The Gathering Storm (16 page)

Papa smiled at his granddaughter and his wards. "First of all, Judith and Susan, He most certainly would welcome you. You are children of Abraham and so was He. And He loved children and loved telling stories to children best of all. He was a famous rabbi, you know."

Judith continued to frown, but Susan's eyes grew big and round. "Then why do the Hitler-men shout at us and call us Christ-kill
ers?" the younger sister asked. "If your Jesus was a Jew, wouldn't the
Nazis have hated Him too, and tried to kill Him too?"

"Yes," Papa agreed. "They do hate Him and every time they hurt
His people they are trying to kill Him all over again. But enough of this serious talk of hating and killing," he said brightly. "Gina, you
know Jesus lived in Nazareth a long, long time ago. And anyway, this
is a village named for Jesus' home, but not the same one He lived in."

"Seriously, Papa," I asked, "can we find a place to stay in the village for tonight?" I inclined my head slightly toward Jessica, who was using both hands to rub her belly in alternating circles.

"I wish we could. But Nazareth is where several roads come together to cross the Lys...do you understand me?"

No more than a week earlier I would have needed further
explanation as to why roads and bridges were places to avoid. Now, after getting close to war, I had begun to know how the Germans thought: locate a spot where traffic backed up and refugees crowded against army trucks. Such a location was an irresistible target for bombing and strafing.

"I understand," I said.

Tucked within the band of trees was an ancient charcoal-burners hut. The roof was sway-backed and the floor dirt, but it was vacant and secluded. "I think we may borrow its use for one night,"
Papa said. "And since we've seen no one else all day, I think we may
have a fire to toast some bread and heat water for tea...a very small fire," he cautioned.

I made my sister sit down. Jessica had to do so in stages, like the mechanical folding of a carpenter's rule. She leaned her back against the wall of the cabin. "Remember: stopping now was your idea," she
scolded me. "I won't be able to get up again until tomorrow."

"Never mind," I agreed. "Just let me see your feet."

As soon as I removed my sister's shoes, I gasped. The soles of Jessica's stockings were outlined with blood. "Jessica! What?"

"Don't tell Papa," Jessica cautioned. "He'll just fuss. I know you
packed Mama's nursing kit. Just let me rest them tonight, and tomor
row we'll bandage them before we set out again. I can do this, Lor. I have to."

The next morning the trees and the charcoal-burner's hut were shrouded in mist. It clung to the branches and dripped onto the turf with a soft patter like rain. I woke before the others with a sense of peace. Perhaps today we would reach Tyne Cott and rela
tive safety. Perhaps today we would find a doctor for Jessica and her
baby, who must surely be arriving soon.

At the moment the need was fresh water. "Papa," I whispered, "I'm going to refill our water bottles."

"I think there's a meadow just west of here," he returned, "where
the valley slopes toward the river. You may find a creek there. Just don't take any chances and don't be gone more than a couple minutes. And don't...," he added, peering out at the dense fog, "don't get lost."

The thick vapor covering the copse of trees was even more dense
than I first thought. By the time I had gone a handful of steps from the cottage the shelter's humble form had completely vanished.

The pines and spruce, laid out in orderly rows, were not native to
the area. They had been planted after the Great War to hide the hideous moonscape scars of shell craters and trenches and earth works. The original beech trees were only just now struggling back to life in the isolated clumps where they had survived the conflagration.

The replanting had been done in such a methodical manner that whichever way I faced I peered down an avenue of conifers. Papa was right, I thought. Better pick just one such vaulted row and follow it out and back. If I adopted any other course, I would never get back to the shack before the sun burned away the mist.

Because I could not see more than a handful of steps before or behind, I began counting the trees I passed. At least I would have some record of how far I had come and how long the return should take.

I had just reached seventy when the fog ahead began to lighten. The curtain of vapor parted enough for me to see I had reached the edge of the wood.

As I reached out to touch the branch tips of the last spruce before the meadow, I had a sudden appreciation for the friendly corridor of trees. The fog was still dense up ahead, but there were no well-defined passages, just a great, gray void. All the openings back into the rows of trees looked the same. How could I mark the one out of which I had come so as to find it again?

There was a handkerchief in my jacket. I tied it around the outstretched arm of the spruce. Even if I wandered a bit on my return, eventually I would find this marker again.

Besides, I told myself, if I went straight out and straight back, how lost could I get? I would have to attempt it. If I turned back now, Jessica would tease me.

I marched resolutely forward. Papa had been right again. The meadow sloped gently westward. There must be water somewhere nearby.

A few paces ahead the grass was cropped very short. Cows or something must have been here recently. A farm would be a good thing to find. Perhaps we could get fresh milk for the children and some bread and jam.

My stomach growled.

Three more steps forward and I stopped in my tracks and dropped abruptly to my knees.

Looming up from the mist were large, ungainly shapes. They had
long snouts, like elephants, only they crouched near the ground.

Tanks!

But whose? French, Belgian, English...or German?

I had heard that tank crews slept in their machines. If I appeared
suddenly out of the fog, might I not be shot, even if these mechanical beasts belonged to friendly forces?

On my stomach, I began creeping backward toward the sheltering trees.

Then I heard voices! Behind me and just a few meters to the right of my position, I could hear but not see them. There were at least two men speaking in quiet conversation.

"Ein, zwei, drei, vier....."

They were counting...in German!

I turned my head back and forth until I fixed the direction of the conversation. In the mist there was no way to tell how far away, but they sounded close, coming from within the stand of trees and not from the meadow.

