12 September 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on September 12th, 2009 @ 08:02:12 am, using 1009 words, 106 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
EPILOGUE
They had never run so fast, so wildly, even Eric. They might fall, each of them did, but they would hurry back up, legs flying again. The wind seemed to push them along, carry them at times. All they could hear were their rapid hearts and their heavy breaths as their feet thundered up and down the uneven ground.
They had reached the second hill when they heard it. Machine gun fire. They all stopped in their tracks for an instant, Anne-Marie’s hand rising to her throat, her mouth gaping. Then she shouted, “Come, come,” and they were flying again up the hill.
At the farmhouse the farmer and the woman also heard the shots from the security of the barn. Their eyes immediately whirled to each other. “Let’s go,” he told her.
She thought for a moment, desperately. “No,” she answered finally, “not yet.”
“I’m not going to wait to be caught,” he said harshly.
“Then go,” she told him. “The shots are still away. There is still a chance.” She bore her eyes into him. “I will wait alone.”
He stared at her angrily but didn’t leave.
The children were slowing. The sound of gunfire, all kinds, had chased them up the second hill and on down. They still had the last hill to climb, though, and their legs didn’t seem able. Eric, in particular, wanted to rest. He was starting to cry. Jean-Paul and Claudette didn’t want to argue with him.
“Keep going,” Anne-Marie pleaded angrily. “Just over this hill.”
“No,” Jean-Paul groaned, shaking his head. He was bent over, hands on knees, trying to breathe. “Let us rest,” he said, panting.
“Please, Anne-Marie,” Claudette begged breathlessly. “Just for a minute. Please?”
“No,” Anne-Marie cried. “We do not have minutes. We have to go. We cannot stop for anything.”
“We cannot go on now,” Jean-Paul told her harshly, looking up at her.
She rushed to him and, taking his shoulders, threw him roughly onto the side of the hill. “They you stay,” she shouted. “And let the Germans have you. You will deserve it. But I will not. I . . . .” She paused. The shooting had stopped. She turned her head back behind them, up the slope of the second hill. Tears welled instantly, without thought. “GO!!!” she abruptly screamed at Jean-Paul, literally lifting him to his feet. They all began to run again up the hill, as fast as they could.
“Woman, it is time,” the farmer told her. “They will be here any moment.”
They were outside the barn now. He was trying to flee, turned toward the tree-line and hills behind the barn, but her eyes were on the other slope. She wouldn’t go with him.
“We have to go,” he said gruffly, insistently.
She was nodding but not moving. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
He growled and went to her. He took her shoulders in his big hands and began to pull her away. “Just one more minute,” she said. “We have one more minute.”
“No,” he responded, shaking his head and pulling her along. “There is no time.”
She sighed deeply and nodded again. “Those poor children,” she said, mainly to herself. “To get so close.” She crossed herself. “That poor man.”
She was about to turn away completely when she saw them. “Stop,” she exclaimed and broke away a few steps. Heads, little heads, were bobbing up over the edge of the hill, growing into bodies, children’s bodies, running at full speed, looking as if they would fall with each stride. They had made it.
“Henri,” she cried, hurrying toward them. “Look. The children.” She waved back at him. “Come. We must help them.”
The farmer cursed briefly but rushed forward, rifle in hand, with her to meet the children as they flung themselves down the long slope. They reached them near the base of the hill. “Come,” the woman half-laughed, half-exclaimed as she embraced Jean-Paul and Eric. “Come. We must hurry now.”
“The American?” the farmer asked as he lifted Claudette into his arms and turned them toward the barn, the cave, and safety.
Anne-Marie stopped and looked back up the hill. The air was silent except for the wind. She swallowed and bit her lower lip. “He will not be here,” she then answered, evenly, in control.
The woman nodded and picked up Eric without commenting. They began to run again, Jean-Paul and Anne-Marie keeping pace with the adults, side-by-side. They ran past the barn toward the hill and the trees. “There is a cave up here,” the woman told them breathlessly as they reached the hill and started to climb. “It is hidden well. We will be safe.”
Anne-Marie nodded. Then she noticed. Claudette in the farmer’s arms. Her coat. The pocket. The envelope. It was gone. “No!!” she cried. “Claudette! The envelope!”
Claudette frowned sadly. “I fell down,” she said softly. “It came out. The wind took it. It blew away. I am sorry, Anne-Marie.”
She stared back at the long sloping hill, clenching her fists tightly. “I have to find it,” she said. “I have to go back.”
The farmer took her arm. “Don’t be ridiculous, girl,” he told her, pulling her up the grade into the trees. “Come on. Now.”
Her gaze was still on the slope, but she slowly climbed the hill with them. She nodded at last. “I remember,” she whispered at the wind. “I will never forget.”
The wind seemed to answer. It sang and moaned and whisked along, through the trees, across the grass, over the hills, carrying her message away. In the distance a wrinkled, white rectangular piece of paper whipped through that air, jerking back and forth on the current, as if dancing, to a special tune of its own, bright, cheerful, but with an odd touch of melancholy, a tune that clung to the mind
09 September 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on September 9th, 2009 @ 06:13:57 am, using 188 words, 92 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
23
Just come back to me. That’s all I ask. Come back to me . . . .
The sound of the engine revving brought him back. He opened his eyes and looked down the hill. The truck was rolling, coming up toward him. He would wait until it got closest. If he could stop them, draw them out, make them come up after him, the children had a chance. They should be going up the second hill by now.
He took a few breaths and followed the truck’s course with burning eyes. His bones ached. His muscles felt stretched and used. He made sure the gun was ready, the clip was in. The truck was coming near. He rose and sprawled against the boulder. The wind was strong and cool in his face. Clouds swirled in overhead. He set the gun up in front of him. The truck was reaching the closest point. He touched his pocket and let out a deep breath.
It was time to fire.
08 September 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on September 8th, 2009 @ 05:29:13 pm, using 623 words, 120 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
22
“Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
It was one of their last nights together. They were lying in bed, calming down, getting ready for sleep. She was in his arms, her head snug against his shoulder and chest, warm and naked, stretched down the length of him, a thigh over his groin. It would be a long time before they could take nights like this for granted again, they both knew. So they had remained silent, with their thoughts, until she had finally spoken. “Okay?” she repeated.
“So I’m not supposed to get the pilot to fly through barns?” he asked, trying to keep it light, to save the moment.
It didn’t work. “Like getting yourself killed for no good reason,” she answered.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I plan to be very active, dodging and stuff like that.”
“I wish that was true.”
He crooked his head so he could look down his body at her. “Anne,” he said patiently, “I don’t plan to get killed. I’m going to do everything I can to avoid it.”
She rose up on an elbow and locked her eyes on his. “Promise me that,” she said.
“What?”
“That you’ll do everything you can to avoid it,” she replied evenly. “I mean, everything.”
He stared up at her for a moment and then smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. I promise.” He lifted a shoulder. “What kind of idiot do you think I am, anyway? I’m certainly not going to go look for special trouble. I just want to do my part, not other guys’ parts, too. I’m not going over there to be some kind of hero.”
I know,” she said, nodding. “But that’s the kind that always end up being the heroes. . . .” She rolled over onto her back and sighed sadly and angrily at the ceiling. “God, I hate this war. It doesn’t serve any purpose.”
“Mr. Hitler is a definite purpose,” he told her.
She shook her head. “If it wasn’t him, it’d be something else, someone else,” she said softly. “It has to happen, war. I hate it. I hate him. I hate them all, whoever’s responsible, whatever causes these damn things. They just kill off the best we have. Guys like you who end up trying to save dullards and losers who can’t save themselves. And so that’s all we end up with when it’s over—dullards and losers. People who aren’t smart enough or caring enough to stop it from happening again. The good ones are the first to go. It’s so stupid.”
“Anne, I promise,” he said. “I won’t come back with a single medal. You’ll be proud.”
