Mustang Found

Friday February 25, 1944

Colette Davout pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders before stepping out of the farmhouse. The cold bit at her cheeks at once. Long shadows crossed the ground — the sun had already dropped behind the trees to the west.

She balanced the wooden bucket against one hip and hurried across the frozen yard toward the barn. The horse needed fresh water before nightfall, and there were still eggs to gather before supper. The war had made routines important. As long as the chores were done, life nearly felt normal. She pushed open the barn door, the iron latch clacking against the wood and echoing in the stillness of the evening, then slipped inside and pulled it closed behind her. The familiar scent of hay, dust, and warm horse wrapped around her like her old shawl, the bucket’s handle creaking softly against her fingers.

“Bonsoir mon bel homme,”[1] she said quietly, reaching for the stallion named Fier. The horse stretched out its neck, nudging her shoulder before accepting the stroke of her hand along its velvet muzzle. The small ritual comforted her. Outside there were Germans on the roads, ration cards, whispered conversations that stopped whenever strangers approached. In here there were chores, and animals. Things that still made sense.

She turned toward the back of the barn and froze mid-stride. The blanket. She had left it draped over the stall rail after lunch, to dry. Now the rail was bare. Her stomach dropped. No one had come to the barn since midday — she was certain of it.

The bucket slipped from her hand and struck the packed earth with a dull crack, water splashing across her shoes. She barely noticed. Her eyes darted through the shadows between the stalls, searching every dark corner where someone could hide. A thief? A German? The thought froze the breath in her throat.

She spotted a pitchfork leaning against a stall a few paces away and lunged for it, nearly slipping in the mud the spilled water had made, and seized the worn wooden shaft with both hands. The weight of it was reassuring, though her trembling arms made it feel heavier than it was. She leveled the tines toward the darkness.

“Allô?” she called, forcing strength into a voice that wanted to crack. “Qui est là? Sortez.”[2] Only the horse shifted, stamping a hoof once against the straw.

She listened, every heartbeat pounding in her ears. Nothing. Her grip tightened until her knuckles ached.

“Sortez!” she shouted again, louder, refusing to let whoever was hiding hear how frightened she truly was.

Something moved. Not a rat. Not a cat. Not the horse. A man rose slowly from the pile of hay. For one frozen heartbeat Colette could only stare, then took a step back, eyes locked on him, the pitchfork leveled at his chest.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a leather flying jacket over a drab green flight suit. His face streaked with dirt and grime, his short dark hair flattened from hours under a flight helmet. He looked scarcely older than she was. An aviator. Not German. British? American?

His movements were painfully slow, as though he feared the slightest sudden motion might send her charging with the pitchfork. It might have. One hand drifted briefly toward his hip — there was a pistol in his hand, Colette’s grip tightened, her heart lurching — but he slid it back into its holster instead, deliberately, and raised both empty hands to chest level, palms toward her. A signal of surrender.

Marc watched the woman’s knuckles whiten around the smooth wooden shaft. Thank God. Not Germans. The relief lasted only an instant. A frightened woman with a sharpened pitchfork could kill him just as effectively as any Wehrmacht soldier, if she believed he meant her harm. After everything that had happened today, being gored to death in a French barn seemed a singularly stupid way to end it.

Who is this person in front of him? She’s young. Younger than a woman, older than a girl — somewhere just shy of his own age. Long brown hair, delicate features, a slim build under the provincial dress and shawl. The absurdity of the thought flashed through him before he could stop it, and he chastised himself for it. Not the time to be looking at a pretty girl, Marc.

Back to survival. Don’t look at the pistol. Keep his eyes on hers, his hands where she could see them. The survival briefings back in England had made it sound simple — if you encounter civilians, stay calm, smile, no sudden movements. Easy enough in a classroom. Considerably less so with six inches of sharpened steel pointed at his chest. His mouth went bone dry.

The first words escaped before he could think. “Tirez pas!”[3] The phrase echoed awkwardly around the quiet barn, and he winced. Idiot. She’s not going to shoot you. She has a pitchfork, not a rifle. No one had ever taught him how to say “don’t stab me” in French. He drew a slow breath, willing his racing heart to settle.

“I’m American.” He tapped a gloved finger against his chest. “American.” She didn’t move. Her eyes stayed fixed on him.

