CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I TRAILED DAPHNE AS WE WALKED along a road that ran perpendicular to the sea, taking us into the center of Oostende. Stepping around fallen bricks and mortar, we tried to stay under the awnings of shops, hug the storefronts, and make ourselves invisible. Lucky thing the streetlamps weren’t turned on—some of them had the glass blown out. So the streets were dark, but the sky was bright with the beams of searchlights. Reminded me of a newsreel I’d seen: premiere night for a Hollywood film.
We heard sound from above—the roar of engines, as a whole squadron of bombers passed over. Daphne said, “They’re likely headed for Berlin and good luck to them.” All we could see was black silhouettes against the coal sky. Like bats they were. Artillery fire rattled the buildings and sent white tracers arching through the sky. One bullet found its mark. My hands covered my eyes and I had to peek through my fingers. Flames shot from the bomber wing and I seen it was a B-17. The plane just kept flying south and we lost sight of it. I hoped the Americans had parachutes; or better yet, a fire extinguisher.
I said: “I’m not scared, not me.” Then I spun around in circles, desperate for a hiding place. Bravery, I realized, has to be built up: same as triceps or tooth plaque. It’s the one thing you can’t train for.
Daphne grabbed my hand and said, “Poor thing—you’re shaking like a leaf.” She put her mouth to my ear: “There’s probably a curfew and so I suggest we see about a room. I’m not quite ready to have my first encounter with a Nazi. After I’ve slept—maybe.”
We came to a wreck of a hotel. Part of the front was knocked down and we could’ve just stepped right in and robbed the place blind. Daphne ringed a bell and within a minute a candle came floating toward us, revealing a dusty lobby and an old man dressed in his nightshirt and a stocking cap. He unlocked the door and ushered us inside. “Bienvenue!” he said, not at all angry that we woke him up at an ungodly hour. Daphne talked to him in French. The innkeeper took us up a narrow staircase and then down a dim hallway. Flicking a switch on in one room, he said, “Toilettee.” Daphne didn’t need to translate. Less than an hour in Belgium and I was already making progress with the language.
He showed us to a small room with two narrow beds. Daphne said, “Parfait,” and took the key. She put the chain on the door lock and threw herself onto the bed, bouncing up in the air and laughing nervously. “I took the least expensive room they had. And breakfast is included. It’s served at eight but, since it’s nearly five, he’s making an exception for us and we may have it whenever we want. He’s awfully sweet. Said we could check out late and he’ll accept payment in French francs. They’re left over from my last trip to Paris.” She patted her stomach. “My, I’m famished. By any chance do you have food in that haversack of yours?”
I looked through my duffle bag and found half a pack of lifesavers. “You can have them all,” I said, handing her the package.
She picked lint off of the top lifesaver. “Let’s split them,” she said. “You can have the greens and yellows, if I can have the reds and oranges.”
Daphne went to wash up, and I decided it was high time for me to bone up on the Nazi agenda. So I found Mein Kampf, spit on the cover, and started where I’d left off. Halfway down the page, Hitler’s talking about how he found his “true calling” by reading a book about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He wrote: From then on, I became more and more enthusiastic over anything connected with war. And this was when he was ten!
I stopped reading and started pondering. For sure, I didn’t want to end up like Hitler. I made a pledge right then and there to never be enthusiastic again. About war, anyway. I found a pencil and my spiral-bound stenographer’s notebook and started making a list:
THINGS TO NOT BE ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT:
Franco-Prussian War of 1870
The Great War
Our war
Mein Kampf
Bombs
Sappy movies
Mary
OKAY TO BE ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT:
King Tut
Baseball cards
Buried treasure
Huckleberry Finn
Spitfires
Firecrackers
Daphne
Coney Island
Summer break
Christmas
Diamonds
Movies (as long as they’re not sappy.)
Comics.
Jack
The list was getting lopsided. And blurry. The pencil and notebook dropped from my hand. Next thing I knew, the sun was shining in my face from an open window. Daphne sat perched on the ledge, taking in the view. I wanted to dive back under the covers, but just then my stomach rumbled. I said, “Where did you say breakfast was?”
