Under a War-Torn Sky (25 page)

July slipped into August in a haze of midnight parachute drops and the nerve-racking business of making bombs. Claudette stayed in camp, helping Henry twist fuse lines and time pencils into the detonators of hand grenades or bundles of plastic explosives.

As he worked, Henry listened to the men argue politics. Some were admirers of de Gaulle. Others hated him for fleeing to England. Some still trusted Marshal Pétain, the World War I hero who headed the pro-Nazi Vichy government. They claimed the old fox was simply waiting for the right time to turn on the Nazis. But most detested him as a traitor. When members of another
maquis
group came into camp looking to borrow a wireless radio, Martin's men almost turned them away empty-handed because they were Communists. Henry's hosts accused them of being loyal to the cause only after Hitler attacked Communist Russia and because they wanted to overturn the French establishment.

The only thing that anyone agreed on was wanting the Nazis out.

At night the camp emptied. The fighting was getting fiercer, deadlier. The
maquis
blew up railroad lines to stop trainloads of gasoline and munitions running from Paris to Nevers to Autun. They knocked down telegraph wires passing orders and information from German garrisons in Avallon to troops in Dijon. Occasionally they attacked Nazi truck convoys, always losing some men. Henry helped dig at least two dozen more graves.

Henry was not allowed to go on these missions. But he was often sent down into the villages with Claudette to collect cheese, bacon, and loaves of bread with counterfeit food stamps the British dropped for them. These visits terrified him. Claudette continued to march through the streets, as if daring German soldiers to confront her. Henry constantly had to throw himself into the thick hedgerows lining the roads as bicycle patrols passed, three to four young German soldiers pedalling swiftly, rifles across their backs.

Claudette laughed at him as he crawled back out, brushing prickles from his face and arms. But she was softening slightly. Henry figured what must be her instinctive kindness was winning out over her angry resolve – just as it had on the night she first found and fed him. About a week after they began their bomb making together she approached Henry with a long, thick sweater and clean pants.

“These were André's,” she told him. “I looked in his tent. He would want someone to use them.”

Henry gratefully shed the bullet-torn British flight jacket. He turned to thank her but Claudette had already walked away.

Martin was rarely in camp. He seemed to commute among several
maquis
groups hiding in the low, junglelike mountains to coordinate their operations. The travel couldn't be easy. Henry had learned that the range was called the Morvan, meaning “black mountain”. The name suited. Wind had been the constant in the Vercors. Here in the Morvan, heavy, cold rain drenched the rocky hills constantly, leaving the thick forests always dripping, the paths slick with mud.

One afternoon, however, Martin was in camp for a meeting. After the men finished talking, Henry approached him. Since he seemed to be a commander of sorts for the
maquis
movement, Henry hoped to hear some word of the Vercors group that had sheltered him. Pierre was always in Henry's mind. Unlike poor Madame, Pierre should still be free and safe. And what about his friend, the trumpet player?

“
Monsieur Martin?
”

“
Oui, Henri?
I have wished to speak with you. I hear you tame Claudette. That is a service to us all.”

“She's all right,
monsieur
. You just have to watch your step, that's all. My dad is the same way.” Henry sat down at the table. “I really hoped to ask you a question,
monsieur
.”

“
Oui?
I will answer if I can, Henri. I cannot tell you much, though. I see that you are trustworthy, but I do not tell my own men everything I know. If it is about the woman in Lyon, I truly know nothing. The Gestapo has that city by the throat. We have lost touch with everyone there.”

“It is about Vassieux, a village near…” What had the teenager called that pass in the mountains? Henry searched his mind. It was hard to remember exactly where he had been in all those dark nights, so afraid and hurrying. “Col de la Bataille, I think that's it,
monsieur
. I came through there and was taken care of by a family. They got caught. The grandfather was killed. The mother was taken to Grenoble and maybe deported. There was a son. A young boy. I took him to people his mother asked me to. To a priest. He said something about an abbey. I don't know where. I…I…” Henry didn't really know how to phrase his question. “Please,
monsieur
. If you know of him or that area, I need to know. I need to know he is safe.”

Martin sat back in his seat and sighed. “I do not know about the boy, Henri. There are many families in our movement. If you took him to people his mother requested, he has probably been hidden safely away. But Vassieux was hit last month, Henri, some say abandoned by the Allies. The British and Americans asked the
maquis
to build a landing strip in the Vercors. The Allies wanted to bring in troops to attack the Nazis as they retreat from Normandy back into Germany. The
maquis
built it. Then on Bastille Day, the Allies dropped arms and rations in broad daylight. More than a thousand parachutes. It led the Nazis right to Vassieux. They bombed the village, completely destroying it. Then a week later the Nazis used the landing strip the
maquis
had built for the Allies to bring in their own SS troops. They hunted down all the
maquis
in the region and massacred everyone they found, even the wounded in a field hospital, even children. The British and the Americans never came. Vassieux is no more.”

