A Pleasant Morning at the Nunnery

A PLEASANT MORNING

AT THE NUNNERY                   (2, 996 words)

Mathematics reveals its secrets only to those

who approach it with pure love, for its own beauty. 

-- Archimedes

“What are these?” asked the pretty girl in the candy stripes, Madeline. “These rows of numbers? They’re weird-- ”

“Stop it!!” replied the boy in the green-wool uniform. “That’s the signal notebook -- ”

“But the numbers don’t make any sense!” pouted Madeline.

“Yes! Maybe that’s because they’re in code!” The soldier added a brief oath.

“Shouldn’t you be on your rounds anyway -- ”

The pair had been flirting most of the morning.

“No need,” replied pretty Madeline. “Simone is doing quite well on her own.”

“Hey Simone!” Madeline called across the infirmary. “Fatso! We have volleyball this afternoon. Remember what happened last time -- ”

“Hey, give it a rest,” said one of the other boys.

Four schoolgirls, student nurse volunteers, in their candy-stripe uniforms and delicate white hats and clean white aprons, tended the wounded soldiers along the neat rows of cots. 

France was at war with Germany.

Her soldiers needed mending.

The lovely, forested grounds of the medieval Cloisters north of the village Montcornet were ideal for recuperation. Pleasant sounds of water running in a brook and birds trilling filled the open first floor of the nunnery.

Simone moved among the patients’ beds, offering hope, pouring water, parsing out medications.

Copyright @ 2023 Tom Durwood. All rights reserved.

“Et ta gueule,” replied Simone. “Jump in any time.”

“Simone, you can see, even through your eyeglasses,” said Charlotte, cruelest of the three. “We’re busy conferring with the Security officer s,” meaning the boys at the radios.

“Oh! Graisse cherie!” Rennie, the small one, chimed in. “You missed a spot! There!” 

In the Spring of 1940, France needed all of her resources, all of her people and all of her history, to fend off the overwhelming force of the Third Reich’s blitzkrieg. Hitler’s Seventh Panzer Division dwarfed all opposition. The Seventh Panzer Division did not distinguish between combatant and schoolchildren, nor did it care to take civilian prisoners.

Suddenly the radio crackled, sharp and loud and grating.

One of the young soldiers pushed Charlotte off his lap as he reached for the radio dials. The makeshift hospital in the medieval nunnery also served as one of Montcornet’s communications stations.    

“What’s that?” asked Madeline suddenly. “That sound -- ”   

Everyone stopped to listen to something new.

A deep, guttural, reverberating boom rose, overtaking the radio’s thin squawking. It was like thunder rumbling from the basements.

It was a radical, foreign sound, infinitely threatening and sharply out of place in that pastoral, meditative setting.  

A machine sound --            

Now they heard the snap of crunching branches.       

“JESUS!”

Ilyn, the highest-ranking of the teenaged soldiers, pointed down the road which led to the monastery’s front drive and portico.

He raised his binoculars.

A monster had suddenly appeared in the road,

It had somehow burst through the hedgerows.

It was now shambling directly towards them no more than a quarter-mile away.

Ilyn cranked the radio generator.  

“Hello! Ready One! Ready One! HEY!” he shouted. 

“A NAZI TANK just pulled up – ”

The creature’s rolling treads smashed over the low stone walls that neatly

divided the road from the orchards.   

“But what are we supposed to do?”

A jarring BOOM! sound --

An explosive concussion blew them out of their seats and sent a shower of stone shards across the infirmary.   

“Where did that come from-- ”    

Bewildered, blinking, the soldiers and nurses sat where they had fallen.   

The artillery had struck above them.

Now they heard bursts of rapid machine-gun fire -- 

Two bodies fell from the second-story balcony onto the lawn in front of the portico.     

“NO! No!” screamed Madeline. “CHARLOTTE. Char, Char, nonono --”

Charlotte was not moving. She lay slumped unnaturally against the wall. Deep stains of blood scarred her nurse’s uniform. The blow had been terrible and violent --     

“HEY! HEY!” Ilyn screamed into the radio microphone. “HELP! HELP US!”

Rennie cowered beneath a doctors’ examination table, streaks of blood in her hair --     

One of the boys at the radio started crying.

