"Hiya, folks. Whaddya doin'?" asked Maple LaMarsh as she came into the green room. She saw everyone crowded around the table and peered over Betty's shoulder. "Is that a script for one of tomorrow's shows?"
Gertie was starting to look a little flustered. "No, it's the romantic play that I wrote. Betty, go on before we get interrupted again!"
Betty was explaining the play to Maple when Mackie pushed through the swinging doors. "Hey, Maple, Hilary, Jeff, hurry up, will ya? I left Scott reading the morning news and if we don't get back in there he may start inventing his own news just to jazz up the proceedings."
Maple ignored Mackie. Her eyes lit up when Betty began to talk about the Swiss freedom fighters who brought Hilane Breckinridge and Jeff Chanteur to the Swiss Hospital. She turned to Mackie and grinned. "Hey, Mackie, we would be swell in those parts! It would be kinda like doing 'Amazon Andy' in Switzerland!"
"Now, look here, folks, this is my script," Gertie began. "I'll decide on the characters. I only wanted to show it to Betty..."
Mackie took the script out of Betty's hands. "Yeah, I could see where this would work..."
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As Steven drew Elizabeth closer to him, two people dressed in native Swiss clothing came rushing into the room. They were in such a hurry that they almost ran into Steven's bed. The woman was tall, curvaceous, and redheaded; the man was short, balding, and middle-aged. The woman began gathering Hilane's fur and accessories. The man took Jeff's hand and began leading him to the door. Everyone else in the room was confused.
The woman spoke in a heavy (and, to be honest, rather fake-sounding) Swiss accent. "Frauline Breckinridge and Herr Chanteur, you must leave here at once." She started to wrap the fur around a none-too-happy looking Hilane.
"Yah," added the man. "Gretchen and I saw Nazis coming this way. They are searching for Americans. We fear that they may be after both of you."
"That's silly," snapped Hilane. "I'm an actress, not a spy."
"In some quarters, Frauline, they are considered one and the same," Gretchen told her.
Jeff pulled his hand away from the man and turned to his ex-wife. "Hilane," he said in a worried tone, "it might be me that the Nazis are after. I'm working for the British government, remember."
"But your job isn't all that important!" Hilane wailed. "Is it?"
The moment Gretchen saw Steven she ran to him and hugged him. Steven looked a little surprised. "Herr Sherwood! I did not think I would ever see you again! What are you doing here? I thought that you said that you were through with war after Guernica went poof like a bomb."
His expression was more confused than ever. "Spain? Guernica? What are you talking about?"
"He has amnesia," Elizabeth explained. "We're trying to revive his memory, but it's slow going."
Gretchen's partner joined his companion by the bed. "You cannot recall us, Herr Sherwood, or the codes you made for us? You were very brave. You almost did not make it out of Spain alive. We helped you, Gretchen and I."
"Everything is a code to me these days," Steven sighed sadly. His eyes suddenly popped open. "I think I remember Spain. It's all very cloudy. Didn't I do cryptography during the Spanish Civil War?"
"Yah!" said both of the Swiss citizens in unison.
"Yeah, I remember...I remember you guys. It was either I broke codes or I my body got broken by some of the Spanish government's better assassins." Steven laughed weakly. "I preferred breaking codes at the time."
Gretchen gently placed her hand under Steven's back and began to help him to his feet. "Georg and I will help you escape this place, just like we're helping Frauline Breckinridge and Herr Chanteur," she assured him. "You cannot stay here. It is dangerous for a person who has done something not with Nazis."
"Those Nazis do not like being told no," Georg fearfully told them. "They do bad things to people who tell them no, like tickling them until they laugh to death."
Elizabeth pushed the woman's hand away. "He's not going anywhere, Frauline Gretchen. His leg is fractured in too many places to mention and he's as weak as a newborn kitten."
"Besides," shrugged Steven, "I'm not sure if I really am Steven Sherwood. There's still a lot that I can't seem to remember."
The sound of men in the hallway startled everyone. Hilane gulped. "I think," she said tentatively, "that Jeff and I should get out of the country as quickly as possible."
Jeff took her hands. "Oh, darling, does this mean that you'll marry me again?"
She shoved them away. "No, it means that I'm going to get away from Europe and back to my tour and my 'Rivals'. Why don't you go ask Pavletta if she wants a second honeymoon?" She took her things and strode out. Jeff followed her in anger and frustration. Gretchen and Georg moved to leave as well.
