Water Song (14 page)

"The staff officers arrived this morning," Jack told her. "What are they saying?"

Dropping flat onto her stomach, Emma put her ear to the opening, listened carefully, and began to translate for Jack.

"You learned nothing from the captured soldiers?" one officer asked Colonel Schiller.

"No, sir. I don't believe they knew much. We shot all three of them this morning," he answered with a matter-of-fact tone.

Emma and Jack looked at each other sharply. Emma had assumed this was what had happened, but to hear Colonel Schiller mention it so coldly sent a chill through her. She saw that a pallor had swept over Jack as well.

"It made no sense to keep them here when they were no use to us," Colonel Schiller went on. "We could not release them since they had already seen too much of our operation here."

"A wise decision," another of the officers commended him. "What of the American couple?"

Again, Emma's gaze shot up to meet Jack's. Together they lowered their heads closer to the opening.

"The wife is English and speaks fluent French and German. I have allowed her to accompany her 
caretakers to the market to spy for us," Colonel Schiller informed him.

"Why would she be willing to do this?" the officer asked skeptically.

"I have threatened to shoot her."

"It's too risky," the first officer who had spoken objected. "How do you know she won't pass information the other way?"

"I send guards to watch them."

"Don't do it anymore," the second officer commanded. "She no doubt realizes that they will never leave here alive, so what does she have to lose?"

Emma sent Jack a darting look filled with fear. It hadn't occurred to her that the Germans didn't intend to let them go eventually. He returned her glance, but his expression remained calm. She hoped there was a good reason why he wasn't more disturbed by this news.

"Has the wife given you any valuable information thus far?" the second officer asked Colonel Schiller.

"Not really," he replied. Emma was let down at his words. She'd hoped that the gas mask news had impressed him; apparently it hadn't. At least she hadn't accidentally shared anything important.

"Why haven't you shot them already?" the first officer inquired, rising and pacing the room.

"It didn't seem prudent to shoot Americans needlessly at this time with the current political situation," the colonel explained.

"You may be right about that," the pacing officer 
agreed. "Our sinking of the
Lusitania
has not been good for our relationship with the Americans. It is bad enough that they send supplies to the Allies, we do not need them sending fresh troops in addition."

"But it is only two people," the second officer pointed out, "and no one need know. They would be two less mouths to feed."

The pacing officer stopped moving and considered this. "These things get out sometimes. Right now, leave them as they are, but if the Americans declare war, then shoot them right away," he decided.

"I will do it myself at the very moment I hear," Colonel Schiller agreed.

Alarmed, Emma once again looked up at Jack. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. She could read his expression precisely: It said,
I told you not to trust Schiller.

The staff officers continued to talk to Colonel Schiller about their battle plans. Through their spy network they had learned that the Allies were planning a major offensive to take The Ridge in mid June. Although the Germans and Austrians felt they were not properly equipped to win such a battle at the moment, they were satisfied that they'd be able to move in enough men and equipment by early June to win a decisive victory.

"They will put all their resources into this offensive, but we will defeat them. Then the entire North Sea corridor will be ours; a perfect gateway from which to launch our invasion of England," 
said the officer, who had to pace once again.

"Are you sure that they will wait until mid June?" Colonel Schiller asked. "They won't move sooner?"

"No, they won't come in this rain. The Belgians will tell them that this mud can swallow a man right down. They saw it happen last year; entire regiments drowned in the mud. These rains usually don't abate until the end of the month, and this year the local farmers are expecting the heaviest rainfall in the last ten years."

A drop of water fell onto the desk around which they sat.

Emma realized her hair was dripping.

The officers looked up to the opening.

Jack and Emma froze, barely daring to breathe.

"The roof must be leaking," Colonel Schiller surmised. "This old estate is as creaky as a sinking ship." The officers chuckled at this and together rose to leave.

Emma didn't move a muscle until she heard the door below her shut. "Is this how you've been getting out?" she asked.

He nodded.

She still didn't entirely understand how he was doing it. The opening they were in had pipes along the ceiling and had no doubt been constructed to conceal the plumbing when her mother had the new bathroom added. But they were on the third floor, so how was he escaping?

He indicated for her to follow him down the passage farther. It ended abruptly, dropping off into some kind of stone shaft. Looking up, she saw that it 
went up as well as down. "It's the chimney from the old fireplace in the kitchen," he whispered. "It's boarded up, but I cut a hole big enough to get out. Claudine's seen me scoot out from behind the board, but she's not tellin'."

"How do you get down?"

"I climb."

She gazed down with a shiver. "If you fell, it would be three floors. You might be killed."

"I'm real careful."

How was he getting into the well or the pond, if he was in fact the frog-man Kid and she had seen? This was a question that would be more difficult to ask. She didn't think he would admit to being a frog.

They returned back through the passage to the bathroom. When they were through the closet opening, Jack replaced the panel with the shelving. Emma stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom just as Colonel Schiller walked in, looking angry. "My soldier informs me that you were outside picking flowers," he barked. "I did not give you permission to do this."

"I thought you and your men would appreciate the flowers," she replied. She answered in English and spoke loudly, wanting to alert Jack to the colonel's presence.

"I suggested that they would enjoy them," Jack added, coming out beside Emma. "When I was cuttin' their hair they complained to me that the place was dreary."

"Neither of you will go anywhere without consulting me," the colonel said angrily, speaking in English. "From now on the door will be locked, the guard will be doubled, and a soldier will bring in your meals. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly," Jack said.

