Dunkirk Crescendo

by Bodie Thoene

Josie reeled back to sit down hard on the stairs.

  Lewinski stepped over Federov to examine his machine.

  Unable to remain, Josie half ran, half crawled up the stairs. She flung the door wide and gulped the air. She was glad the children were still upstairs. Across the Seine the crowds had swelled to fill the road from side to side.

  Carrying his notes, Lewinski plodded up after her and kicked shut the door to the basement. “What a mess,” he said glumly.

  “Horrible.” Josie leaned heavily against the door.

  “Worse than that. All the circuits are melted. The machine is ruined.”

  “You will have to go with us, Richard.” Her voice was barely audible. “This man was Gestapo. They know where you are.”

  “I suppose. And Andre will not be happy to have a dead man in his basement. The whole house will smell.” At that, he put on his gas mask. “I told him not to touch it. You are my witness. I warned him.”

  Right, Josie thought, looking at Lewinski’s smiling eyes through the goggles of the buglike mask. Just like B’rer Rabbit told B’rer Fox to do anything but throw him in the briar patch!

  Perhaps Richard Lewinski was more practical than she imagined.

  “Why build in such a dangerous switch?” Josie asked.

  His voice was muffled. “I thought they might come. I thought they might want to play with it a bit before they killed me. It is such a lovely whirligig of a thing. Anyone would want to play with it; do not you think?”

  24

  In This Needful Hour

  Gare d’Orsay, with its rococo ceilings and high, arched windows, looked more like a beautiful cathedral than a train station. Yesterday, Notre Dame had overflowed into the square with hopeful Parisians beseeching God to save France. This afternoon, all hope was redirected from the high altar of the church to Gare d’Orsay and the southbound trains. The terminal was packed with the desperately frightened population, who prayed to hear the shrill benediction of a train whistle that could save them from encroaching hell.

  From the arched porticos to the gilded iron gates, the crowds spilled out to overrun the sidewalks and the curbs and the broad Quai Anatole France. From both directions along the walled banks of the Seine the people kept coming. They arrived much faster than the trains came and went. Little children and belongings in tow, citizens were packed so tightly in the hot sun that when one fainted, the press of the others held the body upright.

  Into this throng marched the little army of paper hats and umbrellas. The wheelchairs. The little wagons. The pygmy columns fifteen deep and ten across. Towering at the head was Madame Rose. Tweeting her whistle and trumpeting like the lead elephant of Hannibal’s troop, she began to pass through what seemed to be the impassable.

  “Pardon! PARDON! We are the orphanage of la Huchette. We have a train car reserved. Pardon! You will step aside, Monsieur! Madame, you must move your heap of baggage. We have children in wheelchairs coming along.”

  For one moment only she paused and glanced back. “Oh, Josephine,” Jerome heard Madame Rose murmur. “Where are you, my dear?”

  No time to wait; she forged on.

  Hostile eyes stared at the raised umbrellas. Lips curled in disdain at the sight of cripples given the places of healthy French children. Comments were muttered at the sight of the lederhosen and kneesocks of the five Austrian brothers. Were these trains not saved for French children? Were the children of foreigners and refugees to be given priority over good, patriotic citizens of the Republic of France?

  It was an outrage!

  Progress stopped at the closed and locked gates of the Gare. Jerome could hear the angry comments of the people at the front who said they had been waiting too long to give up their places to the orphans of la Huchette. He heard the indignant bellows of those who pushed in at the sides and jostled behind. What right had these children to crowd ahead?

  Madame Rose, stoic and self-assured, passed her papers through the bars of the gate to one of the three gendarmes who stood guard, lest anyone attempt to push the gate down or climb over.

  “As you see, Officer, we have a car reserved by special order of the minister of transportation. It is all there. Very clearly.”

  Behind her the murmur grew more menacing, the words more harsh. The gendarme turned pale and nervous. The crowds were near to rioting anyway. Did he dare let these pass? Did he dare open the gate?

