War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 193

Chapter 7: Stan

H

is world had dissolved into one of darkness and pain so intense he wished to die. His body was wracked with severe shaking even as he burned up from the blazing fever. In a moment of lucidity, he realized that his body was reacting to the bullet wound this way because it had become infected.

He’d not seen another waking human since the two soldiers had dumped him in this wasteland like a piece of human garbage. He closed his eyes, praying for his ordeal to be over soon, when a hallucination of his brother Peter manifested in his mind. Using it as the last straw that separated him from the other world, he clung to the sound of Peter’s voice. In Stan’s dream, his oldest brother peered down at him from above, calling his name and murmuring soothing words, before everything faded to black.

Stan woke with an unnerving feeling. When he felt movement, panic attacked him. He was not merely wriggling around in pain, but floating through the air. Despair settled in his chest as he concluded he must be headed to his eternal destiny. They must have come to toss him onto the pile of dead corpses. But why was he still in pain when he was dead?

“Hang on, Stan. Just hang on.” His brother’s voice came to him, but Stan couldn’t find his own voice to call out for help.

Another voice spoke. The world around him got lighter and his body stopped moving. He tried to open his eyes, but his heavy lids prevented it. He sensed other people moving around him, and a scream of agony that must have been his own echoed in his ears. It felt like he was being torn limb from limb, until a sharp prick in his arm brought blessed relief.

The torment faded away and a numbness came over him. Stan’s mind shut down and he floated into unconsciousness, taking comfort in the fact that wherever he was, it was a place devoid of the agony of the past days.

Stan rolled

his fingers into his palm, scratching at his own skin.

If what they’ve told me was true and only the soul escapes to a better place, I’m not in the afterlife

. One by one his senses returned and he smelled a strange antiseptic odor. He heard hushed voices. Whimpering. He slowly opened his eyes and glanced around trying to figure out where he was. Scarred walls. Other men.

With great effort he turned his head and his eyes widened when he saw a familiar silhouette sitting beside his bed. It couldn’t be true, or could it? The haggard man had bent his head into his hands. His uniform was torn and dirty, his dark blond hair and bearded face unkempt, but he’d know his oldest brother anywhere.

Stan opened his mouth and it took him two attempts before he finally found his voice. “Piotr?”

Peter’s head popped up and relief filled his eyes. “Stan. You’re awake.”

“I’m thirsty.”

Peter nodded and reached for a tin cup sitting on a nearby table. He held it to Stan’s lips and despite the putrid smell, Stan drank the disgusting brown liquid, swallowing painfully. After downing the entire cup, the sawdust feeling in his throat dissolved and he felt a bit more human.

“Where are we?” Stan asked with a hoarse voice.

“Camp hospital, Stalag XIB in Fallingbostel near Hannover

.”

“I don’t remember much. I was shot…a long train ride…dumped in a tent full of dying men.” The talking had exhausted him and Stan slumped back against the pillow. Pillow? He noticed that he lay in a real bunk with a scratchy cloth beneath him and an even scratchier blanket covering his body.

“When I found you in that dump I thought for sure I’d lost you.” Peter’s voice betrayed his disturbing emotions.

“I believed I’d die there,” Stan murmured, trying to tug the corners of his dry lips upward.

“Thank God I found you in time. You’re not over the hump yet, but you’d better make it or I’ll personally strangle you,” Peter said with the same wicked grin he’d used on his younger brother when they were still children. Then he produced a turnip and handed it to Stan with an apologetic shrug. “Here. That’s all I’ve got.”

Stan hated turnips nearly as much as he hated the Nazis, but what choice did he have? In his current condition he would have eaten worms and tree bark to fill his stomach. With the defiance of death he took the offered vegetable and nibbled at it. Between chews he said, “We thought you were dead. Where have you been all this time?”

“That’s a long story. After the invasion I escaped to England and joined the British Army. I’ll tell you about all of this later. Suffice to say I came into German captivity after the capitulation of the Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising.”

“You were there?” Stan asked with a feeble voice, feeling the fever returning. The mention of Warsaw triggered bad memories and the grief about his murdered twin brother threatened to choke him. He whispered, “Jarek is dead.”

Peter clasped Stan’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “I heard.”

“You heard?” Stan’s head ached with the confusing information he was receiving.

“Yes, I met Agnieska in Warsaw and she told me.”

So Agnieska is alive

? The fog penetrating Stan’s brain thickened, interrupted only by pangs of red-hot throbbing pain, and he barely heard Peter’s next question about their sister. “You know of Katrina?”

“She escaped a Nazi raid and is hiding on a friend’s farm.”

“Thank God,” Peter said, signs of relief showing in his face.

Stan remembered the escape at the last minute and how he’d handed his sister and her boyfriend over to Bartosz.

Bartosz!

Just before another wave of agony engulfed him, he managed to say, “My friend, Bartosz. He was captured, too. Is he alive?”

Peter paused at the name and a slow grin crossed his face. “He is most definitely alive. In fact, he was the one who insisted I find you.”

Stan closed his eyes, too weak and sick to continue the conversation. He groaned at the mounting pain and wished to return to the blessed darkness of unconsciousness.

“How’s the pain?” Peter’s voice came through the fog of agony.

“Climbing,” Stan pressed through gritted teeth as he tried to ignore the sharp pain taking over and consuming his thinking.

“I’d get you a nurse to give you some morphine, if I could, but there’s no such thing in here.”

Stan clenched his fists in an attempt not to yell. Peter was alive. Bartosz was alive, and Agnieska, too. Maybe things weren’t as bleak as they looked. Together they would persist and outlive those damn Nazis.