The Major's Daughter

by J. P. Francis

  “And so you watched the plants on the ride from Ohio?”

  “Yes, I seem to respond to the natural world in that way. Plants, anyway. It’s like bird-watching, I suspect. Once you begin noticing birds, you see them everywhere. Now I’m confronted by plants.”

  “I’m glad they kept you company. Were your parents very concerned about your trip?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to sort them out. My mother kept asking why anyone would want to go visit a prisoner-of-war camp. It became a bit of a running joke to people who would ask about it. ‘She’s off to see the Germans,’ Mother would say. Money is tighter than it was before the war, too. So a mixture of things went into the decision, but I’ve been a little depressed, as I wrote to you. I can’t seem to get out of my own way some days.”

  Collie squeezed her friend’s hand.

  “Are you feeling better? Did the train trip help?”

  “In fact, it did. Staying at home I began to feel like one of my potted plants sitting in the sun and remaining entirely immobile. Most of the men are gone and everything seems on hold. But it’s not just the men. I don’t mean to say that. Everything seems to be on hold and people keep saying, well, when the war is over. And I find myself thinking, well, we’re alive now and who knows when the war will end? But now I’ve come east again and I am sitting beside my dear, dear friend. You really do look marvelous, Collie. You’ve changed, but all for the better.”

  “It’s been interesting, I’ll say that much. I made the right decision to leave Smith and be with my father. It was difficult at first. He was a little lost for a time when my mother died. With the war going on, getting any sort of extended leave was out of the question. Still, I’m not sure I would have been content to stay in a secluded enclave like Smith even without the force of my mother’s death. It began to feel like make-believe, because the world had become so fractious and dangerous. I like it here. The work centers me.”

  “Well, it certainly is a pretty place. Are we far from your boardinghouse?”

  “No, it’s just a five-minute walk downstream.”

  “You would never guess there is a prisoner-of-war camp close by.”

  “You’ll see the cutting teams from time to time, especially in the morning and evenings. The prisoners wear bright PWs on their blouses. You’ll get into the routine soon enough.”

  “And when do I get to see the handsome August?”

  Collie blushed. She leaned her forehead against her friend’s shoulder. She shook her head and then lifted it again.

  “You must think I’ve lost my mind,” Collie said, her voice suddenly constricted. “In fact, there’s another man I must tell you about. His name is Henry. His attention had been very confusing, but we can talk about that. I didn’t much care for him at first, but then he showed up today and presented me with a bouquet. And he declared that he intended to marry me! And August . . . I have such strong feelings for him. You must think I’ve gone balmy.”

  “Not at all. I want to hear more about this Henry. As to August . . . do you know, I see my Indian friend sometimes and I think, well, he’s a man and I’m a woman. My mother is frightened to death he will carry me off someplace and I can’t help teasing her about it. But why shouldn’t you admire a young German soldier. Is he very handsome?”

  “Wonderfully handsome.”

  “You have feelings for him, don’t you? True feelings?”

  “Oh, it’s hard to say. I don’t know him at all, but we exchanged that poem . . . and now I’m not sure if he meant it as a language lesson, or if he has forgotten it altogether. I don’t see him under normal circumstances. I mean, we don’t see each other at church, or at meals, or anywhere else, really. I’m afraid I’ve given in to a schoolgirl crush.”

  “Stranger things have happened, certainly. I can’t wait to see him. We’re going to have so much fun. And you promise me we’ll walk in the mountains? Ashtabula is so flat. . . . I’m not sure how I’d forgotten how flat it is. I feel as though I’m in the Alps here. Now, tell me, do you have the rest of the day free?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind lying down for a short while. I didn’t sleep particularly well on the train and I want to regain my energy. Tire me out, Collie. Get me out of my cobwebs.”

  “I promise I will. If I don’t manage it, I have a young friend who will.”

  “This Marie you wrote about?”

  “She’s a hurricane.”

  “Good,” Estelle said, standing. “I could use a little rough weather.”

  “She may be more than you bargain for. She can’t wait to meet you. Amy will come by later, too. I thought we could have tea. Marie will not relent until she has a chance to be with you.”

  “It all sounds delightful. March me home. Keep me busy and out of my own head. I’m tired of my own thoughts, Collie. You don’t know how tired.”

  Collie stood and linked her arm through her friend’s. On their walk back to Mrs. Hammond’s boardinghouse, Collie told her about the bear, Bruno, and about Henry’s visit, and how the Nazi sympathizers had arranged the rocks into the shape of a swastika. . . . All and all a great rush of words that she could not contain and had no wish to.

  • • •

  “They are coming for you tonight,” Gerhard said in a low voice, close by to a tree they were working up. “I overheard it in the latrine.”

  “Who is?” August asked, not forming the thought in his head. He had been lost in the steady thump of his ax.

  “The Nazis,” Gerhard whispered.

  “For me?”

  Gerhard nodded.

