So, The Rain Is Falling.
0-02
Allied
It was pure chance that Sam saw the sniper. The pale afternoon sun was at just such an angle that the light hit the rifle scope. A tiny diamond gleam that caught the corner of his eye and made him look up from the frail yellow corpse in his cupped palms.
He saw there, still and hidden amongst rubble of bricks and furniture, the German. Flat on his stomach with his rifle on its tripod. The dome of his khaki helmet, his finger on the trigger. He saw, and he knew, that his head was somewhere in the cross hairs. Somewhere, in that solitary gleaming metal eye, the German had him pinned like an insect on a board, and in a second, he would die. Without the time for another thought, another breath, another heartbeat. And he froze. The way livestock did in the headlights of supply trucks on muddy French roads, leaving their crushed corpses behind for straggling soldiers to walk by. He fell absolutely still, with no thought beside 'I am about to die.'
A soldier, while they had been crouched behind sandbags and drawing in the dirt, had said to him that a bullet traveled faster than the speed of sound. He had been a scientist before the war, and given some long winded, complicated math equation about time and distance, but ultimately, he had meant that a man would be dead before he heard the gunshot. Before he had time to move, or blink or even think. It was that Sam remembered, in some abstract way. Wondering if he would even see death coming, or if it would be like switching off the light. Would a bullet cutting through his brain hurt, or would he die too fast to feel?
He almost closed his eyes against the sight. Like being unable to see the gun would make it any better, but he found himself unable to move. Unable to flinch or flicker, staring down a bullet with his heart in his throat. Waiting for whatever would come next.
Waiting as the moment seemed to stretch. And stretch. And stretch, but never came.
The German moved his gun. He pushed it aside and let his hand fall limply to the flooring beneath him, chin rested on his forearm and fatigue written in every line of his body. He surrendered, shocking Sam to his bones.
From the distance between them, the canal and cobbled streets, Sam could not see the German's face beneath the shadow of his helmet, but he understood the action well enough. He saw mercy for what it was, and felt not relief but an all consuming gratitude. It was war, after all. Where man killed man if he wore the wrong uniform, spoke the wrong language or believed the wrong thing. Yet the gun had been pushed aside, and the German was merely looking at him. Watching him, still and quiet.
He felt suddenly stupid. In a windowsill holding a dead bird. He'd seen the cage from the street, and risked his neck in a falling down, burnt out husk of a house to take an animals stiff corpse and throw it into the canal. No matter that the few remaining enemy lurked like rouge wolves in the ruins. No matter that there was a war going on. He had to farewell a bird. Give it one final flight despite its heart being long ceased in its chest. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
The German watched him, completely silent and unmoving, and in compliance to unspoken demands he leaned out of the windowsill and tossed the tiny bird into the air. Up, up then down, to where the fishes could nibble clean its fragile little bones in turgid darkness. He could still see it, for a moment or two. A dull splash of color being swept swiftly downstream before it vanished from his view. Vanished, right before a tiny body in a stained, ruined dress floated past. It lay face down with corn yellow hair a dirty halo on the waters surface. It caught his eye and dropped a rock of sickness into his stomach. Seeing pale little feet and tiny hands before he realised it was only a child's doll. Plastic and cloth, not dead skin and bone.
He took a breath of cold, wet air, noticing for the first time the rain against his skin. The clouds overhead were thin and cracked, bleeding through light. But there was still no glimpse of blue skies, and hadn't been for weeks. Just cold wet days and colder, wetter nights. The ground turning from grassy, flowered fields to churned, ruined mud under the boots of soldiers. Sam missed the sky.
When he looked back across the canal, he thought, for some reason, that the German would be looking back at him. It surprised Sam to see that he had his face turned towards the floor, the gun to to one side. He was so still, so motionless, that Sam knew he was unconscious. Passed out with the rain running off his helmet. It hadn't occurred to Sam before, but maybe the German was injured, maybe he was slowly dying and that was why he hadn't moved from that spot where he was slowly getting drenched. Maybe that was why he hadn't pulled the trigger, some final act of mercy. For his own soul, or simply to spare a life where one needn't be taken. Maybe it wasn't even as complicated as that, Sam couldn't know.
