Chapter Text
It had been exactly one year.
One year, Farrier thought to himself, remembering the flaming carcass of his plane burning like a beacon on the beach. But no rescue had come. Even after everything he’d done, everything he’d given up for his godforsaken country, for this blasted war that seemed like it would never end—
Even the memory of all those men, cheering from the beach…worthless in the end.
He’d fancied himself over the bitterness now, after months of stewing in it. Before, there was little to distract from the whimpers and moans of the wounded in that cramped barn the Germans had stuffed him in for the first week, where he’d only glimpsed the sun during those rare moments when their captors deigned to deliver them measly scraps of food, or to change out the bucket they were forced to piss and shit in.
So Farrier had steeped himself in that bottomless well of anger at the back of his mind, losing himself in absurdist fantasies.
He dreamt with his eyes wide and staring of breaking free of the bindings around his wrists and charging the soldier who brought them food now and again—barely more than a boy—of seizing his rifle and bringing the stock down on his face again and again until there was nothing left but a mess of blood and bone.
He calculated the odds of escape, of swimming the Channel, of marching straight into London and busting open Number 10’s fucking front door and kicking the prime minister square between the legs. Maybe then, the prick would understand pain. Suffering.
And in the spaces between, he got lost.
At first, Farrier thought of Nell and wondered absently if they’d told her he was dead. It was almost pleasant to think of her, knowing that she would be safe and looked after in his absence. Because Collins had promised him.
Farrier screwed his eyes shut and repeated Nell’s name in his mind. He scratched Collins’s face out of the memories he needed to keep himself grounded, willing the aching pressure behind his eyes to dissipate.
There was another British soldier in the barn with Farrier who looked at him for hours on end without averting his eyes, even when Farrier finally stared back, meeting the boy’s unwavering gaze with a silent challenge of his own.
Farrier didn’t bother to ask why. He wasn’t sure he’d want to know the answer, if there even was one. Maybe the boy was lost in his own mind as well. By all accounts, that was the safest place for them to be now.
It seemed ironic, really, that the only way to stay remotely sane was to keep yourself company.
But there was something in the boy’s eyes that kept Farrier on edge. It was like the boy knew what Farrier was thinking, like he could see the gory fantasies swirling through Farrier’s brain as if they were being acted out on a stage right there in the middle of the barn: among the mud and the hay and the bloodstains from the French sniper the Germans had executed in front of them on their second day of captivity.
Even still, it wasn’t until the ninth night that Farrier finally felt himself giving in to the empty void of hopeless resignation. This was his duty now. His destiny.
Sacrifice was in a hero’s blood, he told himself. Hollow victory, his birth-right. Every good soldier was a martyr wearing the face of a warrior, and sooner or later that mask would shatter and under it there would be nothing but darkness.
By the eleventh night, the anguished sounds emanating from the mouths of the more grievously injured men had ceased completely, leaving an oppressive silence in their wake. The boy with the dark hair and the sad eyes no longer stared at Farrier during his waking hours but at the sliver of light between the barn doors instead.
Farrier had taken to watching him instead now—albeit with more subtlety—as he lay on the ground opposite the boy, who appeared to have fallen asleep some hours ago. Farrier had grown accustomed to the laboured breathing and delirious mumbling of his fallen comrades since his capture but without their ambient suffering to distract him from the eerie silence of the French countryside, there was little hope of falling asleep.
It was then, for the first time, that he felt truly envious of the dead.
Farrier was not a man who believed in much, but faith and delusion both had a way of filling in cracks, and Farrier’s psyche was like a broken teacup. He regretted not turning toward the water when he’d still had the chance. Perhaps the sea would have taken his life as payment and allowed some poor sailor, some unfortunate soldier, to pass unharmed; a life given, a life owed.
And if the sea was alive then so was this land, which had soured Farrier’s almost divine luck since the very second he’d set foot on that beach. Dunkirk, he decided, was cursed.
It was as Farrier mulled restlessly over these thoughts that he heard it. The crackling of flames; and then the smell of smoke rising into his nostrils. Farrier sat bolt upright, each of his senses on high alert even after days of disuse.
Underneath the rising orchestra of fire, Farrier could hear gunshots in the distance and muffled screams. And then those sounds echoed from right outside the barn. The commotion was loud enough that he could pick out individual words here and there amongst the maelstrom of shouting from the German soldiers outside.
