A Bridge Across the Ocean

by Susan Meissner

  “He is awake?” Henri asked as he set the lantern down on the same barrel with the flashlight.

  “Yes,” Simone answered. “He knows some French. Not much. His name is Lieutenant Robinson and he knows we are here to help.”

  “You talked to him?” Henri frowned, unhappy that Simone had said anything to the American.

  “He wanted to know where he was and who brought him here. He was agitated. I needed to assure him we were here to help him. And that’s what I told him.” She narrowed her gaze at Henri so that he would understand she had divulged nothing about who Henri was besides a simple vintner.

  Henri knelt down to get a better look at the man and spoke directly to him. “We found the remains of your plane. You were found a mile from here unconscious in an abandoned barn. We are looking for your parachute to get rid of it.”

  “I told you he only speaks a little French! He’s not going to understand all that,” Simone gently scolded.

  Collette, a sturdy brunette in her late thirties, leaned over Simone to peek at the wound. “Marie can’t fix that!” she muttered to Henri. “She’s just a midwife.”

  “She’s all we have. There’s no one else we can trust. It’s either her or you.”

  Collette stood up straight. “I’m not touching it. And what are we going to do with him if he dies?”

  Henri set the basin down on the straw and said nothing.

  “You’re going to need another lantern,” she said, a light sigh escaping her.

  “Simone’s lantern is here. You go back to the house and make sure the children have not awakened.” As Henri set the Armagnac on the dirt floor, he saw the teacup Simone had used earlier that day cradled in the straw at his bent knees. Simone felt the color drain from her face. She’d neglected to hide the cup for the night with her books, sketch pads, and lantern. If she was asleep and the Gestapo came, it would take longer to get into the barrel. She would not have time to awaken and stow away her things. No evidence that she was living in the cellar could be visible when she went to sleep. Henri picked up the cup and glared at her.

  “Do you want to get us all killed?” he growled.

  “I am so sorry, Henri!”

  “It’s no trouble to explain a teacup!” Collette said. “It’s him I’m worried about.” She pointed to the American. “There’s no hiding him! He’s the one who’s going to get us all killed.”

  Henri drew his lips into a flat line. “Go back to the house, Collette. Stay with the children. Leave this to me.”

  Collette opened her mouth to say something else but then shut it. She turned for the stairs and was gone.

  “I’m sorry about the cup,” Simone said when Collette was gone.

  Henri used a corner of the blanket to wipe out the teacup and poured some brandy into it. “Forget about it now. Hold that compress down tight while I try to get him to drink this.”

  The American moaned as Henri forced him to raise his head to drink the alcohol.

  “De l’eau s’il vous plait,” the American murmured when he’d drunk some of the brandy.

  “It’s not water you’re going to want when Marie gets here,” Henri replied. “Drink up.”

  “S’il vous plait. Eau.”

  “He just wants water,” Simone said.

  Henri poured more brandy. “He can have water later. This is what he’s getting now.”

  The American sputtered through three more swallows before he fell back onto the straw, unable to drink any more.

  Henri put the stopper in the bottle and set the cup down. “How many more are there of you?” he said to the man. “Are there more? Are the Allies going to attack here?”

  The wounded man stared up at Henri with glassy eyes.

  “He doesn’t understand what you’re asking him,” Simone said.

  Henri harrumphed. “How much English do you know?”

  “Only a little.”

  “Ask him if there are other planes. Are there more? Are we safe here?”

  Simone turned to the injured man. “More planes, monsieur? Should we . . . uh . . . run?”

  The American shook his head, held up one finger, and said one word. “Reconnaissance.”

  “Reconnaissance!” Henri echoed. “For what? Are the Allies planning to invade? What is your camera for? What were you taking pictures of?”

  But the man’s eyes fluttered and closed.

  Henri sucked in his breath. “Is . . . is he dead?”

  Simone could see the rise and fall of the man’s torso against the hand she held to his side. “He’s still breathing.”

  The cellar door opened and seconds later Sébastien, carrying another lantern, was coming toward them. A woman with strands of gray at her temples was behind him, and she carried a basket and a wooden spatula. She was amply built with a kind face.

  “He’s reconnaissance, Sébastien,” Henri said. “That’s why he had the camera. The Allies must be planning something.”

  Sébastien turned to the woman. “Please, Marie. Do what you can for him.”

  The woman got to her knees beside Simone. “Bring the light close,” she said to Sébastien.

  When the lantern hung just above Simone’s hands, Marie told her to lift the shirt.

  “My God,” Marie exclaimed when she saw the wound. “This man needs a doctor.”

  “There is no doctor. There is only you, Marie,” Sébastien said.

  “And you are sure the bullet is not inside?”

  “There’s an exit wound on his back.”

  Marie shook her head but opened her basket and took out a bottle of alcohol, strips of cloth, and a spatula.

  “You brought nothing to stitch him up?” Sébastien said, frowning.

  “I stitch a dirty wound like that, any infection will be sewn up inside him and he will die. Is that what you want?”

  Sébastien said nothing and Marie handed the spatula to Henri. “Have him bite down on this. I have nothing to numb him. He will feel everything.”

