In the Moon

by Alan Holmes

  Madame Tourneau followed our family’s example and installed central heating. She also bought new bicycles for all their family, herself and Monsieur Tourneau included, even though the two of them had never ridden bikes.

  As in the guerre aux boulettes, we were making numerous preparations before the war really got under way. One of these days, someone would blow the whistle and the real war would start. In the case of the guerre aux boulettes, the preparations had been full of excited anticipation, but these preparations filled me with anxiety, dread, and fear.

  Alain, cold day in Ville-d’Avray garden, note 8-ft wall in background, 1939

  Alain and Miquet, Condette, 1939

  CHAPTER 12

  A Bomb, a Trap, Two Sea Mines and a Sunset

  A week or so after the declaration of war, a siren blew in mid-morning. It blew intermittently in twenty-second blasts, each separated from the next by a few seconds’ silence. Mother declared that this was just a test of the air raid alarm system, but the words had barely left her when Raimond came bursting into the drawing room to tell us that this was no practice alarm. “A practice alarm would take the form of a series of steady, two-minute blasts of the siren, Madame,” he explained. “A real alarm is a series of twenty-second blasts such as we were experiencing.” Raimond read the newspaper daily from cover to cover, and he always knew all there was to know about affairs of current import. Father was in Paris at the time, and Raimond had, it seemed, assumed the role of man-of-the-house.

  “Mon Dieu, Raimond! Qu’est ce qui nous attend?” (“Good Lord, Raimond! What are we to expect?”) exclaimed Mother, in a tone half joking, half serious. She knew that Raimond wouldn’t joke about such a matter, but she found it hard to believe that the Germans had chosen the sleepy hamlet of Condette to launch the first air offensive of the war. After a pause, during which she seemed to gather herself, Mother asked limply, “What should we do, Raimond?”

  Raimond, as usual, had a ready answer: “We must go to the high dunes. It’s highly unlikely they will bomb us. But there might be a gas attack. The Germans know the populace has no gas masks.”

  Raimond had said the dreaded words, and there was silence as we all pondered the gravity of what he had said. There had been speculation as to what the Germans might do now that war had been declared. The treachery of the German surprise attack on Poland suggested to some that, since they could hardly succeed with a sudden push across the Maginot Line, they might try a surprise attack by using gas on the populace early in the war.

  Raimond continued: “Unlikely as it might be, Madame, we’d be foolish not to take the simple steps that would save us from a gas attack. And to achieve that goal, we must go to higher ground. Poison gas is heavier than air and lies in the low spots. The high dunes are the only area with any altitude in Condette, but they are high enough to make a difference. Don’t worry though—by the time we reach the dunes, the all clear will probably sound, and we will have had une sortie agréable. I propose to Madame that we leave immediately.”

  Mother pondered this proposal for a few seconds and agreed that it was the wisest course of action. There was one problem though. The tiny Simca could only take two adults and, counting Françoise, there were three. “I will ride Madame’s new bike, so Françoise can ride in the car with Madame and the children,” Raimond volunteered. The high dunes were only a mile away.

  Just then, the phone rang. It was Madame Tourneau who had heard from her eldest son, Jacques, that this was a real alarm. He, too, read the paper daily. Madame Tourneau wanted to know if we were planning to do anything about a possible air raid. Mother told her of Raimond’s plan, and Madame Tourneau replied that she would join us, adding that she and her three boys would leave immediately for the dunes in her car.

  It was a cold, cloudy day, so Brenda and I quickly fetched our sweaters and raincoats and had just sandwiched ourselves behind the front seats of the Simca when a new crisis arose. Françoise had just started a roast beef cooking in the oven and was protesting loudly, “Je n’abandonne pas mon rosbif! Ah non, pas ça! Jamais!” (“I’m not abandoning my roast beef! Oh no, not that! Never!”) She continued her jeremiad, “How dare those Germans attack in the middle of my lunch preparation? What barbarians! Don’t they eat, those Germans? Is nothing sacred to them?”

