Of Windmills and War (34 page)

46

As the last siren faded, the cluster of Resistance workers
bustled about, preparing to go up and check for damage. Someone called for
Eduard’s assistance, and before Danny could ask the question, he was gone.

“Eduard!” Danny shouted, shoving the food tray aside. “Mr. Van
der Laan!”

He watched helplessly as the man disappeared up the stairs
along with some of the other men.

“You not eat?”

Danny turned as the older woman lifted his tray. “Oh, no,
I’m sorry. My, uh . . . my stomach doesn’t seem able to handle
any food just yet.” He rubbed his stomach hoping to validate the lie. “But it
was really good. Thank you for sharing.”

Her face clouded then she looked away. “You eat more later.
You rest now.”

She took the tray and walked across the room to the small
kitchen area. He watched as more of the dozen or so people milling about took
the stairs, leaving only the radio guys and a couple of women behind.

“Hey, can somebody help me?” he called out, anxious to get
upstairs to find Eduard.

No one even looked his way. “Please? Can
somebody . . .” He fell back against his pillow, unable to hold
himself up any longer. He closed his eyes and uttered a silent prayer asking
God to take away the intense pain in his head so he could think more clearly. He’d
never been one to have headaches and had no clue how to find relief from the
throbbing. He touched the bandage on the back of his head and wondered just how
much damage he’d done when he fell from the sky.

Danny could feel himself slipping beneath the shadow of depression.
He recognized the signs well after his long lapse after his breakup with
Beverly
and
the dark days following his roommate’s death in college. Both seemed like
distant memories, but the downward tug of deep sadness felt all too familiar.
He couldn’t give in to it. Not here. Not now.

He opened his eyes and looked across the room. The kind old
woman who’d brought him food was stuffing the remains of his meal into her
mouth. She turned to see if anyone was looking. Danny quickly averted his eyes,
unwilling to let her find him staring.
Poor old girl. How hungry would you have
to be to eat someone’s leftovers? Especially such tasteless morsels as those?

Of course, he knew the answer to his own question. Hunger
drives behavior, throwing out all codes of conduct. Who was he to judge? He chastised
himself for such a thought and tried to relax. In a few minutes, he fell fast
asleep.

Danny slipped
his hand under the cloth napkin covering his mother’s homemade biscuits. His
dad was praying. He thought that odd, especially considering the expression of gratitude
that seemed to flow so naturally from his father’s mouth. Danny lifted the
biscuit, its warmth and aroma tantalizing his taste buds. He peeked across the
table at Joey . . . surprised to find a baby seated in a high
chair between Joey and Millie. The baby, toothlessly gnawing on a big fat
biscuit, giggled when she noticed Danny watching her. The basket of biscuits
were still beside his plate.
How’d you do that, kid?

Someone
elbowed him, but his eyes stayed glued on the baby. She waved her tiny fingers
at him, as if they were sharing some wonderful secret. Then someone tapped on
his shoulder. Couldn’t they see he was preoccupied with his cute little niece?

“Lieutenant?”

He
opened his eyes and looked at the man standing beside his bunk. “Yes? What do
you want?”

He
stepped back, staring at Danny with narrowed eyes. He tilted his head to one
side as if to study him.

It took
Danny a moment to realize he wasn’t actually home, there weren’t any warm biscuits,
and there certainly wasn’t a baby sitting across the table from him. He rubbed
his face, trying to wake up. When he looked at the young man again, he noticed the
tattered appearance. The jacket, sagging and rough, as if made from burlap, was
at least two or three sizes too big for the guy’s small frame. Same for the
pants and filthy boots. A worn leather cap pulled low on his forehead shadowed
his face.

“Who
are you and what are you doing here?”

The
tone surprised him—a husky, mellow sound—making it hard to discern if it was
indeed a man or a woman trying to pass as a man. He tried to sit up and
couldn’t, his head screaming in protest. He fell back and closed his eyes.
“Where’s Eduard?”

“He’s
upstairs.”

“Could
you ask him to come down here? And could you ask someone to take me back
upstairs?”

Silence.

He raised
a lid, surprised to find the young man standing closer. “Look, I’m not sure
what you—”

“I
asked you a question. Who are you?”

He
studied the face, not at all sure he wanted to play this little game. Danny
smirked in response. “Who wants to know?”