Madeline moaned in fear, clinging to Ilyn’s leg.

“What do you mean?” screamed the desperate Ilyn into the receiver. A steady stream of chatter poured out of the speaker. 

“How would I know what type of tank it is -- ”

“Königstiger,” shouted Simone from across a row of beds that had been knocked over. “It’s a Royal Tiger. Can’t you see -- ?”

She lifted a patient back into one of the cots.

“DUCK!” screamed Ilyn –

THOOM!

The bellow of a second artillery round struck the back wall with tremendous ‘thunk!’ and detonated on contact.

The stone floors shook with the impact. The system of masonry and archways supporting the Cloisters trembled.   

Outside, steel treads on the gravel road signaled that the death machine was rolling inexorably towards them.

At seventy-five tons, the Konigstiger was the heaviest tank in all the Third Reich. The Royal Tiger, most destructive tank ever built, led the Panzer corps. Its long-barreled, high velocity KwK 43 88-millimeter cannon could penetrate five inches of armor at a range of two kilometers. It could kill you up close with two 7.92 MG34 machine guns. Driven by a 16-cylinder, 700-horsepower engine, the Royal Tiger could chase down a flock of Jeeps. Its metal skin of green and brown and charcoal gray marked its source, for surely this death-dealer had risen from the caves of the nether-regions, like its beastly brethren, the bloody-jawed Teuton serpent Jörmungandr. the undead draugr, who single-handedly slew Nerthus and plagued the armies of Nidhogg, and thrice-cursed Grendel, murderous denizen of the mead halls of Heorot.

“HELP US! HELP!” Ilyn repeated into the radio microphone.

The telegraph clacked in response.  

The tank shifted gears. Its motors whined and revved, turret adjusting as its guns took fresh aim.  

Ilyn stopped to listen to the earphones. He scribbled frantically in his notebook --

Metal cranked. An orange-gold flame flashed --     

BOOM!  Another round struck with a harpie-like shriek and a rain of heavy fragments and shrapnel.

“My eardrums!” screamed Rennie. Blood seeped through her fingers as she tried to cover her ears.    

Ilyn fell to the floor, cut almost in two, his body blackened –

Madeline redoubled her screaming at the sight of Ilyn’s bloody corpse.       She slammed into the medicine cupboards in her hysterical effort to get away.

Death stormed the Cloisters.

Simone pushed Ilyn’s body off the chair.

She pulled trembling Rennie to her feet.

She leaned over the transmitter and telegraph.

She found Ilyn’s notebook and scanned through its pages. She stopped to look hard at one page in particular.

Here is what she saw written there

10  4  24  23  12  10 / 1  2  12  14  10  4  22  17 

6 12 22 10 12 24 / 24 12 4 24

“What, Simone?” cried Rennie, buoyed by the sight of her friend taking action. “Can’t we go?”

She wrung her hands to try and keep them from shaking so hard.

“What’s it say?”

Simone scribbled on a piece of paper.

The furious Konigstiger entered the courtyard with an angry, guttural Rrrrrrrr --  

Simone swept up a MAS-36 carbine that was leaning against the radio desk. She whacked hard and broke the lock on the weapons closet with the rifle butt. She swung the doors open.

“Come on Rennie! Help me carry this -- ”

With effort, Simone plucked one of the big rocket launchers from its rack.

The American- made M1A1 shoulder cannon was a metal tube with attachments and dials stuck onto its shaft, five feet long and fifty pounds heavy.

“Here!” Simone grunted and bade her friend carry the back end of the bazooka.

Rennie hesitated.

In the courtyard, the terrible machine sounds came closer.

“It’s just us,” said Simone. “Either we stop this thing, or everybody dies.”

Rennie looked hard at her companion.

“All right.”

Brave Rennie wiped her nose.

“I understand. Simone, I understand.”

The great cannon cranked to turn to follow them.

The next blast buckled the floors and upended furniture, so that the Cloisters seemed like some distorted imitation of its previous state. 

Simone scooped up a satchel heavy with the bazooka’s ammunition.

The pair began to make their way up the eastern arm of the foyer, an open corridor which flanked the left side of the wide driveway where the German tank advanced. 

The path was blocked by great hulks of shattered stone floors.  

