Soldier On

by Erica Nyden

  “Two guards came in. Nazis. They tossed me to the floor and kicked me in the ribs, then dragged me to a room with bright white walls. Wirth was there.” He hated the name—saying it, thinking it. “He was cordial at first. He apologized for the inconvenience of bringing me so far from Cairo. I sat in the chair opposite his small desk, and he offered me a cigarette—tea, even—all with a smile. I refused. There’s no joy in a cigarette with bound hands, and the bastard had no intention of freeing them.

  “When I asked where I was, he ignored the question and demanded I tell him the Empire’s plans for expansion from the Suez, Egypt, and beyond—a ridiculous order. We wanted to hold on to what was ours. Britain was on the defensive, for Christ’s sake. In no time, he backed down. I knew it meant he already had the facts and wanted to see what I looked like telling the truth.”

  “What did he look like?” Olivia asked.

  William whirled his head toward her voice, startled. “He was older.” From afar, the man’s fine wrinkles had hid themselves well within his pale skin. But up close, each line cut a deep crag, punctuating his villainy. “By twenty years, maybe. His hair was close to white, eyes a light blue, almost translucent. I said he smiled, but it was a devil’s smile, a smile that revealed pleasure, not kindness. I recognized the malice as soon as I saw it. He was still smiling when I killed him.”

  He stood and strode toward the hearth, raking his hair back from his face. The dead man’s grin came with him. He’d never be rid of it.

  “Wirth shifted the focus to maps and offensive plans against Italy. When I explained I knew nothing about that either, he didn’t believe me. As gently as I could, I suggested he had the wrong man. Surely these maps and plans existed, but I wasn’t the person with such information. I was there to listen, to observe, and to report back. I wasn’t on the planning end; I was on the reporting end, the eyes and ears.”

  His voice rose. “His questioning and ridiculous accusations began to get to me. Every time he felt I was being impertinent, he nodded to the lieutenant on my right. On cue, the man smacked the side of my head with his open palm. Hard. I’m convinced the hearing in that ear isn’t what it used to be. Eventually, he mentioned Ahmad and mapmaker in the same sentence. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I’d been so wrapped up in my own struggle that I’d almost forgotten about my friend.

  “Wirth said, ‘He is a mapmaker, no?’ I laughed in his face and earned another wallop.” His voice lowered. “I was bloody stupid, letting rage get the better of me. The more that bastard clouted me, the angrier I became. And he wanted it—a perfect excuse to do what he did next.”

  William covered his face. He’d share no more. He couldn’t. His father had been right: Pain was private—something to be buried, forgotten.

  He needed to get out of here.

  He paused at the library’s door, doorknob in hand, waiting for Olivia to urge him back to the sofa and for his chance to tell her how ridiculous she was to think that reliving this torment would erase it.

  But she didn’t. Stealthy as a Cornish house sprite, she came to his side, her touch gentle.

  He sighed. “Ahmad wasn’t a mapmaker. He worked for his father, who owned an open-air market selling Egyptian wares to tourists. Their business had suffered because of the war, even that early.” Ahmad had dreamed of leaving the trade, of leaving Egypt and exploring new places. “He would’ve loved to have been a mapmaker.”

  Olivia’s hand rested reassuringly on his arm like a tiny anchor.

  “Wirth nodded to his henchmen. They left and returned with Ahmad. His head was still covered, and his legs wobbled. They removed the canvas. I saw dark circles that hadn’t been there hours earlier. He was terrified.

  “Wirth asked if I knew him. ‘Of course,’ I answered, as though he was an idiot.” William squeezed his temples. “Wirth couldn’t wait to tame my impudence. This time, he delivered the blow himself. It knocked me to the floor.”

  His voice cracked. “Ahmad knew he was at death’s door. I’d never seen a person so frightened before, not even in Norway, when men saw their comrades massacred in front of them.

  “Wirth put the pistol to Ahmad’s head, the pistol he’d hit me with. ‘You swear on the life of your friend that he is indeed no mapmaker?’

  “I shouted ‘Yes!’

