The Girls from the Beach

by Andie Newton

  We were used to the villagers giving us small gifts, but this was something else. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  She handed me and Roxy each a silver one. Mine was engraved with fancy writing that turned out to be a swirly design. I held it in my palm, and it felt heavier than I thought a locket should be. The winemaker’s wife smiled, reaching for the locket and showing me how to break it apart into two lockets, twisting them in her hands like popping the lid off a jar. I gasped. “Two?”

  Roxy smiled. “It’s for Red,” she said. “When she comes back.”

  The winemaker’s wife turned to leave. “Wait,” I said, and she stopped in the doorway.

  “Merci,” I said, and she shook her head this time.

  “No, mademoiselles,” she said, almost tearfully. “Thank you.” Then she shut the door and left us with our lockets.

  I closed my eyes briefly, vowing never to take it off, pressing the locket to the flat of my chest. Not until I found Red, or she found me. Never. And that little act made me feel like someday I really would be able to take it off, and give her the other half.

  Roxy had gone back over to the window. “It can’t be long now. Come see.” She waved me over. Smoke billowed in the sky like a brush fire. “Bastard Germans, no good rotten piece of…”

  “Roxy!” I said, because she didn’t just say bastard. She said a lot more. Words I’d only thought of.

  “Hell, Kit. They won’t recognize us back home, ya know?” Roxy said. “I don’t know how to talk like I used to. I’m… changed.”

  “I know, Rox,” I said. “Me too. I’m going to hell for the hells and damns I say.”

  Gail got a clean dress for me from downstairs. Such a thin little thing, and tattered, but I’d slipped it over my head and when I felt it brush against my skin, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled from the memories of the last few days. “I never thought I’d long for my old fatigues,” I said. “Olive drab and worn.”

  Gail locked the bedroom door, and she and Roxy sat on the bed. “Listen, Kit,” Roxy said. “Not sure how to tell ya this but…” Roxy reached under the bed and pulled out the bag of jewels. “Jack, well… he…” She plopped the bag into the sagging mattress gap where my body had lain, and opened the flap.

  I gasped. “You still have them?” I plunged my hand into the sparkling jewels, wiggling my fingers in them. Roxy and Gail looked at each other.

  “Well ya,” Roxy said. “See, that’s the thing—”

  “Kit?” Jack knocked on the door, and I pulled my hand out.

  “In a minute!” Roxy yelled, before whispering. “We were waiting for Red to tell us what to do. Remember? Back in the cave, she said we should hold on to it.”

  “Hasn’t he asked you about it?”

  “Well of course he has,” Roxy said. “He thinks this is my medical bag, retrieved from where I’d buried it. I swear I think he hit his head on a rock or somethin’. We told him you had the jewels.”

  Jack knocked again, and I was the one who shouted this time. “In a minute!” That got him to stop, but I felt him standing on the other side of the door, trying to listen.

  “Well?” Roxy whispered. “What are we gonna do with it? Gail and I talked about it. This is Nazi money. Who knows where it came from—it’s blood money. Every single person they’ve imprisoned. Get rid of the person, and keep their assets is what the newspapers reported back home.”

  “I know… I know…” I said. “We can’t give it to Jack. Not after what we went through to get it, and especially how we were tricked by that sergeant of his, Meyer—that’s the one I don’t trust.” I looked back at the door and then dropped my voice so low even I could barely hear myself. “I think we should decide who gets it. Where it goes. I definitely don’t want it to wind up in our government’s coffers.”

  Roxy blinked, her eyes big and round, waiting for me to tell her what we were going to do. Gail held her wounded arm, also looking at me.

  Jack knocked a little more urgently this time, and I closed my eyes. If Red were here, she’d tell me to make up a story. I looked at the girls.

  “It is your medical bag, all right? The only one we have left after that hell we went through,” I said, and Roxy nodded. Jack knocked again, and I told Gail to open the door and for Roxy to hide the bag.

