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Part I

Fool's Gold

I blacked out as I hit the treetops.

 The next thing I remember was the harsh vibrations of a truck along a seldom-used road. It pushed through the potholes and over the seemingly vast boulders lining the dirt track, sending brutish shivers of pain up my spine as it jolted some injuries I suspect I must have sustained during the fall. My eyes were stubbornly refusing to open for the time being and I was left with nothing but a coarse soundscape to guide me. I strained my ears to pick out every detail, hearing nothing but the ear-wrenching engine noise screaming from behind me.

 Thoroughly frustrated, I thought a vague attempt at movement might help me out somewhat. I racked my brain trying to summon my legs to move around a bit, but they weren't responding. My fingers were the first thing I could get to work, curling into a loose fist and then relaxing. I kept clenching my fist, getting tighter each time and desperately trying to restore movement to my limbs. My arms at this point seemed to be responding to my brain's wishes but I found I still couldn't move them; a sharp pain jutted into my wrists after a few inches of movement. I groaned and tried my legs again. One of the nerves deep in my left leg finally got the message and twitched. I kept working on my left leg like my life depended on it...and judging from the current situation it very well might do. I gave it everything until my head throbbed with insurmountable pain and eventually I got the synapses to fire up again and my leg could curl up to my chest and back down again. I kept the pattern of tensing and relaxing going for a couple of minutes until I achieved full movement again, and moved my concentration to my right leg. This proved to be a mistake. My right leg apparently was the epicentre of the massive injuries I had sustained from the fall and sent spikes of pain all the way through my body and set of countless sirens in my head telling me to stop, which I did.

 The pain shot a tight grimace across my face and a powerful heat of relief blazed as I became aware that I could move my face - open my eyes. Unfortunately the fates were determined to keep screwing me over and my attempts to see my surroundings sent immeasurable pain through my head, particularly through my left eye. I shut my right eye tight and prised my left eye opens, fighting through the warning sirens blaring in my mind again. I could still see through my left eye - it was blurry, but I could see. I opened my other eye with it and surroundings blurred into vision, hazed by stars invading my perception. Something warm trickled down my face, which I correctly interpreted as blood; I must have gotten cut over my eye by shrapnel.

 Speaking of shrapnel...what shrapnel? I couldn't remember a thing that had happened, or how I had got to be here, in the back of some huge truck. It was all dark inside, some shreds of light creeping in from gaps in the canvas, but I couldn't see what was outside. Nothing was in the truck except for me and a few large crates tightly chained up. Behind me there was the cab, but I couldn't hear or see what was going in there. Directly behind me was another, much bigger crate. I appeared to be handcuffs to the chains cradling it. As I watched the crates being jiggled around by the vibrations from the truck, I couldn't help noticing just a slight suggestion that they weren't vibrating in time with the truck...like they were moving of their own accord...I put the thought out of my mind, I didn't need to be laden down with paranoia at this point, and I just hoped that the chains would hold whatever was in there.

  Suddenly I could hear shouting from in the cab. It was muffled from the roar of the engines but they certainly sounded agitated. Not a second later the driver hit the brakes and the truck sharply ground to a halt. I was surprised at how powerful the brakes were, my whole body was slammed forwards and I'm sure I would have toppled out of the back of the truck had I not been handcuffed to the crate. The G-forces stopped and I got slammed the other way into the crate painfully, the chains digging into my back. The engines shut down and I could fully hear the voices from the cab. Germans, it seemed. I knew a spattering of German, so I translated what they were saying as best I could.

 "I thought there was only one," the first said.

 "Well, it appears that we were wrong," said the second. "Get him in the truck."

 There was a brief sound like one of the men were struggling with something.

 "Adler, they only told us to bring them one!"

 There was a gasp and a judder as if someone was being pressed against the side of the truck. Adler spoke with a deep growl in his tone. "You forget yourself, Kurt. I'm an Oberführer. And you are a Mann. I am the one giving the orders around here. We will take him."

 The ranks suggested to me that these were probably SS officers.

 "But Adler, uh, sir, we've seen what they can do! We've seen what they done to people who've disobeyed orders! I think we should leave him!"

 The canvas on the back of the truck was suddenly whipped open and I saw Adler and Kurt. Adler was older, maybe late-30s or early-40s. His hair was greying and his hairline receding, his face wrinkled and crumpled and his eyes giving a suggestion of the thousand-yard stare. Despite his withered look his uniform was in 100% best condition and kept tidy and smart-looking. His shimmering badges and his spotless, perfectly lined up hat and tie exuded the sense that Adler was not one to let his appearance get the better of him. It was clear in his eyes and tone that he was breaking inside, so he compensated by over-doing his outwards appearance. Heaven forbid that Adler should appear weak in the eyes of others.

 Kurt had that look on his face that I'd seen in so many new recruits. I'm surprised he'd managed to carry it all the through to his Sergeant rank. It was that look of naïve eagerness and confidence that appeared to say 'I know what I'm doing; I'm going to go straight to Commander Rank and then win this war single-handedly'. A few more months and that would be gone and he'd be the same as Adler, but for now he looked overjoyed to be fighting for his Führer. His clothes were just thrown together enough to barely pass an inspection, but they weren't important, it's what's on the inside that counts.

