He braced himself by the door frame and looked toward the sea. A pall of dense, black smoke was drifting inland, blotting out the newly risen sun. Fires flared over the tree tops.
He saw Slim grinning back at him from behind a thick lilac bush.
On the other side of the road, the Lescots’ front door opened. Victor, in nightcap and corduroy pants drawn over a blue nightshirt, darted out, picked up one of the dropped leaflets, and shot back into the house.
From other houses people ran out and raced away into the fields.
Bombers darted in and out of the curtain of smoke. A barn less than a mile away broke into flames.
Through a lull in the battle sounds André heard the outraged moo of a cow.
“Poor old beasts,” André thought, “they must be scared to death. I’ll go talk to them, and milk.”
He looked again for Slim and saw that he had turned his back to the fury of the coast and was staring toward Ste. Mère. As André stepped out Slim whirled and shouted, “Tell the cap’n—two Nazi tanks comin’ this way!”
But André had already heard the ominous clank of the tanks. Even through the battle sounds their threat rang out—a new danger.
As Slim raced toward him, André broke into a run for the house, shouting, “TANKS, mon Capitaine. Nazi tanks coming!”