The Boat Runner

by Devin Murphy

  “You just made a mistake, you Dutch du Hurenschn.” Timothy pulled a dagger out from the side of his belt and slammed it down into the wood table. The blade ate an inch into the wood, and the black handle—with the red-framed black swastika in the middle—shook for a moment between the two boys. Etched on the blade were the familiar words Blut und Ehre, and no sooner had I finished reading them, Timothy yelled, “Now!”

  He and his three friends jumped up onto their benches, stepped onto the table as if they’d choreographed their movements earlier and dove at us. One of the boys kicked Pauwel right in the mouth. One jumped on Ludo, and Timothy sent an errant kick toward Edwin who sidestepped it and swept his other leg off the solid wooden table. I didn’t see Timothy smash onto the breakfast tray, as at that moment Garth jumped off the table, landed on top of me, and slammed me to the ground. In moments, red-faced Garth was snarling hysterically and pounding his fists on my arms where I covered my face and tried to fight back.

  The counselors pulled a boy off Pauwel and peeled Ludo and Edwin off one boy with a bloody nose they had wrestled down. Ludo was in a rage and spit flew from his mouth. “I hope you piss green worms,” he yelled.

  “Halt this immediately!” Günter yelled.

  Günter and his fellow counselors lined us guilty boys up so Edwin and Timothy’s allies were mixed up and standing shoulder to shoulder. We breathed heavy. Missing hats. Our shirts untucked, dirty, and blood-splotched. I had split knuckles. Red crescents from hitting teeth leaked into the webbing of my fingers.

  “So you all want to be fighters? That’s good. But we will have to teach you when to fight and who to fight. Now all of you face forward. Turn left. Now march—march—march.”

  Günter led the eight of us boys to the flagpole at the revelry area. “Remember what Quex learned, boys? You work together. You are brothers. But wrongs must be punished. Now who started this fight?”

  Timothy and Edwin both stepped forward. They both looked right into Günter’s eyes.

  Again Edwin’s nerve astonished me.

  Günter motioned to the two other camp counselors who had marched with us to the flagpole to join him in front of the boys. When one of them was each positioned in front of Edwin and Timothy, they hauled back their arms and slugged each of the boys in the stomach, toppling them to the ground.

  “Now that you’re down there, make fists and lean on your knuckles. The rest of you get down and do the same,” Günter yelled.

  On our knuckles we were forced to do push-ups in the grass while chanting after Günter, who spouted off about a reawakened Germany beneath the waving flag.

  Well after lights out that night, I woke to Pauwel screaming, and shot up with a sudden spell of nervousness. It was late and the cabin rumbled from thunder several kilometers off. Two other boys bolted up. The one closest to me, Lutz, was stock-still, his eyes locked on the plywood roof, his chest heaved from sudden fear. His silhouette, a high forehead, stumpy nose, and jutting jaw. A flash of lightning came through the windows and sank away in his eyes. Pauwel paced back and forth mumbling to himself. I didn’t get out of bed but lifted my body up on my elbows to see the shadow of my new friend moving at the foot of his bunk, holding the three-tone quilt with blue, red, and black squares that his mother had made for him.

  Günter woke up and whisper-yelled to Pauwel, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “There’s too many pieces,” Pauwel said. “Too many.”

  “What?”

  “Too many.”

  Günter got out of bed and walked to Pauwel.

  In his wild dreaming, Pauwel’s eyes were dark, emotive, and arresting as they held a hint of some exotic blood—Hungarian or perhaps Italian. His face had a strange elasticity to it. One moment it was expressionless, and then it would open up into an oversized grin that twisted his features and showed his large, square teeth and swollen upper lip.

  “It fell apart.”

  “What did?” Günter asked.

  “It will take forever to put them all back. I won’t have enough time to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “All these squares. They fell apart. There are too many pieces.” Pauwel was holding up the blanket and looked near tears.

  “Your blanket?”

  “Too many pieces.”