He pointed upward, toward the roof. “My airplane—“ He shaped his hand into a wing and dipped it sharply downward. “—crash.” He spread both hands helplessly. “I need help.”

Nothing. Only the horse shifting its weight somewhere behind her, a soft snort and the scrape of a hoof against packed dirt. Every French phrase he’d memorized in escape-and-evasion briefings had abandoned him.

Think. One surfaced at last, slowly, painfully. He managed what he hoped looked like a reassuring smile. “Parlays voo ahn-glays?”

For a heartbeat she only stared. Then her eyes widened slightly. “You are… American?”

The words carried a thick French accent, but to Marc they sounded miraculous. Relief washed through him — not complete relief; she was still pointing a pitchfork at him.

“Yes.” He nodded, a little too quickly. “Yes, I’m American.” He hesitated. “You… speak English?”

“A little.” She answered cautiously. “My father — he say I must learn.” Her eyes drifted over him: the leather jacket, the Mae West, the parachute harness, the grime streaked across his face.

“You are pilot?”

“Yes.” He nodded again. “My airplane was hit this afternoon.” He glanced toward the hay where his bundled parachute lay hidden. “I’m sorry I hid in your barn.” His voice softened. “It was the only place I could think of.”

She kept studying him — not his words, him. His hands, his eyes. Whether he looked like someone who might lunge for the pistol on his hip. Several long seconds passed before she lowered the pitchfork, leaning it carefully against the stall wall but staying close enough to snatch it up again if she had to.

“It is good you are here,” she said quietly. “Alive.” She glanced toward the barn doors as though expecting them to burst open, then her voice dropped even further. “The Boche… they look for you, yes?”

“I haven’t seen any since I bailed out.” Marc realized he was matching her whisper without meaning to. “I don’t know if they saw me come down.”

She nodded once, absorbing that. “You are hurt?”

He let out a tired breath that was almost a laugh. “I’ve had better days.” He flexed one aching shoulder. “Nothing broken. I don’t think.” Then, remembering himself, he glanced toward his still-raised hands. “Would you mind—“ a sheepish smile, “—if I put these down?”

For the first time, the corner of her mouth hinted at a smile. Barely there. “Oui.” She made a gentle motion with one hand. “It is okay.”

Marc lowered his arms slowly, his shoulders unknotting. At least I’m probably not getting gored today. The thought almost made him laugh. Almost.

She kept watching him, her caution not entirely gone. “You are hungry.” It wasn’t really a question. “Thirsty.”

Only then did Marc realize she was right. The hunger hit him all at once, like a switch thrown somewhere behind his ribs. The last thing he’d eaten felt like it belonged to another lifetime. “Yes.” He smiled, embarrassed. “I am. And thirsty.”

“I get my father.” She turned toward the door, then stopped and faced him again, the warmth gone from her expression as quickly as it had come. “You stay here.” Her voice carried quiet authority now. She looked pointedly at his holstered pistol. “Do not make sound. I come back quickly.”

Marc nodded. She held his gaze another second, deciding whether she believed him — apparently she did — then slipped through the barn door and closed it carefully behind her. The latch clicked into place. The silence returned all at once, and Marc’s knees went weak.

He sank onto a stool, listening to her footsteps fade across the frozen farmyard, and wondered whether placing his life in the hands of complete strangers was the right thing to do, or whether he had just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Colette ran across the yard, clutching her shawl against the bitter wind, her heart hammering. An American. A real American pilot, not much older than herself. He’d looked exhausted. Cold. Terrified. And he was strangely polite.

She burst through the kitchen door into a rush of warmth and the comforting smell of onion soup simmering over the stove. Soft light filled the room — the last of the sunset, the fire in the stove, two oil lamps. Her father Henri sat at the kitchen table fixing a leather harness; her mother Marie stood busy at the stove; Aslan, the family dog, lay at Mr. Davout’s feet. All three looked up as Colette flung the door open.

Mr. Davout sat the awl down and laid the harness on the table, his hands going still. One glance at her face was enough. “Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?” he said, concern sharpening his voice.

“Papa…,” she struggled to catch her breath. “Dans la grange,” she swallowed, “un pilote américain.”

Mr. Davout nodded, his movements deliberate, his weathered face showed no surprise — only a deep, grim focus, “Il est blessé?”

