When she had been a child, Lucy had dreamed of living in France, perhaps as the belle of a grand chateau in the country or the charming mistress of a comfortable hȏtel particulier along the elegant, historic cobbled streets of Paris or Versailles, where admirers would regularly offer her bouquets, chocolates and French poetry. An estate house converted to an army field hospital somewhere near the French border had not once factored into her fantasies; in the place of debonair suitors, waves of wounded soldiers from the Western front claimed her attention, and there was little time for flowers and romantic poetry with air sirens sounding off at least once a week.

With the consequences of the Great War surrounding her, Lucy Van Pelt did what she always did in difficult situations: she gritted her teeth and took charge of her circumstances. During her initial first-aid training with the Red Cross, she had risen to the top of her class through sheer determination, and here in France, her officious manner had been retooled into maintaining order among the volunteer nurses. She could be counted on to perform a wide array of tasks, from assisting with operations in the field hospital to sitting up late and reading to nerve-shot patients. When Fletcher, the head nurse, received orders to send as many nurses as she could spare to the front-line casualty clearing stations, Lucy had been the first to volunteer.

To give up and feel sorry for herself was not an option for Lucy anymore, even with German airplanes dropping bombs all around her that first night by the trenches.


Days later, when she and the other weary nurses were relieved of duty and allowed to return to the hospital, they were still obliged to wait several hours to board a troop train headed back to their village. The sun had already set by the time they reached their stop. After a short rest at the train station, where a compassionate YMCA canteen girl with red hair handed them cups of cocoa and doughnuts, Lucy led the way up the country road to the estate house.

Behind her, Violet Gray and Patty Swanson, her childhood friends who had also been assigned to the hospital, trudged, too tired and too relieved to be in familiar territory to utter a word of complaint. The trio looked nearly identical, especially in the dark. Each wore beneath her coat a blue cotton-chambray dress with a now less-than-pristine white apron and a white cap with red felt cross insignias, but of the three, Lucy walked with her head held erect, relying on her tenacity to hide her exhaustion in front of her older companions.

By Lucy's swishing skirts, a female beagle with long eyelashes walked on her hind legs. A white nurse's cap sat on her head, and an apron hugged her waist, but these, along with her normally pristine white fur, were now streaked with dirt and other souvenirs from the battlefield. Her friendly features looked — if one would pardon the phrase — dog tired. She hobbled a little, but she kept marching forward, refusing to complain (regardless of whether she could speak).

Back in the States, Lucy had always preferred being around cleaner animals, but here in France — where solemn reality no longer sat politely in forgotten corners but now marched into battlefields and brought back men on stretchers — she had learned to recognize hard work and dedication, even in their four-legged volunteers. Stooping, Lucy gave her canine assistant an appreciative pat, ignoring the coarseness of the soiled fur beneath her callused fingers.

"Good girl, Belle," she told the beagle softly. "You get a biscuit later."

Belle responded with a tired smile and nudged Lucy's hand with her head in her way of showing appreciation. Lucy took hold of her paw, helping the limping beagle forward like a mother with a little child.

Belle happened to be the sister of a beagle named Snoopy, who belonged to Sergeant Brown, another of Lucy's childhood friends and the leader of a nearby reconnaissance squad. Lucy thought Belle was a great deal calmer and more efficient than her more fanciful brother, however. As a Red Cross dog, she often rode with Peppermint Patty, their hospital's regular ambulance driver, in order to collect the wounded from the front lines. Sometimes the brave, gentle beagle would don a saddlebag and slip out into no man's land, assisting the soldiers with first-aid supplies or helping the combat medics to locate those too weak to move. If a soldier had no chance… well, Belle was trained to sit with him and provide comfort until the end.

At last they entered the grounds, where the dark shape of the estate house contrasted with the inky-blue night sky, and they followed the long drive up and over to the servants' entrance on the side. They climbed down into the cool basement kitchens, where the Red Cross workers spent most of their time when not attending patients.

Despite the cocoa at the station, Patty at once retrieved the kettle to prepare weak tea while Violet went to the cabinet for cups. Meanwhile, Lucy, ignoring her tired feet, removed her coat and helped Belle climb into her basket by the stove before she fetched the dog-biscuit tin from the larder.

