The Attacks

It was a week since the night that we had been attacked by the huge German U-boat that sunk our small boat. We had been camped at a small Parisian coastal village ever since we were sunk. Capitan Skjelbred, the crew, and I went to the site where we were sunk to see if the rest of the cargo had survived. The only thing that we saw right off the bat were the bare, rusting metal ribs of the ship. They were fuzzy with green, slimy algae. After searching for a better part of an hour, all we found was the big old flashlight (surprisingly it still worked!), the captain’s empty square, tin lunchbox, fish, more metal, and rotting wood. The glowing polyps made themselves right at home too along with the local fish and a brown and green speckled moray eel. Then something caught my eye… We went to bed after small, bland supper of rations. It had a little more flavor from the garden grown veggies of the townsfolk. When I was sure the crew was asleep, I, silently as possible, crept out of bed. The old floor boards creaked under my slight weight, but the captain’s loud snores assured me that the coast was clear.

After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I hurried back to the ship to explore what I saw. I double checked to see if anyone was following me. No one was. When I got back to the wreck, I stood where I stood before and the same thing caught my eye, as I hoped it would. I went over to see what it was. It was only a part of the ship that didn’t rust as much as the rest of the ship.

I was still wondering how in the world it didn’t rust as fast when out of the eerie darkness… “Hallo du!” I whirled around and a German guard was running toward me, a sniper rifle in his hands. Of course, I started to run as bullet bounced off the metal frame, but I knew that they would find out that I was staying at the village if I ran straight to it, so I ran the long way to the village, the dark way in the forest. The branches, like whips, snapped at my face. Thorn bushes seemed to move themselves in front of me. Roots seemed to grow right in front of my feet. A bullet screamed past my ear. I jumped into a thorn patch, getting cut, stabbed, and bruised, but I dared not make a sound. After they ran past, I ran back to the house.

Caroline, the captain’s wife, was there, hair curlers and all, getting a snack. She looked at me like I was a ghost, from the way I felt, I think she was. She rushed to my side and sat me down on a wooden chair and I took a deep breath and told her the story, trying not to grimace as she tended my wounds. I also told her that her, her husband, and the crew were in very big trouble because the German camp was near the village, just across the Rhine River. When she started to tend to my shoulder, everything started to fade to black. While I was unconscious, the captain’s wife rushed to warn the others. The captain was the first to hurry to get dressed. I came to in the same wooden chair that I passed out in. Apparently, I had been shot in the shoulder because it hurt like crazy and it was already bleeding through the bandage. I tried to get up, but Caroline came in, saw me and forced me to sit back down. I was too weak to argue.

The captain saw Caroline leaning over me and said, “What happened?” I was about to answer when Caroline told him the story. He was glad I did go out or we would’ve never known about the camp until it was too late. I tried to get up again and Caroline didn’t stop me because she knew that I was strong enough to stand the pain. The crew finally came out rubbing their eyes.

They saw my bloody bandage and asked why I was bleeding, Caroline said, “You should’ve gotten up earlier when I told the story to my husband, but we have no time to waste. You need to go and hide.” One of the crew had an idea to go and hide in the woods.

I responded, “No, that’s where I led them so that they wouldn’t look in the village first and find you guys.”

“Alright, so where do we go now,” another crewmember, Figgus, asked. Caroline suggested behind the village in the short, empty grain houses because they looked exactly like the ones that were full.

So we went to the brown grain houses and decided to split up. Meanwhile, Caroline went from house to house and asked a favor to tell whoever came in and asked where a crew and a captain are, say that you’re ignorant. That night the same German guard that chased me asked around and everyone said that they knew nothing. The German also asked the farmer who owned the grain houses if he had seen the crew but the farmer said no, the German hesitated and asked if they were in his grain houses. The farmer said no they’re all full, he had completely forgot about the empty ones in the fright he had. The German checked to grain houses anyway and found the whole crew. The German never checked mine because he was called back to the base, and he was only told there were 9, I was the 10th. I finally allowed myself to breath. Caroline, who saw the Germans leave, rushed to the grain houses and found that her husband and the crew was gone. She didn’t check mine because she probably assumed I was caught too. She sat down and cried. I, still in the grain house, got up with a lot of pain and stumbled out. On my way out I tripped over the door frame, but Caroline rushed to me and caught me before I fell. She asked if I was ok and I said I was, but she didn’t believe me.

