WE WERE THEREAT THENORMANDY INVASION
WE WERE THEREAT THENORMANDY INVASION
CHAPTER ONEDangerous Business
TOWARD sunset on the first day of June, a small black car rattled past a crossroads sign in a tiny village in northwestern France. The sign pointed to the near-by town of Sainte Mère Église, about two miles farther inland. The coast of the English Channel was nearly three miles back in the other direction.
Behind the wheel of the car sat a thin, anxious Frenchman. Hunched beside him was a young, blond Englishman. The younger man was shabbily dressed, and most of the lower part of his face was covered by a bandage.
The car pulled up and stopped in front of a house with a weather-beaten sign on it which read:
Pierre GagnonGas Tobacco Chocolate
A lone gas pump stood between the house and the highway. Beyond the house lay Pierre Gagnon’s farm.
The driver waited a moment and then honked three times sharply. Almost immediately the door opened. A dark-haired boy of about twelve came out.
The man behind the wheel asked, “Is your father here?”
The boy nodded and politely explained, “If you want gas I can work the pump.”
The driver frowned nervously and repeated, “Get your father.”
From the direction of Ste. Mère Église three German soldiers came in sight, their heavy tread echoing in the stillness of the drowsy village. Both men in the car and the boy glanced at them. When the boy did not move, the driver spoke more sharply, “Your father, bring him here.”
The boy turned and disappeared through the door.
The driver and his passenger waited. The younger man slid low in his seat, his back toward the approaching soldiers.
Chatting among themselves, the Germans paid no attention to the car nor to a girl of fifteen who had come to the house door. Behind her stood her father, Pierre Gagnon, a burly man with a thick mustache, and rumpled country clothes.
He brushed past the girl, and at a signal from the driver, went to the pump. The driver left his seat and bent close to speak to him.
At a signal from the driver he went to the pump
Pierre Gagnon listened carefully, then swung around and went back to the girl in the doorway.
“Marie,” he whispered, “they want us to hide this fellow, another downed flyer, for two or three days.”
The girl studied the youth slumped low in the front seat. She thought, “He looks like all the airmen who are shot down over France—the worried eyes, the peasant clothes that don’t fit, the bandages.”
“Who is the driver?” she asked. “Has he the right password?”
“Yes,” her father replied. “And he asks us to hide this English pilot till the Maquis can find a way to get him over the border into Spain. Do you think we can do it?”
In Normandy, that part of France which thrusts northward into the English Channel, apple trees were in bloom. Warm, soft breezes played across the green fields, over the thick hedgerows, and through the orchards.
But in this beautiful spring of 1944 the people of Normandy could not enjoy what they saw. They could only hear the tramp of German boots over their land. Nazi armies had occupied France, and for the last two years German camps had been set up over the countryside. French property hadbeen seized, and Nazi officers told the people exactly what they could and could not do.
The town of Ste. Mère Église sits almost in the middle of what is called the Cherbourg Peninsula. Most of the Norman people are farmers or dairymen. Some are fishermen, but the Nazis would not let them fish. Instead, the Germans set up barriers along the shore to prevent boats from landing. And they lined the coast with huge guns. Also, the fields were spiked with posts and barbed wire to keep American and British gliders from landing.
For many months, the French people had been expecting British and American armies to come in a great invasion that would drive the Nazis out. But their hopes had always failed. No troops had come to liberate them, and the Normans felt glum and often angry. More than anything else they wanted to be free.
The only thing they could do was to cause all possible trouble for the Nazis secretly. Those who banded together in “Underground” or Resistance groups were called Maquis. If a Maquis was caught by the Germans he was very likely to be shot.
Nevertheless, many French ran the risk of being detected helping the British and Americans. Even very young men and girls operated in the secret Underground.
The Nazis tried to watch everyone, but sometimes the most innocent-looking car on the road was being used to trick them, even in the quietest village.
It was happening now. Marie Gagnon nodded to her father. “Bring him in,” she whispered. “I’ll get the room in the attic ready.”
“One moment,” her father said. “I’ll send André out of the way first. What he doesn’t know he won’t chatter about.”
He shouted through the door, “André. Come here.”
There was a clatter of heavy shoes and the boy reappeared.
“Son,” his father said sternly, “have you taken the eggs to old Schmidt yet?”
André hesitated and shook his head. “No—my bicycle—I could not get the chain fixed.”
His sister snorted at him. “You are getting soft. It won’t hurt you to walk. The eggs are on the kitchen table.”
André thought, “Sisters!” But a look at his father’s face sent him back for the eggs.
As he turned down the road toward Ste. Mère Église his father went back to the gas pump. André had not gone far when Patchou, his dog, caught up with him. The puppy gave him a playful nudge as if to say, “I’m sorry to be late, but I had to give that car a good, long sniff.”
After walking less than a mile, André turned off and came to a group of camouflaged barracks. Inside the high wire fence, narrow buildings stood in long rows. A German sentry, his rifle held loosely, guarded the gate. He grinned at the boy and waved him inside.
As André entered, a Frenchman pedaling by on an ancient bicycle shouted to him, but a burst of Patchou’s barking drowned out the greeting.
André went around a large group of military vehicles and mobile guns parked under a protecting netted screen. Then he followed a winding path up to one of the barracks.