The "biscuits" were actually bits of broken or burnt doughnuts or toast which would have otherwise gone to waste. It had been Lucy's idea to save the unused scraps for Belle, whose canine palate did not mind the taste. Kneeling beside the grateful beagle, Lucy passed her one of the comestibles.

Belle nibbled on it daintily, as though trying to make it last as long as possible. Watching her, Lucy remembered how hard the sweet dog had worked only yesterday, and though Lucy tended to follow rules to the letter, a maternal instinct flickered inside her, and she found herself fishing out a second biscuit.

"We can spare extra tonight," she answered Belle's questioning look. "You earned it."

Belle shook her head, however, and motioned for the treat to be put back. Reaching under her pillow, she pulled out a squat envelope filled with photographs. She selected two and pointed to the figures, giving Lucy a meaningful look. One showed a black-and-white image of two skinny, unsmiling beagles who resembled Belle, the younger one significantly taller than the other, and both wore the helmets of trench soldiers. The other photo was more cheerful, showing a healthier-looking beagle posing by a Sopwith Camel, complete with an aviation helmet and scarf.

"Right," Lucy agreed, putting the extra biscuit back into the tin. "It's hard to enjoy small luxuries when you have a son and two brothers fighting. I know a little bit about that," she added, picturing one much-too-young soldier currently serving less than five miles away.

Belle nodded before she carefully began to arrange her collection of photographs, sighing a little over the ones of her grown pup. Lucy gave her one last pat before she rose to return the tin to the larder.

With Patty and Violet still waiting for the tea, Lucy decided to slip back to their shared dormitory and give her face a good wash in the basin before she tried to do anything else. She lit one of the kitchen candles using the stove fire and placed it in a squat chamberstick before she headed out into the drafty, dark corridor.

She met her superior, Nurse Fletcher, descending the steep, narrow service steps. She was a middle-aged woman with a perpetual no-nonsense expression and blonde hair that never seemed to come loose from its tight bun.

"Ah, so you've returned then, Van Pelt," Fletcher said when she saw Lucy.

"It would appear so, ma'am," Lucy replied. She proceeded to give her a brief summary of the experience on the front.

Fletcher nodded grimly, finishing her descent to the basement floor as she listened. "Right then. Get rest. We're supposed to get a new shipment of soldiers early tomorrow, so we will need every available hand."

Back in the States, Lucy the eighteen-year-old child would have lodged a formal complaint to whomever was in charge about the inconvenience of being put to work so soon when her legs still ached, but here in France Lucy the experienced nurse nodded silently, choosing to grit her teeth rather gripe. She stepped back to allow Fletcher to maneuver around her, but Fletcher paused, snapping her fingers with sudden recollection.

"Van Pelt, you have a brother in the reconnaissance squad over by the border, don't you?"

Lucy straightened, at once wide awake and alarmed. "Why? Did something happen?"

"Nothing serious," Fletcher answered calmly. "Two days ago, they sent over an injured corporal, newly transferred to their outfit. On the corporal's first day, the squad sergeant was up with the big kite, but he had to jump out of the gondola when enemy planes were spotted. Mid-fall, there was some trouble with the sergeant's parachute, and the corporal managed to catch him but hurt his leg in the process."

Lucy felt the tension leave her shoulders. Pushing aside the tragic images of a wounded Linus breathing his last, she regained her professional composure.

"Where is this corporal now?"

"That's the thing," Fletcher returned, rather flatly. "He won't stay in his bed. Every time he's left unattended, he hobbles down to the basement storage room to play that out-of-tune piano. Goodness knows he manages to make the old thing sound almost decent, but he's risking too much sneaking up and down those stairs. When I checked the beds just now, he wasn't there. Listen. You can hear him at it now."

They both fell silent. The estate house was enormous, and even the service area was like a labyrinth, but among the muffled sounds of slumbering and restless patients in servant bedrooms converted into infirmaries, the faint music from a piano could just be heard.

While Lucy was normally an upholder of rules and regulations, especially now in the middle of a war, she could not help thinking of a young piano player she had known, who could coax good music from anything with a keyboard, no matter the quality of the instrument.

"Does he disturb the other patients?" Lucy asked.

"That's hardly the point." Fletcher shot her an unamused look. "We are a field hospital, not a concert hall. Perhaps you could have a talk with him, Van Pelt. You have a way with the difficult ones."

