Kirby drew a couple of steadying breaths, and forced himself to concentrate on the sweat trickling down his neck, despite the evening coolness.  After the sweat disappeared into his collar, he moved his blistered big toe around in his boot until the pain of the raw skin against the raw leather, even with the cushioning of his sock, nearly brought tears to his eyes. 

William G. Kirby was in Germany.  They had won.  He had won.  He was the best BAR man in the platoon—hell, the best BAR man anywhere around.  What was is McCall had just said?  These guys trusted his judgment. They believed in him and counted on him.  He was going to get them back.  He had done this before, and against more than a bunch of loser Krauts about to surrender. 

“No, Littlejohn, I just thought I heard something.  It was nothing.”

Does anyone in Chicago need a good BAR man?  What does being a war hero pay? Does it bring home more dough than being a losing Kraut?  Had he fought this whole lousy war, made it through more hunger, death, pain, and just plain misery than he thought possible, only to end up just like those stinking losers?  At then end of the day, when he went back to Chi-town, was anything going to be any different for him than it had been for his father? 

“C’mon.  Let’s keep it down and get a move on.   I want to get through that village and back to HQ afore light.”  Kirby set off briskly, nearly at a run. 

****

He’d seen a lot of villages in this war—more than he’d probably have seen in a lifetime back in the States.  Hell, he may never have left Chicago of his own will, anyway.  But this village was one of the ugliest he had seen.

They had gone through it so fast earlier this evening, and Kirby had been feeling so free at the wheel of that jeep that he had not really taken notice of the buildings.  The street was wide, unusual for most of the towns he had marched, run, and skittered through.  The buildings, though, were low, squat, and downright ugly.  There was a depressing sameness to them, as though any attempt at individuality had been stamped out by the same hand that had flattened them down close to the street.  Not a tree or a green space of any type relieved the squalid façade. 

Kirby held up at a hiss behind him. He knew the pace he had been keeping was really too fast for the stretcher bearers, but there had been no complaints.  McCall and Littlejohn were as tough as they came—and then there was Doc.

“Whatsa matter?  Is he worse?” 

Kirby had to wait a moment for both Littlejohn and McCall to catch their breath after they placed the stretcher unceremoniously on an ugly, utilitarian bench.  It probably would have been melted for scrap long ago, but the rust clearly outweighed the iron content.  The bus that may have once stopped here was undoubtedly long ago mothballed for lack of petrol.  As it was, Doc’s middlin’ weight elicited a protesting screech from one end of the long unused bench, and all reached simultaneously to steady the load.

McCall managed to answer first.  “Damn, Kirby, if you’d a run that fast when you hit Omaha, you’da been fightin’ in the Pacific three months ago.”

“Well, if you girls can’t keep up…”

“It isn’t that,” Littlejohn huffed.  “It’s another good hour or more by foot to HQ, and Doc’s been out way too long.”

“So?”

“So, I think we outta find a place here to take a better look at what is going on.”

“In the middle of a Kraut village?  Are you out of your mind, Littlejohn?  We’re gonna get killed as it is!”

“Shhhh.  You’re the one that said we were safer coming this way.”

“Yeah, Littlejohn.  Safe—er.  It’s a matter of how we get killed, not if.”

McCall interjected, “Well, the longer we stay here arguing, the worse it’s gonna be for everyone.  I vote we find a church, get some light on Doc, then get moving.”

“A church?”  Littlejohn and Kirby both looked at McCall, the disbelief evident in even in their hushed voices.

McCall picked up his end of the stretcher while continuing his thought.  “Yeah, a church.  You know, the place that’s always unlocked, always has candles, and rarely at this time of night has a person in it.  A church.”

“Okay, if we see one.  If not, we’re not spending any time looking.  Unless you want to knock on one of these doors and see if there’s a Helga willing to break curfew for a few nice Amerikaner who probably kilt her son.” 

Kirby said nothing else as they moved out.  How long until morning?  He wasn’t sure.   This evening seemed to have started days ago, and he hadn’t been able to see his watch since the moon started downward. 

The one thing he was sure of was that he wanted to be back in the camp and what passed for home by the time the sun broke and those Krauts came marching home.

When Fritzie comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah,
When Franz comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah!

Hmmm, hmm, hmm…

He couldn’t remember the rest of the song.  He knew it was supposed to be a song of victory, but it always sounded rather sad and stern to him.  

When Fritzie comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah,
When Franz comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah!

He probably would not have spotted the church if he hadn’t been looking up, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon between rooflines.    But there it was—the silhouette of the unbroken steeple unmistakable.  The building itself was unremarkable, and Kirby realized that if he did not point it out to McCall and Littlejohn, they may have gone right past without stopping.  As it was, he debated mentioning it to them, but the smallest hint of—belief?  fear? suspicion?—niggled at the edged of his thoughts, causing him to wonder what effect such an action would have on the wounded medic.

If something happens to Doc and I didn’t stop…There weren’t many things Kirby wouldn’t gamble on, but a friend’s life and the resulting guilt were on the forefront of that small list. 

“Guys, hold up!”  His whispered command sounded too loud to his own ears.  Without waiting for a response, he bounded up the three steps that elevated the door to the church from the street and distinguished it ever so slightly from the other entrances they had passed in the village.

Tugging on the large handles of one of the double doors, Kirby was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to find the building open.   He really would have preferred to keep moving toward the safety of the American encampment. 

Churches were foreign ground to him even before landing on the European shores.  Their sanctity to all  sides during the war, while admittedly not entirely sacrosanct, had always been a source of confusion rather than comfort to the somewhat agnostic BAR man.  But war often makes believers—however fleeting-- out of even the most skeptical, and though Kirby could not bring himself to fully admit it, he was no exception.

“Guys, it’s open.  Get Doc in here!”  Kirby held the door as McCall and Littlejohn squeezed by. 

“It’s as dark as a well digger’s…”

“McCall!”  Littlejohn’s voice carried his reproach clearly. 

Kirby kept the door open to let the small amount of ambient light from the street outside into the vestibule into which they had just stumbled.

“Well, this was a dumb idea—I can’t see a blamed thing.  We tried.  Now, you guys just turn that stretcher right around and let’s hightail it on outta here.”

McCall and Littlejohn just ignored Kirby, and in unspoken agreement, lowered the stretcher to the concrete floor. 

“Whattcha doin?”  Kirby fumbled in his pocket for his matches, lit one, and let the door close behind him.  He peered around in the barely relieved gloom and grunted in satisfied dissatisfaction.  There was nothing here to help Doc, he could move on without guilt.

“Kirby, we need a break.  Just for a minute.  We can’t keep up this pace.”  Littlejohn shook out his hands in emphasis of his point. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t see none of those candles McCall was a promising.  I don’t see a thing.”  Kirby lit another match with the first, and walked away from the doors.  The feeble light uncovered only plain painted cinderblock walls and another set of doors, presumably leading to the larger sanctuary. 

“Shit, this ugly-ass church is as homely as the rest of Krautville.  So if you girls are finished with your sightseeing, I say we get moving again. Doc’ll be better off the faster we get him back.”

Kirby yelped as the fire from the match hit his fingers, his pain forgotten at the sight that had momentarily filled his eyes before the group was plunged into the inky darkness.  He raised his BAR in the direction of the apparition.  “Hold it right there!”

***

The minister peered down at the injured American.  His hair looked as though it has been combed with an eggbeater.  Beneath the tousled hair, his face was pasty white, nearly the same color as the armband that proclaimed this soldier a medic. 

So close to being over—so close.  Tomorrow his people could pick up their lives, binding together in what was truly important.  He had no illusions that it would be easy.  Many circles had been broken—circles of friendship and family, their importance spiraling out of control with the introduction of ideologies in such contrast to those of the heritage of faith he struggled to uphold.   He hoped that in looking to repair their lives, the people would turn back to the beliefs of their forefathers.

Unfortunately, churches had not been innocent in what had happened in the recent past.  Like the people, many had propagated the will of man—the will of a certain man who played upon the temporal fears and miseries of a people—and had done so from the pulpits throughout the country. 

But there had been many times in history when churches and their people were misused, the message misconstrued for immediate purposes.   In the larger context of history, though, the course to salvation for all could still be discerned.  The temporary detours and slow downs did not change the basic direction.  He would get his people back on the road.  It would not be easy, it never had been, but his resolve was strong. 

This soldier in front of him posed a problem, though.  The last thing he needed was to be discovered giving aid and comfort to the enemy.  A dispirited and humiliated people would be most likely to turn to one of their own for comfort.  His place in the community had been tenuous throughout the war, as he had never openly embraced the prevailing philosophy.  He had been careful to keep his sermons neutral, and his actions circumspect.  He did not go so far as to “render unto Ceasar”, but neither did he cast out the money lenders in the vestibule.  He had a people to serve, and he couldn’t do it if he did not have their trust and respect.

Of course, he knew helping the American soldier was the right thing.   The man clearly needed help.   The men accompanying him looked as though they had reached their limit, both physically and mentally.  The worry and exhaustion showed clearly on their faces. But to potentially give up the place he had worked so hard to hold onto—the life of one man for the souls of many?  How could one make the trade?  Perhaps it would not come to that.  Perhaps he could get them out of here before the morning service. 

It was a service he had been preparing for since defeat had become inevitable.  Today would be the day the people faced the truth about the falsity of their recent idols, the day they came searching for a balm for the hurt of betrayal and for a palliative for the emptiness that now faced them.  He had worked on his sermon in secret for months.  He would give them the right mix of understanding, explanation, repentance, and hope.   They were not lost, their country was not lost, nor were the ones not returning lost.  The love of God remained above temporary human foibles, a constant truth higher than any they may have recently espoused.  They were still a good people, a chosen people, who needed not bow their heads in shame if they remembered their true place God’s universe. 

He motioned with his newly lit candle for the weary soldiers to follow him to the waiting room behind pulpit.  Though his church did not maintain the mystery of the other one across town, some remnants of similarity remained despite nearly 400 years of separation between the two faiths.  Rarely did the lay people intrude in the preparation areas of the ministry.   The chance of random discovery would at least by minimized in the small anteroom.

He looked back as they walked up the narrow isle to the front of the church.  The two soldiers bearing the stretcher barely looked at their surroundings, their weariness evident.  The eyes of the smaller, more agitated soldier in the front did dart rapidly from side to side, obviously not impressed.  The minister smiled to himself.  

