WE WERE THERE
AT THE
NORMANDY INVASION

“The 82nd always wins its battles!” Slim said

WE WERE THERE
AT THE
NORMANDY
INVASION

Written and Illustrated by
CLAYTON KNIGHT

Historical Consultant:
Major General Ralph Royce
U.S.A.F., Retired

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers, New York

© CLAYTON KNIGHT 1956
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 56-5389
We Were There at the Normandy Invasion

Contents

Illustrations

WE WERE THERE
AT THE
NORMANDY INVASION

CHAPTER ONE
Dangerous Business

TOWARD sunset on the first day of June, a small black car rattled past a crossroads sign in a tiny village in northwestern France. The sign pointed to the near-by town of Sainte Mère Église, about two miles farther inland. The coast of the English Channel was nearly three miles back in the other direction.

Behind the wheel of the car sat a thin, anxious Frenchman. Hunched beside him was a young, blond Englishman. The younger man was shabbily dressed, and most of the lower part of his face was covered by a bandage.

The car pulled up and stopped in front of a house with a weather-beaten sign on it which read:

Pierre Gagnon Gas Tobacco Chocolate

A lone gas pump stood between the house and the highway. Beyond the house lay Pierre Gagnon’s farm.

The driver waited a moment and then honked three times sharply. Almost immediately the door opened. A dark-haired boy of about twelve came out.

The man behind the wheel asked, “Is your father here?”

The boy nodded and politely explained, “If you want gas I can work the pump.”

The driver frowned nervously and repeated, “Get your father.”

From the direction of Ste. Mère Église three German soldiers came in sight, their heavy tread echoing in the stillness of the drowsy village. Both men in the car and the boy glanced at them. When the boy did not move, the driver spoke more sharply, “Your father, bring him here.”

The boy turned and disappeared through the door.

The driver and his passenger waited. The younger man slid low in his seat, his back toward the approaching soldiers.

Chatting among themselves, the Germans paid no attention to the car nor to a girl of fifteen who had come to the house door. Behind her stood her father, Pierre Gagnon, a burly man with a thick mustache, and rumpled country clothes.

He brushed past the girl, and at a signal from the driver, went to the pump. The driver left his seat and bent close to speak to him.

At a signal from the driver he went to the pump

Pierre Gagnon listened carefully, then swung around and went back to the girl in the doorway.

“Marie,” he whispered, “they want us to hide this fellow, another downed flyer, for two or three days.”

The girl studied the youth slumped low in the front seat. She thought, “He looks like all the airmen who are shot down over France—the worried eyes, the peasant clothes that don’t fit, the bandages.”

“Who is the driver?” she asked. “Has he the right password?”

“Yes,” her father replied. “And he asks us to hide this English pilot till the Maquis can find a way to get him over the border into Spain. Do you think we can do it?”

In Normandy, that part of France which thrusts northward into the English Channel, apple trees were in bloom. Warm, soft breezes played across the green fields, over the thick hedgerows, and through the orchards.

But in this beautiful spring of 1944 the people of Normandy could not enjoy what they saw. They could only hear the tramp of German boots over their land. Nazi armies had occupied France, and for the last two years German camps had been set up over the countryside. French property had been seized, and Nazi officers told the people exactly what they could and could not do.

The town of Ste. Mère Église sits almost in the middle of what is called the Cherbourg Peninsula. Most of the Norman people are farmers or dairymen. Some are fishermen, but the Nazis would not let them fish. Instead, the Germans set up barriers along the shore to prevent boats from landing. And they lined the coast with huge guns. Also, the fields were spiked with posts and barbed wire to keep American and British gliders from landing.

For many months, the French people had been expecting British and American armies to come in a great invasion that would drive the Nazis out. But their hopes had always failed. No troops had come to liberate them, and the Normans felt glum and often angry. More than anything else they wanted to be free.

The only thing they could do was to cause all possible trouble for the Nazis secretly. Those who banded together in “Underground” or Resistance groups were called Maquis. If a Maquis was caught by the Germans he was very likely to be shot.

Nevertheless, many French ran the risk of being detected helping the British and Americans. Even very young men and girls operated in the secret Underground.

The Nazis tried to watch everyone, but sometimes the most innocent-looking car on the road was being used to trick them, even in the quietest village.

