The Bomber Boys (15 page)

Many thoughts raced through Peter’s head—none of them good.
What if I sneeze? What if the soldiers accidentally set the haystack on fire? What if they hang around until after dark? How will I ever find the compass then?
And in fact, the soldiers were in no hurry to leave. They enjoyed their break for more than an hour. By the time they picked up their rifles and wandered across the field, it was dusk.

Peter watched the two Germans until they were out of sight, and only then did he begin to look for the compass again. It was hopeless. There was just not enough light. Peter decided to wait until nightfall, another half hour or so, before moving on. The moon rose slowly above the horizon, and its soft blue hue fell across the German countryside.

Thinking a short prayer might help a lost soul without a compass find his way, Peter took a few moments before beginning his night’s journey. As he finished the prayer, something beneath the straw caught his eye. A soft spot of greenish light beckoned Peter to the place where the compass was resting. A random ray of moonlight had connected with the tiny dot that indicated
south
on the compass dial.

His heart pounding, the young airman carefully retrieved his most important possession and placed it safely inside his pants pocket. Once on the ground, Peter took the compass out again, gave it a glance and once again he headed west.

Peter stuck to his established routine and walked all night. Just before sunrise, he began to scout around for a potential hiding place. An old barn near the road seemed to be a good choice. It crossed his mind that he might even find a potato or an ear of feed corn inside, but a search of the barn produced nothing edible. He settled for a soft bed of hay in the loft. He fell asleep, thinking the barn was the best shelter he had yet found, but his rest was interrupted in the early afternoon.

Peter was awakened by the sound of someone climbing up the ladder to the loft. The man who ultimately appeared was the biggest human he had ever seen. The giant held a horse collar in his right hand like it was a weapon.

“American!” Peter blurted out. When the man did not strike him, Peter continued,
“Glodny. Glodny.”

The stranger smiled and spoke to him in Polish. Neither man was a master of the Polish tongue, but they communicated well enough for one to express his situation and for the other to indicate his willingness to help. After a short time, the man left, but he soon returned with an armload of apples. It was the closest thing to a real meal Peter had had in a week. He ate until he was past full.

That evening, the big man returned to guide the American to an undisclosed destination. The stranger led Peter along forest trails, avoiding the main roads. Finally, he indicated that Peter should get down on his hands and knees, and from there on the two continued in that fashion, sometimes dropping to their stomachs. Every once in a while, when voices could be heard nearby, a huge hand would grab the back of Peter’s neck and shove him facedown into the ground. After the two men had crawled underneath a barbed-wire fence, the man motioned for Peter to get to his feet.

His guardian angel pointed to a road and gestured in the direction Peter should take. Then he shook Peter’s hand, smiled and turned to leave.

“Nazwa?”
Peter asked.

“Walter,” was the answer.

Peter started to ask him for his last name. If he made it back to the States alive, it would be nice to know the name of someone who had risked his life to help. For that very reason, Peter stopped himself.
If I’m captured, it will be better for Walter if I don’t know who he is.

“Thank you, Walter,” he said. The big man smiled again and said something in Polish. Peter did not understand, but he took it to mean, “Goodbye” or “Good luck.” Then Walter was gone.

Peter walked to the road and started hiking in the direction Walter had advised. In less than a mile, he came upon a road sign. He could not read what it said, but the color and shape were different from the signs he had encountered during the past week. It was at that moment that Peter knew for certain he had reached France.

 

 

 

As he walked deeper into France that night, Peter rethought his plans. He knew he was still in great danger of being captured. This was France, but it was the occupied part of the country. Running into German soldiers was a certainty. If he continued to travel only at night, he would also continue to go hungry, and there would be no opportunity to connect with anyone in the resistance movement. No, he would have to take some chances. Somehow he would get some civilian clothes and try to blend in. He would have to trust someone. It was risky, but it was the only way.

