The Girls from the Beach

by Andie Newton

  She lowered her body onto a stool, nodding, taking an enormously deep breath to calm her crying, but it seemed to take forever. “There’s something I need to tell you.” She rubbed her hands nervously together. The little room got very quiet as we watched her, waiting to hear what she’d say, even Jack had sat up in his bed the best he could. “Don’t look at me like that. All of you,” she said.

  Roxy stood up, folding her arms tightly. “Spill it, doll face,” she said, and it was the angriest I thought she’d ever been. Italian mad, with pointed eyes and a bit lip.

  “I’m not the Gail Barry who was meant for your hospital.” She flinched, cowering slightly as if she thought one of us was going to hit her. “She was a replacement sent to you from North Africa. I switched orders with her.” Gail looked up from her hands, trying to gauge our reaction, but we only had looks of disbelief.

  Roxy threw her hands up in the air. “Why would you do that? You crazy or somethin’?”

  “For the same reasons I came on this mission,” she said, “why you all did.”

  Gail’s words hung in the air between us all, touching us personally. Even Roxy had sat down on the foot of Jack’s bed, looking at the ground.

  “The other Gail,” she said, “the one I switched with, she was gritty and strong. She had confidence. You knew she was smart by looking at her. People treated her with respect.” Gail sat up a little straighter. “I’m smarter than I look, you know? The Nurse Corps took one look at my face and shuffled me right into General after a few weeks of training. I was even told I might have to nurse captured Germans. I was so mad!” She swallowed. “I wanted a chance to prove myself, so I took matters into my own hands.”

  Air blew from my mouth. She knew German, all right. And she probably had more book knowledge than any one of us locked up in that college brain of hers. But there was one important thing missing. “You might be smart, Gail, I’ll give you that,” I said. “But you’re also the dumbest box of rocks out here, pretending to be a battle nurse when you’ve been trained for pouring tea and wound dressing. We trained for weeks like the men, preparing especially for the beach invasion and life as a battle nurse. You can’t fake that kind thing out here in the field. It’s dangerous. And Red here already served in North Africa. You put our boys in danger. And us.”

  Gail shook her head, eyes cast down, a little cry coming from her mouth. “I know…” she said, wiping her nose with her hand. “I know that now…” The couple asked her if she was all right, and she started talking to them in German, nodding her head and taking his hanky for her nose, when I spoke up in German and butted right into their conversation.

  “She’ll be all right,” I said in an accent just as perfect, and Gail snotted into the hanky with eyes wider than any owl. “We had a misunderstanding. We’ve sorted it.”

  There was a quiet pause. Gail gave her nose a rough swipe, trying to make sense of my German. The pharmacist offered me a hanky from his other pocket, and I waved it back with more German words. Roxy stood bolt upright from the bed.

  “You know German too, Kit?” Roxy said, and after I didn’t answer she looked at Red who knowingly shrugged. “And you knew, Red?”

  “She hasn’t known that long,” I said. “Please, don’t get mad. No use hiding it now. Besides, I’d feel bad keeping it to myself after I almost clubbed Gail for it.” Roxy shook her head, and I reached out for her. “Please… Rox, don’t get mad. If the Nurse Corps found out, I’d be fixing up Germans in the POW camps instead of our own boys. It’s why I kept it a secret.”

  But Roxy did get mad, her face pink and pulpy as a chewed-up strawberry. She dropped to her knees, and went back to her patient, reaching for the syringe I’d already loaded with penicillin.

  “Roxy?” Red said, but Roxy threw her hand in the air to shush her.

  I looked at poor Jack, grimacing, knowing he was about to feel the brunt of Roxy’s anger with that needle. And when she asked him to roll over and show her his butt cheek, he hesitated. “Now,” she gritted, and he rolled over all right. She hastily dribbled antiseptic on him, mumbling about how we always kept things from her, but when she stuck him, she was nice and gentle and thorough, as any trained good nurse would be.

  “What happened to the others?” I asked Jack.

