There was no time to ask questions as they mounted up and pedaled out of the train yard into a quaint French village. Thomas could feel sweat beading on his brow as they passed a café with a few Germans at tables out front, but none of the soldiers gave them a second glance, and once they were around the corner, Thomas relaxed a little. They just might make it after all. There seemed to be far less of a German presence here than there had been in Paris, which boded well.
They cycled all day in silence. The man who’d spoken to them rode ahead, and the man with him, who had yet to say a word, brought up the rear. Just before nightfall, with the Pyrenees looming in front of them, they pulled off the main road into a village, where they made their way down winding lanes to a small, isolated bungalow at the edge of the forest. “You will spend the night here,” the man in the faded cap said, looking at each of them in turn. “They are very nice hosts, very brave to shelter you. In the morning, we go.”
“Go where?” asked the youngest pilot.
The man jerked his thumb toward the jagged mountains, which cast a shadow over the town. “South. To Spain.”
That night, over a hot dinner of lamb and beans, the pilots spoke to each other for the first time. Their hosts were a middle-aged couple who retreated to their own bedroom after dinner, leaving the men alone after explaining in French that their location far from the town center was perfect for concealing guests; the handful of Nazi soldiers stationed nearby didn’t make the effort to venture out this way.
Thomas learned that the youngest pilot was named Norman Wimbley, and that he was two months shy of turning twenty. He was cocky, but as he related his story of being shot down over southern Belgium and encountering a farmer who was part of an escape line, Thomas could hear the tremor in his voice. The others—Scott Pace and Walter Caldwell—were closer to his own age and had known each other in flight school; Scott had been shot down just outside Paris, and Walter had gone down on the French side of the German border. Like Norman, they had both been assisted by locals with connections to the escape line. Thomas found himself wondering just how extensive the network was. It was amazing to think of all the French and Belgian civilians who were risking their own lives to return men to war.
“Are we really supposed to climb over the mountains?” Norman asked, gesturing out the window into the darkness. “It sounds insane.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Scott pointed out. “It’s the only way out of France right now.”
“But climbing a mountain?” Norman persisted. “Have any of you done that before?”
“No,” Walter said. “But do you want to get back into the cockpit or not? If you’re uncertain, you may as well stay behind.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Norman grumbled. “Only that it’ll be hard.”
“Life is hard,” Walter snapped.
“Look,” Thomas said after a moment, “there’s no doubt this will be difficult. And we can’t let down our guard. But we’re going to stick together and do what the guides tell us, and we’ll make it through.”
Scott and Walter nodded, and though Norman muttered something to himself, he eventually shrugged and said, “Fine.”
The two men who’d picked them up at the station materialized again before dawn, waking the pilots after just a few hours of sleep. They introduced themselves as Florentino and Alesander and explained that they had been helping pilots over the mountains to Spain for the past few months. “Alesander speaks very little English and also little French,” Florentino said. “We both grew up with the Basque language. If you have questions, you ask me.”
“How do you propose we make it over the mountain when none of us even has hiking boots?” Norman asked, earning him a hard look from Florentino.
“With courage,” Florentino said, “and these.” He held up a burlap bag and dumped the contents on the floor of the bungalow. Inside were several pairs of shoes with soles made from thick rope. “They will help you with the mountain terrain. Put them on quickly, then we go.”
“Espadrilles?” Norman snorted. “Surely you’re joking. They’re for women.”
Florentino glared. “We’ve been using these shoes for hundreds of years. The soles mold to you, they help your feet to have air, and they help with the steep inclines. You wear your own shoes if you’d prefer. Just don’t expect me to help you when your feet bleed and you fall off a cliff.”
Five minutes later, with the strange rope shoes tied on, the pilots were walking quickly toward the mountains with bags of bread and sausage over their shoulders. Each had also been given a goatskin bag of wine, which was to be consumed sparingly during the crossing. “We go,” Alesander grunted, the first words he’d said since meeting the pilots. He pointed to a narrow road that seemed carved out of the steep side of the mountain ahead. “Follow.”
Thomas took a deep breath and fell into line. If this was the way home, he was determined to walk it.
THREE DAYS LATER, THE GROUP arrived on the other side of the Spanish border, freezing and exhausted, having waded across the icy Bidassoa River separating France from Spain. Sometimes, Florentino said, he was able to take pilots over a bridge that spanned the water, but Alesander had gone ahead on this trip and had returned to report that the bridge was being heavily patrolled by Spanish police. Drenched below the waist and standing in an icy field, Thomas was sure he’d never been so cold in all his life.
They had to stick to the shadows for the remainder of their descent, but they made it undetected. In a small town below, Florentino and Alesander led them to a barn, where they spent the night shivering under thick blankets. They hiked the next day to another town, where they slept in a farmhouse and had a hot meal of potatoes and mutton, and then on their third day in Spain, Florentino and Alesander brought them to a road, where they were picked up by a black car and driven to the coastal town of San Sebastián. From there, a car with Union Jacks drove them to the British embassy in Madrid, where they were heartily welcomed by the vice-consul, given new clothing, and lodged for two days. Thomas slept and ate well, but now that his journey was almost over, he found himself thinking not of how close he was to England but how far he was from Paris.
Eventually, the pilots were driven to a port in Seville, where a Norwegian ship was waiting to take them to Gibraltar, on the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. There was an RAF base there, and Thomas and the others were given new uniforms before being sent on the final leg of their journey: a flight home to Britain. After a few days of questioning in London, Thomas was sent back to Northolt, where not even the sight of Harry was enough to pull him from the depression he’d slipped into.
“But you’re home, my friend!” Harry said, pulling him into a bear hug. “Do you know the odds that were stacked against you?”
“I had to make it here,” Thomas replied. “It’s the only way to get back to Paris.”
“Back to Paris?” Harry chuckled. “I’d have thought you’d want to stick to this side of the Channel for a while. After I was shot down, I was in no great hurry to return to France.”
Thomas shook his head. “It’s not France I’m eager to return to.” He left it at that, because he’d received very strict instructions that he was never to talk about any piece of the escape line. It was the one condition under which he’d been allowed to resume fighting over French territory, although he knew many returned pilots were now being redeployed to Africa.
That vow of silence included Ruby, he knew. And so he tucked his memories of her away and vowed never to speak of the time he’d spent in her apartment. What would Harry or the others say, anyhow?
But it had been real. He was sure of it. And as he was cleared to return to the skies and he began once again escorting bombers into France, he vowed that no matter what, he’d see her again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
May 1942