The Girl in the Blue Beret

57.



THE DRIVE UP TO THE MOUNTAIN PASS WOULD BE SIMPLE, Annette had said, pointing to the map. Marshall had given no thought to the squiggly line leading up into the mountains, but as he drove the route now, he felt the mountains closing in. The cliff-edge road twisted alongside steep woodlands, and it seemed to become narrower with each hairpin curve.

“You must have been a very good pilot,” she said, patting his arm. “I trust you to drive me anywhere.”

“How far is it to that hotel?” he asked.

“Thirty-two kilometers. Not far.”

He was aware of the deep valley on the right, but he kept his eyes on the road, the spiraling climb.

Some bicyclists came hurtling past the car, curving and zipping downhill, as smoothly as fish in water.

Some of the curves were bordered by foot-high stone guardrails, but some equally precipitous were not.

“The whimsical placement of these little walls is entertaining,” he said.

She laughed.

He pulled over slightly for an oncoming car. His tires skittered on gravel.

“The view is breathtaking,” she said.

His eyes were fixed on the winding road ahead. They climbed higher. He was guiding a lumbering aircraft through an insane corkscrew ascent. After a while, the switchback turns became rhythmic. Higher up, the day turned gray, but visibility was still good.

The lip of the valley beside him, five feet away, opened onto an abyss.

The stone barriers were even less frequent at higher altitudes, and the road was barely wide enough for two small European cars. Good thing he had rented the smaller Citroën, he thought.

“I’m enjoying the view,” she said. “C’est magnifique!”

They drove for nearly an hour. His fingers were stiff, and his eyes were burning.

“It is only another kilometer,” she said, rustling the map.

A small settlement appeared ahead, complete with a church, and soon he was scooting into a parking area beside a faded hotel that seemed to be waiting patiently for them.

“I’m glad it wasn’t rush hour,” he said, setting the parking brake.


THE HOTEL HAD a white stucco façade and an unpronounceable Basque name that sported an x. The lobby was pleasant, inviting, with landscape paintings and a fireplace. The propriétaire, a rugged woman wearing large beads and a red sweater, was writing the evening menu on the dining room chalkboard as they entered.

“You are with the hiking group?” she asked. “I was expecting you! Your guides are already here.”

The guides had walked over from the Spanish side that afternoon, she said. She finished writing the menu and moved to the small desk in the minuscule lobby. Marshall made some small talk with her as she was checking them in.

“Okey-dokey!” she said. “I am very happy to welcome an American.”

Annette explained that they would be leaving their valises at the hotel in the morning and would return for them in two days.

“Okey-dokey. Not a problem,” said the propriétaire. “We get many hikers this summer!” She handed Marshall a large key with a metal tag shaped like a sheep. “I do not go over the mountains anymore. My husband and I used to keep cattle and sheep in the mountains, and twice a year it was necessary to search for them. But no more.”

The room, up a flight of stairs, had two narrow beds placed close together, a tall lamp, and a window seat. The toilet and shower were down the hall.

Annette began unpacking, sorting items for her hiking pack—cotton wool, Band-Aids, sunglasses, her canteen. Marshall found his eyedrops, and he began searching for the little foam blister preventers he would stick in his boots.

Annette wound her arms around him affectionately.

“The mountains are bothering you,” she said. “The drive—it reminded you.”

“I like mountains better from a cockpit—preferably at thirty thousand feet.”

“You were elegant behind the wheel,” she said.

They sat on one of the beds and laughed. The bed was lumpy and squeaked.

“We don’t have to stay here,” he said, teasing. “I’m sure there’s good straw bedding in the animal refuges up in the mountains.”

“Oh, good. We can sleep in a barn if it snows.”

“Don’t worry. It won’t snow.”

He scrutinized the room—the worn carpet, the weighty drapery, the freestanding coat rack next to an armoire bedecked with carved birds. There were thumps on the wood floor above, apparently someone jumping. The bells of the church across the road rang, although it was no special time of day. Marshall’s watch said 4:37.

“Happy bells,” she said. “Perhaps a marriage.”

Accordion music drifted in from the road.

“What luck,” he said, groaning. “Wild dancing and music all night long.”

“Well, we will not linger here long,” she said, shutting her bag. “Should we swim?”

“I don’t have a suit.”

“If they had a pool, we could swim.”

“Let’s don’t swim.”

“I didn’t want to swim anyway.”

“Okey-dokey.”

They laughed again.