It was happening now. Marie Gagnon nodded to her father. “Bring him in,” she whispered. “I’ll get the room in the attic ready.”

“One moment,” her father said. “I’ll send André out of the way first. What he doesn’t know he won’t chatter about.”

He shouted through the door, “André. Come here.”

There was a clatter of heavy shoes and the boy reappeared.

“Son,” his father said sternly, “have you taken the eggs to old Schmidt yet?”

André hesitated and shook his head. “No—my bicycle—I could not get the chain fixed.”

His sister snorted at him. “You are getting soft. It won’t hurt you to walk. The eggs are on the kitchen table.”

André thought, “Sisters!” But a look at his father’s face sent him back for the eggs.

As he turned down the road toward Ste. Mère Église his father went back to the gas pump. André had not gone far when Patchou, his dog, caught up with him. The puppy gave him a playful nudge as if to say, “I’m sorry to be late, but I had to give that car a good, long sniff.”

After walking less than a mile, André turned off and came to a group of camouflaged barracks. Inside the high wire fence, narrow buildings stood in long rows. A German sentry, his rifle held loosely, guarded the gate. He grinned at the boy and waved him inside.

As André entered, a Frenchman pedaling by on an ancient bicycle shouted to him, but a burst of Patchou’s barking drowned out the greeting.

André went around a large group of military vehicles and mobile guns parked under a protecting netted screen. Then he followed a winding path up to one of the barracks.

Patchou, prancing ahead of him, leaped playfully at a middle-aged German soldier seated on a bench outside, puffing on his pipe.

Gently pushing off the excited dog, the German saw André and called, “Aha! It’s young Herr Gagnon.” He tapped the ashes from his pipe and then added, “You have brought Papa Schmidt some more eggs, no?”

André held out the package. The German placed it on the bench and carefully unknotted the big handkerchief the boy had brought.

Schmidt exclaimed when he saw the contents. “Ach! and cheese, too.” He held the cheese to his nose and inhaled deeply. “That’s goot. You are a fine boy, André Gagnon.” With a twinkling smile, he added, “Almost as goot as my own Otto.

“Look, I show you.” He reached into the pocket of his tunic. “Just today a letter came from my home in Osnabrück—and pictures.” Pointing to one, he said, “That’s my Otto. He’s like you, no?”

André studied the snapshot of a boy about his own age but with light, almost white hair, frowning into the sun.

A little embarrassed, André could only say, “He wears funny clothes.”

The German chuckled. “If he could see you, he’d think yours were comical too.”

Glancing at the letter in his hand, he sighed. “Ach! but they are having it bad in Osnabrück. The Englisher and the Americaner planes they bomb, bomb, bomb our town. Part of my home is gone. My wife and boy say they get no sleep.”

Almost to himself he muttered, “When will the war end?” Then, turning to the boy, he said sadly, “Ach, how do you know, any more than me? We smile, eh, while we can ... and enjoy the sunshine.”

Patchou had wandered off to one of the other barracks and started a fight with one of the camp dogs. André called over his shoulder, “I’ll be back again in a day or two,” and ran to separate the two animals.

By the time he and Patchou reached home, the last twilight had faded. The house was dark, for blackout curtains were drawn across the windows.

Inside, his sister sat hunched alone in the wide, stone-floored kitchen, listening to music from a forbidden radio.

“Where’s Papa?” André asked.

Marie looked annoyed. “He’s gone off with Victor Lescot. That Raoul Cotein is making trouble again. Now he says our cows broke into his pasture. What an old weasel he is! Even the Germans behave better.”

Later, with supper over, she paused suddenly, and raised her hand for André to be silent.

Breaking the stillness, the weird wail of air-raid sirens rose far away.

Marie looked tired. And there was fear in her eyes when she heard the sirens, which meant that another air raid was beginning.

“Again tonight,” she sighed, “and so early. It is not yet ten o’clock.”

She went to the kitchen window and made sure the black curtains let no light through.

“You run upstairs, André, and see that the curtains there are tight. And stay with Mother,” she ordered.

Mme. Gagnon had been ill for several weeks. Now she lay in her big bed upstairs, nearly asleep.

She opened her eyes as the sirens died away and then began again.

“Well, son,” she said, “did you eat a good supper?”

André nodded.