What a horrible way to die...
Most of the German Corps had retreated from the town, leaving only the few straggling wounded. Like the sniper. Hurt but not enough to kill them swiftly. Bleeding to death in hidey-holes like sick dogs, or going out in a blaze of suicidal gunfire. Hackles raised and spitting as they threw themselves on the enemy. All hope lost but righteous anger burning in their blood, paired with pain and fear and desperation. The ruined shadows of men made animal by the horrors they saw.
For a long moment, he watched the still German across the street, listening to silence now only interrupted by the fall of rain. The streets must have been pretty, once upon a time, before wreck and ruin descended like a vulture on the rooftops, and looking at them, burnt ruble and shells of buildings, he could feel only guilt and distress. A grief for the little bird that died in its cage; for the people whose lives were left in ruin. For the German that spared him when others would have not.
With a shake of his head, Sam turned away from the window and picked a path across burnt timber flooring to the stairs. They too had been ruined by fire. The balustrade nothing but jagged, blackened nubs, and each step threatening to give beneath his feet. How anticlimactic would that be. Surviving the battle only to die because a house fell down around his head. It seemed like it could, too. The whole left side of the building was gone. No front door to open, just a gaping hole to walk through, and on the street once more, Sam looked up to where the German lay. Only able to see the top of his helmet and his fingers where they hung, pale and dripping, over the the edge of the floor.
Down the street a little way, the Company had lay a thick wooden board across the canal for soldiers to cross. It was really about time he made his way back to camp, they were regrouping outside of town, last he heard. The supply trucks had arrived early that morning, with tents and food and ammunition. They would probably be doing roll call soon, and making a tally of the dead or missing. He needed to get back, but...he couldn't look away from the German's dripping hand.
The least he could do was make him more comfortable while he died. The least. Pull him out of the rain, maybe. Keep him company.
Like the Canary in its cage, Sam found himself unable to ignore the soldier. He crossed the bridge with his head down, clambering over piles of broken brick and wood to get into the building, and risking life and limb, yet again, on another flight of ruined stairs.
The German's pack came into view first, dumped to one side . Then the muddy soles of his boots by a tipped dresser. His uniform was as damp and dirty as every other soldiers. Stained with mud and clumps of clay. But what concerned Sam the most, what made his insides clench with both revulsion and pity, was the blood soaked carpet he lay on.
It wasn't masses of blood, not enough to be killing him swiftly, but it was there. Watered down by the rain and seeping from beneath the German in a slowly growing circle.
By the German's feet, Sam hesitated. He could see how close at hand the rifle was. He really didn't want to surprise the German and wind up shot for all his efforts.
"Uhm- Guten Tag." He said, the words stilted and awkward coming from his mouth as he stepped quietly over the German's legs. "I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? Just...don't shoot me."
He got no reaction, not even when he knelt down and shook the German's shoulder gently. He wasn't responsive, and for a hollow moment, Sam thought the man might already be dead.
Shifting into a crouch, Sam got an arm under the soldiers chest, a dead weight that was an effort to roll over. Sam pulled him into a half seated position, rested against his chest, and for the first time, saw his face clearly.
The German, the soldier, the sniper, was just a kid, skin ashen under the smudges of dirt on his face. He couldn't be older than fifteen, pale haired and handsome without even a trace of stubble on his jaw. Sam held the back of his helmet, shocked to stillness as he looked at the German's unconscious face. He'd seen horrors, he'd seen atrocities, but this young man took his breath away. So out of place in dirt and destruction, with the evidence of war marking him in the shadows beneath his cheekbones. In that he didn't truly look peaceful, even unconscious.
Swallowing back the stone in his chest, Sam turned his eyes to the German's body, where his uniform was ripped and bloodstained. A knife wound, rather than a bullet, clean and clear where the German's coat was undone. Someone had tried to patch it, and done an incredibly poor job. Just a wad of gauze and bandages that did nothing to quell the bleeding. It wouldn't have been so bad, it wouldn't have been fatal, if it had been treated with a little more care.
The German's head lolled against his shoulder until Sam moved his face, skin burning hot with fever beneath his fingers. He watched the German's eyelids flicker, his mouth curving down into a frown, and didn't know what to do. Now that he was here, could he leave again? Could he really sit here and watch the kid die?
