The Major's Daughter by J. P. Francis Read Free Book Online

small brook that ran down into the oddly named river at the base of the camp. When the guards first mentioned it, August watched the other men tighten. They worried about a trick, or some darker impulse that let the guards suggest a washup, but the guards’ faces remained friendly and open.
    â€œGo ahead, tell them they can wash here if they like. They worked hard today,” Private Mitchell said, directing his comments to August.
    â€œDoes he mean it?” William asked.
    â€œI think he does,” August said. “If they meant to shoot us they could have done so already.”
    August stripped out of his shirt and shoes and dipped his face in the water. It felt wonderful. He stood on the bank and slipped out of his trousers, then stepped into the water and fell into a kidney-shaped pool that had been carved out of a stream bank. The others did the same, wading in and splashing, shouting and laughing now that they felt secure in taking a quick bath. August lay back and let his body float in the stream, and for a moment he remembered the heat of Africa, the burned bodies dangling like fuses from the Panzer tanks outlined against the wadis. It had all been hideous, not at all like the war they had been promised, and when the Anglo-American forces had surrounded them, the German company had surrendered on its knees like so many headstones. Yes, that was what he remembered as he lay in the water, feeling the coolness restore his body, the taste of soil and grasses mixed with the ripe scent of the stream. In the silence won by putting his ears beneath the water’s surface, he saw the men splashing and laughing, watched the guards smiling, cigarettes in their hands, and a beam of light falling gently through the treetops. It called to mind a painting, something he had seen as a schoolboy, but now he failed to recall the name. It had been an impressionist, likely, a concentration of paint and light and bright colors, and as he let the water carry him to the heel of the small pool, he felt himself flying over the ocean, returning to his home, to his mother and father and his brother, Frederick. He did not know if they had survived, but in the stream light it seemed possible they may have lived, and he felt a moment’s relief from his anguish and worry.
    When he sat up, the men had turned, like so many weather vanes, to the sight of the commandant’s daughter walking from the camp.
    â€œThere she goes,” Hans said, and he did not have to identify further who he meant. She was the object of every eye in camp.
    August sat up quickly to see her. She hurried past, obviously embarrassed to see men—German prisoners!—bathing in a stream. He watched her walk away, her form lovely and so different from the endless men who surrounded him. He smiled and looked at the other men and they all smiled as well. Even the guards could not pretend disinterest.
    â€œ
Sie ist hübsch
,” Howard said.
Very pretty.
    â€œWhat is her name anyway?” Gerhard asked, then revised himself in English. “Her name?”
    He rested on his arms in the stream. He looked like a seal to August.
    â€œCollie,” Private Mitchell said. “Short for Colleen.”
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    Mrs. Hammond served Easter dinner at two o’clock and it came off beautifully, with sufficient food for every taste. That was one benefit of having the prisoners, even Mrs. Hammond admitted: the War Department sent train cars of food into Percy Station. People grumbled that the German prisoners ate better than the American population, and that was partially true, Collie imagined. She had read the editorial, printed just the day before, concerning the scarcity of food across the country, the ceaseless rationing that touched every facet of their lives, while the Germans had food and gasoline made available to them. It seemed a grave injustice to the editorial writer, but Collie wondered if the author had seen