I insisted on stopping at a cafe before we got back to the hotel. Hans looked all in even if he didn't want to show it.
I ordered coffee, and then asked him gently.
"How bad is it Hans? Josie told me that you told her it was only a scratch from a shrapnel wound?"
Hans shook his head tiredly. "With grenades and mortars you don't really know a thing. With bayonet fighting you know everything".
A moment later we were in the back toilet area peering over the sink into the mirror as Hans Auer peeled off the head bandage that must have been stuck to his head for days.
I tried not to gasp. The cut was deep and rudimentarily surtured by the last over-worked medic that treated him. It ran from from the left side of his forehead, down to his cheek.
"He missed my eye, Rollie, that's lucky eh? Over there, both sides are now sharpening one side of their entrenching tools or spades and using them as axes when we get close up. Haven't we come a long way since the Middle Ages!" he laughed bitterly.
But then more urgently: "What will Josie think when she sees me?"
"She won't care. She never stops talking about you; and don't forget you looked after her when her leg got mangled. She thought you might never want see her again after that".
"Really?"
"Yes but it wouldn't hurt, well actually it will probably, to clean it up a bit. Let's get rid of this old rag for one thing," and I tossed the bloody and dusty bandage in the bin. I used my handkerchief damped in hot water to wipe away the worst of the blood, pus, and travel grime that had accumulated around the wound. Hans Auer didn't make a sound except to say at the end:
"Isn't our coffee getting cold? I haven't had a real cup in months."
I was already thinking about some nearby pharmacie, but I needn't have worried. The owner's wife, on seeing Hans, rushed out with antiseptic and cotton wool and dabbed fiercely on Hans's cut. This time he did wince, and was told in French that he was a big baby.
In the meantime her young daughter had been sent running to the local doctor or pharmacie and came back breathlessly with a strip of flesh coloured adhesive plaster just long and wide enough to cover the wound, although we had to cut a bit out around the left eye at Hans's insistence.
"You'll do. Come on then. I'm already in trouble, I was only going out to the local shops. Let's face the music..."
LS
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