They were being ambushed, he realised. And from the ground, not the air. But who the hell would be foolish enough to attack a German encampment now?
Farrier’s attention was diverted by a sudden movement in his peripheral vision: the boy who had stared at him for so long during their entombment had suddenly catapulted to his feet as if he’d been lying on a springboard.
“Get down,” Farrier hissed. The boy turned but just looked at him blankly. “Down,” he repeated, motioning toward the ground. The kid was practically asking to get hit with a stray bullet.
Farrier watched as the boy slowly descended onto his hands and knees. Farrier nodded approvingly before doing the same. He crawled quickly over to the opposite side of the barn where the boy had been sleeping.
“If you stay low,” Farrier told the boy, “you’ll avoid the worst of the smoke.” That was already starting to become a problem, it seemed, as Farrier could hear faint coughing coming from the rear of the barn, where the rest of the soldiers had chosen to sleep.
“Name’s Farrier, by the way. I’m RAF—well, obviously.” He waited, but the boy continued to stare as if he hadn’t heard. Farrier sighed and scooted closer, balancing on his elbows just long enough to yank the kid’s fibre identity discs out from under his shoulder so he could get a look at them. There was a metal chain tangled up with the cotton cord, but Farrier wasn’t interested in the boy’s jewellery, just his name. “Gibson, eh?”
The boy—Gibson—blinked twice at him before very enthusiastically nodding in response.
“Great,” Farrier replied, making his first attempt at a smile since he’d been captured. “Glad we could share this moment. I’ll go round up the others. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take a bullet than sit in here and wait to suffocate.”
Farrier turned away without waiting for a response but before he’d made it even ten feet, there was a loud crack from overhead. What appeared to be most of the barn roof crashed into the ground right front of him and exploded into a ball of bright orange flame.
Farrier rolled out of the way just in time. “Fuck…this…” he muttered to himself between panting breaths as he stared at the mountain of burning debris blocking his path. “I’m not risking my arse for anymore sodding brown-jobs.” But when Farrier turned back toward the doors, there was Gibson staring right at him, wide-eyed with terror.
Farrier gritted his teeth and shook his head and prayed he wasn’t about to make another heroic decision he’d live to regret.
“Move!” he barked, hauling himself forward with what little momentum he could muster by dragging his elbows through the muck.
Farrier had almost crawled back to Gibson by the time the command seemed to finally register with the boy. Farrier sighed, following just behind him as they moved together toward the doors.
Once they reached the barn doors, which were always barred from the outside by a plank of wood unless food was being brought in for the prisoners, Farrier slowly climbed to his feet. He motioned for Gibson to stay down when the boy tried to do the same. Farrier covered his mouth and nose the best he could with his hands still bound together, blinking furiously as the smoke that was quickly filling the structure stung his eyes.
His boot collided with the centre of the doors at its weakest point. There was a loud thud, but no give, not like he’d been expecting given that the whole place had seemed in danger of imminent collapse even before the fire. Farrier kicked again, and again, his movements growing clumsier and more frantic with each passing second as the smoke around him thickened and scorched his throat.
Farrier didn’t even notice until a second boot struck the doors beside his own that Gibson was standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder.
On their second combined strike, Farrier felt the wood beneath his foot splinter. He only kicked harder.
There was a cry of triumph from Gibson when the doors finally broke open to reveal the Germans’ camp, destroyed and deserted. The victorious yell was cut short, followed by a hacking cough.
Farrier turned toward the boy to find him bent over double, trying to empty his lungs of smoke, but there wasn’t time. He reached out with both hands and grabbed Gibson’s uniform, dragging him out of the barn just as another ominous crack sounded from above their heads.
Farrier didn’t pause to watch the barn collapse, nor did he look back to see if any of the other soldiers had made it out.
He didn’t stop to rest until they’d made it to the relative safety of the treeline near the top of the hill overlooking the burned-out camp. Upon letting go of the boy’s clothes, Gibson dropped unceremoniously to his knees and resumed coughing and sputtering.
Farrier felt like doing the same but took a few deep breaths and composed himself. “You all right?” he asked instead. Gibson didn’t respond, but he was still conscious, so that was something at least.
Farrier leaned with his back against the nearest tree and sighed, trying to savour the first real moment in more than a week where it didn’t feel like death was literally biting at his heels.
The moment was short-lived.
