Under a War-Torn Sky (13 page)

“Mercy buckets,” Henry said, purposefully mispronouncing
merci beaucoup
, French for “thank you very much”, with absolutely the worst southern drawl he could muster.

The little boy laughed an honest laugh at the country-hick accent. Then he asked, “
Êtes-vous pilote?
”

“Yes, a pilot.”

The child repeated
pilot
, rolling the English around in his mouth to get the feel of it. “
Petit ou grand avion?
”

“
Grand,
” Henry answered. “Big planes. Bombers.”

Henry saw a shadow cross the child's face. His own flushed. Maybe American bombs had landed off-target and killed someone the boy loved. Or maybe that person had been forced by the Germans to work in a munitions plant the Eighth Air Force had hit. Henry's face got even hotter. It was probably the boy's father. Back on base in England, Henry had read how the Hitler-controlled French government in Vichy was forcing Frenchmen to work in Nazi factories both in France and Germany. The Vichy government called it “compulsory labour”, but it seemed little more than slavery.

“
Votre père?
” Henry asked softly.

The boy nodded and looked away. Henry tried to say something, but no words came. For the first time, he questioned the strategy of dropping bombs on a country they were trying to liberate. It made his stomach hurt.

“
La guerre me fait peur.
”

Henry shook his head. He couldn't understand what the boy was saying. What about the war?

The boy looked hard at Henry, as if he were gauging Henry's soul. Then he held his two index fingers up like guns. “
Tche-tche-tche-tche-tche!
” He shook them as if he were firing machine guns. He stopped and lunged back, pantomiming fear.

“Ahhh,” said Henry. The boy meant the war frightened him. “
Moi aussi,
” Henry whispered. “Me, too.”

The grandfather's furrowed face bobbed up over the top of the ladder. He ignored Henry. “
Tais-toi,
” he snapped at the boy. He scolded him further and then disappeared back down the ladder.

“
Pardon, monsieur,
” the boy apologized. “
Mon grand-père est très vieux.
”

Vieux
meant old; Henry knew that word. He guessed the boy wasn't supposed to be talking so much. It also sounded like he had chores to do.

The boy noticed Henry's heel. “
Est-ce que vous souffrez?
” He leaned down, pointed at Henry's heel, grimaced, and said, “
Ouff!
” Before Henry could really answer, the boy had slipped down the ladder.

Warmed by the milk, his hunger cut, Henry fought to stay awake. He could feel his eyelids drift closed. He snapped them open, only to feel them drift shut again. He fell back on the hay. After all those hours of walking and anxiety, the prickly pillow felt wonderful. The smell of sun-dried grass filled his head. The world blurred and Henry slept.

He dreamed he was walking, walking and dragging something behind him. The weight was heavy. It snagged on the rocky road and slowed him down. What was it? He fought to see in the dark, in dreamtime slow motion. It was a snarling dog; a huge German shepherd locked onto his heel! The pain was terrible. He could feel his flesh pulling off the bone.

Henry lurched up in his sleep and grabbed at the pain. He'd shake it off. He'd kill it.

“
Monsieur, monsieur, c'est moi! C'est moi
.” A frightened little voice yanked Henry awake. He had the child by the shoulders.

“Oh, I'm sorry, pal. You okay?” He let go and patted the child gently on the arm. “I'm so sorry.”

The boy held a wet cloth in his hand. A bowl of soapy water was beside his knee. He had been washing out Henry's blister. “
D'accord.
” He nodded. He was shaken, but all right.

Together they wrapped Henry's heel in clean rags. The boy gave him a new sock.

“
Suivez-moi.
” The child took his hand and led Henry to the back corner of the hayloft, where the golden straw was piled high. He started kicking it away. As the child moved the hay, Henry could see the edges of a small, square door where the wall met the floor.

Henry helped pull it open. There was a deep hole chipped into the barn's fat stone wall, long enough for a man to lie down, barely wide enough for him to roll over. Lord, it's the size of a coffin, Henry thought, hesitating.

