” said Gisèle mechanically.
The woman half smiled at them and continued slopping the greasy water over the tumblers. “Bon-jour, tons et toutes.”
Did she know who they were or why they had come? Was she friendly, or an informer? Was she—or her husband—in the pay of the Germans? They sat down prudently at a table in the rear, and inasmuch as the girl said nothing, nobody spoke.
Immediately an army corps of flies settled over them, swarmed about their heads, their faces, over their hands, buzzed in the air. It was agony to be so close to leaving, and have to sit still, doing nothing. Was the captain ever coming? He had said six; it was twenty past the hour. Had he been picked up by the Germans? Perhaps the sweep of the trawlers had been postponed for military reasons. Or worst of all, did the man feel that taking them along was a risk he did not care to endure, and did he hate to see them to say no?
A dozen conjectures came to the mind of the Sergeant. Then the bell tinkled joyously, and a squat figure poked its way into the café. He waddled toward them with the walk of one whose life has been spent aboard ship. Greeting each one with the usual hand shake, he accepted the kisses of the girl upon his cheeks, still unshaven.
“Allons.” Let’s go.
The bell sounded as the door opened and they stepped into the street. The docks were only a block away. They could see the German sentries pacing back and forth at the gate.
As usual, Gisèle took charge. She shoved the package into the arms of the Sergeant, stood on tiptoes, and kissed Fingers on both cheeks. The Sergeant bent over, and she threw both arms around him. There were tears in her big eyes as she kissed him.
He wanted to say things, things she would always recall. But as ever at such moments, his French deserted him. He could only stammer.
“Nous reviendrons.” We shall return.
She clung to him until he set her gently on the ground. The Airedale, feeling the charged tension, sat lifting her paw. Gisèle glanced up at him, her eyes serious as usual. She smiled, and the gap in her front teeth was plainly visible.
“Ouai. J’en suis sûr.”
Then quickly, without a word more, she turned and marched down the Coulogne Road, her hair tossing on her shoulders in the wind, the yellow straw hat bobbing on the back of her head.
The package in his hand, the Sergeant stood watching her. Courage, he thought, wears many uniforms. And none.