The church had been built at the same time as the rest of this town—built as an ugly monument to post war industrialization.   Like cities for eons, this village had been constructed to take advantage of the river nearby, which offered both water for the inhabitants and easy energy and transportation for the products they created in mass numbers.   Unfortunately, if this had been a site desirable other than for utility, it would have been utilized centuries ago.  As it was, there was no history in this town, or in this church.  The construction was new and sparse, and their faith relied more on words than on any physical symbolism that could relieve the starkness of this house of God.

The ministered sighed.  The words he had prepared for this morning would really be rendered pretty useless if he was caught.  He could try to appeal to the hearts of these people, talk about the need for goodness and forgiveness, but he knew it was too soon.  Their pride needed to be tended to first…

The nervous soldier pushed him out of the way as they entered the small room, and looked around himself for hidden dangers.  Satisfied, he shoved papers outlining today’s sermon off the desk and nodded for the other to place the wounded soldier the large, flat surface. 

After securing the candle in the holder, the minister hastily gathered the precious papers from the floor, flustered as he realized that their order was lost and he had not numbered the pages.   Time was running out; it had to be a little after 4am.  He liked to come and prepare early, before the village awoke, feeling it gave him both an upper hand in being organized for the day as well as creating the illusion that he was always there for his flock.

As he was, he thought almost angrily.  If the Lord was testing him, he was doing a good job.  Soon the villagers would awake, undoubtedly early on this momentous morning.  And despite the fact that the bells would toll from the church across town, their summons was heard by all, and would bring the masses.  He would be ready, he told himself again.  This unexpected interruption would not undo all his planning.

Precious sermon notes gathered, he turned his attention back to the intruders in his sanctuary.    Though he felt anxious to get them out of his church, he took a moment to study the enemy for the first time at close hand.  The nervous soldier drew his attention first.  It was hard not to watch him, as he was in constant motion, seemingly at a loss as to what to do.  He moved about restlessly, reminding the minister of a bird let loose in a room, flitting around looking for window through which to escape.  But there were no windows in this anteroom, only the door through which they had entered, which looked back out on the darkened sanctuary.  Finally, the soldier took up position there and reached in his pocket, bringing out a crumpled package of cigarettes.  Catching the minister’s eye, he shoved them back in his pocket with an annoyed yet defiant look.

He was dirty, with small, pinched features that somehow reminded the minister of the dried apple dolls his wife made for their daughters when they were small.  All these soldiers were dirty, except the one being carried.  But other than that, they looked nothing alike, despite their uniforms.   Even in this village without a heritage, which had been filled with Germans from across the country looking for a living in the difficult post war years, there was a homogeneity to appearance despite differences in dress.  Not that they all looked like pictures of the uber Aryan—in fact, few did.  But there was not the total discrepancy in build and features that this small contingent of Americans displayed. 

To have been defeated by such.  While he may not have believed in the ideology, the minister did have pride in the people.  How could such a—a rabble—defeat the good, solid German volken? 

“Why don’t you make yourself useful, Fritz, and see what they need?” 

The soldier’s bark startled the minister out of his reverie.  It took a moment to understand what the edgy soldier said.  The minister’s spoken English was excellent, if rusty, but the American did not enunciate in the clear, slow, textbook intonation of the gymnasium instructors. 

“Please to excuse me?  I am not Fritz, I am Herr Doctor Burkhardt.  If you could…”

The minister did not get his slowly articulated thought finished before the small soldier broke in.  “Doctor, did you guys hear that?  Maybe McCall was right in making this stop.  Fritz, take a look at our Doc over there and see what’s going on.  He’s been napping for hours.”

“Please to understand,” the minister stammered, comprehending the gist of what had been said.  He wanted these soldiers to realize his situation. 

“Please to understand what, Fritzie?  Get some bandages and gettun zie to work.”   The expression that accompanied the words was impatient, but not threatening.  Not yet.  The minister sensed that that could change instantly.  

Suddenly, the minister was frightened.  It was not a new feeling—he had been afraid plenty of times over the past few years.  When the Black Boots first marched in through the streets, when the mandatory registration for service was announced, when the bombs started to fall…but never had he felt fear in this place.  This place was safe, he was secure within its plain, solid walls.  He knew his position here and felt the comfort of the Lord backing him.  But the sanctity of this refuge was now challenged by these four men in front of him.  The enemy was not at the gates, it was within the sanctuary, and there was nowhere to hide.

“If you please, I am a doctor of theology, not a doctor of medicine.  I am afraid that I cannot…”

“A doctor of what?”  The nervous soldier looked at him suspiciously.

“A doctor of theology, from Heidelburg…”

The large soldier broke in, “Kirby, he’s the minister.  He has a degree in theology. “

“I figured he was the minister, bein’ in the church at this ungodly hour.  But I thought he said he was a doctor.” 

The large soldier looked unfazed by the angry tone.  The minister peered closer at the three soldiers.  The large one remained next to the injured one, giving the impression of standing guard, though his rifle remained slung at his back.  The one who had not yet spoken slunk in the desk chair, his helmet tipped back, watching with an amused expression the exchange between the other two soldiers.  The loud soldier continued to splutter, only a few of the comments which the minister could understand, but it was evident if one looked closely at his eyes that the mutterings were merely taking up time while the soldier was thinking. 

They had been together a while, the minister decided.  They knew each other.

Finally, after the mutterings ceased and few minutes of quiet stretched out, the minister shifted uncomfortably, drawing the attention of the soldiers to himself.  He wanted them to come to the obvious conclusion that there was no help to be sought here, that they were better off heading the additional hour down to the American encampment.  Though he had not looked closely, there did not appear to be a lot of blood from the wounded soldier, nor did he appear in pain.  Actually, he appeared to be sleeping quite peacefully. 

“Please if you will, the people will soon to be arriving for services.  Perhaps it is better if you…”

“Arriving this time of morning, Doctor of Nothing Fritzie?  Who goes to church…”

“Kirby!  This is a man of god.”  The minister could actually feel the deep rumblings of the large soldier’s voiced rebuke.  Though the defense reassured him for the moment, the warm feeling left when the soldier took a couple of steps forward toward him.  This soldier was one of the largest men the minister had ever seen, and while his tone was calm and friendly, up close his eyes showed determination.  The minister would not want to get in the way of this one. 

“Herr Doctor, can you get us a medical doctor, or someone who can take a look at our friend here?  We’re just getting pretty worried, and don’t want to find out it’s too late by the time we get back.  And besides, we’re not sure that our way back will be entirely without trouble.”

“But today the peace starts!  That is why the early services.” 

“Yes, Doctor.  But there are a lot of your soldiers out there who may not have gotten the word, or who decide to take one last potshot at GI Joe.  Look at what happened to our Doc here.”  The seated soldier spoke reasonably, but the smile that accompanied the assertion reminded the minister of a wolf. 

The minister thought quickly.  There was no doctor in the town, not for over six months when even old doctor Melcher had been called up to help in the home guards.  The void had been filled by Monsignor Dietrich. The town was small for two churches, but it was work that had brought the people here, not faith.  The two men of god in the town tended their respective flocks and avoided each other to the best of their ability.  It was an uneasy truce within the confines of the city, and one made more difficult as the flocks grew smaller and drew closer together with the absence of the men and then the boys.   The minister had resented what he perceived as the growing influence of his counterpart as the Monsignor started administering corporal as well as spiritual aid to the people. 

But he had to get these soldiers out of here.  Otherwise this momentous moment—the moment that he had prepared for since the end had become inevitable—would be ruined.  Surely the priest would not mention this to anyone, that the minister had sheltered the enemy.  In fact, if he were brought into this event, then maybe if it were found out, the blame could be portioned equally.   Equanimity would remain.

The minister walked over to the wounded soldier and took a closer look.  He could sense the others watching his every move, hovering protectively.  This soldier had that nondescript look that the minister associated with the few American divinity students he had met at the university before the war:  brownish hair, longish nose, smallish lips and mouth…and the armband that proclaimed him a medic.  

Funny, the minister had observed that in the army of the Fatherland, the medics were often those who could not make it as a soldier. Often they were despised and reviled for their perceived lack of aggressiveness.  The minister had always quietly sympathized with the gelded medics, believing his situation to be similar to theirs.  But these American soldiers seemed extremely concerned about the wellbeing of their medic.

Well, if discovered, helping a medic may not be as bad as helping an armed soldier.  

The minister spoke slowly, reluctantly.  “There is someone who is of help in medical.”

“So what are you waiting for?  Raus’ on outta this house and get him!”  The small soldier seemed to have found his voice again.  “But I’m going with you—don’t need you finding the guy who did this so as he can finish the job.”

The minister looked at the man, uncertain as to whether he was serious.  But there was no amusement in the small eyes. 

“Please I cannot go.  If you were discovered…”

“What?  You gonna’ protect us?”

“Kirby, that’s enough!”  The large soldier now appeared to be getting angry. 

“What, Littlejohn?  We’s just wasting our time here.  This guy don’t want to give us any help—even if he wanted to, he’s shaking so hard so as to be no use.  We coulda already been 15 minutes down the road, and guaranteed to make it in before sunrise.  And you know that Sarge wants us to get whatever is so all fire important on this paper back.”

“Yeah, but if we end up playing Kraut dodge’em like we’ve been doing all night, it could be several hours before we get Doc or the information back.  Thirty minutes isn’t going to matter, Kirby, and Doc deserves every chance he can get.  He’s certainly bettered the odds on each of us—and then some.”

“Why, McCall, I didn’t know you cared.” 

The soldier named Kirby’s voice was now soft and mocking, but the fight appeared to have gone out of him.  The minister gleaned through this last exchange that these soldiers must be leaderless, which would explain the uncertainty. Heaven forbid that the Fatherland had lost to an army that routinely made decisions like this!

“Okay, Doctor, let’s go.”  Kirby motioned with his weapon, but the minister stood his ground.

“As I said, it is better, please, if I do not go with you.  But I will get my wife and send her.”  The words came slowly and reluctantly to the minister.  Involving Petra certainly drove this situation from intolerable to unbearable, but it was still better than the alternative.   Throughout the war, his wife had been unrelenting in pushing him to take a stance, constantly bringing up how far her brothers and father had advanced in the service of the Fatherland.  This was not the stance that she had advocated, but given that her nephews’ Hitler Youth pictures had recently disappeared from the mantle and that no one had heard her mention her brother the Major in months, Herr Burkhardt suspected that Petra would understand the import of moving these soldiers’ on in order to keep her current social status.

“Where is Mrs. Doctor?”  The soldier Kirby looked at the minister with suspicion.

“Please, the house is just at the end of the avenue.  I will get her, then to remain here so you to know that she will return with the help.”

