Disclaimer: I have not now nor have I ever owned or made money from "Foyle's War."

Author's Notes: I'll start with the smaller notes here and finish up with the weightier stuff at the end of the chapter.

In 1945, Easter Sunday was April 1st.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was a Flemish Baroque painter, known for (among other things) painting full figured women. Ergo, the term "Rubenesque" has come to be used to refer to a woman with a plus-size figure.

"Stone" is a British term for weight, roughly the equivalent of 14 American pounds. My usual HUGE vote of thanks to my Beta, GiulliettaC, for catching my inadvertent Americanisms (along with my imperfect grammar and occasional awkward sentence structure) and making the correct substitutions. I am also indebted to her for the last two lines of the chapter, which I agree tie the somewhat disparate sections together much more elegantly than they were before.

Late April, 1945

When Paul had left for work on a Thursday in late April, Sam had hinted that there would be something particularly special for dinner. When he arrived home that evening, she was bustling around the kitchen, still remarkably nimble on her feet despite the fact that her due date ought to be arriving any day. Quite appetising odours were wafting from the stove; Paul thought that he detected chicken, but beyond that he was at sea.

"What's the surprise?" he asked after their usual exchange of kisses and endearments.

"Sit and I'll bring it to the table."

"You shouldn't be bending down, let me do it," Paul protested as Sam edged past him.

"Darling, I'm perfectly capable." Sam reached for the oven gloves. "After all, how do you suppose the food got in the oven in the first place?" Paul sat as directed, trying to tamp down his nerves as he watched Sam successfully lift the casserole dish from the oven and set it down on the table. As she removed the cover with a flourish, however, her crow of jubilation died suddenly in a cry of dismay.

Paul peered curiously into the dish to discover the cause of Sam's consternation. The fragrant steam from the food met with decided approval from his nose. Definitely something to do with chicken. Nothing seemed to be burnt. The food was, however, a rather peculiar, sickly, washed-out, not entirely appetizing shade of…

"Green!" Sam wailed, belatedly finding her voice, "I can't believe that it turned green!"

"What exactly is 'it' supposed to be?" Paul asked curiously.

"Coq au vin – with real vin this time."

"What did you use?" As the words left his mouth, Paul realized what Sam must have used in place of Burgundy or cooking sherry.

"The greengage wine from Uncle Aubrey." Sam's reply confirmed Paul's surmise. "I came across it last week in the pantry and had a brainwave that even though it was rather vile to drink, it would do well for cooking. I've been planning this meal ever since; I even managed to set aside a little bacon for it…" Sam trailed off, looking near tears.

"Well, it smells marvelous, Sam," Paul declared heartily, commandeering the serving spoon and dishing some out onto both their plates. "I think it's too soon to declare your grand experiment a failure."

Sam sat and eyed the contents of her plate for a moment, then allowed her hunger to overcome her disappointment, and took a forkful. After chewing critically for a few moments, her face brightened.

"You're right," she declared, relief writ large on her features, "Oh thank Heavens – it does taste good!" And she attacked her filled plate with her usual relish.

"How much of the wine did you use?" Paul enquired as he served himself seconds.

"Almost half the bottle." Sam started giggling. "I couldn't decide how much would be right. My father always makes his teetotal and I wanted to make sure that there was enough. But I was right, wasn't I? It doesn't taste like Uncle Aubrey's wine any more, it's just… something to give the chicken more flavour."

"And colour," Paul couldn't help teasing. Sam stuck her tongue out at him and went back to eating.

...

That night, they lay spooned in bed, Paul's arms wrapped protectively around the enormous swell of Sam's belly. Every so often, she would grab one of his hands and shift it so that he could feel the baby move. The baby seemed to be getting restless in his increasingly cramped quarters, always poking out with elbows and knees. Sometimes, when Sam sat still and watched her own stomach, she often saw the rolling undulations of the baby fidgeting. It was quite bizarre and absolutely miraculous at the same time.

"We should talk about names, don't you think?" Sam said, broaching a subject they had only canvassed a few times in the past months. "I mean, we should come to a real decision."

"What ideas did you have?" Paul asked, kissing her hair.

