The Baltimore Bitch

Betty might be twenty-two, like me. But the world, for her, was an endless array of meaningless events taking place a long way from her doorstep. They didn't affect her. So, she remained self-centered, like a child, rather than evolving to a more adult understanding of things.

To be honest, during our teen years I'd never thought about world events either. There wasn't any reason to think about them. In fact, the very thing that I was trying to avoid, the limited, life of a small town, had kept me from seeing that events occurring a half-world away would inevitably touch me.

Admittedly, if you grow up in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, the harsh reality of global warfare is hard to grasp. And intellectually, it's a long way from small-town Wisconsin to the places where titanic social, economic, and political forces were being unleashed.

Yet, we could fight the Nazis in Europe, or we could fight them on main street. But we would eventually fight them. Consequently, the blissful ignorance of the people back home might be understandable. But it wasn't forgivable. At least for those of us who got the "Dear John" while we were in harm's way.

It takes a ton of psychic energy to deal with the ever-present reality of untimely death, and you're likely to take your eye off the ball if you lose hope. I mean what's the point if you've got nobody to come back to, right? That's why it's an especially selfish act, to pull the emotional rug out from under somebody who's living day-to-day.

So, fuck 'em all - if basic moral tenets like loyalty and duty don't mean anything to you. But make sure that the person you're betraying doesn't find out until they've returned home safe and sound. You are already a sinner. Don't add murderer to your list of crimes.

Now, I was stuck in the middle of hostile territory, without the ability to speak the language. I should have been huddled in a little quivering ball of self-pity sucking my thumb. The reason I wasn't, was standing right in front of me. I had five little girls to protect and a steadfast woman to make me into a better man.

The right woman will do that for you. It's the confidence, or perhaps the proper term is trust, that facing adversity builds into a couple. I'd known Suzy for less than 24 hours. But I was absolutely certain that we would face this together and do the best we could, for better or for worse. I also realized that I had never had anything like the same feelings about Betty. I knew that she cared about me. But I always had the sneaking suspicion that she cared about herself a whole lot more.

I knew for a fact that Suzy would sacrifice everything for the children, and I was coming to the grudging realization that I would sacrifice everything for her. You can call me a small town hick if you like. But my belief in this woman was both puzzling and reassuring.

How had it happened so fast? Perhaps it was the dire circumstance. Maybe it was the innocence and purity of the girls. Maybe it was just Suzy's huge dark fathomless eyes and her lissome body. Whatever it was, it put spine in me, and I knew I would die before I would let any of them down.,

I had my map and compass and I could see that the most direct route to the Swiss border was almost due northeast. There was a road that went past the hotel and into Izieu proper. Then it headed out in the right direction through the rugged terrain of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

Using the road though, was clearly out of the question. Because, we would have to parade through town with our little gaggle, and somebody in that town had turned the others in. But there was a decent footpath that led around the mountain the other way.

The footpath began in the same back garden that I had crept through the night before. It wound almost due west, past the mountain that I'd landed on. Then it turned to the north and finally northeast.

We set out from our place of refuge in a glorious summer day in Alpine France. Suzy and Natalie were leading with Madalyn following with the twins and I was keeping up the rear. We were more-or-less in a single file, except the twins who were walking together holding hands. The girls were all singing a sweet French song. It was shaping up to be a hot day in the valley of the Rhone.

We were on an upward grade. The girls handled it better than I did. That was because I had a passenger. She was sitting on my shoulders, clinging happily to my forehead, neck and occasionally my ears. Little Josette might be very brave. But her tiny legs would slow us down and her happy laughter and the occasional kiss that she planted on the back of my head was well worth the extra thirty-five pounds.

The path ended in a mountain pasture. Suzy had been up there before and she guided us through a tree-filled area next to a cliff, where we quickly found another path that took us to an actual road. We had been walking for perhaps three hours and the girls were getting tired. So, we stopped in the forest next to the path to rest and eat.

We had only brought supplies for a day. Our aim was to get far enough along the way that a man and a woman and five girls would not be as likely to remind the locals that the Gestapo had raided a Jewish orphanage.