Colette shook her head. “Non. Je pense pas. Mais, il a faim et soif. Il dit qu’il n’a pas vu les Boches.” She wrung her hands slightly, the adrenaline still making her jittery. “Il faut prévenir les autres?”

Mr. Davout stood, his movements calculated, and nodded once. “Oui. Je dois leur dire. Amène-le à la maison, par la porte de derrière. Je vais aller chercher Georges.” He pulled on his coat and moved toward the door, paused to look back at his wife. “Marie, je serai bientôt de retour.”Then he turned to his daughter, “Fais attention, Colette.”

She knew that look on his face. It confirmed what she already suspected. “Oui, Papa. Je ferai attention.”[4]

The scrape of the barn door latch made Marc jump, his pulse spiking instantly. She’s back. Or she’s not. He was on his feet before he realized he’d moved, every instinct screamed at him to run. If the next person through that door wore field gray, he’d have only seconds. Out the back? No — what if there were Germans out there too, the barn already surrounded? His eyes darted toward the rear door, measuring the distance. Too far. The hinges creaked. The door swung inward, and Colette slipped inside.

Marc let out a breath in one nervous rush. Relief came. Only a little.

She crossed straight to him. “We go now,” she said quietly. “My father say you come inside.” She didn’t wait for an answer, crossing instead to the door and resting one hand on the latch. “When we go outside. You must move quick.”

Marc nodded. “I understand.”

She eased the door open, the cold evening air rushing in at once, and stepped into the gathering darkness without another word. Marc followed. The farmhouse stood scarcely thirty yards away. It might as well have been three hundred. The open yard felt enormous, every long shadow capable of hiding a soldier, every gust of wind sounding like distant voices. His boots slipped on frozen ruts left by wagon wheels; twice he stumbled before catching himself.

Colette never slowed. She moved with the confidence of someone who had crossed this yard a thousand times.Marc kept waiting for a shouted challenge, a flashlight, a rifle. Nothing came. Only the crunch of their footsteps on the frozen ground.Then the farmhouse loomed out of the dark — larger than he’d expected, two stories, built of old gray stone darkened by generations of weather. The windows glowed softly with lamplight, smoke drifting from a broad chimney into the evening air. Someone had built this place to last.

Colette slipped through the rear door and Marc followed close behind. The warmth hit him hard. After hours in a barely heated cockpit, a frozen field, and a drafty barn, the kitchen felt impossibly comfortable. Then the smells reached him — wood smoke, fresh bread, onions cooking slowly in broth — and his stomach tightened painfully.

A woman stood beside the iron stove, older, somewhere between her late forties and early fifties, her long dark hair streaked with gray. Like Colette she wore a simple provincial dress, an apron over it.She turned as they entered, her eyes settling on Marc — not frightened, not welcoming. Studying him.

“Maman,” Colette said softly. “C’est lui. Le pilote américain.”[5] Then, to Marc: “My mother.”

Marc pulled off one glove awkwardly. “Ma’am.”

The older woman answered only with a slight nod. Colette motioned toward a heavy wooden chair. “Please.” Marc sat.

Colette set a bowl of steaming soup before him, followed by a thick slice of fresh bread. “Eat.”

He stared at it — mostly onions floating in a thin, clear broth — and decided it was the finest meal he’d seen in months. He lifted the spoon slowly, blew across it to cool it. The first mouthful was better than it had any right to be, rich with onion and herbs and a faint sweetness that reminded him, unexpectedly, of home. Just looking at the food made his stomach grumble. He tore off a piece of bread, still warm, the crust crackling softly beneath his fingers. Someone had baked it only hours ago.

Aslan wandered in, curious about the newcomer, and crossed to sniff at the leg of Marc’s flightsuit. Marc held a hand down for him; the dog took a long moment deciding whether he was good, then accepted a few strokes along his head before walking off to curl up at Colette’s feet.

Colette leaned silently against the doorway, arms folded, watching the dog’s verdict play out. If Aslan thinks he’s safe, he just might be. Aslan was a good judge of character. Then she watched Marc eat, her gaze not rude so much as careful, as though she were still deciding whether she’d invited a guest into her home or an enemy.

Marc looked up at her. “Please tell your mother the soup and bread are very good.” Colette turned and spoke a short sentence in quick French. Marie smiled faintly, took a small chipped cup from the shelf, filled it from a teapot on the stove, and set it in front of him. It was filled with tea that smelled faintly of mint.

