CHAPTER TEN
“Here Come the Tanks!”
LONG before dark, André, too tired to care any more what happened, had stumbled into his old bed in the kitchen. During the night he roused at times to hear the hum of trucks and clumping feet. He did not hear the squadrons of planes coming in to drop relief troops and much-needed ammunition to the hard-pressed ’chutists.
At dawn he awoke completely fresh, and went to look at his now unfamiliar Normandy landscape.
Women tramped to damaged houses, distributing hot food and blankets. Two small boys were investigating a badly smashed glider which had settled on a hedge.
André had just decided to run to the Lescot farm, to inquire whether Victor had come home, when Weller called to him to come to breakfast.
Afterwards, he went about his usual farm chores.
Troops from the beach landings filtered through the village that day. Their officers paused briefly at the Gagnon house to exchange reports with Captain Dobie.
“Well, at any rate, our tanks are beginning to come across the causeways now,” a newly arrived major told the captain. “That’ll help the airborne boys.”
“It will be a great relief,” Captain Dobie said. “Our parachute fellows have been fighting hard without any rest.”
The major nodded. “The only trouble is,” he said, “somebody overlooked the way these thick French hedgerows stop our tanks cold. We’ve got to find a way to cut through them.”
André listened with amazement. He had never thought of those ancient borders to the tiny Normandy meadows as tank traps. He knew, of course, that cattle turned out to pasture seldom broke through the high, earth banks topped by the century-old tangles. It did seem disappointing to think that those great, wonderful American war machines could be stopped by shrubbery.
“But why don’t the tanks keep to the roads, sir?” he asked.
The major grinned. “If Normandy had ten times as many roads, son,” he replied, “we wouldn’t have enough for all the stuff the Allies have to move into France. Besides, our tanks have to go where we know the Germans are massing.”
The major was right about over-busy highways.
Trucks, loaded with armed men and supplies, had begun to grind by in a long, noisy procession. Some village people had come back from hiding. Children big and little ran along the roadside, catching windfalls of candy, gum, and cellophane-wrapped cookies tossed out by the soldiers.
To André this was a very, very strange war—he could remember nothing like it in any history book.
But when he went into the kitchen, he no longer felt that his father’s house was threatened from all sides.
The crowd of German prisoners had been moved to a new compound, and the geese had once more taken possession of the pond. André counted the chickens. The flock looked a little sparse.
A shout from Sergeant Weller sent André back to the road.
Inside the front window Captain Dobie and Slim stood, waving cheerily. Weller, both arms upraised, was saluting the approach of a great elephant of a machine. It came lumbering up the sea road, its wide, corrugated treads clanking on the gravel. After the first, in stately dignity, thundered more of the metallic herd.
“The TANKS! The tanks!”
André’s heart thumped with excitement.
“Some sight, eh, boy?” Weller shouted.
With Weller, André ran out to reach up and shake hands with the tank men.
The tank commanders and the gunners, André thought, were even wilder-looking creatures than the ’chutists.
The men seemed colossal, standing in their turrets before the radio antennae that wavered nervously, like an insect’s feelers, with the sway of the tanks. Pushed-up goggles over helmets, and earphones, made drivers and gunners seem part of the weird contraptions.
“They are wonderful,” André said. “I wish I could have seen them come ashore from the ships that brought them across the Channel.”
Sergeant Weller frowned. “I don’t think you’d have liked it, son. Only a few hours ago these men came off landin’ craft that were bein’ shot at by Nazis from every direction. These guys are just the lucky ones that didn’t get hit.”
The gathered villagers cheered, and the sound of their welcome rang out far up the road.
André was still looking for Victor. But Victor had not been seen that day.
André sauntered over to where the colonel had joined Dobie and the others in the window.
“Captain,” André began. “Sir, about Victor—”
“I know,” smiled the captain. “You wonder why he doesn’t come back. I feel sure he’ll be all right. If that car full of Nazi officers got through the roads from Paris to here, then I’m sure your friend Victor can find his way around. The Nazi officers said they drove straight through Caen, Carentan, and right through our lines, if you please—British and American. They actually got as far as the Jacquard farm without being detected.”
The colonel spoke up. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think the German staff in Paris knew how much country our airborne troops were covering. How could they? We had jammed their coastal radio and radar stations all the way to Cherbourg. And the French Resistance and our men cut telephone land lines. So it was impossible for the commanding German general here on the peninsula to communicate with Paris.”
“Those Nazi prisoners,” said Dobie, “told us they came up from Paris to find out what was really happening here. Hitler believed that our invasion was coming at Calais.”
“He sure missed the boat,” Weller said cheerfully.
The last of the squadron of tanks had gone by, and the village people were returning to their homes. André went back to the farmyard. It was time for chores. He heard laughter coming from the barns, but by now he was used to soldier sounds.
First, he must see how badly the orchard and fields in the rear had been hit by the shelling. He went through the gate in the courtyard wall.
His jaw dropped. Many apple trees were down. Great smudged shell holes gaped between them. And the greatest hole yawned only a few feet away from the edge of the lane where his trumpet was buried.
He snatched up a shovel, and sighed in relief when the trumpet came up, green and smeared with damp earth, but unharmed. He nestled it comfortably under his arm and went to the barn door.
