Crossword (21 page)

"No, please. I'll tell you and it will all be true, I
swear."

"All right, go ahead then."

The young lad shifted his position to face the corporal,
reluctantly letting go of the bike since he felt it necessary to have both
hands free to better explain what had occurred. "We were out for a walk,
just talking about things, you know, and after a while we saw we were pretty
far out of town. Well, Wilhelm, he's a kid from our school, but older than us,
well, he said that in the woods out of town there were these bread trees and
you can just go up to them and pick off a loaf. But they were pretty deep in
the forest."

"That is nonsense, boys. And you believed him?"

"See, I told you it wasn't true," one of them said
to the one telling the tale.

"Shut up, I knew it wasn't true."

"Oh yeah, well ..."

"Enough! Go on. And no more interruptions."

"Anyway, we were walking into the woods and before we
got very far I tripped over something and fell." Pointing to a scrape on his
knees as if to corroborate his story and attest to its truth, he went on,
"See, this is where I hurt my knee when I fell. When I started to get up I
saw what had caught my foot. It was part of the handle bars of a bike ... that
I found by tripping on it." One of the others started to say something to
counter this unabashed claim of ownership but was silenced by an angry look
from the soldier. "Well, we pulled it out of the ground, it wasn't very
deep, cleaned off the dirt and other junk that was stuck to it and, well, I
guess that's all. We were taking it home when you came by. That's everything
and it's all true."

"Very well then, take me to where you found it."

When the corporal ordered the others out of the car and they
fanned out to form a cordon, it was apparent that they planned to search the
area. Cursing under his breath, Larry realized he had to get far away as
quickly as possible. It seemed the bike was a lost cause. The mission had
barely begun and he was in danger of being captured. He took a step back and
turned to beat a hasty retreat, and once again luck was not with him. His right
foot caught between two rocks and was sharply twisted, a sudden spasm of pain
almost causing him to cry out.
Ah shit.
He balanced on one leg against
the tree and gingerly tested the weight bearing ability of the injured foot. He
winced from the pain but found it would bear weight and didn't seem broken.
Running, however, was out of the question, and he would have to find someplace
to hide. Larry limped back to where he had left his pack. An ancient tree,
flanked by bushes and boulders, it offered the best he could hope for in the
way of cover.
Shrink into the background, calm your breathing.

The four soldiers were at the edge of the forest, annoyed at
having to delay their trip home, for that was in fact where they were going,
these old timers and young men, hardly more than boys, who were the last
bastion of defense for the fatherland and who were usually billeted in their
home town, sometimes their own bed. They all loved their country and felt it to
be their duty to defend it, but many had doubts about their leader and all of
them knew the war would be over very soon. Nobody wanted to be the last to die.
So, with a mixture of anger and fear, they entered the woods, rifles at the
ready, and were soon enveloped by the forest mantle, the temperature cooler,
the remaining daylight more subdued and the sounds of the outside world
replaced by the hush of places less known.

From his hiding place Larry was alerted to the approach of
the soldier by the snapping of twigs and the sudden flight of two woodpeckers
from the trunk of a nearby tree where they had been working on their evening
meal. He moved hesitantly, this hastily conscripted soldier of the Third Reich,
pausing frequently to listen, but the sound of his footsteps moved inexorably
toward Larry. Finger on the trigger of his old rifle, seemingly a relic from
World War I, he stopped in front of a large oak flanked by rocks and shrubbery,
and cocked his head to one side, listening. He raised his weapon to firing
position, sweat trickling down his temple, and darted around the tree yelling,
"Halt!" and then accidentally discharged the rifle, causing a
squirrel who had been gnawing on an acorn at the base of the old oak to jump
several feet in the air and dash off, ears ringing and sans acorn. What stories
it would have to tell its offspring.

The sound of the shot echoed through the forest, and even
before the reverberations had stopped, running boots could be heard converging
on the spot where a still shaking young soldier had almost killed a squirrel.
"Did you get someone?" cried the first of his companions to reach
him. Before there was time to frame an answer, the other soldiers arrived
followed almost immediately by the three boys, bicycle still in tow.

They all formed a semicircle around him, the corporal
speaking first, "What happened? Who were you shooting at?" Looking
side to side, "Where did they go?"

"It was nothing, sir, just an accident. I'm
sorry."