The three soldiers looked at each other, the unspoken communication between them clear.  Finally, the one called Kirby spoke up.  “Okay, Fritzie, let’s get a move on.  I’m coming with you, and we’re running out of time here.”

**

Kirby stepped cautiously out of the church vestibule into the cool morning air.  The street was still dark, but the approach of the dawn could be sensed if not seen.  The minister skittered down the stairs, then paused and looked back up at Kirby, his anxiety clear.  But Kirby took his time, peering up and down the street, looking for early morning stirrings.  Soon, his senses told him, soon.

He took the steps two at time and sidled up next to the trembling Kraut—er, minister.  He motioned with his BAR for the man to continue.  While not all his caution was for show, he was exaggerating a little to make a point to the German man of God.  I do not trust you.

They moved quickly down the street, Kirby a half a step behind the minister, trying to stay as close as possible, hoping that anyone who happened to peer out their lace curtains would only see the movement, and not two distinct forms.  At the end of the street, the minister made a left, then approached the second set of uniform steps and climbed the short distance to the small landing.  He motioned for Kirby to follow, then opened the apparently unlocked door.

If it was a trap of some type, Kirby couldn’t figure out how it would work.  As he entered the foyer of what appeared to be a small townhome, he supposed he could be walking into a house full of angry Kraut soldiers ready to slice him up and hide his sorry remains in the basement.  But there was no way they could have known he was coming.

He shook his head to shake out the disturbing and, he knew, somewhat paranoid, thoughts crowding in and tried to concentrate on what he was seeing.  He knew he was tired, and when his eye caught that of the waiting minister, he could see that the man was looking at him with what almost appeared to be understanding.  In return, Kirby scowled and made a point of peering around the room and into the shadowy doorways leading off the entrance vestibule.

It was dark, the only light from the still opened doorway.  With the nod of his head, Kirby gave the minister permission to light the candle he had picked up off a small table.  Kirby closed the door behind him and whispered to the minister, “Okay, Herr Doctor, where’s the missus?”

“Please, she is still sleeping.  I will go to awake her, so that she may get the Monsignor.  It will only take a moment.”

“I’ll come with you.”

The minister’s baleful look did not change Kirby’s mind.  But after he followed him up the stairs and into a small bedroom, he satisfied himself with one look at the still form in the bed, and then made a clear production of partially closing the door.

He heard a low voice, followed by a gasp then continued murmurings.  Content for the moment that all was going according to some sort of plan, he allowed his mind to drift again.   He wondered where Sarge and Caje were, what they were doing.  Nothing he could do about that. His next thoughts centered on Doc, McCall and Littlejohn.  Well, he was doing all he could there.  He continued leapfrogging through everything that comprised the world of William G. Kirby at the moment.  Back the HQ this morning.  Mail truck should be there.  Still owe Francis $8—hope he doesn’t see me today.  Will have to check on Doc when we get back--maybe after a nap.  Wonder if he’ll be okay?  Maybe they’ll just go ahead and ship him on home.  After all…

Kirby realized he was shaking his head yet again when the minister walked out of the room and firmly closed the door behind him.

“My wife is getting dressed.  She will be down in a minute.”  He looked at Kirby as though expecting a protest, but at this point Kirby believed the old Kraut was not jerking his chain.  Although it had only been a quick glance, the old woman in the bed didn’t give the impression of being able to jump out the second story window and sprint for any remaining Krauts in the area. 

After opening the remaining door on the floor and seeing only another empty bedroom, Kirby followed the man back down the steps and through a darkened hallway into a small but neat kitchen. 

“Please to have some water while we wait?   We have not had coffee in …”  The voice trailed off.

“Nah, Fritzie.  I got that.  But if you have any grub…”

The minister looked at him without comprehension, so Kirby tried to clarify.  “You know, food.  Some bread or somethin’?”

The minister’s face brightened at first as he understood, then fell as he reluctantly pulled out a small heel of bread and what Kirby believed must be some rancid lard.  There wasn’t enough to make a meal for the minister and his wife, much less bring back to Littlejohn and McCall.  For a moment, Kirby thought about pressing the man to bring out whatever he might be hiding in the way of food, because there had to more be.  Or did there?  Ah, it didn’t matter. He’d gone longer before without a meal.  That was a fact.

When Kirby waved away the chunk of bread, he detected what was almost a smile of relief on the old man’s face.  Not wanting the Kraut to think that he was soft or anything, Kirby quickly barked out the first thing that came to mind.

“You better save that, Fritzie.  Things ain’t gonna be easy around here for a while.”

Instead of looking frightened at Kirby’s reminder of impending defeat, the minister bobbed his head up and down in agreement.  Almost as though being a host instead of a hostage, the old man pulled out two chairs from the old sturdy table that dominated the kitchen.  Sitting down in obvious relief in one, he motioned for Kirby to join him. 

Kirby hesitated, but his aching feet reminded him of the long night that had already passed and the long morning that was sure to follow.  He pointedly pulled the chair the away from the cozy conversational set up the minister had, and sat down near the wall where he could see the doorway, his BAR conspicuous if heavy across his lap.

“Your wife had better not spend all morning getting her party face on.”  Kirby wasn’t going to make it easy to wait.

Again the minister’s head bobbed up and down, intolerably agreeable.  “You are right, this is to be no party.  Today life will stop and start again.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”  Kirby had the feeling that if he allowed it, this Kraut minister might be thinking about starting one of those conversations that he avoided religiously.   One of those conversations about a dead brother or son or friend.  How it changed him or made them a better man or sumthin’.  Nope, no thanks, Kirby kept the dead where they needed to be—buried.  And everything that came along with it could just stay in the same hole.   He was just going to concentrate on living—his and his buddies. 

“I just meant she needs to hurry up.  We gotta get Doc some help and get outta of here afore all your buddies come marchin’ home all upset and angry an’ ready to take out their frustrations on the first Kilgore they see.” 

The minister peered owlishly at Kirby, the fast words either not registering or not mattering.  The older man pressed on despite Kirby’s blatant blustering.  “I am prepared to answer questions for my people.  I have been preparing for this day for a while.  But my curiosity compels me to ask, what is it like for you?”

“What is what like, Fritzie?”

“What is it like to be the victor?  To know that you return to a hero’s welcome from your people?”  At Kirby’s obvious discomfort, he added, “I ask as a professional question.  I am preparing to give today a sermon for a defeated people.  I would like to know the other side, as you say it, of the money.”

“You mean besides maybe getting’ some free drinks and a couple of dames hanging off my arms?”

“Yes, yes.  Those are the obvious.”  The minister did not give Kirby the satisfaction of looking shocked.

Suddenly, Kirby felt that same niggling doubt returning that had plagued him when he first spotted the church.  Why these questions?  Why tonight?  The sound of heavy footsteps blessedly interrupted the questioning.  With a sigh of relief, Kirby hoisted himself and his BAR to the familiar ready position.  “Let’s go.”

**

His wife had not been as difficult to deal with as expected.  Perhaps she believed that the help to the Americans may come in useful at some point during the ensuing occupation.  She was always looking ahead, his Petra.

The minutes were ticking by slowly, marked by the old mantel clock.  During the bombings, the church had been spared, but occasionally, the concussive force of an explosion would bring things crashing down.  Herr Doktor Burkhardt had arrived one morning after a terrifying evening spent in the neighbor’s cellar to find the old family clock that his father had given him lying facedown on the concrete floor.  He had been relieved to find the only visible damage to be a hairline crack on the front glass, but had discovered a few minutes after the clock had been returned to its rightful position that something inside had been shaken loose.  Now the clock ticked loudly, with a slight burr in between clicks, as though the gears were not quite meshing.  And the hours were no longer marked with a melodious chime, but rather a metallic clunk.

But the clock still worked.  And Herr Docktor had become accustomed as he sat in his peaceful sanctuary to marking the time with the thunking and grating of the old timepiece.  It was rather symbolic, he thought.

His wife had been gone for ten minutes.  He estimated it would take her at least ten to get to the other side of town, ten more to convince the Monsignor to come—if he would, and ten to get back.  Really, the Amis could have been halfway back to their camp by now.

The clock thudded its muffle clang marking half past four.   It would be at least 5 or 5:30 before these men were gone.  The chance of discovery was becoming greater as each moment passed.  For the first time, the minister found the clock annoying.  As did the Amis…

“What the hell’s wrong with that thing?”  The Kirby soldier walked up to the clock, looking as though he would like to finish the job the Allies had started on the poor timepiece months before.

“It was damaged during a bombing.   But it still works.”  The minister hated the apologetic tone he heard in his own voice. 

“Well, I can’t take listening to this thing all night.  Gonna’ drive me crazy.”

“Aw, Kirby, you’re more than halfway there already.  So don’t blame the poor clock for just getting ya’ where you were going.”  The blond soldier looked up from under his helmet.  The minister had believed him to be asleep, so quiet was he.  But his blue eyes were bright, and the minister surmised that he had been merely listening and resting, preparing for what was to come.

Again, the minister wondered how long these men had been together.  Though the small soldier complained, there was calm in their forced wait, despite the fact that they were leaderless.  They had done this before.  They had been in situations where there were not ready answers before.

“How long?”  The question came out before Herr Doktor Burkhart could stifle it.

“Excuse me?”  Kirby whirled and the minister saw as he had in his kitchen earlier the soldier’s small brown eyes.  The lines of weariness under them appeared to be etched deeply, giving from a distance an age that up close could be seen to be beyond that of his years.   He was not yet thirty years, the minister had decided earlier.  None of them were.  But this time of war had somehow glommed them together into a tired, beaten similarity.  In mass they gave the impression of the ageless weariness exhibited by many of the village in the years between the wars. 

“How long have you been together?”  The minister completed his early question.

“Too long, Fritz.  Trust me, I wouldn’t be hanging out with these bozos one minute longer than I had to if it weren’t for you guys going off and picking a fight.”

“Kirby, pipe down.  It ain’t his fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“Whose fault is what?  The war?  We aren’t going to rehash all that again.”

“Who cares?  It’s over.”

“Well, it ain’t over for Doc.  And if you think you can just go home and pick up where you left off…”

“Can you all stop your infernal arguing…”

The last whispered comment stopped the seemingly choreographed arguing as effectively as a shouted command.  The minister watched as the three soldiers gathered round the medic eagerly, reminding him now of the small children in the village who gathered for chocolaten. 

“Doc!”

“How do you feel?”

“You feel like getting moving?”

