Schlaf in Himmlischer Ruh 1/1
Title: Schlaf in Himmlischer Ruh 1/1
Author: buffyaddict13
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~3,700
Characters/Pairing: Gen, German Soldiers, Shifty Powers, Smokey Gordon, Earl "One Lung" McClung
Disclaimer: I don't own the Band of Brothers book or miniseries. This fic is based on an incident in the series and my crazy mind. I made it all up. Also, warning: character death.
A/N 1: This is my idea of a nice Christmas fic. Sorry about that. Also, sorry about posting this so long after Christmas.
A/N 2: The German slang for American (Amerikaner) soldiers was "Ami." Thank you to hiyacynth and luckinfovely for the beta. I ♥ you.
Silent night, holy night
All is calm all is bright.
'Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!.
~ Joseph Franz Mohr
He doesn't sleep much anymore. His eyes feel sore and gummy. He barely eats. The not sleeping is his choice, the not eating isn't. Rations have been notoriously slow coming lately. So has gasoline. He is surrounded by men, but his only real companion--for months now--is fear. He thinks about his brother, his mother, his father. All dead now. He is the last of his family.
He hates the snow, the cold, the fog. When rations do arrive, he hates the ersatz bread that has the taste, look, and consistency of frozen dirt. He hates the men in his unit, he hates the Nazis, the Führer, the war. He does not hate the Amerikaners. Admission of any one of these is enough to get him shot. Admission of all of them? Kurt has no idea. You can only die once. But he keeps his mouth shut so often his kamerads joke he's mute, stummer, he's not worried about getting caught.
That's his nickname, Stummer. Kurt doesn't give a scheisse. He only cares about one thing now: surrendering.
His komrades are bent on killing the Amis, driving them out of Bastogne. Annihilating them. Kurt sits in his foxhole with Hansi and daydreams about stumbling over the American line, throwing down his gun, his helmet, shouting kamerad at the top of his lungs.
Hansi scratches his nose. It looks red and raw, just like the rest of his face. Kurt can't feel his ears, his fingers, his feet. Hans von Schleicher is the closest thing to a friend Kurt has in the Duetsch Armee. Hans is quiet. He doesn't spout Nazi reteric, repeat the propaganda. He doesn't cut the fingers off dead Ami soldiers, the dicks off Ivans.
Hans and Kurt are both seventeen. Kurt is actually sixteen, but he lies. To lie is to live. Heil Hitler, Gott mit uns, work makes you free, Germany will win the war. All are lies. But if you want to live, you repeat them, parrot them. The trick is not to grow complacent, to never believe them.
* * *
Kurt's father fought in the first World War. He doesn't talk about it. When he gets home, the first thing he does is become a Lutheran minister. He disappears in 1939, when Kurt is eleven. His mother prays and cries and cries and prays after his disappearance, often at the same time. Eventually her tears dry, her sorrow cools and hardens into a black, bitter anger. She teaches her sons to think for themselves, to question everything. But never, never out loud.
One day, Kurt comes home from his Hitler Youth meeting and Mama is gone. The neighbors tell him she packed a suitcase and left. They watch for his reaction with eager eyes. Two Nazi party members show up that evening. They declare Maria a traitor who left her sons behind to fend for themselves.
The Nazis wear wire smiles and say Kurt and Konrad will be fed, clothed, and cared for by the State, as soldiers. This is no tragedy. This is, in fact, their great reward. As patriots they should be honored to take their place on the front line with the rest of Germany's beloved sons. Who needs a mother when you've got the Fatherland?
While the men wait for the brothers to pack, Kurt finds Mama's small cardboard suitcase, still tucked into the back of the closet.
Konrad is sixteen. Kurt is fifteen. Kurt doesn't care where they go, as long as he can stay with his brother. Konrad says he'll gladly go to the Russian front if Kurt can go with him. Konrad is tall for his age; he already looks like a man. He is put into the Fallschirmjager, the German paratroop division. Kurt ends up in the newly formed 26th Volksgrenadier Division. He is given a rifle, a uniform that is too big and boots that are too small. He binds them to his feet with strips of rag and twine.
Konrad dies in France when the Amerikaners drop thousands of troops into Normandy. Kurt's eyes burn when he hears the news. He vomits, he kicks the dirt with his useless boots. He punches a tree and breaks three fingers. He does not cry. Tears do the dead no good. Kurt stares down at his swollen hand, jaw clenched, blazing rage. He thinks of his mother's quiet sobs. Tears are useless to the living as well.
Kurt spends the next six months protecting bridges in Holland, holding the Siegfried Line. Kurt hates the smell of battle, the blood and gunpowder. He hates the shrieks of men screaming for mutter, the sound of Amerikaner machine guns. He hates the cold, disdainful smiles of the black-clad SS troops when they march past.
