Philip moved as fast as he could, despite the heaviness of the limp body in his arms. He tried to imagine the man as the medicine ball he used to run with . . . imagine he raced on the track toward the finish line . . . picture Attis running beside him, and his father on the sidelines cheering him on.
He also tried to pretend the sound of gunfire echoing in his ears was the starter gun in a race. Only this one sounded again and again and again.
Two medics ran to the man's side in a matter of minutes, hoisting him out of the trench and rushing him back, away from the front lines.
"Where are they taking him?" The woman shivered beside him, and Philip again wished he had more than his dirty blanket to offer her.
"Back to the ambulance waiting behind the lines, then to the field hospital. Don't worry, miss, he'll be well taken care of. Now . . . we just need to figure out what to do with you."
Charles blew in his hands and smiled at the lady. "So again . . . what are you doing here?"
The woman's eyes darted from Charles's face to Philip's. "I'm a war correspondent. A . . . photographer." She clutched her satchel closer to her chest. "We were headed for France and took the wrong turn."
"I'll say." Charles snorted, then his face softened. "You're a photographer? Why, you are the prettiest one I know."
Philip wanted to slug him, to tell him to leave the poor woman alone. He shoved Charles's shoulder, putting some space between him and the woman, and hoping Charles got the message to shut his trap.
"And you, sir, are quite charming for someone who looks as if he hasn't seen the light of day in weeks."
She turned to Philip, and he noted fear in her eyes despite her brave front. "You're coming with me . . . taking me back . . . to wherever it's safe, right?"
"Yes, ma'am—"
"Sofía . . . Sophie, actually."
"Yes, Sophie. I promise to stay by your side until you're safe." Then he took her hand in his own and said a silent prayer.
Sophie pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and focused her attention on keeping up with the tall soldier before her. An American soldier, no less. How God had managed that one didn't cease to amaze her.
It was dark when they reached the small cottage, which appeared more like a boulder on the sloping hillside. A young boy in a long, dingy nightshirt opened the door and held a lantern to Sophie's face. The glow warmed her cheeks.
“Hola, amigo,” the tall, blond soldier said. "I found this lady in a broken-down jeep. A driver was taking her to the French border. He's been taken to the field hospital. Tomorrow we can think of how to help her. For tonight, can you give her a place to sleep?"
The Spanish family welcomed them inside. To her surprise, the scent of Gauloises—expensive French cigarettes—met her as she entered. The smell reminded her of burning tar, and she noted a short, wide stub bouncing in the lips of a white-haired gentleman sitting before a crackling fire. The cigarettes must have been a gift, no doubt from a patriotic Frenchman passing through.
When Sophie first arrived in France, she'd adored the French shade of blue on the cigarette's package. It was the perfect shade to paint the Atlantic Ocean at sunset. How odd then, to discover the scent here, of all places. Wherever here was. How odd to think about painting and about her trip across the sea into France. It seemed like another lifetime. Like a fine coat she used to wear and admire but that no longer fit.
The soldier who'd rescued her talked with the woman in the kitchen. Sophie was too weary to follow their conversation. She watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out some cigarettes, offering them to the woman. She took them and nodded.
Sophie felt the eyes of the family on her. She smiled, then turned her attention to the rolling hills outside the window. In the fading sunlight, the frozen world outside reminded her of Cezanne's chromatic art, in which the trees and sky outside the window had been muted and shaped with structural firmness and order.
"Sí, she can stay," Sophie heard the woman saying. "Poor dear, so much has happened. Look at her, like a puppy thrown out in the cold."
The woman approached and lifted Sophie's satchel. Her eyebrows rose at its weight. "Come, señorita. Let's get you settled for the night."
"Yes, thank you." Sophie rose, glancing out the window one last time. Even the sky appeared muted and lifeless. The view beyond the glass reflected how she felt inside.
A warm hand touched her arm, and she turned her head to see the soldier's kind eyes studying her.
"I'll be back to check on you tomorrow. Then we'll make a plan."
"Thank you." She took her hand in his. "If you hadn't been there to help . . ."
He shrugged. "I'm glad I was. Will you be okay until I return?"
"Yes, I'm sure they'll take good care of me." She squeezed his hand and released it.
The handsome soldier turned to leave.
"Wait." She reached her hand toward him. "I never asked your name."
"Philip."
Though he smiled, she saw a deep sadness in his eyes that made her heart ache even more.
"My name, ma'am, is Philip."
Chapter Twenty Five
Gott Mit Uns.
God with us.
Nazi slogan
Steam rose from the tin cup of coffee given to each of the men who prepared for the night hike over the Pyrenees. Deion took a sip and wrinkled his nose, deciding the only thing it offered was warmth. His thoughts drifted back to Paris.
From the moment members of the French committee met them, it was as if he were playing a part in one of those Hollywood pictures. Staying in a hotel room overlooking the Seine. Heading out with the men to find girls to dance with in the fancy French clubs. Walking by the Cathedral of Notre Dame and Place de la Concorde.
Yet while those memories were of exotic Paris, other things made even more of an impression—sharing a suite with men from four different countries. And the Parisians who greeted him with a smile and didn't seem to notice the color of his skin.
