War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 338

Chapter 5

A

s the sun peeked over the horizon, haze covered the fields. It gave the camp and its surroundings an eerie appearance. In the waiting crowd Johann spotted Gerd and walked over to him.

“Hello,” Johann said. There wasn’t much else to say

. Glad you’re alive. Is your barracks as horrible as ours? Did you sleep well?

“Hello,” Gerd answered, peering at him with bloodshot eyes. His face and neck were covered in red bites. Involuntarily, Johann touched his own neck, reminded of the itching bug bites.

“Anyone know what’s going to happen?” another newcomer asked.

“No.” The usually well-informed Gerd shook his head. “As mute as maggots, those Ivans.”

As if to contradict him, one of the guards yelled, “Line up in single file.”

Helmut gave a half-grin. “At least lining up is something we know how to do well.”

A huge number of men neatly lined up in several long queues going from one end of the courtyard to the other one. They were left waiting for some time, until the next command was given.

“Strip naked.”

Johann couldn’t believe his ears and he hesitated a moment too long. A rifle butt thudded against his back, accompanied by a command he didn’t understand.

Left and right his fellow prisoners took off their clothing and folded it neatly to lie in a pile by their feet. He swallowed and followed suit. It was embarrassing to stand in a row with several hundred naked men, with a few guards watching them closely and keeping their guns at hand.

But his embarrassment multiplied when about half an hour later a military vehicle sped through the gates and came to a halt a few feet away from the first row of prisoners. A female doctor climbed out of the passenger side and despite the cold air Johann felt the heat of shame climb up to his burning cheeks.

“It’s a woman,” Helmut whispered unnecessarily.

They hadn’t set eyes on a woman in months and the first encounter had to be a doctor parading in front of them while they stood at attention completely naked. To add to his grievances she was not only female, but also young and even pretty.

He stared straight ahead, trying to forget his clothesless state, while the doctor walked down the file, inspecting each man. His distraction worked until she stood directly in front of him, her peachy face with the high cheekbones and the dark eyes looking directly at him.

“Name?”

“Johann Hauser.” He cast his eyes to the ground and clenched his jaw, avoiding looking at her.

“Look up.” She’d found his name on a list and put a mark beside it. Then she checked his eyes and ears. “Mouth open.” She put her slender fingers inside and fingered the inside of his cheeks. He fought the overwhelming urge to bite down on her finger, so she’d go away.

Of course, this would only get him into trouble, so he stared ahead, pretending to be somewhere else. When her fingers finally left his mouth, he wanted to sag with relief, but the physical exam wasn’t over yet.

After jotting down notes in Cyrillic letters on her list, she handed the clipboard to one of the guards and squeezed Johann’s biceps hard. He almost let out a scream. When she seemed satisfied that she couldn’t squeeze any harder, she said something in Russian and the guard scribbled letters on the list.

Another level of pure embarrassment hit him, when she ran her hands down his chest, abdomen, and thighs, squeezing those muscles the same way she had done with his biceps.

The guard by her side was busy recording whatever she told him. Johann didn’t understand a single word. It didn’t matter. The only thing he wanted was for her to move on to her next victim.

“Turn around,” she said. Her German was good, with only a trace of the hard pronunciation native Russian speakers usually had.

To forget about his humiliation, Johann pondered where she’d learned German. Had she ever been in Germany? Maybe before the war? She seemed too young for that… a gasp escaped his throat when she grabbed both of his ass cheeks and pinched hard.

“Good.” She seemed incredibly pleased. “Turn around. You’re two.”

Stupefied, he nodded, not sure what had occurred. Thankfully, she moved on to the next in line and once she was out of earshot, Johann whispered, “What was that about?”

“No idea,” Helmut replied.

Gerd, though, had listened to the conversation between the doctor and the guards, and explained, “It seems this exam is some kind of classification. She measures the fat and muscle tissue and according to how much there is, we get put into one of four categories.”

“Like cattle by weight?” If Johann could feel even more humiliated after enduring this examination, he would do so now.

“Kind of. I understood they use four numbers. One and two means suitable for hard labor. Three can do only light work. Four is too sick to work and will be taken to the hospital.”

“I see.” Johann wasn’t sure whether he should be happy about being in such good shape.

The prisoners

in the categories one and two were put into groups of fifty, seemingly at random. Gerd was in Johann’s group, but Helmut got assigned to another one.