She turned back over onto her elbow and looked down into his eyes. She could see so deep. “I’m serious, Davy,” she said. “I know you. I know very well what kind of idiot you are. I know what you’ll do, how you’ll be. I want you to promise me that you won’t be that way.” A long, warm hand touched gently on his chest. “I want you to promise me that you’ll be a dullard and a loser.”
He smiled at her and pulled her back down into his arms. “I promise,” he said, pressing her close. “Sounds pretty easy.”
She was silent for a moment and then spread her fingers over his chest. “Just come back to me,” she half-whispered. “That’s all I ask. Come back to me.”
07 September 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on September 7th, 2009 @ 07:18:58 am, using 1053 words, 111 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
21d
He looked in that direction. Several hundred yards away, stopped but pointed into the valley, was a truck, a gray truck, like the one at Catherine’s. No. He wouldn’t let it be. He jerked the binoculars to his eyes. The black swastika on the bright white circle fastened to the truck door was the first thing to focus through the glass. He let out all the exuberance that had built up in a single breath. His warning system had failed. No fighters or flak. He felt old.
Several soldiers were out of the truck, scurrying around. One, apparently an officer, was waving his hands and shouting angrily at the others. A couple of men were fumbling at a back wheel while two others brought a spare tire from the back of the truck. The three or four remaining soldiers just stood around, trying to look concerned and involved.
They had had a flat tire. They were obviously on their way to the farmhouse, and they had had a flat tire on the rough, uneven ground or something. They were only a mile or so away from the farm. Once they fixed the tire, it would only take them a few minutes to get there, less if there had been a road. Not enough time to get the children back down there. They would need all fifteen minutes or so left at the very least, running full-speed all the way, and probably five or ten more to get up to the cave, wherever it was. There was no way.
Unless the Germans could be further delayed.
He knelt quickly in front of Anne-Marie and took her wrists. “Listen,” he said, his breath hard again. “You’re going to have to take the children. It’s not that far, and it’s just down the next few hills. It’s against the tree-line at the bottom of the third hill. That’s all.” He looked back at the truck. The Germans were still busy.
His eyes came back to hers, which were infinitely troubled. “What are you going to do?” she wanted to know.
“Somebody has to slow them down, the Germans,” he told her. “If I can hold them off for fifteen or twenty minutes, surprise them, get them stopped and up here, you can make it.”
“No,” she said, almost screamed. Her eyes were instantly filled. “You cannot.”
“Yes,” he told her, nodding. “I have to. Now you have to go. We don’t have time to argue.”
“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded. “Jean-Paul can take them. I will help you.”
He had to smile. He shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “They’ll never get there without you.”
“Then let me stay and you go,” she begged. “I can fire the gun.”
He sighed and gently touched the side of her face with his fingertips. There was no time to explain. He dropped his hand and glanced back at the truck. It looked like they were taking the tire off. His eyes found hers, and he shook his head again. “I want you to do something for me, okay?” he asked.
“Let me stay . . . ,” she began to repeat desperately.
“No,” he said firmly, almost harshly. He pulled the envelope from his pocket and hurriedly removed the picture and letter. He put them back in the pocket and handed her the envelope. “Whenever you can, I want you to go to the address in the corner there . . . and tell her what happened,” he told her. “Can you do that for me?”
She studied the return address for a second and turned her pained eyes back to him. She bit her lower lip and nodded.
He forced as warm a smile as he could. “Good,” he said, squeezing her arm. “Now you have to go. Don’t stop for anything. Not for anything. Run as fast as you can.” He looked back at the Germans. They were changing the tire. “Go,” he told her.
Her eyes held his for an instant, memorizing him, and then she quickly moved to the children. She didn’t have a pocket so she jammed his envelope into Claudette’s coat pocket as she spoke. Her voice was firm as she ordered them into action. She took Eric by the elbow and started pushing Jean-Paul toward the valley. The boy and Claudette looked puzzled and frightened. They hardly moved, their eyes back on him. She barked at them.
“Anne-Marie,” he called out to her on impulse.
She turned to him.
“Tell her . . . tell her far more than she can dream. She’ll know what I meant. Okay?”
She studied him for a moment with those too familiar eyes, pained but determined, and then she nodded. She pushed Jean-Paul again and said something sternly to Claudette. They took off on a run down the hill, the boy and girl first, Anne-Marie following, literally pulling Eric behind her, the bulky sweater bouncing, her thick dark hair the last thing he saw.
He picked up the machine gun off Anne-Marie’s shawl and wheeled toward the backside of their hill. These Germans were not helping the Nazi reputation for efficiency. He knelt down and propped himself against a large boulder at the crest of the hill, overlooking their likely path. They might get within a couple of football fields as they passed. He should be able to get their attention.
He looked at them through the binoculars. The wheel was on, getting tightened. They would be rolling soon. He suddenly realized he hadn’t been breathing. His head felt light, and his heart had found a new rhythm. He closed his eyes. They should be to the bottom of the hill, reaching the creek bed, stumbling across, through the shallow water. How many minutes did they have, could he buy them? They had to make it.
He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and got it halfway down. His lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air. He hoped they were racing as fast as his mind. His fingers lightly touched his pocket. He could feel the outlines of the photograph.
05 September 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on September 5th, 2009 @ 07:21:02 am, using 1786 words, 99 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
21c
It was as he turned to go back to the children that something registered in his peripheral vision. Just beyond the line of the hill, at the edge of the valley’s boundary with the encircling tree-line, something he hadn’t peered at through the binoculars. Not in the valley, but on the side. He brought the binoculars up again. A house. A barn to the right, in the shade but clear in the glasses. A farmhouse!
His legs were moving before he could command them, down toward the peak of that smaller hill. Rounding third base, heading for home ahead of the throw. He flew as he approached the site. The details were coming into focus. An old stone house, a wooden barn, a small fence surrounding a garden, goats and chickens in the yard. It had to be the place. Not far at all. They were here!
He could feel himself grinning like a fool, but he didn’t care. He just stood there staring for a while, taking in glorious gulps of air, unable to think one thought at a time. It was only as the breathing slackened that he was able to connect himself to his surroundings, to how still everything was. No one seemed to be there except the cackling and scurrying of the animals. He slowly moved toward the house, up a stone walk to the front door. He peaked noiselessly into a window.
The house was empty. Of people, anyway. Oddly, everything was in its place, the furniture, dishes on the small table just beyond the living area. Still lived in, but no one there. Out working? He hadn’t seen anyone, though. At another farm? Time for paranoia?
If Germans were around, they wouldn’t need to be so stealthy, he realized. But it would certainly be nice if he could verify someone was there, someone who was on the map, ready to take them in. He wished he hadn’t left the map with Anne-Marie. It would be so much easier to convince someone. But who?
“Hello?” he let out a cautious call, returning to the yard in front of the house. “Is anyone there? Hello?”
Did a noise come from the barn? Its door was open, a small stack of hay visible inside. Was someone in there? Why would they be hiding from him? He started walking slowly toward it. “I’m an American,” he told anyone who might be there. “I’m an American. Hello? An American.”
When he got to the barn, he found it emptier than the house. No one there. Everything neatly arranged, no sign of recent activity. No one was home. That was the simplest answer. They had gone somewhere. That was all right. He could go get the children, bring them back down here at dark. Surely the people would be back soon. And, even if they weren’t, the barn would be a warmer, safer place to wait than up on that hilltop. He turned to leave.
The gun was what he saw first, the barrel of an old rifle, looking effective despite its age, pointing straight at his chest. He felt his heart leap. His eyes came up to the man pointing the weapon from the edge of the barn door. The classic French farmer, just like in an old geography book, stern, dressed in cap and old clothes, looking fifty, probably forty or less. He raised his arms and tried to smile at the man. “Don’t shoot,” he said in what he hoped was a calm voice. “I’m an American. American.” He said each word very clearly, distinctly.