He shifted his grip around the German's chest, and saw those eyes flicker more. Saw his throat move as he swallowed painfully, and the effort it took to open his eyes. Dazed and unfocused, but crystal grey beneath his lashes. Like broken glass and and water on a cloudy day. "Hey, hey. It's okay, Germany. You're okay." He whispered, even though it was a complete lie.
Weak fingers gripped the trouser of his uniform, and the German let out a pale, hurt breath. "Wasser..." His voice came out dry and hushed, but Sam got it well enough. That was one German word he could understand.
"Yeah, yeah. Wasser." Shifting, Sam unclipped a flask from his belt. The metal cold and wet, and the cap slippery beneath his fingers. He held the bottle to the German's lips and tipped slowly. He'd done this before, for dying comrades, and expected him to choke, or cough or splutter. Instead he managed to get one shaking hand beneath the bottle and almost hold it himself. Not because he was in better condition that Sam had thought, but because he was determined to do so. Sam could see it in his face. How much it hurt him just to move that little bit.
He swallow a few mouthfuls, a thin trickle of water escaping around the brim to run down his chin before he pushed it away, his breathing off and unsteady. "Danke... Sie sind der...der Vogelmann. Ich habe Sie nicht erschossen."
"I have no clue what you're saying." Sam shook his head, and the German sighed. He was still all but a dead weight against Sam's chest, but he moved one hand to rest over the wound in his side, and seemed to focus his eyes on Sam's face. "Warum Sie hier sind?" The words trailed off into a mumbled whisper towards the end of the sentence, and the soldier let his eyes slip closed. A soft breath shuddered from his chest and his face creased with pain, his fingers clenching weakly in the folds of Sam's uniform.
Looking at him, Sam's chest hurt. So young, and he was dying. He was so young and who knew what he'd seen, what he had been forced to do by this war. How could the Germans send kids into battle, on the front line, where there were no words for the agonies and atrocities, dealt and revived, most every day? Sam had been seventeen when the war broke out in Europe, already two years older than he thought the German to be. Sam hadn't even joined the fighting until the year before. He could not imagine, couldn't even contemplate being on the front line all those years ago, when he'd first met Alice and left school, had started sneaking out of his parents house to go dancing. Bent himself under the hood of his brothers new Ford and tinkered to his hearts content. When the world had felt like his oyster. When he'd had his whole future ahead, and it looked bright, despite the Depression, the lack of labor, there had been sunshine on the horizon.
Looking at the German, Sam knew he couldn't sit and watch him die.
"Come on, Germany. I'm gonna get you out of here. Get you some help." Taking a breath, Sam held tight to the German and hauled them both off the ground. The young man was a lot heavier than Sam expected him to be, and they swayed dangerously, the wooden floor beneath their feet groaning like it would give any moment.
Sam stole them back from the edge, the German's hands coming up to grasp his coat, forcing his eyes open as they moved. There was confusion written plain as day across his face, though he quickly seemed to realise what was going on, and shook his head. His muscles tense, head twisting to look back over the street as he freed one arm from under Sam's and reached for something. "Nein, nein. Mein Gewehr. Ich brauche mein Gewehr."
The German overbalanced himself, almost toppling forward before Sam caught hold of his arm. "Whoa, whoa there. You trying to kill us?"
Though Sam suspected it wasn't in answer to his question, the German shook his head and tugged free of Sam's grip, more gently this time. Sam let him go. Watching him sway and sink lightly to his knees, wrapping unsteady hands around the strap of the rifle. "Der Leutnant hat gesagt, dass wir immer unser Gewehr behalten müssen. Es ist ein Befehl." He spoke in a mumbled monotone, frozen for a moment with the gun under his fingers. Sam could see his shoulders shaking, hear the sharp, short intakes of breath that sounded painful. There was no malicious intent in the retrieval of the gun, Sam could see that, and he was about to help the German back to his feet when he did it for himself.