A force like a brick wall suddenly struck Farrier from the side and sent him sailing. He landed flat on his back, all the air punched out of his body from the impact. A face swam into his vision while he lay there, temporarily immobile, but it wasn’t Gibson’s wide-eyed visage. Before Farrier had a chance to try to catch his breath, there were hands encircling his throat in an iron grip.
Farrier struggled limply against his surprise attacker. He felt like a rabbit writhing in a snare, unable to suck in enough air through his constricted windpipe to make his muscles do what he was telling them.
And then just as his sight was beginning to fade, Farrier could breathe again.
Farrier sat up, no longer pinned to the ground by his assailant, and rose awkwardly to his feet. He blinked away the remaining black spots clouding his vision and ignored the sound of static buzzing in his ears as he lumbered toward the two bodies rolling around in the leaves.
Farrier could just make out Gibson by the muddy brown of his uniform but couldn’t hear him, if he was making any noise at all, over the furious German vitriol spewing from the mouth of the man who now had Gibson in the same stranglehold he’d originally used on Farrier.
The stream of words was delivered too quickly for Farrier to pick out anything at all. The man’s anger made him sound less than human.
Farrier leaned down to pick up a branch as he approached. He snapped it in half and allowed the lesser portion to fall back down to the forest floor, gripping the thicker component between his bound hands.
The man didn’t notice Farrier standing over him, too intent on his violent monologue. There was spittle glistening on Gibson’s face from the other’s man’s explosive speech. Gibson was staring vacantly up at Farrier as his face rapidly turned blue from lack of oxygen.
Farrier stared right back as he grabbed the German by the right shoulder and jammed the splintered end of the branch into the man’s jugular, grimacing in disgust as blood spurted onto his hands before he had a chance to let go of the makeshift weapon.
Farrier’s interference gave Gibson just enough time to scurry out from underneath the attacker’s body before the corpse fell limply from Farrier’s hands.
Farrier glanced up after wiping his hands off on the German’s clothes—not a Wehrmacht uniform, like Farrier might have expected, but plain black civvies—amidst the man’s death throes to find Gibson sitting with his back to a tree on the other side of the clearing, clutching his throat protectively as he stared back at Farrier with a horrified expression.
“What?” Farrier said defensively, still trying to catch his breath. “I just saved—”
The icy chill of a blade pressed against his throat stopped Farrier in his tracks.
“Nicht bewegen,” said a raspy female voice in heavily French-accented German.
Farrier splayed his hands wide, a universal gesture of surrender. “Anglais,” he told her. The edge of the knife dug into his skin as he swallowed. “Anglais,” he repeated urgently.
“The man you killed?” the woman asked, pulling her weapon an inch so away from Farrier’s neck, giving him just enough room to breathe normally. Her English was even harder to decode than her German, if anything.
“German,” Farrier replied. “He attacked us after we escaped their camp.” He wanted to look back at the woman but didn’t dare try anything while her blade was still at his throat.
And then just like that she lowered it, without explanation, and stepped forward to examine the body. She was small in stature, dark hair, dark skin, dressed in men’s garments clearly not intended for someone of her size.
“You said he was German?” she asked, carefully skirting around the halo of blood surrounding the upper half of the body.
It was a fair question, Farrier supposed, considering that the other man was dressed like a civilian, but he was sure.
“He attacked me first,” Farrier explained. “He didn’t say anything, just took me by surprise. When Gibson stepped in to help me, the man attacked him instead and started yelling something in German. I’m not sure what it was. I didn’t recognize it.”
“He was one of ours,” the woman replied.
Farrier couldn’t help the small exclamation of surprise that escaped his lips at hearing that, but the woman ignored it.
“We planned an ambush,” she explained. “We received word recently that a high-ranking official was stationed in Dunkirk because of the troubles with your soldiers. We figured we could take advantage of the false sense of security after the evacuation and catch them by surprise.”
“We?” Farrier questioned.
“La Résistance.”
Farrier raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You lot sure work fast.”
The woman laughed, but there was little humour behind it. “We’ve known this was an inevitability since the night they launched the northern assault. We’ve been preparing for weeks.”
“Good to know the French have so little faith in us Brits,” Farrier quipped.
“In hindsight, that seems for the best.”
He couldn’t really argue that point. “You said this was meant to be an ambush,” Farrier said, moving forward to the very edge of the trees to look down at the base of the hillside where it appeared as if the entire countryside was on fire. “I’m guessing it didn’t go as planned.”
