Waiting for the Violins (33 page)

“Damn. I’ve waited so long for this. If I were a man, I’d have a great big bulge in my pants.”

“Mmm.” Sandrine slid her hand down to Antonia’s crotch. “I don’t feel any bulge, but it’s nice and warm down there.”

“I bet it’s nice and warm here too.” She slid a hand down inside Sandrine’s trousers over the skin of her belly, her fingertips just brushing the edge of wiry hair. It was all they needed. With a flurry of hands and arms, and discarded clothing, both of them were soon nude and lying side by side on the single bunk.

Her long abstinence had caused desire to build so that the first touch of Sandrine’s palm between her thighs and the hard nipple in her mouth brought Antonia instantly to high arousal.

They had little time for foreplay, and she didn’t need it. Sandrine’s pliant opening of her legs and the wetness between them suggested she didn’t either. “Show me I belong to you,” she said, pulling Antonia’s mouth from her breast and bringing her head up to kiss.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss; they were long past that. It was hard and wet and penetrating, their tongues hungry for each other. They strained against each other, and if Antonia was not so feverish with passion, she might have laughed at how quickly two women in their thirties could turn into adolescent boys, turgid and hot.

She found Sandrine’s sex moist and waiting, and laid claim to it. The hard swelling beneath her fingertips told her she had no need to be coy, so she began the intrusion. Moaning, Sandrine threaded her fingers into Antonia’s hair.

“Yes,” Sandrine moaned. “Yes, oh yes, do
that
.”

Antonia entered and withdrew mercilessly, forcing the legs apart with her knee.

Panting surrender, Sandrine pressed toward her with each thrust. Each moan grew louder and more urgent. But when Antonia hushed her, the danger and secrecy of their lovemaking merely fanned the flame toward ecstasy. At the last moment, she covered Sandrine’s mouth with her own, smothering her cry of climax.

Sandrine’s head dropped back onto the mattress, her chest rising and falling as she gasped in air. Antonia lay beside her and chuckled softly in her ear. “Imagine how much nicer it will be when we have a real bed together and a nice hot bath,” she murmured, and drew the blanket up over both of them.

*

A pounding on the flimsy door awakened them, and Antonia lurched out of Sandrine’s sleepy embrace. “Just a moment,” she called, pulling on her trousers and then throwing back the door latch.

“Oh, you must be Tineke. Sorry, we locked the door instinctively. Cyprian said you wouldn’t be back before the afternoon.”

“It
is
afternoon.” The portly white-haired woman stepped inside and tossed a large sack of apples onto one of the upper bunks. “Anyhow, it’s nice to meet you. Antonia and Sandrine, is it?” She nodded amiably toward them as she pulled off her wet coat and hung it on one of the hooks on the hut wall.

She sat down on the edge of what was clearly her bunk and drew off her boots. “I hear tell you’re going to be the camp medic,” she said to Antonia.

“So I’m told. Well, I suppose that’s as good a use of me as any.”

The unlatched door had fallen open, and Cyprian now stood framed in the doorway. “Yes, I’ve decided that’s what we need. We’re always having our little accidents, and we can’t take people back down to Marcouray. We’ll set you up in one of the tents.”

“That’s fine. But you know, I’ll need medical materials. Here, I’ll draw up a list.”

She tore off a piece of brown paper from the bread package and located a pencil in her rucksack. “I don’t know how many of these are available, but they’re pretty basic for any kind of first aid.” She spoke out loud as she wrote each one down. “Alcohol, rolled gauze, adhesive tape, surgical needle and sutures, splint material, sulfa powder, aspirin, tincture of iodine, safety pins, scissors and tweezers, thermometer, bulb suction device, syringe, calamine lotion.”

“I’ll send Raymond back down tomorrow morning with the list, and Celine can collect whatever’s available for you. In the meantime, we’ll locate a tent for your clinic. As for you,” he turned toward Sandrine, “how well do you handle explosives?”

“Explosives?” she asked in a small voice.

“Good. We’re putting you on sabotage duty. You’ll report to Antoine and he’ll incorporate you into the team.”

“Uh, yes sir.” She glanced sideways toward Antonia, who only shrugged.