A little wind from the sea had sprung up, and somewhere a loose board rattled. Also, there was a noise in the attic. “Must be a rat,” André said to himself, and decided to take Patchou up there tomorrow. “He’ll have some fun catching that little thief,” he thought.

His mother was roused again by the drone of plane engines coming in high overhead. Their lofty beating made the air tremble. Antiaircraft guns in near-by Ste. Mère Église began to boom. Their hollow wumpf, wumpf, added to the din of the sirens.

In a slight lull, Mme. Gagnon asked, “Is your father home? I do not like him to be away when there is an air raid.”

André shook his head and raised his voice above the racket. “He’s out with Victor. Marie says Raoul Cotein is trying to stir up trouble again.”

He wanted his mother to think of something other than the air raid, so he laughed and added, “Marie says Raoul is a weasel.”

Raoul Cotein’s mischief-making was a village joke.

Mme. Gagnon sighed. “I wish your father would come home,” she said. “The bombing might be bad.”

“Don’t worry,” André said wisely. “These are English planes. The Americans only come in the daytime. You know, Maman, there aren’t any big guns and bridges and war factories close to us here.”

But bombs were dropping, though at a distance. Several minutes later, the coastal guns were still firing, but the sound of the engines had begun to die away.

“Listen,” said Mme. Gagnon in a relieved voice. “You were right, André, they dropped no bombs on us.”

André heard his sister’s footsteps on the stairs. Then he thought he heard the creak of the attic door. Presently she came bustling into the room, carrying a small tray with a pot of chocolate and a cup.

Cheerfully, she said, “There, Maman, they’ve gone. Let’s hope we get no more planes tonight. Here,” pouring the chocolate, “drink this and try to get back to sleep.”

Her dark skirts swished around her knees as she fluffed up her mother’s pillows and tucked in the coverlet.

Downstairs the front door opened and they heard Pierre Gagnon calling, “Marie!”

Then someone spoke in another voice.

“Shh-h,” whispered Marie. “There is someone with Papa.”

Her father was saying loudly, “Yes, Herr Kapitan, I’m all right. No, no, it is not necessary for you to come in.”

Before Marie and André reached the head of the stairs, the outside door was slammed, bolted, and the stranger had gone.

The light from the hall lamp fell on their father as he turned to face the stairs.

Across one of his cheeks stretched a deep red gash.

CHAPTER TWO
House-to-House Search

AS THE light fell across the wound on her father’s face Marie cried out sharply.

From the bedroom Mme. Gagnon called, “Marie, what’s wrong?”

André ran back to her side. “Papa’s hurt,” he said, and then added hastily, “but not badly.”

“But there were no bombs,” Mme. Gagnon exclaimed.

Pierre himself had lunged up the stairs and now burst into the bedroom sputtering, “Don’t excite yourself, Maman. All is well. No harm is done. That cochon!”

“Ah,” his wife cried. “So, it was Raoul Cotein!”

“Who else but that son of Satan?” Gagnon’s eyes snapped fiercely. He was red and breathing furiously, and flung himself into a chair beside the bed.

“I contain myself,” he said firmly, clamping both great hands on his knees like thunderclaps.

“No, Papa,” André grasped his arm, “do not contain yourself yet. Tell us what has happened.”

“Marie,” said Mme. Gagnon, “run get some hot water and clean Papa’s cut.”

Marie clattered quickly down the stairs and Mme. Gagnon went on, “Now, Pierre, you get yourself slashed and perhaps poisoned over a cow. I thought you had more sense.”

The farmer stiffened. “It was not about a cow! Raoul sent for me only as an excuse. Ask Victor. He also was there. At once Raoul began to scream so loud, if it were not for the guns booming they could have heard him in Ste. Mère.”

“Then what—?” began Mme. Gagnon impatiently.

“Then,” cried Pierre, “he began to shout charges against me.” He swept out both arms. “Against all of us.”

Pierre swallowed angrily. “He accused me,” he said, “of being a collaborator of the Nazis! He accuses us all—you, Marie, André—of working hand in glove with them. It seems that only this evening he saw André, here, entering the German camp.”

There it was—the black word, collaborator, he who helps the enemy! It meant someone hated by all Frenchmen, more, perhaps, than the enemy.

“But Papa,” André cried angrily, “poor old Schmidt! He is not an enemy.”

