The Scent of a Rose
The Scent of a Rose Ch. 4
Arthur woke in the morning and the first question he asked was how soon he could be rid of the bed. “I need to be out there defending my land or don’t you idiots understand that?!” he had yelled at the doctor.
“Mr. Kirkland, we understand how you feel but if you recall correctly, it was your rash decisions that landed you in this hospital bed to begin with now if you would please just lay back down...”
“I don’t care about that and I don’t care that you say I’ve lost some of my memory either. I didn’t lose the ability to defend my country!”
The doctor sighed “You are healing at a remarkable speed, but your memory has not returned. We would like for you to stay for at least a few more days so we can run some tests and figure out why that is.
Arthur stubbornly ignored the doctor “I’m sorry but I can’t be your test subject. I’ll be leaving as soon I am showered and dressed. If you would be so kind as to draw up the release papers. ”
The doctor sighed heavily; he had no medical reason to stop the man from leaving “I’ll draw the papers for you Mr. Kirkland. “
A short time later Arthur was buttoning up his signature green military uniform when he saw the rose that had been placed in his pocket. He smelled the rose simply out of reflex and took in the natural fragrance and…something else? He buried his nose into the flower and took in the scent of the cologne and something tugged at Arthur’s memory. Why did he know that scent? The doctors had told him he lost his short term memory did that have something to do with why he felt like he knew this scent? The more he seemed to concentrate on trying to remember the more his head started to hurt. Not wanting to give the doctor any reason to detain him any longer, the stubborn Englishman stuffed the rose in his pants pocket without giving it another thought and after promising the doctor he would fill his prescription pain killers and call if he had any complications, he was on his way out of the hospital.
Arthur would have to go directly to where the action was and since the air raids were mainly concentrated in London that’s where he was off to.
The taxi took Arthur as close to Buckingham Palace as possible. Buckingham is where the King would be and that’s where they would need him the most. When Arthur stepped out of the taxi and looked around at the once fair city of London he felt sick; the German bastards were relentless. There were fires everywhere and the amount of smoke was sickening. As he walked through the streets of London towards the palace he was furthered sickened by the sight of children who had been rendered homeless by the onslaught.
Upon his arrival in the palace he saw the courtyard in ruins and a shiver ran through his body. The relieved faces among his soldiers and among the Royal Family helped his morale a little. “I came back as soon as I could, your majesty” he explained with a short bow of respect. The King waved his hand in dismissal of the formality “We need a plan, Arthur, and you’re the strategic genius around here” he explained.
“Thank you, sir; I will need a briefing on what has happened in my absence and…this past year. The bombing seems to have caused some short term memory loss. “Arthur responded in a tone that was halfway between irritated and halfway apologetic. He hated wasting time like this when the Germans were out there destroying all of London.
Arthur didn’t mind that the docks were severely damaged, he didn’t care that business in the west end were rendered devastated; what he did mind was the amount of civilian casualties that followed the report. The Nazi bastards were going to pay.
“What about a counter attack on Berlin?” he suggested angrily.
The King shook his head “We tried a counter attack, that’s what led to the past 30 days of air raids. Hitler is furious with us; we killed 10 German citizens in our raid and he kills 500 of ours in retaliation. We’re running out of ideas, Arthur and the Royal Air Force hasn’t been able to put even a dent in the Luftwaffe.”
Arthur had to sit down; he needed time to think of how they were going to deal with this. “What about the women and children?” Arthur asked suddenly.
“3.5 million were evacuated before the worst of it hit us, and we continue to evacuate more as quickly as possible. Some are stubborn though and they refuse to leave; the boy scouts have been reportedly directing the fire brigade where they are needed the most and the civilians have labeled them ‘The Blitz Scouts’ was the answer he received and Arthur thought he detected a hint of pride in it.
“What of the remaining civilians? Are there enough shelters for them?”
“We’re encouraging all civilians to construct Anderson Shelters in their backyards”
“What about the homeless?!” Arthur argued “It’s quite difficult to build a shelter in your backyard when your backyard is covered by the ruble of your house. Where do the homeless go?”
“We’re thinking of using the underground Tube stations for shelters but that hasn’t been finalized yet. We need to concentrate on our retaliation strategy, Mr. Kirkland, if you don’t mind” the King reprimanded, trying to keep the nation on topic.
“What good is a country if there are no civilians left to inhabit it?” Arthur muttered under his breathe.
“What good is a country to the surviving citizens if it’s burnt to the ground?” King George wisely answered.
“Right,” Arthur acknowledged trying to think of a long term strategy to save his country “What’s the date today?”
“October 14th” King George answered.
A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, I had to do a lot of fact checking to make sure I wrote everything as historically accurate as possible.
If anybody understands why October 14th is significant you get +4 awesome points of History Knowledge.
If anybody is interested in me writing a short timeline of how the story syncs up to WW2 let me know in a review and it will included next chapter.
Also, thanks to Wikipedia for fact checking.