  “And cover his mouth if he screams, Henri,” Sébastien added.

  Henri nodded and placed the flat end of the spatula near the American’s mouth.

  “Teeth to wood,” Simone said to him in English. He opened his mouth and Henri slid the handle just over his gums.

  “Hold the light right here, Sébastien.” Marie turned to Simone. “And you. Who are you?”

  “Simone Devereux.”

  “Hold him down. Don’t let him thrash about. Keep his hands out of my way. Sébastien, you hold down his other arm. She can’t be reaching across.”

  Simone placed one bloody hand over the man’s knees and the other on top of his clenched right fist.

  Marie made the sign of the cross and then doused the wound with alcohol.

  Had Henri not been holding the man’s mouth closed, the scream would have echoed off the rock wall. Even so, his voice would carry to the cellar door and the world beyond if he kept it up.

  As she started to pack the wound with the strips of cloth, the American’s body jerked and he thrashed his head from side to side.

  “Hold him still!” Marie commanded.

  “Talk to him in English, Simone. Say something to calm him!” Sébastien said.

  “I don’t know enough English!”

  The American squirmed and Henri’s hand faltered. A guttural wail erupted from the American, and Henri fumbled to get a better hold on the spatula and the man’s jaw. “Simone, tell him to lie still!”

  She opened the man’s fingers so that she could hold his hand and not just cover it. It was the gesture of a friend, or a lover. He gripped her hand in kind.

  She could not think of the English words to tell him to lie still, so she said the words that she did know, over and over, tenderly but loud enough for the man to hear.

  “I hav
e a gray cat. Do you think it will rain? The bus comes at three o’clock.”

  With each second he grew quieter, until the alcohol, pain, and exhaustion bore his consciousness away.

  When she was done tending both wounds, Marie sprinkled a yellow powder over them and then bound the American’s torso in layers of cloth.

  “The turmeric will help keep the wounds clean,” Marie said as she placed her belongings back into her basket. “If it looks like they are getting infected, mash up some onions into a paste and put it on. Leave it on for an hour. Don’t touch the paste with bare hands afterward. Make sure you dispose of it so no one else will either. I’ve done all I can do for him. Pray that he lives.” She got to her feet.

  “But you’re coming back, aren’t you?” Henri asked, concern in his eyes. “You’re coming back to check on him, right?”

  “That’s not a good idea, Henri,” Sébastien answered before Marie could. “Everyone in Venelles knows that Marie is a midwife. Everyone in Venelles knows that Collette is not expecting. Marie can’t come back here, not even in the middle of the night. We can’t take the chance that someone might see her. We will have to care for the American ourselves and hope that he survives. Simone can help. She is already down here anyway. You can care for the American, can’t you, Simone?”

  Her gaze had been on the wounded man’s face, peaceful and slack under the numbing bliss of unconsciousness. But she raised her head and looked at Sébastien.

  “His name is Everett,” she said.

  Eleven

  Dawn was approaching when Simone finally lay down to sleep on a new spread of straw, just a few feet away from the American. Or at least she imagined it was nearing dawn. Every hour in the cellar was the same. When Henri, Marie, and Sébastien left the cellar after tending the wounded man’s injury, she’d thought she’d seen a peep of milky morning light spill onto the stairs, gently reminding her that in the world above a new day still arrived with every sunrise.

  Simone was allowed to have several hours of lantern light a day—kerosene, like everything else, was in short supply—and she usually used her lantern time for reading in the evening when the tedium of the day was the most unbearable. Henri had reluctantly agreed to leave the cellar door cracked each day for a few hours so that a ribbon of sunlight could be enjoyed on the second step. It was a shaft of light just wide enough to bathe Simone’s face in subtle radiance every day from noon to two. Collette had been the one to insist Simone have access to that bit of sunlight every day while they waited on instructions for getting her safely to Spain. Collette was clearly not happy about Simone hiding in the secret cellar where Henri had hidden his best wines from the Germans, but she was not without compassion. Somehow she knew that Simone had lost more than just her father and brother to a Gestapo firing squad.

  The day that her courier had deposited her at Henri and Collette’s vineyard, the last day of April, was the last time she’d seen the sun in its entirety. She’d arrived dressed as a Catholic novitiate, having crossed the checkpoint alone into what had been the Free Zone in southern France. She’d had in her hand a fake Ausweis: a travel pass that identified her as Sister Marie-Thérèse. Simone had met the courier, whom she knew only as J, at a patisserie in Bellerive-sur-Allier, just outside Vichy. The four-hundred-kilometer trek to Venelles had taken them ten days: some of it on foot, some in a vehicle disguised as a medical relief van from Lyon, and all on poorly maintained back roads. They’d ditched the vehicle in Avignon and walked the rest of the way, at night, over the course of three days, arriving at the Maison Mandarine Winery just before twilight. She’d promptly been escorted down into the secret cellar located several yards behind the winery’s main barrel room, but not before she had seen Henri and Collette’s three children playing with a ball in front of a white stucco house up a slightly elevated path. A trio of tangerine trees lined the stone pathway. Beyond the house and the children were rows of grapevines wired to wooden posts.

