In the late 1940’s my husband, Frank, and I were driving late at night on a deserted road in the mountains near Chattanooga when we had a flat tyre. Because of the rocky road edge, Frank was unable to use the car jack and change the tyre. Out of the night a car appeared. Two of the biggest, roughest-looking bearded men I’d ever seen got out. With powerful hands they steadied the car, change the tyre, and drove off.

They had not uttered a word.

In 952, frank was a Naval officer stationed in Europe. We were driving with our family through thick fog in the Swiss Alps when a gap in the road, about six feet wide and four feet deep, confronted us. Night was coming on, so Frank walked the others down to the next village, since all our belongings were in the car, I stayed behind. I waited. Nervously I tried to pray. The words of a familiar Psalm I had learnt at Sunday school came to mind. ‘God will put his angels in charge of you, to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up in their hands…’

‘Lord, send some of your angels please.’

A truck suddenly appeared. Out of it piled six big, rough looking bearded men. Without speaking, they picked up their truck and carried it across the crevice. Then, with strong, powerful hands they picked up my car with me in it - carried it across the trench, and set It safely on the other side. They never said a word, and disappeared into the night.

I drove into the village of Brig, where I found my family.

Nobody in the village could imagine who those men were. All I knew was that they had come, and they had literally held me ‘up with their hands’.

Who are these silent men? Will they have reason to help us again?

By Mary Hattan Bogart