Men of Snow

by John R Burns

‘On the floor by the bed, spread it out.’

  His son had done as he was told.

  ‘Spread it out properly and stand on it.’

  It had felt soft and warm under the soles of his bare feet.

  ‘Now drop your pyjama bottoms.’

  The lump in his throat was like a huge lead pellet pressing against the inner skin. Again his arms were shaking as he tried to untie the cord of his pyjamas.

  ‘Hurry up Franz.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Untie them.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  With his back to him he let them drop around his ankles.

  ‘Now step out of them and put them on the bed.’

  His legs were in spasm. His breaths were hurting in his chest and a pain was thumping down the sides of his head.

  ‘Now lift up the top until your bottom is clear.’

  Again automatically he followed the next order.

  ‘Lean forward so your hands are on the edge of the bed.’

  The blood rushed forward as he stretched down, feeling so exposed, his arse stuck up towards his waiting father.

  ‘Now open your legs slightly. I don’t want you losing your balance.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Franz gasped as he closed his eyes, shaking and trembling, the sickness and hatred burning in his throat while he felt his father getting prepared.

  He immediately tensed as he heard the first muffled steps as his father came across the room to lash the belt in a downward and angled motion.

  The pain was the shock that had him stretching, gritting his teeth, pushing his hands deep into the eiderdown trying to ready himself for the next blow.

  One followed the other and on to the tenth and then it was over.

  He could not move. His father was out of breath behind him. Nothing was said. The cuts into his flesh now quickly turned into a spreading pain like a pulse wave of bruising. He was almost gone, almost unconscious, the unbearable lashing that had produced the blood that was dribbling down the backs of both legs.

  ‘You can stand up.’

  He could make no response.

  ‘I said you can stand up now.’

  It seemed the house that night had itself been beaten into silence. There was not a sound until Franz began to whimper.

  ‘I....I....I can’t move,’ he managed to cry out, a feeble, low cry like an animal, a small animal.

  ‘Don’t be silly boy. Get yourself up.’

  Now the son was sobbing and moaning as the blood crossed the back of his feet onto the towel.

  ‘What a mess,’ the father complained.

  Everything for Franz was uncontrollably shaking.

  ‘I’m not leaving this room until you get a grip on yourself.’

  When it was over he had spent several nights laying on his front with only a light sheet over him, crying because of not only the pain but the humiliation, the sense of himself exposed and defiled.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  The operation to remove the pieces of shrapnel left a scar across his right cheek and down his neck to his collar bone. The recovery period took nearly four months. For the first weeks his head was a swollen, throbbing piece of flesh. Only gradually did the pain begin to be concentrated on the lines where they had stitched him up. The first time he had looked in a mirror he had seen the livid lines, crimson and ridged up from the rest of the damaged skin. The one down his cheek was at an angle while the one down his neck was a straight cut from just below his chin to a few inches above his collar bone. When the doctors thought he was ready he was put on a train accompanied by a nurse to a recuperation centre outside Cologne. It was a place of highly polished corridors and hushed voices. There he disappeared for a time into long bouts of sleep interspersed with food and check-ups. Finally began the process of regaining the strength in the rest of his body. It was only then that Franz started to feel himself again, to know what he had to do to resurrect his military career. It was his only concern. It was the force behind his determination to become stronger both physically and mentally than ever before.

  ‘Dear mother and father,’ he wrote, ‘there is no need for you to make the journey here. Soon I will be returning to school to continue my training. I am fit and well and have been told by the doctors that it will be a short time before I am released from the centre. The accident has made me even more determined. I will try and visit when I can. From now on if you want to write address your letters to the school because that is where I shall be.

  All the best to you and aunt Hildegaard,

  Franz.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  On his last night in the hospital he remembered the girls by the lake.

  He had decided to go fishing, this time alone. Usually it was with some of his friends from the village, but not on this occasion.

  He had heard their laughter. To begin with he had thought it was the sound of the birds that came in from the north to do their nesting.

  On this summer afternoon he was hot, his skin itchy from the long grass that grew lush and deep in the mountain meadows flecked by thousands of summer flowers. The laughter became calls that set his heartbeat faster as he stepped carefully forward to the edge of the field where there was a fence and a few stunted trees before another stretch of meadow that sloped down towards the lake. Its water was a deep, smooth blue that was perfectly reflecting the line of mountains that were like sharp fingers probing into the hidden depths.

  The rumour was that nobody knew how deep the lake was. In the village there were stories of several people drowning over the years with no bodies ever recovered. The lake was the village’s mystery. In the winter its grey steel surface was cut by thousands of lines where the skaters crossed from one side to the other. But on this day the melt water had been transformed into a sun glistening blue in which everything was mirrored.

  He had felt the sweat sticking to his legs as he waited to see where the next human sounds would come from. He was suddenly the young teenage hunter, carefully alert to his prey. He was the soldier watching for the enemy.

