Jacob was mystified. “I don’t see anything.”
“Look carefully.”
It took a few minutes for the outline of the encampment to reveal itself to Jacob’s night sight. Slowly, the shapes of trucks and tents began to emerge out of the blackness.
He started down the hill, picking his way carefully, working hard to make plenty of noise. The US Army could shoot an unidentified intruder just as easily as the Germans could—and you would be just as dead from a friendly bullet.
Yet the closer he got, the more he basked in the warmth of something very much like a homecoming. It took all his strength of will to keep himself from running.
When the flashlight beam fixed on him, he was blinded and frozen to the spot.
“It’s me!” he exclaimed, raising his arms. “Jacob Firestone! Don’t shoot!”
“Firestone?”
The sentry focused the light and squinted at Jacob. Jacob recognized Private Abilene.
“Put the gun down, Charlie, it’s really me!” Jacob pleaded.
Before he knew it, Jacob was surrounded by jubilant sentries, laughing and pounding his back and shoulders.
“Welcome back, kid!”
“We thought you bought it at the bridge!”
“Where the heck have you been?”
“It’s a long story,” Jacob admitted. “I better save it for the captain.”
As the sentries walked him into camp, he could hear his name passed from tent to tent by sleepy voices. Suddenly, he was knocked to the ground by a force the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since the bridge blew up.
Shocked, he rolled over onto his back, struggling to recover. A white face hovered over him. Beau, roused from sleep and nearly beside himself.
“High School? That you?”
“It was before you crushed me!”
He was hauled to his feet and enfolded in a bear hug that went on a lot longer than he expected.
“We thought you were gone, High School.” Beau’s voice was hoarse and shaking with emotion. “Like the others. Like Leland.”
It had been barely three months since D-Day. It felt like centuries.
“Still just one road going into Sainte-Régine, huh, G.G.?” Trevor asked as the Citroën labored up the incline, bounded by mature apple orchards on both sides.
“Same old two-lane nothing,” the old soldier mumbled glumly. “Seventy-five years and they couldn’t do any better than this.”
The doctor may have said G.G. was fine, but Trevor knew it wasn’t so. His great-grandfather just wasn’t himself. The old soldier loved to talk—especially about his war experiences, and especially to Trevor, who was his most enthusiastic audience. Talking about Sainte-Régine should have brought out animated stories of massive artillery shells devastating a column of tanks, half-tracks, and troop carriers, the air thick with the aroma of gunpowder and shattered apples. Now they were in the real place, where Trevor could picture the rumbling Shermans rubbing up against the branches of the trees. And what did G.G. have to say about it? Practically nothing.
Dad had tried to explain it before they’d left Soissons that morning. “You have to understand, Trev—the closer we get to Sainte-Régine, the more real all this becomes for your great-grandfather.”
“Real should be good,” Trevor argued. “G.G. was a hero! This was the greatest part of his whole life!”
“He was a hero,” Dad conceded. “But when it comes to war, real is never good. People were dying every day, all around him. Now, for the first time in decades, he’s back in the place where it happened. And it’s having an emotional effect on him. You can’t take it personally if he’s not as entertaining as you expect him to be. This isn’t a YouTube video; it’s his life. And all we can do is stand by him and support him.”
Typical Dad, Trevor thought as they continued through the orchards. The whole world was saved from catastrophe, but he couldn’t say anything positive because it was a war. And to him, war was bad, no matter what.
G.G. hadn’t always been so down on this trip. Back at Fort Benning, in England, and in Normandy, the stories had been better than ever—vivid, exciting, even funny sometimes. But now, as they approached the place of his greatest triumph, he was glum, super quiet, crabby. Worse, he was like an old man. Sure, ninety-three was old. But G.G. didn’t do any of the typical old-person things, like hobbling on a cane or never getting out of his chair. When he walked, he took long strides, moving with purpose, as if he had somewhere to go and he didn’t want to waste time getting there. When he went to watch Trevor play soccer or baseball, he stalked up and down the sidelines, criticizing the refs, refusing to sit. He was more like a gray-haired kid. Not anymore. And since a doctor had just told them his health was excellent, Trevor had to ask himself the question: What was wrong?