Kurt wants Hitler here on the front lines, face to face with a Sherman tank, that deadly single eye aimed right at his ridiculous mustache.
The most surprising thing about war is, so far, Kurt's survived it. He's good at it. Not at killing, but at living. At shooting. He's an excellent marksman. He works very hard to keep this to himself. He concentrates, aiming carefully for legs, for arms, never the head or torso. He keeps himself, as well as countless Amis and Tommies, alive. This act of rebellion, would get him killed. Not just by his kamerads, but by enemy soldiers who heal up, who come back, who don't aim to miss. Kurt doesn't care. Maybe when they come back they will aim at him.
Kurt longs to get through the war without killing anyone. Except for maybe himself. He's already failed at one of these goals of course, but he's not ready to give up quite yet.
And there's always surrender.
At night, some of the men whisper about the camps. Some laugh and say good riddance. Most men keep their mouths shut, eyes down. Kurt hates to admit the Juden camps exist. He feels sick, ashamed of his country, his people. He wonders if his parents are in some camp, languishing in the mud and filth while one son and then the other dies for a cause neither believes in.
* * *
Now, Kurt's unit is one of many surrounding the Belgian city of Bastogne. The roads into and out of the city are of the utmost importance. If they can capture Bastogne, they can get to Antwerp. The only place Kurt wants to go is an Amerikaner POW camp. There are rumors the Ami camps are clean, there's food and a bed for every German soldier. It's the exact opposite of the Russian POW camps. If Kurt thought he could get away with it, he'd surrender right now. He'd simply pull off his stained undershirt and wave it like a flag.
But he'd be shot before he got two feet. If not by Hansi, then by his Leutnant or the other soldiers. He's heard of whole platoons of Germans surrendering to the Amerikaners. Why couldn't he have been assigned to one of those? In Kurt's mind those men aren't cowardly or defeatist. They're logical. They are wise men who can see which way the war is turning despite what the newspapers say.
The fog comes and goes. The snow falls steadily. Kurt sighs and turns to Hansi. "I've got to piss." With any luck, maybe he'll get captured. Yesterday, one of their scouts left for the slit trenches and never returned. Kurt tries not to feel jealous.
He squirms out of the snow-covered hole, walks to the tree line, relieves himself. He should head right back to the foxhole, but he doesn't want to. He peers into the trees instead, wonders how far he is from the Ami line. What would happen if he started walking now? There's no one to shoot him here.
That's when he hears gunfire. It's coming from their position. From Hansi. Instinct kicks in and Kurt runs back, rifle raised. He's already calculating, telling himself to aim for an arm. A man with a shattered arm can't shoot. But he can certainly live.
Hans is standing in their foxhole, gun raised, face blotchy with fear. "An Ami fell into our hole!" Hans shrieks. He looks at Kurt, accusingly, as if Kurt has somehow engineered the whole thing. "I thought it was you, Stummer."
Kurt blinks. He curses his bladder. All he'd had to do was stay here and he could have surrendered. Surely an Amerikaner falling into his foxhole is the sign he's been looking for.
Leutnant Volkman stalks up, yells at them both. "Hinkel, von Schleicher! What the hell's going on up here?"
Hans blurts out the story, two Amis from the 101st crossed the German line, one called Hef Ron fell into their hole. "And you couldn't even hit him?" Volkman asks in disgust. "How about if he was trussed up like a turkey? Could you have managed it then? Von Scheicher, you're a disgrace to the country as well as your mother." The officer turns to Hinkel. "And you. The next time you need to take a piss, I suggest you hold it. God only knows what I did to get saddled with the two of you dummkopfs."
* * *
The 26th Volksgrenadier spends the night slogging through snow on numb feet. They're still on the front line, attached to the Fifth Panzer Army. Tomorrow night--Christmas Eve--they'll attack the Paratrooper Schweinehunds. So says Volkman.
Merry Christmas.
By daybreak they crouch in newly dug foxholes. Hinkel is designated scout and creeps forward. He'd love to creep right into the Ami camp, but he can't risk it. With his luck, the Amis would shoot him instead of taking him prisoner. Still, the result is the same. He'd be done with the war either way. If he were dead, at least he could see Mama, Papa, and Konrad again.
His father told him a story about how the Amerikaners and Germans had a truce on Christmas in the Great War. They sang songs and played soccer and shared food. It's the only war story Erich Hinkel ever told. Kurt thinks about those men, wonders why they had more charity and compassion than the men of today.
Kurt has a pair of old binoculars. They look like they're from the first World War, frankly. Apparently, men can recycle the tools of war, but not common decency. Wunderbar.
He hides beneath the clawed hands of a bush. The leaves are dead, the branches dressed in a heavy coat of snow. Hinkel moves slowly, slowly, careful not to crack a twig, to bring the snow down on top of his head. He's wearing his snow camouflage and his helmet is covered with white plastic. He's about as safe as he can be. Which isn't very safe at all.
