The Girl in the Blue Beret - By Bobbie Ann Mason Page 0,1
It had its part.”
Several people were crossing the field, headed toward them. They had arrived in a gray van with the name of a hardware store on the side.
“Everyone from the village has heard of your visit,” said Lucien. “You are a hero.”
“Non. I did very little.” Marshall was ashamed.
Lucien introduced him to the group. They were all smiling at him and speaking rapidly. When Marshall could not follow some of their thickly accented French, Lucien explained that everyone there remembered the crash. Three families had sheltered members of the crew, and Dr. Bequet had treated the wounded.
“I’m very grateful,” Marshall said, shaking the doctor’s hand.
“It was necessary to help.”
More introductions and small talk followed. Marshall noticed two men scanning the ground. Lucien explained that people still found pieces of metal there—bullet casings, rivets, and once even a warped propeller blade. Marshall thought of how he had torn up the field when he came zigzagging down that day.
A man in a cloth cap and wool scarf stepped forward and touched Marshall’s arm.
“Oui, it is sad, monsieur,” the man said. He regarded Marshall in a kindly way and smiled. His face was leathery but younger than Marshall’s. He seemed familiar.
“You were the boy who helped me!” Marshall said, astonished.
“Oui. C’est moi.”
“You offered me a cigarette.”
The man laughed. His taut, weathered cheeks seemed to blush. “Bien sûr. I would never forget that day. The cigarettes I had obtained for my father.”
“That was my very first Gauloises,” Marshall said.
“You were my first Américain,” the man said, smiling. “I am Henri Lechat.”
They shook hands, the younger man first removing his glove.
“You warned me that the Germans were coming,” Marshall said.
Henri nodded. “It is true. You had no French then, and I had no English.”
“But I knew. We communicated somehow.”
Marshall’s voice broke on the word communicated.
“We will never forget, monsieur.”
“You told me to run,” Marshall said, recalling how he had stowed the cigarette in the inner pocket of his leather jacket. Now he felt his tears well up again.
Henri tugged on his scarf. “I told you to hide in the woods, and you comprehended.”
Recalling the boy’s urgency, Marshall tried to laugh. Henri had raced up, calling a warning. Pointing back the way he had come, he cried, “Les Allemands! Les Allemands!” Then, pointing to the woods in the other direction, he shouted, “Allez-y!” Marshall did not see any Germans, and he would not leave until all the crew was out. The bombardier was wounded in the shoulder, and the navigator had a shattered leg. The tail gunner appeared; he had hopped out easily. The left waist gunner was unconscious and had to be pulled from the fuselage window. Marshall was relieved to see the ball-turret gunner, who was limping toward the church with a man carrying a shovel. Someone said the right waist gunner had parachuted. The pilot was lying on the frozen ground, his eyes closed. Fire was leaping from the plane.
Marshall knelt by Webb, trying to wake him. Nothing. Someone squatted beside Marshall and opened Webb’s jacket.
“Docteur,” the woman said, pointing toward the village. She pointed in the opposite direction, toward the woods, and said, “Go.”
Marshall stood. The flight engineer appeared at his side. “Let’s go,” he said. “Everybody’s out.”
Several of the villagers were making urgent gestures toward the road. German troops would be here in moments. Marshall knew that they converged on every fallen plane, to arrest the Allied aviators and to salvage the wrecked metal for their own planes. The German fighter that had downed them was circling low overhead. Marshall began running toward the woods.
Had the Germans shot anyone from the village for helping the American flyers? Marshall wondered now, but he did not want to ask. He had tried to be sure all the crew were out, and then he left the scene. In the years after, he didn’t probe into the aftermath. He lived another life.
“We were so thankful to you, monsieur,” one of the men was saying. “When your planes flew over we knew we would be liberated one day.”
Marshall nodded.
A stocky woman with gray, thick hair and a genial, wrinkled face said, “The airplanes flying toward Germany in those days—there were hundreds of them. We rejoiced to see them crossing the sky.”
Henri kicked dirt from his leather boot. “I didn’t know at that age everything that was understood by the adults. But I knew the deprivation, the difficulties, the secrecy. Even the children knew the crisis.”
Cautiously, Marshall asked, “Did the Germans arrest anybody for helping us?”