  He stood in the doorway holding a rag to his nose. A bruise had started to purple between his eyes, and I knew I’d popped him pretty dang good, but he didn’t say a word about the slug I gave him. “Can I come in?” he said, and I pointed to the bed where he could sit. “Now, can you tell me what happened?”

  “What have you heard?” I said, and Roxy and Gail shifted their eyes from Jack to me.

  “I heard their story,” he said, pointing to the girls, “right up to where you drove over the mine.”

  I smiled, laughing a bit. “Oh, yes… the mine. Pity you missed that. Pity you missed all of it. The butcher… the poison bullet that Gail bought…” I rolled my eyes, taking a deep breath, not sure if I could recount our entire journey without slugging him again. “Perhaps you should tell me your story,” I said, and his face scrunched the best it could with a sore nose.

  “I talked to the pharmacist and his wife. You fed us to the butcher and then walked away…”

  He shook his head, holding the rag to his nose. “I don’t know what they told you, but the truth is they kicked me out moments after you guys left, saying I wasn’t welcome anymore. I collapsed more times than I care to admit finding the river, and I barely made it across. If it wasn’t for the winemaker’s wife and her pies, I wouldn’t have the strength to stand properly. I would have gone with you to the butcher’s if I thought I was well enough,” he said, and I unfolded my arms, which had been tightly crossed throughout his story. “Honest.”

  “Really?” I said, and he nodded. It was hard not to believe him after hearing him out, especially after the way the pharmacist had treated me last night. “Then I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said, pointing at his nose indiscriminately. “For the whack. You understand though, right?”

  He waved me off. “Sure… sure…” And he acted like it was no big deal, but I think that was because he didn’t want to talk about how a girl had hit him. “I understand.”

  “Good,” I said, and we waited for him to ask about the diamonds, smiling, looking at each other, which gave me a few more seconds to think about my story.

  “What happened with the package?” he said. “Did you hide it?”

  I looked away before standing up, which was my way of buying even more time. “Sorry, Jack… and girls,” I said, looking at Roxy and Gail, “but I lost it in the river. Gun is gone too. One of those things, ya know? The rain, and the current. The bag slipped through my fingers like Doctor Burk slipped through my fingers.” I turned to Jack after taking a deliberately long pause. “And frankly I don’t want to talk about it again. We lost a member of our team, two actually, and it seems inconsiderate to bring up the package after what we’d been through to finish the job you’d started. The fact is, the Germans will never find it, unless the Rhine dries up. And you know that won’t happen in this century. All right?”

  Jack’s face was one of shock.

  “Well,” I said. “Are you going to say something—”

  He bolted to his feet, walking to the door with an angry huff. I looked at the girls, who shrugged, and I started to think my story wasn’t good enough, that he’d seen right through it and knew it was a lie. We watched him rub his face, then tilt his head back and stare at the ceiling.

  “I know it’s not what you wanted to hear,” I said. “Sorry.”

  He turned around suddenly, and I lifted my chin, fully expecting him lash out.

  “I’m not mad,” he said. “Not at you guys.”

  I slumped forward. “You’re not?” I almost couldn’t believe my own ears.

  “It’s not what I wanted to hear, you’re right, but the important thing is the werewolves don’t have it.” He sat back
down and in a surprise twist, he placed his hand on mine momentarily, giving it a slight pat. “Sorry for erupting like that, and sorry for putting you all through this. You were incredibly brave, and I blame myself for getting shot in the first place and not being well enough to go with you.”

  I smiled. “You do?”

  He nodded. “And you’re right. You have been through enough. You all have. We don’t have to mention it again if you don’t want to.”

  Roxy’s face was frozen as much as Gail’s, the dim sunlight glimmering off bomb haze through the window made them look even more in awe of what I’d achieved. In one fell swoop, I got Jack to never ask me about the package again.

  *

  We couldn’t leave the vineyard until we got word that the nearest village had been liberated, which had yet to come. Another night away from our hospital, but a night we were in France. I used the winemaker’s old medical kit to redress Jack’s wound, telling him it was part of the supplies Roxy had salvaged from the river. I made him sit in their library, which was cozy with plush chairs and lit up with candlelight.