"Tell me exactly what happened."

His embarrassment showed and the private lowered his voice
when he replied. "I heard a noise from behind this tree and when I came
around I accidentally fired my rifle."

"What was there? What made the noise?"

"It was an animal, sir."

"Don't give me your story crumb by crumb, private. What
kind of animal? Tell me everything."

"A squirrel. It was eating an acorn." At this, the
others all smiled, even the children, although the hapless private, now
starting to blush, could see nothing humorous in the situation.

"Was it an American squirrel or a French squirrel?
Perhaps a member of the squirrel resistance?" asked one of the soldiers.
This precipitated laughter, the children giggled and pointed, and even the
corporal joined in, although he could see the extreme discomfiture of the young
soldier and actually felt sorry for the loss of face in front of his fellows
and especially in front of the children who would, no doubt, circulate the
story around the whole town by tomorrow.

"Sir, should we fan out and search for this
squirrel?" This produced another round of laughter and more embarrassment
for the soldier whose youthful face was by now beet red.

"That's enough. Whoever buried the bike is long gone.
We'll return to base now."

"But sir, can we keep the bike?"

The soldier, his embarrassment turning to anger, spoke
before the corporal had a chance to reply, an event his superior ignored out of
compassion for the unfortunate butt of the joke. "No, the bicycle must be
confiscated, it's evidence." He looked imploringly to the corporal who
acquiesced to this apparent attempt at ego reconstruction.

"Yes, I'm sorry boys, but he's right. Go on home now.
Private, you will ride the bike back to base. Report to me in the
morning."

The three children looked crest fallen as they were ushered
out of the woods, and the corporal, ever concerned about others, and feeling
sorry for the boys, said, "Come, we'll give you a lift back to town. You
can stand and ride on the running boards if you like."

The private watched as the six of them, three old soldiers
and three children, the past, present and future of Germany, trekked back to
the car and were soon lost to view. He leaned his rifle against the tree and
took hold of the bike, brushing off the seat and bending down to straighten the
handle bars, which were askew relative to the front wheel, and would require
some adjusting. When a sound came from behind the tree his head instinctively
shot up, then he smiled, not willing to let a squirrel get the better of him
again. He bent once more to his task but seconds later his head snapped up
again, this time by an iron hand pressed over his mouth. The next sound he
heard was the scraping of Larry's large hunting knife as it brushed against his
twelfth right rib before plunging into his kidney, a sideways motion severing
the renal artery and vein as well as lacerating the aorta. A bolt of
excruciating pain shot up and down along the right side of his torso, but he
was not troubled by this for long since he lost consciousness almost
immediately, the hand still tightly clasped about his mouth as his legs buckled
and his body settled to the ground. Larry kept his right hand firmly gripped on
the knife handle, using it to help guide the dying soldier to the forest floor,
his final resting place. He pulled out the knife but kept his left hand in
place over the mouth, a precaution that was unnecessary since there was no
chance of him regaining consciousness before he exsanguinated and died ninety
seconds after German forged steel cut a swath of destruction through his
insides.

The private, one Karl Brauer, had just celebrated his
seventeenth birthday, and his mother, having lost her husband to the war and
not knowing if her son fighting on the Eastern front was dead or alive, was
terrified to have her "baby" drafted into the army despite his
protestations that he was old enough to take care of himself. When Larry
removed his hand and saw just how young his foe had been, a silent scream of
anguish exploded from deep within and flickering flashbacks to the operation
that haunted him careened into consciousness from the deep dungeons of his
mind. Hyperventilating, he sank to his knees and covered his ears to shut out
the shrieks that seemed to be reverberating through the forest. Sweat beaded on
his skin despite the cool temperature, and he remained immobile as remorse and
a profound feeling of loss flooded in.
Oh God, not again. What have I become
that I am a killer of children?
Time passed, he didn't know how long. The
chill of the evaporating sweat roused him from his self-loathing. Rational
thoughts returned. Larry was good at what he did, and with the greatest of
effort he forced the turbulent pangs of conscience out of his thoughts, to be
resurrected, he knew, when there would be time to deal with his own shattered
soul.
Focus on the mission now. That's what's needed. It's bigger than me or
any of my personal issues. Others are depending on me.

