Duchess

Chapter 22

He burst through the crowd as though in a dream, like I was the only person in the world. I was frozen in place, speechless and paralyzed until he pulled me close, the warmth of loving touch I had not felt for so long pulling me from my daze.
I collapsed into his arms, breathing the firm smell of aircraft fuel and sweet honey as he held me to his chest.
"Hey, Dutch," he breathed with a small chuckle of disbelief, running his clean hands through my matted hair.
"Benjamin," I cried, repeating his name as though I would never be able to say it again, "Benjamin. You're here."
     "I'm here. And you're going to be okay. I'm here. Everything's going to be alright."
I shook my head, sobs shaking my whole body as I breathed, "No. No, it's not alright, Ben."
"Shhh," he whispered, trying to comfort me.
"Our intel was wrong," I hiccuped, "and people are dead. You don't know what I've seen."
"It's going to be okay."
"It's not. When I get back to Washington I'm going to punch the Research and Analysis head of Branch in the face for not letting me work on this file more. He said it was an established Axis Army base."
"I know," Benjamin said, "and we all thought that—up until a few minutes ago, darling. Help me fix the mistake."
We held each other for what felt like hours, the culmination of all my grief and pain trying to escape through one embrace. I just wished that hug would be enough to take away months of misery and moments we would never share.
     He pulled me back and put a hand gently to my cheek, looking over me with distress. "When was the last time you had something to eat?"
     "I don't remember."
     As he began to pull something from his pocket, I smothered his hand in mine, shaking my head vehemently.
     "Not right now. Nobody here has eaten; we don't need a riot of people begging for food."
     He pulled me into another embrace, but I said, "Wait, Ben, I almost forgot. I've got lice."
     "I know," he chuckled, "I can see them. I'll be alright."
Benjamin looked up at the group of hundreds of people before us, and back down at me. "Are many people hurt?"
"Well," I said hesitantly, not wanting to put extra guilt on him and the other bombers, "it could be worse." I knew the blame couldn't be placed on them; they were simply given orders.
The Wing Commander stepped up, removing his flying gloves awkwardly. "What can we do to help?"
"That depends," I breathed, leaning heavily on Benjamin and trying not to show the pain I was in, "on why you all came here. Are you liberating the camp?"
"Well, we aren't just going to leave you all here," he answered, looking around with narrowed eyes, "Where are the guards? I would have expected a bit more of a fight."
I blinked rapidly to keep myself from passing out. "They're in the bomb shelter, but I don't expect they'll sit there much longer. Once they're convinced the bombing has stopped, I'm sure they'll be up shortly. They'll kill anyone outside of the barracks."
Ben and the Wing Commander exchanged glances. "How many are there?"
"I'm not sure—probably a few less than one hundred all together, but that is counting the scientists and record keepers and other non-soldiers. There's less than thirty of you," I said, "but I think you should be able to take them just fine. I don't know what it's like outside the camp in the city, though. There may be thousands of Nazi sympathizers."
The Wing Commander nodded, turning to his men to prepare their gear for a fight. Benjamin took both of my hands in his, urgency on his face.
"Your hands are bleeding," he grunted, trembling as he tried to retrieve a bandage from his pack.
I stopped him. "My hands are fine. But I need your help to free some other prisoners. Can you get a small group together to help you and I get them out? I know exactly where they are."
Ben bit his lip, looking as though he wasn't sure what to say to me. "I'll get a group, Louisa, but you can stay here and rest. My plane is right over there and you can—"
"I think it would be a great idea to have you come along, Ma'am," the Wing Commander said.
Benjamin looked as though the British man had just grown another head right in front of us.
"Thank you, sir. Do you have a gun I could borrow?"
Ben looked ready to object again, but one of the soldiers promptly handed me a pistol with a sheepish smile.
I thanked him softly, examining the gun quickly before locking eyes with Benjamin. Alright, his face seemed to say with exasperation, worry, and adoration mixed together, I guess I'll follow your lead, since everyone else seems to be.
"Wilcox," the Wing Commander said to one of the men by his side, "take your group with Major General Tallmadge and his wife. Do whatever they tell you. We'll meet back here in an hour, unless plans are specifically changed by me."