The man
stepped back then walked over to grab a small wooden table. Dragging it across
the planked floor, he placed it right beside Danny’s bed. He stomped to the
left and grabbed the same wobbly chair Eduard had occupied earlier, then
dragged it beside the table. He plopped himself into the chair, crossed his
arms across his chest, and glared at him from beneath the cap’s bill.

“I
asked you a question. I shall sit here all day and all night until you give me
an answer.” He pushed the cap up an inch or two on his forehead. Danny couldn’t
help noticing the dirty fingernails.

He
rolled his eyes. “Fine. Although I’m sure they’ve already told you, I’ll tell
you myself. I’m Lieutenant McClain, United States Army Air Force.”

The man
said nothing but Danny saw something flutter through his eyes. “I told you, so
now it’s your turn. Who are
you
?”

“How
did you get here?”

“I had
to bail from my airplane.”

“You’re
a pilot?”

“A
co-pilot.”

“Where’s
your crew? Who’s your pilot?”

“You
sure ask a lot of questions.”

“Where
is your crew, Lieutenant?”

“I
don’t know. Four others jumped. I haven’t seen them since.”

“Where
were you going? Were you on a mission?”

“No, I
was out for a Sunday drive.
Germany
is so lovely this time
of year, don’t you think?”

He
didn’t crack a smile or even blink. “Were you on a mission?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Where
what?”

His
lips drew tight. “Answer the question. Where was your mission target?”

He
wondered if Eduard had sent this brash young man to dig for more details.
He
blew out a breath of impatience. “
Hannover
.
That’s in
Germany
, in case you don’t know.”

“
Hannover
? So
you were part of the mission that bombed their marshaling yards on Wednesday?”

How
could he possibly know that?

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes,
but—”

“Well
done. Our sources tell us you boys of the 390th completely demolished those
train yards.”

Danny
watched him, uneasy at the comprehensive amount of information he seemed to possess.
Granted, if he was here in this safe house bomb shelter, he was obviously a
member of the Resistance. But why all the interrogation? And why now?
And
where the heck is Eduard?

“Look,
it’s been really swell chatting with you like this, but would you please go up
and ask Eduard to come down here? I answered all your questions, so if you
could please just do me a favor and—”

“They
told me your plane was called
Sweet Sophie.
”

Now it
was his turn to glare at this stranger. “Who’s been feeding you all this
information? How could you possibly know the name of my—”

“And
you—” he paused, as if unable to continue. He pulled off his cap, releasing a
tangled brunette mess which came cascading down—and only then did realize this
stranger was a young
woman.

She
twirled the old leather cap in her hand, watching it. She tried again to speak,
then swallowed hard instead. She dipped her head down for a moment, then raised
it, leveling her gaze at him as she spoke, her voice husky with emotion. “And
you named it after your dog—a smelly beagle mutt you found behind—”

“Anya . . .?”
he gasped.

Her nod
was all but imperceptible. As a lone tear tracked down her dirty cheek, her
face softened just barely as she breathed his name.

“Danny?”

47

Anya
hadn’t cried in years. She had learned long ago to steel her nerves and stop
the ridiculous show of emotion. At twenty-one, she wasn’t a child any more, and
she had no time for such weakness. But in this moment, as she stared at the
friend she’d never met, she couldn’t help the tears pooling in her eyes.

Earlier,
when Eduard searched her out across town after the bombing, he’d insisted she
come with him to the safe house. It annoyed her, these fellow Resistance
fighters always bossing her around. She’d arrived in Enschede late the night
before after a long and difficult journey delivering two orphaned twins to
their aunt and uncle in
Zwolle
. While in
Zwolle
, her
contacts told her to go to Enschede where she’d often helped with the pilot
lines—the secret routes set up by the Resistance to help downed Allied pilots
return to
England
. Since she’d arrived in town long after curfew,
she stayed in the home of a fellow Resistance member, not willing to walk the
final three miles east of town to the other safe house and risk being arrested.

When
the bombing began that morning, she’d rushed to the nearest shelter with
everyone else. Not long after she emerged, Eduard had come racing toward her,
insisting she come with him. He’d rambled on and on about some American pilot
they’d rescued. She hadn’t bathed in days and couldn’t have cared less about
this or any other pilot at the moment. But the ever-dramatic Eduard wouldn’t
hear of it, all but dragging her across town. There, he’d shown her an old
photograph he’d found in the pilot’s wallet. She knew immediately why they’d
sent her here.