"Well, do you fancy naming him after yourself?" was Sam's first question.

"Not really. I suppose some fathers enjoy that sort of thing, but then it just becomes confusing and you need to come up with nicknames. Anyway, we could name him after you." Even with her back to him, Sam could hear Paul's teasing grin.

"Absolutely not," she replied firmly, "Because then I'd have to go back to being 'Samantha' all the time and I wouldn't like that at all."

"Did you have anything else in mind?"

"Well… I did, rather." Sam pulled away from Paul's arms slightly and shifted onto her back so that now they could face each other. One of his hands still rested on her stomach and she linked her fingers with his.

"What name were you thinking of?"

"Christopher. And we could ask Mr. Foyle to be godfather," she added, the words tumbling out in a rush of enthusiasm, leaving no doubt as to how she had come to think of that particular name. "What do you think?"

Paul turned the idea over in his mind for a few moments. "Not a bad idea at all," he replied. Sam certainly had the right of it; Mr. Foyle had had the most profound, positive impact on both their lives during the past several years. It felt right that they should honour him in this way. "Shall I ask him tomorrow, about the name, and being a godfather?"

"Yes, please." Sam felt a little disappointed that Paul's level of enthusiasm hadn't matched her own over what she considered her rather brilliant idea. "You should count your blessings, you know," she added with a touch of pique, "I was chatting with one of the women in the waiting room last week, and she's determined to name her son 'Winston.' Of course, I'm terribly, terribly grateful to Mr. Churchill for getting us all through this awful war, and he'll always have my vote, but I think 'Winston Milner' would sound absolutely appalling, don't you agree?"

Paul grimaced, grateful that Sam had better sense than that. "I do."

"But 'Christopher Milner' really does sound rather nice."

"It does," Paul agreed emphatically. Placated, Sam bestowed a lingering kiss on her husband.

"We should do something special before Baby makes his appearance," she added, turning the subject. "One last hurrah."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Just to go out to the pictures." They hadn't been to the pictures in close to two months. "I'm not good for much else. I can't believe how big I am."

"You're not, you know," Paul protested. Sam wore her pregnancy with what he considered impressive poise. From his perspective, apart from her stomach, she hadn't gained any significant weight. "You're beautiful."

"I've gained over two stone!" Sam retorted, somewhat nettled. She appreciated that Paul still found her attractive at this advanced state of pregnancy (which he had made abundantly clear on numerous occasions), but she felt the difference in the way that she moved, slower and more ponderous, than she had once been able. "What if I never lose it all?"

"You will," Paul said, kissing Sam's ear. "What was it your father called you when we saw each other over Easter?"

"Rubenesque," Sam groaned, "I know he meant well, but I could have screamed when he said that. I don't care how respected an Old Master Rubens might have been, that was just a fancy way to say that I'm fat."

"The pictures then," Paul said, turning the subject back to something that Sam could contemplate with greater pleasure. "Our last Saturday evening out for quite some time to come."

"Hear, hear," Sam smiled in agreement, "It's a date."

...

Saturday evening, as planned, Sam and Paul went out to the pictures: a double feature with newsreels in between. The first movie, "Kiss the Bride Goodbye," was a comedy that had been released several months before, thoroughly silly and enjoyable. Sam was out of her seat and scurrying up the aisle for the lavatory as soon as the final credits began rolling, leaving Paul alone in the darkened cinema to receive the latest war news from the good people at Pathé. It seemed almost too good to be true, but the war appeared to be nearing its close at last; Paul supposed that he would be seeing triumphant Allied troops moving into German cities.

When the newsreel began, he was immediately grateful for the current state of Sam's bladder. The footage consisted almost entirely of films taken in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of the Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, which had taken place approximately a fortnight before. He remembered reading an account in the papers at the time. The newspaper article had been sobering and horrifying, but it didn't have a patch on what he was seeing with his own eyes.

Narrated by Member of Parliament Mavis Tate, who had been part of a delegation sent to tour the liberated camps, Paul beheld corpses piled in heaps. Some retained a modicum of clothing; most were naked. All were skeletal in appearance, mere skin stretched over bones. Mrs. Tate informed her audience that the images the audience saw showed but a small percentage of the dead bodies waiting to be interned, and quite failed to convey such things as the suffering the victims had endured, or the smell of disease and death all around them.

