War Serenade: Inspired by a True Story

By Jill Wallace

DIVIDED BY WAR. UNITED BY MUSIC. ENDANGERED BY PASSION.
When bon vivant Italian opera star-turned-pilot Pietro is shot down during World War II, he nearly loses his life. Worse, he's lost his passion for music and is close to losing his sanity in a soul-crushing prisoner-of-war camp in South Africa when he meets Iris. He has a vision of a love worth dying for-worth living for-and realizes he must find his voice if he ever hopes to find her again.
Iris's dreams are at stake when she meets Pietro. All she wants is for her brother to come home alive from the war and to fulfill her destiny as a costume designer in Hollywood. But this spirited redhead's life turns upside down as her eyes meet Pietro's through the cage of his prison. The world may be at stake, but so is her heart.
Their secretive and daring courtship raises the suspicions of the bully who runs the camp, a scarred and damaged tyrant who once dated Iris. Consummating the couple's almost mystical connection will mean crossing the barbed wire, risking the deadly charge of treason and confronting their worst fears.
Inspired by a true story, WAR SERENADE is compelling, heart-wrenching, sometimes funny and always dramatic as it celebrates the endurance of the human spirit, the evolution of rich friendships, and love's triumph against impossible odds.
"Jill Wallace has penned a love story for the ages, rich with detail and well-drawn characters. Fans of World War II romance are going to fall in love with this author."
- Roxanne St. Claire, New York Times bestselling author
"I feel like I just lost my best friends now that I finished reading this incredible story of World War II history and romance. This book reminded me of The Thorn Birds, one of my all-time favorite novels, and I know this fast-paced, moving story will soon be a blockbuster movie. ... Author Jill Wallace writes prose as poetry."
- Journalist Debra Shannon

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999776810

Book preview

Epilogue, Part I

The Shoebox

Durban, South Africa

1960

The girl was more excited than she’d ever been in her life. She’d never waited so long for anything. She finally understood why her dad said, Anticipation is the greatest part of life.

It had been three hundred and sixty-five days, two hours and eleven minutes since she’d found the shoebox when the garage stuff was moved around, so her dad could lay out the train set he gave her for her eighth birthday.

She’d been a whole lot more excited about the shoebox than the train set, which was similar to the model planes and antique cars of past years. She suspected her father had wished for a boy, but he adored her, and as long as he was happy, she was perfectly content. He was her hero, you see, and she’d never disappoint him.

The shoebox.

When she’d accidently bumped into the old bookshelf during the train set-up session, soft crocheted blankets tumbled on top of her head, bringing down the box.

She’d held the well-sealed rectangle in her hands and immediately felt its ounces of weight become pounds, with all the secrets within.

It was covered in brown paper, double-tied with string, and everywhere the string entwined, a dark red blob of sealing wax pulsed. Not molded in a crest or a coat of arms like in the days of spies and kings, but hasty, hot-melting wax, creating urgent blobs the color of congealed blood, throbbing with danger.

For a magical instant, she saw an outline of shimmering yellow around the box, like a halo. Blood and sunshine. She shivered and smiled at the same time.

Daddy, can I open this box? Her words were breathy.

Ask your mother. He wasn’t paying attention to her at all. He was too busy with the train set.

Inside, when the girl asked innocent permission, holding the box, her mother’s face was tinged with crimson. The girl knew trouble was coming.

That box is only to be opened when you are old enough. Do you hear? The girl was taken aback by her mother’s seldom-used harsh delivery.

Why is it so secret, Mommy? the girl asked logically.

It belongs to your uncle and aunt. We are keeping it for them until it’s safe.

Safe from what, Mommy?

From authorit— from people who could make it difficult for them, her mother said, her accent thicker than usual.

But when I am old enough, I can open it? the girl asked, holding her breath.

When you’re old enough, you can tell their story, but only then. Do you understand me? The girl nodded, understanding completely that nothing would change her mom’s mind.

But from that day forth, she wondered how old old enough could be. She figured that if she didn’t ask, she could make her own decision as to when that time had come.

Now she was nine.

Since she was much older and wiser, to celebrate her birthday, she decided she would open the box. Her gift to herself. And her first decision.

Though it was they who encouraged her independent spirit, she doubted her parents would approve of her first undertaking.

It was all she could think of during the weeks before her big day of turning nine.

