"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
-
The majority of the journey to Austria is spent in silence. For the most part I think a lot of people are nursing some rather rotten hangovers but I think some of the men are also contemplating what's next for them now that the war's over. More specifically, whether or not they'll be sent to fight the war in the Pacific. The thought makes my stomach turn, not because I'm worried I'll be sent there - I'm almost certain my part in all of this is done now - but because they could be. Gene could be. And if something happened I don't know if I could take it.
I look down instinctively to check the time on my watch before realising I don't have one anymore. Instead all I'm met with is the prominent scarring from where I was once tied up by my wrists. I wonder whether the scarring will ever disappear or whether it'll always be obvious I was imprisoned.
Tentatively, I graze my fingers along the scar, tracing the circumference of my left wrist. It doesn't hurt - not physically, anyway, but I've come to realise that I have good days and bad days where moving forwards from my days in interrogation is concerned. I've had a few good days so it seems I'm due a few bad ones. The memories like to remind me that they're still there and still very much visceral after a period of contentedness.
For my part, my hangover isn't too bad - Gene's influence, naturally. But instead of my head aching, it's my heart. I said to Tom I'd be alright to go in a separate truck to him and the others but maybe I was too hasty with that decision.
But then again I'll need to start becoming independent again soon. I won't always have them there. The thought makes me infinitely sadder but it's true; now that the war in Europe is over our days together are numbered.
Instinctively, I turn to seek any of them out on the truck behind and then the truck in front of the one I'm in. I find Will, fast asleep on the one behind, which calms me slightly, but the others aren't in sight. I slump back in my seat, trying to breathe deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like Martin taught me. I don't know why I feel so trapped all of a sudden.
I'm also starting to feel quite hot - too hot - so I undo the first few buttons on my ODs and pull one side down so it's hanging off of my shoulder. Feeling the breeze on the exposed skin there, where I'm only wearing a small undershirt underneath, brings instant relief. I feel my shoulders relax slightly.
"How'd you get those?"
The voice makes me jolt in place and I look up to find Babe watching me curiously. He must see from my face that I don't understand what he means for he gestures, somewhat gingerly, to where my ODs have now exposed my collarbone.
"I mean the scars," he explains. He sounds somewhat guilty. I get the impression he didn't really mean to ask, or that he asked without thinking, but there's no way to take it back now. I see him open his mouth, likely to say I don't have to answer, but I cut him off.
"Soldering iron," I answer quietly. Maybe talking about it to someone I don't know all that well might help. Maybe. I'm not sure. Worth a try.
"Really?" he asks, eyebrows crashing down instead of hopping up as I'd expected.
I nod and subconsciously run my fingers along the three thin, parallel scars that crawl across my collar bone, reaching for my left shoulder.
"Was that the worst?" Babe questions tentatively.
I let my hand drop lazily back into my lap. "No," I reply, "but it was up there."
"Yeah?"
"Some of the most excruciating pain I've ever felt," I explain, nodding. "They only did it once though. I think they were wary of wasting electricity on prisoners."
He nods, chewing on the inside of his cheek contemplatively for a moment. Eventually, he asks, "What was it like? Being captured?"
"What was it like being captured or what was it like being a prisoner?" I wonder.
He shrugs, watching me with interest. "Both."
I suck in a breath and fiddle with my hands in my lap. "Being captured was the scariest moment of my life. I was caught trying to break someone else out - that's a bit of inside information no one outside of the team knows." I send him a wink which makes him chuckle a bit. "I was stealing information on where they were transporting prisoners. We were going to use it to break someone out once we got to Berlin.
"The problem was that the Germans had managed to capture basically every Allied spy operating in Holland," I continue, "so they sent a message to our HQ from each separate spy asking for supplies and reinforcements. Thus, we were sent to Holland with you lot."
"It was trap?" he asks, leaning forwards to hear me better.
I nod. "Yeah. Double agents. I was in the intelligence office, had just stolen the information we needed, when a guard came in behind me. When I was about to kill him three more came through the door. They'd been expecting me, there was no way to lie my way out of it."
"So what happened next?"
"They dragged me out. I put up a hell of a fight. I was kicking and screaming - I bit one of them." This makes him grin; being from Philly, I think he fights dirty, too. "I managed to get out of their grip long enough to get my cyanide, which is how we bail out in case of capture, but they took it from me. So they dragged me away and I got taken to Berlin along with the very person I was supposed to rescue."
