The Gathering Storm Read online

  A few paces ahead the grass was cropped very short. Cows or something must have been here recently. A farm would be a good thing to find. Perhaps we could get fresh milk for the children and some bread and jam.

  My stomach growled.

  Three more steps forward and I stopped in my tracks and dropped abruptly to my knees.

  Looming up from the mist were large, ungainly shapes. They had long snouts, like elephants, only they crouched near the ground.

  Tanks!

  But whose? French, Belgian, English…or German?

  I had heard that tank crews slept in their machines. If I appeared suddenly out of the fog, might I not be shot, even if these mechanical beasts belonged to friendly forces?

  On my stomach, I began creeping backward toward the sheltering trees.

  Then I heard voices! Behind me and just a few meters to the right of my position, I could hear but not see them. There were at least two men speaking in quiet conversation.

  “Ein, zwei, drei, vier…..”

  They were counting…in German!

  I turned my head back and forth until I fixed the direction of the conversation. In the mist there was no way to tell how far away, but they sounded close, coming from within the stand of trees and not from the meadow.

  “Take no chances,” Papa had said.

  Now what?

  German tanks in the meadow and German soldiers in the trees? Was I surrounded? Was there no way to escape back to the cottage to warn the others?

  Now I prayed for the vapor to stay dense; heavier and thicker would be better still. Creeping, creeping, scooting backward, angling away from the voices, I was no longer concerned with retracing my path. Just let me get beneath the arms of the trees, and I would scamper away from the meadow.

  My foot hung up on something. A dead branch? When I tried to shake it loose it flipped up in the air and landed with a clang against the water bottle tied to my waist.

  “Was ist?!” a German shouted. “Schnell, Hans!”

  The chatter of machine gun fire spattered wildly, and an engine roared to life. A motorcycle zipped past where I lay, the sidecar-mounted weapon firing wildly into the fog. It shredded the limbs of the trees. Bark splinters and pine needles flew into the air to shower down on me.

  I hugged the ground, certain I would be killed or captured any second. The motorcycle, after bounding over some hummocks of earth, disappeared out of sight and earshot.

  If the tanks were German, why had the motorcycle team fled?

  But if the tanks belonged to the Allies, why had they not fired back?

  Cautiously, slowly, I raised my head.

  “Loralei! Loralei,” I heard my father calling.

  “Stay back, Papa,” I warned. “Don’t come any closer!”

  As if ripped asunder by the rapid-fire bullets, the fog began to lighten and lift from the ground.

  Still prone, I peered ahead as once more the domed shapes reappeared, sunlight transforming them into…haystacks. Each cabin-sized mound of hay still had the ladder by which it had been stacked lying across its top.

  Papa emerged from the trees and ran to me. “Are you hurt? We heard gunshots!”

  “They must have been German scouts, Papa. They were fooled the same as me…counting the tanks!” I felt relieved and embarrassed at the same moment. “It’s all right now,” I concluded.

  “Yes, thanks be to God,” Papa agreed. “But the Germans don’t send scouts unless they are planning an advance…through here. We must go at once!”

  12

  At Tyne Cott it was as if the endless current of misery on the road from Brussels had settled into a pool. Hundreds of bicycles leaned against the outer fence. Carts and wagons and baby carriages cluttered the open space that might have been a parking area. The parade ground outside the cemetery, about the size of a soccer field, was crowded with makeshift camps. There was no more room, so the travelers’ campsites spilled onto the cemetery. They sheltered from the harsh sun beneath blankets draped from tombstones. They sat on their bundles or crouched on the ground.

  The lawns surrounding the chapel were also packed with hundreds of refugees who had climbed the stone fence and broken through the gates.

  I instructed the children, “Put your hands in my pockets, so you don’t get lost.” Gina, Judith, and Susan, eyes wide at the sight of such confusion, slid fingers into my pockets and held tight. Jessica waddled after us, avoiding knapsacks and heads and arms with difficulty.

  To our right was a long line snaking toward the public latrine.

