TDTLBU Chapter Seventy-Two

The days dragged slowly on and once again the war proved that, given time, one can get used to anything. Used to freezing cold and being bored as death and half-starved half the time. But at least in a prison camp, the men weren't being shot at and clambering through trenches and the wrecks of burned-out villages. 

But to most, it didn't matter. They were Yankees in that camp, freedom-loving Yankees, all of them, who declared they'd rather go down fighting than waste away behind barbed wire. That was the dreadful part. Here was the enemy in full view... much too close quarters... and they were completely without means to fight. Nothing much was left to the men to do but to wander about aimlessly and complain. 

The camp was a small one and men weren't separated by rank. Privates were all jumbled up together with sergeants and lieutenants and whatever else the Krauts had managed to nab. In Ronnie's barracks there was even a Captain... a graying, weather-beaten man who looked ages beyond his years.  He was tall and serious with grim lines around his eyes and mouth, but the eyes themselves were kind and tender. He had lost most of the men in his command during the battle in which he had been taken. Captivity wore just as heavily on him as on the restless younger men imprisoned with him. And yet he managed to father them all, calming angry spirits with his quiet, steady ways. He led the men through drills often and they found that the exercise they once hated was a God-send... a miraculous way of relieving the boredom and sluggishness of inactivity.

They called him simply "The Captain" and unanimously looked up to and adored him. As for the Captain himself, he began slowly but surely to lose his frustration as he realized how badly the other prisoners truly needed him here. 

Time wore on and Ronnie struggled with the same feelings of helplessness and failure that they all did. He worried unceasingly for Rachel and Benjie, trying to seek relief in prayers. God seemed distant and he was frustrated. He spent much of his time alone, staring darkly out the window, or flipping idly through the battered little Bible. Because of the bullet on Omaha, every page in half the Old Testament was missing somewhere from five to eight words. He had gotten a new one since, but the Germans had taken it too, leaving only this one, with its promise… “It shall not come nigh thee…”

In the days that followed his capture, Ronnie tried desperately to reconcile himself to what had happened… telling himself over and over that he had done the right thing. And… well… maybe he had. But had he done it in the right way? He worried and prayed every moment for those he had left behind. Daily, hourly, he pulled the worn little Book from his shirt pocket, turning it over and over in his hands, restlessly. It was hard to read it now… he had only one pair of glasses left and the lenses were so scratched and battered he could barely see through them. He could almost see better without. But he struggled through it anyway. The Book was all he had left. The Book and…

He turned the pages, worn thin with constant use, reverently. There in the Acts, far away and safe from the ravages of the enemy bullet, was the little black and white photo he had treasured for so many years.

Melissa. Her beautiful face smiled blankly up at him. It used to hurt his heart, looking at that picture… but now… it somehow didn’t. Not anymore. She had not loved him. She had moved on in her life… without him. Gotten married. He had lost track of her long ago. 

"You're a fool, Ron." He spoke aloud as he let the little photograph fall to the floor and buried his head in his hands. And like a flash, her face was before him… deep dark eyes filled with sorrow, long dark hair tucked carefully into a tattered scarf… a wide-eyed little baby clutched close against her heart.

"Rachel," he murmured, smiling faintly. There were tears in his eyes.

✯✯✯

The prisoners shuffled slowly in a single-file line, clutching battered tin plates with grimy fingers. The food… if food it could be called… was ladled out, a sticky, tasteless, nearly unidentifiable substance. The Red Cross packages had stopped coming and there was barely anything left to live on.

Most of the men ate in silence, staring off into the distance with hollow, empty eyes… the tortured, glazed-over "thousand yard stare" of those who had seen unforgettable horrors. Many believed that surrender was worse now than instant death could have been. The boredom, the monotony, the sickness, the cold, the hunger… it drove men to despair. They were clad only in the filthy, tattered uniforms they had been wearing when captured. Many were stiff with dried blood from uncared-for wounds. With no way to contact family, no way to make a connection with those they loved, home seemed very, very far away. An impassable void lay between them and the lives they once had lived.

"For you the war is over," they said. But it wasn't. Those men fought raging battles within themselves daily. Hourly. If they gave up their fighting, they gave up their will to live. Many went crazy. Many succumbed to wounds and diseases.

Ronnie was determined to live. Somehow, someway, he would get out… and home again. He promised himself that with every passing moment. Freedom seemed more valuable now that he had lost it than it ever had when he had possessed it. It made more sense now than ever why he had fought. 

