“What is your name?” the officer asked in perfect English.
“Marc, Marc Tolbert,” he said, surprised that he could even speak.
“What unit are you with?” he asked next.
“I am not in the army. I was just a passenger,” Marc responded, looking around. He felt an overbearing sense of dread and churning in his body. He began to shake.
“Passenger? What do you mean?” the officer pressed next.
“I am not British. I am American. I was trying to get home via Ireland,” Marc said directly to the officer. The officer got up from the chair and went back to the nurse and started to talk with her.
Marc looked at them and wondered what they were planning on doing with him. A wave of nausea washed over him. He looked at his hands and arms and could see deep, dark oil stains in his skin. The officer then returned.
“Can you tell me where in America you are from?” he asked next.
“New York. Just north of New York City.”
“Do you know how you got here?”
“I was on the ship that was bombed.”
“Yes, yes, I know, but do you remember getting here?” he pressed.
Marc looked at him with fear.
He is going to tell me
how I got here and what will happen to me next.
His stomach burned with nausea, mixed with fear and anger.
“No. I was in the sea and now I am here,” he said back, hearing his voice as if he was speaking into a bucket.
The officer just looked at him and then nodded. “In a few days, I will be back. We will talk more then.” He got up and started to walk away.
He turned back and asked Marc, “Who is the chancellor of Germany?”
Marc thought and then said, “Eleanor Roosevelt.”
Then he asked, “Who is the prime minister of England?” and Marc knew it was Mick. Mickey? Is it Mickey?
“Mickey … uhh … Mickey. I think Mouse.”
Then he asked Marc, “Do you remember the woman?” he asked him next.
“The mother? The pregnant one?” Marc answered.
“Yes, her,” the officer responded.
“I saw her, yes,” Marc said, feeling relieved and connected in a way to the officer.
“Good, don’t forget her. I will be back in a few days.” He then walked out of the makeshift hospital.
Marc felt ill. His body shook and he leaned over the bed, shoving his face into the bucket. He heaved, but nothing came up. His body trembled and shook until he could not heave anymore.
Allen then walked up to his bed. “Marc, you are going to be fine, but you need to rest.”
Marc looked up into his friend’s face and could not believe his eyes.
Allen survived!
He looked as though he’d just come back from the bar, without a scratch on him.
“I need to go, Marc, but before I leave, I want to encourage you to hang in there.” Then he walked right through the nurse and out the door. Marc felt another wave coming down upon him, but at least he knew Allen had survived.
How did he do that? Walk through the nurse?
he thought.
Then it came to Marc. He understood what the German wanted. He said to the nurse who was walking past his bed.
“I am not the father. You understand me? I am not the father.”
She looked at him, perplexed. “Father of whom?” she asked.
“That German is going to take me away in a few days to see the chancellor of Germany. Eleanor … Eleanor Roosevelt. And she is pregnant, and they think I am the father.”
She looked at him, stunned, and could not come up with a response.
“I am not the father, I’m telling you. It is not my baby,” Marc pleaded with the woman.
Finally, it came to her and it was simple, “I believe you.”
Spring, 1942
Lyons, France
“H
ere, you take these over to François,” he said to Marie as she picked up the plates and carried them to the press.
“Now, these copper plates bend and go over the drum,” he said, installing the plates.
“Can you get me some of that paper over there to load?” Marie retrieved some of the paper from a corner.
“Now, the paper loads here, but you need to watch and make sure it loads correctly. Stack it this way and place it in the tray, and always run a test print to see if everything lines up before you hit the power and start making a run.”
“See, just like that!” He pulled a sheet out from the other side of the press. “It is still wet, so be careful, but the alignment is correct.”
“Now, see how much ink is on this sheet? It is not dry yet,” he went on in his training.
“Yes,” Marie answered back with an intense look. She smiled at him, glowing.
“The control for the ink flow is here. That is another reason for a test run for the first couple of sheets. You need to adjust the amount of ink for each page. It is touch and go, and might take a few turns before you get it right.” The man giving instruction was not much older than Marie, and shorter. He was short compared to many other men.
“Have you been doing this long?” Marie asked him.
“Printing? All of my life. Before the war I used to work in my parents’ shop.”
“Is that where you got the equipment?” Marie asked in what she hoped sounded like an offhand tone.
“No. That shop is gone. This press came from the university,” he said as he turned away to organize the supplies.
“What happened to your parents’ shop?”
“They are gone now. Deported.”
“Are you Jewish?” she asked, with a whispering confessional tone.
He looked at her, but his eyes seemed to turn inward, searching for the beginning and end of some story.
“No, not at all. I am French,” he said looking directly at her. “I am not sure really what happened to them. One day they were here, and the next they were gone. Get used to it, Marie. It happens, you know, more than you might realize.” He then brushed her cheek with endearment.
“We are ready. Now, when you are ready to make a run and have tested everything, you hit this button and watch. Watch the paper carefully as it comes out. Don’t walk away and do anything else. You are watching to make sure the alignment stays correct. If it starts to get off track, stop. Sometimes after a few hundred sheets, these settings start to slip up.”
Spring, 1942
Paris, France
Marc, Dr. Jackson and Torquette were seated at the table at four in the afternoon, wondering if Jean had gotten lost or if he would show. Perhaps even wondering if they were wrong and had been set up.
Then a knock sounded at the door. Torquette got up and looked out the window to see a young man, slightly heavier set than Georges. She opened the door and said, “Bonjour.”
“I am Jean, I have come to play some cribbage with your club,” the young man said, as he believed he was going to play cards.
“Excellent. Please come in and sit down. I will take your coat,” Torquette said.
“Jean, have you played this game before?” Dr. Jackson asked him, grinning.
“Birdies, or cribbage?” Jean responded in a serious, straightforward manner.