"Comes from having two younger brothers," Lucy declared. She stood a little straighter and placed her free hand on her hip. "Then I'll have to remind the corporal of how things are done during a war."

Fletcher nodded, satisfied. "Be sure to tell Corporal Applebrook that delaying his recovery means using up resources that could be spent on those in worse conditions than his own."

Lucy started to nod, but then her stern expression suddenly altered.

"Applebrook, you say?"

"Do you know him?"

"I don't believe so," Lucy answered, shaking off a rush of memories. "I just happened to know a boy back in the States whose surname was Afflerbach. It would mean something like 'Applebrook' in English."

Fletcher narrowed her eyes. "A German?"

Something defensive flared inside Lucy, but she hid it behind a cool look.

"Of German descent, if that's what you mean," she answered, then did not resist adding, "and he was just as patriotic as I."

Fletcher thinned her lips but did not press the issue. "Well then, see to Corporal Applebrook."

Lucy took her leave with a deep nod, starting down the corridor with her head erect while her candle flickered from her slightly too quick movements.

She was not surprised by Fletcher's suspicions; anti-German aggression had reared its head on both sides of the Atlantic, even before the US had joined the war. Yet a part of Lucy still reeled at the continued injustices. A number of her neighbors had needed to conceal their German heritages in the rise of hostilities following the Rape of Belgium and the sinking of the Lusitania, and even people who simply enjoyed pretzels or called a Dachshund by its proper name instead of a "liberty dog" earned sideways looks. One of Lucy's dearest friends — a boy she would have at one time gladly married if he had possessed the slightest inclination to court her — had been forced to move from their hometown of Birchwood after his father's clinic had been targeted by both Belgian sympathizers and pro-war neighbors.

"But what's done is done," she told herself, stamping down the rise of the old anger.

Like Belle, she could not let herself indulge in small luxuries, even to rant and rave about the world's many injustices, when men less than ten feet from her present position did not know whether they would survive the night. After the war, she might allow herself to fall into that opulence of sensibilities and turbulent emotions which Lucy the child used to enjoy and brought out as though they were dolls in a toy chest, but here Lucy the nurse had to order her old playthings to be put away again and locked up tight.

It was the only way to keep going.


Lucy followed the slightly tinny piano music to a back room in the corner of the enormous basement; a light shone beneath the door, and Lucy entered without knocking, at once taking stock of the situation.

The room had been filled up with crates and pieces of furniture for which the hospital had no use; at the far end of the room, connected to the doorway by a narrow aisle, a beautiful but dusty upright piano stood against the wall. A slightly damaged Victorian oil lamp sat on a nearby table, illuminating a blond young man about Lucy's age, who sat on a spinning stool in front of the instrument. Like many of the other patients, he wore a dressing gown over pajamas, and a second-hand cane leaned against the piano by his right leg.

Lucy pulled herself up, staring at the blond hair and the strangely familiar way his arms moved as he played. Now that she had the chance to listen to him properly, she was almost certain she had heard that piece before, throughout her childhood in fact. She could not recall the name, but it sounded very much like something by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Why, I could almost think the corporal was…

She crept forward, barely noticing her tired feet now, and her heart gave a hopeful thump despite the slim odds. Reaching the table first, she laid her chamberstick beside the lamp as softly as she could; the musician did not notice. Hardly daring to breathe, lest cruel reality dash her hopes at the first false step, Lucy slipped over to his opposite side and peered at his focused profile.

She stifled a gasp.

So, it is you! she marveled, beginning to smile in a way her lips had nearly forgotten.

It had been almost three years since they had last spoken; back then he had been a mere boy who sat at the piano for hours, a little underweight and rather pale. He was taller now, a little more broad in the shoulders; military life had added muscles to his lanky arms, and his complexion looked slightly healthier from the French sunshine, with just a few freckles across his nose. Asymmetric whispers of a blond mustache sat on his upper lip which said he would have typically kept himself clean shaven if he had access to the necessary utensils. The right side of his forehead had strips of plaster over a few red gashes. Despite all these changes, however, there was no mistaking that look of pure concentration, that passion for his craft while his adept fingers drew out a decent melody from the out-of-tune piano.