I led the four British soldiers and Benjamin towards the main building—the one where the experiments took place.
"Why are these prisoners not with everyone else?" Flight Sergeant Wilcox asked as I linked arms with Benjamin, trying to keep my composure.
"The camp has been conducting scientific and medical experiments," I answered with as much strength as I could, "and they're done in here."
"I thought this was just an internment facility," Ben countered. He put the back of his hand to my forehead and sucked in a deep breath, biting his lip to avoid saying something about my obvious fever.
"It is," I said, "At least, it's supposed to be. I think the so-called leader of the camp is a bit of a mad scientist type, and he seems to aspire to be like the researchers at the German camps."
"So it's like a tiny, French Auschwitz?"
"I guess."
Cocking my pistol, I led the men into the empty building, weaving through the hallways I had walked every day for months. You won't have to come back here again, I told myself, although the fact barely felt like reality.
"If we meet Nazis," Benjamin whispered into my ear, "stand down, okay?"
I began to argue but he held up a hand. "I'm not kidding. You can barely walk straight."
"Fine. But we won't see any."
"Let's hope so."
I reached the office of one of the German officers and, finding it unlocked, rummaged through his desk and cabinet to find the keys to the experimental cells.
"Got 'em," I said breathlessly, jingling the keys before giving them to Ben to hold, "Let's go."
Part of the hallway had collapsed in the bombing, so we carefully picked our way through the rubble, coming to the door on the other side.
The wing consisted of six cells, and I turned to the men sternly before entering the first one. "Stay out here. Ben, come inside with me but don't say anything, okay? I mean it. Just do what I tell you."
I unlocked the door, kneeling beside the woman I had come to know quite well in the experiments. We had a similar body type and were almost the same age, making us the perfect subjects for comparison when the medical experiments called for two people.
"Katrina," I whispered, "it's Anne-Laure. It's me."
She had been given a drug today that was similar to the one I accidentally received during my first interrogation—one that made every nerve register pain on a massive scale. The confusion and hysteria that came with it was the worst part.
Benjamin tried to take her hand to comfort her but I shook my head urgently. "Not yet," I whispered.
     "Katrina, the British and Americans are here to save us; we can go home now. I'm going to take your hand, okay? We're going to help you stand up."
     She nodded slightly, her eyes wide open but unable to focus on us as I slipped my hand gently into hers.
     She cried out in pain, screaming as I put another hand under her back to help her sit up. I had been through this enough times to know that stopping would only prolong Katrina's agony. Benjamin looked up at me in distress.
     "How long ago did they give you the serum?" I asked her gently, propping her against the wall.
     "Morning," she breathed.
     "That's good. It's almost evening now, Katrina, so it should be wearing off soon. Just stay here for now; we will come back to get you once the others are out and then we will all escape at once."
     She nodded a little, but I was pretty sure she had no idea what I was saying.
     "Let's go," I mouthed to Benjamin and the others, moving to the next cell.
     I gently explained what was happening to the men in the next two cells, both suffering from nerve transplants that would probably mutilate them forever. I didn't know them that well; they were fairly new.
     The next cell was a woman in her late twenties named Jeanne. We had undergone many experiments together before, but she'd received the worst of it. Before unlocking her cell, I turned to the men once again with a grave look.
     "Do not come inside. Benjamin, you will probably have to carry her out but she won't want you to, so just listen to whatever I say. This is," I took a deep breath, "a special case. Please don't say a word."
     My hands trembled as I opened the door. The Nazis has taken a special interest in sterility and the female reproductive system, and we had both been victims of their terrible experiments. I didn't want Benjamin to know that I had suffered things similar to Jeanne.
     She was lying in the fetal position in the corner of the small room, breathing softly with silent, hiccuping sobs the only thing letting me know that she was not asleep. Surrounded in her own blood.
     "I can't go again," she said without turning around, believing I was an SS Officer coming to take her away for another test, "I just came back."
     "It's me, Jeanne."
