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Bewarne’s Novel: First draft of beginning





	

	 Chapt. 1: Day One
	Filed under: Uncategorized — bewarne @ December 28, 2007 10:26 pm 
	
	
		(Last update Feb. 2, 2007)
“Between the Devil and the Desert”
Early September 1942 in North Africa, behind enemy lines in territory controled by the German Fieldmarshal Erwin Rmmel, “the Desert Fox” [1] –
The crashed plane still burnt in one spot making a convenient bonfire into which the head nurse could toss papers from the dispatch bag — one at a time, ensuring each burnt completely.
The other three British nurses had been sent  a few yards off in various directions so that all possible approaches could be watched.  The desert should have allowed for seeing a considerable distance in all directions but to the east and the west vision was obscured by huge dunes and it was to the west that they were most concerned.
The plane had crashed on a ridge, the most solid thing the pilot could find in this sea of sand. They could see for miles off the ridge but to the east and west, they were on the same level.
Finally, there was word as Mary rushed up from the northwest pointing,  “Katherine, it’s the German column we flew over just before the crash.”
Katherine heard the subtext and responded to that as she continued to separate out the papers, glancing at each before tossing it to the flames. She spoke loudly so the others could hear, “In the middle of the Sahara the Germans are our rescuers.  Rommel’s troops fight a semi-civilized war, I hear.”
Mary wasn’t convinced - the Germans were the enemy and she made no allowance for Rommel to be different. “I’d rather die of thirst.”
“You only think that because you’ve had a drink recently. Of course, if we spend the next few years in a prisoner of war camp, we may seriously regret the fact that our recently departed pilot couldn’t listen to reason. Still, we can’t change the past.  One thing at a time.  First, we need those Germans and their water and their transport.”
Her evaluation got a response from one of her other nurses. A response she hadn’t expected. “Do we need two columns of Germans. I assume they are Germans.”
Katherine looked up from her papers to check out the new information.  “At a guess, I would say that any column in this area will be German, or Italian. Maybe the British have something around here, but it would take tremendous good luck to run into them.  And I don’t really believe in tremendous luck. And you are right, two enemy columns may be more than we need.  But who knows what opening that might provide.”
She looked back and forth between them.  “They can’t see each other yet – but they might be in touch via wireless. I do wonder if they know each other, no reason why they should - Rommel has hundreds of thousands of troops here and they can hardly all know each other.” She realized she was rambling and wondering out loud and so changed her voice to reflect casual calm as she turned back to the papers,  “Keep me informed if either does anything different.”
She sped up her burning a little to be sure to finish everything that had been in the dispatch bag well before either column was close enough to interfere. Being in front of a fire in this horrifying mid-day heat was both imperative and urgent but it was also taking a toll on her. As she finished, glancing at where the Germans were as she threw sand on the fire, she called out to her team to gather them all away from the plane and from their belongings to a more exposed area, “Come on over here.  Sit down, make no sudden moves and keep your hands in sight. And take off your hats so they can see more clearly that we are women.” She took off her own cap and taking the pins out of her hair, let down her braids.
The two columns had now seen each other.  They each had binoculars and had focused initially on her and her team but now more on their counterparts, each having dismissed a party of only women as being suspicious but not as potentally dangerous as the other column. She could see that one of the of the German columns had a couple of trucks of heavily guarded British prisoners.
The two German officers got out of their jeeps a fair distance away, each sent a couple of guards toward the women and they walked towards each other. They were far enough away from her that Katherine had trouble hearing what they were saying, though at first they were talking loudly since they began their identification questions and answers while still some distance from each other.  She could tell that one of the first things they discovered was that they were both Rhinelanders, a distinct and proud group within the German people.  And she heard the name Heidelberg and figured one or both was a graduate of that university.  She just picked up a word here and there after that as they were close enough now not to have to shout. They were laughing, a picture of German camaraderie, and she got the impression there was the beginnings of trust between them.