Lucy covered her mouth, then laid her hands over her heart. She started to speak — then stopped, remembering where she was. It was best not to surprise him unnecessarily; she had seen shell-shocked soldiers brought in from the trenches who could not handle sudden frights. It would not do for him to meet an old friend by being reduced to a screaming mess.

Drawing back, she collected her chamberstick and stole over to the doorway. Taking a deep breath to calm the fluttering in her chest, she knocked softly.

His hands stopped with a jolt, and he half-spun on the stool, closing the piano cover as he did. Seeing Lucy, he suddenly resembled a child who had been caught snacking in class by a teacher. Suppressing a smile, Lucy lifted her head, closing the door behind her, and strode into the room once more.

"So," she said in a brisk voice, "you're Corporal Applebrook then. Nurse Fletcher says she's been having trouble with you."

He cleared his throat, rolling his shoulders.

"I cannot help it, Miss," he said. "Someone has to keep this neglected piano in tune."

"A fine contribution to the war effort indeed," she answered with a priggish sniff.

His fair face flushed in the lantern light, and he lowered his gaze. Lucy calmly stepped past him and sank onto the moth-eaten chair on his right hand. She laid her chamberstick on a crate beside her, then folded her hands in her lap, as comfortable as if she were at a tea party.

"And I can't think of anyone who can play Beethoven better," she said with sincerity, losing her schoolmarm persona with a conspiratorial twinkle.

His embarrassment melted away, and he turned to Lucy with interest.

"Do you like Beethoven, Miss?"

"A good friend of mine did," she answered, holding his gaze. "I can't hear Für Elise without thinking of him."

"He sounds like he had good taste," her companion smiled, beginning to relax. Unbidden, he slid open the piano cover again, and his skilled hands played the opening of Für Elise. He checked her face, as if hoping to find approval there. At her smiling nod, his playing grew bolder.

"Did you play music for a living back in the States, Corporal?" she asked.

"Studying to do so." He stopped the song and tapped an out-of-tune F-sharp in an almost affectionate way. "I'm a little out of practice, to tell you the truth."

"I couldn't tell," Lucy replied truthfully, "but you are better off waiting until your leg heals than sneaking out of bed, Corporal."

"I've always felt better in front of a piano, Miss." He started up Für Elise again. "I feel at peace when I can play good music, and it's been so… so long."

At the pain in his voice, sympathy rose inside Lucy, but she maintained her calm expression.

"There's the better-sounding piano upstairs in the common room. Do you like it?"

"I do," he answered, "but the music I prefer isn't very welcomed right now."

"I see." She glanced at the upright piano. It looked not unlike the toy piano which he had owned ten years ago. "A rather bold choice to play German works, don't you think? Some of the hospital residents won't be as understanding as I am."

His eyes hardened slightly, but his countenance remained civil.

"With all due respect, Miss, but Beethoven has nothing to do with this war."

"I know that, and you know that" — and she leaned her right elbow against the narrow plank of wood above the keyboard, much like she used to do in the Afflerbachs' parlor while he played — "but even Beethoven would prefer you to stay out of trouble, sweetie."

He stiffened slightly at the familiarity.

"Sweetie?" he muttered, knitting his brow with the unmistakable look of a gentleman much too polite to reprimand a strange woman at the first offense. Glancing at her, he did a sudden double take. An uncertain recognition appeared on his countenance as he peered at her amused expression.

"…Lucy?" he ventured, leaning forward like a man questioning his senses. "Lucy Van Pelt?"

"That took you long enough, Schroeder." She smiled, resting her cheek against her hand. "I was beginning to feel offended that my beautiful face left so little an impression on you."

He straightened, his prior annoyance melting into gaping amazement. "It is you!"

He reached out a hand, only to draw it back, uncertain.

"I know, I know," she twinkled with (mostly) feigned vanity. "You didn't expect me to grow so lovely. I don't blame you for being discombobulated."

He continued to stare as though trying to determine if she were merely a mirage.

"Miles from home, in the middle of a war," he murmured. "How…?"

Lucy grinned. "You didn't think I'd be sitting at home and just knitting socks for soldiers when I had the chance to do more for my country, did you?"

"You always did have a way of inserting yourself into any situation," he agreed, not unkindly.

She tilted her nose in the air. "If I didn't, how would anything get done around here?"