Pierre shook his head. “He is. We have only been giving him a few eggs and a little cheese because he is a tired old man. But Raoul can make it sound wrong if he wants to.”

Mme. Gagnon nodded encouragement. She thought of the many Allied flyers this brave, shaggy man had secretly helped to escape from the Nazis at the risk of his life. And of the boy in the attic. She glanced at her son, who, so far, knew nothing about his father’s and sister’s work in the Underground.

“I grew very angry when he called me a collaborator,” Pierre went on. “How could I let anyone say such a thing to me? I punched Raoul and he came back at me like a bull. We fell down, and my face struck the stone wall. The result is not pretty, perhaps?”

“Why did that German captain come home with you?” André burst out. “Did he get in the fight with Raoul?”

Gagnon snorted. “Not in the fight. Unfortunately he came along just as Raoul picked up a stick and started for me. Victor was yelling at both of us, and suddenly we saw the German coming. Naturally we all shut our mouths like clams. Frenchmen do not fight Frenchmen in front of the Nazis—not even Raoul.”

“Perhaps there will be no more to it,” said Mme. Gagnon soothingly.

“If they do not send soldiers to snoop around the house,” Pierre grunted, “we need not worry.”

Marie returned, breathless, with a basin of water and clean cloths. Her father sat on the edge of the bed, repeating the story, while the cut was cleaned and gently covered with ointment.

“Your face feels better, Pierre?” Mme. Gagnon asked. “Good. Now we must all sleep.”

A few minutes later the house was dark. Everywhere, from the kitchen where André snuggled into his goosedown-soft, curtained bed, to the attic, there was the sound of quiet breathing. And in the attic the English boy turned restlessly on his narrow cot.

Before dawn the household roused to the day’s duties. It was not long before they heard news. The weary, older German soldiers were being removed. War-toughened young Nazis were going to take over the district.

Before the new troops had been in camp two days, proclamations that put stricter limits on freedom were posted everywhere.

A curfew was ordered. People must not leave their houses between ten in the evening and five in the morning. This did not bother André since he usually went to bed well before ten.

A sad little good-by note from Papa Schmidt reached him. It thanked the family warmly for their kindness and ended: “Be a goot boy. Someday I bring my Otto to see you. Auf Wiederzehen.”

André noticed that the German camp was a changed place. The new regiment had chained vicious police dogs inside the wire fence. And André was horrified when he heard that stray dogs belonging to the village people had been shot.

He tied Patchou safely in the farmyard at the rear of the house, and kept an eye on him.

Then came another dreaded order:

ALL ARTICLES OF BRASS OR COPPER MUST BE
SURRENDERED BY THE CIVILIAN POPULATION. A
HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCH WILL BE MADE.

André’s most prized possession was a gleaming brass trumpet which he had learned to play with some skill. It was not only dear to him, but the only really precious thing he owned. “I must hide it in some very, very safe place,” he thought.

Also, the coming search would be very dangerous to the rest of the family. If the Germans came they would surely find the flyer in their attic. And if an enemy pilot were found in their house they would all be shot.

Marie and her father had been watching for the Maquis operator to come for the flyer, according to plan. But for some reason he had not yet appeared.

“Those Maquis! They are wasting their time in some café, enjoying themselves, probably,” Mme. Gagnon said irritably.

But Pierre replied, “No. Not the Maquis. There is some good reason why the operator has not yet been able to get here.”

It was not until June 4th, just before curfew time, that a Maquis messenger slipped into the Gagnon house.

He said he could not come before because the new Nazi garrison had sent patrols everywhere.

The plans of the Underground had all been changed. Pierre and Marie, he said, must keep the flyer where he was until new arrangements to spirit him away could be made.

That evening Marie and her father huddled in the dark little parlor to talk over their situation.

Marie whispered wildly, “What shall we do if the Nazis come here? They will go to the attic too.”

Pierre shrugged, scowling. “We must find some way. We always have before.”

But, more than an hour later, they still had no idea what to do.

“There’s no other way,” whispered M. Gagnon at last, “but to go ask Father Duprey to offer some idea. He must be taken into the secret.”

Marie nodded.

The night was dark and rain began to fall.

Her father yawned. “I’ll go see Father Duprey tomorrow, first thing,” he said. “Now off to bed with you.”

They rose, and stood tensely, startled by a creak on the stairs and soft, padding footsteps outside the door.