At last. She pretended to be really excited by the gleaming plastic blow-up globe she unwrapped that morning. It was her father’s wish that she have a keen sense of the world outside the little dot of Durban on which they lived. In truth, Charlie the rabbit, who was revealed in a cage in the back yard, would have been enough to set her nine-year-old-world on fire, but she held back for the ultimate pleasure her birthday could bring. The gift she’d promised herself.

Her mother’s head bobbed around her bedroom door. You be good. I’m going to tennis with Aunty Wendy. Take off your school uniform. Do your homework. Maid’s in her room if you need her. When I come home, I’m going to make you the best dinner ever in the history of the world, with Christmas crackers in November and chocolate cake! Then you can play with Charlie. Her mother’s words rolled with the rich, musical lilt she loved so well.

The girl smiled at her mom, not because she loved her, though she did, but because she couldn’t wait for her mother’s car to pull out of the garage so she could get in.

She felt like a criminal as she snuck into the garage. To calm her nerves, she sang, Happy birthday to me ... 

She pulled a small table in place and, balancing preciously, managed to access the box her father had strategically placed out of her reach after her mother’s reaction. She swore she could feel her hand get hotter and hotter as it got closer to the shoebox. Her fingers found the box, and joy filled her.

Happy birthday to me … 

Balancing on her perch, she carefully brought down the box and stood silently just holding the secret cardboard vault. She sat down on the concrete floor and traced the string slowly with her finger, from one smooth, blood-red blob to the next. Once the seals are broken, there is no going back.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, but when she knew it was time, she picked up the small knife and sliced through the string. The twine sprang back.

She sat looking at the delicious keeper of secrets in her lap. Her fingers tingled. Open the bloody box. Instinctively, her hands covered her mouth to stop more bad words coming out.

She gave in, eased off the string and, denied too long, quickly ripped off the brown paper.

She tried to justify her actions. If I’m to tell their story, I need to understand their secrets, she thought with solid logic and felt even better about her first decision as a nine-year-old.

As she gingerly lifted the lid, she smelled flowers and earth and paper. But not just any paper, papyrus perhaps, from the ancient Egyptians in her history book, such was the richness of it all.

She gently laid down the lid and began the ultimate treasure hunt ...

1

I See You

Every once in a great while, you make eye contact with someone you have never seen before, and it’s as if you see into the other’s soul. The connection between you is so deep and so strong, you blindly accept with all that is true, although it’s beyond all logic and reason, that the person before you is as necessary to your existence as the very air you breathe.

— Dad, 1960

* * *

Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

27 July 1943

Her city of Pietermaritzburg was but a speck on the horizon as they bumped along toward the prisoner of war camp in the rugged two-seater jeep.

Iris shivered as she thought of tales of unspeakable horrors that caused the locals to give the square mile of flatlands a wide berth. They feared being haunted by the Boer War atrocities against the women and children who died in the concentration camp thirty-five years ago, before the Geneva Convention. At least now it was referred to as a Prisoner of War camp, which had less hideous connotations.

Iris swore the roads had not been tended since and thanked the lord that she sported a well-padded behind. But just this once. She didn’t want him to get carried away and add an inch or two for further comfort. She thought of Lena, her beloved Zulu surrogate mother, whose voluptuous ebony folds had given Iris comfort all her life, and though she wouldn’t change her for the world, she certainly didn’t want to inherit Lena’s large bum by osmosis.

She thought of Lena and her determination to teach Fourfeet, the gardener next door, how to read. The Sunday Times was Lena’s curriculum. She’d insisted he attend her school of one while she cleaned the kitchen. She’d patiently enunciate each word in preparation for Fourfeet’s lesson, and when she didn’t understand, she’d quiz Iris or her mother for explanation and pronunciation. Frankly, it kept them all on their toes and up to date on war news. Iris admired Lena’s inquisitive mind. What better way to learn yourself than to teach another? This morning the lesson read: Palermo Falls! Allied Invasion of Sicily Inspires Coup d’etat Against Mussolini. RAF Bombs Kiel: Heaviest RAF Raid of War. It was a hell of a mouthful for a Zulu who only learned English when she was twenty-five, and then just by paying attention.

When Iris reported for duty at the hospital that morning, she was mentally redesigning the dull volunteer uniform she wore—a dab of color here, a simple dart there—when she was cornered by a cheerless nurse who brought no softness to her hard profession.