His smile broadened. They paused, regarding each other, and without a word, they shook hands. Schroeder had never been an openly warm person, even as a little boy; he had typically used his piano to express his deep regard for his friends, but he pressed Lucy's hand now as though greeting a favorite sister.

"When I moved away from Birchwood, you were barely out of pinafores and still wore your hair down," he marveled, sweeping his gaze over her white cotton hat, her blue uniform with the protective white coverings over the sleeves, and the white apron that was nearly as long as her skirt. "You're so… different."

With a small smirk of pride, Lucy ran a light hand over her pinned-up black hair, completely forgetting the dirt and sweat from her work with the wounded earlier.

"I think a uniform makes me more mature," she declared. "Don't you think I could pass for nineteen, Schroeder? Or even twenty?"

A strange look appeared in his staring eyes before he cleared his throat, smoothing down his blond hair.

"Linus told me you had joined the Red Cross," he said, pulling his robe tighter against the chill in the basement, "but I thought he meant you were working back in the States. Then again, we didn't get much chance to catch up before this happened" — he gestured to his injured right leg.

"Oh, that's right," Lucy recalled. "Nurse Fletcher said you were injured shortly after transferring to Charlie Brown's squad. Landing in the hospital isn't exactly the best welcome he could have given you."

"Well, Charlie Brown did the actual landing. I just broke his fall." He shook his head with a rueful smile. "Always a pleasure to meet up with old friends."

"I'd like to know whose bright idea it was to put Charlie Brown into a kite unit," she said. "They must not have seen him try to fly one back home."

"To be fair, he's not the one getting it to fly," Schroeder pointed out. "He goes up himself sometimes to do reconnaissance, though. He doesn't send his men to do a job he's not willing to do himself."

"He always had a noble streak; I'll give him that," Lucy conceded, folding her arms. She chuckled with a sisterly affection in spite of herself. "Hard to believe it, but he's no longer the wishy-washy little boy we played with. In some ways he's grown up a lot these past few months."

"We all have," Schroeder said in a low voice before a small frown appeared. "But what is a girl barely cut from her mother's apron strings doing near a war zone?"

"Oh, don't sound so superior," she sniffed, lifting her chin. "You're only a few months older than I am."

"It's different, you know."

"Because you wear trousers?" Lucy challenged lightly; even with a war outside this room, she was still a suffragist.

Schroeder looked heavenward. "No, because I at least went through basic training before they shipped me here, my dear friend."

"Yes, and look at you. A corporal who already has a war wound" — shaking her head. She reached for the second-hand cane leaning against the piano, giving him a reproachful look. "And who is not listening to his nurses."

He grew embarrassed. "It's nothing serious, Lucy. I didn't even get hit by the enemy. I ought to be back with my squad and let a more deserving soldier have my bed."

"If you don't let yourself heal, you'll only delay your recovery," she pointed out sensibly, shaking the cane at him. "Play on the upstairs piano and entertain the wounded."

"I do. Sometimes." He played a few distracted notes. "But the other patients aren't exactly classical music enthusiasts. They prefer… other styles."

Lucy nodded, beginning to smile with comprehension. "I don't suppose they asked you to play ragtime?"

Schroeder's face twisted with disgust, and he looked so comical that Lucy had to cover her smiling mouth to avoid offending him.

"Ragtime," he muttered, shaking his head. "And two-steps and foxtrots and whatever else is in the music halls these days."

Lucy remembered the parties they had attended as children; Schroeder had often provided music if the house had a piano, but he had adamantly refused to play the "pot-boilers" and novelty songs which the other guests enjoyed if he thought a piece offended his musical sensibilities.

"How would it be if you instead saw it as part of your patriotic duty?" Lucy suggested with twinkling eyes. "You are performing a service to your country by boosting morale."

Schroeder exhaled, leaning back.

"You're right, of course. I don't mean to sound like a child, Lucy. I really don't. I have met men who have lost their hearing from bombshells." He touched his fair ear. "They would love to hear any sort of music again if they could."

Lucy sobered again.

"That's right," she said, leaning the cane against the piano. "We don't have the luxury of feeling sorry for ourselves anymore, Schroeder. Do you remember ol' Pig-Pen from our neighborhood?"

"Pig-Pen!" Schroeder exclaimed, lightly slapping an uninjured portion of his plastered forehead. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while."

