Henri heard a ragged breath and chattering teeth. In one corner of the barn, Elle huddled on a bale of hay, her knees clutched to her chest. The sight of her all wet and cold saddened him. He thought of what Mother would want him to do in this situation.
“Here,” he said, taking off his coat. He shook as much water off of it as possible, and then held it out to Elle.
Elle glared at the coat as though it might have a snake in it. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve been on my own for a while. I’ve seen worse weather than this.”
“You’ll catch cold,” said Henri. When she wouldn’t take it, he walked over to her and draped the coat over her shoulders. Elle never stopped him, and though she didn’t say thank you, Henri saw a soft look come over her eyes. It made him feel a little warmer than he had second before. “Think you’re able to keep going?”
She nodded, and they headed back out into the night.
The darkness was deep and black, with the moon a faint smudge behind the clouds. The rain had become a fine mist. But that was almost worse—there was no avoiding the mist, no matter what tree or roof they ducked under. Cold had set in as well, and their breath came out in thick blasts of steam. Henri kept his hands shoved into his pockets and his body bent forward. Without his coat, he was freezing, but seeing Elle bundled warmly in it made him feel a little warmer.
Henri stared at the horizon. He wondered when they would finally see the lights of Fécamp in the distance. The town had to be close—bad weather or no, they’d walked far enough.
A brief burst of light made the horizon blink white. A loud thud echoed in the air.
“Not another storm,” he grumbled, hunching his shoulders even higher.
But then he noticed Elle had stopped walking. She stared into the sky, wide-eyed, and pointed out into the night.
“No storm,” she said. “Look.”
Henri followed Elle’s finger and saw only endless black night. But then he heard the thudding again, and he saw another flash—only this one didn’t come out of the clouds, it came from the ground!
Artillery. Somewhere off in the distance, big guns were firing. Shells were exploding. By the volume of the noise, Henri imagined they were still far away from them, maybe even five or six kilometers. Yet the way that they echoed and painted the countryside with their flickering light still made Henri worried. If he could see the explosions from this far away, who knows how big those guns were up close?
There was a blast of light in the air. For a split second, he saw round shapes among the clouds, like the caps of mushrooms.
“What are those?” asked Elle. “Balloons? Why would there be—”
As the realization dawned on Henri, a grin spread across his face.
“Not balloons,” he gasped. “Parachutes!”
The Allies were parachuting in! Henri had heard Mother and Monsieur Tardivat talking about Americans invading Normandy for a while now. Even yesterday, they’d spoken about how there were meant to be assaults by land and air, with American, British, and Canadian forces arriving in big boats on the beaches of Normandy. But they’d doubted it would happen because of the weather. The Allied plans had already been rescheduled multiple times. No matter how bad the storm was in France, it was worse out at sea.
But here they were, parachuting down, braving both the terrible weather and the big German guns to try and get to them!
Another flash, and Henri saw even more parachutes against the fluffy clouds.
“Come on,” he said, pointing to the hill along the side of the road. “From up there, we can get a better view!”
Henri ran off the road, splashing through puddles as he went, and moved to climb the hill—
STOP!
Henri froze. This was exactly what Mother had talked about. He was getting distracted. The longer he spent staring at the battle in the distance, the longer Mother’s contacts were waiting for him.
“What?” said Elle, coming up behind him.
“Never mind,” said Henri, trudging back toward the road. “We can’t get sidetracked. Let’s go.”
Henri got back on the road to Fécamp and turned to Elle . . . only Elle wasn’t there. In a glimmer of light from the distant artillery, he saw that she had continued climbing and now stood at the top of the hill, staring off into the countryside. Henri cursed at himself for even giving her the idea of watching the battle.
“Elle, come on,” he called out. “We have to keep moving.”
“There’s something in this tree,” she replied. “Come quick!” And then she ran down the far side of the hill.