He can see a machine gun crew dug in about a hundred yards away. There's a man with a blanket around his shoulders. He looks thin and cold. His chin is stubbled, his face pale. He's shivering while he heats a cup of coffee over a small gas stove. A second man jumps in beside the first. Coffee Man looks annoyed. He says something in English, but Kurt's too far away to understand. Even if he were standing next to the men, he'd still have trouble understanding. His English is not the best. He knows a little: he can say don't shoot and friend and bastard and fuck you right up the ass but that's about it.
Still, he doesn't need to know English to figure out Coffee Man doesn't want the big man next to him to spill his coffee. The big man's name sounds like Lung or Maklung. Kurt can't quite tell. He doesn't know what Coffee Man's name is.
Maklung Lung keeps peering around, as if he somehow suspects Kurt is watching. A third man walks up. He's got a white helmet like Kurt's, but that's the extent of his winter camoflauge. He speaks in a soft musical accent that Kurt enjoys. He closes his eyes. He wonders if he could just stay here. What's the difference if he's killed by his own people or Amis? Dead is dead. At least here he can smell coffee for a while first. He wonders if this is where Hef Ron came from.
Hinkel is supposed to bring back information on the number of Amerikaner soldiers, their artillery and weapons. Their morale. From what Kurt can tell, the Amis are just as excited to be here as Kurt is. Hinkel closes his eyes. Maybe this really is his chance. Right now. He should just get up and surrender. Get it over with. Surrender or die. Surrender. Or die. Both are better than lying beneath this bush, marching with men he can barely stand, watching fellow soldiers killed, their blood and organs spread around them like scarlet shrapnel.
When Kurt opens his eyes, he is alone. Coffee Man, Maklung Lung and Music Voice are gone. There's no one left to surrender to. Hinkel grinds his teeth in frustration. He's not the only one who knows how to be quiet. He turns his head, half expecting to see the three men flanking him, weapons at the ready.
No one's there.
Kurt doesn't know exactly what fuck means. He knows it's very bad, that Amis often say fuck Hitler. Hinkel shares that same sentiment all the way back to the outpost.
* * *
Christmas Eve afternoon is quiet. Hinkel and von Schiecher huddle in the fox hole and talk about Christmas. Hans grew up Catholic. Kurt grew up Lutheran. They know all the same Christmas carols. A few of the men sing Stille Nacht and O Tannenbaum softly. Hans joins in. Kurt doesn't.
At dusk, Volkman walks up and down the line, hands clasped behind his back, inspecting that mortars are ready, rifles aimed, ammunition plentiful. They are and it is.
Their unit has moved forward. The moon peers out from her cloudy veil. Beneath her pale light, Kurt can see Coffee Man through his rifle scope. He's back at his machine gun. He's far away, but not too far. Ami officers and enlisted men run back and forth, preparing for battle. How do the Amis know they're out here, waiting?
Kurt wonders what Coffee Man is like. Where in the endless sprawl of America he comes from. Is he married? Does he have children? Was he conscripted here, or did he volunteer? Are his parents alive? Are they safe?
Hansi rests a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Good luck, Stummer," he whispers. "Merry Christmas."
Kurt is startled by the gesture. A surge of affection rushes through him. He nods, pats Hansi's arm awkwardly. "Danke. You too, my friend."
Leutnant Volkman shouts, "Fire!"
All thoughts of holidays and luck are gone. The cold disappears as well, replaced by adrenaline and the sour stink of sweat. Hinkel aims carefully. He's going to miss. He doesn't want to shoot Coffee Man.
But then Volkman is right behind him, bellowing "God damn you Hinkel, fire."
Kurt jerks, his finger squeezes the trigger. Scheisse.
Coffee Man sprawls backward. He lies there, mouth open, blinking. At least he's alive. But he's not moving.
A mortar explodes next to their foxhole. A piece of shrapnel the size of a screw hits Hansi in the forehead. He drops bonelessly downward, instantly dead. Someone else is on the machine gun now, maybe Maklung Lung, and Kurt flinches back instinctively at the sound of the rapid gunfire.
More mortars fall, grenades explode, the sky is lit with a dozen stars of Bethlehem. Great clods of frozen dirt shoot into the air, snow jumps, men come apart. Panicked shouts of Los! and Schnell! litter the air with the other debris. They cannot compete with the Amerikaner artillery. If they had a Panzer, then yes. But all they have are bullets and guns so cold the men have to piss on them to make them to work.
Five years ago tonight Kurt was at home, with his Papa and Mama and Konnie. There was a Christmas tree with glass and paper ornaments and presents. Nothing extravagant, some books, some candy, a scarf Mama knitted for each of them.