On the following day, the airman had his first encounter with a French civilian. The man was a farmer who came out to work
in his field near where Peter had once again found a haystack in which to sleep. Smaller than Peter, the farmer posed little physical threat to him. Still, Peter approached him cautiously.

“Français?”
Peter asked, trying to appear as nonmenacing as possible.

At first, a frightened expression crossed the farmer’s face, but then he answered,
“Oui. Oui.”

“American aviator,” Peter said in English, pointing a finger to his chest.

“Oh yes.
Oui!
” The farmer dropped his rake and threw his arms around Peter.

“Faim. Faim,”
Peter said, using the French word for
hunger
, one of the few he knew. His new friend motioned for him to follow, and soon the two men were walking through a small village. In his olive drab clothes, the young airman might as well have been carrying a large sign promoting his identity. He was just about to try to communicate his concern when the farmer began to shout enthusiastically, “Hey look, American! American!”

Peter quickly clamped his hand over the farmer’s mouth. With no additional incidents, they made it to the man’s house, where he fed Peter well and gave him an old suit to wear. It was a faded shade of black and the pants were too short, but Peter accepted it gratefully.

To cover up his army shirt and sweater, Peter ripped the colorful lining from the suit jacket and used it to form a make-shift ascot. The farmer donated a beret that fit nicely. When he resumed his journey, Peter Seniawsky looked very much like a poor French civilian. Now as he walked through the village no one seemed to give him a second look. Peter began to feel a little better about his chances. He reasoned that if a German soldier walked though Times Square in New York City while in
civilian clothes, who would know? Nobody, as long as he did not speak.

Back on the road, Peter soon fell in with a talkative Frenchman with a suitcase. Peter responded with nods and an occasional, “
Oui,
” when it seemed appropriate. The man did not seem to mind carrying the conversation once Peter offered to carry the suitcase. Before long, the man had hitched them a ride on a passing truck. It carried them all the way to the city of Nancy.

Peter discovered Nancy was large and beautiful. Planned in the mid-eighteenth century to serve as the capital of the Lorraine region of France, Nancy had grown and prospered along the Meurthe River. As Peter walked through the magnificent Place Stanislas city square, he began to feel a little like a tourist. In fact, the square, with its surrounding ornate gates and fences, had been the destination of thousands of tourists before the war.

Peter’s sightseeing was interrupted when the Frenchman pulled the suitcase from his hand. The man waved goodbye and began to walk away. Peter grabbed him and whispered, “American aviator.” The Frenchman’s eyes grew large with fear, and he broke loose and started to flee. Peter was able to grab him again, and this time he was more demanding: “American aviator . . . hungry!”

Evidently, the man decided there might be more danger in ignoring the desperate American than in risking being caught aiding him. He motioned for Peter to follow. Peter did so without ever letting go of the man’s arm. Guiding him to a small café, the Frenchman said a few words to a young waiter and then left quickly. The waiter led his shabbily dressed customer to a table near the back of the restaurant.

As the waiter walked away, a feeling of isolation swept over Peter. He had no way of knowing whom he could trust. The
stranger with the suitcase had been very afraid of being around him. Would he contact the German authorities? Even the young waiter might be betraying his identity, because at that very moment, he was talking in hushed tones to three men in their thirties or forties seated at a nearby table.

When the waiter went into the kitchen, the three men approached Peter’s table. They were talking in French among themselves as they sat down without an invitation. Soon the waiter was back carrying a large bowl of soup.

“Merci beaucoup,”
Peter said. He had only taken two or three spoonfuls of soup when his three new companions began to sing a bouncy French song. Peter, more focused on his food than his companions’ behavior, continued eating until one of the men poked him in the ribs with an elbow. He nodded toward the front door where two serious-looking strangers had just entered.

