The boy stood looking down at the corpse for a moment with his lips in a slight frown. He bent and grabbed the body by its ankles and dragged it onto the bank, its head rolling bonelessly. He began to pat and prod the various pockets of the trench coat.
“Adam, what are you doing?”
He paused in his search and looked behind him. The girl stood several feet further up the bank. She looked to be several years younger than he was. She was coated in mud almost up to her armpits.
“I’m looking for anything good. He might have food or a gun or anything really. Anyway, what’ve you been doing, chasing frogs?” he said.
“No, stupid, who’d want to eat a frog?” she said, “I’ve been trying to catch fish.” She looked down at her muddy legs. “I fell in.”
“You’d need a net for fish, or even better, a pole. That would-- Hey!” Adam pulled a wax paper package out of one of the interior pockets. “See? Real food.”
The girl’s nose crinkled. “It’s been in his pocket, and he’s….” She stared at the body.
“Yeah, he’s dead. Don’t matter. All that means is he isn’t gonna need it. Look Sarah, it’s all sealed up. It’s not even wet from the river.”
Adam tore the package open using both hands. Smaller packets and tins spilled out onto the ground. “See, we got sardines, crackers, gum, cigarettes, and even chocolate! Let’s take this back to the cave. Come on, I know you’re hungry.”
Looking at the body for a few more moments, Sarah finally stooped over and helped pick up some of the packets. There was a paper package of cigarettes. It read VICTORY. They turned and walked back towards the woods, carrying the contents of their discovery.
…
The cave was in reality an overhanging ledge where the edge of a hill had collapsed. It was enough to keep them out of the weather though, and Adam was grateful for that because dark clouds had been gathering during their walk back. The light bled out of they day as they sat in the shadow of the ledge dividing up the food from the soldier’s ration. The rain began as they ate, chasing a blustery wind between the trees. By the time they finished, it had grown to a downpour, a wall of gray and noise that pushed its way up to the very perimeter of their shelter. Sarah curled up in a blanket and quickly began snoring. Adam sat listening to the rain for a while, and then he too fell asleep.
Adam sat up, heart hammering. It was still raining, but the forest at night seemed solid black. He heard it then, what had woken him. A succession of low booms the were felt as much as heard.
“Thunder?” said Sarah. He heard her sitting up behind him, rubbing her eyes with her hands.
“No,” he said. “There’s no lightning flash.”
“So what is it?”
He frowned in the dark. “Guns. Big guns. They’re shelling the city again.”
“Oh.” They listened to the rain and the thudding booms for a while longer before she spoke again. “When do you think the war will be over? My ma said it would be over before we knew it, that it would never come here.”
“Yeah, well grown-ups don’t know everything, and sometimes even when they do, they’ll tell you something else because they think it will keep you from getting so scared.”
He might have said something else, but he heard something out in the rain. Sarah started to preak, but he leaned over and put his hand over her mouth. Something or someone was moving outside. There was a groan. Adam reached out with one hand patting the ground quickly until he felt the hilt of his knife.
“Hello?” a voice called out. A man’s voice.
“I’ve got a gun,” said Adam. “You leave us alone or I’ll shoot you dead.”
“Please,” the man said. “I‘m not going to hurt anyone. Just let me sit under there until the rain passes.”
Adam could barely see the outline of the man, even blacker than the darkness behind him.
“Ok, but you move slow.”
“Sure, sure. Just go easy kid.” The man ducked under the ledge and slowly lowered himself to the ground with a groan. “Watch your eyes, I’ve got a light,” the man said. There was a click and the three of them found themselves seeing each other in a dim yellow light of an electric lantern.
Rain dripped off the man, running down his face from his dark hair plastered flat and slick across his forehead. It streamed down the creases of his trench coat, pooling on the ground around him. He had slid a heavy pack off of his shoulders and laid a rifle down beside him.
“You’re a soldier,” said Sarah.
The man nodded. “I am that. I’m also Jacobs. You kids have names?”
