War Bonds: A Novel of World War Two, page 11
In one respect, however, the boys differed greatly from blood siblings; each knew the other’s weaknesses and fears and chose not to exploit them. Hugo relied on Colin’s intuitive understanding of mathematics and the physical sciences to help explain some of his trickier school lessons, noting to Ivy that Colin explained it more clearly than Mrs. Helms. Colin deferred to Hugo when it came to processes and organization of their non-school time—cricket first with the mates in the schoolyard, then a trip over to Kimbolton, but home in time for chores before dinner. “Gotta make sure he doesn’t spend every minute of the day just thinking his great thoughts,” Hugo explained when what he really meant was that Colin didn’t get the blues as often when Hugo kept him on the move. Hugo was a little smaller and more compact, giving him an agility and athletic quickness that inspired admiration instead of jealousy in Colin. Having lost their fathers, they looked to one another for affirmation, each granting it capaciously. Having absorbed consequential losses already in their lives, they had learned, as most in Elsworth had as well, that pettiness and little envies wasted time and energy. It was one of the great gifts of the war.
The boys had arrived at a shared worldview, often shaping their ideas in those hazy minutes just before sleep. As they lay whispering in the dark, their brains let go of conventional lines of reason and became freer to untangle complexities in creative, unbounded ways. When the war ended, they resolved to take a flat in London together and perhaps attend university. After they made their fortunes (they outlined no timetable for this but assumed it would be immediate), they would return to Elsworth and open a bicycle shop that would also offer flying lessons once Colin had his aviator’s license. They would purchase Kimbolton for their private airfield once the Americans no longer used it. “When it’s over” was the recurring preamble to so many of their plans and it seemed, based on the broadcasts from the BBC and the latest reports in the newspaper, that finally, hopefully, things might be heading in that direction. The Germans had lost Stalingrad and Tunisia but were doing their utmost to hold on to Italy. The Allies were island-hopping across the Pacific, wrestling the determined Japanese for territory, inch by inch in costly, bloody battles that left the tropical sand black with blood. Jack’s long-ago joke about the boys being spies notwithstanding, they were astonished to learn there actually were real Nazi spies in England—gobsmacked in Colin’s words—one spy arrested in London as he attempted to jump a freighter to Algiers. But what Hugo and Colin found most electrifying were the rumors of resistance in Paris, brave people who operated under cover of darkness to disrupt and sabotage. Their secret, independent machinations meant that the War Office might not know everything about everything and everyone everywhere. In this, Hugo and Colin placed a measure of hope.
The next Sunday at Holy Trinity, the boys were stunned to see the successful outcome of one such undercover effort when Vicar Dowd’s grandson—a flier in the RAF—returned from the dead. His grandmother at his side, he sat serenely in the second pew, in uniform and looking well, despite having been shot down six months earlier and declared missing by the War Office. On this particular Sunday, the vicar abandoned the Anglican lectionary and chose for his scripture the eleventh chapter of John, the story of how Lazarus was raised from the dead.
“Hear the word of the Lord to Martha as she discovers her beloved brother is restored to her,” he intoned. “‘Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?’ Good people, I cannot explain why Lazarus was returned to his family—was it his extraordinary faith or the faith of those who loved him? Nor can I fully understand why our own Oliver is back among us while others in this congregation whom we love have been irretrievably lost despite fervent prayer. It is a question for which we will not have an adequate answer until we see the Lord face to face.” His eyes misted as he turned to look directly at his grandson. “It is enough for us now to rejoice that one of our beloved is returned to us. God desires us to continue to believe as the sisters believed and trust in God’s providence to face what lies ahead. It is incumbent on us all to lift prayers in praise and thanksgiving for His magnificent gift, and ask that He might, in his benevolence, extend it to others whom we love and hold in prayer.”
