by David Leroy
“Here, hold my hand,” Marc said to the small young Belgian boy as he held his sister’s hand, with the dogs following. “Gardez, don’t let go, and watch out,” Marc continued in French.
“What is your name?” Marc asked the boy.
“Cricket, because I chirp,” the boy said with a bright smile.
“What an odd little name, but what is your real name?” Marc pressed.
“Look, it is beautiful,” the boy said, pointing in front of them as they walked down the street with the others toward the south Montparnasse train station.
As they approached the rail station, Marc looked up, and his face changed. Between trucks and simple cars, he saw terribly expensive cars with doors open, just abandoned in the streets surrounding the station.
“Someone is going to get lucky if they snatch this one,” Marc said as they passed a white Silver Cloud Rolls Royce.
“No one wants it, Marc. Besides, it is probably not from Paris but out of town,” Allen said.
Allen focused as he walked quickly among the people. Marc’s anxiety increased as the party approached the sea of refugees. He was not sure if everyone would stay together and, even if they could, if this was exactly the best idea.
People crowded the train station to board various trains. Others camped out waiting in hopes of getting on a train. In every direction, Marc could see lost eyes. Some were looking for a train, some were looking for a relative, and some were simply set inside, looking for no place at all. Marc could feel his own eyes become just like everyone else’s: helpless, lost, and scared.
“Sir, sir, can you help me? I have lost,” a man said to Marc.
“Maurice, Maurice, where are you?” a woman’s voice screamed above all others.
“Attention, attention, please! The train for Tours is departing in ten minutes,” came across the station speakers.
“Please, please, I need to get to Lyons! Please, I will pay you,” a woman begged Allen just in front of Marc.
“We are taking the 81. Stay close. Many of the staff should already be there,” Allen said to Marc as they moved through the crowds of men, women, children and soldiers on the bustling platforms as they boarded the trains. Some had bags. Some looked as if they had fled with nothing. The station felt like an anthill that had been dusted up.
Just before noon, all of the people from their group made it to Train eighty-one. The third car back appeared to have some staff already on board. All of the train cars were totally overcrowded. There were maybe nine passenger cars in all, and several boxcars, and every one of them was standing room only. Cars one and two held soldiers from the BEF on top of the roofs.
Mr. Lugoux’s heart nearly stopped at the sight. He had already experienced the loss of his airplane factory in Belgium, and the trauma of fleeing by road with his family to Paris. He quickly thought that he could ride on top with his older son, while his wife and daughter could ride inside the car with the other children.
Inside the car, Sister Clayton’s eyes took a minute to adjust to the scene. At first, she saw no seats available for her staff of the Church Army, and the YMCA traveling with them. She pushed through the middle aisle to the front of the car, as the others followed. Some moved a bit to let the younger children sit down. Everyone else accepted they would need to stand.
Grabbing the boarding rails of car three, Marc and Allen made for the roof via the ladder. On top of the train car were already about twenty men and two women. A young man took Marc’s hand and helped him up. Marc could see all through the train station and just about every train he saw had people on top of it. Marc started to reconsider his decision to leave with Allen. He was no longer sure it was safer to leave Paris than to hold his ground and stay in the city.
Engine eighty-one’s whistle blew loud and long.
“Welcome aboard, young man,” an older man in uniform said to Marc as he sat down and looked for something to hold onto.
“Here, hold this. Right under the inner window line, you can hold there,” he said, studying Marc’s features.
Allen sat down next to Marc and said hello to the man and apparently knew him, but did not introduce Marc.
Across the rail station, a train pulled out slowly. Marc stared, mesmerized, as the overcrowded train left the station with every car piled with men, women, and children on top. For most of the week, he had stayed away from the station. He had interacted with other Americans and people who were traveling, but he had no idea exactly what it felt to be as desperate now as everyone else to leave Paris.
The June 3 bombing raid had shaken him up; the one on the night of June 9 made him numb to the world. The whistle blew a second time, the train lurched forward just a bit, and then stopped.
“What is your name?” the man asked.
“Marc,” he said, “and this is my friend from the British Embassy, Allen.”
“Nice to meet you, Marc. Yes, I know Mr. Lee well. Are you an American?” the man asked in a thick accent.
“Yes, sir. New York. I was here as a student when the war broke out and have been working for the American Embassy.”
“Good for you. What were you studying?” His conversational tone was a pleasant relief to the hectic station.
“Art, drawing, some painting. When I came to Paris, it seemed like a good idea. Now, not so sure,” Marc said, looking out again and taking in the panorama of the station’s bustle.
“Excellent. I wish I had studied art more,” the older man said.
“What do you do?” Marc asked.
The whistle blew now three short times and the cars began to move forward ever so slowly. Train eighty-one was the next to depart. Marc grabbed the top of the windows hard, making sure to hold steady to the train’s roof. After looking forward through two other car roofs full of people, he glanced around the entire train station at the surreal drama that was playing out in what was once such a stuffy environment.