She was the only one of the nurses standing so when the captain of the column with the British prisoners looked over in their directions, he motioned to one of his guards who immediately understood to bring her to them.  The designated guard had previously poked at the ashes to see if anything could be salvaged and now he picked up the dispatch bag and the rifle next to it. When they got to the officers — the other column was commanded by a lieutenant (what Katherine knew was called a Oberleutnant) — the guard showed the dispatch bag and told about the burnt papers.
She saluted when they got to the officers — neither of them returned her salute (the captain flicked his fingers distastefully) – they obviously didn’t believe she was in the military at all. In accented but understandable English the captain, who Kattherine thought looked like a God-damned German propaganda poster with his blue eyes and close cropped blond hair and his air of no nonsense arrogance, asked,  “Who are you?”
“Let me see if I can answer all your question in one swell swoop,” she said. “My name is Katherine Bowman. I am the head of a team of three other British nurses. We were headed for Cairo, I thought, although we must have gone completely off course hours before we crash-landed.  The pilot wouldn’t tell us anything except that everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t. He got way, way off course trying to compensate for some original wrong turn or direction, and I could tell he was completely lost when we crash landed; probably because we were low on petrol by that time.  He went round and round for some time and only decided to try for a landing after we saw your column, Captain, and then he found what he thought was solid ground.” She paused to catch her breath,
“We are non-combatants although assigned to the military and given a rank and we, of course, expect to be treated according to the Geneva Convention. Before the crash the pilot told me about the dispatch bag and indicated that I should burn the contents and I did so. The pilot had a side arm and it is still with his body.  There was a rifle of some kind in the plane and you have it now. As far as I know those are the only firearms.  I did search the plane for anything I thought might be useful but I mostly found just our personal effects.”
“Is that your idea of name, rank of serial number?”.
“I gave my name, my rank is visible, and I have no idea what you would do with my serial number at the moment, but I am willing to give it at the appropriate time. Now, if you want.”
The officers accepted that but had more questions. Both turned out to speak English. But to almost all of their questions, she said she didn’t know, Except for the one about where they had taken off from.  That one she declined to answer. They didn’t seem to think it was important enough to push her hard on it.
She did learn that the captain’s name was Kichner. And then they were all distracted.
“English column,” a guard said in German, coming up, saluting and pointed towards the edge of the ridge.  She realized it must be coming in below them and  wondered if it could have seen the smoke from any angle it would have had before she put the fire out.  She thought it might have seen the crash, but maybe not as the plane had been pretty low having swung over the German column (though just out of range).  So, what were the British doing here? Hadn’t she said it would have taken tremendous good luck for them to run into the British here. Wrong on two counts as this luck wasn’t good.
The officers had rushed off to the edge of the ridge to check out this column. She moved slowly, ever so slightly, in that direction. They were not shouting as one of the orders was not to make much noise. Mortars were being set up by the oberleutnant’s men. The British column would be a sitting duck if it got well within range before they started firing and that was surely the tactic they were planning on using.  She stopped moving any closer and froze into what she hoped was a cloak of almost invisibility among all the movement.
She didn’t want to be noticed just yet.  An idea had come to her.  A picture in her mind of a way to warn the British column. A crazy picture that was a pipe dream without a chance of success. She was, after all,  in the middle of about 45 German soldiers. She was the only person close enough to do anything, but she knew it was hardly a chance at all.
Yet there was this idea. This crazy idea, which was bolstered only by her juggling skills and the fact that her uncle had once showed her how a mortar worked and she had picked up one of the ammo shells so she knew just how heavy they were — which added to her evaluation that her idea was next to impossible. At 14 she had barely been able to lift it — she was larger and stronger now but she saw how the men were carrying the ammo, one at a time to where they had set up the mortars.  These things were heavy. On the other hand, she would only have to carry it a few feet. But she would have to do it on the run with barely a pause to pick one up.