“Well, both?” Marc said.
Jean then laughed. “No, I have never played cribbage before. It is an odd game. I am not good with cards.”
“Well, you can certainly be a part of this club. Only Marc seems to understand the stupid game,” Torquette said dismissively.
“Jean, how soon do you think you can have a nest ready?” Marc asked him.
“Soon, very soon. We have many men in the group. It is just a matter of working out the logistics, honestly,” Jean answered.
“Logistics?” Torquette said.
“Yes. We need to know where and how to take handoffs. We are going to need to come to an agreed-upon method of communication. And, we need a single point of contact. A go-to for your group, and a point of contact for our group,” Jean explained matter-of-factly. His tone seemed completely out of place for a schoolboy.
Dr. Jackson nodded and pulled a peg, then put it down into another hole on the board, smiling at Marc. “Jean, we are not really a group, but just people trying to help others in need. I hope you understand that.”
“Agreed,” Marc said. “I will be the single point of contact. Everything will go through me.” Marc nodded as he glanced at both Dr. Jackson and Torquette, confirming what they had spoken about before Jean’s arrival.
“Then it is settled. You will meet our head and he will interview you. He is the one who knows all the others and acts as our single point of contact. Georges and I are not in charge. He is.”
“When?” Marc asked and took a deep breath.
“Wednesday. I will give you instructions through Georges. We need to keep things appearing normal with him, so, you will be asked to bring a package, just some books,” Jean said.
“Excellent. We need a nest soon. We have too many birds right now and some need to get flying home. So, we need to get started sooner than we expected,” Marc said. He was frustrated that this process was taking so long.
They finished their tea and Marc told them their scores for the game that day. He then took the board and placed it back into his bag.
July, 1940
Saint-Nazaire
“Maybe you should go south?” the German officer suggested to him.
“To Spain?” Marc asked.
“Yes, Spain?” the officer pressed again.
“Are you going to drive me there?”
“Well, no, but it is an idea,” the officer said with a curious look.
“I don’t know anyone in Spain. I mean, it sounds like a good idea, but how I am going to get over the border? I do not have a passport. I have no papers. I don’t have any money.” He turned to the window and with a voice of desperation said, “It is all out there. I am not just going to stroll down to Spain and show up at the border and say, ‘Let me through, American here.’” The officer sat back in his chair, bemused by Marc’s rant.
“I know someone north,” Marc said.
“Oh, England?” the officer responded with interest.
“Yes. Do you think I could go north?”
“Oh, no problem. I will put you on a U-boat and they will just drop you off in Southampton. Do you want Churchill … oh, excuse me, Mickey, to meet you at the dock?”
“So, going north is not an option,” Marc said quietly.
“No,” the officer said looking up with a smile, “look, I believe you are an American. If you were British, we would not be having this talk. But the fact is you were born in France. So, that makes you a French citizen as well. And, if I wanted to, I could have you arrested and put into a POW camp, or even worse.”
“But I am not a soldier,” Marc complained.
“Yes, yes, I know, but still, the point is, you have no passport, no proof, and even though I can radio back and check in on this or that about your story, you don’t want that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you do not want me to verify your citizenship, because then you are on record. Then, something must be done,” the officer raised his eyes. “I don’t like paperwork.”
Marc shifted to one side of his chair as he looked down at the desk. He then shifted back, looked at the portrait of the French head of Parliament and back at the officer.
“We have not got around to changing them out yet. Other duties, you know. What about instead of a POW camp, you stay here a bit? I need some help with a problem,” the officer said.
“Problem?”
“Yes, a problem. Your savior friend, Joan, is bugging me about the bodies washing ashore, and she will not let up. If there is one Brit I would like to send back over the Channel, it is that one.”
Marc sat and listened, taking in what the officer told him, realizing just how stuck he was. He had no way of traveling south and he knew it was dangerous. Even if he could get to the border, he had no idea with whom or where he would stay in Spain. If at any point he should be stopped in France, he would be arrested without his papers. At least with the hospital, he knew people.
“I need help with the port to go between you and the hospital and morgue. I am good with French, but very good speaking English. You know French very well, and English, of course. The body issue is becoming a problem and, as much as I would not like to be the one who takes charge and comes up with a solution, that is not the case,” his voice droned on. “I need to get some order of the problem so that every time a body comes ashore, I am not dealing with some hysterical French grandmother telling me that it is my job to do something.”
“And you are not going anywhere soon, Marc,” he said, without any hint of joking in his voice.
“Understood. What do you need done first?”
“I need some land. I need to get a place to bury them quickly. No more of this hold-and-wait business. So, I want you to talk to the church here and get me some land. I could send a German who knows better French than I do, but I would rather send you, because,” he paused and took a deep breath, “this requires trust. They simply do not trust us. You are, however, an American, so my bet is that they will trust you.”
“This is going to be tough,” Marc said softly.
“She saved your life, Marc,” the officer said in a firm tone. “She saved you and all the others from the sea that day, and she lost her baby.” His tone grew intense. “But that did not stop her from keeping that hospital running, and has not stopped her from cursing me out every time I come over to speak to one of those sick Brits.” He paused and looked out the window toward the bay. “She is not going to let me just sit on my ass while bodies wash up on the shore. I may not like her but I do respect her, and I also have something of a fear of her. I want to keep things here going well. If I can solve the problem at the docks, then I have a few points with her and then maybe I can come up with a solution for you.”
“Where did you learn to speak English so well?”
“University of Chicago. Class of ’37.”
“You are an American?”
“No. I am a German. After university, I returned home for a visit and, due to the graces of the new order, I was conscripted to stay longer than I’d planned.”
Marc thought for a second and realized he was right. If it had not been for her, his body would be washing up on the shore alongside the others.