Chapter 8: Vows and Promises! 

    The shopping district was busy at noontime.  Even though the tourist season hadn’t started yet, there were more than the usual numbers of shoppers out and about.  The restaurants and sidewalk cafés, in particular, were filled to brimming as some vacationers were trying to get the jump on their fellow mainlanders.

    Two women in particular were seated at one such café.  Their morning had been busy as noted by the numerous parcels stacked under the table.  What made this pair unique was that one of them was a human, clothed in a simple white dress, gloves, and matching fedora.  Her companion was a lepine fem in pale blue with a dark blue glengarry that sported a half veil.

     This meeting started the evening before with a phone call.  Jennifer Monroe, Pilot Officer of the Andover Seagull, was just going to bed when there was a knock at her bedroom door.  Though her rank left Jenny in the limbo world between commissioned officers and enlisted personnel, Silas Stanbridge insisted that she be quartered in the female officer’s barracks.  Donning a dressing robe Jenny opened the door and was face to face with a young black bear female in a Women’s Naval Reserve rating’s uniform.

    “Telephone call for you, ma’am,” said the rating quietly.

    Jenny stifled a yawn, following.  “Who’s it from?”

    The ursinoid fem shrugged.  “Can’t say, ma’am, only identified himself as ‘The Ogre.”

    That caused the rabbit pilot’s long ears to snap straight up.  ‘The Ogre’ was her name for Captain Silas Stanbridge for his sudden outbursts of anger when anything that didn’t go just the way he said it should.  Somehow the term made it to his ears.

    Oh, shit, came to mind as Jenny followed the rating down the hall to the CQ’s desk.  The receiver was lying by the telephone.  Carefully picking it up (lest it sprouted teeth to sink into her flesh) the lepine softly said, “Hello?”

    “Jenny?  This is your ogre, Captain Stanbridge, speaking.”

    Jenny squeezed her eyes tightly shut.  The voice at the other end of the line was Stanbridge’s, but there was a hint of humor in the words.

    “Yes, sir?” she managed to squeak out.

    She heard a slight chuckle in the phone before her commanding officer told her of the telegram he had received.

    “So I want you to meet Beverly when she gets off the plane and escort her to the hotel.  Afterward, show her the town, take her shopping, whatever she wants to do.  And let her know that I’ll be picking her up at 7:00 p.m. for dinner at the Marleybone Grand Hotel.  Is that understood?”

    “Quite clear, captain.  All of this on my nickel, right?”

    That brought another chuckle.  “I’ll see to it that you’re reimbursed, Jenny.  Now get to bed because we both have busy days tomorrow.”

    That cleared away some of the gathering fog of sleep from the rabbit’s mind.  “Something up?”

    “Let’s just say that my investigation into the destruction of our light towers might be bearing fruit.  And that is all you need to know.  Is that understood, Pilot Officer?”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Very good.  And is there the chance we might see you and your fiancé tomorrow night?”

    Jenny had to think on that one.  She hadn’t had a chance to see Geoffrey Boswell when the Ida Lewis returned to port let alone telephone him.  She would have to call first thing in the morning.

    “Maybe,” she finally said, “but there’s no guarantee.  The Transportation Committee has been busy of late, what with the new trolley system they’re putting in on Casino Island as well as that narrow gauge railroad going in on Main Island.  I’ll call him and see if he wants to go.
 
   “Geoff has been wanting to take me there for sometime since our betrothal.  But with his work and my flying there hasn’t been any meeting points along our paths.”

   There came an understanding grunt over the line before Jenny’s commanding officer spoke again.
“Understood, Jenny.  Well, I better let you crawl back into the sack and get in your beauty sleep."

   They rung off with the lepine pilot shuffling off to her room.  She scratched at her blonde curls.  Better take a bath early in the morning, she told herself as she closed the door, threw her robe across the chair, and slid under the covers.  As sleep was coming quickly Jenny made a quick mental note to pad the receipts as much as possible if the good captain was going to pay her back.  A smile graced her lips as she settled her head into the pillow and was lost in her snoring.

   Around 9:30 a.m. the next morning, a Pan-Nimitz Airways amphibian settled into the waters between Casino and Moon Island.  The Sikorsky S-38 turned towards its company’s ramp, gliding gracefully with engines idling until the main wheels were lowered into the surf.  Then with a surge of power the Wright Cyclones pulled the plane up the concrete incline to its parking place where the line furries rushed forward to chock the wheels.  Other employees pushed out a small set of boarding stairs on wheels to the door on the upper left side of the aircraft.
 
