Drawing Blood (3 page)

Chapter Four

Abigail

The hand was rough of skin but gentle of touch as it trailed across her stomach, tickling her awake. She laughed in her sleep, rolling over. As Abigail opened her eyes, James smiled down at her, leaning as he was on one elbow, gazing down at her. “Good morning,” he said gruffly, kissing her neck with great enthusiasm.

She squealed and tried to push him off but he was much stronger. The tickling was overwhelming and she had only one way to stop him. She slid one hand under the covers to where he was hot and hard already, and he broke off immediately with a sharp inhale. She stroked at him and his mouth put its efforts to good use on hers, his moans letting her know how good of a job she was doing.

“Oh my Abby,” he gasped. “Don’t let go. Don’t ever let go.”

Her eyes flew open. Abigail was not in their cramped little London apartment; she was in the guest bedroom of her parent’s country home. The sun was bright on the ceiling overhead. She was flushed and embarrassed. It had all felt so … real.

She let her eyes fall closed again while she tried to regulate her body temperature. It didn’t take long. The knock was soft on her door, and she sat up.

“Dad?”

He opened the door. Abigail was surprised to see him up and moving around. He must be feeling better already. “Get up, dear. I have something to show you.”

She did as asked and wrapped her heavy robe around herself, over her nightgown. Her father didn’t wait, he was already moving down the stairs to the kitchen. She hurried to catch up.

He descended the few steps to the access door to the root cellar. “This was already here,” he said, almost like a warning. “But you have to know it’s here. I should have shown you sooner.”

Abigail frowned, but let him open the door and go down the wooden stairs to the cellar. The floor was dirt. It wasn’t deep enough to stand upright. He pulled the chain on the light over the bottom of the stairs. “Watch closely.”

He grasped the side of an empty shelf set against the wall. He pulled up on one corner and pulled outward. It swung as though attached on the other side, opening like a door. The piece of paneling behind she had assumed was attached to the shelf. It wasn’t. It stayed on the wall.

Her father dug his fingers around the edge and pulled the thin plywood out. It opened just like the shelf … behind the shelf was pitch black.

Abigail took a curious step forward. Her father took her hand and gave a gentle tug. “Come,” he instructed patiently. “It’s five steps to the bottom. And always remember to close the door behind you.”

He started down in to the darkness. Abigail put a hand out, catching rough cement overhead as they went down another short flight of wooden stairs. She had a queer feeling like she was falling, but each step met her searching foot. Five wooden steps, like he said, then the hard ground. It felt like cement, too.

“The light switch is on the right wall.”

She put a hand out to the darkness, and after two steps to the right her palm met rough, chilled and flat stone. At the normal height she found a switch and pressed it. Lights flickered to life overhead.

It resembled the hallways underneath St. Thomas in London. Wide like a factory corridor, a box of cement. Lights on a wire attached to the ceiling. Along its entire length, which was about twenty yards, one wall was covered in homemade shelves. There were canned goods as high as she could reach, as well as sacks of flour, sugar, coffee and tea. It was like a dry good store, only underground.

Abigail’s eyes were huge as she turned back to her father. “What is this place?”

Her father shrugged. “A shelter. As it appears to be. The man who owned this place fought in the Great War. He built this. And when Hitler moved in to the Scandinavian countries and then Poland … I started filling the shelves.”

Abigail turned back the way they’d come. There was a heavy door inside the false shelves. Rubber skirting framed the outside edges.

“The door is light tight. But if you ever think anyone’s in the house, stay down here and turn the lights off anyway.”

She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. Abigail turned back to her father. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I wanted to, love. But your mother thought I’d just scare you.” He shrugged and scratched his head, looking over all the goods he’d stored away. “Make sure to get the potatoes and carrots out of the ground in the fall. Keep them in the cellar. But make sure to lock some away down here, too. People will come through here to take things. If you leave out a little bit for them, they’re less likely to rip the place apart trying to find whatever they can. But if things get worse, make sure it looks like the house has been abandoned.”

Abigail put her hand on his arm. “Papa, look at me.”

“That chest there has as much medical kit as I could find. Even morphine. But I hope you never have to use any of it.”

“Dad.” She turned his head and made him look at her. “Why are you telling me all this? Why now?”

He took both her hands in his. “From now on you sleep down here every night. We’ll avoid going out too often in the daytime. Just enough so that everything appears normal. But when I’m gone -”

“Dad,” she protested, startled.