Paul thought briefly of the corpses he had seen in the course of his career, tried to conjure their smell in his mind and then increase it a thousand fold, but his brain wouldn't cooperate. He could, however, hear the buzzing of parasitic flies that were no doubt swarming around the bodies, which Mrs. Tate had failed to mention.

The living victims were almost more horrifying than the dead ones. How they had managed to cling to life after what their bodies had been subjected to beggared belief. Their eyes seemed to be the only thing really alive about them, staring back at the camera. Some seemed to reflect back a sense of joy and relief over their liberation, others remained serious, some were devoid of expression altogether.

He watched, transfixed with horror, only vaguely aware of the reactions other audience members were having. Paul's ears registered a few muted gasps and muffled oaths, some scuffling feet as several people fled their seats. He made an effort to pull himself together when the newsreel ended and Sam returned from the lavatory, but the Technicolour splendour and vocal talent of Judy Garland in "Meet Me in St. Louis" seemed to reach Paul's senses from a great distance. All he could see were the skeletons – both dead and living – found at Bergen Belsen.

...

It wasn't until he and Sam had exchanged the bright lights of the picture house foyer for the cool, velvet darkness of the streets outside that Paul managed to identify the emotion that had been filtering through his consciousness for the better part of two hours: shame. And it wasn't until they had climbed into bed and Sam was lying in peaceful sleep beside him that Paul understood where his sense of shame had come from.

He remembered sitting in the sparsely populated lecture hall, feeling conspicuous with his crutches at his side. He remembered the huge flag of black and white and red. He remembered Guy Spencer telling his sparse audience that the war had nothing to do with the British people; it wasn't their war, wasn't "our" war. Spencer blamed the war on Bolsheviks and Jews, while at the same time claiming that he was a patriot who abhorred violence.

An apt phrase came to mind: "Touch pitch and be defiled." It sounded Biblical, though Paul couldn't place it. Sam would probably know the proper citation, but the last thing he wanted to do at this moment was to draw her into the mess that his mind was currently in. Moving as slowly and quietly as possible, Paul eased himself out of bed and made his way downstairs to the sitting room.

He turned on a single lamp and sat alone, wrestling with his thoughts. For the very first time since Trondheim, he was actually glad – even relieved – that he had lost his leg. It served as a tangible proof that he had taken part in the war. Proof that he had fought against the Germans, against the Nazis, against those camps…

But it was a phyrric comfort, and a fleeting one. The feeling of having been tainted by association persisted. Because it was only after Trondheim and its aftermath that he had been drawn to Guy Spencer and the Friday Club fascists. Guy Spencer had talked about how unnecessary the war was, an utter waste of blood and treasure. To Paul, the words had struck an answering chord in his soul. And he had subsequently shaken Guy Spencer's hand with respect, had listened to his poisonous hatred with equanimity, had accepted and read passages from those anti-Semitic pamphlets with curiosity and cautious interest. And all without any instinctual sense of revulsion or coming to the conclusion that it was all wrong and ridiculous.

It would be easy enough to say that he had been a complete mess when he got back from Norway – mentally as well as physically. It even had the virtue of being completely true. He was floundering in the throes of depression and self-pity, still reeling from the futility of the whole endeavor, the colossal waste of losing his leg, of all the men he had known who had lost their lives. And Guy Spencer had used Paul's state of mind to his advantage, claiming to offer sympathy and understanding. Spencer had said all the sorts of things that Jane ought to have been saying, or that Paul's parents would have likely said if they were still alive, making him feel that losing his leg wasn't his fault. That it hadn't made him completely useless. That there were still possibilities open to him in the world.

Thank God Mr. Foyle had been doing the same thing in a far different way, giving Paul the opportunity to rebuild his life and find a niche based on his own merits rather than self-pity and blind hatred against people he'd never met. It would be easy to chalk up the whole incident to his own vulnerability and naiveté, but Paul could feel himself drowning in a sea of blistering shame, as though his brief and peripheral participation in the Friday Club had directly resulted in the piles of dead Jews filmed at Bergen-Belsen.