“Downstairs off the reception area, or what’s left of it,” she said. “I’ve already had mine and, I warn you, it’s nothing to write home about. My aunt Dalia would pan the place. ‘No stars,’ she’d say.”
“I don’t care. I could eat a cow.”
“You’ll wish it was beef. I suspect they are serving dog. Dog sausage and week-old baguette, washed down with tepid tea. And did you know that we of the Jewish persuasion aren’t permitted to eat dog? Or was that cat meat?” She started biting her nails, worried that she’d broke a rule. Like when us Catholics commit one of the seven deadly sins. “Well, never you mind,” she said finally. “That’s the extent of the menu. I nearly broke a molar on the baguette, it was that hard.”
“Tea,” I said, moaning. I got out of bed, hitched up my blue jeans, and ran my fingers through my hair so it stood up off my head. Meanwhile Daphne kept rambling on.
“—I really ought to have paid more attention, the few times my grandmother took me along to shul. But then she passed away, dear thing—and my mother, you see, she had assimilated.”
“Mind dumbing that down? It’s still early. I don’t even have my sneakers on yet.”
“It’s not early, by the way.” She consulted her wristwatch. “It’s nearly noon. And what I mean by assimilated, is that my mother is non-practicing. Some might call it Reform, but she’s barely even that: Hanukkah gifts at Christmas, a spinning top for Passover—that’s about the extent of it. But now, with things as they stand, I feel it’s important to be more connected with my Jewish roots.”
Non-practicing. That much I got and told her so. New York was loaded with non-practicing Catholics and I aimed to become one myself. But honestly, why she’d want to be more Jewish when Hitler was hunting them down—well—that part I didn’t get. But I just shrugged. It was too early in the morning for theology.
And she wasn’t kidding about the breakfast menu. It left plenty of room for the imagination to run wild: sunny-side up eggs with ketchup, sausage links, Florida orange juice, Kellogg corn flakes with sugar on top, French fries and more ketchup. Waffles, maple syrup and whipped cream topped pancakes. I swallowed the stale roll and dog sausage and cussed the Nazis.
Daphne said: “Had I realized, I’d have saved you my left-overs.” Then she gulped down my tea, even though she’d complained about it earlier—English through and through. She put down the teacup and said, “Now what?” Looking at me hopefully.
I didn’t want to let her down, so I said: “Tell me everything you know about Jack’s crash, so’s I can fine-tune my ideas.”
Daphne began telling me about the day Jack’s plane went down:
“Sel Edner came to see me the day after Jack went missing. Came all the way from Essex to London with permission from their commander, Squadron Leader Hugh Kennard. They’d both received wedding invitations the very same morning Jack went missing.” She got choked up and had to stop and to pull herself together. “—Sel and Jack were together on a rhubarb the morning of the 16th of June. You know what a rhubarb is, don’t you?”
“It’s when two Spitfires go out on a mission together.”
“Right you are. Well, they were strafing a German supply train and Jack flew low to get a good shot, peppering the hell-O out o
f the train.
“Then an anti-aircraft gun fired on Sel’s plane and his radio was smashed. He gained altitude and was flying above the clouds, trying to radio Jack but getting no reply. At first, he assumed it was the radio at fault, and that Jack would follow him out. But crossing over the Channel there was no sign of Jack. Sel turned back and that’s when he—he—he saw Jack’s Spitfire on the ground.
“Sel was to be Jack’s best man, you know.” She stopped and took a deep breath, “I mean he shall be Jack’s best man.” I handed my napkin over, but she managed to hold herself together long enough to tell me about Sel mentioning that Jack’s Spitfire was north of a train depot, right alongside rail tracks about 12 miles between here and Bruges.”
I reached into my duffel bag and pulled out a map of Belgium. I’d cut it out of an encyclopedia, along with the whole section that covered the country. I made a pinhole using one of my darts. “That puts him right about here. Should we try and take the train?”