When Farrier turned around to face her again, the woman was staring at him quite intently, as one might if they were trying to solve a particularly difficult maths problem.
“Someone warned those bastards we were coming,” she replied after a moment. “Someone who, it seems, was killed by you.”
“You’re welcome,” Farrier replied coolly.
The woman didn’t respond as she turned and circled the body once more before stopping to look down at it one last time with her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Putain de traître,” she said, and spit on the corpse. “Grab your quiet little friend and follow me,” she said, looking back up again to meet Farrier’s eyes. “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
She whirled around without waiting for confirmation from either Farrier or Gibson and headed deeper into the trees. Farrier hurried over to Gibson, who still hadn’t moved, and hauled him to his feet.
“Let’s go,” Farrier insisted, pushing the younger man out in front of himself, where he’d be in the least danger as they continued their trek through the woods led by this mysterious Frenchwoman that Farrier still wasn’t altogether sure he could trust.
He assumed she felt the same, considering she’d not offered to cut the ties around either his or Gibson’s wrists.
It was almost pitch black as they walked, neither the light from the moon nor the blaze ravaging the pristine French landscape penetrating the thick copse of trees. This didn’t seem to bother the Frenchwoman, who walked silently and confidently at the head of their line, while the two soldiers following stumbled and tripped over every leaf and twig in their path.
They carried on in that manner for at least an hour, if Farrier’s internal timekeeping could still be relied upon, and then the Frenchwoman stopped short without issuing so much as a word of warning. Farrier had to yank Gibson back by the collar to keep him from running straight into her back.
“What is it?” Farrier asked quietly after the silence had dragged on for far too long for comfort.
“Nothing,” the Frenchwoman replied. “We should hurry.”
Their brisk walk then became a jog, leaving Farrier to ensure that Gibson didn’t get left behind—a rather difficult task, as it seemed that Gibson could barely even walk without falling over. Maybe he was injured in some way, Farrier thought. That struck him as odd, though, because the boy hadn’t made any noise at all; certainly nothing to signify that the trek was unduly paining him.
They must have been close to their destination the first time they stopped, because it was only a few more minutes before they reached the east boundary of the forest and emerged in a field of long grass, at the other end of which lay a solitary farmhouse. The windows were all dark except one, near the thatched roof, where Farrier could just make out the flickering glow of a kerosene lamp.
“This is the hideout for the French Resistance?” Farrier asked, unable to hide the scepticism in his voice as they marched toward the unimpressive wooden structure.
The Frenchwoman cast a sharp glance over her shoulder at him. “There are hundreds of cells like ours across the country. We found it best to keep our numbers small, so we compartmentalised. It’s easier to remain inconspicuous.”
The Germans weren’t taking over Europe by being inconspicuous, Farrier thought to himself, but even he had to admit that fighting fire with fire hadn’t worked well for even his own countrymen, whose military power had vastly surpassed that of France. Guerrilla warfare then, would be the sand they used to suffocate the smouldering embers keeping the Axis forces alight.
Farrier mulled over his options as they walked across the field, options he hadn’t thought he would ever have just hours again when he’d been rotting in a German camp, waiting for death or worse. He came to a decision just as the Frenchwoman approached the farmhouse with both soldiers in tow and steeled himself, knowing it wasn’t the easiest path; that if he went through with it, there was every chance he’d end up right back where he’d started.
The woman knocked a peculiar rhythm on the door and then turned to face Farrier and Gibson as she waited. There was no response at all for a long moment, and then the door creaked open just an inch to reveal the face of a heavily bearded man through the small sliver.
“Simone?” he questioned, followed by something in French that Farrier didn’t understand.
She turned her head toward the man to reply and shook her head. “Scattered,” she replied in English, presumably for Farrier and Gibson’s benefit. “There was a mole.”
“And them?” he asked, glaring suspiciously at the two English soldiers. The accent accompanying the man’s response, unlike Simone’s, could have passed as belonging to a fellow Brit, which took Farrier by surprise.
“Escaped prisoners,” Simone replied. “Bertrand attacked them; the pilot killed him.”
The bearded man glanced down at Farrier’s hands, which were still bound and flecked with blood. “Get them inside and untie them,” he said. “I’ll make some chocolate.”
Simone didn’t appear pleased by the order, but she obeyed without protest. She led the two inside and gestured toward the table just inside the doorway, adjacent to a small kitchen. Farrier took a seat in one of the little wooden chairs without hesitation, grateful to be off his feet again. Gibson sluggishly slumped into the chair to his left. Once both men were seated, Simone walked over to them with her knife and cut the ties around their wrists unceremoniously.
