I placed the nun gently on the bedroll and sat on the floor beside the stretcher. She curled on her side, groaning, and when I placed my hand on her back, the spasming muscles felt as hard as stone. “Ask her if she is in constant pain or if it is in fits and starts.”
The abbess repeated my query in French, and the response was laced with tears. “She says the pain is sharp constantly, but there is also pressure that comes and goes rapidly.”
I rested my hand on her stomach and felt it go hard, then relax, and then hard in a constant wave. “She is in labor, but the pains are too fast.”
“In labor? But it is too early?”
We rocked backward as the engine leapt to life and into gear.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No,” I said, rolling up my shirtsleeves. “A sheep farmer.”
“Que Dieu nous aide,” she whispered.
“Tell her I am not going to hurt her. Just breathe and try not to push.”
Time was measured in the slow breaths I encouraged the nun to take, but all too soon I could see the feet. The color of those tiny appendages made my heart sink.
“Give me her wimple.” The fabric was pressed into my hand. “Push now, Angelique. You are almost finished, you are.”
Within a few pushes, I was able to guide the infant free from the young woman. The afterbirth came out with the baby.
It was a boy, and I wrapped him in the nun’s wimple, cleaning him with gentle strokes of the cloth. I did not slap his rump to make him cry. I knew it was no use.
He was small and thin, fully formed but undersized. Fragile and limp and blue. I swaddled him securely in his mother’s wimple. His head was heavy in my palm, and the damp tuft of dark hair on his head was as soft as down. My eyes burned, and my vision wavered.
“Let me see the baby. Why is he not crying? Please, let me see him.”
“It is a little girl, Aelwyd.” I took the silent, still infant from my mother. “A beautiful little girl.”
“I need to see her.” My wife’s voice broke, and the despair on her face said she knew before I even placed our child against her chest.
Her sobs tore my heart the rest of the way apart. “I failed you,” she wept. “I failed.”
I eased onto the bed beside her and brushed her hair back from her damp brow. “No, cariad aur. No. Never.”
She grabbed my arm as her face blanched white. “Something is wrong.” She gasped and clutched her stomach. “Esgod annwyl, it hurts.”
My mother met my gaze over Aelwyd’s bent knees. “You were right. There is another baby.”
Aelwyd shook her head frantically, and her face was filled with fear and sorrow as she looked up at me. “Hold me, Rhys. Please. Something is wrong.”
“Something is wrong.”
I blinked and was once more in the back of the ambulance.
The nun’s head lolled against Mother Clémence’s legs, and she did not respond to shaking or pats on her cheek. Her face was devoid of color.
We were climbing, rounding curves with enough speed that I swayed.
“Charlotte?” I raised my voice to a shout to be heard.
“Not yet!”
It seemed an eternity before the ambulance ground to a halt, and by then, Sister Angelique’s face was gray in tone. The bleeding had slowed, but I feared she had lost too much already.
I placed her still son on her chest and lifted her into my arms. Charlotte threw open the back door, and I leapt down. Her face flinched when she caught sight of the infant.
“Keep the children hidden.” I did not wait for a response but ran into the hospital. “A doctor!” I shouted. “I need a doctor!”
We were surrounded immediately, hands lifting the unconscious woman from my arms and placing her on a gurney. The abbess was right at my heels, and she spoke rapidly, her voice breaking. One of the nurses handed the infant to a passing orderly with a hushed word, and then they were gone, hurrying down a long hall with Mother Clémence clinging to the nun’s limp hand.
I let out a breath and rubbed my forehead before pinching the bridge of my nose. When I turned, the orderly was about to disappear down another hall, and I followed her. “Wait. Please.” I caught her arm and held out my hands. “Please. I will take the babe.”
She may not have understood my words, but she understood the gesture and tone, and she placed the small bundle in my arms.
“Je suis désolée.” She tucked the loose end of the wimple back into the swaddling.