IN THE EVENING THERE was a good dinner. They sat with the hiking group at a long table, and the conversation was convivial, although a Canadian couple who spoke no French seemed forlorn. The mountain air was chilly, even indoors, but Annette was wearing a blue dress of some flimsy material and no stockings. She looked healthy, lovely. Marshall liked to see her in a group of people, the best-looking woman in the room. His eyes had stopped burning.

The guides, Marie and Roland, moved with the fluidity of flirting youth. Their muscular bodies were tanned. Marie’s hair was short and curly, while Roland’s long locks trailed down his neck.

“One of us will take the lead and the other will follow at the rear,” Marie told the group. “We have the talkie-walkies, and if you require aid, we will be there.”

“You’ll be right there if we fall off the mountain?” Marshall joked.

“Absolutely,” Roland said. “We never permit our guests to jump!”

“We’ll be O.K.,” said Marshall, wondering what the young people made of his age.

After dinner, Annette wanted to go outdoors. She said she didn’t mind her legs being bare, but she got cold around her neck and chest. He dashed upstairs for their jackets.

She was chatting with Roland when Marshall returned to the lobby, but she said a quick smiling au revoir to the guide. Marshall held her jacket for her, taking care as she slipped each arm into its sleeve. He had brought their berets. They walked out the side door, past the parking spaces, and sat on a small ledge across from the church. There was no sign of a wedding, and the accordion music had ended. They could see lights far down the valley. An intermittent, moving flash in the distance seemed to be a car driving up the road they had come.

The foothills made Marshall think of the squeezed-together hills of Kentucky, which could trap the smoke from someone’s woodstove and send it circling through the holler, the scent lingering until morning.

“The mountains are bothering you,” Annette said again. She ran her hand along his arm reassuringly.

“Mountains are deceptive,” he said. He stopped her hand with his. “There’s no horizon—no level land to get your bearings. And the perspective keeps changing. There’s no objective view.”

“Is there ever, anywhere?”

“I always want things to be clear,” he said. “I get impatient if they aren’t.”

“You would not be impatient behind the wheel of an airplane. You must have been a very precise pilot.”

“Yoke, not wheel.”

“Oh, pardon, monsieur.” She was teasing him. “Just be with me,” she said. “Isn’t this good? We have the night. There is no war. My dog is safe with Anne and Georges.”

“Did you name your son for Georges Broussine?”

“Bien sûr.”

“Does your son know?”

“Oh, yes. However, I think the original Georges may be a little embarrassed.”

“A modest man, you say.”

“Yes.” She laid her hand on his knee.

“I named my son Albert,” he said. “After the family that helped me in Chauny.”

“Yes, you told me.”

“The name means ‘courage.’ ”

The waning moon resembled a hat hanging in the sky. He pointed it out to her.

“A beret,” she said.

“Aren’t you glad I bought this chic headgear from the stall on the rue de Rivoli?”

“Yes. My beret is warm,” she said.

“It feels strange to be in the Pyrenees again,” he said after a moment. The rocky peaks were out there, somewhere in the dark.

“Tell me about the time before,” she said. “I know it has been on your mind.”

He stared into the darkness, toward Spain.

“What are you seeing?” she asked. “I would like to know.”

A meteor dashed silently across the sky then.





58.



MARSHALL GAZED AT THE SKY AS HE BEGAN TO SPEAK.

“When I crossed the Pyrenees in ’44, I thought if I could just get to the summit, it would be like flying. To get back to my base, I was prepared to face whatever dangers lay ahead. The train was the first hurdle. I think Robert was my guide on the train.”

“Yes. After Perpignan, he had begun making journeys to Pau.”

“And there was a girl, a girl with blond pigtails.”

“I think that was my friend Hélène. She was two years older than me, and she had an aunt in Montauban, so she could travel on the pretext that her aunt was sick. Her parents didn’t know she was résistante!”

“The night train to Toulouse was miserably slow. The tracks had been sabotaged in several places. Now and then the train jolted on a bad roadbed, and sometimes we stopped for a long time. It was hard to stay awake. I had to be fully alert, but I was dead tired and miserable. It was dark and the windows were covered, so we couldn’t see the terrain. I carried a newspaper—the one your mother had pressed into my knapsack before I left to meet you.”

“At the Jardin des Plantes.”

“Yes. I went there last week. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Oui, oui.”

