Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, brought together by long years of seeing and reading different accounts. It is my answer to the writer’s challenge of ‘write to the lyrics of a song’. It was inspired by similar treatments in Combat, Band of Brothers and many other medium representations. There is no attempt to gain from this, it is fan fiction.

I’d like to thank Doc II, beta extraordinaire, for her exceptional help, feedback, handholding and overall support. Her ‘pointer’ picks up on everything!

My thanks and apologies to Paul Simon. I changed one or two words in his amazing song to fit a passage.

I also borrowed a line of dialogue from Combat.

Damning Silence

ã2005 By Jestersang

He awoke with a start, his half gasp, half cry strangling in his throat. He lay there for a moment trying to control his breathing while his heart thudded so hard it hurt. After a minute he moved to get up, but his limbs were constrained, sending him into a panic again. Upon realizing that his captors were only the sweat-soaked sheets wending their way around him, he relaxed back into the pillows.

Looking to his right, he read the soft glow of his bedside clock: 3:30 a.m. He turned his head to his left - she was still sleeping. Good. She had spent enough nights suffering with him through these, he was glad that for once she would be spared. Her awakenings were often as rough as his, sometimes even rougher. At least she never woke him ‘defending’ herself with kicks and blows.

Surreptitiously he unwound the sheets from his legs. With one last look back, he eased himself up and slid out of bed. Grabbing his robe from the chair where he had thrown it earlier, he slipped it on and tied it. Exiting the bedroom, he closed the door so as not to disturb her in his wanderings. He knew he would be up for the rest of the night.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again.

Quietly moving down the stairs, he made sure to avoid the steps that squeaked. Finally, gaining the relative safety of the kitchen, he lit a cigarette, drawing deeply several times. He opened the cabinet where they kept the liquor and carefully selected one of the heavier crystal glasses. Filling it halfway he downed it immediately. He then re-filled the glass, even as he felt the beginnings of the calming warmth of the alcohol spreading throughout his shoulders and chest. Grabbing both the bottle and the glass, he headed to the front porch.

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

Settling himself into a chair, he put his feet up and made himself comfortable. Taking another long drink, he made ready to relive the part of his life that he so longed to leave behind. Memories that would never fully release him from their tenacious grasp.

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sounds of silence

Tonight it had been a mixture of things, he wondered how his jumbled mind could weave such a convincing tapestry from so many different events.

The dream - or was it a nightmare? - had started with him clearing a village. He knew the squad was nearby, could feel it, but he was working alone.

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

The village had been deserted. Supposedly the villagers were still around but so far no one had seen any. He had told the guys to be careful, this village was reported to have a large number of Nazi sympathizers. For some reason, this place gave him the creeps. Most of the houses were well kept, with working plumbing. There was even intermittent electricity, some street lamps were still lit.

Finished with clearing his section, he was on his way to the appointed rendezvous. Stopping to light a cigarette, he flipped his collar up, shot his sleeves and shrugged his shoulders more comfortably into his jacket.

‘Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

Starting on his way again, he paused, hearing the sound of running feet. Ducking into a nearby doorway, he peered out towards the nearing noise, weapon at the ready.

“Sarge! Sarge!” It was Billy.

Saunders’ relief gave way to anger. What was Billy thinking? He wasn’t that stupid, to be running through a Kraut village, announcing their presence.

“Sarge!” Billy rounded the corner, saw Saunders and pulled up.

It was then that Saunders’ anger morphed into fear.

Billy was crying.

“Billy! What’s wrong?!”

Billy stopped, bent double and put his hands on his knees, head down.

“Sarge,” he said thickly. “Please. Come quick.”

Straightening back up, Billy turned the way he had come. Saunders followed him down the street and past the end of the village. They went out a short ways and entered what appeared to be a forest. But they had only gone about fifty feet when the trees abruptly ended. A large clearing appeared, and in it was some sort of compound. Barbed wire surrounded a chain link fence and a battered searchlight lazily moved in erratic half circles, cutting in and out.

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a circling light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

Looking past the weak beam, Saunders noted Kirby and Littlejohn at the steel compound gates. They wore the same shocked expression as Billy. Together they were trying to batter it down.

Saunders gritted his teeth. Didn’t they know better than that by now? How many friends had they lost to booby traps in this war? He strode over to stop them. It was then that he spotted Doc.

