Clayton Knight

“ André burst out. “Did he get in the fight with Raoul?”
Gagnon snorted. “Not in the fight. Unfortunately he came along just as Raoul picked up a stick and started for me. Victor was yelling at both of us, and suddenly we saw the German coming. Naturally we all shut our mouths like clams. Frenchmen do not fight Frenchmen in front of the Nazis—not even Raoul.”
“Perhaps there will be no more to it,” said Mme. Gagnon soothingly.
“If they do not send soldiers to snoop around the house,” Pierre grunted, “we need not worry.”
Marie returned, breathless, with a basin of water and clean cloths. ”

“ André had not gone far when Patchou, his dog, caught up with him. The puppy gave him a playful nudge as if to say, “I’m sorry to be late, but I had to give that car a good, long sniff.”
[9] After walking less than a mile, André turned off and came to a group of camouflaged barracks. Inside the high wire fence, narrow buildings stood in long rows. A German sentry, his rifle held loosely, guarded the gate. He grinned at the boy and waved him inside.
As André entered, a Frenchman pedaling by on an ancient bicycle shouted to him, but a burst of Patchou’s barking drowned out the greeting. ”

“ Victor dived for the other pail and followed. “La Fumée, my mare that you have always been so fond of, you know,” he chattered, “she’s all harnessed and impatient to start off. You know how she loves adventure.”
Just then there was a definite lull in the shelling. André set the pails into the cool, stone-lined spring, taking Victor’s from him.
Victor caught his eye. “The noise is not so loud,” he said. “There is a trifling din, true, but it is less.”
“Perhaps the worst is over,” André said. “We could just start out, and if they tell us we can’t proceed, we can turn back....” ”

“ He looked again for Slim and saw that he had turned his back to the fury of the coast and was staring toward Ste. Mère. As André stepped out Slim whirled and shouted, “Tell the cap’n—two Nazi tanks comin’ this way!”
But André had already heard the ominous clank of the tanks. Even through the battle sounds their threat rang out—a new danger.
As Slim raced toward him, André broke into a run for the house, shouting, “TANKS, mon Capitaine. Nazi tanks coming!”
Captain Dobie had risen and stumbled a step toward the window.
“Blast it!” he shouted. “Help me, Cimino.” ”

“ His words were drowned in the shriek and explosion of a second shell, and the rending crash of roof timbers. The blast hurtled the three of them into a corner. A shower of falling lath and plaster filled the room.
The doctor and Pierre pulled Mme. Gagnon to her feet.
From outside, the desperate voice of the car driver shrieked, “Hurry, doctor! Come at once! I do not intend to wait till another explosion hits my car.”
Mme. Gagnon shook herself and with great dignity stated firmly, “I can walk. Observe your own step, Pierre. You, also, doctor.” ”

“ Also, there was a noise in the attic. “Must be a rat,” André said to himself, and decided to take Patchou up there tomorrow. “He’ll have some fun catching that little thief,” he thought.
His mother was roused again by the drone of plane engines coming in high overhead. Their lofty beating made the air tremble. Antiaircraft guns in near-by Ste. Mère Église began to boom. Their hollow wumpf, wumpf, added to the din of the sirens.
In a slight lull, Mme. Gagnon asked, “Is your father home? I do not like him to be away when there is an air raid.” ”

“ Keep Weller with you. And you, Dobie, in future, try not to be so all-fired brave.”
The captain turned to catch Weller’s eye as the colonel marched across the road to his own hidden jeep.
“He sounds,” Dobie said, “a good deal like me talking to André, doesn’t he?”
But his smile was short.
“So Slim’s a sergeant at last,” he said. “Get him on the radio. Tell him to pick up fifteen or twenty men and we’ll meet him down the road.”
“But Captain,” Weller exploded, “the colonel said—”
“Ouvarski’s my lieutenant, and a brave one. It’s my job to see that he and his men get out alive,” Dobie snapped. ”

“ Rifles cracked, and a bazooka at a far window flamed.
“We’re in a German trap,” the lieutenant explained to André hastily. “I sent out for help. I hope it comes. You get over in that manger, kid, and keep down.”
Then the lieutenant turned to shout orders and warnings to his men. “Don’t show yourself above that window again, Donovan! You want to get hit?”
“Two Heinies edgin’ around that wall,” screamed an unseen rifleman. “Watch it, Lieutenant!”
After a shattering fusilade of machine-gun fire against the old stone walls, a sudden silence fell. ”

“ But in this beautiful spring of 1944 the people of Normandy could not enjoy what they saw. They could only hear the tramp of German boots over their land. Nazi armies had occupied France, and for the last two years German camps had been set up over the countryside. French property had [7] been seized, and Nazi officers told the people exactly what they could and could not do.
The town of Ste. Mère Église sits almost in the middle of what is called the Cherbourg Peninsula. Most of the Norman people are farmers or dairymen. Some are fishermen, but the Nazis would not let them fish. ”

“ But after he and Victor had talked a minute, Victor agreed to let him go.
“However, you must use good sense,” Victor said, as André climbed down from the cart. “Do not approach a single German, even if he looks [141] kindly. You must recall that not all Nazis are like our Papa Schmidt.”
After this good advice, he added, “You are quite right to seek your mother. I shall no doubt get along without you well enough.”
With this, he clacked the reins and drove off.
André and Patchou skirted the jumbled rubble that had once been the village of Pont l’Abbé. ”

