The Long Flight Home

by Alan Hlad

  She had a quota to fill. The survival of Britain rested on the wings of these birds, she believed. But she struggled to focus, the image of her grandfather, facedown in a field, continued to flash in her brain. To distract herself, she scraped droppings with a shovel, despite the floor being fairly clean. She shoveled until the plywood floor splintered and blisters began to bubble on her fingers. Then she sat in the corner of the loft, wrapped her arms around her knees, and cried.

  It’s my fault. There must’ve been something I could’ve done. In the privacy of the loft, only the pigeons witnessed her vulnerability. And she knew full well that once she stepped outside, she’d shed her weak skin. She had no choice, she believed, but to be strong. Resilient. She wiped away her tears, then peeked through a crack in the door, preparing herself for what lay ahead. She was relieved to see Bertie, alert and scanning the skies. But his walking stick and bottle of pills, at least from a distance, appeared to have moved farther from his chair.

  Susan went to work, examining and counting pigeons. But a few minutes later, as she was plucking a squab from its nest, she heard Bertie shout.

  “Susan!”

  Her heart palpitated. A flash of her grandfather, collapsed on the porch. She placed the squab into its cubby and dashed outside to find him leaning forward in his chair. She exhaled, relieved to see that he wasn’t in distress.

  Bertie forced himself to stand, using the porch rail as a crutch, and pointed.

  As her heartbeat began to settle into a normal rhythm, she looked up. High above the forest, a pigeon. The smooth, unmistakable stroke of its wings caused her pulse to race again. Duchess!

  “There!” Bertie shouted.

  Susan watched Duchess swoop to the loft. And as she did, the soldiers, alerted by Bertie’s ruckus, emerged from their tent.

  Duchess fluttered to the landing board mounted to the top of the loft. Instead of entering the loft through the alarm curtain, she cocked her head and watched the soldiers approach.

  As Susan stepped to the landing, she noticed the red canister attached to the pigeon’s leg and stopped.

  “Why won’t it go inside?” a soldier asked as he reached Susan.

  She hesitated, believing it had to be a mistake. It can’t be Duchess. She didn’t have a canister when she flew away. But as she stared up at the pigeon, its feathers like bloomed garden flowers, she knew it could be no other.

  The soldier, appearing to become impatient, approached the landing.

  “Don’t touch her,” Susan said. “She’ll go in on her own.”

  The soldier turned his back to her and stood on his toes. He reached, his fingers like claws, and grazed the bird’s wing.

  Duchess tilted her head, then gave a hard peck.

  “Ouch!” He pulled back his hand. “Bloody bird bit me.”

  “Leave her alone!” Susan shouted.

  The second soldier maneuvered to the opposite side of the landing. Working as a team, they closed in. Duchess ruffled her feathers.

  Susan struggled with what to do. She wanted to retrieve Bertie’s walking stick to fend them off. Instead, she stepped behind the soldiers and waved her arms. Shoo!

  Duchess fluffed up her feathers. Blinked. As a soldier’s hand swiped toward her legs, she stretched her wings and flew.

  “Bollocks!” the soldier said.

  Duchess darted. She swooped left, then right, and disappeared behind the cottage.

  “Now look what you’ve done.” Susan pressed her hands to her waist. “You scared her off.”

  The soldiers looked at each other, then ran toward the cottage.

  Bertie shook his head as the soldiers passed by the porch.

  The soldiers disappeared around the corner, near a row of dormant rosebushes. Seconds later, Duchess soared over the roof, dove sharply, and landed on the porch rail.

  Bertie tried to shuffle toward the pigeon. But his knees wobbled and gave out. He clung to the porch rail, as if it were a life preserver.

  Susan ran. She was only twenty yards from the cottage, but she already heard the soldiers approaching. They had cut through the garden and were barreling toward the front. They’d reach Duchess first. The thought of them touching her pigeon sent off a flare of anger. She lowered her head and forced her legs to move faster, all the while hoping the soldiers would stumble.

