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There was a distant command, and the boots above receded. There was a final exchange, loud and percussive, and then the sound of them moving away. Alistair did not release his grip on the coat, even as the trembling in Tomasz’s body stilled entirely.

Alistair felt the man’s heart slow beneath his palm, felt the way the breathing returned to something approaching normal. He did not let go. He could not have let go, even if he wanted to. If he released the handful of coat, if he relaxed the tension in his own knuckles, he was certain the world would collapse on them both.

So, he held. He hummed, and he held, and he listened to the nothingness. Alistair pressed his palm harder against Tomasz's chest. The heart beneath galloped, wild, trapped. He kept his hand there, feeling each beat, holding it in place until the boots above began to move away.

They stayed this way until the light from the hatch began to shift; until it was clear the soldiers had left, or at least lost interest. Only then did Alistair release his grip. He let his hand fall away, one finger at a time, as if peeling bark from a tree, careful not to break the surface beneath. He felt Tomasz’s breath on his cheek, hot and ragged, and for a long time neither of them moved.

“Dziękuję, dzięki Bogu,” Tomasz whispered. Thank you, thank God, in Polish this time. The first words anyone spoke in hours. It was so quiet that Alistair almost thought he had imagined it.

He raised his head, finally, and met the larger man’s eyes in the half-light. They were red, wet, but clear. Alistair nodded, a gesture so small it barely counted, but the meaning was mutual. His own heart slowed. His own breath evened.

The body in the cellar would be found, eventually. But for now, they survived. The world above moved on, indifferent, and the darkness below held them secret, the only witnesses to what happened.

Chapter 6 - The Fever

As soon as the coast was clear, they made their break from the cellar. The flat light washed over them. Tomasz pulled on the sling one time, adjusting its position as he inhaled deeply. They only had a few minutes at most before the German patrol would realize someone had gone missing. If escape was possible, their window was closing fast. They would have to move quickly.

“Prêt, Lieutenant?” Ready?

“Oui.”

Tomasz broke into a full run, or as full as possible with another grown man strapped to his chest. Alistair had no other choice but to endure the jostling and bouncing that accompanied each stride, each footfall. Every step was a new swell of agony. His Jaw tightened, teeth grinding together like millstones. He felt himself moan, but the sound of it got lost in Tomasz’s heavy breathing.

He fully expected someone to give chase. He anticipated the sounds of German voices and the crunch of boots behind them, the crack of a warning shot, or worse, at any moment. But nothing happened, no one followed them. They reached the edge of the village, where the hard packed street gave way to softer ground and gravel, then left the main road entirely. They walked for hours, taking cover when they could, heading due west towards the sinking sun.

They reached the farm shed along with the advancing shades of early evening. It stuck out from the surrounding field like a broken tooth. It was not abandoned, but it had not been attended to recently, either. It was small, no more than ten or twelve square meters, made of slatted wood planks that were once whitewashed, although several seasons of exposure had taken their toll. There were no windows, and the roof was made of corrugated metal spotted with rust.

The door was padlocked, but the frame was damp and rotten. Tomasz grabbed the lock, yanked just once and the entire hasp pulled away in his hand. Another casual display of this man’s remarkable strength. The door swung outward.

The inside of the shed felt smaller than the outside, and Tomasz occupied most of the space with his body alone. Even at its peak, the roof hovered only an inch or two above his head, and if he extended his arms fully, he might have been able to touch both walls at the same time. Gaps between the boards were stuffed with burlap and newspaper, corners already receding into shadow. A small oil drum had been repurposed into a stove, a crude pipe extending to a gap in the roof. A work bench occupied one side, and various tools and baskets were set up against the boards or hung from hooks.

Tomasz removed Alistair from the sling, grabbing him firmly around his ribs, and laid him out flat on the worktable.

“Arrêtons pour ce soir.” he said before leaving. “We stop here tonight.”

Alistair lay still, looking up at the tin roof as the room continued to darken. His new position meant the blood could flow differently, and his legs began to throb. The pain no longer came in jolts when Tomasz moved, but rather it settled into a steady, unremitting ache. He could hear Tomasz moving around outside. After a while the big man returned with an armload of firewood and a full pail of fresh water that he managed to coax out of the hand pump nearby.

***

THE FEVER CAME ON LIKE an assault, a collapse of the systems that had been holding Alistair's consciousness intact. His entire body was foreign territory. His teeth were chattering so violently that he was certain they would crack. His skin erupted in a sweat that was both ice-cold and burning hot at the same time. It was a contradiction that his mind refused to comprehend, that his body would never reconcile. The officer began to convulse. The tremors seemed to originate somewhere beneath flesh and bone, as though his own body had lost control of its most fundamental functions.

Tomasz pressed his large hands against Alistair's forehead and neck. Through touch, he sensed what he was unable to see in the firelight. The temperature was impossible. The fever climbed to something that suggested the body was boiling from the inside.

Alistair began to speak. The words were nonsensical. A mixture of languages—Latin from Marlborough, French from his summers abroad, English from his childhood. The words tumbled over one another, and his eyes, when they opened, were not seeing the room, were not seeing Tomasz. They were seeing something else. Something internal. Images that his fractured consciousness were attempting to comprehend.

"The trench," Alistair whispered. "The beam. They're still there. Wickham. Where's Wickham? He was reaching. His hand was—" The words dissolved into silence. His body tensed. Convulsed. Released.

Tomasz moved swiftly. His massive hands moved to Alistair's uniform. Buttons came free and he peeled off the smaller man’s jacket like he was a limp rag doll. The undershirt followed. Alistair's small, pale frame revealed itself. His skin was marked with the accumulated filth of days of travel and years of violence. His body was trembling, shaking with the force of the fever that was consuming him.

Then Tomasz stood. He removed his own coat, hanging it aside. His undershirt came off next, exposing the vast landscape of his torso. He paused for a moment, bare-chested in the darkness, and then he pulled the officer's feverish body against his own. Chest to chest. Skin to skin. The contrast was immediate and overwhelming. Alistair's body burned with intense heat, while Tomasz's skin stayed cool and steady. The larger man wrapped his arms around the smaller man in a powerful embrace. He held him close, using his body mass as an anchor and a means of thermal exchange to combat the fever consuming the officer.

Alistair screamed. It was something beyond pain, though pain existed. It was a scream of pure chaos. His mind struggled to make sense of the tingling that flooded his nervous system. Imaginary bugs were crawling under his skin. He clawed at Tomasz's chest with the desperation, with the animal instinct of something drowning rather than fighting. His fingers explored the scars, pressing into them as if they were something real. He wanted them to be strong, to withstand his rising panic.

Tomasz held him tight, letting the clawing and thrashing go on. He allowed the officer's body to express its panic against the vessel of his own form. His large hands glided over Alistair's back, stroking and soothing.

Water came next. Tomasz reached for the bucket without releasing his grip on Alistair, his large hand holding it like a cup. He brought the metal rim to the officer's lips, but only after soaking a cloth in the cold liquid. When he pressed the wet fabric to Alistair's forehead, the officer's eyes flew open. He gasped as if the cold was a violation.

"No." Alistair tried to push the cloth away. "No, please. The water. It's rising. Putrid trench water smells like shit. It's everywhere. I can't—"