The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [32]
He kept moving till dusk, trudging through the countryside. Now and then he heard voices, but each time he crept away. He came to a large stone barn. He watched a man guide a cow into the barn and fasten the door. He did not see dogs. After sundown, Marshall entered the barn and sank into a pile of hay, exhausted. He ate a tablet of Horlicks and wondered how to milk a cow.
Next morning, he jerked awake. The farmer was standing over him, gripping a raised scythe. Marshall found himself silently maneuvered out the door and across the barnyard. The farmer waved the scythe threateningly, shooing him away. Marshall ran into some nearby trees, regretting that he hadn’t grabbed the cow’s teats during the night for a warm drink. When he stopped to catch his breath, he saw how he was shaking.
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON. He had walked about eight miles, he thought. He approached a farm with a barn adjoining the house. Behind the barn some rectangular hay bales were stacked in a neat cube. There was an opening big enough to hide in, even sleep. Poking inside, he found a hen’s nest with one egg. He cracked the egg against his knuckles and opened it carefully. The yellow center was beautiful, like a sun sunken in a bowl of honey. He swirled it in his mouth and swallowed. He rummaged around for more eggs, but there were none.
Easter eggs. An incongruous memory came back as he lay amidst the bales. Marshall and his cousins were searching for bright, dyed eggs under the bushes and in the crannies of the corncrib and the cow shed. He was a small boy then. His grandmother saying, Get them all. Don’t waste. But they invariably found an egg a week past Easter, and they ate it anyway, the hard yellow center gone green on its surface.
It was too early to sleep. He carefully left his hiding place. In the barnyard he stared at the pig trough, then the chickens’ water pail. He didn’t want to waste his halazone pills on those. If the farmers were out in the fields, the women would be in the houses, he thought. Slinking behind the barn, he made for the back door of the farmhouse. He knocked once, lightly. A short, middle-aged woman opened the door. Fear flashed across her face.
“Je suis un aviateur américain,” he said in what he knew was a laughable accent. “Please, I need help.”
She put her finger to her lips, then pointed to the barn. “Là-bas! Là-bas!”
He slipped into the barn and hid behind some machinery. She arrived soon, with some milk and a piece of bread, which he wolfed greedily but gratefully. She had a warm face, with wide-set dark eyes. She wore a dark dress and a bonnet. She motioned for him to stay, and then she left. He sank into some loose hay, suddenly exhausted. After dozing for a while, he heard her come in again. She brought some peasant clothing for him—a coat and some balloon pants of a thick tweedy wool. After she left, he pulled the pants over his flying pants and found that they fit well enough. They were short, but his flight pants dropped down like cuffs. Loretta would laugh. The coat fit too snugly over his flying jacket, but he was unwilling to get rid of his leather jacket in winter.
Loretta. When would she know that he hadn’t come back to base? How long would it take him to walk to Spain on back roads, hiding in barns?
The door opened and two middle-aged men speaking in loud voices roused him. He had been told in evasion class that most Frenchmen collaborated with the Germans. There was a reward for turning in downed airmen. Speaking gruffly, the larger of the two men grabbed Marshall by the collar. He wanted proof that Marshall was an American aviateur. Marshall