“Oh, and by the way,” he added, tossing two small dark bundles at them. “Here are your uniforms.”

“Uniforms?” Antonia caught them in midair and handed one over to Sandrine. A Basque beret, navy blue, obviously well worn, with a badge of the cross of Lorraine on one side. “I guess this means we’re ‘one of the boys.’”

*

The July night was crystal clear. Stepping out from their hut, Antonia halted for a moment and stared up at the stars
.
They filled all the sky that she could see between the trees, so dense that she couldn’t make out any constellations, only the sparkling of an unfathomable number of lights.

Behind her, Sandrine laid a hand on her back. “Comforting, aren’t they? They almost make you forget the war.”

They watched for a moment together, then Antonia’s attention was drawn to the cooking fire at the center of the camp, set in an earthen fire pit to minimize the exposure of light.

“Tineke’s made rabbit stew,” Sandrine added. “Be nice to have meat for a change.” Brushing against each other as they walked, for the sheer pleasure of touch, they joined the group already eating.

Cyprian had already finished and he waved them over. They filled their tin plates and dropped onto the ground on both sides of him.

“How’s your tent clinic coming along?” Cyprian leaned back on one elbow. By firelight, his delicate face was rather handsome. All but for the lack of hair. “Do you have everything you need?”

Antonia finished chewing a mouthful of stew. “Fine, so far. But no one’s needed medical attention. Maybe you should give me some other job as well. I don’t want Laura to regret sending us down here.”

“Don’t worry, you’re both valuable to us. By the way, how is she? Laura, I mean. Does she seem happy?”

Antonia thought for a moment. “As happy as anyone can be risking her life every day for the Resistance. She’s pretty busy with the café, too.”

“Did she…um…ever mention me?”

“Yes, of course. She spoke very highly of you.”

“Really?” He stared for a moment into the bonfire. “I’m glad.”

“I take it you cared for her at one time.” Sandrine’s remark amounted to a question.

“I was crazy about her at school. But so was every other guy. She was a beauty. She was always nice to me, and I thought I had a chance with her. Then, one of the boys challenged me to a fight in front of her. I thought fistfighting was primitive and stupid, and refused. I just walked away. The whole school called me a coward after that, and Laura seemed to lose interest too.”

“That doesn’t sound like Laura,” Antonia said.

“I never got a chance to find out what she thought. About that time, Francis showed up. He was a little older than the rest of us, came down from Brussels, and had this mane of hair. Amazing how many people think hair’s a sign of bravery, eh? In any case, she left Marcouray with him, and I’ve always wondered if she still thinks I’m a coward.”

“Of course she doesn’t. Besides, here you are, leading a band of maquisards. It’s not the sort of thing cowardly men do, is it?”

Cyprian chuckled. “It doesn’t take courage. Just the ability to organize things and have good ideas about where to camp, hide, get food.”

Tineke the cook arrived just then, overhearing him. She sat down next to them and lit a tiny pipe. “Maybe you can organize another shipment of food from Marcouray. You’re eating the last of our supplies.” She glanced at their empty plates. “Ate.”

“I’ll go down tomorrow,” Antonia said. “I want to check for messages from London.”

Cyprian became businesslike. “Please ask London for more ammunition and explosives. The drop they made last week was a good start, but it was too small.”

“I’m sure London will be happy to oblige.”

Cyprian wasn’t listening. “Ignore what I just said. I’m going down with you, to get information and more carpenters’ tools. We’ve been engaging in small harassment in the local area, but I think it is time we got more serious.” He got to his feet and stalked away.

“More serious?” Sandrine looked puzzled. “I wonder what that means.”

Chapter Thirty-three

May 1944

We’ve finally gotten good at this, Sandrine thought as she watched the track below, barely visible in the darkness. They’d made several pathetic attempts to destroy rails on straight-line tracks and ended up watching the trains plow right on over the damaged sections by sheer momentum. Antonia’s brief SOE lessons in rail-crippling were useful only if they had access to the stationary locomotive, which they never did. A serious reassessment of the physics involved had resulted in Plan C, derailment on a curve, where the train’s momentum was a liability rather than an asset.

