The Black Swan of Paris

by Karen Robards

  The bombing started when they still had a fair distance to go before they were safely out of the marsh. The explosions were not too close, lighting up the sky farther to the east, but they were enough to make their small party hurry.

  Moving with the men behind her along the invisible ribs of solid ground, no more noticeable, she hoped, than shifting shadows in the darkness, Genevieve heard the unmistakable growl of airplanes overhead.

  Cold with dread, she looked up.

  It was barely past midnight on June 6, 1944. The heavy cloud cover that still plagued the area in the aftermath of the storms had parted just enough to allow a glimpse of the full moon behind it. It was immediately blotted out again by a ceiling of dark shapes passing overhead, and, below that, a sky full of—something.

  “What is that?” one of the men behind her whispered. A glance told her that he, too, was craning his neck to look skyward.

  “I don’t know,” another replied, equally low.

  At first she thought they looked like white moths. Then mushrooms in the air.

  Genevieve’s eyes widened and her lips parted as the shapes resolved into dozens of white domes swooping silently toward earth.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “Paratroopers,” the newcomer breathed.

  The men Genevieve could now see hanging from the domes that were their parachutes started to splash down in the water.

  As they hit, their voices, quiet, startled, peppered the dark.

  “What the hell?”

  “Johnson, is that you?”

  “Damn water. Wasn’t supposed to be no damn water.”

  “Jesus, it’s sucking me down!”

  “It’s cold as be-damned!”

  They landed everywhere, in the water, in the weeds, in the eddies of silt that acted like quicksand. Their accents told her that they were Yanks: American paratroopers. Listening to them, watching them struggle as they landed, she realized that they were weighted down by their parachutes and packs and equipment. Many were trapped and sinking and would shortly drown in the murky waters and treacherous silt. Anyone who tried to go in after them would risk sharing their fate. Their only hope was to reach one of the paths that neither they nor anyone else could see. The paths that her childhood years in the marsh had indelibly imprinted on her brain.

  Transfixed at the horror of the Americans’ fate, she couldn’t look away.

  I have to help them.

  If they could make it to her, to the path...

  Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called to the closest of them, softly, in English. “Yank. This way.”

  An indistinct, but distinctly American, voice said, “Look there. Is that a dame?”

  “This way.” Careful to keep her voice low, she called again.

  First one, then a second and a third started to flounder toward her. The silt sucked one of them down. He went under, resurfaced, splashed around.

  “Help! I can’t get my feet under me.”

  A buddy caught up to him, grabbed his arm. “Give me the Eureka!”

  “Damned transponder’s not more important than me.”

  “Sure is.”

  To the newcomer, who stood closest to her—single file was the only way to traverse most of the paths—Genevieve said, “We have to try to get them out. Don’t step off the path, or you’ll be sucked in, too. But we need to find a branch, or something we can reach out to them if they can get close, to pull them in.”

  He said, “Jacques has a rope.” Turning to the man next to him, Jacques, he said something, and a moment later a rope was produced from the pack the man carried.

  “Don’t step off the path,” she warned Jacques, who was coiling his rope in preparation for throwing it. To the newcomer she said, “I’ll mark the paths. You start pulling them out.”

  She left the other two men from her group on another path. Using their coats and a branch, they were starting to haul more paratroopers in.

  As one of the Yanks was pulled out, she heard him say, apparently in answer to a question she didn’t hear: “Pathfinders. 101st Airborne. We’re first. We show the way.”

  After that, more paratroopers came in waves. First by the dozens, then by the hundreds, then by the thousands, until they were falling out of the sky like a hard rain. The black marsh water looked like it was abloom with white water lilies as far as the eye could see. Gliders landed, too, towed in by aeroplanes and released to plow into the swamp like the unwieldy pieces of lumber they basically were. Their pilots and crews, too, floundered and risked drowning in the marsh. In the distance the relentless chatter of the German antiaircraft guns was answered by the ceaseless booming of the Allied bombs. But the Germans didn’t appear to know the paratroopers were there.

  Genevieve worked tirelessly, marking the paths with tall sticks and bits of cloth sliced from discarded parachutes, leading the paratroopers and the glider pilots and crews to the railroad tracks that were the marsh’s high point and that, if followed, would take them to a road and their rendezvous point.

  “Which way to Sainte-Mère-Église?”

  “Have you seen the Eighty-Second?”

  “The road’s how far away?”

  She answered questions until she was too exhausted to answer any more. By that time, she’d heard enough to know that the code name for this particular landing spot was Utah Beach.

  As the night ground on, her original team was joined by more and more of the local partisans as word spread about what was happening. They formed human chains and used ropes and branches and ladders and anything else that was available to pull the Americans out.

  Emmy arrived at some point, bringing members of her network to help. Genevieve had heard that Emmy had been working in the vicinity since she’d parachuted back into France, so she wasn’t as shocked to see her as she might otherwise have been. The sisters, coming face-to-face on one of the marked paths, almost didn’t recognize each other, as both were covered head to toe in mud. When they did, they exclaimed in surprise and exchanged a quick hug.