It was quite obvious the men were not there to eat. They strolled through the restaurant with a slow and deliberate pace. Despite their civilian clothing, Peter knew they were police of some kind—German Gestapo or French collaborators. Another jab from his companion, and Peter put an arm across the fellow’s shoulder and joined loudly in the singing. Of course, not knowing the song or the language, Peter’s contribution was more humming than actual singing.

The two detectives paid little attention as they walked past the singers’ table and exited the restaurant through a rear door. Peter and his new friends kept up their singing until the policemen were well out of earshot. Peter smiled and shook hands with the men at his table, then quickly returned his attention to the soup.

The American airman assumed someone would eventually ask him to leave the restaurant, but instead the waiter brought more food and indicated for him to stay. He killed the entire
afternoon and much of the evening there, relaxing over coffee. When the café closed, the waiter took Peter to a small two-room flat, loaned him a razor and offered his bed to the weary American.

Before falling asleep, Peter tried his best to inquire about the French resistance movement, but the waiter claimed he knew nothing about it. The next morning Peter woke to the sound of church bells ringing all across Nancy. His host shared a sparse breakfast with him, answered Peter’s questions about the location of Nancy’s train station and then showed him to the door. Thanking the young man, Peter walked out into the warm sunshine of a Sunday morning.

At the train station he found the posted French schedule too confusing to fully comprehend. He was able to conclude that there was a train heading to Dijon early that evening. He would have to find some way of blending into Nancy’s Sunday routine until departure time. The sound of another ringing church bell gave Peter an idea.

He went to mass at a beautiful old cathedral. It felt good to be in church, and even better to lose himself in the crowd of worshipers. When the first mass ended, the young airman stayed for a second mass and then a third. It was after one in the afternoon when he walked back onto the street.

Strolling around Nancy, nobody seemed to notice him, and Peter began to enjoy his tour of the old French city. As it happened, he became a little too at home in his new surroundings. Walking past a sign that said FORBODEN, he found himself in a section of the city teeming with German military activity. He left the area quickly, deciding it would be wise to once again try melting into the civilian scene.

As he was walking past a busy bar, he saw his opportunity to not only get off the street, but to quench his thirst too. Inside, he found the saloon’s patrons were mostly French civilians, but
several German soldiers were enjoying drinks at the bar. A large advertisement sign caught his eye. The sign was an illustration of a cold sudsy glass of beer, with the word
BIÈRE
in bold letters.

Peter walked casually to the bar and told the bartender,
“Bière.”
The airman was relieved when the bartender simply nodded and began filling a mug with the cold brew. When the beer was placed in front of him, Peter confidently handed the bartender a one-hundred-franc note. He was not prepared for the man’s reaction.

Obviously irritated, the barman began complaining loudly in French. Peter instantly realized he had given the man far too much money, but he was at a loss to respond to the protest. People were beginning to turn their attention his way and worst of all, the German soldiers were taking notice. A young soldier standing to Peter’s left gave him a long look, and then glanced at the one-hundred-franc note lying on the bar. Peter felt a chill climb from between his shoulder blades to the back of his neck. Reaching into his pocket, the German retrieved two coins and tossed them onto the bar in front of the still-jabbering bartender.

Peter managed a smile and said,
“Merci beaucoup.”
The soldier nodded and turned back to his friends. Under the circumstances, it was the best beer Peter had ever tasted. He drank it slowly and enjoyed his secret. When he was done, he placed the empty mug on the bar and left quietly, with a new sense of confidence. If he could pass as a Frenchman, as he had done this day in Nancy, he might have a chance.

Back on the street, he spotted a line of people waiting to buy tickets in front of a movie theater. When he reached the ticket booth there was no complaint about his one-hundred-franc note. As the blue-tinted images began to flicker on the movie screen, Peter fell fast asleep.

The noise of the other movie patrons exiting the theater woke Peter from his nap. It was growing dark as he walked outside and made his way to the train station. The evening train to Dijon would take him southwest. Once he arrived there, he would have to make a decision—head northwest to Paris or go south to Marseilles.