   Presently a handful of passengers disembark, followed by the flight crew.  The last passenger was Beverly Plumb who held out one hand to a furry for assistance down the steps.  The canine stared dumbfounded, then nodded when the human smiled and thanked him.  Beyond the chain link fence a rabbit woman was waving a gloved hand wildly over the heads of other furries.  Beverly caught sight of Jennifer and waved back just as madly.  She made her way across the concrete apron and through the gate where she embraced Jennifer Monroe.

   “How was your flight?” the lepine fem asked.

   With a smile Beverly answered, “It was good.  I got more sleep coming down than I did last night.”

   “Too tightly wound to relax, eh?” grinned back the lepine.

   “You better believe it, sister!”

   They collected Beverly’s two small suitcases from baggage claim before flagging down a taxi.  Once the destination was given, the two women settled back and began a rapid conversation that left the driver’s mind in a whirl.  Beverly explained that she wanted to do some shopping for new clothes, in particular, an evening dress for the dinner date with Silas.  Jenny countered with naming a few clothiers worth their weight in silk bolts.

   At the Carlton, the signing in of a rare human woman drew a good size crowd of gawkers until Jenny told them, in no uncertain terms, to clear out.  Afterwards, the pair headed back out onto the street.

   Most of the stores they were hunting for were situated close to the hotel district.  That made walking much more practical than trying to hail a taxi.  After about an hour the two fems decided to take a break and have lunch.  Jenny knew just the place that was affordable, the food good, and it was on a quiet sidestreet.

   With their light repast over the pair enjoyed a final cup of coffee.  Beverly Plumb was watching the flow of furs and avians along the street, her right elbow on the tabletop, gloved palm cradling her chin.  She didn’t notice her friend fitting a small cigar to a black holder.  When she returned to speak, Beverly paused, wide-eyed, to watch as Jenny applied the flame from a small match to her smoke.  This in turn caused the blonde to chuckle.

    “And what do you find so funny?’ inquired the Pilot Officer, an eyebrow raised in point of order beneath the veil.

    Calming herself, Beverly apologized.  “Sorry, Jenny, its just that I find it fascinating to watch you smoke those cigars.  You must really enjoy them.”

    The young lepine blew smoke into the air.  “Have been ever since I was sixteen.”

    The human stared.  ‘And what did your mother say about that?”

    Jenny leveled her gaze at her friend.  “Not much, really, since I learned from her.’

    “Oh, really?”

    “Really!”

    Taking a deep breath and a sip of coffee Beverly spoke.  “She must really love you to allow you to follow in her footsteps.”

    Jenny sipped from her own cup.  “When I was sixteen I had asked her when I could start smoking like her.  She merely looked at me before offering one of her whiffs.”

    “Whiffs?”

    A furry hand slid the flat black tin across the tabletop.  Across the surface was printed the name ‘Schimmelhorn’ surrounded by a floral pattern with the word ‘Whiffs’ beneath it.  Opening the lid the human found little brown cigars the size and length of a cigarette.

    “May I?” Beverly asked.

    This startled the lepine pilot, but she recovered quickly.  “Sure.”

    Carefully the woman extracted one of the little smokes, then leaned forward to take a light from Jenny’s cigar.  Settling back, Beverly drew lightly on it, worked the smoke around in her mouth, and then expelled it into the air.  She studied it like it was something familiar.

    “You know, I haven’t touched one of these since I was eighteen.”

    The rabbit woman stared wide-eyed in return.  “You smoked cigars before?”

    Beverly nodded, taking another puff.  “I had just finished high school in Columbia, Missouri, which is where I’m from. Uncle Ed, my mother’s older brother, had just lost his wife, Aunt Edith, in a railroad accident.  Edie, as we called her, was returning from some religious retreat in St. Louis when her train collided with another that had stopped on the same track.”

    “I so sorry to hear that,” said Jenny.  The lepine reached out and laid her hand on the human’s.  “I lost my mother on a ferry that went down between Andover and Vancouver.  It was some freighter rounding a point on Rain Island that hit the ferry before they saw it.  Only a few furries survived.”

    There was a long silence between the two females, each lost in her own thoughts of a tragic event in her life.  Around them the sounds and motions of life continued as they sat separate from the bustle.

    Presently the woman shook herself, took another pull of her smoke, and looked at her friend.  “Anyway, Mom thought it would be best if I spent the summer with Uncle Ed, helping around the house while he worked his farm.  He owned about twenty acres; half for grazing a handful of cattle, the rest he grew corn on.  And he smoked cigarillos, whether working in the field or relaxing on the verandah.  Aunt Edie would never let him smoke in the house, only outside.  So in the evenings he would sit by an oil lamp and read, either the local paper or a book.”

