Silence Over Dunkerque (10 page)

Now everything was black, silent. Save for a snore. Fingers moved again, again came that gentle snore. He had slept through it all.

T
HE DOOR SLID BACK
. There stood the girl’s mother in her Sunday black, a market basket of eggs over one arm and a small knitted sack of vegetables in the other hand. Evidently she was going to town, probably Gravelines, to sell or exchange them for other produce. She climbed halfway up the ladder and let them have it all over again, from the beginning.

Fingers, who had been drowsy despite the bright morning outside, sat up, rubbing his eyes. He yawned and stretched, which did not improve Madame’s temper in the least.

No, the English were not good soldiers, she declared. Only the French and Germans made soldiers. England had deceived them, she had sent no planes to help our Army of the Air. And anyway, it was always French breasts who had to take it.

“Toujours les poitrines françaises... tou-jours....”

Shaking a finger, she warned them they must leave that morning. She would be back in the afternoon; if they were still in the barn, she would inform the German authorities. Never would she go through what had happened the night before, never, no, never....

She flounced out, slamming the door in place.

“What’s biting her now?—What’s the chinwag mean?”

“I didn’t get it all. But I got enough. Same things as yesterday; it’s all England’s fault. And she wants us to leave, right away.”

“You and your French,” said Fingers, who had a real British contempt for anyone trying to speak a foreign language.

“Yes, and a good thing, too. Where would we be if I didn’t understand a little?”

“Right where we are now. Funny, I don’t get a word of the lingo. I used to talk to the waitress in that
estaminet
last winter, but this woman speaks too fast.”

“You aren’t used to it, that’s all.”

“All right. But where do we go from here?”

That was indeed the question. He said nothing, and sat thinking. The coastal region was alive with Germans. If they could get to Paris, or south toward Spain, perhaps....

The door slid back cautiously, light appeared as the sunshine came into the darkened barn, and below stood the girl, beckoning. Was she going to hide them somewhere else on the farm?

No, for she had on a straw hat and was obviously going somewhere, because she carried a small suitcase in one hand. They descended and, stepping outside, saw a farm cart, with two handles, that stood perhaps four feet from the ground. It was wide, about six feet square, with planks along three sides, and rode on two large iron wheels. It turned out to be perfectly balanced. The Britishers had seen hundreds of them during the retreat, each stacked high with bedding and household goods of every kind.

The girl handed each one an identity card. Both were made out in the name of Bonnet, one for Michel, probably the girl’s father, the other for Jean-Paul, evidently her brother. As she gave them over she explained in slow, precise French.

“We go to Calais. Calais. To my grandfather. He does not hate the English, ah, no!” She seemed to be apologizing for the bitterness of her mother. “This card is for you, M’sieur the Sergeant. The other is for your friend.”

Fingers understood. He looked at his small identity card. “Yes, and if they ask me questions? You talk the lingo, I can’t.”

“Grunt and look foolish, laddie,” said the Sergeant. “The girl will do all the talking. But we’ll probably take side roads and won’t meet a German patrol. Just don’t borrow trouble.”

“I’m not borrowing it, it’s here,” grumbled Fingers. But he fell in beside the Sergeant who, at the girl’s order, was pushing the empty cart. Half a mile along the cliff, they came to an abandoned house. The girl explained they were to fill the cart, and soon it was piled high with household goods—a couple of chairs, piles of linen wrapped in sheets, two hens in a coop, a table or two, a rabbit in a wire cage, and a huge pail of kitchen pots and pans. Now they were a family of refugees like the thousands who were crowding the roads every day.

The Britishers wore their wide, floppy fishermen’s pants, the V-necked blouses, and berets. They had hacked away their beards with an ancient razor left by the girl’s father, a prisoner of war in Germany, and looked exactly like two French peasants with their child, being evacuated from a ruined home along the seacoast.

The cart was heavy, but even loaded it could easily be pushed by one man. The Sergeant looked down at the little girl beside him as she trudged along, serious, determined, old beyond her years. How much older, he thought, than my Penny at home. They must be about the same age, too. Here she is, risking her life for us, two strangers she never saw until yesterday. She must know the danger perfectly well, that what she is doing now is treason from the point of view of the occupying forces. She is a heroine. He tried clumsily to thank her, to express his gratitude in his imperfect French, which, because he was anxious to say something, failed him.

