Kid Comes Back (3 page)

“Hey, Roy, look! Get a load of that. It’s a dame, it’s a girl over there. The one with the gun.” Scotty, ever one with an eye to feminine society, pointed across the room. Sure enough, it was a girl, a dark, rather good-looking girl. She wore a beret, ski pants, an old khaki army blouse, and a revolver on a belt round her waist. Scotty rose and pushed back his chair.

“Say, hey there, Jim!” Earl called over to the pilot who was at a table conferring with the French leader and paid no attention. His forehead was wrinkled, he was listening hard, trying to understand the Frenchman, who was speaking slowly. It was plainly something of importance. One could see Jim’s French was none too good, either.

Meanwhile the little chap with the machine gun, standing at their table, was talking.

“What’s he saying? D’you get it, Roy?”

“Sure I get that, it’s his name. Of course, it’s his name.”

“Me, Marcel... Marcel, me. You?”

“Me? I’m Earl.”

“Earl. O.K., Earl, O.K.” He extended his hand.

“You? Please?”

“I’m Roy, Roy Tucker.” He grasped the Frenchman’s hand. It was nothing but a piece of bone.

“O.K., Roy, O.K.” Apparently the term “O.K.” was an important part of his knowledge of English.

“Long time no speak Eengleesh. Me, Marcel. He, Pierre.” He pointed across to the table where Jim sat with their leader. “He, chief. Twanty tousand franc...” Then he pulled his forefinger across his neck in an expressive and curious gesture.

“I getcha. That’s the guy who heads up this crowd. And the Germans have a reward for him; twenty thousand francs if he’s caught.” The two Americans glanced over with respect. The man sure had a tough-looking chin.

Meanwhile, the little fellow beside them, the machine gun still under one arm, had smoked the cigarette until it was almost impossible to hold. He put it out, and took the few remaining crumbs, emptying them into a small sack of tobacco which he extracted from his pocket. Then he began talking. The two Americans tried hard to understand him, while the circle of bandits above leaned over each other’s shoulders to listen, wild-looking in the dim light from the kerosene lamps hanging from the beams overhead. In one corner, Scotty was fingering the revolver of the slender girl in ski pants, holding out his own 45. Quite evidently making time with her, too.

Marcel continued to talk. He was thin and pale, hardly able, one would have said, to carry a machine gun any distance; but he never relaxed his grip on it. His words were far too difficult for them to understand. They often sounded like the same thing. “Vestern,” he kept saying. Over and over again he repeated himself, waiting for a signal of recognition on their faces. “Vestern... vestern... vestern...
compagnie
vestern.”

It was Roy who understood. “Hey there, I getcha, Marcel. You’re trying to say ‘Western Union.’”

“
Oui
...
oui
...
oui. Compagnie Vestern,
I work there; learn Eengleesh in Paris.”

“Why, sure, I know. I usta carry messages for them back home in Tomkinsville when I was a kid.”

Me... bicycle... messages.” He spoke slowly and distinctly. “Get it? Compree?”

“O.K. O.K.” Marcel’s face lit up. He was in ecstasies of delight that at last they understood he had worked for an American corporation. The bandits standing round the table patted him on the back, admiring his linguistic abilities.

“How’d you happen to get into this game, Marcel? You... Resistance. How come?”

“Ah!” A somber look came over his face. “Two, tree year. Me, Jew.”

“Oh. I see.” There was silence. “Hey, Roy, ask him are there women in the Underground, too.” But Marcel did not need to be asked—he got the question.

“Many women, oh, yes. Oh, many. Women O.K. in France. Woman making wan hundred kilometers on bicyclette. This woman... here, this woman.”

“Say! Get it? That kid talking to Scotty rides a hundred kilometers on a bike, toting that gun. How much is a hundred kilometers? Let’s see, times five... divided by eight... that’s nearly sixty miles. Boy!”

Then the door opened. A cold draught made the lamps flare up violently, and a gust of rain came into the room. A figure in a long cape entered. He carried a black bag underneath his cape. Instantly a dozen voices shouted at him:

“Docteur. Le docteur. Voila le docteur. Ah, docteur.”

He shut the door, brushed off the rain from his shoulders, stamped his wet feet, shook hands with the chief and half a dozen others, and slung aside the cape which came down to his toes. He was a little man with eyeglasses and a goatee beard. He wore a stiff, celluloid collar. The effect was to make him rather ridiculous. But Marcel was impressed. Evidently the doctor was something in the Underground.