  No amount of persuasion could induce her to leave her roast beef. Raimond knew the futility of continuing to argue with Françoise and climbed into the front seat of the Simca in her stead. Jock, who was urged to hop aboard the Simca and sit on the floor between Raimond’s knees, could already smell the beef roasting and chose to stay behind to enjoy this important smell. As we drove off, Françoise, who stood at the edge of the driveway with her hands propped on her broad hips, called out that the roast beef would be ready for us when we returned.

  “J’espère bien qu’elle a raison!” (“I certainly hope she’s right!”) exclaimed Raimond as we drove off. I pondered the two possible interpretations of his hope, and wondered which of the two Raimond had in mind: first, that there would be no bad outcome to the alarm or, second, that the all clear would come before the roast would be seriously overcooked. I kept my thoughts to myself, worried that I might sound flippant and as though I failed to grasp the gravity of our situation.

  On the north side of Condette lay a ridge of high sand dunes topped by a forest of pine trees. It might be more accurate to say that a pine forest ended at the edge of a sandy bluff. These were the high dunes of which Raimond had spoken.

  When we reached the base of the bluff, we found the Tourneaus already there. Brenda, the three boys, and I removed our shoes and climbed the steep, sandy face of the high bluff where I proposed that we play the game of rahzabuntchas.

  A rahzabuntcha is a quaint pastime indulged in by the Belgians when they have access to high sand dunes. Two people form a chariot team and race against another team (if there is one) by having one person on the team pretend to be the horse and the other to be the chariot. The one who is the chariot is pulled by his feet and slides down the sand dune on his (or her) posterior. If there is just one team, the participants take turns being the chariot, but of course, no contest is possible. The steeper the sand dune the better, and the faster the race. It was tremendous fun and a wonderful way to expend youthful energy as we made the climb back up the sand dune before making the next exhilarating descent.

  Raimond, for his part, took off his shoes and neatly rolled his trouser cuffs up to his knees before climbing the huge dune. After a long, slow climb, he stood at the crest of the bluff, watching us play and looking as though he wanted to join us in the fun. Before long, he called out to us saying that a low-flying plane seemed to be heading in our direction. From the top of the bluff, he had a commanding view of the flat plain on which Condette nestles. Then he announced a few seconds later that it might be a German plane.

  The five of us stopped our game, stared briefly at the still distant plane and scrambled up the dune as fast as we could for a better view. When Raimond warned us that the plane might strafe us and that we’d better take cover, we ran into the pine forest at the top of the bluff and hid behind some of the larger trees. As the twin-engined plane passed low and slightly to one side of us, we could make out the black and white cross of the German insignia on its wings and fuselage. It was flying in the direction of Hardelot.

  The two mothers, who had been sitting near the top of the bluff talking together and pretty much ignoring our playing, had also run for cover into the forest upon hearing Raimond’s warning. Once the plane had passed, they returned to the comfortable armchairs they had scooped out for themselves high on the sloping face of the sand dune. There, the two of them resumed their conversation as if there had beeen no interruption. By now, the sun had come out, and it had turned into a pleasant day.

  Raimond returned to his vantage point and once more lit a cigarette. As the teams were preparing for anoth
er race down the dune, Raimond unexpectedly announced, “We may have to come here at night, or it may be raining the next time the siren sounds. We should build a shelter out of branches, something we could cover with a tarp, which we would bring with us every time we have to come here.”

  The rahzabuntchas had exhausted me, so I was glad that Raimond had found a new, less strenuous way to pass the time, and I was excited at the thought of building a little house. The five of us marched into the pine forest where we foraged for large fallen branches. We had rounded up several suitable main spars for the shelter when the all clear sounded. By now, it was lunchtime so we went home, leaving behind a pile of branches for our next visit.

  In the car on the way home Raimond declared, “Une bonne sortie, comme je l’avais prévue.” (“a nice outing, just as I had predicted.”) We reached home just in time for Françoise’s delicious rosbif bien seignant (rare roast beef).