Bursts of snow fly in Kurt's face; a chunk of hot metal buzzes through his sleeve and leaves his skin untouched. He's not aware of any of it. He's too busy trying to go back in time, trying to crawl into his foxhole and out onto the cold hardwood floor of their small house, the room thick with the scent of pine, the sound of laughter, Papa's crooked smile. Papa always had one eyebrow raised, as if it was trying to peer over the top of his wire spectacles. Mama would make cabbage soup and boiled potatoes and it would taste just as awful as every other night, but on Christmas they always pretended it didn't. Mama and Papa's love, the safety of their house made everything better. Even Mama's soup.
But now nothing is good because all that love and safety has been peeled away, laid bare, turned to ash. The Nazis killed his family as surely as they killed countless Jewish ones. Kurt is supposed to fight for the Fatherland, make the country safe for the Aryan race. Except Kurt isn't blue-eyed or blond haired, he's no ubermensch, and he'd rather the Third Reich fell than spend another day in this useless, shitty war.
There are tears on Kurt's face. They freeze instantly. He rubs at them, furious at himself for crying, for remembering, for wanting. He ducks as machine gun fire throws Johann Werner against a tree, nearly cuts Wilhelm Mahler in two.
When Volkman goes down the remaining men scramble for the cover of the woods. They struggle back toward their path from the previous night.
Kurt runs in the opposite direction. He's officially a deserter. He's terrified. He's elated. He can't surrender now, not in the blood lust of battle, but soon, if he can last until morning. Branches pluck at his jacket, his helmet. He throws down his weapon and keeps going. The snow drifts are up to his knees.
He pulls off his helmet, canteen, and pack. He leaves a trail of detritus in the snow, like a surreal page from a fairy tale. All Kurt knows is, he won't be following the path that equipment leads to. Snow drops down the back of his jacket, down his neck, into his dirty sweat-matted hair. The air is sharp with cold; each breath is a broken glass. His nose and throat burn.
And then, he hears it.
"Halt!"
The word is aimed at Kurt's back.
Kurt slows his frenzied pace, stumbles. He pitches forward, arms buried in snow up to his elbows. His wrists go numb. He pushes himself back up slowly, raises his hands. Snow slides down his sleeves. "Kamerad," he says, as clearly as he can. "Kamerad."
He turns to see Maklung Lung and Music Voice. Their faces are pale and hard in the moonlight. They are winter stones. Their expressions are enough to tell Hinkel he will not be surrendering tonight, not ever. He'll be going home. Kurt discovers he's not even scared. Fear has left to join other men in other places. His heart still beats fast, but it's from all the running.
He feels relieved.
Music Voice speaks. His mouth is tight with anger, the syllables clipped, less musical. Kurt only picks up a few words. "Shot" and "smoking." Or maybe "smokie." Hinkel doesn't need to understand the words to know he's been sentenced to death. He shot their friend. He shot Coffee Man and these men want revenge.
He doesn't mind.
If Kurt were a better person, maybe he would have kept his gun. Maybe he'd try to kill these Amerikaners for killing Hansi. But Kurt isn't a better person. He's a tired one, a boy who misses his family, who has nothing against Coffee Man or his friends, except they're on one side of an imaginary line and Kurt's on the other.
Hinkel nods. He smiles at Music Voice and Maklung Lung. He wishes them well. "Schiessen," he says. Shoot. It's the first order he's ever given.
Music Voice obeys.
Kurt doesn't hear the shot, but he feels it, feels himself tumble backwards into the snow. He lies there, a child again, eager to make snow angels.
The night goes quiet. Stille nacht.
He can see bits of stars through the trees. They flicker like candles. Heilige nacht.
There is no pain. He can feel himself shaking, but this body no longer belongs to him. It is not work that frees you. It is death. Alles schläft.
The two Amis look down at him. Maklung Lung still looks angry, his rifle points at Kurt's chest. Music voice looks sad. Not so much in his face, but in his eyes. The soldier shakes his head and whispers something. It turns out there is another English word Kurt knows. It is "sorry." Music Voice pulls his stocky friend away. Kurt watches them go. They shine like angels. Einsam wacht.
It's still snowing. The flakes come down gently, softly, feathers against his face. When Kurt was nine and Konnie ten, they had a pillow fight that sent drifts of feathers around their room. Mama was furious.
Mama.
He can hear her bustling just outside his room. He can smell the tree, hear Papa singing. Konrad pokes his head into their bedroom. "Get up sleepy head, or I'll open all your presents."
Kurt squints at Konnie over the blanket. "Ja," he says. "Ein minuten." Just one more minute in the comfort of his bed. The anticipation of gifts and celebration warms him like hot cider.
He finally understands. The war was a dream, a terrible dream. But now he's awake--finally. Mama and Papa and Konnie are here. They're together again, at last.
Papa's still singing. He sings, Sleep in heavenly peace.
Kurt Hinkel listens, warm and content.