"I am sorry about your bad health, Herr Sherwood," Georg said. "I hope you feel better and can recall your life very soon."
"Yah!" added Gretchen enthusiastically. She stroked Steven's unbandaged cheek. "I have missed you since you left me. Maybe we can be two ships that go bump in the night soon again, yah?" She hurried off to find Georg. Elizabeth shot Steven a suspicious look.
"How nice," she grumbled sarcastically.
"Liz," Steven stammered, "Gretchen and I were just friends...I think. Even if we were something else before, my old life is over. I want to start a new life with you."
"How can I believe you when you don't even know who you are?" Elizabeth asked. "Even if you did know who you were, the person that everyone seems to think you are isn't the kind of person I think I want to know."
"How can I change your mind about me, Liz?" Steven practically begged her.
"Well, you can do this," Elizabeth gazed into his warm brown eyes, and as she got nearer to him...
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Mr. Eldridge shuffled into the green room with the coffee pot in his hands. He saw all the people sitting around the table and smiled. "Oh, hello, everyone. I just came in to make some more Ingram's Coffee. Are we having a party?"
"No, Mr. Eldridge," Betty told the old man, "I'm just reading Gertie's new script to everyone, and they're giving her some ideas."
"Oh, we're playing a game!" said Mr. Eldridge in delight. "Can I play too?"
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Elizabeth was about to kiss Steven when an old man wandered into the room. "Oh, hello, Frauline Nurse. Am I interrupting something?"
Elizabeth and Steven were both beginning to get a little annoyed. "Sir," said Elizabeth through gritted teeth, "this is a private ward! What do you want? If you're a freedom fighter, Hilane Breckinridge and Jeff Chanteur just left with Herr Georg and Frouline Gretchen."
"And if you're a Nazi, I've never heard of any of those people," Steven added.
The old man shook his head no. "Oh, I'm only Herr Eldridge, the clock maker. I just came here to ask for a cup of sugar for my Ingram's Coffee."
Elizabeth heaved a loud and irritated sigh. "The cafeteria is downstairs, first door to your left."
"Bless you nurse!" said Herr Eldridge. "You don't know how hard it is to find good sugar these days."
Elizabeth burst out laughing as the old man shuffled out the door. "It must be pretty hard to find sugar if he had to hike all the way up the Alps through a snowstorm and into a private hospital ward!"
"Now," whispered Steven, taking her hands, "where were we? Oh, yes, we were about to do this..."
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Eugenia and Mr. Foley entered the green room. Eugenia was chattering at a mile a minute and not allowing poor Mr. Foley to get a word in edgewise.
"Mr. Foley and I overheard your story, Gertie," Eugenia said, "and we have some wonderful ideas for it!" She elbowed her colleague. "Tell them about our ideas, Mr. Foley!"
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Two people thumped into the room as Elizabeth and Steven looked away from each other, suddenly embarrassed. The first person was short and plump and the second was short and slim. Both were dressed in bright red and blue uniforms. The woman held a conductor's stick.
"Pardon me, Frauline Nurse, but we seemed to have lost our way," the woman said. "My name is Frau Euga, the music shop owner. This is my assistant, Herr Foley." The little man bowed. "I'm conducting the Swiss Army Choir's big recital tonight and Herr Foley is going to accompany my singers. We'll be on the radio and everything!"
Elizabeth sighed. "I'm sorry, Frau Euga, but this is a private ward in the Swiss Hospital. The town and the Swiss Army are miles away."
Herr Foley had wandered over to Steven's bed. He took one look at the pale, ill man and his mouth fell open in shock. Euga recognized him, too. "Herr Sherwood, what are you doing here?" She laughed and threw her arms around him. "Do you still play piano like you used to?" She gazed up at Elizabeth and smiled. "Herr Sherwood could play the piano like Mozart. He used to play in my shop to help bring in the customers. We would do-it together"
"You mean duet," the American patient corrected her. He actually appeared to be blushing. "Aw, quit it Euga, I'm not that good."
"Oh, but you are!" the little woman insisted. Herr Foley kept pulling at Steven's ear and gently slapping his face. "Do you still play that old song, 'Remember When', the one that Grace Cavendish sang for us?"
