He left, shoulders stooped with fatigue.
Maggie shook her head. The orderly was too old to be doing this sort of work, but he was caring and competent and the war had taken all the young lads.
***
Rob grew more aware and alert as his morphine slowly decreased. But with the awareness came memories—and fear. He couldn’t respond to Maggie’s questions with anything but grunts, never allowed himself to meet her gaze directly and spent hours unmoving, eyes closed. She seemed to sense the emotional battle he was fighting and stroked his cheek or arm while telling him stories or singing softly in that strange, lilting language. His dreams were dark and filled with fragmented mind-pictures of his last flight, so vivid and jumbled he spent a great deal of time fighting to stay awake, hiding his panic by feigning sleep. One thought ran through his mind over and over like a damaged record with the needle stuck in one groove.
I’ll never fly again.
Though he fought his drug-dazed memory to recall in detail that last fateful meeting with Wing Commander Wells, the pain medication made accurate recall impossible. He only remembered insisting he take out that airplane factory in Metz with a single bomber—his own Liberty Belle.
***
The fifth evening after his surgery, Doctor McGrath and Maggie used the draw sheet to turn Rob on his side.
“I’m going to remove the drain from your back,” McGrath said, laying sterile gauze and tape on the bedside table. “I’m warning you now, it’s going to be painful. The tube’s buried deeply and scar tissue builds up around it very quickly. Hold onto something. I don’t want you jerking away.”
Maggie moved to Rob’s side and gripped his hand.
Rob bit his lip and concentrated on the grey wall opposite his bed. How did they get the plaster so smooth? And why wasn’t it white? Sweat beaded his forehead as the doctor pulled out the tube, inch by inch.
“That’s it,” the doctor said. “Maggie will cover that small gap with gauze and tape it into place before she removes the IV providing you blood.”
“Wasn’t as bad as I imagined.” Rob wiped his forehead with his palm. “Thanks.”
“You might not be thanking me when you learn you’ll have your last shot of morphine tonight. Starting tomorrow, we’ll manage your pain with aspirin.”
“You mean no more bad dreams?”
McGrath pulled off his gloves. “You’ve been through a very traumatic experience, so you may still have an occasional bad dream, but it won’t be drug-induced.” He gathered up the drain and container of fluid and left the room.
***
Rob awakened early, and for the first time, felt good enough to return Maggie’s smile of greeting.
“So you finally decided to leave the “land of Willie Winkie,” as our bairns—children—call sleep.” She took his blood pressure before checking his pulse. “Verra guid. How are you feeling this mornin?”
“It’s great not having that garden hose under me, and at least one arm’s free.” He winced when he moved his shoulder too quickly.
“Then how about a wee bit of broth? If I can get enough liquid into you, you’ll soon have both arms free.”
“Good. I’m starving.” His rapid reply surprised even himself, but it was true.
She washed his face and hands with a warm, wet face flannel and blotted them dry. “Now I’ll go order you some tattie bree and a bottle of Lucozade.”
What was tattie bree—and Lucozade? He’d heard somewhere that the Scots ate weird things, like oatmeal and liver stuffed into a sheep’s stomach and everything that came from the sea, even slimy creatures without scales or fins. “Maggie, use English,” he said more gruffly than intended. “I get so frustrated when I can’t understand you.”
“I’m trying my verra best no’ to frustrate you, Colonel.” Her sharp tone got his attention. She was so beautiful with her chin raised and her large, dark blue eyes sparking with indignation.
“So it’s ‘Colonel’ now, is it? I must have put a burr under your saddle.”
“Rob!”
He was sure she hadn’t understood the American idiom, but it had surprised her out of her snit. He couldn’t suppress a grin. “That’s better. I don’t like it when you’re mad at me, bonnie Maggie.”
