Crossword

by Alan Bricklin

  The soldiers were singing some beer hall song, further evidence that they had finished their patrol for the day and were also pretty happy that they were among the few soldiers not at one of the fronts, sites that were in near disarray and rapidly contracting as the Third Reich shriveled. When they saw the boys, the singing stopped and the driver slowed, then brought the car to a stop. The corporal in the front seat stepped out and spoke to the three of them, and by their pointing and gesticulations it was obvious they were relating the saga of the hidden bike.

  "What is going on here, children?"

  "It's my bike."

  "No, it's not!"

  "I found it; it's mine."

  "We found it; it's ours."

  "Stop this bickering, now. You," pointing to the boy who had spoken first, "Tell me what happened. And it better be the truth. Our jail is empty and there's plenty of room for all of you. As a matter of fact, maybe I should take you there so we could do a proper interrogation."

  "No, please. I'll tell you and it will all be true, I swear."

  "All right, go ahead then."

  The young lad shifted his position to face the corporal, reluctantly letting go of the bike since he felt it necessary to have both hands free to better explain what had occurred. "We were out for a walk, just talking about things, you know, and after a while we saw we were pretty far out of town. Well, Wilhelm, he's a kid from our school, but older than us, well, he said that in the woods out of town there were these bread trees and you can just go up to them and pick off a loaf. But they were pretty deep in the forest."

  "That is nonsense, boys. And you believed him?"

  "See, I told you it wasn't true," one of them said to the one telling the tale.

  "Shut up, I knew it wasn't true."

  "Oh yeah, well ..."

  "Enough! Go on. And no more interruptions."

  "Anyway, we were walking into the woods and before we got very far I tripped over something and fell." Pointing to a scrape on his knees as if to corroborate his story and attest to its truth, he went on, "See, this is where I hurt my knee when I fell. When I started to get up I saw what had caught my foot. It was part of the handle bars of a bike ... that I found by tripping on it." One of the others started to say something to counter this unabashed claim of ownership but was silenced by an angry look from the soldier. "Well, we pulled it out of the ground, it wasn't very deep, cleaned off the dirt and other junk that was stuck to it and, well, I guess that's all. We were taking it home when you came by. That's everything and it's all true."

  "Very well then, take me to where you found it."

  When the corporal ordered the others out of the car and they fanned out to form a cordon, it was apparent that they planned to search the area. Cursing under his breath, Larry realized he had to get far away as quickly as possible. It seemed the bike was a lost cause. The mission had barely begun and he was in danger of being captured. He took a step back and turned to beat a hasty retreat, and once again luck was not with him. His right foot caught between two rocks and was sharply twisted, a sudden spasm of pain almost causing him to cry out. Ah shit. He balanced on one leg against the tree and gingerly tested the weight bearing ability of the injured foot. He winced from the pain but found it would bear weight and didn't seem broken. Running, however, was out of the question, and he would have to find someplace to hide. Larry limped back to where he had left his pack. An ancient tree, flanked by bushes and boulders, it offered the best he could hope for in the way of cover. Shrink into the background, calm your breathing.

  The four soldiers were at the edge of the forest, annoyed at having to delay their trip home, for that was in fact where they were going, these old timers and young men, hardly more than boys, who were the last bastion of defense for the fatherland and who were usually billeted in their home town, sometimes their own bed. They all loved their country and felt it to be their duty to defend it, but many had doubts about their leader and all of them knew the war would be over very soon. Nobody wanted to be the last to die. So, with a mixture of anger and fear, they entered the woods, rifles at the ready, and were soon enveloped by the forest mantle, the temperature cooler, the remaining daylight more subdued and the sounds of the outside world replaced by the hush of places less known.

  From his hiding place Larry was alerted to the approach of the soldier by the snapping of twigs and the sudden flight of two woodpeckers from the trunk of a nearby tree where they had been working on their evening meal. He moved hesitantly, this hastily conscripted soldier of the Third Reich, pausing frequently to listen, but the sound of his footsteps moved inexorably toward Larry. Finger on the trigger of his old rifle, seemingly a relic from World War I, he stopped in front of a large oak flanked by rocks and shrubbery, and cocked his head to one side, listening. He raised his weapon to firing position, sweat trickling down his temple, and darted around the tree yelling, "Halt!" and then accidentally discharged the rifle, causing a squirrel who had been gnawing on an acorn at the base of the old oak to jump several feet in the air and dash off, ears ringing and sans acorn. What stories it would have to tell its offspring.

  The sound of the shot echoed through the forest, and even before the reverberations had stopped, running boots could be heard converging on the spot where a still shaking young soldier had almost killed a squirrel. "Did you get someone?" cried the first of his companions to reach him. Before there was time to frame an answer, the other soldiers arrived followed almost immediately by the three boys, bicycle still in tow.

  They all formed a semicircle around him, the corporal speaking first, "What happened? Who were you shooting at?" Looking side to side, "Where did they go?"

  "It was nothing, sir, just an accident. I'm sorry."

  "Tell me exactly what happened."

  His embarrassment showed and the private lowered his voice when he replied. "I heard a noise from behind this tree and when I came around I accidentally fired my rifle."