  “There were three,” he said. “The pharmacist and his wife buried them in secret, to keep the German patrols from finding the bodies.”

  Roxy gasped. “Poor fellas,” she said. “I bet they didn’t have time for remarks or nothing.” She looked to me for comfort but turned back around when she decided she was still angry. “Horrible,” she said to herself. “Horrible!” She helped Jack sit up.

  “We were safe-housing nearby and an informant turned us in. We killed those Krauts, but unfortunately, they got almost every one of us too. I took a chance the pharmacist would be sympathetic based on our surveillance, and I was right. Nice folks. But they’re worried I’m here. I know they are.”

  Jack looked at the pharmacist and his wife, who were looking at us. I asked them in German if they had any food to spare, and they disappeared back into the front of their store.

  Gail and Red unwrapped the rest of our supplies from their bodies, pulling out syringes, bandages, and ration packs. They offered me one of the ration packs, but it looked waterlogged from the river, even with its cellophane. Thank God the pharmacist brought in a loaf of stale bread for us to eat because the thought of eating a ration cracker soaked with Rhine water turned my stomach. We passed the loaf around, tearing off big hunks from each end and savoring the flavor in our mouths, not knowing when we’d eat again.

  The pharmacist asked me in German when we were leaving, and I told him I didn’t know. The uncertainty made him look nervous, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his white pharmacist’s jacket and tapping it in his hands but never taking out a smoke.

  I thought about asking for one, pointing briefly at the cigarettes, but he shoved the pack back into his pocket. “Be quiet,” the pharmacist said, and he swiftly shut the door.

  Roxy had been pacing since learning of the men’s crude burial. “Look, Jack,” she said, stopping abruptly. “When we get back to camp, I want to see their tags, do a prayer for your men that didn’t make it. You understand, right? They deserve some remarks.” She rubbed her palms together. “I’ll need to hold them.”

  “Yes, a prayer!” Gail said.

  Jack hesitated. “Their tags aren’t back at camp. They were with them.”

  “What?” she said. “Why would they do that? Go undercover with their tags on… Even we were smart enough to leave them behind.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “The pharmacist told me. They must have searched their pockets before they buried them.”

  Roxy turned visibly upset again with a puffing chest. “They need a prayer,” she said, “and their families need the tags.” She looked at Red. “The tags, Red.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Jack said. “They’re buried. I don’t even know where.”

  Roxy folded her arms and looked down at Jack over her cheeks. “Well,” she said, sternly, “you’re very casual about it, aren’t you?”

  Even I was surprised to hear Roxy’s tone. “Roxy, he was shot, remember?” I said.

  “Oh, I remember,” Roxy said, and she pointed to Gail who was still sitting on her stool. “You!”

  Gail stood up. “Me?” She pointed to her chest first, then looked over both shoulders as if someone stood behind her. “What about me?”

  “You,” Roxy said again, flicking her chin. “Ask the pharmacist where our boys are buried.”

  Gail looked to Red first, who nodded once, and Gail called in the pharmacist. “Where did you bury the Americans?” she said, and he looked at Jack and then back to Gail.

  “Not far,” was all he said.

  “Not far,” Gail and me repeated.

  Roxy took a step toward the pharmacist. “Where’d you bury our boys? No good Huns. Are you e
ven Christian—”

  Red gasped. “Roxy!” she said, but Roxy continued to spout.

  “Did it bother ya digging those holes…” Roxy went on.

  The pharmacist shook his head, looking at me and then to Gail from not understanding Roxy’s rambling English words. Gail butted in, translating word for word what Roxy had asked, which he immediately frowned at, especially the part when she asked if they were Christians.

  His voice was a little harsher this time. “Of course, we are Christians!” he said. “If this is how you treat us then leave.” He waved his finger at all of us.

  “No!” both me and Gail yelped.

  Gail smoothed it over by saying she translated wrongly. “I meant to say,” she said in German, “that we know you’re good German Christians and we assume you said a prayer.”

  “We did not,” he said. “There was no time.”

  Gail looked to me, and I shook my head for her not to tell Roxy that part, but Roxy was on to us and folded up her arms.

