On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  The war in Europe was finally over. The greatest war machine that had ever been devised by one nation had finally been defeated. Despite the petty jealousies, the rivalries, the egos of the commanding generals, the deed had been done through a joint effort of free nations, under one supreme commander.

  One basic fact can never be denied or distorted by history—the bravery of the soldiers who, like Marsh Wexford and his men, left their legacy of freedom in places like Ste.-Mère-Église, Nijmegen, Gela, and Trois Ponts, in the Ardennes.

  But for Marsh, the war was still unfinished. He remembered his promise to the boy, Ibert Duvalier. He remembered his entreaty of Gretchen von Erhard. And he lived for the day when the vigil and the search could begin.

  But the United States was still at war with Japan. And talk began that the majority of soldiers in Europe might be shipped to the Pacific. For Marsh, and the others, the sudden reprieve came on August 14, 1945, when Japan surrendered. On September 2, the articles of surrender were signed, making it official. The world was finally at peace.

  Now began the search of each orphanage in Normandy, the requests through official channels for help.

  “Captain, you must realize there are thousands of war orphans—some too young to remember their names, their families.”

  “But he’s six years old. Ibert wouldn’t forget his own name.”

  “Many have chosen to forget everything. Their memories are too painful for them to live with.”

  While Marsh looked for the child, he also haunted the American Embassy in London on a regular basis. No hope was given for Gretchen von Erhard, either.

  “There is no guarantee that she came out of Berlin alive. And if she did, she might be in Russia.”

  In late November, as the gusts in the channel made the crossing hazardous, Marsh went back to France and renewed the search for Ibert.

  In an obscure little town forty miles from Le Bois Rouge, Marsh stopped the car at what was to be the final spot of the day. It was a rural area, and down an old dirt road was an unpromising building, with the roof needing repair, the fence leaning at an angle.

  Marsh got out of the car with little hope. He stood watching the children at play. They were dressed poorly, their skinny arms and legs covered in navy blue, with caps of the same color on their heads. Most seemed happy, hopping up and down to keep warm, running in circles, bouncing a ball.

  All except one small boy. Making no attempt to join in the play, he sat apart from the others, his small hands clutching a coin.

  Marsh stood at the fence and watched. There was something familiar about the child, and yet he couldn’t be sure. It had been more than a year since he had seen him.

  “Ibert?” Marsh’s voice called out, but the child paid no attention. He must have been mistaken.

  The other children stopped their playing. They stared at the man and back to the little boy who had not looked up.

  “Ibert,” a child said. “The man is calling you.”

  The child seated by himself finally looked up. For one brief moment, a glimmer of hope passed over his face and then was gone.

  “Ibert?” Marsh called, louder this time. “Ibert Duvalier?”

  The child stood, as if awakening from a dream. He began to walk toward the fence, slowly at first. And then he began to run, as Marsh found the gate and rushed to meet him.

  “Monsieur, monsieur,” Ibert said, his face filled with emotion. “You have come.”

  Marsh swung him from the ground, up into his arms.

  “You kept your promise. You kept your promise.” And in his hands, he clutched the coin all the tighter.

  While Marsh waited in Paris for the official papers on Ibert to be processed, he again contacted the American Embassy in London. There was still no message from Gretchen. Reluctantly, he realized he could not remain in Paris forever. He and Ibert would have to leave soon for the United States.

  The week before Christmas, Europe was again covered by snow, as it had been the previous year when Marsh had fought in the Ardennes. And once again, tragedy struck.

  The hero of the Ardennes, General George S. Patton, Jr., died from injuries sustained in an accident.

  A saddened Marsh knew he could not leave Europe until he paid his last respects to the Liberator, the man who had turned an entire army around to help defeat the last major offensive of the Germans.

  And so it was that on Christmas Eve 1945, Marsh, with Ibert at his side, stood in the cemetery at Hamm, Luxembourg, with a multitude of people, both soldier and civilian, and waited for the funeral cortege to arrive.

  Staring over row upon row of white crosses, Marsh sensed that Europe was gathering a hero to its bosom. The old warrior was coming to rest among his own troops.

  The man had become a paradox—religious and profane, rash and deliberate, proud and humble, aristocratic and earthy, but always a man of honor; rich in his own material possessions, yet a pauper, begging for supplies for his troops, who, on the day of their greatest victory, received not a drop of gasoline from supply.

  Marsh watched as the high-level brass passed by in the official honorary escort, the stars and braid signifying some of the most important military men in the world—with the exception of one man, General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s aide. For Patton’s wife, Beatrice, had struck the name of his greatest detractor from the list and substituted the name of Patton’s orderly, Sergeant Meeks, the black man who had watched over the general in life and now, with tears in his eyes, accompanied him to his final resting place.

  When the flowers had been laid upon his grave, when the bugles had blown and the crowds begun to disperse, Marsh waited while the small French orphan, Ibert Duvalier, left his side and walked to the mound. Ibert slipped the commemorative coin out of his pocket and, kneeling down, buried it in the soft earth next to the white cross.

  “He needs it more than I do,” Ibert explained. “For I shall see the mountain for myself.”

  In complete trust, he put his small hand in the paratrooper’s larger one and, together, they joined the crowd leaving the cemetery.

  The people filed out, wave after wave, passing through the gates with the golden eagles on each side declaring that portion of hallowed land as American.

