The Gathering Storm

by Bodie Thoene

“Must be mine, Sergeant,” Howard teased.

  Peering closer at the ground with his remaining eye, Walker adjusted his facemask. Probing in the dirt with his fingers, he said, “I don’t think so. The former owner’s still present.” Brushing aside clods of dirt, Walker exposed a human skull.

  “Hold up, then,” Judah ordered.

  Early records of the burials at Tyne Cott were confused, incomplete, and conflicting. Judah’s study revealed that the gravesites of more than eighty soldiers known to be interred within the confines of the memorial had been lost over time.

  Apparently one of them had just been rediscovered.

  “All right,” Judah ordered. “Sergeant Walker, you’re in charge of locating as much of this soldier as you can. The rest of us will go to work on our other tasks. We rebury this man tomorrow morning and then get back to work on the trees.”

  Walker saluted. “Yes, sir,” he said, passing the cigarette case to Judah, who tucked it into his shirtfront. “Initials D.M. May help identify him.” The sergeant pointed behind Judah and toward the gate. “Now, what about them?”

  A group of civilians, apparently a family group of mother, father, grandmother, and four children, were gathered there, hesitating beside the entry. “I’ll see to them. The rest of you go about your duties.”

  “How can I help you?” Judah addressed the gray-haired man who stood two paces in front of the others.

  The man shook his head. His looks went everywhere except at Judah’s face. “No English,” he said. “Parlez-vous francais?”

  “Oui,” Judah responded, switching to French. “What do you require?”

  One of the children stared openly at Judah’s painted nose and motionless eyebrows and forehead.

  Another buried her face into her mother’s skirts in apparent terror.

  “May we rest here? My children are tired.”

  Judah agreed readily. “You don’t need my permission, but of course. Do you need water? Food? How comes it that you are on the road this way?”

  “We are from Namur,” the man replied, naming a Belgian town to the east, on the Meuse river. “The Boche…they are coming. We have fled.”

  “The Germans have overrun Namur?”

  “No, Monsieur, but we heard they are not far. We heard their cannons three mornings since.”

  “And where are you going?”

  The father gave a Gallic shrug. “Who can say? Away from the Boches. To the sea, perhaps?”

  Judah gestured toward the aged grandmere and the small children. “So far? On foot?”

  “We had an automobile, but it ran out of fuel,” the father explained.

  “But surely this is far enough,” Judah countered. “Why not go into the village here and find lodging?”

  The patriarch of the refugee family pointed toward a trickle of civilians trudging along the highway, traveling the opposite direction to the flow of British trucks. “The Nazis are swallowing great chunks of France and Belgium without even chewing.” Leaning closer to Judah, he whispered, “My mother-in-law, my wife—they are Jewish.”

  “Ah,” Judah returned, comprehending at last. “Then at least let us feed you before you set out again.”

  10

  It was nearly midnight. The other three members of the Tin Noses Brigade were asleep in the cottage, but Judah could not rest. As often happened on such occasions, he wandered up the hill toward the Cross of Sacrifice and seated himself between its outstretched arms.

  While many would have been uncomfortable to be alone, surrounded by thousands of graves, in the middle of a dark night, such apprehension never bothered Judah. In the first place, all of those buried here were fallen comrades, men to fight alongside and, if necessary, to die with, but never to be afraid of.

  Even more important than that consideration was Judah’s belief that the spiritual portion of his vanished friends was much more real than their bones. Their frames were real enough, waiting to be rejoined bone-to-bone and sinew-to-sinew, as the prophet Ezekiel wrote. But their present reality was as the crowd of witnesses described in Hebrews: those whose races were already completed; who were in the grandstands cheering for Judah’s success.

  The tiny flock of which he was the shepherd had dwindled to the point of almost disappearing. Once they were all gone, would he have the strength to find a new set of charges? Another band who would look to him for leadership?

  Judah was tired with a soul-deep weariness. Frank, Mickey, Jim—the final few of the fractured bodies and tormented souls left in his charge from the last war—had nearly run their courses.

