by Dean Hughes
“I don’t know, Duncan,” Alex said. “I hope so.”
“If that’s what it takes, most of us guys are in trouble,” Lester Cox said, and he tried to laugh.
No one else commented, and a long silence followed. But this worried Alex. These guys might have to kill tonight—or be killed. “Look, you guys,” he said, “I don’t think we have to analyze this thing to death. We know what we’re fighting for, and we’re well trained. We have clear objectives, and we’d better make sure we get those accomplished—no matter what it takes.”
“But you still want to kill Germans and not hate them, don’t you, Thomas?” Duncan said.
“Yes,” Alex said. “I don’t want to hate anyone.”
“Well, I may go to hell then. And you may go to heaven. But I’m going to hate the Krauts, and I’m going to kill all I can. And I think that’s what it’s going to take.”
“So you’re still not sure I ought to be leading you guys?”
“I’m not saying that. You’re probably the best guy to figure out where we’re going and how to get there. And you’ll remember all our training. But I think you’ll be dead before long—unless you forget all this love stuff.” He cursed the Germans in some very foul language and then added, “We need to hate tonight, no matter what Jesus might think of us.”
Alex was chilled by the thought, and he wasn’t sure what to say. He thought of trying to make a distinction between hating evil and hating people, but he wasn’t at all sure he could live by that standard himself.
“Here’s my plan,” Duncan said. “I’m going to leave a path of destruction. I ain’t going in scared. And I ain’t going to ask a lot of questions. I’m going to kill every Jerry I can, and I’ll worry what God thinks of me after it’s all over.”
Calvin Huish had been lying on his cot during all this, showing no apparent interest. “I don’t think anyone knows what he’ll do until he gets there,” he said with his usual tone of superiority. “It’s easy to make claims. We’ll know tomorrow night who has a stomach for killing—and who doesn’t.”
“You’d better hope one of us doesn’t have a stomach for killing you,” Duncan said. “I’ve thought about it a lot of times.” Duncan laughed loudly, and so did the others. But strangely, Duncan and Huish had actually become friends. Huish made fun of Duncan for his ignorance, but when weekend passes came out, Huish usually tagged along with Duncan and Rizzardi. Maybe he felt protected when he was with them, or maybe he liked getting drunk with some guys who knew how. Alex had no way to explain the strange friendships that had formed.
“My plan,” Curtis said, “is to go in scared and stay scared till I get my feet back on some red Georgia clay. If you guys are looking for a hero, it ain’t going to be me.”
This seemed to release some tension. Dale Huff, who was sitting on his bunk near the door to the tent, said, “Duncan can be our hero. We’ll send him out first to blaze his path of destruction. Then we’ll move in behind him.”
This set off a brief exchange of insults, but it didn’t last long. The soldiers went back to their repacking and smoking. Alex used the chance to say, “Men, I just want to tell you one thing.” He waited until everyone got quiet. “We don’t need heroes. We need to get the job done, and we need to keep each other alive. Let’s all make it through together. That’s something we can all believe in.”
“I’ll buy that,” Duncan said.
“From what I hear,” Rizzardi said, “a good unit, fighting together, has the best chance of making it.”
This was not the sort of thing Alex expected from Rizzardi. Everyone seemed changed today. But it was Campbell who surprised Alex even more. “Sergeant Thomas,” he said, “you’re going to pray before you get on the plane tonight, aren’t you?”
“Sure.”
“I was just thinking you could maybe say a prayer for all of us while we’re here together.” He laughed, sounding embarrassed. “You know—you’re the Deacon.”
“I don’t know whether everyone would want that, Campbell,” Alex said.
No one said a word. Alex looked around at the men, and one after the other, they nodded, even Duncan. Only Huish refused to look in Alex’s direction. But he raised no objection. “Do you want me to do that now?” Alex asked.
A couple of the men said, “Sure.”
