He got back into the house just in time to answer a loud thumping at the front door. He opened it to find a Nazi officer and several hard-faced soldiers frowning down at him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Midnight Landing
ANDRÉ stepped quickly aside as, without a word, the Germans tramped in.
Three of them were ordered upstairs while the others set to work poking into every cupboard and drawer on the first floor. When they had emptied the kitchen of its copper they trooped off to the outbuildings.
André waited uncertainly in the hallway at first. Later, he edged his way to the farmyard door and anxiously watched the search through the barns. Not until he saw that none of the men went toward the lane where his trumpet was buried did he begin to breathe easily.
At last, the officer came from the loft over the cow barn, shouting to his men to return to the truck.
He strode into the kitchen and asked André, “Your father and mother—where are they?”
“They are all gone to the hospital with my mother, who is sick,” André explained.
“Well, then, when your father returns,” the officer snapped, “tell him I am putting men with machine guns in that loft overlooking the road. And advise him that it will do no good to protest.”
André’s heart sank. What would the family do with a lot of Nazis underfoot? Did they suspect that the Gagnons had been working with the Underground?