  She reached the porch at precisely the same moment as the soldiers. But it didn’t matter. Duchess was gone. And Bertie, strained from standing, had fallen into his chair.

  “Where’d it go?” a soldier asked, wiping sweat from his brow.

  “Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Bertie muttered.

  “Sorry?” The soldier removed his cap.

  “I said, it’s a wee scared. And a wee tired.” Bertie leaned forward and adjusted his blanket over his knees. “You’ve frightened her into the woods. It may be hours before she returns.”

  “Blasted bird,” the soldier said. “Why didn’t it just go inside the loft?”

  Susan’s face turned hot. “She was merely resting! How would you feel after hours of flapping your arms?”

  The soldier cleared his throat, then spat in the grass.

  “I suggest you stay in your tent until the alarm sounds,” Bertie said.

  The soldier puffed his chest. “Do I have to remind you that we’re in charge?”

  “No,” Bertie said. “But if you continue to behave like children chasing butterflies, that pigeon will never come home.”

  The soldiers glanced at each other, then walked to their tent and slipped inside.

  “Our military has clearly assigned their most incompetent to our mission,” Bertie said.

  Susan scanned the forest. “Which way did she fly?”

  “Here.”

  She turned.

  Bertie lifted the blanket on his lap to expose Duchess, tucked onto his belly.

  Susan covered her mouth.

  He wrapped Duchess inside the blanket. “Let’s go inside. Shall we?”

  Susan helped him inside and quickly shut the blackout curtains, all the while trying to imagine how he had managed to reach Duchess. She unwrapped the blanket that hid her pigeon.

  “She flew to me as the soldiers were approaching.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “I merely covered her with my blanket.”

  Susan held Duchess. She caressed her wings.

  The pigeon cooed.

  Bertie pointed. “Where did the canister come from?”

  Susan unclipped the canister and gently placed Duchess on the table. This time she didn’t need her grandfather’s prodding to inspect what was inside. She unscrewed the top and slid out the paper.

  She retrieved the codebook and began deciphering the message. As she wrote, a sense of déjà vu turned her legs weak. She finished and handed the paper to Bertie.

  “Don’t have my reading glasses.”

  Susan paused, then read the note.

  “It’s the same message,” Bertie said.

  Susan shook her head. “There’s more.”

  Susan slipped her hand inside her coat pocket and produced the previous note, softened like cotton from numerous readings. She placed both pieces of paper on the table.

  “Good Lord,” Bertie said, rubbing the bump on his head. “She flew back to France.”

  “But she’s a one-way racing pigeon,” Susan said. “She hasn’t been trained for two-way flight.”

  “Pigeons aren’t supposed to hatch from breakfast bowls either.” He stroked Duchess with a finger. “But this one did.”

  Susan looked at the note again, making certain her eyes were not deceiving her. “Ollie must think that his first message never reached us.”

  Bertie paused and scratched his whiskers. “Our Oliver likely believes that the original canister had fallen off, and Duchess simply returned to him. He must have tried again, using a canister from another pigeon.”

  The thought of Ollie desperately trying to relay a message made her head throb. She ran her hand over Duchess�
�s wings. “Do you think it’s possible she could carry a message back to him?”

  “She’s already proven that she can, my dear.”

  “But it will place her at risk.”

  “Yes,” Bertie said. “But she may fly back anyway. After all, she returned to Oliver on her own.”

  Susan recalled Duchess flying away, her desperate pleas to her pigeon ignored. She shook away the thought and went to the kitchen, filled a teacup with water, then placed it in front of Duchess.

  The bird dipped its beak into the cup. Water droplets covered the table.

  Rather than risk alerting the soldiers by going to a loft to retrieve grain, Susan scraped together a handful of stale crumbs from the bottom of a pie rack that hadn’t been used for almost a year. She sprinkled the morsels onto the table. As Duchess pecked at her food, Susan retrieved paper and a pencil, then began to scribble.

  “Are you going to try and send her back?” Bertie asked.

  Susan shook her head. “I can’t bear the thought of forcing her to leave. But if she flies away again, she’ll at least have a message.”