"Euga, I can't remember how to play the piano. I don't even know if I'm who everyone says I am."
"Well, it was nice seeing you, Herr Sherwood," Euga said as she checked her watch. "Come along, Herr Foley. We're going to be late!" The two musicians rushed out of the ward.
"You attract an interesting crowd, Steven Sherwood," Elizabeth said as she locked the door to the room. "I'm afraid to ask who's going to come in here next."
Steven appeared to be far away. "Yeah," he murmured, "I think I can recall Euga and Herr Foley. They were some really nice people. I thought I'd try to scam them at first with some fast talk about Trans-Siberian mail planes. They gave me chocolate and Swiss cheese and took me in when the rest of the village outlawed me because of my reputation. They gave me a home, at least for a little while. Helping them in their shop was the least I could do, after all they'd done for me."
Elizabeth felt genuinely proud of her American patient. "Your memory seems to be improving, Steven."
"You don't forget people like Euga and Herr Foley," said Steven. "They are truly one of a kind." He took her hands again and rubbed them. "Kinda like you, Liz." He gazed into her eyes, and...
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"What is going on in here?" shouted Victor Comstock as he tore into the green room. "You're all supposed to be doing 'This Girl's Kinfolk' in five minutes!"
"We're just working on my...well, it was my script," Gertie explained. Everyone in the green room launched into an animated recreation of the story of the American patient and his patient (and rather fed up by now) nurse. Victor stopped them when Betty described Nurse Robertson's lost first love and how she was now falling for a man who might be a notorious con artist.
"Look, the roguish type is all well and fine, but we need someone who can uphold the virtues that this great country stands for, and someone who wants to tear them apart. You are missing your basic story ingredient of hero and villain."
"This is just supposed to be about two people who find each other!" Gertie wailed.
"It's more about eleven people who find each other," sighed Betty.
"I see this as a drama full of power and vast human emotions, full of action and suspense...." Victor began.
"All I wanted was a romance!" moaned Gertie.
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...and heard a knock on the door. Elizabeth and Steven groaned in unison. "I'll open the door one more time, but this is the end! This is a private ward, not Grand Central Station!" Elizabeth unlocked the door and opened it. She let out a shocked gasp and passed out.
Steven struggled into a sitting position as a tall, handsome, and slightly balding man dressed in a tattered British Army uniform entered the room. "Hey," the American patient wheezed as the tall fellow picked up Elizabeth and gently placed her on a couch on the other side of the room, "who are you? What did you do to Liz?"
The man ignored Steven and went over to a tray of cold, untouched hospital food and a pitcher of water that sat on the nightstand next to Steven's bed. He picked up the pitcher of water and poured it into the small cup on the tray. "What are you doing?" Steven asked him.
"I'm trying to bring Elizabeth around," the man said. "I have to tell her..." He noticed Steven for the first time and swung back over to the bed. "Lieutenant Steven Sherwood, how in the world did you get here?"
"Maybe you should tell me who you are first," snapped Steven impatiently.
The man looked at him in utter shock. "I'm your commanding officer in the British Army, Lieutenant! We were imprisoned in the POW camp across the border in Germany together. You dismantled a code containing references to a foul plot against Switzerland and escaped to get help!"
"What foul plot? This sounds like a dime novel that's been marked down to a nickel!"
"How could you not recall our vital mission? The Nazis intend to..." Elizabeth groaned softly and stirred. The man turned away from Steven and handed the groggy volunteer nurse the cup of water.
She sat up and took the water without even looking at who offered it. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth screamed and threw the water in his face. "Vincent! No, you can't be Vincent Comstock! Captain Vincent Comstock died in a horrible explosion in Berlin."
"Yes, but I'm feeling a lot better now," Vincent calmly told his former sweetheart. Steven watched the two carefully. "Elizabeth, I am in desperate need of your assistance. Lieutenant Sherwood and I are in more trouble now than I was with a British bomb heading straight for me and he was when he escaped the POW camp."
"Vincent, I don't understand any of this," Elizabeth said, confused. "Do you know this man?"
Steven shrugged. "He says that he does, but then again, so do half the people in this hospital."
"It's a very long tale, Elizabeth," Vincent told her, "but thank goodness the three of us have this time alone to discuss our plan of attack."
