A Timeless Romance Anthology: European Collection (3 page)

Low-toned Finnish was spoken in whispers, mostly by nurses caring for soldiers, but also by a surgeon and a few others. The language sounded nothing like French or German, or even Russian. It had a distinctive, beautiful quality to it, one she’d have to find a way to put into words when she wrote about the war. Through the hum and buzz of conversation, with rolled R’s and vowels Anna had never heard, a different voice pierced the sound, one that didn’t match the others.

She lifted her head and found the source: a man three cots down on other side of the room. He groaned, seemingly half conscious, as his bandaged head moved back and forth and he clutched his arm, which was in a sling. The words coming from his mouth sounded strangely familiar— or rather, not the words, but the accent. He
wasn’t
speaking Finnish; she was quite sure of that.

She took a step toward Kaisa, who was now consulting a clipboard at the base of the first cot on the left. She replaced the clipboard then removed her stethoscope from around her neck, blew on the metal end a few times— surely to warm it up— as she approached the head of the bed then listened to the man’s heart. A blood-soaked bandage wrapped his leg, and he wore a glazed expression.

As Kaisa listened to the man’s heart, she kept her eyes on her watch. Then she wrote a note onto the clipboard and replaced the stethoscope around her neck. She asked a question to the soldier, who shook his head and said something Anna interpreted as a thank you.

Kaisa moved to the next cot. Anna crossed the narrow room and touched the nurse’s arm. Kaisa turned toward her, a question in her eyes. Anna nodded at the moaning soldier, who still mumbled in a different accent. “Is he Finnish?”

“No,” Kaisa said simply.

“Swedish?” Anna asked next. Many Finns spoke Swedish natively, or so she’d learned in her research. Plus, some Swedes had volunteered to help their neighbor country.

Kaisa removed the next clipboard and consulted the information on it. She glanced briefly to her right, at the man Anna meant. “Him? Russian, of course.”

The words froze Anna in place almost as much as the cold had before. Shouldn’t a POW be kept elsewhere, or at least restrained? Had he not been moaning in Russian— saying what Anna now realized was probably
Stalin
— she would have assumed he was one more in a line of Finnish wounded.

Seemingly without noticing Anna’s reaction, Kaisa continued her duties. She shook a thermometer then placed it under the second soldier’s tongue then went on to change a bandage on his forehead.

Likely sensing Anna behind her, Kaisa said, “We see many injuries in the face.” Her movements were gentle and precise, like a true professional. She didn’t flinch at the angry red stitched-up wound, but Anna did. “We have many good snipers who grew up hunting. They can shoot, hiding in the trees at a great distance. But when they have to fight, it’s often very close, with knives instead of guns.”

Anna tried not to shiver. She opened her notebook and wrote furiously, grateful that she’d brought pencils instead of a fountain pen, which would be little more than a block of black ice here. “Did he…” She gestured toward the Russian. “Defect?”

Kaisa looked up from changing the dressing. “
De… fect
? I do not know that word.”

How to explain? “Did he leave his army to join the Finnish army?”

“Oh, I understand.” Kaisa set the bloodied bandage into a metal bowl then went to work cleaning what looked like an angry, swollen stab wound below the young man’s eye. “No. We treat the few Russian soldiers we capture as our own. They are no longer the enemy then, simply another person who needs help.”

Even though the soldier needed help because of wounds caused at the hand of a Finn? Being humane toward prisoners was one thing, but Anna had never heard of this kind of care toward a prisoner of war. “Surely your own men get medical care first.”

Kaisa looked up, her brow furrowed in what looked like genuine confusion. “We treat wounds in order of how serious they are. I believe you call it
triage
?” She set aside a cotton ball she’d dabbed on the soldier’s wounds and looked at Anna straight on to explain. “We are nurses and doctors. Our job is to help anyone who needs us. These poor Russians had the misfortune to be born where Stalin would one day rule and send them off to be slaughtered. We may have to fight them to stay free— and we will fight while Stalin ships endless numbers of boys to be killed, as if they were worth nothing more than bales of hay.” She finished bandaging the wound then stood and returned to Anna’s side. “What’s hard for us is that we don’t have as many men as the Russian do. The same men fight all the time, without rest, but the Russians keep coming in waves, always fresh, never ending.” Her eyes looked weary.

