Blackbone Read Online Free PDF Page B

listen to me and listen carefully. When we finish this little tour, I’m going over to the supply shack to check out inventories for the last six months. You want to tell me right now what I’m going to find, or should I tell you?”
    Hopkins was silent.
    “Okay. You’ve been skimping on everything. Coal, blankets, food, soap—everything. Maybe you think it’s clever to treat these men like shit. After all, they’re your prisoners and they’re Germans. They’re not human, so you short their supplies. You starve them a little, and that reminds them who’s boss. I don’t believe you’re siphoning the stuff off for profit, Hopkins. I don’t think you’re clever enough for that. But you’ve become an expert torturer. Maybe you don’t think it’s wrong. Maybe you think it’s creative punishment and you ought to get a medal for what you’re doing. Well, I’ll tell you what you’re going to get. You’re going to get those goddamned blankets out now and, if you’re still short, you take them off the MPs’ bunks and you explain to them why. But I want every prisoner in this camp to have two new blankets by 1500 hours. And let them into those coal bins. And give Steuben a set of keys to the shed and the pantry. Now... what the fuck is this?”
    Gilman stopped at the back perimeter, where the fence climbed the sharp slope of the Blackbone foothills, enclosing a caved-in area within the camp.
    Hopkins was slow to answer: his ears still burned from Gilman’s attack. Gilman snapped at him, “I asked you a question, Captain!” as Steuben and Bruckner joined them, followed by the MPs.
    Hopkins stared at the cave-in. “It’s an abandoned mine shaft,” he explained. “Used to be a silver mine in Blackbone Mountain. When the Corps of Engineers laid out the camp, they sealed the shaft with explosives, then ran the fence around it.”
    “Why didn’t they put the fence on this side of the shaft?”
    “It... it was supposed to be sort of a symbol.” Hopkins glanced up from his shoes.
    “Of what?”
    “Freedom. So near yet so far.” Hopkins couldn’t resist a little smile at the joke.
    Gilman stared at him. “We’re supposed to be holding these people, Captain—not tormenting them.”
    Hopkins quivered with anger. “Sir, I have to question the wisdom of leniency. After all, sir, they are the enemy. Anything we can do to make them miserable, to demoralize them, is a contribution to the war effort!”
    With Steuben and Bruckner listening to every word, Gilman went nose to nose with Hopkins, “Treating them properly, Captain, is not leniency. It’s good sense, maybe even vital. If we break the rules, what indignities do you imagine the Germans might feel free to inflict on Americans in their camps? These men are under our care, not our thumb. Now, get this camp up to standard and be quick about it. And move that fence so that caved-in mine shaft is outside the wire.”
    “Yes, sir.” Hopkins’ lip quivered bitterly. “But... we’re out of fencing.”
    “Order some.”
    Gilman sent Hopkins back with the MPs, then hiked back toward the huts with Steuben. Bruckner remained a few paces behind, stopping once to let his dog take a leak.
    “Blackbone isn’t going to turn into a resort, Major,” said Gilman, “but I don’t think it should be an unpleasant place to sit out the war.”
    “Most appreciated, Major Gilman. Du bist ein ehrenhafter Mann.”
    “Honorable?”
    “Ja.” Steuben smiled. Gilman made no response. As they drew closer to the huts, he grew edgy seeing the crowd of faces studying him from the hut doors, from outside the huts, from beneath trees, Germans with curious eyes, hopeful eyes some of them, others hateful....
    “Ironisch, Herr Major,” said Steuben. “We are both sitting out the war, and we both have the same job—looking after the welfare of these men.”
    Gilman stopped abruptly and stared straight ahead as if lost. Then he parted from Steuben without a word and marched