Unlike the invasions of Sicily and Normandy, which had taken months of planning, Operation Market-Garden was due to take off in days, the largest air drop that had ever been assembled, with planes and gliders from twenty-four different airfields.
The commander of the British Second Army, General Dempsey, was not enthusiastic about Market-Garden. His intelligence staff had received disturbing reports from the Dutch Resistance of a massive buildup of German troops around Arnhem. But this intelligence information was completely disregarded at the headquarters of the 21st Army Group.
A week previously, the fleeing German troops had swept through Holland on every available vehicle—confiscated bicycles, cars, and anything else with wheels.
The news was out. The Allied armies were coming. And the Nazis, civilian collaborators as well as the German soldiers, began a frenzied trek for the German border.
Remnants of divisions, armies without their equipment, tanks, men dazed from battle and uncertain of the route to the border—all clogged the roadways and passed through the towns, fear written on their faces, and dust scattered over their uniforms to hide the skull and crossbones of the SS troops, the black suits of the tank brigades. No one appeared to lead them. They went, without direction, like lemmings rushing toward disaster.
The Dutch, thinking the war would be over in a few days, celebrated their liberation by bringing out their orange armbands. They climbed to the roofs of their houses to watch and jeer the rabble passing by. And they waited with flowers to greet the Allied troops they were certain were directly behind.
One day passed, then two. Soon they realized the war was not over; their freedom was not yet secured. For the seventy-year-old Field Marshal von Runstedt, wily and battle-scarred, stopped the rout, took the rabble of soldiers from van Zangen’s army and began to regroup them into fighting units. And Bittrich, in charge of the battered, tankless II SS Panzer Corps, did the same, bringing the elite corps to an area near Arnhem for reorganizing. And in that triangle of Arnhem, Nijmegen, and Oosterbeek, they shaped them into proud-once-more units of the Third Reich.
On September 15, two days before Operation Market-Garden, SS officer Heinrich von Freiker drove to the De Groot Hotel in Berg-en-Dal, not far from Nijmegen. Horst, his aide, was at his side.
Seeing his commander glance impatiently at his watch, Horst said, “The hotel is only a few more kilometers, my Colonel.”
“Good. I’m getting hungry. And I have no wish to eat these dried-up sandwiches packed this morning.”
“If the hotel is anything like it used to be before the war, you will have much fine food and wine.”
“You’ve been—to the hotel?”
“Nein, my Colonel. But my employer spent his honeymoon there and he said it was very beautiful and well appointed. That was before the war, of course.”
Heinrich nodded and watched the road. He was glad the bombs had not destroyed the vacation spot. Situated in the backwaters, it was still intact, the high ground of woods overlooking the flat terrain of pear orchards and small waterways beyond. It extended for five miles toward the Waal River, where the 1800 foot-long Nijmegen bridge rose in a brilliant example of mathematical ingenuity.
The town itself was well defended with antiaircraft guns and a regiment of SS troops in the city, and slightly beyond, in the forests and wooded areas, several panzer divisions.
But Heinrich wanted to forget about war for a few days. He wanted to rest and recuperate, to drink without fear of a raid. A stirring of desire made him think of Gretchen von Erhard. He should have a woman with him to assuage his desire. But not just any woman—only Gretchen, to punish her in a fitting manner for her crime of illusion, for despite her schoolgirl demeanor she was as much a woman as any other.
He smiled as the hotel came into view. It was even more beautiful than he had been led to believe.
“This will be a good time for us, Horst, hein?” Heinrich said in a jovial manner.
“Ja, my Colonel,” Horst replied, relieved that the officer seemed pleased.
At the same time that Montgomery and Eisenhower were meeting in Brussels, a pleased Sir Dow Pomeroy had just found new quarters for his personal staff on the southern coast of England.
The entire Fighter Command had been moved from Stanmore because of the rockets. Big artillery guns, both British and American, were positioned along the downs to fire channelward at the missiles. For the rockets, many times more deadly than the buzz bombs, traveled at a speed faster than sound, making it impossible to track them by radar.