Farrier watched as she leaned against the cabinets on the far wall and tapped her fingers impatiently on the wood, waiting as the bearded man hovered over the stove for several minutes without saying a word. Finally, he finished and poured the concoction into four mugs, handing one to Simone before bringing the others to the table.
He sat across from Farrier and pushed a steaming mug toward him. “Name?” he asked.
“Farrier. Squadron Leader Jack Farrier.” It had been true enough after the death of Fortis Leader during battle, even if it wasn’t officially sanctioned.
If the other man was impressed by Farrier’s rank, he didn’t show it. “And you?” he asked, turning to Gibson, whose face immediately turned to that of a man facing a firing squad.
“Gibson,” Farrier interjected hastily. Simone and her companion’s heads both swivelled back to him. “Something happened to him,” Farrier lied. “He won’t speak.”
Their French hosts exchanged a look that Farrier couldn’t decipher. The man turned back to face Farrier and his expression seemed carefully neutral as he spoke. “You can call me Leclair,” he said. “I’ll show you where the two of you can sleep after you’re finished, and then we’ll decide what to do with you in the morning.”
Leclair stood and grabbed his mug from the table before walking over to Simone. She scowled up at him as he crowded her into the corner of the tiny room and began speaking in rapid French at a volume just above a whisper.
Farrier, who could barely understand a word of French when it was written, was utterly lost. He turned to look at Gibson instead, only to find that the boy was now staring intently at Simone and Leclair, his brows furrowed in concentration. Farrier glanced back at the two but couldn’t puzzle out what Gibson found so interesting.
Farrier finished his hot chocolate just before Leclair and Simone parted, their secret conversation over almost as soon as it had begun. Neither had seemed to pay any attention to the Englishmen in their kitchen, so Farrier assumed the discussion wasn’t to do with them and therefore nothing he needed to worry about—not right then, at any rate.
“Had your fill?” Leclair asked, holding out both his hands to take their empty mugs.
“Yes, thank you,” Farrier replied politely. He stood up and while Leclair had his back turned to take care of their soiled dishes, he gestured for Gibson to do the same. The movement did not escape Simone’s notice, however, and she pointedly narrowed her eyes as the younger man. Farrier was going to have to do something about Gibson, before his…condition, or whatever it was, got the two of them killed.
After taking care of their mugs, Leclair nodded for the two soldiers to follow him out of the kitchen and up the stairs at the rear of the house. They passed the second story landing without pausing and continued to a solitary door at the very top of the stairs.
Leclair pulled a keyring from his pocket and unlocked the door. He held it open, waiting for the other two to go ahead before stepping inside. “There’s no wiring up here,” he explained, “but the lamp should serve you till morning.” The lamp in question was the same one that had been the only visible source of illumination when Simone had led them to the house. “I’d offer to show you gentlemen the latrine before you lie down, but it’s separate from the main house, and I feel it would be safer for you to remain inside until after sunrise.”
“I think we can manage, thank you,” Farrier replied. Aside from the chocolate, he was fairly certain they hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in at least twelve hours, maybe more. Taking a piss was currently among the least of his concerns.
“Right,” Leclair continued, sounding slightly miffed, as if Farrier’s response had interrupted him. “Well, there’s a commode if the urge overwhelms you,” he said, pointing to the far right of the window, where a little wooden box was perched in the corner. “But you’ll be the ones cleaning it in the morning.” He paused for breath, but Farrier said nothing this time, unsure if he was really finished speaking or not. “I’ll fetch some linens and quilts for you to sleep on,” he added before turning back around to go down the stairs.
The door was left open, so Farrier assumed it wouldn’t be long before Leclair came back. There was something that Farrier still wanted to settle before they bunked down for the night, however. He turned his head to look at Gibson, who was staring awkwardly down at his boots.
“You’re not deaf, are you?” Farrier asked. He pointed to his own ear meaningfully when Gibson looked up, even though Gibson’s reaction to his words was really the only answer he needed. Gibson shook his head anyway.
“Well, I don’t suppose you were mute before the war,” Farrier mused, waiting for some sort of emotional response to the words in Gibson’s face, but there was nothing. “Is it shellshock?” There was enough of a pause before Gibson hesitantly shook his head once again that something finally clicked in Farrier’s mind.
