The Sisters of St. Croix

by Diney Costeloe

  People were screaming and crying as the agonies of the wounded rose in their throats. David could hear Hannah howling, and whimpering himself, he crawled to where he could see his mother sheltering in the hedge. Only his mother made no move to calm or quiet the bellowing baby, she lay on her side, her body on top of Hannah, and beside her lay Catherine, one arm flung out as if she were reaching for something.

  “Maman, Maman,” he wailed, pulling at his mother’s arm. She rolled over and looked up at him, but her eyes didn’t look right. They were staring at him, but they weren’t smiling at him or even crying with shock or pain. The crying was coming from Hannah, still crushed under her mother’s body, the body that had saved her life at the cost of its own. Still not understanding what had happened, David continued to shake his mother to make her look at him properly and not in that staring way. But she didn’t move and her eyes still gazed up into his face.

  “Maman, you must move, you’re squashing Hannah,” he told her. “You’re making her cry!” When his mother still didn’t move, he pulled at her and managed to move her shoulders so that she tipped to one side and he was able to pull Hannah from the sling on her mother’s hip and drag her clear. Hannah continued to scream, her little face scarlet and contorted with fury, her cheeks tear-stained and filthy from the ditch.

  David tried to shush her, but it was useless, so he laid her carefully on the ground and bent down to look at Catherine. She lay half in the ditch, half in the hedge, with blood running down her face. She was moaning softly, but her eyes were shut and she didn’t look at him. He tried shaking his mother again but it was no good, she wouldn’t get up. Her head was turned away now and she wasn’t looking at him anymore. That was when David saw the blood coming from a hole in her neck. He stared at it for a moment as he began to take in what it meant. It meant that Maman wasn’t going to get up again… ever. It meant that she had been hit by the bullets from the planes and that she was dead. David let out a wail and gathering up the still screaming baby in his arms he sat on the ground, rocking backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

  Gradually the carnage left by the Heinkels resolved itself into those who, miraculously, were not hurt, those who were wounded and those who were dead. The unhurt and the wounded struggled to their feet again, wanting to move on, away from this place of death. Those with dead companions knelt beside them and wept, before dragging them clear of the road to be left behind. All the time swivelling their eyes skywards, watching for the aircraft, straining their ears for the throb of the engines that would herald their return. But the sky was empty, the air was quiet except for the cries of the wounded and the wails of the children. The hunters, having wreaked their havoc on this little company of refugees, were searching prey elsewhere.

  Slowly, those who could began to walk again, on towards the village that lay so close around the corner. Those too badly injured to walk were heaved onto handcarts, carried or supported by their friends… or simply left behind.

  Some tried to gather up their scattered possessions, taking them into their arms, or if their handcarts or barrows had survived the onslaught, piling their and other peoples’ goods onto those and pushing them away. One old man edged towards the upturned pram beside the three children, but David screamed at him.

  “Go away! That’s our pram! Go away! Go away!” Dumping the still screaming Hannah unceremoniously on the ground beside him, David picked up a stone and hurled it at the man. It hit him in the midriff and the man hesitated, squinting at the small boy who was already reaching for another stone. David continued to yell at him and hurl stones until the old man turned away and went in search of easier pickings.

  David flopped down panting with fright and having looked once more at his mother, realised that it was up to him now. Papa had said when he went away to the war that David must look after Maman for him, that he must be the man of the house and help Maman with the girls.

  “They’re only little girls, David,” said Papa. “You can help Maman by looking after them when she’s busy.”

  David thought of Papa now and the tears welled up in his eyes. He didn’t know where Papa was, and now Maman was dead… he knew that… so he, David, had to do something.

  He crawled over to where Catherine still lay unmoving. She didn’t seem to be bleeding now, but she was still moaning in a very frightening way. He knew he had to get help and that they had to get away from here before the planes came back to find them again. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and went to the overturned pram. Most of the things inside had been flung out and he noticed that there were holes in the bottom of it, but with a struggle he was able to right it again. He looked round and found some of their clothes strewn across the road. Under a jersey he found the photo of his father and mother getting married. Maman had brought it with her and wrapped it up in a shirt. Carefully he put it with the other things back in the pram and then made a sort of nest in the clothes for Hannah. She had stopped bawling now and was making a sort of whimpering noise, her fist stuck in her mouth. Carefully he picked her up and lifted her into the pram. Then he covered her with a towel and turned his attention to Catherine. He was just wondering how on earth he was going to move her, when a voice spoke behind him.

  “Is she dead?”

  David spun round and grabbed the handle of the pram. A woman was standing at the edge of the road looking down at him. David thought she looked a bit familiar, but he didn’t know who she was. He held tight to the handle of the pram so that she couldn’t take it.

  “Is she dead?” the woman asked again, nodding at Catherine.

  “No.” David’s voice came out in a husky whisper, not sounding like him at all. “Maman, she doesn’t move and her eyes are staring at me. I think she’s dead, but Catherine isn’t. She’s got blood coming out, but she’s making a funny noise, so she isn’t dead.”

  “What will you do?” asked the woman. “Do you want to come with me? I am going on now.”