The first picture she had had of how it could be done would have to be revised.  That would never work.  So, what would?
Maybe if she paused when she got to the stack of ammo and grabbed one and turned with it taking just one or two steps to reach the mortar on her opposite side.  But she would need time to place the ammo shell exactly over the barrel. It had to fall smoothly.  If it didn’t fall straight, if it hit the sides, it wouldn’t work right.  Not that there was any chance she would be able to get that far.  Someone would shoot her (she wondered if the British column would hear such a shot - probably not while they were in their trucks and the trucks would make too much noise, but who knows).
Anyway, it seemed almost impossible to do what she was imagining.  Almost but maybe not completely impossible.  That was the rub. She couldn’t see the British column, but she thought there might be 25 or 30 men there. At an outside chance, she might be able to save them.  Could she give up on such a chance?
She went back and forth considering the chances, trying to see if there were any variations that might give her more of a chance of success. She wasn’t seeing any better way — it would be tricky if it was even possible and she had no idea if it was. No one would blame her for not taking such an outside chance. No one else would even assume there was such a chance. But she knew that the chance existed. Of course, it would also depend on just where all the Germans were when she was taken back to her nurses.
Captain Kichner finally noticed her and motioned her guard to take her back toward the plane, the path would take them behind the mortars. The guard waved his rifle toward where the other three nurses were and she moved in compliance with an expression of innocence, vulnerability, resignation, and helplessness.  It fell into his preconceptions and so was believed perfectly.
Now, she had to make her choice.  There were mortar crews around the second and third mortar but the crew of the closest one was off getting more ammo and it was momentarily unmanned. And the crews of the other two weren’t looking in her direction. And her guard was nowhere nearly alert enough to react appropriately when she started moving.
Only one of the Germans wasn’t frozen, but she didn’t know that as she had a lot to judge and she would only get one chance.  She did hear the order not to shoot, but her focus was directed solely at her objective. She was now committed and it no longer mattered that she felt she had no hope of success. Without hope, she was going to give it every molecule of a chance to succeed.
Kichner had issued the order not to shoot as he began to run – he didn’t shout, but his order reached everyone in the area. There were a couple of soldiers closer to her than he, but they couldn’t figure out what she was doing or what they should do about it.  The captain figured out  what she was planning by a process of elimination – able to see that there was nothing else she could be doing. He didn’t believe it was possible for her to succeed.  Just not possible, of course. A mortar shell was heavy.  Too heavy for her to lift from its stack on the run and then still on the run to drop it properly into the set up barrel.  If she paused in her effort to drop it right, he would reach her first.
But she grabbed the shell with both hands and then she turned, took two steps and placed it above the barrel and didn’t pause. Her motion was smooth, the drop perfect and that was as far as she had planned – she had ignored the fact that her momentum would carry her onward over the cliff.  That is until the captain tackled her – he braked with his right foot and pulled her back and down by grabbing her arm – and he still wasn’t entirely sure they wouldn’t both go over the cliff.
The mortar went off, the captain and the nurse rolled almost to the edge of the ridge. She was now beneath him and he swung his right fist against her left jaw — his knuckles cut her teeth into her cheek.  While she was dazed by the blow and choking on her own blood he grabbed both her hands, put them into one of his and dragged her to her knees, putting her hands over her head just as the Oberleutnant from the other column ran up.
Before the Oberleutnant could get off his first indignant syllable, Kichner accepted full blame, “This was all my fault. I had accepted control of her, it was my guard who was assigned to her,  and I am the highest ranking officer here and it was my choice to try to stop her physically instead of just shooting her.  None of this will be blamed on you.  I can’t believe I was taken in by a mere woman!”
The Oberleutnant had indeed been afraid he would take the blame in all this, especially since it was his men who had left the motar unguarded. He was now offguard and since his first objection had been answered, he slightly mollified, at least temporarily.