Birdie Summerlin, with Alpharetta accompanying her, examined the space in the four-bedroom house not far from the batteries, and mentally allotted the space into living quarters and offices.
“This room all right for you, luv?” Birdie inquired, looking toward the red-haired woman at the door.
Alpharetta, walking into the upstairs bedroom, nodded.
“We’ll have to share it, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mind, Birdie. When I was in training,” Alpharetta replied, smiling, “I would have been happy to share bed and bath with only one other.”
“Freddie and Reggie will have the two small bedrooms downstairs, and Sir Dow, the master bedroom at the end of this hall. I can’t think of any other way to arrange it.”
“I would have thought that you and I would be assigned to women’s quarters somewhere, Birdie,” Alpharetta commented. “I’m surprised that we’ll all be together again, as at Lochendall.
“Oh, Sir Dow was specific about that. Only Eckerd and Lloyd will be over the garage at the gate. Well, come, luv, and give me a hand before Sir Dow gets here.”
It had been almost a month since Alpharetta had seen Marsh, Ben Mark, and Belline. That weekend had been a fiasco. But Alpharetta had said nothing about it to her commander. As far as Dow was concerned, she was still engaged to Ben Mark. And she had vowed to say nothing to dispel that belief. It would be too difficult, to oembarrassing, to explain the breaking of her engagement—for the second time.
How could she, after what Dow had said on the day she returned?
“I have decided I’ve been too selfish, Alpharetta. I’m withdrawing my objections to your marriage. If you and your captain wish to get married, I won’t stand in your way.”
But the wedding that was being planned was not her own. A doctor had confirmed Belline’s pregnancy. Ben Mark was now resigned to marrying Belline for the sake of the baby. It had been a hurried thing, as the wedding had to take place as soon as Ben Mark obtained a pass.
That first evening, as the incessant barrage of guns finally showed signs of lessening, a subdued Dow sat and watched Alpharetta reading Ben Mark’s letter by candlelight. And he waited for the request he had dreaded and expected ever since he had withdrawn his objections to their marriage.
Alpharetta folded the letter and, seeing Dow watching her, she inquired, “Sir Dow, if it’s all right with you, I should like to take off this coming Saturday and Sunday.”
She was long overdue for a pass. He knew that. Not trusting his voice, he merely nodded and returned to reading the newspaper. Not long after that, he left the room to retire for the night.
For Dow, the new house held no pleasure. His own life was as drab as the blackout curtains at the windows. He was tired, too. Tired of the war that eroded his life and now threatened to write the finishing chapter on the love he had kept hidden. Alpharetta.
Her name formed on his lips, even as he went to sleep, the night punctuated by the barrage of heavy guns seeking to defend the land from the dreaded rockets.
Late Saturday morning, September 16, Ben Mark’s wedding day, Alpharetta dressed out of uniform and watched from the upstairs window for her taxi to arrive.
She had a strange feeling that she was reliving her life, each event shuffled in a time warp, to be used again, like drawing a card from the same deck, in a different sequence.
It had been over a year since she had waited for another taxi—yellow—to pull up
into the allée of trees bordering the house in Atlanta. The weather had been miserably hot that day in July, not like the cool English weather of this September Saturday. Strange that her remembrance was keyed to the contrast in the elements—one day so hot and dry, the other cool, with the ever-present hint of mist and rain.
She saw the London black taxi slow and creep past the gates and she hurried downstairs.
As the taxi left with its passenger, Sir Dow Pomeroy, working from his office window, closed the heavy draperies, relegating the room to darkness and gloom, to match his somber mood.
Chapter 30
In the age-old abbey that had seen its share of conflict and peace, sorrow and serenity through the years, Belline Wexford, strangely peaceful, stood at the chapel entrance and waited her turn to walk down the aisle.