I don't mention Tom, or how he'd had the shot and chosen not to take it. That's a personal memory, for both me and him, and besides, I don't know if I could verbalise it without crying. And I don't want to cry; I've been doing so well recently.
"What was it like once you got there?"
I shrug. "They spend the first few weeks trying to work out what gets to you the most. They try all sorts of tactics, both physical and psychological, to see which ones break you. At that point they're not really asking questions, they're just kind of messing around. In some sick way I think that's their favourite part. I also think they know that the anticipation right at the beginning is one of the most sickening things they can do to you. Waiting on that first interrogation -" I have to cut myself off on account of the physical shiver the memory wreaks and the fact that my voice very literally has decided to stop me right there. It's too painful a memory. "Then after that are the interrogations, and they use whichever methods break you down the most to get you to talk."
Babe nods. I know he wants to ask me whether I talked but I'm glad that he decides against it. He doesn't ask me anything else about my time in Berlin, and I'm grateful, because it gives me time to reflect. But I think speaking about it to someone who didn't have an overly emotional reaction as a result (understandably, because Babe and I aren't all that close) actually did help. At the very least, I don't feel so trapped now, or so hot and bothered. I'm still a bit antsy to catch sight of someone I trust though - not that I don't trust all of the men, but I need to see one of the ones I trust entirely, body and soul. I need to see Tom or Will or Martin, or Gene or George or Floyd.
Will's still sleeping when my eyes land on him again and I let out a quiet sigh. But I manage to catch sight of George sitting with Joe, smoking and laughing about something. He doesn't see me but that's okay because just catching sight of him in the truck in front of this one makes me feel a little bit better.
I try to focus my attention on the passing scenery as we make our way out of Germany. I think, above all, that makes me nervous too; not getting out of Germany but the fact that I'm not yet out of it. Even though the war's over there's a sense of intense foreboding associated with Germany for me now and I really want to get as far away from Berlin as I can.
If I'm blatantly honest I don't know how I've made it this far. I don't know how I've kept going. After everything the war has thrown at me, I have no idea. Leaving home at sixteen to become a code-breaker, getting seconded to the SOE and giving them permission to tell my family I'm dead, making my first jump behind enemy lines at seventeen, having to watch my first boyfriend publicly hanged at eighteen. Being captured at twenty-two. It's been a long war. I haven't seen home or my parents since I was sixteen. I'm twenty-three now. God, it's been a long war. I have no idea how I've kept on going. I suppose I just had to. There's no other option but to keep on going, so I do.
I'm lost deep in thought when shouts of anguish and the slamming open of doors has me jolting in place. All of a sudden my heart is racing, as it always does when someone shouts too loud or a door slams, but with both things combined it's in overdrive. I turn hastily in my seat to find two French soldiers pushing three Germans out of a derelict building and throwing them to the floor. The three Germans end up on their knees with their hands on the backs of their heads. Witnessing it shakes something up inside of me because how many times have I been thrown into that position, a gun held to my head just like one is aimed at theirs?
A single gunshot rings out and I audibly gasp, a hand pressing down hard on my heart. Two quickly follow and then all three Germans are dead on the floor, blood pooling around their heads and seeping into the dirt.
I can't look away. Even as we drive past and I have to turn my head to look back at them, it's like my eyes are glued there.
A hand on my knee makes me jump and I sharply turn to face forwards again. The hand belongs to Babe and his eyebrows are furrowed but he tries to offer a reassuring smile. I try my best to smile back but I know it falls flat when his drops. When I make to look back at the dead German soldiers again, my heart still pounding so hard I wonder whether he can hear it, Babe draws my attention back to him by saying softly, "Hey, just look at me, alright? You don't need to look at that."
I remain facing Babe for the rest of the journey. Even when we finally pass into Austria and the boys are trying to flirt with the Austrian girls on the side of the road, I keep my eyes set firmly forwards, afraid of what I might see otherwise. I hate that I'm like this now. That I'm so feeble and delicate and afraid that I can't even bear to see something like that happen when I used to be the person doing things like that.