  “One moment please, Madame,” he said, taking the documents away with him.

  Now there was a rough shove from a big, brassy woman with an enormous bosom and her sleeves rolled up like a stevedore. One of the students from the Sorbonne fell down. There was a small scream from Marie. Jerome recognized it. He had heard Marie scream many times.

  He peered back to see his sister helping the Sorbonne volunteer struggle to stand. The student’s black umbrella swayed back and forth and then slowly rose into its place on the perimeter of the band. Marie looked very angry behind the thick lenses of her glasses.

  Jerome stuffed Papillon beneath his paper hat in case there was a riot. He checked around for some way of escape. Jump on the iron bars of the gate perhaps? Then he looked at Henri, stuck in the wicker wheelchair. Jerome decided that even if things got rough he would stick with Henri. They would ride out the battle together or not at all!

  Even Madame Rose betrayed some nervousness, the first Jerome had ever seen. Her square hands fidgeted.

  “Will they let us on the train?” Jerome whispered.

  “Pray, my dear boy,” she replied, scanning the mob inside the gate who were standing belly to back all the way against the chuffing train.

  ***

  Josie knew they were too late to make the train even before they reached the edge of the ever-widening pool of humans and baggage.

  The doll in her lap, Juliette sat on one of Lewinski’s shoulders. Her legs were crossed daintily at the ankles; her fingers were entwined in his wiry red hair. Josie also held Yacov on her shoulder—a protection against the ever-increasing pressure building behind them.

  Across the thousands of hats and heads between them and the gate, Josie spotted the unbroken square of the umbrellas. The children were not moving forward, but at least they were at the front of the throng.

  “Pardon,” Josie ventured. “We are meeting someone . . . that group at the front with the umbrellas.”

  A fierce, dark-eyed woman with bad teeth turned and snarled. “You say you are with them? That group of cripples and foreigners? They have taken our places in line when we have been waiting all day long! Pardon you? I will tell you what will happen if you do not get out of here now. . . .”

  Josie backed away, letting a large group behind them inch forward. It was easier to move to the outer edge of the mob than to move even one inch nearer Madame Rose. It was hopeless.

  They emerged a block away where the bridge known as Pont Royal led across the river to the Louvre. The umbrellas of Madame Rose and her little company were still in plain sight, moving and bobbing now before the entrance of the station. What was happening? Josie thrust Yacov into Lewinski’s arms and climbed up on the thick retaining wall at the corner of Pont Royal to see.

  ***

  “Room for one hundred and forty-seven passengers only, Madame.” The grim transportation officer spoke to Madame Rose through the gate. “And you have one hundred and fifty plus adult volunteers.”

  “Our family has grown since the documents were issued last week, Monsieur le Chief.” Madame Rose called him Chief, even though he was only a second-class official with no gold braid on the sleeve of his blue uniform.

  “No matter. We take only what the papers say. There may be a riot all the same, Madame, when we open the gates! So I will tell you the decision that has come through this morning: No Jews or children of foreign extraction are to be put before French children.”

  These words were overheard by people beyond the perimeter of umbrellas and passed back with satisfaction. The news that justice had been served rippled ou
tward as if a boulder had been dropped into a still pond.

  “What about the cripples?” a husky female voice shouted.

  The official agreed loudly with the opinion that only healthy and whole children would be transported on the train. A wheelchair would take up too much space. A cripple would require too much care. There were entire trainloads of ill persons that had already been transported. Why were these youngsters not in their places? Why had they not gone when they were supposed to go? Now they were here to take the places of healthy children, and they were obviously out of turn.

