PRISONER’S RETURN

That is the title of Margaret Vail’s chapter. The first words are “In early May.” D-Day occurred May 6, 1944, the beginning of the end, and so Margaret and her little daughter were back in France early in May of 1945. The formal surrender by Germany occurred on May 9, 1945. Setting the prisoners-of-war free began immediately. Americans could not travel to Europe at that time, but Margaret had a French passport and her husband was French.

Germany had taken one million, eight hundred thousand (1,800,000) French prisoners, while France had taken many less from Germany. It took a while to get the prisoners returned to their respective cities and villages. Robert was not one of the first local prisoners to arrive home. But Margaret knew he could be home in a day or two. She wanted to be pretty for him, so she washed her hair. She had just pinned up the last curl of her wet hair at one o’clock in the morning, when the telephone rang. The chateau’s telephone service was shut off from 7:00 p. m., to 7:00 a. m., so this ring meant “urgent.”

The local telephone operator, whose husband was also a prisoner not returned yet, called to say the Mairie of St. Emilion had called to ask if Margaret could come to get her husband who had just arrived there. Come she could! She had waited long years for this news. She tied a colorful headscarf on her wet head, got the car, and headed for St. Emilion in lightning, thunder, and torrential rain, as she termed it. At Montigny, she had to stop the car to hear M. le Cure tell her to take Georges with her the rest of the way to show her where the prisoners were. Margaret did not like this idea, but the le Cure was insistent. Georges hopped in beside her.

St. Emilion was in an uproar, with illumination only by lights from inside the Mairie and from Margaret’s car lights. A row of men waited to be called.

Margaret wrote: “I remained in the car unable to do more than stare at the scene I knew would remain forever engraved on my memory. Georges had served a useful purpose, after all; he had gone off to find the person I now saw coming towards the car.

“It was not necessary to see my husband’s face to know that this was he. The touch of his hand on mine was the same; the voice was his. Of me he could see little, huddled behind the wheel of the car; the dim light revealed only the bright scarf around my head and the fact that my face was wet, whether from the rain or from tears, he could not know.

“Georges remained off at a distance until we called to him and told him to squeeze into the little car besides us. He was lucky that we did not forget him, leaving him to spend the rest of the night there in St. Emilion.

“It was difficult to concentrate on keeping the tiny car on the slippery road in the face of the torrent of rain and flaws of wind which shook it; what I wanted to do was give all my attention to Robert and what he was saying.

“He had been traveling, he said, for eight days and nights in one of those forty-men-and-eight-horses affairs, he told us . . . there had been only a brief stop in Paris where certain formalities had to be gone through before the men could continue their journeys. . . . the last he had heard from me I was living in Washington with our little girl. He wondered whether he might find us at L’Ormeau when he got back—it was with this hope that he had sent me a telegram from the frontier. . . .

“I told Robert I was glad he could not see me because I had just put my hair up in pin curls and I looked awful. Robert told me he was glad I could not see him for he had not been able to shave or wash for more than a week and he had never looked nor felt so repellant.

“It was nearly two o’clock when we arrived at our little village where we intended to ease Georges out of the car and go on to L’Ormeau. But, in the middle of the road there was a large crowd, obviously waiting for us, waiting to welcome Monsieur Robert back to Montigny—quite unmindful of the rain which had already drenched them. We had to get out of the car, shake hands all around, acknowledge congratulations. Robert answered questions and even made an impromptu speech when he was presented with an enormous bouquet which had been prepared for him while we were in St. Emilion. Bon soir was finally said and we were free to go home. Before the chateau, we found Veronique, Charles and Marie waiting for us. I took the flowers from Robert that Veronique might take their place in his arms. She stood on tiptoe to kiss her beloved master for whose safe return she had prayed night and morning during all these past years. Affectionate greetings for old Charles, Marie was presented and at last we went into the house.

“As we stood looking at each other in the big hall, a sudden bolt of lightning put out all the lights in the house! Groping, we found candles which lighted our way upstairs to our room. Then I heard a sleepy little voice murmuring, ‘Mama, what is everybody talking about in the middle of the night?’

“I went in to Rose-Helene. ‘It is papa, darling. He is here, your papa. He has come home.’

“Robert stepped forward to take the nightgowned figure (already standing up in bed) in his arms. Quietly, I set the candle on a table and softly went back into our room, letting father and daughter have their moment.




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