  “You shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t have come back at all,” Genevieve scolded. “You’ve still got stitches. What happens if they break open and you start to bleed?”

  “Don’t be such a worrywart. They’re coming out in two days. And what would Maman say if I let you do this by yourself?”

  By 3:00 a.m. rumor had it that the Allied invasion force was massing off the beach.

  As the hours ticked down toward dawn, huge waves of Allied bombers blanketed the sky overhead. The bombs spilling from their underbellies shook the ground, hurt the eardrums, lit up the night. At first Genevieve was alarmed, but they didn’t target the marsh. They attacked the German defenses, not only around Utah Beach, but along the entire Cotentin Peninsula, and the Germans fired relentlessly back. The noise was deafening. Shells burst in the sky like fireworks, lighting up everything, filling the air with the smell of ordnance and enormous plumes of smoke.

  By sunrise the last of the paratroopers and the glider pilots and their crews had been pulled from the marsh and were tramping along the railroad track and the road to join their units. The partisans were starting to melt away. The bombing had slacked off, along with the corresponding antiaircraft fire. Meeting up with Emmy on the railroad track, Genevieve was so tired she barely managed a smile. They were both filthy and limping and stooped with exhaustion.

  “Look.” Emmy took her arm, pointed toward the beach. Turning, Genevieve did.

  It was low tide. Beyond the now scarred and broken concrete of the Atlantic Wall, three hundred meters or more of sandy beach were exposed, and the defenses the Germans had laid down in anticipation of what was coming were clearly visible. Farther in the distance, the invasion fleet floated offshore, stretching out along the horizon in a breathtaking, formidable lineup of gray and silver vessels. They glinted in the rising s
un, which, despite the pall of smoke, still managed to shine through. Full squadrons of amphibious vehicles carrying tanks and other equipment bobbed in the surf along with landing craft loaded with infantry. They plunged up and down through the choppy waves as they headed toward shore.

  The Germans opened fire with their big guns as the first of the landing craft neared the beach.

  Emmy grabbed her hand. “We’ve done all we can. We need to go.”

  Together they turned and headed toward the road, jogging, which was the best they could manage because they were too tired to run.

  They never saw or heard the German shell that hit only a few meters away.

  Chapter Fifty

  One moment they were fine, the next they were not.

  When Genevieve regained consciousness, she didn’t know if a second had passed or an hour. It was still near dawn: the mist rising from the marsh had that distinctive pinkish tinge that only came with the early morning light. She lay on her side on high, solid ground—the middle of the railroad tracks, she discovered as she felt the wooden ties beneath her and saw an iron rail. Her ears rang. Her head hurt. Lifting an unsteady hand to her forehead, she discovered she was bleeding. A cut above her eyebrow, a couple of centimeters long, from the feel of it. Pulling her hand back, looking at the blood on her fingers, she grimaced.

  Somewhere not too far away, artillery boomed like thunder. Sharp barks of machine-gun fire punctuated the relentless ack-ack of the antiaircraft guns. The sky was thick with smoke. She could smell it, taste it.

  She remembered looking out to sea, the dozens of landing craft riding the whitecaps, the lineup of battleships on the horizon...

  Emmy.

  Where was she?

  “Emmy.” She said it aloud. Despite her bleeding head, she didn’t seem to be seriously injured. She could think, and see, and move and wasn’t in terrible pain.

  Dashing away the blood starting to trickle around her eye, she struggled up onto an elbow.

  Emmy lay on the railroad track, too, sprawled motionless on her back not far away.

  Genevieve half crawled, half scrambled toward her. Her sister’s eyes were closed. Beneath the mud and grime on her face, her skin looked gray. There was no injury to Emmy’s face that she could see; her blond curls, flung back against the weeds between the wooden ties and matted now with mud, showed no trace of blood.

  Genevieve touched her cheek. “Emmy.” She looked down at her sister’s shiny dark shirt and gray trousers.

  The shirt was tan, Genevieve realized with a thrill of horror, noting the light brown sleeves. The reason the middle looked dark and shiny was because the front of it was soaked with blood.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no. Emmy.” She unbuttoned her sister’s blouse, stared aghast at the gaping wound in her chest. Blood everywhere. Exposed red muscle, the white of bone, the pink of an internal organ...

  “Genny.” Emmy’s eyes opened. Her voice was scarcely louder than a breath.

  “It’s all right,” Genevieve said, while her heart raced with terror. “I’m here.”

  Frantic, she looked around, spied a group of partisans not too far away, waved to signal she needed help. She had a length of parachute silk wound around her waist that she’d been cutting strips from to mark the paths. Snatching it loose, she pressed it gently, carefully, firmly over Emmy’s wound.

  “Uh.” The sound Emmy made was full of pain, and it tore at Genevieve’s heart.

  “Lie still. Help’s coming.” She covered Emmy with her coat, slid her hands beneath to keep gentle pressure on the wound. The silk was already warm and wet with her sister’s blood. A frantic glance told her that the partisans she’d signaled were moving carefully but quickly toward them along the marked paths.

  Hurry. Hurry. But she couldn’t scream it as she wanted to do. The last thing they needed was to attract the attention of more guns.