The medic appeared to mumble something, then turned his head to the side and shut his eyes.  The big soldier, Littlejohn, reached over and gently shook the wounded man’s uninjured arm, then lifted his eyelids, before solemnly pronouncing, “He’s out again.”

“Yeah, well if he was well enough to talk, then let’s just mosey on.”  Kirby was already moving toward the door.

“I think we should wait.  It’ll just be another little while, and …”

“What are we waiting for, Littlejohn?  Sarge would want us to keep moving, we gotta’ get that information back.”

The one called McCall took off his helmet and scratched at his thick, blond hair.  As he pulled his hand away from his head, the minister noticed the maimed finger.  Almost as though sensing the stare the soldier turned his eyes toward Herr Doktor Burkhardt and gave a large, exaggerated wink.  Seeing the minister’s startled discomfort, he again stretched his mouth into that wolfish grin, and stepped into the continuing verbal fray between the two other soldiers.

“Now, Kirby, Sarge ain’t here.  Soon he ain’t gonna be here to tell any of us when to eat, when to shit and when to scratch ourselves.”

“Yeah, unless we all get shipped to the Pacific.  That’s what Olsen was saying he heard.  He heard…”

McCall shook his head impatiently.  “Kirby, that isn’t my point.”

“Well, what is it?  I thought we all agreed we’d get Doc back…”

“Yes!  That’s my point.”  McCall held up the maimed hand for emphasis and to forestall further argument.  “I was trying to tell you this earlier.  It ain’t gonna matter if we just get Doc back; he needs to be in one piece.  If there’s something wrong with his head where he hit it or something like that, we need to get him some help.”

“So what in all fire blazes does that have to do with Sarge and us going to the Pacific, those blamed pieces of paper, and you losing your finger?”

For a moment, the minister thought that Kirby’s latest attack was going to shatter the calm of the blond soldier.  He actually physically shook and took in a deep breath before continuing, “The point is Kirby, the shooting and all that are almost over.  Maybe they already are.  Now we gotta’ deal with what comes next.”

The Kirby soldier hunched down on himself, his thought processes clearly grinding so hard as to almost be audible to the minister, who was listening with rapt attention.  Though crudely expressed, Herr Doktor Burkhardt realized this was the very issue he was trying to address in his sermon.   It was the same question he had tried earlier to pose to the Kirby soldier, but the entrance of Petra had interrupted the conversation before any answers could be had.  

The one called Littlejohn added, “I think what McCall is trying to say, Kirby, is that if something happens to Doc, here on the last night, are we really going to be able to put all of this behind us?”

****

After a few more minutes of hemming and hawing, Kirby cajoled Littlejohn and McCall into moving out of the small sanctuary and down to the vestibule through which they all entered earlier.  The grinding of the clock reminded them all that dawn was approaching and with it, the possibility of discovery.  The idea was agreed upon quickly, but the execution was more debatable as no one wanted to leave Doc.

Kirby paced, stopping every now at then to look at the wounded medic, but never really touching him.  Noticing the minister’s eyes following his movement, he initially continued his routine.  But the clock and the staring bored through the mild sedative of monotony, and finally he pulled up short in front of the seated old man.

“What?”

“Excuse me?”

“What are you staring at, old man?”  The old man was starting to wear on Kirby.  His questions, his religion, the fact that he was an old Kraut man—they all made him uncomfortable.  Black and white, that was better.  You’re in the field, you see somebody in another uniform, you kill ‘em.  End of story.  But now…

The old man was speaking--again.  “You take very good care of your medic.” 

“Yeah, well, he takes good care of us.  I’ve seen ol’ Doc here run out in places not even our Sarge would go, and he ain’t even got a weapon or nothin’.”

The old man nodded, and for a moment Kirby thought he was satisfied and might be quiet for a while.  But yet another question followed.  Maybe I shoulda’ let Littlejohn stay. 

“Yes, but in our Army, for this reason, the medics are often despised.  But your medics are not treated as less than men? ”

“Whaddya mean?  Ya’ mean people don’t like medics ‘cause they ain’t got a gun?”

“Ja.  I have seen it.”

Kirby looked closer at the old man’s face, sensing the minister was probing him again, looking for answers to questions Kirby wasn’t hearing.  His was annoyed, he was tired, he didn’t feel like having any conversations other than “let’s go”, and that with people who spoke good ole’ American English. 

But he had to defend Doc.  No wonder these people lost the war.  If they didn’t realize that a good medic could change the whole course of a skirmish, could keep men going physically and mentally, well…

“You know, old man, this guy lyin’ here on this desk is about the bravest guy I met in this blasted war.  Now, you take our Sarge.  He’s ‘bout the smartest guy—don’t say much, but he’s quick to size up a situation.  Then we got Caje, who you ain’t met, but he’ll volunteer to do things that would turn your stomach, but he only does ‘em so as the rest of us don’t have to.  Littlejohn and McCall, they’re good guys to have right with you both on the lines and off.  But Doc…” 

Kirby paused and took out a cigarette, offering one to minister, but making his intention to smoke clear despite any pending protests.  The minister waved away the pack, but smiled and nodded his assent for Kirby to light up.  Clearly, for some reason, the old man wanted to hear what Kirby was about to say.

“Ya’ know, in the beginning of the war, maybe you were right.  We had a medic all wishy washy.  Good kid, but…Well, along came Doc here and, you know, men like him—they just do it.  They know what their job is and they do it regardless of the personal cost.  I mean, Doc knows that his job is to take care of people.  And he goes out there and pulls guys back in the middle of fire, and he can’t even shoot back.  But he even takes care of us behind the lines.  He listens, ya’ know.  And he don’t tell.  Do you understand?”

The minister nodded gravely, his eyes glancing over to the still form on the desk.  “So, he is a good, brave man because he saves American lives.”

Kirby started to nod, then stopped and shook his head. “No, Doktor, our Doc is a good brave man because he cares about lives, and not just American.  I’ve seen him put himself in danger to save some of your boys, too.  Ya’ gotta respect a man like that.” 

Lost in thought, Kirby dropped his cigarette to the stone floor, and used the toe of his boot to grind it out before looking up apologetically at the minister.   “Sorry.  I was just thinking.”

“What were you thinking, my son?”

Kirby didn’t even react to the minister’s form of address.  Instead, he focused on the curiosity and kindness in the wavering, reedy old voice.   It was the voice of a grandfather, an old man of the last generation, who had lived through one war and gone on with life. 

“I was just thinking, you know, war is a terrible thing.  I’ve seen things I don’t think I’ll ever get outta my head.  But at the same time, some of those things are great things, you know?  Like Doc pulling this Kraut kid back into our foxhole once, even though there was this machine gun raking the place like rain.  And, I mean, I’ve been so proud to be with men like him and Sarge and Caje.  Me, William G. Kirby—I’m one of this group of incredible guys.  But…when I go back to Chicago, it’s gonna be the same…”  Kirby’s voice trailed off, and the whirring and thunking of the clock filled the silent void.

With a disgusted shake of his head, Kirby realized that the old Kraut minister probably had no idea what he was talking about.  Hell, he hardly understood what he was trying to put into words.  Kirby slumped against the cinderblock wall, allowing the solid, utilitarian mass to take some of the weight from his aching feet.  Unthinkingly, he caressed the stock of BAR, feeling the smooth, worn wood warming with his touch.  It was comforting in some inexplicable way.

***

The monsignor clucked loudly as he examined Doc’s head.    He clucked even louder when he peeled back the bandage Littlejohn had applied a couple of hours ago.  Turning, he spoke rapidly to the minister, who in turn relayed the information to the anxious soldiers.

“Your friend has a concussed head, most likely.  But that can not be certain.  The real problem is the bullet wound.”

Kirby looked blankly at Littlejohn and McCall, then back at the minister.  “B-but it’s just a crease!” 

“Excuse me?”

“A crease—a scratch.  You know, it just glanced off.”

The minister turned and conferred with the monsignor, who pointed to the now exposed wound while talking slowly and with a confidence that translated even if his words did not.  In response to the minister’s motion, Kirby stepped forward and looked closer at the wound. 

No matter how many times he saw the inside of a person, or even the partial view that a wound gave, Kirby would not get used to it.  And the fact that it was Doc somehow made it worse than usual, because there was no one here he trusted to put words around the wound and make the prognosis more real than the immediate injury.

“The bullet has lodged here, between the ribs.”  The words of one minister accompanied the gesture of the other.

Kirby glanced up at his Kraut minister.  Neither of the German men of God were making sense in any language.  Aware that he was repeating himself, but not sure if anyone was listening, Kirby again pointed out the obvious.

“The bullet just creased ‘im.  Look at the line.”  Kirby traced alongside the puffed and swollen skin, but, suddenly conscious of how dirty his own finger looked alongside Doc’s clean side, he stuffed his hand in his pocket. 

The two ministers again conversed, so Kirby thought maybe something he said was understood.  McCall and Littlejohn carried on their own conversation in whispers too soft to be understood. 

“Well?”

The ministers looked at Kirby, their stances and expressions so nearly identical as to imply unity.  However, Kirby had been certain when the new minister—er, priest—entered a few moments ago that the men were not often of one accord, or even in one room.  There had been too much clearly observable formality, formality that had decreased somewhat when it became apparent that there was a role for each.  What Kirby’s minister lacked in healing skills, he made up for in English.  Now, however, they both clearly understood something about Doc that Kirby, McCall, and Littlejohn had not been able to divine. 

“There were two bullets.”

“Come again?”

Herr Doktor Burkhardt held up two fingers, as the priest traced two lines above and down onto Doc’s side. 

“Your medic was shot twice.  First went along the side; the second lodged between the ribs.”  Herr Burkhardt paused as the priest continued speaking, then translated to his astonished audience.

“Neither wound is terribly serious alone, but together with the clear exhaustion of your medic, they could pose a problem.  The bullet must be removed, but we do not have here the necessitary items.”

After a moment, Kirby found his voice, but nothing new to express.  “But Sarge said that it was only a crease.”

Littlejohn’s deep voice rumbled, surprisingly emphatic and with none of the bewilderment that tinged Kirby’s remark. “Sarge was wrong.”

“Yeah, but..”

“But we only heard one rifle,”  McCall finished for Kirby.  “True, but that doesn’t mean that only one fired.   There could have been two, maybe firing simultaneously.”

“Yeah, but…”

McCall again finished for Kirby, “But why did they both focus on Doc?  Good question.  Maybe they weren’t—focusing on Doc, that is.  Maybe they were trying to get that Russian.”  Pausing to gather his thoughts, McCall finally added, “You know, a sniper might work alone.  But if someone was chasing that Russian rather than just taking potshots at any GI’s driving along, there coulda’ been more than one.”

