Disclaimer: If you recognize someone, chances are I don't own him. The stranger an the plot are mine.


Chapter 3

With those words the fog began to dissipate, and Andrew Carter stood alone in the center of a barren field. There had been grass there once, but thousands of boots had long since churned it into mud. There were no trees to break up the harsh landscape, and no animals, either predator or prey. The gray, overcast sky did nothing to detract from the oppressiveness of the scene, and a more desolate place could not be imagined.

"Where am I?" Carter asked aloud, although he did not really expect an answer.

:This is France.:

Carter jumped. There was a man standing beside him, and he was quite certain no one had been there a moment ago. He had learned a few things about sneaking up on people from his Indian relatives, and he was sure not even the best of them would have managed in this situation. Then he took a second look at the newcomer and went slack jawed in shock.

The stranger was obviously a full-blooded Native American. The eagle feather braided into his hair showed he was a warrior, and the patterns sewn on his buckskin clothing showed he was Sioux. The clothing itself was remarkable, for it was not the type Andrew and his family wore to powwows, it wasn't even close. The buckskins were antiques, probably dating back to before the Europeans landed in America. They even had porcupine quill embroidery, a technique that had been ignored in favor of the beads and other adornments the whites made available.

"Why am I here?"

:You wished the war had never begun. This is that world.:

Carter heard the steady drone of a car engine and looked for the source. A shiny black car appeared on the horizon and drove closer, following the two parallel ruts that served as a road. He stared in horror at the car's only decoration—two familiar red flags that flew from posts on the front.

"You said there was no war here!" an outraged Carter cried.

:There was none.:

"Then what is a Nazi staff car doing in France?"

:The Nazis control France: Carter was too stunned to reply. :Surely you didn't think Hitler and the rest of the Nazis would abandon their lust for power? That is an intrinsic part of their personalities.:

"But you said there was no war!"

:Again, I say there was none. England and France did not want to fight, as neither had completely recovered from the last. As in your world, they ignored Germany's acquisition of Austria and Czechoslovakia; however they continued to ignore the German conquest of Poland. Before long Germany controlled Norway, Denmark, and Luxemburg as well.

:The British and French inactivity seemed justified. The Germans kept their acquisitions for about a year, taking measures to integrate the populations into Germany. It was not difficult. Most of the conquered nations suffered during the Great War, and the Nazis improved the economy and the standard of living. They also united the people against a common enemy: the Jews. Within a year Germany had a huge army, staffed by the conquered people.:

"Surely people must have argued, must have fought it!"

:Some tried. All attempts to resist were crushed.:

"But France?"

:There had been no aggressive moves from Germany in months. The French believed Hitler to be satisfied, and their army was ill equipped and undersupplied. In May of 1941 the German Army crossed the French border. By July, the country had surrendered. Very few shots had been fired.:

It took a full minute for Andrew to register what the stranger had said, and another before he was able to string a coherent sentence together. "Louis wouldn't have been happy about that!"

:Indeed, he was not. That is why we are here.: The stranger began to walk away from the makeshift road, and Carter followed.

He stopped about a mile away, and Andrew saw an opening in one of the slight rises in the ground, an opening that a person almost had to know was there if he wanted to find it. The stranger motioned for Carter to enter.

With a shrug, Andrew dropped to his stomach to slither into the cave. The entrance was small; he barely fit. The first thing he noticed when he got his head and shoulders in was the stench. He was familiar with the smell of unwashed bodies; the Germans didn't let their POWs shower as often as they would like, but this was worse. The cave smelled as though the occupants had not bathed for some time, and if they were members of some sort of resistance, they probably hadn't.

The cave itself was small and was lit by a single lantern. As his eyes began to adjust to the dim light, the sergeant was able to see more. He froze. The cave wasn't empty. Four men huddled around something that was spread on the ground. They were filthy, and their clothing was more hole than cloth, but they cheered Andrew considerably, for each had a French flag prominently displayed on his clothing. One was obviously agitated about something, for he let loose a rapid stream of French and turned to look at one of his companions. In doing so his face caught the light. The man was Lebeau.

:Don't just lie there. Get in here.: Somehow the stranger had already entered the cave.

"But how?" Andrew whispered, scrambling inside.

:They cannot hear you. You are not truly present.:

Forgetting where he was, Carter tried to stand, and promptly banged his head on the roof of the cave. "Ow!" he yelped, then he froze in alarm. The stranger leveled an exasperated look at him, but none of the other men so much as twitched. Carter smiled sheepishly and went to see what the Frenchmen were looking at.

There was a map spread on the ground, and all four men were huddled around it. A filthy finger traced a line on the paper, and Andrew silently wished he knew what they were saying.

:You need only ask.: The men still spoke French, but suddenly Andrew could understand them.

"We will hit the convoy at dawn," one of them said

"Agreed. For France!" said another.

"For France!" the others echoed.

Long before dawn the resistance fighters were at the ambush site and making yet another check of their equipment. They did not have much, only a handgun and a rifle apiece, and those were looted from the Germans, but they were meticulous in their preparations.

The site itself did not offer much concealment. The road, which Andrew assumed the convoy would follow, traced a line down the hill on Andrew's right until it reached the bed of a wide creek, at which point it turned to follow. Sparse vegetation dotted the surrounding countryside, and four of those bushes hid saboteurs.