"I just want the facts," he remembered stammering, echoing one of Guy Spencer's pet phrases, when Mr. Foyle had finally confronted him regarding his relationship with Spencer at the conclusion of the White Feather hotel murder case. At the time, Mr. Foyle had flattened Paul's incipient hero worship with the weighty evidence of Guy Spencer and Rosemary Harwell's attempt at treason in smuggling a very sensitive letter out of Whitehall with the intent of putting it into the hands of the enemy. And of the use they had been making of him as their dupe. Paul could still remember the acrid taste that had filled his mouth at that realisation. He tasted it again now, as Mavis Tate's voice and the indisputable facts of the newsreel continued to play out in his mind's eye.

Looking back, what Paul found truly astonishing was how willing Mr. Foyle had been to put the entire incident behind both of them and to simply start afresh. He would have been more than within his rights to give Paul the sack then and there, and while it was all very well for the DCS to talk about the severe manpower shortage and how much Paul was needed, Mr. Foyle's actions had spoken volumes regarding his ultimate trust in the true character of his Sergeant.

Just at the moment, Paul didn't feel terribly deserving of anyone's trust.

"Paul?" His head whipped around at the sound of Sam calling his name softly, and he watched her making her way slowly and ponderously down the stairs, dressing gown draped over her nightie and hair tumbled loose and tangled around her shoulders. "What on earth are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep," he replied tersely, unable to meet his wife's eyes.

Sam scrutinized her husband. She had never known Paul to act this way, even when the perpetual stress of working with DCS Meredith had made him so desperately miserable. His occasional nightmares about Norway had never provoked this sort of reaction either. This was something else altogether, almost as though he were…afraid of her? No, not afraid, Sam realized as she tried and failed to make eye contact, Ashamed. She couldn't imagine why he should be feeling that way. And the only explanation that presented itself to her mind – that Paul had been unfaithful to her – was so patently absurd that Sam dismissed it immediately.

"I'll keep you company then," she announced, grabbing a book at random from one of the shelves and settling herself into the armchair next to his. Once seated, Baby gave her an almighty, undulating poke, and Sam rubbed her stomach absently. Thankfully, less than five minutes passed before Paul spoke again.

"Sam?" he asked hesitantly, "Do you think I'm a…good person? By and large?"

"Of course you are, Darling," came Sam's immediate reply. After a pause, she continued earnestly, "I think you're a very good person. You care a great deal about other people and making sure that everyone is treated fairly and not taken advantage of. I see all that in the way you do your job. But what's this all about, really?"

"You…umm…you had stepped out of the auditorium before they ran the newsreel." Paul's discomfort increased visibly as he spoke, and Sam cast her mind back to their evening out, trying to make sense of this seeming non-sequitur.

"What did I miss?" she queried patiently, beginning to suspect something of what Paul was trying to convey.

"Pathé ran a newsreel of the liberation of Belsen a few weeks ago. It was…" Paul tried and failed to find a fitting word of description. "Horrible," he said at last, though he felt helplessly how utterly inadequate the word was.

"Yes," Sam replied gently, "I know."

"I saw some of it," she added, when Paul at last turned inquiring eyes to hers. "I'd made such a dash for the lav that I was only the third person in the queue and the person right in front of me took pity on me and let me have her spot. So I saw a good chunk of the newsreel, just standing by the entrance at the back of the stalls. What the Nazis have been doing is absolutely appalling. It's a good thing that we've finally stopped them."

"Do you remember…. It was right after I started working with you and Mr. Foyle…. Do you remember the murder at the hotel?" Sam cast her mind back and thought for a minute. Yes, that had been about the time of Dunkirk and the hotel in question had been swarming with those odious Fascists.

"I remember that case," she said at last, "At first we thought it might be a botched assassination of that horrid Fascist agitator, but it turned out to be something quite different in the end."

"Yes. His name was Guy Spencer. The leader of the Friday Club, I mean."

Sam nodded. "I remember."

