Heroes

I was staring down the barrel of a 12 gauge shot gun. "Tell me where she is, or I'll shove this down your throat and watch as a hole gets blown through your neck!" He stood a couple of yards away from me with his feet firmly planted and the gun expertly placed to absorb any kickback. It wouldn't be an easy take down but still possible. The only thing stopping me were the two goons who stood beside him like Egyptian guards. The one on the right was scared and inexperienced; he held the pistol sideways and was shaking as if he had Parkinson's; he wouldn't be a problem. It was the guy directly to his left who was making me hesitate. He was probably around 6'4 and weighed 250 pounds, he held a golf club in his right hand and a baseball bat in the other. He stood 2 feet away from the guy with the shotgun. If I moved any closer I knew I'd be buried with a four inch crater in the side of my head. I glanced behind me; the cliff was probably no more than a fifty foot drop. I listened carefully and I could hear the distant sound of water either falling or flowing. I looked over at the men in their grey sweaters, black track pants and Adidas running shoes. My hands went numb and my heart started pounding. I turned and jumped.
The sound of gunshots and shouting whipped around me in gusts of wind. I instinctively brought my feet and knees together and tucked my chin into my chest. By the time I realized what I was doing it was too late. My body slammed into the river and everything went black.
The first thing I saw when I finally gained consciousness was an old man standing over my leg with tweezers in his hand. Panic overtook me and I rolled off the bed landing on the cold, hard, wooden floor. I screamed in agony. My vision began to blur and tears welled up in my eyes. A shadow appeared above me. It reached down, gripped my shirt and effortlessly placed me back onto the bed. I started to shiver as he placed a wool blanket over me. "Take it easy there champ." Something about his voice calmed me. The throbbing in my ribs and leg didn't stop but I could feel myself begin to relax. I closed my eyes and bit down on my tongue hoping it would relieve some of the pain. It wasn't working so I tried looking around the room.
Wooden beams ran across the ceiling, each one with a little light dangling below. The planks that made up the walls were laid horizontally reaching from one end of the room to the other. Directly in front of me was what seemed to be a door? It was lopsided and there were cracks between the planks allowing the wind to sneak in and steal away the warmth. To my right was a fireplace with a chimney that disappeared through the roof. A small coffee table stood in beside me with stacks of books, loose papers and forgotten mugs scattered across the surface. A blue arm chair sat close by with its fabric stretched thin and worn from years of use. Tucked away in the corner was a small cabinet and a wood stove with a kettle on top. The water began to boil and the kettle softly whistled, calling its owner back into the room.
As he walked past he looked over at me and grunted "good you're still awake". All the warmth and care I had heard in his voice earlier had disappeared. He had short white hair that revealed his wrinkled brow. His nose was bent and crooked from being broken repeatedly. He had a scar that ran across his left cheek and ended at the tip of his eyebrow. His eyes held a deep sadness that made me wonder what horrors he had to live through.
He stood by the stove making tea and filling a bowl full of soup. As he worked I noticed the small end of a tattoo peeking out from beneath his low collar. He wore a threadbare green sweater and a pair of blue jeans, which seemed odd considering his age. The man finished up and came over to where I lay and offered me the bowl of soup.
"You need to eat. You've been passed out for three days and have thrown up everything I've been trying feeding you." I grabbed the spoon and the bowl but hesitated. "Don't worry if I wanted you dead I would have left you to drown in that damned river." So I ate my first spoonful and almost spat it back out. It tasted like burnt bread mixed with rotten eggs. He must've read my expression. "Listen I'm not the greatest fucking cook there is, but if you don't eat you'll die and that means I'll have wasted both time and resources on you!" His voice grew louder and angrier with every word until he was almost shouting, so I grabbed the bowl and chugged the rest. "Good now sleep. You'll need your rest after that episode." I tried to speak but all that came out was a series of grunts. "We'll talk tomorrow". He got up and walked behind me. I heard a door slam shut. Not long after, music penetrated the thin walls and I fell asleep to the sound of the Andrews Sisters singing Rum and Coca-Cola.
The old man woke me up early and made us both breakfast; which tasted just as bad if not worse than the soup from the night before. How a man could mess up fried eggs and coffee I have no idea. "So I see you're a military man." He looked at me and I froze? "Don't act so surprised, when I pulled you out of the river I had to change your clothes so you wouldn't freeze. That's a nice tattoo you got there." He pointed towards the left hand side of my chest. I pulled down the collar of my sweater and revealed my tattoo. In the center was a maple leaf with a parachute attached to the top. On either side extended a pair of wings.
"Joined seven years ago when I was sixteen. I've been training Special Forces since last year." I looked over at him expecting a response but he simply paused for a moment and gestured for me to continue. "My family has been in the military for the past six generations. My grandfather was in World War II, he died while trying to save one of his buddies. He was an American soldier and got the Medal of Honor for it. Private First Class Harold C. Agerholm, I've been living-" the old man dropped one of the plates he was washing. His hands started shaking as he reached down to pick up the pieces of shattered glass.
"Are you-?"
"I'M FINE" he yelled. Blood started dripping from his hand. He had closed his fist around a piece of glass. "I'm... I'm fine." Despite the agonizing pain, I got up out of bed and tried helping him pick up the pieces. As we worked I could feel myself getting weaker by the second. I started breathing heavily and I couldn't see clearly. The old man saw what was happening and immediately lifted me up and placed me back on to the bed. "Take it easy there champ, you don't recover from a gunshot wound to the leg and a broken rib cage overnight." He pulled the blanket back over me and then got back to picking up the pieces of glass. He seemed to have recovered from his earlier episode. He quickly bandaged his hand and then pulled up a stool next to my bed. "So tell me kid, how did you end up getting shot and thrown into a river?"