“I am in between jobs now, so to speak,” the man said.
“Sorry to hear that. A lot of people are in the same boat, including me. What did you do before you lost your job?” Marc asked, trying to focus upon not losing his grip.
“Oh, I did diplomatic business for the United Kingdom,” the man said in a voice of defeat, just as Engine 81 cleared the roof of the Paris station.
June 10, 1940
SS Manhattan, At Sea
David awoke on the deck chair where he’d spent the night. Passengers gathered on the rail as the ship passed the Nantucket lighthouse. It would not be much longer, he thought. He gave up his cot to a woman who did not want to stay below in her cabin. Larry was still asleep next to him, and Robert as well. The girls were inside, but the woman had a daughter and an older mother. It seemed like the right thing to do. It was not that cold out.
It had been the strangest trip ever. There was no class distinction on the ship at all. People were exceptionally polite to each other, but somber. Most had not removed their life jackets since Gibraltar. No one complained about any inconvenience. There was none of the drama he had seen during all of his previous thirty-two Atlantic crossings. Everyone aboard seemed to be of one mind, and that was thankful to be heading home. David mused to himself that he was only nine months late getting home, but that was better than never.
He got up and went to the rail, wearing his life jacket. He closed his eyes and smelled the morning fog. He found the face of his parents in his mind, on the morning of May 7 so long ago. He promised them no more. This would be his very last trip over the pond, and he thanked the gods for the safety of his thirty-third voyage.
Chapter 17
June 11, 1940
SS George Washington, At Sea
“Ten minutes” was the signal that came as the ship came to a full stop at sea. The first officer on the bridge frantically signaled to the U-boat. “American, United States.”
“Ten minutes,” a terse response came back.
“Don’t they see the flags?” the captain said.
“The lights are on, I checked,” the first officer said.
“Keep signaling,” the captain said. He then walked back to the panel with the watertight door switches that had already been activated. He then switched over the large toggle switch to the ship’s alarms.
Nigel awoke to the alarm ringing throughout the ship. He quickly put on his life jacket, as did the four other men piled into a cabin meant for two. The hallways filled with passengers in pajamas and nightgowns.
“May I have your attention, please: All passengers muster to the lifeboat stations,” blared over the intercom. The ship’s sirens grew louder up on the boat deck in the early air of just after five in the morning.
People spoke in hushed tones, only a few words to each other. Nigel walked from his cabin into the hallway and made his way to the main staircase. He exited onto the port promenade deck. The lifeboats had been swung out and the doors had been opened already. It was almost as if he never stopped moving or even needed to wait as he stepped onto the boat on the ship’s side, sliding over and making room for two women and a teenaged boy.
“Can’t they tell we are American? We have flags on the side of the ship, for fucking crying out loud!” the second officer said as he came across the bridge from the port side.
“Get this out now. It is our position,” the captain said to the radio officer.
“What is the time? Are they going to warn us before they fire?” the first officer called out on the bridge.
The only noise Nigel could hear was the wind, and it was gentle. The sound of the ship alarms seemed to disappear, as if his mind had shut them off. People moved around in the boat a bit. Some cried, though they tried not to be heard. There seemed to be just this sense of destiny about everything. And time seemed to fall away. People moved and sat together. He had never seen so many people do one thing so quickly without saying but a few words.
“Clear to go. Sorry,” came back from the German U-boat.
“Full ahead.” The captain called out. The ship’s telegraph cried out with a series of bells as the officer moved the handles forward to full ahead.
“That’s it? They stop us, threaten to blow us to the sky, and then clear to go?” the first officer said.
“I don’t care. Maybe they thought we were a Greek or French ship and that is why they stopped us. I am just thankful now they can see those flags,” the captain said.
“Are the passengers back onboard?” the captain asked twenty minutes later.
“No, sir, most are still in the boats,” the first officer answered back after returning from the wing bridge.
“Well, let them stay a while, I suppose,” he said, a sort of bemusement on his face.
“I think they will, sir. They seem to like it in the boats right now,” the officer said, looking out toward the sea.
“No harm. If it makes them feel better, let them stay,” the captain mumbled to himself.
June 12, 1940
Loire Valley, France
The train broke down about eighty miles out of Paris. At first they thought it was going to get going again but, soon, a line of German fighter planes spotted the train on the tracks. As the planes dived in, bullets pierced through the roofs of the cars as people piled out of the windows, the rear and front doors and ran in all directions to take cover in nearby fields. Marc and the others slid almost like cats off the top of the cars and onto the ground around the tracks.
“Under here! Don’t run!” Allen called out. Marc threw himself under the train on the tracks.
“Is this safe?” Marc heard someone ask.
“No, but safer than out there,” Allen said next.
“What if they bomb the train?” Marc asked.
In front of them, a woman yelled in pain and held her leg, which had snapped just above the ankle.
“Then we don’t have to worry about the war anymore,” Allen said. He scooted out from under the train, grabbed the woman under the arms and started to drag her back as she screamed in pain.
