by Andie Newton
“Man,” Roxy said. “All this talk about people watching us and noises… Gives me the creeps, ya know? In the dark, out in the open like this surrounded by Huns, and our boys miles away.” She ran her hand over the spray of bullet holes that peppered the floor, pausing to seek out the divots with feeling fingers. “Aerial fire too. You know a girl could use a smoke right about now.”
I dug under my dress and reached for the pack of cigarettes I’d stolen from the pharmacist’s. “Here—” I tossed them in her lap, followed by the lighter I’d found in the back bedroom.
“Where’d you get those?” Red said, and she put her hand on Roxy’s to stop her even though she’d already torn open the package and was about to strike the metal lighter. “Where, Kit?”
Roxy looked at me with the cigarette dangling between her lips.
“Does it matter?” I said, reaching for the pack. “Smokes are smokes.”
Roxy struck the lighter, eyes sliding to mine. “You didn’t steal these from crazy Gilda’s house, did you?”
“No!” I said, and Roxy lit her cigarette. “I stole them from the pharmacist.”
“What?” Red said. “When did you do that?”
“While you were asleep.”
I reached for three candles on the sideboard and set them between us. “I’m glad I stole these smokes, let me tell you.” I lit the candles and read the engraving off the lighter. “Life be lived it says on this lighter. And God’s truth, Red, we need to live what’s left of it.” I popped a cigarette in my mouth, lighting it up.
“That was a dangerous thing to do, sneaking out of the cellar,” Red said. “What if something happened to you—”
“But nothing happened,” I said.
I offered Red a cigarette, and she took one after a bit of coaxing, and all three of us smoked on the floor. For a while we smoked in silence, listening to the crack and snap of the burning embers under the rainfall. Melty candles waxed onto the floor. I never did ask them what they were thinking about, but for some reason, sitting on the floor in the cold brought forth thoughts of Jack. He said he’d visit me at home after the war, and even though I knew he said it to give himself hope—to have plans for after—it also gave me hope, and something to believe in.
I hoped he’d left the pharmacist’s. I hoped he was still alive. He has to be, I thought. I took another drag, inhaling deeply, wishing I had shared more cigarettes with him, at least one more before we left the cellar. Just to say I did.
I moved the bag of diamonds into my lap, and Roxy unzipped it amid the flicker of candlelight.
“Will you get a look at that,” Roxy said, “all those sparkling diamonds. We did it, gals. I still can’t believe it.” She pulled the blankets up over her shoulders after snuffing out her cigarette on the floor to light another. “Hundreds of men we saved. Germans gonna attack the POW camps? Not with the nurses from the 45th on the task!” she said, and me and Red laughed. “We pulled off what those men couldn’t. And they’re the experts—the OSS, and we’re the girls from the beach.”
“Yeah,” I said, “we’re the girls from the beach, dammit!” I smiled.
“And your brother, Kit,” Red said. “Someday Sam will find out what you did. And your mother too. She’ll know.”
“Mmm,” I said, and I thought again about my mother, and her reaction to hearing about Sam’s capture. I could only imagine how the scene unfolded when the War Department vehicle drove up to her front door, or worse, what if it was a letter senselessly delivered in the mail? “I hope my mom’s recovered from the news.”
Roxy nodded, but they both had no idea what I meant aside from the obvious. I’d never told them the story. Though this story wasn’t one I’d made up. It was what neighbors told neighbors before I was born. The story housewives talked about over Bridge, coffee, and cigarettes.
I swallowed. “My uncle died in the war, my mother’s brother,” I said, and they both looked at me. “She went delirious when she found out he’d died. My grandmother had to send her away to a sanitarium. After she had Sam, she was convinced he’d be lost to her one day, and spent all her time trying to keep his eyes off the planes in the sky and focus on the farm—she knew there’d be another war. But he couldn’t stay away. Being a pilot was in his blood.”
“God, Kit, your poor mother,” Red said. “How’d Sam end up telling her he joined up?”