“- you make yourself scarce. I heard how that German spoke to you. You’re strong. Like your mother. You’re going to be fine, but only if you keep your head and act carefully. Strength is good but sometimes … well, sometimes men will just see that as a challenge. Something to break you of.”

She tried to pull her hands away, but he held tight. “Now you are scaring me, Dad.”

“Always make sure to have plenty of water down here. There might be times when you’re all alone in here for days if it gets bad. You have to plan everything.” He took her by one had down the length of the hall, to the shadows at the opposite end. There was another door, similar to the one at the top of the secret stairs. He swung it open, revealing a dirt floor and a wooden ladder going up. The walls were also ringed metal, like a culvert on its side. Abigail looked up.

“It leads up to the garden shed. If you’re trapped in the yard, this is another way to get in.”

Her father started up the ladder, pushing at the wood that covered the top of the well. It opened to the right, and he was soon out on solid ground and reaching back for her.

Abigail started up the ladder and took his hand as she neared the top. He pulled her upwards, and then as she turned to look down he lowered the cover again. It was just a wooden pallet, a few flower pots on top. As she looked closer she realized they were attached to the pallet. Where it went, they went.

She looked at her father and felt her numbness deepen. She found herself wondering who the hell he was. He looked down at her with sympathy. “I should have insisted you stay in England. But your mother wanted to see you again so badly, so I allowed it. We were hoping you’d be able to leave safely and be back before any of this happened. Then the fighting started and … well, you know the rest.”

Abigail just shook her head. “Papa, I’m sure we can find a way to get back to England.”

He just shook his head. “We’re too close to the coast line, love. They’ll be protecting it tighter than any other part of this damn country. I know England seems close. On a clear day you can see it from Calais. But that’s important water, love. We don’t have a hope of getting out north. If there was any shot it would be south. But I can’t do it. And I don’t want you to try it. You’re safer here than anywhere else.” He held her head between his hands forcefully. “Do as you’re told … but don’t do anything that makes them think you’re on their side, either. The other locals won’t trust someone they think is working with them. And if they think you’re sleeping with them for protection it’ll be even worse.”

“Papa!”

“Listen to me. Don’t make friends with strangers. Don’t trust anyone enough to show them the shelter. They will sell you to the Germans to protect themselves if they have to. We’re surrounded by farm houses with large families. If a man can tell that officer where to find you at night in the dark to save his daughters he will without hesitation. So don’t put anyone in that position. Keep to yourself. Because when I’m gone they’ll see you as vulnerable and available.”

Abigail was shaking in fear. The tone of her father’s voice was dark, and the intensity in his face was more frightening than anything she’d ever seen. “But Papa,” she choked out. “Where are you going?”

He was crying now, too. He wrapped her up in his arms and held her tight. “Oh, Abby,” he sobbed. “I won’t last. I can feel it. I felt it the morning it took your mother. And now it’s coming for me.”

Abigail was wondering if it was dementia or some kind of grief insanity.

“I’m going to die, Abby. Nothing you can do about it. And who knows how long this whole thing might go on for. We have to assume it will end eventually. And maybe over time things will calm down enough that you can find a way to get back to England … assuming that Kraut bastard doesn’t get there first. That’s my hope.”

“Don’t leave me, please Papa. I have nowhere to go.”

“You don’t have nothing yet. You don’t know what nothing really is. I hope you never do.”

Her father lifted the pallet again, and she went down the ladder ahead of him. There was a handle on the underside, she noticed as he pulled it shut after them.

The walk back through the “shelter” was surreal.  She felt like she’d been air-dropped in to another world. This had all been under the yard the whole time, and she’d had no idea.

“There’s a twin bed up in the attic,” her father was saying. “We should bring it down here right away. I want you sleeping down here from now on, understand Abigail?”

She just nodded, but she was in front of him so he saw it.

She dressed in trousers and a light jumper for the task. They brought the twin bedframe and mattress down together, neither one of them saying anything throughout. Her father seemed calmer once it was done. He said he was tired and went back to bed in his room on the ground floor. They’d moved her parents’ bed to the front room when her mother couldn’t climb stairs anymore. It had a sliding pocket door that cut it off from the dining room. That side of the house faced towards the channel. When there was no fog you could see the water from the top floors, but down here it was rough brush and uncivilized land.

Abigail’s father had started tea before he woke her, and it sat forgotten on the stove. She shut off the burner and poured herself a mug, not a tea cup. It was strong enough that she could have stood a spoon straight up in it. But she liked it this way.

She became aware of a rumbling. The glasses in the cupboard clinked softly against each other. Then she could feel it under foot, through the floor. She listened closer and heard it now, along the road behind the house. She was frozen in place in the centre of the kitchen. She tried to think of what was expected of her.

