Missing Read online

  FRANCES ITANI

  Missing

  Grass Roots Press

  Copyright © 2011 Itani Writes Inc.

  First published in 2011 by Grass Roots Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  The Good Reads series is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Office of Literacy and Essential Skills.

  Grass Roots Press also gratefully acknowledges the financial support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.)

  Grass Roots Press would also like to thank ABC Life Literacy Canada for their support. Good Reads® is used under licence from ABC Life Literacy Canada.

  (Good reads series)

  Print ISBN: 978-1-926583-36-5

  ePub ISBN: 978-1-926583-60-0

  Distributed to libraries and

  educational and community

  organizations by

  Grass Roots Press

  www.grassrootsbooks.net

  Distributed to retail outlets by

  HarperCollins Canada Ltd.

  www.harpercollins.ca

  For the missing—men, women, and children— and for those who are left to mourn

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  March 4, 1917

  A village in northern France

  Luc Caron was twelve years old when the black object fell from the sky. He had never seen anything like this before, and he didn’t stop to think. He ran as fast as he could towards the place he thought the object would land.

  This was a time of war, a terrible war that people would later call World War I. Already, it had lasted almost three years. More than one year ago, the Germans had captured Luc’s village in northern France. Not all of France was occupied by the Germans, only a small part in the north and east. But Luc’s village was one of the unlucky ones.

  Fighting and shelling had destroyed many houses and roads and shops. Soldiers had moved in and taken over. Men of fighting age were taken prisoner and sent to Germany. There, they were forced to work in factories.

  The old men, along with the women and children, stayed on in the village. Farmers continued to farm, and shopkeepers kept the shops open. Women did the laundry and hung it out in the wind to dry. Children went to school. Two sisters baked bread in the bakery. The blacksmith, an old man, put shoes on the horses and repaired farm tools. The priest, also an old man, visited the sick and said Mass, but that was all. The villagers had to obey the new rules. They could not leave their houses after eight o’clock at night. The only time they could meet in groups was when they went to church.

  The soldiers gave orders; the villagers did as they were told. There were soldiers everywhere, checking to see that people obeyed. But no one had ever said what to do if you saw something falling from the sky. Something like the black object that twelve-year-old Luc saw on that Sunday morning in 1917.

  Ten minutes earlier, just after eleven o’clock, Luc had left the village church. In the sermon, the old priest had talked about hope that the war would soon end. After three years, the village had suffered enough. The people in the parish listened with their own quiet hope. When they left the church, they hurried back to their homes to take up their hard lives again.

  Luc’s mother had gone home ahead of her son to prepare the noon meal. She and Luc lived alone in a small house at the far end of the village. Luc’s father had been a soldier, but he had died two years ago, while fighting the Germans. Luc’s mother was now a widow.

  Luc was not in a hurry, and he did not go straight home with his mother after church. He pictured her in the kitchen, making his lunch, slicing a bit of pork from the bone. She would be looking out the window while she sliced, wondering where he was and why he hadn’t come home. Now that his father was dead, she worried about him all the time. She watched to see if he had buttoned his jacket and wrapped his scarf around his neck. Every day, she warned him to dress warmly so he wouldn’t catch a cold.

  Luc liked to prowl around the village, to see if he could find out what was going on. He was always alert, always watching, ready to run if any soldiers came too close. He practised spying whenever he could, but if the soldiers saw him, they shouted and told him to go home. Still, that didn’t stop him from snooping.

  Luc shivered on this cold and bitter morning, but he took his time and walked slowly along a dirt path. He held a stick in his hand, and he poked it at the ground and under bushes. He was looking for small treasures. Stones that glinted of silver, old birds’ nests, shiny buttons that had fallen from uniforms. One afternoon, Luc had been lucky. He had found a German coin that one of the soldiers had dropped. He kept his treasures in his bedroom, some on a small table, some on the windowsill. He hid the best ones in a canvas bag under his narrow bed.

  Luc picked up a sharp pink rock and turned it over in the palm of his hand. At the same moment, he heard the sound of pecks and rattles coming from far above. He knew, right away, that he was hearing machine guns. Long ago, he had learned the pattern of sound when airplanes were fighting in the sky.

  He looked up quickly and saw three airplanes. He could tell by the markings that two were German and one was British. The aerial fight was high in the sky, directly overhead. The planes dipped and dived so close to one another, Luc was certain they would crash. The two German planes circled and darted after the British plane, which made daring loops as it tried to escape. The machine guns kept shooting. The pecks and rattles went on and on while the planes buzzed through the sky.

  Luc was excited by this fight in the sky. He hoped the pilot in the British plane would get away safely. He did not want the Germans to win, but with two airplanes attacking one, this was not an even fight. Although the aerial fight was terrible to watch, Luc was thrilled to see the skill of all three pilots.

