The Avion My Uncle Flew (18 page)

As if he thought something was wrong with me, as if I had a sunstroke, perhaps, all during this time Charles was eyeing me. Once I was finished working out the plan I was in a fever to get started. I needed Charles. I had to contrive of a means to explain his part in it and manage to get him to stay overnight with me at the hotel.

Right then, mon oncle appeared near the forest and shouted down at me, “Viens, Jean! Viens!” He waited for me to come. Suzanne came running out and all three of us joined him and, speaking part of the time in French and part of the time in English, he made known to us that he'd searched the ruins from top to bottom, this time. He hadn't found a thing to indicate anyone might still be living there.

But he had done something a person not as smart as he was mightn't have thought of. He scraped away the loose dirt on the floor of the cellar. When the Germans set fire to la maison they'd exploded it, too, with hand-grenades and bombs, and the explosion had half filled the cellar with dirt. Well, he scraped along the walls and had discovered where somebody had made a fire at one time, and cooked food there. To mon oncle, that was additional proof someone had been living in the cellar when I'd happened on that knapsack. He didn't believe, though, anyone in le village would consider it as very important proof.

It was growing late. There wasn't anything now to do but go home. I had mon oncle assure Charles and Suzanne I'd try to get back up here in a few days; and with his help I thanked them and asked them to thank their mother for giving me the treat with the bread and sugar. They walked as far as the top of the montagne. There they waved and called, “Au revoir, reviens vite!” which means, “Good-by, re-come quickly.” We'd say “return” but the French say “reviens,” probably because nobody ever taught them any differently.

Mon oncle waited until I'd climbed to the handle-bars of his bicycle. We coasted down the path, a long glorious swoop of ride. Now mon oncle had searched la maison I was more than ever convinced the German had simply retired to the forest and was hiding out there. What was required was to have the entire village go through that forest and get him before he could do any harm. I was determined to figure out some way to go back to the Meilhacs' tomorrow and draw Charles off to one side and get him to go partners with me in a hurry on my scheme. The scheme itself was simple as onions, but I was plagued by the way trifles kept coming in and complicating it before I was even ready to start.

At the hotel I asked mon oncle if I couldn't return to see Charles tomorrow. I said I believed I could walk it this time, if I went slowly. The practice would do me good, too.

“I should like you to help me tomorrow,” he said slowly.

I couldn't very well refuse.

He must have noticed, however, I was mighty eager to see Charles again. He explained, “I have not told you, but in a day or so I will move the airplane to the meadow. I shall finish it there. You will see Charles often.”

Then he again hesitated. Finally he said he'd decided to leave the hotel and remain sur la montagne avec his avion. Le forgeron would help him erect a shelter for both the avion and himself. He got embarrassed. You know how proud he was. The fact was, as I finally got through my head, he was running out of money. To save expenses, he proposed to camp sur la montagne the rest of the time until he'd tried his avion. He asked, “You will not be afraid to stay here in the hotel alone, Jean?”

I wasn't afraid, but the idea of camping sur la montagne seemed gaudy and wonderful. I asked why couldn't I be with him.

He hesitated once more. He made excuses: He said I required a good bed and a roof over me when it rained. When I still protested, the real reason came out. In le village it was safe at nuit. While he wasn't worried about himself, he didn't care to expose me up there in case a German was somewhere around. He became firm. He said he was sorry; it was best for me to remain here at nuit. Le forgeron would take me up each day and bring me back at nuit.…

At dinner I saw Madame Graffoulier had two more people in her hotel. She'd set two tables. A traveling salesman from Tulle was staying several days. A fat, good-natured, black-haired fellow had taken a room, saying he was on a vacation from Toulouse and had come here to fish. She introduced me to both of them, calling me “le garçon Americain—” which meant “the American boy—” although the French do it backwards, “the boy American,” like that. Those French people never do work out an easy way to say things.

I didn't get much sleep that night. I was still figuring about my plan, checking it up and down to make sure it would work. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It began raining during the nuit. When I awakened, it was pouring. I couldn't go to the Meilhacs' in the rain, even if mon oncle hadn't needed me. While we had breakfast, mail arrived, with letters from mon père, ma mère, and one from Bob Collins, back home. Mon oncle also received a letter from ma mère, as well as a whole flock more which resembled bills to me. He said we might as well stay in the hotel and read our mail before going to work. That suited me.

One letter was from mon père, and two from ma mère. Mon père had written from some little out-of-the-way spot in Northern Scotland where ma mère and he had stayed on a Sunday during their walking trip. He told me he'd stopped in Edinburgh, a big Scottish city, to look at a new stock of bicycles in a shop there. He'd found a new bicycle, one of the first to be made after the war, which not only had a high gear and a low gear—but a middle gear as well. This special middle gear was for riding in town. He said he'd arranged with the dealer to hold it for him.

As soon as he saw me, and witnessed whether or not I was able to walk the two miles without tiring or limping, he'd cable to Scotland and have the dealer put the bicycle on a boat to be shipped to Wyoming. It would be waiting for me when we arrived.

In ma mère's first letter she wrote more about the scenery, as most mothers probably would do. She added a couple of things, though, that were exciting. First, mon père's work had been about completed in England. There'd be a chance he could leave the army and return with us to Wyoming. Secondly, she'd put in her order for the electric lighting dynamo and was ready to have it shipped along with the bicycle as soon as I could write her that letter in French!

