CHAPTER FOURMidnight Landing
ANDRÉ stepped quickly aside as, without a word, the Germans tramped in.
Three of them were ordered upstairs while the others set to work poking into every cupboard and drawer on the first floor. When they had emptied the kitchen of its copper they trooped off to the outbuildings.
André waited uncertainly in the hallway at first. Later, he edged his way to the farmyard door and anxiously watched the search through the barns. Not until he saw that none of the men went toward the lane where his trumpet was buried did he begin to breathe easily.
At last, the officer came from the loft over the cow barn, shouting to his men to return to the truck.
He strode into the kitchen and asked André,“Your father and mother—where are they?”
“They are all gone to the hospital with my mother, who is sick,” André explained.
“Well, then, when your father returns,” the officer snapped, “tell him I am putting men with machine guns in that loft overlooking the road. And advise him that it will do no good to protest.”
André’s heart sank. What would the family do with a lot of Nazis underfoot? Did they suspect that the Gagnons had been working with the Underground?
Now, for the first time, he felt desperately alone. He nodded silently.
When the Germans had gone—with his mother’s copper kettles—André ran back to the barn. Patchou lay in his dark corner under a manger, as quiet as a mouse.
“Come into the house, Patchou,” he said. “We’ll have to keep you there now.”
For an hour or so André went about doing his father’s chores and his own. The heavy, low-lying clouds began breaking a little.
He had just finished milking the cows when the German truck returned with a dozen rough-looking gunners and the sharp-faced officer. Machine guns were unloaded and hauled up the stone loft steps.
Some time later the officer and some of the men piled into the truck and drove away.
“They must have left at least six up there,” André said to himself. He must go up the road later, and warn his father and Marie about the hidden gunners.
He opened the front window so that he might be warned of an approaching car.
André ate the cold supper Marie had left under a cloth for him. The minutes dragged by. By nine o’clock there had been no sign of his father and sister, and no word. For a while he sat on the floor beside his dog. Tomorrow was June 6th—Patchou’s first birthday. André hoped Marie would keep her promise to bring back some sort of toy to celebrate the occasion.
When the clock struck ten he went out into the deepening twilight to stare into the gloom toward Ste. Mère. What if the Nazis had opened the ambulance and found Ronald? Perhaps the Maquis had failed to meet them.... He tried not to think of such things.
Now it was eleven o’clock and long past time to go to bed. From several directions there was strong antiaircraft firing, and the echo of bombs.
In spite of the curfew order, André began to walk stealthily down the road. Those Nazi gunners might open fire on any vehicle bringing his family home.
Halting, listening, he picked his way to a bend of the highway. After a little while he began to realize how tired he was.
Drowsily he looked for a sheltered spot in the hedge, and sank down among the ferns and the tall grass. The rich smell of earth and spring growth rose around him. A few fields away a horse whinnied, and from far in the distance came the long, high-fluted note of a train whistle....
Some time later he awoke with a start, and wondered where he was and how long he had slept. All around him hung thick, velvety blackness.
Something had wakened him. It was the sirens and fire alarms in Ste. Mère.
And then he heard the planes.
Drumming overhead, throbbing so that the earth shook under his feet, he heard them coming.
Then he saw them. A brilliant moon outlined their wings.
He ran across the road and struggling through a hedge, scrambled quickly up the tallest of a clump of trees.
And now he saw that the planes were coming in from the west, lower than he had ever seen themfly. They were twin-motored, scooping below the clouds to right and left, filling the sky.
They were bombing Normandy! Ste. Mère! Perhaps a bomb would drop on him—NOW!
The din of the German guns was incessant, and the roar of the plane engines was deafening. He must descend and find a ditch. His arms ached, but he could not let go. He had climbed as high as there were limbs to support him, and now he clung to the solid trunk.
He noticed one particular plane coming directly toward him. It was etched sharply against a luminous patch of cloud, and he could clearly see the three white stripes that banded each wing.
As he watched, he saw the open door at the rear of the fuselage, and instantly something dark dropped from it. Then another dark blob and another.
Expecting the whistle of bombs, he shut his eyes, pressed his face into the rough bark, and prayed....
After a few seconds he opened his eyes.
Other than the guns and the throttled beat of the engines, there had been no sound. No bombs were exploding.
André threw his head back and glanced quickly skyward. In the moonlight, speckled in every direction across the sky, hung hundreds of mushroomshapes that were floating gently earthward as silently as apple petals.
Suddenly he saw that they were parachutes!
And below nearly every one, a soldier swung. From the lowest he could make out the jut of rifles.