They’d gradually gotten better tools too, over the year. The claylike green Nobel 808, which the SOE now supplied them in quantity, was easy to transport in backpacks without danger, although inhaling its almond-like odor too long gave her a headache. The new cupric-chloride timing “pencils” were an added advantage, which removed the need to string out long fuses or detonating wires and thus remain dangerously close to the explosion.

She herself had packed the series of plasticine globs along both the outer and inner track, each one with two brass detonators set at five minutes. When they’d all run for cover, she savored the pleasing sound of eight nearly simultaneous detonations blasting a wide gap in the rail lines. Then it was the men’s turn, to use their sledgehammers to knock the rails off at a tangent to the curve.

They’d timed it well, working at night by torchlight, and now she crouched with Raymond and three other maquisards a safe distance up the slope, both the trap and those who set it well hidden in the darkness.

The train was late, and she fretted, though by that time, few trains ran on schedule. “Small” sabotage at the front end, by Belgian railroad personnel “losing” orders or turning off track switches, created delays that tormented the occupiers without endangering themselves.

She was chilled to the bone when, two hours later, they finally heard the distant chugging of the steam engine. The men fell silent, as if the driver or the armed detachment on the train could hear them. Finally it wafted toward them, the sweet sound of the screeching brakes as, far too late, the driver saw the damaged tracks.

Then the pilot wheels of the locomotive reached the gap, and the driving wheels behind them, forced by the enormous momentum of the tender and line of cars, drove the locomotive toward the right, away from the curve. But it had no tracks to roll on, and, for a second, she imagined the locomotive itself choking out a “Huh?”

As if in slow motion, the huge black engine, still belching columns of gray steam, plowed forward on the tangent, churning up a thick spray of dirt and gravel. The sudden loss of movement caused the cars behind it to accordion off the tracks, and two of them in the middle toppled over entirely.

Soldiers poured out of two of the railcars and began shooting wildly.

“Take that, you stinking bastards,” Raymond called out as they all clambered up the rest of the slope, carrying their sledgehammers and tool sack.

“Keep down, Raymond,” Sandrine barked at him, but he was too excited by the huge success to forego enjoying it. He turned around once again and waved, jeering at the pursuers far below them.

“Unnhh!”
He grunted suddenly and dropped to his knees, clutching his shoulder, obviously struck.

“Idiot,” one of the other men said, snatching him up under his good arm and dragging him farther up the slope. Keeping alongside the injured man and his helper, she swept the ground with her torch beam, illuminating any obstacles, and they managed to continue running until they were out of sight of their pursuers. When it was obvious they were out of reach, they sat down to rest and Sandrine pulled off Raymond’s jacket.

“Shit. I’m sorry about that, guys,” he said. “I just couldn’t resist.”

“Yeah, well, you got what you deserved.” One of the men snorted. “You had to jump out in front of that bullet, and now we’ve got to carry you back.”

“I’ll be all right. Really. Just give me something for the bleeding. I can make it back by myself.”

“Here, take this.” Someone handed over a not-too-clean bandanna, and Sandrine stuffed it under his jacket. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be fine. Let’s just get going. I missed dinner.”

The group continued into the Siroux Forest along the winding and almost invisible trails they’d carefully marked, removing the signal ribbons as they passed.

Two hours later, they were at the encampment and the men took Raymond directly to the medical tent. Antonia was ready, as she always was after a raid, and helped remove Raymond’s jacket. She washed the wound and turned him around to examine his back.

“Ah, there’s an exit wound. Bigger and messier. But at least we won’t have to pry out the bullet. You were lucky it passed under the shoulder blade without hitting an artery. Does it hurt?”

“Actually, yes. Like hell. So you’ll have to take very good care of me. Bring me my food, wash my laundry.”

“Don’t push it, my boy. To qualify for that you’d need at least a head wound.” She frowned concern as she began to carefully wash the exit wound. It seeped blood, but she staunched the flow with a wad of bandage soaked in Mercurochrome. She wrapped sterile cotton bandaging around the shoulder and anchored his arm across his chest to prevent movement.

The flap at the front of the tent opened and Cyprian stooped inside. “I hear we’ve got a wounded warrior here.” He inspected the newly bandaged shoulder without comment. “How did the derailment go, by the way?”