Gibson could hear him just fine. He just couldn’t understand him.
Farrier looked the boy up and down, noticing how the army uniform just seemed to be ever-so-slightly too small, and how, when they were walking through the trees, Gibson had considerably more trouble maintaining his balance, like his shoes weren’t quite the right size.
Gibson wasn’t an English prisoner of war at all. He was just dressed like one.
Lowering his voice, Farrier muttered, “Christ alive, please tell me you’re not a German.” Nothing. “Deutsche? Volksdeutsche? Kraut?” he demanded, pointing aggressively at Gibson.
Gibson shook his head frantically. “Français,” he blurted out, surprising Farrier, who hadn’t really thought he would get a verbal answer out of the boy at all.
Well, Farrier thought, that at least explained why he’d seemed so intent on listening to the others during their private conversation downstairs. Thank God. Farrier found himself taken off guard by the surge of relief he felt in response to the news. He’d grown fond of Gibson, and maybe that was just the military solidarity in him, but an Allied deserter would be easier to mind than a spy.
Farrier glanced down the stairs again, and once he was satisfied that Leclair was not coming back up within the next fifteen seconds, he turned back to face Gibson.
“You found an English soldier?” Farrier guessed. “He was already dead? Morte? When you found him? You took his clothes?” He mimed along with the words, trying to make sure Gibson understood. It was unclear how much English he understood, if any.
Gibson nodded eagerly. “Sur le plage,” he said, tugging at his shirt. “After…bombs.”
Farrier shook his head exasperatedly. Well, that was one mystery solved.
“Simone et Leclair,” Gibson added in a lower tone.
Farrier looked at the boy quizzically, waiting for him to finish, but Gibson just touched his fingers to his lips, glancing between Farrier’s face and the open doorway with a terrified expression. Farrier guessed it wasn’t the first time Gibson had been caught out like this. The evacuation had taken over a week; who knew how long Gibson had been…Gibson.
“It’s fine,” Farrier tried to reassure him. “I won’t tell.” He mimed sealing his lips, like he’d done as a child, vowing to keep another’s secret.
It was then that they heard footsteps on the stairs again. Farrier took one look at Gibson and stepped in front of him, hoping that Leclair wouldn’t notice the blatant anxiety plastered all over the boy’s face.
Leclair ascended the stairs with a large stack of quilts and pillows, and handed them off to Farrier, who passed them to Gibson, who promptly staggered under the weight.
“I hope you don’t take insult if I lock you in for the night,” Leclair said, one brow arched as if challenging Farrier to argue.
“No,” Farrier replied, “of course not. I understand completely.”
“Then good night to the both of you,” Leclair said as he backed out of the room. “I’ll have Simone come fetch you in the morning.”
After Leclair shut the door, the sound of the key turning in the lock ignited an unexpected burst of primal fear in Farrier’s chest. He swallowed it down and turned to Gibson to take back the bedding from him, carefully laying it down across the floor to create a suitable sleeping area for the two of them.
After the day’s events, preceded by the seemingly endless amount of time spent in the German camp, all Farrier wanted now was a good long rest.
Gibson sat cross-legged on the pillow placed closest to the window, still fully clothed. He was staring again, but Farrier was past the point of caring as he quickly stripped down to just his undergarments before lying down on the portion of the bedding nearest to the locked door. Gibson was looking down at his feet when Farrier rolled over to face him. It was hard to tell in the flickering light, but his face seemed redder than it had before, like he was embarrassed by something.
“You should sleep,” Farrier advised him through a yawn, his horizontal position already taking its toll on his weary body and mind.
Gibson glanced up at him briefly, but didn’t move otherwise.
Farrier let his eyes slip closed, too exhausted to worry about Gibson’s strange behaviour any longer.
Farrier wasn’t sure how long he’d slept—or if he’d even really slept at all. He still felt trapped in a dreamlike haze when he opened his eyes again to find that the room had gone dark. It took him a second to determine what had woken him.
“…lekh ha'olam, hagomel lahayavim tovot.” Gibson was sitting cross-legged in the same spot he’d been in when Farrier had drifted off, but now his head was bowed, and he had both hands tucked under his throat. “Sheg'molani kol tov.” The words were spoken softly, but they’d pierced through Farrier’s sleeping mind, into memories long-forgotten.
“Mi sheg'molkha…kol tov,” Farrier replied drowsily, clumsily stumbling through the answering prayer as he scoured his mind for the right words. “Hu yigmolkha kol tov. Selah.”
