Chapter Nine

When Father Shandor saw the two friends, he was visibly shocked, if it hadn't been for Ardeths tattoos he would never have recognized him. He was filthy, wearing clothes that were too big for him, all his hair was gone and he had lost so much weight.

Taking his coat off, Samuel wrapped it round him and Alex who was in just the same state as were all the men, some of them worse. They drove a few miles and then stopped to bury the two men who were dead, then carried on to a little place called Koprivnice, where there was a little church, whose nuns had helped the resistance before.

"Father are you okay?" he asked as they drove.

They both sat in the cab of the truck just in case they came across any soldiers, while the other three men stayed in the back with the men they had rescued.

"I don't know Samuel, you saw the state of them, God knows what has happened to them in that place. This is all my fault"

"Look I told you before it is not your fault, no one made them come to Germany to help you, they are grown men, making their own decisions. All we can do now is get them back to Egypt, which is not going to be easy. Right the church is about a mile away, down this old dirt track. Churches here always used to be build well away from the town or village"

The Mother superior came out when he heard the truck pulling up and greeted Samuel. Then signaling to someone inside the gates, they opened and the truck was driven in, the gates shut and locked behind them.

"Welcome, we were told you would be here. How many men have you got?" she asked.

"About ten not including our two friends. They will be coming with us. Can you accommodate us all for a couple of days, then we will be on our way. Ardeth and Alex need some medical attention before we go to Romania"

"That is no problem, I will show where you can sleep and I will send Sister Agatha and sister Paula down to take a look at all of the men"

"Don't you want us to…er…well they are men" said Samuel.

"We may be nuns but we have seen enough men in our lives to know what is what Samuel. Most of us are trained nurses, now let's get them inside"

It took them about an hour to get all the men into the large dormitory, where they were each taken in turn to the showers and then with clean clothes, put to bed with hot broth and strong tea. Nothing too heavy at first, just little and often.

Father Shandor and Samuel were told to get something to eat in the kitchen at the back of the church. These places were so compact even though they were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. The nuns that were not helping, sat at the table and talked to the Father.

"This is the first time I have been here" said Father Shandor "How many of you are there?"

"About twelve, it is safer for us all to be here together, like most churches around this area. Unfortunately in other areas, the churches have not been so lucky, we have lost a great many nuns to the Germans"

As they sat there, Sister Agatha came in and they asked her how Ardeth and Alex was.

"They are very ill I am afraid. Six months or more of very little food, dirty conditions. They have been beaten by the looks of the bruises, some are new and others are quite old. But the main problem is their mental state, we don't know what they have seen and been party too. We may never know. Alex, that is the younger one – he seems in better condition, if I can put it that way, than Ardeth does"

"Well, Ardeth went through quite a bit about eighteen months ago, when he was here the first time" replied Father Shandor.

She asked them to tell her what had happened, that way she could tell them how to treat him on the way back to Romania. All she did was shook her head as the tale was related and she didn't seem shocked at all and they told her so.

"My friends, the war has been going on for nearly six years, we have seen things that make even what happened to Ardeth on both occasions very mild. It would take a lot nowadays to shock us, I am afraid. The Lord knows how anyone survives any of this, but they do and your friends will survive. It will take time and patience, maybe only a short time, maybe many years, but they will get over it, I assure you" she said placing a hand on his shoulder.

Father Shandor went to see the two men and found that only Alex was asleep. They certainly looked a bit better now that they were clean but it made their condition look even worse. He could see in the light just how sick his friend was. He wasn't a big man in the first place and it looked like he had lost a good three stone, if not more. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was as pale as the sheets on the bed.

"Ardeth, why aren't you asleep, you need rest"

Ardeth looked at him and shook his head. The Father got a chair and sat next to him.

"Where is Alex?" he asked softly.

"He is here, look right next to you. Do you want a drink or anything?"

"A drink, please. Are we really out of that place?"

"Yes, you are safe as far as being away from there but I will not lie to you, we have to get back to Romania. It is going to take about three to five weeks to get back there. But Samuel has arranged help along the way so there should be no problems"

"There was another man, a friend who helped us, is he here?"

"What was his name?"

"Karl, if it hadn't been for him we would have been dead a long time ago"

"I will find out and bring you a drink, then you must get some sleep"

He left Ardeth and went to speak to Sister Paula who was winding some bandages at the far end of the room. He asked her if there was a man called Karl there. She said there was but that he was very ill, even more so than the others. He had pneumonia and she didn't know if he would make it or not.