Now, as
Danny reached out his hand toward her, she could hardly breathe. Her chin
seemed to take on a life of its own, trembling against her will. Suddenly, she
stood up, the chair scraping in protest before clanging onto the floor. Anya
dashed away the stupid tears then crossed her arms across her chest.

He let
his hand fall back on the bed. “I . . . Anya, I can’t believe . . .
it’s really
you
.”

She
didn’t respond, even as she watched the disappointment flutter across his face.
She couldn’t trust herself to speak. In her mind, Danny McClain was still the
American kid she wrote letters to long ago. How silly to think he was still
that boy in the picture with his brother. This was no kid. This was a young man—a
handsome young man with thick brown hair framing his kind face, his firm square
jaw line visible beneath his dark stubble. She searched his deep blue eyes
which, at the moment, seemed to pierce her soul.

He scratched
his eyebrow. “I’ve wondered about you a thousand times since your last letter.
When I heard The Netherlands had fallen, I prayed you and your parents would be—”

“You
should’ve saved yourself the trouble,” she scoffed. “God left us the day the
Germans marched into our homeland.”

He
didn’t say anything, but she couldn’t miss the sympathy in his eyes. She turned
her back to him, picking up the chair. “But if praying made you feel better,
then good for you.”

“Anya,
why are you—”

“But
don’t worry.” She set the chair back beside the table. “We’ll make sure you get
back to your base across the Channel. We’re quite good at helping you boys get
back to your nice warm barracks. We wouldn’t want you to miss another hot
meal.”

“Can
you cut the sarcasm for a minute and just talk to me?” He tried to sit up and
couldn’t, his face pinched in a grimace.

Instinct
sent her toward him but she stopped herself. How badly was he injured? Eduard
hadn’t mentioned he was hurt. “Are you all right?” she asked, trying to sound
indifferent.

“It’s
nothing,” he said, touching the bandage on the back of his head. Apparently I
bonked my head pretty good when I landed.” He motioned for her to sit. “Can you
please just have a seat and talk to me?”

She
tried to think of a smart come-back but came up blank. She lowered herself back
into the chair.

“I
don’t even know where to begin,” he said. “How long has it been since we
wrote—four years? Five?”

“Five. When
the Germans came in May of 1940, they shut down our mail system.”

He
nodded. “I wrote several more letters, but I guess you never got them.”

“No, of
course I didn’t.”

“How
are your parents?”

Her
bouncing foot stopped. “They’re dead.”

“What? No!”

Seeing
the shock on his face, she glanced away. “They were picked up and sent to a
concentration camp in
Germany
. I was told Mother died before
they got there. Father was shot later for helping another prisoner who had
fainted.” She looked up at him with defiance, hoping he’d see how much the war
had toughened her. He’d seen her tears, now he’d see how thick her skin was.

“I’m so
sorry.”

“Why?
You never met them.”

“Anya,
please . . . must you be so belligerent? Of course, I never met
them. I never met Hans either, but that didn’t stop me from caring about you
and your mother and father after he died.”

She
shrugged, toying with her cap again.

“How
have you managed? What has it been like for you?”

She
crossed her legs, noticing a streak of dried mud on the hem of her pants. She scraped
at it for a moment, her foot still bouncing. “Where would you like me to start?
The day the Nazi swine started rounding up all our Jewish friends to ship them
off to the death camps? Or would you prefer to hear how they raided and
pillaged all of our possessions and let us starve? Or maybe you’d like to hear about
the mind games they play with us, pitting one against another to see who would
rat out their friends first? Huh? Or the time a German soldier—”

He
grabbed her wrist. “Stop it, Anya!”

She
tried to jerk her hand free but he held it tight. She glared at him.

He
shook his head. “Hans always told me you were a stubborn little thing, but I
had no idea.”

“Don’t!”
She twisted her wrist and freed it, then pointed at him. “Don’t you
dare
speak
of my brother.”

“Anya?”
The voice came from behind her. “What’s going on here?”

She
turned, finding Eduard at the bottom of the stairs. She put her cap on her head
and blew past him, stomping up the stairs without a word. Once up in the house,
she shoved past several workers then out the back door, letting it slam behind
her. She ran to a stand of trees near the barn and climbed to her favorite
hiding place, a perch high up in its strong branches.

