Hope among the ruins (EN) ✅

Chapter 24

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"And I would have already called it... It doesn't matter," he spoke, but stopped in the middle of the sentence.

I probably won't know what he was going to say next. Maybe he decided that if he insulted me, I would complain to Tobi and he would grind his teeth. Although to be honest, I don't even know why Tobias would have to defend me against those who try to make fun of me every time.

I don't even know if he's still alive.

The blond took the bag off his back and, placing it on the primed ground, squatted down at the same time. After unzipping the bag, he pulled out two square metal boxes, two drinking glasses, and chocolate bars.

Sharing the food with me, he sat down and began to open the square box with a deep sigh. He opened mine as I sat down next to him. We ate in silence. The food was not of the first freshness, maybe even a bit disgusting, but there was nothing to choose from. My stomach had been playing the loudest marches since the day Toby and I left his parents' house and got into the car that drove us to the coast, from where we motorboated to the island and boarded the cargo ship. From that moment, it seemed like an eternity had passed.

I wished with all my being that Tobias, not this white-haired German, was next to me now. The more I thought about him, the more I realized that I was beginning to feel a stronger and more murderous longing for him. It was even more depressing that I knew nothing about him. I have no idea if he is alive or dead. Injured or healthy. In captivity or hiding somewhere, waiting to continue his mission to escape from the war.

Or maybe he's already escaped a long time ago? Perhaps at this very moment you are spending time in sunny Argentina or the dunes of California, enjoying the beautiful rays of the sun? Perhaps there is an amazingly beautiful Argentinian woman or a blonde girl with whom he is not bored.

"Listen," I said, deciding to ask this guy about Tobias. He stumbled. "Maybe you heard something about Toby?"

"From the moment I pulled you out of the water, no one knows anything about him and no one has heard anything from him," after a few seconds of silence, he answered and threw the already empty can somewhere aside. He looked at me with a frown and chewed the last bites left in his mouth, washed them down with some drink in the drinker. "I'm sure he's alive. That doggie can bring a healthy coat out of any situation."

"You hate him?" I suddenly asked, although to be honest, I don't even know why I suddenly had such a thought. Perhaps his contemptuous tone made me consider this possibility.

He turned to me and squinted a little. I couldn't read any feeling, any emotion in his blue eyes. He didn't even seem to have a heart. Or she is iron.

"I don't really like it," he finally answered my question and looked away with the straightness of his nose. He was looking at the absolutely beautiful view that was unfolding in front of us.

The two of us were sitting on a cliff with our legs down, and a narrow but swift river was flowing below. To our left we could see a gorge of high and pointed mountains, through which a waterfall fell below. The mountains were covered with moss and all other greenery.

For a while I admired the beautiful scenery and seemed to completely forget that the war was still going on.

The blonde-haired German soldier and accomplice in Tobias' escape from the war snapped his fingers in front of my eyes and I came back to reality. To my dismay, the man was not amused, he was looking at me reproachfully. As if I had done something terrible.

"Why aren't you eating anything?" he asked reproachfully. "You'd better get stronger while we still have time, because we'll be leaving this place soon and we don't know when we'll be able to eat again."

I didn't say anything to him, I just casually started to hang the canned pork with my fork. It tasted disgusting, but the water from the drinking fountain, which didn't seem to be that fresh either, helped to drown it out. But since I had not eaten or drunk anything for who knows how long, and I had no other choice, all that we ate and drank seemed like a feast.

Meanwhile, the boy stood up and began to look at the river below, at the trees that grew on the hill.

"Have you figured out how to get down?" I asked a bit timidly and finally chewed the last bites of canned meat. I threw the box somewhere to the side, and after drinking water, I also stood up.

"I only have two ideas for now," he replied, hands on hips. "Descend with ropes or call a helicopter. I guess you don't know how to use ropes and climb mountains."

"True," I nodded in agreement.

As a member of the war, I am not very well prepared for any situations in life, even if I am only a medical worker. There was an opportunity when I could learn how to use ropes during mountain climbing. Once upon a time, when I was very little, when I had free days, my father often went to the mountains and climbed them.

Once he invited me to go with him. Although I was climbing the mountain with my father's help, the ropes came loose and I fell painfully to the ground. That time I broke my leg and was in bed for a month and a half. The bone fracture was quite severe. From that day on, I promised myself never to climb a mountain again and try to avoid heights.

Now that I had been sent to the Allied front line in Tunisia as a military nurse and was training, I could have taken the opportunity to overcome my fear of heights and climbing mountains, but I didn't.

I didn't dare.

If this German deserter now gave the verdict that we were going to rappel off the cliff, I would probably put my pants in the same second.

The fair-haired guy turned to me, but pulled out a walkie-talkie from the pocket of his military jacket, and after communicating with someone and exchanging a few short but coded phrases, he turned it off and threw it at his feet. Then he trampled the communication device with his shoe.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"Why are you so surprised?" he asked bitterly.

"I... I don't know," I couldn't find the right words to describe my state.

"I did it so that no one would find us. Even if I passed a coded message to my colleagues, the same war refugees, there is no shame in caution," he explained.

I put my hands forward as if to say I didn't mind, but this guy still seemed displeased.

"For your own well-being, you'd better not say anything," he said warningly, and as he approached me, he licked his lips. When I leaned back, he pressed his soot-smeared face closer to mine. He was looking at my eyes, at my lips, his gaze wandered somewhere over my body. But I could still see the unbearable contempt in his eyes. "Toby warned that sometimes there can be a real pattern in a certain place. I'm not your sweet boyfriend Toby, so you better not make fun of me. If you start your nuns truths, I will put a bullet in your forehead this very minute. Did you understand?!"

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