Sheldon's Piano

This is just an idea i had while watching Band of Brothers a few months ago. it was strange, i just chose a city for it to take place in and now, finally finding it again, i'm IN THAT CITY. weird.

Sheldon’s pinao.

It was sometime in march, or it could have been april, it was a dark few months. The mix of oil, dirt, constant gun smoke and blood leaves everything a dark smudge in my memory, but it was rainy. It rained every day it seemed, all day. At first it was refreshing, a welcome break from the snow that froze our feet in our foxholes. The sky was grey, dark. It always was, there were never shadows. Everything was just a dark shade of the colour it was before the soot and smoke from the burning buildings, then smouldering. Our company had been separated, our radio shot, all communication lost, and we were all missing home more every moment, even though our memories of what home was faded more every day.

At first home was where I grew up, where I learned how to skip rocks, where I learned that my mother’s laughter brought the sun up, where the tilled fields seemed to run on forever and the world started turning only at the crow of our rooster. But war touches things otherwise impossible. Soon home was under grey skies, the rooster that would wake me up crowed SMG fire, the sun rose with the cries of other mothers holding their daughters not knowing if the fathers would ever come back. The fields were tilled with panzer tracks and bore no harvest. Home was gone, we were living in hell. The fires never stopped burning, the bullets never stopped flying and the music never played.

We were on our own and it seemed we only had three choices; we could stay where we were and pray to god someone found us before the Germans did, keep moving into Cologne where we would have no chance of making it out again, or to try to retreat not knowing who occupied where. Our Commanding Officer had been killed shortly after we lost radio contact. Without contact we had no way of knowing a strike had been called where we had holed up. We saw the bombers coming but once you realize you need to run it’s too late. The ground was shaking so much none of us could stay standing and the walls kept falling with the stories above them coming down too. Our Commander and James, a private like the rest of us, were both crushed when a brick and mortar wall blew into them. A shell must have landed right on the other side of it, collapsing that side of the building. When the strike was finished we couldn’t even get their tags, two floors had fallen on top of them. We just had to move on.

We decided it was only fair, as none of us had any way of knowing what to do next more than anyone else, that if we were to do anything it would from then on be by a group vote as whatever move we made it would put all our lives in further danger.

We decided not to be sitting ducks, and that we would move. There were only six of us left by then. Six soldiers ducking low and running across streets, holing up for a few hours and doing the same again. We had avoided the Germans so far, at least enough to avoid gunfire. We had come across a unit of maybe 20 or 30 a day or two before but managed to lay low enough for them to not notice us. We weren’t about to try our odds with numbers like that.

But we could only avoid them for so long. Running across an alley from an old cathedral we had stayed the night in to a half destroyed apartment, Findley was shot. He was third in the line of runners and he just dropped like so much lead. He was gone, right away, before he even hit the ground I think all of us knew he wouldn’t be getting back up. The first two, Darling and McKinnly made it across first, finding cover behind a wall. Johnstinson was fourth, right in front of me, and tripped over Findley’s body, falling down beside him. Before he could get up another shot rang out and a bullet ripped through Findley- right through- and found Johnstinson’s leg. He was screaming instantly. No one blamed him. I stepped over him and grabbed the back of his collar, not waiting for him to find out he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own, and dragged him behind me. Maddison was last, he was bending down to grab Findley, he couldn’t leave him there. We heard the sniper cry out from his perch. He had shouted our position to the rest of his unit. A third shot rang out and Maddison stopped, looked down at his stomach and collapsed. He was quiet, but we could see he was alive. I got Jonstinson behind cover and we hunkered down. I can still hear him screaming “Oh god, oh god, my leg, f**k, my leg!” and he kept cursing the German, shaking and holding his leg. We had a vague idea where the sniper was since the direction of his voice near gave him away.

McKinnly laid out some suppressing fire in the direction we figured he was, and I was testing the wall for loose bricks. I found one and managed to pull it straight out from the wall. It didn’t allow much sight but as long as the sniper couldn’t see me it was the best thing we had. I couldn’t see anything right away, but when McKinnley stopped firing there was a pause we could hear the rest of the German soldiers moving our way. It was like waiting for a tide to come in... There was no stopping it. there was a spark from a window in the top floor of a building on the other side of the street from us, down maybe two buildings, and a brick just above where McKinnley was crouched exploded. I told him I knew where the shots were coming from. He started shooting again, keeping his head behind cover while I took out another brick, giving me enough room to aim through. I got my sights on the window and waited. When he pulled his gun back in it took only 30 seconds for the sniper to show himself. He moved so slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. It was agonizing.

I shot. There was the sound that only belongs to metal ripping through flesh. He dropped. We waited but he never showed again. Even to this day I’m not sure if I killed him, scared him, or if he was just physically unable to get up again. Either way, he was solved for us. Johnstinson was still screaming, Darling was trying to tie his leg up but he was bleeding too much. He started to not make any sense. Darling’s hands were covered in blood. When he looked up at me the look in his eyes was hopeless. He knew Johnstinson was going to die. If any of us were a medic we could have at least hit him with some morphine. Maddison was quiet the whole time, it was strange. The look on his face gave away the pain he was in, but he stayed quiet, and as still as anyone could be. 

Author's Note

this isn't finished yet, but i have no idea if it's worth keeping going. it's not supposed to be amazing, and really all this is is a giant lead up to what i really want to happen- why i started writing in the first place.