They boarded a night train to Bordeaux, and though Laure was in his compartment, he was not to look at her or attempt to communicate in any way. The value of a night train was that he could feign sleep each time a train official or German officer walked by, and that was exactly what he did, cracking his eyes open slightly only after their footfalls had disappeared. In the morning, they switched to a train to Bayonne, and he caught glimpses of the other pilots boarding cars along with their guides too. So far, so good; they were in southern France now, which seemed less perilous than Paris.

In Bayonne, their guides left them with terse good luck wishes and handed them off to another man, who gave them each a ticket and put them on a smaller train to the tiny town of Dax. This, Thomas understood, was to be another dangerous part of the journey; the new man wouldn’t be accompanying them because of the risk of capture. They were to get off the train and try to appear inconspicuous as they waited to be picked up outside the station by another contact. “Rely on your false papers,” the man said quietly in French, which Thomas quickly translated for the others. “Say nothing, even if questioned.”

On the train, Thomas watched with growing trepidation as a German soldier boarded the first compartment and began asking passengers for their papers. One of the other three RAF pilots seemed younger than the rest—nineteen, maybe twenty—and he was the first one the Nazi soldier reached. Thomas sat paralyzed as the young pilot looked blankly at the soldier who was barking an order at him. Give him your papers, Thomas thought, wishing he could come to the boy’s rescue without arousing suspicion. Damn it, just do what the guides told you to!

After a few long seconds, Thomas watched as the boy reached into his pocket with hands that were clearly shaking and handed over his identity papers. The Nazi soldier looked at them for a moment and asked in French what the purpose of his travel was. The boy continued to stare, and the soldier, his eyes blazing with suspicion, repeated the question more loudly. Oh God, Thomas thought. He’s about to be caught.

But then an elderly woman sitting across the row from the pilot spoke up, explaining to the German soldier that the boy was her grandson, that they were going to visit a distant aunt, and that the boy was deaf. “How dare you ridicule him?” the woman asked. The Nazi soldier looked uncertain, but the woman moved next to the young pilot and put an arm around his shoulder. “There, there, my boy. He didn’t mean any offense.” The soldier narrowed his eyes, but after a moment, he grunted in disgust and moved on.

Thomas exhaled a huge sigh of relief, and although he dared not make eye contact with any of the other pilots, he did lock gazes with the elderly woman, who smiled slightly at him, nodded, and left to find a seat in another car. Thank God for Good Samaritans.

When the train arrived in Dax, the four pilots got off and tried to blend into the small crowd as they handed their tickets in and left the station. Outside, a pair of men were waiting for them.

“Welcome,” the taller one greeted them in English. He sported a mustache and a faded cap. Thomas didn’t think he sounded French, but he couldn’t place his strong accent. “We’re here to take the group of you to the mountains.” He lifted his chin at the six bicycles leaning against the wall beside them.

There was no time to ask questions as they mounted up and pedaled out of the train yard into a quaint French village. Thomas could feel sweat beading on his brow as they passed a café with a few Germans at tables out front, but none of the soldiers gave them a second glance, and once they were around the corner, Thomas relaxed a little. They just might make it after all. There seemed to be far less of a German presence here than there had been in Paris, which boded well.

They cycled all day in silence. The man who’d spoken to them rode ahead, and the man with him, who had yet to say a word, brought up the rear. Just before nightfall, with the Pyrenees looming in front of them, they pulled off the main road into a village, where they made their way down winding lanes to a small, isolated bungalow at the edge of the forest. “You will spend the night here,” the man in the faded cap said, looking at each of them in turn. “They are very nice hosts, very brave to shelter you. In the morning, we go.”

“Go where?” asked the youngest pilot.

The man jerked his thumb toward the jagged mountains, which cast a shadow over the town. “South. To Spain.”

That night, over a hot dinner of lamb and beans, the pilots spoke to each other for the first time. Their hosts were a middle-aged couple who retreated to their own bedroom after dinner, leaving the men alone after explaining in French that their location far from the town center was perfect for concealing guests; the handful of Nazi soldiers stationed nearby didn’t make the effort to venture out this way.

Thomas learned that the youngest pilot was named Norman Wimbley, and that he was two months shy of turning twenty. He was cocky, but as he related his story of being shot down over southern Belgium and encountering a farmer who was part of an escape line, Thomas could hear the tremor in his voice. The others—Scott Pace and Walter Caldwell—were closer to his own age and had known each other in flight school; Scott had been shot down just outside Paris, and Walter had gone down on the French side of the German border. Like Norman, they had both been assisted by locals with connections to the escape line. Thomas found himself wondering just how extensive the network was. It was amazing to think of all the French and Belgian civilians who were risking their own lives to return men to war.

“Are we really supposed to climb over the mountains?” Norman asked, gesturing out the window into the darkness. “It sounds insane.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Scott pointed out. “It’s the only way out of France right now.”

“But climbing a mountain?” Norman persisted. “Have any of you done that before?”

“No,” Walter said. “But do you want to get back into the cockpit or not? If you’re uncertain, you may as well stay behind.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Norman grumbled. “Only that it’ll be hard.”

“Life is hard,” Walter snapped.

“Look,” Thomas said after a moment, “there’s no doubt this will be difficult. And we can’t let down our guard. But we’re going to stick together and do what the guides tell us, and we’ll make it through.”

Scott and Walter nodded, and though Norman muttered something to himself, he eventually shrugged and said, “Fine.”

The two men who’d picked them up at the station materialized again before dawn, waking the pilots after just a few hours of sleep. They introduced themselves as Florentino and Alesander and explained that they had been helping pilots over the mountains to Spain for the past few months. “Alesander speaks very little English and also little French,” Florentino said. “We both grew up with the Basque language. If you have questions, you ask me.”

“How do you propose we make it over the mountain when none of us even has hiking boots?” Norman asked, earning him a hard look from Florentino.

“With courage,” Florentino said, “and these.” He held up a burlap bag and dumped the contents on the floor of the bungalow. Inside were several pairs of shoes with soles made from thick rope. “They will help you with the mountain terrain. Put them on quickly, then we go.”

“Espadrilles?” Norman snorted. “Surely you’re joking. They’re for women.”

Florentino glared. “We’ve been using these shoes for hundreds of years. The soles mold to you, they help your feet to have air, and they help with the steep inclines. You wear your own shoes if you’d prefer. Just don’t expect me to help you when your feet bleed and you fall off a cliff.”

Five minutes later, with the strange rope shoes tied on, the pilots were walking quickly toward the mountains with bags of bread and sausage over their shoulders. Each had also been given a goatskin bag of wine, which was to be consumed sparingly during the crossing. “We go,” Alesander grunted, the first words he’d said since meeting the pilots. He pointed to a narrow road that seemed carved out of the steep side of the mountain ahead. “Follow.”

Thomas took a deep breath and fell into line. If this was the way home, he was determined to walk it.