  I set the kit on the side table and picked through the few items she had left that were unused. “I have to take your shirt off,” I said, and I helped him pull his shirt up over his head. He only moaned a little bit, but I think he was trying to act tough, and sat bare-chested in the chair with the candlelight flickering over his muscles.

  “I’ve seen and heard a lot of wounded boys out here,” I said. “You don’t have to hold it in. If it hurts, tell me.”

  He nodded, and I unwrapped the bandage, but it wasn’t the one I’d given him in the cellar. “Who dressed this for you?” I said.

  “I did,” he said. “Why? Didn’t I do a good job?”

  Surprisingly he did do a good job, and his wound was healing and the infection was almost gone. After cleaning him up a bit with the one alcohol swab left in the kit, I rewrapped his arm. His eyes flicked to me, and he caught me looking at his chest.

  I turned away, blushing. “All done,” I said, and I patted his back before helping him with his shirt. He stood up and watched me gather up what was left of the kit, and I had the feeling he wanted to keep talking to me. “Yes, Jack?” I said, and his eyes trailed to Roxy and Gail who’d walked into the library.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Oh?” I said, and I held my breath. The girls hugged the wall.

  “Well, I want to say thanks,” he said, and after staring at me for a moment, he pointed to his arm. “For the bandage.”

  “Yeah, of course,” I said, and he left, nodding once to Roxy and Gail on his way out.

  Both girls gave me looks, but it was Roxy who looked like she wanted to whistle. “I punched his lights out, guys,” I said. “He doesn’t like me.”

  “Those eyes of his…” Roxy said. “He was looking at you, and not a casual glance, let me tell ya.”

  “Nah,” I said, but I had started to believe her.

  The bombing had stopped. And the one night there wasn’t any rain, we weren’t out in it. By morning, we were anxiously waiting in the upstairs bedroom for word to leave. Roxy paced the room, nearly pulling her hair out, when a motorcycle motored up to the house. “Someone’s here,” she said, and we ran to the window to see the winemaker and his wife talking to the driver in the grass. Moments later they all hugged, and the wife waved for us to come down.

  Roxy gasped. “We can leave!”

  We dashed out of the room and pounded down the stairs. The crack of unfiltered daylight beaming through a lift in the haze nearly blinded me, and I walked slowly into the field, shielding my eyes.

  Jack squinted, pointing into the air, and a B-17 cut through the haze and flew right over us, metal rattling, engines thundering, sending a tingling shiver up my spine. The joy I felt at seeing our boys changed into a swirl of nerves, realizing they could be on their way to bomb a baited train car. It was too much to think about, and I instantly closed my eyes.

  “We have to believe,” Roxy said, wiggling my hand, and I nodded.

  The winemaker and his wife drove us into the village in their field truck. I’d been at the front when our boys liberated villages, but our hospital never stayed long enough to see the people truly celebrate because we were always on the move, on to the next battle. There were cheers, and dancing, and people waving from open windows, but there was also something else, something very sinister happening in the square. We got out of the truck and stood on the sidewalk. Men rushed past with French flags draped over their shoulders, shouting for the traitors to show themselves. Three women were brought out of a building into the square near the dry fountain.

  “What are they doing?” I said.

  Roxy shook her head, holding on to Gail. “I don’t know…”

  I could only stand and gawk. The villagers taunted them, and when they stripped the women of their dresses and made them stand in their slips and bare feet, we gasped.

  I reached out blindly for Jack. “What are they doing?”

  “We can’t intervene,” Jack said, turning to us. “It’s what they do to collaborators. We have no say.”

  Gail put her hand over her mouth when they brought out the scissors. But it was Roxy who hid her eyes when they sheared the women’s hair from their heads. The crowds cheered, pointed, and jeered.

  “It will be over soon,” Jack said as if to make it better, “and they’ll have to bear the cross they sewed for themselves—helping the Germans.” He walked away, but we stood in the street, watching, unable to look away.