After the final hymn and the benediction, Flight Sergeant Oliver Dowd stood in the narthex with his grandparents to receive the handshakes and well wishes of the parishioners who had prayed to God for just such an outcome. But instead of asking to hear the story of the loss of his aircraft and how he’d gone from missing to standing there, alive and breathing, congregants inquired about his plans, where he would deploy next. Despite his fever to know how Oliver got here, Hugo did not want to breach the protocol that the congregation seemed to innately understand, so he simply shook Oliver’s hand and welcomed him home. He’d ask Jack later if he had an explanation for this.
After school the next day, Hugo and Colin climbed on their bicycles and pedaled over to Kimbolton, waving hello to the private in the guard shack who called out as they zipped by that Lieutenant Philip was in a briefing and would the boys please wait outside his quarters? These were perfunctory orders only. Hugo and Colin were fixtures on the base now, younger soldiers ruffling their hair and teasing them like they did their kid brothers, older officers, parents themselves, inquiring about progress in school and the sports they played and followed. When the men had passes to London, they would invariably hunt around for treats to bring back to the boys and the twins—a comic book, strings of licorice, a deck of cards—the normalcy of offering these small kindnesses counterweight to the high drama that characterized each bombing run they undertook.
The boys parked their bicycles and instead of waiting at Jack’s Nissen hut, they ambled over to the mess hall looking for Buck or other members of the Gator crew. Clearly, they were all otherwise occupied. A staff sergeant approached, gave them a friendly smile, flipped a pack of gum their way, then headed toward a waiting jeep that would take him out to a B-17 waiting at its hardstand.
The base was humming with activity—busier than the boys remembered it ever being, confirmed by the now-daily thunder that resounded over Elsworth as the bombers rose in the air. The Florida Gator had fresh pockmarks in her every time the boys saw her, wounds the ground crews patched up to keep her airworthy, laughing at the damn Jerrys who were too slow on the uptake to shoot the Gator down. Soon, some of the flight crews on the base would complete the required twenty-five missions, making them eligible to rotate back to the States. Hugo and Colin pushed the idea of Jack’s departure from their minds: it was a terrible thing to even imagine.
The doors to the briefing room swung open and out into the daylight emerged dozens of squinting pilots and crew, many of them running through the details they’d just heard, stopping short when they saw the boys.
“Fellas,” called Jack to the boys. “Y’all up to no good again?” He nodded to the men he was with to urge them to go on as he took some time with the boys. He stood in his fleece-lined leather flight jacket, the collar pulled high on his neck, hands plunged deep in his pockets, working to shake the chill.
“Here only to keep you in line, mate,” responded Colin with a grin. “Blast, Jack! It’s all of eight degrees and still you shiver as if we’re in the midst of an ice storm. This is about as good as it gets in February around here. We’re enjoying it, hey Hugo? Not even wearing our long underwear!”
“That’s about forty-five degrees where I come from, so to me it feels like the dead of winter. So, what’s up?”
“We’ve got some questions for you,” said Hugo.
“No! Questions? For me? Well, that’s new,” he joked. “We can sit in the mess and talk. I’ll get y’all some Cokes from the O-Club—I could use something a bit harder right about now—and meet you over there. Then we’ll get down to business.”
. . .
Settled in the corner of the mess hall, the boys described the events of the previous day. Hearing of the sudden appearance of Flight Sergeant Dowd at Holy Trinity, Jack smiled, lifted his beer in salute, and gave a little hoot. “Good for the ole’ vicar and his family. Glad to hear it.”
“So, how did he make it home?” Hugo pressed. “Who smuggled him out of France?”
“Probably a whole slew of folks,” responded Jack, who then filled out the broad details of what the boys had already begun to piece together, that a chain of resisters had likely found the good sergeant and hidden him for some period of time. Then someone had guided him southward through France, handing him off, one partisan to the next, along the treacherous route through the Pyrenees, then probably into Spain. British intelligence would have received him there and arranged for transport home. “But I’m guessing here, fellas. That’s probably close to what happened and now I need you both to forget every bit of it because talking about it makes the way home that much harder for the next guy. I’m serious. That’s why nobody was talking about it yesterday. Promise me you two won’t blab to anybody about it—not at school or anywhere and if you hear talk about it, shut it down.”