Doctor de Kleyn needs help at the POW camp today.

Can you ask somebody else?

You’re a volunteer, girly. You’ll do what you’re told. She snorted. Iris was fascinated by the nurse’s thin nostrils flaring. "A real nurse should go, if you ask me," the nurse grumbled.

Iris jumped at the chance, her eyes never leaving the nurse’s nose. Good idea. You go.

He asked for you. Specifically. The nostrils were now flapping faster than a Venus flytrap.

"Can’t they come here?" How hard could it be to bring them over, for gosh sakes? Who was in charge of logistics? And while she was making her suggestions, perhaps she’d also mention the simple little changes that would give their uniforms a little va-va-va-voom!

The disgusted look the nurse shot Iris required no verbal response. She whipped around, throwing words over her shoulder: "To nurse’s station so I can educate you. Someone has to."

Hmm. This is your penance. Suck it up, Iris! Go to the bloody prisoner of war camp. Oh God, imagine if Gregg was in one of those? Then she relaxed. Knowing her brother, no matter where he was, he would be making them all laugh, planning game nights and tennis matches. She fathomed the war regardless of Lena’s headlines. Still, it felt so very far away.

Two hours later, she was in the jeep bound for the camp. Iris stood up, locking her hands around the bar on the dashboard. The doctor beside her was pleasant and easy on the eye, but she’d sworn off men. Since, well ... she didn’t want to see Julian today. Ever again, really.

She lifted her face to the early sun and felt its gentle morning rays warming her wind-brushed cheeks. If she was any smarter, she would have worn a hat to stop her blooming freckles from multiplying, which they were apt to do. She smelled wet grass and the dark, dank tang of thick, seldom trodden foliage. Every now and then she inhaled the pungent whiff of animal droppings. Not unpleasant, just African.

A long, curly, copper tendril slapped wildly at her cheek.

How she hated her hair! She’d painstakingly tamed and pinned the thick waves that hung to her waist to conform to the shoulder-length bob that was so fashionable in the grainy, black and white photographs from abroad.

The Sunday Times’ women’s section was her weekly and only reliable source of fashion information now that the smaller towns were off the fashion grid for runway shows. The pictures confirmed London’s elite were, luckily for Iris, exempt from the ravages of war. They continued to push fashion boundaries, and Iris lapped it up like milk to a rescued kitten. She pored over the cut, flow, patterns and nuances of hem length until her pencil came alive with her own whimsical designs. Grainy pictures transformed magically into a vivid color palette in her mind, then under her sharp pencil, taffeta, chiffon and silk were ruched, gathered and twisted, evolving into her unique and stunning creations.

She smiled as she thought of Lena and her friend Sofie’s disappointment when she began designing clothes for herself. Though she still made them each a dress every month with money she saved, she wore the most daring creations herself.

She caught the doctor smiling back as if her flash of teeth had been for his benefit. Men! They were by far the vainer sex.

This bloody hair! she complained as another thick tendril covered her eyes for a second, but the feeling of fast wheels, wind and freedom outweighed the need to tame her wild tresses for the sake of fashion. Well, just for a moment.

Too soon, the jeep pulled up outside the brick building on her left, the hub for the army staff managing the camp, Iris surmised.

The smell on the opposite side of the road was overwhelming. She felt her face pucker in disgust as mud and feces fought for first place in her delicate nostrils. Two high fences were separated by a walkway, where a pair of soldiers holding dogs on tight leashes patrolled in opposite directions.

She looked from left to right and was jarred by the contrast. Neat, solid, brick normalcy on the left and make-do depravity on the right.

A four-foot coil of razor wire at the base and peak, both sides of each fence, made sure anybody trying to climb over would be cut to pieces after their first three-story hurdle. However, if they escaped that, dismemberment, courtesy of the Dobermans on the walkway, was a dead certainty. And if, by some miracle, they escaped those jaws, the second lethal fence would ensure they bled out before they landed outside the perimeter.

She shivered in the warmth. Her cursed imagination! She always had to take a vague thought to completion, like a design dreamed up, penciled, patterned, cut, sewn and debuted.

And what if they had protective clothing? That was absurd! The few men she saw inside the camp were in rags, and it was the middle of winter. Poor buggers must be freezing.

So, hypothetically, what if they made it out, then wanted to trek the fifty-odd miles to the port in Durban where they could miraculously stow away on a warship for four thousand nautical miles, back to Italy?

