The Major's Daughter

by J. P. Francis

  “You should know that Collie is the camp translator,” Sherman Heights said, sipping his coffee. “At least this far into the campaign. You must be proud of your daughter, Major.”

  “Very proud,” Major Brennan said, lifting a dull white handkerchief to his lips. His voice, Henry noticed, seemed sometimes to sink on the last few words, as if his lungs could not quite release them. “She’s been doing more than her share in every way.”

  “Where did you learn Heiny talk?” Amos asked.

  He slouched in his chair. He made Collie uncomfortable, Henry saw, and he deliberately used a slang word to deprecate her ability to speak German. Amos despised social conventions and did his best to disrupt them, but his hatred for Germans ran deeper even than that, Henry knew. Henry watched him with dull astonishment.

  “My mother was fond of German opera and lieder music,” Collie said, apparently ignoring his tone as she slid the coffeepot onto the silver tray at the center of the table. “We lived in Munich for a short time when I was quite young. My father convalesced there, and he also served as an adjunct during the peace discussions.”

  “That’s very impressive,” Sherman Heights said. “I may need to steal her from time to time, Major, if it comes to that. We depend on a fellow up in a logging camp here to translate when the need arises. A German fellow, but he’s so long in this country that his language has dried up on him.”

  “I’ll part with her reluctantly,” Major Brennan said, “and only for the briefest periods.”

  “Of course, of course,” Henry heard his father say. “Now, I should also mention that Henry has joined us permanently. He’s going to be put in charge of shipping. It’s his first full day, in fact.”

  Henry felt himself flush. He was aware of Collie, the major’s daughter, glancing quickly at him. He had seen that look before: one of quick appraisal, then dismissal. What was a man if he could not join the service when his country needed him? He was young and outwardly robust, he knew, and he suspected that many people, hearing the news of his disqualification, attributed it to his family’s prominence. It was emasculating. Any attempt to explain his circumstances only made the situation worse.

  Fortunately, before they could delve further into the matter, they began discussing the details of their business arrangement: how many workers, how many hours, what terms, when the loads would be delivered, and so forth. Much of it had already been hammered out, but Henry nevertheless had difficulty keeping his mind on the discussion. Some of it was too new for him to comprehend, but he was also distracted by Major Brennan’s daughter’s presence. Collie, he reminded himself. What proved most distracting was trying not to look at her or to be distracted by her; he felt if he could simply give in and gaze at her as much as he liked, he might be satisfied with his study and turn his attention to the matter at hand. It was the surreptitiousness of his glances that complicated everything. When at one point the conversation paused and he realized he was expected to speak, he cleared his throat and simply nodded. That produced an awkward gap that his father hurried to fill with his own voice.

  After the meeting, he joined his father and Amos in walking the Brennans out to their waiting jeep. Their driver held the door open.

  “Good-bye,” his father said, shaking hands with them both, “let us know if we can be of any assistance.”

  “Good-bye,” Collie said to them all. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  Then with a slight grinding of gears, they departed.

  “Lovely girl,” Henry’s father said. “She must have quite an impact up at the camp.”

  “It’s a wonder the Germans don’t rape her,” Amos said. “Ugly bastards.”

  “Not every German . . . ,” Henry started to say, then stopped. It was no use.

  “Back to work,” Henry heard his father say. But Henry’s eyes remained on the jeep, the blond hair receding like a soft, yellow blossom.

  • • •

  It was a day for it, August thought as he watched the twitch horse heave against the traces in order to drag the raft of logs to the landing an eighth of a kilometer below. The flies swarmed fiercely and surrounded his ears with sound, but the sun shone brilliantly and the smell of pines drifted everywhere. It was the sort of day that his father might declare a wandertag, a day to wander in the Black Forest, backpacks and staves at the ready, afterward a visit to a heuriger for a meal of sausage and cheese and the bright happy singing of the accordion. It felt something of a dream that such an outing had ever been possible. But the weather at least was as fine as what they had known in Austria before the war. It was a spring morning and the birds had become crazed with its luscious warmth.

  With Gerhard, one of the team members, driving the horse down to the landing, the men took a break. Two guards stood above them on the hillside, their rifles held lazily across their chests. Even the guards, August realized, could not resist such weather. At first both had stood guard resolutely, their faces locked in a neutral expression, their eyes alive to treachery. Gradually, however, the increasing warmth of the morning, the dull snore of the two-man saw working back and forth over the logs, had softened them. By midmorning they had devised a system where one of them would sit while the other remained alert. It had taken time, but the guards, August understood, had eventually realized that their captives would not flee into the woods at a moment’s inattention. Escape was possible, certainly; that had become clear almost immediately. Too many men moving in all directions, combined with the horses, the odd Coca-Cola trucks filled with reporters, the newness of the daily routines, all held countless opportunities for flight. In the barracks the men had laughed at the security system. It was their duty to escape if they could, and some of the men already had plans to do so, but other men, men tired of the war and of hardship, had cautioned against it. It was one of the many threads of talk the men had engaged in freely, because the Americans, they soon understood, had no knowledge of German. The prisoners had tested the Americans many times over on the first few days, speaking a vile epithet to get a rise from them, but the Americans had been deaf to everything out of ignorance. The older German men, especially the hard core of Nazis who had already assumed command of the barracks, had ridiculed the Americans ceaselessly, calling them ignorant pigs.

