Free Children of the Dusk by Janet Berliner, George Guthridge Page A

formed a knot around him, dangling their kits by the handles like a group of armed beggars.
    As usual, it occurred to her with a kind of perverse pleasure, she did the opposite of what Erich would have wanted. She pushed through the men and, conscious of the hard lust in their eyes, entered the mess tent. What sexual innovations, she wondered, could they think up for a woman nine months pregnant!
    The smell in the tent added to her nausea.
    The cook strode forward and joined in the complaints. "It's that damn canned meat! How do they expect me to cook decent Klopsen with canned meat? Tonight, at the party, when we eat the cow, you'll taste cooking." He pressed together the tips of his fingers, kissed them noisily, and waved them in the air. "Once the generator's hooked up for refrigeration, all the food will be fine. Just like the Sturmbannführer says."
    He walked away and stood, spoon in hand and arm against the tent pole, watching the Jews.
    "He used bad meat on purpose. I'm sure he did," one of the men said under his breath.
    Surely there's something in there that they like to eat, Miriam thought. She looked across at the supply tent which held enough food to keep the nearly two hundred men fed for three months, until they learned to live off the land and on what the prisoners cultivated. It occurred to her that food was not the issue. Boasting was. These idiots were actually boasting about the hardships they were enduring. Good German soldiers, priding themselves on hardship. On hardship and on victory, no matter what the price.
    Uncomfortable beneath the lurid stares from the guards, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and looked apprehensively toward the knoll. While she was inside the mess tent, darkness had fallen with the rapidity of a stage curtain. She could just make out Erich half-striding, half-running toward the encampment. Over to one side, she noticed the ship's doctor and the unit corpsman, in earnest conversation, walk slowly in her direction.
    "Don't worry about the delivery, Franz," she heard Tyrolt tell the corpsman in a hushed voice. "You'll do fine. I feel terrible having to leave her like this, but orders are orders. The Altmark must be gone by morning. Not that I'll be sorry to be away from this heat."
    Leave? Miriam felt rising panic. The corpsman was pleasant enough, but he was no physician. She had thought--been told--that Tyrolt and the Altmark would still be around when she gave birth.
    "She's more blutarm than I would have expected," the doctor went on, "but anemia is common under these circumstances. Make sure she eats red meat, and get rid of that man Pleshdimer. I know he's been helping out, but he has no business in a medical tent."
    So the blood workups were more than mere precaution!
    "I won't be able to bother the Herr Oberst unless it's an emergency. Even then one must be very careful unless it is a problem regarding the dogs."
    Tyrolt looked around, and then replied quietly, "A fourth of this company treat dogs like humans, the rest treat humans like dogs. It makes me damn glad I'm navy. Your job, Franz, if you're half the humanitarian I think you are, is to bring what sanity you can to this craziness by giving the woman your utmost. She needs rest, proper food, and loving attention. Keep the Rottenführer and that goddamn syphilitic away from her. I saw them peering around the screen at her while she slept. Imagine waking to those two!"
    He spotted her in the semi-darkness.
    "How are you feeling, Miriam, and why aren't you resting?" he asked, in his gravelly voice. He smiled at her, and she returned his smile. She liked this tall, skinny man, with his Kaiser Wilhelm mustache and ever-present five o'clock shadow. He had made the long sea-voyage bearable for her, and along with Bruqah had helped her keep body and mind together following Erich's blow-up. Maybe Tyrolt did lack some of the experience and fancy academic training of a city physician, but he was gentle, caring, and