Kaisa picked up the bowl and moved to dispose of the old bandage, leaving Anna standing there. Her mind whirled. The Finnish field hospital’s triage put Russians ahead of one of their own if the wounds were worse? The world needed to know about these good people, living in a country roughly the size of California but with a far smaller population, fighting the single largest nation on the planet, which was run by a ruthless butcher.

She recalled political commentators saying this war could go for months. How was that possible, between one of the largest, strongest nations in existence, against a tiny neighbor? But if the Finns could hold out until spring or later, how would that affect the battle? Already the world was looking down on Russia, condemning the decision to invade its small western neighbor, and with good reason.

Anna looked around and found a chair, which she sat on to write easier. Her hand moved quickly on the page to capture her thoughts. Dill would be pleased with the first piece she’d send back. She’d have to interview a few more people to corroborate the information Kaisa had provided, but Anna was well on her way to having a solid story, assuming she’d ever meet her photographer and get a few good images to go with it.

Americans always did love rooting for underdogs, she thought as she wrote. Perhaps FDR would bend and send aid.

Chapter Three

Lieutenant Haikkola glided to a stop beside Pete. “You did well,” he said, stepping out of his cross-country skis. “What did you think of how we take care of the Reds? They don’t know where we come from or how we slip away so quickly; it terrifies them.” He grinned with obvious pride.

In the two days Pete had been at the Tolvajärvi front, he’d learned that the Finns had far fewer resources than the Russians but used what little they did have to their extreme advantage.

Will I be here as long as they say— for months?
Pete almost hoped he would; being away had been the best thing he could have done to distract himself from thoughts of Anna. But better to stay in this eternal dark of winter. He didn’t want to be here long enough to see spring, with blossoms and grass and chirping birds, things that spoke of life and happiness… of the love he’d given up.

I couldn’t stay with her!
He mentally yelled the words at the universe. He and Anna were both journalists, which was enough reason to not try to maintain any kind of relationship; they would both be forever going in different directions, rarely seeing each other as they traveled to cover whatever assignments they had next. What if she wanted a family? Would she stay home with a baby while he went gallivanting across the globe, putting himself in danger? That wasn’t fair to her or a child.

As long as he’d stayed in California, his thoughts had kept returning to her, to the pained shock in her eyes when he’d said it was over between them. He hadn’t been able to stop second guessing himself, wishing he could go back to her, undo what he’d said, and start over, even though she deserved more than him.

He
couldn’t
give Anna the calm, quiet life she deserved. He could be headed for a different state or country after one phone call. He’d learned to pack a duffle bag with the essentials in about ten minutes, and he could live out of that bag for weeks. He’d done so many times.

Pete handed his skis and poles over to an enlisted soldier as he’d just seen Haikkola do then followed the lieutenant toward a dugout for officers. “Your men are in great shape,” Pete said, still huffing from tagging along on the ski patrol.

“My men could ski almost as soon as they could walk.”

The cold was so oppressive, it limited conversation until they were inside the warmth of the dugout, where Pete sighed with relief. That’s where the two of them took off their white snow suits, which were used to blend in with the snow. Pete had seen firsthand on the patrol how the Russians hadn’t tried any kind of camouflage whatsoever. No wonder the Reds were terrified; they faced a smaller force, but one that was nearly invisible to them.

With their suits off and set aside, Haikkola patted Pete on the shoulder. “I hear we have a Russian POW, found in the forest wounded and nearly frozen. We think he got lost after a recent fight; he needed surgery on his leg and stitches on his face. You may find his views interesting.”

Pete’s eyebrows went up. “I’d love to talk with him. Is there someone here who could interpret for me?”

“I believe we could find someone,” the lieutenant said with a nod. “Or perhaps you’ll get lucky, and he’ll speak English. But first, let’s get some coffee, and then you can visit our POW before you go to bed.”

