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Bill is Hidden Behind Enemy Lines by a Belgian Farm Family

Chapter Forty-One

Bill Bowers suddenly woke up with a splitting headache and a terrible pain in his left leg. Sitting in total darkness, he felt his face with his hands to see if he was blind. Holding his hand up close to his eyes, he could see his fingers. As he felt all over his head, he touched some sore spots where he had been burned, and his hair felt rough and singed. Reaching out in the darkness, he could feel something wet nearby; perhaps a wall, maybe one made of rough stones. The air was dank and musty, and try as hard as he could, he couldn’t figure out what had happened, where he was, or how he had gotten there, wherever he was. Lying there and wondering what to do next, he thought he could hear footsteps directly above him, faint ones, but definitely footsteps, and maybe some voices, too.

“Hello?” he cried out, but nobody answered.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” he yelled in a much louder voice. As he did, he could hear a flurry of activity right above him. There was a loud scraping noise as though someone was dragging something across a floor, then a creaking noise as though a rusty hinge was being opened, and a shaft of light and footsteps behind him that came closer and closer until someone was standing beside him.

Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, he was surprised to see a young woman, about his age, standing there holding a candle in her hand with her other hand cupped around it to protect it from the cold draft he felt on his face. It just didn’t make any sense; he was confused and suddenly afraid.

Reaching out to touch her, “Who are you and where am I?” he asked in a questioning voice.

She put the candle down on the floor in front of a small box sitting nearby to protect it from the draft and gently touched his shoulder, “My name is Gabrielle, and you’re in the cellar of our house. You’ve been wounded,

and I’ve been taking care of you, but we have to talk quietly. We're surrounded by Germans,” she said in quite respectable English, but with an obvious French accent.

“I don’t understand. How long have I been here?” He was now more confused than before.

“You’ve been here for a couple of days, but this is the first time we’ve met, although I have been by your side most of the time. You seemed to be sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’m sorry, Gabrielle, but I’m really confused. Can you please start from the beginning and tell me what happened?”

“I’ll try, but I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s on my dog tags,” as he reached for them. “Damn, I must have lost them” as he kept feeling for them. “My name is Bill Bowers and I’m with the 745th Tank Battalion stationed in Butgenbach.”

“Butgenbach? My, that’s a long way from here. I wondered where you came from.”

“What do you mean by you wondered where I came from?” he asked.

“You don’t remember? My parents and I were sitting at the kitchen table by the window eating our supper when we heard a loud explosion in our front yard. We knew exactly what had happened. One of our cows must have gotten out of the barn and wandered into the field in front of our house. Those dreadful Boche had planted mines there, but when I looked out the window, I saw an Army car that had slid off the road into a ditch. I think you Americans call them jeeps. Anyway, there was a man’s body lying in the snow in the middle of the field surrounded by blood. There was someone getting out of the jeep and carrying someone in their arms. That was you getting out of the jeep. As you walked up our driveway, you stopped, gently laid the person you were carrying down by the side of the driveway, and limped towards our house. When you knocked on our front door, my father said not to answer it; not to get involved, but I knew you were injured and I just couldn’t turn you away.”