  And even now a new conflict was raging.

  Venus hovered just above the tree line in the west. A waxing gibbous moon bowed its head respectfully between the figures of the Virgin and the Lion of Judah.

  In the east the Snake-Handler rose—his uplifted heel even now poised to crush the scorpion’s head.

  “Would it could be true tonight,” Judah murmured aloud. “I hear the fear: old demons in new bodies, coming after Your people yet again.”

  He crossed himself and with the gesture tapped something inside his shirt. It was the cigarette case that had rested there unremembered all day.

  The catch was stiff from a score of years buried in the dirt, but the latch worked and the lid still turned on its hinge. Pivoting so that the moonlight fell across his shoulder, Judah raised the case to the glow. A beam falling directly on the upright surface was redirected precisely, as if from a mirror, into the lower portion.

  The silver box did not contain ancient cigarettes. Instead Judah saw a photograph and a lock of pale hair bound with a satin ribbon. The photo was of a mother and baby. Both had faces framed with light-colored curls…just like the keepsake.

  Judah turned the picture over. By squinting he could just make out the sentiment inscribed there: Love you and miss you, Dan, it read. Come home soon.

  Twenty years waiting for a familiar step and an embrace that would never come. How long had this young wife grieved before moving on with her life? Did the little girl even remember her father? Had she been raised to know anything of him, or did she not ever think of him at all?

  They should know he had this with him, next to his heart, Judah reflected. The child would be what—twenty-five—now? No more than that, surely. It’s a certainty his last thought was of them. If there’s any way to locate her, I’ll tell her so.

  Judah sat and pondered what another round of war and shattered lives and vanished fathers would mean to the aching world. He thought and thought until the Great Bear completed a quarter turn around the Pole Star, then took himself down the hill to the cottage and his bed.

  One day after the first refugees passed Tyne Cott heading west, the trickle of fleeing civilians became a steady stream.

  Three days later it was a torrent.

  The road was clogged with as many people seeking to escape the Nazi onslaught as there were soldiers moving up to oppose it. Lorries packed with infantrymen or towing anti-tank weapons or loaded with ammunition and spare parts were mired in humanity as thoroughly as if the roads were impassably muddy instead of perfectly dry.

  Gesturing officers and cursing sergeants tried to clear the civilians out of the way but failed. The combination of language barriers and human obstinacy prevented any of their efforts from having effect. The British army was not prepared to run over or shoot down the civilians they were supposed to be protecting from the advancing Germans, so traffic in both directions slowed to a crawl.

  Judah stood beside Lieutenant Howard at the gate. “Their strategy is working,” Judah observed.

  “Sir?”

  “The German plan. By bombing and shelling towns in the line of their advance they know they can jam the roads.” Judah waved toward the melee of creaking handcarts, screeching drovers flogging their horses, and impotently wailing ambulance sirens. “The Allies might have counterattacked at Sedan, but the necessary forces were still stuck in Vervins, forty miles away. If the high command
planned a counterattack for Vervins, the needed troops were no nearer than Cambrai, still—”

  “Forty miles away,” Howard completed the thought. “So you think it’s hopeless?”

  “I never said that,” Judah corrected. “But it seems clear to me the Germans are driving toward the Channel. If they succeed, they will cut the Allies in two, trapping our boys and the Belgians against the sea.”

  Reflexively Howard adjusted the tin mask over his face.

  He always did that when he was worried, Judah recognized. To divert Howard’s attention the captain said, “It always surprises me to see what families decide they must save from their homes. When they had to leave on five minutes’ notice, how did they choose what to rescue?”

  Howard’s painted features could not flex into a grin, but Judah heard the smile in his reply. “I know what you mean, sir! Yesterday I saw the headboard of a bed so big it took three men to lug it. Not even something as practical as a mattress. Just the headboard.”

  Judah laughed. “Don’t try to challenge them on it,” he warned. “Family heirlooms are not to be mocked.”

