Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

13: This Heart Within Me

"Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

-

The hauptsturmführer is not impressed that I repeated so much information the last time I wrote. I have already told them about Alex and retelling it through dialogue was a stupid way to try to bide my time, I admit, but it really did happen that way. I really did just spill it all out to Gene in a field somewhere in Normandy. Thinking about it, we always seemed to be talking in fields.

The hauptsturmführer has slammed my head against one of the brick walls of my cell so hard I am damn near unconscious. My brain feels like it has turned to jelly. If he does it again I feel certain I'll get brain damage. I think he does, too, because he stands back from my feeble, crumpled body and doesn't move to do it again. A brain-damaged prisoner is one who can't confess, and I haven't finished my story yet.

I'm almost certain now that Tom is his favourite of the cast of characters I've crafted for him in my confessions. He looked terribly sad when he read about what happened on the bridge. I do think sometimes he forgets that what I write is real, that it is a comprehensive retelling of my life and that I know each and every one of those people. Well, knew. He drinks in the words like a novel and I never knew my life was so interesting. At least he likes Tom, though. Everyone does, really.

I try to write each person as accurately as I can remember them, every mannerism and quirk and tick I can remember, and I try to transcribe every conversation exactly as I remember it. Memory fails every now and then, for some of these conversations took place a long time ago, or rather, it feels that way, but I think I'm getting them decently accurate. I hope so, anyway. More for myself than the hauptsturmführer. I couldn't care less whether he gets the real story or not, but I want to write it correctly for myself. A sort of ode to my useless, wretched life.

I don't know when they'll kill me. I've stopped wondering. They have sent the French girl in the cell next to me away. There is a boy there, now - maybe a man, but he sounds quite young when he screams. The French girl, it turned out, had been a spy for the British - French-born, like me, and she used to work in the Maquis, so I got that right at least. They have sent her away to some sort of camp the guards call a 'KZ' - Konzentrationslager. It means concentration camp, though I'm not sure what that is. I know they'll do medical experiments on her there until she dies. I think if there is one thing in the world I fear more than Hauptsturmführer Becker it is a KZ. I fear that worse than the carbolic acid, now. And it's sickening how nonchalantly the guards discuss it - openly, and in front of me, even though they know I understand German. They aren't supposed to do it, but I think they get a kick out of my pure, unadulterated, icy terror. I cower in the corner like a kicked animal when they talk about what has happened to some of the other prisoners, and they laugh every time.

Sickening human beings. Sickening. I am a bad person but they are pure evil.

I spend my days in fits of paranoia. I constantly toe the line between anxiety and panic. I hear the sound of my cell door opening in my dreams and shoot upright, only to find it still firmly shut and locked. I'm glad the guards aren't in here when I sleep, not only because I don't trust them but because I know they would laugh at me for it.

I wish I could be brave like Thomas, or strong like Martin, or really bloody wicked clever like Will. What did I even contribute to the team? Being pretty? Fucking Jesus Christ have I paid the ultimate price for being pretty. Rotten thing, to be pretty. You always pay for it in the end.

I bet the French girl next door was pretty. Claudette had been - the French/British spy I killed when she didn't use her cyanide. I felt sick with guilt for doing it at the time, but now I consider it one of the single most angelic things I have ever done. I like to think she may be looking down on me and thanking me for it now. Funny how life works. Rotten how life works.

The woman we rescued from the interrogation centre in Bordeaux had been pretty, too. They had destroyed her, like they have me, but she didn't have the scars to show for it. They did a right psychological number on her, and I still haven't worked out how they cracked her so quickly. I lasted about three weeks before I began to confess.

I'm a snitch. I am such a dirty little snitch. Wretched. Wretched. Wretched. That's why I haven't been rescued. I don't deserve it. I always did the rescuing and now I'm here alone. God damn it, I was caught trying to break someone out. I feel so terribly sorry for whoever that person was - I never even found out their name. I wonder if they're still in here somewhere, too. I hope they're not still waiting for their hero.

I wonder if it was the French girl. Even thinking that turns my blood to ice in my veins. I never met her, I never even saw her, but I feel like I know her deeply. We have screamed in agony at the same time on a few occasions, and that felt like companionship. That felt like camaraderie. I hope that that girl escaped, somehow. Maybe Tom and the others got her out. Yes, that's a nice thought. I choose to think that. That poor French girl was rescued from whatever transport they put her in and is now with my boys and they're keeping her safe, probably because they see a lot of me in her.

I wonder what they think has happened to me. I wonder if they know I'm still alive. Does Gene know I'm still alive? I really hope he doesn't. God, how I miss those fucking yanks. Talking about the girls George Luz fancies, and the boys he thinks I do, and how the hell I managed to be so good at drinking competitions. One of these days, I think, they'll forget to dilute the carbolic acid and I'll down the lot of it just like I used to do with those pints of beer and it'll have killed me before they even know what's hit them. That's a dream of mine, now. Rather sad, really, but it's true.

I always knew I wouldn't get a life beyond the war but I really, really didn't think this would happen to me. It has been my biggest fear for a long time, but it also just didn't seem like the kind of thing that would happen to me. Not necessarily because of a superiority complex or anything, I guess I was just hopeful. A bullet through the temple, I'd always imagined, and I'd be out like a light. Quicker than falling asleep. And I'd go before all of the others so I wouldn't have to watch them die. What a dream that would have been. What a fantasy.

I'm making myself sad now. I know they won't ever forget to dilute the acid but it kind of makes me fear it a little bit less. Actually, that's a bare-faced lie. I am still terrified of the carbolic acid. Didn't even know what it was before I came here and now it haunts my nightmares. I know how it tastes, I know how it smells, and I know how it burns. Carbolic acid and I are now very intimately acquainted. Fucking rotten, that is.

I really am trying not to swear. Even mentally, because I always feel a bit guilty about it afterwards. My mum always hated swearing, even though my papa did it a lot. But 'fucking' is such an empowering word to use, and there really is no other word harsh enough. But I never swore before this, unless it was really necessary, so I will dutifully try to stop. I'm keeping 'bloody' though. Sorry, mum, but you'll have to pry that one from my cold, dead hands.

Oh, fuck. Shit, didn't mean to swear again. But that is a bloody horrible thought. I will never see my mum again and I'm glad because she would hate me now but it would kill me all over again if she ever did actually see my dead body.

The hauptsturmführer has taken pity on me today, he is telling me in many, many more words than necessary. He will leave me to write some more. Told you. He likes Tom. He wants to know what happened to Tom. Wanker. Tosser. Bastard. Fucking Jerry bastard. I'm not apologising for that one. He deserves it.