Another plane dived alongside the train and he could hear the guns shooting as they approached. Above him, he heard several yell in pain as bullets ripped through the cars. It sounded as if two men fell to the floor inside the coach. The bullets reached the engine and he could hear steam hissing from the boiler that had been hit.
The planes did not come back for another run. People slowly started to get up and walk out of the fields. Some were shouting for friends, relatives, or children. Marc and Allen, along with all the others, climbed out from under the train car. Everyone in the engineer’s cabin was dead. A woman sobbed in front of a small child. Marc could barely bring himself to look but was relieved it was not the boy from Belgium.
The woman Allen had dragged no longer screamed. He did not see the wound, and was not sure if she was hit before or after she broke her leg. The front of her dress, however, was soaked in blood. Sister Clayton offered some prayers over her body before they gathered their bags and set out on foot across the field toward the road where other refugees walked and pulled carts.
“Are you scared?” the Belgian boy asked Marc as he walked behind Allen.
“Hey, there you are. Where is your family?” Marc asked, faking a smile.
“We are all safe,” the boy said, his dog by his side.
June 13,1940
Lisbon, Portugal
“Miss? Miss?” The man stood over Dora. At first he was gentle and then became firmer in his tone.
“Yes, sorry, I was asleep.” She looked up at him.
“Would you be ready to go right now?” he asked her quietly.
“I thought you said there were no openings?” Dora asked, perplexed by his question.
“One of the passengers who had booked ahead has not arrived yet. No others on the waiting list are here or know yet, and you have been waiting, sleeping here, and I thought I would come to you first,” the Pan Am agent said, and it was clear he was trying to be kind to her.
Dora had never flown before. She had an opportunity once to take the Graf Zeppelin to Europe, but decided against it and instead traveled with a group of friends back to France aboard the SS Paris instead. She was not sure what to expect as the large, four-engine flying boat, the Pan Am China Clipper, started to move faster and faster over the choppy river, bouncing along in the water.
“Steward, question, please. We are not flying to China, right? I mean, this plane is going back to America?” Dora asked.
“Yes, of course. Oh, you saw the name on the plane,” he said.
“Yes, I don’t want to fly to China,” Dora said.
“No worry. We have had to move some of the planes off the other routes to get everyone home, miss. You are not flying to China, but back to the States,” the steward said to her in his friendly southern accent.
Even though she had not had much food during the nearly two weeks since leaving Paris, the sensation of flying did not give her any incentive to eat. Instead, she just looked out the window near her. The passengers took turns in the center lounge for breakfast and lunch.
Someplace past the Azores, over the Atlantic, another female passenger asked her, “Are you going home?”
“No, not exactly. I am going to see my sister,” Dora said after a bit of a pause.
“Are you an American?” the woman asked.
“Yes, but my home is in Paris,” Dora went on as she continued to stare out the window.
“Oh, I see. I am sorry,” she said.
“Yes. It is a damn mess,” Dora murmured over the drone of the plane’s engines.
“Yes. It most certainly is.” The woman’s voice held a hint of sadness.
“Are you going home?” Dora asked.
“No. I am going to visit a friend.”
“I see.”
About an hour later, after another round of passengers took dinner in the center compartment, the woman said to Dora, “Aren’t you hungry? You should eat.”
“Oh, I will be fine. I am just not feeling v
ery social or hungry,” Dora lied. She had become angry stewing over the storm the woman’s questions awoke inside her. Dora had been running for two weeks, never looking back at Paris, her friends, home, or the loss. Her sadness turned to anger, and the anger felt like a bowling ball in her gut.
The woman looked out the same window and then casually asked Dora, “Are you Jewish?”
The bluntness of the question shocked Dora, then she thought about it for a few minutes. “If by Jewish, you mean that I have lost everything including my home and friends then, why, yes, I am.”
“Yes, so am I,” the woman said, looking out the window.
Dora looked at the woman with a hesitant glance. The woman did not look back from the window.
“I have rebuilt before, and I will do it again. I am beginning to believe that those who are possessed by nothing possess everything, most of all freedom. I am sorry if I sounded curt. It’s just been very hard. Up until now, I thought I was fleeing France, but actually, it feels more like I have been pushed out,” Dora said.
“I know what you mean.” The woman cracked a forced smile.
“Are you going to eat?” Dora asked her, for she did not go with the others for dinner when the steward came through the cabin.
The woman just shook her head ever so slightly, and she remained like a granite statue for the rest of the flight.
Chapter 18
June 14, 1940
Le Mans, France
“Get in, get in,” the soldier said from the top of the truck.
“Where are you chaps heading?” the lost soldier asked.
“The same place you and everyone else are going. Away from France,” Allen answered back.
It was early yet in the day and the soldier had just dropped off a group of men, so the truck was empty. Marc, Allen, the president and the two sisters from the YMCA, as well as the other Belgian refugees, climbed into the first truck. The rest piled into the second and third trucks. The convoy had gone out to retrieve the unit, which had gone missing after the train broke down.