After she'd told him of the day's events, of how she'd gotten Kid to safety, she'd wanted to know how he'd gotten to Kid. Jack was amazed to hear her come straight out and ask if his magic gave him the ability to turn into a frog.

"You think I'm a frog?" he asked, laughing incredulously as he stretched out on the bed.

Emma sat on the chair and faced him. "You saved me from the well. And you saved Kid from the pond. I know you did! I saw one of your crazy cures on his side."

"That doesn't make me a frog."

"We both saw something large swim up at us from below."

"I told you, I'm a great swimmer. And I have my ways of gettin' around. Why don't you let it be and stop asking so many questions?"

"Why must you be so mysterious and strange?"

He shrugged his shoulders and grinned. He enjoyed teasing her. "It's my nature, I 'spose. I probably get it from my mam. She made some folks nervous too."

"How'd she die?" Emma asked.

"Caught the malaria while she was tending to sick folk in the swamps. She told me what to do for her, but there was a couple of ingredients I couldn't find in time." He looked away from Emma. He never liked remembering how he had scrambled to find the things she told him to get and couldn't. "It's somethin' I still feel real bad about, though I know she forgives me."

And he did know. "When I'm dreamin', I sometimes try to direct my spirit to her spirit. We talk. She helps me with cures and the like. It's not easy to explain. She helped me to get better from the gas."

He himself didn't know if these were dreams or if his spirit really transported. The dreams felt so real and he had gotten much better after each time he dreamed his mother had worked a cure on him.

"You're lucky to know you're forgiven," Emma said softly, and explained how her mother had died in the attack. "I couldn't help my mother when she needed me. I wish I knew that she forgave me."

"There was nothing for her to forgive. It wasn't your fault."

"I know," Emma said as tears overfilled her eyes, spilling down her cheek. "Still ... it feels as though there should have been something I could have done."

"There wasn't," he assured her, "there was not a thing you could have done."

"I'd really love to see my father again, and now I'm so frightened that they'll shoot us before that happens. Or maybe he'll be shot, you know, if they attack England. Maybe we'll all--" Unable to go on, she buried her face in her hands as tears rushed forward.

He came and perched on the chair beside her, rubbing her back. "You cry, Em. Go ahead," he said. "It'll do you good."

Nodding, she buried her tear-drenched face into his chest. With a sigh, he stroked her soft hair and let her weep there. Somehow he knew that these tears were touching him more deeply than even her kiss would have.

That night he pretended to sleep in the chair, listening to her breathing over on the bed, waiting to be sure she was asleep. The rain continued to pound down, making it hard to hear. Not even moonlight lightened the complete darkness.

Just when he was sure she was asleep, she surprised him by sitting up and crossing in the dark to him. "We have to get out of here and tell someone at Allied command what we heard today," she said.

"We
don't
have to go," he disagreed. "I've been sitting here thinking about it all this time. The world's gone insane. I was insane myself to sign up. All we have to do is survive until this ends."

It was only part of what he'd been thinking.

Despite the insanity he planned to go and tell what he knew, but he had to go alone. If he reported the information to the Allies and returned in time before he was missed, that would be best. He'd travel faster without her, and she'd be safer here. He might have to travel far, and the rain was torrential. He wasn't sure how much territory the Germans had claimed; he couldn't know for sure which direction was best.

But he couldn't tell her. She'd insist on going with him.

"How can you say that?" she questioned. "Don't you feel any loyalty to your fellow soldiers?"

"You haven't seen the things I've seen, Em. Things I don't want to talk about because if I tell you it'll give you nightmares for the rest of your life, the kind of nightmares I'm going to have forever. This war has changed me for always." That much was absolutely true.

"We can't sit here and do nothing," she objected.

"Sure we can," he disagreed. "What's to stop us?"

"It's wrong not to try," she insisted.

"Who says? It seems to me there's a wrong thing happen' every second of every day right now. Who cares if we do a wrong thing?"

She rose indignantly. "Do what you please. I have to try to get word to someone." She gathered her clothing and began pulling things on over her nightgown.

In her top dresser drawer, she searched in the dark until she found the locket and put it around her neck. "This time I won't be back," she told him.

"There are two guards at the door. How do you plan to get out?" he asked.

"I'll go down the chimney like you do."

"Have you ever climbed down a rock wall before?"

"I can do it."

"In those high-heeled boots?" he scoffed. "And I wouldn't recommend doin' it barefoot, either."

"I'll find a way," she said.

"Listen, Emma," he said, gripping her arm. "You're goin' to get killed out there. I'm tellin' you, don't do it. What if I go and you stay here?"

"Then we both go together," she suggested.

"No," he insisted.

She shook his hand off. "I'm going. I don't care if you want me to or not!"

"Stubborn idiot!" he cried, walking away from her toward the bathroom.

He'd hoped to slip away once he knew she was asleep. Now she was acting exactly as he'd expected she would. Fortunately, he'd prepared for this possibility and knew what he'd have to do--as much as he hated to do it.

"Do you think that just because your life in London was safe that nothing can hurt you now?" he argued, turning toward her.

"What do you know about my life?" she came back at him, furious. "At least I've been taught values like loyalty and patriotism. What would a swamp rat like you know about that?"

"Nothing!" he replied coldly. "Nothing at all! I 
guess someday I'll have to go ask the queen."