A Fight in Silence

by Melanie Metzenthin

  ‘Frau Doctor Hellmer, have you heard it all on the radio?’

  ‘What’s on the radio?’

  ‘The English and the Americans have landed in Normandy! Isn’t that exactly where your husband’s stationed?’

  Paula froze. ‘Normandy’s a big place. Where exactly have they landed?’

  ‘Somewhere near Cherbourg.’

  Cherbourg! Fear gripped Paula’s heart.

  Chapter 51

  ‘I cannot work in these conditions!’ roared Fritz as yet more plaster broke away from the ceiling and trickled on to his face. Gunfire had been thundering around them for hours, and now the explosions came nearer, making the walls shake. Fritz was tending a soldier with a gunshot wound to the upper arm and the man groaned in pain in spite of the procaine injection.

  ‘Hasn’t anyone told those idiots out there this is a field hospital?’

  ‘D’you really think that lot care? They’ve already bombed a whole city full of innocent civilians to smithereens, so why would they bother about a field hospital?’ Richard spoke with bitterness as he stood handing Fritz bandages. This was normally a job for the nurse, but most of them were busy preparing to evacuate all the wounded.

  ‘You’re right. Silly question,’ said Fritz. Then he spoke to his patient. ‘Right, all done. You were lucky the bullet went straight through without touching the bone. It’ll heal well. Nurse Heidi, take this man to the transport.’

  ‘Are we clearing out already?’ asked Richard. ‘I thought we were supposed to hang on here until the afternoon.’

  ‘Can you do any decent work here? I can’t.’ Fritz was in no doubt. ‘If we want to get out of here at all, then we should try right now. Nurse Heidi, you’re acting like a headless chicken. I’ve already told you to take this man to the medical vehicles outside.’

  ‘Oh God, we’re all going to die!’ Heidi kept shouting the same thing. She was very young, twenty at the most, by Richard’s reckoning, and had probably been sent straight to the Front after completing her training. She’d arrived in Cherbourg only three weeks ago.

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Fritz. ‘It’s just a question of when. And now, will you just do as I asked?’

  Sister Heidi was still running around, quite distraught, still saying, ‘We’re all going to die!’

  Fritz sighed and turned back to the patient he’d just finished tending. ‘Go down the corridor to the back and you’ll find the buses.’ The man nodded and did as he was told, even though he was still wobbly on his feet.

  Fritz took off his surgical apron and put on his uniform jacket and cap.

  ‘I think Nurse Heidi’s problem falls within your area of expertise, Richard. Can you do anything for her?’

  Richard nodded and walked slowly towards her. The guns thundered again, there was a loud noise close by and more plaster cascaded down from the ceiling. Sister Heidi fled the treatment room in sheer panic, but not to the rear entrance and the waiting transport but to the main entrance.

  Richard went after her. ‘Nurse! Come back here! You’re running towards enemy fire!’ He caught up with her just as she reached the main entrance and grabbed hold of her. ‘Come with me. Not out there.’

  She stared back at him, her eyes dead. ‘We’re all going to die, we’re all going to die!’

  ‘Not if you come with me. Now!’ Richard had started to head back to the treatment room with her when she lost all control, turned on him like a woman possessed, punched him hard in the chest and broke free.

  ‘Fritz, quickly! Need you here!’ shouted Richard as he tried to block her path towards the firing line.

  ‘Coming!’ called Fritz, still buttoning up his jacket as he ran.

  Then a shell exploded, catching Richard in the belly and knocking him to the ground.

  ‘Oh God, we’re all going to die!’ Nurse Heidi kept up the same lament.

  ‘Shut your mouth, once and for all!’ Fritz bellowed at her, then he knelt close to Richard. ‘Damn it, Richard . . .’

  ‘I don’t think it’s much,’ said Richard, making light of his wound. He tried to touch the area where he’d been hit and felt something warm and wet in the place he expected only the cloth of his uniform to be. In disbelief, he gazed at the blood on his hand. ‘This can’t be right. There’s no pain.’