“These guides—they’re not soldiers?” asked Hugo.
“Not usually. Maybe some are, but they’re all kinds of people who can blend in and stay out of sight so they don’t get caught. It is dangerous business, boys. No trial by jury if they’re caught, you know what I mean? They got more courage and guts than most people do, I’ll tell you that.”
“Wish they’d found my dad,” he murmured.
“And hidden him and got him out,” finished Collin.
“I do too, fellas,” responded Jack. “Boy, do I.” Jack looked at Colin, the green eyes serious, earnest, so like his mother. Beryl. He wondered where he stood with her after he’d overstepped that night. Jack planned to make things right as soon as he had the chance. He felt some urgency to do so.
They sat a few more minutes before a throng of about fifty men—hyped up and hollering, having survived their bombing run—descended on the mess for an early dinner. The boys finished their Cokes and made their way outside, thanking Jack as they customarily did, a ritual that had evolved from formal handshakes and stiff head nods to Jack cuffing their hair and pulling them in close for an embrace. “It’s what we Southern Yankees do, boys,” he’d explained. “Can’t help it.”
Hugo and Colin hopped on their bicycles for the trek home, riding slowly, side by side, considering what they’d learned. Jack had provided startling answers to their questions and filled out their understanding of things they had suspected, but there were many things they still didn’t know about the fight in France, details they would remain unaware of for months to come. Namely, that after worship the day before, after the handshakes had concluded and the long line of congregants dispersed, Oliver Dowd had made his way over to Ivy, asking his grandmother to take Margaret and Patsy to the garden so he could have a moment with their foster mother. And as the two of them stood in the chancel, sunlight gleaming in distinct rays through the prisms of the ancient stained glass, Oliver had pressed something small and sacred into Ivy’s hand that brought an immediate rush of tears, prompting Flight Sergeant Dowd to reach out with haste to hold her to ensure she remained upright.
CHAPTER TWELVE
That which we are, we are –
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to see, to find, and not to yield.
–Alfred Lord Tennyson
Occupied France
It wasn’t that William Hughes was particularly courageous. Neither was he foolhardy. He had simply availed himself of an awkward and ultimately deadly set of circumstances that set in motion his fortuitous escape.
When the prisoners taken at Calais and their German overseers passed outside Lille, more than one POW took refuge in the farmer’s hayloft—several hoping for a chance to flee, all grateful for a soft place to rest. The farmer’s daughter, who, at eighteen years old, had never been five miles from her family home, found the sudden occupation of the farm enthralling. The noisy arrival of the Germans with their modern trucks and staff cars and the thousands of captives impressed and appalled her. The POWs were grimy. But the Germans. Some of them were beautiful, especially the ones in charge of directing this transfer of prisoners. They seemed taller than average men, sharp, and so sure of themselves in a manner she found attractive. Powerfully so. She felt some shame for this, but it did not quench her interest. It was partly their uniforms, decorated with ornate emblems and ribbons, the significance of which she knew nothing. Most had good teeth and a lot of them, straight noses. Their hands were not calloused and rough like the boys she knew. When, as she served them supper, one of them began conversing with her in French, he earned her delighted response. Her parents were horrified, their eyes flashing a warning she pretended not to notice. That night, they reprimanded her, reminding her that these barbarians had taken over France, killed her countrymen. She must maintain her distance.