  "What was there? What made the noise?"

  "It was an animal, sir."

  "Don't give me your story crumb by crumb, private. What kind of animal? Tell me everything."

  "A squirrel. It was eating an acorn." At this, the others all smiled, even the children, although the hapless private, now starting to blush, could see nothing humorous in the situation.

  "Was it an American squirrel or a French squirrel? Perhaps a member of the squirrel resistance?" asked one of the soldiers. This precipitated laughter, the children giggled and pointed, and even the corporal joined in, although he could see the extreme discomfiture of the young soldier and actually felt sorry for the loss of face in front of his fellows and especially in front of the children who would, no doubt, circulate the story around the whole town by tomorrow.

  "Sir, should we fan out and search for this squirrel?" This produced another round of laughter and more embarrassment for the soldier whose youthful face was by now beet red.

  "That's enough. Whoever buried the bike is long gone. We'll return to base now."

  "But sir, can we keep the bike?"

  The soldier, his embarrassment turning to anger, spoke before the corporal had a chance to reply, an event his superior ignored out of compassion for the unfortunate butt of the joke. "No, the bicycle must be confiscated, it's evidence." He looked imploringly to the corporal who acquiesced to this apparent attempt at ego reconstruction.

  "Yes, I'm sorry boys, but he's right. Go on home now. Private, you will ride the bike back to base. Report to me in the morning."

  The three children looked crest fallen as they were ushered out of the woods, and the corporal, ever concerned about others, and feeling sorry for the boys, said, "Come, we'll give you a lift back to town. You can stand and ride on the running boards if you like."

  The private watched as the six of them, three old soldiers and three children, the past, present and future of Germany, trekked back to the car and were soon lost to view. He leaned his rifle against the tree and took hold of the bike,
brushing off the seat and bending down to straighten the handle bars, which were askew relative to the front wheel, and would require some adjusting. When a sound came from behind the tree his head instinctively shot up, then he smiled, not willing to let a squirrel get the better of him again. He bent once more to his task but seconds later his head snapped up again, this time by an iron hand pressed over his mouth. The next sound he heard was the scraping of Larry's large hunting knife as it brushed against his twelfth right rib before plunging into his kidney, a sideways motion severing the renal artery and vein as well as lacerating the aorta. A bolt of excruciating pain shot up and down along the right side of his torso, but he was not troubled by this for long since he lost consciousness almost immediately, the hand still tightly clasped about his mouth as his legs buckled and his body settled to the ground. Larry kept his right hand firmly gripped on the knife handle, using it to help guide the dying soldier to the forest floor, his final resting place. He pulled out the knife but kept his left hand in place over the mouth, a precaution that was unnecessary since there was no chance of him regaining consciousness before he exsanguinated and died ninety seconds after German forged steel cut a swath of destruction through his insides.

  The private, one Karl Brauer, had just celebrated his seventeenth birthday, and his mother, having lost her husband to the war and not knowing if her son fighting on the Eastern front was dead or alive, was terrified to have her "baby" drafted into the army despite his protestations that he was old enough to take care of himself. When Larry removed his hand and saw just how young his foe had been, a silent scream of anguish exploded from deep within and flickering flashbacks to the operation that haunted him careened into consciousness from the deep dungeons of his mind. Hyperventilating, he sank to his knees and covered his ears to shut out the shrieks that seemed to be reverberating through the forest. Sweat beaded on his skin despite the cool temperature, and he remained immobile as remorse and a profound feeling of loss flooded in. Oh God, not again. What have I become that I am a killer of children? Time passed, he didn't know how long. The chill of the evaporating sweat roused him from his self-loathing. Rational thoughts returned. Larry was good at what he did, and with the greatest of effort he forced the turbulent pangs of conscience out of his thoughts, to be resurrected, he knew, when there would be time to deal with his own shattered soul. Focus on the mission now. That's what's needed. It's bigger than me or any of my personal issues. Others are depending on me.

  The dispatch of the young conscript had been a thoughtful, albeit quick decision —— risk killing a German soldier or give up transportation to Munich, miles away, and the first objective of the operation. A swift pros/cons analysis dictated that the bike would be worth the risk, a risk that could be mitigated by how long it would take anyone to realize that the private was missing, plus the time it would take to find the body or reach the conclusion that foul play was involved, plus the fact that the authorities would be unlikely to ever know the who or why of the killing. All of these thoughts had been processed by Larry in less than thirty seconds as he listened to the conversation among the Germans while hidden, half buried and covered by fallen leaves, pine needles, twigs, dirt and whatever other debris the forest provided. He brushed several moist leaves from his face and quickly stripped the body before burying it in a shallow grave. There was no time to dig a deep grave, nor was his ankle in any shape to drag it very far, so the mortal remains of Karl Brauer would reside in a twelve inch grave covered with the dead and cast off of the forest itself, not one meter from where he had died.