She was dressed in white, in a knee-length dress and a smart little bridal hat, a veiled wisp purchased prematurely, soon after her arrival in England with the USO. But that no longer mattered, for the day she had planned all her life—her wedding day with Ben Mark St. John—was now here. True, it was not quite the way she had initially planned it, but the fact remained that Ben Mark would be her husband in a few minutes, and not Alpharetta’s.
Ted, a fellow air corps officer, stood at the altar with Ben Mark. As the peal of the organ heralded the beginning of the procession, Belline watched her one attendant, Elsa, the girl from the USO, walk in slow, measured steps down the aisle.
The fanfare of the organ alerted Belline that it was now her turn. She began to walk toward Ben Mark. Her head lifted a little higher, the slight flush on her cheeks a giveaway of the triumph she felt at that moment. Her eyes wavered from Ben Mark’s to search for Alpharetta in the pew. But she had evidently chosen not to come. Slightly disappointed, Belline continued down the aisle, where the minister in his robes began the traditionally ceremony. “Dearly beloved. . .”
The exchange of rings, the repeated vows, took little time. With the flourish of the organ, the ceremony was over and the recession began.
Among the sheltered archways facing the green, the reception table had been set up, presided over by other members of Belline’s USO troop. Even a small wedding cake had miraculously appeared, but in less than a half hour, with the threat of rain, the crowd, having demolished the wedding delicacies, began to disperse.
Showing no emotion, a subdued Ben Mark watched the guests leave. The two people he cared most about had not come—Alpharetta and Marsh. One by choice, and the other because his leave was suddenly cancelled.
In the early afternoon, Alpharetta returned by taxi to the house on the battery where Dow Pomeroy, his head on the desk in his downstairs office, had drifted into an uneasy sleep. He was alone, for he had not only given Alpharetta the weekend off, but the rest of the staff, too.
The purr of the car’s engine, the closing of the door, were not sufficient to waken him fully. Thinking he was alone, Dow had not bothered to close his office door from the hallway. As he heard the tap of steps inside, he quickly lifted his head and listened. And through sleepy, unfocused eyes, he saw a blur of blue move past the open door.
“Who is it?” he demanded, his hand lightening on the holster atop his desk.
Hearing his voice, the woman stopped. “It’s Alpharetta.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing. I changed my mind. I decided not to go to Ben Mark’ wedding, after all.”
At the expression on Dow’s face, Alpharetta explained in a distant voice, “He married Belline today. Now, if you will excuse me . . .”
Dow stood dumfounded as Alpharetta made her way up the stairs. So Captain Ben Mark St. John had not married Alpharetta, but had married Belline, instead. His mind alternately accepted this information, then refuted it, and finally accepted it again.
His shoulders straightened; a heavy burden fell from his heart. Suddenly Dow grinned boyishly, stuck his hands in his pockets, and, with a spring to his step walked back to his office to contemplate this magnificent, unexpected good fortune.
Birdie Summerlin had gone home—to be with one of her sons on leave. And so Alpharetta, with the room to herself, crawled into the twin bed for a long-awaited nap. Within minutes, exhausted from a lack of sleep the evening before, she fell into a deep slumber.
The house remained quiet and an hour later, when Alpharetta awoke, she felt refreshed, strangely exuberant, her dreams, always the first clue of changed relationships, demanding exploration, translation. By all rights, she should have been despondent. But no tears stained her pillow, no disquieting memories from her sleep plagued her.
She sat up and, like one removing her bandages to view the mortal wound, she traced the edges of her mental scars. Like the light scar on her right arm from the shrapnel wound that had healed itself weeks after the trip to Sweden, they were barely perceptible.
“He isn’t worth it, Alpharetta—even if he is my own cousin.” Marsh’s words echoed in her thoughts, part of her mind refuting Marsh’s words, the other part acknowledging what she had tried to conceal from herself ever since that day in the dower house.