He stumbled to Sam's side and bent to pick up the pack off the floor, grasping a strap but unable to lift it. Sam watched him struggle for a moment, watched stray drops of rain drip from his eyelashes and the end of his nose, before he kicked himself and grabbed the pack, swinging it onto his shoulders along with his own. "It's alright, I got it." he said, grasping the German's arm to steady him. "The camp ain't far, we'll get there and I'll have the Doc look at that little scratch you got. He'll help. Uh- Hifier...Hilfe..."
"Hilfe?"
"Yeah, hilfe." Gently, he ducked under the German's arm and guided him down the precarious stairs. They slowly climbed the piles of brick and wood outside, and made it onto cobbled street. The German was slow, but steady, and Sam was impressed by his sheer force of will. Not once did he cry or complain. Sam could see the pain on his face with every step, every time the wound at his side got pulled or stretched, but not a noise came out of his mouth. Not a single sniffle. As much as he stumbled, he didn't fall, and he didn't stop. There were men Sam knew, American soldiers twice this boys age who would have cursed, or blubbered or lay down to die by now, but the German kept looking forward. What focus he had directed straight ahead.
Determined he may have been, but Sam could see the toll it took. By the time they reached the edge of town, tents and trucks and people spread out across the field, the German was shaking. Sam could feel it under his hand, feel the burning heat of fever radiating off his skin. He wouldn't be able to go much further if they had needed to. Not with accumulated pain, exhaustion and illness sitting like a demon on his shoulders, pulling him down to the earth.
When they reached the last building, Sam pushed them into an alcoved doorway, the heavy wooden door still firm and solid on its hinges, but the white plasters walls streaked with splattered mud and dirt. He lent the German back against it, and took the helmet off his head. That would be be the first thing that identified him as the enemy, but with it off, he just looked like a kid. There was dirt and smudges of blood on his cheeks, streaked by the rain. Water in his eyelashes and on his lips, though his hair was dry. He had the look of a soldier, so utterly out of place on smooth skin and youth, the look that said he had seen things and done things no man should. Things that haunted him in the shadows on his face, and stripped him of naivety and innocence. He looked up at Sam, seeming vulnerable and human without the helmet on his head, and for the first time Sam noticed the darkness behind the pale grey of his eyes.
With a knot in his stomach, Sam buckled the helmet to the German's pack before taking the coat from his shoulders. He seemed reluctant to part with it, his movements slow and stiff as he let Sam pull it off his hands and folded it away. "Don't worry. I'll give it back, we just don't want them lot freaking out. I'm gonna try and get us through nice and quiet. We'll find Christian and he can go get the Doc for us." He offered his best smile, but it felt weak even to himself. The German merely turned his face away, eyes cast to the floor.
The coat folded away into the pack, Sam wrapped his arm around the German's middle and turned them back towards the camp site.
It was just a clump off quickly rigged tents put up in a field. Maybe a little over one hundred khaki canvas roofs interrupted by the dull metal gleam of wet supply trucks and jeeps. The ground the tents were erected on had not yet been completely churned to mud. Instead there was grass and late flowers still springing up between tires and tent poles, greenery that undoubtedly would have fed the cows and goats that once belonged to the people of this little town. The army slaughtered what animals they found along the way, the 'spoils' of war for soldiers who could not live off the rations they were given with the work they were forced to do. Anything for fresh meat or fruit. When they passed fields with growing produce, soldiers would run to fill their helmets with grapes and tomatoes, or beans and corn. Food was food.
To their left, Sam could see two officers under the eaves of a larger tent. First Sergeant Grace Arnold and Captain Lester Barnes, talking down to a small group of stiff backed privates. The Sergeant was a decent man, but Lester was a hard assed, war worn soldier who'd started cracking his guns in the Great war. Useful on the front, but an absolute bastard. Sam quickly steered them right, away from their eyes, and began scanning faces for Christian, skirting along the edge of the camp. They didn't turn heads, even ducking around the back of tents and trucks to keep them out of sight. Sam wasn't the only one assisting the walking wounded, and with the German held close to his side, no one seemed to notice the foreign uniform.