"I…." Paul's throat had gone dry and he forced himself to push out the words, "He caught my interest for a week, maybe two…before Mr. Foyle brought me to my senses. And seeing that newsreel tonight…. If I had been a better man, stronger – I wouldn't have fallen for Spencer in the first place. I can't believe I ever listened to him, about anything."

Sam heaved herself out of her chair, and gingerly got down on her knees in front of Paul's chair, leaning against his right knee and taking one of his hands in hers. Now that he had stirred those old memories, she remembered Paul telling Mr. Foyle that he had wandered into one of Spencer's meetings. That he admired the man's courage in speaking publicly about opinions that went so much against the general tenor of the times. She had thought it more than a bit odd, Paul being a wounded veteran and Spencer being so obviously a Fascist. But she had taken her cue from Mr. Foyle, who hadn't pressed the issue at that time. And as the weeks and months had unfolded, there had never been any other indication that Paul was anything other than the just, kind, conscientious, man that he was. He was certainly no Fascist sympathiser.

"That was only a couple of weeks then. Almost five years ago. That's not who you are."

"I can't stop seeing those poor wretches on the screen," Paul choked back tears, "And I can't help wondering if…I was tainted by the Friday Club somehow. If they damaged my ability to tell good from evil, somehow."

"That just goes to show then," Sam replied gently, "You've already answered your own question."

"How do you mean?"

"If you really thought the way those awful Friday Club people did, if they'd really made you one of them, you wouldn't be awake and torturing yourself like this. You'd have fallen sound asleep after telling yourself that those poor, wretched internees had brought everything on themselves and all those disgusting, tired excuses that whole lot used to justify their own hatred. But that's not who you are. And even if you did start to put your foot on the wrong path once upon a time, you've long since righted yourself."

"God, I hope you're right," Paul exhaled, feeling a swell of relief as he did so.

"Now come back to bed, Darling. We both need our sleep. We'll go to Church tomorrow and you can lay all of this before God. And then I have an appointment with Dr. Ziegler on Monday, I'm sure that will cheer you up no end."

Paul nodded his agreement and helped pull Sam to her feet. As they walked back up the stairs together, Paul hoped that, when the Final Judgement came, God would turn out to be a man of Mr. Foyle's kidney.

When they reached the landing, Paul held Sam back for a moment and enfolded her in a long, warm embrace.

"You were absolutely right," he whispered fervently into her hair. "I think Christopher would be an excellent choice of name."

Further Author's Notes:

The newsreel described in this chapter actually existed and can be viewed on YouTube. Just search "Mavis Tate." It's pretty graphic, and must have absolutely horrified most audiences when it was originally shown.

The actual Bible quote (King James version) goes: "He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith." It's from Ecclesiasticus, 13:1.

It's been over ten years since I first started watching "Foyle's War." Some things made a more lasting impression on my memory than others. The episode "The White Feather" made an extremely deep impression on me; I spent my initial viewing of the episode in white-knuckled suspense regarding the state of Paul Milner's soul as Guy Spencer went about seducing him to the dark side. Thankfully, DCS Foyle was able to pull him back in time, no real harm done. On the show, the incident was never alluded to again, but I wanted to take the opportunity to get into Paul's head on that subject, and this seemed like a good way to go about it. My thanks to KatieRose, with whom I discussed the subject some months ago.

Now, I have another announcement about the progress of this story. I'm extremely sorry to say that this is going to be the last chapter posted for the indefinite future, though thankfully it's for the best of reasons. As a few of you already know, I had a baby a couple of weeks ago. This is my second kid, and while he is thankfully doing extremely well (as am I), the time I have to devote to my writing has gone from minimal to microscopic. I hope very much that at some point I will be able to finish this story (especially since I am only about three chapters from the end), but I have no idea when that will take place.

Finally, to leave off on a lighter note: When I was in graduate school, I attended a dinner party where a friend served chicken marinated in Italian dressing. I wasn't particularly taken with the choice of dressing, but I thought it was a rather good idea for cooking chicken and that it would work as well with other flavors. So I made a batch of chicken with my favorite salad dressing: raspberry vinaigrette. The chicken turned bright pink, which I had not been expecting, although in hindsight, it made perfect sense that this should have happened. It tasted fine, but I've since stuck to broiling rather than marinating. :o)