The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [133]
“Robert returned and we all boarded the train to Pau. We got there uneventfully. The Germans at the checkpoint glanced at my papers without asking any questions. I thought they probably couldn’t read French anyway, so the papers you and your mother had created worked just fine, I am happy to tell you.”
“Maman filled them in with her left hand. She insisted on that method of disguising handwriting.”
“It worked, and I was thankful to the bottom of my boots. I had been chiding myself for not taking a knife to those USA initials on the boots. How could I have been so careless? By the time we arrived at Pau it was the middle of the night, and Robert passed us off to a man and woman who drove us to a safe house, where there were some other airmen sheltered. We were given cheese and some kind of bread and soup. But here was the biggest surprise of all. I was totally unprepared for this. You remember that I told you about the crew of our plane. The pilot—Lawrence Webb—died at the scene, I was sure. And there was another guy, a waist gunner called Hootie Williams. I thought he was hurt pretty badly, and I didn’t know if he was captured. I was almost certain he had died. He looked bad. All during my trip through France I was nagged by thoughts of Hootie and what happened to him. Well, believe it or not, there was Hootie! In this house, sitting at the table eating soup. I can’t tell you the greeting we gave each other.
“He was calm, though. He said, ‘Hey, Marshall, what took you so long? I’ve been waiting on you!’
“I was astounded. And thrilled. You can’t know.
“ ‘Well, Hootie,’ I said. ‘I always said you were the smartest one of us all. I should have known you would find your way.’
“Hootie told me that Webb was dead and had been buried in that little village in Belgium. And he said three of the crew had been arrested.”
Marshall paused, remembering how Hootie, his mouth stuffed with chewy bread, had praised him for the landing. Hootie hadn’t bailed out, as Chick Cochran did. Oh, no, Marshall. I knew Webb was a goner. When he said “bail out,” I knew we were too low. But Chick jumped anyway. The dope. Hootie shook his head and grinned like a hyena.
“Many aviateurs became separated when they were shot down,” Annette was saying. “Then at the safe houses they might find each other again, or receive some news. Sometimes there were long waits.”
“We didn’t know at the time that everybody else from our crew had survived and would eventually make it home.” Marshall laughed. “Hootie told a tale about a woman who guided him on a train, and when the German officers were approaching, this anonymous woman pulled him into a headlock and kissed him, smothering his face with her hair. She figured the Germans wouldn’t break up a pair of lovers, I guess. I didn’t know whether to believe him, but Hootie said, ‘Marshall, that kiss couldn’t be repeated in heaven! I never found out who she was. She got me to where we were going and then she took a run-out powder.’ ”
“That was a strategy,” Annette said. “Robert and I played sweethearts, so no one would suspect—”
“Hootie stayed with a family in Belgium who kept him out of the hospital where the Germans would have found him. He had been wounded, but not seriously, as I had thought. He was soon on his feet. While he was with the Belgian family, he started helping the Resistance! He worked with the explosives.
“Hootie told me the family was named Lechat. I did not run across that name again until this spring when I went back to the crash site. And, Annette, the people told me that a boy’s father was shot for convoying one of our crew. It was Monsieur Lechat. He paid with his life for taking care of Hootie.”
Marshall paused, recalling Hootie’s crazy laugh. “I didn’t know