  Men, women, and children had staked out territories, leaving barely enough room for us to follow Papa toward the arched entry doors of the stone structure and the office of Captain Judah Blood. A man with a tin mask on his face stood guard at the entry. He held his arm across the door.

  With a soft Irish accent he remarked to Papa, “Far enough, mister. Chapel’s reserved. Captain figures military’ll need it soon enough. They haven’t found us yet, but they will. Last war we was the center of the battle. Only a matter of time, and we’ll be in the thick of it again. Basement’s for medical. Triage. Special cases only.” His glance grazed Jessica’s pregnant belly. “Wounded soldiers only, ma’am.”

  Papa replied, “Please tell Captain Judah that Robert Bittick of Alderman’s Seminary is here. He will remember. Robert Bittick of the White Rose.”

  Startled, the guard drew himself erect and saluted. “Bittick. White Rose? Yes, sir.” He unlocked the door and stepped aside, allowing the little band to enter the foyer of the chapel. He locked it behind them.

  The heat, noise, and chaos of the mob fell away. Cool serenity settled on us. Color and light from stained glass windows filled the chapel with rainbows. The tin-faced man explained, “Can’t let the mob in. The BEF and the Belgian army will arrive soon. There’ll be a last stand. This little chapel. A fortress soon enough to hold the jerries back. Cap’n says so.”

  What would become of this beautiful place, I wondered. How many years to build a house of worship? How many hours to destroy it?

  Tears began to stream silently down Jessica’s cheeks. “Oh!” she said, staring up as a sunbeam shone through a window depicting Jesus calling His friend Lazarus forth from the tomb. This was a chapel where mothers and fathers of fallen sons could come and remember the resurrection and the life.

  Had Lazarus suffered death and decay in a second tomb? Or had the voice of Jesus called him to live on and on in a world choked by the brambles of death?

  “Oh, Loralei, look!” Jessica waved her hand as a gallery of beautiful faces depicting the gospel stories gazed down on us. “Look where we are!”

  “The steps leading to Eden.” I felt it too. There was a holiness in this place; as though we had stepped from the hell of our journey into another dimension.

  “There will be fighting here too?” Jessica seemed to drink in the jewel box beauty of the place.

  The Irishman replied, “History repeats itself. And in these fields many men have died. Men I know well.” The tin man dipped his fingers into a basin of water and quickly crossed himself.

  Motioning for us to take a seat, he hurried away to find Captain Judah.

  Long minutes slid by. Our little group huddled together in the pews beneath the life-sized crucifix. Windows in side chapels depicted soldiers in shining armor flanked by the banners of army companies and the names of the fallen.

  The trio of girls leaned heavily against my arms and almost instantly fell into deep sleep.

  The Irishman stepped out from the vestry door and motioned to Papa. Patting Jessica on her shoulder, Papa strode up the steps, vanishing behind the door with the Irishman.

  “Who is this Judah fellow?” Jessica asked.

  “I’m not sure. I remember some fellow from the Tin Noses Shop Papa mentioned while we were at the White Rose Inn, but we didn’t meet him. That was years ago. In the summer. The Olympics. If he’s the same fellow. A kind of prophet, Papa said. I didn’t pay attention.�
�� I frowned, remembering how I had thrown myself at Eben Golah.

  Jessica stretched her aching back. In a hushed whisper she said, “I hope the baby is a girl.”

  “William would want a boy.”

  “William is gone.”

  “He would want a boy. He told me so.”

  “Loralei”—Jessica’s voice quavered—“William is dead. There. I said it.”

  “Jessica, you mustn’t speak such a thing. He could be…”

  “Plain truth. You know it. And Varrick. You heard the reports. The newspapers. You haven’t shed a tear.”

  I raised my chin defensively. “I won’t. I can’t let myself believe it.”

  “They were the first. Our men. On the front lines and there are none left alive in their unit.”

  “A rumor. A bad, horribly cruel rumor.”

  “Plain truth. I know it. I dreamed it, and I know.”

