Behind Hitler's Lines by Thomas H. Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

across the top of the jumpers' compartment. They roused and patted him on the butt. Through the open hatch by his feet was France, under no moon, perfect for the pilot to see a lamp pattern below. Joe looked up at him for the jump signal. It was a downward-thrust index finger and the inaudible cry “Go!” A step through the hatch and Joe was blown into the dark. And into history as the first American paratrooper to descend on France—and high among the ones most welcomed by the French.
    Joe yelled, “Currahee!”
Pop.
Opening shock wasn't bad leaving him just bouncing a little in the night. The only sound was from the Lysander veering away. Jump altitude was a thousand feet. The drop-zone lamps, which he'd never seen, were already extinguished. All there was to steer toward was one of the pale patches on the ground. The darker stuff was trees. Joe tried to sense wind direction and slip against it, but there wasn't much wind, so he prepared for a neutral landing and just went limp. The best way to land on unfamiliar terrain was like a rag doll.
    At the last moment Joe worried about injury, imagining himself spending the rest of the war hidden by the FFI while his broken leg mended.
    The ground came up like an elevator.
Thud,
a heavy landing—all that gold—on a hard meadow with knee-deep grass. The canopy descended on him while Joe broke out of the parachute harness. He was down, safely down, the first step—the longest one—taken. The next was upon him as he unholstered his .45 because figures hurried across themeadow Despite feeling foolish, he hollered, “A breezy night!”
    A voice in Oxford English answered, “Yes, let's go sailing.”
    Someone gathered up his chute as Joe was silently led away through trees. Beyond the grove they arrived at a large hay shelter where kerosene lamps were lit, the same that had marked his drop zone. In the unsteady light Joe looked around at his reception committee. They were five men and a woman who, with her lover, was there to do a distracting scene if a German patrol happened by.
    Naturally the French were glad to see him, especially his bandolier, which had been promised by the British but delayed. The FFI leader had lost three fingers to Rommel's panzers in 1940 but was still able to do a quick count of the gold. Satisfied, he pulled bottles of red wine out of the hay. Only he spoke English. Recognizing Joe's accent he was pleased to tell the others that their paymaster was an American, the first they'd ever met.
    So too for Joe; except for the British, they were the first foreigners he'd ever met, and it occurred to him why he had been picked as a paymaster—to show the flag to the French resistance, let them know that America was in the war with them too. Representing America was headier than his second jelly jar of red wine, raised by his hosts in toast to Allied victory. Here he was, treated like a hero, and all he'd done was jump. It reminded him of his little speech last year at Saint Joseph's.
    The FFI reassured him that now he was in their hands and they'd handle things from here; so feeling pretty safe and secure, Joe slept like any tired GI. The next morning (awaking in a bird-shooting blind) he began to reflect on how unexpectedly he had been brought into this war that meant everything to his families. All three of them: his parents, his army, and his nation. Clearly his army parents considered him expendable, a youthfully ignorant courier, chosen from on high by those who would trade his life for the likelihood of an important delivery. Yet no one had forced him. Far from it. Bring onmore. Bring on more adventure because this sure beat humping the English countryside carrying a ton of radios.
    Joe was now in the FFI network. Western cloak-and-dagger doctrine prescribes that an infiltrator-agent should stay in one location for minimum hazard of discovery. But the French constantly moved him, on roads, all back roads, in vehicles subject to search at German