  “I’ve done nothing to deserve a beating,” August said.

  “It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? It may be about releasing the bear or it may be about anything at all. They’ll do what they like and reasons don’t particularly matter. They may have caught wind of your poetry exchange with the major’s daughter. Don’t try to reason it out. It will just frustrate you.”

  “They’ll get a surprise if they come for me,” August said with a bravado he did not feel. “What do they care if I exchange a poem with a young woman? They’re happy to look when she passes by, that’s certain.”

  “Don’t resist. It will only make it worse. They’re eager to snatch on anything that can ensure discipline. Any transgression. It really doesn’t matter what it is.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “I’m sure I’m on the list as well.”

  August put down his ax. He had been busy limbing one side of a large pine while Gerhard worked the other side. Insects swarmed around them. They had both tied cloths over their necks to keep the insects from biting them on that tender flesh, but it scarcely made a difference. The guards called the insects no-see-ums, which had been a difficult translation, one that had no exact correlative in German. In the direct sun, the insects increased their attacks. Every breath, August thought, contained the scent of pine and the meaty puck of insects slamming into one’s nostrils or mouth. The twitch horse had been flinging its tail at the insects all morning.

  The news that he was on schedule for an attack shocked him. He had put on a good face for Gerhard, but the information sank like a dead weight through his body. He continued chopping with his ax—he had become quite expert by now, he knew, and his hands could work nearly without his mind’s supervision—but his thoughts tangled with the image of the Nazis sneaking through the night toward his cot. He felt many things mixed with an overarching fear. He felt indignant and appalled that the men should carry the war into such a small corner of the world, but, primarily, he felt shame that he had never rallied his compatriots to stand up to the bullies. Now he would suffer from his lack of courage, and he could not say he didn’t deserve it.

  He tried to think of a plan, but his mind wouldn’t settle. The no-see-ums buzzed around his ears
and filled his nostrils until he coughed with the taste and rub of them in his membranes. He considered telling the two new guards who watched over them. Informing them, however, would merely delay the beating and intensify it when the time came. The guards could not be everywhere, and the Nazis demonstrated great patience. Sooner or later, they would come for him, and they would ambush him when he was alone, doubling the beating in recompense for his treachery.

  He worked until lunchtime and then fell down in the shade when the guards gave them their food. Despite Gerhard’s warning, he did not feel frightened precisely. He would endure what he had to endure; the war had taught him that much. The Nazis administered the beating as a means of maintaining discipline. They could be brutal beatings, true, but just as often the victims escaped with a solid pummeling, a reprimand handed down by a big brother to a smaller one. It was confusing. August knew, of course, who remained in sympathy with the Nazi movement, but he had difficulty believing their distance from the war would not eventually make them reasonable. How could men in a New Hampshire logging camp believe they retained any influence on the outcome of the war? It was madness.

  He ate the stew put on his plate. The meat tasted of soap, and the broth was thin, but hunger was the best sauce, as the saying went. His new crew members ate with their faces close to their plates. Gerhard was the only one who remained from his original cutting team. The rest had been shuffled away; William had escaped and had been reassigned back to Fort Devens after his capture; Howard and Hans had been put in sick bay for several days before they, too, had been sent on a medical train back to Fort Devens. The new men had come from a different war, it seemed, and they stayed together as a pack within a pack. August found he had less and less in common with the latter waves of men.

  “So what will you do?” Gerhard whispered.

  “If they come for me? What can I do? They’re angry because their cause is lost. I’m simply a convenient target.”

  “It’s a beating nonetheless.”

  “True, but it hasn’t happened yet. I could pretend to be sick and go to the infirmary, I suppose.”

  “You should.”

  “It would feel cowardly.”

  “Who cares, if it gets you out of a beating. You can come down with something this afternoon. There’s no shame in it. Most people don’t get a warning ahead of time.”

  “They’d really beat me because I released the bear cub?”

  Gerhard made a dismissive buzz with his lips to indicate it didn’t matter. August looked furtively at the new members of the crew. He did not trust them. He did not trust anyone except Gerhard.

  “You should go to your friend and see what she can do for you,” Gerhard said.

  “She’s hardly my friend.”

  “The commandant’s daughter. She can set you right.”

  “I wouldn’t presume.”

  “You’re foolish then. She obviously has taken an interest. Only a fool would stand on pride at this point.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “You better hurry. Lights-out will be here before you know it.”

  Then the guards hurried them back to work. Surprisingly, August found he worked with greater energy than before. He swung his ax with keenness and moved to get the work done. He would fight them, he decided. He was sick of the Nazis, of the whole damn war, and if it came as a small band of men to him in the night, well, then let it. He would fight back. He would not let them turn him into a coward. It was a tiny, absurd victory, but he knew, as he cut wood beside Gerhard, that he could not do otherwise. He had been a German soldier, a good one, and the scurrilous Nazis would find what it meant to stand for the Fatherland. He welcomed the chance to cross them. He would not back down.

