Read Online Once More the Hawks by Max Hennessy - Free Book Online Page B

clutched his bloodstained flying helmet as if it were a talisman.
    ‘God bless America,’ he muttered as he passed and the woman turned and looked up, startled.
    A French tank captain he talked to who had knocked out three German panzers insisted that his tanks had been superior all along the line to the German machines, but that the Germans were winning because the French politicians were a lot of craven-hearted cowards who had bolted for Bordeaux at the first alarm.
    It was obvious there weren’t many days left before the Germans arrived. They were already coming up the Seine and their aircraft were over the city daily. Caught near the Champs Elysées by the thud of bombs that came even before the sirens sounded, Dicken started to look around him for a shelter.
    The aeroplanes were appearing overhead now and, standing in the doorway of a shop nearby, he saw a woman in the uniform of the American Ambulance Corps. He recognised her at once as the woman he’d seen holding the hand of the wounded pilot. She looked bewildered, so he grabbed her arm and dragged her with him. Ahead of him he could see the sign, ABRI – shelter – and he pushed her in front of him down the steps just as the first bomb landed in the street. There was a tremendous crash and the air seemed to be sucked out of their lungs, then a cloud of dust filled the shelter to make them all start coughing. The American woman hid her face in Dicken’s shoulder, and, without thinking, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer.
    The raid didn’t last long and after a while the American woman lifted her head. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
    ‘Perhaps a drink would help,’ Dicken suggested, but she shook her head.
    ‘I’m sorry. I’d love to, but under the circumstances I’d better get back. There’ll be work to do.’
    News arrived that the Germans had reached Rouen and it was clearly time to go. With no kit to pack, nothing but the revolver round his waist, Dicken called at the American hospital to thank them for all they had done. He had half hoped to bump into the woman he had met in the shelter but nobody could identify her from his description and time was hurrying by so he had to leave without finding her. He decided to travel by train to Blois where the Headquarters of the Advanced Air Striking Force had moved. But it was impossible to get near the Gare de Lyon for the crowds of people trying to escape. The Gare d’Austerlitz was similarly crowded and he found out that the lines were being bombed, anyway, and in the end decided to leave by road.
    That evening he wandered round the streets which were empty except for an occasional car. The cafés and restaurants were all boarded up, the pavements deserted and devoid of the famous flâneurs , and the atmosphere was one of desolation. Walking up the Champs Elysées to the Etoile, he stood by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for a while, watched by a silent gendarme, and stared at the words on the tomb – Ici repose un soldat français mort pour la patrie – remembering bitterly how after the last lot the politicians had promised it had been the war to end all wars.
     
    As they moved off the next morning, there was a strange mist over the city and a strong smell of burning. The rumble of gunfire in the distance seemed to reach him through the bones of the earth. He had acquired a car and a truck filled with fifteen RAF policemen and their baggage and was escorted by two RAF despatch riders, who worked wonders as they reached the crowded country roads. Looking back he saw a shroud of black smoke hanging over the city and the smuts from the fires settled on their clothes and made the faces of the despatch riders as black as negroes’.
    Châteaudun came up and they moved on to Blois which was as crowded as every other town, then they began to follow the Loire until they came to Nantes. They had been unable to find food because of the horde of refugees moving ahead of them and were forced further