He was determined to bring back the real G.G. When a gap in the orchard provided a view of the countryside, he asked, “Are we going to see René’s farmhouse on the way into town?”
G.G. was tight-lipped as ever. “It isn’t there anymore.”
“How can you be sure?” Trevor persisted.
“Trev,” Dad said warningly. “It’s been seventy-five years. I’m sure a lot of things have changed around here. Right, Grandpa?”
The old soldier remained silent, staring out the window, his expression inscrutable.
At last, orchards gave way to houses, and they entered the town. Sainte-Régine was considerably smaller than Saint-Lô, but larger than some of the villages they’d passed through in the hedgerow country of Normandy. By far the largest building was the church, which was a gray stone structure, probably hundreds of years old. That meant it hadn’t been destroyed during the battle.
Rubbernecking in the Citroën, Trevor was dying to ask about the big German gun that had rained shells down on the only approach to Sainte-Régine. Where had it been located? How had the American attackers managed to knock it out of commission? He sensed, though, that maybe Dad was right—now was not the time to question the old soldier. Maybe tomorrow, after the ceremony, when G.G. was sporting his new medal, he’d be in more of a World War II mood.
The finest hotel in Sainte-Régine, Au Toit Rouge, was near the center of town, in a commercial area of newer buildings. Growing up, Philippe and Juliette Lafleur had always been told that it was for wealthy visitors from Paris and other major European cities. The biggest treat Juliette could remember was being taken out to the Au Toit Rouge restaurant for her twelfth birthday.
Now the two cousins peered around the corner as the Citroën pulled up in front of the canopy and the hated American soldier Jacob Firestone stepped onto the red carpet. Alerted to the hero’s arrival, the hotel manager rushed to greet him, bobbing and bowing and making a complete idiot out of himself.
“Excuse me while I throw up,” Philippe snarled in disgust.
“So hard we tried to keep them away,” Juliette said grimly as two uniformed bellhops unloaded the Firestones’ luggage onto a cart and wheeled it inside. “At least we let them know that they are unwelcome here.”
They watched as a porter presented G.G. with a gift basket of gleaming Sainte-Régine apples. A very young girl offered the three Americans flowers and curtsied like she was meeting royalty.
“Yes”—Philippe’s voice dripped with sarcasm—“very unwelcome. It should be torches and pitchforks, not apples and flowers. Even worse, they’ll be staying in the Ambassador Suite. The mayor himself arranged it.”
“How do you know that?” Juliette asked.
“I have a friend who is one of those uniformed lackeys,” Philippe replied. “Nothing but the best for our ‘hero.’ ”
Juliette sighed. “At least it will be over soon. Tomorrow he will be honored as the savior of Sainte-Régine. It will be unpleasant for those of us who know the truth, but it will be temporary. Then he will take his medal and go home to America.”
Philippe’s face darkened. “He does not have his medal yet. And he never will—if we have anyt
hing to say about it.”
She shook her head sadly. “It is too late. He is already here.”
Philippe reached down and picked up a large piece of broken cobblestone. “Perhaps we have not yet been as persuasive as we might be.”
Juliette watched as the elderly Jacob Firestone was helped inside the hotel entrance by his grandson on one side and great-grandson on the other. He looked tired and frail, his limp far more pronounced than before.
She turned on her cousin. “You’re not seriously planning to attack a feeble old man.”
“Think of the feeble old man you speak of,” Philippe shot back. “We can ask our family how feeble he was when he did what he did. Wait—we cannot. Most of them are dead, thanks to him.”
Juliette was torn. The villain of her entire life had been Jacob Firestone, the American soldier whose rash and dangerous actions had led to the extermination of the Lafleur clan. For generations, while other French families had flourished and multiplied, the Lafleurs had withered. Even now, three-quarters of a century later, she had one cousin of her generation. One. She had only Philippe, and Philippe had only her.