As it turned out, they weren't alone. Everyone who had entered the small private ward earlier suddenly filed in, followed by men dressed in Nazi uniforms. Gretchen looked frightened. "We have been caught, Frouline Nurse, yah?"
"We're Swiss citizens!" wailed Euga. "Herr Foley and I have nothing to do with any of this!"
"Neither do I!" Steven piped in. "At least, I don't think I do."
A large, bulldog-joweled man headed the Nazi brigade. "Good work boys," he snarled in impeccable English. Vincent moved to the bed and pushed Elizabeth behind him. Jeff, Hilane, and Herr Eldridge were shoved into the ward. Jeff clung to his former wife, who stared wide-eyed at the Nazis.
Herr Eldridge was merely confused. "Does this mean I won't get my sugar?"
"Sargent Rollie Pruitt, I should have known that they would send you to follow us," Vincent said as calmly as he could. "You only have one principal, and it's based on the all-mighty dollar. Steven and I are both highly respected in the American and British government. We would be very useful to your organization and and worth a large sum of money after you turn us into your superiors."
"Yes," hissed the ugly Nazi, "and I have every intention of bringing you and the lieutenant back to the camp. There's a $100,000 reward on both of your Allied heads." He next turned his gun on Hilane and Jeff. "Lieutenant Holstrom will send Miss Breckinridge, Mr. Chanteur, and their two Swiss saviors to the nearest concentration camp. The others will be incarcerated for aiding fugitives and Allies."
"We're never going to make our concert!" complained Euga.
"So you weren't really after us at all?" Hilane asked. "You were after Captain Comstock and Steven Sherwood?"
Holstrom aimed his gun at Hilane and Jeff. "Finding the two of you was my job, Miss Breckinridge. Your Mr. Chanteur's work involved several anti-Nazi schemes that we'd like more details on."
"I'm Vincent's contact," Jeff revealed to the crowd in the ward. "I knew what he was doing when he vanished after that bombing in Berlin." He turned to his ex-wife. "Hilane, that's why I committed myself to Pavletta. There was nothing between us. She knew that Vincent and Steven were trying to decode the message that contained the Nazi plot. She threatened to have both of them put to death if I didn't get her out of Europe and into America to break into the movie business."
"Why didn't you commit her to something more sensible, like homicide?" his ex-spouse spat.
Pruitt snatched Elizabeth from Vincent's grasp and pointed the gun at her. "This is all very amusing and very informative, but I'd suggest that Lieutenant Sherwood and Captain Comstock come with me, or their lovely nurse friend will wind up tending to feverish patients in that big hospital ward in the sky."
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"No!" shouted a voice from the back of the green room. "You can't let the villain get away with killing your heroine just like that!" Scott walked into the room, pushed past Mackie and Gertie, and took a chair.
"And what would you suggest, Sherman?" asked Victor innocently as the rest of the cast hurried out of the green room and into Studio A.
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"No!" said a weak voice from the back of the room. "Take me instead, Pruitt. Leave Elizabeth out of this." Steven raised himself onto crutches and hobbled in front of Sargent Pruitt. "I'm the one you want. I supposedly decoded the message that contained the Nazi plot."
"Um, Herr Sherwood, I do not think at this is the right time to play hero, yah," Georg warned. "That bad Nazi is holding a gun on Frauline Nurse Elizabeth!"
"Look, Pruitt, I'm sick as a dog anyway, so if you really feel like plugging someone full of holes, why don't 'cha plug me?" Steven defied the Nazi officer.
"Lieutenant, I agree that Elizabeth should not die. However, I do not think this is the right way to go about rescuing her," Vincent gulped.
"Do you have a better idea?" Steven asked. No one answered him.
Euga and Herr Foley began to beat a retreat. "We are already late for our concert, so we will leave." They quickly rushed out the door.
"Forget them!" snapped Pruitt. "We have what we were looking for."
"Well, I don't have what I was looking for! Do you know where the sugar is?" Herr Eldridge asked Pruitt. Steven took advantage of the distraction to trip Pruitt with his crutches. Elizabeth and the two men went toppling to the floor. Steven's head hit the back of the wall. Hilane grabbed the tray from the bed stand and smacked Holstrom over the head with it. Jeff knocked him out and Elizabeth picked up his gun and immediately pointed it at the crowd in general. She'd had enough interruptions. She wanted to nurse and romance one ill vagrant, not get involved with Nazi schemes and the on-again, off-again affair between two people who couldn't stand and couldn't live without each other.