     She turned to face me and I pulled her into my arms, letting her cry into my chest. While I was only present for her experiments when they needed another test subject, we had grown close during these moments of shared suffering.
     "Listen, Jeanne," I breathed, "Did you hear the bombing?"
     She nodded.
     "The Allies are here to help us. We're going to get some help."
     "I can't."
     I brushed the blonde hair from her face, cut short like mine to stop the lice from being even more of a problem. "You can. Can you walk?"
     She shook her head.
     "Alright," I said, taking a deep breath, "My husband is here—"
     "Please don't let him touch me," she cried, her whole body trembling in fear, "It's nothing against him; please don't take offense, Anne. It's just that—"
     "Hey, listen to me," I said comfortingly, glancing back at Benjamin who was standing just outside the doorway, "I promise I wouldn't let him near you if I didn't trust him with my life. The thing is, Jeanne, I'm too weak to carry you."
     I motioned for Benjamin to approach us, and he tentatively came to my side with tension on his face. He was distraught.
"Please, no," Jeanne cried, turning away, "I just can't."
"Trust me, Jeanne," I said, looking up at Benjamin and taking his hand, "I love him more than anything, and I'll be right here the whole time. He's a doctor too."
     She finally relented, allowing Benjamin to carry her out of the cell with her shaking hand tightly clasped around mine.
    "Wait, Ma'am," Wilcox said hesitantly as I skipped over the next cell, "I think you forgot this one."
     I shook my head. "There's nobody in that one. Come on."
     Benjamin eyed me carefully, peeking in the window to confirm what I had said. "There's blood all over the floor in there," he muttered, "I wonder where the prisoner is."
The prisoner was me.
     I turned away silently, busying myself with unlocking the final cell. I didn't want him to know what I had been through.
     "Lucas?" I said softly as I entered, trying not to startle the ten year old child.
     "Anne-Laure," he groaned weakly, sitting up from his position on the floor with a small smile on his face, "I'm happy to see you again!"
     He was always so joyful, despite the terrible tortures he endured almost every day. I could hear the British soldiers tense behind me when they saw the gruesome boils and scars all over the boy's body—leftover from mustard gas experiments last week.
     "How are you feeling?" I asked tentatively, accepting his strong hug and trying not to pass out.
     "Really bad, Anne. They tried a medicine for my skin today that hurt really bad, and they didn't stop putting it on when I told them it hurt."
    He brandished a bleeding arm, showing me the places where they applied the medicine.
     "Well," I said with a deep breath, "my husband is here, Lucas, and he's a doctor. Do you want him to look at it?"
     "I thought your husband was far away," he mused, picking absentmindedly at one of the boils.
     I motioned for Benjamin to come inside, still carrying Jeanne in his arms and trying his best to smile for the boy's sake.
     "Hi, Lucas," Benjamin said gently in French, making my heart melt, "My name is Alexandre." He glanced at me to make sure he was supposed to be using his alias. I nodded.
     "I know your name," he exclaimed, "because Anne-Laure told me all about you. Did you get arrested too? My family got arrested, and I'm the only one left."
     Ben and I exchanged glances. "I came here with a bunch of soldiers—did you hear them?"
"Did I hear them?" he asked incredulously, "The whole building shook!"
"Well, we are going to help you get out of here, alright? You're going to go home."
There was a moment of strange silence and Lucas suddenly burst into tears, burying his face in my chest and putting his wounded arms around me.
     Benjamin and I looked at each other as the boy cried, and I mouthed, "It's not your fault."
    "I don't have anywhere to go," he sobbed, "and all my family is gone. They took them away. My papa got taken away, and my mama got really sick. She died." It was as though all the grief he had locked out for so long had come crashing through the door, crippling him.
      I stroked his head comfortingly, whispering, "I know. I know, Lucas. I know it's hard. But you won't be alone—we'll make sure of that."
      "But you certainly don't want to stay in here, right?" Benjamin piped up, adjusting the way he held Jeanne, who was unconscious. I could tell his arms were getting exhausted.
     Lucas shook his head. "I don't want to stay here anymore."
     "Then let us help you get out of this place, okay?"
     "Okay."
