My dead companions!
She leans close to examine my forehead and frowns. “You scrapped yourself badly! Bugger all! I didn’t see it before in the poor light. I’m sorry. Let me put some salve on it.” I feel the warmth of her breath. On her fingernails, there are tiny flecks of red where polish once was. She pulls out a round container that reads:
BRANDWUNDEN SALBE
My eyes widen. “What’s that?”
“It says ‘burn ointment.’ Don’t worry. We’re not Jerry.”
“Then why…?”
Gently, she applies the salve to my forehead. “We’ll be moving out soon. If you only have a little pain, perhaps we should wait and give you another syrette later.”
I nod. “The pain’s not that bad.” I gesture toward her violin. “What were you playing? I’ve heard it before.”
“Charlie Chaplin. From the movie, Modern Times.”
“Of course! They played that movie in camp only about a week ago. Five days running. I saw them all. What do you mean, moving out?”
“We have a mission to complete. Do you remember me telling you we are a small group of resistance fighters?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, our work isn’t finished. We’ll be going south toward Toulouse to blow up railroad tracks. We need to block the Boche from sending reinforcements to the beaches.”
“And what about me?”
“You must come with us.”
“No sirree! Nix on that! I need to get back to my comrades.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“I’ll walk!”
“On that leg?”
“Then help me get back.”
“No. It will be a few days before you can travel on your own, and we can’t escort you back to the Americans.”
“Why not?”
“No time. The Wehrmacht is probably already starting to move reinforcements toward the beaches, so we must move now. The other option is we could leave you here, and when you’re ready you could drag yourself back to your companions. But it seems clear you are nowhere near your intended drop zone, meaning you have no idea where your American friends are. Who’s to say you can find your way back before the Boche find you?”
“But I need to get back. They’re my buddies. I have their backs and they have mine.”
“You’re in no shape to try to get through the lines on your own. And there’s another reason we can’t escort you back to the Americans,” Élodie says. “Here, I’ll show you.” She turns and calls out, “Claude, Jean-Baptiste, Marcel, come say ‘Hello’ to our guest. He’s awake.”
Three men appear, all wearing German uniforms. I bolt to a sitting position. “What the fuck?”
“It’s our cover,” Élodie says. “How do you think we operate behind German lines? We pose as a German medical team.” She turns sideways to show me the white armband on her left arm which has a red cross surrounded by the words, “Deutsches Rotes Kreux.5”
“But you speak English.”
“We’re fluent in German, also. That’s why we were seconded here; we’re language specialists. The invasion troops are all American, British, Canadian, and Free French, and the defenders are German. Except, of course, for the Poles, Mongols and other conscripts.”
“How did you get the uniforms?”
The man called Claude turns to Élodie. “How does one say, ‘nous les avons embusqués’?”
“One says, ‘We ambushed them’,” she replies, and turns back to me. “It was easy to surprise them and take their uniforms and equipment. Now, we are free to travel anywhere behind German lines without raising suspicion. And it’s natural for us to be heading in the opposite direction of the Wehrmacht. They’ll only assume we’re going to a field hospital behind the lines. But Claude is wrong. ‘Ambush’ is not the right word; it makes it sound like we jumped them with guns firing. But what good would uniforms with holes in them do us?”
“So, what did you do?”
“We came on them in the night and garroted them. We couldn’t afford for there to be blood if we were going to take their uniforms.”
I guess I made a face, because she says, “Yes, it was ugly. But it had to be done. As you Americans might say, ‘It’s the fucking war, Sweetheart!’” She gives a little laugh that sounds forced. Her cursing in a second language surprises me, but it makes me feel less like a lost boy and more like I’m in a barn with my buddies. She continues, “Fortunately, there was a nurse among them.” She pauses, frowns, and says again, “It had to be done. But in order to complete the disguise, we had to give up our Sten guns for standard-issue Karabiner 98s and Walther P38s which is all the medical unit people had. And, see over there? That lorry is part of our equipment.”