Anya
looked out across the village, watching columns of smoke from the countless new
bomb craters. How many times had she found comfort in the arms of this tree and
so many others like it across her country? She was much too old to be climbing
trees, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stand the moments after the sirens
stopped, when everyone climbed out of the shelters. She couldn’t stand hearing
their same sorrowful comments, over and over. And she couldn’t stand seeing all
the damage inflicted all around her. How much more could her beloved country
bear?

Up in
these branches, she always found the solace and privacy she craved. She needed
to be alone with her thoughts and somehow bolster her wretched emotions back in
place. The carefully constructed dam around her heart had held for years. She’d
witnessed despicable atrocities and never shed a tear. She’d stolen anything
she could get her hands on to help the cause, feeling no shame. And she’d
killed her share of Nazis without a single trace of regret.

Oh,
she’d heard the gossip. They said she had ice in her veins. She had smiled the
first time she heard it, confident at last that her walls were securely intact.

Until
today.

From
the moment she saw him, she’d come completely undone. In that split second, her
entire childhood flashed through her mind, dashing all restraint in the blink
of an eye. The sudden precious memory of Danny’s letters pulled the single
thread that had held her together for so long, unraveling her from the inside
out. He was a living, breathing remembrance of her life before the war. Through
their letters, she’d found hope again after losing Hans. Until the Occupation—even
thousands of miles away—Danny McClain had always been there for her.

And now
he’s here.

“Do you
feel better?” Eduard asked as he assisted Danny from the upstairs bathroom.

“Yes,
thank you. I can’t remember a bath ever feeling so good.”

“You
are lucky. Not always is the water warm. The ladies, they heated water for
you.”

“Please
tell them how much I appreciate that.”

“I
will, but it is their honor to do so. We all wish to help, even in the small
ways, those who have come so far and risked so much to help us.”

With
Eduard’s help, Danny sat on the side of the bed, slowly easing himself back
against the pillows propped against the headboard. He let out a long sigh. “And
I have to admit, it helps just having some clothes on again. I really
appreciate your help, Eduard.”

The man
stepped back. “It is my privilege. We will never be able to thank you enough
for helping fight for our freedom.”

“And I
can never thank you enough for rescuing me before the Germans shot me.”

“Yes,
well, it seems we are both thankful.” He chuckled, a broad smile warming his
face.

“May I
ask you a question?”

“Of
course.” Eduard took a seat on the bedside chair.

“Why is
Anya . . . I mean, what did she . . . well, why
did she—”

“You
would like to know why she is so angry?”

“Yes. I
was so shocked to see her, to finally meet her after all these years.”

Eduard’s
brow creased. “You mean, you’ve never met?”

“Not
face to face. We were pen pals, like I told you earlier. I mean, at first I was
pen pals with her brother Hans before he died—”

“Such a
tragedy that was. For his parents, but especially for Anya.”

“Yes, I
know. She was the one who wrote to tell me about the accident. Then, over the
course of time, we just continued writing each other. I
was . . .” Danny felt his face warm. “I was very fond of her—in
a brotherly way, of course.”

“Of
course,” Eduard added with knowing eyes.

“But
once the war started, that was the end of our correspondence. I was worried
sick about Anya and her parents. But that was long before the
United
States
got into the war. I never forgot about her, but life went on for me. I went to
college for a couple of years, then enlisted, and . . . the rest
is history, I guess you’d say. Literally, in this case. But I never imagined
finding Anya in the middle of a war like this. Yet, here I am and there she
was.”

“Sometimes
our life stories are written in spite of us,” Eduard said. “No one here in our
country ever imagined we’d be under German rule. Ours is a neutral country. Always
has been. And yet, we have been occupied now for almost five years. That is,
those of us who still live. So many are gone.” He shook his head. “So
many . . .

“But as
for Anya, you must understand how difficult it has been for her. She has lost
everything. But instead of breaking down or being debilitated by this
nightmare, she has worked hard for our Resistance. Tirelessly. Never
complaining. She just does what she has to do. As we all do.”

Danny tried
to imagine how hard it must have been for a girl growing up in a country torn
apart by war. The young woman he’d met earlier was hardened and gruff. He never
would have known her had their paths crossed otherwise, so little did she
resemble Hans’ rebellious young sister standing with her family in the old
photograph.

“Eduard,
how can I help her? What can I do to get through to her?”

“Be
patient, my friend. Let her learn to trust you again.”