“What is your name?” Colette asked at last, her tone light, her body language still guarded.

“My name is Marc Suchet.” He pronounced it the French way. “Americans say it ‘Sue-chet,’ but it’s French — my family says it the French way.”Something flickered across Colette’s face, a small surprise, and Marc caught her mother glancing up at the sound of a French name. He chuckled. “Though the name’s French, I don’t speak but maybe five words of it. What’s your name?”

Colette uncrossed her arms, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat. “My name is Colette Davout. My mother is Marie.” She regarded him with slightly less suspicion than before. “Where are you from, Marc Suchet?”

“Virginia.” Her expression told him the word meant nothing to her. “It’s near Washington, D.C. — our capital.”

“Ah. Washington.” Her face brightened, just barely. “I know this.”

“So — I’ve had a rough day.” He looked faintly embarrassed to ask. “I know I was west of Metz when I bailed out. Where in France am I?”

“You are near Verdun. This place is Ranzières. Yes — west, not so far from Metz.”

Marie brought two more bowls, more bread, more cups, and set them on the table. They ate quietly.

It had been hours. Outside it was pitch black. Not unlike England at night, Marc thought. In England he could relax in the evenings. Tonight the squadron would be at the bar drinking hard. Would they offer a toast to him, or would his memory be shoved down deep inside each pilot the way he’d done with so many friends before him? Probably the latter. The thought made his chest tighten for a moment. He shook his head. Not the time to be thinking of England. He couldn’t relax tonight. Not in France.

The first sound was so faint Marc almost missed it. An engine, far away. He stopped mid-sentence. Colette heard it too — her head turned toward the front of the house, and the change in her expression was immediate. Not fear. Expectation. Her mother quietly gathered her sewing and left the kitchen without a word.

Marc watched her go. Something was wrong. He glanced toward the back door. If he had to run, where would he run to?

The engine grew louder. Tires crunched outside. A car door slammed, then another. No headlights showed through the windows. Whoever had arrived wanted to stay unseen.

The front door opened. Heavy boots crossed the front hall, and three men entered the kitchen. The first was tall and lean, dark hair already going gray, his face deeply lined and his expression unreadable. The second carried an MP40, its muzzle already pointed at Marc.

Everything inside him went cold. He gripped the edge of the table. No. No! They’ve turned me in. Bastards! He glanced toward the back door — impossible, the gun covered it, and there would be others outside, there had to be.

The tall man spoke sternly, in good if heavily accented English. “Stand.” Marc obeyed automatically, military habit. “Turn around.” He turned. “Hands on your head.” His hands went up, fingers locking together before he’d consciously decided to move.

The barrel of a pistol pressed firmly between his shoulder blades, a hand braced on top of his head holding him still, while another pair of hands searched him efficiently. His 1911 disappeared from its holster.

“Who lost the nineteen forty-three World Series?” The words were spoken fast.

Marc blinked. What? “Uh . . .the Cardinals.” The answer came automatically. “What—“

“Quiet. We ask the questions.” The voice was stern. “Who won the Academy Award for Stagecoach?”

His mind raced. John Wayne? No — supporting actor. “Thomas Mitchell.”

“Name and rank?”

“Marc Suchet, major.”

“In what city is the Kentucky Derby?”

His mind kept racing. Why such random questions? “Louisville.”

“Unit?”

“355th Fighter Squadron.”

“The song by John Sousa?”

“Stars and Stripes Forever.”

“Base?”

“RAF Boxted.” The answer left his mouth before he realized what he’d said. Damn it! He was supposed to resist interrogation better than this. What was going on?

The voice barked again. “The Thunderbolt squadron?”

“No.” The answer came without hesitation. “P-51s.” Damn — it’s all happening too fast!

The room went strangely quiet. The pistol left his back. The hand on his head disappeared.

“Turn around.” Marc obeyed. The MP40 lowered slightly, and only then did he notice Colette standing silently in the doorway, hands clasped tightly together, looking about as anxious as he felt.

The third man, the oldest of the three, asked, “A-t-il répondu correctement?”[6] Medium height and build, his hair mostly gray, dressed like a farmer, his face serious and weathered, a pistol still in his hand — still pointed at Marc.

