All Blood Runs Red

by Phil Keith

  The ragged remnants of the 51st limped slowly into the village of Le Blanc. Its main thoroughfare was dusty, deserted, and totally locked up. Most of the population had fled, heading south, and whoever might have remained was nowhere in sight, no doubt hiding in whatever cellars or barns could provide the best cover.

  As Bullard and the men in his section came upon the village square, the skies filled with lethal 88-millimeter shells—hungry, seeking targets. One landed on the village church, crushing it like an eggshell, dropping its wooden timbers, brick and shattered stained glass on the handful of parishioners praying inside. No one survived. Another fell directly on the square’s fountain, blasting stone and gouts of water skyward.

  Bullard heard the shell that was coming for him, but only for two seconds—it roared like a freight train, and seemingly had eyes—tracking straight toward him and his men. The deadly munition could not have landed more than ten yards away from him. The blast and its concussive power swept Bullard into the air and flung him forty feet, where he slammed into the wall of one of the stuccoed houses surrounding the square. Luckily, he struck the building with his left shoulder and side, and not head-on, which would have surely crushed his skull and killed him instantly.

  As it was, he was badly injured. One vertebrae in his neck was shattered (later examination revealed). His spine was painfully whacked out of alignment, several ribs bruised and cracked, his left shoulder completely bruised and battered, and a deep cut from a piece of shrapnel had sliced his forehead over his right eye. It would leave a scar he would carry with him for the rest of his days.

  The men around him fared much worse. Eleven soldiers were killed outright, and another sixteen were wounded, several critically. One single shell nearly wiped out what was left of an entire company. The square was littered with broken men and shattered bodies. Medics rushed in to help and Bullard was painfully removed, on a litter. That night he was carried off in a truck with several more wounded, as the 51st continued its southerly, fighting retreat.

  Ironically, on that very day, General Charles de Gaulle, who was fashioning himself already as the leader of the Free French in exile, made a radio broadcast from London to the French troops remaining in the field. He knew, as did most of those still fighting, that continuing to resist was becoming more and more futile. He also knew that the French government was near collapse and that the military’s leaders were close to capitulating. He urged those who wished to remain free and fight against the Nazis to join him, in England. For those who could not escape, he encouraged them to go underground, and join the Resistance. He promised that France would rise again, and free. The battle may have been lost, but the war to defeat the Fascists was just beginning.

  Bullard heard the broadcast as he lay in great pain on the litter in a tent. It cheered him as well as the wounded men around him. They did not feel quite so abandoned.

  Major Bader sought out Bullard the next day, June 19, and told him that it would be best for him to move on, on his own. He needed better treatment than the local medics could give him, and he was in no shape to continue to fight. Bullard understood, and he did not want to be an impediment to his comrades. The unspoken words were that if he were captured with his unit, the Nazis would undoubtedly execute him without so much as a second thought. A black man fighting for France, and an American at that, would doom any chance for surrender and survival.

  “If I were captured with them,” Bullard reflected, “I would not just be interned. I would certainly be executed not only because of my color, which put me in at least as much danger as the Jews, but also because the enemy must by now know that I had worked against them in the Underground as well as being a foreign volunteer in two wars.”

  Bader suggested that he strike out, as soon as he was able, for Angoulême, on the road to Biarritz. The army, Bader had been told, still had a big hospital in Angoulême, and it seemed the best chance for Bullard to get treatment, then work his way to the Spanish border and, hopefully, to freedom. Bullard was determined to start right away, despite his pain. Bader wrote out a safe conduct pass, then the two old comrades embraced, and went their separate ways.1

  The next twenty-four hours were sheer torture for Eugene Bullard. Using his rifle as a crutch, he hobbled off down the road toward Angoulême. His uniform and pitiful state garnered a few rides in trucks and cars along the way. Near his destination he decided to get rid of the rifle. If he were caught with it, he’d be shot on the spot. He traded it to a farmer for a stout walking stick. He had also been able, in Orléans, to exchange his traveling clothes for a proper if sorely used tunic and uniform trousers, two sizes too big.

