Under a War-Torn Sky (17 page)

Henry took a deep breath and walked into the stark room. There was a small bed with coarse white sheets, a table with a bottle of water on it, and a crucifix.

“Here we are.” Henry set him down on the bed, but the boy wouldn't let go.

“
Pierre,
” he whispered. “
Je veux que vous sachiez mon nom. Pierre.
”

“I know, Pierre. I heard your mother call you that. But I didn't want to use your name unless you told me to. I want you to know mine, too. My name is Henry.
Je m'appelle Henri.
”

The boy repeated it.

“You have to lie down now, Pierre. Rest.” Henry took off the child's shoes and gently laid him down. There was a woolly black blanket at the bottom of the bed. As he pulled it up over the boy, Henry sang a song his own mother had sung to him in hard times, “You Are My Sunshine”. It was a song about the joy one person could bring another, and what sadness would come if that sunshine were taken away. The lyrics now were bittersweet to Henry and as he sang his voice became a hoarse whisper.

The boy watched Henry's face, hard, as if memorizing every bit of it.

Henry came to the end of his song. Still he couldn't bear to tear himself away. The boy looked so small and lost in this white bed, this white room. If only Henry had a doll like the one the boy had left for him in the hiding closet, something to comfort the child as he fell asleep. But there was nothing in the room.

Henry reached into his pocket and pulled out the only thing he had that still tied him to home, to his own mother and father – his lucky marble. The marble had symbolized his first triumph over his father, his ability to survive Clayton's hardness. Somehow Henry needed its reassurance less now. The boy, on the other hand, needed all the luck he could get, all the strength, all the love Henry could pass on to him. Henry held it up for the boy to see.

“This is called a cloud,” Henry told him. “
Nuage.
See the swirls? It's my favourite marble.
Mon favori.
I want you to have it. That way I'll always be with you.
Henri avec Pierre
.”

“
Pour toujours?
” the boy whispered.

“Yes, always,” Henry answered, his voice cracking. “Wherever I go, I remain with you.”

The priest knocked. “It's time.”

Henry nodded. His heart hurt too much to say anything else. He took the boy's hand, squeezed the precious marble into it, and kissed him good-bye.

Henry stumbled through the night, following the back of his teenage guide. Neither of them spoke. Henry was too upset to ask where they were going. He kept seeing Pierre playing ball, his young mother in her kitchen, the two of them hugging. Would she survive the night? What would the Milice do with her when they finished asking their questions? Would they search for Pierre? Could the priest be trusted?

They were climbing up out of the valley, scrambling along tiny paths scratched into the mountainside. The land tumbled down away from them. The few times he paused to catch his breath and look about, Henry could tell they hadn't gone far, only up, zigzagging back and forth to scale the ridge.

After two hours the ground levelled out a bit where a pine forest grew stubbornly, spread among the boulders. The guide turned off the path into the woods. Here, the moonlight could only sift through the trees in needles of pale illumination. Henry lost his guide in the gloom.

“Hey,” he breathed into the night. “Where are you?”

No answer.

Henry waded on, scratching his face on branches.

“
Où êtes-vous?
” he whispered. Had the jerk left him? Or did someone have him by the throat?

Henry heard a twig snap, felt something lunge towards him. “
Regardez!
”

The teenager jerked Henry back. The motion ripped painfully through Henry's shoulder. He shook himself free with irritation. The guide pointed to the ground and swept his hand in a straight line. Henry squinted into the darkness. He could just make out a string running a few inches from his knee. There was a grenade attached to its end – a booby trap.

Taking Henry's arm again, his guide inched them both around the line and down an incline. Within a few moments the world became completely black and dank. Henry could hear water dripping. His feet slipped and he skidded on something slick, making a shrill scraping sound. Instantly there was a racket of thumping wings and high-pitched squeaking. Henry felt a whir of something rush by him.

Only then did the teenager let go. He struck a match. They were in a cave.