There was a long pause after, and Farrier wondered if Gibson had even heard him. Maybe all of this was just a dream.
And then suddenly, Gibson scooted closer to him and placed something in his right palm, laying open near his head on the pillow. Farrier closed his fingers around the small metal object. A metal chain, still warm from Gibson’s body heat, and a pendant, familiar in shape as the same symbol his mother had worn when he was still a child.
“You speak Hebrew?” Gibson asked hopefully, in kind.
“Little,” Farrier replied, struggling to remember the language he’d all but abandoned by the age of fourteen. “Most…forgot.” There was no response from Gibson. Farrier groped blindly for the boy’s hands and pushed the necklace back into them. “You…teach?” he asked.
“Oui!” Gibson replied excitedly before reverting to Hebrew. “Yes, I will teach.”
“Good,” Farrier replied as he closed his eyes once more. “Now sleep.”
When Simone came in the morning to unlock their door, Farrier found himself operating with renewed vigour. He dressed himself again shamelessly as she watched from the doorway with cold eyes. There was an entire congregation of people waiting to greet Farrier and Gibson in the kitchen when they came downstairs, most of whom were crowded around the table where Leclair was seated with various documents strewn about before him.
“We can get you as far as a private port,” Leclair said without introduction or preamble. “After that, you’ll be on your own to make it across la Manche. I’ll warn you now, it won’t be an easy trip.” When Farrier didn’t respond, Leclair looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “I assume you and your man want to go home, yes?”
“What if we want to stay?” Farrier replied.
There was a low murmur from some of the others in the room at his words, but Leclair silenced them with a glance.
“By stay,” Leclair clarified, “you mean you want to work here, with us? As part of the Resistance?”
“It’s more or less the same job I was doing before,” Farrier pointed out.
Leclair glanced back down at the documents scattered across the table and hummed contemplatively. This was apparently too much for Simone, who leaned toward Leclair and began speaking rapidly in French.
“Tais toi,” Leclair replied sharply, interrupting whatever she had been staying. He turned back to Farrier. “An officer we can use, though it seems you’ll need to brush up on your French. A foot soldier, however….”
“He stays with me,” Farrier said firmly. “I’m not sending him out there alone.”
Leclair considered this for a moment. “Very well. Let’s get started then, shall we?”
The months passed relatively quickly at the Resistance’s safehouse, though most of it was spent with only Gibson for company, and Farrier discovered that the boy was the quiet type even when they shared a language.
But by May of 1941, Farrier was competent in both French and Hebrew, though his French accent remained just as atrocious as it had been before Gibson’s coaching. Gibson had fared much better with English, taking to it like a duck to water once Farrier had managed to acquire a French-English dictionary from Leclair.
Even so, Gibson still rarely spoke in the company of his countrymen, under the guise of trauma, though Farrier suspected it wasn’t so much a guise at all but merely a convenient truth. As promised, he kept Gibson’s secret. He realized now it was Gibson’s best option for escaping the occupation, should that opportunity ever arise.
That possibility slowly flickered out month after month, dwindling like the oil each night in the kerosene lamp they left lit in the attic window while they slept.
Then May once again turned to June, and Leclair received a message from Britain.
“The Prime Minister has established a covert military force,” he said, reading through the letter as Farrier, Gibson, and Simone sat with him at the kitchen table, “to conduct delicate operations in Nazi-occupied countries. They’re asking for our help with a sabotage mission in Dunkerque.” He looked up and met Farrier’s gaze unflinchingly. “I want the three of you to go to the drop point and safely escort the agents they send back to the farmhouse.”
They arrived on the night of the sixth of June 1941.
It had been one year since his countrymen had fled Dunkirk’s shores, escaping the inescapable. A year since Farrier found himself stranded on that very same beach, awaiting help that would never come.
Farrier stared up in solemn silence at the dark shapes in the sky overhead, illuminated only by the light of the full moon as they slowly descended.
After one long year, this was Britain’s answer to the threat lurking on their doorstep. There would be no army, hundreds of thousands strong, marching through the streets in the name of liberation. No food to feed the hungry, no medicine to cure the sick, no weapons to fight back the scourge.
But this was enough. These three soldiers, falling from the heavens like angels from the holy book he no longer believed in, were more than a call answered. They were a reminder, a promise, of things he had once thought lost—of home.