"Take no chances,"
Papa had said.

Now what?

German tanks in the meadow and German soldiers in the trees?

Was I surrounded? Was there no way to escape back to the cottage to warn the others?

Now I prayed for the vapor to stay dense; heavier and thicker
would be better still. Creeping, creeping, scooting backward, angling
away from the voices, I was no longer concerned with retracing my path. Just let me get beneath the arms of the trees, and I would scamper away from the meadow.

My foot hung up on something. A dead branch? When I tried to shake it loose it flipped up in the air and landed with a clang against the water bottle tied to my waist.

"Was ist?!"
a German shouted.
"Schnell, Hans!"

The chatter of machine gun fire spattered wildly, and an engine roared to life. A motorcycle zipped past where I lay, the sidecar-mounted weapon firing wildly into the fog. It shredded the limbs of the trees. Bark splinters and pine needles flew into the air to shower down on me.

I hugged the ground, certain I would be killed or captured any second. The motorcycle, after bounding over some hummocks of earth, disappeared out of sight and earshot.

If the tanks were German, why had the motorcycle team fled?

But if the tanks belonged to the Allies, why had they not fired back?

Cautiously, slowly, I raised my head.

"Loralei! Loralei," I heard my father calling.

"Stay back, Papa," I warned. "Don't come any closer!"

As if ripped asunder by the rapid-fire bullets, the fog began to lighten and lift from the ground.

Still prone, I peered ahead as once more the domed shapes reappeared, sunlight transforming them into...haystacks. Each cabin-sized mound of hay still had the ladder by which it had been stacked lying across its top.

Papa emerged from the trees and ran to me. "Are you hurt? We heard gunshots!"

"They must have been German scouts, Papa. They were fooled
the same as me...counting the tanks!" I felt relieved and embarrassed at the same moment. "It's all right now," I concluded.

"Yes, thanks be to God," Papa agreed. "But the Germans don't send scouts unless they are planning an advance...through here. We must go at once!"

At Tyne Cott it was as if the endless current of misery on the road from Brussels had settled into a pool. Hundreds of bicycles leaned against the outer fence. Carts and wagons and baby carriages cluttered the open space that might have been a parking area. The parade ground outside the cemetery, about the size of a soccer field, was crowded with makeshift camps. There was no more room, so the travelers' campsites spilled onto the cemetery. They sheltered from the harsh sun beneath blankets draped from tombstones. They sat on their bundles or crouched on the ground.

The lawns surrounding the chapel were also packed with hundreds of refugees who had climbed the stone fence and broken through the gates.

I instructed the children, "Put your hands in my pockets, so you don't get lost." Gina, Judith, and Susan, eyes wide at the sight of such confusion, slid fingers into my pockets and held tight. Jessica waddled after us, avoiding knapsacks and heads and arms with difficulty

To our right was a long line snaking toward the public latrine.

Men, women, and children had staked out territories, leaving barely enough room for us to follow Papa toward the arched entry doors of the stone structure and the office of Captain Judah Blood. A man with a tin mask on his face stood guard at the entry. He held his arm across the door.

With a soft Irish accent he remarked to Papa, "Far enough, mister.
Chapel's reserved. Captain figures military'll need it soon enough.

They haven't found us yet, but they will. Last war we was the center of the battle. Only a matter of time, and we'll be in the thick of it
again. Basement's for medical. Triage. Special cases only." His glance
grazed Jessica's pregnant belly. "Wounded soldiers only, ma'am."

Papa replied, "Please tell Captain Judah that Robert Bittick of Alderman's Seminary is here. He will remember. Robert Bittick of the White Rose."

Startled, the guard drew himself erect and saluted. "Bittick. White Rose? Yes, sir." He unlocked the door and stepped aside, allowing the little band to enter the foyer of the chapel. He locked it behind them.

The heat, noise, and chaos of the mob fell away. Cool serenity settled on us. Color and light from stained glass windows filled the chapel with rainbows. The tin-faced man explained, "Can't let the mob in. The BEF and the Belgian army will arrive soon. There'll be a last stand. This little chapel. A fortress soon enough to hold the jerries back. Cap'n says so."

What would become of this beautiful place, I wondered. How many years to build a house of worship? How many hours to destroy it?

Tears began to stream silently down Jessica's cheeks. "Oh!" she said, staring up as a sunbeam shone through a window depicting Jesus calling His friend Lazarus forth from the tomb. This was a chapel where mothers and fathers of fallen sons could come and remember the resurrection and the life.

Had Lazarus suffered death and decay in a second tomb? Or
had the voice of Jesus called him to live on and on in a world choked
by the brambles of death?

"Oh, Loralei, look!" Jessica waved her hand as a gallery of beau
tiful faces depicting the gospel stories gazed down on us. "Look where we are!"

"The steps leading to Eden." I felt it too. There was a holiness in
this place; as though we had stepped from the hell of our journey into another dimension.

"There will be fighting here too?" Jessica seemed to drink in the jewel box beauty of the place.

The Irishman replied, "History repeats itself. And in these fields many men have died. Men I know well." The tin man dipped his fingers into a basin of water and quickly crossed himself.

Motioning for us to take a seat, he hurried away to find Captain Judah.

Long minutes slid by. Our little group huddled together in the pews beneath the life-sized crucifix. Windows in side chapels depicted soldiers in shining armor flanked by the banners of army companies and the names of the fallen.

The trio of girls leaned heavily against my arms and almost instantly fell into deep sleep.