  “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Emmy’s tone was almost conversational. The eyes that were so like Genevieve’s own seemed to be losing their brightness. Terror clutched at Genevieve’s soul.

  “No, you’re not. Do you hear? You’re not going to die.” Genevieve leaned over her sister. “Emmy, do you hear me? You are not going to die.”

  “Bébé.” Emmy’s eyes found hers, focused. She smiled. Beneath the coat, one of her hands moved to cover Genevieve’s. It felt cold as ice. “I’m glad you’re here. Je te tiens, tu me tiens.”

  “Je te tiens, tu me tiens,” Genevieve repeated fiercely. Then her heart convulsed as Emmy closed her eyes.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Emmy died at the home of a doctor in Montebourg without ever regaining consciousness. The partisans who’d carried her there had apparently known to get word to Max. He found Genevieve alone, in the examining room where Emmy had been taken.

  She’d stopped crying some time before, for the simple reason that she had no more tears left to shed. She sat in an upright wooden chair beside her sister’s dead body, tightly holding her cold and lifeless hand.

  “Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here.” Appearing in the doorway of the examining room, looking briefly unfamiliar in a scuffed leather flight jacket and loose trousers instead of his usual suit, Max took in the situation at a glance, then came over to put an arm around her shoulders, drop a kiss on her hair. Other than the cut on her forehead, which was bandaged now, she was unharmed.

  She could barely stand the fact that she was unharmed.

  “I can’t leave,” she told him as he pulled her to her feet. She gestured at her sister, gray in death and dirty from their exertions of the previous night and looking like a waxen image of herself as she lay lifeless on the doctor’s table. “Emmy—”

  “I’ll come back and see that she’s taken care of,” he said. His voice was soothing. “You trust me to do that, don’t you?”

  She did. She would trust Max with anything.

  Nodding, she rested her head on his chest and felt his arms come around her. He held her close, rocked her against him.

  “It happened so fast,” she said. “We were together and then—” Her voice choked. She took a deep breath.

  “I know,” he said. “I heard what happened. I know you’re sad. But we’ve got to go now.”

  With a quiet word to the doctor, who’d entered to check on the identity of the new arrival, he hustled her out of the surgery, which was in a separate wing of the doctor’s house.

  “Where are we going?” she asked when they were outside.

  They were on the outskirts of the village, she saw with a glance around, something that hadn’t registered with her earlier. It was late afternoon now, and the sounds and signs of a raging battle were everywhere.

  “I pulled every string I have and got you a spot on a plane going to RAF Tempsford. We don’t have any time to spare.” There was a motorbike parked in the street. Stopping beside it, Max swung a leg over it, started it up and yelled “Get on!” to her over the roar.

  Genevieve did, wrapping her arms around his waist. The motorbike took off with a jolt, bouncing over streets that looked in places like they’d been chewed and spit out by a giant animal. More houses had been reduced to rubble than still stood. Gardens had been replaced by craters. Tall splinters were all that remained of trees. Tanks were stuck in hedgerows as their crews worked to get them out. Soldiers—Allies, Germans, a chaotic mix of the two—were everywhere, engaging in small, deadly skirmishes. On the road out of town, they skirted around dead bodies lying next to abandoned bombed-out vehicles. Bombers overhead, explosions, gunfire, smoke—the sights and sounds of war filled her senses.

  A convoy of military trucks bristling with guns came over a rise, heading toward them.

  Max turned off the road, bounced through a ditch and took the motorbike into a wood. Genevieve held on tight as they dodged trees, splashed through a creek, went up a hill, roared down th
e other side.

  When he stopped abruptly, Genevieve was surprised to see a small gray airplane sitting in the field in front of them. Its propeller was turning, its cockpit lid was open and it was obviously waiting.

  The pilot, spotting them, waved.

  Genevieve got off as Max shut down the engine.

  “Come on.” He grabbed her hand.

  They ran to the plane. When they reached it, Max pulled her close, kissed her quick and hard, then let her go and pointed to a spot on the wing.

  “Step there.” He had to yell to be heard over the thrum of the engine.

  “Wait.” She was yelling, too. The cockpit looked like it would accommodate only one other person besides the pilot. “You’re not coming?”

  He shook his head. “I told you before. I’m a soldier. I stay.”

  “But—”

  “Look, the Germans have ten thousand pounds on your head. For that price, even if they don’t stumble across you themselves, lots of people will hand you over. Nobody knows how this fight’s going to turn out. You’re leaving while you can.”

  “Max, old sod, got to go,” the pilot leaned out of the cockpit to shout. His leather helmet and the goggles pushed up to the top of his head made him look like some unknown species of giant bug.

  “I can’t go. I can’t leave you.” Her heart, still in shock over Emmy, trembled and shook at the idea of parting from Max. As she’d already learned to her cost, there were no guarantees in life, no guarantees that the person you loved would be there from one day to the next, no guarantees about anything at all. And this was war. Death waited around every corner. It came rocketing out of the sky, zipping through the air, blasting up from the ground. It came with no notice, no warning, no chance to say goodbye. “I’d rather take my chances and stay.”