The door opened and André stood there, clutching his boots and his trumpet.

“Heavens, André, you frightened us,” Marie snapped. “We thought you were in bed long ago.”

His father asked gruffly, “Where are you going at this hour?”

The boy moved nervously. “Papa,” he blurted, “why didn’t you tell me that man was hiding in the attic?”

Pierre and his daughter exchanged quick glances. Pierre put a hand protectingly on his son’s shoulder. “We thought it might save trouble if you didn’t know,” he said. “But now it’s done.”

“But why shouldn’t I know?” André demanded stubbornly. “He’s the man with the bandage who came in the car a few days ago, isn’t he? I talked to him. And I like him.”

“You must be sure not to give us away,” André’s father ordered sternly. “Say nothing about this man to anyone. Do you understand?”

André promised, and he laid his trumpet beside the lamp. “I found him up there when I went to the attic to get this. I must bury it outside somewhere before the Nazis come snooping around.” Then he gasped. “But won’t they find Ronald?”

His father said, “Your sister and I are looking out for him. Now, about this trumpet...?”

The horn had to be hidden before another morning.

“I’ll bury it near the fence beside the lane,” André whispered as he edged out into the stormy darkness.

An eerie stillness hung heavy on Marie and her father when André had gone.

After a few moments Marie whispered nervously, “I don’t think I can sleep until this is settled, Papa. Don’t you think you could slip out and see Father Duprey tonight?”

Pierre frowned. “What about this cursed curfew? I do not want to be caught. However, it will not be my first night job for the Underground.”

He slipped on his coat, pulled his cap low, and eased himself noiselessly out of the house.

Marie sat alone, her eyes on the clock.

Her heart jumped a beat when an approaching patrol car whizzed down the road. It passed the house. Again the dark silence.

The back door opened and André returned, his boots caked high with mud. When he asked, “Where’s Papa?” she said, “He has gone out. Ask no more questions and go to bed.”

“I will wait for Papa,” he replied firmly, and perched on the edge of a chair, studying his sister’s face.

He had felt excitement growing among the others in the house. Now it belonged to him, too.

They listened for outside noises through the sounds of the storm. André said, “Ronald Pitt’s a fighter pilot, Marie. Did you know that?

“I never talked to one before,” he continued. “He told me his Spitfire plane got hit, late one evening, and he parachuted down into a wood. The Germans didn’t find him. He’s been hiding in the fields and towns for two weeks.”

Marie nodded. “He’s one of the lucky ones—so far.”

André chattered softly on. “Those bandages were a fake, weren’t they? He wasn’t really hurt. Somebody painted his jaw with iodine and put on those bandages so he wouldn’t have to talk to any Germans.”

Her eyes on the clock, Marie said, “Shush now.”

André broke the next few minutes of silence with, “Ronald comes from Nottingham, like Robin Hood—”

But Marie hissed, “Shh-h!” still more sharply, and rose to listen at the door.

At a rap outside, she unfastened the lock.

Pierre slipped inside. His tired face had lighted up, and Marie smiled. “Father Duprey will help us!” she cried eagerly.

Pierre motioned to the stairs and said, “We go talk to Maman quickly. Come, Marie. You, André, clothes off and into bed. Lamps out, Marie.”

At Mme. Gagnon’s bedside a candle flickered. Pierre and Marie drew close beside the pillow.

“The Nazis have already begun to search houses on the other road,” Pierre whispered rapidly. “They are still a long way from us, but we can’t lose any time. Father Duprey has a plan. It is this. He will arrange with the hospital at St. Sauveur le Vicomte tomorrow for you to go there in an ambulance to have treatments. And we will hide the English flyer inside the ambulance.”

At a frightened look from Mme. Gagnon, he went on hurriedly, “Marie will ride with you, and Father Duprey will sit up with the driver. He thinks if we make a big parade of it the Germans will not be so suspicious.”

“But St. Sauveur is beyond Ste. Mère Église ... so far away,” whispered Mme. Gagnon.

“But that is good, Maman,” Marie protested.

“It is the nut of the whole idea!” Pierre’s voice rose excitedly. “St. Sauveur is out of this district, and you will be safely away from these new Nazi troops. Some Maquis will meet us near the hospital. They will spirit our flyer out of the ambulance and hide him until he can be moved on. It is a good plan, Maman?”