Father Shandor poured two mugs of tea out and took them back to Ardeth. Helping him sit up a bit, Ardeth managed to drink most of it but because he had not eaten or drunk properly for so long, it didn't stay down very long. Laying him back down, the Father pulled the covers up round him as he was shivering and sat on the bed trying to get him to sleep. Sister Paula came over with a small glass containing a brownish liquid.

"Ardeth, try and swallow this, it will help you sleep…that's it…good"

"What is it?"

"It is a mild sleeping draught in honey, it will be easy to swallow and hopefully he won't bring it back up. He will sleep in a few minutes and will stay asleep for at least eight hours"

The man thanked her and she told him to get some rest himself as soon as Ardeth was asleep. She showed him where he could go and he lay down thinking about the events of the past day or so and what the next few days would bring. Not all the men would survive, that much was clear, he just hoped Ardeth and Alex were not in that number.

By the next morning there were only eight of the men left alive, most had died during the night, either from eating proper meals or from the warmth. It sounded ironic but being in the conditions that they had been had made them vulnerable to even the simplest of things.

One of the nuns had helped Ardeth and Alex into the kitchen when they refused to stay in their beds and gave them some broth. Only small amounts at first, over the next few days they could increase it and within a week, they should be back to eating normal food.

The clothes that had been found for them were somewhat big and had to be taken in. they had lost so much weight. Father Shandor came running in when he discovered that they were not in bed and that some men had died. He was so glad to see them sitting there.

"Ardeth, Alex thank God, I thought you were… how are you feeling?"

"Better, it is heaven to feel warm again. I thought I was cold last time

but this was continual cold, even though it is June it was still cold to us"

said Ardeth.

"The weather is warming up, about September it has gone the other way and can be too hot. You should get some more rest, come on back to bed"

Ardeth agreed and walked back with the Father while Alex stayed in the kitchen and ate some more broth. Once the man was settled and asleep, the Father came back and spoke to Alex.

"Come, let us walk in the grounds, it is safe there, the walls are twenty foot high"

"How long are we going to be here?" asked Alex.

"Only a few days then we shall go back to my monastery and then back to Egypt. If you want to tell me about that place it will help"

Alex sat with the Father on the stone bench in front of the Mother Superiors window and related all that had happened to them since they were captured. Father Shandor wrote it all down, he had decided to write a document about it after the war. As Alex told his story, the Reverent Mother was listening at the window and tears rolled down her face as she heard the terrible things that had gone on in that camp and what these men had experienced.

"I am worried about Ardeth" said Alex "after last time, there were things here that made him contemplate suicide on two occasions, me and Karl had to talk him out of it. Somehow, I managed to shut it out, Karl showed me how. Sometimes I let my guard down but, I know this sounds so hard and selfish, but I needed to survive somehow and not caring what happened to the others was the only way to do it. As long as it wasn't me, I didn't care. Forgive me Father"

"There is nothing to forgive Alex, we all deal with things in different ways. It doesn't make you hard or selfish, it makes you a survivor and makes you stronger. I take it Ardeth couldn't do that"

"No, he was fine on most things but when we had to work on the ovens and he saw all those people being burned, a few of them, you know, still alive, he broke down. I just hope he can cope this time"

Father shandor knew Ardeth would make it this time. It would take time and a lot of help to get him to forget what he had seen and had to take part in. But he would in time. All they had to do now was get back to Egypt.

There were rumours that the Allies were in Europe and the Germans were being driven back. Hopefully the war would be over in a few months time. Samuel had gone to get some transport to get them to Romania. Some of the resistance had found a way through that would mean that they would not encounter many Germans.

By the time a week had gone by, some of the men had already left with other resistance members and that left Ardeth, Alex and Karl, who was getting over the pneumonia but still needed a lot of care. They were almost ready to leave and the nuns kissed them all and they thanked them for all the help that they had given since their arrival.

"Ardeth are you okay, you've been very quiet the last couple of days" asked Alex.

"I am fine, still tired and a bit weak but I will survive this. I have just some things I want to think through. Things that I have to get clear in my mind and decide what I am going to do about them"

Alex wondered what he was up to but no doubt time would tell. Ardeth might have gone through hell in that camp, they all had but he was a determined man when he wanted to be and he had something up his sleeve. It would take a few weeks before he was completely fit again and regained some of the weight he had lost. But even now, Alex knew that look.

As they drove towards the Romanian border, Alex thought of his parents and wondered how they were coping. They had heard nothing from them for months and no doubt would be worried sick. He was determined that as soon as they reached the monastery, he would try and get a message to them to let them know they were okay.