My feet felt weighted as I exited the hospital. Charlotte had parked across the town square, and she lift a hand to catch my attention.
The morning light fell over the valley-ensconced town in gentle fingers of soft gold as the sun rose over the surrounding peaks. I crossed the cobbled square, a shadow slipping over me as I passed a battered but stalwart monument in the center. I felt that brush of cool darkness like a physical touch and shivered even as the sun fell once more across my back.
Charlotte sat in the driver’s seat, and she remained silent as I approached. I sat heavily on the floor of the cab beside her perch, my back to her. The breath I took was ragged, and it rattled in my chest.
“I could not bear to let him be thrown out like rubbish.” My voice sounded hollow to my own ears. I rubbed my face wearily with one hand and held the dead infant cradled to my chest with the other.
Charlotte rested a hand on my shoulder. “Then we will find a good place to bury him.”
__________
I buried the infant in the cemetery at the edge of Cluses. I chose a quiet far corner shaded by trees and used a shovel I took from the caretaker’s shed. Charlotte had placed the infant in a round wooden cheese box taken from the farmhouse in La Balme-les-Grottes and laid him gently in the ground.
There were family plots nearby, and mountain peaks looked over the spot. Beyond the leaning iron fence near him, a few alpine flowers stubbornly refused to yet give up their bloom.
When I shoveled the last mound of dirt over him and built a small cairn to mark where he rested, I was satisfied. It was a peaceful place. I took a deep breath and patted the mound of dirt softly before I stood and walked away.
20 July 1942
Dear Nhad,
Thousands have been rounded up by the French police and have disappeared.
They are simply gone. Men, women, and children.
I cannot sit idly by.
-Owain
xvi
The kilometers between Cluses and Sixt-fer-à-Cheval led us deeper into the forests and higher into the mountainous terrain. Small villages became sparser and further apart after we crossed a river, and the way became wilder, rougher.
The air was crisp and carried with it the scent of pine and spruce. The river flowed white beside the track we followed, and clouds slunk low over the peaks to curtain the climbing sun.
The river cleaved Sixt-fer-à-Cheval in two, and we stayed on the northern banks as we passed through. The roofs were tall and steeply sloped, and smoke curled above the chimneys.
“There is already a chill in the air.” Charlotte downshifted, glancing around the quiet village before turning her gaze to the veiled mountains above us. “It will only grow colder the higher we go.”
“How is your sewing?”
“Decent. And yours?”
“Passable. We will have to spare a day or two in order to gather provisions.” I eyed the narrow, rough track that continued along the river. “This road will likely end soon.”
We followed it as it traced the undulating curve of the river deeper into the valley. We passed a small stone shrine by the roadside and then the outlying homes on the western side of the village. We slowed to a crawl behind a wagon. The horse plodded at a steady pace, but the driver soon steered the mare off to the side. He eyed us as we passed, suspicion etched into the lines of his face.
The road became narrower and more rutted. A rickety wooden bridge spanned th
e river, and it groaned under the wheels of the ambulance.
We rounded a sharp curve, and Charlotte gasped, slowing the vehicle to a halt. We both leaned forward to peer through the windscreen at the vista before us.
“It is stunning. I have never seen anything so magnificent.”
The semicircular cliffs towered high above, forming an amphitheater above a rolling meadow. The clouds seemed to catch in the crags, and with the gleam of the sun hidden, the sheer limestone faces appeared blue, trimmed with verdant forest, seamed by the white waterfalls that cascaded from the enormous heights. I counted five spouts, but I imagined that in the spring there were numerous more from the snowmelt.
I removed Owain’s scrawled note from my pocket and read his words once more. “This is the horseshoe.”
The road ended at the far side of the meadow as the land rose into the foothills below the cliffs. At the edge of the trees sat a lodge of stone and timber. No smoke wafted over the chimney, and the windows were all tightly shuttered. Scatterings of outbuildings were closed up as well.