Sarah blurted her name out before Adam could catch her eye. He sighed and shared his own. They looked around at each other uncertainly.
“Do you want something eat?” said Sarah. “We already ate most of it, but there’s some of the crackers left.”
“No honey, I’m alright. You save that for you two,” said Jacobs. Jacobs’ eyes fell on a small paper package. “I could be talked into trying one of those smokes, though.” He tore open the package and eagerly shook out a rolled cigarette. He fumbled with the small packet of matches, finally getting one lit. The cigarette end blossomed red. Jacobs leaned back against the earthen wall with a sigh, smoke trailing from mouth and nostrils.
He doubled over with a barking cough, grasping his side and grimacing. The cigarette tumbled from his mouth. “Goddamn,” he whispered. The children stared at him.
“Look kids, I’m going to have to get a look at my side here. There’s probably going to be some blood.”
“We’ve seen blood, mister,” said Adam.
Jacobs struggled led to get his coat off until Sarah took a hold of his sleeve. Once free of that, they could see his fatigues were ripped and stained with blood along his side. He managed to get those pulled up far enough to look at his side. He let out a hiss. The wound was a few inches below his left armpit. An irregular piece of metal protruded nearly an inch out of his flesh.
He started to dig around in his pack. First he produced a small bag with a red cross on it. Then he extracted a silver flask and took a drink from it. He handed it to Adam. “I’m going to need that again shortly.” He took a pair of forceps out of the medical kit. “I want one of you to use these to pull this sharp son of a bitch out of me while the other one pours the flask onto the wound, ok?” They nodded. Adam positioned himself with the forceps while Sarah got ready to clean the wound with the alcohol. When Adam pulled on the piece of shrapnel, it did not move much at first. Jacobs moaned and beat his fist on the ground. It slid out after a second pull with a gush of blood. They managed to clean the wound and staunch the bleeding with a roll of bandages from the kit. After he had recovered a bit, Jacobs talked Adam though sewing the would shut with a needle and silk thread.
Afterwards, Jacobs pulled out another cigarette and managed to get it lit with Adam’s help. “You kinds probably just saved my bacon,” Jacobs said, between drags. Adam and Sarah just smiled at each other, looking slightly embarrassed.
“So you two brother and sister?” said Jacobs
“No,” said Adam. He told Jacobs about the evacuation. The shells had started falling and turned everything into a nightmare. Plenty of people died, or got separated in the panic. He and Sarah had found each other hiding in an alley. By waiting until nighttime, they had been able to make it out of the city and into the woods. “And then we came here,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess we managed to fuck up the evacuation just like everything else in this war,” said Jacobs. He frowned. “Shit, I shouldn’t cuss in front of you kids.” Realizing what he had done, he started to apologize again, but Sarah cut him off with a giggle. “Anyway,” he continued, “there’s a medical station further up the river. They were handling civilian evacuations there better than the mess in the city itself. In the morning I can show you kids most of the way there.”
“Aren’t you coming?” said Adam.
“Nah,” Jacobs said, “I’ve got other place to get to after that. Let’s try to get some sleep.” Jacobs shut off the lantern. Adam laid down again. He fell asleep watching Jacob’s cigarette wink in the dark.
…
“And another thing, we don’t know who’s in this wood so we need to be as quiet as possible. No talking. If you see me get down, you two drop and hide the best as you can until I tell you otherwise.”
They started again, this time drawn out in a line. The woods seemed shockingly quiet, the only noise being the rustle of their steps on the forest floor. Occasional sounds drifted to them, sporadic gunfire or shouts, but the all seemed muffled, as if the fog was soaking the noise out of the world. Adam found himself looking upwards, watching as a bird flew from limb to limb in short hops, following their progress through the trees. Suddenly he realized that Sarah had stopped, and Jacobs in front of her, both of them crouching. Adam dropped down low as well and strained his ears. At first there was nothing, but then a twig popped and there was muffled curse. Jacobs gestured towards a small thicket where several dead trees had fallen. They managed to get in behind the logs just before the men appeared. There were ten of them walking in two spaced out lines of five, much like their own little band had been. They were all wearing the familiar soldier’s trench coats and carrying rifles, as they casually scanned the woods around them.