Tonight's goal was Belley. That was the first large city in the direction we were walking, perhaps another three miles from where we had stopped. I had plenty of genuine French francs courtesy of Uncle Sam. And we intended to pass ourselves off as a family.

Suzy and I didn't look old enough to have girls as mature as Natalie, or Madelyn. So, the story would be that they were her older sister's children. Neither Suzy, nor I, wanted to push the girls further than ten miles a day. They had been real troopers, walking up rough mountain trails and through trackless forests without complaint.

Part of the reason they were so courageous was their absolute devotion to Suzy, whose spirit seemed to fill all of them with resolve. The other part was probably the sense that they were moving toward safety They all had to be frightened. They were children, separated from their parents for reasons they didn't understand. Then, forced to witness the horror of their friends being loaded into trucks by Nazi goons. Yet, they had forged ahead bravely because they believed in Suzy and now, they believed in me.

It was getting hot as the sun rose into early afternoon. We were making good time. If we got to Belley we would have covered fifteen of the eighty-six kilometers to our destination. At that rate, it would take about five more days to reach safety.

It was easy enough to stay out of sight since there were footpaths all over the area. It was remote mountain meadow terrain, heavily forested. Still, people had been living there for over three-thousand years. There was some traffic on the actual road to our north. But it was local, nothing military.

Walking through sunny meadows full of buzzing insects, a person would never guess that the Third Reich even existed. That is, unless you noticed the hundred plane bomber stream that was passing in the distance to our west. They were twin engine, either Mitchells or Marauders.

I felt a pang. I remembered what had happened to Bobby. I wondered how Whiz, Eldon and Billy were doing. That was only thirty-six hours ago? I looked at Suzy. She was staring at me with deep sympathy and something else.

We reached Belley as the hot summer day was turning to cool dusk. It was a big place, much larger than any of the villages we had passed. We almost immediately encountered a farm. It was on the outskirts of town, far enough from anything involving the town authorities to be a threat.

There were several outbuildings and a big barn. Suzy took a wad of my francs to negotiate with the farmer's wife. You could hear the two women haggling in rapid fire French. A man emerged from the house while that was happening. He was skinny with a pronounced Adam's apple and the look of a person who spent a lot of time outdoors in a field.

He walked up to me and said affably, "Bonsoir monsieur - comment était votre voyage?" I was frozen in fear. Even if I knew what he'd just said, I would expose myself as an American if I opened my mouth. The guy was clearly not a member of the Milice Française, the Vichy police. So, he himself was innocuous. But he was bound to talk.

That was when I heard a sweet voice whisper in my ear, "He asked you how your journey was." I nodded amiably and made the universal so-so gesture. I tried to make it look like we were in the same club. He was a family man. He knew how it was - traveling with the wife and kids and all.

He grinned and said, "Bien... et j'espère que vous apprécierez votre séjour avec nous." The little voice whispered, "Just say, Oui, Merci." I said that, exactly as Josette had pronounced it and the man turned and ambled back into his house scratching his ass as he went.

Josette had just saved everybody's bacon by her quick-wits. She was indeed very brave. I swung her down from my shoulders and said, "I love you my sweet little girl." She dimpled prettily and said, like she was making an announcement, "I love you too. You are my new Papa."

Then she threw her little arms around me, hugged me, and scampered off to join the other girls. I was thoroughly smitten. She was wrong in one respect though. Josette was more precious to me than any daughter could possibly be.

Suzy had done very well. Of course, my twenty-five Francs might have had something to do with it. We had a cozy barn full of hay to bed down in and all the bread, milk, and cheese you could possibly want. The farm family left us alone because Suzy had told them that Madelyn had the measles. Madlyn was a convincing sufferer. It would be Natalie's turn tomorrow.

I was watching Suzy. Her charges were sitting in a circle around her while she enthusiastically told them a bedtime story. It was in French. So, I had no idea what she was saying. But the girls would squeal and laugh once in a while. Then there were prayers, each of them looked like a porcelain angel. Finally, they all went to their beds. Edith and Charlotte had carefully laid out the blankets for all of them. The twins were, of course, honored to do the chores.