She rolled her eyes. “For your information, tattie bree is a thick potato broth. They make it here in the kitchen and it’s verra guid. And Lucozade is a nourishing drink made with glucose syrup. You’ll find it all over Scotland, no’ just in infirmaries.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“Because I’m back in Scotland now and I keep forgetting you don’t understand Scots.”
He reached for her hand, needing the comfort of her touch. “Did anyone ever tell you your eyes turn dark blue when you’re angry?”
“Och, you’re skiting—fooling—with me.”
“I mean it. Right now, they’re a sort of violet blue, but when your dander’s up, they turn almost navy.” He squeezed her hand. “Let your hair down, please. I’ve been trying to imagine all that black hair spilling around your shoulders and down your back.”
She drew back with a gasp. “I cannot. It’s against Regulations.”
“Forget the Regs—just this once.”
“Absolutely no’.”
“I’m talking too much and that’s a first. People usually accuse me of being a real bore.”
“You don’t like to talk?”
He wanted to tell her the truth—that until he’d met her he had never been able to talk to a young woman without mangling his words until he was so embarrassed he stopped talking completely—but he never shared his past with anyone. “Not idle chatter.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“I guess I’ve never been around someone I wanted to pass the time with. Please bring me some of that ‘guid’ tattie bree before I starve to death.”
She returned with a tray minutes later.
He ate a large bowl of the thick broth and choked down a bottle of Lucozade, squirming when the pain in his back began to escalate. He didn’t want to ask for APCs this early. “I know you have things to do, but could you tell the Selkie story again?” he asked as she straightened his covers.
“The Selkie again?”
“I want to hear it when I’m not full of morphine.” His thoughts did not stop there. And I want to hear your soft voice that takes away the pain and fear.
“We shouldn’t spend that much time. I need to bathe and shave you.”
“The crofter returned to the cave with food and water,” he prompted.
“You’ve remembered. Verra guid.”
He stifled a groan and tried to smile. “What happened next? I need to find out if she stayed on the island.”
“Och, all right, but we don’t have time for the ending now—’tis too important to hurry through.” She pulled up a chair and sat beside him, accepting the hand he held out.
The story wove on and on as the two evaded the fishermen by hiding in caves or abandoned cottages, huddling together for warmth, eating what little the crofter could find in the fields. “It didn’t take long for the crofter to fall in love with this bonnie lass with her rosy cheeks and lips and her silken, white skin. Of course, he couldn’t believe she was really a Selkie, you understand.” She continued by relating how the crofter’s gentle, tender nature slowly won the trust of the Selkie. “After a week, she no longer waded out into the sea when the strange, haunting voice of her Selkie-lover crested the waves with the dying sun.” Maggie laid his hand on the bed and leaped up. “Now, ’tis bathing time.”
“You can’t stop now.”
“I can and will.”
***
Rob awakened in the middle of the night, chest heaving, body covered with sweat. What a dreadful nightmare. He wiped his face on a corner of the sheet, trying to recall what he had dreamed. He could only remember a grinding, tearing, screeching sound, flashing lights and then—nothing.
So he had
n’t made it over the security fence, after all. No wonder he had so many aches and bruises. If he could have used the rudders, he might not have lost so much altitude before he reached the base.
Used the rudders.
He tucked his hand beneath the covers and moved it down to his thigh. He pinched the flesh. Nothing. No pain, absolutely nothing. His breath caught in a ragged sob. The surgery hadn’t worked after all.
If only he hadn’t been so set on using a single bomber. If only Wells had refused to allow it. If only ... “Stop it!” he hissed. But he couldn’t stop wondering if there had been another approach he could have taken. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he tried to recall the meeting with Wing, he could discover his mistake.
***
There was no bomber’s moon that night. It was raining—no, pouring buckets more like. He was so tired it was hard to think and he nearly scalped himself hurrying through the doorway of the four-hundred-year-old mansion which had been taken over by the American 8th Army Air Forces for one of its Wing headquarters. At a little over six-five, Rob experienced this often in Europe, but it only fueled his anger at being called to Edenoaks Hall for another battle with General Wells over a poorly planned bombing strike.