"Did you know he and Patty Swanson got engaged just before he was sent out?" Lucy asked.

"Patty Swanson!" he repeated. "My next-door neighbor? The mother hen?"

"She's one of the nurses here," she told him. "She gets letters from Pig-Pen out in the trenches. Censored, of course, but you can still read between the dirt-stained lines. Pig-Pen has gone over the top several times now. The dust and dirt gives him the ideal camouflage."

"Good ol' Pig-Pen," Schroeder murmured, wearing an expression that swung from admiration to disbelief and back.

"He has to deal with snipers targeting him and his unit every day," Lucy went on. "I try to remember that whenever… whenever I feel like I have it too bad."

Schroeder looked at her.

"But I don't," she added, straightening. "Not really. My patients have gone through a lot worse."

A grim empathy appeared in his eyes.

"So I've seen," he said softly.

She gave a brisk nod.

"Then that's why you need to do your part to get better, Schroeder," she insisted, bringing things back to the original topic. "You'll delay your recovery and cost the hospital resources if you keep risking your neck going up and down those steep service stairs."

A shadow of a smile appeared beneath that unshaven lip. "You nurses are stricter than the military sometimes."

"We have to be, Corporal Applebrook," she declared before she gave him an appraising glance. "Incidentally, if you don't mind my asking… exactly how long have you been an 'Applebrook'?"

"Since we left Birchwood," he replied flatly. "My father thought we would do better to have a completely fresh start: a new home with a new name." A bitter shadow briefly crossed his face before he cleared his throat and calmly added, "Speaking of which, I am actually 'Samuel Applebrook' now."

"Samuel," she repeated, knitting her brow as she studied his face. "Sam. Sammy. Uncle Sam. Sam-and-Eggs... No, I don't think it's you."

He looked heavenward again. "But it sounds much more patriotic, don't you think?"

Lucy made a slow nod.

"Not quite as musical as Schroeder Afflerbach, though," she observed with a flicker of smiling melancholy. She could recall those silly days of girlhood when she thought "Mrs. Schroeder Afflerbach" would be a fine name to have.

He snorted softly. "I couldn't very well have strolled into the recruitment office with that name, now could I? I might as well have shipped myself off to an internment camp in full lederhosen with a Dachshund in my arms singing Beethoven's 'Germania.'"

"Oh, I heard about that sort of thing," Lucy answered, looking at her dusty hands. "Did you know Peppermint Patty is in the Red Cross Motor Corps now?"

"I ought to. She's the one who drove me here."

"Well, she's no longer Patricia Reichardt, but 'Patty Richards,'" Lucy said. "Her father changed their name after some of his newly immigrated cousins were arrested as suspected enemies."

He jerked a bitter nod.

"I'm glad you told me then. I might have called Patty by the wrong name, and the hospital would think she was a German spy," he added, sardonic.

"Once the war ends, all that nonsense is sure to die down," Lucy reasoned.

"I hope so." Schroeder sighed. "I was whistling a movement from the Ninth Symphony during basic training, and a sergeant stopped me and asked me why I liked 'that Kraut music' so much."

"Rude."

"Decidedly so." Schroeder's hand went to the keyboard again, and he rapped rather than played upon the keys, his long fingers seemingly moving of their own accord. "Beethoven was a pioneer in his time. He continued to compose even after he went deaf, but now he's been regulated to 'Kraut music.'"

"Disgraceful," she agreed with a frown.

While Lucy had possessed only a mild interest in Beethoven growing up, too frustrated with Schroeder's indifference toward her to allow herself a proper appreciation of his hero, she did not like seeing the pain in her dear friend's eyes now. The idea that anyone would attack Schroeder for something that was part of his very soul made that familiar anger slowly course through her.

"Really, the way some people carry on is ridiculous!" she declared. "Do you know that just before I left the States I tried to order a hamburger, and the waitress told me they're called 'liberty sandwiches' now? And you can't find a good pretzel anywhere anymore."

"And Bach, Beethoven and Brahms were removed from the school where I was learning music." A hint of suppressed passion slipped into his normally composed voice. "The great composers have nothing to do with what is going on now, but I must regard them as my enemy?"

He turned to face the keyboard full on.

"At least down here, I can play whatever I want."