Kichner was telling the Oberleutnant, “I think we are going to have to call it a standoff — we have a clear advantage — and bargain with the British by giving them the nurses, who don’t do us any good anyway.“
“Not her.”
“No. She is a prisoner of war, no longer to be regarded as a non-combatant. She’ll go with my prisoners back to base.”
He switched languages smoothly and just as smoothly brought her to her feet. “Do you want to save your nurses from being prisoners and get that British column out from an attack by two German columns who have the high ground?”
“Obviously – that’s why I acted as I did.”
“Hmm. I thought you were just juggling ammo.”
It wasn’t a good joke, but she was surprised there was any humor left in him and she responded in kind, “That too.”
“You will remain a prisoner.”
“I figured you’d still be angry.”
“’Angry’ doesn’t cover it, but the rules of war do. You need to convince your team to not give us any trouble over the transfer and to accept the fact that you aren’t going with them.”
“Agreed.”
He called over his second in command, a second lieutenant, a German leutnant, and again smoothly changed languages back into German asking for handcuffs which the leutnant supplied although with surprise that had him question his superior, “Do you think those are necessary to control a woman?”
The captain looked at him as he put the handcuffs on his prisoner. At first there had been a flash of anger and then he got control of that but his look caused the leutnant to change his stance, suitably chastised before his captain said a word. His words reached only those in this circle of four.  “Leutnant Hofmann, she is to be treated as if she is a two meters tall, full-fledged enemy commando. She may never act like one again, but she did it once and she must never be given the chance a second time. I will punish anyone who offers her even a centimeter of leeway severly as if that person is an enemy of the Reich.” His voice was cold.  “Take her back to her nurses and watch her as if she is a British soldier who hasn’t yet surrendered — since she is a woman, neither her honour nor her word could be relied upon even if she did offer her parole.”
Switching back to English, he told her, “You must convince your nurses to be ready to head for the British column, I am going to try to arrange for them to walk there.”
“That is quite a distance. They will need water to walk down the ridge.”
“You, I might send off with no arrangement for water, but I will not send them that way.”
“How are you going to communicate with the British?”
“If they were Americans or Canadians, I might try smoke signals, but I doubt the British could read them.” Katherine was again surprised at the attempt at humour even if it was again feeble. “I suspect we can find their radio frequencies. Or we will flash Morse code signals at them or something.  That is my job.  Your job is to control your nurses. If all goes well, we will all live to try to kill each other on another day.”
“Agreed.” She would have liked to have added something sarcastic about her supposed lack of honour, but she didn’t want them to know she understood any German at all.
Kichner nodded at his leutnant who motioned her to walk ahead of him.  She was sure he didn’t agreed with his captain’s assessment of her, but he would obviously obey orders and try to treat her as if she was a dangerous animal who might do anything.  She wondered if Leutnant Hoffman spoke English and assumed he did as she suspected the captain would have assigned someone who would report back on what she said.  Didn’t matter since she planned to do just what she had been told to do. That was going to take both finesse and intimidation if she knew her nurses. She hadn’t even looked in their direction since starting her run towards the mortar. They would see the blood that had flowed from inside her left cheek, the handcuffs, etc. They would have seen him hit her.  They would be indignant on her behalf.
It was then, seeing it from their standpoint that she realized that they were wrong. She should be dead.  He should have left her to fall over the cliff. At the very least, she should have a broken jaw. Of course, the Germans would have had to fight the British if the British knew a woman had been thrown over, or even allowed to fall off the clff, and it would have been stupid for him to burden himself with a prisoner with a broken jaw, but she expected stupidity, not such total control. He not only pulled his punch to just the amount necessary to daze her (how, she wondered, had he known just the right amount), but he had thought through the new situation immediately and figured out a way to put things back into a state of equilibrium if not triumph for his side.
