Read Online A Troubled Peace by L. M. Elliott - Free Book Online

ça, patron.”
    â€œQuelqu’un doit payer!”
    Bloodied, shaken, confused, Henry could only understand the words massacre and someone having to pay for it. The memory of the Gestapo beating him unconscious gripped his mind and twisted the moment into a mess of past, present, and fearful imagination.
    â€œHit him. Schlag ihn! Again! Schlag ihn nochmal! Hard!…You cannot win this game, American. Schlag ihn hart!… See that over there? We call that the bathtub. Your head goes in the water—over and over and over again—however long it takes for me to get the information I want. But first…hit him again—hard. Nochmal! Härter!”
    No, it’s not real. Henry fought against the daytime nightmare. He focused on the words flying around him. French words. French. “It’s not the Gestapo. It’s not the Gestapo.It’s not the Gestapo,” he muttered louder and louder, chanting to stop his slide into the insanity of memory and paranoia.
    The French conversation stopped.
    â€œMon Dieu.” The Vercors man’s face came into view. “What have I done?” Henry felt hands gently passing over his rib cage. “I may break a rib. I drive you to doctor. Aidez-moi à le soulever.”
    Henry felt himself carried and laid in the back of the car. Wind rushed over his face as the car took off. Each bounce and jolt along the rough road felt like another blow to his ribs. Henry kept his eyes on the sky, lifting his spirit to the clouds just as he had the day he was taken out to be shot.
    â€œIt’s not the Gestapo. It’s not the Gestapo. It’s not the Gestapo.”

C HAPTER T EN
    â€œ Y ou must forgive le patron . Since July, his grief haunts him.”
    Henry sat in a tiny, incense-scented church, one of the few buildings standing in the nearby town of Saint Martin. A doctor was circling bandages tightly around his chest, setting his ribs in case one had cracked. The Vercors man and the pale-faced one were sitting outside the door, under a tree charred along one side and blooming on the other.
    The doctor continued, “He says that when he heard you call out against the Gestapo, he realized his madness.”
    Henry shifted uncomfortably, ashamed of his outburst. How crazy was he going to get? “About that, doctor, I can explain….” Henry trailed off. How could he explain?
    â€œNo need. Those of us who survived Nazi brutality are all a little mad. Le patron was a sergeant in the Great War,a union leader, like a father. That is why we called him le patron , boss. As leader of our maquis , he feels responsible for all the deaths, the burning. That is why his rage overcomes him sometimes. Vous comprenez ?”
    Henry nodded. He certainly understood sorrows causing wild actions. “But why is he so angry at Americans?”
    â€œBecause he agreed to ‘Operation Montagnards. ’ He knew how the plan endangered us. How terrible Nazi reprisals would be if it failed. But he trusted General de Gaulle and the Allies.”
    â€œOperation Montagnards ?” All battle plans seemed to have had code titles. “Does montagnard mean mountain?”
    The doctor sighed with a weariness so deep Henry knew he’d never forget the sound of it. “Yes. The plan was that when the Allies attacked the Normandy beaches on D-day, our maquis would establish a mountain fortress here, cut supply lines from Germany, and attack the Nazis from the rear. We would make a vise—we the eastern side, the D-day army the western side—to crush them.”
    Henry nodded again. It was a simple but brilliant way to sandwich the Nazis and squeeze.
    â€œSo we prepared. We made an airstrip in Vassieux to receive four thousand Allied and French paratroopers that de Gaulle promised to send to help us fight. In June, the BBC broadcast the order: Les montagnards doivent continuer à gravir les cimes. The mountaineers mustcontinue to climb the