  “We’re going to keep praying for them until we have proof.”

  “All the same, I hope I never have a son. Did you see the faces of the women out there? The mothers. No boys at all above the age of sixteen. I’ve been watching. They’re all gone. You can tell the women who have sons. Haunted faces. Like the Virgin Mary must’ve looked at the crucifixion, I’ll bet. Raise a boy for twenty years, and cruelty ends their lives before they have begun. I never want a son. Never.”

  I fell silent after that. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, but visions of William and Varrick, dead in a ditch, reared up in my mind. German shells would rend the earth as they had done to Passendale twenty years ago. The earth would heal, and trees would grow again; the poppies of Flanders would bloom. But the boys who had fallen would not stir and rise like the poppies. They would not awaken until Christ came down from heaven and called out their names, “Lazarus! Come forth!”

  Jessica and the girls and I remained in the cool shelter of the chapel while Papa met with Captain Judah Blood behind closed doors in the vestry.

  The trio of children played a game of Go Fish with the pack of worn, unmatched playing cards.

  Jessica stretched out on the pew and dozed with her head on a wadded-up sweater.

  I wandered from window to sundrenched window, each portraying in one glance a familiar, well-loved Bible story. The tourist pamphlet in a rack at the back of the church described the famous windows as containing one hundred faces of courage and hope.

  There was no artist’s signature on the glass. Classic features of the characters glowed like the illuminated paintings of Pre-Raphaelite masters. The deep, soft folds of the cloak of Jesus lay neatly folded on a stone near the foot of the cross as harsh, cruel-faced Roman soldiers gambled to win it as a prize. The twisted feet of Jesus, pierced with an iron spike driven through His heels, bled within an arm’s length of a jeering executioner who tossed the dice.

  Opposite that window was another battle: the image of a British officer leading his men out of the trenches and over the barricade into machine gun fire.

  Carved in the stone block beneath the scene were the names of those who had fallen and these words:

  Now storming fury rose,

  And clamour such as heard in Heav’n till now

  Was never, arms on armor clashing brayed,

  Horrible discord, and the madding wheels

  Of brazen chariots rag’d: dire was the noise

  Of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss

  Of firey darts in flaming vollies flew

  And, flying, vaulted either host with fire…

  Deeds of eternal fame

  Were done, but infinite; for wide was spread

  That was, and various: sometimes on firm ground

  A standing fight; then soaring on main wing,

  Tormented all the air; all air seemed conflicting fire.2

  One hundred faces locked in battles upon which all the souls in all the world depended.

  Beautiful and terrible faces. I wondered what artist had created the beauty that now lay directly in the path of approaching battle. I mused at the lack of care demonstrated that such works of art were neither boarded up or taped against the certainty of shell fire.

  Selecting a prayer book from the rack beside the door, I opened it randomly. My eyes fell on the prayer service for the fallen soldiers of Flanders. The words of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, leapt up. The ink seemed to be black fire on white fire.

  There is a time for everything,

  and a season for every activity under heaven:

  a time to be born and a time to die.

  So many had died, and so many more would die before the sun set on this day. The vigil hours had chimed for them even as Jessica’s innocent baby prepared to enter a world so cruel the mind could scarcely take it in.

  The innocent suffered while cruel men gambled for possessions and power.

  After two hours the vestry door opened. Judah Blood, faceless behind the tin face, emerged first into the chapel. So this was the one who warned of what would come upon the world unless brave men stood up and spoke out against tyranny.

  Today, even behind an unchangeable expression, Judah’s demeanor spoke of the gravity of the situation.

  Little Gina asked quietly, “What’s wrong with his face, Auntie Loralei? Why does he wear a mask?”

  Jessica sat up and answered. “He was injured in the war, dear. He wears a mask because his face was hurt.”

  The explanation seemed to satisfy the child, who turned her attention back to the cards.

  Papa emerged and raised his hand toward us in a gesture that implied the war was going much worse than they had speculated. Only the details remained to be elaborated upon.

