Panzerfaust

Chapter 10 - Wounds

September 23th, 1944, Vértes Mountain, Kingdom of Hungary 

Sturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny wakes to the sound of storm knocking on the windows like bullets raining down on them. It's completely dark and eerily quiet in the bedroom, except from the thundering heartbeat in his ears, and the shrieks of fallen comrades echoing through his nightmare. Sophia's head is next to his on the pillow, lips slightly parted as she is dreaming away peacefully in her slumber. He slips from the bed before he could give in the urge to scream, the temperature of the room cooling on his sweaty skin without the heat of the duvet. 

The terror in him dwindles once he takes a long drag from the cigarette in his shaking hands, peaking around the corner of his mind like a partizan, ready to pounce again. He props his hot head again the cold column of the veranda, trying to block out the click-clack of a machine guns and the distant thump of ricochet hitting flesh.

When someone wraps his shoulder in a fabric is when he realizes he is trembling from head-to-toe. The hands stay there, embracing him tiredlessly until the dread is retreating where Otto can no longer sense it. Sophia's head is still on his shoulder blades, keeping the throw on his body as her palms rub along his biceps soothingly. 

He turns around and lifts her legs to carry her back into the bedroom; there are no words exchanged between them - it is not needed. 

He wakes up alone in bed. The ghost of her figure is still on the pillows next to him, scent lingering in his nostrils, both pleasure and panic from last night gone from his veins as he streches his long limbs. The bedroom is bathing in sunlight as he looks nonchalantly at the nightstand where his watch lies; 11:26. He jumps out of the duvets like a trigger activating, his mind turning at full speed. It's been a while since he slept for this long - and this deep and he needs a moment to remind himself that he is - in fact, off duty right now  - and last night he had one of those nightmares once again. 

Brushing his dark hair back with his fingers as he walks to the bathroom, all white and marble, with a large tub and sink, the silver of the faucets glinting in the light. Splashing water on his face, he feels the beginning of a stubble on the skin of his sharp jaw. His reflection in the mirror, the dramatic Schmiss across his left cheek greets him like an old friend while he is rubbing fresh smelling soap into his skin. His clothes are where he left them, neatly folded on a chair, as he opts for a white button-up and loose pants. 

Otto finds Sophia and Erwin Gerwitz sitting by the kitchen table, the girl leaning over the hand of the wheezing soldier. The smell of sanitizer in the room is overpowering the mouthwatering aroma escaping from the simmering copper pots on the stove, vegetables half chopped on a wooden board, halted by a medical session performed. 

'Ah-ah, don't you jump around Hauptscharführer Gerwitz, when Fraulein Edelsheim is poking your wound with that dangerous looking needle.' The Sturmbannführer places his palms on the younger man's shoulder, preventing him from standing up to salut his Alderman.

'What do we have here?' Otto asks looking over Gerwitz's shoulders. 

'I had to reopen the wound, now I am cleaning it up, and then I'll re-address the stitches.' Sophia says not taking her eyes off her handiwork. 

'Why didn't you said you're having trouble with your hand, Erwin?' 

'I didn't thought it was this bad, Sturmbannführer.'

'I insisted when I saw his bandage seeping puss.' Sophia chirps in. 

And the medics on his team might need to hear an earful, Otto thinks as leaves his hands on the man's shoulder; he knows he's not screaming and swearing only because of the Fraulein across him. Nothing more prideful and bothersome than wounded soldiers.