“I do not like it,” she protested.

CHAPTER THREE
Father Duprey’s Plan

EVEN next morning when Father Duprey arrived to go over the plan again, Mme. Gagnon was still protesting uneasily.

Father Duprey clasped his hands, beaming. “Think of the good that will come to all.”

Marie’s mother nodded her head doubtfully.

The next step after preparing Mme. Gagnon for her role was to instruct the flyer in his part.

Leaving Marie on watch downstairs, Pierre and the priest, trailed by André, clumped up the dark staircase to the attic.

Ronald Pitt listened to them quietly and shrugged when Father Duprey asked, “You agree, my son? It is a good scheme, you think?”

“Well, I’m in your hands,” the young Englishman replied. “But I’d certainly feel foul if I got you into trouble. Of course, I’m willing to take any kind of chance. The sooner I get back to my squadron the better. I think you can guess what’s up in England. It’s my bet the invasion is coming any day now.”

“It can’t come too soon,” Pierre said eagerly.

Soon after that, work on the farm began as on an ordinary day. In spite of the Gagnons’ desire to appear untroubled, however, they paused often to listen and look around them.

Rumors of the Nazi search party reached them from all sides. The village women trundled from house to house bemoaning the loss of their copper cooking pots.

At two o’clock that afternoon the priest’s housekeeper brought a package. A message said that all arrangements had been completed. At exactly four o’clock the ambulance would arrive before Pierre’s house. Mme. Gagnon was to be ready to leave instantly. The party must arrive at a point near the hospital at exactly five o’clock.

Marie packed clothes for her mother and laid out her own best dress. Even though she would be returning that same evening, she also prepared a small lunch basket. The hospital was only about eighteen miles away, but food might be difficult to find and expensive to buy.

André was given the job of coaching Ronald Pitt. He climbed the attic stairs filled with excitement but also full of laughter. For the disguise that Father Duprey had chosen for the flyer was a nun’s outfit of clothing.

When the young Englishman had put on the long, full, black robe, André stood back and studied him, his eyes dancing. And from under the starched headdress that framed his narrow face the flyer’s blue eyes danced just as gaily.

André said, “You make a pretty nun.” And grinning, he finished, “I did not think Spitfire pilots were so chic.”

Then recalling the serious instructions his father had given him for Ronald, he repeated them. “Be ready to come downstairs just before four o’clock. Get into the ambulance quickly, right after they put Maman’s stretcher in. The family will try to surround you. The driver is a Maquis and he’s used to this kind of business.

“Now,” André finished, “my father says to be sure you don’t leave anything behind you for the Germans to find. And Marie will come in a few minutes to put the cot and all this stuff away.”

“Splendid.” Ronald looked down at the boy. “I’d hate to see my young brother exposed to all this danger you’re so cheerful about. Well, now I must practice a bit.” He took a sedate turn between the cot and the window, grinning at the French boy. And he practiced sitting down demurely.

It had been raining gustily all day but stopped about three, and the wind dropped.

For some time the village had been quiet—the Nazi squad busy among outlying farms.

As four o’clock neared, Mme. Gagnon was upstairs, dressed and wrapped in a shawl, ready to be hurried onto the stretcher.

In the shuttered little parlor, a dark-robed figure stood in the shadow beside the hallway door.

André stood watch at a window on the road, and his father and Marie paced the stone-floored kitchen.

Then, electrically, the silence was broken by the rumble of an approaching car. André drew the curtain aside a little.

At his stifled cry Marie and her father rushed to the window.

A German army truck crammed with armed soldiers was slowing up on the road. And at that same moment, from the opposite direction, the closed black ambulance rolled up to the Gagnon door.

Almost before the ambulance had braked to a stop Father Duprey’s tall, erect figure swung down from the front seat, and Pierre rushed to admit him. The driver immediately began to back the long vehicle close to the door.

Marie cried softly, “Heavens, Father, what a calamity! The Nazis! What can we do?”

“We can act sensible,” said Father Duprey, “and waste no time moaning about what we can’t help. Those men are evidently going to search the Julliard farm next door before they come here. Let the driver in with the stretcher, daughter, so we lose no time getting Mme. Gagnon away.”

The driver sidled in and M. Gagnon seized the stretcher. The two men hurried up the stairs.