  “No, sir,” Howard agreed. “Mocking not permitted. Still…”

  “Yes?”

  “I also saw a man pushing a baby carriage while his wife carried the baby.”

  “And?”

  Howard shrugged. “The pram was loaded with phonograph records. Family heirlooms again?”

  Private Kadle approached the gate. “I was over on the east side. One of the civilians got up his nerve to ask me a question. Wanted to know if they could camp here tonight.”

  “Camp? Inside the cemetery?”

  “Yes, sir. If we want to keep them out, we’ll have to stay up all night, one of us at each gate. I figure our looks will manage it for us, but otherwise we’ll be overrun.”

  Judah thought for a moment. “In the dark there are bound to be accidents on the road if it’s not cleared. Besides, we’re helping our boys at the front if we clear the way for replacements and supplies. All right, tell them they can come in. But we will show them where they can camp. Keep them orderly, yes?”

  “Orderly it is, sir.”

  That night the rows of headstones were illuminated by campfires. Family groups huddled near the flames more from apprehension at the surroundings than from any need for warmth. At least they were free from the dangers of the highway.

  The platform supporting the Cross of Sacrifice was the highest point of land anywhere in the vicinity of Tyne Cott. From its summit the next morning Judah surveyed the villages of Passendale and Ypres and the nearby roads. Primarily his attention was focused on the southeast. It was difficult to be certain, but it appeared pillars of black smoke propped up the pale blue sky in that direction.

  “How far do you make that, Lieutenant?” Judah said to Howard.

  “Fifteen miles,” the officer ventured. “Perhaps twenty. Toward Menin, I make it. The Germans could not be that close already, surely?”

  Judah reviewed a mental map of the area. “If they were across the river Lys, we would have heard about it. But they could be close enough to be shelling towns on this side.”

  The civilians encamped among the graves stirred and rose, gathering their few belongings. Judah could not escape the vision of the dead coming to life as families emerged from cocoons of blankets and improvised shelters. Though they had been grateful for the seeming shelter within the walls of Tyne Cott, the temporary guests now appeared eager to renew their flight.

  The flow of traffic along the highway was still at a crawling pace. It occurred to Judah that fewer British and Belgian troops were moving up. For the first time since the crisis began, the majority of those on the road were heading away from the fighting. The refugee horde was supplemented by knots of soldiers fleeing as well.

  Weary uniformed men, some without weapons, trudged past the cemetery, away from the battle line.

  Looking for more current news, Judah summoned a young man whose insignia announced he was part of the field artillery. “Corporal,” Judah called, “a word, please. Are you wounded?”

  A negative gesture.

  “How did you get separated from your unit?” Judah passed the man a bottle of water, from which he drank gratefully.

  “How did I? What day’s today?” the non-comm replied, glancing over his shoulder.

  When Judah answered the question, the soldier replied, “Is that all? I thought I’d been walking for weeks! We were on the Meuse when the Germans broke through. Our captain ordered us out; said we were about to be surrounded.” After taking a mouthful of water he continued, “We fell back across another river and set up. Fired a few shells. Never saw a target; never knew what we were shooting at. Loaded up; moved again. Bombed from the air. The captain got killed in that one. Crossed another river…the Scheldt? I don’t know.”

  “Take your time.”

  “That night, they jumped us.” The artilleryman looked over first one shoulder and then the other. “Came from three sides at once. I ran. Been looking for my unit ever since. Still haven’t found anyone else I know. What’s that noise?” the corporal said abruptly, his head spinning around.

  A high-pitched buzz, like a mosquito’s warning, overcame the rumble of trucks and the ceaseless hum of human activity. A single small, fragile-seeming aircraft droned into view, climbing up from the south.

  “Where’s a rifle? Get me a rifle,” the corporal demanded, his head pivoting back and forth. His wild eyes roved frantically over the concrete platform and the cross and the sky. “Down there,” he said. “Can we get inside?”

  “Calm down,” Judah urged. “That’s a Storch, not a warplane.”

