The Girls from the Beach

by Andie Newton

  “Just as well,” I said, looking over what we did have. “I think we have all we need.”

  Red tried to stick him with some morphine, but he refused. “I want my wits for this,” he said, and I looked at him a little surprised, thinking he might be crazy. “I mean it.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with him even though I thought it was a dumb idea. “Red, get the whiskey,” I said, but she had walked away and started to pace again. “The whiskey, Red.”

  Red resolved to help me, and it wasn’t like her to leave me with a patient all alone, but the girls out there on their own had gotten to her. “Lie down on your side,” I said to Jack, and he did.

  Red handed me the flask of whiskey, and I held it to Jack’s lips for a swig.

  “Thanks,” he said, and I let him take a few drinks, but pulled it away mid-glug to pour some on the wound. He hissed, sucking air through his pinched lips. “Dammit to hell!”

  “Sorry,” I said, wincing, as bubbling white foam dripped down his arm. “I couldn’t tell you it was coming. You would have tensed up and it wouldn’t have worked.” I took hold of my forceps. “All right, now this will hurt…”

  “And the whiskey doesn’t?” he said.

  “I’m not the one who refused morphine,” I said.

  “Wait.” He motioned for more whiskey, which Red gave him, and he slugged nearly all of it before closing his eyes. “Okay, go.”

  I pressed both thumbs to each side of the wound, and the bullet poked out from the bloody hole like a prairie dog, and while I had one thumb still pressed firmly on his bicep, holding the bullet in its place, I dug my forceps into the hole, clamping down on that little monster. “Like pulling a splinter,” I said, extracting the bullet slowly. “Your very own souvenir.”

  “Let me see it.” Jack opened his eyes, and I dropped the bullet into his hand, still streaked with blood.

  “You’d think the pharmacist would have at least got you some sulfa powder,” I said. “It would have kept the infection down.”

  “They gave me something, a thick, revolting white drink. I think it was to knock me out because I don’t remember much after coming here.”

  I reached for one of Roxy’s pre-threaded suture needles to stitch up the hole, and he made a hurtful face. I laughed. “You’ve been shot. I poured whiskey inside the wound, and this is what makes you squeamish?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said, and he looked straight at the wall.

  I held in another laugh. “This is the first time you’ve had sutures I take it?” I said, and he nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty good at it. Though there’ll be a scar.”

  “Another souvenir?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, and when I was done, I think he was surprised I’d stitched him up so quickly. I bandaged his arm. “Keep this dry,” I said, and while he examined the bandage, I found myself looking at his chest again.

  He looked up. “Oh, ahh…” I said, turning away, and faking an itch behind my ear.

  “Yes?” he said.

  I cleared my throat. “Where’re you from?” I thought he’d say Ohio or Indiana since there were a lot of boys from those states.

  “Colfax, Washington,” he said.

  “I’m from Washington!” My mouth hung open for a bit before smiling. “My brother flew a Jenny in the Palouse while in college. He must have flown over Colfax a hundred times. I know exactly where it is, and it’s not far from my home.”

  “Good! After the war I’ll come to visit you,” Jack said. “It’s good to make plans for after the war.”

  I felt a blush at first, thinking he was serious, but knew it was just one of those things people said to give themselves hope, something to look forward to. “Yeah,” I said, and I helped him slip his shirt back over his head. Something metallic caught my eye, glinting from under the bed where it was dusty and cluttered with storage boxes. A radio.

  I dragged it out into the open—this was the kind of distraction we needed. “Will you look at this?” I said. “Red, a radio! Can you believe it?”

  “Does it work?” Jack said.

  The possibility of hearing music brought a little light into the cellar, when all I’d heard for so long was the explosion of bombs, the pop of bullets, and the moans of dying soldiers. I closed my eyes, praying it worked before plugging it into the wall.

  “Keep the sound down,” Red said.

  I reached for the switch, and the pharmacist’s wife barged into the room, which shook us all.

