The Shell of the World Is Cracked

Jim Hardin woke abruptly and blinked in nervous reflex, his breath condensing in the faint light from the shattered window in the abandoned bedroom. The luminous dial on his wristwatch showed that he had been asleep for two hours.

Jim had been dreaming of home: not much plot to it, just a vivid image, early morning, damp grass, dusty red-clay road. He was a child, watching as his mother stood by the side of the road in her cracked shoes and worn housedress, haggling with the peddler. The stranger looked scornful as he attached the hand-scale to the chicken she had tied by its feet, and shook it to see if she'd been forcing gravel down its throat to add to the weight. The peddler knew all the tricks with which desperate people tried to eke a few more pennies out of their farm produce. In his dream memory, Jim saw his mother's face, wary, determined, as the peddler held an egg up to the light to check for addling. The last thing he remembered before waking was that egg: a bright oval in the morning sunlight.

Now, in the faint German moonlight, he held his breath, listening for the sound that had woken him. There it was, breaking the sullen silence of the beleaguered city...stamp, stamp, stamp...the regular tread of hobnailed boots on the cobblestones outside. He reached for his rifle, and was at the stairs when the first shot came, like the explosion of a cannon in the stairwell of the pinched rowhouse. On his way down he met the others, who had also been catching some sleep while Johnson stood guard. Another roaring shot from below, followed by soft California cursing and the sound of running German boots.

Simpson, the machine gunner, was first on the spot, and started laughing even as Jim glimpsed, through the broken storefront window, the long greatcoat flapping behind the enemy soldier as he disappeared unscathed around the street corner.

'What in blue murder were you trying to do with that pistol? You can't hit the side of a barn with that, stoopid. Why didn't you use your rifle?'

Johnson looked at the Army-issue .45 in his hand, a bit bemused. 'I dunno. Wasn't thinking, I guess.'

'Wasn't...thinking...' Simpson shook his head in mock exasperation. The good-natured ragging continued until the squad's sergeant stuck his head in and stopped the banter with orders.

'We're jumping off. Train station.' They groaned. The previous division had suffered heavy losses trying to occupy the railway station in Hamm. Now they were going to try and infiltrate it, under a quarter moon.

Approaching the ragged ruin of the station, its platforms laid bare under the well-bombed roof, Jim pressed a dirty handkerchief to his face to block out the putrid smell of decaying and burnt bodies. The acrid stench clung to his nostrils, settling in the roof of his mouth, a smell like no other on earth.

The remaining hours of winter darkness were spent in a tunnel leading up to the rails. No one spoke or lit a cigarette, not sure how the enemy was getting his information. Jim whiled away the time thinking about home - but never too hard, lest his attention falter and he miss a clue that led to survival.

Toward dawn the shelling began, German artillery lobbed into the station from half a mile away. Jim and his companions cautiously made their way up the staircase leading to the platform. As Jim poked his head out of the tunnel, he saw a bright ball of flame a few yards to his left, but heard nothing as he was flung back to the foot of the stairs. He stood up, checked himself for injuries. He was bleeding from his left ear, and could hear nothing on that side.

In his confusion, he tripped over a comrade in the still-dark tunnel. 'Excuse me, ' he muttered. His boot struck another as he moved toward the light.

It was only after the third man failed to respond that he realised he had been apologising to dead men.

Emerging into the street he learned from the sergeant that orders were to abandon the station. The station was not occupied, it was not worth it.

Glancing up, Jim spotted an elderly civilian on a bicycle. Realising now the source of the intelligence, he raised his rifle and fired. The man dropped where he was struck, the bicycle collapsing on the cobbles in a vicarious death rattle.

As the remnants of Jim's squad gathered, he looked further up the street. About 75 yards ahead, two German soldiers were assembling a machine gun with matter-of-fact efficiency. Jim raised the alarm and his rifle.

Before anyone else could fire, three shots rang out. The two machine gunners fell backwards. Jim looked to where Simpson stood, legs spread, in the centre of the street, lowering his Browning Automatic Rifle with a nod of satisfaction.

The men ran to where the enemy soldiers lay: each corpse bore a small, round hole in the middle of its forehead. Each was wearing an undamaged pair of military-issue spectacles.

Jim stared at the dead as the rising dawn glinted on their eyeglasses, making bright ovals in the morning sunlight.