 Then there was a third voice, starting as a series of pained groans that sent shivers up my spine. It sounded deeply familiar to me. Adler rounded the corner and there was considerable shouting from both voices. Having noticed I had woken up, Kurt stayed at the back of the truck to keep an eye on me. I glared at him closely. I remember when I was like that, thinking that the only things that could possibly come out of war were victory and glory and power. That all changed the moment I hit the trees. I'd never known there was such a thing as failure before, but now here I was in the back of an SS truck, a prisoner of war.

 I caught Kurt's gaze for a second and he shot me an awkward smile. Typical new recruit, hadn't even learned to fear the enemy yet. Well, if I ever got out of these shackles I would certainly teach him to fear his enemy. He turned and checked himself, and then did something utterly bewildering. He turned back to me and gave me a much more confident smile, almost sly. It gave him an almost familiar appearance although we'd only just made acquaintance, but there was something else behind the smile, some kind of connotation or undercurrent that I was sure I wasn't picking up on. My head was throbbing too much to concentrate on that for too long.

 The shouts suddenly got much louder outside and I saw Kurt back away as Adler dragged a writhing, shouting man around to the back of the truck. He was missing his right arm, blood smeared all down his shirt. The first thing I noticed about the shirt other than the blood however was that it was a US Army Air Force uniform identical to the one I was wearing. All of a sudden everything came flooding back to me, I'm Mave Johnson, I was a pilot for the US Army Air Forces, and my wingman, Peter and I were on a mission to destroy an ammo depot when some Germans planes ambushed us. I remember the dogfight vividly. I'm sure at one point my wings were close to falling off completely; bullets holes riddled and spread across the aircraft like a disease. I got a lucky shot on two of the enemy planes and they fell from the sky, but Peter wasn't so lucky. One of the enemies made it a kamikaze mission and flew straight towards Peter's plane, and he managed to dodge enough to only get the wing torn off but it still sent him spiralling down towards terra firma. I fired manically at the remaining enemy but my plane was in poor condition and a couple of shots from him sent me spiralling to earth as well; we had lost the battle.

 That was the last time I had seen Peter and was sure he'd be dead by now, but I was instantly proved wrong. Adler and Kurt loaded the struggling man into the back of the truck and at once I saw that it was Peter. He gave me a lifeless, distant gaze and a weak though triumphant smile and started to shout at the soldiers again, producing nothing but a vaguely angry, but deliriously meaningless word salad. Adler hopped into the truck and subdued him with a blow to head from the butt of his pistol and I tried to call out furiously, but I couldn't get any sound out.

 Peter stopped moving for a moment and then let out a groan, pulling out a pistol with his remaining arm and strength and aimed at Adler's back as best he could. Kurt let out a warning cry and Adler swung around and dodged the bullet, apparently Peter's last. Adler was visibly furious, his face turning almost purple and a thick vein lining his forehead. He raised his gun to Peter's head and promptly pulled the trigger.

 Peter was sat directly in front of me and I bore the brunt of the debris that was sent flying as his cranium exploded. As I got showered in the red stuff something just snapped in my brain. All I could feel was rage and all I wanted to do was jump up and break Adler's neck where he stood. I'd been with Peter every step of the way. We enlisted together, and stuck together ever since. And he was gone, just like that. It was painful enough when I only thought he was dead, now I had to watch as his twitched and faded into pallor. Without thinking I lurched forward screaming furiously, only to be pulled back into place by immense pain shooting from my wounds, the handcuffs cutting into my arms and Adler swinging his gun round and aiming at me. His face had that kind of threatening look that says 'I just killed one, I'll gladly kill another.' But there was something else in his face, a slight inkling of pleasure. The bastard enjoyed killing Peter. Or even worse, he'd gotten used to killing. Killing was something that in this game, it paid never to get used to. Sure, we were the army and killing was the golden rule. I enjoyed it as much as the next guy, but I'd always seen it as a kind of fool's gold.

 Once Adler was sure I was behaving he jumped out of the truck and glared at Kurt and hopped back into the cab. Kurt gave me another funny look - half fear and half apologetic - and then jumped in the cab next to Adler. The truck lurched aggressively into life and skidded away, kicking up dust and sliding everything that wasn't chained down towards the back of the truck. The rage clouded my mind completely and I started to shut down again. Outside the trees of the forest were starting to thin out.

 OK, I would rest here, gather my strength and wait until the truck stops; there was not much else I could do. Then I would get out of here, bury Peter, kill Adler, figure out what Kurt's game was and then kill him too. There was something suspicious about him, the way he seemed to want to apologise for Adler's behaviour. It was only right to respect the enemy, but not that much. There was only a spattering of trees lining the road outside now, leaving intermittent vistas off across the German horizon.

 How I would get home, I had no idea. What other people were doing about my disappearance, I had just as little idea. They probably didn't even know. The trees were gone completely know and there was only open countryside and the long, lonely road.

 I blacked out again.