A Crack in the Surface

The sound of screaming woke him from his uncomfortable sleep. Rook chuckled to himself slightly for a moment. This is not sleep, this is a pain induced haze of sleep. He shifted his body from one of the concrete walls of his cell to the other. The left side of his body had cramped up from toe to shoulder. It was amazing he could will himself to sleep in this situation. Then again, he had spent many a night in the uncomfortable cold of the Ural mountains in the last year of his life. Of course there sleep came but for short stints of time. It was amazing how the threat of someone placing a bullet into your body kept you awake more than 20 hours a day.

This situation was different than the situation he found himself in during the time spent in the mountains. There it was kill or be killed, the enemy had no reason for wanting to take prisoners. This enemy was different. This enemy wanted to know about the information he had inside his head. For that fact alone was he still alive. For now he was alive and well in a four foot by four foot cell.

Earlier this week an attack had been made on the opposite side of the prison. A large fire had started burned a good bit of the other side of the prison cells up prisoners and all. He like to think that it had been a group of his buddies trying to break him out of this place. Deep in his mind though, he realized that breaking him out would be the biggest suicide mission concocted in many years. He knew his commander all to well. As much as it pained him he knew that he was only one soldier and the risk out weighed the gain in this situation. Most likely one of the enemy combatants had tried to grasp a little more power than he was supposed to have. That idea did not boad well with those who had taken power. He had seen it before many times in the last month. Not only had the enemy attacked them ruthlessly, but they had also attacked each other.

The screaming had not stopped in the minutes the last few minutes. His eyes focused on the source of the noise that woke him. Across the hall one of the prison guards had decided to make a little sport of the man in the cell. The prisoner was tied to a chair and was taking one of the most ruthless beating he had ever seen. He wanted nothing more to go over to the guard and drop a bullet into the back of the man’s head. Though Rook looked calm on the outside, his insides were in a violent rage. The unfortunate prisoner in the other cell wore the same dark green uniform he did. Though he could not read the name on the uniform through the darkness he recognized the soldier as Private Joseph Rendell. Rendell and he were the only two out of the five man scouting party that had survived the onslaught of enemy troops. The three other men, Privates Gregory Hammer, Christopher Nelson, and Jonathan White, had been killed during the conflict.

It had been a week since they were captured. Something must have gone extrodinarily wrong on the planning end of there mission. They were supposed to have been in and out of the hostile territory in ten minutes flat with a hostage that had been taken by a spy in the enemies camp. It had to have been a trap all along. He and his men had been sent as replacements for another squad at the last second. His commanding officer was supposed to lead this high profile hostage out and back to their base. He and his squad had been caught in a six hour crossfire the night before. Though they had only lost one man the entire squad was pretty much useless for the mission at hand. Plus the forcefields that were ment to protect him and his men for the duration of their mission had suddenly been lost right before the prisoner exchange. Maybe the death and capture of him and his men hand allowed for the mole in their organization to be located once and for all. If the mole was captured then the loss of five men in the big picture was really not that bad. Never the less the pain of the whole ordeal remained with him. He had lost 3 good men and Rendell would probably not make it that much longer.

The beatings continued for another minute or so. Rook repressed the urge to break down. He could not fail in this task. If he broke down then more people would die. It angered him the enemy took this approach to try to crack him. He must be strong for his fellow soldiers. He had to be strong first for those who still lived to fight another day, and he had to be strong for those who had passed already. He would not let those men die in vain. They were already heroes in his mind.

Rook focused on his own condition and tried to block out the screams of his soldier. He looked down at his own shivering body. His uniform had been drenched by the pale of water the guards had thrown on him earlier this evening. He could not block out the cold that swept over his body. He was surprised that he was still in control even though his entire body was shaking violently. He tried to squeeze himself further into the corner of his cell. Maybe that way he would be able to get out of the wind that blew in from the window up to his right. After a few minutes of failing to get out of the way of the wind he finally gave up trying to move. The only thing he could do to remain warm was to curl up and force it out of his mind.

