The Long Summer of Monsieur Loiseau

It was a young paratrooper who probably jumped out around midnight.The parachute got tangled in a stunted oak tree, and he was dead before he hit the ground, machine gun bullets ripping through his skull and chest, nearly ripping him apart, broken ribs protruding from the charred flesh, The left half of the face, covered in blood, is still intact; the right half is missing.The boys stopped three or four meters away and stared at the corpse for a long time.Then they turned around at the same time, ran down the hill, flew across the deserted wilderness, returned to the mansion, and told Martha about it.There was a power outage that day, and Martha rode her bicycle to the police station, and a full hour later, the fat policeman returned with her in the chugging car, with two boys leading the way.

The car couldn't drive up the hill, and Martha didn't want to go up, and Harry and Alex were forbidden to get closer to the oak tree where the dead body was hanging. His sleeve wiped his forehead.Then the four of them squeezed into the police car and went to the post office five kilometers away to find a working phone.The boys were excited because the shops in the nearby town were still open for candy and ice cream.Martha bought them each a small bag of lemon drops, but turned down the boys' request to go to the movies.

"This is not an outing." With a straight face, she drove them back to the car, "Quick, we should go back."

Two police officers had brought the body back, wrapped in a tarpaulin, to the side of the gravel driveway, awaiting disposal.German paratroopers, the adults concluded, or spies, scouts, fighter pilots.The chef's 14-year-old son was assigned as a courier, carrying messages between the mansion and the police station on a borrowed bicycle.Alex and Harry sat on the stairs consuming sweets, watching the people hurrying in and out of the hall through a crack in the banister.Near the evening, four soldiers appeared, coming from the Royal Air Force base more than ten kilometers away. They carried the corpse wrapped in canvas onto the truck, briefly talked with the Baron Loiseau, got in the truck and left .

After nightfall, the power was still not restored, and everyone ate in the kitchen because the light was not easy to penetrate.On the downside, neither can the heat of the fire and the pungent smell of burning tobacco.The adults debated whether the Cornish coast would be a bombing target. Some thought it was too far away; others thought the Germans would target the nearby naval base.In the end, either side can convince the other side.

The answer was revealed that evening, when the first shells fell around two o'clock in the morning.Harry woke up with a start, ran to the window under the blanket, and climbed into the armchair.Flames flickered to the northeast, illuminating the rising smoke.The sound was belated, a low rumble, like thunder heard underwater.The glass windows trembled, another fireball exploded in the distance, and he saw the shadow of a fighter jet flashing by, too far away to tell which side of the plane it was.The roar of anti-aircraft guns joined the chorus, and once, twice, a fighter jet trailed smoke and fell into the shadows that the fire could not see through.Harry didn't see the end of it, the door slammed open and Martha rushed in in her nightgown, pulling him away from the window and dragging Harry all the way into the wine cellar.

Alex is already there.The boys huddled like two wintering squirrels between two oak barrels, making a nest of blankets.The walls trembled from time to time, and the shock caused by the distant explosion was weakened by layers of mud, but it was still clearly audible.Because of the cold, they leaned close together, listening to the vague conversations of the adults.Sure enough, a naval base, said the cook's voice, sure enough.

The next explosion, so close, as if overhead, knocked dust off the boys' heads and necks.Alex flinched, eyes closed.

"They'll be gone soon," whispered Harry. "Not enough fuel."

"how do you know?"

"We rarely stayed in the shelter for more than three hours, my mum and I. Then mum stopped going to the dugout and the raids got longer, my mum said it was because the Germans could fly from France now. The longest one It was six hours, I guess, I fell asleep, and the police didn't let us out until after dawn."

"Why doesn't your mother go to the bomb shelter?"

"She can't, she drives an ambulance for the Red Cross. It was supposed to be Mrs Butler's job next door, but she and two nurses got hit by a Molotov cocktail on Conton Street. That's why Mum sent me away." Clear images emerged: the evacuation train, children with red eyes huddled together, the car was filled with the smell of motor oil and vomit.Harry pulled the blanket up and over his shoulders.

