Waiting for the Violins Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Postscript

  About the Author

  Acclaim for Justine Saracen’s Novels

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Antonia Forrester, an English nurse, is nearly killed while trying to save soldiers fleeing at Dunkirk. Embittered, she returns to occupied Brussels as a British spy to foment resistance to the Nazis. She works with urban partisans who sabotage deportation efforts and execute collaborators, before résistante leader Sandrine Toussaint accepts her into the Comet Line, an operation to rescue downed Allied pilots. After capture and then escape from a deportation train headed for Auschwitz, the women join the Maquis fighting in the Ardenne Forests. Passion is the glowing ember that warms them amidst the winter carnage until London radio transmits the news they’ve waited for. Huddled in the darkness, they hear the coded message, “the long sobs of the violins” signaling that the Allied Invasion is about to begin.

  Waiting for the Violins

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  Waiting for the Violins

  © 2014 By Justine Saracen. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-909-2

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: March 2014

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  The Ibis Prophecy Series:

  The 100th Generation

  Vulture’s Kiss

  Sistine Heresy

  Mephisto Aria

  Sarah, Son of God

  Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

  Beloved Gomorrah

  Waiting for the Violins

  Acknowledgments

  Historical novels, whatever their fictional content, require research, and sometimes you need more than a few books or an afternoon of Googling. Sometimes the memories and experience of a living person are invaluable, and several such people have assisted me. I am therefore most grateful: to Celine Bissen, for offering information, documents and a visit to the gravesite of her heroic aunt; to Shirah Goldman, for sharing intimate family history and guiding me through a concentration camp; to Leon Van Audenhaege and Laci Meert, for supplying historical facts about Woluwe St. Lambert; to Julie Tizard for the nomenclature of flying; and to Laurence Schram for providing details on the Dossin Caserne under the German Occupation.

  On the business end, not just for this novel, but for all its predecessors as well, I owe enormous gratitude to Shelley Thrasher for constant patient editing, to Sheri for a great cover drawn from the deep pool of her imagination, and to Radclyffe for making the whole endeavor possible in the first place.

  Dedication

  To Celine Collin, killed while courier for the Ardenne Maquis, Aisik and Rywka Goldman, who perished at Auschwitz, and to all those who resisted the German occupation of Belgium.

  Chapter One

  Dunkirk

  June 1940

  Antonia Forrester brought the ambulance to a sudden halt at the top of a bluff. The sounds from the beach that had been muffled as she came up the hill now assaulted her with full force: the shouts of men, the thunder of artillery, the rat-a-tat of strafing shot all along the beach, the wind scattering sand against her windshield.

  She jumped from the driver’s seat onto the ground and gawked for a moment at the terrifying panorama of a fleeing army. Lines of men in the hundreds of thousands striated the gray sand like swarms of insects crawling along the beach into the surf. The wind rising from the sea carried the sooty metallic stench of explosives.

  In the distance, the heavy troop carriers and hospital ships waited, unable to approach for risk of beaching. Above them, Stukas swooped low and strafed the water, striking some of the craft.

  “Move it, move it, for Chrissake. Get the hell down!” A cluster of men ran toward her and yanked open the rear doors of the ambulance. The walking wounded staggered out onto the sandy ground, and a medic guided them away toward a path leading to the beach.

  She ran to the rear of the ambulance and grabbed one end of a stretcher. It slid out and dropped between her and another soldier, suddenly tugging on her shoulders.

  “This way,” the medic barked. “Wounded have priority, over here to the right.” Staggering slightly under the load, she followed him along the same sandy path to the shoreline, where boats were loading on stretchers in small numbers.

  “How’re you doing?” she knelt and shouted over the din at the man she’d just carried down. He’d been hit in the lower back and was paralyzed.

  “Okay,” he said mechanically. “Just stay close by, please.”

  “Sure thing. Promise.” It was all she could offer, and she meant it.

  A tiny fishing boat came in fighting the waves, and the fishermen jumped from it into the frothing surf. “Come on, load ’em in. We got room for six, and a few standing.” He took hold of the stretcher poles.

  Antonia waded into the water and felt the shock of cold, but focused on lifting the stretcher up onto the rocking skiff. A moment later, someone heaved her up over the gunwale as well. Then, alarmingly low in the water, they pushed back away from shore.

  No one spoke over the wind, the gunfire, and the sound of the outboard motor. Antonia gripped the soldier’s hand, though both his and hers were ice cold.

