The Seeds Will Grow

Partenaire

The soldier lifted his arms slowly, unable to stop the wry smile on his face from rising with his hands.

"Don't shoot," he chuckled, his cigarette bobbing from his lip. The boy leveling the gun at him quivered with fear.

"I will!" the boy shouted. "Don't move!"

"Easy," Mueller said, trying to reassure the boy. "I surrender." He paused for a moment, looking over the ragged condition of his young captor.

"You look hungry," Mueller said, lowering his hand to pull the cigarette from his mouth as he took a long drag. "What's your name?"

"Henri," the boy said, still pointing the gun at Mueller, but with far less conviction than before. Mueller looked more keenly at the weapon the boy was holding.

"It's American," he commented to the boy, pointing at the gun. "They call it a Tommy gun."

Henri looked down at the weapon, one he had found just a few days earlier while he was looking through the woods for food.

"Where did you get it?" Mueller asked. "Are there Americans nearby?"

"Only dead ones," Henri said. "There was a dead paratrooper in the woods in that direction," he added, gesturing toward the northwest.

Mueller's eyes did not follow the boy's outstretched finger. Instead, he puzzled at the sight of such a young child armed with a machine gun and surmised that the boy was on his own, based on his wretched appearance.

"How old are you?" the soldier asked.

"Eight," Henri answered, disarmed by the sudden tenderness on the soldier's face. The gun was no longer pointed at Mueller, who never really believed the child was intent on shooting him.

"Pointing guns at German soldiers is a good way to get killed," he explained to the boy. "There are easier ways to get what you need."

Henri could not disagree, he thought about how terrified he was when he came upon Mueller and even more so when he was pointing the gun at him.

"Like that gun," Mueller said. "I know plenty of guys in camp that would trade you lots of different things for it."

"But I need it," Henri quickly shot back. "For protection."

"That gun is more trouble than it's worth," the soldier explained. "An armed boy is a dead one. Only enemies carry guns around here.

"And you'll eventually run out of ammo. It's an American gun, it takes American bullets." He pulled a knife from a scabbard attached to his leg and offered it to the boy.

"This weapon," he said, "it never runs out of ammo, it's easier to hide. No one is going to shoot a kid with a knife."

Henri seemed satisfied with Mueller's logic, even though the soldier's French was a little rough around the edges and sometimes hard to understand. Mueller extended his hand toward the gun.

"If you give me this, I'll give you the knife and I'll get both of us some good food," he offered. "You just wait here, I'll be back with something to eat before you know it."

For a moment, Henri wondered if the soldier would shoot him once he surrendered the weapon, but decided he could trust him after looking at Mueller's expression. He slowly lifted the weapon and offered it to Mueller. Mueller smiled, inspecting the gun.

"Lieber will pay nicely for this," he muttered aloud. "Butter, jam, a loaf of bread, maybe even some cigarettes." He turned and looked at Henri. "We'll get a good deal for this. You just stay right here, I promise I'll be back."