He wrote for an hour without stopping, describing his home in the rows near Middleton Park. He described his childhood and early years of schooling and rugby, including the time he played with a broken wrist, only to turn around and break his ankle too. When his men returned to the bunk after supper, they saw their captain smiling to himself as he wrote, a faraway look in his eyes. Wisely, they left him to his daydreams and made for the pub, where the stout flowed like ambrosia from the gods, and the women chased away the fears of the next mission.
At 5 am, the sky had the particular quality of darkness that covers the earth when the moon has set, but the sun has yet to rise. Captain Ross handed a milky white envelope to one of the mechanics on the field and asked him to have it mailed for him. It was one of many such letters handed off that morning, just like before every other high-stakes mission. The remaining clouds hid the stars and Abercrombie was tasked to triple check the instruments, as they would be flying blind without them. Malcolm took Crimmens aside to speak to him as their B-17 was fuelled and the slightly hung over crew gathered for their instructions before take-off.
“Crimmie.” The pilot growled in a low tone. “I don’t love the look of that sky. The clouds are too low, and there’s still electricity in them, you can feel it.” Crimmens looked above him and even in the sketchy glow of the buzzing torch above them, Malcolm could see him pale in recognition. “Don’t borrow trouble, Crimmie. Just pay attention to the instruments, and if anything goes wrong with the electrical system, get us the hell out of there and follow the radio home. Do you understand?” The lieutenant stood at attention and gave Malcolm a salute. Malcolm clapped him on the shoulder and they joined the men gathered next to the bomber.
Their commanding officer reiterated the details of the map and coordinates for the bomb drop, and with brisk salutes all around, the men were dismissed to their mission and the Colonel left the field. Take-off and climb were rough and Malcom felt his heart leap into his throat as the plane dipped and dived. He laid a firm hand to the controls and managed to pull her up and steady her as they reached their cruising altitude of 22,000 feet.
“Well, Captain, I think we’ll get a little more done if we don’t break up before we get to the enemy.” Stillwell called up to the cockpit from his position in Nav. Malcolm chuckled and laughed louder at Crimmens scathing reply. With the banter, the tense feeling in the plane lightened for a moment. Stillwell grinned, then got to business and began to call out target coordinates to Knox as they neared a burned out town that Malcolm couldn’t remember the name of.
The pilot of one of the spitfires escorting them suddenly called out a warning. German planes were in the distance and closing fast. Knox shouted at Stillwell to hurry up as he calmly repeated his numbers again. Two spitfires broke away from the bombing convoy and advanced to meet the enemy head on. With the final calculations in place, Knox dropped his payload and reported to the Captain that they’d all dropped on schedule.
Crimmens radioed the successful drop, and was closely echoed by the two other bombers in the convoy. The remaining spitfires fell into an active defensive formation as the bombers banked and turned back, with the Gruesome Crewsome in the lead. Malcom hissed in near physical pain as the planes that had engaged the enemy to protect them were shot down around them as he turned his bomber back toward Calais. The radio erupted into chaos as they were engaged by several attack aircraft. Stillwell, Knox, and the new kid, Bixby, took their places at the machine guns and countered as best they could as the smaller, more agile planes attacked mercilessly.
Captain Ross and his co-pilot ran the length of the convoy and readied themselves for a full frontal attack, but the Germans suddenly turned tail as the Spitfire escort managed to drop several of the German fighters. Amidst congratulations for a job well done, came orders from command for all planes to return to the base at Calais directly. Ross was so relieved to have made it through another fight, that he didn’t immediately notice the rapid pressure drop in their fuel tanks. Crimmens called out the fuel loss and Malcolm took immediate action, dropping well below their ceiling and ordering a shortest-route navigation from Stillwell, while Knox radioed their position and heading.