"I'M MAD AS HECK AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!" she screamed. "I'm supposed to be in control here! All Nazis, stage stars, local color, comic relief, and villains get out now before I get really upset!" She raised the pistol and everyone took to the hills. Herr Eldridge shook his fist proudly at the retreating Nazis.
"You'd better watch out! Our Frouline Nurse is a bobcat when she's angry!" He gathered the remains of a cup of sugar that had been knocked on the bedside table when Hilane grabbed the tray. The happy old man waved the cup under Elizabeth's nose. "Thank you for the sugar, Frouline Nurse," he added kindly.
"Yah," added Gretchen as the Swiss freedom fighters and the American stage couple followed them out the door, "you have done us a great service by stopping those bad Nazis."
"You're welcome," Elizabeth told their retreating forms without turning around. She surveyed the damage. Pruitt and Steven were both on the floor groaning. Steven appeared to be unharmed except for the lump on his head that had rendered him unconscious, but Pruitt had a large bullet wound in his shoulder and was plaintively whining for his mummy.
Vincent hurried back in ward with Dr. Douglas Thompson on his heels. The young doctor whistled. "And I thought that I was shocked when I saw Vincent Comstock in the flesh. Nurse Robertson, you have caught one of the most notorious American Nazi sympathizers in the entire world! There are officials from here to China who would love to get their hands on this guy."
"Never mind that! I need medical attention!" wailed Pruitt. "This would could become infected!"
"I'm a nurse. I can give you a quick examination right now," offered Elizabeth. She took one look at his corpulent, repulsive, Nazi uniformed person and sarcastically diagnosed "There's not a germ on this earth that would want to be within ten miles of your blood stream. I don't think you have anything to worry about."
Two interns came in and helped Dr. Thompson carry Pruitt out of the room. Vincent followed them, saying something about needing to be in Washington DC with the information that he and Steven had discovered. Elizabeth sighed and dropped the gun on the bed stand. She still loved and admired Vincent, but their relationship was and had always been at the constant mercy of his beliefs and his schedule. A rumble from the wall near the bed reminded Elizabeth that she wasn't alone.
Steven had regained consciousness and was rubbing the back of his head. Elizabeth flew to his side. "Are you all right?" she asked, her voice colored with genuine concern. "You smacked your head pretty hard."
"Nahh, I'm ok, Liz. We Sherwoods are a pretty tough lot. It would take more than a big, ugly Nazi to take down Steven Sherwood."
Elizabeth had never been so happy. Well, not in the last five minutes, anyway. "Steven, you remembered your name! You just said it!"
He nodded and winced. "I can remember everything now, Liz. The British Army recruited me as a cryptologist after they heard about my record with Gretchen and Georg in Spain. I was translating codes for Captain Vincent Comstock when the Nazis raided our studio. We were both caught and locked up in a POW camp. They tried to torture us into confessing what we had found out about their plot, but we wouldn't spill the beans. We escaped the camp, but I fell down, hit my head on a boulder, got lost up here, and completely forgot about our mission."
"What is your mission?" Elizabeth asked.
"The code said that the Nazis were going to invade Switzerland. They couldn't stand the fact that there was one little piece of Europe that ignored them," Steven explained.
"Were? What happened to those plans?"
Steven beamed. "If Vince is as good as he says he is, and I know he is, those plans are on their way to the British Army's top generals now to be analyzed."
Vincent stuck his head in. "Actually, I prefer Vincent." He left. Elizabeth and Steven laughed.
"You're bad news, Steven Sherwood."
"And proud of it." He took her head in his hands and kissed her softly on the lips. "Marry me, Elizabeth. I'll take you back to America. We'll have a house and kids."
"I feel like this is all a dream, but, yes Steven, I'll marry you!" Elizabeth grinned. "I'm not going to wait for Vincent to put me in front of his politics."
"I love you, Nurse Elizabeth Robertson."
"And I love you, my American patient."
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Gertie smiled as she watched Scott bring Betty a cup of coffee and the two of them begin to discuss the day's schedule. Victor looked at his watch and ran out of the green room, muttering something about being late for his train to Washington.
The receptionist sighed. Those two deserve each other, she thought as she headed back to the switchboard. I hope Betty will let Scott handle more than her business affairs some day...
The End
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