48.

~ The camp around him burst into life at the sound of five gunshots breaking the quite of the morning. Everywhere they was shouting as men sprang from tents and ran wildly around with rifles in hand.

"Were secure!" Arthur shouted waving at the gruff Colonel who appeared out of the mist. He had barley time to put his boots and helmet on before storming out of his bed looking for a fight.

"What the fuck happened, Major?" He barked.

"They murdered our sentry." Arthur said approaching the figures in the mist. Their bodies half hidden. "They slit his throat, and were trying to steal supplies."

There was general uproar as some men went to check the sentry. Confirming he was dead.

"Damn Nazis. They don't know when their beat." The gruff officer said. "Good job, Major. Although in the future, can we wait till after breakfast? I was having the best dream about your wife." He chuckled slapping Arthur on the back.

Arthur hadn't heard a word of it. He had reached the thieves and was looking over them.

"Sir?" He said gravely. "You need to see this."

Children. Not one of them over 16 years old. The youngest had to be only nine. They were dressed in weathered rags to protect them from the cold and their faces looked half starved. Arthur was feeling their pulses and their breath. Hoping to find one breathing.

But he had done his job too well. His shots had been to precise. They were all dead.

"Must have been looking for food. Probably been in survival mode this whole time. Why they killed the watchman." The gruff officer said looking over the dead bodies.

Arthur could no longer stand and sat down in the dewy grass. One of them was a girl with long brown hair, not much older then 14. He couldn't stop looking at the girl who looked like a young version of his wife.

She and the rest of them were just looking to survive. They were not Nazis, they were not the enemy.

"Major." The gruff officer said. "You couldn't have known. With this fog and the privet being killed." He gripped Arthur's shoulder and glared at the other men standing around them.

"You men pack up! We're leaving camp!" he bellowed. The camp moved like the colonel was Zeus on the mountain. They moved on and left the bodies behind.

~ Robert drove Ariadne to the war office. She filled out a change of address and almost kicked herself for not doing it before. He offered to drive her to her mother-in-laws home, but Ariadne shook her head. She didn't want to see Lydia ever again.

"Well, the other nurse is with Dad for day." Robert said. "I have the day open. Why don't we go to the movies?"

~ Beth had been forever moaning over 'Casablanca' and Ariadne was glad to see it was still at the dime show. Robert wouldn't hear of her paying for her own ticket.

"We're friends, I can treat a friend to a movie." He laughed as he bought her a chocolate bar. Ariadne looked at the wrapping and felt her throat swell shut with emotion.

~ It had been a thrilling movie. Humphrey Bogart was so dashing and reminded her of her major. Robert gave her his handkerchief as she realized she was crying at the end.

~ "You didn't like the movie?" He asked as they walked in the park later that evening.

The romance of the love story, Paris and the threat of war made her head swim remembering Arthur. How he had courted her. Loved her.

"Do you think Ilsa really loved Victor?" She asked. "I mean, she was planing on running away with Rick."

Robert shook his head.

"No, Victor was her husband and a good man. Rick was just a romance she had in Paris. That's what people do when their in Paris. Fall madly in love with some handsome stranger and never see them again. It isn't real." Robert said casually. "I work with these war time brides everyday. They meet their husbands in the romance of war. Thinking every day will be their last. They see in their men what they want to see. Then their husbands come back from war and things are not so romantic anymore."

His words had bite to them. Ariadne blinked. She had pictured her own romance with Arthur much like Ilsa and Rick.

Robert went on.

"That kind of love isn't really love. It's infatuation. Real love, it takes more time to make it work. Anyone can fall in love in Paris, with a war on the way. It's the less romantic parts that really matter." He finished.

"I have to go." Ariadne said her stomach feeling tight.

"What's wrong?" Robert said. "Was it something I said?"

"No, I just... I have to go." She said abandoning him.

She narrowly missed being hit by a cab as Robert was shouting at her to come back.

~ "Have a drink, Major." The gruff colonel was saying as he poured Arthur a shot of whiskey.

"I don't drink." Arthur said leaning back on his chair. Making it balance on only two legs. His mind had been lost in thought for hours now. The Army's relentless march into Berlin had been chaotic and everything was a mash of confusion, rain, blood and death.

The city was all but leveled. Heavy bombs had blown it to near rubble as the Red Army savagely converged. The past month was a haze of fighting and killing.

Arthur had been wounded, although not severely. A stray metal fragment from a forgotten mine had clipped his arm and hit the skinny Corporal in the head. Killing him instantly.

Arthur tried for what felt like hours to revive him before giving up. His thoughts were on how he first met that Corporal. When he helped him blow up that camp. It felt so long ago now. The skinny Corporal had stood by him after they were captured and had followed him into battle without question. Now, that trusting young man had died because of some senseless explosion that was not intended for them.

"Today, you drink." The Colonel said. "It's not everyday you have a front row seat to the end of a war. The Russians are saying that Hitler is dead. Shot himself in the head, the pussy." He added downing his drink.

Arthur said nothing and didn't touch his glass. He had stopped shaving over the past few days. He didn't like to look at himself lately in the mirror. He didn't recognize his face anymore.

He felt an uncomfortable itch on his arm where the shrapnel had hit. They had lost their medic a few days before and had almost no medical supplies left. Colonel Burch had cleaned and dressed the wound as best he could, but Arthur knew he needed stitches and it would most likely leave a scar on his arm.

His wound was itchy and starting to throb in pain. Arthur ignored it. He welcomed pain now.

"Are you still upset because of what happened with those thieves?" The Colonel asked.

Arthur didn't answer. The colonel never calling them children or teenagers. Always 'thieves'. Made things easier.
"Well don't be." he barked. "You did what you had to do to protect the lives of your unit. I would have done the same." He said. "I want you to know, I've put a letter of commendation in your file. You have preformed above and beyond the call of duty over the past few months, solider. I see another promotion, with a command of your own in your near future."

"That's very kind of you, Sir." Arthur said. "But all I see in my future is going home to my wife and baby. All I want to do is go home, and take care of them."

"We can expect to be debriefed in the next few days." The gruff officer said. "Not much longer now and you can send her a telegram saying your alive and well.

~ Arthur went to sleep that night looking at the weathered photo of Ariadne. How he wished he could go back in time, to not even a year ago now. He was still virtually innocent to the war. At how bad things could be. He could still touch her, and see her in color. Her perfume coming off her. Or maybe that was just the way she smelled naturally. He had taken for granted how easy it was to touch her.

Perhaps, she had only been a dream. Perhaps, this hell, was reality.

He woke up sweating. The wound on his arm was blazing hot and painful.