I took a deep breath; it was still so very clear. “He’d waited three days, trying to find the right time, but there was no right time. I heard her shriek and watched it unfold from the stairs. She’d begged him not to do it, shoving a list of sicknesses at him that would have kept him out of the service, but he wouldn’t listen,” I said. “My mother cried hysterically from her knees at the front door, asking him why over and over again, reaching up for Sam’s hands, begging him to reconsider, but he’d already signed the papers. And when he pulled them from his pocket to show her, my mother’s eyes ballooned into dark moons before her entire body dissolved into the floor and she lay there like a rag for days. Sam tried to comfort her. Over and over he tried.”
Red touched my arm. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded, hanging my head, and taking a puff of my cigarette. “The mothers of this war, I tell you… They are the innocent victims of this fight.”
Roxy pointed her cigarette to the photo of the German woman and her children on the sideboard, the nurse, and the soldier. “Like her,” she said, and I turned around, even though I said I didn’t want to look at their photos again.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” I said, and I took a moment hanging on to that thought, absorbing the scene in the photo.
“You all right, Kit?” Red said.
I nodded.
“A farm,” Roxy said. “I think I’d like living on a farm.”
I scoffed. “My parents talked about retiring to the mountains, leaving me and Sam the farm. But he already told me he wasn’t interested, and I don’t want it either.”
“Why not?” Roxy said.
“I don’t know…” The farm was peaceful in the daytime with the Canada geese flying through the clouds, and the cows mooing in the pasture. And in the evenings—stars for miles, like pinpricks through black paper. I looked up, through the open ceiling where the rain was sprinkling in, hearing the tap between my ears, which sounded like gunfire when I imagined it. “On second thought, maybe that’s exactly what I need. A little peace and quiet. Nobody yelling, no screamers, no horns honking, no loud noises… only the cows and the geese.”
I refolded my legs and adjusted the gun holster, when an owl flew in from the open ceiling, flapping his wings. “Ack!” I said, scooting away. “A damn owl.” After collecting my breath, I waved my hands at it and he flew off. “I thought I heard something.”
“I think I heard it too,” Roxy said. “A scratching, tapping noise?”
I nodded. “Yeah!”
“Maybe it wasn’t the owl,” Red said, and we moved closer together on the floor. “Maybe it’s something worse…” Her eyes flicked from side to side.
“Stop it, all right,” I said. “You’re scaring me.”
Red laughed, and Roxy got mad, pushing her. “I was joking,” Red said. “It was a bad joke. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“You…” I said, and I slapped her thigh with the tail of my blanket.
“I had you guys going, though,” Red said, taking a bean from the jar and chewing on it. “It was the owl! We have hundreds of them in Oklahoma. My mama would be laughing herself into a fit if she knew how scared you two were. You can take bullets flying through our tent, bombs exploding, and Messerschmitts barreling toward our hospital, but set a mouse in front of you or an owl—”
“All right,” I said. “We got it.” I laughed after a second, thinking it was rather funny, and we had to find our laughs when we could. “So, I’m jumpy.” I patted the bag of diamonds. “I know we’re talking like the job is done—the mission’s over—but we haven’t made it across the river, and until th
en I’m gonna jump at mice and owls and anything else that comes our way. We’re not safe yet, and neither are the POW camps.”
I looked at Red, and then to Roxy. We all knew what I said was the truth. We hadn’t saved anyone yet. We smoked the rest of the cigarettes while Gail was still out, and at some point, we each fell asleep, succumbing to our exhaustion.
*
I woke to the sun rising in my face and a strange tapping that sounded like a pencil on a tile. I sat up, thinking the noise had been part of a dream. “Guys…” I said, and I listened some more and the house seemed strange and static again, as if we weren’t alone. “I think they’re back. The people who live here.”
Roxy stirred, groggy and trying to make sense of the world. Gail sat bolt upright holding her arm. She shoved a hand in her hair and looked around as if she had no idea what had happened with the morphine.
I shook Red awake. “Wake up.” I searched the air, thinking I heard a groan—a noise somewhere in the house. “Red—” Another moan, this time a little louder and I blamed Roxy for it.
“It wasn’t me,” Roxy said.