  “Wirth shot him. He shot him anyway. In the head, no more questions. He went down, and I realized I wasn’t far behind.”

  He leaned into Olivia’s open arms, exhausted. She led him back to the sofa and asked if he’d like to be alone. He nodded and fell back onto the cushions, where her warmth still lingered. He nuzzled into it and the blanket she draped over him. After a light kiss on his forehead, she left him alone with his memories and his father’s disappointment, cast from above the fireplace.

  After supper, they retired to the library. Olivia leant against the armrest of the sofa, her legs draped across William’s lap, and picked up reading Jamaica Inn where they left off the night before.

  This proved difficult. Instead of listening to the story, William searched out wisps of her hair, tugging them gently or weaving them between his fingers. His hands, obsessed with the contours of her face, prevented her from seeing the words in the book. There wasn’t much point in continuing.

  “Never mind, then.”

  She dropped the novel to the floor as William drew her face even closer. His kisses grew fervent, seasoned with sadness and shame. She matched their ardor, imparting forgiveness and understanding. Bent on soothing him, she spread kisses down his neck. The button at his collar took a moment to release and as she did so, an eager hand arrived at her breast. She nudged forward, and like a flame set to dry leaves, William’s passion flared. Before she could blink, he had her horizontal on the sofa where, hours ago, he’d fallen apart. His mouth caressed her jaw and neck as he tugged the top of her dress. Her bare shoulder melted under the warmth of his rapid breath.

  Then he sat up.

  Remorse tainted his handsome face in the flickering firelight. Though his legs still straddled her eager body below, he had reined in his hands and mouth. She had a mind to ask him what the hell he was doing. Desperate, she peeled away more of her dress and unhooked the back of her unimaginative brassiere. He moved to lift himself off her, but she seized his hand and placed it on her bare breast.

  The maneuver worked. A groan in the form of her name crawled from his throat, and he brought his mouth to her ear.

  “We’re not doing this here,” he whispered before delivering a rough kiss and latching his teeth to her earlobe. “I want you in my bed.”

  Loose garments in hand, Olivia barely got them both up the stairs safely. Laughter and the clatter of their missteps echoed throughout the silent house. Lips bound, they stumbled into William’s bedroom, dimly lit by the corridor light. He kicked the door closed behind them.

  At the edge of his bed, William slowed their frenzied tempo by raising her hands to his mouth. One by one, he kissed her fingers before finishing the job she’d begun in the library. In under a minute, her dress was in a bundle at her feet. Her stockings and knickers followed.

  She’d never been naked with a man before, yet the embarrassment she once worried would keep her clothed remained at bay. Arousal thickened her breath, and she shivered.

  “Are you cold?” His mouth headed south to her cupped left breast.

  “No. It’s just, I’ve never done this before.”

  He lifted his head to hers. “We don’t have to—”

  There was no backing out. Not letting him finish, she kissed his mouth and pressed her bare form into his fully clothed one. He hiked her leg around his hip and tumbled them onto his bed.

  He searched her with his hands, as his eyes would have, if he’d had use of them. His mouth explored her too, whilst at the same time, he removed his clothes. She rose to help, but he wouldn’t have it. With a gentle push, he whispered for her to lie still. Back at her side, his tongue tickled skin and attended to
her breasts as if they’d been sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar.

  Meanwhile, adept fingers coaxed her legs apart before carrying out a sophisticated dance at their slippery apex. Her eyes fluttered in surrender. He flattened his lips onto her thigh, and they too joined the endeavor, delivering a mad ecstasy Olivia could hardly work out. Scarcely able to catch her breath, her mouth received his again whilst he commandeered her hips.

  A quick jerk joined their bodies for the first time. It hurt. But then his movements became measured and massaged her core in pleasurable, pulsating waves. Like tall grasses on a breezy day, the two moved as one. At the peak of his passion, William cried her name before showering her face with kisses and declarations of love.

  In silence, their pulses moderated and all Olivia could do was smile. Swaddled in her lover’s arms, she’d finally grown up. She’d heard mixed reviews about losing one’s virginity; some said their romantic expectations had been dashed and referred to sex as something one suffered through.