A small, plump woman in a long, plain dress stepped out from behind the man but said nothing. At least she looked more pleasant, a round face framed in dull blond hair. He directed his plea toward her. “I was sent here by Catherine Williams,” he told her, them, hoping the name would be familiar. They didn’t indicate that it was. “I have children with me. Up on the hill. We need to get to England. To England. I was told you could help.”
The man looked down at the woman but did not lower the gun. She stared back quizzically at the farmer, and neither of them seemed to understand. He knew why they hesitated. He wouldn’t have believed him either. He shouldn’t have run down here. He should have turned and gotten the children, gotten Anne-Marie, who could translate. “I have a map,” he said again slowly. “Not with me. The children have it. But it was given to Catherine by a maquis. Maquis. She gave it to me so I could bring the children. My plane was shot down. I have children. Up on the hill.” He pointed behind them, but the incoherence was clear even to him.
The woman let out a breath. “Children,” she said.
His own breath was far more emphatic as it came out. “You speak English. Great.”
She shook her head. “A little,” she told him. “I talk to pilots.”
Pilots. Yes! This was the right spot. They would be safe now. He calmed himself as much as he could. “We need help,” he said simply. “We need help to England.”
“How many?” she asked.
Children, he guessed. “Four,” he answered, holding up four fingers.
She turned quickly to look behind her, then back to him. “Up there?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “The trees. On top of the hill.”
She turned to the farmer and apparently explained to him in French what David had said. When she finished, the farmer shook his head adamantly and responded in rapid, harsh tones. She said something back, and he again responded negatively. She brought her eyes back to David hesitantly and forced a smile. “We hear . . . the Germans are coming,” she told him, each word carefully prepared. “Our man, our worker, he come from the village. The Germans take some of our people. He hear that they come for us today.”
He eyed her closely. “So what does that mean?” he asked.
“We hide,” she replied. “In the cave. In the trees. Up the hill.” She pointed behind the barn. “We keep the soldiers there. They not find us.”
“Well, fine,” he said. “Let me go get the children . . . .”
She immediately began to shake her head. “There is not time,” she interrupted. “They here soon. Come now. We not be here. We hide. Now.”
He moved toward them. The farmer was an observer now, still stern but not a threat, now studying the hillside, not him. “I can’t leave them alone,” he told her. “Not if the Germans are coming.”
“We hide,” she said, reaching for his arm. “You come.”
He jerked away. “No,” he said. “No. We can’t.” He looked at both of them, pleadingly. “I can have them here in an hour. Less.” His mind thought quickly. “Half an hour. Only thirty minutes. Thirty minutes. Surely you can wait thirty minutes.”
She frowned at him and then turned to the farmer. Her tone as she explained seemed sympathetic, however. The farmer was clearly not persuaded. “No” was the only part of his exasperated answer that David understood, and he heard it several times. The woman finally looked back at him. “We hide,” she said with clear sadness. “Now.”
“Then tell me where the cave is,” David pleaded. “I’ll bring them there.”
She tried to smile. “The Germans, they catch you, you tell.”
“No, I won’t,” he argued, angry now. But they would not tell him, he knew. “Then you have to wait for us, goddam it. “They’ll die out there, or be caught, which is the same thing. You can’t leave them up there. You can’t.” He paused to take a breath and lowered his tone. “Thirty minutes. After that you can go. Just give me thirty minutes.”
Her upper lip tucked inside her mouth as she considered. Her eyes hardened and went back to the farmer. They began to argue. It was like a boxing match, jab, jab, both going at the same time, back and forth, until one would wear down. It was the farmer. Her face was flushed as she turned to David. The farmer pulled a pocket watch from his pants. His eyes went to it, to the slope, to the watch again, then to David. She took a breath and smiled. “Thirty minutes,” she told him, nodding. “That is all.”
He couldn’t contain the energy that burst through his smile. “Deal,” he exclaimed. He sped past them, full-speed by the time he got to the yard again. He turned back to them as he ran. “Thirty minutes!” he cried. “Thirty minutes! We’ll be here! Thirty minutes!”
The wind had come up, strong in his face, bringing in a storm over the tree-line. He didn’t let it or the hills slow him down. The faster he got to the children, the more time they would have to get back. It was their only hope. He’d worry about the complaints from his leg muscles and his lungs later. He just hoped they were already awake when he got there.
He had to have set the world record in hill running. He was sure he had saved them valuable time. If they ran all the way back, the wind at their backs, they should make it in time if they were all up and awake as he got to them. And they were.
“Good,” he said, panting, running into the middle of the circle they had made with their standing. “Come on, we gotta go,” he told Anne-Marie, taking Claudette by the arm. “I found the farmhouse. It’s close. We can leave the stuff here. We don’t have time to waste. We have to get back down there.”
No one moved.
His brows came up as his breathing tried to slow. “Come on,” he repeated. “I found it, the farmhouse, but we can’t wait. We have to go.”
Anne-Marie’s eyes were sad and frightened at the same time. Why wouldn’t she move? He reached across and grabbed her wrist. “Let’s go,” he exclaimed testily. “They won’t wait for us long. The Germans are on their way.”
She stood fast, her gaze trying to tell him something she evidently couldn’t find the words for. Her head turned, looking down the hill toward the far end of the valley. She pointed with her free hand.
02 September 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on September 2nd, 2009 @ 06:03:46 pm, using 1453 words, 104 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
21b
They had been at it for about two hours when they came across their first real sign of civilization since leaving Catherine’s house. The trees cleared briefly, just a break at the base of a hill, and they almost literally tumbled down onto a road. Not a modern road, but clearly used for vehicles and wide enough for a large truck, maybe even a tank, and stretched toward undoubted human contact in both directions.
He set Eric down and stared at the path. It frightened him for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it was obviously used at the time, meaning German traffic in the area was very possible, perhaps probable, perhaps frequent. Yet that wasn’t what worried him most. The road wasn’t on the map. He didn’t know if that were good or bad. Would the map-artist have bothered, especially if no one was supposed to use the road? Still, the map was detailed in several ways, and this was an obvious landmark. Why wasn’t it there? Had they gone the wrong way?
The children stared down the small hill at the path, fidgeting and waiting silently for him to do something. Anne-Marie could tell that something was wrong. She caught his eyes, and her expression asked her question.
He frowned. “This road’s not on the map,” he told her. “Either it was just left off, or we’re lost.”
“What if we are lost?”
He let out a breath and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. He nodded down at the path. “That has to lead somewhere. I suppose we could take our chances.”
“It could lead to Germans,” she stated the obvious.
He nodded. He thought back to the path they had followed. Everything else had been right so far. They hadn’t made any sharp turns. The compass still showed them going in the right direction. But he was talking about a crudely drawn map. He sighed. There were more landmarks, another creek up ahead a few miles. If they didn’t get to it before dark, they could double back. Lose a whole day or more and run out of food, but that seemed the best of the available courses.
Good lord.
“Are we going on?” Anne-Marie asked, bringing him back to them.
He picked up Eric and hoisted him back up onto his shoulders. “We are going on,” he agreed. “Be careful going down and get across quickly. Something may be coming.” She repeated his cautions to the others.
Nothing was coming, however. They were quickly back deep into the trees. The sun seemed to be moving faster than they were now. Soon it was directly overhead, signaling afternoon, and they were still scurrying up cliff sides cut out of the hills. Delay clawed at them. A bush snagged, actually grabbed, Jean-Paul at one point, and they had to take time to free him. The scratches managed to bring back his surliness, as did David’s decision to give Anne-Marie the gun that the boy had dropped upon being nabbed.
Claudette tripped again at another point an hour or so later and opened up an ugly gash on her right calf. They had had to combine bags again and use one of the small ones as a crude, bulky bandage to stop the bleeding. The sight of her own blood, in impressive but inconsequential amounts, made her even more frightened, and it ended up taking them longer to quiet her down and get started again than it did to clean and bandage the wound.
