A Fire Sparkling

by MacLean, Julianne

  “We’re coming in too low,” Deidre said worriedly.

  “Wheels?” the dispatcher asked.

  “No,” Jack firmly replied. “We’re going to belly it in.”

  Suddenly, the moonlit water was beneath us, sparkling in the night. We flew above it for endless seconds, in a strange sort of prolonged hush. Jack undid his oxygen mask and shoved his helmet back. I clenched my teeth together, gripped the armrests, squeezed my eyes shut, and braced myself for impact.

  Splash!

  We plunged violently into the lake. Great white waves of foaming water sloshed up over the nose of the plane, and my head snapped back at the violence of the landing. Glass shattered. Steel collapsed like tin. The left wing was ripped clear off, leaving a giant gaping hole in the fuselage.

  For a few heart-stopping seconds, we continued to skate along the surface until we slowed to a bobbling stop, then floated briefly before we began to tip sideways.

  “Everyone out!” Jack shouted as he ripped off his helmet and goggles and unbuckled his belt. Cold water poured in. I gasped from the shock of the chill.

  As I fought with the buckle on my safety belt, my shoulder throbbed with pain, and I couldn’t free myself.

  The plane slowly sank beneath the surface into a dark, murky oblivion. Just before the water covered my head, I sucked in a gigantic breath, filling my lungs with air, but I quickly began to panic, because I was still trapped in my seat.

  Deidre was no longer beside me. She had escaped. I was alone now, sinking deeper while I continued to thrash about and fight with the belt buckle. I was desperate for oxygen, but every instinct in my body told me not to inhale, or that would be the end of everything.

  Just as I was becoming light headed, Jack appeared. He wasn’t visible to me in the dark water, but I felt his hands on my shoulders and the jerking motion of his knife cutting through my safety belt. By this time, my mind had gone blank. I don’t remember anything after that.

  When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my back in the grass at the edge of the lake. Jack was leaning over me, his eyes full of concern.

  “Vivian, can you hear me?”

  Stunned and disoriented, all I could think was My name is April. Then I remembered.

  Pain gripped me everywhere. My shoulder throbbed. The burns on my back stung. “I’m okay.”

  Jack pressed his cheek to mine. “Thank God.”

  I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I couldn’t lift my left arm.

  Deidre knelt down beside me. “Your name is Vivian?”

  It seemed odd that she didn’t know that, but we weren’t supposed to ask questions or reveal anything about our true identities in the field, not even to other SOE agents.

  “I’m Daphne Connolly,” she said with a smile. “From East Croydon. But you should keep calling me Deidre, just in case. Wouldn’t want to get into trouble with Buck.”

  I couldn’t laugh. I was in too much pain.

  “She needs a doctor,” Jack said.

  I reached up to touch my shoulder. My fingers closed around a thin, flat piece of metal sticking out of me, just below my collarbone. Oh God.

  “Don’t pull it out!” Deidre ordered, grabbing hold of my hand and tugging it away. “You could do more damage.”

  “It hurts,” I said.

  Jack looked at Deidre. “There’s a first aid kit in the plane.”

  “Can you get it?” she asked.

  Without a word, he ripped off his soaking-wet bomber jacket, dropped it onto the ground beside me, and waded into the lake, through weeds and lily pads.

  I lay very still, listening to the sound of splashing water as he swam out. “Will he be okay?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Deidre said, moving around me to pick up Jack’s coat and hang it on a branch to dry. “Just try to relax. Lie still, and don’t touch your shoulder.”

  I shut my eyes and focused on taking deep breaths, in and out. We seemed to wait forever, and I worried about Jack, out there in the dark water.

  “He’s coming back now.” Deidre stood at the water’s edge, watching him. “It looks like he has something.”

  A few minutes later, he dropped to his knees beside me, panting heavily, while Deidre dug through a metal box full of first aid supplies.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, but you’re dripping water on me.” It was a ridiculous attempt to make light of the situation.