And so they sat on their cots, or some knelt when Alex did, and Alex asked the Lord to go with them, to give them courage and the ability to accept what came. “We ask that we all might live and return to our families,” Alex said, “but we realize that some of us may be asked to offer the ultimate sacrifice. Please, Father, accept this gift if we are called upon to give it, and bring us to our heavenly home, to dwell with thee.”
When the prayer was over, no one said a word. The men went back to what they had been doing. But they turned increasingly inside themselves as the time for boarding approached. Alex felt the tension around him, and he felt it in his chest, but he kept telling himself not to think, to do what he had to do, and simply rely on the Lord for the outcome.
And then Lieutenant Summers stepped into the tent. “Boys, I’m sorry to tell you this, but the invasion is off for tonight. The weather over the channel is way too bad for the LSTs to land on the beaches. We’ll probably go tomorrow night.”
Alex felt a momentary sense of relief, and then the thought of waiting for another twenty-four hours hit him. He wondered whether he could stand it. All the men seemed to react the same way. They stood in stunned silence for a few seconds, and then these same guys who had wanted to pray not long before began to curse their fate in the most vile language they knew.
***
The Stoltzes crouched in a little thicket of trees and waited. It was Monday morning. Rain was pelting down rather hard now, and everyone was soaked through to the skin. Anna was wearing a man’s heavy wool jacket, but her jaw kept trembling from the cold—and maybe the fear. She wondered how many more times she and her family could deal with such danger and continue to survive.
“All right, listen to me,” the guide whispered, in excellent German. He had told them earlier that he was French, by birth, but he had grown up in Switzerland and spoke German and French equally well. “The weather is miserable—but it helps us. The guards don’t like to walk about in the rain any more than we do. They stay closer to their sentry stations. Follow me in a line, but leave about ten paces between each of you. Peter, I want you to come last. You can help your father, if you have to.”
“How far off is the border?” Brother Stoltz asked.
“Not far. Two hundred meters, perhaps. The sentry stations run all along the border, every hundred meters or so. The guards walk a path between the stations, just inside France. Once we cross the path, we are not out of danger, however. The Germans sometimes send out patrols. One never knows when they may show up.”
“What do we do if we meet up with guards?” Brother Stoltz asked.
“Each case is different. Simply do what I do. Follow me, try to be absolutely silent, and stop whenever I stop. If I take cover, do the same. Find something—a rock, a tree, a bush—and lie down flat behind it. We’ll be in trees at first, but at the border there’s an open meadow. If I wait for a long time, trust me. I know what I’m doing.” He laughed softly. “If something goes wrong, head back the way we came. They can’t pursue us very far into Switzerland.”
“Will you tell us if—”
“I won’t speak at all. We must be quiet. If we make an accidental noise, I usually make a sound like a crow—for cover. But crows have better sense than to come out in weather like this. The sound of the rain will have to be our cover today.”
That explained one thing. When the Stoltzes had made contact with this man—at a cafe in a village called Bure—he had told them it was just as well they not know his name. “Call me Crow,” he had said. “That’s how I’m known to those who do this work.” He had also admitted, quite frankly, that he hadn’t been overly happy to help Germans. But he add
ed, “They told me that you knocked a Gestapo agent off a railroad platform and broke his back. I liked you immediately after that.” He laughed, and he looked at Anna as though she were the one who had knocked the man down. Anna didn’t like to think of the Gestapo agent, perhaps paralyzed, but she couldn’t help smiling at Crow, who was so unabashed in his partisan loyalties.
Crow was a dark-eyed, small young man who seemed too forthright to be so cunning, but even at the cafe Anna had noticed how he moved—as though he walked on paws. Now, as he motioned for them to follow, he slipped stealthily through the trees, and he seemed a panther.
At first he worked his way steadily ahead. But as he approached the border, he began to stop and listen. Sister Stoltz was following him, and Anna came after her. Anna glanced back from time to time at her father and Peter. Peter would nod each time as if to let her know that he was confident, not afraid. Anna knew how much he wanted to show that he was grown up. Brother Stoltz would also nod, but Anna could see the pain in his face. They were in a thick growth of fir trees now, and getting through sometimes meant crouching below the limbs. Bending was not easy for her father.
