by Alan Gratz
Sure we will, James thought. He had a bad feeling about all of this.
“Once you’re down, head toward the objective as fast as you can,” the captain told them. “It’ll be dark, so fight the enemy at close quarters with knives and pistols and save the rifles for daylight, when you can see who you’re shooting at. Take no prisoners. They’ll just slow you down.”
Through the open hatch in the floor of the plane, James saw that the fog was gone. It had been replaced by white-and-red flak and tracer fire that crisscrossed in the black night sky. They would be lucky if any of them hit the ground alive.
What the hell am I doing here? James wondered yet again. He turned to look at Sam.
“You volunteered for this,” Sam reminded him again.
Click! The red light changed to green. But the airplane hadn’t slowed down. James frowned. The airplane always slowed down before they jumped in practice.
“Go! Go! Go!” the captain yelled.
James shuffled along in line with the others, cradling his leg pack and the bag with his Bren machine gun in it. There were three men in front of him, then two, then one, and then it was his turn, and James got down on the floor, dangled his legs over the side, and dropped out into nothing.
James dropped.
He let go of the bags he held—both were tied to him—and pulled his legs up, knees together. “Knees in the breeze,” as their jump instructors called it. He fell for what seemed like an eternity. Shouldn’t his chute have opened already? He panicked, worrying suddenly that he’d forgotten to attach his static line inside the plane. Where was the manual release? Was he going to have to pull it? Then suddenly the cable connecting him to the plane went taut and—
WHOOMP.
James’s chute opened, jolting him hard. The rope tying the heavy bag with the PIAT and the anti-tank rounds to his leg tightened and yanked him in the other direction, and James screamed in pain. The parachute pulled one way and the bag pulled the other, each of them trying to pull James apart. He stretched his arms down, trying to reach the rope on his ankle. White-hot stars exploded in his eyes. If he could just pull up the bag. Untie it. Cut it. Something. But he couldn’t reach it. The rough strands of the rope cut into his skin. James’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he felt himself losing consciousness. No. No. It was going to pull his foot off! It was going to cut right through his ankle and—
Snap!
The rope broke before his ankle did, and the heavy bag tumbled away into the darkness. Gone were the PIAT and the anti-tank rounds, but James didn’t care. All that mattered was the sweet relief of freedom. His ankle still throbbed where the rope had cut into him, but he was still conscious and in one piece.
James’s arms and legs shook, and his breath came hard and fast, but his parachute seemed to be working. Tracer fire streaked all around him, blotted out here and there by the black silhouettes of dozens more parachutes. Suddenly—POOM!—one of the dark shapes dangling from a parachute exploded, and James gasped. He struggled in his harness, trying to back away, but there was nowhere to go. What could the Germans be firing at them that would make a man explode like that? As the shock wore off, he realized there was no mystery—a German machine gun had hit something explosive the man was carrying. A Gammon bomb maybe. James watched in horror as the flames burned through the parachute’s cords and the body plunged to the earth.
Oh, God, thought James suddenly, was that Sam? But no—Sam hadn’t been carrying a Gammon bomb or anything else that would explode like that if it were hit. James let out a heavy breath. But where was his friend? Was he all right?
Red-hot bullets screamed through the air around James, and he cursed and spun, trying uselessly to dodge them. The tracer fire came in high, missing him entirely, but he felt it rip at his parachute, filling it with holes and snapping some of the cords. The holes made him fall faster, and he twisted and turned, trying to see where he was coming down. He watched as another paratrooper hit the ground with a splash and disappeared. A splash? Was he coming down over a lake? There weren’t any lakes on the map!
James pulled on his chute, steering away from the water as best he could. He fell faster. Faster. James’s heart was in his throat. Where was he going to land? Everything was black. Was he coming down in a tree? A lake? A field full of land mines? Right on top of a German garrison?
The dark earth loomed up at James, and he closed his eyes and braced for impact.
James came down hard and fast, tumbling wildly. He bumped and rolled and cursed before thumping to a stop at the base of a tree, completely bundled up from head to toe in his parachute. He was dizzy. Sore. James’s leg burned and his left arm throbbed, and his heart pounded a drumbeat in his chest. He shook his head to try to clear the cobwebs and remembered what he had to do next:
Get free of the parachute. Make sure no one saw you coming down.
James wriggled and turned, trying to get at the buckles and latches that strapped him into his parachute harness, but he was hopelessly tangled. He was going to have to cut his way out. He twisted awkwardly and pulled out his knife.
He had just started to saw his way through the strings when he heard a rustling sound nearby. He froze. Was it German soldiers? Were they combing the field for him already?
It didn’t do any good to sit here listening when he was all wrapped up like a present for them. At the risk of being heard, James hacked away at the parachute cords.
The rustling sound got closer. Closer.
Footsteps. James could make them out clearly now. The strings were cut, but he was still tangled in the chute and couldn’t see anything. He stabbed at the silk fabric and tore a long gash through multiple layers at once.