“In the daylight on the train I kept reading the newspaper, and I tried to play ‘deaf and dumb.’ I had to make sure I was never startled by a noise. It was a useful discipline. People now are going to meditation classes to learn how to be mellow.” He laughed. “By noon I had learned all the French in the collaborationist news, but my companions in the compartment probably thought I was an exceptionally slow reader. No one really spoke. Under German eyes, everyone kept to himself. No one wanted to speak or even offer common courtesies to the enemy. I have to admit I was terrified. Any minute and their pistols could be at my head. Your mother had made my hair dark, and I hunched down to conceal my height. But one thing I hadn’t thought of. When I went to the lavatory, the floor inside was wet, and I made boot prints down the aisle when I walked back to my seat. After I turned to open the door of my compartment, I faced the other way and I saw my footprints—a trail of little USA insignias, written backwards! The letters ‘USA’ were in the rubber on the heels of my boots. I must have turned red as a cherry at the sight of that. I retraced my path, sliding my feet to blur the prints. The next time I went to the lavatory, I dried my boots off before leaving.”

He laughed, telling this, and she laughed with him.

“Your calling card,” she said.

“It’s funny now, but the whole trip was nerve-wracking. I almost had a heart attack when I saw that incriminating trail. I was with three other airmen, and two of them were in different cars. Robert was at the head of my car. He was reading a book and paying no attention to me. Our group got off at Montauban, and the girl guided us to a park.”

“I’m sure that was Hélène.”

“In the park we could scatter out and pass the time for a while. Then, I think to confuse the Germans, she took us on by bus to Toulouse. Robert didn’t go to the park, and I lost sight of him. But there he was on the quai at Toulouse. The train to Pau was due in just a few minutes. Robert went to the lavatory, and the girl was reading a book on a bench. The train was late. That was a miserable hour! We couldn’t talk, couldn’t buy anything to eat or a newspaper, for fear of betraying ourselves. We all sat on various benches, checking the departure board from time to time. I concentrated on not hearing a train approaching. I wondered just how deaf I was supposed to be. Would I hear the vibrations of the train when it was still far away? Was I totally deaf or partially deaf? Why didn’t I know sign language? And would that be the same in French? I was crazed with all these questions.”

“All the Allied aviateurs who fell into France were deaf and dumb,” she said, laughing. They laughed together. He had not imagined his tale would be so entertaining. She said, “The flu epidemic of 1917 left many people deaf and dumb, so it was plausible.”

“Still, the Germans must have been stupid not to notice,” he said. “The French would have noticed us, wouldn’t they?”

“Oh, they did. And no one denounced you! This was the passive résistance of the French! They say most people collaborated, but this was an example of how we resisted when there seemed to be nothing one could do. The Americans were obvious—and everyone knew! We kept quiet. Oh, excuse me, I’ve launched into my opinions. Continue, please!” She hugged his arm.

“I had eaten most of the food your mother gave me. I tried to eat my orange the way a French workman would. Anyway, an orange was messy enough to keep people at arm’s length. Two of the men in our group—I didn’t know them at all—were behaving rather strangely, talking to each other. Although I wasn’t seated near them, I was determined to have nothing to do with them. They were going to jeopardize the whole operation. One of them went to the kiosk and bought something to eat, and he started toward me signaling that he wanted to give me some of it. I stood up, turned, and walked away. The fool. I was afraid we were going to attract the attention of the German officer who was standing at the exit to the street, checking papers. In the lulls between trains, he strolled around, gave everybody the once-over, and entertained himself by throwing pebbles at pigeons. Then a new set of guards arrived and they heil-Hitlered each other with great fanfare. I imagined them practicing that in front of the mirror. I thought about Hitler looking in the mirror and wondered what he saw.

“Robert returned and we all boarded the train to Pau. We got there uneventfully. The Germans at the checkpoint glanced at my papers without asking any questions. I thought they probably couldn’t read French anyway, so the papers you and your mother had created worked just fine, I am happy to tell you.”

“Maman filled them in with her left hand. She insisted on that method of disguising handwriting.”

“It worked, and I was thankful to the bottom of my boots. I had been chiding myself for not taking a knife to those USA initials on the boots. How could I have been so careless? By the time we arrived at Pau it was the middle of the night, and Robert passed us off to a man and woman who drove us to a safe house, where there were some other airmen sheltered. We were given cheese and some kind of bread and soup. But here was the biggest surprise of all. I was totally unprepared for this. You remember that I told you about the crew of our plane. The pilot—Lawrence Webb—died at the scene, I was sure. And there was another guy, a waist gunner called Hootie Williams. I thought he was hurt pretty badly, and I didn’t know if he was captured. I was almost certain he had died. He looked bad. All during my trip through France I was nagged by thoughts of Hootie and what happened to him. Well, believe it or not, there was Hootie! In this house, sitting at the table eating soup. I can’t tell you the greeting we gave each other.

