Hugo Hamilton - The Last Shot

One of the men fell on top of her. She felt as though her ribs cracked. She was winded and suddenly couldn’t breathe. There were shouts, she heard running. The sound of branches being brushed aside and let go again with a whack. The explosion of the gun still whispered around the base of the trees.

The man on top of her heaved and gasped for air. His limbs shuddered, reaching for help. The man kept trying to move, trying to reach, trying to drag himself away from her. It was as though she was choking him. She tried to move away herself, but his weight pinned her down. Finally the man gave three quick bucking movements and died. She felt him go limp. Blood began to flow across her breast.

She felt herself get cold and weak. The blood was warm. She tried to remove the pitchfork from her neck. She sat up and leaned over to get sick, vomiting on the brown carpet of pine needles. Her hair was full of pine needles. It was only now that she felt them.

She heard another shot whip through the stagnant air of the forest. It seemed at once near and far. Only when it faded could she tell how far away it was. It was followed by a further shot, even louder, singeing the air and drowning out the sound of the stream near by. She pulled herself up. Once the sound of the shot faded away, the whisper of the stream took over again. She walked away, backwards. Moving towards the water? She was shivering, trying to pull her clothes together around her before Franz came back.

She was moving away from the body of a dead man. His eyes were open. They seemed to be looking at her feet. She kept moving backwards until she was stopped by a tree.

Franz came running through the trees. He saw Bertha, and his crazed eyes raked the surrounding trees. He was holding out the gun. Still a soldier.

‘Where are they?’ he shouted. ‘The others, Bertha, where are they?’

‘No, Franz, there were only two,’ she said.

Bertha was as much afraid of him at that moment, until Franz relaxed his grip on the gun and went over to her. He placed his arms around her and held her very close, with the gun still in his hand.

‘It’s all right, Bertha. Bertha, mein Schatz. It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m here with you now.’

Franz kept on repeating the words, comforting her with his best phrases. She began to cry properly now. It was release. She tried to talk through her tears, but he spoke for her.

‘It’s all right. Don’t speak about it now. Let’s go. Let’s leave all this behind.’

He kissed her again and again. He kissed her crying eyes and stroked her hair. He moved his head back and smiled at her.

‘Look, Bertha, I’m here with you now. You have nothing to worry about now. It’s all over now. Come on, let’s go.’

He held her chin in his hand gently and extracted a tiny smile, as though from a crying child. He pulled her towards himself again. His shirt had taken up some of the blood from her clothes. He led her away towards the stream.

At first Bertha felt only glad to be alive, glad to be safe. The fear she had experienced had numbed her whole personality, so much that she did everything with an automated sense of precision. Fear turns people into machines.

At the small stream, Bertha first knelt down to pray. It gave her the strength to go into the water and wash herself, to forget what happened and to carry on. All of this is God’s will, she told herself. The sun lit up the brown flowing water all around her. The water made her feel strong. Her hands splashed the water upwards, mechanically.

Franz stood on the bank with his back to her, allowing her to wash in privacy. It restored her dignity. He still had the gun in his hand. He still scanned the surroundings for signs of attack.

Bertha began to feel the security of Franz’s presence. She felt human again. Her courage came back. She would have to forget what happened. She was still in great shock. But she told herself to put it all behind her. She began to feel clean again.

Franz helped her to step out of the stream and placed his arm around her.

‘Bertha, mein Schatz,’ he kept repeating as he led her away. ‘What did they do to you? Are you all right?’

‘Yes, Franz. I’m so glad you’re here.’

She had no injuries. She was alive. She was safe. But then the reality broke in on her.

‘What have we done, Franz?’ she asked, looking in the direction of the dead body. The fear she had felt earlier had now turned into a heightened sense of guilt. The feeling of total security made her lightheaded with compassion. ‘Franz, we have killed somebody here,’ she said.

Franz was shocked that Bertha could feel anything for her attackers. He stood in disbelief, almost in anger, when she stopped to look around once more at the man lying face down on the ground. As though she wanted to see the expression on his face, to see who had died on her behalf.

‘My God, Franz, what have we done here? Is he dead? Are they both dead?’

‘Yes, Bertha. Don’t think about it. There was no way out. They would have killed you. And me. We had no choice.’

‘Where did you get the gun?’ she asked, as though it all had to be made clear in her mind before she could leave. ‘I thought you left it in Eger.’

‘Lucky I didn’t,’ he said.

She pulled herself towards him. Little by little, they both realized that they had extended the war.

‘We must get out of here,’ Franz urged.

It sounded like a military command. She went back to the corpse with him to find her shoes. They were in two different places. The second shoe was right beside the dead man. Franz picked it up for her. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help glancing down at the man who had threatened her own life so recently. Secretly, she knew that seeing him dead was a comfort. The blood had seeped into the dry brown pine needles. The man’s eyes stayed open. Ants had begun to claim his head, running across his oily hair, ears and face. As she put on her shoes, Bertha guessed how old the man must have been; no more than twenty-five, maybe thirty: no older than Franz.

Once the threat to herself had disappeared, Bertha began to feel the strangeness of rational thought. She wanted to talk about it. She wanted Franz to keep telling her it was over.

Franz pulled her away and led her quickly through the wood back towards the farm. There, Bertha got another shock when she saw the dead dog lying motionless in the yard. She realized then exactly how close to death she had come.

Franz picked up his haversack and pulled Bertha along by the hand. It was as though she was reluctant to leave. As though she wanted to let everything sink into her memory at a slow pace. This had all happened too fast for her. Too shocking to remember.

Everything was rushed from there on. Franz said it was getting late. They walked up the hill again. Bertha thought it must have been hours ago that they had started off from the lake. When they reached the top, they decided not to say anything to the old man in the house. They stopped only long enough for Franz to fix the puncture. Bertha was thirsty and wanted a drink of water from the well. Before she went in, she put on a new dress, discreetly, behind a tree. It was the navy blue pleated dress, not exactly the right thing for cycling or for the summer. It was really more of a winter dress, bought in Paris. But it was just the thing to put the ordeal behind her.

The old man gave her some tea. He also gave them some bread and jam, proudly telling them that the jam was from 1943. He had a hearty laugh and Bertha felt how strange it was to be back among ordinary people again. She began to feel at home and talked to the old man about various things. Irrelevant things, it seemed to her. She accepted a jar of jam which the old man offered her. It was for their journey, the old man insisted. She remarked on the extraordinary kindness as she gave it to Franz to put in his haversack.