  “Nein!” she said, reaching for the radio. “Nein! Nein! Nein…” She yanked the cord from the wall and her face turned from angry, to concerned, to apologetic. “Sorry, fräulein.” She wound the cord around the set. “Sorry,” she said one last time before leaving the room.

  Red put her arms around me as I hung my head. “Another time,” Red said.

  “Yeah.”

  Jack’s bandage had come loose and I moved to tighten it up. A nurse knows how to tighten a bandage, and I had to admit this was the first time one of my bandages had come loose, but as I rewrapped it, I thought maybe I’d wrapped it hastily on purpose. I felt his eyes on me.

  “We should talk about the plan,” he said. “Our next move.”

  I tugged and pulled on the bandage. “We’ll go back the way we came, be on free land by dinner time. We’ll be eating K-rations before you know it.”

  Jack didn’t say anything, and I felt a strange tension coming from him. “No…” he said. “That’s not the plan I’m talking about.” After a short pause, I let go of his arm.

  “What do you mean?” I said, cautiously.

  “We have to finish the job.” His eyebrows furrowed. “That is why you’re here.”

  “We came to fix you up,” Red said, but he only stared at us more intently.

  “Oh no,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” I said at the same time Red put her hands on her hips, and I’d never seen her lip tip out before, but there it was, like a shelf from her face.

  “You’re the replacements,” he said. “You’re here to complete the mission.”

  We stood frozen in disbelief, staring at him.

  “What were you told?” he said.

  I thought back to what the doctor said in our tent. He talked about transport, the possibility of an amputation, and… and… “Women,” I breathed, and I turned to Red. “What Doctor Burk said, why we were asked and not the medics—because nobody would suspect women.”

  Jack nodded. “My team was killed because they were men. We stood out like sore thumbs.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, flattening it the best he could with one good arm and one injured one. It was a map of the village, marking the farms around it. One was circled. He tapped the circle with his finger. “This is where we’re going. Where I’ll lead you,” he said. “A man is expecting women to meet him—a package to pick up.”

  “What package?” I said, and I grabbed his map to look at it a little closer. I saw the square, the little shops all named, and… a notation. About a butcher. And a giant.

  I looked up at Red, gulping.

  “What is it?” Red said.

  “Umm…” I gulped again, not sure how to answer her. “Red, it’s the… the…” She ripped the paper from my hands. “The giant.”

  Red’s face instantly fell flat. “What?” She looked at the paper herself. “They tricked us? Again?” She shook her head vigorously. “This isn’t what I signed up for! A mission to steal Nazi loot?”

  I sat down next to Jack as Red sounded off about being tricked. “That bastard Sergeant Meyer!” Her voice echoed in the little room from yelling, and the German couple rushed in immediately telling her in German to shut the hell up, which of course Red couldn’t understand, but I was sure she understood their frantic waving and their scrunched-up faces, scolding us like disobedient children.

  “Ruhe!” the wife said, pointing. “Quiet! Quiet!

  “Red,
stop,” I said. “You’re angering them.” But Red continued to spout, hands in the air, turning in circles. “Shh! Red, would you clam it?”

  The couple started arguing about letting us stay, and the tiny cellar got so loud anyone who was anyone could have heard us. The pharmacist pulled his pack of cigarettes from his pocket but this time he lit one, smoking with frantic, urgent pulls and I felt like he was a pot about to boil over.

  I grabbed Red. “Look at me!” I said, and she finally shut her trap, but only after I clamped my hand over her mouth. “He’s going to kick us out!” She closed her eyes tight, and the tiny vessels near her eyes turned red, purple, and then blue, before she suddenly moved out from under my grasp to fold her arms in the corner.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in German to the couple. “It won’t happen again. We’re scared. Like you. This will be over soon, and you’ll never see us again.”

  The pharmacist exhaled suddenly with what I said, stepping on his spent cigarette and storming out, leaving the wife to answer. “If we have to come in here again because of noise, my husband says we have to throw you out.”

  “Understood,” I said, and when she shut the door, I heard her lock it.

