the first chapters of life almost made us give up altogether...
Bitte. He says it over and over like that somehow makes it better, over and over in the same language that his Ma used when she was changing his shitty diapers, over and over and it's breaking his goddamn heart. Jesus, he wishes it was anybody other than him who had to tell them, had to tell them that they've got to be locked back in, but it was a direct order from Winters. Shit, it was more than that; Winters asked him because somebody had to do it and nbody else can. Joe wonders if Web can remember any German at all in the face of all of this horror, the smell of shit and rot and the looks on their faces. It occurs to Joe that this is what Hell must smell like. It occurs to Joe that he might not remember any German either, if it wasn't written on his bones with his name and serial number, where he comes from and his love for his Ma.
The other guys have started moving them back into the camp. Joe hadn't known the word that they man had used, but he'd been able to work out what it might mean.
Bitte.
Job done, Joe sinks down onto the bench and one of the others might have tried to swallow it back while he could still hear them, Babe and Lip and Luz, all of them in the background, herding the freed men back the way they'd come, but Joe can't, not just then.
Juden, the guy said, clear as anything in his dry voice. Juden, and now they're going to lock them back in, and all of the bitte, bitte in the world isn't going to make them understand that it's for their own fuckin' good.
Fuck.
With his head in his hands, bent over his own knees, there isn't a thing that Joe Liebgott can do just then but weep, and it takes him a long time to stop.
It takes him a real long time.
When he finally catches his breath again, the first thought he has is that his boots feel wet and following that there's an immediate wave of disgust 'cause God fuckin' knows what he's stepped in past those gates and then straight after that comes the thought that he's warmer than he can remember being since before Bastogne.
Tear stained, breath still hitching, Joe lifts his head. Just for a moment, he forgets every word of German that he's ever known.
"Jesus Christ."
He thought he'd stopped, but there's tears still coming and the sea hasn't been so blue since all those years away, and home.
Joe's at the end of one of the jettys, in full paratrooper uniform, and, yeah, he's visibly upset. Timed to early-ish this morning.
The other guys have started moving them back into the camp. Joe hadn't known the word that they man had used, but he'd been able to work out what it might mean.
Bitte.
Job done, Joe sinks down onto the bench and one of the others might have tried to swallow it back while he could still hear them, Babe and Lip and Luz, all of them in the background, herding the freed men back the way they'd come, but Joe can't, not just then.
Juden, the guy said, clear as anything in his dry voice. Juden, and now they're going to lock them back in, and all of the bitte, bitte in the world isn't going to make them understand that it's for their own fuckin' good.
Fuck.
With his head in his hands, bent over his own knees, there isn't a thing that Joe Liebgott can do just then but weep, and it takes him a long time to stop.
It takes him a real long time.
When he finally catches his breath again, the first thought he has is that his boots feel wet and following that there's an immediate wave of disgust 'cause God fuckin' knows what he's stepped in past those gates and then straight after that comes the thought that he's warmer than he can remember being since before Bastogne.
Tear stained, breath still hitching, Joe lifts his head. Just for a moment, he forgets every word of German that he's ever known.
"Jesus Christ."
He thought he'd stopped, but there's tears still coming and the sea hasn't been so blue since all those years away, and home.
Joe's at the end of one of the jettys, in full paratrooper uniform, and, yeah, he's visibly upset. Timed to early-ish this morning.