by Alexa Kang
Could it be true that this was all he needed to do to take this unshakable German major down? Just aim and shoot?
He pulled the trigger. A succession of pops rattled off. In a split second, Klaus tipped over, stunning his men around him. Alarmed, they blazed their weapons in every direction. The roar of a Sherman tank answered their fire, followed by more American shells falling from the sky. Klaus's platoon disintegrated. Anthony released a final splash of bullets at the ones trying to escape until they dropped and their shouts and screams ceased.
On the field, the Tiger tanks retreated. The noises of battle tempered out and waned. Only distant sounds of gunfire still rang.
The stench of gasoline fumes churned Anthony's guts. No air. The smoke constricted his lungs and choked his throat. Dizzy, he dropped to the ground. The open eyes of a fallen soldier stared at him. The dead man's mouth had frozen open like a crazy grin.
Delirious, Anthony smiled back, then laughed. His laughs turned to cries as tears spilled and soaked his face. He was done. Klaus was dead. Warren and Jesse could rest in peace.
The fire that was burning the shack spread, engulfing the area around him. The flames would soon reach the trail of gasoline leaking from the tractor and the stack of artillery that had fallen out of it. Detached, Anthony watched the fuel leak along the snow-covered ground. His tears stopped.
Hot. He felt hot. His uniform was drenched beneath his jacket. He whipped open his buttons. Vaguely, he could sense the growing fire around him, but he was too drained of energy to get up. Everything around him felt surreal.
He closed his eyes, ready to sleep. Let him fall into a deep sleep from which he would never have to wake up. Wesley. Darnell. Ollie. Warren. Ed. Jesse.
Tessa.
Let this be his turn. He didn't want to carry the burden anymore.
Is this what I gave my life for? A voice pierced his mind and jerked him out of delirium.
Where did the voice come from? He pulled his knees close to his body. A tiny, hard object dug against his hip. He pushed it out of his pocket. Jesse's lucky seven dice.
You have to stay alive.
With a trembling hand, Anthony picked up the dice.
You stay alive no matter what. You do what you have to but get through this war. Get through it and go back to her. Nothing else matters.
Anthony clutched the dice and bent his head. The corner of Tessa's letter jutted out from the inner pocket of his jacket and poked his chin. The envelope, crumpled with creases, was still unopened. He was afraid to open it. What if she had realized she had made a mistake not choosing Jesse?
If you die, she'll be very sad. Don't make her sad.
With clumsy fingers, Anthony opened the letter. Tears filled his eyes again as he read her words.
Wherever you are, my heart is yours. It's always been yours. Remember, in Rome? You told me then, whatever happens, don't give up. I'm not giving up on us. I vowed to love you for all eternity. Come back. Come back to me.
It was him. It had always been him. She had never wavered.
I'm not giving up on us, her letter said.
Come back to me. He heard her voice calling out to him.
For all eternity…
At their wedding, Tessa had vowed to love him for all eternity.
Had he forgotten that when he married her, he had made a promise at the altar that he would never give up, no matter what happened or what difficulties lay ahead?
He blinked his eyes to stop his tears and forced himself up.
I won't give up on us either. He put the dice and letter into his jacket. I'll never give up.
He pushed himself off the ground. Step by step, he made his way to the dirt road that led to the forest. He had just reached the road when a gunshot went off behind him. At first, he didn't feel anything. Next, warm wetness seeped over his left side. Then, a searing pain.
He turned around. A boy in a white Wehrmacht uniform had his rifle pointed at him. How old was he? Twelve? Thirteen? The boy looked shocked. His arms and rifle were shaking.
Anthony hardened his heart, pulled out his pistol from his holster and shot the boy dead. One more count of guilt against him in this endless trial of misery.
Struggling to breathe, he pressed his hand against his wound. So exhausted was his mind, he could no longer think. He walked on, feeling as though he was in a trance. Behind him, the fire reached the spilled gasoline and the tractor exploded. The power of the blow knocked Anthony down. His helmet fell off and rolled away.