They were almost to the nurses, who started to rush to her.  She gave an order: “Go back and sit down!” Her tone of voice stopped them from moving forward. Good enough. She softened her voice and changed the way she gave the order. “Go on, we need to talk.”
“But…”
“Go on.  When you are sitting down, we will talk.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“My cheek has stopped bleeding, no treatment needed. You are to be repatriated. There is a British column over that ridge.”
They hadn’t seen anything of what the commotion was about and this came as a shock.
“Is that what you were doing?”
“Yes, I fired a warning shot before they got into range. What I need you to do is to get ready to walk in the heat of the afternoon sun.  Make sure you have no sand or anything in your shoes.  Make sure you have a head covering. Prepare for an ordeal.”
“Do you have to walk in handcuffs?”
“I’m not going.  Gave up my non-combatant status.”
“We won’t go without you!” Mary again.
“You will do as you’re told by the head of this team.  And I am the head of this team until you reach the British column. There are three of you and maybe thirty some British soldiers down there.  And there are two columns of Germans who have the high ground and more men. I am one person.  Look at this logically, not emotionally. You have been taught to control your emotions in order to survive as front-line nurses. I will stay a prisoner of war whether you stay captive or go free.  So, why would you not be repatriated?  I expect you to make what I did worthwhile. I expect you to do the rational thing and I demand that you follow my orders; and my orders are you are to walk to that column.  Once there you are to remember that if they follow and try to attack the Germans, they are likely to get me and the other British prisoners killed even if they are able to destroy the Germans without getting themselves and or you killed or captured. So don’t pressure them to follow us – discourage that, although they may not listen to you, try. This engagement is over.  Everything is being arranged by others.  You are to play your part and live to treat British war wounded, which is what you came out here to do.  I will go with the British prisoners and see if they need a nurse.  When we reach German headquarters and you have gotten back to British troops, you can help them arrange a trade for me if that turns out to be possible – it will be easier after they stop being so angry at my interference in their little ambush!”
The captain’s words were still in her mind and she ended up using them; at first without realizing she was quoting him and then she continued because he was right.  “We will all live to fight another day. I have risked my life for just this outcome.  I will not have you screw it up thinking you are helping me.  You can help me by surviving and being nurses and saving British lives. And if you want to help me even more you can survive to get back to some place and tell them to look into trading for me–  I just repeated myself didn’t I?  Because I want to impress upon you that that is the best way to help me! Can you see that?”
They were quiet in the face of the facts and the logic clearly dictated.
“I don’t like it.” She gave Mary a cold look and finally, Mary’s eyes dropped.
“Not asking you to like it.  You will like it less during the walk in the hot sun, I am hoping they find a path that is mostly in shade but even that will be terrible in this head.  That walk is not going to be a picnic. It is going to be hell and I don’t envy you having to do it.  But that is what is going to save everyone’s lives. You will need to help one another, or some of you won’t make it.  Stop worrying about me and worry about yourselves.  That walk is going to be the worse thing any of you have ever been through. You must not dawdle and you must not hurry. Just walk a good steady pace. I suspect you will reach the bottom of the ridge in a little over two, maybe three hours. If their commander is smart, he will pack up you and the rest of his column and get as far away from here as he can tonight. Make yourself ready. Good luck.”
“Good luck to you.” This started a hug fest but she didn’t let it last that long. She turned and looked at the leutnant who took her back to the captain. When they got to him, the leutnant summarized into German everything that had gone on.
She waited until he finished and then asked, “Did the British agree.”
“I don’t think they believe I have three British nurses to send them, but as soon as they see them, they will agree.”
“You have water for my nurses.”
“I have arranged for the British to supply water at the bottom of the ridge and we will give them all the water they can drink before they start and a couple of canteens of water to take with them but carrying too much water will make it harder for them to get down safely – my people have found a decent path down that will be mostly in the shade. At the bottom of the ridge will be one British soldier who will have binoculars and  a signal light to inform the column that nurses have started the climb down.”