  Motoring against the wind under low-swooping fighter planes, they arrived at the hospital ship. Paris, it said on the bow. Experienced hands threw down ropes and hoisted the wounded on board, and the exhausted stretcher-bearers struggled up the ladder.

  The deck was covered with wounded lying on stretchers or huddled together. “You’re
the last,” one of the officers called out to the group. “You’ll have to stay topside till we get across.”

  The ship turned laboriously in the waves and headed out to sea.

  “We’ve made it.” Antonia leaned over her patient. “You’re gonna be okay. We’re on our way home.”

  “Thank God for—”

  The explosion stunned her for a moment. Then, through the smoke, she saw the hole in the stern deck. Heavy bombers had arrived, backing up the Stuka fighters.

  “It’s okay. The explosion was above the waterline. We’re still sailing.” She squeezed his hand, though her own trembled.

  The second bomb crashed perpendicular through the deck deafening her with the sound of ripping steel. A third bomb struck; she felt the ship shudder with it. Within minutes, the stern was under water. All was chaos, smoke, coughing, screaming, and a hellish pain in her neck. The clothing on her back was on fire and so was her hair.

  Something crashed against her and sent her toppling over the side. The frigid water momentarily stopped the scorching pain but she struggled to stay afloat. She still held her patient’s sleeve, and he slid off the stretcher into the water next to her. Paralyzed from the waist down, he flailed with his arms, imploring her with his eyes to save him. He clutched at her as water covered his face and pulled her under with him. She thrashed, trying to regain the surface, but her own chest hurt with every movement, and the drowning soldier pulled her ever deeper.

  Desperate and choking, she pried off his rigid fingers, and as he fell away from her, she kicked with all her force. But even without him, the weight of her shoes and sodden clothing was too great, and she sank, her lungs screaming for air. Reflexively, she gulped salty water, and her last faint sensation before she blacked out was of something yanking hard on her hair.

  Chapter Two

  June 1940

  Sandrine Toussaint stood at the window of the Château Malou gazing out over the verdant grounds. How unjust that the estate was still so lovely when she herself, and all of Belgium, had suffered catastrophe. The surrender of the king a month before after an eighteen-day struggle against the Germans was devastating, but she grieved more for her own loss. She turned away from the window and took up the photo of her brother Laurent, killed by one of Rommel’s troops. Rommel, the only military name she knew other than Hitler, and she hated him.

  She’d spent all the tears she had for Laurent, and life had gone on. But today she’d come across his violin among the long-neglected items in his wardrobe, and the pain of his absence had swelled up once again.

  He was dashingly handsome in his uniform, and she was struck again by the extraordinary resemblance between them. Both were Nordic pale, with prominent strong chins, long straight noses, and intense eyes, though his were blue and hers green. They had passed as twins in spite of his being two years younger. Only their temperaments were different, he being the quiet musician and she the truculent tomboy.

  The door from the entry hall opened, and Gaston, her gardener, carpenter, and house repairman, thrust his head through the opening. “Madam, they’ve arrived, as you expected.”

  She nodded and prepared for the charade she and her household had prepared. The Germans had occupied Château Malou once before, during the Great War, so it was inevitable they would lay claim to it again. But this time, it wouldn’t be so easy.

  The disappointment on the face of the officer when he came into the entry hall and glanced around amused her. “Could use a little maintenance,” he said, pointing his baton at the cracked ceiling. “Does it leak?”

  “Yes, unfortunately,” she replied, glancing down at the puddle at her feet. Then she led him into the main room. Another man, of some lower rank, followed him in.

  “How long have those been broken?” He pointed with his chin at the half-dozen cracked or missing glass panes. The rain-chilled air wafted through the openings.

  “Since before the fighting. Political vandals, we think.”

  He nodded. “Communists. They don’t much like mansions.”

  “A shame.” She sighed. “The glass has to be specially cut, so it will take weeks to replace.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “What is that odor?”

  “It’s probably the mold. From the cracks between the walls and the ceiling. Or do you mean the plumbing problem?”

  The officer looked alarmed. “You have a plumbing problem?”

  “Unfortunately. The pipes are a hundred years old and they’ve just burst. We’ve had to turn off the system and bring water from the fountain outside. It’s very inconvenient for the toilets.”

  The officer scribbled something in a notebook, and she knew her case was made.