After her parents fell asleep that night, she slipped soundlessly from their shared room, pausing to quiet the dog as she began to stir, making her way to the hayloft to meet her German. She had resolved she was ready to give herself over to whatever he asked—it would be her first time—believing it could offer a path that could take her away from the tedious and never-ending work of the farm and toward a more interesting life. Their encounter was not what she expected—his body out of the uniform did not have the same allure—but the whole thing was bearable and didn’t last overly long. They slept and at dawn, as the first rooster crowed, she leapt from the hay to head to the cow pen so her parents would think she had risen early to see to her chores. As she did so, she tripped over a muddy boot—that of a hidden POW who had lain quietly beneath the hay at one side of the large loft throughout their sexual congress. This is when she emitted her mortified scream, prompting the German to shoot the man not because he was attempting to escape, but because he could give witness to the violation of this naïve French girl. The shattering sound of the gunfire brought the girl’s parents and a contingent of Nazi officers to the barn, where the German—now dressed except for his boots—calmly announced he’d found a man attempting to flee and had executed him accordingly.
Buried under the hay, next to the dead POW, William Hughes held his breath, relieved when the girl’s family arrived because at least there would be witnesses to give testimony to his death. But the cacophony of accusations, realizations, recriminations covered him. The parents pulled the girl roughly from the loft, her mother slapping her face, hissing through clenched teeth that she was an embarrassment, simple-minded, and selfish. The German strode from the barn, head high but face enflamed, earning quiet plaudits from his peers for both his conquest of the pretty girl and preventing an escape. When the assemblage moved out that afternoon, the girl stood and watched them, face anguished and tear-streaked as she began a reckoning of all she had lost.
William stayed hidden the remainder of the day and through the night, showing himself when the farmer entered the barn and climbed to the loft to remove the body of the dead POW the next day.
“Oh, mon Dieu,” the farmer breathed as William pushed through the straw and slowly sat up. He had lain in the blood of the other man for a day and a half, his uniform soaked through on one side and across the back, the metallic scent attracting insects and rodents that twirled hungrily about him.
“Je pensais que tu étais mort,” he said. I thought you were dead.
“Je vais bien,” William responded. “This poor bloke saved me.” And knowing enough French and English between them to communicate what they needed to do, the men maneuvered the dead soldier—a Belgian fighting for France—down the loft ladder and placed him onto a wagon. They would bury him in the woods after sunset.
The farmer brought William into the house, where his wife, daughter, and young son stared in fear and disbelief. Their dog barked furiously, incensed at this stranger appearing in the kitchen.
“Albert!” his wife shrieked, leaping to her feet, the kitchen knife dropping from her hand and clattering to the floor. “Sucre! Soyez silencieux! Gilles, por favor, le chien.” The boy pulled Sucre the dog to his side and demanded her silence.
“All’s well,” the father assured them. “Sit. All of you. This is Guillaume, William. He is British. He is not wounded. The blood belongs to the one the Nazis shot. We must clean him up and hide him.”
A hushed but spirited exchange ensued, in which the women vigorously challenged the wisdom of helping an Englishman when the Germans had so plainly demonstrated the punishment for those who did not respect their rules. After the events of the past two days, the daughter’s appetite for drama had been sated, and she wished for nothing more than to return to the safety and sameness of her life before the contingent of captors and captives had arrived. The boy, a lanky fourteen-year-old, looked intently at William, eyes wide and staring at the blood-soaked uniform.
“Vous êtes resté silencieux ? Tout le temps?” You stayed quiet? The whole time? the boy finally said.
“Silent? Yes. I did. Oui,” William responded.
The boy put his face in his hands and shook his head as his father pled William’s case.
“Did I fight at Verdun—see with my own eyes, good men cut down next to me—to give in to the Germans now?” Albert asked reasonably, looking from face to face. “How God has blessed me with each of you. With a farm that year after year rewards us for our hard work, producing well and providing for our needs. I have coveted this tranquil life and I wish it still. But we cannot ignore what has happened. The Germans have brought the war to our doorstep. One of them took advantage of my own child. We will not cower. We will do our part. All of us. Ginette, heat some water so he can bathe. Prepare him some food. Gilles, show him to the bathtub. Sylvi, fetch some of your brother’s clothes for him to wear.”