  But his cutting crew, at least, had no grudge against the Americans. August had already served as a translator to ask questions of the American guards: when did they think the war would end, and what did they miss the most from their wartime privations, and girls, what were American girls like? The questions had been lighthearted for the most part, and the Americans had slowly warmed to both the questions and the crew. Now isolated in the woods, at least two kilometers from camp, August felt at ease, though his hands had already blistered and his arms and shoulders ached from dragging the saw back and forth and limbing the trees with an ax. Eine klafter pro kopf, one cord per man per day. That was the camp’s motto.

  “All right, back to work,” one of the guards, Private Mitchell, said when Gerhard returned with the horse. “We’ll be here until nightfall at this rate.”

  Gerhard turned the horse in the clearing they had forged at the base of the small rise. Flies swarmed all over the poor animal, and the horse flicked his tail and lifted his hind leg to brush them away. The horse’s name was Bob. Gerhard, the only farmer among them, had immediately taken charge of the animal. Gerhard was a solid, doleful character, who happened to be one of three Austrians among the prisoners. August felt a natural affection for him. He had known many men like him back in his home country—good, honest souls with square heads, men whose hands worked the soil and woodlands. Often Gerhard spoke longingly of the dogs he left behind, a breed he had fashioned himself by crossing wolfhounds and spaniels. He called them bread-dogs, kruh-hounds, and he outlined the animal’s family tree as though they were human relatives.

  “Ask them if we work on Easter, too,” William
said.

  William was tall and skinny, with bad skin and a long nose above teeth too prominent for his narrow face.

  August called the question up to the guards. The guards did not seem to know the answer. They discussed it for a moment before the second guard, Private Ouellette, responded that he didn’t think so.

  “Against the Geneva Conventions,” Hans said, picking up the saw and extending the other end to Howard, the last member of their crew. Howard and Hans had similar builds, short and blocky, and they had both been meatcutters in civilian life. They went everywhere together, and talked about their trade before the war, and how, in time, the meat had grown rarer and coarser. Their discussion of meat seemed to be endlessly fascinating to them; they seemed determined to ride out the internment together.

  “They must observe holidays. It’s mandatory,” Howard said.

  “You put too much faith in the Geneva Conventions,” Hans said. “They can bloody well do what they like with us.”

  “Not if they want their own boys looked after.”

  “There’s a lot of ocean between here and there.”

  Listening, August wondered if anyone knew what the Geneva Conventions permitted or disallowed. Everyone talked about them as if they knew them to the last letter, but he doubted anyone in the barracks had ever read them. He certainly hadn’t. Nevertheless, it was a magic wand that entered every conversation, used however it was needed for the moment. The Nazis in the camp laughed at the mention of the Geneva Conventions. They claimed such covenants were for weaklings.

  August began limbing the next tree, a thick spruce with a sharply braided trunk. He used a broadax, chopping the smaller branches easily. Once he had the tree cleared of obstacles, Hans and Howard would saw it into five-meter lengths. Finally they would attach a chain to the trees and drag them down to the landing. From there a truck would eventually come and transport them to the mills in Berlin. But the truck would not come until they had a sufficient load, and so the day went round and round, not unpleasantly, but not easily, either. The work satisfied August, at least to some degree. It was straightforward and uncomplicated; it required none of the moral philosophizing that the war had carried with it day to day.

  They worked until four o’clock. It was only their fourth day on the job, and August felt his legs tremble as he joined the crew for the walk back to camp. He felt hot and sweaty, and his hands stung horribly from blisters. In time, perhaps, they would grow accustomed to the work, but for the time being he marveled at the exhaustion that poured through his body. The guards, fortunately, behaved sensibly: they did not force the Germans to move faster than necessary.

  In fact, the guards gave them permission to wash in Mill Stream, the small brook that ran down into the oddly named river at the base of the camp. When the guards first mentioned it, August watched the other men tighten. They worried about a trick, or some darker impulse that let the guards suggest a washup, but the guards’ faces remained friendly and open.

  “Go ahead, tell them they can wash here if they like. They worked hard today,” Private Mitchell said, directing his comments to August.

  “Does he mean it?” William asked.

  “I think he does,” August said. “If they meant to shoot us they could have done so already.”