Within minutes of Claudette’s injury, however, the trees began to thin noticeably, and more and more sunlight hit them. They were coming out. The valley couldn’t be far, if they had come the right way. And that meant the rendezvous point. He passed on the news to Anne-Marie, and she told the children. Each was less elated than he was, still nursing their wounds, but he got the blood pumping again and picked up the pace. With Anne-Marie’s barking at them, they followed.
The trees broke into another valley. They looked down on it from the top of a hill at the edge of the woods. The land declined away from them steeply, in a series of soft hills, a kind of terrace effect, into the valley. It was much, much larger than the first valley they had crossed. It was definitely farmland, with patches of trees here and there and yellow grass everywhere else. He took the binoculars from Jean-Paul and studied the area. The section directly in front of them was blocked by the nearby, terracing hills, but he could see out into the distance. He didn’t see any barns or houses, but they could have easily been hidden farther away by the rolling land or by the clumps of trees. Below, at the base of their hill, was a wide creek bed with a narrow stream. His heart jumped. The creek. He looked at the map quickly. The creek. They had come the right way. By God, they had come the right way. Somewhere out in that valley was the farmhouse.
But right now it was still daylight, early afternoon, a while before they could cross the fields and that creek in less revealing shadows. As much as he hated to, he knew that they should wait as they had the day before. No point in being foolish when they were now so close.
He had Anne-Marie tell the children to go ahead and eat, then rest for a couple of hours. The trees on the hilltop should still give them enough cover for now. She checked Jean-Paul’s scratches and pronounced him fit with a comment and a small but pretty smile. He frowned but seemed to agree. Claudette’s leg had stopped bleeding completely by the time Anne-Marie got to it, and she was taking it with brave whimpers. It would have to be looked at better once they got to safety, but fortunately that wouldn’t be long now. Eric had decided to eat and rest at the same time, falling asleep sitting up, a turnip in his hand in his lap. Anne-Marie settled him down to the ground and got the other two around him. She told them they were close now and they would need their rest. They agreed by going to sleep.
He was too restless to wait there. “I think I’m going to scout around some,” he told her as she finished getting them down. One man might not look as unusual or conspicuous out there.
Her brows raised but she said nothing.
“I want to see if I can spot the farmhouse,” he reassured her. “I won’t go too far. I’ll leave you the gun. If . . . something happens and I don’t get back, . . . that farmhouse is out there somewhere, okay? Find it and tell them about Catherine.” He handed her the map. “Show this to them and tell them how you got it. You should be safe. Understand?”
She was clearly doubtful and displeased, but she nodded.
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll make it back to you,” he said. “I promise.”
She smiled weakly and held his eyes with hers.
He squeezed the shoulder, smiled back as warmly as he could, and was off down the hill.
The next hill, maybe a hundred yards away, wasn’t actually as high as the one where they rested, but it effectively blocked their line of sight toward the heart of the valley. It didn’t take long, just a couple of minutes, for him to reach its top and to discover that another, smaller hill did exactly the same blocking from that point. That dampened his enthusiasm and pace, as did the top of the subsequent hill, which had hidden yet another one. It was like one of those games, a box in a box in a box. He took the binoculars and scanned the far horizon. There were some dark blots at various places in the distance. Farms? Ponds? What?
He felt the doubts about the map well up again. The farmhouse could be anywhere out there. Or nowhere. Or discovered and destroyed by the Germans, by now. He could literally be standing in the middle of nowhere. Or the farmhouse could be just over the next rise. He lowered the binoculars and let out a deep breath. When was this going to be over? How would it be over?
31 August 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on August 31st, 2009 @ 06:12:47 pm, using 1137 words, 32 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
21a
It turned out he wasn’t much of a guard, either. At least he woke up before she did, or the other children. She was still cuddled under the shawl, somehow able to sleep in a ball. He looked around. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and the trees were slowly letting in its light. He stared at the children for a moment. No need to wake them yet. The day would be long.
He quietly pulled the envelope from his shirt and removed Anne’s letter. He had read it a dozen times already, but he needed it somehow just then. He smiled at the picture and then turned to the letter. The handwriting was lovely, a matter of pride for her. He could almost see her writing it. He could almost hear her voice in the words.
“My Davy,” it read. “I finally got time to sit down and write. It took a while to get your daughter fed, but now she’s contentedly playing in her spit. I tried some strained spinach on her today, but she’s learned rebellion. She has a definite aversion to any food colored green. Not unlike someone else I could name.
“She’s doing fine. Doctor Hunt says she’s as healthy as she can be at that age, and maybe a little better. I put our picture in the envelope. If the censors don’t think our buttons are code or something, I hope you like it. She’s really adorable. My mom says she looks just like I did at that age. Your mom says that’s one blessing. She’s already saying DAC, DAC, which are her initials spelled out. She’s going to be brilliant, I can tell.
“Everyone’s getting along. Mom’s gone back full-time at the library. Grandmother’s still holding on. She says she almost hopes Hitler does try to come over here. She says she’ll have a thing or two to say to him. That might be worth seeing. She’ll probably outlive us all, the way she keeps going. Your mom had a sore throat last week, but it’s nothing to worry about. She took Mabel Hopkins place in the church choir, and that’s put a strain on her voice. I lowered the soup back down to twelve cents a can. I know you’ll be mad, but some of those cans are starting to rust, Davy. That’s not real good merchandising. I’ll be glad to argue it with you immediately if you want to get over here.
“Paula Harper came into the store the other day. I think she thought your mother would be here and got unlucky when she found me instead. She looks the same as usual, which I won’t talk about, and she’s married again, this time to a contractor from out-of-state. We actually talked for quite a while about the only thing we have in common—you. I don’t think that she’s really over you even yet or that she can believe yet that she lost you to me. I still wonder about that last one myself sometimes. She sort of joked about how she should never have let you go that day you made an ass out of yourself telling me to stop playing football. Those aren’t her exact words, but you get the idea. Anyway, it was really kind of a nice visit. It seems she saw a lot of the same things in you that I did, although not from the same perspective, or the same order of priority, for that matter. She asked me to say hello to you for her in my next letter, but I don’t think I will.
“Well, I guess I should finish this so I can get it out for the morning mail. I know it’s hard to do, but please write to me whenever you get time. That way I know you’re really alive, and they’re not lying to me. And I know you’re tired of hearing this, but PLEASE BE CAREFUL. Remember, don’t do anything stupid. You have people back her who love you and need you, and I don’t care if that puts pressure on you. I want it to. The baby loves you, and she’s only seen your picture. I only have one dream now, and that’s that she gets to see you for real in our front door someday soon. I pray for that every night, and you know what an atheist I am. And, as for me, I love you far more than you can dream.
“Anne”
Poor Anne. She must have already gotten the last of the letters he had written before this mission. She would probably be going nuts. They probably had even notified her that he was missing by now. What an anniversary gift. He smiled ironically. She would definitely classify what he was going right now as “stupid.” At least he would have quite a story to tell her, after she had beaten him severely.
It was time to move now. He had refigured his calculations—rough judging of distance, gauging miles to time traveled. Everything seemed to indicate that they had come close to twenty miles, give or take. If Catherine had been right, it couldn’t be more than a full day at the most, even if it were a little farther than she had thought. If it were closer, they could be there before dinner, conceivably. His heart was pumping harder at the thought. He felt stronger. They would get there today if he had to carry every one of them.
Fortunately he didn’t have to. Anne-Marie woke prettily, drowsily, but then quickly reverted to form. She had the children up and eating in minutes. The sleep had helped them. They seemed to sense a change today, an end in sight. They didn’t lag or complain. They listened to Anne-Marie passively but anxiously as she prodded them and hurried them. They obviously wanted to put everything behind them as soon as he did.
They were on their way in less than half an hour. They followed their old routine, Jean-Paul in the lead, Eric as David’s periscope, and the females closely behind. The woods were as steep and ridged as the others, and they found themselves going up one wall of sorts after another. Still, they had become good at it, and it didn’t seem to take as much time as earlier. They moved almost as quickly as they had along the stream.