“Then who…” I listened carefully. “It’s coming from under the house.”
“It’s the mouse,” Red said, but I shook my head and got on my hands and knees to search closer.
“I’m scared!” Roxy said, and she stood up to fold her arms.
“Move out of the sunlight,” I said, waving the girls out of the way, and the sun shined a little brighter and into the cracks on the floor. I moved slower, wood creaking under my knees as I crawled. “I don’t see anything—”
Then I saw it. Between the cracks, something glossy, something alive. I screamed, jumping up from the floor. “It’s an eye!” I pointed. “There’s a person under there!” Then we all heard it, a finger tapping the floorboards. I crossed myself, then looked at Red.
A moan came from underneath and the clear and grappling voice of a woman begging for our help. We clawed at the floorboards and pulled up a section—a secret door—and found a woman hiding under the house in the dirt with wounds across her chest.
“Jesus,” Red said, and we stood stunned, gazing at her in the dirt. Brown blood mixed with fresh red, soaking her yellowy dress and white apron. “It’s the mother from the photograph!”
“Hilfe,” she said in German. Help.
“Hurry!” Red dove into the small space and lifted her out, laying her out on the front room floor. “She must have been lying here for over a day.”
We assessed her for more wounds. The burn marks on her chest appeared superficial compared to the bullet lodged in her neck. She reached up to clutch her throat, trying to talk, but only scratches came out followed by the familiar, “Hilfe! Hilfe!”
“How come we didn’t know?” Roxy said. “We were here all night!”
“It was the rain,” I said. “The damn rain must have muffled her voice.”
I talked to her in German. “We’re nurses,” I said. “We can help.” I asked Gail to help me, but she was still wobbly and making her way over to us. “We have to get the bullet out of your neck,” I said, and the woman shook her head. “It’s the only way to stop the bleeding.”
“You’re slowly bleeding to death,” Roxy said to her in English.
Red held her head steady, stinging her with a syrette of morphine, and I reached for my scalpel. “Hold still, Mutti,” I said, and her eyes swung to mine. “Mutti, hold still.”
I dug into her neck with the only instrument I had, searching for the bullet, but couldn’t find it as she rasped and gagged. “You’re digging, Kit,” Red said, and my lips pinched. “I’m trying not to.” I went in for one last search, and the woman called out for her daughter with a waning cry, which sent a shiver up my back and neck.
The bullet popped out, and I was relieved and exhausted, thinking the worst was over, but a pool of blood flowed from the hole, faster and faster and faster like a hose. Red screamed for a rag, and Gail tossed one to me from the kitchen. I pressed it to her neck. “Mutti!” I said. “Mutti, stay with me! Mutti!” Her eyes sank, fading with eyelids half-closed, and Roxy shouted that we were losing her. “Come on,” I said, and in that whirring moment, I glanced up at the photos on the sideboard and saw the woman smiling and alive next to her children while feeling her soul slip through my hands. “Come on…” I pressed the rag to her neck. “Damn you… Live, why don’t ya! Live!”
“She’s gone,” Roxy said, and I reluctantly pulled back. “We lost her.”
Red sat on her haunches, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “She was a bleeder, Kit. That’s all. We did what we could.”
I took a few deep breaths, looking at my bloody, shaking hands, then to the body of the mother I tried to save. The blood-soaked kitchen towel, and her fixed eyes.
I got up, feeling sick.
“You all right, Kit?” Roxy said from the floor.
I turned her photo over on the sideboard before stumbling to the window. “Yeah,” I said. “I just need a minute.”
I looked over the field that used to be her farm, feeling overwhelmed by a surge of emotion as I wiped my hands of the woman’s blood. I’d lost so many patients, so many wounded dying in my arms or on my watch. But this one, this one got me to gush like a baby and I didn’t know why. She was a German, I told myself. She’s the enemy. I swallowed, closing my eyes to stop the waves of tears, yet they dripped off my cheeks onto my folded arms.
I heard Red and Roxy talking about what to do with the body. They decided to place her back where we found her, and while they lowered her back under the floor, I noticed a dust-up down the road.