Her second one was written pretty hastily, evidently just after she'd mailed the first one. She wrote:

Your uncle Paul's letter just arrived telling us a German may be hiding in the mountains. I am very much concerned. Your father says he doubts if any German soldier will bother you, but if there is the slightest trouble, please have Paul cable the American Embassy in London at once so they can reach us. We expect to return to London next week—we're taking a week longer than planned because your father received an extra week's leave. Then, as soon as your father turns over his job to Colonel Burton, we plan to cross to France and come to St. Chamant for you. Please take care of yourself.…

I'd almost forgotten the letter mon oncle had written to ma mère. I considered by now she must have received the letters I'd written to her and would know everything here was swimming along peacefully—too peacefully for me, but I hadn't told her that. I noticed mon oncle had finished his letters. He got out of the chair and said to come along as soon as I was ready.

I opened Bob Collins' letter. It contained all the news from back home. He was working on the range, right along with the other hands. Old Jake had been made foreman of the combined ranches. Dr. Medley had asked Bob to be sure and inquire of me if my leg were improving. Everybody sent their best. Bob had received the letter I'd written from Paris and the one from St. Chamant. He thanked me for sending him those French coins. And he admitted he was envious of the chance I was going to have to fly a real airplane.

For a minute, I stopped reading that part of his letter, feeling my cheeks grow hot. I remembered I'd written him when I first arrived, boasting about the fine time I was having here and I'd indicated, too, not exactly lying, though, that I expected to pilot mon oncle's avion. Well, he'd believed me. More than that, in his letter he told me he'd passed the news on to everyone in town. The editor of our newspaper, Mr. Sulgave, had printed a piece about me, and wanted me to send him a photograph of me in the machine. Whew! I didn't know what to do about that.

There wasn't much more to Bob's letter except to say he'd gone to his first dance, taking Jane Sulgave with him. I never expected the time would come when Bob Collins would go to a dance with a girl! Me and Bob had decided never to go with girls. No sir, we'd sworn a pact to keep clear of girls and grow up and buy ourselves a ranch—and, there it was. Right down in his own handwriting. He'd taken Jane to a dance. He'd danced with her. I could recognize he was changing on me while I was away. It wasn't right. For the first time in weeks, I started feeling homesick.

I folded the letters, the rain beating outside. As I looked up I noticed that the fat jolly black-haired man had taken a chair by the window. He was watching me. Soon as I looked at him, he swung around, back to me, untangling an old fishing line, as if he hadn't been aware I was even in the room. Probably if he'd said something, I wouldn't have marked anything at all. But because he acted as if I'd caught him looking at me when he hadn't wanted to be noticed, I paid more attention to him than before.

It almost seemed to me, now I considered him, that I might have seen him some place. Of course, that couldn't have been, though, because I'd never been in Toulouse. If I hadn't spent so much time reading my letters I might have asked him if he'd ever been in the United States. However, I was in a hurry. I slammed out, going through the rain, entering the workshop. Here, mon oncle and le forgeron were making preparations to move the avion as soon as the rain stopped. I put my plan about the Nazi in the back of my head until I could see Charles, and worked right along with the two men on the avion.

As we worked mon oncle said ma mère had written him, saying she was worried. He promised to write her tonight to tell her there wasn't any need for her to be concerned. If a German was hiding, he seemed to want to hide and do nothing to be found. Mon oncle wagged his head at me and said, “Besides, if your mother takes you away from here now, you will never win that bicycle, hein? It would be a great misfortune.”

I agreed with him there. By now, I was nearly certain I'd be able to walk those two miles. What concerned me more was winning that electric lighting dynamo by writing a letter in French. My French didn't seem to improve a third as much as my leg was doing.

The following morning, Tuesday, I think it was, le forgeron and I made the first trip to the meadow in the oxcart. Monsieur Niort did most of the unloading of the tools and the lumber and canvas for the slide and shelter. To launch the avion, mon oncle counted upon building a kind of runway, about ten feet from the top of the ground at one end. The avion would coast down this runway and gather speed before it took off to sail over le village.

Partly by speaking French, partly by making signs with his hands when I didn't understand, Monsieur Niort let me know he meant to remain up here and erect the shelter while I drove the oxcart back down to le village. He led the ox around. He switched the ox. He waved at me, thundering away in his big voice, “Au revoir, Jean! Reviens vite!”

I'd hoped I might encounter Charles or Suzanne as I descended vers le village—toward le village. But I didn't see a sign of either one. Probably they were working over on the other side of la montagne. I was a shade uneasy, first because it was a new thing to drive that big lumbering ox—secondly, because I was still not too sure la montagne was as safe as I'd made out in my letters to ma mère. Just the fact that someone
was
somewhere up there, hiding, wasn't calming to the mind.

It required about an hour for that huge ox to haul the cart down the montagne into le village. It was a fine experience for me. I'd never driven an ox before. Fact is, I let the ox take its own head. It knew the way. It was slow as molasses, never going faster than a walk, but nothing could stop it. The cart had two big squeaking wooden wheels, high as my head. A mile off, you could hear us coming.

Mon oncle was ready for me at the shop. You might expect it to be difficult for one man and a boy my age, with a lame leg, to lift that avion onto the cart. It wasn't difficult at all. Even though the frame of the avion was put together, and the wings stuck out on each side all of thirty feet wide and more, all of it didn't weigh more than a hundred or a hundred and ten pounds. It was marvelously constructed to be both light and strong as possible.

An avion with a motor is a different affair altogether. The motor whips around a propeller. The propeller sets up a breeze. It drags the avion across the ground faster and faster until the avion leaps into the air. An avion with a motor has wheels. Mon oncle's avion didn't have any wheels. All it had were two short skids under the wings to land on. In the center of the wings was slung a canvas belt, which was the seat. Mon oncle planned to sit astraddle of this seat, the steering wheel in front of him, and take off from the runway. The avion was supposed to voler through the air and voler over le village and the crick and descend into the meadow. To do all that without a motor, it had to be light as possible.