She stopped at her stone bench halfway to the camp and pulled Estelle’s latest letter from her pocket. She had deliberately avoided reading the letter earlier at breakfast for fear of spoiling it. Estelle had promised to see if she could arrange a visit; it felt too much to hope for. Collie opened the letter and immediately felt comforted by Estelle’s lovely handwriting. She clutched the tissue paper to her chest when she spotted Estelle’s promise to arrive in two weeks’ time, early June at the latest. She smiled at the letter and teared slightly as she forced herself to slow and read it carefully. It had not been an easy thing to arrange, Estelle confided. She felt somewhat guilty, as if she were going off on a vacation while the rest of the world fought against the enemies of peace, but the war seemed to be tipping in favor of the Allies and it could not continue forever. Her mother had sensed Estelle’s restlessness, and she had encouraged her to take a trip. Frankly Estelle had not been faring too well, she confessed, and her parents agreed a change of scenery might be the needed thing. So the plans, while still tentative, seemed promising. She couldn’t wait to see her friend Collie, she wrote, and she wanted to experience everything Collie had written about: the funny horse rides, the grim German prisoners, and the bright forests of New Hampshire. She wanted most of all to take mountain walks and to have long conversations with her dear friend. She closed by extending her best wishes to Collie’s father.
Collie read the letter twice before she folded it carefully and returned it to her pocket. Estelle! How she longed to see her friend! Collie felt an eager thrill in her stomach. Plans rushed it like a mad torrent: things to do, walks to take, small adventures to pursue. She would show Estelle everything, confide in her about every element of her life, and, in turn, hear all the many thoughts and emotions that had been stored in her friend’s days. She patted the letter in her pocket and promised herself that she would read it again at lunch. Finally, reluctantly, she stood and began walking toward the camp in a quick march.
She had not gone far when she heard a siren begin to shriek. It built slowly, cranking until it filled every hollow space in the world. She knew immediately what it meant: someone had escaped, or had gone unaccounted for, and the siren meant the camp had been locked down. It had gone off twice before, both instances terrifying, but each time it had proven a false alarm. Once, in fact, a young American guard had said he had seen a German Messerschmitt, or a Japanese Zero streaking at them in a deadly line. The boy had been relieved of duty a few days later, sent back to Rhode Island, where he made his home.
But this time the siren conveyed more seriousness. By the time Collie reached the camp, the guards ran about like hornets. The Germans had not been sent out for work; they lounged in apparent amusement, watching the Americans hurry to establish who was present. The siren died as Collie passed through the front gate, and she saw her father step out of the administration building, a cup of coffee in his hand.
A pair of strange thoughts assaulted her at that moment. The first was that her father did not look particularly alarmed at the possibility of an escape. He resembled a man going out to check on a delivery that had disturbed him at his breakfast. Her other thought was that her father had grown gray. It may have been the angle of the sun, or his placidity in the face of the turmoil caused by the siren, but he looked considerably older suddenly. She wondered how she had missed such a thing. She went to him quickly, as if she could somehow prevent his aging by staying near him. But he turned and smiled, then took a sip of coffee.
“Seems one of our birds has flown,” he said. “It’s a wonder it took them this long.”
“Just one?”
“Apparently so. He slipped off into the woods from a cutting crew. That’s the current theory. The two guards on his crew each say the other fouled up. It’s hard to know what happened exactly. We’ll sort it out eventually.”
“What’s protocol?”
“We’ll put out a bulletin. Lieutenant Peters has already taken care of some of that, but there are still calls to make. It’s doubtful the prisoner will get very far, but you never know. If he can get on a train and pass himself off as a Dutch soldier, or camouflage himself somehow, he might make it to Boston or New York. If he gets that far, he’ll stand a good chance of permanent escape. If he tries to stay in the woods, he’ll be out soon enough.”
“You don’t seem particularly worried.”
“This is not a high-security camp. If a man is determined to get away, he probably can. The big thing is, people will panic when they hear about the escape. Once word gets out, the reporters will be calling.”
“How can I help?”
“We’re going to bring in his crew for questioning shortly. I will need you on hand to translate.”
He smiled and bent down and kissed her. Yes, she thought as she looked at him more closely, his age had started to show.
She went inside and helped Lieutenant Peters make phone calls for a half hour. They notified all the proper authorities. She glanced out the window now and then and watched as the Germans remained in ranks according to their barracks. The headcount, distant and rhythmic, went on and on. Apparently they were having trouble determining the missing party, or perhaps, she thought, they had decided to keep the men outdoors while other guards searched the barracks. In any case, the Germans seemed somewhat smug at the guards’ confusion. The vaunted German precision, Collie thought, would never have difficulty tallying a prison count.
When the count finished, her heart stopped to see August Wahrlich and his cutting crew being led across the parade ground to the administration building. It occurred so quickly that she did not have a moment to prepare herself. Guards flanked the Germans, herding them forward, and the Americans spoke gruffly to them. The missing man made more work for everyone.