Back at home, she sat me down and put a clean bandage on my shoulder. I almost said that I was fine again but caught myself and saw that she wasn’t. I instantly understood what had happened.

I said to her, “I’ll get them back.”

She looked at me with tears in her sea-green eyes and said, “No, I can’t lose you too. You can’t go…..” Her voice trailed off.

I lifted her chin with my good hand and replied, “I have to. If you want your husband back you’re going to have to trust me.” She said that I was like a son to her, even though I wasn’t. I told her that I was honored to be called her ‘son’ but that she’s going to have to let me go if she wanted her husband back. She looked down at her feet and hesitated. Then there was a faint “ok”. The next day I packed to go, Caroline was helping me pack, but was quiet the whole time.

Then, when I was ready to go, I turned to her and said, “Thanks, you’ve been like the mother I never had.”

She looks down and I said, “Hey, it’s for the best.” She looked at me then gave me a big hug and cries over my shoulder.

When I took her shuddering body off my shoulder, I said, “Good-bye” and give her a kiss on the cheek. I turned and walked away as she wished me God-speed. I turned and waved for what I thought was for the last time. She waved back.

As I crept toward the enemy base, I heard voices nearby and I froze. The voices grew fainter as the people who owned the voices walked away. I followed them so that I could hear them better. They were talking about my friends. I understood a little German so I could make out this:

“So why doesn’t the Captain just court martial them?”

“I don’t know. I think that the boss thinks they’re funny but I know their only stalling their death sentence…”

Smart I thought. I snuck by the soldiers and ended up by the Captain’s tent. I knew that it was his because I heard laughter. I chuckled at their wit against the Germans and to use jokes as their stall tactic! Then a German soldiers came to take my friends to their cell for the night. As the soldiers walked with my friends I crept quietly behind them so I would know where they kept their prisoners. I found out that they kept them in the middle of the base.

Smart I thought. The only thing that wasn’t smart on their part was that they assigned a not so bright, stout guy in an ill-fitting uniform, to guard them. So I waited and waited until the guard fell asleep.

No one was around so I slowly crept toward the prison and I whispered, “Hey guys it’s me, Jack.”

“Jack? Jack, you have to get out of here or you’ll get caught.”

“I’m not leaving without you. I promised Caroline that I will bring you back.”

He hesitated “… fine, but be quick about it.” So as quickly, and as quietly as I could, I got the cage unlocked with the key that the guard had in his hand. From the smell of beer on he’s breath, I figured the guard was in a drunken sleep, so he didn’t feel anything. When I opened the cage, the lock opened with a loud SSHHHCLICK! And the door opened with a faint, but distinct reeeeeeee. Then that same guard that chased me into the woods, alerted everyone else that we were escaping and started to shoot. We all dashed into the woods and towards the village but I told my friends to go away from the village. So we ran to the side of the village and I made sure that no one could see the village in which we live. Shots rang out. Trees were gaining holes in their trunks right beside my head. I heard a snap and a yelp. I instantly recognized the voice, Captain! The crew, apparently not noticing, kept running. I helped the captain up. He had broken his arm when he tripped on a tree root. We dove into a ditch on the side of the road and dared not to breathe. We finally lost them. No one was hurt except the captain and me because I was in the back making sure that no one tripped, just like the captain did. I was shot in the leg right above the knee cap, I didn’t notice the wound though the adrenaline rush, but had to have help walking back to the village. The Germans never found us, thankfully, because they went searching in the village that was neighboring ours.

When we got home, Caroline helped me sit down on a chair and nursed my leg wound and I said, “I got ’em.”

Caroline said to me, “You sure did.” A sharp pain in my leg shot pain all the way up my spine to the base of my brain, and I blacked out.