Henri groaned and went marching off the road and up the hill. He hoped Elle hadn’t gotten too sidetracked. What could she have seen in that tree—a bird, maybe, or an old hunting blind? Or worse, what if it was an undetonated bomb? Mother had told him about those, how they’d sit dormant where they landed until a light jostle from a passing car made them go off. The thought made Henri jog a little faster. What a story that’d be—almost at Fécamp, and he got blown up because some orphan wanted to flick a lethal weapon.
As Henri crested the hill, the clouds finally parted, and the moon bathed the countryside in ghostly blue light. Up ahead, Henri could see Elle reaching for something in the branches of a dead tree—some sort of white clothing hanging in midair and shaking. It was almost as though a ghost had gotten caught on a branch.
“What is that?” he cried out to Elle. “Be careful!”
“We need to get him down!” she called back.
Him?
Henri came up beside Elle and looked up into the tree. There, hanging in a web of ropes and tattered white cloth, was a tiny dog, its body white with black spots. It had a small face and big eyes that reminded Henri more of a bat than any dog he’d ever seen. It spun its little legs, making it swing from the ropes it was tangled in . . . no, not ropes, parachute cords! Henri realized that the dog was dangling from a parachute that was caught in the branches!
“Huh,” he said, taking in the dog’s parachute vest. He couldn’t help but smile to himself. A dog parachuting into France under German fire! Who had heard of such a thing?
The dog barked again and spun its legs faster. The message was clear: GET ME DOWN!
Henri reached for the dog—but stopped midway.
“What are you doing?” asked Elle.
“We don’t know whose dog this is,” said Henri. “This isn’t our mission. We have to get to Fécamp before—”
“Are you serious?” said Elle. “He needs our help! We can’t just leave him there.” She shook her head and started walking toward the tree. “Not our mission. Ridiculous. Just be ready to catch him when I’m done, okay?”
“What do you mean—” Before Henri could finish the sentence, Elle took a running start and leaped to one of the lower branches of the tree. Her hands wrapped around it, and she pulled herself onto it. Henri had to admit, he was impressed by her climbing.
Elle shimmied out onto the branch from which the dog dangled. The little dog yipped and whined as Elle got closer. He even turned his head back and tried to nip at her, but Elle cooed, and whispered, “Easy, boy.”
Slowly, she snaked her hands between the ropes that held the dog up. He heard the clicking of buckles, and—
SNAP! The dog’s straps broke, and he fell to earth. Henri dove forward with his arms out and just barely caught the little guy. Then he went falling to the ground in a splash of icy mud.
As Henri stood and wiped the mud from his pants, Elle jumped down from her branch and knelt down next to the dog, who was wagging his tail and yipping at them.
“Hush, little friend,” she said. “Hush . . .” Elle reached down to the dog’s collar and checked the tag on it. “Ace?”
As if in response, the dog stopped barking and sat.
Henri tried to be stoic and wanted to insist they get back on the road . . . but he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and scratched the dog behind the ear and on the hindquarters, feeling the animal�
�s heart beating fast in his warm little body. The feeling of a dog, even a small, bat-faced one, reminded him of his time with Brigette. He smiled and laughed at the little creature, who bounced excitedly and yipped at them as though he hoped they understood dog.
“Where do you think he came from?” asked Elle.
Henri peered at the dog’s green parachute harness. On the side, he saw black stenciled letters spelling UNITED STATES AIR FORCE.
“I think he’s an Allied soldier dog of some sort,” said Henri. It sounded silly to him, but all evidence pointed to that being the case. Using dogs during the war wasn’t uncommon—even Mother’s French companions had told stories of Chief, the British dog who’d survived the Blitz, and Skipper, the hero dog of Pearl Harbor. But dropping a dog out of an airplane? That sounded like a little much, even during a war!
Another shell exploded in the distance. Immediately, Ace turned to it and began barking.
“Aw, he probably misses his platoon,” said Elle. “Don’t worry, boy, we’ll help you find them.” Ace barked louder, and angrier, and she picked him up and held him. “It’s okay, boy, we’ll get you—”
“Wait,” said Henri. “Shush.”