Sprawled on the ground, he could not move. The bullet torched his stomach like molten iron. The drumming of his own heartbeat pounded against his ears. Was he dying? He closed his eyes. The snow on the ground next to his mouth melted, wetting his face.
Come back.
He curled his fingers and grabbed the snow under his hands.
Come back to me.
Tessa's voice called out to him. He struggled onto his knees. The cross she gave him dangled from his neck. He grabbed it and held onto it.
I won't give up on us. Not as long as there is still a chance she's alive. I won't.
With his other hand, he took out the lucky seven dice. "For luck," he said to himself, and put their chain over his head around his neck. With every last ounce of strength, he pushed himself onto his feet. The cross and the dice swayed as he walked on.
"Captain! Captain!" Fox's voice came somewhere from the edge of the forest.
Anthony raised his head. "Captain!" Fox's face appeared, he thought. He wasn't sure. Everything was blurred and fuzzy. His legs gave out. His head whirled and he fell to the ground.
30
Voices. Anthony woke to voices of people he couldn't recognize. The voices buzzed all around him. They came from the patients in the next beds and their attendants in the next rows. He opened his eyes. Blurry rows of wounded soldiers lay around him. The cots appeared to shift. The patients seemed to be moving around and around in circular motions. Even his own body felt like it was floating and spinning.
Discombobulated, Anthony tried to lift his head, but fell back onto the pillow. All his strength had left him. He tried again. This time, he succeeded in lifting his back slightly off the bed. As he bent to get up, a sharp pain shot up from his side.
"Captain Ardley!" A nurse on duty came to the side of his bed.
Gasping for breath, Anthony lay back and waited for the pain to subside. "I feel like the room's spinning."
"It's the anesthesia. You've had major surgery. Try not to move. I'll get you some water." The nurse turned to go fetch him water.
"Wait. Please," he said, his voice barely audible. "What happened?"
"You were shot." She touched him lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You're okay now. We'll take good care of you."
He loosened his body. His side hurt every time he breathed. Memories of the snowfield slowly returned to him. Klaus. The burning remains of the shack. The German boy.
Tessa…Where was Tessa?
He wanted to ask the nurse, but his last bit of energy left him, and he faded back into sleep.
The stable door opened and a rush of cold air blew in, waking Tessa from her sleep. She forced her eyes open while Tyler and Ellie stirred. The lone silhouette of a woman stood in the blinding sunlight pouring in from outside. Instinctively, Tyler grabbed the rifle. The woman standing at the door screamed and held up her hands.
Quickly, they got up. "Let's go," Tessa said. They had been discovered. This was bad news. "Let's get out of here."
Pointing his gun at the woman, Tyler led Tessa and Ellie toward the door.
"So sorry." Ellie apologized as they passed her.
"Wait," the woman followed them outside. "Out there. Danger." She looked out to the open field.
They stopped. Tessa exchanged a glance with Tyler. He, too, was uncertain.
The woman pointed at herself. "Anke." She pointed to a small cottage behind the stable, which they hadn't noticed last night. "My house."
"Is she inviting us to her house?" Tyler asked.
Ellie smiled and took a step toward Anke, but Tessa pulled her back. "Maybe it's a trick."
Anke looked to the open field outside. "Out there. Soldiers. War." She pointed at the cottage again. "My house. No soldiers. Only husband."
Still hesitant, they looked at the cottage. The woman was speaking the truth. There was no military vehicle, or vehicle of any kind, anywhere in sight. The only sign of life they could see was the smoke rising from the cottage's chimney.
"My house," Anke said again. A lock of her graying hair had fallen out of her headscarf. "I have food."
Against her will, Tessa's stomach grumbled. Tyler's resolve, too, weakened at the mention of a meal. Ellie dropped her guard and approached Anke, "Thank you. I'm Ellie. These are my friends. Tessa. Tyler."
Anke gave them a warm smile. Tessa still could not be sure if she could trust the woman, but her hunger was now directing her mind.