The child pointed to a straw mattress lining the burrow. “
Vous pouvez vous reposer ici.
”

Henry took a deep breath. He hated small spaces. But he could see what the child was planning. He'd close the door and cover it with hay. That way, if Nazis searched the place, they wouldn't find him. If the boy just tucked him into the hay pile, he'd probably be stabbed with a pitchfork as the Nazis searched. Okay, he could do this. If he were asleep, the stone box couldn't unnerve him.

He eased himself down onto the makeshift bed. A fist-sized hole punched through the thick wall let air and light seep through. Henry could see the farmhouse through it. There was also a jug of water next to his head.

Henry nodded up at the child, who offered a reassuring smile again. “
Je reviendrai. Je vous le promets. Et je vous apporterai votre dîner.
” He closed the door.

Darkness enveloped Henry except for the small shaft of light. It was cool in this hole in the stone wall, which reminded him of the fieldstone cellar at home. Henry pulled the blanket over himself and listened to the child pushing hay over the top of the door.

There was something lumpy under his shoulder. Henry squirmed around until he dislodged it. It flopped around in his hand. Henry pushed it into the beam of light. It was a rag doll, with yarn for hair and buttons for eyes, just like one he remembered Patsy carrying everywhere when they were tiny.

A wistful smile crept onto Henry's face. The boy had obviously left the doll there for comfort. He tucked it under his head as a cushion and fell asleep instantly.

Long shadows were sliding down the farm's steep hills when Henry awoke. He figured it must be late afternoon. He'd slept the day away.

Henry twisted himself around to get a better view of the place through his peephole. Oak and juniper trees forested the rocky slopes that rimmed the horizon just beyond the pastures. There was a large orchard of some kind, maybe apple, maybe pear. A dozen white cows were still out in the pasture, but were meandering back towards the barn for feeding time. Behind the house, a neat rectangular garden laid itself out in a rich brown carpet, awaiting planting. In front of another, low-slung building several huge sows scratched themselves on the fencing. There'd be piglets born soon, Henry reckoned.

It wasn't a large operation, but the farm looked well maintained. How did the old man and little boy keep it up? Henry wondered. He'd offer to help out. He could milk the cows or feed the chickens, at least.

The back door of the house opened and out stepped a woman with a basket of laundry. Henry strained to get a better look at her. She must be the boy's mother. She was small and thin and wore a brightly coloured apron. She hung out pants to dry and then waved towards the fields. Henry spotted the boy darting towards her, clutching a handful of white flowers, maybe the edelweiss Henry had seen growing.

As he reached her, the little boy launched himself at his mother. She caught him and whirled him around in a tight hug. Then they disappeared inside. Henry turned away from the hole. His eyes misted over with the memory of Lilly swinging him round and round as he clutched a bunch of goldenrod he'd found in the back pasture for her.

Henry was dying to use the bathroom. How much longer would he have to lie here? He was stiff and cold, too. He pushed against the door to see if he could move it. It wouldn't budge. He peered out through the spy hole again. Beyond the house at some distance was a small shed – an outhouse, no doubt. The sight only made his bladder feel more uncomfortable.

Henry was about to try the door again when he heard a scraping sound. It's gotta be the boy, he thought, but just to be safe he pulled out his knife and held it ready. He tightened with anticipation. The door rattled, then popped open. The boy smiled down at Henry.

“
Bonsoir,
” he said in a singsong voice.

“Hey,” Henry greeted him. “
La toilette?
”

Afterwards, the boy laid a yellow-and-blue checked cloth, two white plates, and a small cup of wine down on the hayloft floor. On one plate there was a circle of sliced potatoes baked in milk that smelled of nutmeg plus a roasted onion and a small sausage link. The other held a wrinkled apple, dried from the fall harvest, a knot of brown bread, and a thin wedge of blue cheese. Henry was hungry enough to inhale an entire pig, but he forced himself to eat politely.