Thick foliage between Pietermaritzburg and Durban hid seven deadly South African snakes, killer bees, hungry lions, protective leopards, lethal spiders, charging rhino, angry elephant, crocodiles in excess of twenty feet, and Africa’s biggest killer, the hippopotamus. They all had a stake in the land between, and humans were the enemy. No! Armor couldn’t save the poor buggers. She sighed. So this giant, hellish cage Julian, the-man-in-charge, had constructed for them, might not be so bad after all.

She sniffed. Surely this stink hole, filled with khaki tents surrounded by moats—for the rain, she supposed—was in violation of the newly set Geneva standards? Perhaps there were so few captives, they could make do until the onslaught arrived and more modern latrines could be installed. Maybe the wind was just blowing the wrong way.

Oh, hell, what did she know about such things? Her stomach clenched, and she purposely looked at the normal side. Hmm. Pity one could never un-see human depravity.

She swallowed hard. I’ll be strong for you, Gregg. Please God, don’t let my brother be in one of these inhumane waste pits. She saw Gregg’s right eyebrow rise as it did when he was either amused or annoyed with his only sibling. Conjuring up his face was becoming harder, but here he was now, clear as the day he’d left them, and her heart calmed. But not for long. She remembered Lena’s lesson: RAF Bombs Kiel: Heaviest RAF Raid of War. Her brother and the likes of these prisoners were trying to kill each other, and her brother’s side was winning. Thank God. The war was closer, all of a sudden.

As the jeep’s engine cut off, she busied herself rearranging untamed hair and straightening her dull blue uniform.

A commotion beyond the razor fence erupted. A gaggle of ragged men emerged from the hundred or so tents. No wonder Venus-Flytrap-Nose thought Iris dumb as a shoe for wanting to bring the mountain to Mohammed. There were literally hundreds of them surging en masse toward her.

Her heart pounded a million miles a minute, and she was about to run away as fast as her legs could carry her, when she realized the charging masses weren’t even looking her way. She felt ever so slightly disappointed. See? She knew the volunteer’s uniform was dull, dull, dull!

She blushed deeply as she saw their deplorable state of neglect, and she was abysmally ashamed of how vain she was, to imagine these deprived ragamuffins would cause a stampede to get a better look at her!

She followed the men’s eyes upward. A shoeless prisoner climbed up the inside wire fence. His feet were bleeding. Not surprising. The deathly-sharp barbs wound around the thick wire and poked out at different angles, like haphazard one-inch nails.

The guy was by no means surefooted, so she guessed this was not a daily occurrence.

The tattered prisoners shouted from the ground. Iris imagined it was some sort of Italian encouragement as the man climbed higher. He seemed oblivious to the goings-on below.

A beefy guard shouted: Get down now, man. You want us to shoot you?

Several guards pointed guns at the prisoner, but the guy on the wire was either stupid, brave, blindly determined, or didn’t give a damn. Something important drove him ever upward.

As he reached the top, she wondered why the guards didn’t stop warning and start shooting, and she covered her ears in anticipation of the blasts.

She found she’d inched unwittingly nearer the perimeter and was close enough to see the face of the climber. There were lines on his cheeks where, in happier times, there might have been dimples.

His angular face changed from detachment to tenderness, and the ragged chorus of onlookers cried out.

She was aware the doctor was next to her when he shouted the interpretation in her ear: Get the bird! She was too absorbed to be impressed by his linguistic skills.

Then she saw it. A fat pigeon was caught in the barbed wire at the top of the high fence. By the scant frames of the malnourished prisoners, a plump pigeon over a hot fire would not go amiss. But a look of tenderness? The man must be starving!

A city girl through and through, Iris refused to think of the sweet little lamb or the cow with kind eyes, as she enjoyed the sumptuous dinner before her. It’s just meat often became her mealtime mantra. She refused to think about the living creatures sacrificed for her palate’s pleasure. Who, then, was she to judge this starving man bringing down a portly pigeon to roast over a fire?

The crowd roared with delicious anticipation.

She was amazed by the prisoner’s gentleness as he reached for the bird while he clung to the wire for dear life with his other hand. Blood oozed from new lacerations as he manipulated the pigeon slowly through the razor edges, his own hand taking the pain, while gentle fingers encased the bird protectively.

Goodness! No wasted drop. They were hungry. She couldn’t watch the poor bird’s imminent demise, yet she couldn’t look away.