He closes his eyes, just for a moment, smiling.
~end~
Author: buffyaddict13
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~3,700
Characters/Pairing: Gen, German Soldiers, Shifty Powers, Smokey Gordon, Earl "One Lung" McClung
Disclaimer: I don't own the Band of Brothers book or miniseries. This fic is based on an incident in the series and my crazy mind. I made it all up. Also, warning: character death.
A/N 1: This is my idea of a nice Christmas fic. Sorry about that. Also, sorry about posting this so long after Christmas.
A/N 2: The German slang for American (Amerikaner) soldiers was "Ami." Thank you to hiyacynth and luckinfovely for the beta. I ♥ you.
Silent night, holy night
All is calm all is bright.
'Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!.
~ Joseph Franz Mohr
He doesn't sleep much anymore. His eyes feel sore and gummy. He barely eats. The not sleeping is his choice, the not eating isn't. Rations have been notoriously slow coming lately. So has gasoline. He is surrounded by men, but his only real companion--for months now--is fear. He thinks about his brother, his mother, his father. All dead now. He is the last of his family.
He hates the snow, the cold, the fog. When rations do arrive, he hates the ersatz bread that has the taste, look, and consistency of frozen dirt. He hates the men in his unit, he hates the Nazis, the Führer, the war. He does not hate the Amerikaners. Admission of any one of these is enough to get him shot. Admission of all of them? Kurt has no idea. You can only die once. But he keeps his mouth shut so often his kamerads joke he's mute, stummer, he's not worried about getting caught.
That's his nickname, Stummer. Kurt doesn't give a scheisse. He only cares about one thing now: surrendering.
His komrades are bent on killing the Amis, driving them out of Bastogne. Annihilating them. Kurt sits in his foxhole with Hansi and daydreams about stumbling over the American line, throwing down his gun, his helmet, shouting kamerad at the top of his lungs.
Hansi scratches his nose. It looks red and raw, just like the rest of his face. Kurt can't feel his ears, his fingers, his feet. Hans von Schleicher is the closest thing to a friend Kurt has in the Duetsch Armee. Hans is quiet. He doesn't spout Nazi reteric, repeat the propaganda. He doesn't cut the fingers off dead Ami soldiers, the dicks off Ivans.
Hans and Kurt are both seventeen. Kurt is actually sixteen, but he lies. To lie is to live. Heil Hitler, Gott mit uns, work makes you free, Germany will win the war. All are lies. But if you want to live, you repeat them, parrot them. The trick is not to grow complacent, to never believe them.
* * *
Kurt's father fought in the first World War. He doesn't talk about it. When he gets home, the first thing he does is become a Lutheran minister. He disappears in 1939, when Kurt is eleven. His mother prays and cries and cries and prays after his disappearance, often at the same time. Eventually her tears dry, her sorrow cools and hardens into a black, bitter anger. She teaches her sons to think for themselves, to question everything. But never, never out loud.
One day, Kurt comes home from his Hitler Youth meeting and Mama is gone. The neighbors tell him she packed a suitcase and left. They watch for his reaction with eager eyes. Two Nazi party members show up that evening. They declare Maria a traitor who left her sons behind to fend for themselves.
The Nazis wear wire smiles and say Kurt and Konrad will be fed, clothed, and cared for by the State, as soldiers. This is no tragedy. This is, in fact, their great reward. As patriots they should be honored to take their place on the front line with the rest of Germany's beloved sons. Who needs a mother when you've got the Fatherland?
While the men wait for the brothers to pack, Kurt finds Mama's small cardboard suitcase, still tucked into the back of the closet.
Konrad is sixteen. Kurt is fifteen. Kurt doesn't care where they go, as long as he can stay with his brother. Konrad says he'll gladly go to the Russian front if Kurt can go with him. Konrad is tall for his age; he already looks like a man. He is put into the Fallschirmjager, the German paratroop division. Kurt ends up in the newly formed 26th Volksgrenadier Division. He is given a rifle, a uniform that is too big and boots that are too small. He binds them to his feet with strips of rag and twine.
Konrad dies in France when the Amerikaners drop thousands of troops into Normandy. Kurt's eyes burn when he hears the news. He vomits, he kicks the dirt with his useless boots. He punches a tree and breaks three fingers. He does not cry. Tears do the dead no good. Kurt stares down at his swollen hand, jaw clenched, blazing rage. He thinks of his mother's quiet sobs. Tears are useless to the living as well.
Kurt spends the next six months protecting bridges in Holland, holding the Siegfried Line. Kurt hates the smell of battle, the blood and gunpowder. He hates the shrieks of men screaming for mutter, the sound of Amerikaner machine guns. He hates the cold, disdainful smiles of the black-clad SS troops when they march past.
Kurt wants Hitler here on the front lines, face to face with a Sherman tank, that deadly single eye aimed right at his ridiculous mustache.