He knew this was a huge feast. Getting food was tough in France, overrun as it was with Hitler's troops. Madame Gaulloise had provided good but trim meals, food she'd purchased on the black market. She'd shown him her food stamps – the Vichy government allowances for purchases. They weren't enough even for her. Legally, she was permitted to buy only a tiny wedge of cheese per week, about the size of what was on his plate right now for one meal. Her weekly meat ration was nothing more than a scrap, about the size of a good egg.

At least this family had its own farm. Henry knew well that the Depression, though incredibly hard for him and his parents, had been easier on them than it had been on his cousins living in the city of Richmond. On the farm, Henry and his father could hunt rabbit, duck, or even squirrel if they had to. As long as drought or an August hurricane didn't wipe them out, they had their own vegetables to eat in the summer and can for winter. His cousins, on the other hand, had to have cash to buy food at the grocery store. Sometimes they just didn't have any money after Henry's uncle was laid off work. Henry's mother often invited the city cousins to dinner on Sundays and served platters of chicken, corn, and devilled eggs. “This way, I know they get one square meal a week,” Lilly had said to Henry. “Always share what you have, honey,” she had added. “If you don't, your heart turns to lead.”

Henry ate every crumb the boy offered, even the tangy, dry blue cheese. He'd never tasted it before and didn't much like it. It smelled, and the blue stuff had to be mould. But it was food. The only thing he couldn't manage was the wine. It was sickeningly sweet and tasted of walnuts.

Henry smiled at the boy. “That was delicious.
C'est très bon.
”

The boy smiled back. “Del-eesh-oooss,” he repeated.

“Do you…mmm…
tu comprends l'anglais?
” Henry asked.

The boy shook his head, no. Then he pointed at Henry and then back to himself. “
Est-ce que vous pouvez me l'enseigner?
”

“Teach you? I will try,” Henry said, speaking slowly. “If you teach me
le français. Oui
, yes?”

“Yess,” the boy answered.

“
D'accord.
” Henry shook the boy's hand. “Okay, it's a deal.”

“O-K,” the boy repeated.

Down below, the cows were shuffling in for their own dinner. The boy threw armloads of hay to them. Henry helped. “This is hay,” Henry told him. “Hay.” The boy repeated the word, then translated, “
Le foin.
”

Henry made a silly face and mispronounced it on purpose, “
Le fun.
”

“
Non
,” the boy giggled. “
Le foin
.”

“Oh, oh,
pardonnez-moi.
” Henry bowed, made an even sillier face, held his nose, and said, “
Foooooooon.
”

“
Non
,” the boy squealed with laughter. “
Le foin
.”

“Okay, okay,
le foin
.” Henry got the uniquely French nasal sound –
fwahn
– almost right.

Henry followed the boy about his chores. They watered the cows, fed the chickens, led the old carthorse to his stall and mucked it out. It pained Henry to see the boy struggle with the huge buckets of slop for the pigs. How many times had he fought to drag buckets that were too heavy for him when he was the boy's age?

“Hurry up, damn it,” was what his own father had usually shouted at him. Henry closed his eyes and shook off the memory of Clayton grabbing the buckets away from him and snarling, “What a weakling. I could haul twice that weight at your age.”

How old was the boy anyway? That, at least, was a dialogue question Miss Dixon had made them repeat over and over again in freshmen French. Henry had never thought it would be of any use, until this moment. He rattled it off confidently: “
Quel âge as-tu?
”

“
Ooooo, magnifique, monsieur!
” the boy applauded his pronunciation. “
J'ai huit ans.
”

Henry counted up in his head:
un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit.
“Eight.”

“Haayte,” the boy repeated.

“Here, let me carry that for you,” Henry told him. The boy gratefully gave up the two buckets. “Why doesn't your grandfather help you?” asked Henry. “
Grand-père
?” He jostled the pails to show what his question meant.

The child shook his head and put his hand to his shoulder. “
Une grave blessure à l'épaule. La Première Guerre Mondiale. Son bras n'est plus sain.
”

Henry understood enough. The old man's arm and shoulder had been wounded and ruined during World War I, the last time the Germans and French had tried to annihilate each other. Now they were at it again. No wonder the old man seemed so bitter.