“He was calm, though. He said, ‘Hey, Marshall, what took you so long? I’ve been waiting on you!’

“I was astounded. And thrilled. You can’t know.

“ ‘Well, Hootie,’ I said. ‘I always said you were the smartest one of us all. I should have known you would find your way.’

“Hootie told me that Webb was dead and had been buried in that little village in Belgium. And he said three of the crew had been arrested.”

Marshall paused, remembering how Hootie, his mouth stuffed with chewy bread, had praised him for the landing. Hootie hadn’t bailed out, as Chick Cochran did. Oh, no, Marshall. I knew Webb was a goner. When he said “bail out,” I knew we were too low. But Chick jumped anyway. The dope. Hootie shook his head and grinned like a hyena.

“Many aviateurs became separated when they were shot down,” Annette was saying. “Then at the safe houses they might find each other again, or receive some news. Sometimes there were long waits.”

“We didn’t know at the time that everybody else from our crew had survived and would eventually make it home.” Marshall laughed. “Hootie told a tale about a woman who guided him on a train, and when the German officers were approaching, this anonymous woman pulled him into a headlock and kissed him, smothering his face with her hair. She figured the Germans wouldn’t break up a pair of lovers, I guess. I didn’t know whether to believe him, but Hootie said, ‘Marshall, that kiss couldn’t be repeated in heaven! I never found out who she was. She got me to where we were going and then she took a run-out powder.’ ”

“That was a strategy,” Annette said. “Robert and I played sweethearts, so no one would suspect—”

“Hootie stayed with a family in Belgium who kept him out of the hospital where the Germans would have found him. He had been wounded, but not seriously, as I had thought. He was soon on his feet. While he was with the Belgian family, he started helping the Resistance! He worked with the explosives.

“Hootie told me the family was named Lechat. I did not run across that name again until this spring when I went back to the crash site. And, Annette, the people told me that a boy’s father was shot for convoying one of our crew. It was Monsieur Lechat. He paid with his life for taking care of Hootie.”

Marshall paused, recalling Hootie’s crazy laugh. “I didn’t know this until I went back to Belgium this spring.”

“These are difficult recognitions,” she said, leaning on his shoulder. “Go on. It is hard, n’est-ce pas? I am listening.”

“Hootie had gotten word that Campanello, our navigator, was one of those who went to the stalag. We weren’t too worried about POWs because of the Geneva convention. We didn’t know that the Germans were starting to get a little loose on that point and were sending some POWs to Buchenwald. I only heard about this years later.”

“Yes,” Annette said. “That was so.”

“Hootie had made his way through France by taking chances and pulling his wheeler-dealer ways. He was charming that way. He was the biggest daredevil I ever knew. He claimed he never went hungry in France.

“The next afternoon four of us were picked up in a dilapidated truck and driven through miles of foothills. We were let out at the end of a farm and told to walk down a stony path through some trees. We were off the road, so we were relatively safe. There was a French guide with us who would bring up the rear and be the translator. I don’t remember that he had much to say, though.

“It was growing dark, and the trail started to get twisty, so we were glad when we met the guide who would lead us across. He was a Basque who knew only a few English words and apparently had little interest in anything except getting us to follow him at breakneck speed in total silence. He had some rope sandals for us, some clumsy strung-together things that I refused to wear. First, he demanded it; then he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘It’s your funeral.’ ”

“Espadrilles,” she said.

“I called them Basket shoes. The other guys took them because their shoes weren’t so great, but I wouldn’t part with my USA boots. The night before, I had gouged out the letters with my knife.

“We carried small knapsacks. I still had a few items from my escape kit sewn into my pants legs, and some soap your mother had given me. The Basque guide, a big fellow, carried a huge pack on his back that seemed no more troublesome to him than carrying a pillow. The French guide, coming along behind us, was smarter. He had only a small backpack.”

Marshall paused, remembering the tension that oppressed the group, and the profound darkness.