He manipulated the pigeon from its lethal trap and held it above the fence while his other hand still gripped the wire, stopping him from falling three stories to a razor-sharp death.

She winced at the taste of blood and realized she’d bitten the inside of her cheek.

The man still held the bird firmly in one big hand. What a showman.

Get it over with! she wanted to shout. She’d learned to nip torture in the bud the hard way. Don’t be dramatic, Iris. She heard her mother’s voice but managed to ignore it as the fascinated guards lowered their guns, and the gleeful crowd was quiet. All eyes were raised up to the man on the wire.

He held up his hand as high as he dared without losing his balance.

A sacrifice? wondered Iris.

His tapered fingers opened. The pigeon froze. The prisoners were still and silent.

The bird took flight. Wobbly at first, likely overcome by its unexpected freedom, but mercifully, it caught the wind and soared away.

Free.

And then she understood: He freed the pigeon because he couldn’t free himself.

Wild, angry Boos broke the silence. That was Italian she understood.

The man’s face remained expressionless. He simply started his downward climb, and as he dropped his chin for a good look at where to secure his next footing … 

He found her eyes instead. His bleeding, bare foot remained suspended in midair.

And the world stopped, as did her heart, suspended in her chest. Then the blooming thing somersaulted. A great, big, double Boswell & Wilkie Circus high-wire dismount kind of somersault. Breathing wasn’t important as his eyes penetrated her hidden, most private core, and seeing into his deepest self, she felt at once immediate recognition and the ache of long separation. Then joyous relief at the reunion, unfathomable understanding, and above all, deep, satisfying, all-consuming emotion she didn’t understand. It pierced her heart like a long pin into a well-stuffed cushion.

Get down now, or we shoot. Guns were cocked again, but the sound was far away, in another world. Another time.

From far away, she heard Dr. de Kleyn’s insistent voice: Let’s go where it’s safe. It’s dangerous out here.

She blinked, breaking the connection and jolting her senses. She inhaled her first breath in what seemed like two days.

Before she turned away, Iris tried to find the bird savior’s eyes again, but he was close to the barbed wire, so his concentration was on the careful placement of his naked foot. She felt empty. The doctor’s last words echoed in her head, and the most profound thought hit her like a hammer: Dangerous? I’ve never felt safer than I did just then, but she followed his white coat into the brick building.

She had jelly legs, a new, awfully odd sensitivity, but as they were ushered into Julian’s office, she lost all sensations other than distaste.

The bird savior had made her forget how much she was dreading this ordeal.

Julian bounced on the balls of his feet, and his thin smile was as wide as she’d ever seen it as he led them to the mess hall. He was gloved as usual, and the bunched hand held his whip, which tapped against his leg. A kind of out-of-sync metronome. So effens skeef, came into Iris’s mind unbidden. She rarely spoke Afrikaans because she was English through and through, and that mattered when the Boers and the English were still smarting over their vicious war. But sometimes the Boers’ Afrikaans language truly captured a situation as no other could. Julian was indeed a little bit off-center.

I didn’t dare hope you’d come, though I requested you. His cloying presence was the perfect antidote for her still fast-beating heart.

Iris feigned indifference. Here to do a job, Julian. Trust you’re doing well? A rhetorical question. She didn’t care how he was.

Doctor de Kleyn had no time for small talk with the acting head of this dismally run camp. Get the prisoners in so we can get this over and done with, Colonel. The disdain that tainted the undeserved title was clear to Iris and lost on Julian.

As she worked, Iris was acutely aware of Julian’s eyes on her, no doubt waiting with bated breath for her reaction to his new lofty title. She refused to curtsy to his ego. She busied herself for the onslaught of the growing line of prisoners by placing the heap of cotton balls in a sterilized bowl, filling the malaria pill dispenser and prepping the vicious-looking needles for the penicillin shots.

The single line of ragged men wove in and out of the hall, through the doors and down the long passage.

The first emaciated prisoner was in front of her. She went to give him his malaria pill, and he put his hands behind his back and stuck out his tongue. The stench of his open mouth made her recoil in horror. Doc was quick to intervene. This is not a communion wafer, my friend. Put out your hand. Julian appeared like a demonic genie, his whip raised ominously. The man’s tongue disappeared like a lizard who’d missed a fly.

