The Beams of Confinement

Delphin woke, all was black as pitch. She couldn’t place where she should be. The air was scented strong, cow shit, overpowering. She was lying on her back, she could feel a hardness beneath her. Her head rested on a course cloth, filled with something soft and hard in places, not feather, straw perhaps.

Delphin tried to turn and cried out. The pain in her side was excruciating, it froze her, her whole body complained and she gave up trying to move. She breathed deeply of the shit filled stuffy air and tried to think. She was clasping her side and mid drift. She felt cloth and padding where the pain throbbed like a beacon demanding her whole attention. Bandages? She wondered. She tried to explore with her fingers, prodding gently and running her tips along the lines of tightly wound material. Pain flared wherever she touched. Bandages she was sure.

How was she here, in the dark? Was she on a bed, the floor, up high on a bunk? She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t really tell which was up or down either, the inside of her head was spinning as the pain bit again and again. She felt clammy, and cold. Her hands sought about for something to cover herself with but found only her shirt, open at the front though still worn, and the bandages tightly packed around her pain. She tried to sit up, pushing with a hand beside her. As her tummy tried to curl she cried out, the pain so bright and sharp she lost her sight, the blackness replaced with a blinding light she knew wasn’t outside her head. Then her head spun fast and she fell back.

Delphin woke, she squinted as she opened her eyes, light hurting them where all had been blackness. She breathed and every breath hurt. She decided against trying to turn or rise. She delicately shifted her head to one side. Light streamed through cracks in the wooden wall opposite and the wooden roof above. Some lanced across her face. The smell reeked. Shapes shuffled in the dark, behind bars of aged wood. Delphin raised her arm and shielded her face. The effort hurt, pain pricking from her mid drift. The shapes shuffled about, huffing. Cows. She thought them cows. Her father had liked to take her to the village market to see the auctions. Cows and sheep and horses and pigs. Not this village though. This was not where she had grown up.

Fear bit sharp at her as she thought of how she might have come here. Bosch soldiers shooting, her running, she had been looking for someone. She should still be looking for them. Pain grabbed her from her mid drift again and all thought was washed away.

Delpin breathed slowly, deeply, fighting to ignore the pain of moving her diaphragm up and down. Shot. She had been shot. Someone must have found her. Bandaged her. Fear bit deep again, pushing back the pain. Germans. Germans had shot her, had they found her, captured her? Was she already dead?

Delphin pushed the thought away, of course she wasn’t dead. She was shot and bandaged, but not chained. She moved her left foot tentatively and bit back against the searing pain. Her toes, though she could hardly feel them through the sharp stinging pokes of pain, sought her right foot, up her ankle. No chain, no restraint. She was free. Not that she was going anywhere. The effort of her small discovery had taken its toll, she could feel her eyelids closing. Delphin fought to stay alert. She needed to know what was happening, where she was, who had taken her here…all went quiet and black once more.

Delphin woke, her eyes opening to daylight, dim but enough to see by. She was still here, lying on her back, above her slatted roof joists, light streaking through gaps but seemingly not as bright as Delpin remembered from before. She became dimly aware of the presence of another, sitting beside her. She looked, turning her head too quickly. Pain flared. As it passed her vision began to clear. There sat an elderly man, wearing a peaked cap, braces, a once white shirt with the colour unbuttoned. He smiled at her and said,

“There you are. You are ok. Well a little worse for wear, but safe for now. The Bosch have not found you. Old Jeremie has found you. Are you hungry?”

Delphin shook her head and tried to speak, but her throat was parched and only a rasp sounded, her voice was weak she thought. She was weak. She tried to ask where she was and how long she had been here but it was no good.

Jeremie lifted a battered old tin cup to her lips.

“Drink.” He said. “Drink.” He poured tiny amounts between her lips at a time. The water felt cool and she drank.

“Eat a little, you must stay strong.” Jeremie said as he spooned a broth to her lips with the same care he had taken with the water. Delpin forced herself to swallow though her stomach cared not to be given it.

After a few spoonfuls of broth Delpin tried again to speak. Her voice seemed so small.

“Where am I, how long?”

“You are in old Jeremie’s back barn, out of the way. Soldiers are searching, for you I guess. You have been here since yestereve. Found you by my garden door. Shot you the Bosch did.”

“I must go..” Delphin made to rise but winced in pain as on as she tried to move her muscles.

“You cannot rise, or go, not till your wounds heal sufficiently. Hide here, you must rest and eat if you wish to live.”

