CHANGED PLACES

All of the young guards—male and female—worshipped Dominique. She was sweet and endlessly pleasant and asked about their families. And always made it plain that she was grateful to be taken along on these hikes. Though she seldom stopped to consider that she was the main reason for them. She probably understood their intent, but at some level she had silently judged such machinations futile and unworthy of serious consideration.

No one had to worry much about escapes. The winding path led very gradually up to the bay above, but where would anyone run? The air was warm and the sunlight gentle and soothing. Her lovely, long straight black hair barely swayed with her movements. For such a valuable prisoner, she seemed very carefree and not particularly impressed with herself.

The war was finally ending and loose ends tied up. By prior agreement, all prisoners like her would revert to the custody of the victorious third party. Who happened to be the ally of her jailer. A very big fish like her would probably be imprisoned for the rest of her life. More ominously, though never mentioned when she was around or above the dullest of whispers, it was not guaranteed that she would not hang.

Her country was apt to make one last effort to rescue her, but it would not be easy. Two other attempts had unraveled and fallen flat. Their little island was not particularly accessible and even harder to surprise. There were only a handful of prisoners in the jail.

When they reached the top of the trail, her sympathetic captors anxiously searched the water for any signs of rescue boats. Their scrutiny was met only by white caps generated by the warm spring breezes that prevailed in these latitudes. If anyone was disappointed, they were careful not to betray any sign of it as they walked along the beach. At various spots there were beautiful old trees off to the side of the water. Their roots ran off in wild directions, pell-mell and with seemingly utterly random intent.

She often thought that she was lucky to still be alive. In this frequently vicious conflict, most captured spies of her stature had been shot and forgotten. Her path had intersected with luck again and again. Though she admitted to herself--with largely uncharacteristic self-satisfaction--much of it had been of her own making. Maybe, she thought, she still had a little of that luck left, no matter its genesis.

She was the prize, the eternally good-natured youthful beauty. Who seemed to have a positive effect on almost everyone with whom she interacted. Sometimes the guards—or more often their children-- would bring her a guitar they had hidden away in a room off the kitchen, neatly stashed behind boxes, wires, and a dozen other stray items. She would strum it and sing in beautiful, soft, high pitched tones. The radiant smile she flashed at her youthful chorus would be matched in her dancing, joyful eyes.

It seemed as though they never wanted her to stop. A stranger would have been forgiven for wondering whether it was the most unusual and lax detention center in the world.

She would help the woman guards darn old clothes and sew this and that. Their isolation demanded that they work hard to keep clothing and other supplies up. They seemed generally happy, no one was too put upon, and often laughter would ring out as they went about their routines. Sometimes it seemed less a military prison and more a summer camp of sorts to Dominique.

Time was running out for loose ends like her fate to be to resolved. A full moon was not far off. Little groups would gather to softly argue when the rescue mission was likely to strike. Dominique sensed that a consensus was emerging that the full moon was the most likely time for an attempted rescue. The bay outside their little island was difficult to navigate, particularly with the rock formations that loomed just off shore, and the extra light made a big difference.

Another problem was the little garrison that manned the jail and the island. No one wanted to see undue casualties—indeed the peace accords were supposed to be implemented bloodlessly—but they all knew that sometimes it was difficult to control how these things developed. It was a source of unarticulated tension, like muffled thunder at the end of a storm that would never quite stop.

In order to make full use of the spring breezes, the wooden window shudders on the top floor remained opened as they slept. No one was worried about escapes in a place where there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Sometimes quick little thunder squalls would break out and soak the grounds and make everyone sleep all the sounder.

They woke early the next morning. After breakfast, everyone pitched in and scrubbed down the floors, tables, and walls. They worked hard all morning and took a little extra time for lunch. Everything seemed to smell and even sparkle in the early May afternoon. One early afternoon offered beautiful weather and there was a collective satisfaction at taking advantage of it. As they raked the flower beds that bordered the trail leading to the bay above, it was almost a peculiar catharsis that reigned. Different people on another day might have viewed it as sheer drudgery.