  One woman looked at me through the crowd, her eyes locking with mine. Her hair was thin, brown, and wispy near her eyes. The baby in her arms cried, and she could do nothing to soothe him. She tipped her head back, and in a few short moments, she was crudely removed of her hair.

  “Ah hell, Rox. I can’t look anymore,” I said, listening to them goad her.

  “Come on,” Roxy said, and we walked down the crowded street. Numb. I thought I’d seen it all. All the war had to offer. The liberation of this village was a clear reminder that not only was there much more to come, but also so much I didn’t know.

  “Where are our boys?” I said, and Jack told us they had moved out, heading north.

  I looked at Roxy, a breath of air escaping from my mouth. They decided not to cross the Rhine after all. At first, I didn’t know if I should laugh, cry, or be glad. But then I felt relieved, thinking Red’s train car might be safe after all.

  We followed Jack through the village. Wine shops handed out bottles of wine, shoving them into people’s hands. Troupes of dancers blocked us on the road, children jumping and skipping, women singing. And just beyond the excitement, through the many bodies that had crowded around us, two Sisters rang a bell near a tall stone building, dressed head to toe in dusty black and white habits. A bucket had been brought out with a sign to help the orphans of the war. Passers-by dropped coins into it and what trinkets they could part with.

  I grabbed Roxy’s arm, startling her. “Roxy!”

  She clutched her chest from having been scared. “What?”

  My heart thumped. “I know what to do!” I swallowed, gathering my words. “With the package.” She tried to see what I was looking at, when I pointed. “Over there.”

  Her mouth fell open as did mine, and after a moment on the street, with us watching the Sisters, Gail locked arms with me. Roxy nodded. I nodded. And without words, we walked toward them down the cobblestone street and up to the sidewalk where the Sisters rang their bell. I slipped the bag of jewels into the bucket.

  Thump.

  Our backs were turned when they lifted the bag up and looked inside, but we heard one of them shriek with joy. “That’s for you, Red,” I said, and we kept on walking.

  “I do kind of wish we’d kept a diamond or two, maybe even those four rubies,” Roxy said. “You know… a souvenir, for everything.”

  I pressed my locket to my chest, feeling the metal close to my heart. “Yeah.”

>   26

  KIT

  We got a ride to our field hospital, but it was Jack who drove us to the administration tent to meet with Sergeant Meyer. We stood like drowned rats that had been set out on the pavement to dry. He looked us up and down, removing his reading glasses and pushing away a map he’d been studying on his desk.

  “Good Lord.” He looked at Jack. “Is this all of you?”

  “You tricked us,” I said.

  Meyer glanced at me before looking back at Jack, who didn’t say a word.

  A girl came into the tent with a tray and a steaming kettle of tea. “You dirty son-of-a-bitch,” I said, and she turned right back around.

  Meyer blinked a few times, looking caught off guard by my cursing, before standing up with a jolt, pointing a finger at me. “Listen here…”

  “Don’t, sir,” Jack said, pushing his finger out of my face. “Don’t. Not after what they’ve been through.”

  I was already feeling righteous when we walked in, but when Jack stood up for me, my spine hardened even more than it had. “We lost our doctor in the river. He’s dead. And Red…” Roxy put her hand on my shoulder, and I swallowed dryly. “We may never see her again.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us the truth?” Roxy said. “Why’d you have to lie?”

  Her question hung in the air, and Meyer looked a little lost for words. Gail stepped forward.

  “We had a right to be prepared,” Gail said. “We would have gone anyway. But what you did wasn’t right, sir. Wasn’t right at all.”

  “Yeah,” Roxy said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We would have gone anyway. We’re battle nurses, don’t you know?” I folded my arms, waiting for him to respond, but he sat back down at his desk, rubbing his head.

  “I’m… I’m sorry,” he finally said.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Is that all?”

  “I didn’t think you’d go. Especially you, Kit. Not after—” he looked at the others “—what happened the last time we’d met.”