tender ear. âDance with me and enjoy the day.â
We shuffled for a time. My dancing years were spent doing other things, and it showed. And there was no music, and the potatoes started to boil over on the stove. The whole worthless apartment smelled of the wet, of our bodies and clothes and our cheap, steaming food. Of our closeness, and of the hard, smelly city leaning in on us from all directions.
Lillian left my arms to tend the dinner. Sometime later she looked up and said, âWhat are you doing?â I suppose I looked as if I was just standing there, gazing off at nothing.
In the swampy fields outside of Raumen my prisoner clogs sink into mud and slip from my feet, until I kick them off and carry them. We have shovels on our shoulders and walk at a dead-slow fannigan pace.
âDrag your heels, boys,â Collins says. âSlouch those shoulders. Bellies out!â
The air is slow, my limbs sluggish from hunger. Breakfast â awful acorn coffee and not much else â ran through melike a greasy splash of rain. At the far end of the field we come to the manure pile and the row of empty carts. A farmer greets our second German sergeant, Blasphemy the Great, a meaty slab of a man far larger than Sergeant Agony, who has stayed back at camp. Blasphemy confers with the farmer, while we lean on our implements and three guards with rifles watch us from a distance.
Then Blasphemy sputters his orders to us, pointing at the manure, the carts, the rutted pathway over to another field. Collins provides the translation.
âNow thatâs pretty clear, gents. We move the manure into the carts, and the carts along to the next field, then we empty the carts and return.
Nicht langsam
, understand? No foot-dragging. Our dear sergeant doesnât want anyone to lose their shovels like the last time. Williams, whatâs wrong with you? Whereâs your shovel?â
Williams looks around in bewilderment.
âIt was here just a minute ago, Sergeant.â
Collins sputters off in his own crippled German to tell Blasphemy that Williams has
already
lost his shovel. Blasphemy strides over to Williams and screams for a minute in his face, while Williams gazes around like a dumb animal. We all begin looking for the shovel.
âNow gents, we mustnât start losing the Kaiserâs equipment like this,â Collins says. We search under the empty carts and along the edges of the fly-ridden manure pile. McGuire and Witherspoon head back, slowly, along the path weâve just come on.
â
Halt! Halt!
â Blasphemy yells, and then three guards train their rifles at them. They stop, their hands raised, and peer around innocent as crows.
âWe thought he might have dropped it back here,â Witherspoon says.
Blasphemy orders us all to start work immediately. Williams will have to dig and carry the manure with his hands. We head listlessly over to the pile. I stop to put my clogs back on. Some others lean on their shovels. Findlay carries a load of manure over to one of the carts, but spills the contents onto the side of the wheel.
Blasphemy explodes, with Collins beside him. âCareful, gents! I donât want to see any more spilling of manure, and all of you there,
schnell, schnell!
â
Some minutes later Witherspoon announces that his shovel is gone, too.
â
Es ist verloren
,â Collins says to Blasphemy, shrugging his shoulders along with Witherspoon. âHas anybody seen Witherspoonâs shovel?â Collins calls out, so we all begin looking on the ground. Findlay grabs my elbow, and together we start back down the rutted track.
â
Halt! Halt!
â Blasphemy yells again, and we stop and throw down our shovels, thrust our hands in the air.
Witherspoonâs shovel is found, eventually, snapped off at the neck.
âThis is certainly what I call shoddy materials,â Witherspoon says, holding the broken handle and the shovel blade in the air for all of
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