"Not if Nurse Fletcher has anything to say about it," Lucy warned. "I don't think she knows enough about classical music to realize you're playing German songs, but somebody is sure to catch on. You could get into serious trouble."

"I know, Lucy." He slumped. "But how can playing Beethoven be wrong?"

"That's just one of those things that come with war, Schroeder."

She said it as sensibly as she could; she was a nurse serving the Allies now; she was a professional, and she understood the consequences which would overtake Schroeder if he continued on this road. Even so, her heart accelerated with an indignation which she knew better than to voice within this seemingly secluded room. She recalled that last day with Schroeder in Birchwood, when they exchanged what they thought would be their final farewell, and how she had stood for a long time on the edge of the road, watching after the Afflerbachs' rented wagon until it disappeared.

Schroeder stared at the piano in silence before he drew himself up with a resigned sigh and closed the cover.

"I am a soldier now," he said in a monotone. "It's time to put childish things behind me."

He reached for his cane and planted it in front of him, gripping the worn handle as though trying to draw strength from it. Lucy thought his eyes looked moist for a moment, but he blinked rapidly and took in a deep breath, and his features were composed once again.

Lucy rose, resuming her role as a nurse, but when she reached for his arm to help him to his feet, she could not help gripping his elbow with a sense of sad affection for him.

"It's a shame, really," she found herself saying as she led him towards the door, with her candle the only light now in the dark room. (The old lamp had been dutifully extinguished and put away.) "I bet no one has studied Beethoven like you have, Schroeder. Why, I only know as much as I do about his music because of all those days of sitting with you while you played that old toy piano in the parlor."

A hint of a smile appeared on his thin face. "Not that you ever remembered most of what I told you."

She started to grin back — and then she grabbed his arm, halting.

"What is it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Schroeder," she whispered, inspiration beginning to glitter on her countenance, "I think you're going about to call me clever."

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are," she insisted, a smile spreading. "Now, tell me the truth. How many of Beethoven's works do you think you have memorized? Or nearly memorized?"

Schroeder moved his head side to side. "I'm not sure. I stopped counting around five hundred and thirty-five."

"Perfect." She released his arm, so pleased with her own ingenuity that she nearly clapped her arms before she remembered the candle. "Off hand, wouldn't you say that those who are familiar with his work mostly know the famous pieces like his symphonies and piano concertos? On average, I mean."

"I suppose."

Her smile broadened. "Then how would it be if you played his least famous works? The ones most people wouldn't recognize?"

His mouth fell open. "Clever!"

"What did I tell you?" She lifted her chin, triumphant. "You can't get in trouble for playing German music if they don't know it's German music! In fact" — she let out a mischievous chuckle which she had not uttered in months — "if anyone asks you what you're playing, you can say it's 'liberty music.'"

"Liberty, eh?" Schroeder touched his chin, and an excited light sparked in his eyes. "Beethoven supported liberty. He believed in the brotherhood of man."

"Right! Didn't you tell me that he dedicated the Third Symphony to Napoleon when he thought Napoleon was anti-monarchical?" Lucy recalled, picturing those times when Schroeder would read to her from his collection of biographies about the composer.

"But after Napoleon made himself emperor, Beethoven took the original title page of the symphony and tore it in half," Schroeder declared with a proud smile. "He did not support those who tread on the rights of man."

"If he had been born anywhere other than Germany, he might be considered a symbol of patriotism right now!" Lucy pointed out.

Schroeder nodded, grinning. Suddenly, he straightened, nearly losing his grip on his cane.

"The Irish Songs!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe I forgot!"

"Irish Songs?" Lucy repeated.

He nodded vigorously, radiant as though he had been promised unlimited credit at a music store.

"George Thomson! Lucy, George Thomson, the Scottish music publisher, commissioned Beethoven to arrange melodies for the folk songs that Thomson collected. Oh, and Beethoven also composed his twenty-five Scottish songs, using pre-existing poems, even by Robert Burns! And don't forget the Welsh folk songs and the British ones and—and, oh, many others!"

His delight made Lucy feel more chipper herself. "Sounds like quite a collection."

"Oh, that's the answer, Lucy!" he exclaimed, beginning to sound breathless. "Why, if anyone asked me what I was playing, I could honestly say, 'Scottish Songs' or 'Irish Songs'!"