“Why do you help me?”

“We resist.” Jeremie’s eyes looked so deeply sad. She had never seen a man look so sad. The memory would stay with Delpin for the rest of her days.

The next morning Delphin woke to the sun’s bright strokes as it played over her face, warming her. The cows shuffled in their pens opposite. Her head felt clearer today. She tried to lift herself, but gave up immediately. The pain was just as excruciating. Beside her was a small upturned box, wooden like the slats of the barn that made do as her hospice. She wondered if she would ever leave this place.

Delphin looked up to the ceiling, to the deep shadows that nestled there above the cross beams. Bright beams of light struck down to the floor of the barn, dust floating within them. She was confined here, amongst these beams of light, even if she was no prisoner.

She turned back to the wooden box, upon it were a jug of water, a tin cup, a plate of cheese and grapes. She reached tentatively over and carefully drew the cup to her. Held on her breast she brought the jug over, her arm shook with the effort though the jug was small. She wobbled water into the cup. When she had drank and eaten a few bites she lay with her head to the side and watched the cows, till her eyelids closed once more.

The bangs of shots in the distance woke Delphin. Her eyes sharp as she checked about her. The cows were shuffling uneasily in their pens. The light was dim, evening up was upon her. There again, the bangs caused Delpin to jolt and she clasped her mid section as pain flared, not close by, she told herself. Some way away. Her ears sought for sounds of warning for the next while. No more shots carried to her, no engines grumbled. Eventually she heard scrapping as someone fumbled with the barn door located past her feet, behind some bales of hay. Despite telling herself it was silly, thoughts of soldiers with rifles and torchlights crowded her, closing in to take her away. From one confinement to another less pleasurable.

Jeremie came round the bales, a lantern raised to light his way. He was old, Delpin saw. He looked concerned.

“You are awake, good. The Bosch are hunting in the woods, the lanes. Those were shots. You must lie quietly here, if the soldiers come to search. Lie quietly here.”

Delphin nodded.

“Thank you Jeremie.” She said. Her voice was stronger.

Jeremie nodded in return, and then hurried away. He didn’t walk so well Delphin saw.

Delpin wondered how life might have been if the Bosch had not come, like a plague to eat away her country, her life. Maybe she would have been become a washer woman like her mother, a baker like her father. Married, be starting a family by now. Instead she held in her memory the message from Yapper. That was the only name she knew him by. The route he had procured. A message she needed to pass on. There was still time, time to heal enough, if she wasn’t found.

Her ears pricked at the sound of motors pulling closer. At least two vehicles. Maybe more. Voices carried through the slats of the barn, caught on the wind, not close by. Delphin glanced about her beamed confinement, listening intently. She wished she had a gun. She patted her hip in case a revolver nestled there. No, if Jeremie had found her with a gun he hadn’t mentioned it, and hadn’t left her with it.

The voices drew closer, some to the side of the barn above her head, some behind the bales of hay by her feet. Light passed its beams through the gaps in the slanted walls as torches were swept this way and that. Searching. Searching for her she was sure. Had Jeremie given her up? Her heart was beating faster. She heard the rattle of shaking doors at the far end of the barn, above her head. The cows were moving uneasily. As though they knew death lurked outside.

Delphin thought she heard Jeremie. “No no. This way.” She was given up. It was over.

She heard the scraping of the side door beyond the bales.

“In here. In here.” Jeremie’s voice called.

The cows moved now, restless, instinctively wanting to run, but there was nowhere for them to go.

“My cows.” Jeremie’s voice carried over the bales. Delphin realised there was many between them. She heard german, barked commands. The sounds of boots moved beyond the bale wall and a light shone down the mass of cows whose moans and fear stitched grumbling grew louder. The stench of them and their waste struck Delphin suddenly, like her senses tuning into the world. The Bosch must see the gap beyond the bales. The light swept over the cows, swept up into the rafters, they must see.

Another barked command, and the light was gone. Boots and equipment stamped and clanged, then the sound of the door scraping closed carried on the wind.

Delpin expected a rain of bullets, she imagined the soldiers aiming for the side of the barn, the beams of light following in as bullets exploded through the wooden slats. She held her breath. But all was quiet. Eventually she exhaled, and she breathed deeply in the stench of the cows, filling her mouth and nose. She hadn’t heard the motors she thought, but then again she wasn’t hearing much of anything. Delphin’s eyelids weighed heavy, and she couldn’t keep them open, she fell into blackness again. Confined but safe.