"Come this way." Anke started down the path. They followed her to the cottage, where a man with a thick grey beard was chopping wood. When he saw them with his wife, his mouth dropped and he raised his ax. Anke held up her hand and spoke to him in German. He furrowed his eyebrows, confused, then lowered his arm.
"Husband. Fritz," Anke said to them, then waved for them to go inside her house. Dumbfounded, Fritz watched them enter his home.
The warmth of the hearth enveloped them as soon as they walked in. In the fireplace, a pot of soup simmered. The aroma of slow-cooked mushrooms and onions hit Tessa's nose and her stomach growled. She had forgotten when she had eaten last.
Anke nodded toward the table. "Sit."
Tessa, Ellie, and Tyler each took a seat. Tessa felt horrible now for having suspected Anke earlier. She gave Anke an uneasy smile. Anke returned her smile and pointed to the red cross band on Tessa's arm. "Medical."
"Yes," Tessa said. It didn't occur to her that Anke had noticed.
Anke filled three bowls with the soup from the pot and put them on the table along with several pieces of bread. "Suppen." Without further prompting, Tessa, Ellie, and Tyler began devouring the food.
As she ate, a lump grew in the back of Tessa's throat. Her eyes welled up and a tear fell from the corner of her eye. She had never been so hungry before. Like a starving animal, she wolfed everything down. Tyler and Ellie were doing the same. No wonder Anke wasn't afraid of them. They didn't look frightening, they themselves looked terrified.
X
Part Six - Victory Europe
31
"Well, at least it seems the Nazis treated them well," said Culkin, the Salvation Army volunteer who had been driving Aaron around. "Don't give up hope yet, Haley. Now we know they're with the Kampfgruppe Pfeiffer. The First Army is catching up to them. We'll keep following their trail. We'll find them."
Aaron hoped so. He looked to the road ahead. Thanks to an old friend at the Arm Med in charge of liaising with civilian volunteers, the Salvation Army had taken him as a volunteer after he had left the 33rd Field Hospital. They had brought him to Bonn, where the First Army had picked up news that Ellie and Tessa had been seen there as prisoners of war when Kampfgruppe Pfeiffer passed through. As soon as he heard, Aaron knew he had to get there. He would dedicate his life to finding Ellie, if it was the last thing he did.
The Salvation Army truck passed a road sign pointing south reading "Cochem 80km." The nuns at the convent in Erftstadt near Bonn had said the Nazi unit was heading in this direction, so Tessa and Ellie were still alive when the Nazis left Bonn. But were they all right now? Pfeiffer had massacred all of the Allied troops in the towns and villages along his path. It was a miracle that Ellie and Tessa had survived all the way through Bonn.
Nonetheless, the First Army was rapidly gaining ground. The German defense was faltering within their own heartland. If the American troops could catch up to Pfeiffer in time, the army might find them yet.
Meanwhile, Aaron prayed, let the miracle last.
In the three weeks since their escape, Tessa, Ellie, and Tyler had remained in hiding with the German country couple in their house. While there, Tessa learned that they were at a place near Cochem, a tiny German town on the western border of Germany. She tried but couldn’t discover why Anke and Fritz had made the decision to shelter them. With Anke's limited English skills, they could not communicate. However, Tessa knew the couple had taken on a great risk to their own safety by harboring Americans. What Anke and Fritz did was beyond ordinary kindness. They reminded her that there was no barrier to compassion among people, even in times of war.
Anke and Fritz were generous too. The German regime had not been able to provide for its people for a long time. Anke and Fritz had few resources to spare. What meager food they had, they shared with Tessa and her friends. Tessa could only hope that she would be able to repay the couple someday for everything they did.
Anke had an old German–English dictionary for children. While Tessa and her friends stayed at their house, Anke would sometimes use the dictionary to look up words if they had difficulty understanding each other. It had pictures that accompanied some of the words. Tessa tried to look up the word "enemy" once, to ask Anke if she was worried that Americans were her enemy. The word was not included in the dictionary.