“The trail was narrow, like an animal track, and we couldn’t see. There was a misty rain, and we all had the sniffles. The walking was easy at first. We were told to be absolutely quiet. We weren’t anywhere near the border patrols or guard posts, but we still had to be quiet. Then it got very dark—I mean pitch-black—and we had to hold on to each other by the belt or the jacket.

“Trying to be quiet, trying to stay awake, and not breaking the pace—it was worse than boot camp, that’s for sure. It was cold, but we were moving so vigorously that we were sweating. As we walked, I kept up my strength by telling myself I was responsible for the others. It was my duty. I was an officer. There was Hootie, and two guys who had bailed out near Bordeaux—enlisted men. And then there were two others, British civilians. I hoped they weren’t spies. If we got caught with spies in our group … But among us Americans I had the highest rank, so I tried to make sure we kept moving along in good order.

“After a few hours, we came to a long swinging bridge across a ravine. Somehow I could tell the ravine below was really deep. There was a sound of rushing water, but it was very faint, far away. It could have been half a mile down, I suppose.

“The crossing was slow. It was like being on a chain gang—a sniffling, blind chain gang, inching ahead. We just felt our way. Someone up ahead—I think it was one of the Englishmen—stumbled and we all swayed, holding on to the guide rope with one hand and the coattail of the guy ahead with the other. I doubt if the Basque guide held on; he was sure-footed as a mountain goat. But the rest of us were saying our prayers, swaying out there over nothingness. It took us so long to get across, the sky was getting light by the time we all made it.

“Soon after that we came to a barn and bedded down for the day. In the light we could see where we had been, and where we would go that night. We could see that the side of a slope ahead was a steep jumble of rocks. It seemed so treacherous we could not imagine how it could be crossed.

“It was cold in the barn,” he said. “I was probably dressed more warmly than the others because your family had outfitted me so well, and I had a sort of wool neck warmer that I kept in my jacket pocket. I had brought it with me from England.

“After resting that day, we took off in the dusk and plodded up one peak after another; zigzagging up switchbacks, then coming down in order to go up again. A misstep and we’d go ass over teakettle. All night again we were climbing and climbing, and the track twisted around on itself, and the guides wouldn’t let us stop.

“The trail was steep and cobbled, and even before we gained any altitude, we slipped and slid through patches of snow. Mostly it was great sweeps of scratchy vegetation that tore at us. Then it got rocky. The Basque didn’t slow down at all, but we were dog tired. I can tell you that a guy can be a pilot of a jumbo jet and yet be afraid of heights. I’ve never confessed that before. But I was afraid of heights that night, and I guess I have been ever since.”

“That is reasonable,” she said. “Go on.”

He took a deep breath.

“At dawn we were in a clearing, and soon we arrived at a farmhouse. We learned that we were still in France. This was a Basque family. None of us could understand their language. But they were generous, and they fed us.

“We fell asleep on straw mats in a sort of lean-to behind the house. We slept till dusk. They gave us some more food, and then we hit the rocky road again.

“We were bushed, and our feet were sore and torn up. If it hadn’t been for the pace of that Basque guide, and if we’d had good equipment and enough food and rest, we might have done better. But we had to rush along in the dark. I couldn’t have done it without some Benzedrine from my escape kit. All my life I’ve always thought I could make it, whatever jam I was in. But on those mountains there were times when I knew I wasn’t going to.”

Marshall laughed ruefully, ashamed of himself.

“But you’re here,” she said gently, laying her head on his shoulder.

“I’m not sure how to tell this next part. I know it doesn’t begin to compare to what you went through, but … Are you cold?”

“No. I’m all right. But yes, your arm around me feels good.”

The young guide, Roland, appeared in the half-light outside the hotel. “Do you need anything?”

“Non, merci,” said Marshall.

“We will be on the trail at eight in the morning.”

“Merci. Bonne nuit.”

“Bonne nuit.”

Marshall continued. “The trail was treacherous, but despite everything, I was glad to be on my way. The cold, misty rain stopped when we got to the snow. At first it was just a dusting, but soon we got to places where it was up to our knees. Our guide just mushed on through and left us to hop in his footprints. Then it got even deeper. Sometimes we sank in to our waists, but we got through it. And then we trudged down the other side of the mountain. Hallelujah, I thought. We’re in the home stretch. But we only went down a short way before we started climbing another slope. And that’s how it went for hours. Up and down. We had hardly any food, and we didn’t stop to rest or eat. The aim was to cross the border while it was still dark so we wouldn’t be seen out in the open above the tree line.

