by Roxi Harms
"That's right," he croaked, and tried to clear his throat.
"Have a drink," she said, filling a tin cup from the jug on the table beside the bed, and passing it to him. "My name is Helen. I'm going to give you something for the pain," she continued, smiling sweetly as she lifted Adam's blanket. "I know it hurts, but I need you to roll onto your side if you can, so I can get at your backside."
"What's the date?" he asked when she'd finished giving him the shot.
"Sunday, February 11, 1945."
"My birthday," he smiled weakly at the nurse.
"Well, happy birthday! " she said brightly. "How old are you today?"
"Sixteen." Adam answered without thinking.
Helen looked down at Adam, her eyes filled with sadness and a hint of anger. A moment later, her warm smile returned. "I need to clean up your leg so the doctor can have a look before they take you into the operating room."
Two nights later, Adam lay in the dim room, gazing at the trough-like device that was supporting his leg, then followed the string with his eyes from the trough up to the ceiling. Turning his head, he looked out the window into the blackness, and tried to block out the night sounds of the room, the moans, the snoring, and whimpers of pain when someone tried to shift position. A moment later, soft shoes moved quickly across the floor as a nurse rushed to comfort a wounded soldier whose terrified cry told something of what was in his dreams. Outside the window, a bit of dawn light began to seep through the darkness. Big flakes of snow were drifting down, piling up on the window frame, softening the world a bit, if only temporarily.
Helen had brought him a little cupcake yesterday afternoon. She and two other nurses had gathered around his bed to sing happy birthday. For a few minutes, he'd felt almost happy. He closed his eyes and thought about home. Years seemed to have passed in the eight months he'd been gone. His mom would have been thinking about him on his birthday. He wondered if Henry had managed to get a letter through to Elek. The Russians were still occupying Hungary as far as he knew. Tears filled his eyes as he stared at the ceiling. He would pray if he believed in God. Pray that his mom was alright, standing by the stove, stirring a pot of stew, or maybe heating up some bacon fat to drizzle on warm bread. It was Monday. They'd probably be having bread, still be fresh from Saturday's baking. He was glad his mom and dad didn't know he was in the hospital. The last time one of them had been in the hospital was with Anni. She would have been seven now. A tear escaped from the corner of his eye and slid onto the pillow.
Oh Adam, he could hear her perfect little voice saying. What are we going to do with you?
"Good morning," a soft voice interrupted his thoughts.
Adam opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times before turning his head to look at the nurse. "Good morning."
"That was a good long sleep. Let's get you propped up for breakfast." Helen spoke quietly in the stillness of the morning. Her sweet smell filled Adam's nostrils as she straightened out his pillow.
"Is this a church?" he asked, thinking of the nuns who had walked through the previous evening, stopping to talk to a couple of the wounded soldiers.
"It was a church before the war. But it's been a hospital for a few years now. The nuns run it," she answered as she chopped a boiled egg onto the toast she'd brought for his breakfast.
Later that day, the doctor came by to check on Adam. He was pleased with how the surgery had gone, and assured Adam his leg would be fully functional again after it healed. It would need to hang in this contraption for a few weeks while the shattered bone regenerated, and then he would be on crutches for another month before he could put any weight on it. Adam laid his head back on the pillow as the doctor's words sank in. He had at least two months of reprieve.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The first month passed quickly, and before he knew it, Adam was up on crutches. There wasn't really anywhere to go, but he didn't mind at all. The hospital was a paradise. As busy as Helen and the other nurses were, they chatted with him whenever they could. At 16, the attentions of pretty, young nurses made Adam warm and happy like few other things could. On the days that Helen leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek, he knew the hospital was the best place on earth.
"You look a little like my brother," Helen said softly one day. Her eyes were moist as she spoke. "I pray that he's at home with Mother. I haven't seen them in months. Father's been away fighting for over four years now, but I'm sure my brother is taking good care of everything at home." Her family lived close to the Polish border.
Almost all the soldiers who had been in the other beds when Adam had arrived were gone and replaced, sometimes twice, when the doctor came with the dreaded news. It was time to start walking without crutches. And once he'd done that for a few days, they were going to release him. The doctor explained that soldiers discharged from hospital in a condition deemed fit for duty, which Adam certainly would be, were to report directly to the military office in town for new orders. Adam's stomach churned. At least it wasn't cold outside anymore, he told himself as he looked out the window at the trees covered in bright springtime green leaves. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
April 1945
"Western Front," the officer said as he handed Adam some papers. A new company and unit to join. Hitler was consolidating in the west to push the Allied Forces out of Germany, back into Belgium and France. With a forced Heil Hitler Adam left the office and headed for the train station.
He wasn't travelling alone for long. The next day he met up with another soldier around his own age who had the same orders. Within a week, their little band was five strong, all heading for the Belgian border to join the front line there. One of the men had been the sole survivor when his unit had come under heavy fire just east of Berlin. Like Adam, the others had recently been released from hospital. Those who'd had a bit of reprieve while recovering from injuries looked to be in slightly better health. Then an officer joined them, making six. He'd escaped Berlin just as the Russians broke through the last defence line and poured into the city.