He could feel the German shivering, and saw the way his footsteps began to falter more and more, one hand pressed to the wound at his side. It had started bleeding thicker and faster, he knew that. Seeping between the Germans fingers, thick and sticky. It wouldn't be long before his knees gave out, and Sam really didn't think he could carry the German on his own. Not without a struggle, and not without being noticed. This had been a stupid idea from the beginning, he knew. If Lester had seen them, the German would have been executed on the spot, but the very idea of this kid dying in his arms inspired horror in Sam's chest. Horror that he hadn't felt since his first kill. Horror that shook him and left his seeking out a familiar, helpful face with desperate eyes, all but dragging the German along as his feet became less and less co-operative. There wasn't long until he would pass the point of no return, and sink from barley walking, to barley breathing.
Sam began to talk, low and quiet words that were supposed to be reassuring but came out as shaken as he felt. "It'll be all right, Germany. I promise. I'm gonna find you some help and get you patched up. You aren't dying, not on my watch..."
He could see it, death, like a circling buzzard over the German's bare head. What little color there was on his face draining away until he was white as a sheet. Fingers clutching at Sam's coat as he stumbled with every step, his rifle clattering against his kneecaps and the buckles on his uniform. Blood on his fingers, his wrist and arm, soaking in a dark stain through his shirt and down onto his trousers, diluted by the rain. "Ich kann nicht...Ich ka...nicht." He choked on his words, feet finally slipping out from beneath him on slick grass and mud. Sam barley had time catch him, feeling the German's chest heave against his side. Gasped, shuddering breaths that spoke only of pain and exhaustion. "Ich Kann nicht..."
Sam stumbled, struggling under his weight until they hit the side of an empty truck, both his arms locked awkwardly around the German's waist. They were dripping by now, and there was rain in his eyes, the two packs on his shoulders weighing him down, but none of that mattered. Sam was absolutely determined not to let him go, not to let him fall, and most importantly of all, not to let him die.
Sam had killed men. Many men, he'd aimed and fired his gun with intent. Manned Browning 50 caliber machine guns and cut down people like weeds, sat behind the controls of a tank and known the crunch of bodies and bones beneath the tread. It was war, in war you killed the enemy. He should have been jaded enough, hardened enough not to feel so gutted at the prospect of losing the life he clutched in his hands. But the fact was, he did. Sam knew that if this boy died now, that his face, so young but stained with the dirt from a battle field, darkened by the days of conflict, he would be haunted by the image of it. It seemed an infinite cruelty. A defiling of the word humanity and all it stood for. It seemed such a tremendous tragedy. This face would haunt him till the end of his days.
The slap of boots on the wet dirt behind them made Sam freeze, listening to the approach of another soldier. He turned his head trying to see around the side of the truck, struggling to keep them both upright and hidden at the same time. The footsteps were drawing nearer, just a single set of boots, someone moving in a jog. If it was not a friend, if it was someone he didn't know, how would this look? What would happen to the German...
"Sam!"
He jumped, twisting again as the soldier rounded the other side of the truck.
"Sam. I was...what the fuck!? Is that a fuckin' Ger-"
"Shh. Shut up!" Sam waved his hand for silence, almost losing the grip he had around the German's waist. "Come help me!"
It was Christian. Thank God. It was only Christian, blinking in shock even as he dashed forward to give Sam a hand. The both loped one of the German's arms around their neck and took his weight. "He's injured, we have to get him to a tent then find Doc."
"Are you serious? What the hell Sam, what-"
"Look at his face, Chris. How old do you think he is?" Sam ground the words out between gritted teeth as they moved around to the edge of the truck, looking out over the camp. He couldn't see Christians face, but he heard his intake of breath.
"Fuck, another fuckin' kid!"
"I know. He's a sniper too. Fuckin' Crout's sending juvies to the fuckin' battle front." Sam cursed. following Christian out from behind the truck when he saw the coast was clear. He felt calmer, with his friend by his side, the horror and helplessness lifted slightly from his shoulders. But the German was still nearly limp between them, his bare head hanging forward and his fingers barley holding onto their shoulders. Utterly silent.
They moved much faster with two men carrying him, dashing between tents under Christians guidance, till they came to one situated next to a old, rotting wooden fence. There was barbed wire coiled across the topmost wooden beam, and beyond the fence, a trench, piled high on one side with sandbags. The trench was German dug, and if the camp was to be attacked, this point would be the first to know it. Behind the sandbags there was yet more field, stretching off to a distant line of trees. Sergeant Lester had informed them that the body of this German Corps, including tank, or Panzer units, were situated within those woods. An air strike had been attempted on the camp, right before the Company had moved in through the town, but Sam had been told the planes had been gunned down, and all contact with the pilots severed.