Henri lifted his ear to the air. Had he been hearing things? Maybe it had just been some shell fire, or the whistle of a bomb . . .
Then he heard it again. This time there was no mistaking it. And the surprised expression on Elle’s face told him he wasn’t just imagining things.
Another dog was barking back. By the sound of it, a bigger, meaner dog.
And it was getting closer.
Chapter 9
OUTSIDE BEC-DE-MORTAGNE, FRANCE
MONDAY, JUNE 5, 1944
11:52 P.M.
“Run,” said Henri.
He and Elle jumped to their feet and ran as fast as they could, and Ace followed behind them. Any worry about heading in the right direction to get to Fécamp exited Henri’s mind in a flash—all that mattered now was getting somewhere they could hide.
A voice in Henri’s head mentioned that he had just found a dog dangling in a tree, so perhaps this was another American parachute dog. Maybe the Allies were dropping dogs all over France to aid in the war effort . . .
But no, that was wishful thinking. After years of owning Brigette, he could tell a happy bark from an angry one. Whatever other dogs were coming after them, they were not friendly. And they were not small either.
Freezing cold mud splashed up around them as they ran, soaking Henri’s trousers and dripping into his boots. Up ahead, he could see a patch of forest, sparse but full of tall trees. If they could make it there, they could hide, or even climb up a tree. Then everything would be okay, at least for a little while . . .
Next to him, Elle’s foot sank into a deep puddle and caught. She went falling to the ground with a cry and a splash.
Henri came to a halt and reached down to try and help her. Ace was leaping back and forth, barking at them as though to say, Come on! We have to go! There’s no time!
A patch of deep mud had swallowed Elle’s one leg up to the calf. Henri helped Elle pull her foot from the puddle, but her shoe stayed mired deep in the muck. He grabbed it and yanked, and with a deep sucking noise, the shoe popped free.
“Thank you,” she said, turning it upside down and pouring dirty water out of it.
“It’s fine,” he said through quick, heavy breaths. “But let’s go! We need to get moving again before—”
Ace stopped yipping and growled. He dropped to a crouch and faced the road.
Slowly, dread rising inside him, Henri looked up into the blackness.
To Henri, the Doberman looked less like a dog and more like a weapon of war built by the Germans. Her pointed face reminded him of a machine gun bullet, and her ears looked like two pointed turrets on the side of a black fortress. Her broad chest jutted out proudly and led to a sleek body full of muscles that would probably allow her to spring through the air with deadly grace.
In a blaze of lightning, Henri even saw the name printed on the Iron Cross hanging from its collar: KRIEGER. German for warrior.
The Doberman took a careful step forward and growled back at Ace—but her growl was far lower and scarier than Ace’s. She sounded as though Ace were a whining mosquito and Krieger were a fighter plane. Henri was stunned by how brave Ace was being in the face of a dog so big and threatening.
Henri felt Elle tense against him and heard a sob hitch up in her throat.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. “If we just back away slowly, she might not attack us . . .”
His hopes deflated as he watched a pair of headlights come over the top of a hill in the distance.
An all-terrain truck roared across the muddy ground and over to where the Doberman was standing, so that the powerful dog became a silhouette in the glare of its light beams. As it came to a stop in front of them, Henri saw the white circle with the black swastika inside of it printed on the doors.
Fear gripped him, cold and terrible.
There was no escaping them now.
“Hands where we can see them!” screamed one of the two Nazis who leaped out of the truck’s cab. Both men had their Luger pistols drawn, and they wore long black raincoats that made them look like smokestacks with feet and helmets.
Slowly, Henri and Elle raised their hands. Henri didn’t know what else to do. He felt utterly defeated. What would Mother say if she could see him now? She’d be embarrassed by him. Ashamed that he was so easily distracted by a little parachute dog hanging from a tree, and so easily caught by the enemy.
