The Schirmer Inheritance

The force of the explosion had overturned the truck and smashed the floor of it to matchwood, but the main blast had missed the driver’s cab. The Sergeant had been lying in an oil-drenched litter of empty gasoline cans and debris, with his face in the mess of blood which had poured from his head wound. The blood had congealed now on his cheeks and in his eyes. The wreckage of the truck hung over him, shading all but his legs from the sun. There was no sound except the chirping of cicadas and faint dripping noises from the truck.

He began to move his limbs. Though he knew that he had hurt his head, he did not as yet know the extent of his injuries. His great fear was that his hip had been broken again. For several long seconds all he could think of was the X-Ray picture the surgeon had shown him of the thick metal pin which had been inserted to strengthen the neck of the damaged bone. If that had been torn away, he was finished. He moved the leg carefully. The hip was very painful, but it had been painful before the mine had exploded. Fatigue always made it painful. He became bolder and, drawing the leg up under him, began to sit up. It was then that he noticed that all his equipment had gone. He remembered the Greek voices and the blow he had felt and began to realize what had happened.

His head was throbbing horribly, but the hip seemed to be all right. He dragged himself to his knees. A moment later he vomited. The effort exhausted him and he lay down again to rest. He knew that the head wound might be serious. It was not the amount of the bleeding that concerned him-he had seen plenty of scalp wounds and knew that they bled profusely-but the possibility of there being internal bleeding from the concussion. However, he would know soon enough if there were, and there was, in any case, nothing he could do about it. His immediate task was to find out what had happened to the rest of the detachment and, if possible, take steps to deal with the situation. He made another effort to get to his feet and, after a bit, succeeded.

He looked about him. His watch had gone, but the position of the sun told him that less than an hour had elapsed since the crash. The wreckage of the truck lay across the road, completely blocking it. The body of the driver was nowhere to be seen. He moved out cautiously into the middle of the road and looked down the hill.

The second truck had stopped slewed across the road a hundred yards away. Three German soldiers lay in the road by it. Beyond he could just see the canopy of the driver’s cab belonging to the third truck. He set off slowly down the hill, pausing every now and then to get his strength back. The sun beat down and the flies buzzed round his head. It seemed an enormous distance to the second truck. He began to feel that he was going to vomit again, and lay down in the shade of a bush to recover. Then he went on.

The soldiers in the road were quite dead. One of them, who looked as if he had first been wounded by a grenade burst, had his throat cut. All the arms and equipment had been taken, but the contents of two haversacks were strewn on the ground. The truck had some bullet holes in it and was scarred by grenade bursts, but it seemed all right otherwise. For several wild moments he considered turning it round and driving back to Vodena, but the road was not wide enough to turn in and he knew that, even if it had been, he would not have had the strength to do the job.

He could see the third truck plainly now, and with it more dead men. One of them was hanging over the side of it, his arms dangling grotesquely. It seemed probable that the whole of his detachment had become casualties. In any case, there was little point in investigating further. Militarily speaking, it had certainly ceased to exist. It would be in order for him, then, to look to his own safety.

He leaned against the side of the truck to rest again and caught sight of his face in the driving mirror. The blood had congealed all over his hair as well as in his eyes and on his face; his whole head looked as inhuman as if it had been smashed to a pulp; it was easy to see why the andartes had taken him for dead.

His heart leaped suddenly with fear and sent a shaft of pain to the top of his head. The andartes had gone for the moment, but there was more than a possibility that they would return with drivers for the two serviceable trucks. It was even possible that they had left a sentry, and that, somewhere on the hillside above, the sights of a rifle were being steadied on him at that very moment. But at the same moment reason told him that there was very probably no sentry, and that, even if there were, the man had already had more than enough time to shoot if he had intended to do so.