The coffee finished, he blew on his hands, warming them, remembering his fear at entering a café and seeing only white faces. His heart pounding, he'd taken three quick steps backward, out the door—only to have the waiter come after him and welcome him inside.
In the glow of the moon, Deion looked at the white faces of the other men and realized none of them knew how much their acceptance warmed him—even more than the coffee had.
Though the voices around him spoke in hushed tones, Deion could make out numerous different languages. And somehow, being on this side of the ocean—receiving this type of welcome—he suddenly believed anything was possible. Though he’d personally never set foot in Germany, Jesse Owens had won four gold medals on this continent—a black man winning in Nazi territory. Deion looked forward to achieving something even greater—freedom for a class of people who'd been oppressed far too long.
"Methinks this is a bigger deal than I first imagined," said a man with light hair and a thick moustache, tossing a knapsack over his shoulders.
Deion cocked his head back and peered up at the dark mountains. "Yup, it's gonna be some sorta night of climbing, all right."
"Not that, lad. The other day I caught up with the latest in the headlines. Twenty thousand Moroccans, Spanish legionnaires, German and Italian Fascist forces—all putting in their best fight. They have Madrid under siege day and night. On our side, citizens building barricades and volunteers filling the front lines. There's not enough equipment to go around, so they take up the rifles of the dead. . . ."
The man's voice trailed off, and Deion noticed three men in dark trousers, black jackets, and berets approaching. Most likely their hiking guides.
Deion turned to his companion. "Which means the people needs us more than ever, don't they? Because how I see it, they face an even bigger mountain than we do tonight. One that can't be tackled with climbin' shoes and rope."
One guide stepped forward, motioning them to circle around. "Men, this is a great obst
acle that already has cost us many lives. You will precede upward, two abreast. Keep track of the man in front of you. If you stop for some reason and lose sight of him, consider yourself dead. And if for some reason you are stopped, we are a group on holiday, on a night hike. Whatever you do, don't lose the trail. Two wrong steps in any direction, and you'll find yourself taking your first—and last—Spanish flight."
With those encouraging words, the line moved upward. The first incline was a soft rolling hill, and despite the fact he'd done mostly sitting on a ship during the last few weeks, Deion didn't even get winded. The next hill rose sharper, into the night sky. His legs ached. At least Spain will be on the other side, he reminded himself.
Yet as he crested the hill, Spain was yet to be seen. Instead another, even steeper, incline rose before them. Rocks tumbled down on his head, kicked off by the men ahead of him. Deion's own feet cast more onto the men below.
As they climbed, Deion and his new Scottish friend—whose name, he learned, was Ian—chatted about their lives, their families back home, and their involvement in the Party. But as the night wore on, and the hills never seemed to end, their words became few. Soon, their only interaction involved lifting each other up when one stumbled, and pausing just long enough to brush the other off and prod him on.
To keep his aching legs moving forward, Deion replayed the talks he’d heard at the various meetings.
"Two people cannot occupy the same space. Two beliefs the same mind. Two armies the same victory," the speaker had said the night before Deion sailed away. "As one rival becomes more powerful, his advantage grows over his competitor. And the other rival moves down the same curve."
As Deion took note of the men around them, giving their energy and forcing their bodies forward with sheer will, he felt as if their advantage grew with each step. The people of Spain had given the call, and the world responded. With dedicated volunteers like these entering the country night after night, how could they not win?
As Ritter strode from the briefing room toward the airfield, he glanced at the Spanish pilots lounging in their wrinkled uniforms and scoffed.
“¡ Buenos dias, senor! " one pilot said.
Ritter tipped his chin in response. Another bearded man searched his pockets for a cigarette, then motioned to Ritter, as if asking for a smoke. Ritter ignored his unspoken request and continued on.
Even after months of working with the Germans, these men—who called themselves pilots—still had no inclination for regimentation. Some were simply ungovernable. The more he worked around the Spaniards, the more Ritter believed that having Franco control the lot would be in the best interest of the whole accursed country.
If these are the educated pilots, what is the rest of Spain like?
Ritter didn't even want to consider the peasants who fought for their right to govern themselves. Poor saps. Did the people of Spain not realize it was his duty to save them from themselves? Authority, power, and a centralized identity made Germany great. The Spanish people needed the same.
Thankfully, the Germans worked to provide just that. Even this morning, in the operations room, brilliant strategists had sat in their leather-covered armchairs, studying maps on the wall and piles of information that dealt with everything from weather and intelligence summaries to updates on the planes and pilots. Only then, with all the information before them, did they mark their plans on the blackboard. Spain should be thankful for such diligence.
Ritter strode past the fat-bellied Junkers bearing black-red-and-white swastikas on their wings, toward his bi-plane fighter. Glancing up, he noted the perfect "bomber's sky"—a sky cleaned by a slight enough breeze to clear smoke from the target and a thin splattering of clouds to provide the right mix of visibility and cover.
Within a matter of minutes Ritter was in the air, gazing down at the mountains that loomed into view and the symmetrical stripes of farmland beyond them. Though the land appeared tame, the same could not be said of the people.
