“Hang on, mister, I’m heading into the cove. We’re going to be doing a full turn, so hang on.”
Full turn, half turn, three-quarter turn, what the hell difference did it make? Daniel realized the difference the moment the scow turned and he found himself free of his ropes, sliding down past the captain, his body ricocheting from one garbage bin to the other…finally slamming into the last bin, which upended, burying him beneath its contents.
“Hold on, Yank, I’ll have you out in a minute, we’re in calm water now.” Free of the rotten garbage, Daniel wished for a return of the heavy rain that seemed to have faded. “If I were you, I’d give myself a good dunking or the Germans will smell you a mile away. Come on, Yank,” the captain said, holding out his hand. “Look, all those things I was saying back there was just to get your dander up. Not too many men could have held up the way you did. I wanted to make you mad. I’ll drink with you any day, Yank, and good luck with whatever the hell it is you’re here for. There’s a copse of trees over there, you wait it out and someone will find you. Don’t wander.”
“You’re not staying?” Daniel groaned.
“My country awaits,” the captain said gallantly. “Good luck.”
Daniel crawled to the copse and flung himself down. He wanted to sleep, needed to sleep, but he knew he couldn’t. It was as if he were a straw doll with no nerves, joints, or spine. His head rolled crazily about on his neck, and for the first time in his life he felt totally out of control. He had no strength to marshal to the surface, no inner untapped reserve. Over and over he asked himself what the hell he was doing here. The answer was always the same: He was here to repay a long-overdue debt. An emotional debt, to be sure, but a debt nonetheless.
The fine rain misting downward felt cool and refreshing on his face and body. Unfortunately it would also cover the sound of footsteps as it splattered on the leaves of the trees overhead. And he was too tired, too worn out, to strain his ears for alien sounds in this quiet, temporary shelter. If the storm worked its way inland, he was in deep trouble, he thought.
Daniel struggled to lift his arm so he could see the time, then remembered he’d been stripped of everything back in the metal hangar—his billfold, watch, and passport were all in a canvas bag awaiting his return, along with the labels that had been severed from his clothes. He knew he was inappropriately dressed for his trek to Marseilles. His shoes were the softest calf with thin leather soles, his shirt and trousers cotton seersucker. To his mind they screamed America.
Within minutes he was dozing, his eyelids full of weights he couldn’t dislodge. He had no idea how long he had slept when a sound reached his ears, a sound other than the dripping rain. Instantly he was alert, his eyes closed, his ears straining to pick up the sound again. Concentrating deeply, he began to count backward from a hundred and was on eighty-six when he opened his eyes to see four men, their bayonets fixed and pointing at him. In the gray drizzle of the copse he was unable to discern their features. Weakly he raised his right arm, the palm of his hand facing the men as though to say, Hold it, I’m an American. Then he quickly withdrew his hand. Jesus, what if they were Germans?
The tallest of the four stepped forward, the bayonet pointed at Daniel’s throat. “You have something to say?” he said in French.
Hell, yes, he had a lot to say in both French and English, but he knew what the man meant. “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” he responded shakily.
Daniel’s relief was overwhelming when the man reached down to pull him to his feet. For the barest second he thought his knees would buckle, but they didn’t. His mobility had returned with the short nap he’d taken.
“I want to go to—”
The tallest of the men shook his head. Obviously they knew where he wanted to go, or they wouldn’t be walking so purposefully as he trailed along behind.
“Voices carry, especially in weather like this,” the man whispered to Daniel as he fell in beside him. Daniel had thought the rain would muffle voices and movement. But he nodded to show he understood.
“This is good weather to travel, the sky is dark and swollen, there’s fog near the ground, and the rain lowers visibility. Normally we travel only in darkness unless we have a day like this. We have many kilometers to cover and we must do it on foot.” The man looked down at his hiking boots and then at Daniel’s elegantly shod feet. Wearily he shook his head.
“How long?” Daniel whispered.
The man shrugged. “Days, nights, weeks. It depends on where the German patrols are. For the moment they are concentrating their strength to the north. They’re like locusts; they are everywhere. But the heaviest concentration is in Paris. So far we’ve been lucky.”
Lucky, my foot, Daniel thought eight days later. Never in his life could he remember being so tired, so heart-sick, and so very hungry. The soles of his feet were raw and bleeding; the soles of his calfskin shoes were long gone, replaced by ripping the sleeves from his shirt to tie around the instep of his foot. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never do anything as foolhardy or as brave as he was doing now.
Daniel almost burst into song when the tall man said, “Five hours at the most and we’ll have you at your village. It’s a little past midnight now. I’d say you’ll be creeping into the church at, say four-thirty. Someone will meet you and take you to the château. Can you make it, monsieur?”
“I can make it,” Daniel said grimly.
As he trudged along behind his guide, his steps lagging more and more, Daniel marveled at the French underground network. Every stop was anticipated. The inhabitants of the safe houses, as he thought of them, seemed to know when they were to arrive, yet no signals had been sent that he was aware of; no man had gone ahead of the small parade to alert those ahead of them, and he knew when he reached the village church the curé would be waiting for him.
They were on time, he calculated by the smile on his guide’s face. On their stomachs, they peered over the rise to the small village nestled quietly among sturdy, leafy trees. How many times he’d bicycled into this village, how many times he’d prayed in the village church. A moment later his guide handed him the binoculars. Nothing had changed. There was the boulangerie with its life-size loaf of iron bread outside the door, the pharmacie next door with its shaded awning, the épicier where he’d shopped for Mickey, the docteur where he’d gone with Reuben at the close of their stay…. How was it possible that the village hadn’t changed in all these years, Daniel wondered as he handed the binoculars back to the man on his right. By God, he was here, he’d made it!
“Adieu, monsieur,” the tallest of the men said quietly. “Bonne chance.”
Daniel stretched out his hand, but the men were already on their way back to wherever they’d come from.
The curé must have been watching from the bowels of the church, for the door to the sanctuary was thrust open as soon as Daniel approached. It was dark in this quiet place the priests used before Mass. And peaceful. If they walked into the church proper, there would be candlelight, he knew. How many he’d lighted for Reuben’s recovery years earlier. How many prayers he and Mickey had said. So many rosaries, so many novenas. And when Reuben was finally well, he’d come back to this church one last time and had sat for hours, saying rosary after rosary in thanks. It still smelled the same. Even in this tiny closet of a room he could smell the beeswax and the faint odor of turpentine mixed with the smoky smell of the burning candles.
The curé paced nervously about the room. “It will be but a few minutes. You will travel to the château on my bicycle. Your…escort will have one of his own. Ah, I hear him now,” he said in relief. Daniel hadn’t heard a thing. How did they do it? “Go now, he waits for you at the main entrance. Bonne chance, monsieur.”
“Thank you, Father,” Daniel whispered, and made his way outside.
Instinctively,