07 September 2009
Music Box Dancer--21d
)Published on September 7th, 2009 @ 07:18:58 am, using 1053 words, 110 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
21d
He looked in that direction. Several hundred yards away, stopped but pointed into the valley, was a truck, a gray truck, like the one at Catherine’s. No. He wouldn’t let it be. He jerked the binoculars to his eyes. The black swastika on the bright white circle fastened to the truck door was the first thing to focus through the glass. He let out all the exuberance that had built up in a single breath. His warning system had failed. No fighters or flak. He felt old.
Several soldiers were out of the truck, scurrying around. One, apparently an officer, was waving his hands and shouting angrily at the others. A couple of men were fumbling at a back wheel while two others brought a spare tire from the back of the truck. The three or four remaining soldiers just stood around, trying to look concerned and involved.
They had had a flat tire. They were obviously on their way to the farmhouse, and they had had a flat tire on the rough, uneven ground or something. They were only a mile or so away from the farm. Once they fixed the tire, it would only take them a few minutes to get there, less if there had been a road. Not enough time to get the children back down there. They would need all fifteen minutes or so left at the very least, running full-speed all the way, and probably five or ten more to get up to the cave, wherever it was. There was no way.
Unless the Germans could be further delayed.
He knelt quickly in front of Anne-Marie and took her wrists. “Listen,” he said, his breath hard again. “You’re going to have to take the children. It’s not that far, and it’s just down the next few hills. It’s against the tree-line at the bottom of the third hill. That’s all.” He looked back at the truck. The Germans were still busy.
His eyes came back to hers, which were infinitely troubled. “What are you going to do?” she wanted to know.
“Somebody has to slow them down, the Germans,” he told her. “If I can hold them off for fifteen or twenty minutes, surprise them, get them stopped and up here, you can make it.”
“No,” she said, almost screamed. Her eyes were instantly filled. “You cannot.”
“Yes,” he told her, nodding. “I have to. Now you have to go. We don’t have time to argue.”
“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded. “Jean-Paul can take them. I will help you.”
He had to smile. He shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “They’ll never get there without you.”
“Then let me stay and you go,” she begged. “I can fire the gun.”
He sighed and gently touched the side of her face with his fingertips. There was no time to explain. He dropped his hand and glanced back at the truck. It looked like they were taking the tire off. His eyes found hers, and he shook his head again. “I want you to do something for me, okay?” he asked.
“Let me stay . . . ,” she began to repeat desperately.
“No,” he said firmly, almost harshly. He pulled the envelope from his pocket and hurriedly removed the picture and letter. He put them back in the pocket and handed her the envelope. “Whenever you can, I want you to go to the address in the corner there . . . and tell her what happened,” he told her. “Can you do that for me?”
She studied the return address for a second and turned her pained eyes back to him. She bit her lower lip and nodded.
He forced as warm a smile as he could. “Good,” he said, squeezing her arm. “Now you have to go. Don’t stop for anything. Not for anything. Run as fast as you can.” He looked back at the Germans. They were changing the tire. “Go,” he told her.
Her eyes held his for an instant, memorizing him, and then she quickly moved to the children. She didn’t have a pocket so she jammed his envelope into Claudette’s coat pocket as she spoke. Her voice was firm as she ordered them into action. She took Eric by the elbow and started pushing Jean-Paul toward the valley. The boy and Claudette looked puzzled and frightened. They hardly moved, their eyes back on him. She barked at them.
“Anne-Marie,” he called out to her on impulse.
She turned to him.
“Tell her . . . tell her far more than she can dream. She’ll know what I meant. Okay?”
She studied him for a moment with those too familiar eyes, pained but determined, and then she nodded. She pushed Jean-Paul again and said something sternly to Claudette. They took off on a run down the hill, the boy and girl first, Anne-Marie following, literally pulling Eric behind her, the bulky sweater bouncing, her thick dark hair the last thing he saw.
He picked up the machine gun off Anne-Marie’s shawl and wheeled toward the backside of their hill. These Germans were not helping the Nazi reputation for efficiency. He knelt down and propped himself against a large boulder at the crest of the hill, overlooking their likely path. They might get within a couple of football fields as they passed. He should be able to get their attention.
He looked at them through the binoculars. The wheel was on, getting tightened. They would be rolling soon. He suddenly realized he hadn’t been breathing. His head felt light, and his heart had found a new rhythm. He closed his eyes. They should be to the bottom of the hill, reaching the creek bed, stumbling across, through the shallow water. How many minutes did they have, could he buy them? They had to make it.
He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and got it halfway down. His lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air. He hoped they were racing as fast as his mind. His fingers lightly touched his pocket. He could feel the outlines of the photograph.
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