  “Where are they?” Roxy demanded, and Gail repeated in German.

  “We buried them behind our cottage. In the garden. A kilometer away,” the pharmacist said. “But their tags are under a tree. To keep them separate in case the Reich found the bodies.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out their gold wedding bands.

  I snatched the rings from him before Roxy could see, and turned to Gail. “Nothing more from you, all right?” I said, knowing she’d blurt out what he’d said and send Roxy into a tailspin. “I’ll tell her.”

  “Tell me what?” Roxy said.

  I swallowed, buying some time. “You see it’s this…” I said, and Roxy glared. “They buried the tags separate from the bodies. Under a tree.” I opened my hand and showed her the rings.

  “Oh no!” She gasped, and she had that look on her face I’d seen so many times, one of fright and of complete disgust. “Did they eulogize?”

  “He said there was no time,” I said. Roxy breathed heavily, her chest puffing again, and I talked quickly to try and settle her down. “Remember, they were burying them in haste, Rox. They could have been arrested for what they’ve done, helping Jack here, and burying those men.”

  Roxy took the rings and stood quietly in the corner, holding them tight in her hands. Gail finished up talking to the pharmacist, telling him thank you, when Roxy abruptly turned around. “I’m getting the tags.”

  “You’re not!” Red said, moving away from the wall.

  “I am too,” Roxy said, folding her arms. “The wives need the tags. Otherwise, they’ll hold out hope till their dying days and each day will be deader than the last, waiting for their husbands to walk through the door. The dog tags—it’s final. They need to see them. I’m not leaving Germany without their tags.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Red said. “Did you already forget what it took to get here? The river—you almost died.”

  “I’m going,” Roxy said, then she pointed to Gail. “And you’re going with me.”

  Gail’s eyes bugged from her face. “Why me?”

  Roxy bit her lip before blurting, “Because I said so.”

  Gail’s jaw dropped, processing Roxy’s command.

  “Don’t do this, Rox,” Red said, shaking her head, but no matter how much Red pleaded for her to stay, Roxy wouldn’t budge. I reached for Red and we hugged, not knowing what else to do.

  “You know why I have to go,” Roxy said to us. “D+50.”

  “What happened on D+50?” Gail said.

  Red and I slowly let go of each other. Saint-Lô.

  *

  The name sounded romantic. Exotic. Cobbled roads and simple farms. An idyllic village that bloomed with apple blossoms in the spring, and rested with peaty, ripened soil in the fall. By the time we’d arrived, the carefully planted apple orchards had been churned up, burned up and spat out. Trees toppled over into cavernous shell holes. Livestock left behind by the Germans had been blown to pieces, bits of cow and pig belly dotted the ground in patches and baked in the sun. The corpses that survived whole rotted among the soldiers.

  Trucks brought our poor boys in from the battlefield. Body after body stacked on top of each other like bricks. Red handed me and Roxy some gauze to cover our noses since our medical masks were in short supply. “Breathe through your mouth,” she said to us, and as soon as I heard the words, I tasted the smell in the back of my throat where my tongue was thick and dry.

  Doctor Burk delivered us the sorrowful orders of body identification. Dead soldiers were unloaded from the trucks behind him and laid out in rows as he talked. “Notify graves registration if you find someone you know,” he said, covering his own nose with a hanky. “I’m sorry, ladies.” He looked over his shoulder where the bodies seemed to go on for miles. “The Germans are taking the tags off our soldiers.”

  Roxy whimpered immediately when she saw wedding rings on bloated fingers. “Who would do that?” She struggled whether to keep her hand over her nose or to move it to wipe her eyes.

  “The Huns,” Red said. “Ruthless, spineless Germans.”

  And we walked, looking at our poor boys’ faces, stepping over shredded body parts buzzing with flies, trying to be respectful, but at the same time wanting to get a look and move on—give the body a name to go with the registry.

  Roxy walked ahead of me by four steps, wobbling, looking weaker and weaker with each boy she looked at, pulling back his head only to shake hers tearfully when she couldn’t give him a name, as if she blamed herself for not knowing his identity.