I went outside to sit on a bench in the cool night and listened to the chirping of the crickets and the croaking of the frogs. Suzy sat down next to me and said gently, "You love them as much as I do?" I chuckled and said, "How could I not? They insist on tugging on my heart strings."

Suzy looked at me solemnly and said, "We're all they have. The Nazis took every one of their parents. They cry about it sometimes, although Josette might not exactly understand what happened."

I laughed and said, "She's the cleverest of them all." And I recounted the near miss we had while Suzy was negotiating our night's lodgings.

I added proudly, "She says I'm her new Papa now." Suzy seemed to melt. Waves of emotion churning behind her eyes. She said simply, "You are. She has nobody and she is a child. Children need somebody to love."

Then, she leaned over and gave me a quick soft kiss on the mouth. It felt like lightning crackled between us. She drew her head back and looked at me wonderingly.

She said agitated, "I have no idea what just happened." I said, "Neither do I." She smiled and said in her self-contained way. "Il est inévitable!!" I knew THAT word. It's the same in English.

I awoke in the middle of the night to discover I had been joined in my cozy bed in the hayloft. No, it wasn't who you'd think. There was a small precious bundle curled up next to me, fluffy blond head buried in the crook of my arm. She was hugging a ratty teddy. She looked peaceful and happy. I felt more fulfilled than I had since my own childhood. I would protect her with my life.

*****

The next three days were similar to the first. We walked along the banks of the Rhone through towns like Culoz and Anglefort. We spent the third night in a hayloft in Malpas outside Chaumont in the Haute-Savoie. The weather had been fine, and the paths were decent. But we were starting to climb into higher elevations and the girls were tiring.

We probably should have pushed them harder. Rescue was getting nearer by the hour. But we didn't have the heart. They had been such troopers. Not one of them complained, which was extraordinary with children in my experience.

Perhaps it's because they knew the stakes. Maybe it was because they knew that we were sacrificing along with them. I had carried my little angel a good bit of the way, even though she insisted that she should walk. I explained that we could move a lot faster if she was on my shoulders. But that didn't apply when we got to the really steep grades. She held my hand going up those.

We'd left the Rhone valley and were making our way into the alpine region. The roads were okay. But we had to stay on them now. We were planning on stopping for the night in Minzier which would have put us perhaps a day away from safety.

That was when disaster struck. We used footpaths where we could. But the encroaching mountains had narrowed our options. So, we were walking along a regular road when two Germans in a motorcycle came zipping by.

I realized in a flash that my original plan was chillingly naive. The dawning awareness of my stupidity was hard to bear, since it put the girls in jeopardy.

Naturally, the Germans would run patrols near the border. And of course, the accessible crossings would be heavily guarded. Hence, we couldn't just stroll down the yellow brick road to safety. There would be checkpoints and German troops to stop us. I should have thought of that. But I'm a flyer, not a soldier.

The people on the motorcycle ought to have gone right past. We didn't look suspicious, except for the large number of kids and the remoteness of the location. But the guy in the sidecar checked out Suzy. He signaled the driver who turned around and they came slowly back in our direction.

It was clear that side-car guy was planning to "interrogate" Suzy in the woods just to the north of us. We were completely exposed, alone, without anybody in sight. I put Josette down, told her to get behind me and began to fish around in my hobo bundle for the .45.

The guy in the sidecar was clearly an officer, the motorcyclist was a sergeant. They came putt-putting up and the officer said to me, "Ihr Personalausweis monsieur." Great!! That sounded like German.

I must have looked as intimidated as I felt. Suzy, who had come up next to me, said, "Er spricht nur Französisch." So, she spoke German too.

The officer immediately turned toward her, she was his real target anyway, and the two of them argued in rapid-fire German. I couldn't believe how confident and steady Suzy sounded. The stakes were astronomical, and this valiant woman was playing every card in her hand including her sexuality.

The gist of the argument was that I didn't have the identity card issued to every citizen of Vichy France. Suzy and the girls probably had theirs. But they would have identified them as Jews which would have been another problem entirely.

