The Sisters of St. Croix (7 page)

Dead and wounded littered the road. The dead left to lie where they had fallen, the wounded struggling on as best they could, supported by their comrades or their friends. Few had any doubts as to the outcome of the German advance; many had already tasted their merciless brutality as they had torn through towns and villages, the Panzers advancing, clearing the road in front of them with indiscriminate shells.

The Leon family was among the refugees. They were making for Bordeaux where Mathilde Leon had cousins. Her husband, Marc, was in the army, but she hadn’t heard from him for weeks and didn’t even know if he were alive or dead. As the Germans flooded over the border, she had decided that they must leave their home, taking only what they could pile into the baby’s pram and try to get to what she hoped was the safety of her cousin Jacques’ home. She had heard what had been happening to the Jews in Germany, and she knew that if they remained where they were, they would be in the most desperate danger when the Germans arrived. Already their little shop had had its windows broken and daubed with paint, and that wasn’t even by Germans but by one of their French neighbours. Mathilde didn’t know who had done it, none of her neighbours had appeared to care before that the Leons were Jews, but now? She decided it was a sign of the times, and the times to come, and for the children’s sake she felt that they should try and get away to safety. She could only hope that they would be safer with Jacques, but in any case she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

They had tried to stay off the main roads. Mathilde didn’t want her little family to become mixed up with the columns of soldiers who seemed to be in full retreat before the oncoming German tanks. She would have preferred to have travelled at night, but it was hard enough to keep moving in the daylight along roads they didn’t know, through villages where they were greeted with hostile stares. David, her eldest, was doing his best to be the man of the family, but he was only nine and could do little to help except hold his younger sister, Catherine’s, hand and sing her songs to keep her going. Mathilde herself had baby Hannah hoisted on her hip in a sling, and was pushing the pram that contained their scant supply of food and water and a few clothes for each of them.

When they reached the town of Albert, they found it seething with refugees like themselves, and Mathilde decided that they might do better to travel in a larger group. There were other Jewish families and, even in the crowd, there was mutual recognition. They huddled together, aware that they were being eyed suspiciously by those around them. That night they all slept together in the bus station. There were no buses, but at least it gave them some shelter from the drizzle that had been drenching them all day.

Mathilde gave her children some bread and a sliver of cheese each, and tried to beg some milk for the baby. The little she had been able to bring with her had soon run out, for Hannah had a healthy appetite.

One woman, who seemed to be alone, took pity on her and poured a little milk into a cup.

“Here you are,” she said as she handed it over. “It’s all I can spare, but it’ll give the poor little mite something in her stomach.”

“Thank you, you are so kind,” said Mathilde. “Let me give you this in return.” And she passed over the crust of bread that would have been her own supper.

The other woman took it, thanking her gravely. “We must hope we can find more food tomorrow,” she said. “Albert is quite big. There must be some shops that still have food to sell.”

Very early in the morning, with hunger gnawing at her insides, Mathilde took the children away from the others into a small park. Here she told David to sit with his sister and not to move while she went to try and find some food.

The little boy nodded solemnly and sat on the ground with his back against a wall, Catherine on the grass beside him. Mathilde dare not leave the pram in the sole charge of a nine-year-old boy, anyone might take it from him, so with some misgivings she placed Hannah in the pram on top of their worldly goods, and made ready to push it ahead of her as she went in search of food.

“Whatever happens, don’t move,” Mathilde told him. “Stay here until I get back. Promise me now. I shan’t be long.”

David promised and, with an anxious glance over her shoulder, Mathilde set off into the town to find them something to eat.

She was gone the best part of an hour, but when she returned there was a loaf of bread tucked into the pram beside Hannah. This she tore into pieces and gave to the two older children. For Hannah she tore the crumb out from the crust and soaking it in a little of their precious water, made it into a soggy pap that Hannah could suck from her mother’s fingers. The crust she ate herself.

The town was awake now and people were going about their business. Many of the other refugees had already moved on, and Mathilde was anxious to leave as well. While searching for food she had become aware of the sidelong glances people were giving her, not exactly open hostility, but obvious mistrust. It was time to get out of this terrified town. She knew they had to travel westwards, so with the sun at her back she took the road out of town. The going was slow, the road uneven and very bumpy for the pram. With Hannah on her hip, she let the other children take turns riding in the pram, and that way they moved a little faster than the previous day. Even so, she knew that they had to keep stopping to rest or the children would never keep going.

Once they heard planes high overhead, and Mathilde looked round wildly for some cover, but there was none. The land stretched away in all directions, flat and almost featureless except for a line of poplar trees away in the distance and the occasional straggling farm buildings. However, the planes were quite high and droned away into the clouds to the north of them. She could hear intermittent gunfire from that direction too, and once there was a big boom as if something had blown up, but it seemed some distance away and she tried not to think about it.

As the morning progressed they began to catch up with other refugees who had set out earlier than they had. Old men and women, young mothers like her with children at their skirts, all plodding along the same straight road. Far ahead they could see the roofs of a village, above which towered a tall, grey stone building with a turret on one end, a chateau perhaps.

We’ll stop there for a proper rest, Mathilde thought, and try to get something else to eat. Maybe there’s a farm that will be able to sell us a little milk for Hannah. But it would be at a price, she knew that, and her small supply of cash was dwindling at an alarming speed. Everything cost so much… and the price tended to rise when the person who was selling knew you were desperate.

They were travelling in a much larger group now, about forty or fifty people strung out along the lane leading into the village. The road was edged with shallow drainage ditches, and above these were low hedges on either side to keep the cattle safely in their fields.

Thank God, Mathilde thought fervently. If there are cattle in the fields there must be milk to buy.