  Larry stood up, wincing from the complaints of his ankle, gathered up the clothes and limped a little further into the woods where he dug another hole, burying them in the same way as he had their owner. Finally, he returned to where he had left his pack, emptied it completely and dug yet another hole, this one a bit deeper than the others. He tossed all his equipment in, the gun, knife, compass and lastly, the camp shovel he had used to do the digging. The pack itself, really a rucksack of the type that lower class workers might carry, he kept, placing within it food, a few personal items and a small bottle containing the pills the doctor had given him. The rucksack and everything that went in it was of German manufacture except the food, which consisted of items available in the region in which he was operating. Seeing the pills he was reminded of the coughing he had been working so hard to suppress, and he swallowed one before closing up the pack. A final check of his pockets to make sure there were no incriminating items, and he began filling in the hole he had dug, using his hands and a small fallen branch to push the dirt back into the hole. After leaves and such were placed on top there was nothing to call attention to this particular spot. Satisfied, he looked around for landmarks in case he might pass this way during his exit and had time or the need to retrieve any of the equipment, then returned to the bike and wheeled it in the increasing darkness toward the road, forcing himself not to dwell on the body of a young soldier, no more than a boy, who lay under the matted woodland floor.

  He approached the road carefully, looking in both directions for vehicular or foot traffic, then mounted the bike and road off in the direction away from the town to which the soldiers had been returning. I'll have to detour to bypass the town where those kids live and where the soldiers are probably billeted. There's a parallel road to the north. Twenty miles and a few hours extra, but I can't risk being seen with this bike by any of those people. As he pedaled first West then North, dark clouds filled the sky, and it began to rain.

  The rain fell with determination, as if to punish anyone reckless enough to be out, and the hard, large drops fell ceaselessly through the night, pelting Larry until he became near numb from the cold, and oblivious to the rain itself. Stopping only briefly every hour or so he pedaled throughout the night despite the throbbing of his ankle which, in fact, seemed to subside sometime after midnight, a circumstance that he was not entirely certain was good. Nonetheless, Larry pushed on until several hours before first light when he dismounted and wheeled the bike into the woods, which bordered most of the roads in this area, to look for shelter and a safe place to rest and pass the daylight hours. Limping still, but with little pain, he entered the tree line fifteen meters from the roadway. Another fifteen meters brought him a little relief from the downpour as the overhanging canopy deflected some of the drops, but the density of trees here was not great and they provided only minimal protection from the elements. As he penetrated further the sound of rushing water emanated from his left, and walking in that direction he came across a small ravine, perhaps ten or twenty meters deep, the darkness making it difficult for him to accurately judge distance or depth. A rain-filled stream must be at the bottom, he thought, and continued along it, scanning the near and far side hoping to spot a cave or some overhang that might provide the cover he needed. Still holding the bike, he paused, straining to see if the patch of darkness he observed on the far side might be a cave entrance, when his foot slid a little. As he repositioned it, there was a low rumble and a slight vibration before the ground was pulled out from under him and he found himself sliding down a chute of mud, twigs and matted leaves. The bike hit him on the way down, then he, in turn, banged into the bike, which returned the insult with another sharp blow. He felt the rucksack being torn from his back and the slippery earth pulling at his clothes, then the hammer like impact of his head on a protruding rock, then nothing.

  * *

  Cold water splashing over his face brought Larry back to consciousness, a condition he didn't relish since with it came pain, pain from every quarter of his body. Instinctively his hand went first to his head where it encountered a large, exquisitely tender lump, seemingly the size of a golf ball and surfaced by hair matted with dried blood. The fact that the blood was dried and congealed told him the rain had stopped earlier than the bleeding, but he was thankful that at least it wasn't currently bleeding, and the downpour had ceased. When he tried to sit up, an ice pick rammed through his head and h
e had to lower it to the ground. The best way to proceed, he thought, was to mobilize and check his body limb by limb and system by system. Arms, legs, each appeared to respond to his commands with the proper movements, albeit painful. Nothing broken; thank God for that. His vision seemed fine and he assumed his nervous system had suffered no significant injury. Lastly, he gently and slowly lifted his head from the ground once more, tensing himself for pain. It came, but not to the extent of before, and he was able to raise himself to a sitting position, where, panting and coughing occasionally, he took stock of the situation. The bike had come to rest just above where he lay, which was at the edge of the rushing rain-swollen creek, its icy waters having slapped him back to consciousness. It was twisted like some grotesque sculpture of a deranged artist and was beyond repair. Of his pack there was no sign. He slowly and unsteadily got to his feet, carefully stretched and flexed his muscles, then began a slow exploration of the ravine, heading downstream. The bike would have to stay where it was. It was unlikely to be discovered, and even if it was, would probably mean nothing to whoever found it here in this relatively remote part of the woods. After fifteen minutes he came upon the rucksack snagged on a dead branch protruding into the creek. Turning it over, muddy water flowed out along with the remnants of some of the food, the bottle that contained his pills and a small dead frog. The remains of the food were inedible, and the bottle contained only a white cloudy liquid, all that was left of his medicine. Beams of sunlight slanted down through the forest cover from a clearing blue sky, and if the morning sun brought with it a degree of warmth, it did little to brighten his spirits. All he had left was an empty pack, a small penknife that had managed to stay secure in his pants pocket and a few soggy German marks.