  Until she had come, Henri had only allowed Résistance fighters and messengers from Marseille and Toulon to use the cellar for meetings and occasional overnight stays. No one had ever stayed more than a couple nights.

  “How long?” Henri had asked J at the top of the cellar stairs. J had not followed them down.

  “I don’t know that. I was only tasked with getting her here safely.” J had peeked down the stairs to look at Simone standing at the bottom of them. “Farewell, mademoiselle.” He’d tipped his hat to her.

  Simone had barely realized J was leaving that very moment when he’d turned from the opening and was gone from view.

  “Wait!” Simone stumbled up the stairs, tripping twice.

  But when she got to the top, Henri kept her from chasing after J, who had taken off in a gentle run and was now many yards away.

  J, who had reminded her of Étienne in so many ways, had been with her every tense moment for the last ten days of her escape. He’d stolen food and gas for them, lied for them, passed the monotony of the days by telling her all about his life as the son of a Marseille fisherman, and had put his arm around her as they shivered in the dark in old barns and abandoned buildings. He had risked his life to get her to Henri’s winery, and now he was gone. And she had not hugged him good-bye or even thanked him.

  Her life had morphed into an existence defined always by losses.

  “Wait . . .” Simone whimpered as the tears began to fall.

  Henri’s tight hold on her loosened somewhat. “It’s better for him that he leaves right away.”

  “But I didn’t even say thank you!” she murmured.

  “He knows you are grateful. You need to get into the cellar, Miss Devereux. I can’t have my children seeing you.”

  Simone had turned and headed back down the stairs, the image of those three innocent children propelling her each step. When she got to the bottom, she stepped past the wall of barrels that hid the rest of the room from the vantage point of the stairs. Stacked barrels lined all three sides, their tops scrawled with batch numbers and dates in charcoal pencil. Two stood on their ends by a pile of straw where a folded blanket rested.

  “My wife, Collette, wanted you to have a proper mattress, but I’m afraid that is not possible, mademoiselle. If the Germans suspect I am hiding someone here and come storming down those stairs, you will not have time to hide a mattress.”

  “Yes,” Simone replied numbly.

  “One of those barrels is for your lantern and any dishes or books or clothes that have been brought down to you. At night when you sleep, you must put it all away. Only you and the blanket can be out. If you hear the cellar door open and it’s not me or Collette, you must take the blanket and climb into the other barrel. Make sure you hold on to the lid when you crawl in. Practice it so that you know you can do it.”

  “How will I know it is you or Collette?” Simone’s voice sounded faraway in her ears, like it was someone else asking for these details.

  “We will knock three times. I am certain if it is the Germans, you will know.”

  She nodded silently.

  “I’ll go get a lantern for you and I’ll tell Collette you are here. She’ll bring you some food, some different clothes, and a pot for your . . . your—”

  “I know what the pot will be for, Monsieur Pierron.”

  He’d smiled weakly. “Please just call me Henri.”

  “And I am Simone.”

  “Do you know how long you will be here before the next courier comes to take you to Spain? I was told you would only be here a few days.”

  Henri was nervous about her being there; Simone had sensed his apprehension.

  “I don’t know,” she’d answered. “I was told I would not be given that information so that I could not be persuaded to provide it. I did not even know your name until today, monsieur.”

  “Henri.”

  “Henri.”

  Wh
en she and J had arrived a few minutes earlier, Simone had thought Henri Pierron was like every other Résistance fighter she’d met since she started running, including the gruff man outside the shoe-repair shop who’d told her to flee. But the moment Henri asked how long she’d be staying, he looked like merely an ordinary husband and father, worried about the safety of those he loved. He was someone’s papa. Someone’s beloved. A sliver of sorrow had slid through her as she stood there looking at him in the semidarkness.

  “Do you want to know why the SS is looking for me?” she’d asked him.

  “You are Thierry Devereux’s daughter.”

  “I killed a Gestapo officer.”

  Henri had said nothing for a moment. “It’s no concern of mine why you’re here. I’d kill them all if I could,” he finally said.

  “He raped me and I killed him,” Simone said, and it was as if someone else were speaking for her.

  Henri Pierron had looked away. When he’d turned back, he had the same look that the woman at 23 Rue de Calais had. Revulsion, pity, and the clear desire to turn back the hands of time covered his face like a mask.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, as though to apologize for just being a man.

  “Do you want me to leave?” she asked. She suddenly was very tired of running.

  Henri inhaled a deep breath, strengthening his resolve to stay the course, it seemed. “You leave now and they will find you. And all who have helped you will have risked their lives for nothing.”

  Tears of exhaustion and sorrow had started to trickle down her face. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  Henri reached out a hand, work worn and rough, and laid it on her shoulder.

  “Don’t give up, Simone. We can’t give up. Don’t let them have everything.”

  A sob escaped her and she stifled a second one. “They already have taken everything from me,” she said, the words thick in her throat.

  “No,” Henri had replied quickly. “No, they haven’t. Do you hear me? They haven’t.”

  He had lingered until she nodded in agreement. Then he ascended the cellar stairs to get his wife, leaving her in total darkness.