  ‘That’s because you’re in shock. That’ll soon change.’ Fritz tore away what remained of Richard’s ripped jacket and shirt, took several rolls of bandage from his bag and pressed them against the wound. The pressure was uncomfortable, but there was still no pain. Was he imagining it, or were Fritz’s hands really shaking?

  Richard felt that time was passing more slowly than usual, and the thunder of heavy artillery and the nurse’s shrieks lost all meaning. He could see and hear, but his reason told him he should be doubling up with pain. But he felt nothing, neither pain nor fear.

  ‘Is it serious?’ he asked Fritz.

  ‘I can only tell you that once I find out what internal injuries the shrapnel’s caused.’ Fritz continued working on the bandaging. ‘What matters now is that you don’t bleed to death.’

  Nurse Heidi gave another piercing shriek, causing Richard to turn and look in her direction. An American soldier had come charging into the hospital, his gun at the ready. He saw the nurse and fired. Even against the background of shelling, Richard heard her body hit the ground, lifeless.

  Fritz whipped around, shouting in English, ‘This is a field hospital! We are not fighting troops!’ The American now aimed at Fritz.

  ‘We surrender!’ Fritz raised both his hands, still kneeling by his wounded friend. The American reloaded.

  ‘Didn’t you hear? We surrender!’ Fritz was desperate, raising his hands even higher.

  Richard noticed the staring eyes of this young man, probably no older than the nurse he’d just shot dead. His gaze was blank. Richard knew the boy had lost his mind. Words wouldn’t touch him. He hadn’t taken in the fact that Fritz was surrendering. He slowly curved his finger around the trigger. This boy really was going to shoot Fritz. Richard’s right hand slid swiftly to his belt and, before he realised what he was doing, he’d drawn and fired straight into the American’s face. He fell backwards, but with his final movement his index finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet missed Fritz by an inch, whisking off his cap.

  ‘My God,’ whispered Fritz, his voice trembling. ‘That one was ready to shoot us even though we’d surrendered. Why?’

  Richard was about to explain to Fritz that the staring eyes indicated the man had lost his mind but, before he could even begin, he felt pain so severe it took his breath away and left him gasping.

  With the greatest of care, Fritz took the pistol still clamped tightly in Richard’s hand. ‘If I help you, can you stand up? We need to leave.’ He got hold of Richard and tried to pull him to his feet. Richard did all he could to cooperate, but the pain tore through him a second time. ‘Can’t do it,’ he gasped.

  ‘Then I’ll just carry you. It’ll hurt, I’m warning you.’

  Richard nodded dumbly. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how this pain could possibly get any worse.

  Fritz lifted him a little higher, crouched again to brace himself, then heaved his friend over his shoulder.

  He was right. The pain did get worse. Richard chewed on his lip so as not to scream out loud as his own body weight pressed on the wound, while Fritz, panting with the exertion, carried him over his shoulder as he might a sack of potatoes, all the way to the rear exit, where help came at last.

  ‘We’re the last out,’ grunted Fritz. ‘We’ve already seen one Yank. We have to get out of here.’

  Richard almost passed out with the pain as they loaded him into the medical transport, but he waited in vain for the blessed relief of falling fully unconscious. Fritz climbed aboard and checked the emergency dressing. The fresh patch of blood did not fill him with confidence.

  ‘You must promise me one thing, Fritz. If I don’t make it, don’t tell Paula in a letter
. Go and see her. Be there with her.’

  ‘I’m not letting you die. Never.’

  ‘It hurts like hell,’ moaned Richard. ‘Can’t you knock me out with Evipan?’

  Fritz nodded and reached inside his bag for the injection.

  ‘I’ll get you right,’ he promised, easing the needle into the crook of Richard’s arm. ‘If I fail, I’ll tell Paula myself. But that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to lose you to this damned war, not after losing Doro and the kids. Never!’ He pressed home the needle, and the last thing Richard saw, before everything went black and the pain went away, were the tears in his best friend’s eyes.

  Chapter 52

  Over the last two years Göttingen had come to look more and more like a military hospital base. Surgical wards had been added to the existing psychiatric facility and were filled with wounded soldiers. Paula’s responsibilities now included psychiatric counselling on these surgical wards, as the wounded so often developed psychoses or became suicidal following permanent disability.