“ He snatched up a shovel, and sighed in relief when the trumpet came up, green and smeared with damp earth, but unharmed. He nestled it comfortably under his arm and went to the barn door.
The cows had not lowed, and now he saw why. Balanced on stools beside the animals sat two lusty Americans. They were happily squirting streams into milk pails held correctly between their knees.
One of the soldiers looked up curiously.
At the sight of the horn under André’s arm he cried, “Well, if it isn’t Little Boy Blue, horn and all.” ”

“ Dense white smoke rolled over the hill and drifted through the trees lining the driveway to the château.
“It sounds as though we were moving directly into the middle of a battle,” Mme. Gagnon said.
M. Angell raised his head. “There is a skirmish there on the other side of the hill, which I do not understand,” he said.
[164] Pierre Gagnon stared around.
At a fresh outbreak of gunfire Mme. Gagnon begged him to lower himself.
But Pierre’s eyes were fixed wildly on a point near the cottages. His mouth dropped open and closed again excitedly.
“Maman!” he gasped. “Patchou! I see Patchou!” ”

“ Patchou on the Battlefield
A FEW minutes after André left Victor, Captain Dobie, Weller, their colonel, and his aide were poring over a map. They were hidden under trees, a mile and a half from the stone barn.
They looked up every moment or two toward St. Sauveur.
“Things are going along fine,” the colonel said. “The engineers have got a rubber pontoon bridge over the Douve River, and troops are crossing there already. They’ll have a steel one over the river for the tanks to cross, in an hour or two.” ”

“ People of the neighborhood shuffled to and fro with arms filled with possessions.
André called to one of them, “The Cotys and Mme. Lescot—are they all right?”
“Yes. Everyone did what your captain told us to. We ran into the fields and hid in ditches when those German shells started coming. It was not for long. We are told the Maquis found the Nazi gun and blew it up.”
At a sign from André, the jeep slowed and, a moment later, he saw that his father’s house still stood. ”

“ Marie came up through the old tunnel
[157] Captain Dobie nodded, speechless with relief. He pushed back his helmet, mopped his forehead, and switched on the radio. “I’ll cancel those smoke shells,” he muttered.
At that moment the air overhead whined ominously. A curtain of shells fell around the barn and exploded. A dense pall of white smoke drifted across the field.
“Where’s Weller?” the captain asked Slim. “And what about the Nazis still around that barn?”
He was interrupted by grenade and rifle fire and the thrashing of men breaking through shrubbery. ”

“ Come, Marie. You, André, clothes off and into bed. Lamps out, Marie.”
At Mme. Gagnon’s bedside a candle flickered. Pierre and Marie drew close beside the pillow.
“The Nazis have already begun to search houses on the other road,” Pierre whispered rapidly. “They are still a long way from us, but we can’t lose any time. Father Duprey has a plan. It is this. He will arrange with the hospital at St. Sauveur le Vicomte tomorrow for you to go there in an ambulance to have treatments. And we will hide the English flyer inside the ambulance.” ”

“ When Slim and André drew up to the table, Mme. Lescot produced a breakfast of army supplies she had found on a shelf.
“It is not my business,” she said shortly, “to complain about God’s behavior. But I cannot help believing He has encouraged the American Army to habits of extravagance. Do you leave good food behind, everywhere you go?” ”

“ Savage battles had turned the sands into a disorder of blasted, blackened gun pits and machine-gun nests.
Twice, while Carson circled, André saw him fiddling with the radio. Then he spoke into the hand microphone, and listened for a few moments.
“Got ’em at last,” he said. “They say we’ve got [118] to hold off awhile longer. Some Luftwaffe guy got through last night and bombed the strip. They’re just finishing repairs. See them down there?”
André looked directly down. Tiny men laying strips of steel mesh moved in groups, like ants. Bulldozers swept along one side. ”

“ He saw Slim grinning back at him from behind a thick lilac bush.
On the other side of the road, the Lescots’ front door opened. Victor, in nightcap and corduroy pants drawn over a blue nightshirt, darted out, picked up one of the dropped leaflets, and shot back into the house.
From other houses people ran out and raced away into the fields.
Bombers darted in and out of the curtain of [57] smoke. A barn less than a mile away broke into flames.
Through a lull in the battle sounds André heard the outraged moo of a cow.
“Poor old beasts,” André thought, “they must be scared to death. ”

“ We should also be grateful if you can tell us what to [100] expect in the way of future danger to our community.”
“I think,” replied Captain Dobie, “you people have accepted all this destruction with fine, very brave spirit. The Maquis, as well as all you other French people, have helped the landing forces more than you will ever know. We Americans want you to realize that we are grateful. It could have been much worse for us.”
M. Blanc put up a hand. “Please, m’sieur, it is our battle also. And the Maquis have told us that the Americans up beyond Ste. Mère are heroic.” ”

“ He accuses us all—you, Marie, André—of working hand in glove with them. It seems that only this evening he saw André, here, entering the German camp.”
There it was—the black word, collaborator, he who helps the enemy! It meant someone hated by all Frenchmen, more, perhaps, than the enemy.
[17] “But Papa,” André cried angrily, “poor old Schmidt! He is not an enemy.”
Pierre shook his head. “He is. We have only been giving him a few eggs and a little cheese because he is a tired old man. But Raoul can make it sound wrong if he wants to.”
Mme. Gagnon nodded encouragement. ”

“ Nevertheless, many French ran the risk of being detected helping the British and Americans. Even very young men and girls operated in the secret Underground.
[8] The Nazis tried to watch everyone, but sometimes the most innocent-looking car on the road was being used to trick them, even in the quietest village.
It was happening now. Marie Gagnon nodded to her father. “Bring him in,” she whispered. “I’ll get the room in the attic ready.”
“One moment,” her father said. “I’ll send André out of the way first. What he doesn’t know he won’t chatter about.” ”