Two Spitfires flanked them and guided them toward the rough second landing strip just off the Calais base. Radio communications promised them medics were on their way, and transmissions ceased just as the Gruesome Crewsome attempted to drop her landing gear. It refused to lock, and as they hit the ground, the wheels buckled and the bomber bottomed out on the grassy field. Malcolm was thrown forward and blacked out to the sounds of his crew screaming around him.
It was so pitch dark when Malcolm opened his eyes that he automatically reached up for his face. With movement, the pain that had seemed distant and dull lashed through him, wrenching a scream from his throat and making him writhe in his bed. Strong hands held him in place on his cot while voices shouted at him, from far behind the agony, to hold still, to calm down. He barely felt the prick of the needle as it entered his arm, before he sank into sedated oblivion.
When he next awoke, it was as the triage nurse removed the bandages from his eyes. Her cool, efficient hands deftly unwound the gauze from his head, and Malcolm’s vision slowly grew brighter with each layer. When she reached the circular eye pads, he slowly reached up to remove them. He felt long slender fingers gently grip his hands and she set them on his chest with a pat.
“Close your eyes, Captain.” The feminine voice commanded him. “The light might be bright, after being bandaged so long.” She gave him a moment and then slowly peeled the pad off of his left eye, while she covered it with her cupped palm. “Okay, now keep your eyes closed while I get the other side.” She lifted the pad off, and placed her palms over his eyes again. “Now. Open.” She directed. He opened his eyes and stared at the thin lines on the palms of her hands, light bleeding in at the edges and between her fingers. She directed him again, to slide his own hands under hers, and when he did so, she removed her hands and busied herself cleaning up the gauze and bandages from the wounds she had cleaned and changed.
“Where am I?” He croaked past the desert that was his vocal cords. “Where are my men? Did the G.C. make it?” He tried to sit up with his hands over his eyes and she stopped him again and pushed him carefully back to the triage cot.
“Captain, when you think you can stand the light, you may remove your hands.” She began. “To answer your questions, you are still in Calais, though you will be transferred to London in a few days.” She sighed and patted him on the shoulder, which seemed, the longer he was awake, to be the only part of his body that wasn’t screaming at him in agony. “Your men have already been treated and are back to regular duty. You, however, had the bad form to let a tree in through your side of the cockpit window, and were actually rather badly broken up. Had a good portion of your face nearly scrape off too.” She declared in a brusque tone. “You’re lucky you still have both eyes, let alone that you’re still rather nice to look at.”
Malcolm glanced up at the older woman and she winked at him and patted his shoulder again. She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, the colonel and the chief medical officer appeared from behind the curtain on rounds.
“Captain Ross!” The Colonel exclaimed with a stern look. “You’re finally up. Been sleeping on the Queen’s time, eh?” He frowned, but it quickly turned into a look of sincere concern. “I’m glad to see you doing better, Ross.” He added gravely. “You had us worried there for a minute. I’ll let your men know that their leader and lifesaver has revived.” He saluted Ross, who painfully tried to return it. The Doctor made a tsk-ing sound of disapproval and placed his hands back on the clean white sheet that covered his body.
“Captain Ross, I’m Dr. Sheffield.” He introduced himself. “I’m sure you are feeling the need to be up and around, but you need to understand that you’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness for two weeks now. The full extent of the injury to your head is still uncertain, so I
need you to stay as still as possible while we get a better idea of how you’re really doing.” Malcolm started to nod, but stopped himself and settled for a quiet “Yes, sir.”
“Good work, Captain, by the way.” The doctor added as he was checking Malcolm’s vitals and the range of motion of extremities.
“Thanks,” Malcom replied. “Though I don’t really know what I did.” He closed his eyes, already weary and ready for the return of oblivion. When he opened his eyes, the Doctor had left, and the nurse had returned to his side.
“Rest up a bit more, Captain.” She told him. “You’ll be in London in a few days, your transfer came in days ago, and we were just waiting on you to wake up.” She nodded at him and left, opening the curtain that had separated him from the rest of the wounded and dying men retrieved from the battlefield. He shut his eyes, wishing that he was still blind not only to his own circumstances, but the pain and despair around him. Sleep came quickly, thankfully, as the morphine kicked in again, and granted him temporary escape.
