December 8, 1944

Throughout the autumn, mail call had been a sorry affair. The post was frustratingly slow, and for all the right reasons, Newkirk supposed. War was raging on the borders of Germany and inching inland. Roads and bridges were already dilapidated from Allied air attacks. Now transport across Europe was severely compromised as tanks tracks tore up roads and battles raged in towns and villages. The Americans seemed to be getting a trickle of correspondence, but somehow letters from England had dried up. The British prisoners were alternately despairing and hardy. It couldn't be that they'd been forgotten—it was a just a problem with the routes, they convinced one another.

Still, they were all miserable at having their lifeline to home cut off. During mid-November, Newkirk had turned 30 without receiving the customary flurry of letters from his large family. He tried his best to hide it, but he was crushed. His mates walked on eggshells for days afterwards.

But God bless the Red Cross. One day, after two solid months of nothing, a huge backlog of letters arrived in Luft Stalag 13, postmarked London. An astounding eight of them had Newkirk's name on them, and he wasn't even the big prize-winner. But he was happy. There were two from Mavis. One from his mother. THREE from Rita. One from the kiddies. And one, oh my God, one from the old man.

Where to start? Rita's letters, slightly fragrant and addressed in a delightfully delicate hand, were calling to him. He couldn't open those first, because he'd have to inhale them and then savor them, and he absolutely couldn't carry on like a lovesick puppy when everyone else was sitting about the barracks watching him read.

The kids' letter? That would be entertaining and should be opened at the right moment, when everyone needed a good laugh. His father's letter? He'd need to creep off somewhere private for that one in case it gave him an overwhelming urge to punch something. Perhaps he could prevail on Colonel Hogan to screen it for him.

That left Mum and Mavis. And even Mavis would have agreed that Mum came first in Peter's heart. She always had, though it was an awfully close call.

Mum's letter was postmarked Aberystwyth and when he slid it out of the envelope, a sprinkle of sand dusted the table. How that got through the censors was anyone's guess, Newkirk thought with a grin. Somewhere in the military bureaucracy of the Third Reich, a bit of the Cardigan Bay was scattered on a pen-pusher's desk—or a blade-wielder's blotter, to be more precise.

But there was more. Not one, but two photographs were stuck in the envelope, accidentally glued in by the aforementioned bureaucrat. Newkirk, equal parts astonished and anxious, clawed one loose.

"Hey, you got a picture?" Carter said with a big grin. Newkirk didn't even hear him. He was too busy staring.

The five youngest Newkirks, looking wind-tossed and carefree in loose summer togs, were lined up with big smiles and bare feet, with the bay in glorious view behind them. My lord, they were tall and gangly now. "Fourteen, fourteen, twelve, ten, nine," he told himself as he counted down from tallest to smallest. No, they'd be older now, he remembered. A few birthdays had passed since late summer, when the photo was taken on their trip to Wales, and his youngest brother would be ten this month.

He heard himself exhaling louder than he'd intended to, but he couldn't help it. The years hadn't been stolen; they'd been erased. His heart throbbed even as he smiled at the sight of them all looking so healthy and happy.

"Who are the kids, your brothers and sisters?" Carter said.

"Well, who else would they be, Carter, the Goebbels?" Newkirk replied, finding a secure hiding spot behind his sarcasm. If he sounded strained, it wasn't because he was choked up; it was because Carter asked the stupidest questions. He handed the photo over and remained deliberately nonchalant, rattling off their names too fast for Carter to catch them.

"They're cute kids. Are you sure you're related?" That was Hogan, creeping up from behind and taking the picture from Carter.

"You'd have to ask the old man about that," Newkirk grumbled back. "Sir," he added as an insurance policy. He was mildly annoyed at Hogan's evident interest as he took the photo to examine closer to the light. For a Yank officer, he already knew too bloody much about the Newkirk family.

"Where are they in this picture?" Hogan inquired. "It looks like Cape Cod."

"Aberystwyth, in Cymru. Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau," Newkirk replied. "On the Bae Ceredigion," he said in measured Welsh tones, enjoying the fact that Hogan had no idea what he was saying, and neither did anyone else. They looked baffled; he took pity and simplified his explanation. "They're in Wales. The old man sent them there to visit me mum's family."

Idly, he drew the other photo from the envelope. This time he had to bite back a whimper before it could escape and embarrass him. It was Nain and Taid with Mum, and somehow Maggie had slipped into the foreground, that scamp. They were how old now? Seventy-five? Eighty? Newkirk wasn't sure, but when he looked at his grandparents, he saw them 20 years younger. He saw the grandfather who taught him to fish for lobsters from a coracle and took him on the steam train to Devil's Bridge. He saw the grandmother who stuffed him with cawl and cream buns and lulled him to sleep with stories of Cantre'r Gwaelod, the country under the sea.

"That's what you're going to look like when you're old, Newkirk," Carter said, peering at the elderly man. "You have the same eyes. Your grandparents, huh? And your mom… and one of the kids?"

"Maggie. A holy terror," Newkirk said with obvious pride. "Bloody good thing she's got our mum to keep her in line."

"Oh, yeah? How'd that work out for you?" Hogan joked. Newkirk felt annoyed. It had worked out just fine, actually.

"My occasional…" he searched for the word… "transgressions had nothing to do with my mum," he said flatly. "She never let us get away with anything, and still doesn't." He softened a little. "You'll see, Sir," he said.

"I would like to meet her. Soon, I hope," Hogan said with a squeeze to Newkirk's shoulder. He sensed he'd ribbed Newkirk just a bit too much. All that mail, all at once was probably a bit overwhelming. He'd take his emotional temperature later in private, and he'd have to check in with the other British prisoners to see how they were doing.

Carter was back with a question. "So that's Wales, huh? It sure looks like a pretty place. But boy, you have a big family. Where do you put up that many people?" Carter asked.

"Oh, that's not hard. My grandparents have a big tumble-down terrace house on the seafront. Lots of rooms to cram the kiddies into. My mum grew up there with all her brothers and sisters. We used to spend the summers there with all the cousins running in and out…"

He sighed. He didn't really want to talk about this. Reminiscing was too harsh a reminder of time's swift passage. The truth was, Nain and Taid looked too frail and small, and everyone else looked entirely too big. Mum, at least, was just the same – serene and beautiful. But even if he got home soon, would he be able to see his grandparents? He was glad his mum had made the journey, and was grateful that his scoundrel of a father had pulled strings and broken rules to arrange it. But would he ever see them again? Was this picture his last look?

He tucked the letter from his mother into his breast pocket, then gathered up his remaining letters and stuffed them under his blanket. "Nobody better touch those," he said irritably as he shrugged on his greatcoat and lit up a cigarette. "Carter, I'm warning you, guard them or I'll bash you." He collected the two photos from the table and tucked them into his pocket with the letter, then made his way to the door.

"Where you going?" Carter asked.

"Out," Newkirk replied. He'd explained enough for one day.

Sorry this one isn't a letter, but it's a set up for a series of them, which will get us nearly to the end of this yarn. Cymru is Wales. Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau means "Old Land of my Fathers," which is also the title of the Welsh national anthem. Instead of Bae Ceredigion, Newkirk could have easily said Cardigan Bay, but he was feeling oppositional.