“Let me find the innkeeper and see about schedules,” she said, and got up from the table. I waited and studied the map. A few minutes later, Daphne returned. “I am happy to report that the trains are running a tad behind schedule. Apparently the tracks have received heavy damage from the American forces.”
“Think of that,” I said, all proud. “But where does that leave us? Maybe we borrow a car?”
She shook her head. “Tommy, for one thing, I can’t drive. And a 12-year-old behind the wheel of a car will be a trifle conspicuous in broad daylight.”
I asked if she could ride a bike.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WE FOUND A BIKE RACK, jammed full and we had our pick. Most of them were rust buckets and belonged to locals, with wicker baskets strapped to the handlebars. But two bicycles—new paint jobs—had tin carrying cases hanging from the top tubes, stamped all over with gothic letters. And nubby tires. A helmet rested on one of the back racks, looking like a horseshoe crab with a swastika decal pasted to its shell. Daphne said we’d better take the German bikes because they were chained together with one flimsy lock. She took a hairpin from her bun.
“Teach me,” I said.
“Not now.” She swiped at the helmet, toppling it to the ground. Then she attached her suitcase to the back rack, hitched up her skirt, and mounted the bike. “Okay—maybe in exchange for jitterbug lessons,” she said.
I figured she wanted to boogie-woogie the American way, seeing that Jack was an expert. Most English girls only know how to waltz. I opened my mouth to say something about the Triple Step Whoosh but got stuck on the word triple.
Holy Mother of God.
A genuine Nazi was coming straight at us. And there I stood gaping at him. It wasn’t like when you see them in a Hollywood movie: this one was living and breathing and in Technicolor—although he was mostly wearing black. Everything in me said run. But I didn’t want to look like a coward in front of Daphne, so I got ready to spit at him. Then I realized there was a fine line between bravery and foolery, and I didn’t want to cross it. Daphne didn’t move an inch, but somehow I ended up standing behind her.
“Bonjour, Fraulein,” he said, using a combination of French and German. He was looking at Daphne in a way that would’ve had Jack letting loose all his cannons on the guy—he didn’t even notice we were stealing bicycles from the Wehrmacht. Daphne growled. Obviously, he didn’t get the message, because he stood there with a lamebrain grin on his face.
She whispered into my ear, “Let’s push off before I make a frightful scene.”
As we pedaled away, I yelled back in German, “Drecksau!” Mr. Fisch, my German tutor, used the expression whenever he talked about Adolph Hitler, and I was hoping to make use of the word myself—dirty pig, it meant. My heart raced like a hot-rod. The Nazi shouted something after us, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Daphne yelled like a cheerleader, “Am Yisrael Chai!”
For the first time, I wondered if truly brave people ever got scared. Well, the obvious answer was no. I’d have to ask Jack when I found him—him being the bravest person I knew. Then I got to thinking about a time the school bully called me a chicken-liver when I wouldn’t jump from a cliff into a watering hole. Two words, stinging like a wasp. About a month later that same bully smashed his head and was still in a coma. So maybe being scared was a good thing sometimes. Maybe I’d be a little more scared next time I opened by mouth to cuss a German. What if he’d had a motorcycle or a machine gun?
We slowed down after a few minutes and Daphne stopped to ask for directions. Soon we turned down a road marked with a bullet-riddled sign reading: Bruges, 26K. By and by, we got out of the city, traveling into farm country. The air smelled like fresh-cut grass and cow dung and was a nice change from the dust of war-torn Oostende.
“What’s the meaning of Am Yisrael Hi?” I asked.
“The people of Israel are alive…I think. It’s one of the few Hebrew sayings that I can remember.” She started racking her brain, and then she belted out a song. Boy, she had a voice good enough for the radio, even if she did stumble over a few of them hard to pronounce words. “I’ve got some of it tangled, I’m afraid,” she said.
“Sounded swell to me.” I shouted, “Am Yisrael Hi!”
Daphne laughed. “One thing I do know is that you must give it a hard aitch.”
I tried again and she said I sounded like a Bar Mitzvah boy, which I took to be a complement.
