.: Shivering Soldier :.
Moist.
Wet.
Cold.
Windy.
Waves and gusts tore at him, pushed him under the water, deeper into the gray nothingness below the surface. He wanted to fight back, didn't want to drown, didn't... The weight of the soaked uniform and the woolen blanket that he had fastened to himself with his belt so as not to lose it pulled him down, and he no longer had enough strength to... The next wave drove him against something hard. The impact was painful and made him gasp for air and swallow salt water before he was again pushed from the resistance and again up against it.
Once.
A second.
A third, too.
Instinctively, he threw both arms forward, not knowing where he'd suddenly gotten the strength for it, and also not knowing how he could hold on enough to pull himself up on that cold, wet thing in the sea. There he stayed lying on his stomach, gasping for air and with a ringing in his ears that made him deaf to everything else and yet... He had no strength to worry about it, not now when it didn't matter at all whether he was hearing anything. It was only important that...
The gray water still licked his boots with every wave, but it no longer offered enough surface to attack him and pull him down to the bottom, as it did with all the others had that... A cough arched his body and tore painfully into his chest until he spat water, maybe vomited, too. He did not know. It ran sour from his mouth, again and again, gagging, spitting, coughing; and still... Anyway, he somehow managed to crawl higher up every time the cough and gagging warped his body like he was a worm that...
He didn't know how long it lasted, only that at some point he'd gotten so high up that the water couldn't get to him. What remained was the wind that bit its skin mercilessly through his wet uniform. Merciless. Incessantly. Timeless.
Timeless.
Until, at some point, he managed to roll over on his back. His eyelashes were caked with salt, hardly allowing him to open his eyes. He only succeeded after he rubbed his sleeve, still damp, over it. Nevertheless, he had to fight against the stinging of the salt in his eyes. Eventually the knowledge trickled into his mind that the night had fallen over the canal. And with the realization, the urge to cough came back, forcing him suddenly and instinctively upwards — as if his body knew what to do, so that he couldn't lie there any longer. If he didn't... If he didn't what? But this time he didn't vomit, only the repulsive taste remained in his mouth, paired with unspeakable thirst, which eclipsed even the gnawing feeling of hunger.
He was lost.
And he knew it.
No, only part of him knew.
Another part finally forced him to loosen the blanket from his belt, to wrap himself completely in the damp, woolen material to protect himself a little better from the wind and...
The common sense in him mocked that it was futile for him to avoid freezing to death out here anyway. He would sooner or later, no matter how limited the channel was compared to other parts of the North Sea and the Atlantic. That was no guarantee he would be found. There was no guarantee of salvation, and even if... His chances were fifty-fifty that it would really be salvation. The Germans were here. It was one of their submarines that...
Perhaps it was more gracious not to be saved than to fall into the hands of the enemy. He would be lost either way. It wouldn't make a significant difference. In either case, he would never see his wife and children again. Never... His fingers dug into the wool, pulling it tighter as he closed his eyes. Wife and children...
Wife and children...
Wife and children...
He shouldn't have left. Never.
He had to go.
They needed the money, and the Army paid better, paid enough to put something into savings, not just for bad times, but for the kids and the general store they wanted to open at home in the village his wife came from. Because he hadn't been there since...
Since...
It didn't matter anymore, it dawned on him. Nothing mattered anymore. He was going to perish out here. The war was raging around him, and the Navy would not look for a ship that was sunk. Nor would they spare one to look for survivors, under the circumstances, not when they were evacuating thousands of men from the mainland.
If only he still had his rifle...
His rifle...
He could put an end to everything so quickly...
The hopelessness.
The wind.
The cold.
Of fear.
It would be that easy.
It would be quick.
He had seen it done himself.
A shot. A ball. So many of his comrades had died. Simply that way. From one second to the next it was over, another life had been wiped out. And that of all things was denied him! He was doomed to crouch there until fate said it was time for redemption — and he knew fate was cruel. Had it been different, it would not have spared him, only to make him wait a little longer for the inevitable.
He did not see that it was getting lighter behind the gray cloud cover, that the sun was rising behind it and that a new day was breaking, because he had put his head on his knees, his face pressed into the ceiling. He didn't want to see or hear anything anymore, although the ringing in his ears had meanwhile subsided. But the pounding of the waves, their splashing and licking on the hull seemed to want to drive him crazy, only made him long for his rifle and for... voices.
There were voices.
And another engine noise.
Both drowned out the wind and waves and... He raised his head in disbelief.
Could it really be that...
The first thing he saw was the Blue Ensign — a piece of home.