Dilemma in the Desert Read online

  Chapter Three

  January 30 Angelique

  All morning long, Angelique had heard the rumbling sound of artillery fire to the west. She would stand at her doorway, listening and watching, but never seeing anything until midafternoon, when she saw a dust cloud approaching the town. The cloud resolved itself into a caravan of German vehicles with red crosses on them. The lead vehicle slowed and stopped in front of her hut, and a German hopped out, looked around, and then walked up to her door. She backed up fearfully into the hut, looking at him with terrified eyes, as he entered the hut and looked around. He said something to her in German, but when she just continued to stare at him, uncomprehendingly, he shook his head and pointed to the door, “Verlassen, schnell.” A stretcher party came in, bearing a wounded man, and the first man motioned for them to put him on the table, and then started examining the patient. She realized that her home was being taken over for use as a medical station to treat the wounded from the battle, and she rushed around the room, gathering her belongings, and then ran outside, almost running into a soldier limping into the hut.

  She stood there, looking around wildly, wondering what to do or where to go, while more doctors and wounded arrived. Some men started erecting tents around the hut, and she saw Germans rousting out the legal owners of other nearby houses and taking them over also. Then she saw a German canteen lying on an opened tailgate. She sidled over to it and looked around; nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her. She picked it up, it was heavy and gave a reassuring sloshing sound, and then she saw a field ration box. She picked that up too, looked up, and froze. The first German was standing in her doorway, looking at her. For a long minute they just stared at each other, but then he looked away and started helping another wounded soldier into the hut. She scurried away.

  She found a hiding place just outside of town and spread out her possessions: one change of clothes, a jacket, a thin wool blanket, a pot, a pan, a plate, a cup, eating utensils, matches, the rest of the food she had bought yesterday, the canteen and the field rations she had just purloined, and a few personal items. She ate a few bites of food, packed everything up into her blanket, sat back on her heels and rocked back and forth. Where should she go? She couldn’t stay in Faid, but she didn’t know anywhere to stay and knew nobody in the town. Should she go back to Gafsa? But that was close to the front, there could be fighting there even now. How about Sfax? She had been there a few times in the past two years and it was safely behind the fighting lines. “Mother Mary,” she murmured to herself, “where should I go? Please show me.” Then she remembered some acquaintances she had met at Sfax, maybe one of them would take her in, perhaps the Conards, or the Dupleixs, or possibly even the Fauncets. That was where she should go.

  She picked up her pack, slung it over her shoulder, walked to the highway going from Faid to Sfax, and started walking alongside it. A truck sped past her, the German driver calling something out to her as he passed. She stopped, “The Boche take everything,” she said to herself. “They took my country, they took my home, if I stay on the road they may take me,” she shuddered and looked wildly around in fear. “Mon Dieu, if I am near the road tonight, what may happen to me? Think Angelique, think. Let’s see, the road curves from Faid to Sfax, so if I cut across, that will save distance. The walking will be harder, but there is less chance of meeting Boche, and there should be places where I can find water. That is what I will do.”

  So saying, she took her bearings and headed off cross-country. Because of her weakened condition from too many missed meals, she would walk for what she thought was about an hour and then rest for about ten minutes. Nearing sundown, she spotted some green off to the side. She turned in that direction and found a seep with some trees, bushes, and grass growing around it. She dropped her pack and lay down and rested for a little bit, and then started the food preparation. She carefully built a pile of dry leaves, twigs and branches, breathed a prayer to Mother Mary, and struck one of her precious matches. It flared and died down, and then some leaves caught. She gently breathed on them, some twigs caught fire, and then when a branch ignited, she carefully added more fuel. She was hungry enough to bolt all the food, but limited herself to the rest of the food that she had bought in Faid and a few bites from the rations, knowing that she must make it last until she reached Sfax. She put on her other set of clothes over the ones she was wearing, added her jacket, wrapped herself in her blanket to protect herself from the cold, curled up next to the fire and dropped off to sleep.

  Back to Table of Contents