Iris was startled by the naked fear she saw on the prisoner’s face as Julian’s whip was raised. She shivered. Shame on you, Iris, for dreaming up the whip!

The line kept coming, and a pattern was established: hands out for their malaria pill; turn sideways to have a couple of inches of upper arm cleaned by Iris; turn sideways to Doc for the penicillin shot. She was grateful for their dirt-encrusted bodies, because the mud trapped their odor underneath. When she caught the odd whiff of dank flesh the alcohol couldn’t mask, it made her stomach clench.

After a couple of dozen administrations, she turned her head away from the masses, waved her hand in front of her nose and whispered to the doctor, Noxious!

No showers. They have to wait for the rain to bathe.

Oh my gosh, I didn’t think past the smell. I feel so bad now. Who could do this to human beings? Or animals, for that matter?

For an answer, de Kleyn jutted his jaw at the hovering Colonel Julian.

How would Gregg handle stinking to high heaven like this?

She vowed not to show these likely once-proud men that their stench was beyond endurance. It was quite a feat, but she did it. For Gregg. Just in case.

And still they streamed in. Though very few spoke English, they seemed not enemies at all, just skinny, neglected men in rags, many without anything on their dirty feet. Like pigs in manure. Don’t be unkind, Iris.

Now and then she caught a glimpse of the vital men they might have been before the war. A flirty wink. A kind smile. A wicked grin. She knew the interest in their eyes wasn’t for her particularly, but rather any change was a welcome break in their mundane, pitiful existence.

As she cleaned spots on muddied deltoids and revealed sun-bronzed skin, she wondered if this was how her brother looked. Dirty and disheveled. Just a face in a long line. Oh, Gregg.

Thoughts of him overshadowed the sympathy she felt toward these neglected men. The likes of them were aiming guns, bombs, and heaven only knew what else at her brother. Trying to kill him, but please God, not succeeding. Last she heard, Gregg was flying his Spitfire over Italy. Life was fraught with ironies, she’d discovered.

Her ludicrous thoughts of Gregg in a POW camp making up games and arranging tennis matches now shamed her. These neglected men in front of her were the realities of war. Oh, please, God. Protect him from this horror.

He’d left them brokenhearted on the platform the day he went off to war. She, Mom, Lena, Sofie and Buffer feared they would never see him again. Not even Buffer’s doggie kisses could make her feel better.

Recently, her department store, the fanciest in all of southern Africa, made volunteering for the war effort compulsory for all staff. They were paid for two days out of their work week to offer their services where needed. But Iris knew she had to over-achieve in order to pay her dues to keep her brother safe. She doubled her hospital duty, working dozens of hours without pay in her own time. She had the time since she’d sworn off … well, since Julian.

But sure as hell, she hadn’t anticipated cleaning off the grimy arms of Gregg’s enemy so they wouldn’t die in her own country. Not from malaria or diseases cured by penicillin, at least. Malnutrition under Julian’s neglect was another matter.

How ironic, too, that she assisted in protecting her country’s enemies from the very disease that had so cruelly taken her father. Life was full of disparity between what actually happens and what, by all accounts, should.

Too often she dreamed Gregg was faceless. Her own screams, and faithful Buffer’s wet nose nudging her, mercifully woke her and she’d force his familiar face into perspective, or if all else failed, looked at the photo next to her bed. She shivered. It had been a long month since his last letter.

She felt herself applying unnecessary pressure to the man’s arm as she prepped for his injection. She apologized softly to the prisoner. She was grateful he seemed oblivious.

And then he was in front of her.

The pigeon savior.

Her legs buckled again. What the hell? Since when had she become the fainting sort?

His eyes were dark blue, and his hair was jet black, but there was nothing dark about his spirit. She felt at once warm and safe and hot and flustered as his eyes captured hers again. Close up this time. She was transfixed.

They opened their mouths at the same time. To speak? No. They were more like flowers opening to receive the sun or rain or some necessary sustenance to survive. She breathed him in through her nose and still open mouth, inhaling him, consuming him. She saw tiny little scars around his mouth, and she longed to kiss them softly, to take away their cause, if not the scars themselves, because they saved him from being just too good-looking.

Keep the line moving, Iris. The command made her jump.

How close had they been standing? How close had their open mouths come to being connected by magnetic force, or whatever the hell it was that pulled them together?

The doctor’s voice brought her back from wherever the mystifying swim in those dark blue pools had taken her, and she placed the malaria pill in his hand.