I woke up in my bed with a sharp pain in my shoulder and in my leg. Caroline came in with a glass of water and said, “Drink”. I tried to reach for it but my arms didn’t work. Caroline helped me sit up and drink. She had a small, sad smile on her face and I painfully tried smiled back at her. It probably looked like a grimace. She made me lay down again. Captain Skjelbred walked into the room and leaned against the doorway, his arm in a sling.

He said, “Hey, rookie,” the way he did when he was in a good mood. I tried to sit up, again, but I couldn’t… yet. Caroline helped me and the captain sat beside his wife and Caroline said that I was doing better than last night.

“Good, I could use him on the new boat I’m building.”

“He’s not getting out of bed for a while much less work.”

“Oh alright” He tried to sound grouchy but he had a twinkle in his cocoa-brown eyes that showed underneath his bushy eyebrows and crazy hair.

“Don’t worry he’ll be out of bed soon, even if I tried to stop him.”

“I’m right here ya know,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Yes we know,” said Caroline gently.

“So… Jack tell me your side of the story, you can even tell me the details.”

After I told him everything and he was about to tell me his side of the story, when a crewmember stumbled inside. Caroline and Richard (that’s the captain’s first name) stood in an instant. I even jumped, only to be even sorer in the shoulder.

“The neighboring village…. is coming…. after us….”

I sat upright, ignoring the pain, “What? Why? H-how?”

The crewmember, named Bovus, said, “They came this morning but….” He paused to take a breath and sank into the closest chair, “the villagers are fending them off, because the neighboring village’s villagers are destroying their property!”

The smell of smoke made us all, even me, still ignoring the pain, rush outside. A building was on fire. Caroline and Richard rushed to our tool shed to get buckets. I ran around the village surveying the damage. Caroline ran up to me, shoved a bucket into my arms, and sprinted to the water. I ran after her, only to be blocked by a villager. The villager yelled something in French that I couldn’t make out. Something about the Germans, I think. I stared at him and side stepped to the right then quickly twirled the other direction. When I got to the muddy bank, I saw Caroline trying to get her bucket from an angry villager. I ran over before she was hit. I threw a punch into the face of the man who was trying to hurt her. The man staggered backwards and landed on his back. Caroline stood up and kicked the man and went to fill her bucket. I followed behind. While we were filling our buckets, Richard came to the water’s edge to fill his own.

When we finally get back to the village, my bucket was already empty because the first building we came to was on fire. So instead of going back down to the water, we filled our buckets with dirt and threw it onto the flames. Whenever a villager came to us we either recognized or didn’t recognize them, and when we didn’t recognize them, they were usually attacking. When an unknown villager attacked, Richard and I used our hands, Caroline used her bucket. I never thought that sweet Caroline could swing a bucket so hard that a man would fall unconscious. I’m never going to make her angry. Even though she knocked them out, she would always check to make sure that they were still alive. Eventually the chaos slowed as the sun set. While the sun was setting, the mayors of both towns called a truce.

The mayors met at the only unburnt house, the church. In the church, the mayors signed a peace treaty. The villages went their own ways, after all the houses were not in flames any more.

The next day, the rebuilding process started. The neighboring village helped us out. I was helping to carry a piece of timber, using my good arm, when Caroline walked out of the church waving a letter. When I got to the place where the timber was needed, I set it down. I was about to help put a wall together, when Caroline walked up to me.

“Morning Caroline, how’re you doing?”

“I’m great, just great! I got this letter in the mail.”

“What does it say?”

“It says that we are going home!”

“That’s wonderful! Have you told the others?”

“Mmhmm, their packing their things now”

“I’m going to help install this wall then I’ll start packing.”

“Ah ah ah, you aren’t going to put any pressure on your arm.”

“Alright, I’ll use the other arm.”

“No.”

“Alright, I’ll go pack” I said while I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

When I went in to grab the few things I had, Will, a crewmember, walked up with a bag saying, “Here I packed your stuff for you.”

“Thanks Will” I said as I absentmindedly slung my bag over my bad shoulder. After letting out a yelp of pain, I slipped it off my bad shoulder and onto my good one.

“That was stupid”

“Yea we’re all tired too”

After a slight pause I turned around and headed out. I sucked in a deep breath. After so long I will finally be able to see my girlfriend, Sally, again!