CHAPTER SIX
Victor’s Mission
REMEMBERING the rolling crashes of the worst thunderstorm he had ever heard, André thought it had been nothing compared to this noise.
He braced himself by the door frame and looked toward the sea. A pall of dense, black smoke was drifting inland, blotting out the newly risen sun. Fires flared over the tree tops.
He saw Slim grinning back at him from behind a thick lilac bush.
On the other side of the road, the Lescots’ front door opened. Victor, in nightcap and corduroy pants drawn over a blue nightshirt, darted out, picked up one of the dropped leaflets, and shot back into the house.
From other houses people ran out and raced away into the fields.
Bombers darted in and out of the curtain of smoke. A barn less than a mile away broke into flames.
Through a lull in the battle sounds André heard the outraged moo of a cow.
“Poor old beasts,” André thought, “they must be scared to death. I’ll go talk to them, and milk.”
He looked again for Slim and saw that he had turned his back to the fury of the coast and was staring toward Ste. Mère. As André stepped out Slim whirled and shouted, “Tell the cap’n—two Nazi tanks comin’ this way!”
But André had already heard the ominous clank of the tanks. Even through the battle sounds their threat rang out—a new danger.
As Slim raced toward him, André broke into a run for the house, shouting, “TANKS, mon Capitaine. Nazi tanks coming!”
Captain Dobie had risen and stumbled a step toward the window.
“Blast it!” he shouted. “Help me, Cimino.”
André then saw a new man in the room—a soldier with a walkie-talkie, who must have arrived by way of the farmyard.
Slim plunged through the door and snatched up a bazooka from the pile of arms in the hall. Cimino, the walkie-talkie operator, slipped out of the straps holding the instrument. He flung himself toward Slim to serve as second man on the bazooka.
“Help me to the window, André,” Captain Dobie ordered, picking up a Tommy gun. “Then stay out of range.
“Slim,” he barked, “fire at the front drive sprocket and the gas tanks, center, low. You can’t penetrate that forward armor, remember.”
The bazooka muzzle thrust out the window, Slim knelt in tense firing position. Cimino stood ready to reload.
The captain braced himself at the second window, Tommy gun leveled. André heard the rumble of the tanks draw nearer.
The explosion of fire from the windows and the fierce back-flash of the bazooka joined with the grinding screech of shattered metal, outside. Then came the hollow scraping of steel on steel.
Over Slim’s head André had seen the first tank’s turret. Then the second tank tottered over the first. And like a huge apple peel, a tremendous snakelike steel tread whipped through the air.
“Good,” snapped Captain Dobie. “Second one’s piled up on the first. Shoot overhead, once.”
When the firing from the house stopped, there came a shout of “Kamerad!”
The captain poked his weapon farther out the window and shouted, “Get out and put your hands up fast. You’re all covered. Okay, Slim, get your prisoners.”
Cimino stacked the bazooka against the sill, and whipped out his .45 automatic. Slim swept up a carbine and strode outside.
The crews were already out of the tanks.
“All right. Hands on your heads!” Slim shouted.
As his captives moved toward him, Cimino lifted their side arms from holsters, pushing the prisoners swiftly toward the house.
“Get in there, quick,” Slim commanded.
He had only just herded them into the hall when his voice was drowned out by the explosion of the gas tanks in one of the wrecked vehicles.
The captain and André ducked as ammunition, set off by the flames, sprayed the outside of the house.
When it was over, the captain leaned out the window, and André asked, “Did it wreck my father’s pump?”
“Just knocked down the sign that said ‘Chocolate,’” the captain said.
“That’s all right,” André laughed shakily. “We did not have any left to sell, anyway.”
Captain Dobie wiped the sweat from his face, and with André’s help, hobbled back to his easy chair and cushions.
The Germans, lined up against the wall, stared at him silently, open-mouthed.
“Are there any more tanks coming this way?” demanded the captain.
One of the Nazis, with sergeant’s stripes, said, “Nein—no more,” with surly shortness.
“Be respectful,” snapped the captain coldly. He turned to Slim. “Take them out to the yard and stand guard, Slim,” he said. “Cimino, try to raise someone on the talkie. If you can’t, get a runner to locate the colonel and tell him where we are.”
After several minutes, Cimino reported, “Some sergeant thinks our colonel’s over near the first bridgehead. He’ll pass the word along.”
André, at the captain’s suggestion, went out to survey the road and report any sight of the enemy. “Here, take my helmet,” offered the captain. “There’s too much stuff falling out of the sky.”
The thud of heavy explosions beyond the village continued to rock the earth.
André had been on watch but a few minutes when he sighted a car. He called back through the window, “Jeep coming, sir—from the coast.”
Slim, who had been relieved of his guard duty by Cimino, rushed out to join André.