They both jumped as her two fingers touched the inside of his palm. A current. An actual electricity sparked between them. Their eyes were locked when he smiled. Afterward, when she could think, she realized she was right about the dimples.

Guilt surged through her, and she busied herself with applying alcohol to cotton balls.

He was the enemy. Gregg’s enemy.

She could feel his eyes burning into her skin, a warm, delicious burn like sunshine after a violent storm.

As she rubbed his bicep with alcohol, she tried to calm her breathing by thinking of ... who was she kidding? She couldn’t focus on anything but the color of his skin. Namib sand. Smooth and fine like that sandy coast where precious diamonds were found. Don’t look up, Iris! Where’s it going to get you? Eyes DOWN.

Her mind dictated, but her heart ignored. She raised her eyes slowly, fearful the connection would be different this time, but his eyes waited and, if anything, the magic intensified to hot and all-consuming.

Her bliss was short-lived, as Doc pulled her savior’s shoulder around so he could jab in the needle, followed by a gentle push to move him along.

Iris felt a deep sense of loss as soon as her savior was gone. Emptiness had replaced the languid, warm place he’d taken her with just the depth of his eyes and the sight of his skin.

Her savior? Emptiness? She had touched him clinically once. Don’t be ridiculous, Iris. Her mother again!

But those eyes. Interesting. Magnetic. Looking into her very soul.

The Savior dominated her mind throughout the afternoon as Julian hovered in her peripheral vision. As she and the doctor were leaving, Julian called to her.

She heard her voice, clipped with irritation. Julian, I can’t chat. We have to get the balance of the medicine to the lab for refrigeration. She thought that sounded impressive, though she made it up on the spot.

Iris. Give me another chance. I can make you happy.

Please, Julian. We’ve talked this to death. Then she felt bad. She didn’t want to be unkind. Iris turned toward him. There are many girls who would love your attention. I just don’t have time for a relationship right now. Go well. She hated being false, but she suspected his vindictiveness ran deep, and she wanted no part of it.

And why on earth had she suggested the gloves and the bloody whip? She’d created a monster. She shook her head hard to free her mind of the guilt and resolved not to think about it again. She turned and left the room in a hurry, feeling Julian’s eyes drilling into her arched back.

The prisoners must have been in their tents because none were to be seen, and there was a guard with a gun posted ominously outside every fourth V-shaped canvas.

She wished she’d seen him again. Rags, bare feet, and all. He’d somehow cleaned the blood off his hands and feet before he’d come to the makeshift clinic. She remembered, too, that his arm was just a wee bit dusty and not encrusted with mud. He hadn’t even smelt like the others. She was pathetically touched by the effort he’d made when running water was not a benefit they enjoyed.

As the jeep careened back to town, she pushed hard on the outside of her thick cotton uniform and felt the sharp angles of the folded paper inside her pocket. A tangible reminder of the adventure that lay ahead. Her delicious secret. Her salvation. Her future.

But today she needed more. Her hand found its way into her pocket, and she clenched the piece of paper. It wasn’t the original. She’d gone through four replicas since she got the letter two weeks ago. Desperate clutching had blurred the content.

His blue eyes were all she could think of. The balled paper felt prickly in her hand as she squeezed tighter. Ridiculous! Why was she fantasizing about the impossible when a dream come true literally lay in the palm of her hand?

Out of the blue, she began humming a tune. She didn’t know the words, just the title and the tune. How odd.

O Sole Mio, she sang softly, well-disguised by the jeep’s noise. As she la-la-la’d the rest of the tune, she was infused with calm, and she loosened her grip on her paper talisman.

2

The Girly Hots

Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

28 July 1943—next day

Lena and Sofie sat on the steps of the stoep, the South Africanism for back porch, leading from kitchen to backyard of the one-story brick home owned by the Fuller Family. These slate steps were their morning meeting place after the most essential housework was done.

This slightly elevated vantage point was perfect from which to observe the comings and goings. The women enjoyed the smell of the lush, wild banana and mango trees within easy reach, were they so inclined.

Many debates had ensued on these steps, and this day was no exception. Ibhubesi has a spring in her step today, said the robust Lena.

Ibhubesi, the Zulu word for lioness, was their name for the vibrant youngest of the Fuller household, whom both had known for nearly all of the girl’s twenty years.

Others knew