“Good. Ver’ good docteur. He come twenty kilometers by bicyclette.”

Twenty kilometers! Holy smoke; how far is that? Twelve miles! Gee, that’s something! Twelve miles on a stinking rainy night like this by bike is something, all right. He looks kinda funny, but he must be a right guy to turn out for us on a night of this sort.

They watched as he came over, shook hands with them all, and then went to work on Earl immediately. He was thin and pale like the rest, but his fingers betrayed his skill, and he worked with competency and dispatch. There was a gash over the bombardier’s right eye, and a swollen lump on his forehead. The doctor said little; he was the only non-talkative Frenchman they had met. With care and attention he looked the wound over in the light of a smoky lamp held for him by one of the bandits, and then said something with a tone of approval. Reaching into his bag, he produced a tiny bottle of iodine which he swabbed into the wound, making Earl wince. After that he pasted a strip of plaster over it, and applied some salve to the bump above it. Next he took up the dirty bandage, refolded it and, to the horror of the watching Americans, bound up the wound with it again.

He saw their glances and understood. His shoulders went up, his head tossed to one side, and he spoke. They got his meaning although the words were entirely foreign to them. He was saying that there were no bandages, no cloth left in all France.

Then the doctor motioned to Roy to climb upon the table. As he rose in his chair, that sudden shooting pain came up his hip once more. Stiffly he removed his muddy coveralls, and aided by the doctor climbed upon the table, lying face down. The doctor, without ceremony, yanked off his trousers, thrust his shirt up around his neck, and began running thin, cold fingers down his spine. At last he said something in rapid, staccato French to Jim, who now stood beside Roy.

“He wants you to tell him when it hurts you, Roy.”

“I’ll holler all right. It sure hurt me to stand up just now.”

Those icy fingertips ranged up and down his back. Along his right hip, his right leg, his right calf, feeling gently at first, then pressing into the flesh, without result. Next the doctor went up the left side of his back, and so down the left hip.

“Ouch! Ouch! That hurts, plenty.”

The fingers continued their probing, though more gently. The doctor exclaimed, “Ah... ah... ah!”

Down the thigh to the left leg, to the left calf. His calf was strangely sore, yet far less painful than his hip. Again the clammy fingers felt round his thigh, gently at first, then pressing in.

“Oh! There, that’s it... there!”

This continued for some minutes. Finally he was finished. Roy sat on the edge of the table and yanked clumsily at his trousers, discovering that he was quite unable to bend over.

Meanwhile Jim, the chief, and the doctor were in a huddle at the far end of the room. Marcel, his machine gun under his arm, continued to talk or try to talk in English. Earl spoke up.

“That’s a German gun. Hey, let’s have a look.” But the Frenchman pulled away; no one was getting that gun for a second. “Bet the guy sleeps with it,” said Earl. At last Jim rejoined them.

“Now, fellas, here’s the way things are. Scotty, leave that dame, will ya? C’mon over here.” Scotty was still in the far corner with the girl in ski pants; he returned to their table with reluctance. “Snap into it, Scotty; this is serious. Now we’re in the Dordogne, fellas, about twenty-six miles from the town of Bergerac. You were right, Earl, that
was
Bergerac we passed over. It’s about fifty to sixty miles from here to Bordeaux, as I get it, and something around two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles to the Spanish border. Staying here is dangerous for both us and these boys. It’s dangerous to stay and dangerous to leave, but we must try. The Resistance has it all planned out, and they’ve got lots of our men out before, so no reason at all why we shouldn’t make it if we do what they tell us. First, we must split up.”

“How’s that? Split up Fried Spratt?”

“Nuts to that! We’ve been together, three of us have, since the States, since that first winter in North Africa, since we hit Algiers.”

“Why, we can’t split up! We can’t separate!” They protested, all of them. You couldn’t do that to Fried Spratt.

“We must, boys. It’s no fun, but remember what they always told us—the Resistance knows their stuff, and we were to do whatever they said and take whatever orders were given by their leaders. We’re in their hands from now on out. Here’s how we’ll work it. Scotty and Earl go dead south and are guided across the Pyrenees.”

“Gee, Jim, you mean we walk over those mountains?”

“No, you dope, they send a Rolls-Royce for you. Where do you think you are, Scotty, in the U.S.? Or maybe you’d rather end up in a prison camp in Germany. Roy and I go southeast to the coast, where they’ll probably put us on a sub or a fishing smack for Portugal. It’s more dangerous, but Roy isn’t able to walk much and we can get there by train. Earl’s head will be all right in two-three days. Roy, the doc isn’t so sure about your trouble. He thinks it might be nothing more than a severe muscle sprain that will clear up, but he’s afraid it’s more likely the jouncing-up displaced something in your back, something that’s pressing on your sciatic nerve.”