Johann felt a stab to his heart. Without his friend, he felt so… lonely. Such a notion reeked of absurdity, since he never had a moment truly on his own, not even when visiting the latrine. But as he followed the Romanian foreman to the exit of the camp, Johann couldn’t whisk away the empty sadness filling his soul.

His detail trudged about two miles to their workplace: a dusty quarry. Johann wanted to weep when he saw the toiling comrades. With nothing but rusty shovels and poles they unearthed large stones and loaded them onto hand carts for other prisoners to haul to a construction site about one mile away.

Johann was assigned to a work unit loading up the rocks. It didn’t take long until every muscle in his emaciated body protested from the backbreaking work. His hands raw and bleeding, he winced every time he hoisted up another rock.

After several hours of work, he barely managed to keep upright. Even the return walk from the cart to the quarry with empty hands was an ordeal. When he packed another rock, his feet refused to obey, and he sank to the ground. The Russian guards were quick to jump to his side and hit him furiously, shouting,

“Davai, davai.”

Even without Russian language skills Johan knew what it meant:

Quick, quick

. And he also knew what would happen if he didn’t get up. He’d seen it many times before.

An image of Lotte appeared in his mind. She beckoned to him not to give up and return to her. Her smile unearthed hidden energy reserves in him, and he somehow stumbled up, grabbed the damned rock with both hands and hauled it over to the cart. On the way back he would have wept, if he’d had a drop of liquid to spare inside his dry and dusty body.

The sun had reached her highest point and Johann wondered when they would get a break. Nothing happened. His growling stomach drowned out all other noises. It was bad enough to be hungry all the time when sitting idly in the camp or standing with cramping feet in a cattle car, but working like an ox?

He made another return trip to the handcart, when he saw Karsten coming from the other side of the quarry.

Johann acknowledged him with a tired nod. “How long until we get a break?”

“No break and no food until our shift ends at 3 p.m.”

Johann almost fainted.

“You need to pace yourself.” Karsten showed him how to work slowly enough to make it bearable, but steadily enough not to attract the ire of the guards. He also taught him the shuffling gait the

Altgefangene

had adopted to use the least amount of energy possible.

In the beginning it felt unnatural, almost as if time was slowing down. But much to his surprise, Karsten was right. The work was still excruciating, but the snail’s pace made it bearable. The shuffling, empty-handed return walk gave his body a modicum of recovery to tackle the next round.

He also learned to take three additional steps and unload his burden on the shadow side of the cart, getting his head out of the scorching afternoon sun for a few minutes. It made a huge difference.

At three p.m., Johann was barely alive, swaying on his exhausted feet, but the day wasn’t over yet. He clumped along with the rest of the tired men, two long miles until they reached the camp, where he flopped onto the ground, too weak to queue up for his share of soup. If it weren’t for Helmut, who looked surprisingly fresh, Johann wouldn’t have eaten that day.

“Here you go.” Helmut handed him a bowl of soup. After looking at Johann’s face, he added, “I won’t ask how your day went.”

Johann didn’t answer, too busy downing his soup and the dark bread. He passed out immediately after eating, until someone shook his shoulder.

It was one of the Romanians, who served as helpers to the guards. “Get up, lazybones! Work needs to be done!”

Work

? Johann blinked a few times; was it morning again? No, by the position of the sun, it must be early evening. Work details were assigned. Arriving food had to be carried from the gates to the kitchen, vegetables needed to be planted, and much more.

Johann was lucky. He was assigned to sweep the barracks, light work done inside, away from the prying eyes of the Romanian capos and out of the sun. He constantly eyed the bunks and yearned to just lie down and sleep. But he resisted, because he could vividly imagine what would happen if a capo found him asleep on duty. His sore back hurt enough without the addition of whip lashes or cosh punches.

When the housework was done, the prisoners finally had an hour of

leisure time

. Those on lighter work details had some energy left and gathered to read one of the few books that hadn’t been confiscated yet. Or they simply sat and talked about home, their families, wives and sweethearts.

Helmut tried to persuade Johann to come with him to a Bible study group, but Johann shook his head. All he wanted was to sleep. He found his new bunk, which still carried the stench of its previous owner. But he didn’t care. He wrapped himself into his greatcoat and fell into a death-like sleep, until the night was over at 4.30 a.m.

Wake-up call.

Another day like the one before, minus the humiliating examination.

And another one… week after week.