She was expected to go look.

Abigail set her tea on the table, shoved her feet in to rubbers that stood ready at the back door, and circled around to the back yard. The road leading past their yard had never been so full.

The column was led by a tank. She had to assume it was a Panzer: it had a swastika on it. It led a mass of men on foot, walking in two rows of three abreast. She knew their French uniforms immediately. These were now prisoners of war.

They marched staring straight ahead. Here and there a German personnel carrier drove past them with more German soldiers, but the French kept staring straight ahead. Some of them were bloodied. One had a bandage around his head, with a square of white covering his eye. Mostly they were uninjured.

She watched the entire parade. At the rear were two more Panzers, their turrets open and manned.  Those soldiers saw her and met her gaze brazenly.

There might not have been a signed armistice, but for all intents and purposes they were living under German control now.

Chapter Five

David

A Dakota lumbered overhead, seeming to move very slowly, but obviously it wasn’t. David watched it the entire way, the roar of the engines only heard once it was well over the ocean. He liked that sound.

He was on a foot patrol around an airfield with another young man from Alberta that had the worst breath David had ever experienced. Even out in the open like this it was noticeable. But Clyde Walton was a nice enough guy, and he was easy to talk to as long as he was downwind.

“She had the biggest tits I’d ever seen. And she was ready to go I swear to God. Then she starts squealing and her dad comes running outside, waving a shovel around. Jesus. Women are nothing but trouble.” David was quiet so Clyde kept talking. “Tell me about your girl, Cleary. You got one, right?”

David shook his head. “Nah. None worth remembering now.”

Clyde laughed knowingly. “Love ‘em and leave ‘em, hey?” David said nothing. “Well I envy that. Women never like me much. No idea why, really. I mean, have you seen Walter Jackson? He’s the homeliest bastard I’ve ever seen and he’s married.”

Try a mint
, he thought, but he wasn’t mean enough to say it. “Getting married doesn’t take looks. You just need to find someone that doesn’t drive you crazy.”

Clyde nodded. “That’s the trick, then. Because I can’t remember meeting one that after ten minutes of talking I didn’t want to chew off my arm just to get out of the conversation.”

David laughed at that. It wasn’t hard to see this bitterness covered the constant hurt from rejection that poor Clyde faced. David was going to make it his mission to help Clyde find someone to have sex with before he died.  He wasn’t ugly, just … unaware.

David hiked the strap of his 303 up higher on his shoulder. The rifle was starting to feel normal, as much a part of his uniform as his boots. Before joining the military, he’d never held a firearm of any kind. Now it was with him so much he felt naked without it.

“I’m not even anxious to get to Europe, you know? I just couldn’t wait to get out of that shit box town.” David was nodding along with Clyde. He liked being around people that talked a lot. It was like keeping a radio on for company. “But once we’re there …. I don’t know. I don’t think they’ll even get us to do much. We’ll likely have to stay behind and guard landing strips or something.”

“As long as there’s some English birds to guard I’ll be fine,” David muttered, stepping over the same deep hole he’d stepped and nearly twisted his ankle in about three laps ago. “The women in this town are all locked at the knees.”

Clyde gave a hearty laugh. “Shit Cleary. If you’re not getting lucky no one has a shot at it.”

The woman on the train hadn’t really panned out as he’d hoped. They’d gotten in to a private sleeper car, but just as he thought she was all systems go she lost her mind, shrieking about her fiancé. It had drawn a car attendant who’d thrown them back to their seats. He didn’t sit next to her. He moved to a seat on his own and tried to sleep the rest of the way.

For that he’d endured an hour and a half of conversation with a geriatric suffering from a flatulence problem. He’d reached Gander in a very foul mood.

Here they alternated between training and guard detail on an airfield off the ocean. Although how many planes Germany was planning on sending to Canada was a mystery. It was a long flight and it wouldn’t be bombers. If anything it was everything under the water that was the danger.

“Where the hell are Clark and Reinhold?” Clyde was muttering. “We’ve usually passed them by now.”

David stopped. He was right. The other guards rotating the opposite direction hadn’t been seen in a while. “That’s strange.”

They both stood silent, the wind coming off the ocean suddenly a roar. They went back-to-back by instinct, squinting in to darkness. Then, thinly on the wind, came the sound of a voice.

“Help! Cleary? Walton? Where the hell are you?”

They took off at a sprint in the direction of the call, rifles at the ready for some reason, but that’s what they’d been taught to do.