  All at once, Marsh stopped where he was, for in the crowd ahead he saw a woman dressed in a black coat with fur-lined hood, and small red boots on her feet to protect them from the snow.

  “Gretchen!” Marsh yelled, and began the frantic effort to reach her before she disappeared. When he realized Ibert could not keep up with him, he swung the boy into his arms.

  Towering over the crowd, Marsh yelled again, “Gretchen! Wait!”

  At the sound of her name, the woman turned. Her eyes widened at the sight of the tall blond man rushing toward her. Her hand went up to her cheek in a nervous gesture and she began to move rapidly away, seeking refuge in the crowd, as if deliberately avoiding him.

  But Marsh was determined not to lose her. “Gretchen!” he called again, racing through the crowd until, at last, he reached out to take her arm and stop her forcibly.

  With the crowd milling around them, they stared at each other, Gretchen attempting to back away even as he held her arm.

  “Why didn’t you write me?” he demanded. “I’ve stalked the American Embassy for months—waiting for word that you were still alive, that you were all right. Did you forget your promise to me, so soon?”

  Her eyes were sad. “No, Marsh. I didn’t forget.”

  “Then why didn’t you write?”

  “Let me go, Marsh. Please. There can never be anything between us. Too much has happened. Heinrich—”

  She choked on the man’s name. Her lips began to tremble as her voice deserted her.

  There was no need to confirm what he had known all along. “Where is he?” Marsh demanded.

  In a whisper Gretchen replied, “He’s…dead.”

  Marsh’s eyes showed his satisfaction at the news. Now he would not have to
track him down. He was already dead.

  The memory of Gretchen deliberately walking toward Heinrich at Bodensee so that Marsh might escape, had haunted the American for months, as the words spoken earlier by Madame Arnaud at St. Mihiel had haunted him.

  “She was a victim of war, my little Ailly. She lost her life but she gave it willingly to save her family.”

  Madame Arnaud’s words had come full circle, to encompass another war. But Gretchen was still alive. Marsh smiled. He was certain.

  “This is Christmas Eve, Gretchen,” he replied in a gentle voice. “A day of miracles. I’ve found you again. And that’s all that matters.”

  “He found me, too, mam’selle,” Ibert stated. “Just as he said he would.”

  “And the three of us are going home soon—to Atlanta. Come, Gretchen. It’s time to celebrate our good fortune.”

  He smiled and drew her to him.

  “Marsh, you’re. . .sure?” she whispered.

  “Never more sure of anything in my life.”

  Tragedy turned into joy as the three rejoined the crowd and left the hallowed ground.

  On that same evening at Harrington Hall in England, a quiet, subdued Lady Alpharetta Beaumont-Pomeroy, aware of the ritual taking place in the Luxembourg cemetery, sat at dinner with her husband and his father.

  Belline had left England with the baby. But they shared their Christmas Eve with Lord Cranston, Meg, and Freddie Mallory, who had begun to call on Lady Margaret Cranston once Dow married Alpharetta.

  The hall was hung with greenery, the work of Alpharetta, and the aroma of roast goose and plum pudding rose from the silver trays presided over by Andrew.

  Later, when the dinner was over and the guests had gone, Sir Edward, Dow, and Alpharetta sat before the fire in the family drawing room, their memories, their thoughts on other times, other Christmases, when the Allied cause seemed lost and the people grasped for heroes like straws in the wind.

  Sir Edward dozed before the fire. Dow stood up and turned toward Alpharetta. “Are you ready to call it a night, darling?”

  “Yes, Dow. If you are. But what about Father?”

  “I’ll get Andrew to help him to bed.”

  As the two walked into the green bedroom, Dow, realizing the cause of Alpharetta’s quietness, said, “Don’t be sad, darling. The ground of Luxembourg won’t keep him forever. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, fifty to a hundred years from now, your General Patton is found stomping over another battlefield, leading his men. You heard him say we’ll have to fight the Russians, someday. And I fully expect him to come back from Valhalla to do it.”

  Alpharetta, looking at her husband in the mirror decorated with golden garlands of flowers and birds, smiled. “I think one ghost is enough to worry about, Dow, without conjuring another.”

  “I doubt that you’ll see Desirée haunting these halls ever again. True love has finally won. And I think she would be pleased at the outcome. Remind me to place an extra rose by her side next year.”

  His hazel eyes took on a golden glow as his hand touched Alpharetta’s cheek. “Merry Christmas, darling,” Dow said.

  “Merry. . .” The final word was muffled by kisses, sweet to the taste, for Dow had taken her in his arms.

  Outside, the parterres, the long vistas to Harrington Hall waited for spring, when the earth would once again bloom with beauty to feed the soul. But an impatient Dow, in the green room of damask silk, could wait no longer. In the arms of the woman he had kept in his heart since time began, he found joy, love, and a long-awaited peace on that Christmas Eve of 1945.

  About the Author

  Frances Patton Statham is an award-winning artist, musician, writer, and lecturer. She received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Winthrop University, a master of fine arts degree from the University of Georgia, and an honorary doctorate from World University.

  As a lyric-coloratura soprano, she has given concerts and lectures in a number of cities, including Singapore, Madrid, Budapest, and Vancouver.

  Chosen Georgia Author of the Year in fiction on three occasions, she is listed in such biographical reference works as International Authors and Writers Who’s Who, World Who’s Who of Women, and International Who’s Who of Intellectuals. Statham resides in metro-Atlanta, Georgia.