But this Jacob Firestone—the one who had come to France in 2020—was a helpless old wreck of a man. She hadn’t felt this way when the family had arrived on the ferry in Cherbourg. But now that she’d seen the American soldier up close—and met the great-grandson who loved him—she knew in her heart that revenge would not be sweet. What was past was past. A terrible thing had happened. It would not be remedied by another terrible thing, regardless of one man’s guilt.
“Put that down before you drop it on your foot,” she told Philippe.
Philippe set his jaw. “He needs to know that not everyone is happy to strew rose petals at his feet.”
“He knows,” she assured him. “That’s why we created La Vérité. That’s why we followed him and his family all across France. Put down the stone. It is done.”
He glared at her, eyes burning. Then the tension disappeared between them and he let the rock drop. “You are probably right,” he said. “We have already wasted too much of our lives on this old fool.”
He turned on his heel and was gone.
Juliette continued to gaze at the entrance to the Au Toit Rouge, even though the Firestones were on their way up to their suite and out of view. She felt no sadness at calling an end to La Vérité—only relief. It made no sense to carry on a grudge that had been in existence for more than seventy-five years. It served no purpose, delivered no justice, brought no one back from the dead.
What was an enemy, after all? She thought back to her meeting with Trevor outside the restaurant in Soissons. A Lafleur and a Firestone, finally face-to-face. Was he a terrible person? Not at all. He was a boy about her age, not much different from her and everyone she went to school with. Sure, they’d argued a little. So what? Mostly, what she remembered about Trevor was his loyalty to his great-grandfather—his concern for the old man’s health. Loyalty—that was a good quality. Something admirable.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the unmistakable crash of shattering glass. Alarmed, Juliette ran into the alley behind the hotel, toward the source of the noise.
The roar of an engine cut the air. Juliette barely had time to dive out of the way before Philippe swept by on his motorcycle, fleeing the scene. He wore his helmet and visor, but the stiffness of his jaw radiated grim determination.
She turned her gaze up at the rear of the hotel. A plate-glass window on the third floor had been smashed.
“What the—?” His photographs of the ride into Sainte-Régine only partially uploaded to Instagram, Trevor dropped his phone and dashed into the living room of the Ambassador Suite.
The floor-to-ceiling picture window was all but gone, its glittering shards on the carpet. The rock that did the deed sat in the middle of the pile of glass—a small piece of cobblestone from Sainte-Régine’s streets. Dad and G.G. stood back from the opening, rigid with shock.
Trevor stepped forward and peered down to the alley. She was standing there—that girl—gazing up at him. Their eyes locked, and she shook her head vehemently, as if to deny responsibility for this act of violence.
Trevor’s anger flared. Did she think he was stupid? She was standing right there!
“Trev!” Dad stepped forward, grabbed Trevor by the arm, and pulled him away from the broken window.
“But it’s her!” Trevor protested. “That girl who’s been chasing us since Omaha Beach! We have to call the police!”
He shook himself free and peered back down to the street. The girl was gone.
“It’s okay, Trev,” Dad tried to soothe.
“It’s not okay!” Trevor snapped back. “We can’t let her get away with this!”
Dad started for the phone. “I’ll call the front desk. They’ll find us another room.”
“Another room?” Trevor echoed. “Is that all this means to you? We were just attacked!”
“We’ve been under attack since before we left Connecticut,” G.G. mumbled.
Trevor stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You heard me,” the old soldier confirmed. “There are people around here who never wanted me back in Sainte-Régine. Your father didn’t want to worry you about it, but we’ve been getting threats over that blasted Internet everyone thinks is so important.”
Trevor wheeled back on his father. “Is that true?”
Dad nodded reluctantly. “It started with postings to the Sainte-Régine Facebook page. A group calling itself La Vérité, warning G.G. not to come. We figured it was just a couple of cranks. But incidents started happening. The dead bird on our windshield. The slashed tires. And then you started telling us about the blond girl.”