Collie hoped she did not blush when the men halted on the small porch of the administration building. She leaned a little in her seat to see them. August stood a good head taller than the other men. Seeing him nearby for the first time, she realized she had underestimated his good looks. He was truly handsome, with a firm brow and fine eyes, a head of blond hair that lifted and inspected the breeze as it passed. His body looked trim from lumberjacking, and his stomach fell away from the cliff of his ribs into a valley that collected at his belt. He might have been a movie star, truly, and when he turned at something one of the guards said his profile rested in perfect symmetry. Studying him, she felt her blush deepen and she glanced quickly at Lieutenant Peters to make sure he wasn’t watching. But he was still on the phone, repeating himself for the tenth time concerning the details of the escapee, and when she looked back to see August she nearly cried out when she discovered his eyes had again found hers.
She lowered her eyes instantly. A guard pushed through the door and asked if Major Brennan was ready for the crew. Did he want them one by one, or all in a group? Lieutenant Peters covered the phone with his hand and replied that the major would interview them one by one. Keep all the men here after they are debriefed, he added, in case the major decided to speak to them as a unit.
Collie felt grateful for the interruption the guard afforded her. He cut off the line of sight out to the porch, but when he peeled back outside she again found her eyes met by August. He smiled. She couldn’t help herself from smiling in return. It could not be coincidence, she decided, that their eyes continued to meet. He deliberately found her gaze. No other explanation suited the facts.
Fortunately he was not the first to be summoned inside. A prisoner named Gerhard came in first. Her father called for her to translate and also brought in a stout, humorless guard who stood beside the prisoner. She entered the office and sat to her father’s right. Gerhard remained standing. He was a square, blocky man, with unusually large forearms above heavy hands.
From a translating perspective, the questions were simple: who, what, where, when. The German answered straightforwardly. Collie listened to his responses car
efully, trying to pick up on any discrepancies in his account. She reported the German’s responses to her father faithfully. One by one the men came in, stood before her father, and reported the same story. They knew little; they had no idea where the man had gone. Each testified that the missing soldier had not confided in them. Her father treated them sternly and asked a rigorous series of questions to cross-check against previous answers, but it became apparent after the third man that they knew nothing of the escapee’s whereabouts. Collie surmised the facts of the escape required little plotting. The man had drifted away on the walk back to the camp. That was the essence of it. He had gone precisely as the men reached the larger group of men returning for the day. He had mixed in, found his opportunity, then wandered away. It suggested nothing systemic. Nonetheless, it would have to be punished.
The last interviewee was August Wahrlich. He spoke English—he often served to translate English into German around the camp—and her father told her she could go back to the outer office. She passed close to the young German, measuring herself against him. She came to his shoulder.
She kept her head down and pretended to be busy at her desk, but her attention remained locked on the voices coming from her father’s office. When Lieutenant Peters asked her a question, she answered it quickly, wanting silence so that she could hear August’s voice through the walls. His English was only fair, she realized. It made her smile down at her paperwork to hear him say, “Alles hangt vorl Kommandanton ab,” then translate it into English, Everything depends on the commandant.
At last she heard him dismissed. The door opened and he stepped out.
“Good morning,” he said in English.
Collie realized he greeted them both. The guard from her father’s office stood beside him. Collie could not stop blushing. She kept her eyes on her paperwork, but gradually she grew aware that he remained in front of her desk. When she glanced up, he handed her a piece of paper.
“It is a translation of a poem,” he said, the accents on his English phrasing somewhat blocky. “Ludwig Uhland. I remembered it from my school days. Do you like poetry?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Your father said I could give this to you. I thought you might like it and perhaps help me with my translation to English.”
He extended the paper farther. She took it and felt herself trembling.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure I will enjoy it.”
“The translation was difficult and it is not very good, I’m afraid. I have the other German put there.”
“The original?”
“Yes,” he said.
Then the guard told August to step out. August smiled, and she smiled in return. She kept the poem folded and put it to one side, the paper nearly burning her skin when she touched it.
• • •
He did not like to do it, but Major Brennan issued the order to put the Germans on bread and water. It was a shotgun approach, one he doubted would be particularly effective, but he felt helpless in the face of the escape. The prisoners would not respect weakness, nor would they take the reduction in rations lightly. He was in a bind; they all were. Little had been gained by the interviews of the work party. A tall, thin German by the name of William Zimmerman had made good his escape. That was the long and short of it. From all accounts, he was an unlikely candidate for escape. He had always followed orders willingly, had labored with a good heart in the initial phases of the work, and had caused no trouble that anyone could point to. He had trusted no one with his plans, from what Major Brennan could determine, nor had he been part of any larger conspiracy. His approach had been clever. He had slipped away before evening roll call, just as the men returned from work, stepping behind a wagon or into the tree line beyond the camp, and from there he had until reveille to get away. Major Brennan did not imagine he would get far, but you never knew.