“Is that it? Whatever it is, it’s sure raising Cain when I start moving round.”

“He thinks most probably that’s it. He can’t tell for sure without an X ray. There’s no chance of that out here. Anyhow, he says for the present you shouldn’t exercise or even walk more than necessary; you must rest as much as possible. That’s why you and I go by train. With the main lines guarded by Germans and the stations watched, it’s a chance, but we hafta take it. We couldn’t possibly make the Pyrenees.”

“You mean
I
couldn’t. You could, Jim. You shove off with Earl and Scotty.”

“Nope, two and two is the order; makes it easier for these folks. Now, to escape we need three things—civilian clothes, identity cards, and a Frenchman to accompany us. They’ll furnish the clothes and get us the identity cards.”

“How?”

“How do I know, Scotty? You and Earl go with that chap in the blue beret there; his name is Robert.”

“O.K. What’s his last name?”

“Listen, dope, in the Underground you don’t ask a guy his last name. You only know his tagline. That’s in case you get caught, see?”

“How about that dame with the revolver? She looks like a first-class guide.”

“Keep your eye on the ball for once, will ya, Scotty? She stays. You go. You go with the guy they pick out for you. Roy, you and I go with Marcel.”

A voice interrupted him. It was an English voice, an extremely English voice.

“This is... the overseas transcription of the British Broadcasting Company, calling all Occupied France.” Then followed a few sentences in French.

“Gee,” said Scotty, “it’s London! The B.B.C.”

“Sssh.” A dozen voices spoke up, twenty men turned to glare at their table. This was important.

“Ici Londres,”
continued another voice.
“Veuillez écouter d’abord quelques messages personnels.”

“What’s he say?” whispered Earl.

“He’s asking them first to listen to some personal messages to France. Then most likely he’ll give them the news.”

“I getcha. A commentator,” said Scotty.

“Sssh,” went up the warning round the room.

The French voice kept on speaking. The roomful of bandits sat silently, their hands cupped over their ears, for the radio was turned well down. The girl in ski pants with the revolver strapped to her waist was perched on the end of a table with a notebook and pencil in her hands. She was a stenographer in civilian life; that was plain by the professional manner in which she wrote down the messages as they were spoken. There was a pause between each one. Each was repeated twice.

Jim translated in a whisper what he understood. “The station master has a red flag. Nope... I didn’t catch that one. He wears a blue shirt... what’s that? Oh, yes, the soup is now served, he says.” Then there was a longish pause. A silence of almost thirty seconds. The voice continued:

“Les monarques sont arrives à la mariage.”

Instantly a shout rose over the smoky room. The entire crowd turned to the crew of Fried Spratt, yelling.

“Say! What d’you think of that! How’s that for snappy work! He says the monarchs have arrived at the marriage. That means they know in London that we’ve delivered our cargo safely.”

R
OY AND
J
IM LAY
on bumpy straw mattresses on the floor of the garret of the small two-story house, peering by day through a shuttered window onto the street, listening at night to the hobnailed boots of the enemy patrols passing every hour. This was their sole connection with the life of the outside world. For they were forbidden to go outdoors—even in the garden which was in the rear of the house—by day or by night. Most of the time, Marcel lay there with them, for he, of course, was in great danger, too.

They had come to Floreac in a high-wheeled peasant cart drawn by two horses, carrying a cow to the local slaughterhouse. Each was dressed as a farm hand in a dingy smock, wooden sabots on his feet, and a beret. On the road they passed a dozen German patrols, the “Green Coats,” as Marcel termed them disdainfully. He was without his machine gun, which he called his “sulphur sprayer,” explaining that it was about the same size as the sprayers used to dust the vineyards of the locality during the season. Driving this cart through town, they had delivered the cow, after which Marcel had led them to a small bar in the neighboring square. Inside was a single customer, a man sitting at a table with a newspaper in his hand, who did not look at them. After a while he clicked a coin against the marble-topped table, summoned the ancient waiter, paid for his drink and departed. In five minutes they got up and left, too. Roy was amazed to find that the man was only a block away. He sauntered down a street, and they followed him at some distance. Along several back streets, through an alley, into a doorway in a garden wall, and so into the home of one of the inhabitants of Floreac. The first station on their journey.