“The border was near, and there were sentinels and a German guard post two hundred yards from the narrow path where we had to sneak across. There was a dim crescent moon and enough reflected light to see the path—just barely. The nearest sentinel was moving back and forth ahead of us. We had to wait till his back was turned, when he was moving away, and then two of us could make a break for it. Then the rest of us waited until the sentinel came back; when he turned away again, two more of us could go.

“The Brits went first, when the Basque signaled. We waited. The sentinel returned. We could see his silhouette and the guard post on a promontory. We were up pretty high, but we were still below the guard post.

“The other guys sneaked through. I was hanging back with Hootie, and it came our turn. We had just climbed a steep path to the side of a precipice, and we were panting. It was steep, and the air was getting thinner. I started ahead, toward the path that I could barely see. I saw the shadow of the guide. Hootie was just behind me, I thought. Suddenly there was a burst of light, and then gunshots. My instinct told me to run. I ran like hell, toward the path ahead, toward the Basque.

“I heard a whimper and a clatter of rocks. I looked back and I couldn’t see Hootie. He wasn’t there. Behind me was the cliff we had just climbed. A searchlight was sweeping across, and there were more gunshots. I couldn’t run back. The rear guide, the Frenchman, was herding us on, into a thick grove. There was nothing we could do, he said. I wanted like hell to go back, but he wouldn’t let me. And I could see he was right.”

“That is what the guides did,” Annette said. “They just kept going. It was necessary. It was too dangerous otherwise. I know of such journeys.”

“So we were across the border, but Hootie was gone. And before long the guides were gone, too. The French guy slipped away near the border. He headed off to the side, to cross back into France somewhere farther along the border. The Basque led us a mile or two into Spain, but then he picked up speed and just left us behind.

“We were in Spain, but we had no food, and we weren’t really sure what to do next. And my head was whirling because of Hootie. I don’t think I’ve ever been so heavy-hearted. I had reached my goal. I had made it out of France, finally, but it felt like the worst day of my life.”

Marshall quit talking, and Annette waited. They sat quietly, side by side, for several minutes before Marshall took up the story again.

“It was less rocky there, and then it was grassy and we came tumbling down, sliding on the fresh grass. There I was, in Spain with four strangers who might have included spies for all I knew, but we were still in mountainous terrain with no clue to what was ahead for us.

“I won’t bore you with our wanderings. You know how we were arrested by some Spanish border guards and detained. But that was pretty much just for show. We wound our way through Spain and then to Gibraltar, where we were processed back to England.

“I never saw Hootie again. He simply vanished. Except for that one whimper, there was no noise, no cry. It was just darkness. I don’t know if he was shot or if he simply fell from the cliff. That episode is something I’ve played over and over, as if it had a meaning, some symbolism for my life. What could I have done differently?

“I was able to tell his family what happened—how he seemed to disappear. I wrote to them. After that, I tried hard never to think of that night, but it kept coming back to me. How could I be sure he was dead? I wasn’t sure the shot hit him. I assumed that slipping over that ledge was fatal. But I don’t know. I wondered—should I have gone back?”

She laid her head on his chest. “Was his body ever found?” she whispered.

“No. Surely someone will find his dog tag one day. You remember, we kept our dog tags in our boots. Of course, I always imagine I’ll run into him somewhere.”

“No one is to blame,” she said.

“C’est la guerre?”

“Oui.”

“Understand, I’ve never talked much about this, not since the war. Annette, I know you saw much worse—much worse than you can ever tell me. But you told me a lot, and I—I owed it to you to tell you my own small story.”

Annette cupped his face in her hands. “Marshall, I think you are a person who has rarely divulged his heart. But now you have. Thank you.”

He rose and walked a few steps away. She was still sitting on the ledge.

“Loretta and some of the others made a fuss over me,” he said. “The ‘hero.’ I made it to Spain and back to England when so many others didn’t. But I was no hero. What did I do in the war? Nothing. De la merde. Got shot down, then saved my own ass.”

He paced a few steps, then punched his fist in his palm.

“I didn’t even do that,” he added. “You and the others saved me.”

She started to speak, then tightened her lips and turned her head.

“There are no heroes,” she said after a moment. “We both got caught. You were shot down, I was deported.”

She stood, smoothed her lap, and moved the few steps to him. The moon was high now.

“We were both caught.” He repeated her words.

“Now, we begin again,” she said.

Her fingers were so slender, her hand warm in his, her cheek warm on his.