The nose of the plane tipped toward the ground and Fanny bailed out. Seconds later, his parachute opened and he drifted toward the ground.
Thank God. Jimmie sucked in deep breaths of air through his oxygen mask.
“Behind you, Jimmie!” Cobber shouted.
Bullets shot over the left wing of Jimmie’s aircraft. His adrenaline surged. He slewed to the right and glanced behind him, revealing a Messerschmitt locked in on his tail. His pulse pounded in his eardrums as he pulled up sharply, pinning his body to his seat. He veered to the northwest and accelerated, attempting to outrun his pursuer. He rolled to the left, and then to the right, but the German pilot remained on his tail. Bullets shattered his cockpit glass and pierced the engine compartment. Flames erupted and spewed over the exterior of his cockpit, and thick smoke blocked his view. With no hope of landing, he pulled the handle to the canopy. It slid a few inches and became lodged in its bullet-riddled frame.
“Get out!” Cobber shouted.
Jimmie, his heart pounding his rib cage, tugged harder on the enclosure of his cockpit but it remained frozen. His plane lost altitude, and he felt the loss of gravity as his stomach rose into his chest. With no other choice, he released the control stick and clasped the canopy handle with both hands. Heat from the flames scorched his gloves as he fought to pry it open. His plane rolled into an inverted dive and smoke engulfed the cockpit. Refusing to give up, he gave a final heave and the canopy slid several inches. He released his safety harness and tried to bail out, but his torso attached to the seat parachute wouldn’t fit through the opening.
CHAPTER 15
HIRSON, FRANCE—MAY 15, 1940
Ruth opened the rear doors of her ambulance and climbed inside to a malodor of sweat and infected wounds. Four injured soldiers, three French and one British, were curled on bunks. She and Lucette had transported the men from a Catholic convent near Liart, where nuns were caring for maimed soldiers until they could be evacuated to a hospital.
Ruth kneeled to a shirtless British Expeditionary Force soldier with bandages covering his right shoulder. “Are you able to walk?”
“A little,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She placed an arm around his back, got him to his feet, and helped him shuffle to the rear of the ambulance. Lucette and a hospital orderly, who were standing at the back of the ambulance, assisted him to the ground. The soldier, rather than being ushered inside the infirmary, was placed in a large military truck to be transferred to a base hospital in Arras.
The hospital in Hirson, like her two previous army medical facilities, had been ordered to evacuate. Due to lack of ambulances, Ruth and Lucette had been operating as a team by co-driving Ruth’s vehicle. The German military, after they’d broken through the Meuse Line at Sedan, did not advance toward Paris. Instead, their Panzers stormed northward toward the English Channel. The German tanks, supported by thousands of Luftwaffe aircraft, were destroying everything in their path. And, for the past few days, Ruth and Lucette had been racing to evacuate injured Allied soldiers while fighting to stay one step ahead of Hitler’s forces.
Ruth, her back muscles aching from fatigue, lifted the end of a stretcher. She helped Lucette and the orderly to place the last soldier into the transport vehicle, and then returned to her ambulance.
“How are you holding up?” Lucette asked.
“I’m all right.” Ruth leaned against the driver’s door of the ambulance. She’d consumed little food over the past few days, and her once form-fitting uniform sagged on her frame.
“You should eat something,” Lucette said.
“I will after we transport the remaining soldiers from the convent.” She stood up straight, attempting to shake off her fatigue. “Ready to go?”
Lucette nodded.
“Hold up!” A gray-haired French Army sergeant with sweat stains on the armpits of his tunic jogged to them. “We’ve received orders to redeploy six ambulance units—yours is one of them.”
“Are we being sent to Arras?” Lucette asked.
“Non,” the sergeant said. “To the English Channel.”
Ruth’s eyes widened. “What’s happening?”
He handed Ruth a slip of paper. “I was informed that there’s a need to station ambulance units near the coast. Your orders are to report to a field hospital in Dunkirk.”
Ruth glanced at the paper that contained their names, the unit number of their ambulance, and the location of their new post. “When do we leave?”
“Immediately,” he said.
Ruth swallowed. “But we need to evacuate three wounded men from Liart.”
“We have our orders,” the sergeant said. “Hopefully, another unit will get them on their way in from the field.”
“We have no radios to communicate their position. We’re the only unit that has been going to the convent—the others will have no reason to go there.” Ruth placed her hands on her hips. “We can’t leave them out there.”
“I have my orders,” he said.
“It won’t take us long,” Lucette pleaded. “We’ll be back before the hospital is evacuated.”
He lowered his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.
“If you had an injured family member in Liart,” Ruth said, “would you allow us to go?”
“That has nothing to do with it,” he said.
“It has everything to do with it,” Ruth said, holding her ground. “There are three wounded soldiers who are risking their lives to protect their families and France. They’re in the path of the German Army, and they’re counting on us to save them.”
The lines on the sergeant’s face softened. “All right, but if I’m questioned by an officer about this, I’ll have no choice but to tell them that I gave you the order and you disobeyed it.”
“Fair enough,” Ruth said. “Merci.”
The sergeant turned and left.
Ruth got behind the wheel while Lucette jumped into the passenger seat. She started the engine, threw the vehicle in gear, and sped away.
They left Hirson and maneuvered over roads, clogged with fleeing French citizens. The Luftwaffe, in addition to dropping bombs on military targets, had raided small towns and villages to force people to flee their homes, which congested the roads and stalled the French military’s ability to deploy troops and weaponry. Ruth veered around an elderly man and woman, each laboring to push a bicycle weighted down with travel bags hanging from the handlebars.