“There’s a guy too,” Trevor supplied. “Older. They drive around on his motorcycle.”
“We thought it would peter out,” Dad went on. “Instead, it’s getting worse. In Paris, we found something in our room that looked like a bomb. It wasn’t. But whoever put it there wanted us to know that it could have been. I was ready to turn around and go home, but your grandfather wouldn’t hear of it.”
G.G.’s voice was quiet but firm. “I didn’t let Hitler scare me off last time, and I’m not going to let a couple of punks chase me away now.”
Trevor was stunned and a little hurt. Ever since the trip had begun, Dad had been keeping a secret from him. He felt Trevor wasn’t mature enough to handle it—like he was two years old or something! It wasn’t Dad who’d found the mysterious kids who were behind La Vérité. In Normandy, when Trevor had suspected they were being followed, Dad told him he was imagining things. How unfair was that? But then G.G. started getting weird and quiet, so everybody’s focus changed to making sure the old man was okay.
Now here they were, in Sainte-Régine, the main destination of their journey, standing in a pile of broken glass in a ruined hotel suite. Trevor felt so many emotions at once: rage at the girl; anger at Dad; concern for G.G.; and fear that the next attack might come at the ceremony tomorrow and do them real harm.
Yet one question arose from the turmoil in his mind, pushing all other thoughts into the background:
“Why would anyone want to keep G.G. from coming back to Sainte-Régine?” Trevor demanded. “He helped liberate the whole town! He’s a hero!”
G.G.’s face was gray. “Maybe I’m not the hero that people say I am—at least not to everybody.”
Trevor looked bewildered. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re a hero!”
Dad stepped in. “Why don’t we call the desk and get our suite changed? I’m sure we’ll all be a lot calmer when we can relax away from this mess.”
The old soldier would not back down. “You’re the one who’s always complaining that the kid glamorizes war. He needs to hear this.” He took a deep breath. “And it’s time you heard it too.”
Bravo Company had lost nine men on the bridge—Jacob had originally been listed as number ten. Luckily, he had ret
urned before anyone had notified his family that he was missing in action. The thought of his parents having to endure that terrible visit from the Department of War was almost impossible for Jacob to bear. He ached for Freddie’s family, who had already received that call, and for Leland’s, who would very soon. These days, when a car full of somber-faced men in uniform parked on your street, you could only pray that they weren’t coming to your door.
He had only been gone a little over a week, but Jacob found Bravo Company different. The soldiers were grimmer, quieter. There was less conversation and far fewer jokes. The men spent more time writing letters home. There were strangers, replacements—which only made Jacob think of the faces that were no longer there.
“Everything’s changed,” Beau tried to explain. “When we landed at Omaha, none of us expected to last five minutes, and we made our peace with that. We didn’t worry, because there were so many ways to get killed that you couldn’t keep them straight. But now that we’ve all made it this far, we’re starting to think, hey, we might just live through this war. And the minute you’ve got that idea in your head, High School, you’ve got more worries than you know what to do with.”
Another symptom of this: Everyone was suddenly interested in military strategy. Bitter stories abounded of vast forces sent to operations in Belgium and Holland while right here in France, undermanned, underequipped units were taking heavy casualties fighting from town to town.
As the men of Bravo Company rattled east in trucks, their column ground to a halt at a section of road that had been narrowed by a huge bomb crater. Bravo pulled over to the side to let another truck pass in the opposite direction.
At first, the westbound vehicle was greeted with jeers and catcalls.
“Turn around, dummies!” Beau shouted. “The fighting’s behind you!”
“How about you get out of the way for us?” Jacob added.
But as soon as the truck pulled alongside them, the chorus of boos died out. The back was loaded with wounded, some in desperate condition, covered in white bandages soaked through with red blood. It was a grim reminder that the consequences of war were never far away.
War Stories Page 13