The most surprising thing about war is, so far, Kurt's survived it. He's good at it. Not at killing, but at living. At shooting. He's an excellent marksman. He works very hard to keep this to himself. He concentrates, aiming carefully for legs, for arms, never the head or torso. He keeps himself, as well as countless Amis and Tommies, alive. This act of rebellion, would get him killed. Not just by his kamerads, but by enemy soldiers who heal up, who come back, who don't aim to miss. Kurt doesn't care. Maybe when they come back they will aim at him.
Kurt longs to get through the war without killing anyone. Except for maybe himself. He's already failed at one of these goals of course, but he's not ready to give up quite yet.
And there's always surrender.
At night, some of the men whisper about the camps. Some laugh and say good riddance. Most men keep their mouths shut, eyes down. Kurt hates to admit the Juden camps exist. He feels sick, ashamed of his country, his people. He wonders if his parents are in some camp, languishing in the mud and filth while one son and then the other dies for a cause neither believes in.
* * *
Now, Kurt's unit is one of many surrounding the Belgian city of Bastogne. The roads into and out of the city are of the utmost importance. If they can capture Bastogne, they can get to Antwerp. The only place Kurt wants to go is an Amerikaner POW camp. There are rumors the Ami camps are clean, there's food and a bed for every German soldier. It's the exact opposite of the Russian POW camps. If Kurt thought he could get away with it, he'd surrender right now. He'd simply pull off his stained undershirt and wave it like a flag.
But he'd be shot before he got two feet. If not by Hansi, then by his Leutnant or the other soldiers. He's heard of whole platoons of Germans surrendering to the Amerikaners. Why couldn't he have been assigned to one of those? In Kurt's mind those men aren't cowardly or defeatist. They're logical. They are wise men who can see which way the war is turning despite what the newspapers say.
The fog comes and goes. The snow falls steadily. Kurt sighs and turns to Hansi. "I've got to piss." With any luck, maybe he'll get captured. Yesterday, one of their scouts left for the slit trenches and never returned. Kurt tries not to feel jealous.
He squirms out of the snow-covered hole, walks to the tree line, relieves himself. He should head right back to the foxhole, but he doesn't want to. He peers into the trees instead, wonders how far he is from the Ami line. What would happen if he started walking now? There's no one to shoot him here.
That's when he hears gunfire. It's coming from their position. From Hansi. Instinct kicks in and Kurt runs back, rifle raised. He's already calculating, telling himself to aim for an arm. A man with a shattered arm can't shoot. But he can certainly live.
Hans is standing in their foxhole, gun raised, face blotchy with fear. "An Ami fell into our hole!" Hans shrieks. He looks at Kurt, accusingly, as if Kurt has somehow engineered the whole thing. "I thought it was you, Stummer."
Kurt blinks. He curses his bladder. All he'd had to do was stay here and he could have surrendered. Surely an Amerikaner falling into his foxhole is the sign he's been looking for.
Leutnant Volkman stalks up, yells at them both. "Hinkel, von Schleicher! What the hell's going on up here?"
Hans blurts out the story, two Amis from the 101st crossed the German line, one called Hef Ron fell into their hole. "And you couldn't even hit him?" Volkman asks in disgust. "How about if he was trussed up like a turkey? Could you have managed it then? Von Scheicher, you're a disgrace to the country as well as your mother." The officer turns to Hinkel. "And you. The next time you need to take a piss, I suggest you hold it. God only knows what I did to get saddled with the two of you dummkopfs."
* * *
The 26th Volksgrenadier spends the night slogging through snow on numb feet. They're still on the front line, attached to the Fifth Panzer Army. Tomorrow night--Christmas Eve--they'll attack the Paratrooper Schweinehunds. So says Volkman.
Merry Christmas.
By daybreak they crouch in newly dug foxholes. Hinkel is designated scout and creeps forward. He'd love to creep right into the Ami camp, but he can't risk it. With his luck, the Amis would shoot him instead of taking him prisoner. Still, the result is the same. He'd be done with the war either way. If he were dead, at least he could see Mama, Papa, and Konrad again.
His father told him a story about how the Amerikaners and Germans had a truce on Christmas in the Great War. They sang songs and played soccer and shared food. It's the only war story Erich Hinkel ever told. Kurt thinks about those men, wonders why they had more charity and compassion than the men of today.
Kurt has a pair of old binoculars. They look like they're from the first World War, frankly. Apparently, men can recycle the tools of war, but not common decency. Wunderbar.
He hides beneath the clawed hands of a bush. The leaves are dead, the branches dressed in a heavy coat of snow. Hinkel moves slowly, slowly, careful not to crack a twig, to bring the snow down on top of his head. He's wearing his snow camouflage and his helmet is covered with white plastic. He's about as safe as he can be. Which isn't very safe at all.
