Message For Hitler

by Cate M. Ruane

  I had to find her before Squadron Leader Kennard returned and asked after her. My whole body stiffened like a sphinx. Ringo would end up like the goldfish: floating on the top of the fishbowl, belly up—her body slimy and beginning to stink. I walked in the direction of the front gate, hoping that maybe the guard had seen her. Or that maybe I’d see a trail of pee, the way slugs leave trails of slime behind them.

  “Seen a stray mutt?” I asked the duty soldier, who was listening to a news broadcast on a radio in a dented car parked next to the gate. He jumped when he seen me and turned the volume to a whisper. I figured radio listening was against regulations: dereliction of duty, they call it.

  “Shush,” he said when he realized he had nothing to worry about. He tuned the dial, so that the reception was clearer. A newscaster was telling the country about the attack on the base. We were famous. I hoped that my ma back in New York got the signal, but maybe it was better if she didn’t. It would worry her sick, thinking that she’d get a telegram bringing bad news. She’d think I was fine, holed up at the Warfield Hall with the Sopwiths. But she’d worry about Jack, stop eating, light extra candles at Saint Brendan’s until she got news that he’d survived the attack. The newscaster had one of them low pitched voices of people who smoked ten packs a day:

  “No casualties have been reported thus far, in a raid on Southend-on-Sea naval and RAF bases this evening. A military hospital received heavy damage however, another dastardly act by the German aggressors. And this just in: We are happy to report that a counterattack by the RAF has resulted in a downed Dornier bomber. It is believed that all of its crew has been captured—having bailed from the fiery furnace of what was once one of Hitler’s deadliest weapons, now consigned to the scrap pile. All and all, a good night for Britain.”

  “A good night for Britain?” said the soldier, shaking his head. “Is ’e joking? This ain’t my idea of a good night. Duckin’ ten-ton bombs full of TNT? Wha’d you say about a dog?”

  “Have you seen a small dog. A short hair mutt? Probably left a trail of pee?”

  “Can’t say as I ’ave, mate.”

  I walked out the front gate and then turned around: “Say, you’ll remember me if I come back into the base, won’t you? I mean, I’ve been signed in already. But now I have to search for the dog. It belongs to the squadron leader. She’s the mascot.” I explained how a mascot brought luck to the squadron, that the original word meant lucky charm in Latin, or maybe that was Greek. I showed him my one-leaf clover, glued to a card, three clumps of glue where the missing leaves had been. “We need that dog,” I said, telling him that if I didn’t find Ringo, worse things might happen to the base.

  “Search and rescue, are you? They must be short ’anded tonight.” He laughed. “Sure. I’ll remember you. But I can’t say what ’appens when I go off duty in—” he looked at his wristwatch—“six hours and twenty minutes from now.”

  I walked down the dark road, stopping were Daphne fell. Leaning against a chain-link fence was the bicycle I’d been riding. In New York, that bike would’ve been stolen by now. That made me remember my Schwinn Camelback—the bicycle I’d left at the Brooklyn Harbor months before when I ran away from home to search for my brother. The English bike was a clunker and no match for the Schwinn. Besides, it was a girl’s bike—the kind with a lowered top bar so you could get on wearing a skirt, which I had no intention of doing. It was embarrassing riding a bicycle like that. Still, I was in no position to complain: I was glad it was still there and that I wouldn’t have to hoof it. I was getting dog-tired by then, because I’d gotten no sleep the night before—what with the lovebirds on my couch and church being at an ungodly hour, as usual.

  I yelled out Ringo’s name and waited for the sound of happy dog panting. But I was disappointed: the only thing I heard was an owl hoot. The dog was threatening to take my sister Mary’s place as the thorn in my flesh, the bane of my existence. Why, Mary hadn’t pestered me much since I left New York. Just one snide comment written on the back of a letter from my ma: Take your time getting home, she’d scribbled. My ma crossed it out, but Mary’s words stayed legible, barely. Her penmanship was dismal.

  I pedaled down the road, screaming Ringo’s name until my throat was sore and my voice sounded like a BBC newscaster. Coming around a tight bend, I avoided a head on collision with a car.

  “Watch yourself, you pillock!” yelled the driver, with his closed fist threatening me. Tough guy.

