Lovely War(84)

“For how long?”

Hazel watched her drab shoes crunch the gravel. “Until they’re safely home again.”

April became May, and May moved resolutely toward June. Hazel did the arithmetic one day and realized that she had chopped up something close to eight tons of cabbages. Her hands looked like her mother’s—red and raw and cracked.

One evening, when the dinner line had finished, and all the men were seated or huddled somewhere with their bowls of soup, Colette went back to the washroom to change while Hazel consolidated all the dregs of soup from each vat into one small pan.

“More soup, please?”

A heavy German accent spoke the words. Hazel looked up to see a German prisoner standing in the doorway with his bowl cupped in his hands. She glanced toward the doorway where the armed guards always stood. Without fail, they would tell Germans asking for more food that there were no second helpings. But the guards were gone. Hazel was alone in the kitchen area with the German. And he looked so very hungry.

He hung back from the serving line, so Hazel came out from behind the counter to pour soup directly into his bowl. He dropped the bowl and pinned her against the wall. One hand he pressed into her abdomen, and the other into her neck. The pan fell from her hand, and hot soup soaked into her skirt. Before she could scream, he’d covered her mouth with his.

Hazel was so shocked, she didn’t know what to do. She fought, but he was stronger. He licked her lips and teeth with his foul tongue, then forced it inside her mouth.

She struggled and fought, but he was much too strong. Even as he forced his face upon her, he laughed at her, a bitter, hateful sound.

Her brain lurched into full alert, and shock and revulsion morphed into desperate fear. She could barely breathe. She fought and kicked and struggled. If no one came soon, he might—how could this be happening? Where were those guards?—when suddenly he let her go.

Two other German prisoners had ripped him off Hazel, leaving her drooping against the wall. One slugged her attacker in the face with his fist, smashing into his eye and then his jaw. The other tackled him to the ground and sat on his chest while the first pinned his legs down.

“Go, Fr?ulein,” said her first rescuer. “We are very sorry.”

The commotion had brought the two French guards running through the doorway from wherever they’d been dawdling. Colette appeared, too, and was at Hazel’s side in an instant.

“Did this man hurt you, Mademoiselle?” the French guards asked Hazel.

If she said no, he might molest her again, or Colette, or any of the young ladies there. But if she said yes, the guards might take her offender somewhere from whence he might never return. International laws prevented countries holding soldiers as prisoners of war from killing them, but “accidents” happened. Some French soldiers were eager for any excuse.

She scrubbed at her mouth with her wrist. The sight of the man on the floor, watching her through mocking eyes, made her gag. But she wasn’t ready to sign his death warrant.

“Or were they just fighting?”

Her heart sank. Now even her rescuers were in danger of punishment.

She longed for hot water. A toothbrush. Something to scrub every trace of him off her.

“He was very rude to me.” Her voice was as weak as her answer. “They defended me.”

Colette whirled upon the solider guards with a torrent of angry French. Something about Why was my friend left alone? and She is entitled to protection at all times.

Hazel covered her face as waves of shock and disgust and violation swept over her.

“Get up, you three,” demanded the chief guard. “On your feet. Vite, vite.”

Her rescuers got off her attacker, and they all rose to their feet. Her attacker leered at her from out the corner of one eye.

“Let’s go home, Hazel.” Colette slipped an arm around her. When they’d left the camp buildings, Colette added, “Let’s leave this dump and go back to Paris.”

Hazel was only too glad to agree, until she returned to their room and found a letter there from her mother, featuring a clipping from the newspaper.





HADES


     Welcome Home—May 6, 1918





AFTER A FEW weeks at Maudsley Hospital, James was discharged in early May.

The days had blended into a pink blur.

There were stretches of time when he thought of nothing at all. Of the robin perched on his windowsill. Of the flowers in the vase.

The shaking subsided. He never saw the syringe now.

They played a gramophone in the common room, where James took meals. He played checkers with other patients. They would talk together, and sometimes they would cry.

His parents sat on either side of him on the train ride to Chelmsford. His mother threaded her arm through his and held him close. It made him feel like a little boy.

The sight of Maggie and Bob, holding back on the porch, then running to him, brought on tears. Bob was taller, with blemishes on his nose, and Maggie had filled out a bit, with hair frizzier than ever. When they saw him cry, they feared they were the cause. He wanted to tell them, no, no, you’ve never been so grand, but he couldn’t, so he went to his room.

He felt thirteen again, like Bob. A dusty set of tin soldiers arranged on his bookcase was too funny to laugh at.

Beside his bed lay a box containing his army kit, which had been found, by some miracle. The sight of it repulsed him.