  “No. I have to bring Catherine. She’s hurt. She’s bleeding. I have to find a doctor.”

  The woman gave a sharp laugh that didn’t sound like a real laugh at all, and David took a step back.

  “Don’t think there’s much chance of that,” the woman said, “but if you want me to help you get your sister to the village over there, I’ll do that.”

  When David didn’t answer she said, “Well, do you? We can’t just stand here and wait for those buggers to come back.”

  David nodded dumbly. He didn’t know what to do, but perhaps there was someone in the village that might help if he could only get there.

  “Right, then,” the woman said, and bending down she scooped Catherine up into her arms and laid her on top of the pram.

  Hannah gave a squawk and the woman said, “Lift the baby out. You can carry her. I’ll push the pram with the little girl on top.”

  “What about Maman?” David looked anxiously down at his mother still lying on her side with her face in the hedge.

  “You’ll have to leave her,” the woman replied brusquely, “like everyone else.” Then she added, “Did she have any money on her? You ought to look. You’ll need money whatever happens to you.”

  David knew that his mother had her money in a little leather bag tied round her waist under her skirt. Should he take it? Suppose this strange woman took the money away from him. He didn’t want to touch his mother again. He didn’t want to rummage through her clothes to find the moneybag, but they did need the money.

  Losing patience, the woman said, “Here, hold onto the pram. I’ll look. Do you know where she hid it?”

  David told her and within a moment she was handing him the little leather pouch. “Put it somewhere safe,” she instructed. “Not everyone’s as honest as I am.”

  David hoisted Hannah up onto his hip as he had seen his mother do and managed to stuff the bag into his pocket. Then returning the baby to his arms, he looked at the woman again. This time he remembered where he’d se
en her.

  “You gave Hannah some milk,” he said. “Last night.”

  She didn’t answer that, but simply said, “Come on, let’s get away from here.”

  David turned to look at his mother once more and then with a shuddering sob turned to follow the woman who was already wheeling the pram, with Catherine draped across it, along the road towards the next village.

  It was still a mile or so, but they made steady progress and half an hour later they trailed into the village square. It was already seething with refugees trying to find shelter for their wounded, food and drink for themselves. The woman kept walking, pushing the pram with the injured child in it, and David was now afraid of losing his new friend. Hannah had at last fallen asleep in his arms, and she lay heavy against his shoulder, but although his arms ached he clutched her to him with one arm and held fast to the woman’s skirt with his other hand, so that they should not become separated.

  The woman pushed her way through the crowd and headed for a small café that opened off the square. An old lady was sitting in the window looking out at what was happening. The café door was closed, and when she pushed it, as many others had before her, the woman found that it was locked. Undeterred she banged on the window.

  “Let us in,” she bellowed. “I’ve an injured child here.”

  The old lady inside continued to stare, but made no effort to open the door. A young girl came round the side of the café and said, “You can’t come in. We’ve no spare food here.”

  “It’s a doctor we need,” snapped the woman. “Which is the doctor’s house?”

  “He’s not there, he’s at the hospital.”

  “Hospital! Where’s that, then?”

  “Up at the convent,” the girl pointed vaguely out of the square.

  “Come on,” the woman said, and plucking Hannah from David’s aching arms, tucked her under her own. She rested her other hand on the handle of the pram. “You’ll have to help me push.”

  Together they skirted the square and headed in the direction of the tall, grey stone building that dominated the village.

  Sitting in her small office, the convent accounts spread out on the desk in front of her, Mother Marie-Pierre had been listening to the sound of gunfire. It had seemed a long way off at first, but now it sounded much closer, and planes had twice roared low over the convent before spiralling away into the sky.

  It’s happening again, she thought bitterly. The Germans are coming, and this time there’s no line of trenches to hold them back.

  She was right. Even in the comparative seclusion of the convent, news and rumour, often intertwined and indistinguishable, were circulating. News came in from the village with the lay workers. A steady procession of refugees straggled through St Croix, each with his tale to tell. The Germans were coming. The Allies were running. The advance had been stopped. The English were swinging south to save Paris. The English were scuttling back across the Channel to save themselves, leaving France to the mercy of her enemies. Perfidious Albion!

  To try and curtail speculation, Mother Marie-Pierre allowed the nuns who wanted to, to listen to one broadcast on the radio each day, and what they heard made desperate listening.

  The German Panzer divisions were racing across the country, sometimes as much as thirty or forty miles a day, forcing the allied armies to retreat, squeezing them back to the Pas de Calais. Many of the retreating soldiers, both French and English, had been overtaken, blasted by the tanks, machine-gunned from the air, captured or left wounded or dead at the side of the road. Bridges were blown up, roads destroyed as the Allies retreated, and still the Germans came on, shells flying, guns blazing, unstoppable.

  All this they had heard, piecing together the snippets they gleaned, blending them with the official news broadcasts.

  It sounds very close today, Mother Marie-Pierre thought. Too close. I must send someone to the village to find out what has happened.

