Opposite Sides (60 page)

“
Understood.”

Hans was feeling much
better. He pushed the pain to the back of his mind and managed a
cheeky wink. It made her feel warm and gratified that he had
acknowledged her as more than a nurse who was serving on the
opposite side. She walked swiftly away past the guard. She did not
wish to betray her inner feelings she had for this wounded German
officer.

Within a couple of weeks,
the wound was beginning to heal and Hans was becoming more alert.
He discovered that Nurse Jan Turner was a very efficient nurse.
There was, however, little chance for them to talk together and
words were hastily exchanged either during one of the painful
dressing changes, or whenever she had some duty to perform in the
vicinity of his bed. There was always the presence of the guard to
consider, so when they wanted to exchange more than formalities,
they spoke quietly and not much above a whisper. Hans had told her
to take care, for he did not want her to be reprimanded on his
account.

He was finding that he
anticipated each appearance with a tingle of excitement. It made
him feel special, as though he was the only one in the tent who
could look forward to something resembling visiting
time.

Jan did manage to find
some information for him about the other wounded men. It grieved
him to learn that one of the more seriously injured men had died
several hours after arriving at the base. If only he could have
pushed the clock back and acted sooner that man may be still alive.
But then, retrospective things were so much clearer.

A new relationship was
beginning to develop between Hans and his personal nurse. As Hans
became stronger and the pain lessened, he found himself looking
forward more and more to her visits. For the first time in his
life, he was getting to know the grown up Jan. He found her a
caring and efficient nurse, no longer the adverse, awkward teenager
he had done battle with when he had stayed at her aunt’s. She also
noticed her attitude change towards him and their previous
connection had somehow bound them together in this world of war and
hate. The suffering they had witnessed and the senselessness of all
the maiming and killing; the suffering that was being endured day
after day, hour by hour was drawing them closer
together.

As they
responded to the world around them, their response to each other
was beginning to change. He found himself listening to what she had
to say. She found that he treated her with more respect and
consideration than she had ever known before. They discovered the
common ground they had: the school, Miss Turner, the English
countryside
¨C
all the early pre-war memories and, best of all, Andrea. He
lay in his bed and dreamed that the war had ended and together with
Jan they could walk with Andrea across the rolling grassy hills
behind the school grounds and look down in the valley at the tiny
houses huddled and clumped together among old oak and beech trees.
His words were giving her hope for a better future, hope for
reunification in which they could possibly be more than
friends.

Jan was in this elated
mood when the bombshell hit. It was when the senior doctor called
his nurses together for the usual quick weekly briefing in which he
had handed out their schedules. Jan noticed there was no longer any
mention of Major Resmel.

“
Major Resmel
is not on the list, Doctor.”

“
No, Nurse.
The Major is considered fit enough to be transported to a POW camp.
Tomorrow morning, an interrogation unit will be speaking with him,
and the following day he will be transported. Your job with that
Jerry’s done. There are others who came in at the same time who are
also fit enough to be moved out. We need more space for our own
chaps. They must come first. We need to concentrate on getting our
own chaps up and running, especially with Monty’s final drive to
push these Nazis out of Africa.”

“
Yes,
Doctor.”

The choke in her voice
betrayed her feelings. The Doctor asked her to remain a little
longer after the other nurses had been dismissed, and then, after
taking an inordinately long time to place his pencil in his top
pocket, he turned his attention to the young woman beside
him.

“
Nurse
Turner, you haven’t made the mistake to become emotionally involved
with your patient, have you?”

“
Doctor, it’s
hard for you to understand.” The army doctor raised an eyebrow as
his cheek muscles tightened and his mouth profile
hardened.

“
Nurse
Turner,” he said firmly. “You know the rules. A soldier, any
soldier, who is brought into this hospital, is here only as a
patient. You have a duty to do and that is all. It goes for our
chaps, too. Our job is to get our chaps back into their unit as
soon as we can so that he can continue the fight against the enemy.
That man . . . that German officer is the enemy. He has been
fighting on the opposite side. Why, he’d probably have you shot and
never blink an eye. Don’t let him soften your emotions towards him.
They’re all Nazis.”

“
No, that’s
not true, Doctor. You see, he and I . . . ”

“
Do not bow
down to flattery, nurse. He’s just being over grateful. Realise,
all men in this hospital never see a woman out in the field. It’s
only natural they would try to chat you up. Why, even a married man
like him.”

“
He didn’t
marry. He was only engaged.”

“
There you
are. Seems he’s been lying to you, nurse. According to our records
. . . ”

She did not let him
finish, such was her agitation. Jan pushed back her glasses, her
eyes blazing and tearful.

“
You’re
wrong! Caroline died!”

The Doctor was beginning
to become exasperated with his nurse. She did not seem to be
listening to him. He walked a few feet towards the filing cabinet,
opened the file drawer and removed the patient’s file.

“
He is a
married man. Look!” He handed it over for her to read. “There! I’m
sorry.” His voice was lower and quieter. “It says, his wife’s name
is Elisabeth. They have a son and they live in
Neubrandenburg.”

Jan read the
intelligence report which was a requirement for every soldier taken
prisoner by the 8
^th
Army. She let out a stifled gasp and let the card
slip out of her hands. She felt as if a bullet had found its mark
and wounded her heart. She fought back her tears as she backed away
from the doctor, infuriated that he had just destroyed her
happiness and flushed with anger against Hans for having betrayed
her. The next instant she ran blinded and disillusioned over to the
tent that contained the Wehrmacht Major.