Alex leaned on Harry's shoulder and said nothing.Two explosions in quick succession, both a little farther away than before, sounded like something huge and spiky rolling in the dirt.Harry watched a spider emerge from a crack in the bricks, tapping the bricks hesitantly with its slender legs, and then, as if suddenly aware of Harry's gaze, it fled upwards and burrowed into the edge of the wooden beam. In the gap, disappeared.Alex moved a little, hair brushing Harry's ear, tickling.No one spoke anymore, the chef sat on the ground with his back against the wine barrel and closed his eyes.Martha leaned against the wall, wrapping her arms around herself, staring blankly at her bare feet.Beside her, a young maid with disheveled hair whispered a prayer.

We waited quietly, Mother always told Harry, and in the crowded and stuffy bomb shelter, we prayed.

The bombing stopped around four o'clock in the morning, and there were no tools in the wine cellar to tell the time, but when the Baron Loiseau opened the door and sent everyone back to bed, Harry heard the hall clock strike four.The bomb that had come so close to them a few hours earlier had reduced the chapel a kilometer away to smoking rubble, thankfully long since abandoned.

It was still dark, and Harry was lying on the bed, looking at the dark window.He'd love to have the lights on, but even without a power outage, it's a bad idea to turn them on at this moment, and maybe there are German planes hovering overhead.Harry figured there would be candles and matches in the cupboard, but he didn't want to leave the warm blanket.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Harry sat up.The door opened a crack, and the candlelight came in first, then Alex, tiptoeing, shadows swaying with his steps.He put down the candlestick and climbed into bed.

"I can not sleep."

Harry turned around, "Me neither."

"I just have to close my eyes and I'll see the paratrooper."

There was a brief silence as the boys lay there, listening to each other's breathing, trying not to think about the paratrooper with half his face missing.

Alex touched his hand, "Can you tell a story?"

"what story?"

"I don't know, whatever."

"I do not know."

"Tell me about London."

But London has nothing to say, London is parents and schools, gray mornings and burning nights, rubble and air raid sirens, sandbags and spare stretchers in the streets and alleys.He found himself talking about Mrs. Butler, about the ambulance burned to the ground, the body beyond recognition.Mr. Butler had gone into the army, and the company was at Southampton.Their only son was in the Navy and died in Dunkirk.With no one answering the door, the police who came with the bad news had to stuff the death certificate into the Prudence's mailbox.Mother put the thin paper in the chest of drawers, with the last letter from Father.

The candle was nearly burnt out, and the little flame that remained was dying in the melted wax.Alex was sprawled beside him, half his face buried in the pillow, his blond hair was matted, and Harry thought he was asleep, but he wasn't.Alex studied him with one eye, as if assessing Harry's credibility.

"The first death notice sent to the village was for Mr. Bolton, in the second week of the war—Mr. Bolton was the postman." Alex said, "The butcher's wife found out early in the morning that he was in Weeping on the way, grabbing the letter, throwing the bicycle aside. Mr. Burton's son Richard is a private, I think, went with the company," he thought about the pronunciation of the place name, "to Caen. The butcher shop owner Mr. Bolton helped him home and gave him brandy. Mr. Bolton did not deliver after that day. Elena Carlston took his place."

"How is Mr. Bolton now?"

"He's dead." In the gloom, Alex's eyes looked grey-green. "Papa said we shouldn't talk about things like this, but I heard them talking in the kitchen, and the dock workers found Mr. In the port, Martha thought he fell drunk, but everyone else thought he jumped."

The candles were extinguished, but a faint light came through the cracks in the curtains, and it was dawn.

"Harry."

"Ok?"

"What if George doesn't come back?"

Harry thought of his father, who looked unnatural in his military uniform, as if he had become a completely different person.When he bent over to pick Harry up, even the smell was different, father should smell like aftershave and old file folders, but that day on the platform, the uniform smelled of stiff bleach.No one knows exactly where they are going, some say Portsmouth and then sail to Caen from there; others say they will train at Coventry before being assigned elsewhere.The farthest Harry had ever been was Sussex, to see Aunt Connie, who was not married at the time, and he tried to imagine "Caen", "Vannes" and "Le Havre", all these strange place names, But only gray 'images with vague outlines can be assembled, like the background of a nightmare, in which the father drowns and is never heard from again.

"He'll be back," Harry replied.

Alex nodded, curled up in the blanket, and closed his eyes.

tbc.