The dispatch of the young conscript had been a thoughtful,
albeit quick decision —— risk killing a German soldier or give up
transportation to Munich, miles away, and the first objective of the operation.
A swift pros/cons analysis dictated that the bike would be worth the risk, a
risk that could be mitigated by how long it would take anyone to realize that
the private was missing, plus the time it would take to find the body or reach
the conclusion that foul play was involved, plus the fact that the authorities
would be unlikely to ever know the who or why of the killing. All of these
thoughts had been processed by Larry in less than thirty seconds as he listened
to the conversation among the Germans while hidden, half buried and covered by
fallen leaves, pine needles, twigs, dirt and whatever other debris the forest
provided. He brushed several moist leaves from his face and quickly stripped
the body before burying it in a shallow grave. There was no time to dig a deep
grave, nor was his ankle in any shape to drag it very far, so the mortal
remains of Karl Brauer would reside in a twelve inch grave covered with the
dead and cast off of the forest itself, not one meter from where he had died.

Larry stood up, wincing from the complaints of his ankle,
gathered up the clothes and limped a little further into the woods where he dug
another hole, burying them in the same way as he had their owner. Finally, he
returned to where he had left his pack, emptied it completely and dug yet
another hole, this one a bit deeper than the others. He tossed all his
equipment in, the gun, knife, compass and lastly, the camp shovel he had used
to do the digging. The pack itself, really a rucksack of the type that lower
class workers might carry, he kept, placing within it food, a few personal
items and a small bottle containing the pills the doctor had given him. The
rucksack and everything that went in it was of German manufacture except the
food, which consisted of items available in the region in which he was
operating. Seeing the pills he was reminded of the coughing he had been working
so hard to suppress, and he swallowed one before closing up the pack. A final
check of his pockets to make sure there were no incriminating items, and he
began filling in the hole he had dug, using his hands and a small fallen branch
to push the dirt back into the hole. After leaves and such were placed on top
there was nothing to call attention to this particular spot. Satisfied, he
looked around for landmarks in case he might pass this way during his exit and
had time or the need to retrieve any of the equipment, then returned to the
bike and wheeled it in the increasing darkness toward the road, forcing himself
not to dwell on the body of a young soldier, no more than a boy, who lay under
the matted woodland floor.

He approached the road carefully, looking in both directions
for vehicular or foot traffic, then mounted the bike and road off in the
direction away from the town to which the soldiers had been returning.
I'll
have to detour to bypass the town where those kids live and where the soldiers
are probably billeted. There's a parallel road to the north. Twenty miles and a
few hours extra, but I can't risk being seen with this bike by any of those
people.
As he pedaled first West then North, dark clouds filled the sky,
and it began to rain.

The rain fell with determination, as if to punish anyone
reckless enough to be out, and the hard, large drops fell ceaselessly through
the night, pelting Larry until he became near numb from the cold, and oblivious
to the rain itself. Stopping only briefly every hour or so he pedaled
throughout the night despite the throbbing of his ankle which, in fact, seemed
to subside sometime after midnight, a circumstance that he was not entirely
certain was good. Nonetheless, Larry pushed on until several hours before first
light when he dismounted and wheeled the bike into the woods, which bordered
most of the roads in this area, to look for shelter and a safe place to rest
and pass the daylight hours. Limping still, but with little pain, he entered
the tree line fifteen meters from the roadway. Another fifteen meters brought
him a little relief from the downpour as the overhanging canopy deflected some
of the drops, but the density of trees here was not great and they provided
only minimal protection from the elements. As he penetrated further the sound
of rushing water emanated from his left, and walking in that direction he came
across a small ravine, perhaps ten or twenty meters deep, the darkness making
it difficult for him to accurately judge distance or depth. A rain-filled
stream must be at the bottom, he thought, and continued along it, scanning the
near and far side hoping to spot a cave or some overhang that might provide the
cover he needed. Still holding the bike, he paused, straining to see if the
patch of darkness he observed on the far side might be a cave entrance, when
his foot slid a little. As he repositioned it, there was a low rumble and a
slight vibration before the ground was pulled out from under him and he found
himself sliding down a chute of mud, twigs and matted leaves. The bike hit him on
the way down, then he, in turn, banged into the bike, which returned the insult
with another sharp blow. He felt the rucksack being torn from his back and the
slippery earth pulling at his clothes, then the hammer like impact of his head
on a protruding rock, then nothing.