After a couple of miles, we reached a roadblock. We pulled the bicycles behind a farm building, to give us time to discuss options. We watched as German soldiers stopped a farm truck and made a farmer and his wife get out of the vehicle. They were checking identity papers. The only thing identifying me was a handwritten tag my ma had sewed into the collar of my jacket.
“There are only two of them,” I said. “We could take ’em out easily.” It sounded brave, but the pitch of my voice was like a girl’s.
“What, with your boomerang?” said Daphne. “They’re carrying rifles.”
I used a sailor word, then added: “We’ll have to ditch the bikes and hoof it, detour through the fields of corn.”
We waded through the stalks of corn: ripe and juicy and smelling of sunshine. Daphne ripped off two corncobs, handing one over to me. She pulled back the silky husk and sunk her teeth into the kernels, spraying juice in the air. “Mind you,” she said, “I’d have preferred it cooked and with a little butter and sea salt, but I’m not complaining.”
“No, mind you,” I said, “I’d of preferred mine from a Cracker Jack’s box.”
We continued making a huge arc around the checkpoint, coming out onto a dirt farm path that ran along the side of the paved road. Only a strip of corn stalks hid us from view. I stopped to find my compass and get our bearings. Belgium was a tiny country and I didn’t want to stumble over the German boarder by mistake.
“Don’t worry,” said Daphne, “if we get lost, we’re more likely to end up in the Netherlands.” She put her suitcase down and examined her hand. “Ouch. I’m getting blisters already.” I offered to carry her suitcase in exchange for my duffel bag. She swung the duffel over her shoulder and kept on walking. “You’re same as your brother: gallant.”
I was beaming. “What do you have in here anyway?”
“Bits and bobs.”
“Bits and bobs of lead?”
“You can’t expect a woman to travel as light as a boy. Our needs are greater.”
“I’ll say,” was all I said. We continued walking in silence, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, almost forgetting we was in a war. Every blue moon a farm truck passed along the road, sometimes a horse-drawn cart. Then a high-school boy on a bicycle passed by us going in the opposite direction. He jingled his handlebar bell and pointed his finger in warning. That’s when we heard loud rumbling: a convoy of German army trucks. We ducked behind a bale of hay. They were headed in the direction of Oostende. I said, “If we had some explosives, we could do some damage.”
�
��I take it there aren’t any in this duffel I’m carrying? Please say it’s so.”
“Nothing to do the trick. Only a few packs of firecrackers.”
“Well, that is a relief.”
We waited for the convoy to pass and then took a hard look at our situation. We’d come to a mowed field, with not enough hay bales to shield us from view. Daphne said it was time we used our thumbs. We’d wait for a farm truck heading toward Bruges, and in the meantime rest our feet. I was already dead-tired from carrying her suitcase and was the first to sit down. Daphne took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. More German trucks passed by, a couple of old-folks on bicycles, a horse and plow. Then, in slow motion, a black car pulled to the side of the road, not twenty feet from our hiding place.
A Mercedes Benz 260D with the top rolled down.
Mounted to the hood were more of them little Nazi flags so popular around these parts: red with those menacing swastikas in the center. The driver exited the car and then rushed to the passenger door. A Gestapo agent stepped out of the car. He was wearing a long black, double-breasted, belted trench coat, and a fedora. The driver clicked his heels and stood at attention. The Gestapo agent paused for a minute taking in the view, the whole time hunting around in his pockets for a cigarette case.
He started walking our way. We ducked lower. Hay crushed under his feet, closer and closer. He sat on a bale three down from ours, took off his hat, and leaned his face to the sun like he was sunbathing. Daphne touched her finger to my lips. Meanwhile the driver had removed a can from the trunk and was filling the tank with gasoline. The Gestapo agent screamed, “Beeile dich!” It must’ve meant hurry up because the driver started moving faster, spilling gasoline on the ground by mistake. The G-Man lit a cigarette and I started to get worried, what with all the hay and gasoline on the ground. If a fire started we’d have to run, then we’d be captured. My heart pounded in my chest and I broke out in a cold sweat. I looked over to Daphne, who was biting her nails.
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