“Stay low -- ” urged Simone.   

Stumbling over the debris, they almost dropped the rocket launcher.

The ammo rucksack kept falling from Simone’s shoulder.   

Her hands could not seem to find a grip --

“Jesus, Simmy!” wailed Rennie. “Do we even know to fire this thing?”

The world had gone mad.

The pair of candy-stripers picked and stumbled their way through the corridor of debris.

They could hear the French bullets as they pinged harmlessly off the German tank’s sloped walls. One of them ricocheted, barely missing Simone’s head.  

Rennie lagged. Simone pulled Rennie with her.

Simone yanked her companion so hard that her cardigan sweater ripped. The candy-striper uniforms were not made for battle and shredded into rags.

Simone removed her eyeglasses. She wiped drops of sweat and blood from her eyes. but it kept coming --  

Three times the path was blocked.

Each time, Simone rallied, and found a new way through the rubble. Often they had to climb at almost vertical angles over great stone blocks.

“I can’t -- ”

Now Rennie was sobbing uncontrollably. The sleeves of her nurse’s uniform were soaked in blood.     

They slipped twice, three, four times for each single step forward. They  used the shattered balustrades for hand-holds.   

“Almost there!” promised Simone.  

“I can’t make it!” cried Rennie –

Simone yanked them over a boulder that had once been a flagstone –

Another detonation blasted. Two stone walls collapsed. Spinning deadly metal shards whizzed through the air around them, only an angry hiss at their passing.

Finally, the two girls reached an intact balustrade well up the corridor, a spot that gave them a view to the Konigstiger’s flank --  

The tank turret stopped.

Had it seen them?

Simone managed to prop the bazooka on the railing.

They looked back to see a wounded Madeline waving the giant Red Cross banner and calling to the Konigstiger. No one could miss it. Madeline threw a tantrum,  screaming rudely at the tank, demanding its attention.    

The turret paused.

The turret cranked and turned towards the waving banner –

“Get out!” cried Rennie. “Madeline get out! It sees you -- ”

The Royal Tiger let go a burst of cannon fire.

The stone porch exploded. The banner clattered to the ground, waving pitifully just for a moment as it fell. No more could be heard of Madeline and her tantrum.

The tank’s turret gun turned toward the two candy-stripers with the bazooka.

“Fire it, Simone!!” screamed Rennie --

The tank had completed its rotation. Target acquired.

Simone fired.

Click

Now the machine gunner was finding his range --  

Click

She removed the safety. A deadly hissing shower of cartridges sinking into plaster came closer --

Click

She plucked the rocket out of the tube and re-fit it more properly in the bazooka tube –

Click ---

The tank’s cannon fired. The projectile seemed to jam in its craw. 

Click.

“Au diable!!” screamed Simone

BAM!!  

A whoosh like a comet dying and a blur of blue flame --

Red fire --

A sharp pain stabbed Simone’s shoulder.

She felt cold acid on her cheek --   

The world went black. Wind and heat whirled.

As she was falling, Simone heard the echo of Rennie’s calls --

* * *

THE INFIRMARY WARD

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

-- June Jordan

The eyes were deep brown.

Surrounded by dark curls. 

The brows slowly came into focus.                     

It was a young face, a young man’s face. She saw crinkles at the edge of the eyes. She saw a toughness in the set of the mouth, humor and understanding in the eyes.    

These were eyes that had seen many things.

“Ah,” came the voice, deep and a little tired.

But it was a kind voice, the voice of a man who listened.

She looked up from the hospital bed.

“Am I dead?” asked Simone.

“No,” the man replied. “Not today.”  

The soldier was young, maybe 20. The patch on his shoulder identified him as an officer in the Fourth Armored Division, France’s premier tank battalion.

He propped up her pillow. She winced. She thanked him. He poured a glass of water for her.         

“That shoulder rocket,” said the young officer. “The M1-A1. Some of our best men can’t lift and fire it properly.”

“I didn’t have much choice,” Simone replied.

She looked around. The infirmary, the main room on the back or west-facing flank of the Cloisters complex, was busy with mid-morning activities.  

With his help, she took a long drink.

“You got way too close. But you knew that.” 

“Didn’t want to miss,” explained Simone.

