Читать книгу The Sons of Adam - Harry Bingham - Страница 44

‘Komm, Tommy, komm!’

Tom had hardly regained full consciousness before he was plunged further into nightmare.

With his good leg on one side and a burly German arm helping him on the other, Tom was escorted down a maze of trenches to a field hospital. He was given a brusque examination and a tetanus injection. Then he was marched off to a farmyard where four other British prisoners were being held under guard, before all five of them were marched further into German-held France.

By the time they reached the prisoner-of-war holding camp, Tom was on the point of collapse. His wounded left leg felt as though it were on fire, and big surges of pain washed up and down his body, like an ocean tide trapped in a goldfish pond. The camp consisted of a group of gloomy tin huts encircled by barbed wire. There was a brief search at the gate – Tom’s cigarettes were removed, over his objections – and he was sent to a hut marked with the Red Cross. A nurse took a quick look at him, decided he wasn’t going to die in the night, and let him collapse exhausted onto a straw pallet. He closed his eyes but couldn’t sleep. Depression assailed him.

He was a prisoner of war.

Alan had tried to kill him.

On either count, he’d have preferred to die.