  ‘No! Don’t!’ he had heard so clearly in the stillness.

  ‘Of course! Of course!’ came a sudden reply as the first girl appeared at an angle across the meadow towards the lake.

  His throat went dry as he watched her naked body through the knee high grass, her white skin so stark against the lush green. He could see her legs lifting and a side view of the dark patch at the top of her thighs and her small breasts slightly bouncing with each step as her long hair flopped around her shoulders.

  It was just then Franz’s thoughts were broken by a nurse asking him if he was alright. He looked up as she told him about the doctor’s final visit. After that he would be ready to leave the hospital.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

  Back at the school his first interview was with colonel Mannheim.

  ‘So you think you will manage Brucker?’

  They were in the colonel’s office, Franz standing at one side of the desk, the colonel seated on the other.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Four months out of things is a long time.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Before that you were doing well, in your classes, your training.’

  The colonel took his time in lighting a cigarette.

  ‘But you know how much you’ve missed. It’s only because of your excellent results so far that we’re going to give you a chance to show that you can catch up. This is my decision. You understand?’

  Franz looked straight at him, ‘Yes sir.’

  That night he lay in the dormitory listening to the others trying to get to sleep. He knew it had been Steiner who had found him in the ditch.

  Over the next days he waited for him to say something. He found himself watching Steiner whenever he could, in the dining hall, the lecture theatre, when they wer
e preparing for bed. To watch him was to notice everything in a different way, his sharp features, tight, muscular body, his dark hair parted at the side, the easy, comfortable way he seemed to do things, and the sound of his voice that was slow and reassuring. He could hear his own version of that voice, hear those sounds beyond the dark silence where the pain had melted.

  He found himself waiting for Steiner to mention what had happened. The others had been glad to see him back and then had carried on with their usual comments, avoiding all talk about his injuries, Schultz about the food in the dining hall, Frumm about too much training, Schultz about his fear of failing the end of year tests, Frumm trying to analyse when the country would be at war.

  It was Steiner who finally mentioned his wounds.

  ‘Do you have to have them regularly checked out?’ he asked, sat across from him in the dining hall.

  ‘Every month,’ Franz warily answered.

  ‘I thought we agreed we wouldn’t say anything,’ was Schultz.

  ‘Well now we have,’ Frumm said.

  ‘I’m only asking,’ was Steiner’s sharp response.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Franz tried.

  ‘Four months. It’s a long time out of things.’

  This was from Rilke, repeating the colonel’s words, a recruit who was at their table and was in the next dormitory to theirs. His darkly tanned face contrasted with his almost white hair. He was from Berlin and was one of the best shots in the first years.

  ‘I’ve missed a lot. I know,’ Franz agreed.

  ‘But at least you’re back,’ said Schultz.

  ‘And you haven’t missed anything but the same old stuff, parades, parades, dorm checks, parades, assault course and then another parade,’ Frumm moaned.

  When the meal was finished most of the recruits went out on the parade ground before their afternoon classes.

  Franz found himself walking beside Steiner.

  ‘Do you want a smoke?’ he was asked.

  ‘You know I don’t,’ Franz answered more angrily than he meant.

  ‘I thought you might have changed some of your habits.’

  ‘Well I haven’t.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘I’m no different. The accident left me no different, except for what you can see.’

  ‘The scars make you look like a Prussian.’

  Franz stopped and turned to him, ‘And what the hell do you know about Prussians?’

  Steiner smiled and said, ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘You should try reading some military history.’

  ‘Of course, that’s why we’re here isn’t it, to continue a glorious tradition, to serve the country, to become leaders of men?’

  They stopped to watch the second years strolling over to the dining room.

  ‘Look at them,’ Steiner said in a quieter voice, ‘You would think they were from a different world. Just imagine the war starting in the next few months. They would be alright but I wonder where that would leave us. We might miss the boat altogether.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Franz said.

  ‘Why so certain?’

  ‘You have to be.’

  ‘I wish it was that easy.’

  ‘We’ll be like them soon enough.’

  ‘To be a second year, except you’ll be more of a one and a half year.’

  ‘Stop trying to sound smart.’

  ‘But you think I am.’

  Franz glanced at him.

  ‘Does that mean you have no opinion either way?’ Steiner persisted.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said back before turning towards the classroom block.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------

  That night he again remembered the girls by the lake.

  The second girl had quickly appeared running in the same direction as the first. She was taller with darker skin and shorter hair. Her thighs looked strong and muscular, her breasts much fuller, swaying as she ran.

  He screwed up his eyes to see as best he could, already realising these two figures were the most enticing thing he had ever seen. It was as though his hardened penis was watching them as well. He wanted to open his shorts and let it out, to be naked like the girls in the late afternoon sun.