They found Louis Reinhold on his knees next to another soldier. Terence Clark was sprawled on his back, out cold.

“What happened?”

Louis was shaking his head, hands out. “I don’t know. We were talking, he got dizzy and he just … dropped. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

David had his ear to the man’s chest, couldn’t hear anything. But everyone was talking.

“I’ll go get the medic.” Clyde was off like a shot. Luckily he was a fast runner.

“What do we do? What do we do?”

“Shut up, Lou. Start with that.”

The poor guy stopped talking, nodding instead.

David pressed two fingers to the side of Clark’s throat. Nothing. “His heart stopped.” He put his ear to his mouth. It sounded like the poor guy was trying to breathe anyway. “I’ve got to get his heart going.”

“What do we have to do?”

David handed over his Lee-Enfield. “Hold on to that for me, okay?”

Lou nodded, eyes wide. He took the rifle and held it like it was the most important thing he’d been asked to do in months. At least he was staying quiet.

“How long ago did he pass out?” David fell to his knees next to man on the ground, pushing his tags and the strap from his pack out of the way.

“Ummm … three minutes? Maybe?”

“Help me turn him over,” David mumbled. He himself used the man’s clothing to position him on his stomach. He manhandled Clark’s arms into place, head to the side, and pulled up on his arms, knees in his back.

Lou was watching in stunned silence, one hand on his head. The other held David’s rifle tightly. He tried to talk a couple times but mostly he was just watching.

David had never seen anyone go in to shock from something happening to someone else. He had a fleeting thought that if they ever did go to battle he really didn’t want Reinhold anywhere near him.

He jammed two fingers against Clark’s throat again, this time getting a response. Clark jerked from the pressure, turning his head to try and get away from it. Clark coughed, opened his eyes, and his eyes rolled wildly.

“Holy shit,” Lou breathed in relief.

David climbed off Clark, turning him to his back and cradling his head. “Terry? Terry? You in there?”

Clark wasn’t talking, but his eyes focused on David’s face and he frowned.

“There you are.” David took a deep breath, laughing. “You scared the hell out of Lou, Terry.”

Lou gave a half-hearted chuckle, and that’s when David heard a vehicle approaching. Headlights swept across them and a Jeep pulled to a stop alongside their trio in a cloud of dust.

The medic was out before the vehicle was in park. “What happened?”

“His heart had stopped. I did that whole Holger Nielson thing. He’s conscious again.”

David got to his feet to let the medic give Clark a once-over. He had a small flashlight he was shining in the guy’s face. Lou handed David his rifle back, then knelt back down.

“Let’s load him up, get him back to sick bay.”

They all helped roll Clark on to a gurney. Lou rode back with them. As the Jeep sped away Clyde checked his watch. “Well, that helped kill some time. Five minutes ‘til the relief gets here.”

David just laughed. “How the hell’d you get to be such a fast runner?”

Clyde shrugged. “I don’t know. Always been fast. I think it had more to do with the fact that my mom was strong, so I had to run fast to avoid getting smacked.”

When their patrol ended David and Clyde shared a cigarette on the way back to their barracks. At their approach, Sergeant Murphy greeted them, his calm expression as dependable as wind on this bloody base.

“I heard what happened,” he said, pale eyes on David. “Good work, Cleary. Where’d you learn first aid?”

David looked from his sergeant to Clyde, suddenly awkward from the attention. “Ummm … my mom got really sick for a while. She would stop breathing. My sister and I learned how to … bring her back.”

All three men were silent, which made everything more uncomfortable than before. He couldn’t read Clyde’s expression at all, and the sergeant’s admiration really gave him the scratch. After a moment Murphy finally cleared his throat to break the quiet.

The sergeant nodded, chucking David on the shoulder. “I’m going to want to keep you close. Good work.”

Clyde was still looking at him strangely, but David wasn’t even there with him. He was back in that stinking house, listening to the air wheezing in and out of his mother’s lungs. She fought for every breath. And the one time he’d thought they’d lost her and he’d fought like hell to get her back, the first thing she’d whispered was, “Why?”

He could smell the stink of death, and his father sitting in that shit hole living room with his beer and cigarettes while his wife endured unimaginable pain for every breath in the next room, David wondering the whole time “Why?” as well.

He blinked when Clyde put a hand on his shoulder. He looked to the shorter man, and hated the look of pity he saw. He shrugged off the touch and entered their bunk house without another word. Clyde let him go. He undressed in the dark, stowing everything in its proper place before making his way to the washroom. After, when he fell on to bunk exhaustion took him quickly.