Resistance by Anita Shreve Page A

Maybe it was enough to land. A belly landing would slow them down. If it didn't, they'd hit the trees. Baker, still reporting. Two hundred feet. They were losing fuel. Sir, do you read me? Sir, do you read me?
    He heard the screaming in his ears. Vibrations threatened to disintegrate the plane, snap a wing. He fought to keep the bomber level. He saw the steeple of the church, a pasture. Cows stumbled in the unspeakable roar; a horse reared. The wing dipped, and he righted it just as they came in. He felt the sharp hit, the first bounce, the second, the skid on the belly. There was frost on the grass.
    And finally there was silence.
    Inside his jacket, the boy began to shake. It was not the fear or the cold; it was instead, this time, the brambles, the gray sky, the fallen plane. It was as though he had never been, until this moment, in the war itself. It was one thing to imagine finding an American flyer in the wood, quite another to be staring at a soldier's feet. The man must be dead, Jean decided. He sank to his knees, crawled around to the other side of the brambles. He stared at the tangle in the gray light, afraid to find what he was searching for.
    Jean saw the face—scratched, with blood on it, lying on one cheek, eyes shut. The face was pink still; the American did not look like the dead man beside the plane.
    “Hullo,” Jean tried, his only English, his voice cracking.
    The pilot opened his eyes. Even in the dim light, Jean could see their color—a translucent green, the green of the sea glass that his mother kept in a box on her bureau. He had never seen such eyes on anyone before—the only color in the dun forest.
    Jean whispered urgently in Walloon, “I am Belgian. You have fallen on Belgian soil.”
    The American looked intently at the boy.
    Jean, shaking violently inside his jacket, tried again. He spoke, but this time he accompanied his words with gestures. Pointing to himself and to the soil, then again, then once more, repeating the word
Belgique
over and over. Insisting.
    The American was motionless, except for his eyes scanning Jean's face.
    The boy removed the cheese and bread and the bottle of water from his pockets. He mimed taking a drink. Jean could not reach the American through the brambles, however. He had somehow to get the man out. But how? Did he dare touch the injured leg?
    As if in answer, the American began a slow slide backwards, on his belly, until he had released himself from the tangle of thorns. Jean moved on his knees to meet him at the other side of the bushes. He watched as the American rolled over and lay flat on his back, staring at the tree-tops. The effort seemed to have exhausted him.
    Jean opened the bottle of water, cradled the American's head at an angle so the man could drink. The leather at the back of the American's head was cold to the touch. Jean's hand was shaking so badly he was afraid he would spill the water down the soldier's chin and neck. The American propped himself up on his elbows then, took a long swallow. He said an English word the boy could not understand.
    The American pulled himself to a nearby tree, managed with his wrists to make it to a sitting position. Careful not to touch anything that might be injured, Jean gingerly held out the bread. The American—pilot? gunner? navigator? Jean couldn't tell—took the bread in cupped hands, angled it with his wrists and bit into it. The loaf, however, was tough, and the American had no strength in his wrists, no grip, to pull it free. Jean reached in and steadied the bread for the American, feeding him. He saw that the fingers of the man's hands were stiff, unbending, the skin an unnatural and waxy white.
    The American chewed, swallowed, spoke again. Jean could tell by the inflection that the words formed a question, but he could do nothing but shake his head.
    “Can you speak French?” the boy asked very slowly. This time the American shook his head.
    The boy asked again, though the likelihood was