***

He laid there under his blanket shivering and struggling to find the words to explain what had happened. "I...I saved this girl from getting raped by a group of three guys. They weren't to...too happy about it and so they c...came after me. I ended up jum...jumping off a cliff to get away." I looked at him laying there and I couldn't believe how much he looked like his grandfather. I got up and moved towards the fire. The flames leaped as I added a few more logs and then headed outside. Reaching into my truck I grab my C7 standard military issued rifle and my little silver dog whistle. I blew it twice and waited. Toby came running around the corner. He ran circles around me and rubbed up against my legs as I scratched him behind his ears. "Come on Toby, let's go do some hunting!" At the word 'hunting', he bolted into the forest and out of sight. He would hopefully come back with a rabbit or maybe even a duck. I had a different target in mind and they were going to be much more difficult to catch.

*

         I woke to the sound of thunder. Though the night was warm I shivered beneath my blankets, it was nothing out of the ordinary. I pulled back my thin wool sheet and made my way slowly towards the fire which was only ashes and embers by now. I grabbed a couple of logs and threw them onto the fire while I pulled out my matches and my cigarette pack from my left pocket. The wind howled and snuck in between the wooden planks constantly extinguishing the flame. Even nature doesn't want me smoking, I thought to myself. I looked over at the boy laying in the middle of the room on the cot. I stood by the door and considered him carefully. As I watched him I knew I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I was there the day his grandfather died. I got up and walked back towards my bedroom. I stood in front of my dresser and stared at the bottom drawer. It's been sixty years since that day. I opened the drawer and pulled out the small leather-bound notebook. Its pages were now brown and fragile from the ages spent in that drawer. My hands started shaking as I opened the book to the first page which held a newspaper article:
Private first class Harold C. Agerholm received the medal of honour during WWII:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the Fourth Battalion, Tenth Marines, SECOND Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Saipan, Marianas Islands on the 7th of July 1944. When the enemy launched a fierce, determined counterattack against our positions and overran a neighboring artillery battalion, Private First Class Agerholm immediately volunteered to assist in the efforts to check the hostile attack and evacuate our wounded. Locating and appropriating an abandoned ambulance jeep, he repeatedly made extremely perilous trips under heavy rifle and mortar fire and single-handedly loaded and evacuated approximately 45 casualties, working tirelessly and with utter disregard for his own safety during a gruelling period of more than 3 hours. Despite intense, persistent enemy fire, he ran out to aid two men whom he believed to be wounded Marines but was himself mortally wounded by a Japanese sniper while carrying out his hazardous mission.
         My legs started shaking as I turned the pages. I could never forgive myself for not being there for him, for not saving his life. Instead I was in the infirmary because some Japanese fucker decided to slice my face with a bayonet. I could have been there beside him helping him. He wouldn't have died... if only I had been there... if only I had been there. I flipped to the very last page of his journal, he had written it in the hospital bed right beside me. It was covered in his own blood but the words were still visible...
The ringing in my ears grew louder as I struggled through the mud. My body in agony, my bones weary, and my arms exhausted. I stumbled along barely able to keep my balance. A mortar had exploded nearby sending my body flying into the metal frame of what once was an armored vehicle. The ringing never stopped. All I could hear were the faint sounds of explosions; they seemed so far away. I reached for the metallic sphere attached to my uniform and without thinking I threw it. I opened my fists and within was a small pin. There was an explosion in the distance; the cries of pain and death were lost in the wind as the bodies flew in every direction. Two more. My body kept moving forward, trudging through the knee high mud puddles. In the distance I could see them laying there covered in blood, but alive. I gripped my rifle and prayed. Without another thought I ran as fast as I could hurdling over logs and rocks and craters and sandbags and barbed fences and overturned tables and bodies... so many bodies. I knelt over the two wounded Marines "I'm here, its okay, don't worry. I'll get you both out-". Pain; all I could see, hear, feel, smell and taste was pain. The bullet lodged itself deep into the left side of my chest, penetrating my ribcage and piercing a hole through my lung. I felt my blood spill over my body blanketing me in its warm loving hug. I looked over to my left; his eyes were staring off into the distance as his blood trickled from the edge of his mouth like a raindrop on a window. I tried saving them... they have to know I tried. I sank further into the pool of blood and mud as I felt the world spinning; the rain falling; the bombs exploding; the people dying; the ringing in my ears is louder than ever.
The journal dropped from my hand and I sat there and curled into ball for the rest of the night.

***

         I woke up startled and sweating, momentarily forgetting where I was. I looked over and saw the old man working once again in the kitchen. I dreaded the taste that would come with whatever he was cooking. I slowly sat up in bed and watched the man carefully "Are you okay?" He looked over at me and smiled, "Of course I am. Just a little tired, didn't sleep well last night." It was odd seeing him smile. "Oh by the way kid, sorry if I freaked you out yesterday with that plate incident. I was in the military myself sixty years ago. Never heard of your grandfather but I was a part of the war, I was just reminded of an old friend when you mentioned his name." He pulled down the collar of his shirt and showed me the tattoo of his division. "Well you guys were all true Heroes" I said. His face darkened and he replied "Yes we all were, but your grandfather was the true hero. After all, he did win the Medal of Honor!" He finished making the eggs and bacon and handed me a plate. It was the first and the only decent meal I had while I was there.