Water Song Part 12

He attempted a bitter smile but succeeded only in twitching his pale lips. "They got me in the other side, my good side." Slowly he pushed away his jacket and touched the most blood-soaked area of his s.h.i.+rt.

Emma swallowed hard and forced her nerves to stay steady as she gingerly lifted his s.h.i.+rt, tugging gently in the places where the b.l.o.o.d.y wetness had made it adhere to his skin. "Oh my G.o.d!" she gasped when she saw the wound.

"That bad, is it?" Kid asked.

"No, it's not that! It appears that it was bad, but it's been tended to," she told him. A pile of leaves was pressed into a plaster of mud over the wound in Kid's side. Gazing at the dripping leaves around her, she realized she didn't see this sort of leaf anywhere. Carefully lifting the leaves, she inspected the mud. She cried out, recoiling as a worm crawled from the mound. As she caught her breath she saw that it was sprinkled with fine threads. No, not threads, she thought. It's hair!

"It's Jack," she told Kid. "He did this."

"Are you saying Jack's the giant frog?" Kid asked.

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "It's crazy. I don't know."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

A Secret Meeting

"We will take very good care of him," the farmer a.s.sured Emma, speaking French. He handed her a cup of tea as she sat covered by a blanket, finally starting to feel warm again.

Emma had walked for nearly three miles in the rain before she came to this farmhouse to ask for help. The Belgian farmer and his wife immediately sent their two sons to find Kid and bring him back. Once there, they had washed him and changed him into dry clothing. "Shall I wash away this mud patch?" the wife had asked.

"No," Emma had said. "I think you should leave it. The person who put it there knows about healing. He helped heal him once before."

"Very well," the wife had agreed.

Kid now lay sleeping in a soft bed. "When the flooding stops on the road, we will try to find an Allied regiment and get him to an army hospital," the farmer continued.

"Is that possible?" she asked hopefully.

The man shook his hand back and forth. "Yes and no," he replied. "We are on the front line of the fighting here. The Allies are to the left of us, the Germans and Austrians on the right. Some days the Allies gain ground, other days they are pushed back. Some days it's only a matter of miles, even yards."

"What side are we on now?" she asked.

"You're in luck. Yesterday the Germans held this road. Today the Allies took it from them. But it could change again tomorrow. Both sides are determined to hold this area. The Allies will do whatever it takes to keep the enemy from gaining the ports at Dunkirk and Calais."

"If they control those, they can easily attack England," Emma said softly as the possibility of her country being invaded washed over her.

"I'm sure that is what they intend," the farmer agreed. "The Allies are planning a major effort to push them back even farther, but no one knows when it will come."

"Listen, you must get word to someone in charge that the Germans are at the estate up on The Ridge. They sent three soldiers up to find out. All three were captured. The soldier you are tending is one of them. They need to know that the Germans can easily see them coming from up there if they advance across the open fields. They have over a hundred soldiers there right now and are well stocked with munitions and food."

"We will tell them when we get your friend to a hospital," the farmer agreed. "But the road will soon be washed out. I can't say when that will be, but as soon as it is possible, one of the boys and I will go."

The wife came out of the bedroom with dry clothing and a towel for Emma. "Thanks, but there's no sense in changing," she declined, getting up from her chair. "I must return."

"Why go back?" the woman asked.

She'd had no intention of going back, but as she had been speaking to the farmer, the possible repercussions of her disappearance had occurred to her. "The Germans won't miss Kid because they think he's dead," she explained. "But Colonel Schiller might send someone to come after me. He won't want me telling the Allies how well fortified they are up on The Ridge. I don't want them to track me down and find Kid-or all of you. I have to go back."

"You are a brave patriot," the wife commended her.

"I just want to have a home to return to," Emma said, brus.h.i.+ng aside the compliment as she put her slicker back on. "I'd like to say good-bye to my friend, if you don't mind."

She went to the bedroom where Kid was sleeping. His eyes opened as soon as she entered, however. Smiling softly at him, she sat at the edge of the bed. "They're going to take you to the hospital when they can, so you'll be better soon."

"You're not coming?"

"No. I don't want them out here looking for me."

He nodded, apparently understanding. "Tell Jack I'll never forget what he did for me-even if he is a big magic frog. I told you he was the best. You're right to be in love with him."

"But I'm not in love with him."

"Sure you are," he insisted quietly.

"How could I love a frog?" she said, trying to make a joke of it.