29 August 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on August 29th, 2009 @ 07:16:33 am, using 979 words, 33 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
20
The local draft board had given him a week to get things arranged, particularly the grocery, before he had to report. There wasn’t really that much to do. His mother knew the store well, and Anne was more than competent to run it. And, if anything did happen, he’d signed papers to allow them to sell out, probably to a chain. His dad probably groaned somewhere.
Still, he was glad for the time. He heard no more complaints from Anne. She was openly supportive, more supportive than his mother, in fact, and accepted her new role at the store pretty professionally. The workers knew her well enough to know that, if anything, things would be rougher rather than easier with her in chance instead of him. The store might even be better off at that.
It was in her eyes, though, every time she looked at him, no matter what else was happening, that odd mixture he had seen the day they heard about Pearl Harbor. It was in her voice, a melancholy even when her demeanor was bright and pleasant. And at night she would love him and hold him as if the next moment were going to take him physically from her. They would join and she would possess him.
They closed the store his last day, and he spent it quietly with her and his mom at their house. It was nice but unnatural, and after a while the awkwardness dampened them all. He was thankful for a chance to get out that evening. They were going dancing and having dinner at the best supper club in town. He wore his only suit, the last replacement for the prom suit. She had dipped into their savings and bought an evening dress, dark blue, thin straps over her fine shoulders, snugly fitting her slender figure. “As long as I get to see your legs,” he had told her when she described it and wondered about buying it. “It’s foolish to buy it,” she had told him, but smiled and did. When he saw it on her, he told her he wanted her to wear it to the train when he came home, drive the other guys wild. She said she would if he would.
The dancing was nice, her fit in his arms molded, but they weren’t in the mood. They ordered supper within an hour or so. They got the most expensive steaks with baked potatoes and rolls. It was exhilarating to him to be rich, even for just a night. She didn’t share his excitement.
She was quiet across the table, staring sadly at him with those wondrous eyes. He tried to get her to talk, about anything, everything, but she responded only perfunctorily. At last he resigned himself to holding her hand across the table and returning her stare.
The light from the candles on the table cast a soft, golden glow on her face and shoulders as they ate. The effect was lovely, even startling. Her beauty unsettled him at times. For days or even weeks, he might go along, vaguely aware of her loveliness, taking her for granted in a sense. Then he would look at her for one reason or another, and it would suddenly strike him, like a blow, literally leaving him speechless. Her eyes, her lips, her skin, her smile—so vivid and amazing that he would marvel at how he could have been so unaware and so brainless about it before. This was one of those moments.
She looked up from her glass into his stare. She could see the love there, and, as always, it darkened her, bringing blood to her face and neck. She didn’t look away, however, as she usually did. Instead, she took his stare and held it, as if memorizing it.
“Talk to me,” he said softly.
“About what?”
He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. Anything. Just talk. Let me hear your voice. You’re acting like this is a wake or something.”
“I’m sorry,” she said low, dropping her eyes.
He sighed. “Don’t you like that steak?” he asked, nodding at her half-full plate, grasping for conversation. “Mine was really good.”
“It’s fine,” she answered, but she shook her head. “I just don’t feel very good. I’m kind of sick at my stomach.”
Another reaction to his leaving? “Do you want to go home?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding, bringing her napkin to the table. “I think we maybe should. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” he said, helping her out of her chair. “This probably wasn’t the greatest idea I’ve ever had.”
“No,” she said, gripping his arms and looking deeply into his eyes. “It was a wonderful idea. I’ll never forget this.”
She had smiled and lightly touched her lips to his. Then he took her home. She really was sick. She spent the night vomiting, and trembling in his arms. He made her promise to call their doctor as soon as they returned from seeing him off at the station. He had six weeks in boot camp, and then, if he made it, he was going over to England with the Eighth Army Air Corps. She got through his departure pretty well, pale, a few tears, dealing with it better than his mom. He would always remember her standing on the platform as his train pulled away, white blouse and dungarees, her hair tied back into a ponytail, her lips smiling, her eyes screaming.
He found out at boot camp what had been making her sick. Deborah Anne was born seven months later. By then he had started bombing runs over Europe.
27 August 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on August 27th, 2009 @ 07:01:22 pm, using 1716 words, 35 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
19
They were still sleeping when he returned to the stream. The sun was almost down, and a definite night chill had touched the air. The three children under the blanket began to stir with the sound of his steps in the dry leaves above them on the rise, but Anne-Marie didn’t move. He smiled as he reached her, curled up almost completely inside his jacket. So she wasn’t the perfect guard, after all. He knelt beside her and gently touched her face.
She turned full on her back and sleepily opened her eyes. The back of her hand came up to her forehead, and she focused on him, rejoining reality. He smiled. Better not say anything cute. “We need to leave soon,” he said softly.
The sleep must have drugged her. She returned his smile very sweetly and nodded. With a noisy breath, she sat up and stretched. She slowly stood and handed him his jacket. “Merci,” she said wearily, moving toward the children.
Eric had awakened by then and was sitting up watching foggily. Claudette was shaking Jean-Paul, who was still in what was increasingly apparent his natural stupor. The morning performance wasn’t repeated, however. Anne-Marie only had to speak to him once for him to sit up and nod. Within minutes, all three were down by the stream, getting drinks and chomping on their radishes and cheese.
He took what was left of Anne-Marie’s food and put it in his sack. That alone would be enough for the next day, he figured, and Anne-Marie could then use the small blanket as a kind of shawl in the night air. At first she refused it, saying one of the other children should use it, but he pointed out that they all had coats. It was a good argument. She smiled grudgingly and wrapped it around her shoulders and back.
Jean-Paul once more handled the gun, and David hoisted Eric back up on his shoulders. He was already sore and felt weaker. How much farther could he go? He guessed the answer really wasn’t up to him. Anne-Marie again drew Claudette close, this time under the blanket, and followed the three males up the rise to the valley.
Up and down the valley’s rounded hills, it was hard to keep direction. The sounds of night bombing kept them moving and diverted their attention. Several times they had to stop while David lit matches over the compass to get back toward the north. After a few zigs off course, he picked a star on the horizon to follow and they hit a flat enough piece of land to stay on course. Still, it took much longer than he had predicted, an hour or so longer, and the children were already tired again by the time they reached the far tree-line. So was he.
“How much farther do you think they can go?” he asked her as they rested among the trees.
She shrugged. “Not far,” she answered. “Perhaps an hour?”
He let out a weary breath. “The map seems to show these trees running out in a few miles,” he told her. “Then there’s another valley, a lot bigger, and the farmhouse looks like it’s about in the middle of it.”
“We would do better in the daylight,” she said.
He nodded, although he hated to admit it. “I know. It’s just that . . . the longer we’re out here, the more likely it is we’ll be spotted or a patrol will run across us. The closeness of those bombs means there’s something big around here.”
“We will go as long as you tell us,” she told him.
He smiled. “I know you will,” he said. “But I don’t guess there’s any point really trying to do anymore tonight. We’re all out of gas. It’s hard enough to get through these trees in daylight, anyway. We’ll probably make better time in the morning.” He sighed. “Go ahead and tell them to eat and rest. We’ll have to start early in the morning. As soon as the sun comes up.”
She nodded and went about preparing a spot in the leaves for the children to sleep. They crawled beneath the blanket without protest, not even bothering to eat a turnip or radish before they did. He smiled wearily as they cuddled together. They had been great so far, really. Only one more day. At least he hoped. Could they go another day? What if the map was wrong, if it was longer? He shook his head.
“They will be fine in the morning,” she told him, adding mind-reading to her impressive talents.
He looked over at her, sitting against a nearby tree. Her face seemed relaxed, almost pleasant for the first time since he had known her. He smiled and nodded. “I know,” he agreed, sitting down against another tree opposite her.
“Tomorrow, do you think?” she asked.
“Hmm,” he replied. “Unless something goes wrong.”
“We will go to England then?”