A brief exchange followed in French, too fast for Marc to catch beyond the final word. “Oui.”

The tension drained out of the room as quickly as it had filled it. Every weapon lowered. The oldest man tucked his pistol into his waistband.

The tall man regarded Marc with a stern, focused expression. “You are who you say. We will help you. But it will take time. You will stay here, with the Davouts. They will hide you. You will do exactly as they say.” He glanced at the older man, then back to Marc. “You understand? Your life, and theirs, depends on your silence and your obedience.”

The weight of the words landed heavy. He had brought the war to this family. He could get all of them killed. He gave a curt nod. “I understand.”

The other two turned and left without another word, the oldest man clapping each of them on the shoulder as they went. Outside, car doors closed, an engine started, tires crunched over frozen ground, and the sound faded into the night.

Marc simply stood there, his heart still hammering, looking from Colette to the older man to the empty doorway. He still wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t about to be arrested.

Finally Colette spoke. “We have to be sure.” Her voice carried a slight apology. “The Boche, they try to infiltrer — euh, spy — on La Résistance.” She met his eyes.

Resistance.The word caught him off guard. Not just farmers. Resistance, too. He’d walked, actually parachuted first, then walked, right into it.

She stepped beside the older man. “This is my father.”

Henri Davout regarded Marc in silence for several long seconds, his expression revealing nothing. Marc extended his hand, “Mr. Davout.” Henri looked at it as though weighing one more decision, then shook it, firm, brief, not unfriendly, but not welcoming either.

He turned to his daughter. “Colette, ramène-le à la grange. Il y restera jusqu’à ce que la chambre soit prête.” A pause, his eyes never leaving Marc. “Et donne-lui une couverture supplémentaire.”[7]

“Oui, Papa.” Colette disappeared into the house.

The kitchen felt much quieter all at once. Marc shifted awkwardly beside the table, uncertain whether to sit or stand. Mr. Davout said nothing, only watched him.Not with hostility, exactly, but with the steady, measuring look of a man who had survived too many years of occupation by not trusting too quickly. The silence stretched. Somewhere deeper in the house a clock ticked, unnaturally loud, and the fire popped softly inside the stove. Marc resisted the urge to fill the quiet with something, anything. Mr. Davout didn’t appear to speak English regardless.

Mrs. Davout came back into the kitchen, and as she passed Marc she stopped, looked at him with the face of a concerned mother.Concerned for him, for her family, for both, he couldn’t tell. She rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a brief reassuring squeeze before returning to the stove. It felt like something his own mother would do.

A few moments later Colette returned with a folded wool blanket under one arm and a hooded lantern in the other. “Come.” Her voice was quiet. “We go back to the barn.”

“Okay,” Marc nodded.

She lifted the lantern slightly. “We move quickly.” A faint smile touched her lips. “And quietly.”

Mr. Davout opened the back door for them, and cold night air spilled into the kitchen, chasing the warmth from the stove. Marc hesitated for an instant — the darkness beyond the doorway felt immense — then followed her out.

The cold struck him at once, stealing the warmth from his face and filling his lungs with air sharp enough to burn. The farmyard lay under a pale wash of moonlight, just a sliver of moon overhead, the barn a dark shape against the sky. Every sound seemed amplified — their boots crunching across frozen earth, a dog barking somewhere far off, the bare branches of an old tree scraping softly together in the wind.

Marc stumbled again on the uneven ground. Colette moved through the darkness with total confidence, knowing every stone and dip in the yard by feel, and reached the barn first to ease the door open. Marc slipped inside; she closed it quietly behind them.

For a moment they stood in complete darkness. Then she lifted the metal hood on the lantern and a warm circle of golden light bloomed around them. The old horse raised its head, blinking sleepily before it recognized her, snorted once, and settled again in a soft rustle of straw.

“You will stay here tonight.” Not a question. A decision already made.

She walked straight to the hollow Marc had made earlier in the hay and studied it critically. “It is not enough.” She set the lantern down and began rearranging the hay, building it up on either side of the hole Marc had made. The hiding place grew deeper, better concealed from anyone entering the barn. Marc joined her without being asked, and together they worked in silence — hay scratching their sleeves, dust drifting lazily through the lantern light. Neither spoke. Words seemed unnecessary.

When they finished, the little shelter felt less like a hiding place and more like a nest tucked into the heart of the barn.