A couple of weeks later, they'd had no luck finding the front. With rail lines bombed out, and many roads impassable for the same reason, their only option was walking. The officer, who had taken charge of the little group, was determined to get back to fighting. Every day he spoke of pushing the enemy out of Germany. Adam hoped they never found the front, and he was pretty sure most of the others felt the same. Wandering around the countryside enjoying the spring air suited him just fine.
Sitting on the damp ground against a tree, Adam gazed up through the leaves. He'd just finished the last of his share of the sausage and bread from the farm they'd visited the previous day. It wasn't enough to fill him up. Hopefully they'd find some more food today. He missed the food at the hospital. It hadn't always been enough either, but they'd generally had at least two meals a day. Even more than the food, he missed the nurses.
A shaft of sunlight streamed down through a space in the canopy and warmed Adam's legs. He could straighten his left leg more every day. The walking was doing him good. A plane droned in the distance. The Americans must be doing some kind of air raid in the area. Adam scanned the sky above them, happy for the cover of the trees.
"We made good time yesterday. I'd estimate we're here now," said the officer, jabbing his finger at the map that was spread out on the grass where they could all see it. "So, if that farmer was right, and the fighting is here," he jabbed again, "then we continue on the road we were on this morning, connect to this road here, and try to get a ride to the front and find someone in charge."
The farmer from whom they'd gotten the food had relayed what he'd heard a week or so earlier, before the radio broadcasts had stopped.
"Listen," said one of the guys. Adam could hear the rattle of tracks.
"Tanks!" said the officer excitedly. "They're coming from the west. They'll have the latest intelligence. Come on men, let's get down there."
They pick
ed up their meagre belongings and jogged down the slippery hillside towards the sound. Adam limped along at the back and jumped out onto the road with the others just as the tank came around the corner.
It had a white star on it. The American white star. What the hell?
The soldiers riding on top of the tank lifted their weapons, aiming at the Germans and yelling.
The German officer cursed and raised his hands above his head. The rest of them followed suit. Adam's mouth went dry. His worst nightmare. Facing an armed enemy with no weapon. Hands in the air, he closed his eyes and swallowed, waiting for the shots.
A second later, one of the Americans yelled again. Adam opened his eyes. The soldier yelling at them was waving his rifle towards a truck that was pulling up behind the tank. It had the same white star on the door. As the Germans reached the rear of the truck, the American motioned them to climb in, then waved two men over to guard them and strode out of sight. The seconds ticked by. As they sat on the benches that lined each side of the truck box, Adam could hear the murmur of conversation from up near the tank.
Finally, the American commander yelled something to the two guards. Adam braced himself again. But instead of shooting, the guards climbed into the truck with them and leaned against the cab to steady themselves as the truck reversed and headed west, back the way it had come.
The six Germans and two Americans rode along in silence. Sweat ran down between Adam's shoulder blades. From the corner of his eye he watched the Americans standing with their backs against the cab of the truck, weapons ready. One of them looked over at him, and their eyes met. The American offered a little smile, and looked away, watching the scenery along the roadside.
A few kilometres later, one of the guards pulled a package of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered it to the Germans. A couple of the guys took one hesitantly. The American held out a match to each of them, then lit his own cigarette.
Not long after the spent cigarette butts had been tossed out onto the road, the fields that had been rolling past changed to dirty streets lined with small, run-down houses. Men in American uniforms mingled with men in civilian clothing. Listening closely to the voices calling out greetings and shouting commands, Adam couldn't recognize any of the words. The movement of a curtain caught Adam's eye, and as he watched more closely, he discerned faces peering out of the gloom behind many of the windows they were passing.
The truck slowed to a stop beside a little town square that was milling with activity. The soldiers and officers striding this way and that wore American uniforms. Their guards, still standing sentry at the front of the truck box, seemed to be waiting for something. A few minutes later, the American commander appeared at the back of the truck with two civilians wearing berets on their heads and semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders. Their eyes flashed angrily at the Germans. Pointing at the captives, the American officer said something, then turned and walked away. The men in berets barked some sort of command at them and beckoned angrily with their rifles for them to climb out of the truck.
"French freedom fighters," the German officer murmured quietly as he raised his hands into the air and climbed slowly down to the ground. They followed one by one until all six stood behind the truck. The engine started and the truck roared away. Adam turned his head and watched the two American soldiers who still stood in the back of the truck for a few seconds until they disappeared around a corner. Filled with dread, he turned to face their new captors.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
At gunpoint, they marched southwest. As the light began to fade, the partisans herded the six Germans into an old barn, slamming and barring the doors behind them. The barn was set up as a crude prison of some sort, but it was vacant of other prisoners. They could hear a sentry moving around outside. Every now and then there were voices. The officer, his eye swollen shut from a blow across the side of his head with the butt of a rifle, said it was French they were speaking.
As the minutes ticked by, the little group talked quietly, trying to make sense of the situation. The front should be at least another 100 kilometres west.