Sitting on the opposite side of the barn, under a hay loft, is a German army truck marked out as an ambulance with a red cross on the side, and the black-and-white cross of the Wehrmacht on the door. Next to it is a similarly marked motorcycle with a sidecar.
“But what about me?” I ask. “Do you have a German uniform and identification for me?”
Élodie shakes her head. “No uniform. No ausweis.6And, speaking of that, we need to get rid of your dog tags if we’re going through German lines.”
“German lines?”
“What better way to hit the enemy than to go where he is?” She smiles. “Your dog tag says, ‘Budge, George H.’ But you call yourself Henry. Why?”
“The army won’t let you choose your own name. George is my father’s name. I didn’t want to be ‘Junior.’ Besides, try saying George Budge many times in a row. It’s an ugly sound.”
“Well, I will call you Henry.”
“Thank you. So, if you can’t return me to an American unit, and you can’t pass me off as German, what the hell are you planning to do with me?”
“We discussed that whilst you were sleeping. I don’t think you will like the answer.”
“Tell me.”
“We have the trousers from a Wehrmacht medic’s uniform. You’ll wear those. We’ll say you are a burn victim. We’ll bandage you from the waist up, including your head. You’ll be a mummy. Unfortunately, it might be horribly uncomfortable. You won’t be able to scratch an itch. Then there’s the pain from your real injuries, survivable as they may be.”
It sounds awful. “The waist up?”
“Yes. I think it’s best we keep you heavily sedated with morphine. Best for your comfort, plus it will guard against anyone questioning you. We’re certain to encounter German troops. Do you agree with this plan?”
“What choice do I have?”
“None, really.”
“Well, then. I guess I agree.”
After jabbing me with a morphine syrette, Élodie leans over, wipes my forehead, and says, “We’ll be leaving in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, there are some railroad tracks nearby we have to take out. Relax. We’ll be back shortly.”
And they are gone. The morphine must already be working, for there is little pain in my leg. I can hear the Navy guns and the answering 88s and know they are marking my way back toward my buddies. Just follow the sound! I rise from the cot and instantly realize I can’t put much weight on my leg. I scan the barn for something I can use as a cane and see a two-tine pitchfork with a long shaft leaning against a wall. Probably used to bale hay.
I hop on my left leg, dragging my right behind be, and grab the pitchfork. I test it. If I hold it in my right hand and plant the tines on the barn floor, it seems to hold my weight. It’s slow going, but I manage to hop and drag myself out of the barn and turn toward the sound of artillery. I know, from reconnaissance maps, Utah Beach should be east of my position and I’m relieved to see the low morning sun is throwing shadows to my left. I estimate I should be close to the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, one of our first objectives, which is about six miles inland from the beach. If all has gone to plan, I should find some American units there, maybe even the 82nd. My own moving shadow, with its lurching gait and the pitchfor
k jabbing ahead every step of the way, is like a bad Bugs Bunny cartoon. The ground is getting soggy; the pitchfork tines are digging deeper into mud. Ahead of me is the thump of Navy guns and German 88s.
I quicken my pace. I’m feeling weak and a bit dizzy. The morphine? Suddenly, there is a tremendous boom close by that leaves a ringing in my ears. Instinctively, I jam the pitchfork into the mud and it sticks when I go to pull it out and it catapults me forward and onto my face. There is a second concussion. The earth under me convulses and spits mud into my face. I try to pull myself up, hand over hand, on the shaft of the pitchfork, but all my strength is gone and I sink down into the mud again.
I must have passed out, because the next thing I know, I’m back on the cot in the barn with Élodie leaning over me. Maybe it’s her perfume that awakened me.
“So you decided to go back to your comrades?”
I look up at her. It takes a few moments for her words to register. Finally, I say, “Yes. We are brothers in arms. That’s just the way it is.”
“No, this is the way it is: There are German patrols between you and your comrades. You would never make it, especially on that leg.”
“Then I’ll find another way.”
