While a couple of men watched the road, others were sent to retrieve the dropped weapons. Sergeant Weller examined the captain’s injury. He found that a bone was cracked above the ankle. A shot of morphine from a first-aid kit was given Captain Dobie to ease the pain. Then splints were found, and the leg bound with strips of torn parachute silk.
Halfway through this, Weller paused suddenly and said to André, “By the way, son, you better tie up that hound of yours. He doesn’t seem to know Americans are his friends, by the way he lit into my only pair of britches.”
The little party moved slowly toward the Gagnon house, helping the half-crippled captain.
Pale moonlight glowed on the windows and against dark walls. When André saw the front door ajar, he cried happily, “They must have come home while I was asleep.”
“’Fraid not,” the sergeant corrected. “We went through the whole house—André. Want to know how I got your name?” Weller grinned. “Read Marie’s note about your supper on the kitchen table.”
Immediately inside the house, the sergeant said crisply, “This room okay, Captain? I guess it’s a sort of store during peacetime. I’ll get you a table and somethin’ to sit on, pronto.”
André had run to light candles and draw the blackout curtains. Then he dragged his mother’s best velvet chair from the parlor for Captain Dobie, and brought cushions to prop up his leg.
Captain Dobie spread maps on the table before him, but paused to study the boy.
André looked into his kind, thoughtful face and asked, “Do you think my father and sister will be all right, sir? It would be awful....”
The captain nodded. “Nobody’d let them start out from St. Sauveur tonight, son. They’ll be all right.”