“
Hans Resmel,
how could you!” Jan did not care who heard her. “You’re a liar and
a damn cheat!”

Hans was taken aback by
such an outburst. He sat upright, unsure of what to do next. The
guard turned to intervene but the Major held out his hand to stop
him.

“
I’m sorry. I
do not know what you mean.”

“
Shut up!
You’re all the same!”

Something had made her
terribly upset but he had no idea why she should have called him a
cheat. Again, the guard made a move towards the irate nurse. Again,
the Major motioned him to remain at his post.

“
Tell me what
I am supposed to have done. Why are you so angry with
me?”

Jan took off her glasses.
She gave the lenses a deliberate wipe with the edge of her
pinafore. Then she replaced them and adjusted them several times
before screaming directly into his face.

“
You didn’t
tell me you had a wife!”

She continued to glare at
him, her eyes flashing like exploding flares.

“
I assumed
you knew.” he was as calm as she was wild. “Besides, you never
asked.”

Jan’s face contorted. She
spat out a single word. It hissed like a snake.

“
Elisabeth!”

“
I thought
you’d know that already from my admission file. I didn’t give it a
thought.”

“
You expect
me to swallow that weak excuse, do you?” She clamped her hands on
her hips and swivelled around. “You’re all the same.” She flicked
her hands into the air. “Men! I wish I’d never met you
again!”

With those words and with
that tantrum, she threw him the letter he had written for her
before, and stormed out of the ward. He sat there, his knees pulled
up towards his chest, stunned by her outburst. The soldier who had
remained on guard spoke for the first time.

“
The nurse,
tha’ one don’t ‘alf take a fancy t’ you . . . an’ you bein’ a Jerry
‘n’ all. I thought there was sumfin’ goin’ on between you but I
never realised the lady was so crazy on you.”

“
Crazy on me?
What on earth are you talking about, Private?”

“
She’s been
lookin’ after you all these weeks ‘n’ it looks plain as day she’s
in love wi’ you. All against them rules but she bein’ a woman ‘n’
you a man.”

Hans was stunned for the
second time. How could he have been so stupid, so blind? He had
never thought of Jan Turner as having all the usual emotions of a
young woman. He thought she was always reserved with a detached
coolness towards all men. He had only ever thought of them only
being friends. Their meetings together in these strange
circumstances had only cemented their friendship, that was all. His
mind was perplexed by the idea of Jan expecting anything other than
friendship. He questioned the guard further.

“
You heard
her scream ‘I hate you,’ when she went out, didn’t you?”

“ ‘
ate, love
. . . it’s one ‘n’ the same, ain’t it? Women love you one minute
‘n’ the next they’re tellin’ you they ‘ate you. That’s a women. She
don’t mean it . . . jus’ upset, that’s all.”

“
Damn this
war!”

“
So, sir. Was
jus’ saying. Take my misses . . . .”

Hans had given up
listening to the soldier, He was angry with himself and frustrated
with everything. If only he had known how she felt. Tomorrow would
be too late for him to explain the circumstances of his marriage to
Elisabeth, a woman he had not found the time to love but who,
through duty, together with threats from those who held high
office, had become his wife and a mother to his child. If only he
had been able to have read the signs but then concerning the
affairs and affections of women, he was still very naïve. He
understood his men. He understood the decisions of command and he
understood why his brother, Renard, had supported the Party but he
did not understand women and he most certainly did not understand
Jan Turner. And now there was no opportunity to explain. He may
never see Jan again. Ever.

CHAPTER
20

Camp

Early the following
morning, as soon as the sun exploded over the sandy landscape,
those prisoners from the military hospital considered well enough
to travel were herded together and loaded into army transport
trucks. There was no room spare for anything or anyone else For the
fitter prisoners who had been captured during the past three days,
there was a long march ahead to the nearest holding camp. A long,
straggling column of demoralised men, six hundred of them, set off
across the unforgiving arid North African terrain together with
several land rovers, supply trucks and twenty armed guards.
Progress was slow and every few hours a rest period was called
during which the men sank down to the ground, seeking what shade
they could find behind a rock or under one of the few scraggy trees
that grew out of rock crevices. Each man was given just enough
water to quench his thirst or soothe his burning throat. The
destination, they were told, was some eighty kilometres away, POW
Holding Camp B638.

Orders were given, that
if a man collapsed on the way and could not be helped on to one of
the vehicles or was too weak to endure the journey by stretcher,
then, rather than leave the prisoner to suffer a slow death by
dehydration, he was to be swiftly put out of his misery. It was a
cruel world they were living in and there could be no thoughts of
sentimentality. Life was raw and living was close to the edge of
death.

In the early morning, a
bloated, burning yellow-orange sun slouched in the eastern sky and
by mid-morning it’s searing sphere shimmered in the heat haze which
hang oppressively above them, the incessant desert wind drying
their lips until they were sore, cracked and bleeding. The column
of exhausted men was ordered to rest. These men were the
battle-hardened soldiers of the desert, yet even now, the searing
oppressive heat of the early afternoon fed hungrily on their
strength and lapped up their energy like a ravenous wolf so that
every shaking fatigued limb could no longer offer any support. One
by one, they dropped; haggard and exhausted, collapsing like rags
to lie in an untidy array on the hot desert sand.

“
Get those
bastards out of the sun, sergeant!” yelled one of the British
officers. “We don’t want the Convention on our backs if we let ‘em
die ‘ere like flies!”

The guards pointed their
machine guns at the prostrate bodies which began slowly rising out
of the sand, like corpses out of their graves.