  August stripped out of his shirt and shoes and dipped his face in the water. It felt wonderful. He stood on the bank and slipped out of his trousers, then stepped into the water and fell into a kidney-shaped pool that had been carved out of a stream bank. The others did the same, wading in and splashing, shouting and laughing now that they felt secure in taking a quick bath. August lay back and let his body float in the stream, and for a moment he remembered the heat of Africa, the burned bodies dangling like fuses from the Panzer tanks outlined against the wadis. It had all been hideous, not at all like the war they had been promised, and when the Anglo-American forces had surrounded them, the German company had surrendered on its knees like so many headstones. Yes, that was what he remembered as he lay in the water, feeling the coolness restore his body, the taste of soil and grasses mixed with the ripe scent of the stream. In the silence won by putting his ears beneath the water’s surface, he saw the men splashing and laughing, watched the guards smiling, cigarettes in their hands, and a beam of light falling gently through the treetops. It called to mind a painting, something he had seen as a schoolboy, but now he failed to recall the name. It had been an impressionist, likely, a concentration of paint and light and bright colors, and as he let the water carry him to the heel of the small pool, he felt himself flying over the ocean, returning to his home, to his mother and father and his brother, Frederick. He did not know if they had survived, but in the stream light it seemed possible they may have lived, and he felt a moment’s relief from his anguish and worry.

  When he sat up, the men had turned, like so many weather vanes, to the sight of the commandant’s daughter walking from the camp.

  “There she goes,” Hans said, and he did not have to identify further who he meant. She was the object of every eye in camp.

  August sat up quickly to see her. She hurried past, obviously embarrassed to see men—German prisoners!—bathing in a stream. He watched her walk away, her form lovely and so different from the endless men who surrounded him. He smiled and looked at the other men and they all smiled as well. Even the guards could not pretend disinterest.

  “Sie ist hübsch,” Howard said. Very pretty.

  “What is her name anyway?” Gerhard asked, then revised himself in English. “Her name?”

  He rested on his arms in the stream. He looked like a seal to August.

  “Collie,” Private Mitchell said. “Short for Colleen.”

  • • •

  Mrs. Hammond served Easter dinner at two o’clock and it came off beautifully, with sufficient food for every taste. That was one benefit of having the prisoners, even Mrs. Hammond admitted: the War Department sent train cars of food into Percy Station. People grumbled that the German prisoners ate better than the American population, and that was partially true, Collie imagined. She had read the editorial, printed just the day before, concerning the scarcity of food across the country, the ceaseless rationing that touched every facet of their lives, while the Germans had food and gasoline made available to them. It seemed a grave injustice to the editorial writer, but Collie wondered if the author had seen the German prisoners up close. They had been through a great deal, obviously, and no one with an ounce of charity in his heart could begrudge them decent food. Besides, the men required the food for work.

  Collie glanced out the window at the gloomy day. The weather was mixed and a cold front had lowered over the mountains to reclaim the last memories of winter. Collie sat with her father beside the sparkling fire. Her father, she saw, dozed off now and then, his head drifting rearward against the large chairback before he snapped forward and straightened it once more. He resisted sleep, she knew, because he wanted to visit the camp again before darkness. She had plans to go riding with the Chapman girls, though she was not certain if the weather would curtail the outing.

  Meanwhile, she wrote a letter to Estelle, outlining in broad strokes what had occurred in the camp over the last several days. It was difficult to know where to draw a line in what she told her friend. She had already clipped out a number of the pertinent stories from the Littleton Courier and the Berlin Reporter; she had even drawn arrows on the photographs the paper published to show Estelle where the men went and how they lived. It felt like doing a report for school, and she realized, as she came to the last paragraphs of the letter, that she had perhaps taken greater delight in assembling the report than might have been entirely friendly. She had loved doing such work at Smith, and she was aware of allowing her friend to serve as a surrogate professor. Estelle, her faithful friend, would read every word of it and respond in kind. But Collie knew she did the report for her own benefit at le
ast as much as she did to service their communication. She couldn’t help it.

  The phone rang somewhere in the house, and Collie heard Mrs. Hammond’s voice speaking. A moment later Mrs. Hammond came in and said the Chapman girls would arrive by three. The weather, she said, promised to clear. Mrs. Hammond’s voice stirred her father, who groggily climbed to his feet and put his back to the fire.

  “Excellent meal,” he told Mrs. Hammond before she departed. “Thank you for a lovely Easter dinner.”

  “It came out fairly well,” Mrs. Hammond said, her face blushing a little at the compliment. “Tell me, though, Major, I’ve heard the Germans have a professional cook up at the camp.”

  “It’s true. He was the head chef at a hotel in Munich. Apparently he’s quite gifted. You have competition in your small valley here, Mrs. Hammond.”

  “I’m sure I’m not competition for a professional chef,” Mrs. Hammond said, obviously in a little turmoil at the news. “What hotel was that?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll ask and let you know. I guess he intends to plant a garden for the mess kitchen, which is a good idea in any case. He requisitioned a few packets of seeds.”

  “A garden is a good thing.”

  Mrs. Hammond left.

  “That’s quite a letter you have there,” her father said, nodding at the papers surrounding her. “Is that for Estelle or the New York Times?”

  “Estelle, Papa.”

  “Well, she’ll be glad to have your news, I’m sure. This war can’t last forever, you know. You can go back to Smith when it ends.”

  “Oh, I think that day has passed, Papa.”

  “Not necessarily. The Germans can’t hold out too much longer, from what I hear. Their situation isn’t good.”

  “We’ll hope for a quick ending.”

  “So you are going riding with the Chapman girls? It was nice of them to invite you. You’ll be riding the big draft horses, I’m afraid.”