Josh stood by the window near the back door, looking up at the hill that would be his escape route.

Christine came in holding a glass of wine. “Drink this. It will help the pain in your arm.”

“French wine…thanks.”

“My father makes it.”

“Thank him for me. But where did your father go today?”

“To buy supplies, for the farm.”

“What about your mother?”

She sat on the edge of the bed, looking at a photo of her parents on the nightstand. “My mother died, at the start of the war.”

Josh put the wine glass on the nightstand and sat beside her. “I’m sorry.”

She glanced at the bandage on his arm. “Does it still hurt?”

“Not anymore, thanks to you.”

He flashed her a smile and she turned to face him. “Where are you from in America?”

“San Francisco.”

“Is it beautiful there?”

“It’s a big city…a beautiful city.”

“And the people…are they beautiful?”

“You mean the women? Some of them are beautiful. But know this. I have yet to meet one more beautiful than you. I won’t ever forget what you did for me.”

As their eyes met he leaned over and kissed her. For a moment she pulled away from him. He kissed her again, caressing her as they lay on the bed.

Sometime later Josh unlocked the back door and looked outside to make sure it was safe. He didn’t want to go…he didn’t want to leave her, but the war that everyone hated was pulling him away.

He looked across the room at Christine. She stood by the bed buttoning her blouse.

“What about your father?”

“He will come…and you must go.”

Josh put on his flyer’s jacket as Christine went to him. Around her neck she wore a small hand-carved wooden crucifix attached to a silver chain. She removed the crucifix and put it around his neck. “This will keep you safe.”

Josh ran his fingers over the crucifix. “What about you?”

“I will be all right.”

Josh wanted to believe her, but he feared the worst. “If I can, I’ll come back.”

Christine smiled, as if she believed he would come back. Josh then put his arms around her, kissed her tenderly…and a moment later he was gone.

As he ran across the field, through the sheepfold and up the hill, Josh did not want to look back. He wanted to look ahead, to meeting up with the Allies as they advanced across Normandy toward Caen, and onto Paris.

But when he reached the top of the gentle green hillside overlooking the farmhouse and the sheepfold below, Josh stopped, and turned for one last look. On instinct he fell to the ground, shielding himself from view behind the hilltop.

“God no,” he said to himself. Four German soldiers, the two that came to the farmhouse, and two more that he saw in the field where he landed, were riding in a jeep on the road that ran alongside the hedgerow near the farmhouse. They were far enough away, though at first Josh didn’t know if they had seen him. And then they stopped. They weren’t looking in his direction; they made no move to come after him. They continued talking among themselves as he watched, fearing the worst. One of the soldiers pointed to the farmhouse. Josh clenched his jaw; his whole body stiffened, as he watched the four Germans march toward the farmhouse. Why did they come back, he wondered. What did they find, what made them suspicious? Josh closed his eyes tight for a moment, hoping the girl would be all right, that they wouldn’t harm her.

The soldiers arrived at the farmhouse and pounded on the door. A few moments later the girl appeared, and the soldiers began questioning her. Josh wanted to shout to her, to tell her to run, to run to him. He heard himself screaming, yet no one could hear.

Josh watched in horror as one of the soldiers slapped the girl and held her at gun point while the other three soldiers went into the house. Moments later they returned, and the tall German motioned toward their jeep. Two soldiers grabbed the girl’s arms and dragged her away. “God damn you bastards!” he shouted, as the four soldiers pushed the girl into the jeep and rode away until he could no longer see them. Josh pounded his fists on the ground, then he stood up on the hilltop and took one last look at the farmhouse, before he turned away and ran down the other side of the hill.

That night, after running for miles through the lush rural countryside of Normandy, avoiding the roads and open fields where the Germans were most likely to patrol, Josh threw his exhausted body on the ground in a secluded wooded area. Surrounded by darkness and the silence of the night, for one awful moment he felt as if he were alone in the universe. Closing his eyes, he wrapped his fingers around the wooden crucifix, and prayed for the girl who saved his life.

When he awoke the next morning, he quickly headed North. About an hour later he emerged from a hedgerow to find a German infantry division marching along the road in his direction. He quickly dove back over the hedgerow and found a secondary road, where a farmer, a russet-faced, husky man in his fifties, dressed in overalls, smoking a corn-cob pipe, came riding along the road in a hay-wagon. After a brief, animated discussion, the farmer told Josh to hide under the bales of hay that were stacked in the back of the wagon. Josh complied and on they went, until sometime later, when the hay-wagon stopped, Josh found himself at another farmhouse, surrounded by fruit orchards and a small vineyard.

The farmer beckoned Josh to go into the house, and as they entered, they were greeted by half a dozen men, some as young as Josh, others as old as the farmer. They were seated around a large rectangular table on one side of a spacious living room. A large map was spread out across the center of the table. Most of the men were smoking. Glasses of red wine and half empty wine bottles were scattered around the table.

The men looked approvingly at Josh as the farmer introduced him.

“Gentlemen,” said the farmer, “we have another recruit for our job tomorrow. He speaks English.”

One of the resistance fighters, a younger man with a mustache and a half-grown beard, raised his wine glass. “The Germans will be pleased. We’ll send him in first.”

The other men at the table laughed. Josh did manage a smile, but he quickly countered. “Thanks for the offer, but I won’t be staying. The Germans shot down my plane. I’m going North to locate our invasion force.”

An older balding man wearing horn-rimmed glasses leaned over the table, rested his chin on his hand, and spoke seriously as the farmer gestured for Josh to have a seat at the table.

“Monsieur…we welcome you, and you can thank Maurice for bringing you here. This is his home. We are friends of his, fellow farmers and citizens. We have been fighting the Germans for four years. We know the area, the land. We know from radio broadcasts where some of your soldiers are located after the invasion. We could help you find them. Unless, of course, you wish to join our group.”

He stopped speaking; the other men seated around the table remained silent. Josh, seated at the far end of the table, leaned back in his chair and looked at the farmer seated next to him.

“Thank you for helping me.”

Josh then looked around the table at the others. “How soon will the allies be in the area?”

“Perhaps two or three days,” replied the man in the horn-rimmed glasses. “Until then you’re welcome to stay here.”

Josh considered his options. “Okay…I’ll stay.”

“Welcome to our cause! Have a glass of wine.”

The farmer poured the wine for Josh. One of the younger men asked, “How did you come to this area?”

“Three days ago, my plane was shot down. I had no weapon, and the Germans were in the area. I came to a farmhouse similar to this one, but no one was home except a young girl named Christine. She helped me, she let me hide in her house when the Germans came looking for me. She risked her own life to save my life. When I left the house, I saw the Germans returning, many of them. They took her away; I don’t know where, or why. I wasn’t able to help her. After that I ran for miles, until I saw Maurice. But I’d like to find out what happened to the girl.”

“It is good that you care about this girl,” said the older man. “Many of us have lost family and friends to the Nazis. Where is this farm where the girl lived?”

Josh pointed to the map. “I wish I could tell you. It must be at least ten miles southeast from here, some distance from Caen. There were cows and sheep, and there were dirt roads on either side of the farm. That’s all I remember.”

The farmer put a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “There are hundreds of farms like that in Normandy, and that farm is far from here. If the Germans took her away, she could be sent to a concentration camp, or labor camp. It would be most difficult to find her; and we have our jobs to do here.”