She understood and silenced him. “But I am a Frenchwoman,” she said.
“Et une Scoot.”

She didn’t call herself a girl; she considered herself a woman, and she was. But that other word. Scoot? Scoot? What could that mean, what was a Scoot? All at once he got it.

“Why, sure, I understand now, Fingers. She’s a Girl Scout.”

“A Girl Scout! That explains a lot. My word, she’s a plucky kid, though, this girl....”

“She doesn’t think of herself as a girl, she says she’s a woman.”

“Whatever she is she’s all right. God bless her, that’s all I can say. Let me take that cart a while, Sarge.”

They moved on slowly, and were six or seven miles along the coastal road with the water on their left, when Fingers spoke up suddenly. “Look sharp, up ahead there, Sergeant.”

Directly ahead was a German patrol. It was perhaps a squad. The soldiers approaching were young, tanned, tall, blond, and lusty. One glance told the Sergeant they were led by a
Feldwebel,
a non-commissioned officer like himself.

Let’s hope he isn’t too smart or we’ve bought it this time for sure. And the girl? He hated to think about her as the squad swung toward them down the highway.

The Germans looked like what they were—conquerors. Their belts shone, their shoes were polished, their uniforms immaculate. They were well fed and happy. The three behind the cart looked like what they were not—a grubby French family of refugees being evacuated from a ruined house on the cliffs.

“Halt!”

The rifles of the men smacked the pavement. The Sergeant observed that the
Feldwebel
had a nasty-looking automatic cradled in one arm.

“Papierer!”

Thank goodness he doesn’t speak French. But if he ever inspects those identity cards closely, we’re done for.

The girl dug down in a black cord bag she carried, found her purse, and came up quickly with her identity card. More slowly the Sergeant produced his; still more slowly Fingers fumbled in his trousers and handed his over to the German non-com. The soldiers stood watching.

If he looks closely at that card of mine, if he compares the picture, if he really studies it, we’re through. Despite himself the Sergeant looked around for a chance to run, for an opportunity to escape. Should he snatch the pistol under the
Feldwebel’s
arm? Ridiculous. They were outnumbered and unarmed. So he had to stand there watching the
Feldwebel
inspect the girl’s card, ready to break in with a question if his own received too much attention. The German examined the card closely, upside down at first, then righted it, grunted, and handed it back to her.

Exactly at this moment, something caught the eye of the Sergeant. Fifty yards ahead was a familiar figure sitting forlornly beside the road, ears well back, brown head moving from side to side in a gesture he knew.

True, the
Feldwebel
understood no French. Would he recognize an English accent? It was a chance that had to be taken.

“Candy!”

Her head came up immediately. Her nose sniffed the air. The
Feldwebel,
about to inspect his identity card, raised his face, wondering.

“Candy!” Louder this time, trying not to sound English. Yet the risk of saying nothing was greater still.

At this she jumped up, paws apart, seeing only a man in a fisherman’s blouse on the road. The Germans watched, curiously attentive.

“Candy!” This time there was no hesitation. She dashed toward him, charging with all her strength. He stepped away from the traces of the cart, arms outstretched, as she leaped at him from five feet away, hitting him on the chest and almost knocking him down. Tumbling back to the road, she jumped up once more, trying to lap his face, and again, whining, squealing with joy. Then she lay down and rolled over on her back on the pavement, paws wiggling, incoherent sounds coming from her mouth. She scrambled to her feet, and began running in circles around him, barking furiously, making little ecstatic leaps into the air.

A more convincing act would be hard to imagine.

The
Feldwebel,
the cards in his hand, stood watching while the bedraggled animal showed her affection in the only way she could.

He turned to the German non-com.
“Mein Hund... verloren.”

The
Feldwebel
beamed.
“Ja, ja, ja wohl...”