“
Nous allons rester ici avant qu'on se mette en route,
” the teenager said. He pulled out a lantern from behind a rock and lit it. The light trotted along the stone icicles of the cave's ceiling. Henry trembled in the damp, unnerved. His guide's eyes darted about, checking corners, before he unearthed a jug of water from behind some rocks, drank from it, and then offered it to Henry. This must be a safe house of sorts, thought Henry.

The guide lay down on a sandy spot and motioned Henry to do likewise. Once he was settled, Henry's companion blew out the lantern. Henry thought about the Greek myths he'd read last spring in senior English, in which caves were the entrances to hell. He shut his eyes and forced himself to think of nothing.

The two clambered out of the cave in late afternoon the next day. This time, they walked in a rill carved between the crests of two long mountains. Yellow butterflies speckled with black dots danced before them as they waded through wildflowers.

Henry noted that the youth was extremely anxious, often stopping to listen or to scan the horizon. Once the clang of a church bell reverberated through the crags. Henry couldn't see a village anywhere and realized that sound must bounce back and forth off the rocks for miles.

Henry had difficulty estimating time correctly in France. Twilight fell much later than at home. But right around what he reckoned was 7 p.m. he heard a hum, a motorized whine.

Airplanes!

Henry's heart leapt. He didn't stop to think what kind of planes, who might be flying them. To him, planes still meant freedom, a way home, helpful Americans. Henry darted into the open, searching the clouds for a formation. Maybe if he caught their attention they could radio back to base for help.

“Hey,” he shouted, hearing his voice thunder again and again against the cliffs. “Over here!” He waved his hands over his head.

Way in the distance, a small plane was approaching. A small, solitary plane. Confused, Henry just stood, staring.

“
Baisse-toi, baisse-toi!
” The French teenager screamed at Henry. But Henry remained standing, mesmerized by the sound of a plane, the sound of rescue.

The French youth tackled Henry and dragged him, kicking, towards some scraggly bushes that thrust themselves up among the sea of wildflowers and boulders. The bushes engulfed them just in time. Looking up through them, Henry could make out a swastika on the underside of its wings as the plane passed overhead. He hung his head, mortified by his stupidity, overwhelmed with disappointment and the recognition that no American could help him here. It had probably been a reconnaissance plane, searching for
maquis
camps so that a Nazi squadron could come back and finish them off.

The teenager looked at Henry with contempt and spat, “
Je devrais te tuer maintenant.
”

Henry understood why the youth felt like killing him. But the teenager didn't pull out his gun. He just glared. Henry started to raise his fists, readying himself for a fight. But he thought better of it. He owed this guy an apology. He'd been a fool. “Sorry.
Je suis très stupide.
”

Slowly, the youth's face lightened. “
Il est fou cet Américain. Tu dois me rendre un service. D'accord?
”

“A favour? You bet. Anything.”

“
Quand la guerre sera finie. Tu m'envoies un disque de Louis Armstrong.
”

Henry started to laugh. “Louis Armstrong? The trumpet player? You want a recording of him?”

“
Oui, oui.
” The teenager turned out to be a serious trumpeter, who had studied in Paris with an orchestra leader. But his enthusiasm turned to sorrow as he spoke. “
Les Boches l'ont déporté. Mes parents m'ont envoyé à la campagne pour me protéger.
”

His teacher had been deported to a work camp. His parents had sent him to a children's home in the Vercors countryside when the war started. But Henry didn't focus on how hard it must have been for the teenager to be sent away from home to strangers in the midst of the Nazi occupation. Henry still couldn't believe the boy's request. He didn't know that the French liked American music. And Louis Armstrong? Armstrong was one of his favourites. Henry started singing the song “I Can't Give You Anything But Love”, in a low, raspy voice like Armstrong's.

The youth grinned and picked up an imaginary trumpet, humming the blues melody. “
Daaaa-ta-daaa-ta-daaa.
” Henry kept the beat, pretending to conduct him as he'd seen big band leaders do. He could hear the trumpet, the trombone answering, and the slow backbeat of the drum set's cymbals. He could see his father singing that very song to Lilly in one of Clayton's rare but adoring displays of affection for her.

