CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The survivors of the shipwrecks on the Delaware coast had more trouble than just losing their identities. They lived from hand to mouth, doing odd jobs, scrounging for food and clothes. Having found an abandoned chicken coop and old storage shack, Edward, Jarold, and their wives tried to make them into potential living quarters. Edward and his wife had taken over the chicken coop and were converting an oil drum into a stove when she suddenly screamed.
"Ouch!" She held out her right hand as blood spurted from her index finger.
"Just a minute, I've got some ointment and bandages in my bag," said Edward in Dutch as he opened his satchel and viewed the contents. "What the?" He put his hand in, removed a rock, and then dumped the contents on the floor. All his bandages, his iodine, his ointment, safety pins, and the few medical instruments were gone. Even his notes he kept in the inside pocket were missing as well.
"What is it?" she asked.
He then examined the inside of the bag, concentrating near the bottom. When he had put the instruments in, one of them got loose from the cloth he wrapped it in and a small V cut should have been just a centimeter near the seam, but it was not. "This is not my bag!"
"What do you mean?"
He quickly tore a strip of cloth from her petticoat and wrapped the wound, after attempting to clean it. "I can't do much now. Wait here. I'm going over to Jarold's. He might have something. He'll know what to do." He rushed outside and knocked on his friend's door.
At that moment, Jarold was writing out a history of his family, trying to get a sense of identity for when they approached the government. So far, he had mentioned that one of his ancestors, a Hun who settled near Chalons, France and married a Jewish girl, but that information would do no good here in the United States. However, it might help them in Europe since all the French government had to do was to get information from local families in that area. On second thought, he figured it would not since over fifteen hundred years had past since then and his family had moved into Spain, and then went to the Netherlands centuries later. One third thought, his family was easy to trace since they willingly converted to Roman Catholicism before the Spanish monarchy insisted it for the rest of the Jewish population. Back in Holland, the rest of his family had remnants of that time, an old crucifix, a bowl carefully preserved from the sixth century, and a plaque reputed to be from one of the old Roman emperors. However, these were now in a museum.
"Did you get to the part about them going with Phillip of Spain to the Netherlands?" asked Emilie who looked at your husband. "Your eyes look Jewish. It's a wonder the Nazis didn't notice."
"Brown eyes aren't that common. Anyway, I never had any trouble with the Nazis. I haven't got to that part." It was then he saw Edward and switched from Dutch to English.
Edward took one look at the babies who were just as alert as his four. "How are they?"
"Fine. We decided to name the oldest Charles, the second, Dietrich, the third, Elsa, and the fourth, Fredrika."
"Rather hard to pronounce, but I guess they're good German names." He never understood why Me, being Irish, decided on Patrick, Michael, Fiona, and Mary. Good Irish Catholic names. At least that's something we have in common. You haven't seen my equipment have you? I seem to have the wrong bag."
Jarod shook his head. "I don't remember any of us putting your stuff somewhere else. I almost got killed, you know and now the box where we kept our passports is gone."
"Well I need some iodine for Caitlin. She cut herself."
"Here," said No. How much did you pick up from Doctor Forsythe."
"Not enough. I know the method, but not the particular time span I was too busy learning how to insert the baster and how to separate the good ones from the bad ones, but I don't have a microscope, the bag's gone, and where can we find a place with a freezer. All my valuables were in the safe. When we got to Mexico, I was going to use it to purchase a large freezer to store the goodies until they could be put in our wives. I even had labels made."
"Look," said Jarold, "my wife wanted a large family. What are we going to do?"
"I have no idea. Until we find out how to do it, we run the risk of having normal babies."
"You surely are not suggesting we forgo the whole process and not sleep with our wives? Both of us are both Roman Catholics. You know how the Church feels on such things."
Ed's brow started to wrinkle. It looked rather disconcerting for Ed had that pleasant Irish young face. What he told Jarold of their choices was not very pleasant. The Hercules Project made it clear that their children had to be of the same type akin to those Nazi brats. A child of even superior intelligence but with the frailties of normal human weaknesses would be a danger to his more brainy older brothers and sisters. They would have to give them to other couples. "We have to find the various Churches in this state and the neighboring ones. With no money, we cannot get a license and we certainly cannot afford to take a bus. Most of the travel has to be done on foot or a donkey or a horse if we can steal them. If the babies are born like babies have been for thousands of years, we have to leave them at the door of the Church or a Convent. It will be one baby instead of four. And none of the babies born were identical in our group."
"And the babies might be born dead. I will tell the others."
But their tragedies did not stop there. Jarold and Ed found that Reichart's widow gave birth to two boys and two girls as did all of the couples. She, having no man to care for her, had to make a decision. She kept her little Margaret, and after looking in the papers, for suitable couples, left one at the doorstep of a wealthy couple, and the other two at the local orphanage.