“Brilliant, Idiot! You can walk back, then. But it will have to be through the South of France, over the mountains into Spain, then Portugal and back to England! Which, by the way, is what will happen anyway because that’s what I do. I escort downed English and American airmen out of France.”
“I thought you were a resistance fighter.”
“That’s only temporary for the invasion. Now, it’s too soon to give you more morphine, but I’ll slather you with Mückensalbe in the places that might chafe before we bundle you up.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a wound ointment7 used by the Wehrmacht. But we only have a few tubes of it.”
“You got it from the medical team you attacked?”
“Yes.” She frowns.
“You’re troubled by what you had to do.”
“It had to be done.”
“Of course. You’re a soldier.”
“I’m a musician.”
I study her face a long time. Finally, I ask, “What is the perfume you’re wearing?”
“My perfume? It’s Nuit de Longchamp. It means ‘Night at Longchamp’ which is a hippodrome in Paris, a horse race course. It covers the stink that comes from not being able to bathe very often in this bloody business.” She smiles and tilts her head toward her companions. “I wish they would also wear it.”
“I don’t think it would sit as well on them as on you.”
All the while she’s talking, she’s unbuckling my belt. Finally, she whips my pants off so violently my butt bounces off the cot. “Ow! What the fuck? What’s got your dander up?”
She leans close and whispers, “You’re making it hard on me. When we first found you, Jean-Baptiste wanted to leave you here. I insisted we take you with us.”
“What about the others?”
“They mostly follow Jean-Baptiste. We’ll dry these pants as best we can but they’ll still be wet. If you are uncomfortable, or you get a fever and die, it will be your own fault!”
Less than an hour later, my upper body is entirely swaddled in bandages and my legs are itchy in a damp pair of pants. My head is also wrapped except for two small openings, one for my nose and mouth, and one for my eyes.
“Does this mean I’m your prisoner?” I mumble through pinched lips.
“If you must see it that way, Idiot!” Once more, Élodie leans close enough for me to catch the scent of her. “Here. Take my hand,” she says, placing her hand in mine. “You have a choice of riding inside the ambulance where it will be hot, and you won’t be able to see anything, or on the sidecar of the motorcycle which is designed to take a stretcher. If we put you there, you’ll have fresh air, at least, but the ride will be rougher. Squeeze my hand once for the motorcycle, or twice for the ambulance.”
I squeeze her hand once, then let my hand linger in hers for several seconds before she smiles and moves away from me. I see Jean-Baptiste frown as he grasps the poles at the foot of my stretcher. Marcel leans down to lift the poles at my head. I smell his breath. They jostle me as they carry me to the sidecar and strap the stretcher down. Jean-Baptiste mounts the motorcycle with a last, hostile glance at me, and the others climb into the ambulance. Moments later, both engines roar to life and we are off.
The stretcher jerks and bounces and I wonder if Jean-Baptiste is deliberately trying to hit every rut we pass. Now, for sure, my guard is up. I know I’ll have to be careful around him.
3 “No, we are friends.” There is both French and German in my narrative. It’s important to note that I didn’t know these languages then; I learned them later via the G.I. Bill. I leave the phrases in their native language to show how confusing it could be for me and my buddies, quintessential strangers in a strange land.
4 You may wonder how I can remember such details and specific conversations. Three answers: One, I kept a diary. Two: where my diary is sketchy or incomplete, I feel confident I remember enough to re-create impressions and dialogues while still being faithful to my story. Three: if I forgot something or my diary was incomplete, I researched it. That’s how I know, today, it was a hawthorn tree, genus Crataegus, family Rosaceae, with an odor like decomposing flesh.
5 German Red Cross.
6 Identification card.
7 It’s really mosquito ointment, I learned after the war. I suppose it was the best they had.
Chapter 3
Soon You Too Will be at Peace
I am awakened by a disturbance in the hospital corridor outside my room. I hear an all-too-familiar woman’s voice saying, “I am Natalie Frowd. I’m his daughter. This is my husband, Marshall. How is my father doing?”