Meanwhile, he waited for the Brown Paper Company to get back to him. It was a ticklish predicament. By putting the men on bread and water, he undermined their ability to work, thereby reducing the available labor force for the extraction of pulp. Geneva Conventions had specific guidelines about nutrition and what was required in order to let a man labor. A diet of bread and water would make the men weak. It was a muddle, certainly, and he waited for the call from Sherman Heights, president of the Brown Paper Company, with a headache building along his scalp line.
“Collie?” he called into the next room. “Are you there?”
She came in a moment later.
“Could you bring me some aspirin and a glass of water, please?”
“Of course, Papa.”
She disappeared and returned quickly. Coming through the door, he recognized her mother in her movements. He smiled softly to see it. He wondered if she knew how much she resembled her mother, his late wife, and wondered if she knew how beautiful she had become.
“Sit with me for a moment,” he said, taking the pills and the water from her. “Thank you.”
“Quite a day,” Collie said, sitting in front of the desk.
“They’ll be on bread and water for a time,” he said, putting the pills on his tongue and then washing them down with water. “My hands are tied.”
“Can they still work?”
He shook his head.
“I can’t put them to that kind of work if they’re not eating.”
“How long will you keep them on it?”
He shrugged. He took another sip of water.
“You look like your mother sitting there. Do you know how much you resemble her? I’m not sure I’ve told you.”
“I have some idea.”
“You do, you know. It’s in your movement as much as anything, and sometimes in your voice.”
“Is it painful to see?”
“No, not at all, sweetheart. It’s a delight. One of the few I can count on these days.”
He looked out. The harsh light of midday had given way to the mountain shadows of early evening. He rubbed his temples. He watched her brighten.
“Well,” she said, “if some good news will make you feel better, I should tell you that Estelle is coming for a visit. She confirmed it today in a letter. She’ll arrive in a week or so. So now you’ll have two young women to escort around the camp.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear that. She’ll keep good company with you.”
“I’ll take her everywhere. I already have a dozen things planned out.”
“Good. You need to consort with some people your own age. Maybe you could host a small reception to introduce her to people. Mrs. Hammond would let you use the parlor, I’m sure.”
“I thought of that. But who would I invite?”
“Oh, the Chapman girls, and some of the guards. I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll invite your German beau.”
He watched her blush. He smiled.
“He didn’t pass along a secret plan for mutiny, did he? He’s not asking you to spy, I hope. He said he had a poem for you.”
“Papa! He gave me a poem and asked me to go over his translation of it.”
“I see. Well, I probably shouldn’t have permitted it. Be careful. The last thing we need is the story of the daughter of the camp’s commandant becoming involved with a German prisoner. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Papa.”
“All right. But just the same, he’s very handsome. Even as an old man, I can see that. But we’re still at war with the Germans. These men were pointing rifles at us not long ago. Keep that in mind. Sometimes with the everyday routine of the camp, it’s hard to remember, but keep it in mind.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that, Papa.”
“Yes, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Help him with the poem if you like, but that will be the end of it, all right?”
“You’re l
ecturing me like a schoolgirl.”
“I don’t mean to. Sorry, I’m annoyed with this bit of business about the escaped prisoner. The press will slaughter us over it. And I’ll doubtless have to speak to the town fathers. It just makes for more work all the way around.”
“I understand. Let me know if I can help.”
Major Brennan stared at his daughter. It was rare to see her so uneasy about a young man. She blew air over her top lip and stood. Before she left the room, he sounded her out on something else.
“I’m expecting a call from the Brown Paper Company; they’ve invited us to a party and I didn’t know what to tell them. Would you like to attend? I guess it’s a small birthday celebration for the mother, Eleanor, I think it is. I can beg off without any problem, but I wanted to run it by you.”
“When is it?”
“The day after tomorrow, I think. It’s not particularly formal. No need for fancy dressing.”
“We should go, shouldn’t we? But I wouldn’t mind dressing up, you know. It would do us both good.”
“Probably,” he said, and then the intercom buzzed. “That’s the old man now. I’ll tell him we’ll attend, if it’s okay with you. Give us a night out, anyway.”
He watched his daughter leave the room. Then he pushed a button and listened as Sherman Heights’s secretary informed the major that she had Mr. Heights and that she would pass him to the president immediately.
• • •
Henry Heights watched his brother, Amos, dance with a girl named Dolly, both of them drunk and vining around each other. Now and then Amos ran his hand up Dolly’s side, trying to touch her breasts, and Dolly, in a gesture like a person pushing up on a wall, moved his hand away and put it back on her waist. She had performed that same act a dozen times during the dance. Amos was too intoxicated to care or take notice, Henry knew. Henry was drunk himself, and he had consumed only half of what Amos had consumed.
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