Simone tried and failed to sit up straighter.

She closed her eyes, as if imagining what she wanted to do. She took a deep breath.

“That tank commander trained under the Hauptsturmfuhrer,”the young officer told her.  “Wittman. He was one of their rising stars.”

She tried again.

She managed to sit all the way up.  She flexed the fingers of her left hand.                      

“I don’t know who that is, but that salaud was going to kill practically everyone I know-- ”

She faltered, falling sideways.

“Whoa, stallion,” he said encouragingly. “Easy.”

A trio of soldiers walked up to her bedside. They saluted Simone. They murmured, praising her bravery, and her aim. One handed her a brownie.   

“Okay boys,” said the young officer at her side. “That’s great. Clear out, give her some room -- ”

“What happened?” Simone asked.

“Your round ignited the tank’s ammo. Blasted the turret eighty feet into the air. Five crewmen died. We captured the sixth. Man, is he unhappy …” 

She shook her head, as if to clear her memory.

He took out a cigarette.   

A passing nurse struck it out of his mouth.

He mumbled a protest and picked it up from the floor.

“My arm really hurts,” said Simone.                

“The recoil,” he explained. “Almost broke it.”   

They sat together for a minute, not speaking.

“How did you break that code so fast?” he asked her.

She removed a piece of paper from the apron of the uniform draped over the chair. She took the paper and carefully spread it, smoothing it as she did.    

This was the code she took from Ilyn’s notebook, and its translation:

10  4  24  23  12  10 / 1  2  12  14  10  4  22  17 

6 12 22 10 12 24 / 24 12 4 24

T A R G E T   f u e l   t a n k   c e n t e r   r e a r

“Just like that?”

“I could see it,” Simone shrugged. “We practiced the tables at school.”

“You and Gauss,” he joked. She laughed at the reference.

“I’m in my first year at Aix-Marseille,” he said.

They heard a commotion and turned to see -- 

“Simmy!” came a familiar voice. 

“Simmy, you did it!”

It was Rennie  her arms  bandages  with a limp  

…. Hug careful sweetheart  

“You were so brave!    “I was such a coward --

“You were heroic, cherie -- ”

“I’m so sorry we said such mean things to you. I don’t know what we were thinking.

“And now -- Madeline and Char are – they’re both -- ”

Rennie began crying.

“I keep seeing them when I close my eyes – all that blood, so horrible -- ”

“Okay, okay, just great, thank you -- ”

The young officer signaled one of his men to escort Rennie back to her bed.

An inspector from d’Arc-en-Barroios had arrived. She had brought orderlies and medical students and American medicines, component s of a full apothecary, with her. She was now busily overseeing an expansion of the nunnery’s medical operations. A small surgery had been constructed in one corner, and two triage rooms. White vats of antiseptic were being stacked under rows of newly installed wash basins.  Now Simone could see medical students in white coats and plumbers and toolboxes and pipes and joints and anesthesia tubing scattered about. Along the south portico, horses and carriages being prepped for service as an ambulance corps. There seemed to be an urgency to the preparations. Armed combat loomed. All of the field- hospital services would be needed soon.

“What did that girl mean, ‘all the things we said’?” asked the young officer.

Simone shrugged. 

“Huh! She owes you her life. Sa mère.  So do I. So does every man and woman in this castle.”

A senior nurse with warm hands checked Simone’s temperature. Murmuring, she dwelt on Simone, tucking her in and fussing with her hair and calling her ‘the heroine of Montcarnet.’ 

“We’re planning to pay the Bosch a little visit,” said the young officer casually, when they were alone.

To their left, among the rows of cots, an altercation over morphine broke out between a supervisor and a rowdy patient.

“Maybe you’d like to come along … ” 

For the first time, Simone, schoolgirl-turned- soldier, warrior-nurse, child of Montcornet, turned to look directly at her companion.

His face  a scar  when he smiled    He raised an eyebrow, just slightly.

“Yes,” replied Simone.

She had seen up close one of the shambolic, evil-brewed demons that now stalked the innocent lands of Gaul.

She preferred not to wait for the next one to show up in her home village, but to go and find it, meet it, armed, and destroy it in its lair. If she could.

“Yes, I will go.”

# # #