"I had to do it," she said through her tears. "I barely have enough to feed me and little Margaret."
They were now behind the door of a restaurant scrounging for food. Each man waiting until the owner came out with the bag of refuge, each woman singing to their children to keep them crying from hunger. Each couple coming out one at a time, waiting until darkness to reach their hands into the dust bins and take out what they could. Though, they did not approve of Helene giving up three of her children, they understood.
"We cannot feed all our children. They will die. Even for those who have enough milk, it would not be right. Why destroy what was built up for those few years in one lifetime?" asked George, one of the survivors from the Grand Illusion.
"And you agree with what she did?" asked his wife.
"Do you want to see Trevor, Theodore, Elaine, and Sandra all die? You have to choose. Either they all stay together and die of hunger or you keep one."
"Who's in charge of this group? You or Ed Gallagher or that Jarold? And what happens when they see their new little boy is developing faster than the others?" She glared at George.
"We all are. Either we stick together or we perish. Listen wife, we can't just go through city dumps and garbage cans without attracting attention. The only work we can get is working along with illegals, picking cotton, following the combines, nothing productive and when the children get bigger, they'll be noticed and what about the next batch? Already I've noticed how the babies react, more like three months than a few days. What will happen when Social Services sees that they're different. They'll accuse us of kidnapping some scientist's kids for ransom."
"Unless," said Ed, "we promise not to make anymore."
The women reacted with surprise. "And have you go to some whore?" asked one.
Ed shook his head. "No more babies for any of us. For our children, yes, but for us no. I'll have to bone up on my medical book on the methods and pray to the Virgin that this does not bound back on us."
So, he taught George the method, Jarold not volunteering. Removing tubes was not that common, nor vasectomies those days, but it was a sacrifice well worth it to protect their children.
After that, they had to separate, some going to North and South Carolina, Jarold and the Reichart family remaining in Delaware, and some to Kentucky to hide in the Hills among other poor folk.
But another menace threatened the babies and parents who were unaware as they worked at menial jobs, and even those babies taken by other families found themselves in danger by men in dark sedans, men with guns and serious looks who questioned their adopted parents.
Mr. Lamech Parker and the Centre had started searching for the survivors and their heirs. .
.
The survivors of the shipwrecks on the Delaware coast had more trouble than just losing their identities. They lived from hand to mouth, doing odd jobs, scrounging for food and clothes. Having found an abandoned chicken coop and old storage shack, Edward, Jarold, and their wives tried to make them into potential living quarters. Edward and his wife had taken over the chicken coop and were converting an oil drum into a stove when she suddenly screamed.
"Ouch!" She held out her right hand as blood spurted from her index finger.
"Just a minute, I've got some ointment and bandages in my bag," said Edward in Dutch as he opened his satchel and viewed the contents. "What the?" He put his hand in, removed a rock, and then dumped the contents on the floor. All his bandages, his iodine, his ointment, safety pins, and the few medical instruments were gone. Even his notes he kept in the inside pocket were missing as well.
"What is it?" she asked.
He then examined the inside of the bag, concentrating near the bottom. When he had put the instruments in, one of them got loose from the cloth he wrapped it in and a small V cut should have been just a centimeter near the seam, but it was not. "This is not my bag!"
"What do you mean?"
He quickly tore a strip of cloth from her petticoat and wrapped the wound, after attempting to clean it. "I can't do much now. Wait here. I'm going over to Jarold's. He might have something. He'll know what to do." He rushed outside and knocked on his friend's door.
At that moment, Jarold was writing out a history of his family, trying to get a sense of identity for when they approached the government. So far, he had mentioned that one of his ancestors, a Hun who settled near Chalons, France and married a Jewish girl, but that information would do no good here in the United States. However, it might help them in Europe since all the French government had to do was to get information from local families in that area. On second thought, he figured it would not since over fifteen hundred years had past since then and his family had moved into Spain, and then went to the Netherlands centuries later. One third thought, his family was easy to trace since they willingly converted to Roman Catholicism before the Spanish monarchy insisted it for the rest of the Jewish population. Back in Holland, the rest of his family had remnants of that time, an old crucifix, a bowl carefully preserved from the sixth century, and a plaque reputed to be from one of the old Roman emperors. However, these were now in a museum.
"Did you get to the part about them going with Phillip of Spain to the Netherlands?" asked Emilie who looked at your husband. "Your eyes look Jewish. It's a wonder the Nazis didn't notice."
"Brown eyes aren't that common. Anyway, I never had any trouble with the Nazis. I haven't got to that part." It was then he saw Edward and switched from Dutch to English.