He can see a machine gun crew dug in about a hundred yards away. There's a man with a blanket around his shoulders. He looks thin and cold. His chin is stubbled, his face pale. He's shivering while he heats a cup of coffee over a small gas stove. A second man jumps in beside the first. Coffee Man looks annoyed. He says something in English, but Kurt's too far away to understand. Even if he were standing next to the men, he'd still have trouble understanding. His English is not the best. He knows a little: he can say don't shoot and friend and bastard and fuck you right up the ass but that's about it.
Still, he doesn't need to know English to figure out Coffee Man doesn't want the big man next to him to spill his coffee. The big man's name sounds like Lung or Maklung. Kurt can't quite tell. He doesn't know what Coffee Man's name is.
Maklung Lung keeps peering around, as if he somehow suspects Kurt is watching. A third man walks up. He's got a white helmet like Kurt's, but that's the extent of his winter camoflauge. He speaks in a soft musical accent that Kurt enjoys. He closes his eyes. He wonders if he could just stay here. What's the difference if he's killed by his own people or Amis? Dead is dead. At least here he can smell coffee for a while first. He wonders if this is where Hef Ron came from.
Hinkel is supposed to bring back information on the number of Amerikaner soldiers, their artillery and weapons. Their morale. From what Kurt can tell, the Amis are just as excited to be here as Kurt is. Hinkel closes his eyes. Maybe this really is his chance. Right now. He should just get up and surrender. Get it over with. Surrender or die. Surrender. Or die. Both are better than lying beneath this bush, marching with men he can barely stand, watching fellow soldiers killed, their blood and organs spread around them like scarlet shrapnel.
When Kurt opens his eyes, he is alone. Coffee Man, Maklung Lung and Music Voice are gone. There's no one left to surrender to. Hinkel grinds his teeth in frustration. He's not the only one who knows how to be quiet. He turns his head, half expecting to see the three men flanking him, weapons at the ready.
No one's there.
Kurt doesn't know exactly what fuck means. He knows it's very bad, that Amis often say fuck Hitler. Hinkel shares that same sentiment all the way back to the outpost.
* * *
Christmas Eve afternoon is quiet. Hinkel and von Schiecher huddle in the fox hole and talk about Christmas. Hans grew up Catholic. Kurt grew up Lutheran. They know all the same Christmas carols. A few of the men sing Stille Nacht and O Tannenbaum softly. Hans joins in. Kurt doesn't.
At dusk, Volkman walks up and down the line, hands clasped behind his back, inspecting that mortars are ready, rifles aimed, ammunition plentiful. They are and it is.
Their unit has moved forward. The moon peers out from her cloudy veil. Beneath her pale light, Kurt can see Coffee Man through his rifle scope. He's back at his machine gun. He's far away, but not too far. Ami officers and enlisted men run back and forth, preparing for battle. How do the Amis know they're out here, waiting?
Kurt wonders what Coffee Man is like. Where in the endless sprawl of America he comes from. Is he married? Does he have children? Was he conscripted here, or did he volunteer? Are his parents alive? Are they safe?
Hansi rests a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Good luck, Stummer," he whispers. "Merry Christmas."
Kurt is startled by the gesture. A surge of affection rushes through him. He nods, pats Hansi's arm awkwardly. "Danke. You too, my friend."
Leutnant Volkman shouts, "Fire!"
All thoughts of holidays and luck are gone. The cold disappears as well, replaced by adrenaline and the sour stink of sweat. Hinkel aims carefully. He's going to miss. He doesn't want to shoot Coffee Man.
But then Volkman is right behind him, bellowing "God damn you Hinkel, fire."
Kurt jerks, his finger squeezes the trigger. Scheisse.
Coffee Man sprawls backward. He lies there, mouth open, blinking. At least he's alive. But he's not moving.
A mortar explodes next to their foxhole. A piece of shrapnel the size of a screw hits Hansi in the forehead. He drops bonelessly downward, instantly dead. Someone else is on the machine gun now, maybe Maklung Lung, and Kurt flinches back instinctively at the sound of the rapid gunfire.
More mortars fall, grenades explode, the sky is lit with a dozen stars of Bethlehem. Great clods of frozen dirt shoot into the air, snow jumps, men come apart. Panicked shouts of Los! and Schnell! litter the air with the other debris. They cannot compete with the Amerikaner artillery. If they had a Panzer, then yes. But all they have are bullets and guns so cold the men have to piss on them to make them to work.
Five years ago tonight Kurt was at home, with his Papa and Mama and Konnie. There was a Christmas tree with glass and paper ornaments and presents. Nothing extravagant, some books, some candy, a scarf Mama knitted for each of them.