  She took several minutes to code a note. Halfway through her writing, she looked up to see Bertie transposing Ollie’s message onto another piece of paper, just as he had done before. Our Oliver from Maine has had enough trouble with the RAF, she recalled her grandfather saying. Being viewed as a stowaway could create trouble for him when he returns . . . And he will return, my dear. She so needed to hear those words again. The military would get their intelligence, but they’d keep Ollie out of the picture. So, just like before, Bertie signed the altered message Flight Lieutenant Clyde Boar, RAF.

  Susan finished her coded note and placed it inside the canister. After Duchess had finished pecking at her crumbs, she attached the canister to the pigeon’s leg.

  Duchess shook her tail feathers. She waddled, as if she were testing the weight of the package.

  Bertie patted Duchess, then slouched in his chair.

  Susan picked up Duchess and carried her to the window. Peeking through the curtain, she made sure that the soldiers were not outside of their tent. She glanced at Bertie, too weak to stand. “If she flies to the loft, I’ll reach her before the soldiers. And I’ll replace my note with your message.”

  “You always were rather fast,” Bertie said, sliding his paper to the edge of the table.

  She forced a smile and pressed Duchess to her cheek. Feathers caressed her face. “I won’t force you to go,” she whispered.

  Duchess blinked.

  She kissed the pigeon’s head.

  Before she lost her nerve, she opened the curtains and quietly raised the window. Duchess squirmed. Talons scraped Susan’s palms. She tossed her pigeon into the air.

  Duchess beat her wings. She fluttered, then gained altitude.

  Susan gripped the windowsill.

  Duchess circled the birches. Instead of descending to her loft, she flew east. Toward the Channel.

  Susan, unable to bear seeing her pigeon fly away again, lowered her head. The odds were against Duchess. The empty cubbies were all the statistics that Susan needed; it’d be difficult for her to make it to France, let alone return home. As she closed the window, a wave of guilt engulfed her body.

  CHAPTER 38

  AIRAINES, FRANCE

  Ollie, Madeleine, and Boar sat down for a dinner of stale gray bread and turnips fried in hot fat. A dust-coated glass jug, reminiscent of a vessel containing vinegar, sat in the center of the table. At the bottom of the jug was a thick layer of dead yeast.

  Madeleine poured the tan liquid, careful not to disturb the sediment, into cups and slid them to Ollie and Boar. “I waited in line for three hours at the butcher for a minuscule strip of fat.” She sighed, then poured herself a drink. “Bartered the last of my truffles for this inedible baguette and what’s in this bottle. I believe it used to be apple brandy.”

  Ollie sniffed his glass. Oaky fumes filled his nose. He took a bite of turnip, then washed it down with a sip. It didn’t taste anything like apples or any other fruit. The alcohol content was high, burning his throat and searing his empty stomach, as though he had swallowed a hot coal.

  Boar scratched the bandage over his eyes, then ran his hands over the table as he found his cup. He gulped his brandy.

  Madeleine refilled the lieutenant’s cup, then reached down to pat Louis on the head. “Tomorrow we’ll search for more truffles. And then get better food.”

  The hog grunted.

  As Ollie chewed stale bread, he watched the lieutenant drain his second cup of brandy, as if it were spring water. No grimace. No clearing of his throat. Boar, it appeared to Ollie, was self-absorbed, counting the days until he could remove the bandages. And as each moment passed, the man’s irritability grew. It would be another week before the bandages would be removed. And by then, Ollie suspected, the lieutenant would be a demon, if not the devil himself, to live with.

  Although Boar had been civil with Madeleine, even making cordial conversation while sharing cigarettes, the same could not be said for his attitude toward Ollie. In the evenings, hunkered under the floorboards in proximity to Ollie, Boar’s disposition turned sour. Perhaps Madeleine, sensing the lieutenant’s growing irritability, had intended to acquire the brandy to soften Boar’s temperament. Or to enable Ollie’s tolerance. But Ollie learned the real reason for Madeleine’s trip to the village when she excused herself from the table and returned with a weathered map.