“Which means,” Littlejohn added, “that Caje and Sarge might be chasing a couple of guys—or even more.”

Kirby reached in his pocket for the grubby sheets of paper Caje had handed him in the darkness several hours ago.   Walking around Doc’s resting place on the desk, he got closer to the candles that the ministers had been using to examine the medic. 

As he read the notes, his eyes widened as various emotions coursed through his system.  Shock, surprise, and disbelief—followed by rage and resignation.   McCall and Littlejohn remained silent, their curiosity clear but contained. 

Kirby finally straightened from his slightly hunched position by the candle and turned to the ministers.  “Could you please give us one minute?”  At their confused expressions, he pointed to the ante room door.  “Outside, please.  With your wife, Herr Doktor.  And thank her for her time.” 

After the ministers stepped out, McCall and Littlejohn crowded around Kirby.  “What’s this all about?  I’ve never heard you talk that nice to anybody, much less a couple of Krauts.”

Kirby sighed, looking at the now closed door thoughtfully.  “Yeah, well, we’ve drug them into this, and I just hope it ain’t too late to get them out.”

“What are you talking about?”  McCall’s patience had clearly reached its limit.

Kirby divided the small papers in half and thrust a handful of scraps to each of his remaining squadmembers.  “Here, look at these.”

McCall finished his scraps first, then reached for Littlejohn’s, whistling in clear astonishment as he did so.  “Can these be true?”

“Sarge and Caje must have thought so.  No other reason for them to be so all fire eager to go after a sniper when they didn’t have to.”

Littlejohn continued to stare at the scraps of paper, shaking his head back and forth in disbelief.  “This could mean…”  His voice faltered.  “It can’t be true.  It just can’t be.  They’re our allies.”

“What are you all talking about?”  Doc’s weak voice penetrated the air of disbelief around the three soldiers.

Three sets of eyes darted rapidly between each other, questions, answers, opinions and conclusions stated without opposition to the sound of the grinding clock.

“Hey, Doc!”  Kirby’s voice was brittle, the cheerful greeting sounding as though it was wrapped in waxed paper.  “We’re just discussing how to get you back to our lines.  Do you remember what happened?”

“Yeah, Kirby, I remember.  Some of it, anyway.  But that wasn’t what I asked.”  Doc blinked rapidly, trying to clear the grayness from his vision. 

Littlejohn took Doc’s hand, attempting to sooth the agitated medic.  “Hey, Doc.  We’re close to the base.  Just a little while longer to go.  We just stopped to have someone look at you.  We were getting worried.  Turns out, you have two bullets in you!  There was more than one sniper, but they managed to hit you in the same spot.”

To the surprise of the three soldiers gathered round the desk/cum examination table, Doc heaved a shaky sigh, clearly of relief.  To the questioning eyes looking down at him, he explained softly, “I thought I was the biggest girl in this army.”   His eyes started to close as he mumbled, “Couldn’t believe a crease hurt like this…”

Suddenly, Doc’s eyes opened again, clearer and his voice somewhat stronger.  “Now, what were you talking about a minute ago?”  He focused on Littlejohn, whose expression still reflected bewilderment and just a touch of shock.  “Littlejohn?”

Littlejohn turned to Kirby, who scratched his stubbly plate vigorously in response to the deflected question. 
McCall stepped into the void, “Kirby, he has a right to know.”

“Why?”  Kirby almost hissed.  “Sarge and Caje didn’t want us to know.  They know what this can mean.  But how do you feel now?  Huh?  Some of the joy gone out of the victory”—he almost spat out the word—“today?”

“So, what are we going to do, Kirby?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I…don’t…know…” 

Doc pulled his hand out of Littlejohn’s.  The big soldier looked surprised at the gesture, clearly having forgotten that he was ever trying to soothe the medic.  Pushing somewhat upright, the knowledge of what was causing the pain enabling him to categorize it and file it away to be dealt with later, Doc ordered, “Tell me, Kirby.”

Unlike many of the men in the squad, Kirby had not often utilized Doc as a sounding board.  Even Saunders, the BAR man knew, occasionally dropped his emotional and even moral dilemmas at Doc’s doorstep.  But Kirby rarely had many dilemmas where Doc’s quiet listening would be of help.  Whether or not to pay Eddie the $25 Kirby owed him from two months ago did not require divining what was right or wrong.  It required choosing between two clear, uncomplicated options.   And why portion out the guilt that occasionally came with those decisions to Doc?  He had enough on his mind.  Besides, for some strange reason that he couldn’t figure out, it mattered to Kirby what the soft-spoken medic thought about him.

But this issue was different.  Kirby wished he had never looked at those terrifying scraps of paper.  He could tell just by looking at McCall and Littlejohn that they wished he had never shared.  No matter what the outcome, no matter what the brass decided, here and now—now that they knew what they were carrying—the possibility existed that the men in this room could cause the war to be continued.  No, not continued—to cause an entire new war to erupt, one that would truly wrap from both shores of the United States around the world.

“Kirby?”  Doc’s voice was weak but insistent.  He had sunk back prone on the stretcher.  His face was pinched, the mouth white at the sides.   But somehow, the medic seemed more peaceful than he had ever since taking that fateful bullet—bullets.

Kirby wanted to unburden—wanted Sarge to be here or even Caje.  This just wasn’t fair.  Why was all of this stuck on him?  Of course, Saunders and Caje hadn’t made him read the notes.   In fact, Caje had indicated that he shouldn’t.  Well, shit, no one planned that he would be stuck here in the middle of Krautville.  Not with Doc getting worse and all. 

The German minister’s question rang through his head, “What is it like to be the victor?”  Realizing that now he may never know, Kirby reluctantly began to explain to Doc what they had just learned.

****

Herr Doktor Burkhardt shook his head vigorously.  “Nein, he cannot stay.  If I am to be caught…”

“The war is over, Fritzie,”  Kirby snapped, impatiently.

The minister looked at the dirty soldier with not a small amount of pleading.  “You do not believe that.”  At the stubborn set of the GI’s jaw and the anger in his eyes, Herr Burkardt continued, “I need to take care of my people.  They cannot find trust and belief in me if I am caught helping the enemy.”

“Fritzie, I’m telling you our war is over.  You show your people what kind of man you are by holding on to our medic here while we run something back to our lines.  Heck, maybe your people won’t even know he’s here until we get back with some help.  Maybe you can pretend you didn’t know he was here.  Maybe…”

The soldier Kirby’s words faded into nonsense as Herr Burkhardt stopped trying to understand the vernacular English.  Instead, the minister’s own fears filled his head.  Why couldn’t these soldiers have stumbled into the monsignor’s church?  Why mine? Will the monsignor tell others?  Will…?

“Her Doktor!”

“What?”  The minister looked up. 

“I hafta’ leave him.  Believe me, mister, this is the hardest thing I ever done.  But, ya’ know, there’s something bigger.”  Kirby paused as Littlejohn’s voice wafted through the door of the anteroom into the darkened church where the minister, his wife, and the monsignor had been waiting while the soldiers conversed. 

“Kirby, Doc’s goin’ to sleep again.  Better come quick if ya’ wanta’ talk to him!”

The minister watched as the soldier’s small eyes darted back and forth from the group in front of him in the pew of the darkened church to the lit doorway of the room where his squadmates waited.   Suddenly, something suspiciously like tears shimmered in the Kirby soldier’s eyes, which remained focused on the bright doorway.  His hand fumbled in the pocket of his jacket.  But his voice was firm and decisive as he asked, “You read English, Fritzie?”

Confused, the minister replied, “Ja, my English reading is good.”

“Here, take a look at these while I go talk to Doc.” 

The minister took the grubby sheets of paper the soldier thrust at him before he walked away.  Petra and Monsignor Dietrich gathered round, but Herr Burkhardt shooed them back so that he could better see the words in the feeble light.

To whoever gets this note:
Lt. Steve Davis
Burlington, VT
Captured March 17
Serial Number 274913482
We are held here by Russians.
Estimated number POWs—5,000.

Bewildered, the minister did not translate for his waiting companions, but quickly looked at the next note.

Crpl. Darren Foster
Hometown Marietta, Ohio
Serial number 879521008
I was taken prisoner by the Krauts, but then turned over to the Russkies.
Don’t know where I am, but we think there are well over couple 1000 here.
Please tell my Mom.

With a shaking hand, the minister continued to read the other notes, ignoring the questions of his companions. 

***

Kirby walked over to the medic, dashing a shirtsleeve across damp eyes.  “Hey, Doc, don’t you go to sleep before I have a chance to say…well, to tell you I’ll see ya’ in a little while.   You’re gonna be okay—we’ll be right back with some help.  I’ll even get a real ambulance and a driver to boot, seein’ as I can’t seem to miss the damn potholes.  Maybe you can get Stateside pretty soon here with that hole in you.  I mean, if the Docs think…”

A raised arm from the medic stalled the nervous chatter.  Doc opened his eyes and gave Kirby a small smile.  “Get on outta here.  All of ya’.   Just hurry.”

With awkward pats of the medic and shuffling feet, the remaining men of the first squad prepared to leave the church.


The minister stood waiting for Kirby at the door.  From the angry face of the old woman behind him and the slightly bewildered but gentle face of the other minister—er, monsignor—Kirby could tell that Herr Doktor Burkhardt had not shared the burden of the notes.  Well, good for him.  Wish I’d a done the same.

The dim light from the anteroom lit the minister’s sagging features.  At first glance the minister appeared older than he had just a few minutes ago.  Then again, the knowledge of what those notes could mean made Kirby feel as though he had aged considerably since walking in this church. 

Surprisingly, the minister stepped forward and placed one gnarled hand on the sleeve of Kirby’s jacket.  Though his hand shook, the grip was gentle but strong, as was his voice.

“We—I—will keep your medic.  No harm will come.  You do what you must.”

Kirby looked hard at the old man in front of him.  The nervous eyes with their deep underhanging bags and drooping eyelids now stared resolutely back at him.  Overall, the old man’s entire aura was changed.  Though still slightly stooped, he appeared to stand taller, his shoulders more squared than they had been, as reflecting some long ago stance of attention.  His chin was tilted up, challenging, and though the jowls beneath belied it, with his voiced resolution, he somehow gave the impression of having shed those years and burdens Kirby glimpsed just seconds ago.

“Are you sure, Herr Doktor?”

