The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [88]
A man had already reached the site, coming from one of the other paths into the forest.
“Stupéfaction! I knew this man!” she cried. He was a donneur, one of the men who had turned a parachutist over to the Germans the week before for the reward.
“I said to him, ‘I’m taking care of this, monsieur. You return to the village.’ Once again, as the teacher I commanded respect, so the donneur left!”
“What about the parachute?” Marshall asked. The twigs he had been playing with scattered on the stones.
Odile and her neighbor helped the American gather his parachute and hide it in some brush. They insisted that he hide in the thick bushes until dark, and they promised to bring clothing and food.
“On the way back to the school, I encountered a workman who was pushing an American, slightly wounded, in a donkey cart. He was taking him to the factory to turn him in. I said, ‘You can’t do that!’ I stated that it would be treason to France if he turned the man in for money.”
“Odile was very courageous,” Annette said, turning to Marshall.
“The workman left,” Odile said. “And I hid the second American with the first. They were glad to see each other, and they let out a few loud sounds. I hushed them. Then they began to search for their cigarettes. I cautioned them—no, no, messieurs! It is dangerous!
“I did what I could with the flyer’s wounds. He had a little first-aid box with some medicine and patches. I told them, ‘I’m going to leave you here right now, because we cannot take you into a home in the day. The Germans will be looking. If their dogs sniff you out, do not resist. If you do, you will be killed. If you do not resist, the worst that can happen is that you will be a prisoner of war. Be silent. Remain hidden. Do not smoke.’ I instructed them carefully, repeating my cautions, especially because I was uncertain of my English.”
While the schoolchildren went home for lunch, Odile, her aunt, and the neighbor gathered supplies and contacted people who could help harbor two Americans. When the students returned, a boy was crying, telling her that his parents had seen the third parachutist hanging at the top of a pine tree, with a pool of blood at the bottom.
“I instructed this boy very carefully. ‘You must go home right now,’ I said. ‘Tell your parents to cut that tree down and rescue the American before he loses any more blood.’ So this child did just that. His parents cut down the tree, but they declared him to the authorities because he needed hospitalization. If they had cut the tree earlier, he might have survived. His arm was torn almost off. I went to their house immediately, but by then it was clear he was dying from the loss of his blood. His last word, I will never forget, was ‘coffee.’ ”
Marshall had been listening intently. The arm, the falling pine tree. He could easily imagine coffee being his own dying request. But landing in a tree, hanging there, his arm wrenched …
“I will never forget the Germans who came to take him to the hospital,” Odile was saying. “They came into the house, saw he was dead, and one lifted him by the arm and head, the other the feet. They swung him through the house as if he were a heavy sack of potatoes, and they threw him onto their vehicle, on top of some green canvas bundles. He landed facing the sky, limbs spread, his eyes still open. They drove away without a word. They would salute a portrait of a stranger long dead but treat a fresh body like this! I was trembling with furor and fear. I knew we had a difficult job to undertake.”
“Were the other two all right?” Marshall asked.
“In the night I went to get them. They were still in the bush, and to my relief I did not smell cigarettes. They had not smoked. I stowed them in a barn, and the next night I found a room for them with a factory worker. Several people helped me to move them. They spent nights in different homes. One night they were in our kitchen! The German officer went down the corridor, as usual, and we heard him salute the portrait. The Americans were crouched behind the flour barrel in