After a time, there was a light cloud burst and they all went back in the building that housed the jail. Their prized prisoner led them in singing songs. Until the sun slowly made its way across the sky. The children of the guards came back from the school they attended in a little building on a different part of the grounds.

Dominique put the guitar back in its case. She moved on to her job where she helped to serve food in their little cafeteria. It was, under the circumstances, a very happy existence. The only thing that truly seemed to worry them was when the attempted rescue would be made. That lingering bit of unfinished business was always there. As a result, no one ever completely relaxed.

The guards and their families had grown increasingly distressed over the prospect that Dominque would be executed. It had been a subject addressed only in the most sporadic, oblique, and conspiratorial of manners. Suddenly it had been transformed into an obsessive, if still murmured, driving force in their little community.

It was decided--mainly because of her request--that one other prisoner would accompany Dominique. His name was Dean Peters and his corruption legendary. Besides, he had been credibly implicated in a massacre. For which their adversary had paid him well. Dominique was tortured by the possibility of his being left behind with the opportunity to purchase his freedom.

Their party had reached the beach an hour before the sun came up. They crouched in the darkness wordlessly, straining their eyes to discern movement in the distant sea lanes. Or for any sign of light from vessels that might be travelling specifically toward them. But the night yielded nothing back but opaque darkness.

Two consecutive schools of seagulls tracked the shoreline, coming from the north and flying south. Then they passed over the slightly scattered group huddled in the darkness. Little splashes of water broke the quiet as larger fish, mainly sand sharks, hunted breakfast.

Their isolated, dark enclave had been transformed into a minor hub of early morning activity. Just in time to receive the increasingly brilliant red rays of the sun as it rose from the east over the contrasting dark, colorless ocean.

It was then that the plane passed overhead. The sound of the lumbering aircraft above them pierced the quiet of the just broken dawn. Out of the sky seven parachutes drifted in the breeze slowly and softly. The paratroopers were adroitly deposited to a spot level with the sea just outside the prison. The prison guard led the well briefed soldiers into the main building. The POWs were led out of their cells and assembled in the main hall.

Three times a muscular, slightly stocky paratroopers pointed his stubby, gloved index finger at each individual prisoner. Each time the count was five. Where were the other two prisoners?

He had bellowed the question at the top of his lungs in the face of the lead guard. Who could not see the point and besides lacked the ready wit for improvised resistance. Especially since they had not even had time before the paratroopers’ arrival to manipulate appearances to support the fiction that the two prisoners had escaped.

Dominique saw Peters impulsively lunge out of his crouch and splash through the water, as if panicked into believing that he would either be shot or left behind. She found herself going after him. The sound of her splashes in the water travelled clearly. Its reverberation lingered above the adjacent sand as she gained on Peters. She heard the plane make a sweeping turn out over deeper ocean and veer back toward the beach.

Closer to shore a long black, diesel submarine emerged from the depths of the water. Its bow broke the surface first, followed not long after by its impressive conning tower. The number 465 was painted in white perhaps a foot above its hull. The sub maneuvered to face the shore and headed in their direction at what appeared a moderate rate of speed. Darting around it and jumping out at a much faster clip was a motorized dinghy.

Its occupants were spooked by the onrushing plane, however, and the pilot veered the craft away from its course toward the beach. He headed back at full speed to the submarine.

Dominique had been smuggled a deadly looking nine-inch knife by one of the guards just prior to their departure the night before. Wearing it in a hostel around her upper body, underneath a wafer-thin black cotton jacket, she unsheathed it just after she too had climbed onto the rock.

She noticed that her hand shook as she drew it back to stab Peters’ corpulent body. Before she could ram the blade forward, he fell to his knees, smashed his head against a rock with hideous force, and fell into the water on the other side. Bubbles forced by air escaping his lungs punctuated his sudden exit. All Danielle could imagine was that he had been overcome by excitement and his own sad physical shape and had suffered a heart attack.

