Prisoners of War by C. Alexander London

Author:C. Alexander London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

“I’m a medic!” I shouted. “American! American!”

I raised one hand in the air. The other held Yutz back as he reared on his back legs, barking and growling. I moved slowly forward, close enough so I didn’t have to shout. I kept my head down as a few more shots buzzed by me.

“Don’t shoot!” I yelled again. “American!”

When I reached the side of the road, I was staring down the barrels of a half dozen M1 carbine rifles. I had never had a gun pointed at me before in my life. It made me flinch.

“Where you from?” one voice demanded. In the dark, his face was shadow. Yutz barked at him.

“Albuquerque, New Mexico,” I told him. “I’m a medic with the Ninety-Ninth.”

“Medics don’t got no dogs,” another voice snapped.

“He ain’t dressed like an American,” someone added.

“Germans got spies all over,” the first voice said. “Shoot him.”

“We can’t just go shooting him. We’re not Krauts. We don’t shoot prisoners.”

“There’s new orders to shoot all SS prisoners on sight.”

“He’s not a prisoner.”

“He might be an American.”

“I am!” I pleaded. I tried to open my shirt to show the uniform underneath the civilian clothes, but it was hard to do with one hand, while Yutz was still going nuts. My clothes felt suddenly very thin. The cold wind cut right through them.

“Show your hands!” one of the men yelled.

“Shut that dog up!” another shouted.

“Yutz, quiet!” I yelled, tugging his leash once to get the point across. Much to my surprise, Yutz quieted.

“Who won the 1944 World Series?” one of the men snapped at me.

“What?” I asked. Why was he asking me about the World Series?

“He don’t know,” one of the others said. “German spy. Shoot him and let’s keep moving.”

“He just called that dog Yutz.”

“That a German word?”

“Sounds like it to me.”

“The St. Louis Cardinals!” I answered loudly.

“Who lost?”

“The St. Louis Browns!”

“Not even I knew that,” one of the soldiers said.

“Maybe he’s a spy who studied the right answers,” another said.

“What’s a yutz?”

“It’s … uh …” I had to remember what Goldsmith called that language. “Yiddish!” I said.

Suddenly, a flashlight flicked on, blinding me.

“Turn that off!” someone farther along the road yelled.

“Light discipline! Full dark!” another yelled.

The light went off.

“We gotta get out of here,” a soldier said, shoving the clump of men forward. The river of retreating soldiers flowed around the group that had stopped to talk to me.

“He doesn’t look German,” a guy said.

“You say you from Albuquerque?”

“Yeah,” I answered. I worried how much time I was wasting standing here. Every minute that passed was another minute where Goldsmith and the rest of the prisoners got closer to the trains, closer to the work camp. Closer to the unthinkable.

“You, what, Mexican or something?” I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. It was too dark and the flashlight had taken out my night vision. I was being interrogated by helmeted shadows.

“I’m American,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

“My parents are from Mexico, yeah,” I said.

“Speak Spanish.”

“What?”

“Prove it.”

“Hola,” I said, feeling tongue-tied.

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