Crow moved to the edge of the woods and waited. Beyond him, Anna could see an open area. It seemed clear, and while she feared moving into it, she wished they could get this most dangerous section of their journey behind them. But the wait continued, and then, suddenly, Crow dropped to the ground and hid in the undergrowth on the edge of the forest. Anna saw her mother drop too, and Anna did the same. She lay on her stomach in the shadows of a fir tree, where she could see slices of light through the forest, but she saw nothing ahead, heard nothing. She couldn’t imagine what had alarmed Crow.
He didn’t move, however, and a long time passed—ten minutes or more. Anna could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. And then she saw what Crow had detected. She spotted a German soldier, in a gray uniform, walking across the meadow, coming from the right, passing not five steps in front of Crow’s hiding place. Anna knew very little about weapons, but she saw that the soldier was carrying a small machine gun, not a rifle.
On he walked, slowly. He kept looking back and forth along the edge of the woods. And then he stopped. Anna dropped her face into the fir needles on the ground. She didn’t think the guard could see so far back into the woods, but his gaze had seemed trained in her direction. She had caught only a brief glimpse of his face, but she was struck with the realization of how young he was—much younger than herself, she thought.
Anna waited for a couple of minutes before she looked up. By then the guard had walked on and was out of sight. But Crow was still waiting. Five or six minutes passed, and then Anna understood. The guard came into sight again, from the left, returning along the path. He seemed less attentive this time. He moved through the opening twice as fast, and then he was gone.
Crow waited another couple of minutes, and then Anna saw him rise to his feet. Sister Stoltz got up, too, and so did Anna. Crow looked back and made a quick little motion with his hand, and then he moved out of the brush and into the open. He walked across the path and into the meadow, where there was almost no cover. He looked back at Sister Stoltz, who was walking fast, catching up with him. He held his palms down, signaling for her to slow, and he held his finger to his lips. Anna knew what Sister Stoltz was going through. The temptation was to run, but Crow knew best. Even in this rain, they couldn’t make any noise.
The walk across the meadow was downhill and only a matter of perhaps fifty meters, but it seemed ever so much longer. Anna kept glancing back, terrified that the guard would reappear with his machine gun. When she finally entered the woods, at the bottom of the meadow, she saw Crow and her mother standing in the shadows. She hurried to her mother and grasped her around the waist; then she looked back. Her father was approaching the woods. Peter was nowhere in sight.
And then a dog barked.
Brother Stoltz broke into a run and reached the woods, but then he spun around. “Where’s Peter?” he asked, much too loudly.
“He stopped on the other side of the guard’s path,” Crow said. He must have heard something. He’s all right. I’ll go back for him when I can. Hurry, now. Follow me.” But for the first time, Anna heard fear in his voice.
Crow moved off through the trees, pushing through the lower limbs, moving quickly but carefully. The Stoltzes followed in a line, but now the dog was barking more stridently.
Anna was at the back, with her father, helping to push limbs aside for him. But she pulled him too hard, and he stumbled and dropped to his knees. She pulled at his shoulder, and he expelled a little gasp of pain. He was up quickly and moving again, but Anna could hardly stand not to take off running on her own. The noise they were making seemed loud enough to call in every guard on the border, and the dog was clearly on their trail. Its bark seemed crazed, and it was getting closer.
Suddenly there was a popping noise that came in three quick bursts, and something crashed through the tree limbs. Anna knew that it was machine-gun fire, and she felt herself losing control, fighting ahead faster, pulling too hard on her father.
Then she saw Crow stop and let her mother go by him. As Anna approached with her father, Crow said, “This is the path. Stay on it. Help your father. Run as hard as you can.”