  I wondered, could a man age ten years in ten days? Papa looked ten years older than when we had left Brussels. Judah Blood’s painted features would never age. He raised his chin in a kind of salute to me. Did he remember me? Had he met me as a child? I attempted a smile of acknowledgment. He nodded and returned into the vestry, closing the heavy door behind him.

  Standing up from the pew, I waited for Papa.

  He approached and stood silently for a long moment with his hand on the smooth polished mahogany of the pew.

  “That fellow, Judah Blood?” My whisper seemed loud.

  “Yes.” Papa nodded.

  “Why is he here?”

  “He has lived here since the last war. Would not leave his men. I met him at the White Rose. It was our first meeting, many years ago.”

  I thought, Who could forget the face? A mannequin’s face. Painted. Tiny hairs set in the tin for eyebrows. His eyes, though, were alive. A lonely man. Fierce and gentle by turns.

  “Judah is a gentleman. In the truest sense of the word.”

  Jessica rubbed her belly as the baby kicked. “The German Resistance. Clearly that’s at an end.”

  Papa glanced up at the crucifix. “Judah knew it would come to this, if the European church failed to speak out. Like Eben Golah, he warned the committee of what would happen.”

  I said, “I guess no one believed him.”

  Papa tried to smile an encouraging smile. “Judah is the authority at Passendale. He says we six may rest inside the church. Jessica. The baby. He says there are cots in the basement prepared for the field hospital.” He paused. “Jessica, take the girls downstairs, will you?”

  There was a hint of resentment in Jessica’s gaze as Papa dismissed her to tend the children.

  Papa did not speak again until Jessica and the children had vanished and their footsteps retreated down the stairwell. “Very dangerous, Lora. Very dangerous. All these refugees. Everyone camped here. Like babies laid down on the tracks in front of a locomotive.”

  “Who could have imagined?”

  Papa took my arm and led me to the side door. He cracked it slightly, allowing me a peek to the west as the sun sank low on the horizon.

  Clearly Judah had not only imagined this chaos but warned about it. I spotted him again. He had slipped out another way. His long stride carried him quickly th
rough the campsites toward the caretaker’s house nestled behind a high wrought-iron fence. He looked neither to the right nor the left as he picked his way through heaps of belongings. From the back I noted that Judah Blood was a strong, broad-shouldered man with a thick thatch of dark red hair. What sort of man had he been before shrapnel had ripped away his face? Perhaps his features had matched the image of his mask and the strength of his body. Perhaps he had been handsome once?

  Papa followed my gaze. “A good man, Judah is.”

  “The others. The tin men. How long have they lived here caring for the dead?”

  “From the last war, until now. He was—Judah is—the artist. The glass in the chapel.”

  I gasped. My eyes widened as I watched the man without a face of his own who had seen and recreated beauty in the faces gazing down from the window frames.

  Papa directed my attention away from Judah. He lifted my chin with one finger. His eyes were deep and sad.

  “What is it, Papa?”A sense of dread filled me.

  “It will be only a matter of days before the Panzers break through Allied lines.”

  “But all these people? Papa?”

  “The Germans will come here. Are on the way. To Flanders. Like they did in the last war. You heard the stories out of Poland. Holland has already surrendered. Then the Germans bombed Rotterdam after the surrender. The lesson is not lost on the other Allies. Belgium and King Leopold hold on by a thread. They are praying the French will come. They won’t.”

  “But the girls! Jessica! The baby! Where can we run to?”

  “Judah believes the sea is our means of escape.”

  “The sea? How?”

  “I don’t know. Somehow, England.”

  I looked around as a group of ragged children played soccer between the rows of white crosses. “England? But Papa, there are so many thousands running away. The Jews. How can they all…?”

  “They won’t.”

  “I want to press on. To Paris. The Nazis surely won’t make it into Paris. The Allies won’t let them take Paris.”

  “Judah says this time—”

  “Judah! Who is he? Who is this man anyway to speak such doom?”