  He was a cruel little man to say such things in front of Henri and the others who could not walk. Jerome did not feel so much pity for the five Austrian brothers. Even though they were Jews, they were not hurt by the remarks. They were only angry, and the brothers were usually angry about something. Boys like Georg and his brothers were perfectly capable of stealing bicycles from the mountains stacked at Gare du Nord and pedaling all the way to Spain if they had to. But what about these boys who had useless legs? They could not walk across Pont Royal without help. How could they pedal anywhere? Jerome was angry. Madame Rose was angry. But if anything else was done, the crowd would riot and people would be crushed and killed.

  “They have all been out in the sun too long,” Georg said loudly.

  “They should have worn paper hats,” Henri said from his chair. He laughed a bit, even though tears were hanging in his eyes.

  “Their brains are boiled,” Jerome agreed.

  Georg eyed Jerome with a bit of resentment. “You are French. You have legs. You can go.”

  “I am not going,” Jerome said, squinting up at Madame Rose. “I will not go, Madame Rose.”

  The anger in her eyes softened. She nodded, approving of his decision, even though he was a small boy and the Germans would soon drop bombs. Jerome knew she would not make him be a coward and go away while his dear friends were made to stay behind. And he loved Madame Rose for letting him be brave.

  Marie read his decision in his eyes. “I will stay with you, Jerome!” she cried.

  Could he deny her request when Madame Rose had been so kind to grant him his? Yes. “You are going, Marie!”

  From her place she wailed and moaned. “Let me stay with you! I will not go. I will not!”

  It made the crowd restless.

  Someone shouted. “Mon dieu! Let her stay!”

  “All right,” Jerome agreed but shook his fist at her. “Now shut up!”

  Having won, she obeyed.

  Now Madame Betsy worked her way up from behind. It was decided what must be done. The sisters spoke in English because they did not want the nasty little official to know what they were saying.

  “You must take the others south, Betsy. He will not allow any more than the number on the travel document to board the train.”

  Betsy smiled and nodded, but her eyes were hard. “He is an evil little creature.” Still smiling, she nodded to him. “Look at him, Sister. Beady eyes and tiny Hitler mustache. No doubt he will cuddle up with the Nazis when they arrive. Just the type.”

  “Perhaps the first bomb will land on his head, and then we will not have to wonder about it. In the meantime, you and the volunteers get on the train. Take the little ones. I will stay with our special children and the sons of Abraham. I have an ace or two up my sleeve, Sister. I’ll call Dupont’s secretary at the Ritz. He’s American. . . .”

  “He’s long gone,” Betsy said.

  “Whatever. I’ll get a car,” Rose insisted.

  “It will take more than a car.”

  “You need to get on the train, Sister, and pray. God will answer. He always does. I will make it. And if I don’t?” Rose enfolded her sister in her big arms. “Well then, remember . . . There is a river, the streams whereof shall made glad the city of God. . . . I promise you; we shall meet beside the river, Betsy dear.”

  And that was that. The gate parted just enough to let Betsy through. Bayonets at the ready, the gendarmes then escorted the well children, the French children, inside the terminal.

  There was no way to get them through that crowd without the danger of them being crushed. An announcement was made on the loudspeaker that the orphans of the French patriots needed to get on the train. The crowd cheered them. One by one, the little children of la Huchette were lifted up and passed above the heads of the people. Hand to hand they floated from the gilded gates of Gare d’Orsay toward the train carriage that had been reserved for them in this needful hour. Likewise, Madame Betsy and the volunteers drifted over the human sea to take their places on the train out of Paris.

  PART III

  Now storming fury rose,

  And clamor such as heard in Heav’n till now

  Was never, arms on armor clashing bray’d

  Horrible discord, and the madding wheels

  Of brazen chariots rag’d: dire was the noise

  Of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss

  Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew

  And flying vaulted either host with fire.

  John Milton, Paradise Lost

  25

  A Wrong Turn

  The halt order rescinded at last.

  The panzers were soon knocking on the gates of Dunkirk, even as the Luftwaffe was battering it from above. Andre was ordered by Lord Gort to make contact with the French forces holding the eastern perimeter and report back. Gort even loaned Andre his personal car and driver.

