Maggie Bright

by Tracy Groot

  The doctor set it aside. He unwound the ties on his case, and unfolded it.

  Now that he had his way after pulling a rifle on a civilian, Jamie cast about for something conversational. “You’ve got the, you know—thread stuff for the job? Catgut? Isn’t that what they call it?”

  The doctor sent him a swift, seething glare.

  “Right. Just do a good job.” He looked down at the captain. “All right, Milty?”

  Captain Milton lay on the ground. He held both sides of his head, groaning softly, breathing faster as if caught in a nightmare, as if sunk to a private place of wrestled hell. Jamie had seen him like this before. Was it pain, or was it something else? Did thoughts of his men bring on that agony? When it was over, he’d always resurface to a wary, bewildered reality. Jamie had the urge to pat him on the head and speak kindly to him, then, like his old dog Toby.

  He knelt beside him.

  “Doc’s gonna fix you up. But there’s nothing to numb it. Here’s a harness strap, see? Cut from your friend the horse.” He worked the man’s mouth open, and slipped the leather piece between his teeth. “There’s a British soldier’s whiskey, eh?”

  And something strange happened: the brown eyes looked right at him, first time in two solid days, and it looked as if he had something to say. Something real. Something not from a book. Jamie hesitated, then dislodged the strap, fearing if anything came out it would only come out Milton.

  “Solitude sometimes is best society,” the captain whispered apologetically.

  He felt a little jump—that was direct to him. Even if it came from the book, it was like real conversation, and he understood it. Maybe the man had been trying to communicate in Milton words all along. His own wits blasted out, the wits of Milton blasted in.

  “It’s all right, mate. Sometimes . . . we can’t talk about things.” He couldn’t imagine losing his whole squad. Couldn’t imagine finding them blown to bloody ribbons. He’d go loony as the captain.

  Brown eyes still with him, the captain whispered, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

  “That it can.” He patted Milton’s arm.

  The doctor drew near with a water-soaked rag and needle and thread. He laid these on the captain’s stomach, and knelt, with clear distaste, in the dirt. He removed the dirty bandages. He wiped the wound with the cleanest parts of the old dressing, tossed it aside, took the water-soaked rag and dabbed very gently at the gash. Even gentle movements released fresh blood. Jamie’s stomach roiled, and he wondered how the doctor would stitch up that dark mishmash. The doctor gestured to the captain’s rucksack, and Jamie retrieved another bandage roll.

  Jamie thought he’d start right in with the needle and thread, but instead, Jamie watched as he used his fingertips to apply delicate pressure on the skull near the wound, and then fan out incrementally all around the captain’s head; as he did so, he gazed off, and let his careful fingers do the seeing. He frowned, and didn’t say what the frown meant. Was the captain’s skull fractured? Like an egg, broken in place? The doctor finished the probing, wiped fresh blood, and reached for the needle and thread.

  “Brace yourself, Cap’n.”

  “Trial will come unsought,” the captain said, and took the strap between his teeth.

  “That it will.” Boy, they were on a roll.

  The doctor went to work.

  Jamie very nearly did not come back.

  He’d seen it all quite clearly. He’d just take off, track down his squad, and they’d make for Dunkirk together. He saw the reunion in his head. I was hoping we were shut of you! Look what Hitler threw back, lads! He’d tell his tale, they’d tell theirs, and they’d be on their way.

  But could he tell them he’d left a wounded man?

  It made cold sense to leave the wounded. Jamie could fight, Milton could not, and by the look of things, England would need every man she could get once they rallied from this first blood.

  He didn’t know why he came back. Only, he couldn’t imagine what an enemy would do with a babbling man like this, a man just now starting to communicate, a man stuck inside a rotten, battered cage. Jamie was just now starting to crack the Milton code.

  What in me is dark, illumine: Why did I survive, and not my men?

  What is low, raise and support: Someone out there . . . help.

  He sat beside the captain, his back to the doctor’s work, and waited.

  WHAT MURRAY LIKED best about the movie Beau Geste was the way the sand blew over the dune in the opening scene, revealing the film’s title. Thrilled him every time. Now that’s art, he’d say to whoever sat next to him at the Palladium.