     I helped him stand up and let him hold my hand as we filed out of the cell.
"Are these the only prisoners in here?" Ben asked anxiously.
I shrugged. "They're the only ones that are still alive. They rotate them out once someone dies."
He shuddered.
     We were just about to leave the cell block with all of the prisoners when Lucas tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to my cell, the only door still closed.
     "What about your cell, Anne-Laure? Did they put someone else in it?"
     I could barely breathe. "No," I said, forcing the words out of my dry mouth, "it's empty now."
     Benjamin and I exchanged a glance, and he looked at me with wide eyes full of realization. He knew.
     As the two of us led the group through the bombed-out hallways with the British soldiers taking up the rear, I could hear the gunshots coming from where the Wing Commander's men were fighting the guards.
     "When we come to this corner up here," I said, "let's take a left instead. We have to try to avoid the gunfight."
     As we rounded the corner, a German in an SS uniform met us on the other side, catching Ben and I off-guard completely.
He punched Benjamin square in the jaw, sending him flying back against the concrete wall. I stepped in front of him to take the next punch in order to distract from Benjamin, who was still carrying Jeanne in his arms.
The man had no qualms about hitting a woman, sending me reeling. Blood ran down my nose, and Lucas cried out in fear. Thankfully, the distraction of attacking the two of us provided enough time for Wilcox and his men to ready their guns, and the SS Officer was dead in seconds.
I wiped the blood from my nose onto the wall in a poor rendition of a handprint and helped steady Benjamin who was breathing hard.
     "Can you carry her a little longer?" I panted, motioning for the group to keep moving.
     He nodded, stepping carefully over the slippery pool of blood on the floor. Lucas looked nervously around, as though another soldier would be coming to attack us again.
     "It's alright," I told him, loading my pistol and tucking it into the side of my waistband, "We'll be ready if another man comes."
     Thankfully, we escaped the building without another incident.
     "Wing Commander Gibson," Benjamin called across the shell-stricken field, "We need medical help!"
     He jogged over, wiping sweat from his forehead and putting away his gun. "Follow me," he said calmly, "They've set up a triage area over here."
     "I think we're beyond triage at this point," I said, trying not to lose consciousness.
     "Troops are on the way with plenty of medical help—it's the best we can do for the time being. I can get you in before the line starts forming."
    We rushed into the long tent full of makeshift beds and blankets laid out on the ground, awaiting their agonized patients.
     Benjamin began to lay Jeanne down on one of the cots, and I approached the British soldier that seemed to be overseeing the whole operation.
    "Excuse me, sir," I said urgently, trying to get him to face me, "This woman here is in need of medical attention. She'll need," I hesitated, "extra time to be able to trust you. She's been through a lot, but I trust you'll be able to—"
     He finally turned around with a look of disdain on his face. "Who are you to give me orders like that? Nurse, get her out of here. I don't need people telling me how to do my job."
     "No," I yelled, fighting as the nurse tried to pull me out of the tent, "You don't understand! She's—"
     "We'll make sure your sister gets the care she needs, Ma'am," the nurse said.
     "I'm not her sister!" I grunted, too weak to truly fight, "Please, you have to listen to what I'm saying. She's hurt in a very terrible way, and she's not going to—"
     The British doctor had completely turned away from me now, saying, "They're all hurt in a terrible way, lady. I've got enough on my plate without having to listen to your every whim."
     Benjamin jumped up, grabbed the man by the collar, and said, "You need to listen very closely to what I'm saying, Sergeant. This woman needs care, and if you can't give it to her we will take her elsewhere."
     Obviously, Ben's rank was enough to cause the soldier's attitude to subside completely, launching himself into mumbling words of apology and poor explanation.
      He looked at me in confusion, wondering why this American officer was listening to this random prisoner.
     "Whatever she said, you had better do it," Benjamin ordered gravely, throwing him back against one of the empty beds before helping me out of the tent.
     "I'm sorry, Lou," he said, running a strong hand across my back in an attempt to comfort me, "That man is an idiot."
     After a few moments of silence, he whispered, "Come on, darling. Talk to me."
     I didn't reply.