Red Sniper

The prison barracks smelled like a locker room, or just about any barracks that he had ever been in—the atmosphere was thick with the odor of stale sweat and old farts. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He could begin to see that several heads had turned his way, watching him curiously. Most of the men lay on bunks, but a few huddled around a stove in the corner, sitting on upturned crates.

One of the men approached. “Aren’t you a sorry bastard,” the man said, and Whitlock’s guard went up at the words, although the man’s tone was friendly enough. “It looks like you had the bad luck to be one of the last prisoners taken in this war.”

For the first time since those terrifying moments when his plane had begun to disintegrate around him, Whitlock had to smile. “I’ve been thinking the same thing ever since I found myself staring into the barrel of a Mauser held by some kid.”

The man extended a hand, and Whitlock juggled his bundle to take it. “Max Macdonald,” the prisoner said. “Captain in the Army Air Corps. I’ve been here, fifteen months and twelve days, which makes me the ranking officer.”

“Good to meet you, sir,” Whitlock said.

“Oh, none of that.” MacDonald said jovially. He had a British air about him, as if he had been spending a lot of time with the Englishmen in the barracks next door. Whitlock half expected the man to click his heels together. “What I mean to say is that it is good to meet you, too, but we don’t stand much on formality around here. We leave that to the Krauts.”

Another man came up. “Bill Ramsey. Lieutenant, Army Air Corps. Here, let me help you with that,” he said, taking the bundle from Whitlock. “You can have Hinson’s bunk.”

“Won’t Hinson be needing it?”

“It’s not likely, considering that he went to the Great Beyond last week.” Ramsey looked him up and down. “How are you feeling? Any injuries we should tend to?”

“No, I’m fine.” Whitlock wanted to add, unlike my crew. He had no idea whether or not they had made it. None of the Germans had been able to tell him. He felt bad about it. A thought occurred to him. “Was Hinson sick?”

MacDonald’s face clouded. “Well, in a way he was,” MacDonald said. “He tried to climb the fence, and the Germans shot him.”

“He was trying to escape?”

“Something like that.” MacDonald sighed. “You might say he committed suicide. The poor bastard had had enough.”

Ramsey put Whitlock’s bundle down on the hard planks of the bunk. “Home sweet home,” he said. “Welcome to Stalag Twenty-Two B. That’s the Germans for you, giving their prison camps such efficient names. Unofficially, we like to call it the Hotel Hitler. Just don’t let the guards hear you say it.”

“That sounds like a good name for it.” Whitlock smirked. “So, how long have you been in this place?”

“Since last summer,” Ramsey said. “Too long.”

“One day seems too long right now.”

“I wish I could say the time passes quickly, but that would be a lie.” They talked for a while, with the POWs eager for any news from the war. Once Whitlock had filled them in, Ramsey clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, now that we’ve got you settled in, get some rest.”

Whitlock wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but as soon as he stretched out on the bunk with his tattered blanket, he fell fast asleep.

• • •

Ramsey’s question about how Whitlock was feeling proved to be prophetic. By the next morning, he was shaking with fever. It had been a long time since Whitlock was sick, and the flu or whatever it was hit him like a windshield hitting a bug. His throat burned. His bones ached. He felt miserable.

Fever made him dizzy. When he got up to relieve himself, he staggered drunkenly. The room spun. He could barely keep any food down. Ramsey nursed him through it. He sat him up in the bunk and fed him spoonfuls of watery cabbage soup. He could barely gag down more than a few sips. Whitlock felt embarrassed to be so helpless, but Ramsey was having none of it.

“You’re not the first one,” Ramsey explained. “I’m no doctor, but I’ve got this theory that sometimes the shock of going through being shot down amplifies whatever illness you’ve got. Your immune system is a ninety-eight pound weakling right now, getting sand kicked in its face.”

“And you’re supposed to be Charles Atlas?”

Ramsey snorted. “It used to be that the Germans would put a guy in the infirmary if he got this sick, but there’s not so much as a nurse or an aspirin there anymore. All the medical staff and supplies are at the front. So it’s up to me, good ol’ Nurse Ramsey.”

Ramsey arranged for Whitlock to sleep closer to the stove, which struggled to heat the barracks. He brought Whitlock an extra blanket, and that helped with the shivering. At some point he became delirious, shouting warnings that the Germans were about to march down Main Street during the Fourth of July parade.