  Günter put his hand on Pauwel’s forehead, and said, “It’s okay. Let’s get you back to bed,” and he led Pauwel back to his bunk by the bulb of his elbow, pulled the quilt over his body, and told him to go back to sleep. Günter, who had been so harsh earlier, was kind and gentle now, and the soothing sound of his voice surprised me.

  “The blanket’s fine. It’s together,” Günter said.

  “It will take my whole life to fix.”

  “No. It’s okay,” I heard Günter’s reassuring words for quite a while that night.

  I sat in the dark as the rain searched for a way inside and heightened the smell of the pine trees and musty wood floorboards. I was the last of the boys to fall back to sleep. I looked over the others. I presumed their dreams were like mine, both innocent and bloodthirsty.

  After the bugle wake-up call, Garth teased Pauwel. “My blanky broke. My blanky broke.” He rocked back and forth with his hands on his stomach like he had terrible gas. He gave a fake laugh, “I’m sorry we were all there to see you go nuts last night.”

  “You shouldn’t tease me,” Pauwel said. “I’ll tell everyone how I walked in on you pulling on your crank.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Garth said.

  “You were busy,” Pauwel said.

  The rest of the boys laughed. I was happy to see my new friend hold his ground.

  After breakfast we played tug-of-war with gas masks on. The glass eye lens of my mask steamed over from straining for breath. I let the fog sit but Edwin wiped his away by sticking a finger inside the lining seal.

  “You’re dead, Edwin,” Günter yelled. “Step out of the line. Dead men still can’t help their teammates pull. When are you going to learn that one?”

  I kept pulling with the other boys. Part of me was happy to be better at something than Edwin. Ludo, however, had mastered tug-of-war. He looped his strong arm over the rope, grabbed it from the bottom, and leaned backward so his bicep curled into a coiled snake.

  After a lunch of fish stew that tasted like the salt sheen of a tidal flat, our troop cabin went to the firing range and began practice for what we were told would be the camp’s final games. For which we would practice every afternoon for the next two weeks.

  In the evening, we lounged around our cabin reading magazines that had been placed in the bunkhouse. They were a thrill to read. The Hitler Youth were regularly issued Wille und Macht, Will and Power Monthly magazine. The other publications included Die Kameradshaft, Comradeship, which had a version for the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the League of German Girls, called Mädelschaft, and a yearbook called Jungen eure Welt, Youth, Your World. We took turns reading to one another. Sometimes we read from the girls’ magazine.

  Timothy lay shirtless on his bunk. His head rested on one hand and with the other hand he rolled the few soft brown armpit hairs he had between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I’m going to get myself a job at a girls’ camp. I’ll perform virginity tests. Get to feel how warm they are. Hold up a breast. Feel its weight. Do the other breast. Stuff like that. I’ll be busy for years.”

  The thought of him touching anyone was revolting, but even hearing the word breast made my prick stiff.

  Of course I thought of Hilda then. Hilda’s red hair. Green eyes. Lean, porcelain limbs. She lived in the first farmhouse down the road from us. Her kneecaps had soft golden hairs that I wanted to place my palms over. Let them sit there. Feel the bone. The warmth. When we walked home together, surreptitiously I ogled the slight, nearly imperceptible movement of her breasts beneath the fabric of her sweater.

  That night Günter and the other older camp counselors met outside and huddled behind the cabin smoking c
igarettes. They stood, posing as soldiers.

  While they were out, Timothy woke up a group of his friends and for some reason tapped me on the feet to come with them. Edwin, Ludo, and Pauwel were still sleeping. I was scared of Timothy and his friends, but wanting to gain their approval, I got up and blindly followed them outside.

  I could hear the counselors talking from behind the cabin.

  “The Russians have smelly old pussies where their hearts should be,” one said and the rest laughed. One choked midexhale and then coughed out a laugh.

  The phrase “smelly old pussies” set into my mind on repeat. I imagined it set to music. Organ music. “Smelly old pussies. Smelly old pussies.” The phrase blasted over parishioners and then circled back as an echo. Over and over the perverse music played out in my head until we were past the cabins, and I realized Timothy and the boys all held flashlights in one hand and rocks in the other. When I saw that I froze.

