Drawing Blood
Authors: C.D. Breadner
Drawing Blood
By C.D. Breadner
Drawing Blood
©
C.D. Breadner 2015
All Rights Reserved
C.D. Breadner has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this book under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
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Table of Contents
This novel follows the actions of the Canadian Third Infantry during World War Two.
While the Third Infantry was real, as was WWII, the characters portrayed in his novel are fictional as are the details of how they came to be where they are during the action of this novel.
I’d like to thank Susan Fanetti and my fellow Freak Circle Press authors for encouraging me to publish this work. It was a JaNoWriMo project in 2013 and no one else read it until I shared it with my Freaks this past year. Their encouragement and cajoling is the reason it’s available to be read so thank them – or blame them for that.
I’d like take this chance to thank all the members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are defending me and my beautiful country every day. You deserve our respect at all times, and you certainly deserve more help and assistance than I believe you are currently receiving.
Hug a veteran, thank a soldier. There are some scars not borne in the flesh or muscle.
Chapter One
Abigail
The man sitting at her mother’s kitchen table was no more a guest in this home than rats, mice, bats, fleas, or Hitler himself. Abigail Spencer made her face blank. She’d been positioned in this chair directly in front of him, close enough that if she shifted her knees would brush his slate-grey slacks and his legs underneath. The silence was thick and cloying. She could hear the clock in the dining room ticking.
He cleared his throat quite suddenly, but she didn’t jump. She kept her eyes on his face, betraying nothing.
He wasn’t handsome in a masculine way. His features were small and delicate. When he took off his cap and set it on the table, he ran a hand over his well-oiled hair, and she could tell it was as fine as the rest of his features. Not feminine, but handsome all the same. His skin was creamy white, his eyes the palest grey she’d ever seen, like he’d been white-washed .
“
Combien de temps avez-vous vécu ici?
”
He thought she was French. That shouldn’t be surprising to her. This was France, after all. Her French was very limited. Abigail was fairly certain he’d asked how long she’d been living in the house.
“
Moins d'un an .. ?
” It sounded like a question. She just didn’t trust her French with her heart hammering like it was.
He frowned, picking a piece of lint from his trouser leg. Then he really surprised her. “You are English?” He said it perfectly with the slightest German accent.
“Yes. I am.”
He nodded, looking up at the soldier standing behind her. His hands hadn’t left her shoulders; they held her in place tightly. She’d likely have bruises on her collar bone. Assuming they didn’t kill her.
“
Sie ist Engländerin.
”
The man behind her chuckled as he massaged her shoulders slightly, making made her skin crawl.
The officer in front of her looked back to her. He was smiling. Abigail was on the outside of the joke. She gave no reaction but her palms were now damp, clenched in her lap.
“My friend likes the English. He thinks your politeness will be appreciated when you are all under control of Germany.”
She swallowed in reply.
He pushed on, not noticing her reaction. “Have you recently seen any strange things? French soldiers on foot? People hiding men in French uniforms?”
She shook her head. “No.” It was a weak whisper. She tried again. “No.”
He nodded. “Good. And if you do … what will you do?”
She took a shaky breath. “I will let Hauptmann Bossong know about it at once,” she recited, monotone but not rude.
His smile widened and he sat up straighter. His knees pressed on hers then retreated again. “
Gute
.” He put his cap on. “And if the German army can be of any assistance, let us know. It is a shame that you are here all on your own. A woman is not safe when she is alone.”
The threat was unmistakable. She kept her face stony.
“Oh, of course. You are not alone. Your father is still here. I forget myself.”
The hands on her shoulders kept squeezing at odd times. It made her want to scream. They wanted to see if she was so easily breakable. One hand slid lower to her left breast. It pinched her. She yelped and slapped at the hand without thinking. Her calm was gone.
And this was where they killed her.
God, she hoped they’d just kill her. The one behind her looked at her in a way she truly hated; the kind of stare that made a woman feel stripped naked.
She looked to the officer’s face in her panic. He was staring up at her abuser with absolute rage.
Abigail swallowed. She didn’t want that gaze directed at her ever. It was hatred; cold and raw hatred. He could kill you without even blinking, without provocation.
“
Zu verlassen
,” the tone was cold enough to raise gooseflesh on her arms and it wasn’t even directed at her. “
Verlassen!
” He screamed it this time, slamming a fist on the kitchen table, making her jump. His face was slightly flushed, and a vein stood in stark relief down the centre of his forehead. He had a pulse after all.
The soldier left the kitchen but she didn’t watch him. She was significantly more terrified of the officer in front of her. The
soldat
was just a man, after all. This being before her seemed otherworldly.
He looked back at her, and as though a switch had been thrown he was calm. The vein vanished. He was smiling again.
“You are a nurse?” He was pointing at her chest.
Abigail looked down. Her mother’s nursing pin, which she wore on a chain after the clasp broke, had come loose from behind her blouse. She looked back up, aware she was nodding.
“Yes. I trained in London.”
He nodded. “How did you come to be living here?”
