10.
~ Arthur woke up in bed with his wife.
"Arthur?" She whispered. Her hands running over his cleanly shaven jaw. Arthur stared for a long time at her lovely face. Her skin, pale and beautiful in the moonlight. Her dark locks falling in nice waves to her shoulders.
"Arthur, are you alright? I was so worried." She said in a soothing voice.
"I'm fine." He said. "I was... I was just cold and hungry for a little while. But I'm better now."
"Are you going to leave me?" She asked. Her face serene and angelic like.
"No." He said his mind feeling fuzzy. "No, I would never leave you."
"You feel like your leaving me." She said sadly.
"No. I have to get back to you. Get back to you and the baby." He whispered.
Her face was darker then normal. A ghostly gray that made her look almost frightening.
"Your going to die here, sweetheart." She whispered in his ear. "Your going to die like all the others, and you'll never see me or your child again."
~ Arthur was pulled violently awake by cold water being dumped on him. He sat up sharply, sputtering and thought he was drowning.
"Well, so our Major is alive, no?" Came a voice. He was speaking in German and Arthur had to think a moment to understand him.
"I know you can hear me. I know, that you know what we are saying." The voice said slowly.
Arthur looked around him. He was in a warm sitting room. All it's furniture was removed except a table and a chair which a Nazi officer was sitting in. Like the gruff officer, Arthur knew he was important not by his clothing, but by his demeanor. He sat too strait. Was too cocky and arrogant.
"I understand you." Arthur said in German pushing back his hair. Grateful the cold water at least cleaned him a little. He crawled closer to the roaring fire and felt how good it was to be warm after so many days in the snow.
"We have prepared you something to eat. We have bread. We have cheese. Some caned fruit even. A good meal." The Nazi said.
"My men are hungrier then I am." Arthur said ignoring the pain of long denied hunger.
"It is impolite to refuse hospitality. We are here to help you. We help you now, you will help us later, yes?" The Nazi told him.
"You can help me, by feeding the men you have been starving." Arthur said stubbornly.
The Nazi chuckled.
"We have been talking to your men. Many of them were angry you surrendered. Also, that they did not get to leave with the wounded. They blame you, Major. They told us many things about you." He said
"Oh yeah?" Arthur said not interested. His stomach growling for the cheese and loaf bread on the table.
"Oh, yes." The Nazi said lighting a cigarette. "Said you are a war hero. But then, the heroes are only decided by the winners of the war. I studied history at University. This, is true of all wars."
Arthur recognized the smell of the cigarette smoke. He patted his front shirt and didn't feel his father's silver cigarette case.
"Pretty lady you keep hidden in here." The Nazi said looking inside the silver case, now carelessly held in his gloved hand. "I assume she is your wife, sir?"
Arthur was incensed. He wanted to rush the man and rip his head off. Not for stealing his father's case, or smoking his rationed cigarettes, but for daring to look with lustful eyes at his wife.
"She is my wife." he calmly said instead.
"I know I would want nothing more then to return to her... a whole man." The Nazi said in a lazy drawl. "You have the power to go back to her with your manhood intact. I suggest you think about this. If not, then such a lovely creature will not want what is returned to her."
~ Ariadne spent the winter with Mal and her two children. James and Phillipa were lovely and well behaved. Mal worked as a secretary at a law office and would often bring work home with her. Her type writer clacking well into evening as the children played or colored quietly. Ariadne would cook for them when she didn't have to work. Her new job was with the war department. Treating the wounded everyday. Same work she did in London. The pay was good and she didn't have to stay on her still healing leg for very long. Beth had moved in with her boyfriend. A lovely older man she called Arnold. Lydia, had gone into a fit of rage that Ariadne and Beth had so suddenly abandoned her.
"She's more upset that we left her." Beth laughed.
~ The holidays felt empty without Arthur. She burrowed each night in the blanket she had stolen from his childhood room, keeping her compact open on her little night table. His handsome face looking back at her. The old habit comforted her. Making her feel he was with her as she woke up to his face.
Everyday that passed, every week that slipped away, she could feel that there was less of a chance he would be found. The odds were not in her favor as she listened to war reports on the radio.
Her only comfort was Mal. Her friend and roommate knew exactly how she felt. Malory missed her husband. Evidence of their interrupted marriage was all over the apartment. Their wedding photo was proudly displayed next to pictures of their beautiful children. The Colonel's wife telling her son and daughter that their father is a hero and would be home soon.
James and Phillipa believing and never doubting.
Ariadne cried at night. Her heart heavy with doubt.
~ Ariadne was not idle however. She called the war office every other day for news. What they could tell her was very little. So much was classified as top secret and they would let her know if her husband was found.
In sheer desperation, she telegraphed the Matron in London and asked her to send word if any of the men from the US Army 3rd division arrived at the Hospital. She described in detail her husband, Colonel Cobb and that they had been MIA over two weeks now. The lengthy telegraph cost her a weeks pay to send out. Ever polite, the Matron telegraphed back saying that she would do her best.
~ Arthur had decided the Nazi didn't scare him. Once he was properly warm and dry by the fire, he stood up and casually started eating the bread and cheese. The Nazi officer had even had one of his
lackeys bring in hot coffee.
"Sit. Sit down, please." The officer said with a repugnant smile.
"No, thank you." Arthur said casually. "I only sit at a table with friends."