One of the Nazis instructed them to walk toward the truck. The other one approached Ace, who snarled and darted forward as if to bite his hand. But the soldier was quicker, and he grabbed Ace by the back of his neck. The little dog’s legs wheeled helplessly as the Nazi raised him high in the air.
“Another hound for the ranks!” laughed the soldier in German. “And look at this, Peter—he wears an American uniform! He’s some kind of spy-dog from the States!”
“Doesn’t matter where he’s from, Reinhardt,” snapped the Nazi pointing his gun at Henri and Elle. “All dogs become obedient to the Third Reich once they’re broken.”
“What do we do with the children?” asked Reinhardt.
“Let’s bring them with us,” said Peter. “For all we know, they’re spies themselves. If we have to deal with any of those American swine, they might make good hostages.” The Nazi grabbed Henri by the shoulder and shoved him toward the truck. “You, in the back. On the double.”
Henri and Elle sat perfectly still as the truck rumbled across the countryside. Ace barked from the cage he’d been crammed into, while Krieger the Doberman sat nearby, watching over them.
The sounds of the battle got louder and louder as they drove, and the flickering lights in the clouds got brighter. Wherever they were going, Henri knew it was in the opposite direction of Fécamp.
Henri couldn’t believe it. Captured by the enemy. Being taken, well, who knew where? He was a terrible freedom fighter. Sooner or later, one of the soldiers would no doubt find the plans he was trusted with tucked away in his coat, now wrapped around Elle. They would figure out where the Resistance cells were going to meet the Allies, and all of the invasion plans would be lost. And Mother . . .
Henri bit his lip and clenched his eyes hard. Even if Mother was ashamed of him, he just prayed she was okay. If there were Nazi dogs roaming the countryside, she might have been caught before getting to Amiens. But hopefully only he was so stupid and unlucky to be caught on this mission.
Elle put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” she whispered.
“No, I’m not,” he muttered through his tears. “You wouldn’t understand. Everything’s gone wrong.”
Elle was silent for a moment and then said, “They took my mama and papa away in a truck like this. I might understand.”
Henri sniffed and looked into the little girl’s sad eyes. He hadn’t even thought about E
lle’s family. That was unfair of him to say, even if he was upset . . .
The truck lurched to a halt. Henri looked over the cab and saw that they were parked in front of a concrete bunker, square and bleak. Instead of windows, the little building had long slits in the walls, out of which stuck the barrels of heavy mounted machine guns. Off in the distance, glimmering faintly in the moonlight, Henri could make out the ocean.
The Nazis climbed out of the cab and came back to the bed of the truck.
“Reinhardt, get the brats out first,” said Peter. “Then the little American dog. If he bites you, shoot him.”
“Leave him alone, German pig dogs!” shouted Henri in his best German.
Peter sneered at him. “Don’t worry, little friend,” he said. “As long as he behaves himself, your little dog will only be thrown in a cage for a while.”
The sneer became a grin. Peter held up two pairs of handcuffs and a couple of black sacks. Henri’s breath caught as he recognized the black cloth bags, like small pillowcases—hoods. The kind the Germans put over your head before marching you through town . . . and taking you away forever.
“You two, on the other hand,” said the Nazi slimily, “might not be so lucky.”
Chapter 10
OUTSIDE FROBERVILLE, FRANCE
TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1944
12:27 A.M.
Ho boy. This, this was gonna be a problem.
Ace growled under his breath as the enemy soldier carried him into a little stone house that smelled of moldy boots and live ammunition. Beside him, the enemy dog trotted, giving off a scent that was equal parts confidence and anger. Ace could tell this “Krieger” dog (what kind of a name was that?) didn’t get a lot of love or Judy’s Junker Treats the way he did. The enemy dogs were probably raised the way the mean dogs in his Cleveland neighborhood were—a lot of slaps to the snout and kicks to the stomach. He’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t so mean.
If only he hadn’t gotten blown off course . . .
Soldier Dogs #4 Page 4