The cows had not lowed, and now he saw why. Balanced on stools beside the animals sat two lusty Americans. They were happily squirting streams into milk pails held correctly between their knees.
One of the soldiers looked up curiously.
At the sight of the horn under André’s arm he cried, “Well, if it isn’t Little Boy Blue, horn and all.”
The second milker called, “These cows yours? We thought nobody was home. Sure seems good to milk an ole bossy again.” He grinned. “I come from Iowa an’ I sure miss milkin’ time. Hope you don’t mind. We’re almost through here.”
The men paused to admire André’s trumpet, and tootle a few wild notes, before they helped him carry the pails to the springhouse. He filled a pitcher for Captain Dobie, and took it to the “staff room,” as the old store was now called. The room was again filled with strange soldiers, some of them in bloody bandages.
The colonel was anxious to get away to his division command post.
“You stay right here, Dobie,” he said, “and the sergeant and Slim as well. And hustle medics and replacement infantry forward, fast.”
Slim appeared and announced that he had Weller’s jeep ready to drive the colonel to his headquarters.
When Captain Dobie and André were alone, the captain smiled and sighed. “A fine mother I turned out to be,” he said. “When did you eat something last?”
André grinned shyly. “When did you eat last, sir?”
Sergeant Weller’s voice roared from the hallway, “Lunch coming up!”
A large loaded tray appeared through the door, followed by Weller’s bulky body.
André looked at a heaped platter in the middle, and laughed. “So that is where our chickens went.”
“Your father will be paid for these fowl,” Dobie said. “So make up for the eating you haven’t done today.”
Weller was not as good a cook as his mother or Marie, André thought. But he was surprised that a tough sergeant could cook at all, and the meal was good.
When the sun sank red behind the trees, an evening hush settled, although soldiers from nearby bivouacs moved through the village restlessly.
Weller yawned. “I hope it stays quiet around here awhile,” he said. “After last night we could do with a little snooze, eh, Captain?”
He had scarcely made this wish than André cried, “Listen!”
A distant sound of motors from the sky was drowned by the opening bark of an American antiaircraft battery close by.
Weller leaped to put out the lights.
“Might have known the Luftwaffe would wake up about now,” he grumbled.
Captain Dobie’s voice came out of the darkness. “I’ve been wondering why we haven’t heard from them these last two days. Our air boys must have pretty thoroughly crippled them.”
Ears were strained to follow the sounds.
“Must be several planes,” Dobie said. “They seem to be dropping small bombs.”
Weller, at the window, called, “Looks like a Fourth of July celebration.”
Suddenly he shouted, “We got one!”
In the darkness, André listened to the wild whine of the falling Luftwaffe plane.
André reached Weller’s side in time to see flames spring high above the dark treetops beyond the village.
“I didn’t see any ’chute,” Weller exclaimed.
“The pilot may have jumped before the fire lit up the sky,” the captain replied.
The sudden flare of excitement was followed by an equally sudden lull except for the sound of soldiers’ voices across the fields. The flack guns lapsed into silence.
Captain Dobie said, “Whew! Next time, André, you go down to the cellar. I forgot all about you for a minute.”
Slim and a detail of men were sent off to look for the fallen Nazi plane, and also for the pilot.
“Better send out word to the French people around here to be on the lookout,” Dobie added, “till we’re sure about him.”
When Slim and the men had been gone only a few minutes, Weller began to fidget restlessly.
“How about I just take a look-see down the road, Captain?” he suggested.
Captain Dobie said okay, and Weller swept up a Tommy gun and went off into the night.
He had gone only a few yards when André caught up with him.
In a field, the last flames were flickering from the fallen Messerschmitt. A faint drizzle blurred the scene, but the figures of many soldiers were dimly silhouetted against the light.
“No good goin’ over there,” Weller said, after studying the scene a moment.
They had just begun to retrace their steps when Weller said, “Listen.”
André had heard sounds too—a creaking and the clop, clop of hoofbeats.
Coming down the wet road a new, unpainted cart rattled into sight. Between the shafts clumped La Fumée. And, waving the reins behind the dashboard, stood Victor.
“André!” he shouted. “Where did you go?” He brushed at his enormous mustache nervously. “Well, never mind now. Get in. Get in. I’ll drive you home.”
André gulped with relief. Weller demanded, “Ask him how he got home.”
André repeated the question in French, and Victor threw out his hands indignantly.
“How should I come?” he shouted. “By any open road those soldiers and tanks left for my use. Americans, Americans everywhere! Tanks! Guns! I have been halfway around the world to get here, it seems.”
“But where did you find your cart? I thought it was blown up!” André cried.
Victor’s eyebrows expressed more astonishment.
“Where would I find it? Just where Jacquard said he would leave it, of course. Beyond his shop, among the holly trees.”
When this was translated, Weller shook his head. “Well, climb in an’ let’s go home.”
La Fumée, sensing the nearness of her own stable, started briskly.
When they had said good night to Victor, Weller yawned loudly.
André watched Weller, and laughed. “I’m pretty sleepy, myself,” he admitted.
Ten minutes later he was in his mother’s big bed, sprawled sound asleep.