“That’s the plan,” he answered. “We’ll have to count on the maquis at that point.” He studied her interested face and smiled again. “They have to be better at this than I am.”
She frowned slightly and looked down at her lap. They were silent for a few moments. At last her face came back up to him. “You would be with them if not for us,” she said softly.
He let out a breath. “Probably,” he commented. He knew better than to lie to her.
“Why did you bring us with you?” Her face really seemed to wonder.
“Should I have left you?”
“It would have been better and easier.”
He shook his head. “Not really,” he replied, saying it to himself as well as to her. “Faster, maybe. Not easier. I’d always wonder what happened to you.”
“But,” she seemed to be searching her English vocabulary, “you are in more danger with us.”
Thanks for the reminder. “That may be true.”
Her brows tightened, and the ends of her mouth bit in on her cheeks. “You have so much to live for,” she said, raising a shoulder. “Your wife. Your child. I do not understand. Why do you risk that?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Her eyes dropped again and she shrugged after a moment. “I do not know,” she said softly. “I do not have what you have to live for.”
“You don’t know that,” he responded immediately, surprised at how quickly. “You have no idea what you have to live for yet. You are a strong, talented, and smart young woman. You deserve your chance. All of you do. I’m not the only one who knew that. So did Catherine.”
Her eyes grew hard. “She died,” she pointed out. “You are risking the same. We are not so important, not more important than you, than your wife and child.”
“I’m not qualified to make that judgment,” he told her softly.
She shook her head. “I do not understand,” she told him, the voice still unconvinced.
He took in a breath. She wanted answers, answers he wasn’t sure of himself. “Look, when this war is over,” he tried to begin, then changed course. “Do you know how we got here, where we are right now? An American and four French children in a woods God only knows where?”
She shook her head.
“Because the people who had the chance to get things right after the Great War had to make one of two choices,” he replied, “and they picked the wrong one. They could have said, ‘no more, no more of this.’ No more Catherines dying. No more children torn from their families. But they didn’t. They stayed mad. They got their revenge. And finally everyone went back at it again. Do you know what’s going to happen when this war is over?”
Her eyes were wider now, and she shook her head again.
“Neither do I,” he told her. “And it scares me to death. I don’t want my daughter worrying about her husband in another country having someone shooting at him. I don’t want to have to console her if he doesn’t come home. I am so afraid that we’ll do the same stupid damn thing we did this time. And somewhere, sometime, some guy will be scared out of his mind, trying to save more kids, trying to get them to safety because we were too stupid and silly not to stop this from happening again. And that’s why you’re so important. We’ll need someone to stop us, to tell us what this was like, to tell us not to do it again. We’ll need you. That’s why I couldn’t leave you. You’re too important.”
She was quiet for several moments, looking at her hands. “I am not so good,” she told him at last. Her eyes came up.
He locked his eyes on hers, as serious as he could make his expression. “Yes, you are,” he said. “You’ll have to be. I need you to be. Catherine does, too.”
She stared at him for a while, her mouth slightly open. Then the eyes left him again.
He sighed. He wouldn’t believe it, either, probably. He felt very depressed suddenly. She curled up beneath the tree and pulled the “shawl” around her. He watched her adjust her head on her arm and close her eyes. Soon she was snoring softly.
He wished he had Anne’s talent with words. This girl was going to go through her life hating, wanting revenge. He couldn’t blame her, couldn’t blame any of them, if that’s how they turned out. We’d being doing this again, he knew. More people would die, suffer, kill. How could a world recover from this? It was so fouled up, the future so unclear. He had been so certain when he signed up for this. He asked himself what he had asked her.
How did he get here?
25 August 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on August 25th, 2009 @ 06:03:33 pm, using 2276 words, 37 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
18
Sunday was his day to sleep late, and he had done just that. They had been married a week, with the previous Sunday for a honeymoon before going back to the store. They were living in his house with his mother. She had switched bedrooms with him and then graciously gone off for two weeks to stay with his aunt. They had spent their honeymoon in bed, and he intended a repeat performance that Sunday. It must have been what a womb felt like, he thought, wrapped in her arms under the blankets, her warm, naked body entwined around him, his face pressed against her breasts. If there were only some way he could make a living doing this . . . . He was so good at it.
Around noon she had risen to fix them some coffee. He lay back in the bed and closed his eyes, picturing her, reveling in her. He heard the radio go on in the living room. Some old Benny Goodman and Helen Ward. Oldie but goodie. And he had never liked swing.
Somewhere in the middle of the song the news came. A Japanese attack in Hawaii, the naval base at Pearl Harbor. Tremendous damage. American deaths. The President was going to speak soon. His heart waited to beat until the announcement was over. This was it. This was war. Japan was Germany’s ally. Would they be fighting the Nazis, too?
Anne appeared in the bedroom doorway, somehow pale, breathing heavily, biting her lower lip. She was wearing his old blue robe, but it had fallen open. Her face was unlike any expression he had ever seen on it. Pain, anger, fear, love—they were all there, making something more. Her mouth opened, but she never spoke. She simply stared at him as Helen Ward resumed her crooning. Then, at last, she turned and went back to the kitchen.
She never accepted the war, despite Pearl Harbor, despite Hitler’s declaration against the United States. She always felt that they should have stayed out of it. “We don’t have to fight,” she would cry when they argued. “We’re too big. They need us too much. People don’t have to die.” Actually, though, they didn’t talk much about it. He knew it was a sore spot with her. He knew she clung desperately to his draft exemption, thankful that he at least wouldn’t have to go. Unless he enlisted.
It didn’t take long for the dead and wounded to start coming back. People he knew, had gone to school with, had grown up with. In a lot of ways, he felt, the dead were luckier than the wounded, having to learn to live without hands or arms or legs, blind or deaf, in pain for the rest of their lives. Every week as the year passed, the list seemed to grow. And there he was, in the grocery, safe, receiving the stares and the “understanding” smiles. Every day, every week, every month.
She knew what was happening to him. He knew she could see it. She was doing, overdoing, everything she could to ease it, to make him want to stay. She babied him, did things for him, loved him with a passion and a creativity even greater than before. Every day was ideally set for him—good, delicious meals; happy, pleasant conversation; intense, inventive love-making. He knew she knew, also, that it wasn’t enough.
Contributing to the Thanksgiving food basket for the Kolack family was what finally did it. Tommy had actually been at Pearl Harbor, aboard one of the ships now sitting on the ocean bottom. Timmy had joined the Navy as well, almost immediately after the attack. He had gotten to Midway in June in time to be killed. His family had taken the greatest loss in the town, to that point, anyway, and the community had organized a special Thanksgiving gift to show concern and appreciation. He had given the turkey and had gone with the group to deliver it. The Kolack parents wouldn’t come to the door, but Teddy Kolack, the youngest son, did. He accepted it for the family and announced that next year he was going to join up and kill those goddam little yellow bellies and maybe some Jerries, too. It turned out to be kind of embarrassing, but everyone applauded. And no one in the group consciously pointed out that David was well and able while those older and younger than he was were already dead for their country. He just stuck out like a Jap at an American Legion meeting.
He waited until two days after Christmas. The head of the local draft board tried to talk him out of it but understood at the same time. He only hoped Anne would.
She knew almost instantly when she saw him. Maybe he was smiling too much. Maybe not enough. Or maybe she was just too much a part of him. She just knew.
She had come down to the store to walk back to the house with him after closing. He was counting the money when she knocked on the locked doors. He opened them quickly to get her in out of the cold, and her eyes drew in almost at once upon seeing him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, smiling broadly.
She didn’t return it. “You tell me,” she answered.
He shrugged. “Just closing up,” he said as evenly as he could. She couldn’t know already, could she? He hadn’t had time to work out what he needed to say. “I need to get the money figured out. Whew.” He faked a shiver. “It’s cold out there.”
She followed him silently to the counter. She didn’t remove her coat. He went behind and began to roll the dollar bills into the bag. “I’ll get the coins finished and I’ll be ready.” He smiled. “Can you believe it? I’m going to have to raise coffee up to twenty-five cents a pound.”
