by Thomas Wood
He let out a roar like a wounded animal and, at first, his cronies began to pull their weapons from their shoulders and point them in our direction, some of them even getting as far as pulling bolts back and snapping safety catches off. Slowly though, they began to realise the mortality of their leader and how, if they were to hang around too much longer, they could end up dead themselves. Fortunately for me, they began to skulk off, gradually at first but, after one or two had done it, they began running off into the darkness of the night. They must have been worried that the revolver could go off in any direction and all it would take would be half a second to catch one of them straight through the heart. It was a wise decision on their part.
His teeth were clenched tight as he growled at me and I felt him squeeze the trigger earnestly as it came up against my resistance, scratching away at my skin as he did so, the muzzle of the gun now poking through my tunic and embedded firmly into my gut.
With an impressive speed and agility that an Olympic hammer thrower would have been proud of, he suddenly bent his knees, pulling the gun downwards and towards him, as the rest of his body spun round and away from me. The pain sent through my hand caused me to loosen my grip on the revolver, but my finger was caught in the guard and was wrenched from its socket, making it hang pathetically almost like it had simply been switched off.
I had no time to evaluate the pain or feel sorry for myself, but instead I turned and bolted for cover, any solid tree would do for now. Another roar erupted from his lungs, as if he was calling out to his disloyal gang members to return to him as he had survived, but I heard no response to his calling, only three shots that whizzed and cracked into a tree just ahead of me, narrowly missing my ear each time it seemed.
I threw myself behind the nearest tree that I could find that would hide my body and clutched it passionately. Reaching around in the dark, I pushed my hand down the waistband of my trousers and was relieved to feel the cold steel of Jimmy’s bayonet still there. I would have to use it to its fullest potential if I was to make it through the next five minutes.
I tried to wipe off some of Jimmy’s dried blood that refused to leave the surface of the blade, as I began to make out angry mutterings as he started to stalk me like a wolf.
My fist clenched around the steel as I brought it up close to my face, so that I could see exactly what I was doing with it in the darkness. I checked my breathing and made sure that this was my only realistic option of survival right now. It was, I couldn’t see any other way.
I was ready for him.
My heart began thumping its way out of my chest, threatening to give away my position to the Captain who seemed intent on muttering the whole time that he marched through the woods.
I ran my tongue over my teeth and felt repulsed with myself for the layer of muck and fur that had begun to sit in my mouth, the thought of my mother being physically unwell at the state of my personal hygiene gave me a brief respite, taking me to a world far from here, where personal cleanliness was a concern that could be addressed.
I jumped as a bat danced its way through the trees, apparently oblivious to the showdown that he glided over so gracefully.
The sound of his boots slowly crunching their way closer to me began to get clearer and louder, until they stopped, almost level with me. I still couldn’t see him, but that didn’t matter right now, I knew exactly where he was regardless.
He stopped and stood in total silence and I thought for a second that he was taking the opportunity to wind that watch of his up. Soon, I began to get jittery, thinking that he knew where I was and that he started to sneak up on me, but I was soon corrected and comforted by the noise of spent casings chiming on the floor, he was reloading. He had just made a fatal error.
Now.
I readjusted my grip on the bayonet as I leapt from the cover of the tree, pointing it offensively straight at him and I began charging towards the noise of the spent rounds. His figure became silhouetted in the darkness, but I could still make out his rat face screwing up in terror as he stared at the mass that was boring down on him mercilessly. He had realised his error, and now I was going to make him pay for it.
The steel of the bayonet slid its way through his flesh relatively easily, until I felt it clatter into one of his ribs, where it came to a halt. I tried to twist it and make the wound bigger, but it was caught on something and for the moment I would have to leave it where it was, hoping that it would be able to do its job where it had come to rest. Blood immediately began pouring from the puncture wound that I had opened up and I was suddenly awash with confidence at how the whole thing was beginning to turn out.
My eyes met his as he stared at me in total disbelief at the way in which his fortunes had suddenly changed. His grip had started to loosen on the revolver already and so I pounced at my opportunity, I was going to make that revolver mine.
I quickly gripped the revolver and saw that he had managed to reload the weapon completely, a small glint of brass in the moonlight confirming his actions. I slammed the barrel shut and tried to wrench it from his grasp, sending one round barrelling from the end of the revolver and off into the night. The surprise discharge of the weapon must have caught him off guard as his grip finally relinquished and I assumed full control over the weapon.
I took a step back from him as I brought the gun up to my eye line and, unthinking, pulled the trigger three times in his direction. The first one missed, the obvious sound of bark being pulverised quickly followed by two far more sobering thuds as they ripped their way into Rat Face’s flesh.
He flopped to the floor, totally lifeless, taking in a mouthful of dried leaves as his face made contact with the ground. Muffled rasping began to emanate from his mouth, as his arms and legs started jerking and bucking as he fought for a small amount of oxygen. I began to feel almost bad for him and brought the revolver up to fire a few more, final rounds into him to put him out of his misery, but one final bubbling gasp eventually silenced him for good.
I had won.
