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Bewarne’s Novel: First draft of beginning





	

	 Chapter 2: Day 1-End
	Filed under: General — bewarne @ February 23, 2008 9:00 am 
	
	
		(Last update February 23, 2008 - ready for help with editing except that one short scene is as yet unwritten)
“Heat Wave”
It was hell in every way imaginable including lasting an eternity. Okay, maybe it just seemed like forever. The Germans traveled for hours before taking a brief break. She was reasonably rational for the first hour or so — maybe it was only the first half an hour, maybe it was just a fraction of that — but after that she completely surrendered to the desert’s oppressive heat in a way she couldn’t yet imagine doing to human oppression.
The heat was overwhelming. While the people she was traveling with had obviously had some time to acclimate to this, she had been in the temperate Mediterranean’s mild weather just this morning and before that in Britain, which was having a wet and cool summer [what was the summer of 1942 like in Britain? -#2].
During the crash and organizing everything afterwards, burning the papers, and the subsequent situations, she had been operating on determination and adrenaline. But now she began to feel like a helpless prisoner of both her human enemy and the desert. Soon after they took off she gave in to the feelings of resignation and vulnerability that she has previously pretended. She was helpless before this heat - so drained of energy that she forgot the canteen and ignored everyone else in the truck. She stopped thinking and felt only heat. She couldn’t even imagine feeling anything other than heat. Whoever invented the idea of hell, had definitely been here; and like hell, she was sure it would never end.
When they finally stopped she was barely able to get out of the vehicle. The captain came up to her as she fell to the ground, The hot ground - hot like a stove but she had no energy to get off of it. Although, it was too hot to sit on. she just couldn’t stand up.
“How the mighty have fallen,” She was sure Kichner was gloating.
“I hate you.” It was barely understandable and she knew it wasn’t even worth saying.
“Major,” he called out.  “Didn’t you notice your seat mate has the beginnings of heat stroke?” Cleere moved to kneel beside her.
“Oh, dear.” The major started to get up, but before he could, Kichner handed him his own canteen and Cleere forced her to drink a little. Then he poured some on her cap and let it soak through. Then another drink. And then another sip but this time he told her to hold the water in her mouth for a bit before swallowing. He then got up and reached into the truck to find her heavy coat and put it down next to her and helped her move to it. By this time she actually could move and it was a relief to move to the cooler coat.
The major was arguing with the captain about taking off her handcuffs. She didn’t care. The move to her coat took almost all the rest of her energy. She felt paralyzed. The only other thing she could do is lift the canteen to her mouth every few minutes. That became her whole life.
A sip and hold it.  Another.
The captain was berating the major about not noticing her state. The major had been sitting beside her, after all. And as senior officer among the prisoners, she was his responsibility.
“Heat stroke is serious. I don’t want to have to face Rommel with a dead female prisoner! You need to watch her and be responsible for her!” Kichner stormed off.
She watched him in wonder. Where could he possibility get the energy in this heat. She laid down. The next thing she knew there was a German boot stomping down an inch from her face.
“Sit up,” Kichner demanded. Without moving his foot, he pulled her back into a sitting position and then twisted his boot a bit and lifted his foot and beneath was a dead scorpion. “They are attracted to the shadow of the truck.” He now had another canteen and he used the water in it to pour some more on her cap, which had dried already. She was just a little revived - just enough to finally respond to part of the argument Kichner and Cleere had had a little while before.
“If I die, at least you’ll be held to account for it.”
“Would that make it worth your life?”
“Just a little bit ago, it would at least have mitigated it a bit.  But now I’d rather live to complain about you in person.”
“Keep that thought.” Kichner unlocking her handcuffs. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“What have I done so far that is stupid? Well, except collapse on the sand? Oh, and not drinking. I — can’t — think, too — tired, too — hot.” She drifted.
He didn’t answer and left when the major came back with chai from where his men were fixing it. Cleere only allowed her a taste of this sweet rich mixture of tea, tinned milk and sugar. “Nothing like anything back in Britain,” he told her. “But the men out here live on it. Sustains us, but you aren’t ready for more than a couple of sips.” After she took her sips - over a minute apart. He sat down next to her. “I am dreadfully sorry that I didn’t notice your state. Am used to people being aware of what the Sahara does to them. Crushes you, it does.”
“How long–?”
“Have I been here? Let’s see, I think only about half a dozen lifetimes. Actually, in real time less than half a dozen months. Been here before on digs. So, headquarters must have thought it was a good place to put me. But am not sure any of my skills have been useful. I have been trying to learn how to fight wars ever since. It is a complicated subject and may never be my forte but I was anxious to do my part for the war effort, of course.”
“You belong in a university.  Oxford?”
“Got it in one. Does it show?”
“I’m afraid the sand hasn’t changed that air of pure British academia.” She paused for a drink and to gather strength just to say, “To go from the Oxford calm to all this must have taken some doing.”
“Well, they send one for some months of grueling training first. That was the first shock. Wasn’t in any kind of shape - I played cricket and polo and thought I was in great shape. What about you?”
“Nothing to tell, really. A quick course in nursing and they decided that, though, I wasn’t the best nurse, I had leadership abilities and put me in charge of others. They seem to think that Oxford is the place to find leaders, but many of the students I knew there couldn’t lead a child.” This hadn’t come out smoothly but with pauses for drinks and just to rest between phrases as well as sentences.