Edward took one look at the babies who were just as alert as his four. "How are they?"
"Fine. We decided to name the oldest Charles, the second, Dietrich, the third, Elsa, and the fourth, Fredrika."
"Rather hard to pronounce, but I guess they're good German names." He never understood why Me, being Irish, decided on Patrick, Michael, Fiona, and Mary. Good Irish Catholic names. At least that's something we have in common. You haven't seen my equipment have you? I seem to have the wrong bag."
Jarod shook his head. "I don't remember any of us putting your stuff somewhere else. I almost got killed, you know and now the box where we kept our passports is gone."
"Well I need some iodine for Caitlin. She cut herself."
"Here," said No. How much did you pick up from Doctor Forsythe."
"Not enough. I know the method, but not the particular time span I was too busy learning how to insert the baster and how to separate the good ones from the bad ones, but I don't have a microscope, the bag's gone, and where can we find a place with a freezer. All my valuables were in the safe. When we got to Mexico, I was going to use it to purchase a large freezer to store the goodies until they could be put in our wives. I even had labels made."
"Look," said Jarold, "my wife wanted a large family. What are we going to do?"
"I have no idea. Until we find out how to do it, we run the risk of having normal babies."
"You surely are not suggesting we forgo the whole process and not sleep with our wives? Both of us are both Roman Catholics. You know how the Church feels on such things."
Ed's brow started to wrinkle. It looked rather disconcerting for Ed had that pleasant Irish young face. What he told Jarold of their choices was not very pleasant. The Hercules Project made it clear that their children had to be of the same type akin to those Nazi brats. A child of even superior intelligence but with the frailties of normal human weaknesses would be a danger to his more brainy older brothers and sisters. They would have to give them to other couples. "We have to find the various Churches in this state and the neighboring ones. With no money, we cannot get a license and we certainly cannot afford to take a bus. Most of the travel has to be done on foot or a donkey or a horse if we can steal them. If the babies are born like babies have been for thousands of years, we have to leave them at the door of the Church or a Convent. It will be one baby instead of four. And none of the babies born were identical in our group."
"And the babies might be born dead. I will tell the others."
But their tragedies did not stop there. Jarold and Ed found that Reichart's widow gave birth to two boys and two girls as did all of the couples. She, having no man to care for her, had to make a decision. She kept her little Margaret, and after looking in the papers, for suitable couples, left one at the doorstep of a wealthy couple, and the other two at the local orphanage.
"I had to do it," she said through her tears. "I barely have enough to feed me and little Margaret."
They were now behind the door of a restaurant scrounging for food. Each man waiting until the owner came out with the bag of refuge, each woman singing to their children to keep them crying from hunger. Each couple coming out one at a time, waiting until darkness to reach their hands into the dust bins and take out what they could. Though, they did not approve of Helene giving up three of her children, they understood.
"We cannot feed all our children. They will die. Even for those who have enough milk, it would not be right. Why destroy what was built up for those few years in one lifetime?" asked George, one of the survivors from the Grand Illusion.
"And you agree with what she did?" asked his wife.
"Do you want to see Trevor, Theodore, Elaine, and Sandra all die? You have to choose. Either they all stay together and die of hunger or you keep one."
"Who's in charge of this group? You or Ed Gallagher or that Jarold? And what happens when they see their new little boy is developing faster than the others?" She glared at George.
"We all are. Either we stick together or we perish. Listen wife, we can't just go through city dumps and garbage cans without attracting attention. The only work we can get is working along with illegals, picking cotton, following the combines, nothing productive and when the children get bigger, they'll be noticed and what about the next batch? Already I've noticed how the babies react, more like three months than a few days. What will happen when Social Services sees that they're different. They'll accuse us of kidnapping some scientist's kids for ransom."
"Unless," said Ed, "we promise not to make anymore."
The women reacted with surprise. "And have you go to some whore?" asked one.
Ed shook his head. "No more babies for any of us. For our children, yes, but for us no. I'll have to bone up on my medical book on the methods and pray to the Virgin that this does not bound back on us."
So, he taught George the method, Jarold not volunteering. Removing tubes was not that common, nor vasectomies those days, but it was a sacrifice well worth it to protect their children.
After that, they had to separate, some going to North and South Carolina, Jarold and the Reichart family remaining in Delaware, and some to Kentucky to hide in the Hills among other poor folk.
But another menace threatened the babies and parents who were unaware as they worked at menial jobs, and even those babies taken by other families found themselves in danger by men in dark sedans, men with guns and serious looks who questioned their adopted parents.
Mr. Lamech Parker and the Centre had started searching for the survivors and their heirs. .
.