  He chuckled. “Sorry.”

  “Some of this stuff is wet,” Deidre said, “but there’s morphine in here, dressings and bandages. They’re in plastic, so they’re okay. There’s iodine swabs, sulfanilamide powder—that’s good—scissors, a tourniquet. Oh, look at this. Water-purification tablets.” She continued to go through everything. “Here we go.” She held up a packet. “Let’s hope this is still sterile.”

  After dragging the box closer to me, she examined my shoulder. “It’s so dark. I wish I had more light. Do you have a torch or anything?” she asked Jack. “Dry matches?”

  “There might be a torch in the plane,” he replied. “I could go back. Or we could wait for sunrise.”

  “No, we need to do this now. She’s losing a lot of blood.” Deidre sat back on her heels. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to give you a shot of morphine, and then we’re going to remove the metal fragment and sew up the wound. Okay?” She turned to Jack. “But you’re going to have to do it. I can’t. Not with my hands like this.”

  Deidre knelt beside me while Jack cut my shirt away from my shoulder. He cleaned his hands with an iodine swab, prepared the morphine shot, and injected it into my belly. Almost immediately, all my pain went away, not just in my shoulder but on my back as well.

  “That’s better,” I said with a sigh.

  “Good, but that’s the end of the morphine,” Deidre said. “There’s only one shot of it.”

  “Just my luck.” Closing my eyes, I waited for Jack to begin.

  “You need to pull it out slowly,” Deidre said to Jack.

  He began the withdrawal, and I felt the sickening sensation of the metal shard sliding out of my shoulder, little by little. “It’s in there pretty deep. Hold on. Here we go. There. It’s out. Shit, there’s a lot of blood.” He pressed a gauze pad to the wound. “Pass me that.”

  Deidre handed him the packet of sulfanilamide powder, which he quickly sprinkled over my shoulder.

  “I’ll apply pressure while you thread the needle,” Deidre said to Jack as he opened the sterile packet that contained a needle and surgical thread.

  “Sorry about this,” he said to me. “It’s not going to be pretty.”

  “Just do it,” I replied, feeling short of breath as I spoke.

  “It’s only a two-inch wound,” he added as he began the first stitch, pulling the thread taut. “That’s not too bad.”

  My next few breaths felt tight. I couldn’t manage to fully inhale without wheezing, and even with the morphine, there was a stabbing sensation in my chest.

  “Something’s wrong. I can’t breathe.”

  “Hang on—I’m almost done.”

  Jack stitched as fast as he could, but I was struggling to get air into my lungs and growing increasingly anxious. My legs felt restless.

  “What is it, Vivian?” Deidre asked, pushing my hair away from my forehead.

  “I don’t know. My chest feels heavy. Tight.”

  “It might be a panic attack,” she said. “We’re almost done.”

  Jack tied the thread and covered it with a dressing. “There. Finished. Can you sit up? You might breathe easier.”

  They tried to help me, but nothing made it easier to breathe.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Jack asked with concern.

  “I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”

  They knelt beside me, watching and waiting with troubled expressions, while I feared I might keel over and die in the next sixty seconds.

  Deidre shifted uneasily. “I’m worried.”
/>   “Why?” I asked her.

  “I’m afraid Jack might have nicked the top of your lung when he pulled that thing out. Maybe that’s the problem.”

  “What? Are you serious?” Jack asked. “You think she might have a collapsed lung?”

  I could barely speak. All I could do was fight for air while they discussed this possible diagnosis.

  “I have to go for help,” Deidre said.

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  “I should be the one to go,” Jack replied.

  “No, you’re a pilot. You’d be too conspicuous, and we can’t risk you getting captured. Besides, I’m trained for this sort of thing. Do you have any idea where we are?”

  All I could do was watch them discuss the situation, back and forth, while I fought for oxygen and started to grow light headed.

  “We were flying a straight course northwest along the border of Belgium,” Jack said, “toward Lille, but it’s hard to say how close we were when we went down. I saw open fields that way.” He pointed. “Maybe seven to ten miles from here.”