Without hesitation, the old man answered, “Ja.”

Kirby nodded quickly and pulled his arm out of the minister’s grasp.  He took two steps to follow Littlejohn and McCall, who had already moved ahead to the vestibule.  Then he paused and turned around, “Why?”

“Because, my son, I, too, want to know victory.”

****

Kirby walked down the aisle of the church, pondering the minister’s words.  The once homely interior now seemed comforting, solid, known.  What would happen after he left the doors of this sanctuary, after he stepped outside and completed this cursed patrol, was now more of an unknown than ever.  The notes in his pocket seemed heavy, pulling at his jacket, though in reality he knew that he could not even feel them with the heft of the BAR strap across his shoulders. 

He believed the minister would take care of Doc.  That much was certain.  What he wasn’t certain of now was what should be his top worry.  Krauts?  Russians?  Maybe there were a whole slew of them looking to stop this information from getting to their “Allies”.   One thing was for sure, the image of dames and beers and backslapping congratulations at the expected official word of surrender today was fading fast.

Victory—huh…How could the minister be expecting to feel it when now it couldn’t even be defined?  Actually, Kirby realized, he couldn’t firmly define it before.  He knew that what he had thought it would be, even somewhat hazily, had faded as it approached and he contemplated what came next.  Hell, his pop had had “victory” after the war.

His early musings returned.  His pop had been a loser, even after winning the war.  And now Kirby might not even know that first thrill, that initial elation.  All because…well, hell, he didn’t know why.  Why would the Russkie’s want a bunch of GI’s? 

Littlejohn’s frantic hand signal brought him out of his reverie and firmly into the moment.  The big soldier and McCall were hunkered behind the heavy wooden doors of the church, peering through the slit offered by the slight opening of the right door.

“What is it?”, Kirby hissed, pulling his BAR to the ready.

“Krauts.”


They marched up the street in formation.  Well over 10 altogether, Kirby estimated, though the morning’s hazy street shadows obliterated details and left only impressions.  But Kirby had been in the field long enough for impressions to be easily catalogued against experience.  And experience told him these soldiers were moving with purpose.  

“Whaddawegonna do, Kirby?”

Kirby hesitated, wishing Sarge were here.  But McCall’s earlier words echoed after Littlejohn’s spoken, “Soon he ain’t gonna be here to tell any of us when to eat, when to shit and when to scratch ourselves.” 

“We wait and see if they go by.”

A few seconds passed before Littlejohn voiced the obvious, “And if they don’t?”

The formation was getting closer, impressions becoming individuals.  People were starting to pour out of doorways, skittering, tentative at first.  But the first wave from one of the soldiers to a young boy brought a small cheer that seemed to awaken the entire town. 

With one block left to make a decision, a prayer came unbidden to Kirby’s mind, offered up merely as a thought.  Oh, God, let me do the right thing! Without waiting for an answer to the question he was only vaguely aware he had posed, the BAR man forced himself upright, straightened his shoulders, and whispered to the others, “Follow my lead.”

He could sense the discomfort behind him.  He heard the fumbling as McCall and Littlejohn checked their ammo, but he did not follow suit.  The BAR would only be a last resort.

The sound of the crowd outside was now unmuffled even by the heavy doors.  As Kirby had suspected, the formation halted at the front of the church.  He knew McCall and Littlejohn could not see through the cracked door now that he stood and blocked their access, but he also knew that they felt what was happening. 

At a command from someone off to the side, the Krauts turned in unison, facing the door.  The cheering from the townspeople abruptly stopped. 

Knowing that this was probably the greatest gamble of his life, Kirby chose this moment to fling open the doors of the church, and followed by his men, stepped into full view.


The silence was deafening.  Kirby could feel the eyes on him.   He wanted to let his own eyes sweep the crowd, to look for abrupt movements, aimed weapons, but at the same time he knew that that would not be of any help now.  Not in this situation. 

His heart was pounding so hard he was afraid that the damned papers in his pocket would catch fire.  At any moment he fully expected to catch a real stomach full of lead to match the one he felt.  But he forced himself to keep his arms down at his sides, rather than on the BAR hanging around his neck.  He sought one set of eyes, and found them.  A kraut sergeant, over to the side.  The one who must have called the order to halt. 

The man was short, about the same age as Kirby.  His uniform was tattered, but his stance straight.  And clinging to one leg was a small, blond boy.

Their eyes met.  The Kraut was angry and confused.  Kirby could feel it.  He had counted on it.

Hoping that someone would understand, Kirby started to speak.  “Welcome…”  He cleared his throat, trying to get the words out forcefully rather than in a croak.  “Welcome back to your home.”

They were staring at him.  The only sound in the whole village seemed to be his voice.  This is the dumbest thing I have ever done.  McCall and Littlejohn—and Doc—are going to die because I…what the hell am I doing?

“It is over.”

A movement to the left of the sergeant drew Kirby’s attention, but not his eyes.  A woman came up behind the Kraut sergeant and grabbed the small boy protectively.

“You know, uh, we’ve all lost family, friends, brothers.” 

Suddenly, another voice was speaking.  Translating.  Without turning to look, Kirby knew Herr Doktor Burkhardt stood beside him.

“But we—you and me and these guys here behind me--lived.  We’ll let the guys upstairs figure out the details.  Right now, let’s just get on with what we got left.”

The Kraut sergeant and Kirby continued to lock eyes as Herr Burkardt’s voice, deeper and stronger than Kirby had heard all evening, intoned the last of Kirby’s words.  Although Kirby hadn’t taken his eyes off the sergeant since he had started speaking, peripherally he had picked up on the weapons carried by the Krauts.  Light, nothing automatic—but that ain’t gonna matter.   Doors of the church will hold a few minutes, but Littlejohn said there ain’t no other way out.  Bad enough leaving Doc before, this could be worse.  Somehow I gotta get these notes back.  Screwed up—again.  Bound to happen sooner or later.  Sorry I had to take these guys with me.

Somewhere above him, Kirby pigeons trilled.  The grayness of the dawn was giving way to morning, and giving color to the people in front of him. Red noses, red eyes, a few bloodied red bandages.   Soon it’s gonna be my red blood right here on the church steps—ain’t that just fittin’. 

Somebody say or do somethin…


***
Paris, June 1945

“Sarge, you remember a few weeks ago when Kirby stood out on those steps?”

Saunders looked up at Doc sharply.  “I remember.”  He paused then added, “But I doubt you remember anything.”

Doc gave a small, dry chuckle.  “I do remember a few things.  More keeps coming back to me.  But what I was getting’ at was, well, who coulda’ predicted it?  I mean, who knew Kirby had it in ‘im to face down a Kraut platoon.”

A fleeting smile crossed Saunders lips.  “Sometimes I thought Kirby’s mouth could take out a regiment.”  The smile vanished.  “It wasn’t a full platoon.  And it was a damn stupid thing to do.  When that bullet fired…”

Doc interrupted.  “That’s my point.  Exactly.”  Ignoring Saunders’ clear irritation, the medic continued, “You think it was a damn stupid thing to do.  Maybe you’re right.  But you know what?  You weren’t there through the whole thing.  And I know Kirby was scared outta his mind.”

“What do you know, Doc?  You weren’t there, not at that minute.”

With a nod, Doc confirmed.  “You’re right, I wasn’t.  But Kirby came and talked to me later.  He and Caje both.  And I reckon that gave me a little insight into what you might be feelin’ now.”

***

May 7, 1945

Doc was aware of a voice speaking softly, quickly, and incomprehensibly.  Without understanding, he allowed it to draw him up and out of the darkness toward consciousness.  It was a willing ascent, despite the pain that accompanied it.  The lack of orientation in the darkness was disconcerting, almost frightening, but the voice was known.

“Caje?”

A variety of emotions played across the drawn, dark features of the scout—but relief was the one which settled on the familiar face and the first on which Doc was able to clearly focus.

“What happened?”  The questions came out in a dry croak.

“Shhh, Doc.  How do you feel?  Should I get a Doctor?”

“No, not until I know why I would need one.”  Doc knew he sounded petulant, but didn’t care.  Caje was always honest with him, though sometimes he had to be pressed into divulging information.

Caje grimaced.  Doc couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought it was supposed to be a smile.

“Well, Doc, you were shot twice.  Do you remember?” 

Doc thought a moment, somehow remembering enough to confirm the truth of the statement without having the ability to put any details around it.

“Yup.  In the same place, right?  And Kirby, Littlejohn and McCall were getting me back.”

“And they did, Doc.  You just needed a little surgery to remove a bullet.  You’re going to be fine.  Now, I think you need your rest.”  Caje’s words were low, rushed, and given at the same time as he pushed back his chair and stood up from the side of the bed.

“Whoa, there.  I think you’ve been talkin’ a while, haven’t you?  And you’re gonna leave now that I’m awake?  Was there something you needed?  Something I needed to know?  Is everybody okay?”

Caje looked somewhat embarrassed as he continued carefully backing his way around the few additional empty cots in what Doc now recognized as a recovery room in the field hospital.  “I was just talking to help wake you up, Doc.  I’m sure some of the other guys want to see how you’re doin’.”  The Cajun disappeared behind the curtained doorway, leaving Doc alone with his questions.

A moment later, the curtained doorway was pushed aside by a uniformed doctor of indeterminate age.

“Well, well, look at who’s finally awake.  How do you feel, soldier?”  The questions and comments were barked quickly in a deep voice, but with obvious care.

“I’m a medic.”  Doc’s assertion came automatically.

The doctor smiled wryly as he leaned over and checked the medic’s side, then let his fingers run over his head.  “I gathered, though I have almost decided that perhaps you were a priest in addition.”

“Why’s that?”  Doc winced as the doctor’s fingers pushed on something painful above his right eye.

“How many fingers do I have?”  A hand was shoved in Doc’s face.

“Ten.  Unless someone shot one off.”

A surprisingly deep laugh boomed unrestrained around the room.  “Okay, you are a medic.”  The doctor plopped unceremoniously down in the chair that had held Caje just a few minutes ago. 
“They call you ‘Doc’?”  The doctor did not wait for Doc to respond.  “Well, Doc, we took a bullet outta you’re side, between the fourth and fifth ribs.  No organs affected.  You’ve got two good bumps on your head, which have most likely combined to give a whale of a headache.  Seems to be just a concussion there, nothing fractured.”  The doctor leaned in and dropped his voice, “And you are absolutely, positively exhausted.”

Doc squinted his eyes and focused on those staring down at him.  “Is that a formal diagnosis?”