Dark sky! Tracer fire! Spotlights! He was through! James blinked and gasped for air. No German soldier stood over him, but the footsteps were getting closer. It sounded like there were two of them. A patrol!
James ripped a bigger opening for himself and struggled through. He needed his machine gun or his pistol, but one was still in its bag, and the other was taped to him so he wouldn’t drop it in the air. The pistol was closer to his hand, and he chopped away at the tape that bound it. The footsteps came up right behind the tree he was leaning against. The pistol was free! James twisted around the tree trunk, fell to his elbows, and aimed—
—right into the eyes of a cow chewing its cud.
James put his head down in the grass. Stupid as it was, that cow had almost for real killed him. It had just about given him a heart attack.
The cow lowed softly and moved away, its four feet—the two pairs of footsteps James had heard—rustling in the grass. The cow wasn’t a pair of German soldiers, and the tree James had leaned against wasn’t a tree either. He saw that now. It was “Rommel’s asparagus.”
Rommel’s asparagus were big poles with sharpened tops that the German field marshal Erwin Rommel had ordered planted in the ground, meant to gore Allied paratroopers and smash the Allied gliders that tried to land in the fields of Normandy. In aerial photos they looked like asparagus growing out of the ground, which was how they’d gotten their name. James shuddered, thinking about how he’d just missed landing on this one.
James took a deep breath and tried to calm down. His body ached, but he had to get going. Move toward his target. But where was he?
“James? That you?”
James jumped and nearly had another heart attack, but he recognized the voice at once—it was Sam! His friend emerged from the shadows, a dark silhouette against the glow from the anti-aircraft guns. James and Sam hugged each other. James had never been so glad to see anyone in his whole life.
“Did you come down okay?” James asked.
“Turned my ankle,” said Sam. “But I’ll be okay. Lost all my heavy gear though.”
“Yeah, me too,” James whispered. “Any idea where we are? I thought I saw another jumper hit a lake.”
“It’s not lakes. The Germans flooded the fields.”
James cursed. “What a
m I doing here?” He held up a finger at Sam. “Don’t say it.”
Sam shrugged.
James collected his things. “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s see if we can find somebody else and figure out where we are.”
They didn’t see any more parachutes or jumpers. At the edge of the field though, they found a sleepy two-story farmhouse. The lights were off and no one moved inside—it was after midnight, after all.
“I don’t remember this place from the aerial photographs they showed us,” Sam whispered.
“Yeah,” James said. “We’re supposed to be protecting the 9th Battalion’s flank, but where are they? And how are we supposed to know where we are?”
“I suppose we could just go knock on their door and ask.”
James looked at Sam. “Are you serious? What if there are Germans in there?”
Sam shrugged. “Then we shoot them.” He held up his machine gun. “That is kinda what we came for. You got any better ideas?”
James didn’t, so they walked over to the farmhouse and knocked on the front door.
James shared a nervous look with Sam as they waited at the front door of the farmhouse. A light came on upstairs, and James gripped the trigger of his Bren gun.
An upstairs window slid up, and a round-faced boy with brown hair and pale skin stuck his head out.
“Um, hello, we’re—” James began, but the boy closed the window as quickly as he had opened it and disappeared.
James turned to Sam. “Do you think he’s coming down?”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe we should knock again.”
They waited for what seemed like an eternity. James was just about to knock again when the door opened and the boy was there, joined by a blinking old woman James took to be the boy’s grandmother. The boy had a wide smile and dark eyes, and he hopped from foot to foot excitedly. His grandmother was much more sedate. She had wrinkled white skin and gray hair. They both wore threadbare nightgowns that were coming apart at the seams.
“Um, hello,” James said. “We’re Canadians. We’re here for the invasion.”
The boy turned to his grandmother and spoke, delivering a stream of excited French that James didn’t understand. He sagged. Of course these people speak French, he thought. We’re in France! How were James and Sam ever going to ask them anything?
James desperately tried to remember some of his high school French.
“Bonjour … je … m’appelle—” James began.
Sam put a hand up to cut him off and spoke to the boy and the old woman in perfect French. The old woman’s face lit up, and the boy answered back animatedly.
James blinked. “You speak French?” he asked Sam.
“Of course I speak French,” Sam said. “I’m from Quebec.”
The old woman said something in French and tried to pull Sam inside.
“What are they saying?” James asked.
“She wants us to come in and have tea,” Sam said. “The boy is excited for the invasion and is asking lots of questions about our gear.”
Sam politely turned down the woman’s invitation and gave the boy his flashlight.
The boy and the old woman spoke back and forth with Sam, who translated for James.
“Henri says they have been expecting the invasion for some time now.”
“Henri?” James said.
“That’s his name. This is Henri Shatto,” Sam said, “and his grandmother is Madam de Compiegne. Henri’s grandfather is … at work. He’s some kind of train station manager. Henri’s mother is in the French Resistance, which is why he lives with his grandparents.”
“Okay, we don’t need their whole life story,” said James.
Sam said something in French that was clearly about James, and the old woman laughed.
