4.
~ America, January 1942 ~
~ Arthur stood in the snow. The traditional hunt after their New Years seeming a somber, and pointless affair after the attacks.
His brother David had been at Pearl Harbor when the horrible thing happened. He had been stationed at the Harbor, and the family had not heard from him since the attacks less then a month ago. The war office not willing to report if he was truly dead or not.
Deep in his heart, Arthur knew his older brother had died in the attacks. Probably entombed in the ship he was so proud of. It's insides filling with water as he couldn't find a way out. The other men around him scared and banging on the hull as their fellow sailors tried to free them from the ship that became their graves.
Arthur shuttered. He didn't like to think about David these days. How he was so strong and youthful only a year ago. How David had been the prized son of the family. A feat Arthur could never reach.
He had finished his last semester of college. His natural gifts in school allowing him to complete his work and graduate mid year. His brother Jacob had already left that morning for the pacific. He was a pilot and would be under the command of Lt. Colonel James Doolittle.
Jacob's skills and fearlessness landing him a prestigious place with the other men who would strike back at Japan.
"I joined the Army, Dad." Arthur said as he felt his father stride next to him. The snow crunching on their feet as they looked over the winter stillness. Their guns not even loaded as they didn't have the heart to take any life just now.
"I thought you might." The older man said putting a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Have you told your mother?" He asked.
"Not yet." Arthur said sheepishly.
Deep down, his mother was a good person, but news of Pearl and David's certain death were hitting her hard. The family had always been so immune to tragedy before now. It had been a shock that one of them could die. A young man, so strong and so promising.
"So you'll face the Germans, and not your mother?" His father teased.
"What makes you think I'll be going to Europe?" Arthur asked.
"Because you speak French and German. You have been to Europe before and you wanted to go there again." His father reasoned as the two men watched a doe walk gracefully into the clearing. A young fawn at her side. The beautiful creatures oblivious to the fact they were being watched as Arthur and his father respectfully observed them.
"I am going to Europe." Arthur admitted sadly. "With what Hitler did to Stalin, the blockade around Leningrad, the Allies are running out of people who can help. If we don't do something soon, their will be no one left to defend us."
"I don't need to remind you of what your Uncle Arron told us happened in Paris do I? They rounded up all the people they even suspected of being Jewish and took them away. Japan might be safer for you. Although nothing is safe in a war." His father said.
"I know. But I feel like I have to go there." Arthur told his father sadly. "I feel like... it's my destiny."
"I was in Belgium during the Great War." The old man said casually. "War isn't fun. It's not romantic or easy. It's sickness, death and there are no real winners. I wasn't destined to be there. I wasn't meant to see boys blown up. Dieing of infection in the mud far away from home."
Arthur looked at his father. He never spoke about his time in the Great War. A time, Arthur knew, that his father was in the hell of trench warfare.
"Why did you do it? Why did you volunteer?" He asked.
"Because one day, when it was all over, I wanted the world to know what kind of man I was. I wanted my future sons to know that I was the kind of man who stood up, when others ran away." Adam said. "It was a foolish idea. A young man's idea." He said sadly.
"I know." Arthur said looking at the snow covered forest and not his father.
"No. You don't." Adam snapped. "But you will. You have no idea how much it hurts me knowing David is gone. I know he died at Pearl. I know his body is still in that ship, and I know he died trying to save the men under his command. I know Jacob could die as well. I know you could die." He father said. The old man's voice breaking a little.
Arthur turned to look at his father.
"I hope you will never know what it's like to lose a son. To lose any child." The old man said to the doe and her fawn. Not looking at Arthur.
"Please don't die over there, Son." He said as the deer stepped safely back into the forest. The fawn looking at the men before following her.
~ London 1942 ~
~ Ariadne had been taken directly to a hospital once she reached Dover. She had been fed and her feet treated. The papers Lieutenant Eames had given her, allowed her to stay in the county as long as she was willing to work for the war effort.
While in Dover, Red Cross nurses treated her. The hospital giving her a new toothbrush and even new shoes. Her old ones were broken and useless now.
She had no idea what happened to the students she had been traveling with. They had vanished from her life like ghosts. She wrote to her Aunt and Uncle at their home outside of Paris. Detailing that she was alive and in England, but the nurses told her it was doubtful mail would reach France for a long time. The Nazis had taken Paris and she was lucky to have gotten out at all.
She had decided she wanted to train with the Red Cross. The nurses there were highly skilled and very no nonsense. The other, more junior, nurses looked up to the them and were always asking them what to do.
Ariadne admired how fearless these women were. How they went with the troops into to the front and brought them back. They were not afraid of the bullets or the blood. They were not disgusted by the bleeding and crying of the wounded. Or even upset over the disgusting things the body did when someone was in pain. Their bowls releasing causing the less brave nurses to turn away.