“Wait here with the children,” I said when Charlotte pulled the ambulance around the back of the building. Firewood was stacked under a lean-to, but all seemed quiet and deserted.
The small lodge was boarded up for winter. No one responded to my knocks. The door was easy enough to force open, but all remained still and silent within. I felt for a switch along the wall but found none so I pried the shutters from a window and swung the panes open. The light was pale and weak but enough to lessen the darkness of the shadowed interior.
The lodge was sparsely furnished with benches, chairs, and a table all roughly hewn. The stone fireplace in the center of the room was cold and swept clean. The stove was in the same condition.
The loft was just as clean and barren. No mattresses cushioned the bed frames, but at the foot of all four beds stood storage trunks. When I investigated, I found each held bedrolls, blankets, and a number of sweaters and trousers. The scent of cedar permeated the room as I looked through each trunk and dislodged the layering of shavings.
I retreated outside and met Charlotte at the back of the ambulance. “We can stay here while we make preparations for the trek. We will just have to be vigilant.”
She lifted her gaze to the soaring peaks. “Is it necessary, do you think? The journey will be risky, and they are so young. Perhaps we could find them homes…”
“Who can we trust? And how can we be certain the Allied advance will hold?”
She nodded. “I know.”
“You do not have to cross the mountain with me. I know this is not what brought you across France.”
She was silent for a long moment. “When I transported prisoners of war from the hospital back to the camps, some begged me the entire way not to return them. But I think the ones who did not beg were the ones who haunt me the most, the ones who just looked at me.” She took a deep breath. “I want to help you get the children to safety.” She gestured toward the towering mountains. “That just seems…impassable.”
It did. Once the children were inside and the ambulance hidden within the trees and disabled, Charlotte set about measuring each child in turn to alter the cloaks the abbess had bundled into a pack. I searched the shelves and found what I was looking for on the highest shelf: a topographical map.
I dragged the table under an open window for light and then unrolled the map and spread it across the surface. Otto nudged against my legs as he retreated under the table and settled in a sprawl with a heavy sigh.
I studied the map closely and found Sixt-fer-à-Cheval in the Haute-Savoie department at the end of the Giffre Valley. The horseshoe formation was close to skirting the border of Switzerland.
I felt a presence at my side and glanced down to find Hugo peering up at me. I tousled his hair and was rewarded with a beaming smile. He stood on his toes to look at the map alongside me for several moments before he lost interest. He dropped to his hands and knees and joined Otto under the table.
“The white horse. What is the French term?”
“Le cheval blanc.”
I leaned over the map and scanned the surrounding mountains. I found the mountain my son alluded to in his note straddling the border southeast of the horseshoe. An alpine lake was nestled to the northeast. As the crow flew, the mountain appeared to only be five kilometers or so away, but I knew in this terrain, distance was deceptive. It was marked at almost three thousand meters in elevation; where we sheltered now sat at only just over nine hundred fifty meters.
I rubbed the back of my neck and ran my fingertips over the surface of the map.
I turned to Charlotte. “Will you and the children be well here for a time?”
“I would think so.” She straightened from pinning a hem on a cloak that swallowed one of the younger girls. When she stood, she placed her hands on her hips and arched her back with a grimace. “If you are finished with the table, I will use it as a pedestal. That will be easier on my back and knees.”
“It is yours.” I rolled the map and placed it back on the shelf.
“Did you not have any luck?”
“I did. I found the mountain, and a lake is marked nearby within Switzerland. But I can find a way better on foot than studying paper.”
She smiled. “Of course.” Hugo scrambled from beneath the table and hurried to my side with Otto close at his heels. “If you take him with you, he may be a good judge of whether the way is feasible for the children.”
I held my hand out to him, and he grasped my fingers in a warm, two-handed grip. “We will be back…” I took in the boy’s short legs. “Before nightfall. Board the door behind me.”