  Paula’s frequent deployment to these wards meant she swiftly got an understanding of where on the Front the worst fighting was happening. Since the Allies had landed in Normandy, she had heard nothing from Richard. She tried to reassure herself with the knowledge that it was hard to maintain any communications at all in these difficult times, although the special German Reichsbahn train continued to run as before, ferrying the wounded out of France. Information was sparse, but one day she learned that one of the casualties on the ward had been wounded in Cherbourg.

  ‘Did you happen to meet my husband there?’ she asked him. ‘Dr Richard Hellmer? Or his friend, Dr Fritz Ellerweg?’

  ‘I don’t know your husband, I’m afraid. But Dr Ellerweg, yes, I know him – he operated on me. It’s thanks to him I still have my leg.’

  ‘So what was it like in Cherbourg?’

  ‘I don’t want to scare you, but it was pretty horrific. We were as good as surrounded, and I’m lucky I got out in time. I’ve heard that the field hospital where I had my operation got heavily bombarded a couple of days after I’d left. Everyone had to be evacuated. But I only learned that second-hand, so I don’t really know what happened.’

  Days went by, more and more wounded arrived from the Western Front, but however many people Paula asked, nobody had news of Richard. Official reports about Cherbourg were restrained, indicating only that the men were fighting bravely.

  One Saturday morning in late June, Paula was sitting writing up her patients’ notes when Sister Sibylle came into her office. ‘Frau Doctor Hellmer, you’re asked to go immediately to the surgeon on 2B. It seems urgent.’

  Paula set down her fountain pen. ‘And what exactly is so urgent? Is it someone hallucinating, or just another fit of crying caused by our hardened surgeons pushing someone to the limit?’

  Sister Sibylle giggled. ‘I was only told that you’re needed.’

  Waiting for her at Ward 2B stood Dr Dührsen, a young surgeon who reminded her a little of Fritz. He was one of several who called for her only if it was really important.

  ‘We have a very difficult case here,’ he started to explain. ‘The moment he arrived here, he started insisting on seeing you.’

  Paula frowned and said, ‘What are his symptoms?’

  ‘That’s for you to establish. Best if you take a look at him. He’ll tell you.’

  ‘He isn’t behaving aggressively, is he?’

  ‘No, don’t worry, apart from the fact he persists in demanding a woman psychiatrist, he doesn’t seem violent. You’ll find him in the observation room, first bed by the window.’ Dr Dührsen grinned and Paula wavered. Surgeons sometimes had a very odd sense of humour, especially this one.

  When she walked into the observation room she noticed nothing unusual. All the men seemed calm, most were asleep, a few were reading, two were playing cards.

  The man by the window pulled himself up when he saw her walk in. Paula froze in her tracks. ‘Richard!’ Everyone turned to look. ‘Richard! You’re here! You’re alive!’

  She rushed to his bed, put her arms around him and kissed him, oblivious to the cheering and clapping going on around them. Richard held her close and returned her kisses.

  ‘I’ve been so worried about you!’ she cried, once she’d let him go. ‘Are you badly wounded? Is it serious?’ She took a moment to sit back and look at him closely. His face was pale, there were dark rings under his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken, as if he’d lost weight.

  ‘Everything seems better now,’ he replied. ‘I’m home and I’m staying.’ He reached in the bedside cupboard for a sealed envelope.

  ‘Keep this safe – Fritz gave it to me,’ he whispered to her. ‘There are two operative reports. One’s the official one, and Dr Dührsen’s got that, and one’s the real one – that’s what you’ve now got.’

  Paula put the envelope out of sight in her uniform pocket. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘Sit down here on the bed and I’ll tell you.’

  And so Richard told her how he’d been badly wounded, how they’d almost been shot by the crazed American and how Fritz had brought him to safety behind their own lines.

  ‘But I don’t really remember everything, as good old Fritz gave me a hefty dose of Evipan. By the time I came round, he’d operated on me and arranged my transport home. When he said goodbye, he told me he’d hugely exaggerated in the official report. He reckons anyone who reads it will think I’ve been practically disembowelled and am not fit for further service at the Front.’ The trace of a tired smile played around his mouth. ‘What I really had was a few bits of shrapnel in my belly and two in my liver. I was lucky it all just missed the abdominal aorta.’