  Barely able to move because of the agony wracking his body, Bullard stumbled into the French military hospital in Angoulême. His tremendous string of luck at running into old acquaintances continued. One of the doctors on duty was a comrade, the former medic of the 170th, Dr. H.C. De Vaux. The doctor had also worked at the American Hospital in Neuilly (with the detested Dr. Gros) between the wars. De Vaux gave Bullard a shot of pain-killing medicine and wrapped his back and spine to immobilize it as much as possible. He also gave Bullard some painkillers to stick in his pocket. There was nothing more he could do, medically, with the supplies on hand. De Vaux further advised that he keep moving, if he could stand the discomfort. The Germans were expected to capture the hospital any moment. The best course of action was to get to Biarritz, where there was an American consul, who was reportedly helping citizens escape the country.

  Bullard asked if the doctor was going to go, too, but he said no. He had too many wounded at the hospital who needed his help. He was sure he’d be captured, but he was banking on the Germans needing trained physicians to help with their prisoners.2 De Vaux gave Bullard two canteens of water, six tins of sardines and four packs of cigarettes, then sent him on his way.

  There were roughly two hundred road miles between Angoulême and Biarritz, where Bullard hoped he could get assistance in getting into Spain. From there, a way to get to America might open up. The thought of “America” seemed strange to him then. Twenty-eight years ago he had put the United States, its racism, deep hatreds for blacks—at least in the South—and the threat of potential lynching behind him. How odd to think that America was his goal then, his potential refuge from the storm that was devouring the Continent.

  Had things changed in America since he left? Based on what he knew from his friends, especially black musicians and entertainers, much was still the same; yet, it was home. Georgia was where he had been born. Although he had not seen or heard from any members of his family since his departure as a teen, he wondered if they’d welcome him back. Was his father still alive? What about any of the brothers and sisters with whom he had hid under the bed when the white riders came knocking? Were any of them still in Columbus?

  Shoving such thoughts aside, Bullard pushed on. The countryside between Angoulême and Bordeaux is some of the most beautiful in all of France, but that meant little then, as he passed the remnants of humanity littering the highway. The sound of the guns was then still distant, but they would come on soon enough. The frightened people he walked with knew that, and all of them wondered what their fates might be and when they might sleep peacefully once more—if ever.

  By noon the next day, having walked nearly all night, Bullard was halfway to Bordeaux. He decided to sit down along the side of the road under the shade of a large elm just ahead and have some sips of water, perhaps a can of fish. As he neared the big tree, he noticed another figure sitting there, a soldier, like himself. This man had a bicycle and wore a tunic indicating he was—or at least had been—in the French Foreign Legion.

  The man called out, “Hello. You there, soldat!”

  “Bonjour, mon ami. May I sit and rest with you?”

  “Of course, old comrade. Have you anything to eat perhaps?”

  Bullard came over, taking off his pack, slowly, wincing with his
injuries, and sat with the other soldier.

  “You are wounded, my friend?”

  “Yes, but I’ve had worse.”

  “I tell you what. If you can share a bite of food with me, you can have this bicycle. I will trade you. My unit has been blown to bits, and captured. I have no orders, nowhere to go.”

  Bullard broke out his supplies. He doled out some of his water and gave the man two tins of his sardines, one of which the soldier hungrily pried open and wolfed down practically in one bite, the oil dripping down his chin.

  Licking his fingers, he said, “Ah, if only we had a loaf of fresh bread and a pint of wine. Now that would be a magnificent lunch, would it not?”

  Bullard smiled and nodded, slowly biting into a sardine.

  “Where are you headed, my friend?”

  “America,” Bullard replied absentmindedly, still mentally entangled in his recent musings.

  “Ah, you are American? Bravo. God bless you. Fighting for my country.”

  The two men chatted for a while until the other soldier nodded off to sleep in the shade, his stomach at least partly full for the first time in many days.

