I could think of nothing but staying alive.
They were everywhere. In my yard, in my house, in my room. I was hiding under some hay bails in the attic as they went through everything in the house. They ripped hangers off of racks, pulled clothes from drawers, raked through the cupboards in search of food, and grabbed all the money they could find.
I tried to calm my child’s crying but she would not be quiet. She would be the death of us all. Luckily they were noisier than she. Before long they were gone along with most of our valuables. My little girl slowly relaxed and I looked at my wife. She was poised at the window, ready to duck if need be. I heard her gasp. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a fiery torch crashed through the window. It had barely missed my wife’s head, but it sailed straight into the hay in which i was kneeling. I tried frantically to put it out. We threw some old blankets on it and eventually smothered it. But it was not the only one.
Smoke was now rising through the cracks in the floorboards. We had to move. My oldest son, Francis, jumped from the attic door and scanned the house. He yelled that there was a clear path to the cellar door. I sent my daughter down the ladder with my youngest son, James, and helped my wife down. We dashed across the hall, past the bedrooms and through the kitchen. As we reached the cellar door I looked out the window. There would be no escaping the Nazis. There were at least thirty of them on my front lawn.
We all hurried into the cellar, shut the door, and locked it. We then took three tarp soaked them in water and shoved them into the crevasses around the door. After that, we waited as our house slowly burned to the ground. Hopefully the soldiers wouldn't wait to search the remains. They had no reason to. They hadn't even seen us.
As we lay on the damp dirt floor we prayed. We prayed that God would deliver us from the wickedness of the Germans. We prayed we would stay healthy in spite of the smoke. We began to realize the smoke would be an issue, even with the cracks around the door covered. My wife went to work cutting the one remaining tarp into pieces. She made at least fifteen pieces and gave one to each of our children to hold over their mouths. The water in the cloth material held out the smoke very well and we rotated them out every time they began to dry out. We went on like this for about four hours. The the door gave way.
Francis and i jumped to action moving barrels and crates to blockade the flames in the stairwell. we couldn’t risk throwing all our water on it so we had to simply hold it at bay. When the fires finally died down and the smoke went away we rested easy. We knew we should not go out just yet for the embers would still be hot. Instead my wife and I rationalized our situation.
The food supply was small.
"We have two bags of potatoes and plenty of coffee," she told me. "Obviously we have no way to brew it though."
I chuckled. "What about the bread?"
"Enough to last us a week," she replied.
"What a diet," I said sarcastically. "At least you and the kids are safe."
"Yeah. But we don’t taste as good as bread or potatoes."
"Man shall not live by bread alone."
"Ahem!" she faked clearing her throat. "We have potatoes."
We had a good laugh and then we rationed the water from the barrel into jars. We had about six one-gallon jars of water left, when we were done, and about as much on the floor around the stairwell, just in case. We had not taken any chances that was for sure.
"Hey James," I said. "Watcha doin’ over there?"
He looked up from the dirt he was scribbling in. He was only eleven but he was quite the artist. As I walked over to see, he stood up and smiled proudly at his masterpiece.
"It's you, Daddy."
And indeed it was. It was me killing Nazis with a tommy gun.
"Ahh, it's great," I said,"and where are you all while I'm bravely slaying the Ferrets?"
"Heehee, I dunno. Probably running?"
I sat down next to my other son, Francis, and said, "That's my boy."
"You know, Dad, it probably would have been a good idea to grab the gun before we hid down here like cowards," Francis said with a slight grin on his face.
"Then why didn't you?"
"Well... I didn't think about it 'til just now," he replied.
"Well then it's a good thing I did." I proudly produced the small pistol i had always kept in the nightstand. "I grabbed it before we even got in the attic."
"Good thinking Daddy," my daughter, Sarah, chimed in.
"Well, I knew I couldn't win a fist fight with a Kraut." We all laughed at that. I never was a big guy. I could barely even move my own furniture around. "That's what I get for pushin' pencils all day." We laughed again. I worked at the American Embassy in Paris. That is why the Nazis came and burned down my home. They wanted nothing to do with Americans.
We continued the next hour in the jovial manner and after that I decided it would be cooled down enough to poke my head out, take a look around, and get some fresh air. We walked up what was left of the stairwell and began pulling away the charred barrels, crates, and tarps. I was just about to push away the remains of the door when I heard a noise in the wreckage outside.
"Shhhh," I quieted my family.
"What is it?" my wife inquired.
I put my finger to my lips and pressed my ear to the door. It sounded like someone, or something, was rummaging through the wreckage of my house. I whipped out my six-shooter, which felt more like a pea-shooter at the moment, and turned to my family.
"It sounds like an animal." I really had no idea but I didn't want to alarm them. "I'm gonna open the door. Stay back." I slowly pushed the door aside. When I immerged from the ground I was staring straight into the face of an American soldier.
"Howdy," he said in a deep southern drawl. "You Steve Miller?"
"Yes sir, I am. And you are?"
"Sergeant Johnny Blithe, 3rd Airborne, at your service." He then saluted me and said, "You can call me Bubba."
My wife and kids had been listening intently and were eager to get out of the hole in which we had spent the last eight or so hours. I beckoned for them to come out.
"Watch your step, Victoria," I told my wife as i helped her up the soot covered steps.
"Francis, grab your sister," Victoria commanded.
Then, before I knew what had happened, I was on the ground with a hand over my mouth.
It was the sergeant. I turned my head to meet his gaze and realized my wife was also on the ground with a hand over her mouth.
"Krauts," Bubba said with a slightly audible voice. "Keep your heads down and your mouths shut." He also uttered some profanities on which I will not elaborate. He slowly released his hand from my mouth and, without moving from his belly, pulled out his weapon: a Thompson submachine gun. He crawled around in the ashes for a better view. After a moment of surveying the German soldiers, who never seemed to relent from their mission, he motioned for us to return to the cellar.
Once inside I found my confused children. My wife scooped up Alison, our daughter, and told the boys to keep quiet.
"It seems the Nazis have returned," she whispered. "We must not make a sound. The good sergeant is doing everything he can to protect us.
"James," I said, "will you hand me-"
I was cut off by the sound of gunfire. I heard orders shouted and replies to those orders. The more orders I heard over the sound of the gunfire the more I recognized the southern drawl of Sergeant Blithe. He was not alone. After several minutes of battle, it appeared that the victory was ours. The shooting had ceased. Many footsteps could be heard walking around the cellar.
Then, Bubba poked his head in and said, "Now let's get y'all outa here before them Krauts know what hit 'em."
