"Come on! Tie his hands and load him onto the cart, don't be so slow, come on, come on!"
"Shhhh! You bloody fool, do you want him to wake up?!"
"I'm just saying-"
"Oh you're just saying!" the scruffy man dressed in army uniform gesticulated overdramatically "Oh well that's fine then, perfect in fact! And when the sergeant gets back why don't you just say-"
Ernst's head throbbed, he tried to reach out for Hanschen's hand but found his arms were bound with thick rope, he opened his eyes a fraction, and saw a gun on the ground by his head.
"Oh come on lads stop your quarrelling, look, when we get back to the dugout why don't I make us all a nice cup of tea-" a smaller man with a moustache attempted to calm the situation.
"Fat lot of good teas going to do us when they find out we've lost the captive because someone woke him up before we could take him away, fine sought for her majesty's army you've turned out to be!"
"What shall we do about the other one?"
"Which
one?"
"The blonde one"
The scruffy man reached down into the shell hole and shook Hanschen's shoulders. No reply.
"Leave him."
Ernst was about to open his mouth when a gag was tied across it, strong hands picked him up and dumped him onto the back of the cart.
The youngest of the three soldiers looked up at his superior pleadingly, "Private Sassoon don't you think we should at least-"
"Now come on Private Owen," the scruffy man continued, holding his head high.
"Its just, when we found them they were all curled up together, they looked so peaceful. It seems cruel to capture one and not the other."
Ernst began to drift out of consciousness, he saw nothing, he felt nothing.
Private Sassoon turned, "Private Brooke what do you think?"
Private Brooke rubbed his hand over his stubbly chin, staring across the wasteland of shell craters and barbed wire; the persistent rain stung his face "I think they're lucky the battle's moved east, one more day here and our friend on the cart over there would have probably been trampled to death by the horses, poor sod."
"And what about our friend here?" Private Owen said softly indicating Hanschen's bruised form which still lay, crumpled, in the crater.
"He won't last much longer," Private Brooke said grimly, "And he's not our bloody friend! He's a German, for Christ's sake Owen"
"But-"
"Private Owen please!" Private Sassoon was securing the locks on the cart whilst attempting to tame his untameable brown hair and reprimand the younger man all at once. "Remember your training, they are the enemy! Now lets take him back to base, driver, lead the way!" he slapped one of the horses on its flank and it began to pull the cart and its prisoner away,
"Quick march boys." Private Sassoon grabbed his rifle from the ground "For England!"
"For England" the two men repeated.
SPRINGAWAKENINGSPRINGAWAKENINGSPRINGSPRINGAWAKENINGSPRING AWAKENING
"Funny dark hair"
"Gosh look how pale his skin is, do you suppose they all look like that in Germany?"
"He mightn't be from Germany, they say the Austrians are fighting too now,"
"How strange…"
The two young women were gathered around the young soldier, they had been up with him most of the night, the single oil lamp filled the small underground room with a hazy glow. The boy hadn't regained consciousness yet, but his bleeding had just about stopped.
The slim blonde haired girl pressed a gauze pad to the young soldier's forehead.
"How old do you think he must be? Sixteen, seventeen maybe?"
"At a stretch, in that uniform he barely looks a day over twelve,"
"Oh don't be silly," the slim girl giggled affectionately, she felt the soldier tense beneath her fingers "Goodness I think he's waking up,"
"I'll run and get the Sergeant"
The room slowly came into focus, the blonde women jolted backwards, away from the bed, as if she was afraid of the raven haired boy before her.
"Hanschen? Bist das du? (Hanschen Is that you?)"
"I'm sorry dear, I- I can't understand you, are you hungry? Cold? Does it hurt?"
"Hanschen? Wo ist er? Was haben Sie ihm angetan?" (Hanschen? is he? What have you done to him?)
The young girl in her nurse's uniform grasped the boy's hands pleadingly,
"Please- I can't understand what you're saying, just sit back down-"
But they boy's fear and anger was rising, there was panic in his youthful eyes, he pulled his hands roughly out of the young girl's grasp.
"Lassen Sie mich gehen! bitte! ich muß ihn finden-" (let me go! Please! I have to find him-)
Just then the Sergeant burst through the door of the bunker, he was tall and strident with a bolting look in his cold blue eyes. The girl cowered in the corner. The soldier looked up into his unfeeling face, trying to fight back tears.
"Tie him to the chair"
The boy began to struggle
"Please sir," the blonde girl ran forward, "he's been injured, he's obviously distressed, let me-"
"Alright," the sergeant cut her off, he threw a pair of handcuffs and a set of torn, blue striped pyjamas in the direction of the single bed, "I will return to question him in twenty minutes."
And with that he marched out of the room, giving the boy one last glare before closing the door.
The boy began to shiver, "Bitte-" (Please-) he began
"Shhhhhh," the girl placed a finger to his lips, "What is your name?"
The boy stared at her with blank desperate eyes, he didn't seem to care that he couldn't understand her, it was as if his mind was still back on the battlefield."
"Ok," the girl gestured to herself, "me Emily," she gestured at the boy, "you…"
The boy's face was in his hands, "Ernst" he said.
"Ernst" the girl smiled, "And Hanschen is?"
Ernst looked up at the mention of Hanschen's name
"Alles" he said sadly Hanschen ist alles" (Everything, Hanschen is everything)
SPRINGAWAKENINGSPRINGAWAKENINGSPRINGAWAKENINGSPRINGAWAKENING
It was midnight, the interrogation had passed and now Ernst lay, bruised, on the floor of a small stone cell, shivering in thin pyjamas. The nurses stood the other side of the bars, watching him sleep. The only light came through the small barred window on the other side of the cell.
"Did the sergeant get much out of him?"
"Oh Molly, it was horrible, they beat him until he was nearly black and blue, and still he didn't speak, I don't think he even knew what they were asking him. And yet still they went on beating and beating. I could hardly bear it."
"He's only a private; I shouldn't think he would be able to tell them a thing even if he did speak English."
"Exactly," Emily paused, brushing her light hair out of her face, "matron says he's to have one phone call, and then they're going to take him away."
"where to?"
"God knows," the young girl's voice caught in her throat, "the sergeant only says they'll do what they have to do to protect Britain."
Molly placed an arm around her shoulders, she looked sympathetically down at the sleeping boy "come on, let's help him make his phone call."
They left Ernst in the telephone room and sat outside waiting, the sound of his soft voice drifted through the wall, but he sounded distressed, as if he was crying.
"Briony-" Emily whispered, gesturing at the short, plump nurse who was crossing the hallway, "You speak German don't you?"
Briony looked worried, "a little, only from school-"
"What's he saying?" Molly whispered, curiosity overcoming her
Briony frowned in concentration, pressing her ear close to the door. She listened for a few minutes and then pulled away slowly, tears glimmering in her eyes.
"Briony what is it?" Emily pleaded, "What did he say?"
"He's speaking to his mother-" a tear slid down Briony's cheek, "he says, if someone called Hanschen should ever return home, that she should tell him that he loved him, with his whole heart, and that nothing in the world could ever change that."
A/N: Thanks for reading, will hopefully include some more Hernst stuff in the next chapter :)