  ‘Thank God it did. When can you come home?’

  ‘If everything carries on healing well, in a couple of days, that’s all. Fritz stuffed me full of sulphonamides too, to be on the safe side. I can’t tell you how sick they make me feel, but he said that’s no bad thing because I mustn’t eat too much until my belly’s healed up.’

  Paula laughed. ‘That’s typical of Fritz. So where is he now?’

  ‘Don’t know. The last I saw of him was when he arranged to get me to the railway station.’ Richard took a deep breath. Paula could see how tiring it had been to say all this, in spite of his forced good cheer.

  ‘Oh, something else,’ he added. ‘You’ll need to get me some clothes from somewhere. We had to get out of there so fast that we left everything, and the uniform I had on at the time, well, it’s not usable, apart from the boots.’ There was another sigh. ‘I couldn’t even save my Leica!’

  ‘But you’re safe! That’s the important thing. Nothing else matters.’

  ‘I’m still cross about the Leica.’

  ‘That means you’re getting better.’

  He gave her a smile. ‘Yes, that’s the end of my war at the Front. That’s all that matters.’

  Chapter 53

  Richard made a slow but sure recovery from his war wounds. Paula was careful to secure from the chief medical officer documentation confirming that Richard was permanently unfit for service as a result of his injuries.

  On the one hand, Richard could now enjoy being with his family again and sharing in the lives of his children, but on the other, he soon became all too familiar with the uncertainty suffered by Paula over the last three years. He sent a number of letters to Fritz at the Front, but got no replies. Was Fritz not receiving the letters, or had they all gone missing? Had his friend ended up as a prisoner of war? Had he fallen? No, he couldn’t countenance that, but ever since he’d shot the American in self-defence it had been clear to him that neither the medical corps nor unconditional surrender could effectively protect Fritz from the worst. Gruesome images plagued Richard’s mind – never the image of the soldier he’d shot in the head, only that of Fritz, kneeling helplessly on the ground, his hands up in surrender; Fritz, who’d have been shot dead if Richard hadn’t fired first. And Richard had othe
r people to worry about besides. He often thought of his family in Hamburg, and of Paula’s father. His father-in-law still had a telephone that worked, but the connection was becoming more unreliable by the day so Richard decided to go to Hamburg to see the situation there for himself.

  It was now the end of August, and Paula wasn’t sure what to do, as Emilia and Georg wanted to accompany their father. She allowed herself to be persuaded that the trip would not be too dangerous. Since the terrible raids of the previous summer the city had been largely reduced to ruins and was no longer an attractive target for the Allied bombers. For a while now they had concentrated all their attention on hitherto undisturbed German cities, meaning that Paula had become so busy in the hospital that it was hard to take time off to go to Hamburg with the others.

  ‘That’s the price you pay for realising your dream of becoming a psychiatrist while I’ve been at home seeing to the children,’ Richard teased her.

  ‘When you come back I’m going to ask Professor Ewald if he can find you a post. If you’re fit enough to go to Hamburg, you’re fit enough to work.’

  ‘You’ll make me think you begrudge me my period of convalescence. Do you want to ask him if I could take over your job so you can be at home again?’

  ‘Definitely not! But I do think it would do you good to have a routine again.’

  ‘I’ll ask him myself once we’re back. Paula, I love you, even though you sound like a nagging washerwoman at the moment.’

  ‘Washerwoman, that’s it – that’s what you’ve forgotten to do! You haven’t collected our dry cleaning. Seeing as you’re the one at home all day, you might have thought of picking that up. I’ll just have to do it myself tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, Paula, be nice to me again. I’ll do better, promise! I’ll collect the laundry first thing tomorrow before I go to the station.’ He pulled her gently towards him, and she nestled into him, like she used to.

  ‘And then you’ll miss your train, so no, you won’t do that – I’ll do it. It’s OK. The main thing is that you and the children come home safely.’