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Recall
Coming awake again, the soldier thought he heard voices. He had been a front-line soldier and in unfriendly hands enough times to know to stay quiet and still. Unfriendly hands landed him here, wherever here was. He just hoped there was no more hurting in store for a while. He didn't think he could take much more. The conversation was muted and distant; just listen. English? German? French? He couldn't tell. Last time he'd been rescued from a battlefield, he'd been in German hands. Everyone was careful to speak only English around him then. Trying to trick him, he thought. Weren't they SS? His foggy memory wasn't sure but maybe. Those SS people are nasty. Or God forbid, Robertson or the Gestapo. If that was the case now, he wanted to postpone that reality as long as possible.
As he played possum, the soldier tried to reconstruct the past several days. Unsure of how much time had passed, he just knew it had to be a week if not more. The stubble on his face felt and sounded that way when he'd moved against the covers. He recalled a torturous walk and carry, helped by a couple of soldiers. That must be how I got here. But he remembered very little of that journey; his memory was still foggy on what came before.
How did he end up in this mess? It started simply enough. Just a quick venture into enemy territory to verify and report, then captured. Not by the enemy but by someone that made the enemy look kind. He'd been briefly free after Robertson. And now, captured again. He couldn't remember any details, but knew he'd been unconscious and wouldn't have any knowledge of what happened. Can't think of that right now.
But what he knew, without a doubt, was that he had been a captive. Of Robertson. And terribly used. That was earlier. The last time he'd been found, at least they were kind. Whoever brought him in; he wouldn't recognize either of them if they were sitting right next to him. He didn't even know if they were Germans or Americans. They were young and talkative. One of them spoke German, kept talking to him in German, but kindly, not harshly. The other one, English. Why?
Is this a Kraut aid station?! I could be a prisoner. I don't have my dog tags! He remembered having them ripped off. That last group of men that found him, they looked for them, pawing around his neck and chest. Surely they'd recognize him as a soldier, not a spy or infiltrator. He hoped, soldier, please, soldier. Or was he a captive? Robertson had promised to take him again and this time show no mercy. He suddenly panicked, then clamped down the emotion. Don't waste energy.
He had a memory of someone finding him and being rolled, kicked over. Krauts? Americans? Someone else? Marauders. He thought he'd been found at least once, twice? At least twice, maybe more. One of those times registered as distinctly unpleasant. Quite painful, as a matter of fact. And bloody. Captured. Escaped? Ambushed? Lots of blanks there. I know they talked to me, yelled at me, but I didn't understand a thing. They could have been speaking Greek for all I know. It was just gibberish. That last group talked to me too. And nothing made sense, either.
Thinking was getting hard. Everything ached, right down into his bones. He felt beyond exhausted, utterly enervated. And empty. As if he hadn't eaten in a week, but he wasn't hungry. Not in the least. Only hurt registered. The cot was hard, and so was the pillow. But he wasn't out in the open anymore and he didn't have to stumble or drag himself one more step or crawl through the muck. Clutching the covers in a hand, he made to curl up in a more comfortable position and back into sleep. "Ah. Ow." Involuntary murmurs of pain caught the attention of the doctor. By the time Zimmermann reached the soldier, though, he'd faded out again.