Anna stepped into the path. It led straight down the hill. It was covered with wet fir needles and was slippery, but there was nothing to hold them back now. She held her father’s arm, and they ran down the hill. They quickly caught up with Sister Stoltz, who was holding her skirt up to her knees, running as best she could, slipping a little at times. Anna didn’t know what had happened to Crow.
A hundred meters, two hundred, passed by quickly now that the going was easier. Ahead, Sister Stoltz reached a rock fence with a wooden gate. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open. Just as Anna and her father reached the fence, they heard gunfire and a dog’s yelp. Then, nothing.
“What’s happening? What can we do for Peter?” Sister Stoltz asked, her voice full of desperation.
Brother Stoltz didn’t answer. He stood in the opening and held the gate open. He was looking up the path. “You go on ahead,” he said. “Run on down to that thicket of trees.”
“What are you going to do?” Sister Stoltz asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe Crow needs help.”
“Papa, you can’t go back up there,” Anna said. She stepped closer and looked up the hill. At any moment the guard, with his machine gun, could appear. They needed to keep moving.
“I can’t just leave him,” Brother Stoltz said, and he began to stride up the path. “You two go on ahead.”
But just then a figure burst from the trees and onto the path. Anna cringed for a second—and then realized that it was Crow. Something in his motion told her that he wasn’t being chased. As he loped on down the path, he waved for them to go on through the gate.
Brother Stoltz stepped through the gate, and Crow called ahead, “Run to those trees.”
But they all waited, and Brother Stoltz said what everyone was thinking. “What about Peter?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll go back when I can.”
Everyone hurried down through a large pasture. Halfway there, Crow passed the others and called out, “Follow me.”
Once they reached the little copse of trees, Crow stopped, and everyone gathered in around him. They were all breathing hard, and for a time no one spoke. The rain was still driving hard, and the wind was stirring the trees. Anna was no longer cold, but she couldn’t stop shaking. She watched the gate at the upper end of the pasture, and she wondered, still, whether she would see soldiers chasing after them.
Crow caught his breath faster than the others. “I’m sorry for the scare,” he said. “Those guards are not easy to predict.”
“How do we get Peter?” Brother Stoltz asked.
“I can’t go back yet. I killed that guard—and his dog. I waited, and the fool walked right to me. He must be new. But now everyone will be on alert
. Peter was smart enough to stop where he was safe. He’ll be smart enough to head back along the path to Bure. I’ll go up there once things calm down, and I’ll bring him across.”
Anna was still thinking about the guard. “Did you have to kill him?” she asked.
“Oh, no.” He smiled. “I could have let him kill me—and then perhaps kill you. It didn’t strike me as a very good option, however.”
“I heard him fire at you,” Brother Stoltz said.
“No. When I shot him, he jerked and pulled the trigger on his machine gun, but the bullets fired in the air.”
“Are we safe here?” Brother Stoltz asked. “Shouldn’t we move on?”
“The guards who find their friend won’t come down this far—not after they’ve seen one of their men ambushed.”
“What if they found Peter? Maybe another dog was—”
“No. I rarely see dogs here. There wouldn’t be two.” He turned and pointed down the hill. “You see that farmhouse down below,” he said. “Go to the cowshed behind it. Get inside, out of the rain, and then wait. Someone will come before long. Philippe Allemann. He’ll take you to his farm. He and his family will look after you. You’ll never eat so well in your life. Later today, I may try to cross again, to look for Peter. But it could be a day or two. Don’t worry too much. I’ll keep looking.”
“Thank you so much,” Brother Stoltz said. He held out his hand.
Crow laughed. “Auf Wiedersehen,” he said. And then he added, “I’ll see you at the Allemann’s. I’ll bring Peter there. Now you go on ahead to the cowshed.”
And so the Stoltzes trudged down the hill in the rain. Anna was exhausted, and she knew everyone else was too. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time, and this latest ordeal had taken the last of her energy.
The wait at the cowshed was not long, but there was time enough to stand about in deep cow dung and become very cold. Anna was shivering by the time a man appeared at the open door, nodded, and said, “Stoltz?”