  “I’ve arranged for your passage,” Madeleine said, taking her seat.

  Ollie looked at her.

  “Bloody hell,” Boar said, dropping his fork. A bit of turnip fell to the floor, which Louis gobbled up.

  Madeleine ignored the comment and slid the map to the center of the table. “I’ve spoken with—”

  “You were to keep your mouth shut.” Boar gripped his cup.

  Madeleine calmly refilled the lieutenant’s brandy. “Do you speak French?”

  “That has nothing to do with it,” Boar said.

  “It has everything to do with it.”

  Boar rubbed his jowl. “You should have consulted me first. You’ll cock up our escape.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ollie said. “It’s done.”

  The lieutenant turned his head toward Ollie’s voice, then took a gulp of brandy.

  Madeleine lit a cigarette. She took a deep drag, then blew smoke through her nose. “You’ll be taken south.” She drew her finger over the map. “To Spain.”

  “Who’s taking us?” Boar asked.

  She paused and drew a breath. “A friend of my husband.”

  “Guillaume,” Ollie said.

  She nodded, seeming pleased to hear her husband’s name.

  “French Resistance?” Boar asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Splendid,” Boar scoffed. “How do we know he won’t go to the Nazis?”

  She puffed her cigarette and handed it to Boar, as if it were a peace offering. “Trust me. He won’t tell a soul.”

  Boar placed the cigarette to his lips. Smoke swirled past his bandaged eyes.

  Ollie looked at the map. He focused on what lay between France and Spain. The Pyrenees. Even on paper, the jagged lines that depicted the mountain range appeared formidable, much steeper than the eroded Appalachian range that ran through Mount Katahdin in Maine. He wondered if he would physically be able to make a 500-mile trek through France, let alone avoid the enemy, and then climb a mountain on a bum leg.

  “You leave in a week,” Madeleine said. “When the lieutenant’s bandages come off and your ankle has had time to heal.”

  Ollie stretched his foot. Pain shot through his tendons. May need longer than that.

  As Ollie rubbed his ankle, Boar questioned Madeleine. The lieutenant attempted to gain details about their guide and the escape route. But Madeleine held firm, refusing to break her confidentiality, like a priest who had heard confession.

  “I won’t burden my husband’s friend wit
h more risk,” she said, retrieving her cigarette from Boar. “If the Nazis find you before you leave, they’ll torture you. No matter how strong you think you may be, you’ll talk. Then they’ll kill you.” Ash fell from her cigarette. “No need for another to be shot.”

  Ollie’s mouth turned dry. He knew that if he or Boar were caught during their escape attempt, and Madeleine’s name was revealed, she’d be executed. He ran his fingers through his hair. And promised himself that if he were captured, he’d take Madeleine’s name to his grave.

  “Very well.” Boar slid his hand over the table and found the bottle. He refilled his cup, using his finger to sense the rising brandy.

  Ollie ate the rest of his turnips, despite losing his appetite, then said to Madeleine, “I’ll take Louis to the barn and feed him.”

  Madeleine nodded.

  Ollie stood and went to the window. He peeked through the curtain to make certain the area was clear. Only rustling leaves. It was dusk, and the sky was painted in hues of orange and blue. He opened the door and froze. On the doorstep, peering up at him, was Duchess.

  “No,” Ollie said.

  The pigeon blinked.

  “What is it?” Boar asked from the table.

  “Duchess.” Ollie picked her up and noticed the canister was still strapped to her leg. At least you didn’t lose the message again.

  The pigeon cooed.

  “Go home,” Ollie said, as if he were giving orders to a stray dog.

  Duchess tilted her head.

  Ollie stepped outside and tossed the pigeon into the air. She fluttered to the barn, then swooped back to the cottage and landed at his feet.

  Boar stood. He stepped blindly, stretching his arms, until he found the doorway.

  Ollie picked up Duchess, then tossed her again. “Home.”

  Duchess glided to the ground. She waddled, like a duck, back to Ollie.