“What are you telling them? What are you saying? Never mind. Ask them where the Germans are. Où es Alamon?” James tried.
The boy frowned, and Sam cleaned up the question in French for him.
“Ah!” Henri said, brightening. He pointed to the east.
“The Germans are that way?” James asked, excited to have finally learned something.
Henri nodded and pointed to the south.
“And that way?” James asked.
Henri nodded, said something else, and pointed west.
“And … that way,” Sam translated.
Henri nodded, said the same thing again, and pointed north.
“And that way,” Sam said again sadly.
The boy and his grandmother smiled and nodded.
James and Sam glanced at each other. They were surrounded by Germans.
“The Merville Battery,” James said. “Ask them where that is.”
That question caused much back-and-forth between Henri and his grandmother.
“It … it sounds like it’s a long way off from here,” Sam said. “About eleven kilometers to the north.”
“Eleven kilometers?” James said. He did the quick math in his head. “They dropped us seven miles from where we’re supposed to be! It’ll take us hours to get there—if we don’t run into any Germans!”
James and Sam weren’t jogging, but they weren’t walking either. They found a pace somewhere in between. They had a lot of ground to cover, and they were already late to the party, but they were both wary of running into German soldiers on the way. They had to stay on their guard.
“Henri told me his father was taken away by the Nazis,” Sam whispered. “To work as slave labor in Germany. His mother ran away before they could do the same to her.”
“You got all that in the five minutes we talked to them?” James whispered back.
“The de Compiegne-Shattos are very nice people caught in a very difficult situation,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” said James.
They trotted in silence for a few more yards before James said, “I know why I’m here, Sam—”
“You volunteered.”
“Yeah, but you did too. Why? Why are you here?”
“I told you on the plane.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“James, I’m Cree,” Sam said. “I can’t even vote in Canada. Not if I want to keep my tribal status. In the army I get to still be Cree and have respect. The question you need to answer is, why are you really here?”
James sighed. “Because I’m an idiot.”
A human whistle cut through their conversation, and both soldiers instinctively dropped face-first to the ground, their Bren guns thrust out in front of them. James held his breath and opened his senses, trying to see and hear as far as he could in the night. Sam was just as silent beside him. James’s heart thundered in his chest.
Someone in the darkness whispered a Canadian code word, and James relaxed. Sam gave the coded reply, and three shadows rose from hiding a few yards away. They were all privates from the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. Two of them were white, and one of them was black. That was something new—the Canadian army had been segregated in the last war, but it wasn’t now. James had seen a number of black soldiers at basic training in England.
The two groups briefly introduced themselves. One of the new guys was from British Columbia, and the other two were from back east—Ottawa and Hamilton. The black soldier’s uniform was drenched, like he’d landed in one of the flooded fields, and one of the white soldiers had his right arm wrapped up with a bandage. The other white soldier had lots of little cuts all over his face and hands, like his parachute had dragged him kicking and screaming through one of the hedgerows that lined the fields and roads of Normandy.
Two of them were privates from B Company, and one was a private from C Company. James and Sam were from A Company. Only the C Company soldier was in the right drop zone, and all of them were well away from where they needed to be. All their missions were to the north, so they decided to stay together until they could each rejoin their companies.
They had just set off when James heard a sound unlike any other he’d
ever heard in real life before. It was like the sound a falling piano made in a cartoon, and it was getting closer, and closer, and—
P-POOM!
A bomb exploded just a few dozen yards away, knocking them all down and showering them with rocks and dirt.
P-POOM! P-POOM! P-POOM-P-POOM!
The bombs fell like rain, and kept falling. The soldiers scrambled for cover, but there wasn’t much of anywhere to hide. James and Sam dragged themselves to the base of one of the hedgerows. Bombs pounded the field all around them. James felt the vibration of each blast in the pit of his stomach and the bottom of his teeth.
“The Krauts found us!” James screamed.
Sam shook his head and pointed at the sky, where the familiar shadows of British Lancaster bombers flew overhead. James watched in horror as they dropped their entire payloads of bombs right on top of them. He couldn’t believe it. Their own allies were dropping bombs on them! They were supposed to be hitting German strongholds the ground troops weren’t attacking. This was a registered paratrooper drop zone!
“They must have gone off course in all the clouds,” Sam said.
“Or they chickened out and they’re dropping their bombs early so they can get out of here!” James yelled back.
P-POOM-P-POOM-P-POOM-P-POOM!
The bombing went on for more minutes than James could count, and then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The heavy pounding stopped, but the explosions still rang in his ears.
“Our own planes!” the white soldier from British Columbia yelled. “Our own damn planes were trying to kill us!”
“First they drop us in the wrong place, then they bomb us!” James howled.
The white soldier from C Company still lay on the ground, and at first they worried he was dead. But he wasn’t injured at all. He was just crying, and he wouldn’t get up for a long time afterward. They were all rattled by the bombing. The black soldier walked aimlessly around the cratered clearing just to do something with his shaking body.
“What are we doing here, Sam?” James asked again. “Seriously, what?”
