Read Online In This Hospitable Land by Jr. Lynmar Brock - Free Book Online Page B

gravely. “But where will we sleep?” He tremulously remembered André’s promise that they wouldn’t have to sleep in the mud. “I can’t stay out here all night.” He put an arm protectively around his wife. “And neither can Rose.”
    “You and Mother can stay in the car,” André suggested, “along with Denise, Geneviève, and the children. There’s room enough if you’re willing to snuggle. Alex and I can stay outside to serve as lookouts. If anything happens, we’ll hop in the car and race away.”
    The sun began to set. The family spread blankets on the car’s front and back seats and on the floor in back too, after restoring the jump seats to their storage positions.
    “Mother,” Ida said softly as Denise gave her a good-night kiss. “This really is an adventure!”
    “I’ll say it’s an adventure,” Alex called testily, leaning against the Buick’s hood.
    “But Mother, where will we do our business? I’m not like the little ones. I don’t wear diapers anymore.”
    “Big girls like you sometimes have to make do. That’s what the hedgerow is for.”
    “Oh!”

     
    As the night wore on it was only Christel who couldn’t sleep due to the unnatural angle huddling required. She began to whimper.
    “Stop being such a spoiled brat!” Alex exploded outside. “This is hard on everyone but I don’t hear the rest complaining!”
    “Come here, sweetheart,” Denise called softly, picking up a blanket, placing Christel over her shoulder and leaving the car to lie down on the least steep part of the slope.
    Christel hugged her mother closely. “Mama, what if I roll into the canal?”
    “You won’t if you hold on to my skirt.”
    Christel clutched the fabric tightly through the night. Denise slept fitfully, unable to block out the intermittent drone from the constant stream of outmoded Berliet trucks slowly carrying military forces past the many stranded refugees. In an irregular progression, airplanes passed noisily overhead.
    But she was glad to have helped Christel slip into a long, deep sleep, as if she had purged her darling’s fears by adding them to countless fears of her own.

     
    As the morning sun broke through the early mists, it was strangely quiet beside the canal. The military had largely passed far into Belgium while the Sauverins struggled to sleep.
    Louis Sauverin, the earliest riser, felt impossibly stiff, scrunched up with his wife on the front seat of the car, the Buick’s steering wheel pressed into his back. He listened as the children wriggled and talked in their sleep. Lying there quietly so as not to disturb the others he realized he’d been wrong to worry about staying in Adinkerke.
    André and Alex stood up beside the car. The others grumbled and groaned into consciousness then emerged to stretch awkwardly and complain of the difficult night.
    Alex climbed the ridge to see what he could learn from other stranded refugees.
    “André!” he called suddenly as André marched his way. “Look!”
    The striped wooden barrier at the border crossing had been raised. Large groups of fleeing Belgians came to life and revved their engines to cross into France.
    “We’d better go,” André said. “This might be our last chance.”
    “Everyone!” Alex shouted. “Back in the car! Hurry!”
    The Sauverins joined the bumper-to-bumper traffic with André driving. It took an hour to reach the checkpoint. The little ones quickly grew restless.
    “This is a bad sign,” Alex said grumpily.
    Belgian officials thoroughly checked passports before stamping them with exit visas. The prim mustachioed border guard of short stature and cold demeanor handed back the Sauverins passports. He had no difficulty with the Dutch and British citizens nor even with Rose’s Belgium one. But he gave André a dubious glance.
    “You prefer running away to staying and fighting?”
    Blood drained from André’s face.
    “Don’t even think about it,” the border guard said, stamping and handing