  “Stuff it!” I yelled back.

  His headlights were masked, which was the problem—not the fact that I’d been riding in the middle of the road pretending to be an airplane. Soon I made it back to Jack’s mess. All the lights were out, or at least the blackout curtain made it seem that way. I was hoping Ringo found her way home like a pigeon. Dogs do that sometimes. I once read in the paper about a Labrador who went on a cross-country trip with his family. They kept him in the tear-drop travel trailer they’d hitched to the back of a Chevy. But some idiot left a window open and he jumped out. This happened somewhere between Reno, Nevada and Frisco, California. So the dog was good and lost and likely to die of either thirst or starvation. The family gave up and drove back to New Jersey, crying the whole way. But then a few months later, they woke to find the dog sleeping next to the milk crate. His paws were blistered and he had a permanent limp after that. Skin sagged from his skeleton. Chewed off fur. Cuts and abrasions and one missing eye. Seemed he’d fought every stray cat along Route 66.

  The front door to Jack’s mess was locked. I walked around the whole building calling out for Ringo. Then I heard a growl coming from inside the kitchen. I tried to peer in, but without a flashlight it was impossible. When I called Ringo’s name again, she barked. I had to find some way in: fatten the dog up with pie or something before Kennard suspected anything. Circling back around to the front, I tried windows but they’d been locked. Arched windows, leading into the dining room, were blocked by shrubs. I had to wedge underneath, getting scratched by branches and pointed Christmas-type holly leaves.

  As I stood up between the shrub and a stucco wall, a shot of pain went up my foot—agony all the way to my head. A shard of glass had pierced the sole of my sneaker near my big toe. Reaching down, I pulled the glass from the shoe and removed my sneaker to get a look at the damage. Blood gushed all over my white sock, black in the moonlight. The window glass had been smashed near the latch. One of the fellas forgot his key, is what went through my mind. Like a fool, I was.

  I brushed broken glass from the window sill with a big leaf, then leap-frogged into the house. Ringo came charging up to me, licking my bloody toes. It would be no one’s fault but my own if she started chewing on my foot like it was a sirloin steak: dogs are carnivores. I thought, I’d better go into the kitchen and find the stash of dog food. Honest to God, that’s all that was on my mind.

  I wiggled the kitchen light switch, but the power was out. Stumbling toward a sideboard, I felt around like a blind man until I found a candlestick and a box of matches next to it. I struck the match just as a hand clasped over my mouth.

  “Ruhig,” whispered a voice in my ear.

  All I could see, before the match burnt out, was the edge of a black cuff. An embroidered band ran full circle around it. Woven in silver thread was the ominous name: Jagdgeschwader Mölders.

  It was the name of Germany’s top ace, who shot down at least 100 RAF planes. His name was worn as a badge of honor by Luftwaffe pilots wanting to be like him. Just the way kids back home swung bats with the names of their favorite World Series champions carved in the wood. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, helped by a beam of moonlight coming into the window above a porcelain sink. The crystal face of an IWC German Luftwaffe pilot’s wristwatch gleaned near my right eye. If I won this battle, I was keeping the watch.

  “Yonkers—I know it’s you,” I said.

  “Ruhig,” he whispered again, telling me to shut up. Yonkers dragged me to a chair, tying me up using dish rags. I wasn’
t happy about how things were shaping up.

  Ringo started jumping up at Yonkers, growling fiercely and trying to take bites from his leg. Yonkers cussed in German and kicked the dog in the stomach. Ringo let out a moan that sounded like a death knell.

  “You won’t get away with—” I said as a sponge was shoved into my mouth. The last thing I saw, before a wet dish rag was tied across my eyes, was Ringo being grabbed by the scruff of her little neck and flung across the room, colliding with a garbage bin. I was pretty sure Yonkers had murdered the dog. The room was dead silent again. I felt awfully bad for Ringo. She’d been the squadron mascot, after all. At least I wouldn’t be blamed when Squadron Leader Kennard lowered her limp body, crammed in a shoebox, into a shallow grave.

  My ears were the only part of my head still unobstructed. I listened and heard the sound of creaking linoleum, as Yonkers walked in the direction of the icebox. I heard the sucking rubber of the door opening, milk bottles being moved around. Then the sound of chewing. My God, how could he think of food at a time like this, I thought.