“Ah. The dons, too. Yet, people surprise you. Students I thought possessed no discipline or determination have turned out to have both in abundance. Dons like me have learned we can do more than we thought.” He was laughing at himself - at his old attitudes and his expanding self-knowledge. “If I survive the experience I dread to think what I shall be like at the end of it - if I live to see the end - I wonder if I will be able to return to the life I once lived.”
Kichner’s men had been getting the prisoners and their things back into the trucks. He came back to them. “Ah, the gentleman and the non-lady.”
The major made to get up indignantly. Katherine put a hand on his arm and said, “He is just trying to be charming, Major. Do you think you can teach him to be a gentleman at this late stage. Let it go..”
This allowed the major to not get to his feet. The captain looked at her as if he was trying to figure her out. “In Germany, women are expected to do womanly, ladylike things and not get involved in men’s business.”
She was too tired to bother responding so the major took what he thought would be her side. “A country that refuses the help of half its population in an emergency situation, is destined to lose.”
“German women help by being women and support personnel. We allow nurses, of course, but they are not expected to interfere in men’s work.”
She knew she was in bad shape when she refused an opening to an argument, but she didn’t care what he believed anyway. She used her energy to take another sip from the canteen.
????The captain and the major change the subject or go on briefly. This conversation needs to show the major as very smart and to show off both his sense of humour and Kichner’s.????
The captain seemed a bit amused at his prisoners. She got the impression, he regarded them both as specimens. He looked over at her and shook his head as if to dismiss both the major and her as having been too long out in the sun. She certainly had been.
She tried to hand him back his canteen. “Keep it and keep sipping constantly. I’ll get another canteen. That one is now yours. When you use up all the water, let someone know and they will get you more.”
She felt grateful and because of that also felt like throwing it at him. But it would have taken too much effort and she had already developed an affection for the canteen and didn’t want to give it up, She was also grateful to have the handcuffs off and didn’t want to give him an excuse to put them back on.
Now she faced the hurdle of getting to her feet. Kichner held out his hand and she looked at it. The major was also getting up and when he had gotten to his feet, she asked him, “Major, would you be so kind as to please help me up.” Which he did.
And then it was back to the vehicle and hell. But she now had a lifeline. Her new friend the canteen with its water.
Dusk came and the column didn’t stop. Dark followed and they drove into it. She was revived a little by the temperature which had turned pleasantly cool. But it kept getting colder. And colder still. She reached for her coat and wrapped herself in it. The major leaned over to help and yelled into her ear, “Keep drinking. Cold also dehydrates.” She reached for her canteen and resolved never to let it out of her grasp again.
Soon she was shivering in spite of the coat. The open truck blew cold air at them. She moved off the seat and huddled on the floor and went back to feeling vulnerable to the desert - now for the opposite reason. Even the canteen no longer offered comfort although she dutifully drank from it. Now, her lifeline and affectionate companion was the coat. Were they going to drive all night?
Finally, she felt the vehicle stop. She could hear men jumping out of trucks, She pulled herself back up to the seat. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing.
Only three people didn’t seem to be doing anything productive. She just sat there since she had no idea where to go or what to do. And Kichner and Cleere were arguing again. Again about her. She really needed to care, but she was shivering too much. The cold, sapped her strength and her will just as the heat had earlier in the day.
The captain had been dressed in full uniform during the heat of the day and hadn’t changed when it turned freezing. The major had at least been in shirt sleeves during the day and put on his jacket after dark thus proving that he was human. She had no such proof about the German captain.
Seems the captain was insisting that she spend the night away from the other prisoners. In his tent. That didn’t sound good and she tried to say so but her voice came out a croak due to the amount of sand she had swallowed. Even as miserable as she was, she was beginning to care about this development. But the two men were not interested in whatever she was trying to say.
“Oh don’t be silly, Major. I just don’t trust her and want to make sure she doesn’t do anything else totally unexpected like talk you and your men into some kind of weird escape that would force me to shoot you and then I would have to justify it to Rommel and I hear it takes a lot to justify killing prisoners to him. I am willing to take on that challenge but only if I absolutely have to.”
“But it isn’t proper?”
“What could be in this situation? There is nothing that is going to be proper; we aren’t equipped to be dealing with a woman here. But stop worrying about me, look at her. She is sunburnt, unkept, dirty and at the best of times, I doubt she is ever pretty.”
“Captain, that is uncalled for!” The major was as indignant on her behalf for this insult as he had been when the captain had hit her.
The captain turned to her. “Has anyone ever called you pretty?”
She swallowed and finally was able to make a sound around her raw throat. “No,” ah there was sound. She smiled. “Not without a full days effort, and then they were exaggerating.”
The captain smiled but the major objected. “Now, hold on.”
