Fiendish Luck (662 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: fiction
Rating: 1.7 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Flash Harry (View user info) at 2008-11-19 10:18:08 EST
"Wave your arms if you can move! Scream if you're alive!" roared Johan, the medic, as he darted around the battlefield looking for survivors. The ground underfoot had been churned into a bloody swamp by enemy soldiers. Corpses were strewn across the landscape as far as the eye could see. The stench of misery and disease polluted his nostrils, mingling with the sewage that riddled the River Somme.
Only at dusk, when the guns fell silent and the bitter fighting paused for breath, could Johan and his team of medics haul themselves from the safety of the trenches to retrieve their wounded friends. "Wave your arms if you can move!" yelled the medic again, straining his voice so he could be heard as widely as possible. "Scream if you're alive!"
Lifeless eyes and cold limbs stared and grabbed at him as he clambered over the dead, pausing every now and then to feel for a pulse or rip off an ID tag.
Then, over the distant hum of faraway machinery, he heard a desperate voice screaming for help.
"You hear that!?" Johan asked, listening.
"Yes - it's one of our lads," replied another medic. "A right screamer. Go on, Johan, I'll keep looking around here."
He started trotting, continuing to listen with care and mindful of slipping on the treacherous mud and guts. "Scream if you're alive, soldier!" he cried out, pausing only to hear an echo of his own voice rebound back to his hears, full of panic and grief.
Then, floating through the thick air, the screaming voice sounded once again. "Help! Over here! He-e-e-elp!"
Johan broke out into a run as he saw a small man in the distance trying to sit upright, waving his hands frantically before collapsing back into the filth, with a pitiful sob of agony. By the time the medic arrived at the screaming man, he lay in a pool of dark red blood, and his face was deathly pale.
"I am here, my friend, help is here," said Johan quietly as he knelt down beside his fallen comrade. He shuddered as he looked down the poor man's shattered body. It looked as though he had been caught in the abdomen by a twisted piece of shrapnel which was lodged in above his hip bone, creating a massive gash along his stomach and crushing his pelvis. His legs were limp and useless. His groin looked to have suffered severe injury, also.
"Dear God," whispered the injured man. "Look what's happened to me. Look what's happened." His eyes were glazed over with shock, and his lips were blue. Johan grabbed a dirty rag from his pocket and used it to wipe the tears and wetness from the man's cheeks and nose. He produced a flask of spirits, and poured a little of the fiery liquid onto the man's tongue.
"Sit still," said Johan, firmly. He hauled the heavy pack from his shoulders and swivelled around to have a better look at the ruinous injury. "My name is Johan Jambor, and I'm going to look after you, okay? I am going to wrap this up and take you to the hospital."
The injured man, shivering and sweating, nodded. His pale face screwed up in pain as Johan attempted to pull the shrapnel from his stomach.
"Johan," he stammered. "Johan, will I be able to have children? Will I be able to have children after this?"
"Of course!" cajoled Johan, fixing a smile on his face. "When you get home, my friend, you shall have your pick of the strumpets, and she will bear you many, many children. You'll be a war hero, after all."
"You think I'll be able to have children? I am not...disfigured?" he said, helplessly.
"What, from this? Of course not, I've seen much worse. It's only a flesh wound, my friend," Johan continued, grinning. "What did you do before the war?" He was about to pull the shrapnel free and needed the injured man to stay conscious.
"I'm a painter," gasped the man, clenching his eyes and fists and mouth shut tight, between words. "I hope to go to college to study art, and sell my paintings. Nothing would please me more than having my paintings in the finest houses and best galleries in the country. Ah...!"
He opened his mouth wide, and let out a silent scream as Johan pulled the hunk of shrapnel clear, feeling the warm blood pour from the wound and soak his hand. The injured man's entire body convulsed, as though wrought with sheer terror and pain. Johan quickly and skilfully applied bandaging to the wound, applying pressure fiercely to stem the blood loss. The man's pale face flickered, and he slipped into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
"Come, Johan," cried another medic from a short distance. The field had been scoured for the wounded, those poor few souls who would die in the hospital rather than the battlefield. "Is he dead yet?"
"Still alive!" replied Johan. "Come and help me to carry him back."
* * * * *
The injured man's world was dark, and quiet, and peaceful. He felt as though he were being swung from side to side in a great hammock, with a numbness controlling his body. Then, his arms were being stretched, and his shoulders ached with the pain of it. Arcs of light pierced the darkness, and dim, sharp voices drifted slowly through his mind in a language he knew, but could not understand.
"The injuries were too severe. I had to cut one out," one voice was saying.
"Couldn't you have waited?" asked a second.
"No, there was no time. You wouldn't have wanted me let him die out there, would you?"
"Like he won't be dead in the morning?"
And soft, guilty chuckles. Flashes of brilliant light began pulsating through the injured man's head, startling him as he blinked his way back to a conscious state.
"Look who's awake!" declared Johan happily. He was covered in filth and blood, but the pleasure at saving a life overcame the exhaustion for a brief moment. "I thought I'd lost you back there...soon enough we'll have you in the hospital, and before long you'll be back home to meet that wife and paint those pictures and show the world what you're made of, my friend. You're going to live a long and happy life. What is your name, in any case?"
"Hitler," gasped the injured man. "Adolf Hitler."
User Reviews
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2008-11-29 15:55:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
:)
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2008-11-19 19:51:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
"No, I'm saying that maybe god is such an art lover that the holocaust was a better alternative than letting him be a painter."
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2008-11-19 19:02:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
+2 for the writing
+1 Hitler
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2008-11-19 19:00:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by phuchuebuddy (user info) at 2008-11-19 18:13:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
hitler was wounded by mustard gas not shrapnel
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-11-19 16:52:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Banjo (user info) at 2008-11-19 16:52:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sorry for not reviewing earlier, I was on my way out the door and your posts actually require some reading ability and thought.
Loved it! x
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-11-19 15:06:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2008-11-19 13:12:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
you sure do like posting an awful lot.
Submitted by no1hasdis (user info) at 2008-11-19 12:26:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CarterPFly (user info) at 2008-11-19 11:31:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I heard the one testical thing on the radio this morning and about 4 lines into this knew the ending....
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2008-11-19 11:31:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
also of interest is that his mom miscarried three times before he was born.
howbouthat?
Submitted by rubbermaid (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:44:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking awesome post then!
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:44:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hitler lived.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:43:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rubbermaid (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:43:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I didn't read this, it was pretty good I'm sure.
Anyone want to give me a two word review so I can rate accordingly?
Submitted by masteruser (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:38:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent read.
Now do a story about Hitler throwing puppies off buildings and having clandestine gay orgies.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:35:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm going to have that little ditty stuck in my head for the rest of the afternoon now...
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2008-11-19 10:29:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
FJ = Good writer.
Oathy: Hitler WAS human, after all...see? ;) (Shhhhhhh...)