The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,85
A sad-faced curly-haired girl sat on a bench with her tiny arms around two dark-haired babies. “Oh my.”
She’d never seen a picture of them. “May I? Is it too much to ask?”
“Very well. You may have it.”
Leah held the picture before blurry eyes. This might be the only glimpse she’d ever have of her sisters.
“Miss Stratford?” A young woman in a white apron leaned into the office, hair askew. “It’s that Yardley boy again. He’s throwing dishes in the dining room.”
“That barbarian. Belongs in a mental asylum.” Miss Stratford bolted from her desk. “Pardon me, Mrs. Paxton.”
What a horrible woman to have in charge of an orphanage. Leah stared after her, then at the empty doorway, then at the manila folder.
Her hand stretched out.
A voice screeched in her head. Thief! Thief! Rotten little thief!
The voice lied. These were her sisters. Taking what belonged to her wasn’t stealing.
She slid the folder close.
On the first page: “Three girls: Thalia Karahalios, Calliope Karahalios, Polyhymnia Karahalios.”
She almost laughed. She’d been right about their names!
At the bottom of the page . . . “Thalia Karahalios adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Norman Jones, November 20, 1929.”
On the next line . . . “Calliope and Polyhymnia Karahalios adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Hobart Scholz, November 26, 1929.” With an address!
Leah memorized it and glanced to the door. A ruckus toward the back of the building assured her Miss Stratford wouldn’t return for a while.
She pulled her pen from her purse and wrote her sisters’ information on the paper she was allowed to take. Then she reassembled the folder.
A notepad sat on the desk, and Leah wrote a note, thanking Miss Stratford for the papers, the photograph, and the pieces to her past.
Leah tucked her papers into her purse. She had so much more than pieces.
39
POINTE DU HOC
Clay ran down the exit road with two Rangers from another company, the only men he’d found at the assembly point. Either Gene and his friends had already proceeded, or they were—no, he wouldn’t think of that.
Booms of artillery fell behind him, closer and closer. Might be German artillery or it might be the US Navy, unaware that the Rangers were already so far inland. Didn’t matter where it came from. It only mattered that he needed to run.
His breath came in hard puffs, and Lyons’s Browning Automatic Rifle bumped against his back.
Ruins of a farmhouse appeared, and Clay dropped to a squat. Jagged stone walls with broken windows, a collapsed roof, and shrubbery that could conceal the enemy.
American voices called in the distance. Three Rangers ran past the farmhouse unmolested. They must have already cleared the buildings.
“Come on, men.” Clay ran in a zigzag path, his gaze sweeping the bushes and walls and windows.
On the far side of the house, he jumped into a trench, but it ended soon. Open field stretched ahead. Half a dozen Rangers ran across alone or in pairs, taking different paths, as they’d been trained.
Miller from the other company tilted his head to the left, and Clay nodded. He’d go to the right and he’d go first.
Up out of the trench, and his feet pounded over the grass. Fewer craters this far south to slow him down—or to hide in.
A machine gun rattled to his right—but far away. Small arms fire cracked to the left, and closer.
Someone lay splayed on the ground. Clay didn’t dare stop to help, but one glance told him it was too late. It was Ernie McKillop. And he was dead.
“Oh, Lord.” Clay groaned and ran harder. He was supposed to die today, so McKillop and Gene and Holman and Ruby could live.
He slid into the trench on the far side. According to his mental map, it would lead to the second objective, the coastal highway between Grandcamp-les-Bains and Vierville-sur-Mer.
American voices soothed his ears as he drew closer. He climbed out of the trench about twenty feet from the highway and yelled out the call sign so he wouldn’t get shot by his buddies.
“Paxton.” Lieutenant Taylor gave him a nod. “What’s the word?”
Clay scanned the group—Holman, Ruby, Brady, the other two men from the BAR squad, about a dozen others. Where was Gene? He fought off a sick feeling. “Holman and Brady probably told you. No gun in our emplacement, only a telephone pole.”
“Same at the other five positions.” Taylor gestured with his Tommy gun across the road. “Patrols are searching for them. Len Lomell saw tracks down there.”
“Good. I saw tracks heading south from our emplacement.”