Early in World War One, a young Canadian soldier is wounded and trapped behind German lines. He uses quick thinking and ingenuity to evade capture, then deeper into enemy territory, he meets a young woman who recently lost her father and brothers to...
David was again injected with Heroin, then his lip, chin and cheek were sutured, his scalp wound was rechecked, and he was given some Aspirin tablets and a pass to go home to recover. His orders required him to report to the field hospital in Roeselare on the 4th of May to have his sutures removed. The clerk gave him a receipt for his rifle and told him he would be issued a replacement at the arsenal after he returned.
The clerk had also explained the sick leave chit gave him passage on the train to Müllheim and the orders gave him passage back to Belgium.
Don't even know if Müllheim is home, but they accepted it.
He had been told to take the train to Ghent, where he would find a connection to Brüssel, then through Liege to Köln.
Need a map so I can sort out where I'm going.
In Ghent, he got off the train and walked through the station and out the front. Across the street was a bookstore, where he bought a copy of Justus Perthes' Taschen-Atlas vom Deutschen Reich, the 1908 edition of the Pocket Atlas of the German Empire.
Probably find a more recent edition in Germany, but this will do.
Oops! Bu görüntü içerik kurallarımıza uymuyor. Yayımlamaya devam etmek için görüntüyü kaldırmayı ya da başka bir görüntü yüklemeyi deneyin.
Back across the street, he sat on a bench in the station's waiting room, opened the atlas to the index and found Müllheim. Then turning to the Württenburg u Baden pages, he ran his finger to E-1.
There it is, just to the east of the Rhein. He measured the distance from the scale. Twenty kilometres north of the Swiss border. I've always wanted to go to Switzerland, to the Swiss Alps,and this is a great time to do it; they're still neutral in this war.
An interesting thought. An alternative to finding my way into France.
He looked up to see if anyone was watching him. Seems normal. Reading, talking or sleeping. He looked back down at the atlas and ran his eyes along the French border.
The whole thing is the Front Line now. Where would I cross? How? Does it still make sense to head there? He looked around the room again. I can get back to the regiment as easily from Switzerland as I could from France.
He nodded, closed the atlas and continued thinking, staring blankly into the room. Besides his own small fold of Belgian Francs, he had found a small wad of Reichsbanknoten in his new pockets. There was a thicker wad of notgeld, but when he had tried to pay for the atlas with it, the shopkeeper told him he'd give only fifty percent, so David used some of his own Belgian Francs.
Try again in Germany.
He shook himself from his thoughts, reached into his pocket and pulled out the wad of emergency notes to examine.
Oops! Bu görüntü içerik kurallarımıza uymuyor. Yayımlamaya devam etmek için görüntüyü kaldırmayı ya da başka bir görüntü yüklemeyi deneyin.
