Read Chapter 2: The Hunter

Henri’s finger tightened on the trigger, his knuckles pale against the dark metal of the old hunting rifle. In the half-light of the flooded field, his face was a mask of shadow and suspicion, carved from years of war and occupation. He spoke again, low and guttural, French that Jack’s years of training could just barely parse.

“Prove yourself, or I put you in the marsh.”

Jack let the water drip from his chin. His hands were raised, the weight of his Thompson a cruel promise against his back. He could reach for it, but the Frenchman’s stance was solid, the rifle’s bore level with his chest. No bluster in the eyes. This was a man who had killed before.

“I’m American,” Jack said, slow and clear. “82nd Airborne. I came down two kilometers north of my drop zone. I’ve been in this swamp since 0200.” He tilted his head, showing the stencil on his helmet—the red and white square of the Airborne, the white “AA” faded but unmistakable. “That ain’t German, friend.”

Henri’s eyes flicked to the insignia, then to Jack’s face, then back out across the marsh where the German patrol had vanished into the tree line. A thin mist rolled off the reeds. The silence stretched, taut as wire.

“American,” Henri repeated, tasting the word. His accent was thick, rural. He lowered the rifle an inch. Not all the way. “You are very far from your war, *soldat*.”

“Tell me about it.”

Henri studied him a moment longer, then pulled the rifle back to his shoulder, slung it over his coat. He was a stocky man, maybe fifty, with a kind of weathered stillness that came from a lifetime in these woods. He wore a heavy canvas jacket, patched at the elbows, and a hunting cap pulled low. He looked like he belonged to the land itself, root and bone.

“The Boches will send more when they see the sky is full of men,” Henri said. He gestured toward the forest that bordered the field, a dark wall of oak and beech. “Come. We cannot stay here.”

Jack didn’t move. “I need to get to a bridge. East of Sainte-Mère-Église. You know it?”

Henri’s expression closed like a shutter. “I know every bridge in Normandy. But we do not walk to bridges in daylight. Not with them sweeping the hedgerows.” He turned and started walking, not checking to see if Jack followed. “You will come with me, or you will die alone in the water. Your choice.”

Jack hoisted his pack, his boots sucking at the mud. He had no intention of letting a stranger lead him anywhere, but options were thin on the ground. His radio was dead, his compass shattered, and there was a German patrol somewhere between him and the objective. He followed.

The forest swallowed them whole. The canopy was dense, the light low and green, and the ground beneath their feet was soft with years of fallen leaves. Henri moved like a ghost, stepping where the brush was thin, reading the land in a way Jack’s map-reading training couldn’t match. Jack kept his Thompson low, his eyes scanning the gaps between the trees, every snap of a twig putting his teeth on edge.

They walked in silence for twenty minutes. The distant thump of naval bombardment was a dull, rhythmic drum, like a heartbeat from the coast. Jack’s mind was already running the route in his head. East, then south. The bridge across the Merderet, if the maps were right. But the maps didn’t account for the flooding, the scattered drop, the broken compass. He needed bearings.

“How far to the river?” Jack asked.

Henri stopped, crouched by a fallen log, and pulled a tin of tobacco from his coat. He packed a pipe with slow, deliberate care, his eyes never stopping their sweep of the forest. “An hour on foot. Maybe less if we keep to the old drover’s paths. But you will not cross it today.”

“I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

Henri lit the pipe, the flare of the match briefly illuminating the deep lines of his face. “The Merderet is flooded worse than the old men have ever seen. The Germans blew the sluice gates. They have machine-gun nests at the crossings, patrols on every road. You will not walk up to the bridge and say, ‘Please, I am here.’ You will be shot before you see the water.” He took a long pull on the pipe. “I know these fields. I know the hunters’ trails. But we move at night, and we move my way.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “I appreciate the help, but I wasn’t looking for a guide.”

“No,” Henri said, smoke curling from his lips. “You were looking to die. And I am not the kind of man to watch an ally walk into a German ambush when he has the chance to live.” He fixed Jack with a stare that was older than the war, older than the occupation. “My son was a partisan. He was caught last autumn, south of Caen. They hung him from a lamppost in the square so everyone could see. I do not do this for you. I do this for him.”

Jack held his gaze. There was nothing to say to that. He gave a short nod, the only currency he had.

They moved deeper into the woods. The light began to shift, the long shadows of mid-morning giving way to a sad, dappled grey. Henri kept them off the paths, cutting across dense stands of bracken, following dry creek beds that had turned to mud. He paused often, listening, his head tilted like an animal tasting the air. Once, he put up a hand and froze, and Jack went still as stone, thumb off the safety of his Thompson, heart hammering against his ribs. Far ahead, the crack of a voice, a shouted command in German, then quiet. After a long minute, Henri moved again.

They came to a small clearing where an old stone well had collapsed into a shallow pit. Henri crouched at the base of a massive oak and parted a curtain of ivy, revealing a narrow gap in the roots, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through. He gestured.

“A hunting shelter. My grandfather’s. No one knows it.”

Jack peered into the darkness. It smelled of earth and dry leaves. He hesitated, but the sound of another distant burst of German small-arms fire decided him. He dropped to his belly and crawled through the gap, Henri behind him, pulling the ivy back into place.

Inside, it was cool and close. A small space, maybe eight feet square, with a packed-dirt floor and a few rusted hooks on the wall. A wooden shelf held a lantern, a box of matches, and a folded wool blanket. Henri struck a match, lit the lantern, and the low light pushed back the dark.

Jack sat against the dirt wall, easing his pack off his shoulders. He pulled out his father’s watch, a heavy silver thing that had ticked through two wars already. He opened the case, checked the time against the dying light, and felt the familiar weight of it against his palm. Some things you carried because they reminded you of home. He snapped it shut and tucked it away.

Henri watched him from across the small space. “You have a goal, soldier. That bridge. What is there that is worth dying for?”

Jack looked at him, considering how much to say. The invasion was rolling. Every unit was counted on to hold their piece of the line. He didn’t know if the bridge was wired for demolition, didn’t know if the Germans planned to blow it the moment they saw the fleet. He only knew his orders, and orders were a rope that kept him tethered to the world.

“If the Germans destroy that bridge, our tanks can’t cross the marsh. The entire 4th Division gets bottled up on the beach and becomes target practice.” Jack kept his voice level. “My job is to see that doesn’t happen.”

Henri’s pipe had gone out. He relit it, the flame casting long shadows across the low ceiling. He was quiet for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Then you will need more than a hunter’s paths, *soldat*. You will need a miracle.”

He tapped the pipe out on the wall, then looked at Jack with a calm that was somehow more unsettling than fear.

“But there is something you should understand before we go further. The man who comes with me is not going to the same bridge you are looking for. I know only one crossing that is not watched every hour of the day and night.” He paused, the weight of the words settling like frost. “And if we are going there, you will have to trust me with your life. Do you understand what I am asking?”

Jack met his stare in the lamplight. He thought of the flooded field, the German patrol, the dead radio. He thought of the bridge, and the men who would die if he didn’t reach it.

“I understand,” he said.

Henri nodded and replaced the flap of ivy, plunging them into a darkness lit only by the small, steady flame.