Bullets pelted the rear of the ambulance.
Ruth sped away and veered around a bend in the road, placing them out of sight from the German soldiers.
“Is everyone okay?” Ruth asked.
“Yes,” Jimmie said.
Lucette nodded and placed her hands to her cheeks. “Mon Dieu. I can’t believe you did that.”
Ruth’s arms trembled. “Me either.”
Jimmie set his revolver on his lap and ran a hand through his hair. “How did you know that their machine gun wouldn’t turn far enough to reach us?”
“I didn’t,” Ruth said. “There wasn’t a place to turn around, and they’d surely catch us if I tried to run away in reverse.”
“You’re a cracking good driver and full of guts.” He wiped sweat from his forehead. “Well done.”
“Merci.” Ruth peered through the windshield at the ambulance’s damaged right fender. “How does the front tire look on your side?”
Jimmie leaned his head out of the window. “Good for now.”
“Do you think they’ll radio ahead for soldiers to chase us down?” Lucette asked.
“It’s possible,” Jimmie said. “But they looked like a scout unit, given that they had a motorcycle and radio transmitter. They were likely scoping out the path ahead of the German Army.” He adjusted his slinged arm and grimaced. “We could encounter more scout units, but I think we might have crossed the line between the Panzers and the oncoming Wehrmacht troops.”
“I pray that we did,” Lucette said.
“Me too,” Ruth said. “But until we know for sure, let’s keep an eye out for more soldiers.”
Lucette plucked her map from the floor and peered through the windshield.
Ruth, her nerves surging like electrified wire, maneuvered the vehicle along the narrow dirt road. Minutes passed and they encountered no other scout units; however, they did spot two Luftwaffe bomber squadrons flying westward with no sign of either French or British planes. The German aircraft disappeared and, soon after, explosions rumbled over the countryside.
“I should be up there,” Jimmie said, peering upward through the windshield.
“You’ll fly again, when your arm is healed,” Ruth said.
He nodded and scanned the sky, as if he were searching for his RAF squadron.
They traveled south for ten kilometers on arteries of back roads, each more rutted and overgrown with weeds than the one before. The area remained desolate until they took a shortcut across a farm field to the village of Balham, where a small group of refugees in a horse-drawn wagon were crossing a bridge over the Aisne River.
Ruth steered to the side of the wagon and decelerated. A gray-mustached man, his wrinkled face etched with sorrow, held the reins to a brown, swayback horse with protruding ribs. In the bed of the wagon were three women, one of whom was holding a baby.
“Is anyone injured?” Lucette called through the open passenger window.
The driver, his eyes void of spirit, shook his head.
Ruth pressed the accelerator and passed the wagon. A kilometer down the road, they came across another group of fleeing citizens on bicycles with cloth sacks tied to the handlebars. Soon after, they reached a junction of three roads, and the sole route heading south was congested—as far as they could see—with a mass of refugees.
Three women were pushing an automobile, which appeared to have run out of fuel, and sitting in the driver’s seat was an adolescent boy who could barely see above the wheel. Beside them, a silver-haired man was driving a farm tractor with a flatbed wagon loaded with grammar-school-age children, two goats, and an antique treadle sewing machine. While some of the refugees had wheeled transportation, the vast majority were pedestrians. They either carried luggage, held the hands of young children, or pushed strollers—some of which held an elderly person who was too feeble to walk.
“There must be thousands on this road,” Jimmie said.
Ruth’s shoulders drooped. “It’s gut-wrenching to see all these people who’ve abandoned their homes.”
“Oui,” Lucette said. “If all of northern France’s routes that lead away from the invasion look like this one, there could be millions trying to escape to the south.”
As Ruth maneuvered through the throng, she told Jimmie that she and Lucette witnessed Luftwaffe raids on villages to drive citizens from their homes, which clogged the roads and hampered the ability of the French Army to move troops and equipment to Sedan. But the crowd on this road was far greater than what she’d witnessed near the front, and it was clear, to Ruth, that the driving force of the massive flight of citizens was the rampage of German tanks over the countryside.
The large number of pedestrians forced Ruth to slow the vehicle to little more than a walking pace. She honked the horn, but it did little good, considering most of the refugees appeared far too exhausted and scared to pay heed to an ambulance. Eventually, she resorted to passing only in areas where there was a wide berm. She glanced at the fuel gauge, its needle pointed to slightly below half a tank, and she hoped that they had enough petrol to make it to Reims.
Ruth veered to the side of the road and passed a middle-aged woman, who was wearing an apron over a housedress and holding a leash to a well-groomed black poodle. As she looked for a spot to squeeze back onto the road, her eyes gravitated to movement near a sprawling linden tree, fifteen meters ahead.
An elderly man, wearing a charcoal-colored suit and walking beside a young girl, dropped his suitcase and stumbled.
“Oh, no,” Ruth said.
Lucette perked her head. “What?”
Ruth pointed. “I think he might need help.” She parked the vehicle and jumped out.
Jimmie and Lucette exited the vehicle and followed her.
The old man placed a hand to his chest and slumped to the ground. The young girl kneeled to him.
“Can I help?” Ruth asked, approaching them.
The old man drew a labored breath. “I’ll be fine in a moment.”