  Bullard stood, put on his pack, tested the bicycle for its new load and stability, and off he pedaled. He started making very good time and was soon near Bordeaux. He decided to press ahead instead of stopping. In the early hours of June 22, he arrived in the coastal city of Biarritz and, he hoped, sanctuary.

  * * *

  1 Commandant Bader would be captured with the pitiful remains of his proud regiment a few days later. He would be a POW but did escape in 1943 and rejoined the Free French where he fought on, surviving the war, and attaining the rank of colonel. Amazingly, this would not be the last time Bader and Eugene Bullard would see each other.

  2 DeVaux was, indeed, taken prisoner after the Armistice was declared on June 22. As to his fate behind enemy barbed wire, no one knows. He disappears from the pages of history.

  22

  A HUNTED MAN

  In a refugee-choked Biarritz, the American Consul’s Office was situated in a nondescript building adjacent to the main post office, near the old Hippodrome. Even at four in the morning, a long line of desperate Americans was huddling outside, and, amazingly, the office was open. Slowly, the candidates for papers moved ahead. After about two hours in line, a bone-weary Eugene Bullard neared the entrance. He propped his bicycle against the wall, next to a large pile of baggage.

  A tall, haggard-looking man exited the front door, glancing at the line. He spotted Bullard right away, and motioned him forward.

  “Good morning, soldier,” the man smiled behind tired eyes. “You’re wearing a French uniform. Are you American?”

  “Hey!” an angry voice shouted from the head of the line. “We were here ahead of him!” The racial emphasis seemed obvious.

  “Yes,” the gray-haired official growled back, “but he’s in a uniform and appears wounded—and you’re not. If you can’t wait, go away!”

  He turned back to Bullard, concerned: “There are Nazi officers in town already. I saw several having dinner at my hotel last night. You better get out of that uniform quick. Do you have any other clothes?”

  “No, monsieur, I do not.”

  “My name’s McWilliams, by the way. I’m the consul here. What’s your name?”

  “Eugene Bullard. From Paris, but from America first.”

  “Let me have your passport, Eugene Bullard.” The consul extended his hand.

  “I do not have one, monsieur. A passport was not necessary when I came to France in 1912.”

  “Hmm. We may have a problem then. First, you must get out of that uniform.”

  McWilliams then turned to the crowd and asked, “Does anyone have a spare shirt and a pair of pants for this brave soldier?”

  Several of those waiting in line rummaged through their valises and soon an acceptable pair of slacks and a calico shirt appeared.

  “Come on, Bullard.” McWilliams motioned, taking him inside. The consul gave him use of a private bathroom to change, then he stepped into McWilliams’s office, which was piled with files and scattered papers.

  McWilliams sat at his cluttered desk, picked up a pen, and grabbed a notepad. “Okay, Bullard, where and when were you born?”

  “Columbus, Georgia, sir. October 9, 1895.”

  By chance, McWilliams had spent a few weeks in Columbus several years before. He began to quiz Bullard on the rivers, towns, and attractions in the Columbus area. Every answer was correct and further proof to McWilliams concerning Bullard’s veracity. But there was one more test.

  “Wait here, please,” at which time McWilliams got up and stepped out of his office. He returned in ten minutes with a stocky, middle-aged gentleman.

  “Bullard!” the man boomed. “My God, what are you doing here?”

  Bullard could not believe his eyes. It was none other than his friend and former American Legion Post 1 commander, Colonel Sparks, the “Death Dealing Dentist.”

  “Mon Dieu! Colonel Sparks! I’m trying to get a passport.”

  Behind Sparks, in walked Richard “Craney” Gartz, another old friend from Paris days, and heir to the Crane bathroom fixtures fortune. Bullard had been Gartz’s masseur during what then felt like an eon ago.

  With his having verified Bullard’s account via his own recollections, plus these two witnesses, McWilliams was able to fill out the two-page form entitling Bullard to obtain a passport. The next challenge, however, was that the passports themselves could be issued only over the signature of the consul general, who was 175 miles back up the road in Bordeaux.