The pungent odor of wet wool and stale cigarette smoke stung his nose and eyes as he nimbly avoided crowded desks and busy personnel and passed the flaming logs in the fireplace, the only source of heat in the defaced, once-elegant drawing room.
General Wells waited against the far wall, back stiff, face grim, in front of a large wall map with a red ribbon marking the flight path to the target.
Rob argued for what seemed like hours against the wing commander’s plan to send the entire 396th Group to take out a target that a single uncorroborated French informer insisted was a new Luftwaffe fighter factory located in Metz, France.
Wells, a smug, haughty, brigadier general with no flight experience, just the “Book” he had obviously memorized, never seemed to consider the loss of planes, or their ten-member crews, of strategic importance.
When Rob pointed out that this target was too small to produce fighter planes and was located in a congested industrial area, too far to taxi completed planes to an airfield, Wells began to bluster, a sure sign his argument was weakening.
That was when Rob offered his own plan: one B-17 only, his own Liberty Belle, crewed by volunteers, taking off from Edenoaks two hours early to surprise the German anti-aircraft gunners. They would drop their load of bombs down the smoke-stack and scoot for home.
But it wasn’t until he pulled a tattered piece of paper from his blouse pocket and laid it out on the table that Wells finally capitulated.
“One of these days, I’m going to sign that reassignment form, Savage,” the General growled, “and you’ll have your wish. I’m sure you’ll find leading your ‘A’ Squadron a very large step down from commanding the entire group.”
Rob swallowed a grin. He had won.
CHAPTER 6
The first blush of dawn softened the darkly bruised sky to dove-gray. Maggie had parted the blackout curtain and closed the door to the corridor on Rob’s request when she left late the night before.
Rob sighed. If he could do it all over, he wouldn’t change a word he’d said to Wells. The opportunity to save possibly fifty or more lives had to be taken, even if it meant sacrificing his future.
Please, God, I’m not sure you have the time to hear me, with the war and all, but I’m not asking anything for myself, only that the factory was a decoy. I can’t bear to imagine how many of my men were lost in a group raid if it wasn’t.
If only he could hear Maggie’s voice or feel her tender touch. A simple “guid-mornin” in her soothing burr would be enough to banish the dark thoughts from his mind. And her tale of the Selkie sparked his imagination, took him to a time and place where he could lose himself in a world of primitive, natural beauty, and care about the future of a magical, beautiful woman and her gentle crofter.
Selfish thinking. After all the time Maggie spent seeing to his needs, she was lucky to get five or six hours of sleep a night.
He stared out the window. Why had he never taken the time to appreciate the simple things in life, like being able to turn over in bed without help or stepping outside to feel the sun’s warmth on his face at the dawn of another day?
***
Rob held out his arm and wiggled the saline IV. “Can this go?”
Doctor McGrath instructed Maggie to remove it. “He’s hydrated enough to go without it.” After completing a thorough upper-body examination, he asked Rob, “How are the bruises and sore muscles? Any better?”
“A lot better if I’m careful.”
“Then let’s see how your legs are doing.” He pricked Rob’s thigh with a pin. “Feel anything?”
“It didn’t hurt, but I felt the pressure.”
“Good, good.” He went down the leg.
More pressure, but still no prick. The results were the same with the other leg.
Rob forced himself to speak. “Not so good after all, huh, Doc?”
“You young lads are all alike. You want instant gratification. Of course it’s good. You’re only a little over a week out of surgery and already feeling the pressure of a strong prick on your skin. Give it time, lad.”
“You mean that’s what you expected?”
“Exactly. It’s the first sign of nerves responding to stimulation. Without that, you’d have felt nothing at all.”
Rob took a deep breath. So there was still hope. But patience had never been one of his virtues. “When can I at least sit up?”
“Right now.”