  Suddenly Luc was afraid. He wanted to shout out. But before he could make a sound, the British airplane flipped upside down. And that is when something large and dark fell out of the plane.

  Luc ran as fast as his legs would run. When he came near the falling object, he thought his eyes were fooling him. The object looked like a large black bird gliding to earth. Only a bird could glide so slowly. But that was a crazy thought and made no sense at all. Why would a large bird fall from a plane and drift down through the sky?

  The two German airplanes dipped their wings and flew off. The buzzing of their engines faded as they vanished from sight. The British plane, still upside down, dived at a sure and even angle between earth and sky. It headed away from the edge of the village and towards some trees. But Luc did not run to the trees. Instead, he ran as fast as he could to the place where he thought the black object would land.

  As he came near, Luc understood his mistake. This was not a large bird at all, nothing like a bird. It was a man, a pilot, falling straight down to earth out of the sky. His thick, black coat had puffed out around him. From the ground, the ballooning coat had looked like a small, dark parachute. It must have slowed the pilot’s fall a little, and that is why he seemed to be gliding.

  The pilot was wearing a tight-fitting flyer’s helmet. His arms were stretched out wide. He was coming in feet first, faster and faster, nearly at the gro
und. Now, Luc could see where the pilot would land. He would land on a pond, and the pond was covered with ice.

  Chapter Two

  Northern France

  Luc watched in horror as the pilot slammed into the frozen pond. But the pilot did not sink through to the water below, even though the ice cracked under him. Nothing moved. Everything was still. The body lay on top of the ice. Not a drop of blood could be seen.

  From the edge of the pond, Luc could now see the face of a young man. The face looked peaceful, as if the pilot were asleep. Luc knew the man had not survived. And because the body was far out on the ice, Luc also knew he could do nothing to help.

  Luc was overcome by what had just happened, and he began to sob. His narrow chest heaved and he bent forward. He straightened, then bent forward again. He could not control himself, and he could not stop crying. A pilot had fallen from the sky, and no one but Luc had seen him crash down to the ice.

  Luc cried even harder when he realized that he was the only witness to this person’s death. He could not reach the dead pilot, because to walk on the ice would be too dangerous. So he sat on the ground and pressed his forehead to his knees, and he wondered what to do. When he heard soldiers running towards the pond, he stood up again.

  After that, everything happened quickly. The soldier in charge sent two others to get iron hooks, a team of horses, and a cart. Minutes later, they returned, and they began to cast the big hooks over the pond. Finally, they snagged the pilot’s body and began to drag it towards them. As they dragged, the body bumped across the unstable ice. The horses inched forward and back nervously, while they waited.

  When the soldiers finally pulled the body onto shore, they lifted it and laid it on the cart. One soldier looked closely at the pilot, and Luc heard him say the word “Canadian.” So this was a Canadian pilot, who had died so sadly.

  Another soldier came over to Luc, who was still crying loudly at the edge of the pond. The soldier was angry, and he began to shout.

  “What’s the matter with you, boy? Get out of here and go home. This does not concern you. It is not your business. Go home to your mother and stay inside your house. You should not have come here.”

  Luc ran away from the pond, but he turned once to look back. He saw the soldiers as they walked beside the horse-drawn cart. From the direction they were headed, Luc knew exactly where they were going. The soldiers planned to take the dead pilot to the village church.

  Again, Luc did not go home. Instead, he ran ahead of the Germans and hid in some bushes at the side of the church. He was careful to stay hidden when the soldiers arrived. They banged at the heavy oak doors at the front of the church and called loudly for the priest.

  Luc stood up and peered through a window. He could see the old priest eating his lunch in a small office inside the building. The priest heard the banging, left his food, and went to open the main doors. The soldiers pushed their way inside and ordered the priest to clear a long table at the back of the church.

  The priest cleared the table and stood back while the soldiers laid out the body. They took off the pilot’s soft leather helmet and straightened his uniform and black leather coat.

  After the soldiers went away, the priest said a prayer over the body. Then he went back to his office to finish his lunch. Luc had watched all of this from his hiding place outside.

  Luc did not know what to do next. Because he was so late, he knew his mother would be worried. But he could not go home. Not after all that had happened. He suddenly thought of the airplane. He remembered the direction of the plane after the pilot had fallen out. It would have crashed somewhere outside the village, not near the pond at all.

  Luc decided to look for the crash site. He thought carefully about the aerial fight. The plane had been headed towards some woods about a kilometre from the frozen pond. Luc knew, too, that the soldiers would also be searching. They would want to examine the plane.

  Luc had lived in the village since birth, and he knew the fields and trees in every direction. He was sure he could find the plane, and he wanted to find it before the Germans did. Once more, he began to run, and he ran until he was out of breath.

  He found the crash site quickly. He checked around, but saw no one. He had arrived first, which meant that the soldiers were searching some other area.

