Taken aback, Jeremy only stared. Suddenly feeling overwhelming fatigue, he nodded.
“I don’t mean to be unfriendly,” Jacques added. “It is enough for me to know that Nicolas brought you here. I had to stop him from telling me more about you.” He smiled tiredly as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I know you carry a message for us to England. It’s an important one.” He gestured through a door. “You must be starved. Come into the kitchen. I still have plenty of food. Then you must rest.”
Jeremy slept long and hard, occasionally brought to semi-consciousness by far-off explosions or the rat-tat-tat of overhead machine gun fire as German fighters strafed the town. When he finally woke up fully, the sun was high in the sky, and he learned that he had slept through a full day and night.
Nicolas and Jacques were sitting at the kitchen table when he entered. Strong fresh coffee spread its welcoming aroma. Nevertheless, both men looked grim.
“We’ve been catching up,” Nicolas said, while Jacques crossed the kitchen for coffee. He also brought buttered bread with marmalade back to the table.
“None of the news is good,” Nicolas continued. He cupped his hands over his face and blew out through his fingers. “I’ve been in touch with my family. I don’t have much detail, but my Uncle Ferrand and the girls have fled their house.”
Looking up and reading Jeremy’s concern, he added quickly, “Everyone is safe, but my mother and father had to vacate our dairy, and my cousins left the farm where we spent the first night. The Germans are overrunning the north and setting up checkpoints everywhere. You and I got out just in time.”
A sense of profound dismay caused Jeremy to reel. “I’m so sorry,” he said, dropping his head. “This was my fault.”
“No, no!” Nicolas jumped to his feet and grasped Jeremy’s shoulders. “Uncle Ferrand began organizing to resist as soon as the Germans crossed the Maginot Line. My father joined him immediately, and so did I. He intended to send the girls to exactly the place where they are going now. The schedule was moved up for reasons I don’t know, but you are not the cause of all this chaos and sadness. You are our hope of generating an early response and making sure that your countrymen know that we are ready, willing, and able to carry the fight on our home ground. With their help, we will beat this Nazi monstrosity.”
Seeing that he felt no better, Jacques, who had watched and listened silently to the exchange, thrust a steaming mug into Jeremy’s hand. “Drink this,” he said, “you’ll feel better.” He shoved the bread with marmalade across the table. “You must eat too. You’ll need your strength.”
Jeremy raised the coffee to his lips and took a swallow. The aroma brought with it the feel of warm places and friendly faces, a stark contrast to the current reality. He set it down and nibbled at the bread but could not yet bring himself to take a full bite.
“What’s the plan?” he asked. “How do I get across the Channel.”
Jacques sighed. “I can’t tell you much. As you’ve seen, a lot of soldiers hope to cross, and boats have come and taken them away by the thousands. That’s been going on at Brest, Le Havre, La Pallice, Cherbourg, and other ports along the Atlantic coast, but unfortunately, tens of thousands are still here. They’re angry, anxious, they feel abandoned, and they are losing their sense of good order and civility.
“They are particularly incensed that they did their duties, fought in the rearguard so that the British and French armies could escape, only to be left on their own while the German army closes in on them. Meanwhile, they’re attacked from the air with only their small arms for defense since they were ordered to destroy and abandon millions of pounds worth of heavy guns and other equipment. Those strafing runs kill hundreds of civilians too.”
Jeremy closed his eyes and shook his head. “So again, I ask. What’s the plan? What will put me on the front of any of those boats? And why should I be at the front of the line? Some of these soldiers have braved the elements and attacks for days. For that matter, why can’t any of them carry your message?”
Jacques and Nicolas looked at each other, startled, as if not having considered the thought. For a few minutes, no one spoke, each silent with his own thoughts.
Nicolas broke the quiet. “You make a good point, Jeremy, but let’s be realistic about what you’ve done. You evaded capture against all odds, you broke out on your own so as not to endanger your helpers, you bluffed through German checkpoints, and you walked many kilometers with French refugees to get here. I think a better question is: who deserves to be at the front of the line more than you?”
When Jeremy started to protest, Nicolas held up a hand. “Our message sounds simple, but who should carry it? You might be unique in that you made it to the beach at Dunkirk, lived with the people building up the resistance, and are emotionally involved.” Momentarily, his eyes twinkled. “And that’s without even considering Amélie.”
Jeremy smiled involuntarily and then shrugged off the comment.
“Seriously,” Nicolas persisted. “You must tell them that our government seems to have given up the fight, but our people have not. As I told you before, you’re not the only one carrying our plea for help. We’re hoping one of you will get through and convince your Mr. Churchill not to give up on us. I don’t know the others or anything about them or where they are. I know you. My mission, directed by our fledgling French resistance, is to get you on a boat to England. Please don’t let me fail.”
Jeremy took another swallow of coffee while staring straight ahead. “All right,” he said after a time, “how do we proceed?”
Late in