  When Murray first saw Maggie Bright at her berth on the Thames dock, it was as if sand blew over the dune.

  Good to see you, Mags, he called out in his heart.

  Little Miss Chatty Clare was all fluttery and proud and saying something, but Murray set down his bags on the dock and went to work ’cause oh, she hollered to be drawn.

  He pulled out a pad of sketch paper from the side pocket of his briefcase. He took out his pencil box and sorted through it until he found a Kimberly 4B with a reasonably sharp point.

  He hadn’t seen her in six years, not since he was seventeen. His father or Clare had changed the sails—they used to be white—and now the mainmast sail, currently furled, was an ugly salmon color, as was the foremast sail. Unless, pray his heart out, they were sail covers. Couldn’t tell from here.

  The rest of her was the same. Oh, there were some pots of flowers and herbs on the deck, which his old man never had, some painted paper Chinese lanterns strung out in a cheery red and yellow dotted line, some colorful rag rugs thrown about, and—well, there it was, a painted sign with curlicue letters that said Bed and Breakfast. A short garland of red flowers dangled from a corner of the sign.

  Sixteen feet at her beam, fifty-two feet on her length, and add another three feet if you count the retractable swimming platform off the port stern his old man put in the summer Murray was seventeen. Same beautifully paneled woodwork and shiny brass fittings that made other yachties pause for a look when she came into a marina. Same lettering on the transom, which Murray could not have done better, his mother’s name when his old man met her one summer at the resort on Long Island: Maggie Bright.

  Clare watched Maggie come to hollerin’ life beneath his pencil.

  When he finished, he withdrew as he always did from a drawing, backing out from one reality into another, and cocked his head.

  Clare studied the drawing, and then looked up at him. She looked at the boat, back to the drawing.

  He felt a pleased flush.

  “Like it?” he said like a little kid.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s marvelous. I feel foolish.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.”

  The drawing time gave him a chance to get used to seeing her again. Things might go easier when he went aboard. The cabin Clare had described was his. And Clare’s was his old man’s. It raised a sweat in his scalp.

  “It’s perfectly foolish,” Clare said with unexpected fierceness. “You’re wasting your talents on propaganda posters. Father Fitzpatrick surely knows this.”

  Murray put his pencil and drawing pad away.

  “Wait—give me the drawing. I have an idea.”

  He retrieved it from his briefcase, and gave it to her.

  She studied him for a moment, and then sighed. “Well, come on then—let’s meet our fate. Please try not to look like a burglar. Or a murderer. Don’t even frown. You look very intense when you do. Be on your best behavior, for Mrs. Shrew is going to kill me but we may as well present a good show. And remember—you know nothing about the dear BV. We must not let on that you are connected.”

  “Why?”

  “She’ll think another American has come to kill her. Oh dear, there she is. Courage, now.” She swallowed. “Courage. Vision. Singularity of purpose. That will conquer all.”
/>
  She didn’t look like she believed a word.

  Clare needn’t have worried.

  She used the sketch of Maggie as a peace offering for bringing a disapproved man aboard. She held it out like silver before a werewolf, and after a sharp look around Clare at Murray, whom she had instructed to stay safely behind her, Mrs. Shrew snatched and studied the drawing.

  It was somewhere in the middle of Clare rushing to say, “He’s another paying tenant, you see, isn’t it wonderful? He is an American and his name is Murray Vance. I know he is a man, but isn’t that a splendid drawing of our Maggie? What a clever little creature there on the bowsprit. Such talent, wouldn’t you say?” when Mrs. Shrew grabbed her own throat, not Clare’s, and said, a bit strangled, “Good heavens—the Murray Vance? I thought you were dead! I wore black.”

  Astonished, Clare turned to Murray. He gave a charming smile, spread his arms to display himself, and said, “I ain’t dead.”

  “Do you know,” said Mrs. Shrew, her voice now musical, “that my nephew and his friends are your biggest fans? They have a club. Rocketkids, they call themselves. Not very original, but they are young. Oh, please tell me: When will you get back to the funnies? Haven’t read anything new since January. Are you on hiatus?” She gasped, and a hand flew to her mouth. “Are you on sabbatical?”