The emotion she felt for Ben Mark was no longer love, but a genuine liking, for she had seen a glimpse of him that no one else had seen—the true worth under the bravado, the spoiled exterior. And she realized, for the first time, that she would never have been able to give him what Belline offered—total devotion. There was a part of her that would remain forever aloof, that small, independent spirit that bound self with self, a portion of her complete from the rest, unaligned and free as the gulls passing over the house in the blue-gray sky and sea beyond.
Feeling good about herself, Alpharetta got up and dressed in dungarees and a ribbed sweater. She had a great desire to walk along the downs with her new independence of heart.
Braced against the wind, Alpharetta drank in the smell of the sea, the nervous call of birds, flying in and out of the mist that now began to swirl in variations of images recalled from Lochendall.
Great waves crashed into the seawall and spilled white-flecked foam, which was carried inland by the wind as the conspiracy of air and water continued its unending vendetta against the land.
Separated by the sea channel, the land under Alpharetta’s feet and the land containing the rocket-launching sites were measured not in miles, but in rocket speed—a mere five minutes apart. Yet a sense of remoteness encompassed the downs and all of England, for the majority of the people had not equated the tremendous explosions with the new weapon of the Germans.
Alpharetta, straining to see through the worsening mist, saw a figure moving toward her. She recognized Dow.
“Race you to the seawall,” she shouted, conjuring another image of Lochendall.
“I’ll race you back to the house, instead,” he shouted. “We’re in for another blow.”
“That’s too far to run,” she complained.
The wind at her back gave her a push, propelling her against her will toward Dow. He reached out, placed her arm in his, to Alpharetta’s protest.
“But I’m not ready to go back,” she said.
But the weather, no respecter of her wishes, became her adversary. The heavens opened and the rain came down, making the prospect of shelter far more desirable.
I’ll build a fire, while you change into dry clothes,” Dow said as they reached the house.
“What about you?”
“I’ll get the fire going first. Don’t worry about me.”
Chilled by the sudden drenching, Alpharetta needed no further prompting. She should have put a scarf over her hair, but her regrets came too late.
The soft glow of logs in the fireplace drew Alpharetta into the downstairs sitting room. His sandy hair still showing traces of dampness, Dow poured two glasses of wine at Alpharetta’s appearance.
“Here, this will help to warm you,” he said, handing her one.
She took the wineglass and sank to the pillow before the hearth, while Dow watched her.
“I had hoped to go into London tonight,” she said ruefully.
“That’s off limits for you, from now on, until the rocket sites are overrun.”
“Oh? You didn’t say anything about that earlier, when you gave me the pass.”
“No. But now you’re my responsibility, more or less.”
“Less.”
“What?”
“You didn’t keep Birdie from making the trip. I don’t mean to be impertinent, but I should think you would give me the consideration you gave Birdie—especially on my time off.”
“You don’t understand. Birdie is a widow, with grown children—not an impetuous redhead who takes unnecessary chances.”
Instead of becoming angry, Alpharetta laughed.
“What do you find so amusing?”
“Oh, several things. But speaking of chances, what do you think the odds are then for finding something for dinner? Did Birdie leave any food for you in the refrigerator?”
“If you find anything, you may have half of it.”
“If I prepare it?”
He nodded. “Lloyd’s gone, too.”
“Now, you’re the one taking chances. Has it occurred to you that I may not be able to cook?”
“Surely if you’re able to read an aerial map, you can read a cookbook, too, Miss Beaumont.”
Alpharetta smiled, sipped her glass of wine, and dried her hair before the fire. Dow was relaxed—in a good mood. She wasn’t sure what Birdie would say when she found out the two had spent the evening together with no one else in the house. But at the moment, it didn’t seem to matter.
Later, as the two sat at the small table beyond the hearth, candleglow answered the heart in rhythmic fire, a silent language that needed no interpreter, for the answer was older than speech itself—bypassing human lips for the primitive yearnings of the heart.
Dow lifted his wineglass and acknowledged the fire’s power. He knew he had to be careful not to alarm Alpharetta, like all males in the presence of a firebird, who could vanish at will, leaving only the promise of its return five hundred years hence.
On Wings of Fire Page 26