“My mother fell ill. I came to care for her. She just passed away the day before yesterday.” She saw no reason to lie. Hiding it wouldn’t do any good. And if anyone found out about a lie … well, she could only guess what might happen.
He nodded. In a tone that in no way indicated he meant it he said, “I am sorry for your loss. My sympathies to you and your father. Will you be returning to England?”
She couldn’t stop herself from frowning. “That doesn’t seem very likely now.”
His smile broadened and he pointed amicably. “That is true. I think it is very likely you will be staying here for a long time.”
He’s playing with me, she knew. He thinks this is hilarious. Some English bird flies south to France at the worst time possible. What a riot.
She allowed a smile. “France is a lovely country. I’ll just have to enjoy it.”
His grin didn’t change. “It doesn’t have to be unpleasant, Missus Spencer. If one cooperates with the right people, they needn’t suffer at all.” His hand squeezed her knee.
Abigail screamed internally but left her face blank.
He stood, replacing his cap. “This is a lovely home. And having a nurse nearby will prove beneficial. After all, we expect resistance fighting. We could always use medical assistance.”
He held a hand out. She took it and rose to her feet. He was a full foot taller than her, taller than her husband, James. But where James was husky and thick through the chest and shoulders, this man was slight like a dancer. His imposing nature came from the menace he had bred in him. He’d been waiting for a reason to kill, maim and control.
“I hope your father regains his health soon,” he murmured, then pressed a thin-lipped kiss to the back of her hand. A scream was building in her throat but she made herself swallow it. Even his lips seemed cold.
Hauptmann Bossong strode from her kitchen calmly, crossing the worn floor and exiting out the back door of the house. The second she was sure he wasn’t going to turn around and come right back in she took a desperate breath that came out like a sobbing gasp. She collapsed, and if she hadn’t still been in front of the chair she would have hit the floor.
A hand went to the centre of her chest. She could feel her pulse racing still, and the adrenaline that had been keeping her calm was gone; leaving her with a panic hang-over. Every breath was ragged. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the sounds of her heart and breath. She tried to will everything to go back to normal.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked up to the face of her father, standing in the doorway in his pajamas and robe. His right eyebrow was split, blood trickling down his temple. It made her cringe and find her legs again.
She helped him to sit where the German had been. The cut wasn’t bad, but of course it bled plenty. She wet a cloth under the tap and pressed it to the cut, then wiped the blood from his face. He coughed roughly, and that was the only sound for a moment.
“Did they …” he coughed and began again. “Did they hurt you?”
Abigail shook her head. “It was an interview to determine who was a coward. They’re cataloguing us.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Good God, I am so sorry. If we’d just stayed in England …”
She gave him her brightest smile. “Dad, we’ll get through this. Hopefully we can get back to England. If not … we’ll have to be strong.”
“I’ll do my best to get well, as quickly as I can. I need to protect you.”
She rubbed his arm. “You will. Don’t worry about me, Papa.”
“You’re all I have, Abby. I can’t … I don’t want to disappoint you, too.”
She squeezed his hands between hers. It seemed as though he was barely aware of her. No matter what she did he was still locked in his grief and guilt.
“She knew you loved her, Dad. She loved you too. Now we only have to worry about each other.”
He nodded finally, then looked at her. “I … I feel dizzy.”
Abigail helped him to his feet, upset he was thin enough now that she could support his weight against her. He ate, not as much as he should, but he ate every meal with her. It was like he had given up when the
blitzkrieg
started.
He couldn’t abandon her, not now. She was scared to be here, and she had no way to get back to London. Rock, hard place, and her in the middle. Abigail needed him to snap out of this.
Her father went back to bed silently, and she tucked him in while making sure he had a glass of water near at hand for when the hacking cough returned. It rattled his chest and it sounded terribly painful. He was snoring before she could close his bedroom door.
She paused outside in the hallway, leaning on the frame. She was just now realizing this wasn’t from a book or movie, not some trick played by the radio station. This was real.
France had been occupied by Germany … in a matter of days.
Oh James. You had to go off and save the world. I need you here now. Who’s going to save me?
She twisted the wedding ring on her left hand. When she closed her eyes she could still see him, smell him. Hear his masculine chuckle, so distinctive. It always got her laughing. Even when she didn’t agree that something was funny, that laugh would always set her off.
His blues eyes always twinkled with impossible impish charm. Impossible because of his size, intimidating when she’d first met him. The intimidation had melted when he spoke, his voice a rough baritone with its southern twinge. She had warmed to him immediately.
When she met him he’d been drunk and bleeding, following a brawl in a pub. He’d been cut along his hairline with a pint glass, or so he said. His friends assured her he’d actually been thrown through a plate glass window. Either way, he’d needed seven stitches to close it. His inebriated state meant that he was beyond feeling, but he wasn’t beyond charm.
While the doctor was stitching him up, James talked to him about Abigail like she wasn’t in the room. “Is it the lights in ‘ere? Or am I really drunk? Is she no’ the pre’iest nurse in all o’ England?”
Abigail smiled at the memory. James. Please be all right. Please be safe.