Those distant trees seemed ominous to him, like the malicious forest encroaching Macbeth's castle, something alive and deadly, but the field itself was eerily silent. Pitted with holes and worn with the feet of soldiers, what grass there was swayed under the grey sky. Lapping against the burnt out shell of a tank, and the face down corpse of a soldier. The field looked old, and timeless in its silence, and Sam wondered what things it had seen. America was young yet, he thought, but in Europe, the soil was littered with the history of man, his conquests and his tragedies.
He only paused for a moment, the noise of the tents fluttering canvas like a bat by his ear, before he felt the German's fingers clench against his shoulder and remembered himself.
Christian entered first, maneuvering the wounded boy between them. There were already two sets of fresh supplies inside. One of which, Sam assumed, was for himself, and without being asked, Christian unfolded a new coat and lay it down on the tents damp floor.
Gently, Sam eased the German down onto the coat, surprised to see his eyes were still open. His face had fallen blank, lips parted over each sharp intake of breath, but it seemed that the German was conscious of nothing at all. He looked upwards, but sightlessly, his mind turned entirety internal, so great was his suffering.
It appeared to disturb Christian, who rocked back on his heels to watch as his friend unbuttoned the German's shirt, peeling away what remained of soaked an sodden bandages to show the two inch knife wound, the skin around it swollen and puffy. It was still bleeding, the German's stomach and side, even his chest, slick with smeared blood. Sam couldn't tear his eyes away, swallowing back sickness as he looked upon the dark, open tear in the German's body. It was worse than he'd thought, longer, deeper, and older. Scabbed over then torn open once more.
"Go get Doc, quickly." He said, turning back to the Germans face as Christian dashed from the tent into the rain.
Sam pressed his hand to the Germans cheek and turned his face to try and meet those vacant eyes. They did not see him, glazed and cold. Like the glacial peaks of distant mountains. Not until Sam patted his cheek lightly, and called to him, his fingers leaving bloody streaks across the German's face. "Hey, hey. Germany. Look at me, it's gonna be okay. I promise you this. It's gonna be okay, you just gotta stay with me."
For a moment, for one moment, the German met Sam's gaze. Then all lights went out, and with a soft sigh, the German fell into unconsciousness. His eyes slipping closed and body going as still as it had been when Sam found him.
It looked like he were sleeping, but that was no consolation. Experience had shown that slumber was a look that could grace the faces of dead men. He had stepped into a friends foxhole not so long ago, dug into the edge of a forest, and found his friend with closed eyes and a blanket pulled to his chin. It had taken a touch to tell Sam he was gone, the iciness on his skin complimented by the blood beneath the blanket. His friend had bled to death alone, a bullet in his side. He hadn't even called for a medic. Maybe he had known there was no salvation for him. Maybe he had wanted the dignity of dying in relative peace, rather than the nightmare of a battlefield aid station.
Sam still had his tags. It was hard to let go of someone you'd known since childhood.
Somewhere, the distant rumble of planes started up. A bass beat beneath the staccato rhythm of rain on canvas, and the tramp of soldiers boots on the dirt. Not for the first time, Sam wished he were not here. In hell.
He watched the rise and fall of the German's chest, and checked the flutter of his pules, bandages balled up in his fingers and pressed to the weeping wound. Blood on pale skin, and circles beneath apparently sleeping eyes.
There were times that he hated the Germans with every burning piece of his being, when a friend and ally crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, a bullet or grenade bringing them down. It was what inspired him, and all men, it seemed, to lift their gun and fire at the enemy. With revenge and rage written on their skin in blood. But right then he could not bring even a shadow of that hate into his heart. Not while looking at the German boy, so young and sorrowful. With mortality glaring in the red that slicked his side, in his bared head and closed eyes, helpless, but for the help given.
Sam could find no hatred. He found nothing but dooming compassion.
He found a wretched shadow of hope.
Note:
Reviews and points for improvement would be much appreciated. Danke :D