Suddenly the air seemed to explode around them and from nowhere two planes screamed out of the sky, guns blazing as they dived low, skimming the hedgerows and strafing the meandering line of refugees. With a scream Mathilde grabbed Catherine from her place in the pram, and, shrieking David’s name, flung herself to the ground, rolling towards the illusory shelter of the hedge. Tracer bullets, bouncing, fiery red, ricocheted off the road, ripping through the panicking people. The planes roared up and away, spiralling into the sky, only to turn again and make another murderous pass low over the people scattered in the road. The rattle of the guns and the howl of the engines created a terrifying blast of sound, drowning the shrieks and cries of their victims below. Mathilde had rolled onto Hannah who had been riding on her hip and the baby, now beneath her in the ditch, was screaming. Catherine fell from her mother’s arms landing head first in the hedge, and David, who had been walking a little way ahead, had turned to stare up at the planes, until his mother’s agonised scream had made him too dive for cover. The planes came in low, spraying their helpless victims with gunfire, the shriek of their engines almost more terrifying than the barrage of bullets. This time when they were clear, they did not come back, but thundered off into the sky leaving chaos on the ground behind them. In less than two minutes they had reduced the line of refugees to a confused mass of dead, dying and wounded.

People were screaming and crying as the agonies of the wounded rose in their throats. David could hear Hannah howling, and whimpering himself, he crawled to where he could see his mother sheltering in the hedge. Only his mother made no move to calm or quiet the bellowing baby, she lay on her side, her body on top of Hannah, and beside her lay Catherine, one arm flung out as if she were reaching for something.

“Maman, Maman,” he wailed, pulling at his mother’s arm. She rolled over and looked up at him, but her eyes didn’t look right. They were staring at him, but they weren’t smiling at him or even crying with shock or pain. The crying was coming from Hannah, still crushed under her mother’s body, the body that had saved her life at the cost of its own. Still not understanding what had happened, David continued to shake his mother to make her look at him properly and not in that staring way. But she didn’t move and her eyes still gazed up into his face.

“Maman, you must move, you’re squashing Hannah,” he told her. “You’re making her cry!” When his mother still didn’t move, he pulled at her and managed to move her shoulders so that she tipped to one side and he was able to pull Hannah from the sling on her mother’s hip and drag her clear. Hannah continued to scream, her little face scarlet and contorted with fury, her cheeks tear-stained and filthy from the ditch.

David tried to shush her, but it was useless, so he laid her carefully on the ground and bent down to look at Catherine. She lay half in the ditch, half in the hedge, with blood running down her face. She was moaning softly, but her eyes were shut and she didn’t look at him. He tried shaking his mother again but it was no good, she wouldn’t get up. Her head was turned away now and she wasn’t looking at him anymore. That was when David saw the blood coming from a hole in her neck. He stared at it for a moment as he began to take in what it meant. It meant that Maman wasn’t going to get up again… ever. It meant that she had been hit by the bullets from the planes and that she was dead. David let out a wail and gathering up the still screaming baby in his arms he sat on the ground, rocking backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

Gradually the carnage left by the Heinkels resolved itself into those who, miraculously, were not hurt, those who were wounded and those who were dead. The unhurt and the wounded struggled to their feet again, wanting to move on, away from this place of death. Those with dead companions knelt beside them and wept, before dragging them clear of the road to be left behind. All the time swivelling their eyes skywards, watching for the aircraft, straining their ears for the throb of the engines that would herald their return. But the sky was empty, the air was quiet except for the cries of the wounded and the wails of the children. The hunters, having wreaked their havoc on this little company of refugees, were searching prey elsewhere.

Slowly, those who could began to walk again, on towards the village that lay so close around the corner. Those too badly injured to walk were heaved onto handcarts, carried or supported by their friends… or simply left behind.

Some tried to gather up their scattered possessions, taking them into their arms, or if their handcarts or barrows had survived the onslaught, piling their and other peoples’ goods onto those and pushing them away. One old man edged towards the upturned pram beside the three children, but David screamed at him.

“Go away! That’s our pram! Go away! Go away!” Dumping the still screaming Hannah unceremoniously on the ground beside him, David picked up a stone and hurled it at the man. It hit him in the midriff and the man hesitated, squinting at the small boy who was already reaching for another stone. David continued to yell at him and hurl stones until the old man turned away and went in search of easier pickings.

David flopped down panting with fright and having looked once more at his mother, realised that it was up to him now. Papa had said when he went away to the war that David must look after Maman for him, that he must be the man of the house and help Maman with the girls.

“They’re only little girls, David,” said Papa. “You can help Maman by looking after them when she’s busy.”

David thought of Papa now and the tears welled up in his eyes. He didn’t know where Papa was, and now Maman was dead… he knew that… so he, David, had to do something.

He crawled over to where Catherine still lay unmoving. She didn’t seem to be bleeding now, but she was still moaning in a very frightening way. He knew he had to get help and that they had to get away from here before the planes came back to find them again. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and went to the overturned pram. Most of the things inside had been flung out and he noticed that there were holes in the bottom of it, but with a struggle he was able to right it again. He looked round and found some of their clothes strewn across the road. Under a jersey he found the photo of his father and mother getting married. Maman had brought it with her and wrapped it up in a shirt. Carefully he put it with the other things back in the pram and then made a sort of nest in the clothes for Hannah. She had stopped bawling now and was making a sort of whimpering noise, her fist stuck in her mouth. Carefully he picked her up and lifted her into the pram. Then he covered her with a towel and turned his attention to Catherine. He was just wondering how on earth he was going to move her, when a voice spoke behind him.

“Is she dead?”

David spun round and grabbed the handle of the pram. A woman was standing at the edge of the road looking down at him. David thought she looked a bit familiar, but he didn’t know who she was. He held tight to the handle of the pram so that she couldn’t take it.