Arthur, though weakened from hunger and a prisoner, seemed to an outsider to be the one in charge. He stood tall over the sitting Nazi and stretched his legs as he ate.
'Slowly, eat it slowly.' He told himself 'No use throwing it back up again.'
"Yes, very good. I want us to be friends." The Nazi said with his smile that showed a healthy set of teeth. "Tell me. Tell me everything about America. I think it's a very interesting country. Even with all our faults. Your wife, she is in America to, yes?"
Arthur said nothing. His stomach clenching at the contact of food and the mention of his sweet wife on this man's lips.
'Little Prick.' The Major thought remembering the gruff officer. He suddenly decided that was what he would call the Nazi in his mind. A mental shield that would keep the enemy in his place.
He didn't respond to 'Little Prick' as he slowly sipped his hot coffee. The Nazi officer only laughed.
"Of course she is in America. Telegraphed you from New York. Expecting a baby I see." He said pulling out the yellow telegraph from behind her picture. Arthur felt his blood run cold. He never hid his emotions well, but this time he had to.
"Haven't seen her in a while. Kids not even mine." He said carelessly. His heart paining him as he tried to steel himself from the longing he felt.
"Oh dear." The Little Prick said. His voice dripping with sympathy. "Unfaithful to her husband in war time. Such a shame, but it happens."
"You know that from your history classes?" Arthur asked finishing his bread and picking up the tin of fruit.
"Yes. Only Odysseus, with his precious Penelope can expect a loyal wife." He said. "Then, it is not easy to be a soldiers wife. All the loneliness. The worry."
"Are my men being fed?" Arthur asked sipping the coffee. It was snowing heavily outside as he looked out the window and couldn't see the barrack.
"Why do you care, Major?" The Nazi said standing and walking to stand next to him. "They no longer respect you. They feel you have betrayed them."
"Let me save you some time, Sir." Arthur said casually finishing his coffee and wiping his mouth with the a napkin.
"I don't believe a word you are saying. I think you will tell me anything at this point to get what you want." He said.
"And I don't believe a word you have said about your wife." The Nazi said indifferently. "I think you love her. More the Odysseus loved Penelope. I think a man who keeps a lady safely hidden in a case like that... I think you love her and the child. The child is naturally yours."
Arthur said nothing.
"Do you think, Major, that your wife worries over you now? You have been here almost a week. Surely she has been told of your disappearance." The Nazi had a pleased look on his face as two other Nazis silently came into the room. Arthur didn't look at them. Didn't acknowledge 'Little Prick'.
He knew what was coming.
"Did you get enough to eat? More coffee perhaps? I am very sorry I can not offer you sugar." The Nazi said.
"I'm fine." Arthur said numbly. Taking a deep breath.
The guards advanced on him them. While the 'Little Prick' was smoking his cigarettes and looking at the photo in the silver case, Arthur was beaten. He tried to protect his face and vital organs but the men held him down and kicked him till he was coughing up blood.
"I believe, I shall take your lady to bed with me tonight." The Nazi officer said with a sinister smile. "She may prove a distraction."
Arthur looked up at him and tried to see through the fast swelling of his eye. His body hurt and he was spitting out bright red blood. As he watched the him leave with the silver case, the photos and the telegram. All that was precious to him in the world.
~ In London, the Matron had just climbed out of the air raid shelter with the few patients who could walk. Air raids were once more becoming a way of life for them. Like a game children play.
'Oh here comes the siren, everyone run and hide!'
Run and hide was right. The halls were always eerily empty during a bombing. The only ones left were the critical who could not be moved.
"Were alright!" She called out to her nurses as they helped the wounded back to their wards. "We still have dinner to serve and work to do. War or no war."
It was the Matron's weapon against those who bombed her. To be strong for the nurses and wounded. To have a spine of steel that the Germans could not break.
'Never show anyone you are tired or afraid. Be a pillar of English strength and courage for everyone around you.' She told herself as she stood a little straighter and walked swiftly to ward for the critical.
She had gotten a telegram from the Red Cross nurse, Ariadne, yesterday. She had told her she would look, but she had no confidence her husband would be found alive. This war had taken so many.
The Matron looked over the critical men, fresh from the front lines. Their charts saying nothing more then their names. No information about where they were or their unit. Several were British who were deep in the throws of fever.
"Mal." Came a weary voice. "Mal." It said again.
The Matron went over to the wounded man. His chart showing he was an American. A Colonel.
"Mal? Bad is it?" She asked remembering her Latin. "Your safe now. Your in London."
"Arthur? Where is Arthur?" The Colonel asked. The Matron froze.
'Arthur. That's Ariadne's husband's name.' She turned and looked at the man. He was sweating. Succumbing to blood poisoning from his leg wound.
"Did you say Arthur?" She asked.
"Arthur." The blond man repeated dumbly. "He was right behind us. In the camp. Where is he?"
The Matron gave Colonel Cobb some water and went to search each bed. She carefully looked over charts and names. No Arthur, and Cobb was the only officer brought in with these men. The Matron raced to the locked medicine cabinet. The Doctor had pronounced the Colonel too far gone to spare antibiotics on. These medications were hard to get with the recent bombing and needed to be saved for those who had a chance. Cobb was given pain pills and left to die.
The Matron filled a syringe of very powerful antibiotics and refused to let him.