Ariadne liked how stead fast they were. Liked how they held themselves with confidence and fearlessness. That was how she wanted to be. She wanted to enter a place and not be scared. She wanted to go into a room and know exactly what to do. Exactly what to say, and to never feel afraid again.
~ The training was brutal. If she had ever been skittish of anything before, the training beat it out of her. Never before had she seen a man naked below the waist. On her first day of training, she was expected to learn to run a catheter in and to help him shower and dress.
The constant call of Nurse was everywhere as she could never get her work done fast enough.
She wanted to quit many times. The smells alone seeping into her clothes and skin. Smells of human waste, infection and vomit. Making her feel she could never be clean again. She would go back to her dormitory after the 16 hour shifts, exhausted and knowing she had to get up and do it again in a few hours.
But something in her told her to tough it out. She had no where else to go if she failed at this. That Lieutenant Eames, that kind stranger, had no doubt gotten in trouble over helping her out of France.
It became easier as she trained other nurses who were enlisting to work. Many of them not cut out for the horrors of the wounded. Many of them, girls who were too sheltered to see these things. Not prepared for the long hours and grueling work. Thinking nursing would only be about meeting cute soldiers. The real work shocking them away from the profession as they were expected to clean bedpans, wash sheets and mop floors.
Another thing that woke her rudely to war time, was London itself. Where the French enjoyed taking things at a slow pace, the British were the opposite.
The French would enjoy a meal and conversation that would stretch on for long, comfortable hours. They took their down time very seriously and didn't rush at anything. Appreciating the food, the wine, the company.
For the people of London, every second that was not spent helping the war effort, was a second wasted. A quick moment for yourself was the height of selfishness and earned you nasty looks from people.
Most Londoners she knew and worked with, would leave their job and go to work at some war related task. There was always something to do and the government encouraged the population to take on extra work. On her days off, Ariadne would go to a sewing circle and sew blankets or work in a day care or with the WVS.
The constant flow of activity kept her mind off of thinking about the family back in France. They were not really her family. She was never granted much more then a look by them. They didn't think of her as one of them. Still, they were all she had. She wrote them a few more times till one day a neat little pile of letters came to her from the post. They were all tied together and stamped with red ink.
Undeliverable
"Sorry." Trixie said when Ariadne saw her letters to the family had all been returned unopened. She worried that something must have happened to them. Were they still alive? What was happening in Paris right now? What were the Nazis doing?
~ The only friend she could really call her own was an American girl named Trixie. She was also a Red Cross nurse, but didn't carry herself like they had always been instructed to. Head high, shoulders back and to always look and act dignified and composed. Trixie was far too carefree to follow those rules. She thought the other nurses were just old biddies.
"So glad to be away from the hospital, Kid." Trixie was saying as the women were shopping for a better dress for Ariadne. Her entire wardrobe existed of two junior nurse's uniforms and aprons, a night gown and the battered dress she had fled France in.
Trixie was a bright, vivacious, American girl who thought the war was a truly great adventure. On her days off, she would want to drag Ariadne to the dance halls.
"It's our duty to keep up the morale of our fighting men!" She would say.
Ariadne would tell her that she had nothing to wear, to which Trixie drug her almost kicking and screaming to one of the dress swap meet that were happening all over the city. In order to save on clothing, people dropped off old, but still serviceable, clothes to the meet and were able to get something newer for themselves. It was a practical thing except Ariadne had nothing to trade.
"You just pay them the difference." Trixie sighed forcing Ariadne to try things on. The meet was set up in a warehouse, the racks of clothing were maze like as women, young and old, undressed to try things on. Not having time to wait for a dressing room.
Because of the war, there was never enough time.
She was too small to fit comfortably into most things. Lacking the bust and hips Trixie had. The American girl seemed so full of life, with her blond curls and big smile. Her figure was beautiful and healthy. Trixie was a girl who never had walked till her feet bled. Who's lips were never chapped from thirst and her body never weak from hunger. Who had never arrived all alone in a new country, twice, with just the clothes on her back and little else.
"Try this!" Trixie said helping Ariadne out of an ugly eggplant dress and into a royal blue dress with little red and orange flowers on it.
It was the nicest dress Ariadne had ever put on. It's sleeves hitting her shoulders like she liked and it made her look more grown up.
"Much better." Trixie said as she pinned Ariadne's lank hair. Expertly styling it.
"We really need to start fixing your hair right." Trixie said. "It's our duty to our men to look good. Remind them what their fighting for."
Ariadne finally left the meet with two dresses and a new coat for winter that she paid half her weekly salary for. The other half, she saved. The nurses around her were always telling her to save half her money no matter what.
"Well at least you have more then one old dress now." Trixie said as the girls walked to the dormitories.
A loud, frighting wail sounded out through the city streets. The girls automatically stopping and looking up.
"Air raid." Ariadne breathed.