From the Prologue - August 1944:
"What is this garbage?!" the German officer barked at Willem Cretier, his face contorted with rage. "Don't you know that Prince Bernhard is nothing but a bum? And this is the bum's mother-in-law!"
Willem's wife Geert and their three children had been watching this scene in a state of terror. They did not move.
"Where did you get this thing?" the soldier yelled as he waved the offending poster at Willem. "You will tell me or I will shoot you right now!"
Willem remained silent but his mind was racing. 'Is this the end?' he thought. 'Am I about to die for placing a picture of my beloved queen on the wall in my own home? I have done a lot of things to thwart the Nazis, but this is crazy. I should have listened to Geert and Sussie. They said it would be risky pinning that picture in our living room. I didn't think the damn Germans would see it!'
The officer drew his pistol and ordered Willem outside.
"Form a firing squad!" he shouted to his men. He shoved Willem up against the wall of his own workshop and proceeded to arrange the execution.
Ten-year-old Sussie felt like she was having a nightmare.
The kind where you try to run from something terrible but your legs won't work and you feel frozen to the spot. This couldn't be happening. But it was...
From Chapter Six - Hell on Earth:
While on their way to Falaise, about two weeks after capturing Caen, Bob's regiment was pulled out of line and issued with new tanks. They were all assigned Sexton SP (self-propelled) field guns that were built to British specifications on a Canadian Ram chassis at the Montreal Locomotive Works. The Sexton SP fired 25-pound shells which were easier for the Allies to obtain during wartime. The machine had an open top, was driven from the right-hand position and had a crew of six.
Bob was pleased to work with this new machine. The constant heating and cooling of the 105-mm guns on the American Priest tank from firing so many thousands of rounds had caused them to become inaccurate. This new machine, which Bob and his crew referred to as 'the tank,' was so powerful that the upper structure of it had to be massively reinforced.
The Sexton SP weighed about 54,000 pounds, which translates to more than 25 tons, and carried 112 rounds of ammunition. Although some of the crew missed the 105-mm gun, Bob had trained on the 25-pounder in England and was quite comfortable with it.
The road to Falaise was long and bloody, with another mistaken Allied bombing of the Canadians and the Polish soldiers of General Maczeck's 1st Armoured Division. Three hundred men were killed and wounded this time by what is now known as 'friendly fire.' Bob would later say there was nothing friendly about it...
From Chapter Eight – Bob meets the Cretiers:
Bob Elliot was at the controls of his Sexton SP as the 19th Field Regiment and the 55th Infantry Battalion of the Canadian Army moved into Alphen that day. Bob was worried he might run over the local people as they swarmed around the monster machine he was driving and climbed onto the tank to hug their liberators. He had to stop the machine on many occasions to avoid crushing some of the people who welcomed the Canadian soldiers so warmly...
...The next morning, while compiling a list of all the repairs the tank needed, Bob's crew was approached by a small Dutch girl who appeared much younger than her 10 years. Her clothes were worn to an almost threadbare condition with her elbows showing through the sleeves of her coat. Her well-kept blonde hair was tied up in neat pigtails, however, and indicated a preservation of her self-respect in contrast to the condition of her clothes. She also had a brightness in her eyes that seemed to say, 'I know in my heart that everything is going to be alright.'
"Could you please give me some cigarettes for my papa?" she asked the soldiers with her thick Dutch accent and big pleading brown eyes. The hearts of these battle-hardened soldiers quickly went out to her. She could have been their little sister. Bob himself was only nine years older than her, a couple years less than the age difference between Bob and his older brother Bill.
"Sure," Bob said as he and his men responded to her request.
"Here, have some chocolate and chewing gum, too."
Sussie carefully placed the cigarettes in an old battered tobacco tin she carried with her. Then she put the chocolate and gum that she intended to share with her brothers into her pocket. She politely thanked the soldiers as best she could in English and went on her way.
"Boy, these people have had a rough time under the Germans," Bob observed as he watched the young girl continue down the line of tanks and field guns, asking other soldiers for whatever they would give her. "I wish there was more that we could do for them."