He stood at the back of the line, watching with a grimace as the rations were ladled out. He thought of home… saw his mother pulling apple pies, golden-brown and bubbling from the oven. Thick cuts of juicy roast beef, roasted potatoes. Creamy milk and cold mint tea, fresh from the garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and lettuce. It was all so real he could smell it. Heck, he could almost taste it. He could swallow that stale porridge and maybe it would even taste like Angus steak. He burned the images deeper in his mind, forcing himself into a kind of almost anticipation for the slop he was about to receive. He was third in line… second… and then, without warning, the man in front of him collapsed. Just went white as a sheet and sagged limply and silently to the ground. His tinplate clattered down beside him, the food spilling out onto the hard-packed dirt floor. It was promptly stepped in as a man moved out of line, going ahead of his fallen comrade. Ronnie bent quickly to lift the man, raising him to his feet. Supporting the unconscious soldier with one arm, he held out his plate for his rations and dragged the man after him to a table.

He plunked the soldier down in a chair and bent over him, shaking his shoulders to wake him up. He was just a boy… thin and pale and thirty pounds underweight. The freckles and snub nose under the dirt on his face reminded Ronnie of Mickey.

"Wha… wha’ happened?" The boy groaned, lifting his hand to his head and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Guess you passed out, buddy," Ronnie pushed his plate over. "Here. You don't look so good. Better eat up." He knew from past experience that the boy would never be allowed a replacement ration and the food was bad enough without having to scrape it out of the dirt.

"Th… thanks…" the boy ate ravenously, shoveling the food in with both hands.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Jack. Hey… you seen my brother? Carl? Looks… looks jus' like me."

"Carl Davis? Sure. He's the next hut over from mine. You're brothers then?"

"Twins. He okay? Haven't seen him since… we were captured…"

"He's pretty sick," Ronnie frowned. "Couldn't make it to mess so they're bringing him food." 

Jack's face went whiter still. Instinctively, he reached up to grip his left shoulder, a look of pain crossing his face. A bullet hole had pierced the shirt there and the fabric was stained with blood. 

"You okay there?"

"I'm fine. Just… hurts is all. Hey… how sick is Carl? He gonna make it okay?"

"Well, I'm no doctor," Ronnie shrugged. "But it looks like pretty bad pneumonia. Wish I could give you some kind of hope…" his voice trailed off for a moment and he sighed. "I hate to say it. But being perfectly honest with you, I don't know if he can make it."

Jack dropped his head into his hands. He sat there, not moving, until the guards began screaming at them to line up again. Ronnie stayed silent, knowing that nothing he could say would change anything. But a sudden idea flashed through his mind… a wild, foolhardy idea.

"Hey Jack," he whispered hurriedly as they rose to take their place in line. "Can you walk alright?"

"Sure… I think so.." Jack looked at him, puzzled. "Why?"

"American lines aren't far away. I… meet me here next mess and I'll tell you what I'm thinking."

✯✯✯

“Cocoa?”

Katie glanced up at the voice and grinned. Mac stood in front of her, propped up on his crutches as he offered her a steaming mug. He wasn’t wearing his prosthesis and the right leg of his pants was tied in a knot where the stump ended. As she accepted the cocoa gratefully, wrapping both hands around it to warm her fingers, he eased himself onto the bench beside her, sighing heavily as he leaned his crutches to the side. 

“Where’s the other half of your leg?”

“Left the darn thing in my room,” he grunted. “It’s like dragging a log around.”

“I thought you were using it fine. You were almost to the point of outrunning me.”

“Just you wait. Won’t be long before I’m leaving you in the dust.”

“And here I thought you were a gentleman,” Katie raised her eyebrows and took a sip of the near-scalding cocoa. “How goes the new work?”

“Bit dull after storming the beaches,” he shrugged. “But a lot less risk of getting a limb blown off when you ain’t looking.”

“Aren’t.”

“Right.” He shifted closer to her, resting his arm on the back of the bench. For a moment, she thought of leaning away, but she didn’t. Instead she leaned toward him, resting her head on his shoulder without even thinking. 

“I got a telegram this morning,” she murmured, letting her mask of calm slip for the first time that day. It was so hard to be aching so unbearably inside while presenting a pleasant exterior to her patients. They must never know how much she suffered. They all suffered too, each in their own ways.

“Bad news.” It was a statement more than a question. He moved his arm to encircle her shoulders, squeezing her gently in a sort of sideways embrace.

“My brother,” she added, her voice growing faint. “He’s missing. In Belgium.”

“Ronnie?”

“Yeah. He… he…” she paused, trying valiantly to keep her composure. But she failed. In a rush, the tears came and she turned towards him, burying her face against his chest to hide her sobs. “He could be… dead.”

Mac turned to wrap his arms around her, bending his head over hers.

“Ann am fasgadh a chèile, bidh daoine beò,” he whispered.

“What’s that mean?” Katie didn’t lift her face, but she could feel him smile.

“In the shelter of each other, people live.”