  “Come on,” Timothy said.

  “I think I’ll head back,” I said.

  “No. Come on.”

  “I’m going to go back.”

  “No. Come with us.”

  Timothy must have sensed my fear as he handed me an extra light and a stone of my own. “Here. Come on.”

  We snuck to the edge of the burn pit where camp trash was tossed and stood in a line shoulder to shoulder.

  “On three,” Timothy said.

  I wanted to run away before they tossed me in.

  “One. Two. Three. Now.”

  The boys all flashed their lights on and as they spotlighted rats they heaved their stones.

  “Got one,” Garth said.

  “Me too,” Lutz said.

  “Turn your lights off,” Timothy called.

  In the dark, we only had to wait a minute to count again. When we flashed the lights back on the rats were already back scurrying over the trash and ash.

  “Now,” Timothy yelled again.

  Everyone threw their stones. I was so relieved this wasn’t some hazing punishment focused on me that I tossed the stones with the easy arc I’d learned to hurl potato mashers.

  “Oh. Oh. The one I got looked just like the Jews in the poster. Did you see it?” Garth asked.

  I hadn’t known many Jews, but those I did I had no problem with. My homeroom teacher, Mrs. Von Schuler, was Jewish. She’d float into the room every morning. “Yeladim. Yeladim. Time to sit, my Yeladim.” It was the Hebrew word for children and she said it like it were a song. The word a breathy hug. The word—my favorite word—that to me sounded like it should mean lights. Bright, radiant lights.

  “Did you see it?” Garth asked again.

  “I think I hit it too,” I said. It was one of those nothing, braggart things I said as a boy and forgot about for years, until it rose up in memory and my face grew hot with shame.

  Our troop was up early the next morning and was brought to the camp’s main entrance. I remember being exhausted until we were led to a line of BMW motorcycles with sidecars. Drivers wearing trench coats and dark goggles snapped tight above the rims of their helmets stood in front of each motorcycle.

  “You want to have a ride with us?” one of them called.

  I got the last one in the line and sat in the low bucket of the sidecar. The rider pulled his dark goggles down and started the engine. We gained speed quickly. Several of the first boys raised their hands over their heads to catch the wind in their palms, but I had to pin my knees and elbows against the side to keep from bouncing out. Dust kicked up by the other riders swept over my face, but it was fun to move so fast. Fun to be a boy around so many other boys with games, movies, swimming, and great machines like this one to capture our attention. The driver shouted something but I couldn’t hear him over the smooth thrumming of the engine.

  We drove around the entire camp to the western edge, which I hadn’t seen before. It was an annexed farm and my driver stopped on the road to let me look over at the horse barn. I’d overheard a small group of older boys talking at the lunch tables about mucking horseshit and piss-soaked hay from stalls. I saw they’d also built an obstacle course in the western paddock.

  The same group were down there now in a single-file line in front of the barn. One by one they approached a grown man in riding boots who held his arms out in a circle the boys dove through. He caught the back of the boys’ heads with one hand and the bottom of their stomachs with the other, and spun them like they were sturgeon at a fish market. The boys tucked in midair, hit the ground, and rolled from their shoulders back to their feet before running to the back of the line again.

  “They’re practicing falling off of a horse,” my driver said.

  “Why?”

  “They’ll be horse soldiers. A garrison of about twenty, I’d guess.”

  He looked down at me and perhaps saw my surprise. “We train for everything. There are glider pilot units. Naval auxiliaries. You’ll find something good.”

  He started the engine and we buzzed along the back side of the camp. It would be much later that I’d think, dear Christ, whoever put the camps together had thought through every minute of what would hook and bend a boy’s imagination into becoming a soldier, including feelings for girls, who were to be meticulously organized and regulated. Though at the time, my pubescent mind probably latched onto the idea of Timothy training to perform virginity tests.

  For the final games, Günter pulled our troop into the cabin and had us sit on the edge of our cots.