My heart thumped, and my breathing became erratic, but I was still alive. Which was always a bonus.
I took in my small victory in amongst the countless defeats that I had been subjected to over the last few days, before I realised that I would have to move, quickly. Even if the Captain’s cronies didn’t resurface, there was a strong possibility that there was a German somewhere nearby who would have heard the exchange and I could guarantee that a company of enemy soldiers would be able to finish me off just as the Captain had dispatched of Jimmy.
The leaves around him began to soak up his dark, oozing blood as I prised Jimmy’s bayonet from the grasp of his ribcage, wiping the blade on his tunic and pushing it back down the waistband of my trousers. I hoped Jimmy approved.
I had caught him in the right lung and then the second had buried itself just below his left shoulder. My shooting skills had never been the sharpest, my groupings were always a little off. It was why I had enjoyed being inside a tank so much, your grouping doesn’t matter so much when you’re tossing high explosive around.
I drank in the silence for half a second more, before trying to massage out the stitch that had started to pierce my side. As I moved my hand off my hip, I noticed something. I brought my hand up to my face and took a look. It was bright red.
22
My head was pounding and I half-expected that I wouldn’t be able to open my eyes at all when the time came but, in the event, I was able to peel them back slightly and found that I was, in fact, able to see. My eyes started to flicker gently as I noticed the faint crackling of a fire that rippled its way over to me from the other side of the room. I had no idea where I was or how I ended up there but the way that the crackling fire seemed to intensify the more I roused from my slumber, I began to expect to find myself sitting in hell.
My whole body felt as though it was soaked, totally drenched in a thick layer of sweat that seemed to be streaming from every pore in my body. I had the mother of all hea
daches, like someone was taking a sledgehammer to my brain and having a good old go at the casing of my skull in the process. Whatever it was that was causing it, it was preventing me from thinking straight, and that would be enough to cost me my life.
It took a while for my eyes to try and banish the cloudy, soft focus that was refusing to leave the edge of my eyesight, but I could still make out the dark wooden beams that were running across this ceiling, from my left to my right. I was somehow indoors.
I was laid out on my back again, this time with my limbs tucked in neatly and not sprawling all over the place causing me discomfort. As I waited for the beams to stop spinning and stay still in the place that they belonged, I realised that for the first time in days I felt quite comfortable, peaceful almost.
All the information that I was taking in, took far too long to process in my weary brain, but as soon as it did, an alarm began ringing in my head. I was indoors where previously I had most definitely been outside. The last thing I remembered, I had been standing on my own two feet and now, here I was lying down, flat on my back. I had no idea where I was or who else might be in the building with me.
I launched my upper body forwards violently, managing to strain my neck painfully in the process. Thereafter, I was slow and deliberate in my movements, both to ease the pressure on my aching joints but also to prevent anyone else in the building from hearing that I was now up and about. I took everything in as I moved, my head moving and pivoting like I was some sort of owl, searching for food and not missing a single thing.
There was no fireplace in this room, no roaring fire in the corner to keep me warm and so I assumed the fire must have been in another room nearby, which meant that I wasn’t in any sort of prison cell or in any conventional type of captivity.
The room that I was in was basic, but still fairly cluttered, with random utensils lying all over the room and muddied boots and other footwear close by. My bed that I had been resting on for an unknown amount of time, turned out to be a dining table, with chairs surrounding it, all tucked neatly beneath the oak structure. It was also the focal point of the room, with not much space around the outside of it for much else.
Directly in front of me was a cast iron stove, all ready and primed for the preparation of another meal, or ready for some washing or other chore that was required. It was the kettle that was perched on top of the stove though that was my main concern, it had not occurred to me how much I had longed for a hot, proper cup of coffee for ages now.
The sideboard that ran around the perimeter of the kitchen was awash with everything that you might expect in a kitchen, and a few things that you wouldn’t. There were steel pots and empty cans, bloodied knives and dirtied kitchen aprons. It was the shotgun by the door that seemed to have a hold on me, but I saw no need to make a move for it just yet, nor did I have the energy.
Two buckets stood rather solemnly on the stone floor, which had clearly been deteriorating over the last few years due to the sheer amount of hard labour that it had been subjected to. The first bucket I peered into was half full of dirty, blackened and muddied water, small flecks of dirt and grime just floating on the scummy surface, while the second was half full of diluted blood, a pale pink liquid that looked like it had been standing there for so long that it had almost solidified.
A cloth sat resting over the backs of one of the chairs, dripping beads of undiluted blood on to the stone floor, missing the intended bucket by a few inches each time, allowing a small stream of red body fluid to settle nicely within the cracks between the stone slabs.
The kitchen, had I known where I was and how I had got there, was warm and inviting, as I began inching my way towards the end of the table to get up and have a proper look around the place. As I began to move, the warm, comforting orange glow of the room was interrupted by a single shadow, causing me to look up, sharply.
I inhaled briskly as a bolt of pain shot up through my neck once again, almost causing the little girl who had appeared in the doorway, to run screaming to her father. She didn’t scream, but she stood there only for a moment, moving so swiftly that she barely gave her pigtails a chance to stop swinging around her shoulders.
