Jimmie, walking with his good arm wrapped over his sling, looked at Aline. “There should be a village a little farther ahead. We’ll get out of the wet weather and find a dry place to rest.”
Aline nodded. She turned to Pierre, who was holding Lucette’s elbow as he shuffled along the edge of the road. “Grandpapa, we’re going to stop in a little while.”
Pierre, his shoulders slumped, raised a hand as he continued his walk.
Soon, dark clouds covered the sky. Wind gusts grew, and heavy rain marched through the trees, the drops striking the leaves sounding like a rolling crescendo on a snare drum. Refugees dispersed and made their way toward a forest for shelter.
As Ruth stepped from the road, she spotted a small bridge that crossed a creek, approximately fifty meters away. “Let’s keep going,” she called to her friends. “There’s a bridge ahead.”
The group, raindrops pelting their faces, scurried over the gravel roadway. At the bridge—which spanned a stream and was made of thick wood beams and planks—they climbed down an embankment and hunkered underneath the structure. Although the bridge provided some protection from the storm, rain poured from gaps between boards.
Pierre slumped onto the ground and took in shallow breaths.
Aline kneeled to her grandpapa. “Médecine?”
“Oui.” Pierre slid his drenched beret from his head. He reached for his jacket pocket but had trouble finding the opening.
“I’ll get it.” Aline, her eyes filled with worry, removed a bottle of nitroglycerin pills from his jacket. She unscrewed the top, fished out a pill, and gave it to him.
Pierre, his hand shaking, placed the pill in his mouth. Within minutes, his breathing slowed and he regained a bit of energy. He placed a palm to his granddaughter’s wet cheek and smiled. “Merci, my little cabbage.”
Tension faded from Aline’s face.
Lucette approached Ruth and Jimmie and lowered her voice. “I don’t think Pierre should walk any more today.”
Ruth nodded.
“I’ll explore the road ahead of us for a place to settle for the night,” Jimmie said.
Ruth glanced over the stream, covered in rain ripples. “Maybe you should wait to see if the weather improves.”
Jimmie shook his head. “The sooner we find an indoor shelter, the sooner Pierre will get some rest.”
Ruth looked at Jimmie, his jaw covered in stubble and hair soaked with rain. He’s kind and refuses to allow a broken arm to hinder his desire to help us. “Please be careful.”
“I will.”
She watched him scale the embankment and disappear into the downpour.
Over the past week, the group covered a little more than half of their journey to Paris. They’d walked most of the way, except when Ruth had convinced a woman to allow Aline and Pierre to hitch a ride in the back of her horse-drawn wagon. But after two days, the woman left them behind when she took a different route toward Sézanne to search for her sister. Pierre and Aline’s stint of riding in the wagon, while Ruth and the others walked behind them, had not improved the pace of the journey. The roads were packed with an increasing number of asylum seekers, due to Luftwaffe air raids on villages, and the once scenic terrain of the Champagne wine region had been transformed into a befouled landscape of abandoned automobiles, trucks, and buses that had run out of fuel.
The slow pace of pedestrian traffic wasn’t their only challenge. Pierre needed frequent breaks to rest and, at times, he needed to take his angina medicine to ease pain in his chest. Despite his physical limitations, his optimistic attitude never waned. In the evenings, he performed sleight of hand tricks using a coin or a weathered deck of playing cards to amuse the group, as if he were determined to distract them from their worries of war. He told stories to Aline about how her parents met, the day she was born, her first steps, and when she learned to ride a bicycle. But most of all, he reassured his granddaughter that they would be safe in Paris and would eventually reunite with her father after the war.
In addition to the frequent pauses in their journey for Pierre to rest, a great deal of time and effort was dedicated to searching for food. The village markets along the route had been looted, and much of their nourishment—mostly canned goods, root vegetables, and stale biscuits—was either found in abandoned farmhouses or gifted to them by fellow refugees. The week before, Ruth was deeply moved by the selfless act of an elderly man who gave their group one of his last two cans of peas. As days passed, and as food grew more scarce, most of the refugees began to hoard their rations. But Ruth held no ill feelings, considering she’d stashed away carrot tops to ensure that Aline would have something to eat when they were low on food.
At night, they slept in barns or vacant farmhouses, except for an evening when they’d rested in the basement of a church, packed with French and Belgium refugees whose towns were in the path of the German Panzers. During the day, they traveled on the road, all the while keeping alert for Luftwaffe air raids. They often sighted German squadrons flying overhead, which sent them and masses of refugees scrambling to trees for cover. The spotting of Allied planes was far less frequent, nearly five times less than enemy aircraft, and there was no sign of the French Army or British Expeditionary Force. Ruth hoped that the absence of Allied infantry and armored units meant that they were occupied with fighting back the German military, but deep down her gut told her otherwise.
Pierre, holding his beret above his head to fend off dripping rainwater, approached Ruth and Lucette.
“Feeling better?” Ruth asked.
“Much,” Pierre said, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry for slowing down the group. If it wasn’t for me, you would almost be in Paris.”
“Nonsense,” Lucette said. “You’re doing well with keeping pace.”
Ruth looked at Pierre, his clothes wet and disheveled. Her mind drifted to an image of Aline smiling as Pierre magically plucked a coin from behind his granddaughter’s ear. “We’re lucky to have you with us, and so is Aline.”
“You’re too kind.” Pierre glanced at Aline, sitting several meters away with her head on her knees. “I would like for both of you to promise me something.”
“Of course,” Ruth said.
He looked at them and intertwined his fingers. “If the German Army draws near, I want you to take Aline and leave me behind.”
Ruth swallowed. “We are not leaving you.”
Lucette placed a hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “You’re going to make it to Paris—with us.”
“S’il te plaît,” he said. “I need to make sure that Aline is taken care of.”
“I promise,” Ruth said. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that she’s safe.”
“Me too,” Lucette said.
The man’s eyes filled with gratitude. “Merci.”
While Pierre and Lucette sat down to rest, Ruth joined Aline, who was seated on a small, dry section of dirt under the bridge.
“Where is Jimmie?” Aline brushed away damp hair that clung to her forehead.
