It was another hour before we were finished serving all the newly arrived soldiers from “the march.” Some headed over to the Uncle Sam for coffee or to get personal supplies from Blanche. Many of them were being escorted to the infirmary to get checked out for lice or scabies and other ailments.
I nodded good-bye to the pale-blue-eyed soldier as I was walking back to the Cheyenne with Dottie and Viv, finally ready to go back to our billet and sleep.
He stopped and pointed to me again.
“I know I’ve seen you before,” he said.
“Another LIFE magazine fan?” Viv said to him.
“No, I already told her, that wasn’t it . . .” He paused for a moment, and his face got serious, and then he started shaking his head in disbelief. “My God,” he said, looking into my eyes. “You’re the girl from Barker’s photo? Danny’s fiancé?”
I heard the doughnut tray fall to the ground before I realized I had dropped it.
Dottie started picking up the stray doughnuts and putting them back on the tray, watching me as she did. Viv grabbed my hand as I stepped closer to the soldier, not believing my ears.
“What did you just say? Say it again,” I said, swallowing hard and shaking, as I tried to hold back the tears.
“I’m right. The freckles, the hair. You’re Fiona, aren’t you?” he said, his voice quiet, taking an even closer look at my face. “From Danny Barker’s photo—he kept it in his pocket. I’m Chris Sullivan; we were on the march together. From Stalag Luft IV. He was in my combine, my group. He’s my friend. We helped keep each other alive, but . . .”
I felt like I was listening to his words from the other end of a tunnel. I leaned into Viv, feeling light-headed.
“Is Danny Barker alive? Where is he?” Viv said.
“Please tell me you know where he is,” I said.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Chris said, putting a hand on my shoulder, looking into my eyes. “He’s . . . he’s gone. Danny died on the march a few weeks ago.”
That feeling of a tunnel, black spots in my vision, and then the next thing I knew I was waking up on the ground, my head on Viv’s lap, Dottie and the soldier named Chris Sullivan kneeling next to us. And I immediately remembered why. I sat up, leaned into Viv, and sobbed in a way I hadn’t since we walked off the Queen Elizabeth. I let the dam break on my emotions and propped myself against my friends, letting them hug me as I cried until I felt like I had no more tears left.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a while, wiping my face with the back of my dirt-caked hands. “All this time, he’s why I ended up here. And I’ve been trying to find out what happened to him and hoping against hope for over a year, and now . . .”
“Fiona, I’m so sorry,” Chris said. He had been crying too. And I looked at the condition of him, emaciated, dressed in his ragged uniform, and yet here he was trying to comfort me. “I need to find Lee; he was also in our combine and one of Danny’s best friends. You’ll want to talk to him.”
He got up, and Viv rose too and said something to him.
“Fi, let’s go inside and get warm,” Dottie said, grabbing my hand. It had started to drizzle, and the temperature had dropped.
“Chris and his friend will find us,” Viv said.
Lieutenant Craighill led us to an empty office when Viv told him the story. He came back with a pot of coffee and some cups.
“Take all the time you need,” Craighill said. “I’m so sorry, Fiona. I know this isn’t the news you had hoped for.”
I gave him a small smile just as Chris showed up accompanied by a tall, olive-skinned soldier with auburn hair who was probably quite handsome fifty pounds ago, but now I couldn’t get past how scarecrow-thin he was.
“My God. Fiona Denning, it is an honor to meet you. I’m Lee Valenti,” the soldier said, staring at me in wonder, reaching for my hand. “He showed me your picture so many times, I would know you anywhere.”
“That’s what I said,” Chris said.
“There was a crew of us that met at the camp,” Lee said. “Me, Chris, Danny, and our buddy Roger stuck together. When the Allies were closing in and they forced us on the march, we all stayed in small groups, tried to pool our resources.”