“There is a appentis… how do you say? An outhouse, behind the barn. Use the rear door.” She pointed. “Before you leave, you listen, you look, d’accord?”

Marc nodded.

She brushed bits of hay from her skirt. “Here.” She handed him the folded blanket. “An extra one.”

He unfolded it. The coarse gray wool felt almost identical to the Army blankets he’d grown used to over the past four years. Heavy, scratchy, but most importantly warm.

“Thank you.”

“In the morning I will bring food.” She glanced toward the barn door, then back at him. “And water.”

Marc looked at her for a long moment. Only now, standing in the quiet glow of the lantern, did the full weight of the day begin to settle over him. This morning he’d been escorting bombers over Germany. Since then he’d been hit by flak, watched his engine die, abandoned his airplane, fallen through a winter sky, landed alone in occupied France — and somehow found people willing to risk everything for a complete stranger.

His throat tightened unexpectedly. He searched for words worthy of that kind of courage and found nothing sufficient. “Thank you,” he said quietly — quiet not from necessity but from the weight of the moment. “For the soup.” A faint smile. “For the blankets.” His eyes met hers. “For trusting me.” He hesitated. “And… for everything.” The words sounded painfully inadequate.

She studied him a moment, the guarded look she’d worn since finding him in the barn softening just slightly. “It is nothing.” The words sounded dismissive, and Marc suspected they were meant to be — a way of hiding the gravity of what she and her family were doing. Risking everything for a stranger wasn’t nothing. She shook her head. “We do what we must.”

Her tone turned deadly serious. “You must stay here,” her gaze piercing in the dim light. “You do not come to the house unless I bring you. If you hear trucks, or voices that are not ours, you hide. Understand?”

“I understand,” Marc nodded.

She picked up the lantern and moved to go, pausing at the barn door, the warm light falling across one side of her face while the rest stayed hidden in shadow. “Bonne nuit, Marc Suchet.”

The way she said his name properly, in French, made him smile despite everything. “Good night, Colette.”

She lowered the lantern’s metal cover. The light shrank to a narrow glow, then vanished. The door opened, cold air slipped in, and a moment later it closed again. Marc was alone.

He settled into the hollow in the hay — the parachute and straw beneath him a surprisingly good mattress — and wrapped himself first in the horse blanket, then in the coarse wool one Colette had brought. The hay blocked the wind now. It wasn’t comfortable, but compared to what might have been, it felt like paradise.

Outside, the February wind sighed around the old barn, timbers creaking softly overhead. The horse shifted in its stall and let out a long, contented breath. The smell of hay surrounded him, and it carried him back — rural Virginia in summer, a rope swing hanging from a strong branch, his brothers and sister laughing as they raced barefoot across a sun-warmed field, his cousins shouting, his grandmother calling everyone in for supper. Finally, unexpectedly, to a young woman who he didn’t have to teach how to say his last name properly.

For the first time since the flak burst beneath Daisy-Mae, Marc was at peace. He fell asleep quickly, deep and without dreams.

[1] “Good evening my handsome man.”

[2] “Hello?Who is there?Come out. Come out!”

[3] “Don’t shoot!”

[4] One glance at her face was enough. “What’s wrong?” he said, concern sharpening his voice..

“Dad…,” she struggled to catch her breath. “In the barn,” she swallowed, “An American pilot.”

Mr. Davout nodded, his movements deliberate, his weathered face showed no surprise — only a deep, grim focus, “Is he hurt?”

Colette shook her head. “No,” she shook her head again. “I don’t think so. But he’s hungry and thirsty. He says he hasn’t seen any Germans.” She wrung her hands slightly, the adrenaline still making her jittery. “Should we tell the others?”

Mr. Davout stood, his movements calculated, and nodded once. “Yes. I must tell them. Bring him to the house, through the back door. I’ll go get Georges.”He pulled on his coat and moved toward the door, paused to look back at his wife. “Marie, I’ll be back soon.”Then he turned to his daughter, “Be careful, Colette.”

She knows that look on his face. It confirmed what she already knew. “Yes dad. I’ll be careful.”

[5] “Mom,” Colette said softly, “It’s him, The American pilot.”

[6] “Did he answer correctly?”

[7] “Colette, take him back to the barn.He will stay there until the room is ready.And give him an extra blanket.”