  “If sabbatical means I’m here to refill the ol’ tank, sure am, ma’am.” Murray pushed up his hat. “Things got mossy in the old magic well, see. Hopin’ a change of scenery will help.”

  Oh, well done, Clare silently admired. He was very good at deception.

  Murray looked down and patted his stomach. “This is where I drop the bucket, see, and when I crank it up, I just look and see what I got.”

  “That’s where you found Rocket Kid?”

  “Doin’ the backstroke.”

  “And Salamander?”

  “Same place, one year later. Rocket Kid rescued him. Buncha punk kids were beatin’ him up.”

  Mrs. Shrew made a very small noise. Then she covered her lips with a set of fingertips, and ventured, “Tell me—please—Salamander is not dead, is he? Oh, he can’t be! True, such exquisite sorrow with your last comic strip—yet you left a trace of ambiguity as to his actual demise. All of your fans suspect the same. We—that is, the Rocketkids—refuse to believe he is dead. You can tell me. I promise I won’t say a word.”

  Clare certainly hoped that Salamander, whoever he was, was very much alive as both sets of fingertips now hovered at her lips. Clare looked anxiously at Murray.

  “You kiddin’ me?” Murray said. “Ain’t no Rocket Kid without Salamander.”

  “Just so!” Mrs. Shrew sang. She pressed a hand against her heart, laughing in relief. “Oh, I knew it. Bravo! Mr. Vance, I don’t suppose I could keep this?” she asked very meekly and hopefully and obsequiously of the drawing—Mrs. Shrew! Meek! Hopeful! Obsequious! Clare could only stare, feeling faintly nauseous.

  “All yours,” Murray said.

  “Oh, thank you ever so much!” She gazed at the drawing, extremely pleased. “It’s so good to see Salamander again. Could I ask you to sign it?”

  “Of course.” He did so, and handed it back.

  “Look—there he is again!” said a very pleased Mrs. Shrew, showing Clare. There was a tiny salamander sitting on the M, its tail curling into the V. “How clever!”

  “Yes. Well. Shall we go below and get you sorted?” said Clare. “You’ll want a washup before you turn in—the head is directly across from your cabin. Head means loo on a houseboat, by the way. Bathroom, I think you say in the States. Though of course, there’s no bathtub—this is a boat, you know. Can’t afford that sort of water usage. Very impracticable. I do miss bathing. In a bathtub. I do wash, of course—I’m perfectly clean. One learns to get along without a bathtub while maintaining perfect . . . hygiene.”

  She colored. Had she ever said the word hygiene in front of a man? Mrs. Shrew had put Clare completely off center.

  Who was this man? Suddenly he was the Murray Vance?

  “Isn’t it too early to turn in?” protested Mrs. Shrew. She laid a hand on his arm. “Love to hear how you intend to save Salamander.”

  “He’s very tired,” Clare said quickly, at the same time Murray said, “So would my editor.” They glanced at each other. Clare said to Mrs. Shrew, “He hasn’t slept in days.”

  “What?! That’s no way to treat the Muse!” Mrs. Shrew declared. “Off you go!” She shooed him to the companionway. “We’ll fill that well to overflowing! Maggie Bright is just the ticket for you!” She waved him on. “Embrace your destiny, lad!”

  “I’ll be along directly,” Clare told him.

  They watched him go below.

  “I can hardly believe it,” squeaked Mrs. Shrew.

  “Yes. Ah. Met him by chance in London. He was looking for lodgings. What great luck, don’t you think, to find someone who comes with his own references? International references? Good old . . . Rocket Kid.” She’d never heard of Rocket Kid.

  “Was ‘Embrace your destiny’ a bit much? I don’t want to fawn. Oh! You are sixty-seven. Retired. And one day . . . you meet Murray Vance, who becomes a fellow tenant. What a wonderful world. Oh, to be thirty years younger.”

  “Do you mean forty?” Oh, the naughty words fell out before Clare could stop them. At least she didn’t say fifty.

  “He’s not that young,” Mrs. Shrew said sharply.

  But you are that old, Clare thought unkindly, and only because Mrs. Shrew had something to talk to him about, and Clare did not.

  Not unless it involved a priest. And there, Murray wasn’t talking.

