“Blanche,” Aline said.
“That’s a lovely name,” Ruth said. “Your maman would be so proud of you for being such a brave girl.”
“And for helping your grandpapa,” Pierre added.
Aline nodded. She leaned over to put away the photograph, and a delicate silver chain dangled from her neck.
Ruth’s eyes locked on a Star of David pendant. “I like your necklace.”
She closed her backpack and sat upright. “It’s a gift from Grandpapa.”
“I’m Jewish, too,” Ruth said, “on my mom’s side of the family.”
Aline’s lips formed a faint smile.
The vehicle’s engine hummed as they slowly traveled toward Reims. Ruth gave them a hunk of the baguette they’d looted from the farm, and water from a canteen. Soon after the two had eaten, Pierre grew tired and lay down to sleep.
Aline sat next to Ruth and looked at her uniform. “Do you take hurt soldiers to hospitals?”
“I do.”
“Are you on your way to help them?”
“Non. The German tanks got between us and the French Army. But once we get you and your grandpapa to Reims, Lucette and I will find a way to reach our soldiers.” Ruth patted Aline’s knee. “Jimmie’s airfield is in Reims. You’ll be safe there.”
Aline picked at a hole in her cardigan. “Do you think we can stop them?”
She swallowed. “Oui.”
Ruth, hoping to divert Aline’s attention away from the war, told her about her family and the move to Paris to pursue a singing career. And Aline reciprocated by describing her parents. Her maman had loved to play the piano and create watercolor paintings of a duck pond near their home. Her papa, before going off to war, had worked as an editor for a newspaper and gifted Aline lots of books, which she abandoned when fleeing Lille.
Aline yawned. Her head tilted and her eyelids began to close.
Ruth tucked her into a cot with a wool blanket. She quietly made her way to the front of the vehicle and squeezed into the passenger seat, next to Jimmie.
“I’ve been coasting down the hills to save fuel,” Lucette said, veering around a wagon. “We might have enough to get us to the airfield.”
Ruth nodded.
“How are they?” Jimmie asked.
Ruth frowned. She told them about Aline’s mother and family. “It’s only the two of them.”
“I feel sorry for them.” Lucette shifted gears. “Perhaps they might have some friends in the south of France that could take them in.”
“I’m afraid not,” Ruth said.
“Aline must be devastated,” Jimmie said.
“She is,” Ruth said. “But she’s resilient and wants to be strong for her grandpapa, who is not well.”
Jimmie rubbed the swollen fingers of his broken arm. “I wish I could do something for them.”
“Me too,” Ruth said.
They spoke little for the rest of the journey. At sunset, they reached the outskirts of Reims with little more than fumes left in the ambulance’s fuel tank. The sound of tank guns dwindled, and there were no more sightings of Luftwaffe or Allied aircraft.
Lucette, following Jimmie’s direction, turned onto a road that led away from the mass migration of people, many of whom were hunkered to the side of the road for the night. Minutes later, she drove through the open front gate of the Reims-Champagne Air Base and stopped.
A hangar was in ruin, and several burned planes lined an abandoned runway that was marred with bomb craters. An acrid smell of expelled explosives and charred wood filled the air.
“Oh, no,” Jimmie said.
Ruth’s hope sank. My God, our air forces have fled, too.
CHAPTER 22
REIMS, FRANCE—MAY 16, 1940
Jimmie exited the ambulance and stared over the deserted airfield. A handful of charred aircraft remained on a runway that was ravaged by bombs. The barracks and mess hall were destroyed, and a large hangar that had been filled with equipment and RAF ground crew was now a smoldering mound of steel and charred timber. A wave of shock and anger surged through him.
Ruth got out of the vehicle and clasped her arms. “They’re gone.”
Jimmie turned to her. “It looks like the pilots got most of the planes into the air before the Luftwaffe’s raid.”
Lucette, Aline, and Pierre got out of the ambulance. Their faces turned pale at the sight of the devastation.
“Will the Allied air forces return?” Ruth asked.