Hugo set our pace. He was one of the three youngest, and I could see immediately that the girl a year or two younger than he would have to be carried. He was dogged, though, traipsing along at my side, releasing his grip on my hand to squat and inspect the stones in the dry creek bed we crossed. Otto nudged against him, snuffling the ground, investigating what intrigued the boy. The poodle’s movements upset the child’s balance, knocking him over, and Hugo fell on his side laughing. Seeing a game at hand, Otto rooted under him and licked his face.
I smiled at their antics before I turned and followed the creek bed with my gaze. On the slopes above us, it branched into four fingers and stretched toward the base of the sheer cliffs. I studied the creek bed’s ascent and then turned to boy and dog. Chuckling, I rubbed Otto’s ears before lifting Hugo and setting him on his feet. I adjusted my stride to accommodate his and headed south.
The rolling hills we roamed were densely forested, fragrant and cool with shadow. The next creek bed we came upon was wider, and a shallow stream of mountain runoff flowed through the center.
Otto sniffed the water and then lapped his fill. I crouched and dipped a hand in the water, feeling the icy current curl around my fingers. I made a shallow bowl of my hand, allowed water to pool in my palm, and then bent my head and drank. The water was bracing, and when Hugo moved to follow suit, he gasped.
“Il fait fraud!” He jerked his hand back and wiped it dry on his trousers.
I rested a hand on his head before I straightened. “Mae’n oer.”
He repeated the words, his pronunciation perfect on the first attempt. He beamed when I smiled at him.
We followed the creek bed south. Water would be an asset as we climbed in elevation, and if the waters had carved their path over the rock long enough, I hoped they had worn the way enough for us to climb.
That was not the case when we traced a confluence up to the base of a cliff. It was too steep to ascend.
I backtracked, boy and dog at my heels, and followed the creek deeper and higher into the hills. The canyon it led us through was cool and shadowed, and though the rocky walls were steep, they were not sheer.
We found the source of the creek when we reached the deepest point of the canyon. The water tumbled in a small cascade from an overhang above. The o
verhang guarded a narrow gorge that climbed sharply into the mountain’s heights. In the spring, a deluge would sweep through the precipitous gouge in the rock. But for now, as autumn settled over the land and winter swiftly approached, it was dry.
I turned from studying the chasm to find Hugo with his hand outstretched to catch the falling water in his palm. His face had taken on a ruddy tone, but though our pace was slow, he had trekked thus far with no mishaps. The way would be challenging, if he could manage it at all.
“Hugo, Otto. Come along, lads.”
They both followed me eagerly into the gorge. Otto darted ahead, nimble and agile on four paws.
The gorge was so narrow I could brace both palms on either side, and I warily eyed the walls above us. The danger of a rock slide here was great. Even the rocks underfoot were precariously situated.
“Easy now,” I said softly to both the poodle ahead of me and the boy behind me.
I placed one foot carefully in front of the other, judging the sureness of the next rock before I let it take my full weight. It was akin to climbing an unsteady, declivitous staircase. The steps of rock were uneven, some tall enough that I had to lift Hugo over the hurdle.
He was soon breathing heavily, and twin flags of color darkened his cheeks. My own breath was coming faster, and the air felt rationed the higher we climbed. I paused often to allow Hugo a chance to rest. The way grew steeper and more arduous.
Hugo climbed using his legs and arms, and when a rock shifted under him, he fell to his hands and knees. He grunted, the sound high and panicked, as he began to slide backward.
I lunged and caught him before he fell far. He clung to me as I climbed to a more stable spot.
Otto joined us, sniffing at Hugo’s damp cheeks when I placed him on a boulder and inspected the scrapes on his palms and knees. He would be fine, but I could tell he was growing tired and the fall had frightened him.
We were not quite halfway up the gorge, and I needed to see if we could cross the mountain taking this route. I did not care to lead nine young children so far only to find the way impassable and be forced to turn back.
Once More Unto the Breach Page 16