I blinked, trying to see through the blur of tears, thinking it was a dust devil, like the ones we had on the farm in Washington, but it was thicker, and moving down the dirt road like a car was causing it.
“Guys…” I said, but it was more of a croak, and they were too busy laying the woman back under the house, when I gulped dryly, bracing the windowsill. “Red!” I said, and everyone looked up at me. “Someone’s coming!”
A car skidded to a stop outside.
I rushed toward them. “Hide! Hide!” I said.
“Where?” Roxy cried, and it was Red’s idea for us to hide in the floor with the dead woman. Gail hopped in, followed by Roxy then Red.
“Quick!” Red said, as they piled in, until I was next.
A car door opened and closed, followed by another, and a man shouting for his shotgun. “Hurry, Kit,” Red said, grabbing for my arm, but there was no room. Not with the body.
“There’s no room!” I said, and I saw my life pass before my eyes, listening to them walk up. Crunch, crunch, crunch… “What do I do?” I said, and Red grasped at my hands, eyes stretched and in tears, before getting an idea.
“The chest!” Red said, pointing, followed by Roxy and Gail, but their voices sounded like a hundred whispers in the cold house with footsteps coming up the walk. “Get in the chest!”
The chest we took the blankets from. I replaced the floor over them before diving into the chest where it was dark and smelled of pine. Footsteps pounded up the walk as I lowered the lid. I closed my eyes tightly, painfully, praying to God. Please, don’t let them find me… please… The door swung open with a loud creak, and my eyes sprung open, heart thrashing and thumping in my ears.
“There’s nobody here, husband,” I heard, and my stomach sank. Gilda.
I covered my mouth to keep myself from crying and watched them breathlessly through the thin gap between the chest and the lid. The butcher stepped in first while Gilda scuttled up from behind. They paused. He seemed to be looking around, but only with his eyes as both of them stood in the front room.
“What’s this?” he barked, and they walked over the blood spot on the floor. “Looks fresh.”
“Someone died, husband,” Gilda said, and her words trailed with giggles. They walked down the hall, and I heard noises that sounded like they were walking through each room, before walking into the
kitchen where Gilda went through the cupboards.
The candles! God, the candles we lit were still on the floor. I squeezed the bag of diamonds near my waist, feeling light-headed and dizzy, thinking they’d see the candles any minute, pull me from the chest, and force me to drink Gilda’s tea. I gulped. If he didn’t shoot me first—an experiment in his underground lab either way.
The butcher picked up a blanket from the floor, talking about the damage the bomb had made and how they were lucky they hadn’t been hit. Gilda agreed, then screamed from seeing that damn mouse. He tossed the blanket in the air and it landed on the chest, over the lid.
“Where is it? Where is it?” he kept yelling as Gilda screamed, but I couldn’t see a thing.
Boom!
My whole body convulsed from a blast of his shotgun.
“Poor mouse,” Gilda said. Her giggles were gone and it sounded like she might be sniffling.
“Let’s go,” he said. “They aren’t here.”
They left out the door, and I cried silently in the chest thinking that shot might have got one of the girls. I lifted the lid when I heard the car drive away, shouting for Red.
“We’re all right,” Red said from the floor, and I flopped out of the chest only to lie on the ground where I couldn’t move. My heart beat like a rabbit’s as I stared at the sky through the open ceiling, clutching my chest. A thin gray cloud breezed overhead. “Kit,” Red said, and I was finally able to move. “Help us out.”
I crawled over to where they were all crying. “He didn’t get us,” Red said, and my eyes trailed to the hole in the kitchen floor where the mouse had been. I pulled the trapdoor from the floor and after Red crawled out, we immediately embraced.
“Don’t do that again, all right?” I said.
Red pulled away to look me in the eyes. “Do what?”
“Scare me like that,” I said, and we hugged again.
We pulled Roxy and Gail out from the floor, and Roxy started to run out the front door.
“Wait!” I said, and I looked at my dress, my hands. “Our dresses. We can’t leave like this. What if someone sees us covered in blood?”