  At once, Luc saw pieces of the airplane scattered everywhere. He was shocked at the way the wood and canvas had been torn apart. The wings had come off and were bent and broken. The force of the crash had driven the engine deep into the hard ground.

  Because Luc knew that the Germans would soon find the place, he looked around for a souvenir. He wanted to grab something and run home with it before he was caught. He began to dig at a large piece of canvas, and he tugged and tore until two strips came loose. Clumps of dirt stuck to both. He stuffed the two pieces of canvas inside his jacket so that no one could see them.

  Again, Luc looked around, and this time he saw the wooden propeller. Even in the shadows of the trees, the propeller shone with a high polish. The crash had broken it to splinters, so Luc tried to pull a small piece away from a bigger piece. After much effort, he was able to break off one splinter. He stuck this inside his jacket, hiding it beside the two canvas strips he had already taken.

  Looking around one last time, Luc saw a torn card that might be a piece of map or a chart. Maybe the pilot’s name was on it. Luc wanted to know this name, so he picked up the card and tried to read the printed words. But the card was damaged, and one edge had been torn off. At the same moment, Luc felt a strong hand on his shoulder—the hand of a soldier. The Germans had finally found the crash site. When Luc looked up, he recognized the soldier who had shouted at him at the pond. The soldier grabbed the piece of card away from Luc and shouted again.

  “What do you think you’re doing? I told you before to go home to your mother. Get away from here and don’t touch anything or you will be in trouble. Go on, get away now. I never want to see you at this place again. Don’t ever come back.”

  Luc was afraid. But the soldier did not know about Luc’s hidden treasures. He did not know about the two pieces of canvas and the splinter of wood from the propeller. Pressing his arms to his chest so his treasures would not fall out of his jacket, Luc turned and ran away. This time, he ran straight home.

  Chapter Three

  Northern France

  Luc let himself in at the back door. He tried to be quiet, but his mother heard him and called out.

  “Luc, why are you so late? Where have you been? Have you been getting into trouble?”

  “I was only on my way home,” Luc called back. “I wasn’t in any trouble.”

  Because his room was near the back door, Luc went there first. He took off his jacket and hid the three pieces he had taken from the crashed airplane. He stuffed his new treasures into his canvas bag. Then he pushed the bag back under his narrow bed.

  Luc was so upset, he couldn’t eat. He told his mother he wasn’t hungry, but she paid no attention. She served him a slice of pork and a steaming potato she had baked in the fireplace. But Luc just sat there and stared at the food. He had no appetite. He could only think about all that had happened in the short space of one morning.

  Luc was also hot because he had run all the way home. There were circles of red on his cheeks. He tried not to think of the threats made by the German soldier. His mother put her hand up to his forehead.

  “You must have a fever,” she told him. “Just look at your red face. You must be sick if you have no appetite. Why don’t you lie on your bed for a while?”

  Luc decided not to tell his mother what he had seen. He didn’t want her to worry. He went back to his room and lay on top of his bed. He kept thinking about the pilot who had fallen out of the sky. He knew the pilot was Canadian. He had heard the German soldier say the word. A Canadian from far away across the ocean had flown a British plane that was now lying in pieces in the woods.

  Luc got up quietly and put on his ja
cket. He slipped out the back door again because he didn’t want his mother to make a fuss. And now, there was only one place he wanted to go.

  Luc ran to the church and pushed open the heavy door. No one else was around. The pilot’s body lay on the long table, his head turned towards the window. In the light, his face held the peaceful expression Luc had seen earlier, when the body had fallen to the ice.

  In that damp and stuffy room, Luc kneeled beside the table and said a prayer. The Germans had not left a guard behind, and Luc could not bear to see the pilot’s body all alone. He felt so sorry for the young man, he decided to stay until someone told him to go home. And because Luc wanted to learn the pilot’s name, he decided to ask questions. He would keep snooping around. He planned to eavesdrop on the soldiers until he could find out what he needed to know.

  Luc did not have long to wait in the church. A few minutes later, the old priest returned. He spoke kindly when he saw Luc.

  “You are a good boy to watch over the pilot’s body,” he said. “This afternoon he will be put into a coffin. What a pity. His family won’t even know he is dead. The war, the war.” He shook his head sadly, and he, too, kneeled to say a prayer.

  The next morning, almost everyone in the village came out of their houses to attend the funeral. To Luc’s surprise, many German soldiers arrived just as the service was about to begin. Afterwards, the soldiers formed two lines, facing each other, in the church aisle. The coffin was carried out between the lines. Outside, a German military band played a slow funeral march.

  The arrival of a German general from a nearby village was even more of a surprise. The general had come because pilots were honoured, even if they fought on the opposite side of the war. The same men who would shoot down another man’s plane would line up to mourn the dead pilot. On this day, when the Canadian pilot’s coffin was carried to the graveyard, German soldiers marched along behind. The people in Luc’s village had never seen a ceremony like this one.