    Beverly shook her head, a smile on her red lips.  “I’ve never known another farmer who would read anything other than the Bible.  And Edie was a religious stick-in-the-mud when it came to a lot of things.  She tolerated her husband’s smoking, as long as it was outside.  But when it came to drinking hard liquor she could rant and rave with the best of those revival show preachers.”
 
    This produced a short bark of laughter from the rabbit woman, causing other customers sitting close by to turn in surprise.  Catching her breath with a sip of water, Jenny asked,  “Is that when you started smoking?”

    “About then,” replied the nurse.  “I hadn’t been there a month when one evening Uncle Ed helped me clear the dinner table and put away the food.  He went out onto the verandah for a smoke while I was washing the dishes.  Then he announced that he had to use the facilities.”

    “Facilities?” echoed the rabbit flyer, blowing smoke into the air.

    The blond human nodded, drawing on her cigar.  “Aunt Edie didn’t like to refer to the privy as such, preferring to use ‘facilities’.  It was after he was gone that I stepped out onto the verandah to catch a breather.  Cigar smoke was drifting through the air when I noticed his cigarillo sitting in the ashtray.  Curiosity took hold at that moment so I walked over to his chair.  That little cigar was lying there, smoldering, when I reached out and picked it up.  Then I put it to my lips and took a puff.”

    With a slit-eyed glance Jenny chortled, “Oh, you wicked girl!”

    With a gloved hand stifling a sudden guffaw Beverly continued.  “You would have thought so.  If Aunt Edie had been there it would have rained hellfire and brimstone on the farmhouse.  But I was amazed at how wonderful it tasted, the smoke filling my mouth like that.  When I blew it out I knew that I was enjoying such a treat I don’t think I could ever stay away from cigars.  But by then Uncle Ed stepped back onto the porch.  I hadn’t heard him coming back up the path until the screen door opened.  So there we were, with me standing there by his chair, cigarillo in hand, while he just studied me.  He didn’t gape, nor shout, he just watched me.  Quickly I put the thing back into the ashtray and stood there with hands folded in front of me, fearing the outburst to come.”

    Taking one last draw, Beverly laid the stub of her cigar in the ashtray while blowing a couple of smoke rings.  "Uncle Ed just walked quietly to his chair and sat down.  He looked at me and simply said, ‘Finish the dishes and come back out afterwards’.

    Jenny added her stub to the other and tucked the holder back into her purse.  Curiosity was burning in her bright blue eyes.

    “So what happened next?”

    With a shrug the nurse continued.  “Not much, really.  I was more afraid of what was to come than if he had blew up then and there.  I took my time in finishing the wash, not wanting to face the music, as it were.  But I couldn’t put it off much longer.  So when the last plate was rinsed and dried, and the wash water drained I dried my hands and slowly went out to the verandah.
 
    “It was getting dark so the lamp was lit and Uncle Ed was reading the newspaper.  He looked up when I approached.  Then he smiled and asked that I seat myself.  There was a matching overstuff chair on the other side of the table holding the lamp.  I didn’t know what to think or do, so wrapped up in fear of what was going to happen.  But after a minute, my uncle laid the paper down in his lap, and smiled at me.”

    The lepine gaped at her friend, eyes wide behind the veil.  “He smiled at you?”

    The blond nodded.  “I didn’t know what to think at the moment.  I was totally taken back by this.  Then he picked up the small wooden box that held his little cigars and offered it to me!”

    “He didn’t?”

    “Oh, yes.  Then he said, ‘Please, help yourself’.”  Beverly shrugged.  “What could I do?  If I refused then he would have spoken to my mom and dad about catching me with a cigar.  So I took one, then accepted the light from the match he held out.”

    The memory of that evening was clear in her mind’s eye.  They sat in silence that evening, man and young woman, lost in thought as they smoked.  Afterwards, the farmer made it clear that the only time his niece could smoke was after dinner and the dishes were done.  She accepted the terms.

    Shaking herself out of the past the nurse continued.  “It was like that all summer.   And there grew a kind of love and respect for each other afterwards.  In his eyes Uncle Ed saw a young girl become a woman, and I had a second father.  They never had any children so they doted on me as their only child, which I was in a sense.”
 
    Draining her cup, Beverly set it down and continued.  “With the coming of the start of school I was in a quandary.   I had been accepted to nursing school at the University of Kansas’ School of Nursing in Kansas City, Missouri, but didn’t have enough money to pay for tuition, textbooks, or an apartment during the school year.  I was so sick and heartbroken at the thought of not going to school that I didn't know what to do.  Then Uncle Ed came through like the proverbial cavalry to the rescue in the movies.