He looked over the ridge. “There is the jeep starting off now to set him and the water to the bottom of the path.  As they start off, let me introduce you to the ranking officer of my British prisoners, he is so anxious to meet you that one of my guards had to knock him down to keep him from rushing to protect you from my unchivalrous behavior in hitting you.”
She moved her left hand up to her jaw and he asked, “Does it hurt?” His tone of voice and smile had no trace of cruelty, but they also had no trace of guilt.  He obviously felt he had been justified.  She admitted to herself that he had been, but she’d admit none of that to him.
“It hurts, it’s swollen and I could use a little water to wash out the dried blood.”
His expression changed and now he looked chastised.  He took off his own canteen and handed it to her saying, “Now, I am properly shown to be what the British call a bore.  I should have offered you such water immediately.”
“A gentleman would have.  Of course, no gentleman would have hit me no matter how much he wanted to.”
“How would such a gentleman control a woman who acted like a soldier?”
“A point. Still, I claim you have proven yourself no gentleman.”
“Fortunately, Germans are no longer bound by such British definitions.”
“So, you admit that the modern German is not a gentleman? I had been hearing as much.”
“And I had heard that ladies didn’t spit.” She had been taking water from his canteen, rinsing it through her mouth and then stopping to spit it out.
“Well, at least ladies who hadn’t had their teeth cut into their jaw.” She noticed the oberlieutenant’s column was packing up to head out. Her nurses were disappearing over the ridge in a path they could obviously see down the side. The last one waved at her and she nodded back.  She took another drink from the canteen and this time swallowed it.  And another.  And then handed the canteen back to its owner just as they reached his other prisoners.
The major — who looked as stereotypically British as the captain looked German - came towards her, a little bent forward and holding his side. “That took a lot of pluck. Are you all right?”
She heard his upperclass phrasing and pronunciation - she had gotten used to that at Oxford but out here it sounded terribly out of place. “Are you?  I hear you tried to come to my rescue. That was gentlemanly of you.” And, yes, she emphasized the word.
“I feel absolutely dreadful that I couldn’t come to your aid.” He turned to the captain, “I protest your treatment of this lady.  You had no right to hit her.”
“Major Cleere, if you had done what she did, would I have had the right to hit you?”
“Of course. Not the same thing at all. She is a nurse, a non-combatant.”
“She was. Now she is a prisoner of war. Her sabotage was done out in the open for everyone to see. I had to do something about it.  And besides, I didn’t hit her to punish her but to stop her from any additional shnangians. I do admit her actions were perfectly understandable, but it changed her status and I didn’t have time to treat her with the kid gloves – didn’t have any around anyway.”
The major turned to her, “He’s an appalling barbarian with no pretense of chivalry, I’m afraid. Germans I knew ten years ago were civilized. They have lost their way. But, let me be as open as he just was in admitting that he has been quite decent to us.”
“Maybe you didn’t ruin any of his plans of conquest and glory.”
“Well no, we surrendered to an overwhelming force from which Captain Kichner was assigned to escort us back to his base. Hardly a shot was fired before the capture.  Rommel has convinced us all that surrendering soldiers will be treated decently so there is little reluctance to give in instead of fighting to the death.”
“Do I get the impression that you think this is a strategy of his, not just that he is a good human being who is never-the-less in a position of power and fighting for a country that has gone mad?”
“Of course, it is likely to be both.  Rommel is called the Desert Fox because of his ability at tactics – his initial plans aren’t that great but he changes them when things don’t go the way he expected, unlike our own generals who stick with the plan no matter what. He may well have figured out that it would be to his advantage to not have to have his opponents surrender.  Fewer of his own men would be killed in last ditch fighting by the British. I think this is working well for him.”
“Are you an expert at military strategy, then?”
“What me? Certainly not. Taught archaeology before the war. Only started observing warfare when it started affecting me after I got into the army.”