Patchou, prancing ahead of him, leaped playfully at a middle-aged German soldier seated on a bench outside, puffing on his pipe.
Gently pushing off the excited dog, the German saw André and called, “Aha! It’s young Herr Gagnon.” He tapped the ashes from his pipe and then added, “You have brought Papa Schmidt some more eggs, no?”
André held out the package. The German placed it on the bench and carefully unknotted the big handkerchief the boy had brought.
Schmidt exclaimed when he saw the contents. “Ach!and cheese, too.” He held the cheese to his nose and inhaled deeply. “That’s goot. You are a fine boy, André Gagnon.” With a twinkling smile, he added, “Almost as goot as my own Otto.
“Look, I show you.” He reached into the pocket of his tunic. “Just today a letter came from my home in Osnabrück—and pictures.” Pointing to one, he said, “That’s my Otto. He’s like you, no?”
André studied the snapshot of a boy about his own age but with light, almost white hair, frowning into the sun.
A little embarrassed, André could only say, “He wears funny clothes.”
The German chuckled. “If he could see you, he’d think yours were comical too.”
Glancing at the letter in his hand, he sighed. “Ach!but they are having it bad in Osnabrück. The Englisher and the Americaner planes they bomb, bomb, bomb our town. Part of my home is gone. My wife and boy say they get no sleep.”
Almost to himself he muttered, “When will the war end?” Then, turning to the boy, he said sadly, “Ach, how do you know, any more than me? We smile, eh, while we can ... and enjoy the sunshine.”
Patchou had wandered off to one of the other barracks and started a fight with one of the camp dogs. André called over his shoulder, “I’ll be back again in a day or two,” and ran to separate the two animals.
By the time he and Patchou reached home, the last twilight had faded. The house was dark, for blackout curtains were drawn across the windows.
Inside, his sister sat hunched alone in the wide, stone-floored kitchen, listening to music from a forbidden radio.
“Where’s Papa?” André asked.
Marie looked annoyed. “He’s gone off with Victor Lescot. That Raoul Cotein is making trouble again. Now he says our cows broke into his pasture. What an old weasel he is! Even the Germans behave better.”
Later, with supper over, she paused suddenly, and raised her hand for André to be silent.
Breaking the stillness, the weird wail of air-raid sirens rose far away.
Marie looked tired. And there was fear in her eyes when she heard the sirens, which meant that another air raid was beginning.
“Againtonight,” she sighed, “and so early. It is not yet ten o’clock.”
She went to the kitchen window and made sure the black curtains let no light through.
“You run upstairs, André, and see that the curtains there are tight. And stay with Mother,” she ordered.
Mme. Gagnon had been ill for several weeks. Now she lay in her big bed upstairs, nearly asleep.
She opened her eyes as the sirens died away and then began again.
“Well, son,” she said, “did you eat a good supper?”
André nodded.
A little wind from the sea had sprung up, and somewhere a loose board rattled. Also, there was a noise in the attic. “Must be a rat,” André said to himself, and decided to take Patchou up there tomorrow. “He’ll have some fun catching that little thief,” he thought.
His mother was roused again by the drone of plane engines coming in high overhead. Their lofty beating made the air tremble. Antiaircraft guns in near-by Ste. Mère Église began to boom. Their hollowwumpf, wumpf, added to the din of the sirens.
In a slight lull, Mme. Gagnon asked, “Is your father home? I do not like him to be away when there is an air raid.”
André shook his head and raised his voice above the racket. “He’s out with Victor. Marie says Raoul Cotein is trying to stir up trouble again.”
He wanted his mother to think of something other than the air raid, so he laughed and added, “Marie says Raoul is a weasel.”
Raoul Cotein’s mischief-making was a village joke.
Mme. Gagnon sighed. “I wish your father would come home,” she said. “The bombing might be bad.”
“Don’t worry,” André said wisely. “These areEnglish planes. The Americans only come in the daytime. You know, Maman, there aren’t any big guns and bridges and war factories close to us here.”
But bombs were dropping, though at a distance. Several minutes later, the coastal guns were still firing, but the sound of the engines had begun to die away.
“Listen,” said Mme. Gagnon in a relieved voice. “You were right, André, they dropped no bombs on us.”
André heard his sister’s footsteps on the stairs. Then he thought he heard the creak of the attic door. Presently she came bustling into the room, carrying a small tray with a pot of chocolate and a cup.
Cheerfully, she said, “There, Maman, they’ve gone. Let’s hope we get no more planes tonight. Here,” pouring the chocolate, “drink this and try to get back to sleep.”
Her dark skirts swished around her knees as she fluffed up her mother’s pillows and tucked in the coverlet.
Downstairs the front door opened and they heard Pierre Gagnon calling, “Marie!”
Then someone spoke in another voice.
“Shh-h,” whispered Marie. “There is someone with Papa.”
Her father was saying loudly, “Yes, Herr Kapitan, I’m all right. No, no, it is not necessary for you to come in.”
Before Marie and André reached the head of the stairs, the outside door was slammed, bolted, and the stranger had gone.
The light from the hall lamp fell on their father as he turned to face the stairs.
Across one of his cheeks stretched a deep red gash.