  “All right,” Deidre replied. “You stay here with her and don’t leave this spot. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “Hang in there, luv.”

  A moment later, she was gone, vanished into the darkness.

  “I need to lie down,” I said.

  Jack moved to hold my head on his lap. He stroked my hair away from my face while I struggled to breathe, in and out. Neither of us spoke. We were too exhausted, or maybe he just wanted me to save my strength.

  I don’t know how much time passed. I might have been delirious from the morphine or lack of oxygen. Eventually, I opened my eyes and looked up at Jack. “Where’s the dispatcher?”

  He shook his head solemnly. “He didn’t make it.”

  I closed my eyes again. “I’m sorry. Was he a good friend?”

  Jack continued to stroke my hair. “I only met him for the first time in the cockpit tonight, before we took off. He was young.”

  I wanted to know more, but it took too much effort to talk. Maybe it was best not to know.

  When the sun rose at dawn, the effects of the morphine had worn off. Again, I was in pain. The burns on my back stung, my shoulder ached, and whenever I took a breath, my chest hurt. But at least I had made it through the night, and I was no longer in the Gestapo’s nightmarish interrogation chamber.

  Jack was stiff when he rose to his feet. He checked his leather jacket, which hung from a branch. “It’s still damp.” He put it on regardless.

  I sat up and scanned the area for Deidre. “She hasn’t come back yet?”

  “No. I should go and take a look around.”

  “Are you sure we should risk it? What if Germans are out there, patrolling?” I was afraid now, where I hadn’t been before. Not like this.

  “It’s unlikely they’d be this deep into the woods,” Jack replied. “They’ve got bigger fish to fry, closer to Normandy. But you and I are going to need shelter, at least until you’re able to move. Stay here. I’ll see what I can find.”

  He started off, and I winced with anxiety, because I didn’t want to be left alone. “Jack . . . please, be careful.”

  “Always.” Twigs and tangled undergrowth snapped under his boots as he left me at the water’s edge. I listened until I couldn’t hear his footsteps any longer.

  All I could do was sit among the weeds and fight to get air into my lungs while ducks quacked on the lake. A dove cooed somewhere in the bush, and waves lapped gently against the shore.

  “I found something,” Jack said half an hour later when he returned. “A small hunting cabin, I think. It’s a bit run down, but it’s abandoned. Do you think you can walk there?”

  “How far is it?”

  “About a mile.”

  Resting my hand against the tree for balance, I slowly stood up. Jack moved to help me.

  “What about Deidre?” I asked.

  “I’ll tie a bandage around a tree and carve an arrow into the bark to show her which way we went.”

  While he attended to that, all I could do was stand, watch, and fight for every breath. When he finished, Jack picked up the first aid kit and tucked it under his arm. “Ready to go?”

  I nodded, and he helped support me as we began. We walked slowly, but after about a minute, I had to pause and rest.

  “I’m sorry.” I bent forward slightly. “I’m winded. I can’t breathe.”

  Jack set the first aid kit on the ground. “Your color’s not good. Let me help you.”

  “I’ll be fine in a second.”

  “No, Vivian.” He moved closer. “We need to get you to the cabin. Just relax. That’s right. I’ve got you now.”

  Gently, he swept me into his arms, but I cried out when he lifted me.

  “What is it?” he asked with surprise.

  I wrapped my good arm around his neck and buried my face into his shoulder, squeezing my eyes shut. “It’s my back. The Gestapo used a hot poker on me.”

  “God.” Jack held still for a moment. Touching his lips to the top of my head, he spoke in a soothing voice. “Is this okay? Am I hurting you? I can put you down if you’d rather walk.”

  “Honestly . . . I don’t think I can.”