  I looked up, face to the sun, and when I closed my eyes, no matter what I tried, no matter what I thought of, I was still in Saint-Lô.

  That disgusting heap of earth.

  Roxy screamed, turning around. “Kit!” She grabbed on to me, her legs to the point of buckling. “It’s Private Bentley.” She buried her head into my shoulder and wept. He was only eighteen—a kid with dreams.

  “Roxy,” I said. “At least we know. His family will know.” I petted her head and she looked up, eyes spilling with tears as she surveyed the mass of bodies we’d yet to walk through.

  Too many bodies to count. All without a name.

  *

  “Are you scared?” Roxy asked Gail.

  Gail crossed her arms only to uncross them seconds later. “Yes.”

  Roxy nodded. “So am I.”

  I knew there was no talking Roxy out of getting those tags, and asked the pharmacist for directions.

  “Why?” He looked very concerned, shaking his head. “You can’t leave. It’s too dangerous—suspicious. Someone could see you!” His voice rose and his wife tapped his shoulder for him to quiet down. “No.” He shook his head, crossing his arms. “I won’t tell you. You leave and you leave for good.” He dropped his shoulders after looking at Jack, and finished in English. “Us… Caught…”

  I looked to the ceiling, about to tell Roxy the bad news when Gail beat me to it.

  “You tell me where those tags are,” Roxy gritted, grabbing Red’s surgical scissors and slapping them against her thigh. “Or I’ll… I’ll…” She inched closer and closer to him, and he backed up into the wall along with his wife who had her hands out, begging for Roxy to put the scissors down and be quiet, while I tried talking Roxy out of slitting his throat.

  “Tell her!” the wife said to her husband. “The noise, the noise!”

  “Fine! I’ll tell you,” he snapped, and Roxy put the scissors down after I told her what he’d said. “But you must leave out the back. And you can’t leave like that.” He asked his wife to fetch some ribbons for their hair, and the wife made them look more German, more German than they looked when we arrived, combing out their hair and styling it like peasant girls with braids.

  There were no words exchanged between us girls. Only quiet embraces. Jack told them to knock in sequence when they came back, otherwise we wouldn’t answer the door, and they understood. Then they were gone.

  We weren’t supposed to talk about dy
ing, but when Roxy left out that door, I felt as if she took a part of me with her—a part of me that would die in Germany if she didn’t come back.

  Red slid to the floor, head in her hands. “She’ll come back, Kit,” she said. “Both of them will. We have to believe.”

  I fingered the collar on my little dress before tapping my heart twice. Once for Gail, and the other for Roxy. Red reached for my hand.

  We have to believe.

  12

  EVELYN

  Twenty minutes went by. Twenty minutes of Evelyn sitting stiff as the dead in the back seat of Michelle’s car before she’d allow her husband to carry her inside. She sat on her couch wrapped up like a hotdog in a pink quilt with her daughter and husband staring at her from the love seat.

  Evelyn thought about the stories she’d told Michelle throughout the years to reinvent her past. But now, after more than forty years since she’d come home from the war, she wondered if the stories had become just as vicious as the reality.

  Evelyn swallowed. “I’m sorry you saw me that way,” she said to her daughter.

  Michelle got up from her seat the moment her mother had spoken, and took her hands, holding them tenderly. “Don’t be sorry.” She hesitated, looking deep into Evelyn’s eyes. “I knew you didn’t like the rain, but I thought it was because you didn’t want to get your hair wet. There was always an excuse, now that I think of it…”

  Evelyn closed her eyes, remembering the games she’d made up when Michelle was young to keep them inside. At some point, Michelle outgrew the games, and she’d resorted to lies, curating a pocket full of excuses that up until today had served her well. The late pickups when the rain lingered a little too long, saying she’d lost her keys. An important phone call she’d have to wait all day for, but never came. Although she’d gotten good with her excuses, she was thankful she lived on the east side of the state where it was drier and the rain was seasonal.