  What else could he do? Thanking the men most profusely, the wounded, still in pain, and exhausted Eugene Bullard faced the prospect of bicycling to Bordeaux and back. He steeled himself for the trek.

  Before he left, Gartz suggested he leave all his other identification papers, his books, and, most importantly, all his precious medals behind. If he were intercepted or captured by the Germans, those possessions could doom him. Gartz promised to wrap them all up and post them to his friend Roger Baldwin (then head of the American Civil Liberties Union), care of his office in Union Square, New York. Should Bullard, against the odds, make it to America, he could pick everything up there. Reluctantly, Bullard agreed.

  Tortuous would be the word to describe the next few days. The best pace Bullard could make in his hungry, weakened, and pain-wracked condition was about ten miles per hour on the bicycle, with a break every hour. Two days later, after a few fitful hours of sleep in a meadow, and fighting the crowds fleeing south, he reached Bordeaux.

  He found the Traveler’s Aid Society office, where the consul general was temporarily ensconced and issuing passports. It was five in the morning. The main office was closed, but the few Traveler’s Aid staffers there who were working through the night pointed Bullard to an open space in the hallway and found a thin blanket for him. He dropped to the floor and was asleep in seconds.

  He slept for three hours “and dreamed, I guess, of the horrors that I, like thousands, had witnessed.” He would soon learn that another reason for his exhaustion was having lost over twenty pounds since he had left Paris.

  He was roused by a tap on the shoulder. Startled, and wrestling with the nightmares of the past few days, Bullard uncoiled like a giant spring. He flailed at the young lady who was trying to gently wake him. He smacked her in the neck, knocking her backward. It was not much of a blow, but when he jerked awake and saw what he had done, he collapsed again, in a heap, sobbing, begging forgiveness.

  The girl, who was shaken but not really hurt, assured Bullard that she was fine, and that she understood. She helped him to his feet and told him the consul general was ready to see him.

  Henry S. Waterman, a career Foreign Service officer, greeted Bullard personally. He turned his application from McWilliams
into an official passport. He also gave Bullard thirty dollars in American currency, as was the standard issue for stranded Americans in need, and told him to go next door and get the necessary passport photos. A weary Bullard did as he was told, and returned later in the day to have the pictures affixed to his new passport, which Waterman promptly signed.

  Though the process had gone more smoothly than he could have expected, it had still cost Bullard precious time. It would be back to Biarritz on roads that could contain German collaborators and possibly German soldiers in disguise, hunting for escaping military men just like himself. As bone tired as he was, Bullard could not afford any delay. He thanked Waterman and left.1

  When he exited the building, he saw that his next journey might have just become much more arduous: someone had stolen his bicycle. Without hesitation, Bullard swiped another unguarded bike and took off. He mused, “I did unto someone who had done unto me.”

  Two more grueling days later, he was back in Biarritz, passport in his pocket. He retrieved his other papers from Consul McWilliams’s office and spent his last night in the beautiful coastal city wandering the beaches. Did he attempt to look up Marcelle? Did he go to the home where she and he had once enjoyed many blissful days along the Bay of Biscay? If he had tried, would she have even welcomed him? Bullard makes no mention of such thoughts in his unpublished recollections. By this time, of course, he was telling the story that she had died five years prior. Had he convinced himself it was true? Did he want to simply believe it was so and move on with his life? Unless she, too, had fled somewhere to avoid the Nazis, she was probably still there.

  The French had formally surrendered the previous day, June 25.

  * * *

  The next day, Bullard found a ride in one of Dr. Sparks’s ambulances ferrying a handful of American refugees to the Spanish border. The roads were so crowded with French and other refugees that the ambulance could crawl along at only five miles an hour—but for Bullard, it surely beat bicycling, or walking, neither of which he could have done. Still, the slow pace of progress was unnerving. Bullard felt like he was being hunted, and that at any moment the ambulance would be shouted to a halt, the door flung open, and a German gun thrust in his face.