Drawing Blood (10 page)

She grabbed his arms, desperate. She clawed at his sleeves, but the jacket was wool. She couldn’t inflict any damage like this. Abigail couldn’t breathe, and dark spots were creeping in to the edges of her vision. She reached for his face, touching his cheek. She knew her eyes were pleading. She couldn’t help it.

“
Nein!
” He screamed, face red, a vein popping out on his forehead. “Do not think this will work. For years I have been kind and patient. And for what? What has it gotten me?”

She tried to talk. Couldn’t. Everything was glowing. It was hard to keep her eyes open ...

He pulled her away from the cupboards, but instead of letting go he pushed her back to the floor, leveraging weight to keep her there, but he stopped squeezing. “It has gotten me absolutely nothing.”

She blinked rapidly. She couldn’t even follow what he was saying anymore. The bit of air she was getting wasn’t helping.

“Until now.”

His other hand pushed at her legs. She scissored them against him but strength was fading. She heard herself rasping to breathe, and still a new panic rose in her. He held her pinned as she was, kneeling between her knees now. She wasn’t sure how he got there, but the fighting instinct in her took precedence. Abigail tried to kick out, but her limbs weren’t working. He easily pushed her skirt up over her hips, and she used a surge of desperation to try and roll away. It was no use.

She saw the bottom of the stairs, just over the captain’s left shoulder. Phillipe stood there, frozen, eyes wide, obviously wondering what he should do. She put one hand out, telling him to stop. She hoped he saw her eyes. No, she tried to mouth, but then Bossong opened his pants and she had to do something.

She screamed. Somehow, despite the fact that her throat was being crushed and her heart was beating a mile a minute she gave the most blood-curdling yet heart-wrenching scream she could manage. It felt like his grip tightened since her tendons weren’t tensed under the pressure, but she screamed anyway. Abigail didn’t know what else she could do.

It didn’t matter. Before she drew the next breath she was violated; painfully and forcefully. Another shorter scream, this time it was from pain. She stopped pushing, stopped scissoring her legs. She just … froze. Abigail squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for it to be over. Bossong made a horrific holler before pulling out, and she felt warm wetness on her stomach.

Abigail didn’t focus on anything as he released her; just scurried out from under him quickly as possible. She was sobbing in that horribly violent way that no one wanted to do in front of an audience. She folded in to the corner, the smallest ball of misery.

Hands touched her shoulder, and she smacked his hand away. Then she made herself look at his face. Bossong was on his knees in front of her, sobbing along with her.

“Abigail, please. Oh god … what have I done?”

In spite of her shock, Abigail knew this was an opportunity. She worried at her sudden coldness, but she couldn’t let this go without using it. She still knew that in a rage he could kill her as easily as he struck her.

“I’m married, Hauptmann. I made a vow, no matter what … my feelings are.” It made bile rise in the back of her throat to utter it, but maybe his guilt could still work in her favour later.

“Forgive me, Abigail. Please. Forgive me. You are correct. You are married. I have no right to have any expectations.”

It was hard to be indignant to a man weeping on his knees, pants undone, on the floor in her kitchen. Indignant yes; furious no. She waited it out. He calmed down gradually. When he stood his eyes were red, but dry. He wouldn’t look at her, but his voice was the warmest she’d ever heard it as he put himself back together. “I am so sorry. I’ve behaved terribly. To someone who helped my brother, yet. I apologize, deeply.” He put his hat on, taking too long to straighten it. “He lost his arm, by the way. It couldn’t be repaired.”

She wasn’t surprised. A splintered log couldn’t be made back in to a tree. As though she should gave a fig.

“So if you see any Resistance fighters, let them know that no matter what they hear and no matter where they think help is coming from, I myself will find them and kill them for this.”

He left a lot quieter through the kitchen door than he’d entered. She was staring across the room at the legs of the kitchen table and chairs.

Phillipe cleared his throat, back in the entryway. “
Cherie
,” he said gently. “Are you well?”

Yes, he was concerned. But in one bitter moment her only thought was how, no matter what, James would have slaughtered any man who put his hands on her, even if she begged him not to.

“I need to take a shower,” was her answer.

Chapter Seventeen

David

His ears rung. His neck and shoulders were solid from strain. Every part of him ached.

David watched the medic putting stitches in Clyde Walton’s arm. He’d been grazed by a bullet, who knew when. They hadn’t realized it until they reached their current position, about an hour ago. They set up camp along a ridge of trees to wait for further instructions. Short of their target position, but remarkably
whole
. With all things considered.

Lieutenant Davidson was dead. He’d been their leader since basic training. He never made it to the shore; he’d been shot as he was jumping off the landing craft. So they had four sergeants and no leader. Someone would have to be promoted.

“Cleary, how are you doing?”

David looked up, shaken from his contemplation of the day. Sergeant Murphy was looking down at him, concerned. David realized he’s been frozen and staring at his feet for a few minutes.

David nodded. “Yeah … I’m fine. Thanks.”