A few seconds later the creaking steps warned André that his mother was being carried down. He signaled Ronald to be ready for his dash.

“Now,” said Father Duprey to Marie, “sob a little, but not enough to draw much attention.”

André held the door while the little procession puffed and brushed through. Mme. Gagnon was lifted easily in through the ambulance door. And a moment later, Ronald, clutching his awkward bundle of skirts as naturally as he could, climbed in and crouched beside the stretcher. His face was hidden by the width of his headdress, and he bent gently over the sick woman.

“It is all going like clockwork, madame,” he whispered. “Don’t be frightened.”

“I—I’m afraid,” murmured Mme. Gagnon, “more for Pierre, for Marie and André....”

Standing by the road, Pierre looked with mounting anxiety at the soldiers prowling through the farm next door. They were not spending much time there.

In all his later life André never forgot the next few minutes.

Mme. Gagnon called, “Pierre! Pierre, please come with me.”

And just then Raoul Cotein bicycled briskly up, shouting, “Mon Dieu, Gagnon, what are you up to now?”

He set his bicycle against the wall and stared into the open end of the ambulance.

“What’s the trouble here?” he demanded loudly as his eyes rolled toward the strange nun.

“Get on with your business, Raoul,” M. Gagnon ordered. “My wife is ill, as you well know, and you are not needed here.”

Father Duprey’s black eyes were traveling swiftly from the hunched figures in the dimness of the ambulance to the Germans only two or three hundred yards away.

André boosted Marie in beside her mother, and M. Gagnon closed the door upon them. Father Duprey said calmly, “You may as well come along, Pierre. It will comfort your wife. I’ll see that you and Marie get home tonight.”

“But André—” Pierre whispered.

André tugged at his arm. “Go. Go, Papa,” he urged. “I can take care of everything—only go.”

Down the road, the Nazis were piling back into their truck and the starter whined.

He opened the door to find a Nazi officer frowning at him

Father Duprey seized Pierre’s arm and whipped him swiftly forward and up to the seat in front.

He had no more than slid into the seat himself when the Maquis driver rocked the old ambulance into action with a crash of gears. The machine swayed into a turn and roared away toward Ste. Mère Église.

André watched it go for a long minute.

The German army truck started, but halted a little distance off, and the sharp voice of the officer giving commands drifted toward them.

Raoul Cotein shifted his feet. “Uh—I have things to do,” he cried suddenly. He flung a leg over his bicycle, and peddling furiously, was soon gone.

André moved idly toward the house. Once through his own door, the boy trotted quickly into the kitchen.

He untied his dog and put him in the dimly lit cow barn. As he snapped the door fastening, he spoke warningly, “Not a sound out of you, Patchou. Remember!”

He got back into the house just in time to answer a loud thumping at the front door. He opened it to find a Nazi officer and several hard-faced soldiers frowning down at him.

CHAPTER FOUR
Midnight Landing

ANDRÉ stepped quickly aside as, without a word, the Germans tramped in.

Three of them were ordered upstairs while the others set to work poking into every cupboard and drawer on the first floor. When they had emptied the kitchen of its copper they trooped off to the outbuildings.

André waited uncertainly in the hallway at first. Later, he edged his way to the farmyard door and anxiously watched the search through the barns. Not until he saw that none of the men went toward the lane where his trumpet was buried did he begin to breathe easily.

At last, the officer came from the loft over the cow barn, shouting to his men to return to the truck.

He strode into the kitchen and asked André, “Your father and mother—where are they?”

“They are all gone to the hospital with my mother, who is sick,” André explained.

“Well, then, when your father returns,” the officer snapped, “tell him I am putting men with machine guns in that loft overlooking the road. And advise him that it will do no good to protest.”

André’s heart sank. What would the family do with a lot of Nazis underfoot? Did they suspect that the Gagnons had been working with the Underground?

Now, for the first time, he felt desperately alone. He nodded silently.

When the Germans had gone—with his mother’s copper kettles—André ran back to the barn. Patchou lay in his dark corner under a manger, as quiet as a mouse.

“Come into the house, Patchou,” he said. “We’ll have to keep you there now.”

For an hour or so André went about doing his father’s chores and his own. The heavy, low-lying clouds began breaking a little.