Bursts of snow fly in Kurt's face; a chunk of hot metal buzzes through his sleeve and leaves his skin untouched. He's not aware of any of it. He's too busy trying to go back in time, trying to crawl into his foxhole and out onto the cold hardwood floor of their small house, the room thick with the scent of pine, the sound of laughter, Papa's crooked smile. Papa always had one eyebrow raised, as if it was trying to peer over the top of his wire spectacles. Mama would make cabbage soup and boiled potatoes and it would taste just as awful as every other night, but on Christmas they always pretended it didn't. Mama and Papa's love, the safety of their house made everything better. Even Mama's soup.
But now nothing is good because all that love and safety has been peeled away, laid bare, turned to ash. The Nazis killed his family as surely as they killed countless Jewish ones. Kurt is supposed to fight for the Fatherland, make the country safe for the Aryan race. Except Kurt isn't blue-eyed or blond haired, he's no ubermensch, and he'd rather the Third Reich fell than spend another day in this useless, shitty war.
There are tears on Kurt's face. They freeze instantly. He rubs at them, furious at himself for crying, for remembering, for wanting. He ducks as machine gun fire throws Johann Werner against a tree, nearly cuts Wilhelm Mahler in two.
When Volkman goes down the remaining men scramble for the cover of the woods. They struggle back toward their path from the previous night.
Kurt runs in the opposite direction. He's officially a deserter. He's terrified. He's elated. He can't surrender now, not in the blood lust of battle, but soon, if he can last until morning. Branches pluck at his jacket, his helmet. He throws down his weapon and keeps going. The snow drifts are up to his knees.
He pulls off his helmet, canteen, and pack. He leaves a trail of detritus in the snow, like a surreal page from a fairy tale. All Kurt knows is, he won't be following the path that equipment leads to. Snow drops down the back of his jacket, down his neck, into his dirty sweat-matted hair. The air is sharp with cold; each breath is a broken glass. His nose and throat burn.
And then, he hears it.
"Halt!"
The word is aimed at Kurt's back.
Kurt slows his frenzied pace, stumbles. He pitches forward, arms buried in snow up to his elbows. His wrists go numb. He pushes himself back up slowly, raises his hands. Snow slides down his sleeves. "Kamerad," he says, as clearly as he can. "Kamerad."
He turns to see Maklung Lung and Music Voice. Their faces are pale and hard in the moonlight. They are winter stones. Their expressions are enough to tell Hinkel he will not be surrendering tonight, not ever. He'll be going home. Kurt discovers he's not even scared. Fear has left to join other men in other places. His heart still beats fast, but it's from all the running.
He feels relieved.
Music Voice speaks. His mouth is tight with anger, the syllables clipped, less musical. Kurt only picks up a few words. "Shot" and "smoking." Or maybe "smokie." Hinkel doesn't need to understand the words to know he's been sentenced to death. He shot their friend. He shot Coffee Man and these men want revenge.
He doesn't mind.
If Kurt were a better person, maybe he would have kept his gun. Maybe he'd try to kill these Amerikaners for killing Hansi. But Kurt isn't a better person. He's a tired one, a boy who misses his family, who has nothing against Coffee Man or his friends, except they're on one side of an imaginary line and Kurt's on the other.
Hinkel nods. He smiles at Music Voice and Maklung Lung. He wishes them well. "Schiessen," he says. Shoot. It's the first order he's ever given.
Music Voice obeys.
Kurt doesn't hear the shot, but he feels it, feels himself tumble backwards into the snow. He lies there, a child again, eager to make snow angels.
The night goes quiet. Stille nacht.
He can see bits of stars through the trees. They flicker like candles. Heilige nacht.
There is no pain. He can feel himself shaking, but this body no longer belongs to him. It is not work that frees you. It is death. Alles schläft.
The two Amis look down at him. Maklung Lung still looks angry, his rifle points at Kurt's chest. Music voice looks sad. Not so much in his face, but in his eyes. The soldier shakes his head and whispers something. It turns out there is another English word Kurt knows. It is "sorry." Music Voice pulls his stocky friend away. Kurt watches them go. They shine like angels. Einsam wacht.
It's still snowing. The flakes come down gently, softly, feathers against his face. When Kurt was nine and Konnie ten, they had a pillow fight that sent drifts of feathers around their room. Mama was furious.
Mama.
He can hear her bustling just outside his room. He can smell the tree, hear Papa singing. Konrad pokes his head into their bedroom. "Get up sleepy head, or I'll open all your presents."
Kurt squints at Konnie over the blanket. "Ja," he says. "Ein minuten." Just one more minute in the comfort of his bed. The anticipation of gifts and celebration warms him like hot cider.
He finally understands. The war was a dream, a terrible dream. But now he's awake--finally. Mama and Papa and Konnie are here. They're together again, at last.
Papa's still singing. He sings, Sleep in heavenly peace.
Kurt Hinkel listens, warm and content.
He closes his eyes, just for a moment, smiling.
~end~