Because they are nothing more than slaves, Margarete thought. They might as well be Negroes working on the southern plantations in America that she’d read about. Since seeing the death train and the dead Jews, Margarete had become more attuned to what was happening around her. Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich had more than a few warts, she’d concluded, and Himmler was doing little to change matters. When she’d mentioned it to her mother, Magda had simply told her to be still. Hans and Bertha were devout Nazis and still mourned Hitler’s death. According to them, he was the greatest man in Germany’s history.
Everyone glanced up as a dozen American fighters flew low overhead. They were so low they could see the outline of the pilots’ heads in their cockpits.
“The arrogant yanks are doing that to annoy us,” Bertha sniffed.
“I think they are looking for trains to attack,” Margarete said, again thankful that they’d come by the automobile that was now locked away in a small barn.
Bertha agreed. “As long as we don’t do anything to annoy them, they will leave us alone. Someday soon we will launch our super weapons at them and then they will learn humility.”
Germany was a very large country and there were still whole sections where the war had scarcely touched them. Most of the major cities had been savagely bombed, but not little farms or villages like theirs south of Hachenburg. The war, however, was far from abstract. The enemy planes flying overhead prevented that, as did the feeling of dread when the mail came for those families with loved ones in the military. Far too many announcements had arrived saying that young Johan or Fritz had been killed, wounded, or was missing in such places as North Africa, Italy, Russia, and now in France. The war was an omnipresent dark and brooding background.
That evening, Magda showed Margarete a piece of paper that had just arrived by mail. Magda was clearly unhappy.
“We have been drafted,” she said.
Margarete at first thought it was a joke. “Where?” she laughed. “Into the Luftwaffe? I’ve always wanted to be a pilot.”
“No, you silly child, into one of the labor battalions that are being organized to develop defenses along the Rhine. All eligible German civilians between fourteen and sixty, male and female, are to participate, according to Himmler and Speer. Since we are not the farm’s owners or laborers, we are eligible. We will be trucked to the appropriate areas on Friday mornings and be returned on Saturday night so we can spend the Sabbath either praying for Germany’s success or salving our sore muscles.”
Bertha huffed. “You’d think that having a husband as a high-ranking officer in the OKW would be enough to exempt you.”
Magda declined to tell her sister that Ernst wasn’t all that high ranking and that he most likely wouldn’t permit special favors even if he had the power Bertha thought he had. She did wonder if the policeman who’d scolded her for protesting the deaths of the Jews had found out who she was and had been behind the conscription notice. No matter. She would serve the Reich.
Margarete understood Aunt Bertha’s dismay and shared it, but only to a point. Working to defend Germany would be an adventure and might help erase the lingering memory of those dead and rotting Jews. She stepped outside, away from bickering adults, and into a clear refreshing night filled with stars. She stiffened. Victor was slouching against a fence and staring at her. His hand reached down and briefly touched his crotch. She gasped and he walked away. She thought about telling Bertha, but what had she actually seen? Perhaps it was nothing more than a middle-aged man scratching himself.
Besides, she told herself, the farm needed men like Victor to work it. She would ignore the vulgar creature.
CHAPTER 8
Looking down, Morgan thought the Seine resembled a twisting winding blue-gray ribbon. It began in the Alps, flowed to Paris, and from there north past Rouen and on to Le Havre, where it entered the English Channel. Even from a distance, the gouges in the earth on the eastern side betrayed the location of enemy positions.
“They just don’t give a shit if we see them or not,” Jeb Carter said. At Jack’s suggestion, several other officers had begun riding as copilot with him. It gave them an opportunity to see what he and his little plane could see and do and, equally important, not see and do. Several officers had found the Piper’s capabilities and limitations to be real eye openers. Snyder, his normal copilot didn’t mind at all staying on the ground where it was safer.
“You gonna get closer, Jack?”
“Nope. Just ’cause I look crazy doesn’t mean I am. We already know that a ton of antitank and antiaircraft guns are dug in there, so there’s no reason to push our luck just to prove it.”
To emphasize the statement, a few black puffs of flak erupted to their front. Jack turned the Piper to the north. They would turn back to base in a moment. “Warning shot,” he said. “They’re saying don’t piss us off by getting nosy and we won’t shoot at you either.”
“Sounds fair,” said Carter. He pulled a pack of letters from his jacket pocket, glanced at them and put them back.
“Your girlfriend?”
“She’s my cousin, and more important, a really good friend. So don’t give me any crappy comments about being surprised that I have relatives who can write. Literacy is not all that unusual in Georgia.”
“It ever crossed my mind. Is she married?”
“Naw, she’s single, cute, and actually she’s from up north in Pennsylvania. I’ve forgiven her for being a northerner. She’s here in France working on some Red Cross project trying to reunite refugee families.”
“Christ, that’ll keep her busy for centuries. Did you say she was cute and here in France?”
“Yes to both, although she’s always putting herself down about her looks. Doesn’t think she’s as pretty as she is. We’ve been friends since we were little kids.”
Jeb recalled a time when he’d thought she was both beautiful and desirable. After they’d both had a few illegal drinks, he’d managed to get her blouse and bra off before she’d stopped him and he’d never done anything like that to her again. Nor had they ever spoken of it, although he had a hard time forgetting just how lovely her breasts were. She had been seventeen and he’d just turned twenty.
Jeb pulled a couple of pictures from the envelopes and handed them to Jack. A young lady smiled at the camera. She was sitting on the ground and wearing shorts. Her legs were tucked underneath her and she had a bottle of Coke in her hand. Other people were in the area. It looked like a family picnic. A second picture showed the same woman playing tennis. Jack thought she had a great figure and outstanding legs. She was laughing and he wanted to laugh with her.
“Perhaps you can introduce me? Maybe you can arrange a blind date?”
Jeb Carter roared with laughter. “Sure thing, Jack-off. There’s nothing easier than arranging a blind date in the middle of a continent at war. I’ll call Ike and have him set up dinner and a movie. Maybe you can get Ike’s girlfriend as a chauffeur.”
Actually Jack thought the idea sounded great. But when did people start calling him Jack-off? Wasn’t Bomber Morgan bad enough? Damn Carter. And who the hell was Ike’s girlfriend?
Monique Fleury was a local Rennes woman in her mid-thirties. Plump, wide-eyed and still pretty, and, most important, she spoke fluent English. She’d found work with the Red Cross where her ability to translate the patois of the area into something Jessica could understand was helpful beyond words.
Monique said her husband was somewhere under German control. That is, if he was alive at all. When he’d first been taken prisoner in 1940, she said she’d gotten a terse postcard allegedly signed by him saying that all was well. The prearranged signal that all was not well was contained in the fact that he’d misspelled his own first name. He was an officer, which meant that the Nazis would be even more loath to release him as they had done