Morning brought visitors, welcome and unwelcome, as first, his crew found him amongst the wounded castoffs of war. They filled him in on the part of the crash landing he’d missed when he lost consciousness. Knox was still on light duty while his shoulder finished healing, and Crimmens had been promoted in Malcolm’s absence. The men had all survived unscathed, more or less, and Malcolm felt tears of gratitude sting his eyes as he looked up at them from his hospital bed. Knox had also brought him a couple of wartime paperbacks to read, that the men had traded for a couple of drinks with an American soldier, and a letter in a slim white envelope, from London.
Before the men left, the Doctor also made a stop at his bed, to give him his travel papers and a final examination before he was to be loaded onto a boat bound for England, to be treated at the Red Cross Harvard Field Hospital set up there. The men made their goodbyes, and Malcolm gave them a weak, but determined salute before they left his side.
When he was finally alone, he opened the letter Knox had given him. It was from his non-matrimonial friend, the lady called Stella. He read it slowly and methodically, and let her words take him away from the triage field hospital of Calais to the fields and forests of Yorkshire. City born and raised, he delighted in the tales she shared of life on her parents’ farm, and her adventures with her two best friends, her gelding, Pumpernickel, and a young woman of low nobility the lady Pemberley. He lay in his bed envisioning tall, flowing green grasses and hilly farmland until sleep found him and he dreamed of an unknown young woman waiting for him on a green hill, her back to a lush, fairy-tale forest.
3. London, England
His transfer the next day was unhappy, but uneventful. The Colonel informed him that he was to be a recipient of the Victoria Cross for his valour and for saving the lives of his crew at the battle of Dunkirk. He was loaded onto military transport and by the end of the day, arrived in London, surrounded by fog and the almost forgotten sounds of British industry. It was amazing to him how different England sounded to him after being stationed in France for so long. Inspired, he began to write on a piece of paper all the sights and sounds that accosted him upon his arrival at the port of London. By the time he reached the Red Cross Hospital, he had a couple of pages to send to Stella, and he sealed and addressed an envelope, handing it to the medic who accompanied him, who promised to put it in the outgoing mail for him.
He was put in a room with ten other soldiers who had been wounded recently, two of which had been at the battle at Dunkirk, one was infantry who had been with the men who held the road against approaching tanks for two days before help had arrived. Though his legs were still immobilized and his head injury still needed a full battery of tests, it was nice to feel less crippled than he had while stuck in triage for the weeks preceding.
Even the nurses were less frantic here, though equally capable to the ones on the front line. If anything, he found their presence calming and cheering, even as they lost men all around him, these nurses practiced quiet optimism. One in particular continued to grow in his esteem, even as he realized that he was longing for contact with Stella. Nurse Kingsfoot was efficient and no-nonsense. While she didn’t fraternize with the men, he always felt like she took extra care with his dressings, and made sure he was turned and moved more frequently than others did on their shifts.
One morning with the mail, he was delighted to see that Stella had written him again. He opened the letter eagerly and immediately smiled at the story inside. He had asked her, at the end of his previous missive, if she had any childhood memories of mischief to share with him. She was happy to oblige him, and had replied with several pages of pranks and foibles. One in particular made him laugh out loud, and when Lt. Kingsfoot came around to change his dressings and turn him from his left side to his right, he asked her if she would sit and let him read it to her.
As he read the story of the young Stella and her friend, accidentally setting afire the shed of one Mister Bigsby, a pig farmer with a nasty temper, he was so engrossed that he failed to see the expression on Nurse Kingsfoot’s face. Her eyes went wide and the colour left her face. She chewed her lip and gazed at Captain Ross with new eyes, at first, worried and saddened.