“Absolutely.”  Doctor White—Doc could now read his name badge—looked curious.  “Do you know that you have not been left alone for hardly a minute since you came in here?”

Doc thought about the voice to which he had awoken.  There had been others, he now remembered, but again no details came to mind.  He nodded.  “Guess they were checking on me.”

“Checking like hell!”  Doc knew his surprise at the emphatic statement must have shown, for Doctor White hastily added, “They’ve all been in here talking to you like…like they’re going to confession or something.”

Doc closed his eyes and smiled slightly.  “Yup.”

“Yup?”  Doctor White’s voice rose.  “Yup?”

Doc addressed the question without opening his eyes.  “They like to kinda debrief on things that are bothering them.  I usually just listen.  Guess it helps.  Guess it don’t matter, really, if I’m awake or not.”

Sensing that the Doctor was not about to get up and let Doc slide back into the sleep that was calling him, Doc forced his eyes open again.   “What?”

“You hear things like that all the time?”

“Like what?”

“What that last, uh, French soldier was telling you.”

Doc struggled to remember anything in particular Caje had said, but realized that although things were now starting to come back to him, the words immediately before full consciousness were in the scout’s native French. 

“I don’t speak French.  Caje was just trying to wake me up, I suppose.”

The doctor shook his head in disbelief and stood up.  “I speak French, Doc, and let me tell you, these walls here are pretty thin.  If I heard something like that, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to open my eyes again.”

Doc watched the white coat of the man retreat through the doorway, any notion of sleep cast aside for a time.  What was he talking about?  What had Caje been talking about?

Wishing for Sarge and an explanation, Doc found himself disappointed as the curtain opened again and Kirby rushed into the room. 

“Hey, Doc!  Caje told me you’re awake.  That’s great, just great!”  Without asking, Kirby threw himself into the chair next to Doc’s bed.

“Howya feelin’?  Talked to that Doctor for a minute and he said you’re gonna be just fine.  Just fine.  Yup, maybe Sarge can go ahead and get you shipped on Stateside, now as things is over and all.  You missed a hell of a party, though, let me tell you.  I gotta hangover that…”

“Kirby.”

“… a hangover that’s as big as all Chicago.”

“Kirby.”

“…and you won’t believe what McCall and Buckley did.  There was this…”

“KIRBY!”  Doc’s eyes closed in pain at the volume of his own voice.  But the momentary discomfort was worth stopping the incessant reverberation of Kirby’s voice inside his aching head.

“What is it Doc?  Something hurt?  You need me to get the Doctor?”  Kirby peered down anxiously, his eye betraying a puppy’s eagerness to please without knowing the bounds.

“Shhhh.  Kirby, where’s Sarge?”

Kirby dropped his voice to a staged whisper.  “I dunno.  It’s hard to keep track of everyone right now.  Ain’t he been by?”

Doc thought a moment.  “I’m not sure.  Maybe.”  

They sat in silence for several minutes.  Doc not wanting to ask the obvious, preferring to hear it from Saunders, and Kirby clearly reluctant to leave without telling Doc something.

Finally, Doc took the initiative.  “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Kirby, what happened out there?  In that village?  I remember you saying you were going to leave me…”  When he realized Kirby was going to protest, he hastily added, “HAD to leave me behind.  What happened?”

Kirby’s eyes focused on the unbroken whiteness of the hospital’s canvas walls.  “I’m still not sure, Doc.  Not about everything.  But I can tell you what I know.”

***

“You remember when we left you? And why?”

Doc nodded his head slightly and Kirby continued.

“Well, that church had only the one door, built as it was kinda’ jammed in there between all them houses.  Everything was connected in that town.”  Kirby sat quietly  for a moment, then shook his head.  “Anyway, as we went to leave, there was this whole buncha’ Krauts coming up the street.  Same ones I think I saw earlier that night.  And wouldn’t ya’ figure they were coming—marching even—right up the street to the church.”

Kirby reached in his pocket in a practiced movement and waited until he had several satisfying draws of his cigarette before picking up where he had stopped.  “I guess it made sense in a strange way.  Them marchin’ in to the church.  That minister that was there—I don’t know if you remember him—he was sorta’ expecting them I think.”

“Anyway, there didn’t seem to be a way out.  Not that I could see.  I mean, I hadn’t really seen what they were carrying, but disarmament hadn’t started officially yet, ya’ know?  Maybe you don’t—you’ve been kinda’ out of it.”

“You know, Doc, I couldn’t figure out a way out of it.  I wasn’t gonna surrender to a bunch of guys when, well, it was supposed to be over that morning.  And I really didn’t think if these guys were armed that we could fight our way out of it.  Hiding weren’t an option—they were coming right in that church, and it didn’t have many places to hide.”

Kirby slouched down over his cigarette, his eyes now on the floor.   Several minutes passed before Doc asked, “So?”

Kirby looked up as though he had forgotten that the medic was there.  “So?” he repeated.

“So what happened?”

“Well, funny thing is, I kinda’ felt like I understood what those Krauts might be feeling.  Strange, huh?  I mean, what do I know about a bunch of lousy Krauts ‘cept how to kill ‘em?  Right?”

Doc kept quiet, knowing somehow that Kirby was opening a part of himself that either hadn’t seen much light during the war or had somehow emerged as a result of the war.  A fragment of an earlier train of thought returned to him, something he had been thinking about before the sniper.  Something about how they had all changed, been molded by the events of the past year.

Kirby continued in a low, quiet voice.  “I stepped out that door, Doc.  I stepped right on through and right out in front of those Krauts.  And I welcomed them home.”  Kirby looked Doc straight in the eyes for the first time since he entered the room.  “Ain’t that the damnedest thing you ever heard?”

“Why, Kirby?  Why’d ya’ do that?”

“I’m still not sure, Doc.  But somehow I was just thinking about after the war, ya’ know.  When we all go home, and wondering what it meant.  I mean, I know them Krauts have done things that I never want to think about.  And we’ve done things…well, I told that minister how as we done things that were the lousiest and greatest things I’m ever gonna’ see in my life.  How do you go home after that?  How are them guys gonna get up every morning and worry about all the dumb things we worried about before the war?  How are they gonna take anything seriously after this?”

Doc didn’t offer an answer directly, knowing now that something similar had been going through his head before…before everything went fuzzy.  He waited patiently for Kirby to continue, wondering whether the mouth of the platoon might now actually have the words for which he had been unconsciously searching.

“Anyway,” Kirby continued briskly, “I welcomed them guys home, and they bought it.  You know me though, I hadn’t thought things all the way through.  We’s just standing there after their sergeant walked up the steps of the church, sorta’ accepting my words.  And it got kinda’ awkward, you know.  Like we should hug or shake hands or salute or somethin’.  Littlejohn and McCall, they’re right behind me—ain’t sure exactly what comes next.  I think they were flummoxed, Doc.  And so was I.”

“So?”  Doc was listening with rapt attention now, his discomfort in his side and pounding head momentarily forgotten.

“So…somebody took a potshot right then at all of us standing on the steps.  It was more crazy then than I ever wanna go through again.  I mean here I am standing with a buncha’ wound up Krauts—me an’ McCall and Littlejohn.  Doing about the dumbest thing I ever done.  And don’t it figure that Sarge and Caje had chased them snipers right into that town?”

“What happened?”

“Well, Doc, that’s like a whole other story.  I still don’t know everything—Sarge and Caje are being pretty tight lipped about it.”

Doc prodded again, still not satisfied to leave the events of the previous days without some type of end he could wrap his head around.  “Well, how’d I end up back here?”

Kirby lit yet another Chesterfield, then pushed his chair back and propped his feet up on Doc’s bed.  He took a deep breath, and Doc could tell that the BAR man was enjoying this part of the tale.

“Well, now Doc, wouldn’t ya’ know that them Krauts is more afraid of Russkies than us?”  A brief shadow flitted across Kirby’s face, accompanied by a mumbled, “And we know why, don’t we?”

The BAR man picked up the story a second later, “Anyways, that Kraut minister got winged by that sniper.  I think the guy was trying to cause a real ruckus ‘tween us and the Krauts.  Trying to stop them notes from getting back.  And ya’ know, it almost worked.”

Caught up in the narrative, Doc started to lean forward, but reversed his momentum at the first wave of pain that flooded his consciousness. 

Kirby didn’t notice.  His eyes were far away, focused on events nearly 48 hours ago.  “Sarge pops up across the street, yelling at everybody to get down.  But they don’t understand him.  They’re terrified.  There’s people screaming everywhere.  And them Krauts still hadn’t turned in their guns.  So I got Messingers and shit everywhere, but nobody’s firin’ cause of the women and kids and stuff.”

“And?”

Kirby bit his lip, gnawing on it in a gesture unfamiliar to Doc, who thought he knew every tic and habit in the men of his squad.  But then again, this whole side of Kirby was new to him.

“And that Kraut minister, he’s got blood running down his arm.  And I don’t know if you remember, but he’s an old guy, not a real –um—authority looking kinda guy.  He picks himself up offa them steps, and just as calm as you please tells everyone to get in the church.  I mean, I think that’s what he said.   Anyway, the long and short of it is that everyone got in that church, ‘cept me and Sarge, this Kraut sergeant and the minister.”

“So, how’d I get back here?  And what happened to the sniper?”

“Well, again, Doc, you’re gonna’ have to ask Sarge or Caje that question.  But the way you got back here?”  Kirby grinned, and looked down at Doc in amusement.  “Doc, you had a Kraut escort!  That minister had that Kraut sergeant and his men get you back here just as fast as you please.  You should have seen the looks on the faces of the guys here when we came clippin’ in with a bunch of armed Krauts.  Hell, two were carrying your litter.”

“So, that’s it, Doc.  You ended the war with a bullet in you, surrounded by a bunch of Krauts and me in charge.  Like a damn nightmare, ‘cept for the ending, huh?”

Doc mulled over Kirby’s description of the events.  Vague impressions came back to him, confusing but in context of the tale, confirming.  Yes, it had happened that way.   But there was something else…

“Kirby, is there something still bothering you?”

Kirby pulled his feet off the bed and looked down at the floor, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. 

“Kirby?”

Kirby ran his hand over the stubble on his head.  Clean hands, Doc noted.  A rarity that might be the norm now…

“Well, Doc…”

“Yes, Kirby?”

Kirby took a couple of drags on his cigarette then released a cloud of smoke above himself.  He didn’t look at Doc, but rather addressed the haze floating toward the ceiling.