  Gunfire erupted from the direction of the road. Rifles popped and popped again as the German scout craft spiraled lazily overhead.

  “You don’t understand,” the artillery corporal shrieked, throwing himself behind the plinth on which the cross stood. “It’s when the spotter plane leaves!”

  Even as the young man spoke, the Storch made a dainty wing-over and drifted away toward the east with the seeming indifference and unconcern of a feather carried by the breeze.

  “He’s gone,” Judah observed. “You can get up now.”

  “No,” the corporal protested. “Now is when it’s most dangerous!”

  Judah could not comprehend the corporal’s ravings until he noticed a line of black dots swooping in out of the sun.

  “Stukas!” the artilleryman screamed, attempting to bury his face in the granite.

  The string of dive-bombers peeled from the sky in a looping, single-file turn, like swooping pelicans darting into a school of hapless fish. Lined up with the highway, the bombers fell toward earth, whistles screaming shrilly to compound the terror.

  As if invisible hands swept down the center of the highway, soldiers and civilians alike bolted for the ditches on either side. Their terrified leaps into hedges and furrows gave the appearance of lunatics deceived into believing the fields were made of water into which they could plunge.

  Lorries emptied themselves of people as if by magic. Trucks, no longer guided by human hands and with doors left akimbo like flapping ears, lumbered forward like circus elephants.

  Black crosses clearly visible, the gull-winged predators closed for the kill.

  So densely packed was the roadway it was impossible for the German aviators to miss hitting something. The first bomb exploded in a mass of civilians. The explosion was deafening. The ground shook and rattled beneath Judah’s feet. Bodies were tossed end-over-end into the air.

  “Get down!” he screamed, waving to the refugees still within Tyne Cott’s embrace. “Take cover!”

  The second bomber overshot the road, but not by much. Its explosives fell just inside the entry gate of the cemetery. Judah had only an instant to take in the image of families huddling beside headstones and war memorials before heeding his own advice and diving behind the sheltering cross.

  The third parcel of high-explosive ordnance mad
e a direct hit on a fuel truck. A massive fireball plunged skyward; hellish heat radiated up the slope. Judah felt the scorching on the back of his neck as it roared past.

  Unwittingly, the hit scored on the fuel proved the salvation of many. The flames, billowing cloud of oil, and the black smoke made the fourth bomber sheer off. He deposited his bomb load in the field beyond where the refugees cowered. Once again the ground shook, and windows were shattered in the cottages all around Tyne Cott.

  The fifth and final Stuka misjudged his release completely, overshooting the cemetery. He dropped his bomb on the reverse slope of the hillside, where it did not explode at all.

  When the reverberations ceased, the noise was replaced by a swelling chorus of cries and moans; of grief and pain.

  “They’re gone,” Judah observed to the corporal. “You can get up now.”

  “Not yet,” the soldier argued. “They’ll come back and strafe! You’ll see.”

  At last Judah understood the reason the corporal’s head had seemed to be on a swivel. Attacks from the air could come from any direction, at any time. He was terrified of being caught by surprise, out in the open…and with good reason.

  But this time, at least, the Stukas did not return. Whether they sought higher value targets elsewhere or merely wanted to spread panic over a wider area, they bounced out of sight over the horizon.

  Grimly Judah said, “Lots of people will need assistance. Come down and help as soon as you can.”

  All of the Tin Noses Brigade survived multiple aerial assaults unscathed.

  The atmosphere reeked of cordite and diesel smoke and burning rubber and blood. The peace of Tyne Cott had been shattered and remained fragmented. Those who did not moan, or cry with grief or pain, walked around mute, with haunted, staring eyes.

  The fresh bomb crater inside the main gate was proposed as a ready-made mass grave for the victims of the Stuka attack. “Them Huns is the most inventive barbarians,” Sergeant Walker noted bitterly. “Bomb a cemetery! Killin’ and buryin’ in the most orderly fashion possible. Next thing you know they’ll have a killin’ machine as makes their victims line up and ask for it.”