  “Do you know what this means? We get to help Murray Vance find his muse again! I’ve guided young minds all my life; it seems as though it was preparation for my biggest task of all. My nephew will go absolutely crackers.”

  “I’ll have to tell the captain he has some competition,” Clare dared to say, only because Mrs. Shrew was quite bemused.

  “Hmm? What? Shall I get him some cocoa? Do Americans drink tea? Oh, we can show him the box! He’ll be delighted!”

  “What box?”

  “The box the Burglar Vicar ransacked. With all the newspapers in it. Do you know that whoever owned this boat was a more devoted Rocket Kid and Salamander fan than—than my nephew?”

  “How so?”

  “Why, it’s the entire collection! Even when it was just Rocket Kid! Every single one from the very beginning—until that first week of January, 1940. I was quite astonished. Found three I hadn’t read. It’s a rare find, really. That box is probably worth a mint, or will be one day, especially the ones that are just Rocket Kid. Isn’t it interesting? How could the collector know what he was collecting? What instinct. Did he know it was the start of a worldwide sensation? My nephew is from Australia. They’re positively mad about Rocket Kid down there. They have festivals. Costume parties. Frolicking picnics round the billabong, ha-ha!” She studied her drawing, and said softly, “What amazing instinct this collector had.”

  A very strange feeling came to Clare.

  “Right. We must make a plan,” the Shrew took up briskly. “A Muse Retrieval Plan. This is quite serious. It will affect the entire world. I shan’t sleep at all tonight. He used to make me laugh. He still does, but they are repeat laughs—as if everyone doesn’t know it’s all been filler material since January. Stuff that doesn’t advance the plot at all.”

  “Oh dear,” Clare breathed.

  Arthur Vance died in January.

  Arthur Vance had collected every comic strip ever published by . . .

  His son.

  IF JAMIE HAD HOPED the tide had turned for communication with Captain Milton, he was disappointed; the portal that had cracked open seemed to close as surely as the doctor had closed the wound.

  The doctor had left hours earlier without a word, even after Jamie had thanked him. The captain huddled against a bale of hay in a corner of the shed. Jamie sat on a bale opposite, looking at
him. First time, really.

  He was of average height and build and looks, with dark hair sharp against the white of the bandage. Midthirties, maybe? He wore a wedding ring. Did he have kids? He had no identifying name on his ill-fitting jacket, no stripes to indicate rank, no ID tag, no name on his rucksack. Nothing personal in there save the book and some shaving supplies, nothing else except a packet of tea and a few tins of apricots. Maybe his belongings had blown up with his squad. It explained the loss of his jacket. It didn’t explain why his shaving kit and the Milton book had survived.

  He hadn’t said anything Milton, direct or indirect, since the doctor left. He’d dropped down into himself again, if not to that place of wrestled hell then maybe to a place of simple survival. He looked like a child, digging in bewilderment at his ears, staring at his wedding ring for a foreign object.

  That moment before the doc fixed him, was it real? Didn’t the captain actually look him in the eye, didn’t they share a few words of understanding, Milton or not?

  “Say something, Cap. I know you’re in there.”

  But he acted deaf, body and soul, shell-wrecked on the outside, maybe grief-wrecked on the inside.

  Jamie sighed and got to his feet.

  “Look, I’m afraid we’ve got to keep moving. We’ve got to get to Dunkirk. Do you understand? The Germans are coming and I won’t get caught on the wrong side of the line, wherever it’s finally drawn.” He went to the captain. “None of this is fair. Not the shape you’re in, not what’s happened, and it’s bloody unfair that I have to flog a half-dead man who hasn’t a clue what’s going on. Makes me feel like Genghis bloody Khan. But there’s nothing for it. Come on, then. Upsadaisy, Captain. Here we go. Steady, now. No, this way.”

  They emerged from the hay shed into a bright and humid afternoon, and started walking west.

  Hours later, Genghis bloody Khan opened a tin of apricots and made Milton drink the juice. He tried to feed him the apricots, and it went well for a few bites, but then the captain got a queasy look and threw it back up. The force of it produced freshened bloodstains on the bandage. Jamie changed the bandage, promised Milton no more apricots, and got him moving again.