The plane drew closer. Even as Peters’ corpse bobbed to the surface in its dead man’s float, machine gun shots ripped through the air in rapid fire succession. They tore through the water below and sent up little geysers of water. Two of the bullets ricocheted off the rock. The piercing sharpness of their reverberations caused Dominique to abruptly draw back within herself in a fetal clinch. She stole a quick glance at the still retreating dinghy—almost at the submarine at that point,

The submarine had idled its engines and was gently rising and falling in barely perceptible movement—and she suddenly felt crestfallen.

Dominique looked down at the corpse which still floated just a few feet from the coral rock. It struck her that the blood spreading from it throughout the water would soon attract predatory marine visitors she would rather avoid. She knew that it she did not catch up with that submarine, there would also be trouble of a different sort.

She walked to the edge of the rock, arched her back, and pushed herself off with her powerful, limber feet. Her graceful, incrementally looping dive took her well over Peters’ corpse. It was accompanied by a mix of moans and expressions of incomprehension from her still scattered, still largely crouched backers on the beach.

As soon as Dominique had surfaced, she sliced just below the surface of the water like a stiletto. Her arms moved forward in practiced synchronization. Her right wrist ached horribly from the missed, near stabbing. Dominique thought or imagined that she heard the plane turn around once again. This time the drone of its motors sounded feinter. She wondered if it had flown further away from the island. Her strokes generated a warmth that cascaded throughout her body.

Despite her precarious situation, she began to relax mentally. Memories of the children singing invaded her consciousness and coated the morning in a newly optimistic sense of renewal.

Dominique’s new mood was abruptly jarred by the combined shouts from the onlookers on the beach. She received them dully at first, but suddenly their warning resonated. She ducked down into the water and struggled to descend into its depths as quickly as possible. The machine gunning rang out in renewed naked and senseless aggression in the immediate wake of her vacating the surface. The bullets whizzed all around her through the water. Still, she struggled to descend until she was sure the plane had passed. Once more she broke the surface, but this time she gasped for breath, wondering at the cold which had invaded her body and left her recent warmth a distant memory.

She churned her arms, but it felt like she was trying to move them through quicksand. Again, she thought that she heard the plane turn around. This time, though, it was even harder for her to tell for sure. The sound seemed to intermingle with the entreaties of her younger sister. Who held the rear car door open in her mind’s eye and urged her to join the waiting family in high pitched, if good natured, urgings.

The sounds of the children singing invaded her consciousness again and she anxiously worried that their enemies were trying to confuse her. The approaching drone of the plane’s motors grew louder. Dominique struggled to descend once more, but this time her aching, frigid body barely budged.

The shots landed in the water behind her at first. It did not take them long, however, to penetrate her defenseless body. As she was spun around by their force, she dreamily imagined that her supporters on the beach had risen out of their crouches. They stood in disbelief in the increasingly brighter sunlight.

Their naked fear froze their other emotional reactions. As she was spun in the other direction, she realized that the dinghy was no longer on the water. The submarine itself was making for deeper water and a dive.

The voice of her sister again called out from below. It was as though all of her weight and worry vacated simultaneously. She spiraled downward, losing consciousness as cold darkness and happiness at rejoining her family overtook her.

On the now fully sunlit beach the prison’s staff who had rallied to her defense had remained standing. They continued to gape in frozen disbelief; her ending had defied their comprehension. Any other physical movement on their part had become momentarily impossible. In the distance, the submarine sent to fetch Dominique had left the water’s surface to complete its own dive.

Paul T. Sayers: I was born on a sea island off the Southeastern Coast of South Carolina. It was my good fortune then and now to be surrounded by six dynamic sisters in a storytelling Irish-American family. My parents were transplanted Yankees, first coming down to the deep South in World War II. We loved to argue, indulge in the lush natural surroundings, cultivate our musical and literary tastes, read, write, tell stories, study, and work. My parents loved us dearly and we reciprocated the feeling, albeit sometimes in rather unusual fashion. I was a COVID pioneer, nearly passing over a couple of times in late March and April 2020. Thanks to the yeoman efforts of all manner of good Samaritans and a wild spiritual vibe guiding me on the sometimes disconcerting passage, here I sit. After some 37 and ½ years at The Library of Congress, I retired. I currently spend most of my time writing and editing.