Henry jumped up from the table. He had to go back. He had to find Pierre. He couldn't just leave him lost, unknown. If Americans were on the move, Henry might be able to get Pierre to the Americans. His ma would adopt Pierre, for sure. Maybe even Henry could adopt him. He'd be an adult legally in a few years. He sure felt like one already, an old one, one wiser than a lot of the fools back home.

Martin stood and held Henry by the arm. Henry's thoughts must have been all over his face. “You cannot help him, Henri. If you go to look for the child you would probably lead the SS right to him. If he was in an abbey, he was out of town at the time of the attack. The monks would know where to hide him. The only good thing about the Nazis is that most still respect the church.”

“But,
Monsieur Martin
, I have to know if he's all right. Maybe you could get a message to one of your people there to check on him. Pierre is eight, brown hair. His smile is a little shy, a little sad.” Henry tried to think of other features that would identify him. “He has a marble I gave him, a cloud. It's for good luck.”

Martin held up his hand to stop Henry. “I cannot take the time for one boy. And if I ask about him, it links him to the
maquis
. It is safest for him to disappear into oblivion, Henri. The best thing you can do for him is pray and never seek him out.”

Never? Never know Pierre's fate? How could Henry bear that? Stricken, he pulled himself loose and walked away from Martin into the woods.

Too angry to pay attention to his feet, Henry stumbled over tree roots and stones. He pushed his way off the path through brambles towards the sound of rushing water. He fell to his knees by a tiny waterfall and pool and clasped his hands. He hadn't prayed, really prayed, in months. He hadn't known how to find the right words in such chaos, in such misery, in such violence. And his thoughts hadn't exactly been what his church called Christian:

Please, God, protect me even though everyone else around me might die.

Please, Jesus, help me kill my enemy before he kills me.

Please, God, give me the cunning to blow up a train just as it passes, never mind who's in it.

What kind of prayers were those?

Speechless, Henry stared into the water, his hands still palm to palm.

There came a rustling behind him. Self-protection was second nature now. Henry reached down for a stone to murder whoever threatened him. But it was Claudette.

Sashaying up to him, she taunted: “Do you really think God can help you now? He has turned his back on us. If He exists.”

“Go away, Claudette.” Henry threw the rock into the water and sat down, clasping his knees with his arms.

“I listened to you and Martin. Now you know a little of my pain.” Ignoring his request, she plopped down beside him. “I prayed, too, when all this started. God never answered. The devil has taken the world and laughs at us.”

She picked up a rock and skipped it across the water, one, two, three, four times. Henry looked at her in surprise. Patsy had been the only girl he'd known who'd been able to get a rock to hop that many times. Homesickness overwhelmed him. He'd give anything to get away from all this horror and stomach-wrenching sorrow, to get back to that swimming hole, stripped clean. He buried his head in his knees and fought back tears. Even so, his shoulders heaved.

A few moments went by and then tentatively, lightly, Claudette's hand brushed back his hair. “Shhhh. I am sorry, Henri.”

It was the first time she had used his name. Henry reached out for her and wrapped himself around the small body. He could no longer fight crying and sobbed against her hair. She held him and cried quietly herself. Then she kissed his cheek, his neck. The kisses were sweet, warm. Henry pulled away to look at her face, to understand her tenderness. Her eyes were closed. He closed his own and found solace in her lips.

France disappeared.

“Patsy,” he breathed, without realizing he spoke aloud. “God, Pats, I've missed you.”

Claudette held her lips to his ear and whispered gently, “I am not Patsy. You are not André. Let us pretend we are.”

They walked back to the camp later, silent, holding hands but separate in their thoughts. If he ever got back, Henry promised himself, he was going to tell Patsy he loved her. He couldn't believe it had taken all this to recognize it.

He looked at Claudette and smiled at her. She was gorgeous, especially when her face was peaceful, clear of hatred. But it was awash in sadness. Henry didn't say anything to her, respecting her grief.

They found the camp in an uproar. After questioning one of the
maquis
, Claudette beamed and told Henry, “The Allies have reached Paris! The people are rebelling. Soon we will liberate it.
Vive la France!
” She joined the cry of the men. “
Vive la France!
”

Many of the
maquis
embraced. Some danced a little jig, slapping each other on the back. But their jubilation was terse. Within a few minutes, the men were pulling on straps of bullets and loading their guns. Others ran to the cars with boxes of grenades.

“What's going on?” Henry asked.

Claudette didn't know. She went to ask. Henry ran after Martin, who was striding through camp.

“
Monsieur! Monsieur Martin!
”

“I am in a hurry, Henri.” Martin kept walking, buttoning up his coat. “What is it?”

“Where is everyone going? Are German troops near?”

“Henri, I don't have time for questions. Speed is imperative.” He put his hand on Henry's shoulder to stop the next question. “You cannot go with us. You must stay here. But be on watch. The Nazis attacked the
maquis
in Vernay and are strafing the roads near Montsauche and Ouroux. Those villages are only a few kilometres away.”

Martin motioned his assistants to follow. He darted up the hill to the awaiting cars.

Henry bit his lip. He was sick of feeling so useless. He turned round and round searching the rushing crowd for Claudette. She was shouting and shaking her fist at one of the men.