Natalie is using her pissy, hectoring voice, and I am trapped in a hospital bed, unable to escape. I hear somebody reply but can’t make out what is said. Anna and I never understood where Natalie got a varnish-blistering voice that could strip a tree of its bark or cause a snake to shed its skin. We never spoke loudly, but from the time she uttered her first sound, Natalie’s voice was ear piercingly loud. So much so, we even took her to an otolaryngologist to have her hearing checked, thinking she just didn’t realize how loud her voice was because her hearing was poor. But it checked out fine and we were forced to accept Natalie’s voice was a form of aggression. She attacked people with it. This was confirmed when she started school and began behaving like a bully. It never got better, and Anna and I were frequently called to teacher-parent consultations.
Her voice booms out again.
“Well, please keep me informed. Since my mother passed away, I’m his healthcare proxy.” Her voice grows louder with every word, a Doppler effect that warns me she is approaching my room, and all at once she bursts into the room.
“What the hell is this all about, Dad?”
I force my most sugary smile. “Hello, Sweetness. Hi Marshall. I need someone to find Arlequin. I don’t know what happened to him.”
“He’ll probably show up at your place,” Marshall says. “Someone will find him.”
Natalie peers down at me. “How’re you feeling, Dad?”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit! You’ve gotten yourself shot.”
“Would you like to step outside and try your entrance again? Perhaps with a more civil, sympathetic attitude?”
“How the hell did it happen?”
I wink at Marshall. “I guess she’s not interested in trying this again.”
“Don’t try to be funny, Dad,” Natalie says. “You could have been killed. How many times have I said you shouldn’t walk alone at night in the Navy Yard?”
“Lots. But I wasn’t alone. I had Arlequin with me.”
“Please stop with the jokes! Why do you insist on walking alone?”
“Because I enjoy it.” I grimace as a wave of pain runs through my body.
Her voice softens. Just a tad. “You’re in pain. Shall I call the nurse?”
“It’s not that bad. They pumped me with morphine just before you arrived. It’ll kick in soon.”
“They said on the news you attacked a guy with your cane. What happened?”
I try that saccharine smile again. “If you saw the news, you know more than I. What can I say? The man was behaving badly so I crowned him. By the way, I need a new cane. Could you ask the nurse if they have loaners?”
Natalie shoots Marshall a look of exasperation, turns back to me and says, “You’re impossible!”
“Would you have been proud of me if I had done nothing while a woman was raped?”
“But, Dad, you’re over ninety!”
“Look, Sweetness, age may be an excuse for not shoveling the fucking snow, or even not shaving every day, but it doesn’t give anyone a pass on humanity.”
“But you take such risks. And watch your language. You’re in a hospital.”
“What’s a hospital got to do with it? Look, I have less to lose. A twenty-year-old guy? Now, he stands to lose maybe seventy, even eighty years of life. Countless lovely women he’ll never get to know. Me? Not so much. Have you heard from Johnny and Judy?”
“Johnny called from O’Hare. He was off on some business trip. I haven’t called Judy yet. You’re crazy. You have lots to lose.”
“What time is it now? They put my watch somewhere.”
“Nine. Maybe they put your watch away because there’s a big clock on the wall facing you.”
“Oh,” I say, lamely. “Well it’s only six on the west coast. Give her time. What about Callie?”
“She’ll be here when she can. We stopped at her floor on our way up. She’s on the overnight shift but will see if she can get another doctor to cover for her. I can’t get over it. Are you crazy? Attacking a man like that? What do you think Ma would have said?”
“About the same as you. You are your mother’s daughter.” My lids suddenly feel heavy. The morphine. A pleasant sinking sensation. Or am I just trying to escape?
The last thing I remember before drifting off to sleep is Natalie saying to Marshall, “One good thing will come out of all this. It will end his silly talk about going to those D-Day ceremonies. There’s no way he’ll be able to go now, thank God!” Then there was some talk of getting me a mobility scooter, and I’m not sure if I told Natalie I didn’t want one, or if I only thought it.
The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon Page 3