    “It seemed he had been secretly putting his farm up for sale as age and loneliness were beginning to take their toil.  Afterwards, he had the farm and everything on it auctioned off, and gave me a goodly portion in the form of a trust fund to pay for my schooling.”

    “That was very nice of him,” commented Jenny, sipping some more coffee.

    Beverly sat there in silence for awhile, her gaze on the table while chewing softly on her lower lip.

    “Yeah, well, the farm had been his life, but he knew that it was time to quit.  He settled in a boarding house just a few blocks from my family’s home, so he was visiting often.  He helped with the gardening at both places, just to keep himself busy.  But I think he was keeping busy in another way.”

    Jenny caught the furtive look in her human friend’s eyes when she said this last line.  But something else caught the rabbit fem’s eye as well.  During Beverly’s reminiscence, the lepine pilot had noted a taxi making a slow crawl down the street.  That was odd to Jenny’s eyes, as there was hardly any traffic to cause the vehicle to drive so slowly.  What was even stranger was the fact that this same taxi was passing by, in the same direction, twice.
 
    “Jenny, did you hear what I just said?”

    The rabbit gave Beverly a blank look.  “Sorry, my attention was distracted.  Something you said about your uncle, was that it?”

    Blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “Is there something wrong with my life history?”

    Feeling guilty over ignoring her shopping partner’s narrative, Jenny Monroe pulled her purse in front of her and unsnapped the flap.

    “No, not that I was paying any attention to.  But there is something wrong out on the street that could be worse.”

    The words were soft and low, but there was a hard edge of urgency to them that made the human sit up and take notice.  Her eyes scanned the neighborhood.

    “What’s wrong?” came the hushed question.

    Jenny shook her head, eyes intent on what might be played out before them.

    “Not sure, but be damn ready to dive for cover.”

    The words were hardly out of her mouth as the squeal of tires rattled off the walls.  The taxi that the cream-colored rabbit had been worried about barreled around the corner.  Out of the windows of the vehicle facing the café two figures leaned out with chattering Tommy guns.  In the fusillade of bullets furries screamed and fell while windows, doors, and tables exploded in shattering glass and wood splinters.  Beverly Plumb rolled backwards out of her chair and crouched low against the brick wall of the café.  Jennifer Monroe, anticipating that this maneuver was going to happen, pulled an automatic pistol from her purse and sought cover behind the table she upturned.
 
    As the taxi began to make its escape, the rabbit Pilot Officer popped up into view, pistol leveled, and began returning fire.  Luck seemed to be with Jenny as there was no answering fire in her direction.  And long after the incident she was sure that one or two of her rounds had hit one of the assailants.  There came more squealing rubber, followed by the crunching of metal of two vehicles striking each other, and the taxi disappeared.

    In the brief stillness after the gunfire uneasiness settled over the scene.  From her hiding place the human nurse stood up and surveyed the carnage.  Figures rolled amongst the debris of the brief assault, clutching wounds, as others screamed and cried and wailed their misery over what had just happened to family and friends.

    A panting Jenny Monroe stood stock-still, glengarry knocked off, the pistol forgotten in her hands.  Through her mind ran the scenario of what had occurred.  This was as close to Death as she had ever experienced, discounting the firefight from her plane three days ago.  This was too personal, and it bound up her belly in such a knot of fear that she was beginning to feel sick.  A hand on her shoulder made her jump, squeaking in terror.  She turned frightened eyes on her human friend, Beverly, and was surprised at the calmness the hatless woman was showing.

    “Come, my friend, there are others needing our help.”

    The words came softly, so matter-of-factly, that the lepine felt as if she had stepped into a dream.  But the grip was firm, comforting; the tone of the voice soothing.  With a barely discernable nod Jenny understood and stowed her pistol back into the purse.  Then following the careful instructions of her nursing friend, the rabbit fem began tearing tablecloths into strips as the woman made her way among the injured, offering solace and much needed medical attention.  Soon, other doctors appeared to lend a paw with the carnage as constables began to make their way to the scene, dispersing the crowds and assisting as directed.  In the distance could be heard the wailing of a siren as the first ambulance was being dispatched.  And all the while the lone human worked her way around the café, taking care of the injured, offering a word to the grieving, assisting the other medical furries.
 
   And all Jennifer Monroe could think of was how this woman could calmly step through the aftermath of what had just happen without the hysterics other fems would be experiencing.  In her eyes the lepine saw the nurse in a new light and into her mind came the thought that this was definitely the woman to marry her commanding officer.

   Silas Stanbridge and Beverly Plumb were intended for each other! That thought flashed through the mind beneath the dark blonde curls as Jenny carefully wrapped a strip of cloth around a splinted arm.

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