“Thank you,” Pete said. He tilted his wristwatch and shined his flashlight on it. Nearly eleven. Despite the hour, the mess hall would have food. He’d want to go there for a late dinner, definitely, especially after such a rigorous time skiing on the patrol. Then he’d go to bed and sleep dreamlessly, if he was lucky. “On second thought, coffee might be a bad idea at this hour. I’d like to talk with the prisoner then have a small meal and go to bed.”

“Trying to sleep at night, are we?” Haikkola said with a laugh. “Very well. You’ll find him in the recovery tent.”

“Thanks,” Pete said. “And thank you for letting me come along today. I know I slowed you down.”

“Our pleasure,” Haikkola said, pausing at the door then heading out for his coffee.

Pete stayed back for a few minutes, writing notes about what he’d seen on the patrol and what he hoped to photograph his next time out. He glanced up, thinking of hot coffee warming him from the inside out. As tempting as the thought was, he shook his head and returned to his notebook. So far, he’d managed to maintain a semi-normal routine, even though most schedules at the camp were rarely morning-to-night. Depending on the shift, a soldier could have “breakfast” at one in the morning or at three in the afternoon— whenever they woke up. Someone had to be patrolling and guarding and running the place around the clock. The few hours of sunlight they had per day made switching schedules around easy— as it was pretty much dark for the majority of everyone’s shift, it didn’t much matter when you slept. Yet Pete still preferred to stay on a normal schedule, if you could call anything
normal
in a war zone. Even though he was finally adjusting to the time difference.

Pete tucked his notebook into his coat pocket then turned on his flashlight before heading out of the tent and into the cold in the general direction he thought the field hospital tents to be.

The tents were, of course, completely blacked out, so any interior light didn’t show, and they were white, making them hard to spot. Without the foot-trodden paths throughout camp, Pete would have gotten completely lost. He pushed open the tent door, and light burst through, and with it the relief that he’d found the right place. He wouldn’t end up like the frozen Russian the patrol had come upon an hour ago.

The sharp smell of antiseptic and putrid stench of rotting flesh hit his nostrils. He forced his face to remain impassive, intent on not showing disgust to the healing soldiers inside. Time to earn their trust by showing compassion, not revulsion. He stomped his boots to get rid of the snow so he wouldn’t track it inside then removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. As he moved to take off his coat and step inside, he froze at what had to be an apparition, a figment of his imagination.

Not twenty feet away, Anna sat with her back to Pete at the bedside of a wounded man. It couldn’t be Anna. Pete had traveled across a continent, an ocean, and another continent to escape this heartache.

Yet there it was: Anna’s red hair pulled back, her head tilted in a familiar way. At first he tried to convince himself it was another woman who just looked like Anna from behind, but his heart knew better. He stood there, unmoving, his heart pounding as he remembered running his fingers through flowing red hair, kissing her lips, holding her close.

How could I have been such a fool as to think I could walk away from her?

That question was answered as quickly as he asked it.
Because she deserves more than to be poor for life, with a photographer husband who’s never home.

He almost convinced himself it wasn’t Anna, but then she spoke to the soldier on the cot. Her words didn’t penetrate Pete’s mind, because her
voice
was all he needed to hear. No question; this was Anna. He felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

What is she doing here?

A tiny seedling of hope whispered that maybe she’d come here to find him and win him back. He’d go back, willingly— eagerly— except for the fact that he refused to become a burden to her.

Pete stood there, debating what to do. His first impulse— to rush over, sweep her into his arms, and kiss her soundly— was obviously out of the question. He could try to whip around and walk right back out, pretend he hadn’t seen her, but she’d probably see him leave.

Then again, she’d see him at some point anyway. As military camps went, it wasn’t exactly huge, but it wasn’t so large that he could avoid her. He might as well get the first contact over with.

His hands clenched his hat as he tried to come up with a greeting. How would she react to seeing him? Would she be glad? Angry? His palms started to sweat, and he swallowed against a dry throat.