She was staring at him.
He waited as long as he could, fiddling with the coins, trying to think of something right to say, hoping she hadn’t figured it out. Finally he had to look at her. “Something wrong?” he asked again, trying interested this time.
“You’re acting weird, Davy,” she said coolly. “You’re keeping something from me.”
So she might not really know. He worked up a scowl. “What would I be keeping from you?”
“You didn’t say you weren’t,” she said quickly.
“You’re the one making the accusations,” he retorted, growing exasperated. “What would I be keeping from you?”
“Only two things I can think of,” she said softly. “Either Paula Harper’s back in your life, and you’re too smart for that, or . . . you’ve signed up somehow or something, which you aren’t too smart to know not to do.”
He bit the inside of his cheek and took in a deep breath. He couldn’t keep his eyes on hers. Dead giveaway.
“Don’t lie to me, Davy,” she said. “You’ve never lied to me.”
He sighed and flipped some coins into the bag. He didn’t look up. “Paula’s not back in my life,” he told her.
Her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. Her breath came out in a rush. She stood there quietly for a moment. “I almost wish it was Paula,” she whispered.
He looked across the counter at her. “Army Air Corps,” he said slowly.
“Oh, God, Davy,” she cried, whirling away from the counter. She walked away a couple of steps and then wheeled back on him. Her eyes were on fire. “Airplanes? How could you pick airplanes?”
“I didn’t think you’d want me running around on the ground with a rifle somewhere,” he replied. “Besides, the man said I’d be getting at Hitler quicker this way.”
“You can get shot down in an airplane,” she exclaimed. Tears were putting out the fire. “You can crash. Even if they don’t get you right off, you can crash. Oh, God, Davy.” She turned away again, shaking, holding her elbows.
“Anne” was all he could say.
She whirled back toward him, her face red, her eyes wet and growing puffy. “Why don’t you just put a gun to your head?” she demanded. “Get it over with fast. At least that way you’d die here. And I wouldn’t have to worry about you every day.”
He frowned but didn’t argue. She needed to get it out.
“You didn’t have to do this, Davy,” she moaned, her eyes closing, her fist clenching. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“You know I did,” he told her softly.
The eyes came open. “Why?! Why?!”
“This is my fight, too, Anne,” he tried to explain. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go. You know that. It’s something I have to do. I have a responsibility.”
“To who?!”
“To my country,” he answered quickly. Why couldn’t she understand?
She charged the counter. “And what about your responsibility to me?” she demanded again. “And to your mother? What about us?”
“Anne,” he soothed, in vain, “you two can handle the store. Everything’ll be all right.” He tried to take her hands, but she jerked them off the counter. He was losing his patience. “Who do you think I’m doing this for, anyway?” he wanted to know. “I’m doing this for you and for my mother. I’m doing it for all of us.”
Her face screwed up angrily. “Oh, don’t give me that crap,” she told him. “You can’t bear to think someone’s being tougher than you somewhere, braver. That someone’s getting glory and you’re not, even if they’re dead and you’re not. Oh, damn you, Davy. Damn you.” Her throat clogged on her, and she had to stop. She lowered her head and raised a clenched fist to her lips. He could see the tears dropping off her quivering jaw in profile.
It was worse than he had expected. If only she hadn’t caught him off guard, before he had decided on how to let her know. Now he didn’t really know what to do, what she would let him do. He rounded the corner and moved behind her. He gingerly put his hands on her slightly heaving shoulders. She didn’t move away. “Anne,” he said softly, “I’ve just got to do what I think is right. I have to fight.”
She took a couple of deep, shaking breaths and turned around to face him. Her eyes locked on his, and her voice was calmer. “Ever since I can remember,” she said fairly evenly, “I’ve watched my momma love a man who hasn’t been there. She’s spent her whole life loving one man, who got himself killed doing what he thought was right. And for what?” The anger was welling again. “What did he accomplish? What did he change? Nothing. Not one thing. Is the world a better place because he died?” She dropped her eyes to his shirt and shook her head. “No. My momma’s just been lonely. All these years. Without the man she still loves.” Her eyes came back to him. “I don’t want to be my mom, Davy,” she forced a whisper through her tight throat. “You’re the only man I’m ever going to love. And I want you to be here with me. Forever.”
He smiled slightly. “You make it sound like there’s no way I’ll come back.”
“Can you promise me you will?” she asked softly. The pull of her eyes had never been stronger. “Can you?”
He couldn’t and she knew it.
She broke away from him slowly and moved to the doors. She walked home alone without saying any more.
He took his own time getting back to the house. It was dark except for the light of the bedside lamp from their window. His mother was in bed. He imagined she had been told by now. He moved silently down the hallway to their room. How could he talk to her? What could he say?
She was sitting up in bed, blankets up to her breasts, her pink, long-sleeved turtleneck nightgown covering the rest. She was holding a piece of paper. It looked like old schoolwork. Her eyes met his as he entered. She bit her lower lip slightly and then smiled weakly. “It was a pretty dramatic exit, wasn’t it?” she said softly.
He smiled as he dropped his coat over the bedroom chair and then sat next to her. “What are you reading?” he asked.
She handed it to him without answering. It was the poem, the one she had written for him years before. She had kept it. He looked up at her from the words.
“Still not very good,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “But it’s still yours.”
“Anne,” he started to speak.
“I’m sorry,” she cut him off. “I do know you have to do this. I always knew you would. It’s just that . . . ,” her eyes began to fill again, “I’m so scared. I’m so scared, Davy.” She fell forward into his arms. He loved her and held her all night.
23 August 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on August 23rd, 2009 @ 03:42:44 pm, using 1175 words, 44 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
17b
And then, as things settled again later, just as they reached the clearing, they heard what sounded like bombs from the northeast. A massive run, several miles away, but the direction they were headed. They would be American planes during the day. He knew they weren’t in any real danger from those particular bombs, but he also knew that they meant for certain this time that the Germans could not be all that far away either. That meant more patrols in this area were likely, just as a matter of course, not to mention whoever might have been sent to track down the killers of those soldiers they had left at Catherine’s.
The children were frightened, but for the wrong reasons. Even Anne-Marie’s face betrayed her apprehension. He tried to smile reassuringly and told her to tell them not to worry, that the bombs were too far away. They should try to rest while he scouted around. She repeated his words to the children, but with no conviction or enthusiasm. They stayed as unconvinced as she was. He didn’t really blame them. Their safety at any moment had been just a matter of degree for quite a while.
He took the binoculars from Jean-Paul and climbed the rise from the stream to the edge of the tree line. He had a good view at the peak. It was a valley, but not a large one. Through the glasses in the distance he could see another tree line. He judged it about three or four miles, probably two hours at the rate they were moving. He tried to think as the bombs went off in the distance. Could they go ahead and cross? The valley was filled with rolling hills. They wouldn’t be easily seen at the bottoms, but they would stand out like flares at the tops. Any plane going over would spot them. So would anyone on the other side using binoculars like he was doing. He stared up at the sky. It was probably two, three at the most. Would they really have to wait until dark?
The children had eaten by the time he returned to the stream. Anne-Marie was rebundling their knapsacks. Eric lay in the sun in the leaves near her, almost asleep. Jean-Paul and Claudette sat quietly near the stream, staring at the water, almost hypnotized by weariness. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe a long nap now while it was fairly warm would be better. Maybe a night-crossing would be best after all. They might actually make better time.
He sat next to Anne-Marie. She stared at him, waiting. He studied the two children near the stream. “We’ll have to wait here a while,” he told her. “It’s too open to try to cross that valley while the sun’s still up. I think we can use the rest anyway.”
“Eric has started,” she said. The boy’s eyes were completely closed now.
He smiled. “That’s not a bad idea for the rest of you,” he said. “The more sleep you get now, the farther we can go tonight.” That was the theory, anyway. “Why don’t you try to get Jean-Paul and Claudette to come up here with him?”