It was hard for him to think of happier times back in his youth. For some reason all of those fond memories he had seemed like a lifetime ago. They were almost beginning to feel like someone else’s memories. Memories he only knew because he had heard stories or watched them in a movie. Then a memory formed in his head. It must have been partly a muscle memory because he found himself sitting in a frozen foxhole with two of his buddies back when they were fighting deep in the Ural Mountains during the winter. Snow lay all around him and he sat there shivering just like he was doing now. He remembered talking the first shift while his other buddies slept. Back then he had been the rookie private. The men had started calling him Rook because of a misunderstanding that had happened around that same time. He laughed again, how would he have known that that nickname would have stuck with him all this time. Many of the kids around him now had no idea what it meant or the story behind the name. He finally got fed up with explaining the details of the day. The funny thing about that was his men started making up stories of their own about the origin. Most of the stories were able to generate a good laugh. He could probably collect all those stories and fill up a good long book.

The transition between being awake and asleep blurred to the point of oblivion. Rook could not honesty tell which category he fell into. He hoped that right now he was asleep and just dreaming. Maybe he would wake up and this whole situation would be just a dream. Or maybe it was real, whichever way he hoped he would be able to make it through the entire night. It was not long before he was able to fall asleep again.

It was not screaming that woke Rook up this time but the sound of a familiar voice. His eyes opened slowly, he was still exhausted and could not tell exactly how long he had been asleep. To him it seemed like hours but for all he knew it might have been fifteen to twenty minutes. It was still dark outside but the wind had stopped blowing. He felt a little bit warmer than before. He focused his eyes in the direction of the sound. He saw the outline of Rendell in the cell opposite his. The soldier had his head slumped forward staring intensely at his own feet. It seemed like the most relaxed position the man could have been in for his condition. Even through the dark Rook could see the bruising that had begun to form from the most recent round of beating.

“Did you hear what I said sir?” repeated Rendell.

“Sorry Rendell, I did not hear you,” answered Rook. “Could you repeat it for me again.”

“When you get out of this mess and back to the mainland would you tell my parents what kind of soldier I was?”

“There is no need for that soldier. We will be out of here in no time. I am sure Lieutenant Smetana is devising a way to get us out of here this very moment.”

“Sir, I understand you are trying to boost my moral here but your words are all just snafu to me. It would be stupid for them to come and rescue us. Hell, they probably think we are already dead. Either way, the situation does not look very good for either of us at the moment, me especially. I am surprised I made it this long to tell you the truth.

“I am honored sir to have been able to serve under your command for this short amount of time. Once the prison riots started I realized that many of us were probably not going to make it out but in body bags. I was relieved when Peter and several of the other prisoners joined our fight but our enemy seemed to grow stronger by the day.

“I guess that is what happens when you use death row prisoners as your guinea pigs. Seemed like a good idea at the time, since nobody would actually miss them. I still hold to the fact that this whole mission was on bloody mess. The warden probably should have gotten my foot straight up his hind quarters.”

“I think we all shared your views after the prison riot,” replied Rook. “As a matter of fact, I think the Lieutenant thought that point of view even before the situation hit the fan. Somehow he anticipated something like this happening. He raised quite a storm with his commanding officer. The man just would not listen to him. So he took what he was given and made the best out of it.”

“He would be the one shining star out of this whole snafu bloody mess. He is probably the only reason we made it this long.”

“Too true,” answered Rook. This mess isn’t the first mess I have been in with Smetana though. It seems like he always got the short end of the stick because he was that good. But men followed him because he was different from the rest of the army leaders. Many soldiers would gladly have died fighting for him. Now it seems like we get that same privilege.

***

Morning finally returned to the cell Rook was in. He awoke to find himself in the opposite corner of the cell leaning up against the cold metal bars. The sun was shining in through the window ever so slightly. The glimmer of sunlight brought a faint hope to Rook that everything would work out to be alright in the end. Maybe the words he had told Rendell had not been full of bull as he thought when he spoke them last night.

