Gibraltar Passage Read Free Page B

endless perusal of the window. “Oh, no thank you.”
    â€œIt’s great.”
    The woman next to Jake spoke up, urging Pierre to take a portion. He dredged up a smile and shook his head. Pierre remained the only one of their compartment untouched by the new day.
    He felt Jake’s eyes on him and turned a sorrowful gaze toward his friend. “I was thinking of Jasmyn.”
    Once more Jake recalled late-night talks. “She’s the woman who betrayed you by taking up with a Nazi officer, right?”
    His friend nodded and confessed, “The closer we come to Marseille, the harder it is to keep the memory of her behind me. You remember how I said that there could never be another woman for me?”
    â€œI remember,” Jake said quietly.
    Pierre sighed his way back to the window. “All she did, all that was, and still I yearn for her.”
    â€œWould it help to talk?”
    â€œThank you, my friend,” Pierre replied to the unseen day outside the train. “But more words about Jasmyn would be lances to my spirit.”
    Outside Arles, a new conductor made his way down the crowded train. He was an ancient survivor of the First War, the chest of his heavy blue conductor’s uniform sporting three rows of ribbons. When they handed over their official passes, the old man drew himself to attention and threw them a rusty salute.
    For the first time that morning, Pierre showed a spark of life. He asked the old man a question and received an overloud reply. Pierre smiled, only his eyes holding the stain of unspoken memories. He motioned toward Jake and spoke at length. All eyes in the compartment turned his way. Pierre pointed to the ribbons on Jake’s own chest and gave a name to several of them. His words were greeted with appreciative oohs and aahs.
    Jake objected with, “You mind telling me—”
    But Pierre cut him off with further words in French. He grew fervent, his voice rising to reach more of the passengers who now crowded into the compartment’s open door. The woman seated next to him had eyes as wide as saucers. Jake felt his face grow hot.
    The ancient conductor handed back Jake’s papers andsnapped off a second salute. Jake accepted the papers and brushed one hand across the front of his close-cropped hair. The conductor spun around, shut the compartment door behind him, and talked excitedly with the people jamming the corridor who immediately crowded around him. From the looks cast through the smudged glass partition, Jake assumed the old man was recounting Pierre’s story.
    Jake leaned forward and muttered, “What was that all about?”
    â€œI was simply telling them a little of who you are,” Pierre replied.
    Jake shot a glance toward the growing number of faces pressed against the glass. “You don’t say.”
    â€œBelieve me, I was defusing trouble before it could take hold,” Pierre replied. “Not everyone you meet in Marseille greets Americans as friends.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    â€œThere was a terrible bombing here in 1944,” Pierre answered. “The city’s worst destruction from the entire war.”
    â€œBy the Americans?”
    Pierre nodded. “The Allies decided the city was important enough to be bombed, since Marseille was a German submarine harbor. They wanted to destroy three points—the central train station, a storage center, and the submarine base. The Americans came with their great bombers called Superfortresses. But not one bomb found its target. Not one. Bombs fell all over the city. The worst destruction was in the Quartier Saint Charles, not far from the station. Over three thousand people were killed that night, all within two hours. It was tragic. The city’s highest death toll in all the years of war.”
    Jake sat back in his seat. “I’m really sorry, Pierre.”
    His friend replied with another smile that did not reach his eyes. “In