  Jack watched Red with a furrowed brow, and I felt I had to explain. “She didn’t want to come,” I said. “She’s fine with the rescuing part. It’s…” I looked at Red slumped against the wall. “She has other responsibilities. Other people on her mind who need her too. This is the last thing she needed to get wrapped up in.”

  Jack took his map back. “I thought you knew. I requested women and you showed up.”

  “Oh, we showed up,” Red said. “Did you know we lost our doctor in the river? And for what? So you and your buddies can make a money grab?”

  “You don’t understand,” Jack said. “Thousands of men will die if you don’t come with me.”

  Red whipped around, and a lock of her fire-red hair flopped out from her kerchief. “I’m not going to be tricked again. I’m sure there are a hundred laws we’d be breaking if we followed you. Thousand men. What men?” She turned to me. “I’m not risking my life for a pot of gold. I was being sarcastic back at camp when I mentioned the giant. I never dreamed we’d actually have to go and get it.”

  When Red said “pot of gold” I had to agree with her. Nazi chest or not. “I think it’s best if we get back to France, before we get caught up on the wrong side of a battle.” I shivered thinking about it. “It’s strange being here. Behind enemy lines.”

  “It’s not just a pot of gold,” he said. “I’d understand if it were, but the hard truth of it is the Reich’s preparing for a postwar resistance. They call themselves Hitler’s werewolves. The chest was sent here to fund them. We know through intelligence that there’s at least two hundred in training in a castle outside of Aachen. If you don’t help me, if we can’t get to the package first, our enemy will rise up from the ashes and slit the throats of our soldiers in the night.”

  “Mother of God,” I said, fingers to my lips. “A postwar resistance.”

  “I’ll be with you,” Jack said, and he reached for my arm. “I’ll go as far as I can, lead you all there. I’d do the job alone if the butcher wasn’t expecting women—”

  Red threw a pointed finger in the air. “The Allies can get the chest when they invade Germany. They’re practically at the front door!”

  “Red’s right,” I said. “It’s too dangerous, especially with our boys so close to crossing the Rhine.”

  “And the day they cross, the werewolves will attack the POW camps with artillery and soldiers they funded with the giant,” he said.

  I clutched my chest. “What?”

  “Starting with the one in Karlsruhe,” he said.

  Sam! My knees buckled as if a bat had smacked them and I collapsed to the ground. Red tried to catch me, and I looked into her eyes, barely able to speak.

  Red reminded Jack about my brother’s capture, which he remembered from when we questioned the German. “But we don’t know where he is,” she added. “A POW camp somewhere.”

  “Red,” I said, and she sat me on the bed. “Karlsruhe is where he’s at. I didn’t want to tell you, but I found out.” I gulped hard, pulling my map out from the top of my dress, which was now too damaged to use.

  Her eyes constricted. “How do you know this?” she said, but I couldn’t answer. “How, Kit?”

  “You know how,” I finally said, and she looked away, shaking her head. “I asked the German. All of our boys captured that day are there—the camp in Karlsruhe. I paid the mess cook to get me a map because I needed to know where that was. All right? The doctor didn’t give it to me.”

  “And that’s how the German found you out? You asked too many questions, didn’t stick to the script like you were told. That’s it. Isn’t it?” she said, and I nodded continuously. She took me by the shoulders when I wouldn’t look at her.

  “Yeah, Red,” I said, meeting her eyes. “That’s how, all right? It was killing me not knowing where Sam was, and once I had the name of the place, it felt like he was still alive. I just needed to know.”

  She let go of me to hold her head. “I knew something wasn’t right with that map,” she groaned. “I knew it.”

  “I wanted to tell you, but you were so worried, and… and… I had to ask, Red. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by.” I wiped my eyes, which had teared up, glancing back and forth between her and Jack. “Like this Red, you know we have to do this. We can’t let the werewolves attack the POW camps. We save people. Isn’t that what you always say? You’ll never forgive yourself if they raze the camps.”