It's then I understand that there's a part of me that's broken. Irreparably broken. Completely shattered. I have good days and I have bad days but through everything there's something broken in me and I can't repair it and that makes me want to cry. But I can't cry right now because I'm in a troop truck with a group of men who wouldn't, couldn't, never will understand. And the people I truly trust are too far away and now everything feels much too close and much too far all at once.
I keep going because I have to but it's so hard sometimes. It's so hard sometimes.
I spend the rest of the journey desperately fighting back tears. I know Babe can tell, because I can see him watching me with sympathy clear in his eyes, but I have to focus all of my energy and concentration on making sure I don't break down. Leaving Germany was supposed to heal me, I was counting on it, but now we're in Austria I feel like all I've gotten is the startling and sobering realisation that I am, and will forever be, broken.
When we finally stop I'm out of the truck as quickly as I can manage. I immediately push my way through the crowd of lingering soldiers and let out a huge exhalation of relief when I find Will. When he sees me, his smile drops.
"Jules?"
"Where's Tom?" I ask. My voice comes out sounding so desperate and pathetic it only makes me feel worse.
"I don't - I don't know," he stutters out, looking around frantically whilst grabbing onto my arm to pull me closer to him. "What's wrong?" His eyes shoot back to me and scan me over for potential injury but all I can muster is a shake of my head.
"Jules!" I hear Tom shout from behind me. When I turn he's all smiles but his enthusiasm fades in a second. "Hey, what's the matter?"
As soon as he's close enough he draws me into a tight hug and I hate it so much but I start to cry.
Distantly, I hear him talking to Will, trying to work out what's bothering me whilst I cling to him and weep. I'm not really listening to what they're saying until I hear Babe's voice enter the conversation.
"It was the Germans," he explains to them, and I'm sure he's watching me warily, "the ones they killed on the side of the road."
I hear Tom sigh and start muttering, "I shouldn't have left her alone. I shouldn't have let her go alone," all the while he's got a hand cradling the back of my head and the other one hugging me tightly. I hate that he's blaming himself for this but I don't have the words to tell him otherwise, or, seemingly, the ability to stop crying. And I hate that I can't even be left to sit in a troop truck by myself without breaking down. I fucking hate it all. I hate the Nazis for doing this to me and I hate that I can't get over it.
I try desperately to get myself under control but the tears I've been holding in for the past forty-five minutes seem to want to all come out first. Tom must hear my breathing pick up in my haste to calm down because he pulls out of the hug and holds me at arms length by my shoulders. He ducks his head until he can look me in the eyes. "Jules, breathe. Deep breaths, okay? You have to breathe."
I try my best to follow his guidance, in and out and in and out, but the problem is that I'm trying so desperately to make myself calm down that I'm only making it worse.
Tom diverts his eyes to something behind me and then I feel a gentle hand on the small of my back. "Chérie?" Gene.
I turn and jump into his arms. He's always the best at calming me down. His arms wrap around me immediately and when I bury my face in the crook of his neck he says, "Hey, hey, hey. What's wrong, mon amour?"
Mon amour. I still love that so much.
"Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" he tries again, speaking quietly into my hair.
"Je..." I begin, then pause for breath and words. "Je pensais à... ce qu'ils faisaient."
"Qui?" he asks.
I sniffle a bit as I breathe in a sharp breath to try to explain. "Le gestapo. Quand les soldats français..."
He holds me a little bit tighter so I think he understands. "Tu vas bien," he says softly. "Tu es en sécurité. Tu ne vas nulle part." He repeats the words as many times as I need to hear them before I'm finally breathing normally again. When he pulls back just slightly to check on me I'm not crying anymore.
"Je suis désolée," I whisper, feeling every bit a burden for needing him as I do. "I'm sorry."
"You got nothin' to be sorry for, alright?" he says gently, wiping away the remnants of my tears. "Nothin'."
"I hate to break this up but, Gene, I think you're wanted elsewhere," Tom interjects, and he really does look apologetic.
Gene looks down at me one last time and I nod. I try to muster my biggest smile for him, which makes him smile softly back, and then he jogs away to where someone's calling for him.
When I turn back to the others I find Tom watching me with concern but once he sees me looking back at him he smiles a tiny bit. "He's got some kind of superpower in calming you down," he says, which, in spite of everything, makes me smile.
"Yeah," I reply, laughing a little bit. Because, really, he does.