She nodded and said something loudly to the two children. Eric whimpered but didn’t rouse. Jean-Paul and Claudette looked as if they knew they should protest but also realized what a good idea a nap was. They grudgingly came up the rise to lie down next to Eric in the sun. She again emptied her bag and covered them in the quilt. Then she returned to her seat beside him.
“Is it far?” she asked softly. “Across the valley?”
He shrugged. “It’ll seem farther at night,” he replied. “We should make it in two hours or so. No more than three, I don’t think.”
“How far is it after that?”
He couldn’t stop his scowl. “It’s hard to tell from this map,” he answered, patting his pocket. “Catherine said it was about thirty miles. We might have made twenty by the end of the night if we’re really lucky.”
She was looking at the pocket, her brows curled inward. “May,” she said, then paused, “may I see your wife’s picture again? In this light?”
He smiled. “Certainly,” he responded, pulling out the envelope and handing her the picture.
She studied it as she had the previous night. After a few moments she handed it back without comment. He put it back in her letter and replaced the envelope in his shirt pocket.
“You love her very much, yes?” she asked at last.
“Very much,” he replied. “I think I’ve loved her since she was, oh, not much older than Eric.”
“You have known her so long?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, half-laughing. “It seems even longer. I met her when I was about Jean-Paul’s age. About fifteen years ago. She’s been a part of my life for fifteen years.”
“You have been married for a long time?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no, not really,” he answered. “Two years almost. In a few days. But it’s been like marriage for longer than that. Things didn’t really change much after we were married. If I hadn’t been so stupid, it could have been even longer.”
“I’m sorry?”
He laughed fully this time. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head again. “My own problem. I’m just counting the days off until I can be with her again. That’s why it’s so important that we get out of here safely. I’ve never even seen my daughter in person.”
She smiled weakly.
He returned the smile. “You should try to sleep some, too,” he told her. “We may have to go a long way tonight.”
To his surprise, she didn’t argue. Instead, she nodded resignedly and lay back on the rise, her arms behind her head for a pillow. Letting out a deep breath, she closed her eyes. She looked so much like Anne. His heart felt a sharp twang. He quietly slipped off the flight jacket and covered her torso with it. Her arms came down under it, but she didn’t open her eyes.
He climbed back to the top of the rise. The valley was still through the binoculars. The sounds of the bombing had stopped. It didn’t seem so far to that new line of trees. It couldn’t be too far beyond them. Ten miles maybe? Safety was on the other side. Safety and Anne. If he took off on a dead run . . . right now . . . .
He sighed and lowered the binoculars. He couldn’t. Goddam Catherine. She was probably smiling at him. They were his responsibility now. He had to get them there. He had to get them there.
21 August 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on August 21st, 2009 @ 04:50:10 pm, using 1131 words, 34 views
[We’ve started another story here for your diversion. Go here to catch the Prologue and other chapters if you missed them.]
17a
The German soldier woke him. The one he had killed. The face loomed at him suddenly, the mouth slightly opened with surprise, the eyes piercing and frightened. It startled him, made his heart jolt him from his sleep.
He was sprawled at the base of the large stone, his neck awkward and aching. It took a few seconds for him to realize where he was. His body seemed locked and frozen. He reached for the machine gun. It was gone.
He sat up as quickly as he could and looked around. Anne-Marie was sitting on the fallen log, watching him, holding the gun across her lap. He felt his heart shift gears downward. He let out a breath and ran his hand over the top of his hand. “Good morning,” he mumbled, forcing a smile. “I guess I fell asleep.”
She nodded. “I have guarded for you,” she said evenly.
Guarded for him. “Did you sleep?”
“Yes,” she said almost truthfully. “You were very kind.”
He smiled. He understood how much of an effort that took. “You were cold,” he told her. He stretched and rolled his shoulder and back muscles, trying to coax life back into them. It may have worked a little. He glanced over at the children, still huddled and asleep. The quilt was too neatly upon them not to have recently been rearranged. They seemed to have survived as well. “We’ll have to get them moving. We have to make better time today.”
“Yes,” she agreed, nodding and standing. She handed him the gun. “I will wake them.”
He struggled to his feet. Please, hips, work, he thought to himself. She bent over the children and gently shook them, murmuring their names softly. They responded with moans and stilted turnings. Eric sat up sleepily, rubbing his eyes. Claudette raised up on her elbows and looked as if she wanted to cry but knew better. Jean-Paul was the most cranky, grumbling angrily in French and refusing to sit up. She shook him harder and her voice rose. Jean-Paul waved at her with a hand and tried to shake her hand off his shoulder. She circled behind his head and, before he could react, reached below his shoulders and jerked him up into a sitting position. She barked something harshly at him. He glared at her as she walked away, but he didn’t lie down again.
David was somewhat amused at the routine, but also a little worried. As long as Eric were the only one giving them trouble, he could be taken care of fairly easily, all things considered. But, if Claudette or Jean-Paul began to lag and to grow testy, they could be seriously delayed. “Is everything all right?” he asked her.
She was crouched, picking through her rolls and vegetables for their breakfast. “Yes,” she replied without looking up.
“We can’t afford for them to hold us back,” he told her.
She turned her gaze on him. “They will not,” she said firmly.
And he knew they wouldn’t. “Well, then,” he shifted subjects, “let’s enjoy this delicious breakfast.”
They ate quickly and took drinks at the stream. The map indicated that they were to follow the stream until it reached a clearing from the trees, perhaps a small valley of some kind. Judging from the map’s rough scale, he thought it looked about twelve miles or so. Four or five hours, if they were lucky. Then they were to turn straight north across what looked like flatter ground, with no hills or streams marked, until they reached woods again. That might speed things up. It also meant they would apparently be in the open. They would probably have to wait and try to get across after dark. Every blessing was mixed. He hoped no one had knocked out a substantial stand of trees since the map had been drawn. He at least wanted to get the right clearing.
He showed Jean-Paul how to carry the gun safely and put the binoculars around his neck. Then he let him take the lead alongside the stream. That seemed to please the boy and end his surliness, for the time being. He then gave Anne-Marie his bag and hoisted Eric onto his shoulders. The little boy enjoyed the opportunity to ride, and even Anne-Marie smiled at his giggling. David caught her eyes and returned the smile. She lowered her eyes slightly, but didn’t really stop the smile. She put her arm around Claudette and followed Jean-Paul, shouting instructions and clearly telling him not to get too far ahead.
For the most part, the trip alongside the stream was uneventful and faster than the previous day. There was no need to form climbing teams or to jump logs or bushes. Actually it was kind of pleasant, cool, with sounds of birds singing and the water running. At one point, however, the serenity of the stream was destroyed by Jean-Paul’s discovery of tracks near a shallow portion of the stream. Footprints. Deep, like boots. Who? Germans? A farmer? Someone else on the run? He couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t take a chance.
He huddled them behind a large stone and slowly climbed the rise overseeing the stream. He could feel their eyes on him as he left, could feel their fear. He wasn’t exactly calm himself. What if there were Germans here? After surviving the crash, after the horror at Catherine’s, he wasn’t sure how long his luck would hold out. The gun weighed a ton in his hands. Would it be different if he had to fight again? That German soldier’s face flashed in his mind once more. His stomach churned.
Fortunately the scare was unfounded. It was hard to see through the dense trees and brush, but he saw nothing suspicious. The tracks continued down the side of the stream and led back into the woods and brush. They were apparently gone. Who was it? What were they doing down here? Taking a short cut? Chasing someone, some thing? Goofing off? He didn’t care, as long as they were gone. Still, this showed that he would have to stay alert. They could be just ahead, or on their way back. Suddenly the calm of the stream didn’t seem so welcome.
He returned to the clearly relieved children. Even Anne-Marie couldn’t, or didn’t try to, hide her gladness to see him. He assured her that they could go on, as long as they were careful, and she passed the word. They pressed on, with less noise, more concern.
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