“Nicole, you need have no fear of me. I have been many long months without a woman, but it has not killed me, nor will I be injured by further abstinence. Had Jethro not brought you in to me, I still would be sleeping, and I can easily go back to sleep still, for I am very weary. I do not even need the bed; you may have it for the rest of this night. The floor is carpeted—just let me take one blanket and I will be fine. I am not really accustomed to such luxury as this anymore.”
He was as good as his word. Taking a last long drag, he stumped out his cigarette, then rolled off the bunk, taking a GI blanket with him. When he had turned down the lantern as low as he could without extinguishing it altogether, he removed the seat cushion from the chair, found a section of carpet that looked good, lay down and wrapped himself in the blanket and presently was softly snoring.
Not until she was certain that the strange officer was truly asleep did Nicole Gallion even begin to relax. She now knew that all of this had been a grave mistake, that she never should have let the worldly-wise Angelique talk her into essaying such a thing, no matter how much the general had offered to pay. Angelique had reassured her over and over on the way from Paris how easy it would be to earn her share of the gold sovereigns. She said that she had acquaintances who had known and done business with the general twenty years ago, before the war, who said that he was a very rich man and generous.
But now she knew that she could not go through with it, any of it. Not even for the vast number of francs that the gold and cigarettes would bring could she force herself to do this thing. She would just have to try to find some other way to provide for Papa—poor Papa, once so big and strong and vital, now all twisted and bent, crippled and blinded by the savageries of the Gestapo, yet still too proud to accept the charities of his fellow countrymen.
She did not want to disrobe, but reflected that as she had but the one presentable dress it were best not to sleep in it. In search of a hanger for her garment, she eased open the door of a narrow wardrobe and found a man’s silken robe, far too big and long for her, of course, but it would serve as a fine sleeping garment.
The girl quickly removed her slip of American parachute silk, hung it beside the dress and, now covered in gooseflesh, slipped into the smooth, soft robe and padded over to the disarrayed bunk with its promise of thick blankets, not even thinking of extinguishing the lantern. As she slid under the sheet and blankets, she encountered a long, hard object. In wonderment, she drew the length of razor-sharp, needle-tipped, blue steel from out its rigid case, tested edge and point, then returned it to its case with the hint of a smile. Snuggling against herself, the knife close to her small hand, she settled for sleep.
The moans and whimperings brought Milo out of his sleep. His first thought was, “Oh, God, who’s been wounded now?” Then, “Why the hell didn’t they turn the poor bastard over to the fuckin’ pill-pushers instead of bringing him down here into the CP bunker?”
The moans and whimperings continued unabated. He rolled over and sat up, looking in the direction from which the pitiful sounds were emanating. He wondered for a moment where he was and who the young girl on the bunk was, her pale face twisted, with tears squeezing out from beneath her closed eyelids, shaking all over, shaking hard, like a foundered horse. Just as he remembered, the girl began to speak, both in French and in halting, schoolbook German.
“Oh, no, no, no, please, I beg of you, do not hurt him anymore. Oh, please, mein Herr Hauptsturmfiihrer, for the love of God, he knows nothing of the things you are asking, neither of us do, we are not the people you seem to think we are.
“Oh, no, no, please, NO!” The last word was screamed, shrilly. The girl sat straight up in bed, her teary eyes wide open, the look in them compounded of infinite horror, her small hands clenched so tightly at her sides that red blood was welling up over the nails.
Before Milo could move, the door burst open and a nude woman stormed in, her red hair wildly disheveled, her step firm as her jouncing breasts, and blood in her eye. “You pig,” she snarled, “what are you doing to her? What …”
Her voice trailed off as she noticed the widely separated sleeping arrangements.
“I didn’t touch her, Angelique,” said Milo, concern patent in his voice. “I haven’t laid one hand on her all night. I was asleep long before she was, over here. I told her she could have the bunk.” “Then what … ?” Angelique began. Milo shook his head. “A nightmare, I’d presume. She woke me up moaning and whimpering and pleading with someone in French and in German. She was begging some man not to hurt some other man was all that I could understand.”
Jethro, just as unabashedly nude as Angelique, came in then, saying, “I think you might have chosen better than you did at the sum I’m paying you, my dear. Why did you choose to bring this strange creature?”
The red-haired woman sighed and sank into the now-cushionless chair. “I brought her because she needs the money, needs it desperately. Except for the … the things that were done upon her by the Boches, in prison, where I first met her, she is an utter innocent. She was born to a class in which no trades ever are taught, so how else but this way could she support her father, who is now all the family she has left and is blind and crippled from being severely tortured by the Gestapo who suspected him of activities connected with the Resistance?
“They did the worst things to him in front of her, forced her to watch … and to listen, the beasts. That was most probably her nightmare, living once again that night of hell, the poor child.”
While they had been speaking, Nicole had slowly sunk back down onto the bunk and was once more breathing rhythmically, clearly sound asleep.
In the outer room, all three of them wrapped in OD field shirts until the hard coal that Jethro had dumped into the space heater had time to get started, Milo, Jethro and Angelique sipped at a mixture of cognac and champagne and nibbled at cold Spam and C-ration crackers.
When he had gotten his pipe going, Jethro said, “Milo, I’m sorry about all of this. I only was trying to help you get your ashes hauled tonight, since I doubted you’d been laid since you left England last June; and going without that long at a stretch can lead to recurrent bouts of stiffness in the neck … among other places.”
Milo shook his head. “In a way, I’m just as glad it all worked out this way, Jethro, because I’d have felt like some kind of animal if I’d found out about all this after I’d screwed that kid in there.”
Switching effortlessly to French in order to be certain that she understood, he said, “Angelique, the general will pay you two the full amount. As I told Nicole earlier, I reelaly need sleep far worse than I need sex, just now. I’ll just go back to that spot of nice, soft carpet and get back to it; if you’re worried about my sincerity, leave the door open and the light lit so you can see the bunk and her.”
Turning back to Stiles, he said, “And that girl has more than enough problems, it sounds like, without having to try to whore to take care of her father. Do you recall those stocks that my late friend in Chicago bought with the money I left him? I told you of them and you had me place them in your safe at the farm.”
At Stiles’ nod, he went on, “Well, what would you say they’re worth now? That is, how much would you be willing or able to pay me for them, if you knew the money was to go to Nicole and her father?”
“I am not at all conversant with the current market, Milo,” said Stiles dryly. “But when last I had the time and the opportunity, I think they were worth in the neighborhood of two thousand or two thousand five. Yes, I’ll buy them from you, if that’s what you wish.”