Adam was willing himself to stillness and silence so hard he though he might pass out. It seemed like it took forever for the soldiers to pass by as they lay with their bellies in the mulch of the forest floor. The soldiers were almost out of sight when there was a burst of sound, almost directly above Adam’s head. The bird. Something had spooked it, and it had taken off in an explosion of flapping wings. One of rear soldiers stopped and turned to look back. Adam saw Jacobs thumb the safety off of his rifle as he brought it up with glacial slowness. The world seemed to hold its breath. Then the soldier swiveled back on his heel and continued on out of sight.
They must have lain there among the fallen trees for an hour before Jacobs sat up and rested his forehead on the rough bark of a log. He straightened again and fished a cigarette out of his pocked and lit it. Sarah was fidgeting and Adam was looking back to where the soldiers had passed out of sight. He looked back at Jacobs, staring at his trench coat.
“Those men,” said Adam.
“Yeah?” said Jacobs. He tipped ash off of the end of his cigarette.
“Those were our own soldiers weren’t they?” said Adam. “So why--”
“I ran,” said Jacobs. He did not look at either of them. When neither of them spoke, he went on. “That shelling that came the day you were supposed to be evacuated, that was never supposed to happen. We were supposed to get reinforced and push into the highlands to keep the artillery at bay at least until we could get you civilians out. Somebody fucked up big time though. Our supply lines got stretched out and cut to ribbons. So we just had to sit there while they set up their guns and pounded the hell out of our positions at their leisure. That night I did the same thing you two did. I got out of the city. We’ve lost, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to die because some idiot brass can’t read a map. I’d already be up in the mountains headed for neutral territory, but I didn’t want to chance it in that rain. So that’s how I found you two.” He looked at them. “I’m still going. I can’t let them catch me. But first, we got to get you two where you need to go.”
Jacobs finished his smoke and then they got up and started ready to move again. “We’re almost there,” said Jacobs. “I’ll take you to the edge of the woods. You’ll be able to see it from there.” Adam wrestled his own small pack onto his back while Jacobs shouldered his own. Adam saw Sarah step over a log and then something huge and powerful he could not see was pushing on his chest, on his whole body, and then he did not see anything at all.
There was sky. There was sky and trees and no sound. No, there was sound, but it was buried under a high ringing as if he was underwater. Jacobs face floated over him. He was saying something, but the sounds did not seem connected. Jacobs was gone.
Adam sat up. Jacobs was bent over someone tying a knot. Adam remembered. He stumbled over. “Is she?” he said, choking. There was blood trickling from her ears, and her eyes were unfocussed. Her leg underneath the tourniquet was a bloody mess.
“Can you walk?” said Jacobs.
“Yes,” said Adam, his head clearing.
“Good,” said Jacobs, shrugging off his pack, it fell on the ground next to his rifle. He bent over and scooped Sarah into his arms. “We have to move.”
They ran. At first, Adam was not even sure his legs were even working, but they have been because he found himself bouncing along right behind Jacobs. They broke from the woods. The river stretched out below them, and on the near bank were clusters of white tents and a flurry of people. They ran down the grassy slope. Some of the people among the tents noticed them and pointed, shouting. As they entered rows of tents, there were more shouts, and hands to help or point the way to the triage center. Then Sarah was gone, carried off into the large tent in front of them they were told they could not enter.
They found themselves under the intense scrutiny of a nurse who clucked as she inspected their various wounds and bruises. They were finally left to their own devices, sitting on a bench outside the triage tent. Jacobs was looking down the tent row to where a pair of military police stood. Adam found himself looking at tent flap where his friend had been swallowed up. All around them, ghosts in white flitted, trying desperately to put back together all which had been torn apart.
