Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

Artie tried to tell himself that what Shirley and Foltz were doing was helping the War Effort by conserving the vital material of nylon, but he knew darn well that didn’t have beans to do with what was going on.

In his heart, Artie knew that he was watching something really pre-verted. In a way, this was even worse than doing It because this was so oddball. Shirley didn’t seem to be doped, but Artie hated to think she would do such a thing—or let such a thing be done to her—of her own free will. Maybe the insidious Foltz had weakened her will by using some secret Nazi methods of mind control. Maybe this was just a technique for getting her all sexed up so she’d really do It when he finished with her legs.

Whatever the case was, Artie, didn’t want Tutlow or anyone else to find out that Shirley was the girl in the woods with the German saboteur. Nor did he want the demented Foltz to do anything else to the girl that Roy Garber was going to come home to before he even had a chance to come home. Without exactly planning what to do, just knowing he had to do something , Artie leaped up and screeched out the Cho-Ko-Mo-Ko tribal war cry:

“Eeeeeee-yaaaaaa-yoooooo!”

Then he turned and took off like sixty, hurling his body forward, putting his whole throbbing heart and blanked out mind into running.

Tutlow answered the cry with his own bloodcurdling rendition of the Cho-Ko-Mo-Ko whoop, and at the same time, Shirley Colby screamed. Clarence Foltz, his voice undoped and militarily usherlike again, yelled, “Dirty bastards!”

The woods, so quiet and still only a moment ago, was now thrashing with runners. Artie could see Tutlow charging ahead of him toward Town, not even looking back to see if his counterspy comrade was okay or in trouble. Artie not only heard the noise of his comrade fleeing ahead of him, he heard the mad galloping steps of his pursuer pounding behind him. Artie looked over his shoulder and saw, only about a first-down’s distance away, the wild eyes and furious mouth of Clarence Foltz, charging for him like a skinny Bronco Nagurski gone berserk.

In a desperate maneuver to shake the enemy, Artie cut off the narrow path and plunged into the underbrush, flailing through tangles of bushes and branches that whipped against his face and arms, lashing and cutting. His throat and lungs were burning with the gasping sucks of breath as he forced every muscle forward, fleeing, knowing no matter how much he hurt it was nothing compared to being captured by a Nazi spy who would have no mercy, who might punish a counterspy to death, or even worse, by beating his privates to jelly . The pursuer was gaining ground, the heave of his breath and the crash of his furious steps coming closer. Artie bent forward as he ran, like he was stretching for the tape at the finish line of a dash, but then hands were on him, not around his ankles like a real All-American tackler would do it, but on his back, grabbing, pulling him down.

“Eeeeeeeyaaaaaa-yoooooo!” Artie screamed, but there was no reply, only the faint, distant sound of dashing feet as Tutlow fled to freedom. Hands were on him, jerking and pulling him over onto his back, pinning his shoulders into the hard ground. The enraged Foltz, gasping and trembling, bent over Artie, the features of his Nazi-disciplined face contorted with hate.

“Bastard. Dirty little bastard,” Foltz whispered with evil intensity.

“The other guy’s name is Warren Tutlow!” Artie blurted out, at once feeling sick with shame, knowing he had not for even a second been able to carry on the mute tradition of courageous silence pioneered by the former Boy Scouts who refused as soldiers to give information to the enemy even though their privates were beaten to jelly. The next thing that came to his mind made Artie fear he was going crazy, for instead of thinking up a cunning plan of escape or at least a cutting remark like something Bogart would say from the side of his mouth if brought down by a Nazi pursuer, all he thought of was the dumb line of a silly song: It must be jelly since jam don’t shake like this .

“Get up, ya little punk,” ordered Foltz, yanking his arm and then twisting it behind him so hard it felt like his shoulder was being yanked from its socket.

“March!” came the clipped command of the Nazi agent and Artie stumbled ahead, coughing, the efficient Foltz twisting his arm as he pushed from behind.

The one thing almost as bad as having his privates beaten to jelly was being brought to face Shirley Colby as a captive counterspy. She was standing on the rock, wearing her sweater and coat and skirt just like a normal pretty All-American girl except one of her legs was tan and one was white. When she saw Artie, her mouth opened like she was hit on the head and then her whole face turned from shock to the sour look of hate, making her almost ugly.

“Artie Garber,” she said. “You little sneak.”

Anger flooded Artie so quickly and fully that instead of looking down at his shoes in shame and sorrow he stared right back at her, his jaw jutting out defiantly, and said, “Takes one to call one!”

Whap!

Foltz gave Artie a sharp cuff on the ear, and Shirley shouted, “No!”

She rushed to Artie, falling to her knees in front of him and throwing her arms around him. She was crying now and squeezing him, and he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know who was in the power of whom, which one was doped or mind-controlled by which, or what in the heck was going on here anyway, so he just stood there, stiff, silent, suspicious and totally confused.

“Oh, Artie,” Shirley said, pulling back and looking at him through her tears, “I’m so sorry. I know you don’t understand. But I want to explain. I want to explain everything.”

“You traitor!” yelled Foltz.

Great Balls of Fire . Artie’s worst fears were true.

Shirley put an arm around Artie and held him beside her, like they were both on the same side against the Nazi agent.

“Artie’s my friend,” she said bravely. “He’ll understand.”

“He’s only a kid, for chrissake!”

“He happens to be the brother of Corporal Roy Garber, United States Marine Corps.”

“Oh, so we’re back to that,” said Foltz in a pouting voice. “The big War Hero. I should have known.”

“You should have known I’d be loyal to the man I intend to marry, since I told you all about it.”

“Ha,” Foltz said in that bitter, choked laugh of his.

“I think you’d better leave me and Artie alone for a while,” she said to Foltz.

“Sure! I’ll go, I’ll go all right, I’ll get my stuff and hit the road and go to the next lousy town in my lousy life.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Clarence Foltz!”

Foltz put his hand over his face. He was sobbing. Shirley got up and went to comfort him.

“There, there,” she said. “You just run along to your room and read some poems, and I’ll see you tonight at the Strand. I have to explain this to Artie alone now, and then he’ll understand everything.”

“I don’t want him to understand! I don’t even want him to know. It’s no kind of thing for a kid, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Artie. Made bold again by Shirley’s taking his side, and her obvious power over the Nazi agent, Artie spoke his mind.

“I may only be twelve years old, so I’m just a Boy Scout now instead of a soldier, but I’m still an American citizen, and I have a right to know about anything that threatens American freedom and democracy. Also, I have served as an Assistant Junior Air Raid Spotter.”

Both Foltz and Shirley looked blankly at Artie, like he’d just spoken Chinese or something.

Foltz cleared his throat.

Shirley made a dainty little cough into her fist, then spoke to Foltz softly.