  She got to her feet and went in search of Sister Henriette. Sister Henriette was one of the sisters who went visiting regularly in the village, never afraid to go into a house where there was sickness, always with a basket of food on her arm. She was well known and well liked and the people would talk to her.

  “See if you can find out what’s happening,” Mother Marie-Pierre said. “That gunfire sounded very close. It may be that the Germans have arrived in the village. If they have there may be those who need our help. Come straight back once you know what’s going on, and we can decide what we need to do. In the meantime I will call all the sisters together so we can discuss it when you get back.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Sister Henriette flung her cloak over her habit and let herself out of the kitchen door. She took the footpath to the village, cutting down through a copse and out onto the lane, which wound down towards the square. As she reached the lane she saw a strange little group of people coming towards her, a dishevelled woman pushing a pram with a child stretched across it, a small boy helping her to push, and tucked wriggling under the woman’s arm, a wailing baby.

  Sister Henriette hurried forward. “Good gracious!” she cried. “What has happened? What’s the matter with the little girl? Here, let me take the baby.”

  The woman relinquished the baby readily into the nun’s arms, and detached the boy’s fingers from her skirt. “There was a raid on the road. Air attack. These children lost their mother. I don’t know how bad the little girl is, but I’ll leave them with you now.” She let go of the pram and started to turn away.

  “Wait! You can’t…” began Sister Henriette.

  “Look, Sister, or whatever you’re called. They’re nothing to do with me, OK? The mother’s lying dead in a ditch along with several others. I just helped them get to you. Now they’re your responsibility. They’ll be safer with you than they’d ever be with me. I’m on the road… and I’m a Jew. They’re Jews too, for that matter, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them… not if you keep the boy’s trousers on, that is.” She stared into Sister Henriette’s astonished face. “I’m telling you, if the Germans find them with me they’ll be far worse off. And my chances are better if I travel alone.”

  “But wait, maybe we can help you…” cried Sister Henriette.

  “No one will be able to help me if I’m caught by the Germans,” the woman said flatly. “Jews disappear, and I don’t intend to be one of them.”

  “At least just come into the convent for a while and rest,” urged Sister Henriette.

  “If I rest before I’m safe, I’m dead,” the woman replied. “If you want to help people, there are plenty that need it in the village square down there.” She waved her hand in the direction of the village. “Go down and help them. I’m getting away from here,” and turning on her heel she strode on along the lane.

  David, staring after her, saw the last link with his mother disappearing and his face crumpled, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Sister Henriette, still holding Hannah, reached out her other hand to him. “Don’t cry, little one. You’re safe now. Let’s go and find you something to eat. I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you? And we can get a nurse to look at your sister. She is your sister, isn’t she? Come along now, I need you to help push the pram like you were before.”

  She reached for the handle of the pram and started to push it along the lane to the convent. David tugged at her habit, and struggling manfully against his tears said fiercely, “Give me Hannah.”

  The nun handed him the baby and, giving her full attention to pushing the pram, led them back up the lane to the convent.

  5

  Mother Marie-Pierre had summoned the entire community to the recreation room where they squeezed in and listened with growing horror to the news that Sister Henriette brought with her.

  When she had arrived back at the convent with three small children and a pram, Mother Marie-Pierre had hurried out to meet them.

  “These children have been bombed by the Germans,” Sister Henriette told her briefly. “I wa
s told their mother is dead at the roadside, and the little girl,” she indicated Catherine still prostrate on the pram, “has been wounded, though I don’t know how badly.” Hannah was by now making her presence known to Mother Marie-Pierre with ear-splitting wails. Sister Henriette took her from David once more and putting her up over her shoulder, patted her soothingly on the back to quieten her.

  Mother Marie-Pierre looked at the small boy with the dirty, tear-streaked face, and crouching down so that their eyes met easily she said softly, “What is your name, mon brave?”

  David stared at her for several moments, his eyes huge and dark in his pale face taking in another strange lady wearing peculiar clothes. At last, as if he’d come to some sort of decision, he whispered, “David.”

  “Well, David, I think you are a very brave boy to look after your sisters. Would you like something to eat, while I get the doctor to look at your sister?”

  David nodded and when Mother Marie-Pierre reached for the handle of the pram, he grabbed it from her shouting fiercely, “No! You can’t have Catherine!”

  Mother Marie-Pierre stepped back, lowering her hand. “It’s all right, David. You can push the pram, but we do need to get poor Catherine to the doctor, you know. And the little one, she’d like some milk, I’d expect. What’s her name?”

  David, still grasping the handle of the pram possessively, murmured, “Hannah.”

  “Well let’s go inside and find a doctor for Catherine, some milk for Hannah and perhaps some bread and cheese for you?” She ended on an interrogative note and David nodded again.

  “Come along then.” Mother Marie-Pierre led the way to the front door where Sister Celestine was waiting, peering anxiously round the doorpost. Mother Marie-Pierre despatched her to the infirmary to fetch the doctor, telling her, on her way, to ask Sister Danielle to come immediately.

  Sister Danielle arrived almost at once and Sister Henriette handed Hannah into her care with some relief. Hannah was very hungry and was making her displeasure at the fact very clear.