As Malcolm continued reading he began to have difficulty reading, as laughter bubbled up and tears filled his eyes. By the time he came to the description of the unfortunate farmer running down the hill toward town with the back of his pants in flames, he couldn’t breathe he was laughing so hard. Nurse Kingsfoot, known to her friends as Stella, finally laughed along. It touched her that her silly letters, the result of a moment of compassion, were making a man as honourable and valorous as Captain Ross happy while he was confined to his bed.
Indeed, Stella had a fondness for the captain since he’d arrived. She noticed that he was so patient and undemanding, that the nurses had begun to lower his priority under those who were in better shape, but more vocal. She’d taken it upon herself to stop by his bed more frequently, and had even taken time on her off-days to just check on him. Now she was watching him laugh until he cried over the letter she’d sent him. She almost told him that was the exact reaction her father had when he found out about their foray into arson, but held her tongue.
Stella wondered what would happen if she told Captain Ross who she was. They had both been so careful to avoid talking about the war in their letters, she was afraid he would dismiss her out of hand if he knew who she was. Before she could decide, Malcolm finished reading the story and wiped his eyes.
“I have to admit, I laughed even harder reading it out loud.” He confessed as he tried to stop chuckling. “I don’t think I’ve read anything that funny, or that well told, in a long time.” He added.
“It was humorous.” She giggled. “But, I think the enjoyment you got out of it made it even more fun for me.” She admitted. “You gave the story something it lacked in perspective, I think.” She smiled at him and finished up the dressing change. “It’s nearly time for you to start walking again, Captain.” She gloated. “I can’t wait to see that.”
“Neither can I.” Malcolm agreed. “I can’t believe how much I miss doing for myself. It’s long overdue. Though, I do appreciate getting to see you every day. When are they going to give you a day off, anyway?” He demanded, furrowing his brows and staring severely around the room.
“I get days off, Captain.” Stella replied. “I just come in to check on you because I can.” She added. “I can stop if you wish.”
“No, no. That’s quite all right” Malcolm backtracked. “I don’t want you to feel you have to sacrifice your time for me, but I quite appreciate seeing you every day. In this bed, it’s about all I have to look forward to.” He sighed. Patting down his covers. “Out of bed soon, huh?” he asked.
“Doctor will check you out tomorrow or the next day, and you’ll be good as out of here soon.” Stella assured him. He nodded and her smile to him was equal parts genuine fondness for him, and relief that she hadn’t outed her
self to him as his mystery pen pal. Instead, she finished her rounds as quickly as she could, and wrote him another letter full of tales of Yorkshire and legends about the Dalby woods near her home, to distract and entertain him.
When Nurse Kingsfoot finally left his side, Malcolm felt a cold emptiness fill the vacancy left by her warm, lithe body. He found himself thinking of her in ways that made him hot and uncomfortable in his bed, surrounding by ailing men. The pretty nurse had given him reason to think about her in a way no woman had in a long time. Everywhere her hands had touched him felt fevered, and he was ashamed and embarrassed by the intimacy of treating his injuries. Could she even see him as a man after the care she had provided him while he was trapped in a hospital bed
He took some paper and a pen from the small table next to his bed and laid it on a hardcover book in his lap. He was able to sit up fully, and was amazed at how much stronger his writing was, where not long ago it had been a shaky scrawl. He tried to think of something to say to Stella, but all he could think of was Nurse Kingsfoot. He knew that his feelings for her might never be reciprocated, but he couldn’t see dividing his attention between two women. They both deserved better. With that thought in mind, and already a little saddened that he would not be hearing from his friend-of-words again, he drafted a final letter.
“Dearest Stella,
I cannot properly express the gratitude with which I received your most recent missive. I am still smiling from not only the stories you shared with me, but the obvious care and love you have for your friends and neighbours. I would not have recovered so quickly and completely without your support and kind words to distract me from the ravages of war around me. I must at this time confess that I have met a lady of Great Spirit and heart that has captured my affection, and I feel it would be dishonourable of me to continue courting your attention whilst mine is attended elsewhere. I am forever grateful for your humour and kindness to me.
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