“Fiona, you need to know, Danny Barker was a soldier’s soldier,” Chris said. “More than a few men who marched with him from Stalag Luft IV would tell you they wouldn’t have survived without him. He was one of those—his attitude and his sacrifice helped us all keep going. If he found a coat, he would share it. If men were too sick to walk anymore, he would be one of the first to help carry them. He was always scavenging and bargaining for food with the Germans, because what the Nazis were giving all of us wasn’t nearly enough.”
“We were living on potato peels and raw turnips, not much else,” Lee said with a grimace.
“Bastards,” Viv said. Chris and Lee just nodded and accepted the cigarettes she offered.
“So, what happened to Danny?” I said. “Why isn’t he here with you?”
The two soldiers looked at each other, trying to decide who would tell me the rest.
“He sliced open his ankle on some metal debris in the road,” Chris said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “One of the Allied doctors on the march with us tried to stitch him up as best he could with what he had. But it got infected, and they didn’t give the docs any sulfa powder or penicillin to treat infection—Geneva Conventions, my ass. Meanwhile, Barker’s still helping carry our friend Roger, who’s sick as a dog at this point, can barely walk he’s so weak, and Barker’s limping himself because his ankle’s not good at all, but he insisted on helping.”
I looked over at Viv and Dottie, and like me, they were listening and wiping away silent tears.
“We just slept on the freezing-cold ground, huddled together in fields on the side of the road. One night I woke up and I heard yelling. The guards were dragging Roger away from our group, and Dan had woken up and was screaming at them, asking where they were taking him.” Chris took another cigarette from Viv, and I noticed he had the shakes.
“So, Chris and I got up and followed after them too,” Lee said, continuing the story, his voice low and slow as he stared blankly ahead, reliving the movie in his mind. “They dragged Roger into a wooded area along with a few other soldiers. Meanwhile Barker’s limping right behind them, shouting at them. The two of us are trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and that’s when the guards started firing shots. First Roger, then Barker. The bastards . . . They said that Roger and Barker were both too sick to go on, so they executed them. Then they pointed the guns toward us and told us to get back with the group or we’d be next.”
The room was quiet except for the sound of our quiet crying. Chris swore under his breath, and Lee came back from reliving it and looked at me, eyes moist.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I have a letter in my bag. For you. I’ll go get it.”
Lee ran from the room to wherever his bag was. Chris put the cigarette up to his lips, his hand shaking the whole time.
“I’m sorry too,” Chris said to me. “He was exactly that, a soldier’s soldier. Please know that he saved lives on that march. I know that for a fact.”
Lee came running back into the room and handed me the letter, and Danny’s familiar messy handwriting made me start sobbing again. All the things that I had started to forget about him came back in a rush, and my heartbreak suddenly felt as raw and fresh as when I had first left Boston.
“We’ll let you girls have some time to yourselves,” Chris said. We all hugged each other good-bye, and it was awkward and heartfelt at the same time.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
After they left, Dottie pulled me into an embrace that I couldn’t leave.
“Talk to us,” Viv said.
“What do you want me to say?” I said, my tears spilling out again, wondering if I’d ever be cried out. “All this time, and I find out he’s really gone? All that hope I had for him, for us. And then I feel so foolish. Why did I think he’d survive when so many hadn’t? Why did I think I would be the loved one spared the grief that thousands of others have felt? Why did I think we were so special that we would be spared?
“And I’m devastated all over again . . . and I feel so guilty. I keep thinking maybe if I could have done more to try to find him . . . written more letters to the International Red Cross . . . anything . . .” I just put my head in my hands. I couldn’t even finish the sentence. I was physically and mentally spent.
“You need to sleep and eat and take some time off to grieve,” Viv said. “Let’s take you back to the house, Fiona.”
“I have to write his mother . . . Oh no, they won’t let me write his mother or my family about it yet, will they?”
Dottie shook her head.
“Let’s go, Fiona,” Dottie said. “You need to rest.”
“No. Tomorrow, I’m still going to work,” I said. “We need to help these POWs; Liz needs us.”
Viv and Dottie gave each other a look like they were trying to manage me, and it made me crazy. And at that moment, I realized how wiped out they looked. The day had taken a toll on them too.