  Lille was the farthest outpost of the Allied withdrawal. Located fifty miles inland from the Channel, Lille was the toe of the sock into which all the remaining British and French forces had been squeezed.

  Andre was to confer with General Prioux, head of the French First Army, and Third Corps Commander Laurencie. The meeting was held in the massive seventeenth-century brick citadel standing high at the west end of the Boulevard de la Liberté. Even as Andre entered the fortress, a German bombing raid had just ended and another artillery barrage pounded the east end of the city.

  The council was another example of how massively convoluted and inept the Allied communications were. General Prioux believed that Dunkirk was to be used as a resupply base to maintain a foothold on the coast. He had not even been informed that the evacuation was under way. Swearing violently, Prioux ordered Laurencie to hold Lille while he went off to find Gort.

  It was near the Belgian border on Andre’s return trip that he ran headlong into a Waffen-SS reconnaissance unit. Gort’s driver had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost on a deserted country lane. While trying to relocate the correct highway, they blundered into the German patrol.

  Machine guns opened up on the unarmed Humber staff car, which crashed into a ditch after bullets from the MG-34s smashed the windshield. The driver was killed.

  The Germans roared forward on their motorcycles. Andre dropped out of the low side of the upturned car and sprinted rapidly along the trench. Hunching over as he ran, he ducked into a culvert that went under the road as the lead cycle pulled up next to the Humber.

  He could hear their shouts as they examined the car. Andre knew they would find his briefcase in the backseat. Fortunately, it contained nothing of a sensitive nature, but it would tell the soldiers that another occupant of the car had escaped.

  Sure enough, a flurry of orders in German sent a motorcycle to either end of a quarter-mile stretch of road, while the rest of the group dismounted to follow their quarry on foot. Andre crawled through the drainage pipe to the far side of the lane and plunged into the densest mass of thorns and brush he could find.

  He reasoned that a patrol of limited strength, operating on the edge of hostile territory, would not stay in one place for long. He would wait them out until they gave up the search. Why would they expend great effort for one unknown man?

  Suddenly Andre realized that in the minds of the SS troops, his identity was not unknown. The thought was chilling: The Humber was clearly marked as General Gort’s personal auto. If the prize was the highest-ranking B
ritish officer on the Continent, they would not give up easily. They might even call for additional troops for the search.

  There was not enough distance between Andre and the road. He broke out of the thorn patch on the far side and starting running again.

  The plot of timber and scrub was only a couple acres in size, and the clearing into which Andre emerged was occupied by a barn and a haystack. He ran across the open space, zigzagging as he went with the expectation of a shot being fired. The open ground was too broad to cross at once, so Andre ducked into the barn. He intended to go through and out the other side, using it as cover to regain the woods beyond.

  He was met in the cool, dusty darkness with a bayonet presented at his throat. A voice from the shadows demanded in French that he raise his hands. Andre complied, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, he saw the nature of his captors. They were a ragtag band of ten or twelve men, mostly French army deserters with a couple of Belgian soldiers as well.

  The leader demanded to know if Andre had come to arrest them. “By myself? Don’t be an idiot,” Andre replied. “There is a German patrol after me. If you know what is good for you, you will get out of here fast!”

  The chief of the deserters laughed at the comment. “There are no Germans within twenty miles of here,” he scoffed.

  “Suit yourself,” Andre said coolly, “but at least let me go then.”

  “Maybe he is telling the truth,” one of the Belgians observed. “Look at the mud and the thorns on his uniform.”

  The leader grudgingly admitted that it was unlikely for a colonel to cover himself with dirt just to make a convincing story.

  “If you are going to force me to stay here, give me a gun to fight with!” Andre demanded.

  More scornful laughter was interrupted by a call from the lookout in the hayloft. “Some more men emerging from the woods, and they are wearing black uniforms.”