The captain interrupted. “Reuniting the British is really a charming part of my job. but we need to be going.” Kichner turned to Cleere.  “See if you can find an extra pair of goggles for her and whatever else she might need.” To her he offered, “Do you want to take any personal items?”
“May I?”
Kichner called over Leutnant Hofmann to take her to get some things that had been saved from the plane.  He told the leutnant to check out everything before handing it to her.  She could tell him where to look and what she wanted but she couldn’t touch anything until he checked it out. With those instructions, Hofmann took her back to the plane while the captain and the major engaged in a heated discussion as she left.
“Really, captain, you are treating her like a poisonous snake, Surely, that is not necessary.  And you should take off those handcuffs.”
“Major, I really would like to treat her delicately but I am afraid of the consequences. I would feel far more comfortable with her chained in a dungeon.”
“That isn’t a seeming description.”
“Why, Major, whatever do you mean?” She could hear the captain laughing but couldn’t tell if it was good-hearted or sinister.
The major was disconcerted and was only able to come up with, “You are afraid of a woman.”
“That’s right: A woman who could do what she did. Is there even one of your men who could have done that if they had been where she was? None of my men would have even thought of doing it. Of course, it helped that she is a woman and so no one believed she could do any damage – even I didn’t believe she could do it.”
The major agreed,  “Actually, never seen anything that so well exploited a moment. Couldn’t have done it myself. Would like to set it up as a training exercise. Glad she is on our side.  Astonishing good show that.”
“Your countrymen – and women – are—.”
The two groups were out of earshot of each other and Katherine never heard the rest. She was amused that this German captain took her so seriously.  Not many did.  She felt that his sense of humour seemed incongruous but that might well have been prejudice on her part. In fact there was something slightly odd about the relationship between this captain and the major, his prisoner.
She and Leutnant Hoffman passed close enough to the ridge that she could see the British soldier waiting for the nurses.  “Leutnant, can I see where my nurses are?”
He glanced back at his captain still talking to the major and decided to allow this although he took precautions - grabbing her arm and keeping her under control as he took her to the edge.  He was at least six inches taller than her and strong and was sure he could control her and he was probably right. She saw her nurses making their way down the ridge. She realized that the nurses were going to keep the British here for quite sometime as the column couldn’t get transport up to help them and therefore were stuck until the nurses got down on their own thus giving the Germans a couple of hours head start away from them.
She then got some of her things and when she turned around she noticed the oberlieutenant’s column was taking off to the southwest, away from the British column. The captain’s own men  were making some odd arrangements. Although, they weren’t showing themselves often over the ridge, they had been doing so occasionally. But out of sight they were now packing to go and had rigged up a line that she suspected would show some movement along the ridge.  She couldn’t see how it would work, but she could tell what it was meant to do.  When it was ready, she was taken to the first vehicle and put behind the driver and the captain, alongside the major. Major Cleere told her that he wasn’t able to talk the captain into taking off her handcuffs but he had found goggles, and then he also told her where the canteen was.
She had gotten from the plane a cotton scarf which she tied around her nose, mouth and neck under her uniform cap.  And she also had a second uniform, a few other things and a coat the leutenant (now that he was talking to her in English) had recommended. She had spent a couple of months in a desert a few years ago, but she had never experienced anything like this oppressive heat. Now that she had nothing to focus on, she heat enveloped her until it started to be all she felt.
Behind her and the major was a German guard.  This wasn’t going to be a trip to grandmother’s house.
Second half of Chapter One
Copyright 2007-2008 by B. E. Warne: All rights reserved.
	
	
	
                        	




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PagesAbout this Book
Acknowledgments
Chapt. 1: Day One
Chapt. 2: Day One, end
Chapt. 3: Day Two
Chapt. 4: Day Three
Characters
Title Suggestions
X-notes
	Footnotes
	Inspiration
	References/Sources
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