But it was mid-May and unbeknownst to the captives, Hitler had been found dead a couple of weeks earlier. Germany had surrendered. The war was over.
Adam slept fitfully that night, listening to the others tossing and turning, jumping at every noise. The next morning, still at gunpoint and heavy with trepidation, the group boarded a train.
M-E-T-Z, Adam read on the side of the little station building as the train came to a stop a while later. Outside, the sun glared down on them as the Frenchmen jabbed them in the ribs, yelling angrily and motioning them forward impatiently. They'd just passed through a bombed-out neighbourhood on the train, but these houses, though small and shabby, looked intact. An old man appeared in a doorway and scowled silently as they walked by. Adam pulled his eyes away from the man and looked straight ahead. A few doors along, a woman stepped out with a toddler balanced on her hip. Her eyes grew big when she spotted the German uniforms, and she began to shriek, her free hand balled into an angry fist. Although he'd never heard the words before, Adam knew they were hateful.
The ruckus quickly drew more onlookers. Doors opened and people appeared in second and third story windows. Some stood silently, cursing the Germans with their eyes. Others lashed out with vicious sounding words. The soldier in front of Adam stumbled as a frying pan glanced off his helmet. Suddenly Adam's shoulder seared with heat. He jerked his hand up and fumbled to pull the steaming wet fabric of his shirt away from his skin, then looked around to find the source. A woman leaned out from a window above him, waving an empty pot in one hand and shaking her other fist, her lips curled in distaste. Adam watched in horror and then ducked as she took a breath and spat with all her force. The gob fell short and splatted on the cobblestones beside him. On the other side of the street a potted plant smashed to the ground.
A sharp jab in the lower back and more angry words from behind forced Adam along. Lowering his head, he stumbled through the chaos, stomach churning with fear, eyes focused on the boots ahead of him until finally, at the edge of the village a makeshift gate opened and swallowed them up, leaving the mob behind.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The stench of feces and urine and fear hit Adam in the face as the gate shut, imprisoning them within a tall, ramshackle fence. Masses of German prisoners milled about the expanse of muddy ground, shivering. As that day passed, and that night, and then the next, Adam fell into the wretched routine of the prison camp. Twice a day the guards poured cold boiled potatoes through a gap that ran along one side of the fence into rough wooden troughs that lined the ground. At night, the emaciated prisoners leaned against each other in huddles, the threadbare blankets they'd been issued wrapped tightly around them, trying to sleep without collapsing onto the wet, muddy ground.
"If your unit was headed for Berlin, that bullet in your leg probably saved you," one of the men Adam was leaning against said in a soft voice one night when he'd been in the camp about a week. The guards had roughed them up and stripped them of everything when they'd arrived, even the contents of their pockets. In the chaos, he'd lost track of the men he'd been travelling west with. For the last few days he had been huddled with these three, a doctor and two officers. It was the doctor who was speaking.
Adam shivered and pulled the thin blanket tighter around his shoulders, leaving the end he'd dropped in the mud hanging. The muscles in his back ached painfully from standing so long.
"They butchered everyone in the hospital," the doctor continued quietly. He'd been searching for supplies in a basement storeroom when the Russians had stormed the hospital in Berlin where he'd been working. "We'd heard that they were killing every soldier and every civilian they found anywhere in the city. But we assumed they would spare the hospitals." He was silent for a few minutes. "I stayed in the basement for hours after they left. Finally, I crept out. No one was alive. All my patients' throats had been cut. I suppose they did
n't want to waste ammunition. The street was quiet. I ran from one building to the next, hiding. Bodies were everywhere you looked. And the blood. Even the streets were slippery in places. I made it to the edge of the city, then hid in a ditch half submerged in water. I figured if anyone came along I'd lie there like a dead body. I still can't believe I made it out. There were thousands of them roaming around killing people long after the surrender.
"How old are you, son?" the doctor suddenly asked him. Adam thought he had forgotten that any of them were there.
"Sixteen."
They huddled against each other in silence for a few minutes. Adam looked up at the stars, his mind wandering to happier places. It was cold for May. Too cold to plant the garden. Mom wouldn't be pleased about that.
"I've been watching how they guard at night," said one of the officers in a very low voice. "They don't have enough men or enough light to see the whole yard. And there are a couple of spots where the gap underneath the fence is pretty big."
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Adam scraped his toes in the mud, fumbling around for something to push against. He felt the doctor shoving hard on the soles of his boots. He was almost under. The push was what he needed and a moment later he was through.
"Run, Adam. Go!" the doctor whispered urgently as Adam stumbled to his feet on the other side and then crouched low. "Follow the other two. I'll be right behind you."
Disregarding his new friend's order, Adam turned and waited while the doctor clawed his way under the fence. The doctor was the biggest of the four of them and the gap was narrow. They'd planned it in this order so that if the doctor got stuck, Adam and the two officers could still get away. When the doctor's shoulders were through, Adam grabbed him under the arms and pulled with all his strength.