Finding the word missing from the pages, Tessa couldn't help feeling the irony. She looked at Anke and Fritz, who were sitting at the table with her. The meaning of enemy wasn't something she could easily define anymore.
One thing Tessa had gathered was that the couple missed their son. On the wooden shelf by their window was a picture of a young man in a Wehrmacht uniform standing proudly in front of the Brandenburg Gate. "Your son?" Tessa asked the kind woman.
Anke smiled. "Frederick." Her eyes showed a mixture of joy and pain.
"Is he with the German Army?"
Anke looked away sadly and shook her head. "No more. Frederick no more."
Tessa had a feeling that Anke and Fritz regretted the war. Regardless of sides, the war had left everyone caught in its wrath with their own private anguish which others could not help to relieve.
Watching Anke, Tessa wondered what her parents must be thinking, not knowing where she was. They must be so worried. She wished she could reach out to them and let them know she was okay.
And Anthony. Where was he now? Was he okay? She prayed for his safety every day.
When the news came on the radio that the Americans had taken over Cochem, Ellie broke down and cried. This was what they had been waiting for, a way home.
After they heard the news, they decided to go to Cochem and report to the American troops. Anke and Fritz kindly offered to go with them to make sure they would not get lost.
Following Anke and Fritz, Tessa, Ellie, and Tyler walked for three miles along the rural path. They had no other way to get there. Fritz had a car, but it had been a long time since he had access to any fuel. Anke told them they had had an old horse, which had died before the war reached them. She was thankful for that, because the horse might have suffered if it had been taken away by the German army.
They came into town, hopeful yet nervous until they saw the convoys of American jeeps. As they tried to explain to the First Army unit who they were, a Salvation Army vehicle drove up.
"Ellie!"
Ellie and Tessa looked at each other. The voice sounded familiar.
"Ellie! Ellie!" Aaron Haley called out. "Tessa!"
"Dr. Haley?" Ellie asked. Tessa, too, could not believe it. Doctor Haley should be with the Seventh Army in the South.
Aaron Haley jumped out of the car and ran toward them. "Ellie! Ellie, is it really you?"
"Dr. Haley!" Ellie cried. Leaving behind all her worries as to propriety, she ran into his arms, unable to stop crying her tears of joy.
At the U.S. Army's General Hospital in Paris, Anthony reclined in his bed and stared into space. Music was playing on the radio, but he could not tell one song from another. The songs blended together into
nothing but background noise. His interest would pique when the news came on with reports about his own company's movements, but even those did not hold his attention for long. Safe in the hospital in an Allied occupied zone, everything that was happening on the battlefront felt remote and unreal. He didn't know how war and peace could coexist this way in the same world.
At lunch, he picked up his tray from the serving queue and sat down in a quiet spot. His abdomen still hurt when he moved that part of his body, but he didn't mind. In a way, he appreciated the pain. His scar was a badge of honor no medal could ever match. Every time he felt its pinch, it reassured him that he, too, had paid his due. Every twinge stripped away a little more of his guilt. Moreover, it reminded him he was still alive, that he could still feel pain. It was a small price to pay, compared to the sacrifices of those he still remembered.
Lost in his own reflections, he did not notice when an unexpected visitor came to him and sat down at his table.
"General Castile." Anthony quickly put down his fork and tried to stand up.
"At ease, Captain. No need to stand up."
Anthony sat back down.
"How are you?" the General asked.
"Good, sir. Thank you."
"The doctor said you're well enough to be released."
Anthony knew this was coming. He supposed he had recovered, even though his wound was still raw. What hadn't recovered was his psyche. His mind was an empty wasteland. He had no will to go back into battle. He had no more fire within him to wage a good fight. He dreaded what the general might say next.
The general had something else in mind. "I've got good news. I wanted to deliver it myself and I came as quickly as I could. We've found Lieutenant Graham."
"You found her?" Anthony could not be sure if he had heard right. "Did you say you found her? What happened to her? Is she okay?"
"Yes. We've found her. She's safe and she's fine."