Andrew was rather discouraged by his invisibility. He might have needed it, but that meant he was unable to talk to any of the Frenchmen. Frankly, he was bored. Listening to the planning had been interesting, even if the result was nothing like one of the Colonel's plans, but once they went to sleep there was nothing to do. The stranger had vanished-literally-sometime during the plotting, and Andrew found that whatever else "not truly here" might mean, it did mean sleep was unnecessary. Rather discouraged, he sat against a tree and waited for the convoy to approach.

It was a long wait, but none of the saboteurs showed any sign of impatience. Soon after the sun cleared the horizon, the men heard the unmistakable drone of the approaching trucks. Although they had been hidden for over an hour, the Frenchmen did not rush their plan. They waited until the convoy had reached the designated point, then they fired as one.

They did not wait to see the result of their efforts; their first priority was to survive. They were not afraid to give their lives for their country, but the dead could not fight for France. However, Carter had an advantage the others lacked. Being invisible was useful in this instance, and he stayed to observe the results of the mission.

Four shots had been fired; all of which were aimed at the lead truck. Only two hit, but they caused a disproportional amount of damage. One bullet thudded uselessly into the door of the truck, but the other entered the window and grazed the back of the driver's head. It was not a mortal wound; it wasn't even particularly serious, but the driver took his hands off the wheel and grabbed the wound by reflex, as well as removing his feet from the pedals. These actions would not have mattered had the truck not been going down hill.

The slope was not very steep, but combined with the weight of supplies in the truck, the speed the truck had been traveling, and the obliviousness of the driver, the result was inevitable. The truck picked up speed until it ran off the road and crashed into the creek below. The driver was killed instantly.

The rest of the convoy stopped, and Andrew watched in horror as German soldiers and dogs climbed out of the trucks. The Frenchmen were not the only people able to lay an ambush.

The convoys and other military activities in the area had been hit much too often to be the result coincidence, and the Germans planned to end the sabotage—permanently.

Frantically, Carter ran after the resistance fighters, trying desperately to reach them before the Germans did. He was not certain of what he would do if he managed to catch up; after all, they could neither hear nor see him, but he owed it to his friend to try.

The surroundings could not have been more different than the scene in the clearing the night before. Instead of the cold winter night, the day was bright and warm with out a cloud in the sky. Even the uniforms were different, the dark green of the Wermacht rather than the black of the SS. Unfortunately, one thing was unchanged. Again, Carter would be helpless to watch men who he would most likely have called friends be killed in front of him.

The Frenchmen did not give their lives cheaply; their efforts to escape had been valiant, if futile. They had left the scene of the ambush unscathed, but the dogs had led the soldiers right to their cave. Six of the Germans had been killed in the attempt to remove the saboteurs, but in the end the soldiers won.

Soon afterwards the surviving soldiers stood on the plain in front of the cave, the wounded resistance fighters trapped among them.

Carter could not bear to watch, but turning his back did not block the sounds of the proceedings. He listened as two shots were fired about a minute apart. He assumed the executioner mover to Lebeau next, because the fiery corporal's voice was loud in the otherwise silent morning. Even with his new ability to understand the language, he only caught about every third word in the furious tirade. The words he did know the meaning of made him quite certain he did not want to understand the rest.

All too soon the flood of words ended abruptly with a bullet. Tears leaked out from Andrew's closed eyes as he whispered one word: "No."

When Carter opened his eyes again, the gruesome scene had disappeared and he was again standing in the fog. The stranger stood in front of him. "Why did he have to die?" Andrew asked quietly, his grief evident by the tears on his face.

The warrior's face was stern as he replied. :Because of who and what he was. He saw the realities of Nazi occupation much more clearly than his government, and he was unable to live with the knowledge of what the Nazis would do to his beloved France. He was much more fortunate than many of the other resistance fighters.:

"But he died!"

:As did many others, eventually. Hitler's Nacht und Nebel decree authorized the military to make resistance fighters disappear into the "night and fog". Mostly these men were shipped in secret to Germany and were interrogated. The few survivors were thrown in concentration camps.:

"You said yourself that Louis had to fight. Maybe someone who didn't would have an easier time!" The young American was clearly grasping at straws, but the stranger seemed willing to humor him.

:Very well. We will explore that next.:


Beta's note: Attention lynch mobs: Lady WhiteHaven's location will be put up on ebay if any one is interested…

Author's notes: You'll get yours, Dragon's Breath. I was going to thank Suzanne for the beta, but now…

Nacht und Nebel was a real decree passed September 7, 1941.

Anyway, I am not Native American, nor do I mean to offend anyone who is. Most of my information came from etext dot lib dot Virginia dot edu/toc/modeng/public/MclMyth dot html as well as www dot angelfire dot com/ct/deerwhorns/stories dot html and Mercedes Lackey's novel Sacred Ground. I couldn't find as much information as I would have liked to, so if anyone knows of any good sites, I would appreciate it.

I do realize that I played fast and loose with the beginning of WWII, but www dot historyplace dot com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time dot htm

Thanks, everyone who reviewed. I'm finally at the part that's fun to write, as the length will attest. I've turned in shorter papers. I'm trying to post once a week or so.