  The rest of the tour of the decrepit château would hardly be necessary: the smoke-filled kitchen downstairs from the coal-burning stove, the rotten and stinking carpet in the upstairs corridor, and the pools of water on the floors of several of the upstairs rooms would simply cement the conclusion he had already drawn. The château was a wreck and not worth requisitioning.

  “The Belgian aristocracy has come down in the world,” the officer remarked upon leaving.

  The ruse would have amused her if she hadn’t been so embittered. As soon as it was clear the house didn’t interest the occupiers, they would turn the plumbing and the water boiler back on and get rid of the stinking carpet. She even knew a glazier who could replace the windowpanes. But she couldn’t undo her leaden sense of defeat and violation.

  She had to do something. She had no idea what, but surely someone would resist, somewhere. She would join them, and she would take revenge.

  “For you, Laurent,” she said, placing the violin next to his picture on the mantelpiece. “And for my conscience.”

  Chapter Three

  Orpington Hospital

  August 1940

  Antonia lay stupefied by morphine, cordoned off from the all-male population of the hut. How long had she been in hospital? A few weeks, a month? She’d lost count.

  Her shoulder was in a cast, and the unremitting ache with every breath told her she had broken ribs. The doctors had informed her that a severe concussion had caused her headaches and distorted vision. The worst had been the second- and third-degree burns on her back and neck, and she had lain in purgatory for weeks before the pain subsided.

  Memory of the attack lingered dully, but she was safe now, and the moans of the more seriously wounded soldiers on the other side of the partition kept her from self-pity. The long, green-painted ward held some forty wounded soldiers, and a dozen other huts spread out over the grounds held hundreds more. Cripples, amputees, respiratory cases, shell-shocked soldiers—all comrades from those terrible days in France and Belgium.

  She’d asked where the other women were, her nursing comrades from Dunkirk, and got no answer, but her solitude in the Orpington ward made it clear no other women had survived the destruction of the Paris.

  She glanced up as the curtains at the foot of her bed parted and a gray-uniformed nurse swept in with quiet efficiency. Three stripes on her sleeve, an assistant matron. Her white muslin cap with MPNS embroidered on it was tilted carelessly over short gray hair.

  “How are we feeling this morning?” She came to the side of the bed.

  “About the same.” Antonia twisted sideways, and the nurse lifted her nightgown away from the back of her neck. The cool air of the room felt good on the sensitive skin.

  “It’s looking better.” We should be ready to release you to a rehab facility soon. Can you walk without help?”

  “Yes, but I’m a bit wobbly.”

  “Well, come along then. A gentleman’s here to see you, and he’s requested the privacy of the Sisters’ Room. Here, I’ll help you put on your dressing gown.”

  “Gentleman?” Antonia slid her arm into the sleeve, puzzled. She didn’t have any gentlemen in her life. Not since the death of her father a year before. Her superiors in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service were all women. “Did h
e say what it was about?”

  “No, only that it was confidential.” She took Antonia’s right arm and guided her past the curtain and into the small room at the end of the hospital hut. A military officer stood by the window smoking a cigarette, as if deep in thought. He turned around at the sound of their entrance.

  “Thank you very much, Sister,” he said. The nurse left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  “Please, sit down, for heaven’s sake.” He motioned toward the chair in front of the desk and took up position behind it.

  “Forgive me, I’m Major Atkins,” he said, reaching across the desk to offer his hand. She took it, though extending her arm hurt both her ribs and the new skin on her back. She waited for him to explain the cause of his visit.

  He studied her for a moment, holding his cigarette delicately between his index and middle fingers, then tapped it once over the glass ashtray. “The doctors inform me you’re healing very well and that after a few months of rehabilitation, you’ll be able to resume normal activity. May I ask what your plans are?”

  “My plans? I don’t know. I don’t think it’ll be nursing. I hate the helplessness.”

  “Do you?” His tone seemed to hold a certain satisfaction.

  “Umm. Eventually, I thought I might apply for the Wrens, or even the Women’s Air Force.”

  “You’re ready to go back to the front? In spite of all that?” He gestured with his chin toward her shoulder cast.

  The memory of the scorching flames struck her briefly, as did the image of a soldier, paralyzed and drowning. “Yes. I’d go tomorrow if it didn’t still hurt to move.”

  He opened the file that lay on the desk, which she hadn’t noticed. Her photo was clipped to the upper corner. “I see you lived for a few years in Brussels.”