"You could do worse," he maintained as he nodded off to sleep again. Stroking his hair fondly, she padded softly from the room and prepared to leave.

Emma was glad of the riding lessons she'd taken at the Hamps.h.i.+re School when she was offered the use of one of the farm's horses, a gray mare named Poppy. "There's a trail through the forest about a mile down the road," one of the sons told her as he led the horse out of the barn. "It cuts through the forest in about two miles before turning around again. You can get off there and it will be only a short walk to the other side of the trees. Give her rump a slap when you dismount and she'll follow the path the rest of the way home on her own. I'll come out to fetch her in an hour or so. Poppy's a good horse, sure-footed in the mud, and nothing spooks her."

"I'm so grateful to you and your family," Emma said as she put her boot in the stirrup and pulled herself into the saddle. "Thank you."

Poppy was as easy to ride as the boy had said and didn't seem to mind the rain. The trip was so much easier than it had been on foot. Soon she saw the bend in the road and pulled to a halt and dismounted. "Go home, Poppy," she commanded, slapping the horse's rump.

She stood a moment and watched the horse gallop down the rain-soaked path. Then, gazing around, she wondered if Jack was still out in the forest.

It was good weather for a frog.

The farmer's son had been right: It didn't take her long from there to make her way back to the estate. As she emerged from the trees, she noticed one wet guard stationed on the roof of the estate. The rain had let up a bit and was not as good a cover as it had been when she left. Not knowing how to avoid him, she grabbed a handful of early poppies with fat orange buds not yet in full bloom. Draping them in her arms, she snapped a few branches of budding yellow forsythia from a nearby bush to add to her bouquet and then walked out in plain sight, continuing to pick wildflowers and even waving up to the guard. She hoped he would a.s.sume the colonel had given her leave to go out to pick flowers in the rain.

The guard waved back and didn't seem alarmed by her presence. She forced herself to stoop for flowers along the way and not betray the urgency she felt to rush to her room to check for Jack. She needed to know that he was there and safe. And she had so many questions to ask him.

Inside the servants' doorway, she returned the soaking black slicker to the rack and hurried up the stairs. Peeking down the hall, she saw a young soldier, probably no more than her own age, maybe younger, standing guard in front of her door.

Deciding that the direct approach was once again her only recourse, she strode confidently forward, thrusting the flowers toward the guard. "Here are the flowers I was sent to get," she said haughtily in German. "Tell Colonel Schiller I am not his servant and from now on he can send someone else to collect flowers if he wishes to have them."

The guard stared at her, flabbergasted, as he clutched the flowers. "I thought you were within the room all this time!" he blurted.

"I should have been, on a day like this," she replied angrily. "No. I was sent out right after breakfast and have been in the pouring rain all this time. Tell the colonel that if I fall ill with pneumonia, it is he whom I will hold responsible. Now if you will please stand aside, I need to change these wet clothes."

The soldier, abashed and confused, obediently moved to let her into the room. Once inside, she sighed with relief. "Jack?" she called softly, moving forward. "Jack?"

She crept slowly toward the back of the room. Maybe it was the dismal gray light suffusing the room, but a sudden uneasiness struck her. It seemed eerily quiet, the only sound being the ceaseless drone of steady rain.

Hovering near the open bathroom door, she turned in a half circle, and then gasped sharply as a hand wrapped her wrist in its grip.

"Shh!" Jack hissed. "Follow me." He pulled her into the bathroom closet. "Where were you?" he asked in a sharp whisper. "I was worried!"

"You were worried?" she whispered back irately. "You disappeared first!"

"I got Kid," he told her as he began taking items off the closet shelves and tossing them aside.

She wasn't sure what he was doing, but she helped him just the same. "I know you did," she replied.

His brows shot up in surprise. "You know?"

She nodded.

"He's okay," they both spoke at once. "I know," they said at the same time, their voices overlapping He shot her a disgruntled, perplexed look. "Let's talk about it later. Are you okay?"

"Yes. You?"

"Fine," he answered as he finished pulling down the closet's shelving and swung open a panel behind it. It led out to a pa.s.sage with floors and walls of wooden planks. "Hurry," he urged her. "But be quiet."

The pa.s.sage led them to a spot above the second floor library. She could tell because s.p.a.ces in the loose planking enabled her to see down into the room through a crack in the ceiling, probably a spot where the reverberations from the bombings had caused the plaster to come loose as it had in the bedroom. The words of Colonel Schiller speaking to some other officers she had never seen before floated up through the opening.

"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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.s 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p." 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.