  She hardly suffered.

  “Had you an exotic mistress, in Egypt perhaps, who taught you how to seduce women?”

  “I seduced you, is it?” William said, twisting hanks of her hair that fell down her back.

  He was right. She’d have done anything to be where she was, naked in his arms. She giggled into his neck.

  “I wonder if Dr. Butler knows he’d sent such a siren to care for me?” he murmured.

  “A siren?”

  “I tried very hard to ward off your temptations, Nurse Talbot, but you had me in your snare.” He yawned and pulled her so that her head rested on his chest. “There was nothing for it but to surrender.”

  She trusted he was teasing, clearly happy with her advances. Surely he didn’t think her promiscuous. Her mother had warned how little respect men bore for women who let lust replace their virtue, women who disregarded consequences and sought only to fulfill their carnal needs. Men never married girls who were “easy,” as she’d called them. Yes, Olivia’s needs had reached a level she could no longer ignore—but she wasn’t “easy.” Was she?

  She needed to see his eyes, then she’d know for sure and would rest easier. She moved to switch on the light, but below her, William’s breathing had changed. He was already asleep.

  His steady heartbeat in her ear did little to soothe her. She let herself get carried away, and her greedy want of him had ruined the high regard he once had for her. From now on, conversation would be stilted, and if he still wanted to hold her hand, the intent behind it would be a mystery.

  Under the weight of shame and her mother’s reproach, she closed her eyes. Perhaps she wasn’t so grown up after all.

  Chapter 19

  They arrived late for breakfast in the sitting room the next morning, but not as late as the day before. Though Mrs. Pollard made no comment, her displeasure was evident. Her stern eyes magnified the imagined judgments of Olivia’s parents, Dr. Butler, and even William himself. The only words Mrs. Pollard uttered had to do with the erratic weather forecast and Jasper’s need for a walk. William guiltily suggested they take him on a late-morning outing.

  Happy to escape the housekeeper’s unfurling chill, Olivia hastened to the foyer to help William into his boots and greatcoat. The weather Mrs. Pollard spoke of hadn’t arrived yet, but it was best to be prepared. Foul weather never trickled into Cornwall; it gushed.

  They crunched across the gravel around the garage, behind Jasper’s swaying tail. Nose down and course set, he led them well past the slumbering vegetable patch and glasshouse to a run-down shed barely visible amidst an entanglement of broom and gorse.

  And just in time. The sun dimmed and chilly winds blew clouds into a churning squall above their heads. Rain fell.

  Olivia pulled William under the shed’s eaves while Jasper, uninterested in going back indoors, plopped down in the long grass and rolled on his back. Peeling paint the color of a young fern floated to the ground as she creaked the door open. The shed was airless and still. She squeezed William’s hand and reminded him to step carefully on the uneven floorboards. Cobwebs connected red curtains to the windows they flanked. Through them, thick vines blocked the sky and the garden beyond. Above, raindrops pounded the roof as if cast from giant slingshots.

  “This place makes me sad,” she said, her breath fogging the partitioned panes.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Does it? What’s it like, besides dreadfully stuffy? I can’t say I’ve ever been in here.”

  Dangerous items like axes, mauls, and even a chain saw lined one of the rough-hewn walls. Any free space was littered with shovels of all sizes, garden hoes, and rakes. In one corner, clay pots stood in squat stacks. Clumps of decaying root balls littered the top of a splintered potting bench.

  Olivia described all of it whilst searching the low ceiling for spiders. Despite the shed’s neglect and the dust that clung to it like sand to wet feet, the structure held a certain appeal. She pictured their refuge as a child would, the four walls a sanctuary—a playhouse even, where a little girl might have tea and read Beatrix Potter books to her stuffed animals or cat.

  “A thorough cleaning and some paint, and it’d make a charming retreat.”

  “You’re welcome to it. Perhaps when the weather improves.” He seemed distracted. In fact, he’d been quiet since they woke when he kissed her forehead sweetly and was out of bed as though escaping any reminder of their night together.