  It was still September, and many of Hardelot’s families had made the same decision as Father. They were staying on at their summer residences until it became clear how this war would develop.

  Monsieur Cridoux, the Penguin Beach Club director, saw an opportunity to extend his summer income, and announced that he would continue the morning gymnastics classes and, whenever the tide was favorable, the afternoon sand castle contests. He even invited members of the Seagull Beach Club, his arch nemesis and competitor, to join the Penguin Club at a specially discounted price after it became clear that the other beach club was closing. However, on most mornings, the weather was cloudy at the beach, and a distinct chill prevailed so that few Penguins and Seagulls showed up for gymnastics.

  An afternoon sand castle contest had been scheduled on the day the lone German plane flew over Condette. Jacques, Pierre, and I set off right after lunch for Hardelot on our bikes, with our sand spades tied securely to the crossbars of our steeds. Brenda and Miquet didn’t join us because they felt the long ride to Hardelot and back was too much for them after a morning of rahzabuntchas.

  Jacques Tourneau, a bookish boy who was already wise to the literati fashions of Paris, dubbed us “Le Groupe de Condette” and discussed the need for a sand castle strategy as we cycled along. He proposed that we band together and build one huge sand castle that represented the medieval fortifications of Carcassonne in the south of France, probably the largest fortified town in the country. Raimond and Françoise’s son, André, lived with his grandmother not far from Carcassonne, and Raimond had shown me postcards of the fortified walls and numerous towers with their ornate crenellations.

  As we continued cycling, we agreed that we liked the idea of jointly building a large sand castle. I then proposed we should call ourselves “Le Groupe de Carcassonne” since Carcassonne was more illustrious than tiny Condette and the name itself had more of a ring to it than “Condette.” I liked a name with a ring to it, I told the boys.

  “That’s not the point,” insisted Jacques. “The name of a groupe should be obscure-sounding and of mysterious origin if it is to catch the attention and admiration of great minds, such as those of the sand castle contest judges.”

  Since I had never heard of the Paris literati, let alone their antics, Jacques’ assertion made little sense to me. However, for the sake of this civilized argument, I persisted: “The name Carcassonne is surely more obscure to people who regularly pass through Condette to get to the rest of the world.” Pierre was on Jacques’ side even though, like me, he had no idea what we were arguing about. By the time we reached Hardelot, we had enjoyed our lengthy argument and agreed we would sign our masterpiece “Le Groupe de Condette.”

  When we arrived at the beach, we found that about fifty of the young contestants and other passers-by had gathered in a tight group in the middle of the dry sand area above the high tide line. Since a decent sand castle can’t be built in dry sand, a gathering at this location puzzled me. We immediately headed towards the cluster, and Jacques and I pushed our way towards the middle of it, where we found some sort of discussion in progress.

  There was an open area about twenty feet across at the center of the circle, and in the middle of it was a metal cylinder about six inches in diameter. One end of it was buried in the sand, and the other end, sticking up two feet above the surface, had four tail fins. The thing was painted sky blue and had some foreign words and various numbers stenciled on it.

  Jacques immediately recognized what it was and exclaimed loudly, “Fichons le camp! Vite! C’est une bombe et elle pourrait sauter n’importe quand!” (“Let’s get the hell out of here! It’s a bomb, and could blow up at any time!”)

  I’m sure some in the crowd must have known it was a bomb. What was surprising was that no one else had come to the conclusion that, although unexploded, it could still go off unpredictably. Jacques’ words acted like an explosive in their own right. I’ve never seen fifty people run so fast.

  The scattered mob regrouped about a hundred yards from the bomb, and a woman announced that she was going home to call the police. In the meantime, several curious children headed back in the direction of the bomb, and various adults had to chase after them and drag them back under noisy protest.