The little car swung in toward the two, and braked with a screech. Slim shouted, “Weller! Where’ja get that!”
Sergeant Weller was eyeing the wrecked German tanks.
“Well, Texas,” he smiled approvingly, “good thing I left you here.”
He slid out of the seat. “Lucky those two tanks didn’t get through to hit us from behind,” he said. “We’ve sure had our hands full down there. The Heinies came at us from all sides. But, for some reason, one of the causeways across the swamps was unguarded.”
“We got some prisoners for you, out back,” Slim announced. “And you better report to the cap’n,” he added. “He’s restless as a hungry puppy. Ain’t had a word from anybody higher up. Didn’t come across our colonel, did you?”
“That’s what I came back for,” said Weller. “Saw him and told him about this command post. He’s feelin’ good. We’ve taken two bridgeheads.”
“But where did you get the jeep?” André asked.
Weller patted the mud-splattered windshield. “I ‘liberated’ her from a smashed glider, son.” He turned a thumb to the heaps of K-rations packed in the rear of the jeep. “Near time we ate,” he said. “But, right now, I’m in need of gas, kid. I bet you got some in that pump.”
“A little,” André said.
Slim and Weller clanked off to the house while André connected the hose to the jeep tank and began to pump. His eyelids were drooping.
It takes a long time for this Invasion to get going, he thought. He had already grown used to the thrump of big artillery, the bark of machine and rifle fire scattered across all of Normandy. He had heard Cimino say that the 82nd Airborne were getting on well around Ste. Mère, though the Germans were fighting bitterly. The Liberation was too big. André could think of it no more.
And through his weariness he heard the cows again. Milking time was long past. In the barn the cows turned their sad eyes on him accusingly. He rested his forehead on their soft, warm bodies while he milked, and both he and the frightened beasts were soothed. He saw to it that they had fresh hay and water. The open pasture was no place for them today.
Finally the job was done; the last of his strength was gone. He put the pails of milk to one side and sank into a pile of fresh straw.
“I’ll take them to the springhouse in a minute,” he promised himself. And he wriggled flat in the fragrant hay and spread out his arms peacefully.
All battle sounds were muffled by the thick old stone walls. The familiar rustle and stamping of cattle were like a familiar song....
He woke with a hand shaking his shoulder.
Someone was saying, in French, “Wake up, André. Wake up! The Invasion has started.”
André opened his eyes and saw Victor Lescot bent over him.
“Shame on you, André,” he scolded. “Milk getting sour. War going on all around, and you sleeping.”
André sat up. “You’re supposed to be shut up in your house, Victor. What are you doing here?” he said crossly.
“I can’t stay home now,” Victor bristled. “I’ve got to go get my new cart—before it is destroyed.”
Now wide awake, André said with disgust, “You can’t go out into the fighting.”
“But I must,” Victor interrupted shrilly. “My new cart will be blown to bits if I leave it at Jacquard’s. Then what?”
André could not believe his ears. “Would you rather be blown to bits yourself?” he demanded.
“But we do not need to thrust ourselves into danger,” Victor protested. “We’ll make our way to Jacquard’s village by the cowpaths, you and I. We know them well, eh?”
“WE?” André echoed. “Who’s going with you?”
“But you, naturally, my little friend, I may need you to speak English.”
“Where is the cart?” André asked.
“At Jacquard’s workshop, on his farm. I have told you about it on numerous occasions.”
André smiled. “Victor Lescot, Jacquard’s shop is right near the coast, where the fighting is. Who knows, there may be a battle going on in Jacquard’s own courtyard right now.”
Victor’s eyes flickered. “Ah, but I have a plan.”
“There is no sense to it.” André shrugged and got to his feet.
“No sense!” Victor cried, as though he were about to hurl a bolt of lightning. “You forget. The cart is mine. I paid for it yesterday.”
Again André could only shake his head.
“I’ll put this milk where it is cool,” he said, and started off with a pail in each hand.
Victor dived for the other pail and followed. “La Fumée, my mare that you have always been so fond of, you know,” he chattered, “she’s all harnessed and impatient to start off. You know how she loves adventure.”
Just then there was a definite lull in the shelling. André set the pails into the cool, stone-lined spring, taking Victor’s from him.
Victor caught his eye. “The noise is not so loud,” he said. “There is a trifling din, true, but it is less.”
“Perhaps the worst is over,” André said. “We could just start out, and if they tell us we can’t proceed, we can turn back....”
Victor’s pink face crinkled brightly. “But of course. Anything else would be gross stupidity.”
André fretted: Now he thinks I’ve promised to get his cart no matter what happens.
But the Americans would turn them back at once—so no harm would be done.
“Okay, Victor. I will start out,” he said.