I wasn't concerned since I had the solution to our mutual problem in my right hand, hidden behind my back. My brave little Josette, rather than running away in fright, was trying to mask the gun with her tiny body saying, "Qu'est-ce qu'ils font papa?"

Such a smart girl!! She was intentionally avoiding English. If she had asked, "What's going on Papa," it would have revealed who I was.

The conversation ended with the officer jerking Suzy by the arm. He said something in German to the sergeant. Which appeared to be an order to keep an eye on us. Then he began walking toward a little grove of trees perhaps twenty yards off the road. Suzy was following behind. Maybe the German wanted to interrogate Suzy away from the rest of us. It was possible. She was the only one who spoke German. Nevertheless, it didn't matter what his reason was. They were all completely ignoring me. That was a fatal mistake.

I grew up with guns. Hell!! I'm from rural Wisconsin, where babies are given pistols as teething implements. And I'd killed a lot of animals, from varmints to deer. But I had never shot a human. That was about to change.

The art of killing with a gun lies in the willingness to do it. A lot of people flinch at the last second and miss, or never pull the trigger because they know they are taking a human life. That wouldn't be a problem for me, because I was doing it to protect five little girls and this heroic woman.

Backshooting is the sign of a coward in the western movies. Still, like I said, I'm a pragmatist. So, Occam had the right answer. The bang of the .45 evoked screams from the girls. The heavy, slow-moving slug flattened the German like he'd been stepped on by a brontosaurus.

Suzy, surprised and alarmed, fell over in the opposite direction. The sergeant was quick thinking enough that he instantly took off before I could get a bead on him.

The girls were shrieking and crying, Suzy picked herself up and rushed to hug the twins. Madalyn and Natalie ran to embrace the other three. I was clutching brave little Josette to my chest. She was clinging like a baby spider monkey. But she wasn't crying. I said, "I will do anything to keep you safe my little lamb." Her sweet voice said, "I love you Papa." I was at peace about what I had just done.

The shock quickly passed. The girls were resilient. That was because they had faith in us. Suzy looked at the dead German and said, "This changes things. The Germans will be hunting us now."

I said, defensively, "What else could I do? They would've never let us go, even after that pig finished with you."

Suzy looked at me, for the first time angrily, and said, "I know why you did it and so do the girls. How could you think we wouldn't understand?"

Then she added tenderly, "You are our guardian angel." They all nodded solemnly. I said lamely, "Well I'm sorry that I had to do it in front of them."

I got down on one knee, so we were all in a conspiratorial circle, laid out the map and said, "The road is the only way into Switzerland, and it's heavily guarded. I see that now. So, we need to wait for the Germans to pull back."

They all looked worried. I said, trying to sound reassuring, "They won't spend a lot of time and resources looking for us. They have too many other problems. The Allies have landed, and they'll eventually chase the Germans out of France. So, we need to hide and wait for that to happen."

I pointed almost due northwest. There was a deep forested valley that rose to an impassable mountain peak. I gestured toward that and said, "In the meantime, the forest gives us an ideal place to hide."

So, we all journeyed down the steep hill and into the valley. Suzy, and Natalie helping Madalyn and the twins on the rough parts. I was following like a donkey with his rider on his back. Rather than feeling discouraged I was confident that I finally understood the situation.

All we had to do was stay invisible until that part of France was liberated. We could easily do that in this trackless wilderness, as long as we could find a safe place to hide.

It was mountainous. There had to be caves in the vicinity. All we needed to do was find one and wait. I had the .45 and an extra clip. There were plenty of animals for meat. Everybody had some bread and even chocolate in their packs.

We worked our way through the forest until we got to a mountain stream. We were taking off our shoes prior to crossing, when four people suddenly materialized on the opposite bank. The forest came up close to the river and they must have been hiding there watching us.

It was eerie. One moment there was nobody there, and then there was. I was pulling out my .45, ready to make my last stand, when the leader produced a hands-up gesture. They were clearly not German. They wanted to talk. They were dressed like normal French. But they were all carrying Sten guns.