  “Besser,” he sighed. Better. He burped. Where are your manners? I wanted to say, but the gag prevented me.

  He was opening and closing cabinets, throwing things onto the floor then gathering them up. Into a sack? I couldn’t be sure. He’s making a run for it, I realized, knowing I was on to him—that I’d been one bloody step away from blowing the whistle. I squirmed around in the chair, in a wasted effort at loosening my bonds. Yonkers knew how to tie a knot. He’d probably been in the Hitler Youth or whatever they had over there in the Fatherland.

  My heart started racing when I heard a motorbike driving down the road leading to the house. I prayed it wouldn’t pass by and that maybe it was my brother and Kennard returning from their mission. I prayed in Latin, too. The engine noise grew louder, the sound of a BSA backfiring. Yonkers heard it too. He stood still, all ears. Tires rolled on the gravel driveway. Yonkers made a run for it then. His heavy flight boots stomped down the hall corridor and into the dining room where I’d left the window open, giving him easy access to the backyard and forest behind.

  I wiggled with all my might, trying to scream. But my cry was muffled by the dish sponge stuck between my teeth. It tasted like rotten potatoes.

  The front door opened. There was a beat before my brother said, “I’ll check the fuse box, sir.”

  “Whiskey and soda?” said Squadron Leader Kennard, all casual. “We’ve earned a stiff drink tonight—a little celebration is in order, I should think.”

  “Won’t say no to that,” said Jack.

  Enough drinking! I thought. Think food!

  I heard Kennard yell, “Could do with a sandwich. You in?” Just as I’d wished.

  Through the edge of the skewed blindfold, I knew Jack had managed to get the electricity working again.

  “What in the world?” Kennard said, standing in the doorway and taking in a view of the kitchen. “Ringo!” he cried, not even noticing me. “Oh, dear, dear girl.”

  What about dear, dear, Tommy—tied up and the life seeping out of the gash in his foot?

  “Tommy?” I heard my brother say. “What the heck?”

  The blindfold came off of my eyes and the sponge from out of my mouth. “He’s getting away!” I shouted.

  “Who?” said Kennard. Ringo was cradled in his arms.

  “Yonkers!” I shouted. “Untie my hands, Jack.”

  Behind Kennard, a black shadow moved down the dark hallway. Light from a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling fell onto the shadow’s face, which was now right behind the squadron leader—within striking distance.

  “Him!” I shouted when I seen it was Yonkers.

  “What’s going on in here?” he said. He stepped around Kennard and stood in the center of the room. “Jeez Louise, what a mess, kid.”

  By then my hands and feet were free and I lunged at him, trying to knock him to the ground. But he was like an ancient oak tree, the kind with names carved into the trunk. He reached down and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, lifting me from the ground like I was a piece of fluff on a bird’s underside.

  “Whatta ’ya in all in a huff about, anyways?” he said. “And with me helping you to get home to yer mom.”

  He put me down, planting his two legs a couple feet apart and crossing his arms over his chest—daring me to take another shot. My eyes were about level with his wrist and I seen he was wearing an RAF issued Omega watch; my brother had one just like it. Yonkers was in an RAF flight uniform: a fleece-lined leather jacket flung over his shoulders. I was close enough to feel the cold coming off the leather.

  “What’s gotten into your head, Tommy?” said Jack.

  “I think I owe Yonkers here an apology,” I said. Then looking up to Yonkers: “I thought you were a Nazi. It was the lighter—your Nazi Zippo.”

  Jack slouched in the chair, pulling off his helmet and raking his fingers through his long bangs. “Yonkers?” he said. “Is that your nickname for Pete? Pete O’Reilly? Whose folks are right off the boat like Ma and Da?”

  “Right off the boat, ya know?” said Yonkers, grinning wide. “County Cork.” He loosened his posture.

  “And for crying out loud, Tommy. We’ve all got lighters just the same,” said Jack, reaching into his pocket and showing me his. It was exactly like Yonkers’ only more dented. Squadron Leader Kennard reached into his back pocket, removing another one. The three of them flicked the lighters until they flamed. The room smelled like lighter fluid. Jack patted his front pocket, an old habit.