  The room turned piercingly quiet as she moved her palms to cover her eyes. And the question of the job, and what to do next hung in the air. Jack was clear he didn’t intend to go back to France right away. Red, I was sure, would be out the back door as soon as Roxy and Gail stepped through it.

  “I’m doing it,” I said, but Red remained still. “Did you hear me? I’m—”

  “I heard you.” She inhaled deeply, sucking air back into her chest. A subtle nod followed. “I’ll go too,” she said.

  “Are you sure, Red?” I said. “What about your family? Your mom—”

  “I don’t want them to attack the POW camps either.” She turned around when I touched her shoulder, and she laced her fingers with mine. “Plus, I’d never let you go alone.” She looked at Jack very seriously. “But I’m telling you one thing right now, if I’m going to steal that giant thing—part of the Nazi war chest—I’m keeping some of it.”

  Jack didn’t say anything about Red’s declaration, which I thought he might.

  “What do we have to do?” I said to Jack.

  “Two women—werewolves—parachuted into the forest not far from here. They’re on the move, and they have plans to retrieve the funds from a man they call the butcher, at a farm on the outskirts of Lichtenau, tomorrow. We have to get there first.” He pointed to his map. “Right there. It’s not far, but we have to go through the village and into the country.” He looked at his watch. “But time is running out.”

  “How big is it?” I asked. “I mean, are we able to carry it? It’s not like we have a truck to drive over the river with it.”

  “From what I understand it’s in a bag. Jewels, probably. We’ve been told to ask for a package.”

  Yesterday I was in my dirty little nurse tent, fixing up boys from the Third, and taking slugs of wine in the off hours that rolled into fourteen-hour shifts. Today I was in a German’s cellar, hiding out with an OSS officer, planning a covert operation to steal some of the Reich’s war chest. Roxy wouldn’t believe it. She’d get mad at us first for not telling her about the giant. After she came back with the dead men’s tags, there was no telling what kind of shape she’d be in; I’d seen her at her worst in Saint-Lô, and I’d seen her at her best moments ago when she walked out that door.

  I turned to Red. “What do we tell Roxy?”

  Red’s eyes shifted to mine.
“The truth.”

  14

  KIT

  And we waited. Time ticked on and I thought Red was going to lose her mind if the girls didn’t show up soon. I begged the pharmacist’s wife for something else to eat, saying it would help keep us quiet, and she came back with a big bowl of soup from the deli across the square. Red waved for her to give it to me, too sick over Roxy and Gail to eat. The wife waited for me to have a taste before leaving.

  “How is it?” Jack asked me, but I could barely swallow it.

  “It’s good,” I said, and he laughed.

  “It’s not good,” he said. “Boiled cabbage tastes like a slug of salt, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded, trying hard not to spit it out in front of the wife. “Thank you,” I said to her, and she nodded, but she also gave me a strange smile as if she might have understood some of what I’d said to Jack in English. I wasn’t about to complain out loud to her in German. They were taking a big risk helping us, and I knew their hospitality would only last so long, especially after Roxy waved scissors in her husband’s face. Those Nazi flags outside weren’t there for show. She went back into the pharmacy, locking the door up, and I pushed the soup away.

  Urgent knocking on the back door sent Red flying into the air. “It’s them!”

  I held Red back with my arm to keep her from opening it. “Wait for the signal,” I said, but the knocking persisted. Red closed her eyes, murmuring to herself for the sequence to change, like they’d agreed to before they left.

  Then three knocks in succession followed by one, and I let my arm down. Red opened the door, and Roxy and Gail fell into the room, landing on the floor.

  Roxy held her hand up from the ground, huffing and puffing from the last-minute sprint down the stairs. “I got them.” Her fingernails were covered in dirt, and her hair had unraveled partially from her German braids. Gail sat up on her knees and hugged Roxy, which surprised Red and me. I never thought I’d see the day.

  Each of them smiled. “Nobody saw us,” Roxy said, swiping hair from her eyes.

  “How do you know?” Red said.