  “Now, if we are going to survive the final games, we have to work together. There have been problems between some of you, but I need our best six athletes for the main event, which means we have to team up.”

  Günter had Timothy and Edwin stand side by side in the front of the cabin and put Pauwel between them. Then he had Ludo and Garth, who had jumped on me during our fight, stand behind those two. Then Günter called my name.

  The main event of the games was a competition called Roman chariot. It took six boys to form one chariot. Three boys would link arms at the elbows, with the two outer boys having a leather loop hanging off their shoulders. Two more boys linked arms, bent their heads forward, and leaned into the linked three so the five of them faced one direction and fit together like a rugby scrum. The sixth boy, the charioteer—me, because I was the smallest—climbed up on the bent shoulders of the two boys in back, reached for the leather loops from the boys in front and leaned backward, letting the rope strung around the boys’ shoulders hold me from falling. My feet pushed forward, easing the two boys below me into the three boys ahead of them, so we were all tensed and held together as the five boys started to run. My hands pulled on the lines to guide Timothy and Edwin in the front and Ludo and Garth in the back as we practiced running all over the grounds.

  My body was ropey and strong, but the first times we tried to move together I fell backward as if bucked from a horse. Then I overcompensated and sailed face-first over Timothy’s scoured neck. My brother and the rest of the team crashed on top of me. Then we switched Ludo so his weak arm faced out and didn’t affect his stance. Once I got the feel for shifting my weight, and warned the boys holding the straps in the front before leaning back, the whole group straightened out. Günter had us run the full circle around the camp. The team ran under my feet. Their ten legs pounded the dirt.

  When we were back in our cabin, Edwin painted an animal on each of my teammates’ forearms, a wolf, a bear, a hawk. On mine he drew Thump-Drag, a hunchbacked silhouette.

  “What is that?” Timothy asked.

  “That’s Thump-Drag,” Edwin told him.

  “Who’s that?”

  Timothy’s question threw me off. I forgot not everyone knew about Thump-Drag.

  On the first day of the camp games, foot racing, target shooting, and singing tournaments began. Older boys played a violent group game where cabins put on red or blue armbands and had to hunt one another down and steal all the other team’s colors to win. But the camp-wide highlight was the Roman cha
riot races.

  By then we were practiced enough that we swept past the whirl of cheering boys around the oval track. My whole body shifted to keep balance as the balls of my heels dug into the backs of the boys below me. My rear-end drooped low, and my arms reached straight ahead, yanking in with my right hand and slacking the left to turn, and like one fluid creature, the six of us circled the course. We won our first three meets because other teams kept crashing. One boy broke his arm after a fall, and that put us in the final race with four other teams. The race was held the last night of camp, once it got dark. The campers who were not in the final race lined the track and held flashlights and torches made with wadded, oil-soaked cloth, so winding lines of fire and iridescent light bordered the whole course.

  I remember thinking that some of these bulbs must have come from my father’s factory.

  Before the race started, Edwin and Timothy talked about how to take the corners. They had begun working together after Timothy made a joke about how the two of them were the only ones who knew that the counselors punched like girls. When they were bound together, they let me climb onto their bent shoulders.

  I looked ahead of me at the curve in the track, and the layered flames on both sides of it. The idea of launching off the backs of the boys into the flames suddenly scared me.

  “Ready,” I said.

  At the starting line other charioteers boxed me in on both sides. The boy to my immediate left smiled, and the boy to my right was already squatting back, legs shaking, and ready to begin.

  Günter was at the starting line cheering us on. The camp director, donned in the full military uniform of an SS officer, walked to the front of the racers and held up a Luger. When the gun fired, the boys below me jerked forward and I eased back so the lines in my hands snapped taut. The voices of the boys lining the course pushed against me as we ran past. Wisps of smoke from the burning oil filled my lungs. At the start of the race we were in third place. We made it halfway around the track when one of the teams ahead of us crumpled on a tight turn. On the last stretch, with my screaming matched by all five of the boys below me, we passed the remaining chariot in front of us by the length of my brother’s head and stayed locked for fifty meters before we pulled ahead and won.