Murphy nodded and squatted next to Walton. The medic started explaining that it was pretty superficial, but stitching it up should keep it from opening up repeatedly and increasing the chance of an infection. Walton assured Murphy it didn’t hurt, and David didn’t tell anyone that Walton had paled the second he noticed his own blood and had to look away before he could throw up. He still wasn’t looking directly at what the doc was working on.

David looked down in to his mug, not remembering putting water in it. But he drank it anyway, realizing his hand was shaking. His heart was fluttering in a weird way, too. Was this anxiety or a decrease in adrenalin?

It hadn’t been what he’d expected at all, the battle. The fighting. Right now it felt like flashes of someone else’s life, someone not him. Smoke. Earth thrown up in to the air. People around him falling. Dropping to the ground. Shouting. He couldn’t keep up with what happened here and now after the fact.  He couldn’t believe he was actually had made it this far. This was new.
This
he couldn’t name.

When night fell the world was unnervingly quiet compared to the madness of the day before it. He could hear the moans and cries of the wounded waiting to be taken back to the destroyers where they had real medical supplies and a sick bay.

David was lying on the ground, his pack under his head as the worst pillow in the history of sleeping. The sky overhead was dotted with stars. The smell of artillery and cordite was fading, or maybe he was getting used to it. Around him a few people slept, proven by the few symphonies of snoring he could catch around him from time to time.

He wasn’t tired, he realized. They were in a place where danger would come at them at any time from any unexpected direction, and every fibre of his being was fighting the urge to relax and let his guard down. Sleep was out of the question.

Instead he listened to everything that wasn’t obvious. Behind the snoring, whispered voices and the pitiful moans of pain he noted that there were no birds. This close to the ocean he expected to hear sea gulls or something, but not even a single songbird was here. The breeze rustled the leaves of the trees. The crickets were louder than they were at home. Perhaps that just made up for the lack of any other sound.

He closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. That didn’t entice him to sleep either.

He tried thinking of Daphne, but suddenly his need to be capable of making love properly seemed beyond ridiculous. How the fuck did that help him now? It had just been a great way to pass the time. And by now Daphne had likely moved on to another study in human behaviour.

Now David was getting a whole new education. That first night he didn’t get a second of sleep.

Well after sunrise the next day they came upon their original D-Day objective; the town of Authie. It was crawling with Germans. They saw them coming, and they had Panzers. They weren’t shy about using them.

The ground shook, and David wondered if he’d ever get used to the feeling of his bowels nearly evacuating as the sound waves shook his spine, rattled his teeth, and caused his ears to start ringing. He took cover flat on the ground, covering his head as dirt and stones covered him.

The Shermans behind them answered back quickly, and they were up and running again before the Germans could improve their aim. Smaller artillery kicked up dirt and grass as they scuttled across what was likely a very picturesque pasture at one time. David fell in next to Craig Jasper along the side of some home-grown outbuilding. They were still crouched low, and they both switched magazines. “I can’t see a fucking thing,” Craig said, out of breath from sprinting.

“We might be too far away to get a good sight on anything,” David agreed. “All we need is for them to duck so they’re not shooting at us.”

They stepped out from opposite sides of the shed, drawing inaccurate shots from … David could finally see them. A two-story building on the west end of this view, top floor, far window. Muzzle flashes. David threw his gunfire that way and the flashes stopped as he reached an overturned wagon. He took cover again, looking for more muzzle flashes. They were coming from the doorway of a stone building at his ten o’clock. He braced the rifle on the wagon, aimed, and fired. He saw the figure drop.

No victory in taking out one foot soldier. As if to remind him of his insignificance the ground shook with another mortar round, about a dozen yards behind him. David couldn’t get any closer until the rest of the company caught up with him and Jasper. So he picked his targets and hoped he was providing covering fire for the rest of his crew.

He knew it worked when a mortar team took cover next to him, readying equipment like one living being, not a word spoken. Or maybe he was actually deaf.

Tanks traded rounds while their mobile artillery peppered the rest of their side of the town with slightly smaller rounds.

Then David heard the sweetest sound he’d ever known … a deafening, low, droning rumble from above. He turned his eyes skyward, and before long he saw them. Gigantic steel birds flying in a practiced formation.

He heard cheering from his company, and he realized he was smiling too. He found a few singular targets to take a few shots at, but as the bombers reached their crescendo he was lowering his rifle to watch the show.

Every bomb dropped landed in the town’s limits. After the first few explosions the buildings were indiscernible through the smoke and debris. The ground shook below him like an earthquake, the world was one loud roar blending in to the next.

After a couple minutes it was over. David waited where he was, his ears singing. He couldn’t hear any gunfire or tanks at all but it wasn’t time to head in yet. You wouldn’t see the end of your rifle barrel through all that smoke and dust.

He fired a couple rounds. So did Clyde from his hiding spot behind a concrete well. Neither report was returned.

Everyone was being so quiet. No one wanted to be the one that stepped out from cover and drew the attention of a sniper. David looked over his shoulder, wondering where Lieutenant Baker was. He couldn’t find him … he could only see Sergeant Blake and Sergeant Murphy. Murphy caught his eye and shook his head. David nodded in agreement.