Rebels, the whole lot of them, who fight for freedom yet don't realize their own lack of self-regimentation will bring them anything but.
After a short flight, he circled in a birdlike arc around the bombing area and thought of what he’d heard last night on Red radio. It still made his face burn with anger. The excited announcer had claimed German fighters were losing air superiority over the Spanish capital as new Russian planes filled the skies. While Ritter didn't deny the Russian planes were faster, he instead turned his focus on the Germans' superior tactics.
Any man can maneuver a great plane, but it takes a great man to use an ordinary plane for greatness.
Last week, the general's order had been to engage the enemy fighters until the Reds were low on fuel. Then, as the Russian aircraft landed at their bases to refuel, Sperrle's bombers—which had been circling the battle at a high altitude—dove in on the Red bases. The plan had been a success, and more enemy planes were lost that day than in all the prior weeks in air combat.
But today the Germans fought a different war. On the Loas Rozas de Madrid, a major supply route to the north, panzer tanks rolled toward the Red-held lines. A two-hour artillery barrage had already pounded the enemy; now it would be Ritter's He.51—and the others with him—that would strafe key points of resistance. And when Ritter and the others were done, the panzers would roll in, followed by the infantry marching in to secure the ground the tanks had already taken.
So far, so good.
Ritter swept closer to the ground, preparing to strafe the troops scurrying to help those injured in the bombing. His hand wrapped around the machine gun trigger.
Just then an explosion sounded in his ears. His plane rocked wildly. He scanned the gauges as the left engine sputtered and the plane dropped fast. He'd been hit . . . by antiaircraft most likely.
With quick movements, Ritter swung around, determined to make it back across the lines to safety . . . but he patted his pocket for his false papers, just in case.
Father Manuel raised his hands to welcome the small congregation of the faithful. He'd thought about his words. Rehearsed them. Yet seeing the faces before him, he wondered again if they should be spoken at all. He glanced to the place were Armando used to sit. Many other faces were missing from the pews as well. Manuel lowered his head, pausing, questioning if what he’d heard in the early hours of morning had truly been from God. Then again, who was he to question? He opened his mouth and drew a deep breath.
"As you know, friends, Spain is a land of deep religious belief. We have as many saints as olive groves. Churches rise from the ashes of cathedrals. Then they are burned as disillusionment blinds the people again. This should not be the case, my brothers."
His voice grew in volume as an inner strength prodded him on. "I urge you to stop and look around. How can you trust in the idea of a better Basque nation if you act just like those you fight against? Consider again if what we wish to uphold so dear to us is the tradition of men? Or rather, do you fight for the living God?"
The people listened intently, yet he could not tell if his words made any difference. Even as the Mass finished and they filed out of the sanctuary, he questioned his motives.
After the room had nearly emptied, Sister Joséfina approached him with a smile. "Hello, Padre." Her voice was as singsong when she spoke as it was the moments he found himself privileged to hear the daybreak chant of Lauds or the nuns' worship hymns during the traditional Mass.
"Father, I appreciate your words. As we both know, during times like these we must serve God in ways we had not known before . . . which brings me to the nature of my request."
Her eyes locked on his with steadfastness, but he also noticed the quick way her hands moved over the rosary beads she held close to her heart.
"Padre, I wonder if you know where we could get more help? The hospital is overflowing. There are more dead than people to bury them, and—while the nuns would never say so—they are becoming weary from their labors, especially our older Sisters."
Something stirred within Father Manuel's chest, and he gazed up at the image on the wall. An image of Jesus on His knees before His disciples. And another painting of Christ walking among the crowds. Father Manuel appreciated the large paintings far more than the statue of the gaunt Christ suspended on the Cross hanging before the altar. Viewing the paintings representing Christ's care for the people, Father Manuel felt an inner confirmation that it was God's voice that had spoken to him during the morning hours. He also knew he was the one to fill the Sister's request.
"I'll come, Sister. Tonight."
Surprise registered on Sister Joséfina's face. "Oh, Padre, I did not mean you. If there is another . . ."
"Sister, if the Lord rolled up His sleeves to wash the feet of His disciples, if He—though weary and misunderstood—reached out a hand toward the sick and dying, I should do no less. I'll be there tonight. Do not question me."
"Yes, Padre. I understand." A soft smile filled her face. "I'll tell the Sisters whom to expect."
Dusk had gathered without Father Manuel perceiving it. Outside, snow had transformed their town into a white, frozen world.
As he approached the Carmelite convent, he realized it bustled with noise so different from the months and years prior. The private world of the nuns was now limited to the chapel and small wings where they slept, but the ground and two upper floors were filled with beds. And the beds overflowed with injured men.
Father Manuel knocked at the door, and Sister Joséfina welcomed him in. Her face appeared pale, even in the glow of the lantern in her hand.
"Sister, what is wrong?"
"There are too many to care for . . . they come too fast."
"Injured soldiers?"
"No, dead ones. Mother Superior refuses to let them be put into the ground without being washed. Without prayer. But the task—" She shivered. "The worse ones are those who expire during an operation. When they come, their bodies are still warm . . . and to touch them . . ."
Valley of Betrayal Page 20