Henry and the budding trumpeter finished the song and smiled at each other, forgetting the fears of war. They got up and walked along the hill, continuing their jam with more Armstrong melodies.

At daybreak, they arrived atop the world. Henry gazed in wonder at the vast earth beneath him. He guessed they could see for thirty miles east, back towards where the world climbed into the Alps; thirty miles west, forward to a sloping sea of green pastures and fields of yellow. Any German convoy, any ox cart, for that matter, could be seen long before it became a threat.

“
Col de la Bataille,
” Henry's guide told him, forgetting their code of secrecy.

The
maquis
camp was buried in the woods, back from the peak's vantage point. They walked in without any challenge. Henry realized they'd probably been spotted and okayed long before they entered.

He was amazed by the size of the camp. Twenty or more parachutes were hung through the trees as makeshift tents. On its edge a man was ordering a dozen teenagers to roll under bushes and to dodge behind rocks. Looks like boot camp, Henry thought as he tried to understand their actions. Must be new recruits. Those boys looked even younger than his friend did.

Under one parachute, several men lay on blankets, limbs bandaged, eyes glazed, halfheartedly smoking cigarettes. Two young nurses were washing linens and giggling among themselves, like girls in the school playground. Near them was stacked a huge stockpile of guns, loaded and ready, boxes of grenades, plus plastics and wires for making explosives. Sitting idle was a large wireless radio, conspicuously marked:
Made in Britain
.

His guide couldn't help but brag, explaining what Henry saw. He talked fast. But Henry did catch that the British and Americans were dropping more and more supplies and that they'd promised some sort of invasion soon. The
maquis
had even been asked to scrape out a real landing strip for large Allied planes.

Henry and his friend arrived at a small hut. “
Le chef,
” the guide said as he knocked. A thin man, maybe thirty-five years old, stepped out. His hair was dark and swept back like Rudolph Valentino's. He wore a turtleneck and blousy riding breeches. In the top of his riding boots was stuffed a Luger pistol he must have stolen off some German soldier. He had a daring, commanding look about him. He reminded Henry of the ace pilots they'd all admired so much back at base. The kind they'd been willing to fly through thunderclouds and a barrage of fighters for. The kind that they all believed could outrun Death and never be hit. But Henry knew better than that now. Dan's death had shown him that even the seemingly invincible could die. He faced the commander warily.

“
Bonjour,
” the French leader greeted him. “
Cigarette?
” he offered as he lit one.

“
Non, merci, monsieur.
”

There was a long silence as the man drew on his cigarette and looked Henry up and down. Henry prepared himself to be slugged again to corroborate his nationality. Instead the leader called his second in command. Henry was surprised to see a dark-skinned man appear. He must be from one of the French colonies in Africa, thought Henry.

“
Emmenez les autres,
” the chief told him.

His aide-de-camp disappeared. Henry waited. What others did he mean? Henry looked to his friend for help, but the teen looked away. Was he afraid of the commander, or just too in awe of him to ruin his surprise? Henry shifted from one foot to the other. He'd only been sent to the principal's once in his life. It had felt a lot like this.

Finally, he heard the
crunch, crunch, crunch
of boots approaching behind him.

“Well, I'll be damned.”

Henry knew that voice. Who was it? Maybe Paul had made it out of their plane! Maybe Jimmy! Henry wheeled around with excitement.

It was Billy. Billy White.

Henry's smile froze for just a moment. There were so many people he would have been thrilled to see alive. Mouthy Billy White wasn't exactly his first choice. But Henry shook off his disappointment. It was a familiar face, another flier, another American.

“Hey, Billy,” Henry said, stepping forward to shake Billy's hand. “I'm glad to see you in one piece.” They shook hands for a long time, a very long time.

Billy was thinner. His left arm was in a sling and there was a thick, new, red scar running from his ear to his collarbone. His dark, wavy hair, before always immaculately combed, fell over his forehead in tangles. His brown eyes looked sunken. “I'm glad to see you, too, Hank. Where've you been all this time?”