In that brief second that she had allowed me to look at her, I had noticed in great detail what she was wearing before she so rapidly left the room; a dark coloured cardigan that was fraying at the edges and had been subjected to many snags and tears, which was worn over the top of a pair of dungarees which seemed to be far too big for her as they covered her feet which poked gently from underneath the fabric. Her deep, hazel coloured eyes had captivated me, staring straight at me for a second before flittering off into the room next door.
I wanted to follow her, to ask her exactly what she knew, so began heaving myself from the table more vigorously and trying to find my feet. Before I could get to my feet, the glow was once again interrupted by a shadow standing in the doorway, but this time it projected a far bigger shadow than the little girl’s had done.
He was a giant brute of a man and I felt as small and as strong as the little girl, especially when he began using his giant hands to push down gently on my shoulders and pressed my head back onto the table. He looked drained and tired, his face probably looking far older than his actual age, not helped in the slightest by the greasy stubble that seemed to sparkle in the light as he spoke to me.
His voice was soothing, relaxing almost, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, couldn’t understand or decipher the noises that were tumbling from his mouth. As he spoke, I looked straight into his eyes, getting an especially good look into them as he leant over me, now I could see where his daughter got her captivating eyes from. I didn’t understand him, but as he spoke, I immediately felt calmer, reassured, helped along by the fact that my vision was slowly improving, and the fog was being lifted gradually.
I was still alive, as far as I could tell, I was still able to feel an element of fear, still able to feel totally exhausted and yet at the same time, being in this room with the giant and his daughter, I felt so relaxed. As he continued to speak, my headache began to subside, and I found myself staring at the beams once more, but clearer this time, steadier. It was a dark ceiling, made blacker still by the beams and I could just about make out a series of intricate cobwebs that intertwined with one another, becoming denser in the darkest corners of the beams.
“Where am I?”
I was shocked at my own voice and for a moment wondered whether I was the only English man in the room or, more likely, there was someone else in the room as well that had spoken on my behalf. It was barely recognisable, barely audible even.
“Here, sit up. You drink.” His voice, his demeanour and the way in which he was able to reassuringly place his hand on my shoulder, did not match up with the brutishness of his bulky frame and I began to ponder how such a man could possess so wildly contradicting characteristics.
He held me up with his giant forearm behind my back as I guzzled down a gallon of water, looking forward to finally not feeling what it was like to be thirsty. As he gently guided my head back down to the table top, I realised that I could no longer feel any pain at all, it had evaporated in the few short minutes that I had been tended to by the man.
I wondered if the pain in my side had all been a fabrication, a trick of the mind that had just been a warning signal to get some rest. Warily, I stroked my torso, moving my hand down to where I thought the hole should be, the very hole that had been gushing like Niagara Falls as I slowly lost gallon after gallon of blood and gradually my consciousness.
Eventually, my hand rubbed over something rougher than my skin, a small damp piece of fabric was all that met my touch. Looking down at it nervously, I realised that someone had wrapped a bandage around the lower quadrant of my torso neatly and I began to marvel at how clean the whole area looked and immediately realised that the cloth and buckets had been put to work while I was out.
I felt incredibly clean and I wished to express a thousand
gratitudes to the man who stood before me, but it was just the stench of my breath that let me down now.
I went to thank him, but he beat me to it, “You are safe now. Put head down and sleep.” His accent was strong, but he spoke slowly and deliberately, so that I could understand him. It could have been down to the way he spoke or his gigantic frame, but I found the man so compelling that I could think of nothing else but to put my head back on the table and shut my eyes, I didn’t want to argue with the man at all.
As I began to close my eyes, I caught sight of the girl bounding back into the room, this time clutching a small book. Looking at her father for his approval, she pulled up a chair for herself and began to read, soft, touching words; words that I did not understand but words that soothed my soul and relieved the stinging sensation in my eyes.
My hand hovered over my trouser pocket, as I felt around for the outline of my Bible. My family were still in there, in the picture, but they had been with me the whole time. I felt bad that I had not given them too much consideration recently but began to wonder about how they were getting on right now. I knew that my father and brother would likely be in that field quite often, messing about and managing to wind my mother up over the smallest, irrelevant things. It felt good to think of them getting on with their normal lives while I was out here and for the first time since everything kicked off, I started to miss them.
The fire continued to crackle away out of sight in the next room, fainter now as I strained to listen to it through the quiet sentences from the little girl. She carried on, as if I could understand every single word that was spoken at over one hundred miles an hour, but I began to make up my own story in my head.
In no time at all, I was obeying the gentle giant, I was gradually falling asleep.
*Chapter Break *
I awoke to a series of hushed voices that seemed to burn into my mind with an aggressive fervour. Opening my eyes and sitting up, I noticed that the little girl still sat in her chair by my table, with the addition of a blanket wrapped around her, her head tilted back to a degree that almost looked unnatural, as she continued to snooze away in the kitchen with the mysterious visitor.
