The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [71]
Who was Robert? Surely not a man who was mean to his children. Marshall was getting nowhere. In the turmoil of his nighttime thoughts, his wakeful dreaming, he thought he had been trying to find the young man he wished he had been. As a time traveler, he could jiggle the outcome. He could be a hero after all.
“You jerk,” he said aloud.
30.
HE ATE SOME CORNFLAKES AND THEN STOPPED FOR AN EXPRESS at the tabac down the block. He was growing to love the strong French coffee. Quickly, he had another. Then he headed to the Everything Store, where Guy had just the tape recorder Marshall needed.
For a change of scene, Marshall sat on a bench in the parc Montsouris, trussed up his ears, and listened to the tape James Ford had made for his family. In the direction of the rue d’Alésia, a police siren was yelling out its high-pitched hee-haw. A 747 flew overhead. He couldn’t make out its markings.
You know, I never wanted to talk about it. I didn’t want to brag. And I didn’t want to wallow in self-pity either. It went both ways.
I went into the Army Air Force in 1942 and trained in Texas. I qualified for flight engineer, and if I had to shoot a gun, the top turret was a pretty good place to be—much better than in the tail or the belly. I was sure thankful I didn’t have to be the belly gunner. The waist gunners were more exposed too. But on the top, I could duck down from my bubble.
When it came time to go to England, we shipped out on the Queen Elizabeth luxury liner! Of course we were crammed twenty to a stateroom, but that ship was so beautiful, and we had the run of it. That was sure a fine trip. I always said Martha and I should take a trip on that ship—now they’ve got the QE-II. Well, never mind.
Marshall listened to Ford describe Molesworth and then the missions. Matter-of-factly, he told at some length how the plane was hit on the mission to Frankfurt.
It may surprise you to know, but when a fighter comes at you from the side, you don’t aim ahead. You always aim between him and the tail of your own plane because your own speed will add to the speed of your bullet, so you aim off to the side. And how do we do that? Skill and practice!
At some point I knew we were going down. I didn’t hear when the pilot said “Bail out,” but I’d been firing and firing and didn’t always hear everything. Then, first thing you know, I turn and see somebody bail out! It was Chick Cochran! Oh, he was so quick. He’d be across the finish line before you said “go.” I was still on the lookout for the fighter that had hit us twice, so I didn’t know what Webb and Stone were up to. I just kept my eyes on the job, but then I saw the ground coming, and I tried to brace myself. It wasn’t too bad really. Then all hell broke loose. I think Webb was dead then, and the bombardier’s shoulder was hurt, and Stone and I were rushing every which way getting people out. We pulled Webb out, and then laid out one of the waist gunners on the grass—a funny guy we called Hootie.
Marshall did not recall helping Ford with Hootie. Hootie was lying there pale as fog. Marshall’s mind drifted back to the crash, while on the tape Ford was describing a long period of hiding in a French town called Ham, an experience similar to Marshall’s own evasion. Then Ford was sent by train to Paris.
When I got to Paris I was met by a young couple—sweethearts, I believe. The guy wore a thick overcoat and workman’s shoes. We didn’t speak, and I don’t remember now what our signal was, but they led me through the train station and onto a subway train out to a neighborhood sort of place with a lot of apartment buildings. The young girl went off somewhere, and the young man took me into a building. He rang the bell and a woman let me in.
I stayed with that family in Paris for a week. The young man at the train came to the apartment two or three times, and he gathered with the family in the kitchen and they talked in low voices. I think he was the person they got their instructions from, and I understood his name to be Robert Lebeau. It took