Prisoners of War Read Online Free Page B

going to be unguarded at least part of the time, and Sergeant Case has worked out a rotation. We’ll have single guards accompanying some detachments, whereas other groups will leave in the morning with the contractors, unguarded, and a roving pair of MPs will be checking on them throughout the day. We’ll vary the arrangements from one day to the next, so the prisoners themselves never know in advance if they’ll be on their own or not.
    “Mostly, it’s public perception we’re worried about—that and the actual welfare of the prisoners. We don’t want folks to think we’re coddling the enemy, because we’re not. But we also don’t want to have to report any acts of violence against POWs to the Swiss, because they’re bound by the Geneva Convention to pass those on to Berlin. And we’re worried about the safety of our guys in the German camps.
    “The truth is, there’s nowhere for these fellows here to go if they do manage to run off. We don’t want them walking into a train station in their prison uniforms and getting everybody worked up, but we’d rather not have to report that we shot them while trying to foil an escape. So what I’m saying to you, Private Stark—and I’m going to say it loud and clear, and I want you to tell me if you’ve got any questions about it in your own mind—is that Fourth Service Command has chosen, for whatever reason, to take a lot of responsibility and place it squarely on your young shoulders. If you think you can’t handle it, then you’d better say so right now.”
    “I don’t think I can handle it, sir,” Marty said. “In fact, I know I can’t.”
    “I see,” Munson said. He moved over to a bookshelf mounted on the wall and stood there examining—or pretending to examine—the titles arrayed before him. Hardy’s
Light Infantry Tactics,
Fuller’s
Generalship: Its Diseases and Their Cure,
Sandusky’s
A Company Leader’s Guide to Decisions in the Field.
Plenty of theory for a man spared practice.
    “I appreciate your honesty, Private,” he said. “But if there’s anything good about war, it’s this: it gives each of us a chance to overcome our limitations.”
    “Hilfe! Ich hab mich verfangen!”
    On his way to Supply to draw arms, Marty halted and looked in the direction the shout had come from. Off to his right, at the corner of the latrine, a prisoner had gotten the back of his shirt caught on a jagged piece of tin siding. Unable to free himself, he stood there, hollering for somebody to come let him loose. Which apparently nobody had any intention of doing. The three men painting the barracks near the CO’s quarters glanced his way but kept right on working, as did the two guys repairing a busted sewer pipe.
    In an effort to free his shirt, the prisoner had turned his back to Marty, who walked over, reached out and grasped the fabric. Surprised, the man jumped and looked around, the shirt tearing loose.
    The POW was tall and blond, with thick wavy hair. His glasses, which he’d knocked askew in his agitation, sat on his nose at an angle. An angry purple stain, either a birthmark or a rash, covered the right side of his neck and part of his jaw, a single streak flaring up toward his eye. For an instant, the two men stood there, their faces inches apart, and Marty was suddenly far away, on his knees in a ditch where the red water smelled like fish, and this man was standing over him, pointing a rifle at him and screaming, and Marty was begging and pleading.
Don’t shoot! Dear God, please!
    “Danke schön,”
the POW mumbled, straightening his glasses, starting to walk away.
    “Wait,” Marty said.
    The man kept going, his footsteps stirring dust.
    “Hey, wait!”
    The prisoner stopped, and when he turned around, a glow—almost like a halo, except that it surrounded his whole body—began to emanate from him. Marty felt as if the ground beneath his feet had suddenly tilted, that he was standing at the bottom of an incline, with the other man on