“Looks like the dawn brings a new sense of hope Rendell,” said Rook

Rendell made no answer so Rook turned to look into the cell across from him. Rendell was nowhere to seen. An empty chair stood in the center of the of the cell. The chair and the surrounding area was covered in blood. The sight killed Rook a little bit more inside. He had to pull his eyes away from the site and returned to look at the window. His shaky hands covered his eyes to hide the tears trickling down the sides of his dirty face. His shaky hands slipped up into his dark black and greasy mess of hair and grabbed hold of it tightly. Pain and frustration ran through every ounce of his tired body as he slumped a little further down into the corner of his cell.

Memories of last night flooded to his head. The guard had returned a short period after their conversation with a baton. The guards first swing of the baton had landed on the side of Rendell’s left leg. The sound of his leg shattering had been bad enough but the yell of broken humanity that followed vibrated to Rook’s very core. The beating had not stopped there. A myriad of more blows landed in various places around Rendell’s body. Each strike brought more physical pain to Rendell and even more emotional pain to Rook.

Rook had slumped into a ball and rolled a rolled across the floor to the position he found himself in currently to avoid having to look at how much pain Rendell was going through. The sound of bones breaking with every other strike was hard enough to bear alone. Rook could feel himself slipping away mentally from all he knew. Was this the act that would both kill one of his men and break down his defenses. I must remain strong, strong for those who have died before, and those who still fight on. I will not break. No matter how much repeated this line, despair rolled over him and he collapse from mental anguish.

He had heard the guard leave the cell and walk back across the room to his post. Behind him he could here Rendell’s strenuous breaths. Each one sounded more painful than the one before. On occasion he could hear Rendell spitting and choking on his own blood. The feeling of nausea and despair rolled over him once again. He could not even bring himself look over his shoulder.

“Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD; Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications,” said Rook as he collapsed one more time.

***

By all account it was midmorning from the light coming in from the window of Rook’s cell. Rendell had not returned to his cell since he had awoken from his sleep. He was able to block out some of the pain for now but he did not think that would last very long at all. His energy felt sapped and he could not bear to face the empty cell. The entire morning he stared blankly at the wall. His mind was blank accept for the occasional memory of a dead soldier he had passed during his stint in the Ural Mountains. The man had been standing next directly in front of a grenade the moment before he moved from this place. Shrapnel had disfigured most of the front of the man’s body. Blood stains and small wads of the fabric that had once composed his uniform were all that was left to most of his chest. The man’s face had caught his attention because it had somehow been unscathed by the blast. The look of horror was nowhere to be seen in the man’s wide open eyes, but it was a look of serenity. He had never understood how a man had look so calm even in death before. As he continued to look at the dead man, his image changed into that of Rendell and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Rook stumbled backwards out of shock and smacked his head against something solid. His mind refocused and found himself sitting once again looking at the wall of his cell.

Slowly he turned rolled forward into a crouching position. As cautiously as he could he willed his body into the standing position. His entire body was numb from sleeping in a curled up ball all night. He had to lean against the bars of his cell to steady himself. Once he felt comfortable his feet could support his weight he began to turn to face the scene he had been avoiding this entire morning. The chair remained in the center of the cell. A few drops of blood were scattered all over the chair. Most of the fresh blood was on the floor surrounding the chair. The site of the cell made him puke what little evidence of food that remained in his stomach out in front of his body. Suddenly all the image and conversations from the night flooded his mind. Tears ran down his face as he stood there silently staring at the cell. Holding on to the bars of the cell with his left hand he used his right sleeve to wipe away those tears.

The dead Russian soldier was lying in the middle of the cell when he looked up. The man once again shifted into the image of Rendell and sat up. Rendell then stood up and walked to the edge of the cell. His body began to change once again but this time it was a brutally bruised and battered Rendell. The man’s blue eyes stared him down blankly.

A noise in the distance caught Rook’s attention. His eyes shifted from the illusion of Rendell to the guard walking down the prison hallway. The large blonde haired man flicked his wrist and the cell door opened inward slamming into Rook’s body and sending him to the opposing wall. The man walked in and grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out and down the hallway.

“The master wants to see you now,” he muttered under his breath.