Doc was halfway in and out of a large coil of the barbed wire. Carefully, but urgently, he was attempting to make his own way to the fence. Close behind him was Caje, holding a gun on two civilians who were ‘helping’ Doc by holding the wire apart.

Saunders couldn’t believe his eyes. Had his entire squad gone mad? Switching direction, he jogged over to Caje and Doc.

And then he saw.

As the searchlight made another attempt to circle, he saw.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

Looking out from behind the barbed wire were people - countless numbers of people. Emaciated souls, silently reaching out their hands to the soldiers on the other side, as if by that very act they could help draw them in.

Looking over at Caje, Saunders was disconcerted to see tears on his face as well. But Caje’s tears were colored by a murderous rage.

“Sarge,” he said hoarsely. “Sarge, these two villagers were trying to escape into the woods. I caught them and brought them back. They say they knew nothing about this place.” The Cajun’s words stumbled out at breakneck speed, falling over themselves in their accented anger.

People hearing without listening

Doc finished squirming through the barbed wire and made his way to the inner fence. In his frantic haste to get there, to do something, please God, let me do something, he stumbled and fell to his hands and knees. A cry and, “Oh God!” escaped him as he realized that the stones he’d been crunching underfoot were actually bones.

People writing songs that voices never share

Saunders shifted his gaze to the villagers that Caje was guarding so closely.

<“We did not know about this!”> they cried, with shrugging shoulders, waving hands and evasive glances.

And no one dare

Disturb the sound of silence

Saunders’ mind flashed back unbidden to a schoolmate in grammar school. The boy had been shunned by his peers because of his looks. Dirty and unkempt, he had no friends. In a moment of pity one day, Saunders sat to share his lunch with him. Eagerly the boy accepted and devoured what Saunders offered. He didn’t really speak, looking mostly scared. As he turned to thank him, Saunders noted bruises around the boy’s neck. Scared himself, he had told his teacher. She assured Saunders that she would ‘talk to the boy’s parents‘. But the talk was unnecessary, for the next day the boy was found dead, killed by his abusive father. Apparently, Saunders learned later, it was one of the best kept secrets in town. Everyone knew, but no one wanted to say anything. The boy’s father was a mean drunk, not above waylaying anyone he considered his enemy. Saunders had always blamed himself for not being more proactive. He wondered whether or not any of these villagers could have made a difference.

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you,

Take my arms that I might reach you.”

Saunders wondered how many other places like this would be found, how many times a similar scene would play out. Denials, accusations, refusal to accept blame. He wondered how many more people ‘never knew anything’.

But my words like silent raindrops fell,

And echoed

In the wells of silence.

When they finally gained entrance to the compound, the squad was almost crushed by the desperate grasps of survivors. They did what they could but were overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the situation. So they called it in and waited, as the night slipped into dawn, for someone else to take the burden. When help finally arrived, in the form of medics, brass and media, Saunders took a ‘quiet’ moment to walk through the camp.

One building stood away from the others, solitary in its function. Swinging the door open, Saunders ducked through the low doorway. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight filtered darkness, he saw long benches and piles of all manner of personal items on the floor. With a growing horror he realized that he must be in an anteroom of sorts. And again he tried to understand how people could actually be so caught up in a force fed doctrine that they could allow this to happen.

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

He turned to leave, before he saw anymore, anything else that would help populate his already overcrowded dreams. As his eyes swept the walls of the building, he stopped short, something was there. Trapped, he moved closer, reaching in his pocket for his lighter. With a flick of his wrist and a roll of his thumb he created a wavering light to see by. What he saw made his stomach do a slow roll. There, on the wall, were scratched, bloody words. Names, dates, and final messages - muted pleas to not be forgotten. As he stared at the only memory of so many, many lives, Saunders was unaware of the tears that rolled down his own bloodless cheeks.

And the sign flashed out its warning,

In the words that it was forming,

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets

Are written on the death camp walls

And ghetto halls.”

It was getting light. Saunders shook himself and tried to bring his mind back to the present. He looked down at his glass, surprised to find it empty. So was half the bottle. Slowly he rose. He figured he might as well shower and make some coffee before everyone else got up. He also wanted to replace the glass and bottle in an attempt to hide the evidence of another sleepless night. Older by yet another night that added so many more years, he opened the door and stepped inside. At the last minute he remembered, and caught the screen door with his hand before it slammed shut. The last thing he wanted right now was to have his solitude disturbed. This was his to deal with, his own personal, private hell. And he wouldn’t let it destroy him.

And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.

- the end -