The Gentle Captive
(1972)*
Tom Godwin
From where he sat at the table, which he used as a desk in the little house that was temporary field quarters, he could look down the grassy slope and see the remains of what had been a Lowland outpost the day before. Some of the wrecked buildings still smoldered, the smoke hanging like a pall over the outpost site.
He returned his attention to the map before him, where the lines representing the advance of his Highland forces had been moving southward in exact accordance with the conquest plans.
"General Darrel, may I interrupt you?"
He looked up. It was young Lieutenant Daley, one of his minor aides. "What is it?" he asked.
"Another Lowlander was found a few hours ago, sir, trapped under a collapsed building but not hurt."
"Well, put him with the other prisoners. Don't bother me with such trivial things."
"All the other prisoners were shot this afternoon for ... trying to escape. This lowlander is a little girl whose parents were killed in the attack."
"A girl—what was she doing here?" Anyway, have her kept some place where she won't be underfoot."
"I think she suspects what happened to the other Lowlanders, sir. She insists on seeing you—she's waiting outside, now."
"Listen, Daley, I have more important things to do than be interviewed by little girls!"
Daley wet his lips nervously, but there was a certain stubbornness on his face. "Sir, there is something about this girl—the way she looks at you—please give her just a minute."
He hesitated, then said shortly, "All right—send her in. Then get back to your own duties."
"Thank you, sir." Daley saluted and left.
Darrel turned back to the map. Once the continent of Dunbar had been one nation; long ago, when Centauri IV was first colonized by Earthmen. Then the faster-than-light ship's drive had been developed and Centauri IV became a backwash planet—a forgotten world. No FTL ships ever stopped here—they were all going on to far richer worlds than Centauri IV, with its once inhabitable continent, could ever be.
As the generations passed, the Dunbar Nation separated into two nations: the Highland Nation in the cold, harsh north, and the Lowland Nation in the warm, productive south. Then there had been raids in the Lowlands by the Highlanders, and, eventually, war.
The Lowlanders had the resources but not the men. They were a race of merchants, farmers, musicians, poets ... The Highlanders did not have great resources but they had the hard, tough fighting men ...
"Sir?"
It was the voice of a child. He looked up from the map and saw her standing before him.
She was perhaps twelve years old—a little ragamuffin with dark, tousled hair, dried tearstains on her dirty cheeks, her skirt and blouse muddy and torn, red scratches on her bare legs and feet. But she stood as tall as she could before him, with a grave dignity, and in her heart-shaped face were the largest, bluest eyes he had ever seen. They were looking unwaveringly into his, with no given permission to speak to you."
"How old are you?" he asked.
"I'll be thirteen day after tomorrow."
"What were you doing in a military outpost?"
"My father was the doctor here. Mama and I drove up from Greendale to visit him for a few hours. Nobody knew the Highland soldiers were so close."
"They usually don't. What did you want to see me about?"
"Your officers wouldn't answer the two questions I had, so I wanted to ask them of you."
... so I wanted to ask them of you ... of the commander in chief of all the Highland forces; she, a mussed, scratched and dirty-faced little Lowland girl ...
"What were the questions?"
"What became of the other Lowland prisoners? The guards were back in just a few minutes without them."
"They were shot for trying to escape, I was told."
"Oh!"
It was a little gasp of complete comprehension and for a moment her eyes were very wide—for a moment she was just a frightened little girl. Then she drew a deep breath and tried hard to regain her composure. She swallowed and said, "I see—they were killed to get them out of the way, weren't they?"
"What was the other question?"
"It doesn't matter, anymore. I just wanted to know if I could be an exchange prisoner."
She hesitated, then spoke again, in a tone that had only the slightest quiver to it:
"Will they kill me today or tomorrow?"
It gave him a strange uneasy feeling to see her stand there and face him like a Highland soldier as she waited for her death sentence. "Aren't you afraid to die?" he asked.
"No, sir. I want to live, but when they kill me, I won't be afraid."
"Why not?"
"Because my Lord Jesus has said, He that believes in me has everlasting life."
He asked, curiously, "Would you still believe that when you face the firing squad?"
"I would believe all the more."
He saw the communicator on the table was flashing a white light, which meant that someone among his general staff wanted to speak to him.
"Highlanders don't kill women and children," he said to her. "And, by the way, I'm not the one who ordered those prisoners shot."
"I'm glad, sir, that you weren't the one cruel enough to ..."
"Everything in war is cruel. Now, get on outside and stay out."
She left and he switched on the communicator. It was his second in command, General Horton.
"The Lowlanders are walking like sheep into our trap," Horton said. "They're massing in Sector Ten and bringing up their reserves, as we anticipated ..."