  “Is something bothering you?”

  “A lot on my mind, I suppose.”

  She couldn’t bear to see his regret so she kept her eyes on the warped panes of the window.

  “What happened last night, Olivia, what we did—I don’t want you to think I consider it lightly, because I don’t.”

  This was it. They made love and he was through with her. Any decency he thought she had disappeared as soon she removed her brassiere in the library.

  But he was wrong. She had morals. He was her first and, she hoped, her last. “Will—”

  “Olivia, I want you to marry me.”

  The rain stopped; amplified gusts battered the shed from all directions.

  She must’ve misheard him.

  “I should’ve asked weeks ago. I love you. I want you to be my wife—to always be with me. Forever.” His words picked up speed. “I know I’m damaged goods, not an ideal package of a husband. You don’t have to answer me today. But I wanted to ask, informally, at least. This must seem like it’s coming from nowhere, standing in this shack. Not at all romantic.”

  As his proposal petered into blithering nonsense, words like wife and forever cleaved to Olivia like sticky burrs. Her worries had been for naught. William respected her character. He loved her as she loved him.

  She rose on her toes and brought her lips to his.

  Relief sent his eyebrows skyward, and he enfolded her in both arms. “Is that a yes?” His breath bled onto her cheek where he rested his mouth.

  “Of course it’s a yes.”

  “Thank heavens.” He pulled away, his face dreadfully serious. “Can we keep the news to ourselves? For a short time? Would you mind terribly?”

  She couldn’t think of a thing she wanted more than to be Mrs. William Morgan. Shouting it to the world would be icing on the cake. Then again, she’d been away from her family and friends for months. They—her mother—would ask a slew of uncomfortable questions. The last thing she wanted was her mother minimizing her newfound happiness.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I have things to do before asking you properly. I realize we’re in the middle of a war, but there are a few traditions I’d like to uphold, you under—”

  The room flashed just before the eruption overhead. The thunderclap bellowed with the fury of a hundred air strikes.

  Arms out, William hurtled Olivia to the floor. His forearms broke their fall, and his body protected her like a cage from whatever might come at them from above.

  Nothing came.

  His voice was an un
sure whisper. “That was thunder?”

  “That was thunder.”

  She was dismayed by the ferocity with which he shook. Dirt and dead leaves stuck to her hands as she propped herself up. Eager to change the subject, she kissed his chin.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, his face cut with angry lines. “I told you, I’m damaged. Broken.”

  He moved to stand, but her prolonged kisses held him fast.

  “Not broken,” she whispered. “A little bent, love, but not broken. Nothing we can’t iron out with time.”

  She let one elbow collapse and drew him closer. Her mouth consumed his whilst she wrenched a leg free and coiled it around his calf.

  Once he could breathe properly, he said, “How clever you are, Nurse Talbot. Is diversion something they teach in nursing school?”

  “It is,” she said with a giggle, “and as your nurse, I suggest we leave this cold shack and withstand the jaunt through the storm so you can rest. And once we’re back in your room, Major, I’ll need to help you out of your wet clothes. I’d hate for you to catch cold.”

  “Ahmad’s execution was only the beginning,” William said. They lay on his bed, a warm fire at their feet and a setting of tea at the bedside. The weight of Olivia’s head on his chest eased him into continuing his tale. “Wirth recognized early that the best way to torture me was to hurt or threaten innocent people in my life. Days after Ahmad’s death, they moved me to a cell with a wooden bunk, a metal table, and a chair. I even had a window—a tiny square, really, too high to see out of. At least it gave me light.

  “They questioned me again about maps and connections, accusations I continued to deny. When the guards returned me to my new cell, there was a handful of photographs on the table. The first was of my friend Omar’s wife, Bahiti.”

  He fought to remember Bahiti as she was when he’d first met her. Warm and welcoming, she’d made William feel a part of their family.

  He tightened his arm around Olivia’s hip. “They’d gagged her and tied her wrists together. The next photograph showed Omar beside her in the fetal position, gagged as well. He looked dead. The horror in Bahiti’s eyes killed me.”