Under a War-Torn Sky by L.M. Elliott Read Free Book Online Page B

students?”
    It was so dark by the time Henry and the teacher made it to the schoolhouse that they didn’t see the huge black pigs until they crashed into them. Henry hit the ground on his bad ankle, in a tangle of hooves, muck, and wheels. Frightened, the pigs squealed, trampled him, and pinned him beneath the bicycle.
    â€œGod Almighty,” Henry cried out and clutched his shin. “Get off! Get off!” he screamed.
    â€œSHHHH!” the teacher hissed at him. “ Ferme-la! ”
    But Henry was already silent. He had passed out from the pain.
    When he opened his eyes, Henry saw a huge bell hanging over his head. He strained to focus. The room had many windows and was lit only by starlight. Was he in a bell tower?
    He struggled to get up. Poker-hot pain ripped up his left side and slapped his brain into remembering. The air battle, his plane, Dan, the Messerschmitt, his mangled ankle all rushed back on him. Henry buried his face into the blanket he lay on. “Let it be a bad dream, Lord.”
    â€œIt is not,” said a voice from the shadows. The schoolteacher arose. “I hide you in my school. Foot is bad. Perhaps broken. Our doctor was commandeered into the Nazi army. The Gestapo has arrested the only man who might have helped you. I think I must get you to a hospital. I worry the leg will grow an infection.”
    â€œWhat hospital?” Henry asked. He looked down at his ankle. The skin was streaked blue and purple.
    â€œBern is closest and safest. And your government has a presence there.”
    â€œSwitzerland?”
    â€œ Oui. ”
    â€œHow will I get there?” Henry knew the borders were closed, guarded by Germans on one side and Swiss on the other. The Swiss were adamant about maintaining their neutrality, sometimes even shooting down American bombers flying over their country. Would they really let him in?
    â€œI am not certain. I have never done this before,” said the teacher. “But it is time for me to take action. I watched them take my students and did nothing. An old man’s fear. Tomorrow I will know how to proceed. Now you eat.”
    The teacher handed Henry a plate of food – fried carp, sauerkraut (the Frenchman called it “ choucroute ”), and pale-yellow cheese. The food was ice-cold. Henry realized that he must have lain unconscious a long time while the teacher kept watch over him. “ Merci, monsieur, ” said Henry.
    The schoolteacher grimaced at Henry’s Tidewater drawl. “Try not to speak.” He opened the bell tower’s trap door and disappeared.
    Henry pulled out his survival kit and found a second syringe of morphine. He injected the medicine and choked down the Frenchman’s food.
    His ma would be getting a telegram in a few days. Missing in action, it would say. Missing, lost, maimed. With no one to help him but a wizened old teacher who couldn’t stop talking history. What did history matter these days?
    Panic kept the words swirling in Henry’s head: Missing in action. Henry imagined his father’s snarl: I told you, Lilly. I knew he’d never make it. You gentled him too much. Never let me make a man of him.
    Henry clamped his hands over his ears. He’d spent his life trying to prove himself to Clayton, to seem worthy of his respect even if he couldn’t win his father’s love. He’d thought joining the Air Corps would do it. But Clayton had shouted at him: “Boy, you gonna throw away that scholarship to the university because a bunch of foreigners are fighting again ? People who don’t have anything to do with this family, this farm? They don’t even speak English, most of ’em.”
    Henry had simply nodded his head, yes.
    â€œThen you haven’t learned anything from me,” Clayton had snapped, and stormed out the back door.
    Lilly had tried to ease the rejection. “I’m real proud of you, honeybunch,” she’d said.
    Henry