He could do more than lie on a bed? “That’s what I call good.”
The doctor cranked up the head of the bed. “Maggie, you position his legs while I pull him upright.”
They worked in unison, Maggie moving Rob’s legs and the doctor lifting him into a sitting position.
Once his legs dangled from the side of the bed, he slumped against Doctor McGrath’s arms. “Whew … I’m dizzy.”
“Sit still. It will pass. Any pain?”
“A little. Not bad.”
Concern cloaked Maggie’s face. “Do you need something?”
“Not now.” He forced himself to smile. “You really are a wee little thing, aren’t you?”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’m no’ so wee. You’re tall as a giant.”
His grin widened. “I’m six-five but you can’t be much over five feet tall, so I still say you’re a wee little thing.”
“Quit your blethering. You’re weaving about like a fisherman setting foot on dry land after months at sea.”
“That’s considered an insult to an Air Forces man. I’m more like a rookie pilot attempting his first take-off.”
“While drouthie—drunk.”
McGrath cleared his throat. “It’s time to lie back down. We don’t want to tire you too much the first time.”
***
John berated himself as he made his way to the next patient. The colonel would have enjoyed sitting up longer, but the easy rapport between Maggie and the American unsettled him and he hadn’t trusted himself not to say something rash. Maggie had been away at the academy, nursing school, or at one RAF base or another since she’d matured. He’d never seen her interacting with a lad.
Would he rather she and the colonel not be so friendly? They obviously liked one another, and that would only hasten the patient’s recovery, not hinder it. But what about Maggie? Would this American aviator break her heart?
Maybe it was time to separate them.
He decided to sleep on it. Nothing good came from hasty decisions.
***
Though Rob pestered Maggie all day about a trip outside in the wheelchair, she was adamant. “When you can sit on the edge of the bed for fifteen minutes without reeling from side to side. No’ a minute sooner.”
“Then, help me sit up.”
“You’re so impatient. Let me finish massaging
your calf muscles. Next, we’ll go through your exercises and then I’ll help you sit up.”
“I wish I could feel more than pressure. I’ve never had a massage by a wee, bonnie lass before. How long do you think it will be before I can feel your hands?”
He sounds like a hurt, wee laddie, wondering when everything will be all better. “I don’t know, but I do know you don’t want these muscles to atrophy. We have to keep them elastic so they will work properly when you’re ready to walk.” She raised his right leg as far as it would go. “Tell me if the pain is too sharp.”
He didn’t signal her to stop until that leg had been raised four inches. But he gasped when his left was only three inches off the bed.
“Are you telling me soon enough?” she asked as she lowered his leg. “Remember, it won’t help if it causes sharp pain.”
He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his gown. “Here you are, doing all the heavy work, and I’m the one sweating.”
“That’s all we’ll do for now. I’ve a feeling you’re hiding your pain to get outside. Would twa aspirin help?”
“Twa?”
She held up two fingers.
“Twa aspirin sounds fine.”
After the aspirin had time to take the edge off his pain, she cranked up the head of his bed. “All right, you wanted to sit up and dangle, but this time, with no one here to help, you’ll have to manoeuver your body while I move your legs over.”
“Don’t know if I can.”
“Use both arms to push up, and turn slowly while I swing your legs.”
“My shoulder’s still sore as blazes. Maybe if you put your arm around me, I’ll have something to pull against.”
Maggie slid an arm under his good shoulder. “Don’t pull too hard. You’ll put my back out and we’ll both be in a muddle.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She slipped her other arm beneath his legs, bracing her knees against the side of the bed. He pulled against her as she moved him toward the side.
He leaned over and touched his lips to her cheek.
She jerked away, nearly dropping him. “Don’t do that.”
“Why?”
She swallowed and looked away. “Because ...”
“Because you enjoyed it?”
She pulled him into position. If she removed her arm, he might pitch forward onto the floor. “Can you sit alone now?”