  “Souvenirs,” he said. “I got mine in France.”

  “Then I hate to tell you this, but a genuine Nazi just made a break for the woods. He was in uniform. Luftwaffe. He was sprechening the Deutch.” I raised an eyebrow toward the back door.

  “You’re not pulling our legs, are you?” asked Jack. “ ’Cause if you are—”

  “Do you honesty think I tied myself to the chair?” I was acting indignant, which was what the situation called for. “He had a Jagdgeschwader Mölders cuffband,” I said, drawing a line across my left wrist. It was that detail, I think, convinced them. Even I couldn’t make something like that up.

  “Jumping Jehoshaphat,” said Jack, hitting his forehead. “From the Dornier crew, no doubt.”

  “No,” said Kennard. “A Jagdgeschwader Mölders insignia is on the uniform of Luftwaffe squadron 51. That means the FW-190 you shot at went down.”

  “Congratulations, Jack,” said Yonkers, patting my brother’s back. “What does that make it, seven?”

  “You think it was Werner Mölders himself who tied me up?” I asked, wide-eyed.

  “Nothing doing,” said Jack. “Mölders bought it when a Heinkel He 111 bomber he was a passenger on went down in a thunderstorm last year. They say one of the engines failed. When your number is up, your number is up.” Jack was as happy as a camper with a bag of marshmallows and a stick. “Still—a FW-109 and a Dornier in one night. Not too shabby.”

  “It is a good night for Britain,” I said, quoting the BBC newscaster.

  “And Ireland,” said Yonkers, smiling at me. “Don’t forget the old country, ya know?”

  Kennard handed me the broken body of Ringo. I could feel her tiny dog heart beating against my arm. Believe it or not, it made my own heart leap. The three men went storming out the door leading to the backyard. I wanted to go after them, but my foot hurt like all get-out. Ringo howled.

  “Okay pooch,” I said. “Let’s get you and me to the nuns.”

  As I headed for the front door, I heard the kitchen door open and then slam shut. Jack called out for me. “I lost my head there for a second,” he said. “Let the other fellas go chasing after Nazis, I’ve got my girl to look after. And you, Tommy-boy. What’d you do to that foot?”

  I told him all about the direct hit on the hospital and he turned white as a sheet.

  “She’s safe. I made sure of it,” I said. “Not to brag or anything, but you might say I saved her baco
n tonight.” My brother hugged me to him and then took a step back and saluted. Then he made me put my arm around him as I limped to the motorbike.

  I mounted first and took the laundry basket holding Ringo. Jack shot straight through the gears and within seconds my hair was whipped off my face. We rocketed down the country road toward the base, flying over potholes and taking corners so fast the foot-pedal scraped the gravel a couple of times. I figured I’d get Ringo patched up, have my foot looked at, and then report the loose Luftwaffe pilot to the MPs.

  Maybe now someone would take me seriously.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MI5 Headquarters,

  Wormwood Scrubs, East London

  THERE IS A KNOCK on the door, three quick taps.

  “Good evening, sir,” says Ellis. “Working late again, I see. Thought I’d pop around before pushing off—bring you up to date on the latest citizen report.”

  “What now?” says Brigadier A.W.A. Harker—Deputy Director General of MI5.

  “It came in the evening post.” Ellis holds up a letter. “Shall I read it to you, sir?”

  “Paraphrase, would you?” says Harker. “I was just about to head home myself.”

  “It’s from a woman in Cornwell, sir. At least, I think it’s a woman by the look of the handwriting. The name is Frances, which I suppose settles the question. I mean Frances, ending in E.S.—rather than Francis, ending in I.S.—which would have indicated a letter sent by a male citizen.” Ellis holds the envelope to his nose, as if there might be a whiff of perfume to prove his point. “She reports that several bicycles have gone missing during the last month. The police, it seems, are satisfied that it’s the work of juveniles—pranksters, sir. I’ve already had a word with them. Frances McAllister, she believes otherwise. She is convinced that Nazi agents are making their way from their drop points, by bicycle.”

  Hacker wipes his brow with a handkerchief and then refolds it into a tidy square before returning it to his pocket. “Who do they think we are—Miss Marple? Amateur sleuths? Send off the boiler-plate response thanking Mrs. McAllister for her vigilance.”