  He nodded and started off again, while I tried not to focus on the scorching-hot pain on my flesh. Instead, I gave myself over to Jack’s kindness, which was a heaven-sent comfort after the cruelty I’d experienced at the hands of the Gestapo. It was hard not to weep as Jack carried me through the woods, stepping over the uneven ground pitted with rocks and roots and spongy moss.

  I had so little strength left in me, both physically and emotionally. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the Gestapo had broken me completely, and I would never come back from this.

  I looked up at Jack’s face in the dappled sunlight and murmured weakly, “I don’t want to die.”

  “You’re not going to die. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  But how could he know that?

  When we arrived at a ramshackle structure in a small clearing, Jack was covered in sweat, and his muscles were straining. He carried me to the front door and set me down.

  I looked up at the brown-painted clapboard exterior. The paint was peeling, and the steep, sloping roof was covered in moss and dead leaves, but it provided an overhang in front of the door, where firewood was stacked.

  “What is this place?” I asked as Jack gave the door a shoulder push and held it open for me.

  “I’m not sure, but by the looks of things, no one has been here for a while. I hope you don’t mind dust and cobwebs.”

  “Not in the least.” I stepped over the threshold. Inside, there was a crude wooden table with two chairs, a bed with a faded patchwork quilt, a wood-burning stove, and shelving for food and supplies. Two small dirty windows let in a scant bit of light, and it smelled of rot, but it was shelter for us, and that was all that mattered.

  With Jack’s help, I hobbled toward the bed.

  “You should lie down,” he said, hovering.

  “I think I’ll stay upright for a minute or two. It’s a bit easier to breathe.”

  He accepted that and crossed to the shelves on the wall. There were a few jars, crockery jugs, and canned goods, all covered in sticky cobwebs.

  “I wonder if they plan on coming back anytime soon,” I said, referring to the missing inhabitants.

  Jack picked up a large can. “Blow me backward. There’s coffee here.” He opened the lid and sniffed it. “It’s real too. There’s quite a bit of it.”

  “It must be from before the war.”

  “Or black market.” He set it on the shelf and inspected a fishing rod and tackle in the corner. Then he faced me. “I need to go back for the first aid kit. Then I’ll start a fire and boil some water, and we’ll have some of that coffee.”

  I watched him leave and marveled at the fact that even though I had been living in luxury at Grantche
ster Hall for the past four years—with servants and fine china and wine with every meal—none of that could compare to the bounty that stood before me in this forgotten place, where I was safe from the war, with a man who was kind and wished me no harm. That meant more to me than anything.

  Jack returned with the medical kit and a bucket of water, which he used to wash and fill the copper kettle on the stove. I lay on my side on the bed, watching him go back outside to fetch an armful of firewood, which he brought inside and released with a clatter onto the floor. Soon, he had a strong fire going.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked as he sat down at the table and flung open the lid on the medical kit.

  “The same.”

  He rifled through the contents of the box and found a package, which he held up to the light. “There’s an ointment here for burns. It says to spread liberally over the affected area. It might give you some relief.” He turned to me. “Would you like to try it?”

  “Please.”

  Jack came closer and sat down next to me. “I need to lift the back of your blouse. Is that all right?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned over me and raised the silk fabric with one hand, then fell silent, staring. “My God, Vivian. What did they do to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s over now.”

  “It does matter.” His voice was low and gruff. “I’m so sorry.”

  I covered my face with my hand, because I didn’t want to think about what had happened, or talk about it, because I couldn’t bear to relive it. But I did want Jack to know one thing.

  “I didn’t break. I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “I believe you.” He unscrewed the cap on the tube. “I hope this doesn’t hurt. Tell me if it does, and I’ll stop.”

  I clutched the quilt in my fist to brace myself.

  Lightly, Jack squeezed some ointment onto the burns on my spine and shoulder blades. It did cause me some pain upon first contact, but a cooling sensation followed.

  “It feels all right.”

  He spread it soothingly with slow-moving hands, brushing lightly over my raw, mutilated flesh. Afterward, he covered the burns with some large dressings and lowered my shirt.