  • • •

  “What they do is they take a man’s jacket and cut it down to size. It works wizard! That’s what they’re doing in the city, because you can’t get cloth with the war on, so they cut things into a more feminine shape and they can do wonders.”

  “Who can?” Collie asked Marie, and when she saw her young friend’s face collapse in disappointment, she regretted holding the comments up to examination. “I bet we could find someone around here to do that. Who’s the best tailor around?”

  “Mrs. Jameson,” Marie said without hesitation. “She makes everyone’s dresses. There’s a woman over in Berlin, Mrs. LaClerc, but she is for high fashion. Her work is very fancy. But for the everyday type of jacket I’m talking about, Mrs. Jameson could do it in a snap.”

  “Where will you get the men’s jackets?”

  “Oh, they’re around. You can get them in the church bin. Naturally, the material will be coarser, but any salt is good when it’s needed.”

  Marie stood and looked in the window of the boardinghouse, bending back and forth to see if Estelle had come downstairs. Collie smiled to see her impatience. Marie had come over directly after school, and she had been prattling on about any topic that came into her head. Estelle’s nap had bled into the late afternoon. She must have been exhausted, Collie realized, traveling such a distance by train. She wondered, though, if she should tiptoe upstairs. If Estelle continued napping, she would have trouble getting to sleep at night and her rhythm would be thrown out of cadence. It seemed a shame to let such a lovely afternoon go by, but Collie remembered there would be plenty of days. Estelle had plans to stay at least a fortnight, perhaps longer, and so there was no rush.

  As if Collie’s thoughts were an incantation, Marie suddenly pressed her nose closer to the boardinghouse window, then turned with wide-eyed wonder.

  “Here she is! She’s awake! Oh, she’s beautiful. She’s just how I thought she’d look!”

  “Oh, good,” Collie said, “I’m glad she’s awake. I worry she won’t sleep tonight.”

  Marie tapped softly on the window. Collie stood and went to the door. Estelle walked toward her, her hair still mussed slightly from sleep, her face compressed from resting on the pillows.

  “My goodness, I slept like the dead,” Estelle said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect to sleep so long.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Collie said, and opened the door to let her friend outside. “And we have a visitor who is eager to meet you. This is Marie, Estelle. She’s been my good friend here.”

  Marie curtsied. It was so sweet, and so unexpected, that Collie couldn’t help reaching over and hugging her. Then she turned Marie quietly to Estelle. Estelle took the girls’ hands and held them.

  “I’m going to ask Mrs. Hammond for some lemonade,” Collie said. “Are you hungry, Estelle?”

  “Not just yet, but I will be. I think I’m still adjusting.”

  “I’ll be right back. You two sit on the glider. It’s a lovely afternoon. Maybe we can walk up to the camp before dinner.”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  Collie went inside and found Mrs. Hammond cooking the evening meal. Agnes sat on a stool beside the large trestle table, her hands busy shelling peas. Collie glimpsed a bright red chicken standing on the back porch, its eye turned to peer inside. The scene looked to be a perfect little snapshot, and Collie regretted disturbing it by her request.

  Mrs. Hammond pointed her to the lemonade, then went back to stirring something. Agnes lifted the bowl of peas and shook them to gauge their numbers. Collie poured out three glasses of lemonade and carried them outside to Estelle and Marie.

  “Well, I’m afraid we’ve jumped right onto the topic of August, your young German soldier,” Estelle said. “Marie confirms he’s every bit as handsome as you’ve written.”

  “He’s Marie’s beau,” Collie said, putting the lemonade down in front of them. “She had a dance with him.”

  “So she said. But she sensibly thinks he is too old for her, so she will surrender him to you. I think it’s very generous on her part.”

  “He is very handsome,” Mari
e chimed in. “He looks like Douglas Fairbanks, only taller and with no mustache. He has very broad shoulders and a kind expression.”

  “Have you spoken with him at all?” Estelle asked, lifting the glass closest to her. “Since your last exchange, I mean.”

  Collie shook her head.

  “He gave her a poem,” Marie said, drinking a quarter of the glass in her excitement. “A man doesn’t give a lady a poem just for his amusement, does he, Estelle?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of an expert on romantic matters, but I suppose not. I’ve told Collie she needs to engineer an occasion to speak with him again.”

  “Do I need to remind both of you that he’s a prisoner in my father’s camp?”

  “All the more reason to arrange something,” Estelle said. “Don’t you agree, Marie?”

  Marie nodded. Collie understood that Marie would agree with anything Estelle said, so impressed was she with her new friend’s elegance. Collie sat in a rocker beside the glider and drank some of the lemonade. It tasted bitter at first, then refreshingly sweet. A few swallows had already begun to slash at insects in the early-evening air. They flew close to the water’s surface, their wing tips occasionally placing dimples into the current.