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Homecoming
by Jokr

The repetition of questions, I learned, was to try to find inaccuracies in the answer. I found inaccuracies in the pronunciation of the translating lieutenant, but kept my facts straight.

What was I doing in the woods? Running from a German army.

Was I alone? No.

And so on, and so on.

I wanted to ask questions too, but this was not a game of questions. This was my life, and the others lives.

Does it surprise you to know that the Patriot, proud and Righteously French, kneed the captain in the groin? He was taken away, and dissapeared. I don't even recall his name.

Three days after our early morning defensive route, I was back at work. I was given the status of 'worker', and had a bright red badge that was to be shown at all times. Any German who wanted to could ask me questions. Not that I would understand, but pantomine was fairly well accepted. Our victorious conquerors had already begun to gut the middle of the town, to make a new transit area.

My work, considering my specialty of roofing, was the same. But I'd never repaired shell holes before, and found this to be the second most interesting challenge of the day.

The first was to find my tools, which had been scattered, blown up, and shoved forcibly through walls.

The penetration hole for the shell was as large as a big camera lense. That was neat, and smoothly bored through. The interior of the room was hellishly strange. A plane still sat on one table, but its knob had been shorn off. A saw lay partly into the roof, bent in a shape never designed. My assorted chisels had become arrows of war, and had speared into the surrounded walls digging chunks of plaster out.

And my grandmother had her arm in a sling, and was organizing her section on the house. I'd nearly forgotten her.

'The shell came in, then blew up, and knocked all my dolls around. Misy has a broken nose!' Misy was her second favorite, a relic from the 16th century, in fact.

I was comforted to hear this, actually. A touch of normal day care, less than a week after France had been invaded by Germany. Nice to know that little concerns still took time to intercede.

'An officer, an older man, has been here earlier to say that all the men will be working double shifts. I am sorry for that. But you work for them, and we'll get through. The General will make short work of these villians, I hear that Paris is being fortified, and the English even will come across to help kick them back into their corner!'

The English were coming... well, better little help than no help.

I told her about the sorry state of my tools, and she came into the workarea with me. Inspecting one chisel, she said 'if it had blown any harder into the wall, it would be this, and not some plaster, which hurt my arm.'

I gently hugged her, and then gathered up my tools into the largest wooden tool box, and a sack, and went to the 'headquarters' (it was actually the town hall, but the German Military had relabled it as "HeadQuarters"; in both German AND French).

The lietenant in charge of civilain labor (I and other men who were skilled labor) examined my saw, and asked questions about the penetration hole.

'Ah, that would be from a tank.'

I calmed the question inside me, 'did my part of the house look rebellious??' , and nodded meekly, as if all this were ordinary. My mind played tricks, and again the inner voice wanted to say 'yes, it looked that way during the LAST war when your army shot it then too!'

This was actually true. Grandfather had shown me the bullets he'd dug out of the North side, and pointed out how the holes had been professionally filled; by himself.

I asked 'so, where do you want me to start?'

He replied, 'I want you to reconnoiter the ceilings of the headquarters (city hall), then the infirmary (St. Julians school) and then the barracks (primary school). Guage the damage, then come back here and we'll fill out a work order to get you the proper amount of material for your job.'

Ok. I went out then, climbed a convenient ladder, and began moving from roof to roof. Bullet holes were not as obvious as I'd hoped they'd be, but cannon impacts were fairly easy to find.

This went on for the rest of the day, and I composed a list as I walked back to headquarters.

I passed the execution of several men, and inevitably saw yet another of my anti tank crew as he was shot. He had probably strayed during his interrogation, and volunteered that he'd been arming the gun.

In the most roundabout way, I'd learned that the captain of this particular army had decided to lead the advance in his little tank.