“Major, in this situation, the last thing I would want to suggest to this German officer is that I am pretty. One, he wouldn’t believe me as I am sure he considers himself an expert on what women should look like, and two, I just don’t want him thinking there is a possibility that I am ever pretty. I know you think that it hurts me somehow that he makes this point. But it doesn’t hurt me at all. On the other hand, I may actually be one of the few European women within a hundred miles or so so I am just a little concerned about being alone with him.”
The captain was still smiling as he said, “I have a heater.”
“Captain, you really know how to appeal to a girl, don’t you.?” She meant it as sarcasm but suspected it was actually true. She got her thoughts together. “May I suggest something that might work fine for all concerned. Perhaps the major can also share your tent tonight.”
“It would be a tight fit.” The captain thought about it for a moment. “Yes, that can be arranged. It might be crowded but better all around. But right now he has obligations to the other prisoners. Don’t you, Major?”
“Well, yes.”
“Surely, you aren’t going to tell me, you don’t trust me with her for even a few minutes alone? Okay, I’ll take my sergeant as a chaperon.” He turned to her, “I want to have a serious talk with you to convince you not to do anything to upset things further.”
He motioned toward a tent that was being set up. Inside was a cot and a table, a chair, a light and a newly lit petrol heater. He took the chair and sat her down on the cot, which was nearest the heater. His sergeant followed them in and the Captain turned and in English addressed his prisoner, “Sergeant Hauber here is the best I’ve got. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and doesn’t frequent brothels when we are in towns. He grew up in a family of women and had daughters. He will be our chaperon on the few occasions when we might be alone, and he will have to accompany you whenever you think you need privacy.”
The sergeant started to interrupt him. “I am sorry, Sergeant. I have given you many difficult jobs in the past and this may be right up there but I need it done and who else would you recommend?”
She was still too stunned to form her complaint. “What if I gave you my parole?”
“If you were a real officer, I’d believe you and accept it. But you aren’t and I don’t trust you. Women do not belong in a war. There is no precedence to know how to treat them when they are wearing a uniform. There are different rules of war for treating women. I believe the historically most common way to control women in war is rape. But Rommel wouldn’t approve and I am disinclined to try to justify that to him.” He paused and seem to come up with a new idea. “But I admit that you have shown yourself to be concerned about British soldiers so I will allow a slight compromise. The sergeant will go with you when you need privacy, but he will also allow you to be several yards away and mostly out of sight for up to two or three minutes. But if you get away or anything happens to him, I will kill one of the prisoners and follow you to hell and make sure you also personally pay for it and then I will take my chances with Rommel. Do you understand me?”
“Absolutely.” A change in her voice showed her suitably chastised.
“Sergeant, I want you to do the following: 1) Never leave her and me alone together for more than five minutes, I want to protect myself from charges brought by her later and it might make her feel more comfortable. 2) Watch yourself when you are with her. Do not ever think of her as if she was a normal woman who wouldn’t stab you in the back if she got a chance. I do not want to cause your death or to kill one of the prisoners. Protect yourself and her and me.”
“Jawohl, Herr Hauptman.” The German equivalent of ‘Yes, Captain’.
“That’s the best I can think of to do for all of us.” He turned back to her. “You can have the cot. I don’t want you to think that’s because I am a chivalrous gentleman. It is because I intend to handcuff you to it. The major can have a sleeping bag next to your cot and I will be on the other side of the tent. The sergeant will be across the opening. Crowded but your reputation should survive.”
“It is kind of you to worry about my reputation. And, though you think I am some kind of wild creature, I want to assure you that I am too practical a person to plan to run out into the desert without water or transport.”
“No, I don’t think you are planning it but I don’t know what will come your way that might make you think you could actually accomplish something and I just want to make sure you don’t decide to take advantage of a situation that only you could see an opening for. I don’t regard you so much as ruthless, as I do inventive. Too inventive. Sergeant, see if Leutnant Hofmann is available to have dinner with our guests and me.”
Dinner was for four but only two of them talked much. Katherine was too tired to talk but did have just enough the energy to be angry at the captain. Kichner’s sense of humour seemed to have vanished and he kept to the seriousness with which he had told her how it would be. Cleere and the young leutnant discussed their travels. The leutnant had been to that exotic land, America and he spoke about the strange people there with their strange sport of baseball that was so different from any European sport — Cleere pointed out that it was similar to cricket which Hofmann insists that is also different from real European sports (he stressed the word Euopean). He also discussed how the supposedly egalitarian Americans were so impressed by the Kind of England giving up his thrown for an American woman. These were the people who were now preparing for war against Germany.
She was dead tired and glad when dinner was over. The sergeant came back to take her a little way out of camp again and when they got back, the major and his sleeping bag were there. She crawled into the sleeping bag on the cot and just about the same time as the handcuff was locked in place, she fell asleep.
 Go on to Chapter 3, Day Two 
Copyright 2007-2008 by B. E. Warne: All rights reserved.

	
	
	
                        	




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PagesAbout / Introduction
Acknowledgments
Chapt 1: Day 1-Begin
Chapter 2: Day 1-End
Chapter 3: Day 2
Chapter 4: Day 3
Characters
Title Suggestions
X-notes
Copyright Notice
	Footnotes
	Inspiration
	References/Sources
	Songs & Music

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