He had just finished milking the cows when the German truck returned with a dozen rough-looking gunners and the sharp-faced officer. Machine guns were unloaded and hauled up the stone loft steps.

Some time later the officer and some of the men piled into the truck and drove away.

“They must have left at least six up there,” André said to himself. He must go up the road later, and warn his father and Marie about the hidden gunners.

He opened the front window so that he might be warned of an approaching car.

André ate the cold supper Marie had left under a cloth for him. The minutes dragged by. By nine o’clock there had been no sign of his father and sister, and no word. For a while he sat on the floor beside his dog. Tomorrow was June 6th—Patchou’s first birthday. André hoped Marie would keep her promise to bring back some sort of toy to celebrate the occasion.

When the clock struck ten he went out into the deepening twilight to stare into the gloom toward Ste. Mère. What if the Nazis had opened the ambulance and found Ronald? Perhaps the Maquis had failed to meet them.... He tried not to think of such things.

Now it was eleven o’clock and long past time to go to bed. From several directions there was strong antiaircraft firing, and the echo of bombs.

In spite of the curfew order, André began to walk stealthily down the road. Those Nazi gunners might open fire on any vehicle bringing his family home.

Halting, listening, he picked his way to a bend of the highway. After a little while he began to realize how tired he was.

Drowsily he looked for a sheltered spot in the hedge, and sank down among the ferns and the tall grass. The rich smell of earth and spring growth rose around him. A few fields away a horse whinnied, and from far in the distance came the long, high-fluted note of a train whistle....

Some time later he awoke with a start, and wondered where he was and how long he had slept. All around him hung thick, velvety blackness.

Something had wakened him. It was the sirens and fire alarms in Ste. Mère.

And then he heard the planes.

Drumming overhead, throbbing so that the earth shook under his feet, he heard them coming.

Then he saw them. A brilliant moon outlined their wings.

He ran across the road and struggling through a hedge, scrambled quickly up the tallest of a clump of trees.

And now he saw that the planes were coming in from the west, lower than he had ever seen them fly. They were twin-motored, scooping below the clouds to right and left, filling the sky.

They were bombing Normandy! Ste. Mère! Perhaps a bomb would drop on him—NOW!

The din of the German guns was incessant, and the roar of the plane engines was deafening. He must descend and find a ditch. His arms ached, but he could not let go. He had climbed as high as there were limbs to support him, and now he clung to the solid trunk.

He noticed one particular plane coming directly toward him. It was etched sharply against a luminous patch of cloud, and he could clearly see the three white stripes that banded each wing.

As he watched, he saw the open door at the rear of the fuselage, and instantly something dark dropped from it. Then another dark blob and another.

Expecting the whistle of bombs, he shut his eyes, pressed his face into the rough bark, and prayed....

After a few seconds he opened his eyes.

Other than the guns and the throttled beat of the engines, there had been no sound. No bombs were exploding.

André threw his head back and glanced quickly skyward. In the moonlight, speckled in every direction across the sky, hung hundreds of mushroom shapes that were floating gently earthward as silently as apple petals.

Suddenly he saw that they were parachutes!

And below nearly every one, a soldier swung. From the lowest he could make out the jut of rifles.

CHAPTER FIVE
André’s Warning

CLINGING to his uncertain perch, for the first few seconds André felt stunned. Could this be his own Normandy sky? He watched the flicker of moonlight here and there on the parachutes drifting down through the scudding clouds.

“The Invasion!” he thought.

He had turned to stare across at his father’s barn in the distance, wondering about the Nazi machine gunners, when the tree beside him was torn by a crashing of branches. His heart leaped into his throat. The topmost branches were entwined by a great, pale, crumpled parachute. And, dangling from the shroud lines, hung a figure that swung like a pendulum.

In the meadow beyond, other dark shapes were pelting into the hayfield, their chutes collapsing around them like punctured balloons.

The noise was spreading. Isolated shots and short bursts of machine-gun fire drummed, stopped, and drummed again. From the far-off German camp near Ste. Mère came the wail of a Klaxon horn. And there was the distant growl and whine of speeding motors. The echo of distant explosions increased.

High overhead, planes whose cargo had been dropped, droned away toward England. And everywhere antiaircraft fire was spitting even more frantically.

Who were these men dangling from parachutes? If they had started the Invasion, all Maquis ought to help them. “Then that means me, too,” André thought.