“Doc, there was confusion.  Kraut men, women, children everywhere.  And to be honest, at first I thought Sarge had made that shot---shot that minister in cold blood.  I mean he stood up from across the street, yellin’.  And I was mad…just plain mad.”

Kirby shook his head in remembered disbelief.  “I was shoutin’ at Sarge, and he was shoutin’ a me.  It took a minute for me to understand that it wasn’t the Sarge shootin’.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while.  Kirby finally looked down at the bed and made eye contact with Doc.  “So, Doc, it was confusion, like I said.  We had to get that information back and get someone who knew what they were doin’ to take a look at you.  I was standin’ on those steps, kinda sheltered by the door.  Me an’ Sarge an’ those Krauts—the minister and their sergeant.  So I tell Sarge what we were gonna’ do.   You remember?  We were gonna’ leave you there and me and Littlejohn an’ McCall get those papers back?”

Doc nodded slightly.

“Well, these snipers kinda’ changed everything. An’ that minister spoke and said that HE would see that the papers got back—and you, too.  And he ordered that Kraut sergeant to help.” 

A smile stole across Kirby’s thin lips.  “Damnedest thing, Doc.  The old fella’ had been worried all along about bein’ there and sayin’ the right thing when the men of the town came home.  He was all shaky and fussy that night about us bein’ there.  Then he about-faces, forgets all about his church service or whatever it was he had been planning, and announces he’s helping out the Americans.”  Kirby paused, and added, “I’ve been thinking about that a lot.”

Doc couldn’t resist the urge to needle the BAR man.  “I thought you’d been drinking a lot.”

Kirby squinted his eyes and pursed his lips.  “Yup, I’ve been doin’ both, Doc.  Not sure which one comes first, ya’ know?”

Doc looked at the wan BAR man thoughtfully.  “Somethin’ else you been thinking about, Kirby?”

Kirby looked up sharply.  “What makes you say that, Doc?”

“I dunno, Kirby.  Just a feelin’.”

Kirby dropped his cigarette to the dirt floor and stubbed it out with his boot.  He placed his stubbly head in his hands.  And Doc waited…

After a moment, it came.  In a torrent, the words spilling over each other, Kirby described the end of his war.  “Doc, we were looking for that sniper.  Sarge said there was more than one.  We knew that already, from the way they’d hit you.  Anyway, we’re peeking out from the doorway of this church, and across the way, across the roofs, I can see this movement on the other church in town.  Up on the clocktower—damn churches here always have them towers—people obsessed with the time.”

“Kirby?”

“Well, I just knew what I saw.  There were two people up there, fightin’.  Someone was gonna’ go offa’ that tower.  And I knew…”

“What did you know, Kirby?” Doc prompted.

“Doc, I just knew one of them was Caje.”  Kirby spat out the next words, almost angrily.  “I knew that it was Caje, and I knew that I was gonna’ leave him up there on his own.”

“Because you had to get the information back, Kirby.”  Doc finished gently.  He added, “It was the same reason you were going to leave me.”

Kirby looked up, his eyes almost wild.  “Yeah, but Doc, I thought you were gonna be okay.  I mean, I wasn’t leaving you bleeding to death or anything.  But I left him…”

“Sarge stayed behind, didn’t he?  You didn’t leave him.”

“Yeah, but…”

Doc stopped Kirby with a raised hand.  “Kirby, what is it that got’s you so all fire upset?  You’ve had to leave people before.  We all have.  I’ve had to make many a decision over who to give my attention to out on the field—who I think is gonna make it and who isn’t.  Sarge does it—did it—every day.  Sometimes several time a day.  So, you got me and the information back and left Caje fightin’.  He obviously made it okay.  So what is the problem?  Why’re you sittin’ here like,”  Doc paused, the Doctor’s words coming unbidden to his mind, “like you’re going to confession?”

“Dammit, Doc!”  Kirby stood up so abruptly he knocked his chair over.  “Don’t you understand?  The one thing we’ve had in this whole goddam war is each other.   I mean, it is the one great thing.  And when we leave here, it’s all we’re gonna walk away with.  You can’t eat, drink, or make any money offa’ winning.  Everything is gonna’ be the same.  Just the same as for them Krauts, you know?  But the one thing I thought I’d take away about myself,” Kirby’s voice dropped to a mumble, “is that I’d never let a buddy down.”

Doc closed his eyes.  His head felt as though it was going to burst, and his side ached with a physical reminder of just what had transpired over the past seventy-two hours.  The war was over.  Kirby, Sarge, McCall, Caje, and Littlejohn were alive.   There were so many names of others who had not made it—Billy, Grady, Knight…the list went on and on.  But were the survivors doomed to turn every breath into an indictment?  Every decision to be relived, every death to be a recrimination?  Each one at some point had made decisions that had the worst of outcomes.  And even if they were somehow able to get beyond the guilt of living, would the events of the past year shadow the rest of their lives and condemn every next step as an endless journey through mundaneness?

“Kirby, what happened to those soldiers?”

“What soldiers, Doc?”

“The ones on the notes.”

Kirby shook his head.  “I have a feeling, Doc.  I have a feeling they’re being left behind.”

***

Paris, June 1945

Doc replayed a few snatches of his conversation that day with Kirby in his head, allowing the tempo to carry and create the words he wanted to convey to Saunders.  The sergeant sat in what almost looked like resignation, though Doc couldn’t be sure because it wasn’t posture or attitude he had ever seen in the squad leader. 

“You said, Sarge, that you haven’t know where any of us are going or what we are doing since that last patrol.  A patrol, I remind you, that you ended up not in charge of.  And you know what?  I think that’s the whole point.”

“What is, Doc?” 

Doc recognized the too calm tone for the anger it was.  “Now, Sarge, just listen before you go getting your dander up.  And,” Doc added quickly and forcefully, “by now I can tell when you are, so there’s no use denying it.”

“The point I made to Kirby—and tried to make later to Caje, but I don’t know how much he’s listening to any of us lately—anyway, the point I made to Kirby that day a couple of weeks ago when he came by the hospital to talk to me was this:  We can’t operate like we’re used to.  Kirby said that he had seen the greatest and worst things of his life here in the ETO, and I agree.  The trouble is, right now, we can’t see nothing that can compare.”  

Saunders rubbed his nose in a practiced gesture Doc knew well, and looked up with narrowed eyes.  “And just what did Kirby get out of this?”

“The same thing I’m telling you, Sarge.  And the same thing I came to realize after I talked to Kirby.  Truth is, Sarge, I was kinda’ worried right there at the end about what I was going to do after the war.”

A quizzical look crossed Saunders’ face.  “You, Doc?  We all thought…”

“Yeah, Sarge, we all thought.  I thought I would go on and make the title official.  But I got ta wonderin’ how I was ever going to take anybody seriously who came in talked to me about warts or achy knees after what all I’d seen.  I mean, how can you take anything seriously?  But after listening to Kirby, I realized that it wasn’t the actual acts themselves—those times when I bandaged stumps under fire, held bleeding arteries between my fingers with artillery fallin’ all around—that it was all about.”

Doc leaned in for the kill.  “No, Sarge.  It is all about  this:  We can either define ourselves by the great or terrible things that we have done—and likely we will never reach those heights or valleys again—OR we can define ourselves by what we have brought out in those around us.” 

Doc leaned back in his chair, waiting to see Saunders’ reaction to his hard-won realization. But the sergeant just stared over at the still-sleeping scout.  Without turning his head, he snapped, “And?”

“And?”

Doc struggled to see how to make clear to Saunders what had become so apparent to himself.  “And—well, it’s like this, Sarge.  Kirby’s always relied on his BAR to kinda’ buck him up—thought the big gun did that. He’s also relied on us—the squad—though you’d have to pull that outta’ him.  But he ain’t gonna be carryin’ that thing forever and he ain’t gonna have us forever.  But what he’s got inside, whatever it was he used to convince that minister to help us out, that’s what he’ll always have.  And whatever I’ve got that tends to bring ya’ll to me draggin’ your sorry problems, well, I guess that’s what I’ll always have, even back home in Arkansas.” 

Doc reached out and placed his hand firmly on Saunders’, ignoring the unrestrained flinch when contact was made.  “Sarge, it’s the same for you.  You don’t need to pick up the orders from Hanley and lead us out into the wilderness.  You don’t need those patented Saunders’ kick ass talks.”  Saunders turned his head quickly away from Caje and scowled at Doc, but the medic continued, heedless of the danger.  “No, Sarge, you don’t need that authority anymore.  You don’t need that distance anymore.   Let it go.  Let yourself go and be a friend to your men.”  The medic waited a moment and added softly.  “That’s why they really followed you, you know.”

Saunders pulled his hand away from Doc’s, and quickly ran both his hands through his shaggy hair.  The gesture was familiar to Doc; the openness of the conversation was not.  The medic waited, holding his breath, to see what the fallout would be.

Saunders looked up, his blue eyes startlingly bright.  “Well, Doc, you sure you aren’t thinking about going to the seminary or wherever the hell it is preachers go?”

Doc shook his head with a smile.  “Nope. No way, Sarge.” 

With a brusque nod, Saunders stood.  “I’ll think about it, Doc.  I’ll think about it.”  He turned and walked away from the sleeping soldier and the medic. 

Doc watched the retreating form.  “Hey, Sarge!”

Saunders hesitated then turned.  “What, Doc?”

“I’ve been wondering…You said there were three things that night you didn’t believe.”

“I did?”

Doc waited, but the answer was not what he expected.

“Well, Doc.”  Saunders looked down at his feet, his eyes unable to meet those of the medic.  “Well, the third thing that night was…something I said.  I volunteered us, Doc.  I asked the Lieutenant to let us go.”  And with that, Saunders walked out the door, leaving the medic unconsciously rubbing his still aching side.

END

The Department of Defense knew that 99,101 American POWs were reported by the Germans to have been captured and placed in the German prison camp system during World War II. Only 91,255 returned. By May 15, 1945, the Pentagon believed 25,000 American POWs "liberated" by the Red Army were still being held hostage to Soviet demands that all "Soviet citizens" be returned to Soviet control, "without exception" and by force if necessary, as agreed to at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. When the U.S. refused to return some military formations composed of Soviet citizens, such as the First Ukrainian SS Division, Stalin retaliated by returning only 4,116 of the hostage American POWs. On June 1, 1945, the United States Government issued documents, signed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, explaining away the loss of approximately 20,000 POWs remaining under Stalin's control.

I am a Russian history major.  There are a variety of books and websites on this subject, as there are on so many POW issues from the various wars.  I borrowed this subject for the genesis of this particular story.
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