  The first was now running with her back to him as she came to the edge of the lake. He could remember it all so clearly.

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ she screamed in a kind of pained delight, stepping in and out of the blue water.

  He watched the other with her long, wide back and bulging buttocks that quivered as she ran.

  ‘Like me!’ she shouted running headlong into the lake and then throwing herself forward.

  As the girls started laughing and splashing water at each other he carefully made his way behind the line of low bushes to where the girls had left their clothes.

  In turn he found and smelt the inside of their pants, rubbing his mouth and nose along the thinnest parts then rummaging through the rest of their skirts and petticoats before going back to where he could watch them.

  The water was silvered in the sunlight as they thrashed about, slapping the surface of the lake, laughing and screaming before each in turn plunged down and disappeared, coming up then with more shouting and blowing mouthfuls of water at each other.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ the smaller one repeated.

  ‘It’s too cold now! Too cold!’ shouted the other.

  He felt the tightness in his chest and the dryness in his throat so he could hardly swallow. They came out onto the narrow pebbled shore, so beautiful, so wanted by him. Their bodies were glinting wet in the afternoon light, their hair silver sheened and flattened to their heads. Imaginatively his hands were everywhere, squeezing their mounded breasts, over shining thighs, cupping the dark patches between their legs and over their smooth glistening buttocks.

  Both of them were so tight and strong and perfectly shaped. The smaller one had the breasts that bulged straight out from her chest while the other’s hung down slightly and had large purple nipples.

  Even though midges were tickling his face and the sweat was dribbling down his cheeks, he was entranced, watching as they trudged towards their clothes, shivering and laughing, their legs reflecting the bright sunlight, their hair plastered down over their shoulders.

  They used their skirts as towels.

  ‘I’m starving,’ one of them said as she rubbed the skirt between her legs.

  ‘Just cold, cold, cold,’ the taller one pronounced, shaking her hair from side to side so it splashed arcs of water.

  The other stopped and stretched, pushing her arms upwards and raising herself on the balls of her feet. She held this position for a few moments that had him holding his breath and wanting her to stay like that so she would be his, motionless, stretched and he would walk around and around her to touch and lick and kiss, imagining his tongue licking up the beads of water over her legs and stomach and breasts and then into where the moisture on her bulge was from without and within, areas he would explore, carefully, the watcher, she held in his watching.

  ‘Hurry up,’ were the words that had the tall one relax and quickly put on her clothes.

  He wanted the whole experience immediately repeated. These images were the treasure, the secret, the store for his needs.

  Emptily he saw them leave. They were carrying their sandals as they walked some way around the edge of the lake before cutting across another meadow and disappearing out of sight.

  He had never seen these girls before. They were strangers to the valley which made them more of a provocation and had him breathing hard as he started along the path into a narrow line of pine trees.

  He could remember the light shifting over the bed of old pine needles. He could smell the fresh sap of the trees and the short ferns beneath them motionless in the final heat of the afternoon.

  He stepped off the path into where some of the trees were closer together and their needles were dark and spongy underfoot, the sun glazing ove
r the bright ferns.

  He took off his clothes and started walking about, rubbing the soft plant fronds over his hot skin, feeling his cock harden as the girls were in his memory, the results of his watching, with their glistening bodies, there for him, to see, to want, to take as he lay down to the throb of his excitement as the images and the smell of the pine and the light on his face as his hands had only to touch before he rolled over, pushing and jerking himself into the soft needles, bright and hot and given to the earth, given for the first time deep and pushed and tight.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

  It was the next evening when he came into his dormitory to find Steiner the only one there.

  ‘Where are the other two?’ he said more loudly than he had wanted.

  ‘Frumm will be playing cards somewhere and Schultz will be washing his underwear again.’

  Franz sat on the edge of his bed and started to unbutton the collar of his uniform.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he was asked.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘You sound edgy.’

  ‘Well I’m not.’

  Steiner went over to the window.

  Franz tried to control the tension he felt.

  Rain rattled against the window’s glass and there was the sound of boots along the corridor outside.

  ‘We don’t have to mention it if you think that would be best. I’m not sure you see. I can’t tell what you want or what you’re thinking about it. I suppose that’s the only reason I’m talking about it all. I’ve thought if you ever did come back here whether I should say something about what happened or just leave it. This is not for me you understand. I’m just not sure whether it would be helpful or not. I’ve not said anything to anybody else, of course I haven’t. This is strictly between the two of us. The last thing I want is to make it worse for you.’

  All of this had been said with Steiner’s back still to Franz.

  ‘Let’s just say I sympathise. It’s just the worst luck and could have happened to anybody. You can never predict these things. You don’t know how you’re going to be until, well, until it’s too late. I just wonder if you’ve thought about the next time. I’m sure you have, and how you’ll be, whether you’ll manage.’