The western sky was bright with the afterglow of sunset, when his work for the day was done and he went outside. It was early spring, and mingling with the odor of burning from what had been the Lowland outpost was the sweet scent of flowers. He was vaguely aware of it as he walked, his boots almost soundless in the grass, his mind preoccupied with the forthcoming all-out assault against the Lowland forces. The artillery, tanks and infantry coming down from the north would continue to move southward only during the night, laying camouflaged in the forests during the day in case one of the few observation planes the Lowlanders possessed got past the few fighter planes the Highlanders possessed ...
He was almost upon her before he saw her—the Lowland girl. He had forgotten all about her.
She was kneeling, her head bowed. Her eyes were shut and her lips were moving soundlessly. He saw the bright silver of fresh tears on her cheeks. She became aware of his presence and turned quickly toward him. She pulled a dirty handkerchief from her blouse pocket, hastily wiped away the tears, then stood up to face him questioningly.
"I forgot to tell anyone to take charge of you," he said. "When did you last have anything to eat?"
"It was before the attack. But I'm not hungry—I'm just awfully thirsty."
"Come with me," he said.
She followed him as he went toward the nearby encampment: a collection of tents where the enlisted men were quartered. On the slope above the tents was a large house—the temporary general headquarters. Halfway to the mess tent he met a sergeant and he said, "Have this girl given something to eat and drink. Then have a pup tent set up for her and see that she has some means of washing up."
He turned back, to continue his walk to the top of the gentle slope from where he could look southward to the battle lines. He stopped when he reached a vantage point. The line was now six kilometers away and its advance had slowed from the first lightning thrust to a slow crawl. The mutter of the artillery sounded desultory—almost ineffectual. That was what he wanted the Lowland command to think—that the force of the Highland attack was already spent. Let them think that, while under cover of darkness, the Highland might rolled down from the north to be the jaws of a trap that would break the back of the Lowland nation ...
He was at the table the next morning, reviewing a series of reports, when he heard the soft whisper of bare feet coming into the room. It was the Lowland girl, again.
He frowned. "What are you doing, running around at will like that?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but it's something important."
The heart-shaped face was scrubbed and clean. He saw—now that he could really see it for the first time—that it was an appealingly pretty face. She had scrubbed herself all over and had washed and finger-combed her hair. And she had somehow managed to wash her clothes. They still clung damply to her but they were spotlessly clean and she had laced the torn places together with blades of the tough twine-grass that grew in the camp area.
"My guard is waiting outside," she said. "I told him I wanted to see you privately."
He made a mental note to order the guard assigned to fatigue duty and said, "What did you want to see me about?"
"I ... well ..." Her composure suddenly failed her. She flushed and looked down at the floor. "It—the soldiers' latrine—it's not a bathroom for a girl ..."
He sighed. He had forgotten all about that. "I see. Go down the hall and on the left."
"Thank you, sir," she said, and hurried away.
At noon, when his orderly brought him his lunch, he realized that it was uncomfortably warm in the house, even with all the doors and windows open. He turned to the window that faced the camp area and saw the girl sitting just within the doorway of her pup tent, wiping her face with a new clean handkerchief. It would be miserable in the shade of the hot canvas—and even more miserable out in the sun ...
He spoke to his orderly. "Tell the girl's guard to let her stay in the shade of the trees out in front, here."
He spent the afternoon conferring with the general staff and observing, from a plane, the terrain where the trap would be sprung. The sun was down when he returned.
As was his usual custom, he ate in his own quarters. Full darkness came shortly afterward and with it a quiet that was broken only by the distant chugging of the portable generating plant. He thought of the girl, who would now have nothing to do but lie in the darkness on her army cot for all the long hours until morning. Lie there alone, and remember ... He summoned his orderly and said to him:
"That's no place for a little girl to have to stay—in a pup tent alongside the soldiers' tents."
"Yes, sir, but where can we put her? Not a building was left but this one and the house where General Horton and the others are."
"There's a spare bedroom here. Have her brought over."
"Yes, sir."
Her guard brought her in a few minutes later. There was question on her face.
"You'll stay here tonight," he said to her, and then to the guard, "You can go back to your own quarters."
When the guard was gone, the girl asked, "Do you mean you trust me without a guard, sir?"
"Any time I need a guard to protect me from a twelve-year-old girl, I'll seek refuge in some old lady's home."
He belatedly wondered why he had let them keep a guard over her in the first place. There was no place to which she could escape, and the camp itself was always under guard. As usual, his mind had been preoccupied with battle plans ...
"If you had asked me," she said, "I would have given my word of honor not to do anything except what I was told to do."
"Your bedroom is down the hall," he said. "The second door on the right."
"Thank you."
But she remained standing before him, instead of leaving, and he said, "Well?"
"Do I have to go to bed now?"
"Would you like to stay up a little while?"
"The guard said it was against regulations for him to talk to a prisoner and sometimes I get so lonesome since ... since ..."
He thought for a moment that she was going to cry again.
"Sit down in that chair over there," he said.
...
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