“Aline!” Ruth shouted. “Lucette!” Her heart pounded against her rib cage. She struggled to breathe as they sprinted to a dead, leafless oak tree and fell to the ground.
The wail of sirens grew.
“Hold on!” Jimmie covered her with his body.
A hundred meters away, a large cargo crane and empty docks lined the Loire River. Ruth dug her fingernails into the silty soil, all the while praying that the dockyard was the target of the Stukas. Her body trembled as the planes released their bombs and pulled up. Explosions erupted over the docks, spewing a giant fountain of wood, water, and hunks of steel into the air.
She took in gulps of air, and her body relaxed under his protective weight. But her seconds of solace were erased by a second wave of Stuka sirens. She strained her neck and peered upward. Her eyes traced the trajectory of the German planes—pointed at hundreds of soldiers and refugees scrambling to find cover. “No!”
She felt powerless as bombs dropped from the bellies of the aircraft and detonated along the roadway and nearby trees. The ground shook beneath her body, sending shock and anger through her veins. Screams poured from the crowd. People scrambled down the riverbank, hurled themselves into the water, and struggled to swim away.
“We need to find them!” Ruth struggled to push away from Jimmie.
“Wait!” He held her tight.
A Stuka, flying solo and low to the ground, buzzed over the area. Machine gun bullets sprayed the riverbank and the road, nearly striking a woman and two children hiding under an abandoned wagon.
A roar of plane engines, deeper in tone, shot overhead. Within seconds, six Hurricane fighter planes narrowed in on the enemy aircraft. A dogfight erupted, and some of the soldiers crawled from their hiding places to watch. Soon, a squadron of British Spitfires—coming from the direction of the Channel—joined the fight. One of the Stukas was shot down, crashing near the village of Donges. A Hurricane with smoke pouring from its engine escaped by flying inland. As abruptly as the air battle began, it ended with the remaining German planes retreating to the north. The British planes circled the area, as if to survey the damage, and flew away.
Ruth and Jimmie, their feet sinking in silt and mud, clambered up the riverbank.
“Aline!” Ruth ran down the road, beginning to fill with people who’d come out from under bushes and canopy of trees. “Lucette!”
Jimmie, pressing a hand over his slinged arm, followed Ruth. “Aline—Lucette!”
“Ruth!” Aline screamed.
Ruth sprinted toward the girl’s voice. She pushed through a crowd, a mix of soldiers and refugees, gathered in a circle on the side of the road.
“Jimmie!” Aline cried.
Ruth broke through the line of people, and her legs turned weak at the sight of Lucette on the ground. Aline was on her knees and holding Lucette’s hand as a BEF soldier pressed a blood-soaked handkerchief to her right knee.
“Lucette!” Ruth dropped to her side.
“My leg,” Lucette gasped.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Ruth asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Ruth stroked her forehead. “You’re going to be okay.”
Jimmie squeezed through the crowd and the color drained from his face. He kneeled beside her.
Lucette winced. “Ruth, check my leg and tell me how bad it is.”
Ruth turned to a young British soldier applying pressure to the leg. “Merci. I’ll take over from here.”
He nodded and gently removed his hands, smeared with blood, from Lucette’s leg.
Ruth lifted the handkerchief to reveal a deep, six-inch laceration above the right kneecap. She fought to contain her composure as she examined the wound. “You took some shrapnel. I don’t think you damaged any arteries, so I’m going to use pressure to slow the bleeding.”
Lucette swallowed. “All right.”
“You’re doing a good job, Aline,” Ruth said. “Keep holding her hand.”
Aline nodded.
“I need something bigger for a bandage,” Ruth said, eyeing the wound.
Jimmie removed his sling, made of white cotton material. “How about this?”
“It’ll work.” She took the sling, untied the knot, and wrapped the material around the knee. Using both hands, she applied pressure to the bandaged wound.
Lucette flinched and grimaced.
“Try to breathe,” Ruth said, pressing down on her knee.
Lucette drew a jagged breath and exhaled.
“We’re going to get you medical help,” Ruth said. “You’re going to be okay.”
Lucette closed her eyes and nodded.
“Where should we go?” Jimmie asked, turning to Ruth.
Her mind raced, searching for options. “Donges is too small of a village for a hospital, and we may not find a doctor there. I think our best bet is to get her on a wagon to Saint-Nazaire. The evacuation vessels might have nurses and doctors. On the way there, we’ll search for army medics.”