Lucy smiled. "Only you would remember a trivial thing like that about Beethoven."

Light continued to flood Schroeder's visage, and he resembled more and more the little boy who Lucy vividly remembered. He limped a step toward her, beaming.

"You always had a way of coming up with marvelous ideas, Lucy!" he declared. "I could almost kiss you for that."

She lifted her head, pleased.

"Perhaps I should go into business," she suggested. "Pieces of advice for five cents. I'd make a fortune by Christmas."

He chuckled before he gave her a warm look.

"You know, I think I am actually glad Charlie Brown jumped from that kite and fell on me," he said. "I might not have known how clever you've become."

He reached for her free hand, shaking her whole arm as though she had just performed a monumental favor for him.


For the rest of his time at the field hospital, Corporal Applebrook was a model patient, and he boosted morale with his glorious "liberty music" on the piano. When asked what he was playing, he would truthfully reply, "Oh, a piece I learned back in school" or "This is a poem by Robert Burns set to music," and no one thought to investigate further. His good mood seemed to quicken his recovery, and he and Lucy soon began to take walks together around the grounds to build back up his strength.

His cheerfulness when he played his secret music soon spread to Lucy, giving her a small respite amidst that solemn reality marching mere miles away on the French-German border, and she, who had barely liked Beethoven in her childhood, started to hum some of the 'liberty songs' while she did her rounds. Having Schroeder nearby, even briefly, was like stumbling upon a cluster of purple snowdrops in a frosted field, and she would enjoy it as long as it would last.

Patty Swanson found all this especially amusing.

"You always did get ten times sweeter whenever 'Sammy' was around," she smirked to Lucy more than once. Whenever she visited Schroeder, she would joke with her old neighbor that injuring his other leg would go a long way toward helping the Red Cross with the war effort.

Lucy, of course, found the insinuations ridiculous, as she had long ago recovered from her childhood infatuation, but she had an unexpected amount of fun pretending to take Patty's observations seriously.

"It would be so romantic to go home as a war bride, Corporal," she said with an exaggerated sigh to Schroeder one day when she helped him through the old flower gardens. "Can't you just picture a handsome soldier (with a fondness for the piano) asking for my hand?"

"I think piano-playing soldiers have more pressing things on their mind at the moment," Schroeder replied in a flat tone, but his eyes had a gleam of that boyish good fun which Lucy had not realized just how much she had missed.

Nurse Fletcher was quite pleased to see Schroeder's continual improvement.

"I don't know what you said to the corporal, Van Pelt," she told Lucy one morning as the volunteer nurses were preparing the soldiers' breakfast, "but I've never seen a patient with such a good attitude."

"Amazing what good music can do to a fella, isn't it?" Lucy smiled back.

THE END


A/N: Thanks for reading this artistic experiment. :) Obviously, I use a lot of artistic liberties as I tried to blend various details of The Peanuts (including Belle being in the Red Cross during the 1981 comic-strip arc) with actual WW1 facts. Even so, feel free to share constructive feedback.

I would like to do more with this AU, if I can. I have ideas like Marcie and Freida being "Hello Girls" in the U.S. Army Signal Corps (since Marcie speaks French and Freida is a self-proclaimed conversationalist). As mentioned here, Peppermint Patty is a Red Cross ambulance driver (because that seemed like something she'd do) with Lucy, Violet and Patty Swanson being hospital nurses. In contrast, Heather Wold and the homecoming princesses would be YMCA volunteers who work in the canteens for soldiers and help with church services. Charlie Brown is the sergeant whose squad uses kites to gather intel (because that seemed to fit him), and Snoopy is the mascot dog with the rank of lieutenant (yes, he has a higher rank than CB, much like how Sergeant Stubby outranked his owner). I may even do a prequel AU showing the gang's childhood back during the Edwardian era.

If you're interested in learning more about the hysteria against German culture during WW1, check out "Anti-German Sentiment | The Great War" by American Experience | PBS on YouTube. Another informative video is "Being German in America during WW1" by Johnny Johnson Historic Movie Review.

A big shout to Indy Neidell and the other folks responsible for THE GREAT WAR YouTube channel. If you want to learn more about WW1 but don't know where to start, they do a great job covering the events and important figures during that era, especially with their series of videos giving week-by-week summaries of what happened across the different fronts.