Fifty-six: Fever

I started at the first shot and cried out. Shaun crushed me to his chest, refusing to allow me to turn my head, while he watched his friends being executed one by one in front of him. Then I heard the sliding sound of bodies being dragged and the thumps of them being dropped into the hole.

"You can cover them up now," the soldiers told us, leaving us in the dark, dim light that came from the Compound walls. "You can have the spare solitary room for now," they told Shaun. "We've no where else to put you. Remember, keep your head down or they'll find out we didn't kill all of you and then we'll all be done for."

Shovelling mud and further watering it with salt water, Shaun and I cried together as we buried his comrades. He did most of it. I was mostly out of energy and so cold. Like I'd been locked in a freezer room. I couldn't stop shivering, coughing and sneezing. Amidst all that, the mud and the mucous, it was a burden to keep breathing.

Like the previous day, I smoothed the patch of mud over. It reflected light like a pool of water. Perfectly smooth. Like a mirror.

"Come on, Jean," said Shaun in a hoarse voice, pulling me up from where I knelt in the mud. "We've gotta go get cleaned up and go to bed. You aren't well. You need rest."

I leaned against him and dragged the spade along behind me. Some age later, when my knees were sagging, Shaun took the spade I'd forgotten I was dragging and put them in the shed. I sat on the ground, staring at the sky, imagining I was flying free.

"Jean? Jean, wake up," Shaun grunted, trying to lift me, but lacking the strength himself. "Jean, wake up."

The ground crunched under feet and I listened in strange slow motion.

"What's wrong, man? Didn't we tell you to get her back to her room and cleaned up?"

"I can't get her up," Shaun said, with my head on his lap. "She won't wake up."

"Crap," said the soldier. "We don't have a doctor or nurse here at the moment either. People don't die of a cold, do they? She looks pretty bad."

"What's going on?" said another voice. "Oh. I see. Here, we'll hose them down, get the majority of the mud off. Then we'll get some of the ladies to get the girl changed and dry. Hey, you go get the ladies. Then you," I guessed they meant Shaun, "can be her nurse."

I was sprayed with cold water and rough hands washed my hair and rubbed most of the mud off.

"Where are her shoes?"

"Who knows?"

"Are you done?"

"No, we need a bit more light. Okay. There's still mud there on her trousers and on the front of her shirt."

"What are you boys doing? You're making a racket," said the voices of the female soldiers.

One of the male soldiers filled them in and the female soldiers made snorting noises.

"You boys are idiots. Here, give her to us."

I was carried to my room where I was roughly handled, undressed and rewashed.

"What have they been doing to her? Didn't they say that the higher ups want her alive? She's all skin and bones. Have they been feeding her at all?"

"In case you haven't noticed, all the prisoners look like this."

"She looks worse than the others. She's in really bad shape. Worse than an anorexic and I know, cos my sister had anorexia when she was a teenager. She looks like a skeleton and why is she covered in bruises?"

"What? And they made her dig all night? I'll bet there's more to the story and the boys are trying to cover up something else they've done to her. She's got mud everywhere. Did they bury her in it? I thought we'd washed her properly, but look, there's still more."

"Nevermind for now. Just get her warm and dry."

"I'll get some soup from the kitchen and maybe some bread."

"I never signed up to be a soldier to do stuff like this. This shouldn't be allowed. If other people saw our prisoners, they'd think we'd all been abusing them."

"I heard the CO has been withholding most of their rations."

"Scumbag."

"Hush, don't talk about him. Someone might hear you."

I hovered. Dreaming, sleeping amidst clouds and patches of colour, I had to make a decision I couldn't make.

"Wake up, Jean," said Shaun's tired voice. "Wake up and eat. Come on, girl. You'll be all right."

"What's wrong with her? It's just a cold, right? Get her up out of bed," said the Scumbag's scoffing voice. "She's just pretending."

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think she is."

"What is he doing here anyway? Why isn't he dead? No wonder they've been asking me if I have any other moles in the Compound. Information has been leaking in and out of this place like a sieve and it's probably him."

"But sir, he's been busy looking after the girl."

"And I don't care. Get her back out to work and kill the man. Because of him, the Boskies are fighting hard in this direction. They know we've killed the POWs and they aren't pleased. She's just got a cold. Who ever heard of anyone dying of a cold? You're all stupid idiots to be duped by a traitor and one of the enemy. What? You've all gone soft? Didn't I just give an order?"

~~~

The rain was soft and warm. The mud was cool. I found myself back in the field, digging. Shaun's pale eyes stared at me from where he lay in the mud under a pile of other bodies. The soldiers helped dump the bodies in. I filled the hole back up, smoothing the top of the grave over and then went to continue working on the farm. Weeding and turning new soil. I watched plants grow.

Plants seem to grow all right if you water them with salt tears.

Just focus on the plants. Nothing else. Forget everything else.

Time passed in an odd skipping way that left holes in my memory.