He didn’t know how long they waited. The dust was settling and still no shots were issued from the midst of that crumbling town. David heard footsteps rushing towards him, and he turned to see Lieutenant Baker joining him and the mortar team behind the wagon. The Lieutenant shared the plan. David, Clyde and Jasper were to follow Murphy and two other guys from B-company towards the town. The rest would cover them.

David found Murphy, and when his sergeant started towards Authie’s town limits David stayed to Murphy’s left. They stayed bent and low, making smaller targets. Still no shots came their way.

A small stone ridge jutted from the ground about twenty yards from the nearest building. As the town came closer David felt his adrenaline race through his blood twice as fast as he’d ever felt it. They’d been staring at the danger from much further away. Not a safe distance exactly, but safer than this.

David could see the first gunman he’d hit, slumped in the doorway where he’d been returning fire. David was close enough to see his eyes were still open.

Craig Jasper was next to him again, cursing under his breath. “I don’t like this. I’d rather stay out in the open. Those bastards could be anywhere in there. Just waiting for us to get in those little streets, then we’re trapped.”

“Put a sock in it, Jasper,” David grunted, sliding a new magazine home. “You’re not helping.”

“Fuck you,” Jasper quipped back, but there was no real fight in it. He was right, of course. Going in to a city they’d never been where they didn’t know the hiding places or strongholds. Absolute madness.

Murphy was up over the ridge first. David muttered a curse of his own, hurrying to keep up. Still, no one was shooting at them. They came to the road leading in to town, splitting up to flank the opening. The air was thick here, hard to see. They could smell the explosives, and the dust was tickling David’s throat. He didn’t dare cough or make any noise.

Murphy motioned him and Wilkins forward on opposite sides. They took turns covering each other, ducking behind buildings and alleys then covering the next couple that came up behind them advancing to the next break in stone buildings. At each pause between buildings he could spot another team to their east doing the exact same thing, keeping up with their progress.

There was a lot to keep your eye on. The buildings, the windows, the yards, the tanks, vehicles and piles of rubble. David knew he was going to miss something so important.
I don’t want to get one of these guys killed.

The fire fight started about ten minutes after they’d decided to move on the town. It was the group to the east that got it; David could hear them shouting over the popping shots and ricochets off the stone walls. He could hear shouting in German, too. That was scarier. They were that close.

The instinct was to run to where the fighting was. But it could be an ambush. They held tight for a few moments before Murphy found him again. “There’s a sniper up on the third floor,” he muttered, pointing up to the building next to them. It was the ass-end of a stone structure, David realized, and it had a back door. The sniper was at the front, raining rounds down on their comrades.

David nodded, pointing to the back door. Murphy was already headed for it and David cursed again. They must have the only Sergeant in the Third that insisting on leading the way in to something stupid and dangerous. Someone else was behind him as well, and David checked over his right shoulder. It was Craig Jasper.

The back door of the house was wooden, and as they pulled it open it squeaked ever so slightly on its hinges. With all the racket out on the street it was likely unnoticed by anyone inside but the sound still put David’s nerves on edge. Jasper led the way up the stairs, Murphy behind him, David keeping his back to them as he watched the door they’d come through. They didn’t close it in case they had to get out in a hurry.

He backed up the stairs behind Murphy. At the first landing he turned his attention upwards again, seeing that by this time Jasper was rounding the second landing already. He paused at the doorway, waiting for Murphy to take up position on the opposite side. David stood to the side at the top of the stairs. They all looked at each other. Behind this door there could be a window facing the street, with a German sniper training his weapon to the soldiers below. He’d be ready to fire. He could easily spin on them, too.

David took a deep breath, feeling both their sets of eyes on him. Without meeting their gaze he nodded, rifle at the ready. Jasper pushed the door inward.

The soldier was on the ground, crouched by the window sill. He didn’t just look at them, he brought his rifle around with him as expected. But David was ready and he squeezed off two shots, both catching the sniper in the head. He fell without squeezing the trigger.

David didn’t have time to congratulate himself on not pissing himself. More shots tore through the walls, knocking off bits of painted plaster. There was no oomph to them, but everyone hit the deck anyway.

David didn’t wait. He sprung forward, hitting the ground inside the room. He took the other German by surprise, his rifle opening up his chest in a ribbon of crimson polka dots before the man could squeeze his trigger.

The next instant the wood plank floor next to him opened up in broken timber, and he only had enough time to think to himself
There’s more than two
, before rolling back the opposite way to see the third sniper, his weapon trained steadily on David, calm as a man sitting on a patio with a beer in his hand. David was late. The guy was pulling his trigger again, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled his own trigger, determined to take the other man with him. He felt his rifle kick, but didn’t hear the other man’s rifle answer back.

The room was silent, even though it was still Armageddon outside on the street. He heard a dull thud and allowed one eye to open. The German was on his knees, a surprised look on his face. He looked down at himself, and David did the same. He had a terrible case of lead infiltration, his jacket soaking through with bloody pockmarks.

The man fell forward on his face and didn’t move.

David let go of the breath he’d been holding, and it came out in a strange duck-like wheeze.