The Schirmer Inheritance

The two serviceable trucks had disappeared and, to his astonishment, the damaged one had been set on fire and burned out. The charred wreckage of it looked like a black stain on the limestone grit of the road. He had neither seen nor heard anything of this bonfire.

He went back to his hiding-place and slept again. Once, during the night, he awoke to the sound of many planes flying overhead and knew that the final stage of the withdrawal had been reached. The Luftwaffe was evacuating the Yidha airfield. He lay awake for a time listening and feeling very much alone, but eventually he went back to sleep. The following morning he felt stronger and was able to go in search of water. He kept away from the road and, about half a mile down the hill, found a stream, in which he washed after replenishing his drinking-water supply.

He had crossed a terraced vineyard to get to the stream, and on his way back he almost ran into a man and a woman working there. However, he saw them just in time and, retracing his steps, made his way round the vineyard. In doing so, he came near the road and found the seven freshly dug graves, with a steel helmet and a cairn on each. There was a stake driven into the ground with a note fastened to it giving the number and names of those buried there and asking that the site should not be disturbed. It was signed by Lieutenant Leubner.

Sergeant Schirmer was strangely moved. It had not once occurred to him that the Lieutenant might find time to interest himself in the fate of the lost detachment. No doubt it had been he who had burned the damaged truck and removed the others. A good officer, the Lieutenant.

He looked at the note again. Seven dead. That meant that three, including the missing driver, had been made prisoner or escaped. The paper was already somewhat tattered and it had probably been there for over two days. It was bitter to know that friendly hands had been so near while he had lain hidden and oblivious among the thorn bushes. For the first time since the mine had exploded he was conscious of a feeling of despair.

He thrust it away angrily. What had he to despair of? His inability to rejoin the Ninety-fourth Garrison Regiment, fumbling its way back to the Fatherland with its tail between its legs? The lack of someone to ask for orders? How the instructors at the parachute training school would have laughed!

He looked down again at the graves. He had no cap or helmet and so could not salute. He drew himself up into the position of attention and clicked his heels respectfully. Then he picked up his water can and made his way back to the hillside and the thorn bushes.

After he had finished the remains of the first emergency ration, he lay down to think things out.

The expedition for water had tired him sufficiently for him to realize that he was still very weak. Another twenty-four hours must elapse before he was fit to move. The food he had left could probably be made to last that long. After that he must forage.

And then what?

The German forces had probably left Vodena two days or more ago. It was idle to suppose that he could catch up with them now. He would have hundreds of miles of difficult country to travel before he could do that. His only chance of getting through unseen would be to avoid the roads; yet if he did that, the long, hard marches would soon lame him. He could try the railroad, of course, but that was almost certainly in the hands of the Greeks again by now. His despair returned, and this time it was not so easily dismissed. The plain fact was that there was nowhere he could reasonably go. He was completely cut off in hostile territory where capture or surrender meant death and the ways of escape were all closed. The only thing he could do, it seemed, was to go on living under the thorn bush like an animal, stealing what food he could from the fields. An escaped prisoner of war would be in a better position; at least he would have had time to prepare for the venture. He, Schirmer, was relatively helpless. He had no civilian clothes, no money, no papers, no food worth speaking of; moreover, he was still suffering from the after-effects of being blown up by a mine and an attack of malaria. He needed time to recover completely and time to plan. Above all, he needed someone to help him get identity papers. Clothes and money he might steal, but to steal papers printed in a language he could not read, and risk using them as his own, would be folly.

And then he thought of Kyra; Kyra, who had wept so bitterly when he had had to say good-bye to her, who had implored him, foolishly, to desert; the one friend he possessed in this hostile, treacherous land.