  Monsieur Cridoux had been in the original cluster of people and was so rattled by the discovery that a bomb had fallen on what he viewed as his beach that he announced that he was canceling this afternoon’s sand castle contest. Our Groupe de Condette let out a collective “Zut alors!” and I complained loudly that we had come all the way from Condette for the contest and that I couldn’t see why it couldn’t be held some safe distance away from the bomb. But Cridoux was adamant in his refusal, claiming that there might be other bombs buried deeper in the sand than this one. After a thoughtful pause, he announced that because of the danger of bombs hidden in the sand anywhere on the beach, he was closing the Penguin Beach Club for the duration of the war.

  As Cridoux continued his speech to justify his momentous decision, Jacques commented loudly, “He realizes that he suddenly has a convenient and quasi-legitimate reason to close down the Penguin Beach Club and leave with all the dues he has just collected for the fall session.” Several adults near us laughed, but Cridoux acted as though he hadn’t heard the comment and continued haranguing the crowd.

  Jacques, Pierre, and I walked away and started to debate the subject of bombs hidden in the sand. We soon concluded that we had seen how far one bomb could bury itself in the sand and could see no reason why other bombs would go much deeper. Besides, most bombs were supposed to blow up when they hit the ground, and this one had to be a fluke and a dud. We therefore concluded that there were no hidden bombs in the sand and that Monsieur Cridoux was un peu dérangé or perhaps too strongly motivated to end all formal beach activities for the season. Undaunted, the three of us were anxious to start work on our version of Carcasonne.

  Quite a few members of the original crowd were still milling about, muttering grumpily and wondering what to do now that their original plans had been shattered. I announced as loudly as I could that we were about to build the sand fort to end all sand forts, the fortress of Carcassonne—and that everyone on the beach was invited to join us in this monumental enterprise. All within earshot cheered and agreed to join in our effort.

  Jacques whispered to me under his breath that he had not the slightest idea of what Carcassonne really looked like. He was worried that, being the oldest among us, he would be expected to lead this endeavor. He would be doing so in a state of total ignorance, something he felt he could not in all conscience do. “Regardes donc ce à quoi tu m’as engagé!” (“Now look what you have committed me to!”) he protested pathetically.

  “T’en fais pas! Ils ne s’y connaissent pas plus que toi!” (“Don’t worry! They don’t know any more about it than you do!”) I said, trying to reassure him. Then I added, “Tu peux leur faire faire n’importe quoi. Ils n’y verront que du feu.” (“You can have them do anything. It�
�s all smoke and mirrors.”) and advised Jacques to look as if he knew what he were doing and to sally forth. But he still didn’t know what he should or might do.

  So I turned to the crowd of some thirty kids and told them to follow me. When we reached a spot on the wet sand at least two hundred yards from the bomb, I started to drag my spade behind me so that it left a mark on the packed, wet sand as I walked along. My course wiggled in and out as I traced a badly distorted oval about ten yards across at its widest point. Next, I dug a sample pile about a foot high along a short stretch of the line I had traced, and told my cohorts to start building a sand wall of this height around the entire oval. I underestimated their enthusiasm and abilities—in less than an hour, we had encircled the outlined area with a running sand mound almost twice the requested height.

  We had just started building some crenelated towers along this outer wall when our labors were interrupted by an extremely loud explosion and the sight of a brilliant geyser of fire about twenty feet tall. We abandoned our digging and ran towards a place where a group of people stood about a hundred yards from what now looked like a volcano spouting fire, the intensity of which was already on the wane.

  Two soldiers looking very pleased with themselves were standing in front of the crowd as the Carcassonne team arrived. One of the onlookers called out to one of the boys who had been digging with us, “Hey Paul! You should have been here! Those two soldiers just blew up a German incendiary bomb with a stick of dynamite. They lit the fuse on the dynamite and casually walked away. About two minutes later it exploded, and the fireworks started—what great fun!”

  Paul turned to me and said, “You and your Carcassonne! I missed nearly all of it!” I felt very sheepish but said nothing.