A dog lost, separated from her family in the backwash of war, and finding them again by pure chance, this was a touching scene, one that proved the validity of this traveling troupe far more than any papers, which, as the
Feldwebel
had been warned by his superiors, could be imitated. Perhaps he, too, had left an Airedale somewhere back in Bavaria. At any rate, he hardly glanced at the two identity cards in his hand, returned them to the men, and nodded to the squad with a curt command.

The soldiers slung their rifles over their shoulders and, headed by the
Feldwebel,
moved past. As they went, the dog was still in her act. Cries of joy and squeals of delight followed the German patrol far down the coastal road.

I
SHOULDN’T HAVE IMAGINED
she could swim that far.”

“They can dog-paddle forever if they really want to. She simply struck out for shore as we did, and found herself lost and alone again. Pretty lucky.”

“Lucky for us, I’d say. Otherwise we’d have been off for a German
Stalag.
You never know your luck.”

Sitting on the ground, the Sergeant held the dog in his arms, examining her legs and paws. Occasionally her tail wagged and slapped the ground, occasionally, too, she winced and whined gently as he looked her over. There were cuts in her pads, several bleeding badly.

“Yes, right, pretty lucky all round. She seems to me to be nearing the end, even if she was lively there for a minute or two. Look.”

The panting dog was in bad shape. Her hair was tangled and matted from the salt water. There were ugly wounds on her haunches. All four feet were bleeding, and her ribs showed.

“First thing she needs is water and food.” He dug out a stone jug from the cart, poured water into a saucer, and placed it upon the ground. She limped over, drank up the plateful. And another, and another. The jug was nearly empty.

The girl watched their water supply vanish, yet felt gratitude to the dog for diverting the German patrol. She stroked the animal’s matted coat.

“Ah, la pauvre petite,”
she exclaimed.

The Sergeant then rummaged through the cart, found some hard, stale bread, a half a bottle of milk, and an egg, part of the food for their journey. He broke the egg, mixed it all up in a kitchen basin, and put it down on the pavement. The dog gulped the food, precisely as the two men had gobbled that food brought them in the barn. She ate, drank, then sat down on her haunches, the left paw in the air.

More, please, she seemed to be saying.

The Sergeant picked her up in his arms. “No more now, lass. Later, maybe. And since you’re in no condition to walk, you’ll ride.”

He hoisted her up on the cart where she scrambled on top of a bundle of clothes tied up in a sheet, and crouched, paws forward, ready for anything. The Sergeant took up the handles of the cart, now heavier, and they moved along toward Calais. On top of the pile, the dog licked her bleeding paws.

Here the girl turned them off the main highway onto a small dirt road. She knew the region by heart, and by avoiding the larger roads, she explained, they could get around Marck. She kept talking about Marck. What was this Marck?

It was a town a few miles from Calais, full of German patrols, she explained. The back road they were on was longer, harder for pushing the cart than a paved highway, but safer. By twisting and turning on the back roads, they could eventually reach Coulogne, where her grandfather lived and where she was taking them.

“He is not like my mother, he does not hate the English. Also, he will care for your dog, if indeed he is there, if his house has not been wrecked by the fighting. Tell me, where did you find this poor beast?”

In his halting French the Sergeant explained how they had discovered the dog at Bergues, how she had attached herself to him.

Soon they were traversing a region that had seen heavy fighting, with an occasional dead horse in a field, a wrecked artillery caisson, here and there a house, pockmarked by bullets or reduced to a pile of rubble. Other refugees, too, had passed that way. On a stone road marker, someone had written in a childish hand:

“I have lost my dog, Lou-Lou. White terrier. Josette Bernard, rue de Dunkerque, Marck.”

The pace was slow, because the pebbly road made the cart difficult to push, although each man took turns between the shafts. At noon they paused under some poplars beside a tiny stream to eat. It was the trees, the Sergeant decided, that made the French roads such a pleasure. He loved the disciplined trees of France—the oak, the birch, the beech, the plane tree, the chestnut, and the poplar. Especially the tall, elegant poplars, edging road and river.

He refilled the stone water jug, gave the dog all she wanted to drink. Then he bathed her wounds with water, tied up the worst of them with bandages, hoisted her again to the top of the jolting cart. There she sat, paws forward, bandages around her flanks, surveying the procession, completely content to be with her people again.