Archive of Our Own ^beta

Elfriede Rauss was never the woman to rack up all the experiences of life under her belt. She was no explorer on some expedition through the colonial wildlands nor some adventurer trekking across the continent. She was a postwoman, and in her ideal world, a postwoman was all she would ever amount to. It’s not an ideal fate for all those who want to etch their names into the sandstone halls of the historical record, but such an existence was all Elfriede ever wanted. Sure, working at the post office got frustrating at times, especially when the foul forces of drama and office politics reared their ugly heads. But it was a nice gig that paid well enough, and gave her more than enough free time to enjoy her own life.

So, it was no surprise that it took 24 years of school and work and all those other things for her to be truly, truly terrified for her life.

All eyes were focused on, well, the grenade on the floor. Hundreds of thoughts were racing through Elfriede’s mind, the whole world around her seemed incomprehensible, the only thing to truly positively exist was the grenade. We don’t have time to jump over the counter. It was the only course of action that made sense to her at that moment, but alas, there was no point. Saenger’s polio-stricken body prohibited him from doing the same, and she wasn’t going to let the poor man die in this shot-up grocers. Sauer had to have a better solution; he had to.

“Right- Just…” Marius blurted out; he was at a loss of words not that anyone could blame him. He took one more look at the grenade before preparing a lunge for it. However, Marius seems to be struck with hesitance right before he made his fatal decision, a split second passes as he reconsidered his options. He swallowed a lump in his throat as he finally found a suitable course of action.

He reached for the grenade, picked it up, and hastily made an attempt to toss it out of the shattered storefront. Unfortunately, the metal head of the stick grenade had caught on the edge of a windowframe. And thus, fell back onto the wooden floor with a dull thud. Marius didn’t take any time in ducking behind the counter. Elfriede, still panicked, instinctively dragged Helmut down with her behind the tattered wooden counter that had become their refuge.

The next few moments felt utterly miserable, the grenade’s detonation and resulting pressure wave had knocked the wind out of her. Her ears felt clogged; her hearing dulled so significantly that the noise of the racket around her could not be heard. Not to mention the ringing…

What couldn’t have been more than half a second felt like half an hour. Elfriede’s ears still rang painfully, but her hearing gradually began to clear just a tiny bit. The thoughts scattered and jostled by the explosion were recollected in her mind. She was alive. Are any of the others though? A quick examination of her surroundings confirmed this. Helmut’s face was painted over with an expression of pure terror, and his skin had turned to this ghastly pale shade. Marius was somewhat more composed, but he had been gripped by apprehension and disbelief. Elfriede felt the same wash over her. Her hazy thoughts went from ‘I’m alive!’ to ‘I’m alive?’.

The counter, the only piece of cover afforded to the unlucky trio seemed to be unaffected. The only thing the blast had done was send a piece of nasty shrapnel in between the space Rauss and Sauer occupied, made apparent by the hole which had been punched through the hardwood.

Marius made some exclamation of surprise, which Elfriede couldn’t quite decipher thanks to the ringing in her ears. She hoped to God that it’d clear up soon, the noise was… Unpleasant at best. The postwoman shifted her glance towards Helmut, shakily grasping the old, rusty M79 Service Revolver in his hand. A few rough taps on her shoulder brought her gaze back to the medic-pugilist, who was gesturing with a finger to his ear, saying something in words so muffled that it was all garbled once the processed result finally reached her brain. ‘Can you hear me?’ That’s it, probably. Elfriede shook her head. Marius pushed her hair away from her ear and began immediate inspection. Ear and hearing conditions were one of the most common injuries anyone on the frontline could suffer, unsurprising considering the sheer volume of ordinance being slung about every hour after hour.

Elfriede never expected it to be her this once. She hears, more feels the vibrations to her left, Saenger seems to be yelling something. The man springs up defying his weathered form, and points the revolver through the same window the grenade came in. Flash and thunder, there is a great big puff of white smoke and the acrid smell of black power. Marius made no attempt to stop the man, whoever he was shooting at were probably the same ones that threw that damned grenade in here, hardly similar to nearly shooting an injured noncombatant. Helmut experiences some difficulty in pulling the hammer back, but the single-action revolver fires off another shot eventually. Firing a gun in any enclosed space is no soft thing, Elfriede feels her hearing dampen again with every shot fired.

Helmut drops back down, thankfully uninjured. Elfriede hears the thud of his impact with the floor, she hears speech for the first time in what felt like her entire life.

“I told you that man was up to no good! He must have given our position away, that ungrateful bastard.” Helmut says these words in between heavy breaths.

“Maybe, damned if any of us know. We talked to him and he really didn’t seem like that sort of man. But you shouldn’t be concerned with that now, I think Elfriede’s lost her hea-“ Marius was cut off by a groan and a few exasperated words, befuddling both men.

“No, I’m…. Ach, fu- fine, I’m fine, I can hear you now, I think. Are…. Are they gone? They damn well be, I want out of here.” Elfriede could barely hear her own voice over the roaring in her ears, giving her one hell of a migraine.

“Yes, yes, I do believe these scoundrels have buggered off now. I think I even got one, I think, he was stumbling about, I must have-“ Marius cut Helmut off with an indignant “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The only thing Elfriede can think of while half-stumbling out of that grocer was how grateful she was of being alive, no, how grateful she was that they were all alive. They dropped Saenger off at regimental headquarters with a silent prayer that he was to be sent home. The man’s enthusiasm could be praised, but the lad was absolutely not someone to be anywhere near the front.

As for her and Marius? He went and reported the incident to Sankt, who was not amused in the slightest. But he couldn’t hide the relief in his eyes that they’d come ‘home’ safe. Elfriede had gone her own way at some point, finding herself at her own self-appointed bunk for the night. She gauchely plonked herself onto the tattered remains of an old bedroll, releasing a great sigh of relief. She had recovered, mostly, her ears were still ringing. What an annoyance that was, she quite liked actually hearing silence.

She sat in ‘bed’ for a long while, sleep just couldn’t take her this night. She was in close proximity to hill 15, that blasted place, literally and metaphorically. But it got her wondering, it was a pretty silly thought by all standards, but it didn’t stop her from thinking it all the same.

It was a miracle that grenade didn’t kill the trio outright, with just enough fuse time for Marius to try and chuck it out of the kill zone as it were. It really felt like there was an invisible hand that guided them from the path of destruction, a force that protected them, protected her. Maybe August had something to do it with it? No, that’s still silly, too silly, dead men tell no tales, dead men perform no acts. But it was still a comforting thought, wasn’t it?

Agh, to hell with it. Elfriede shuts her eyes, but she still catches a glimpse of him, lying limp at the bottom of Hill 15, with a shattered skull and blood all over his uniform. August, if you are my guardian angel, make damn sure you get everyone out of here alive, alright?

Her ears are still ringing, she swears that dull roaring was driving her mad. After all, why could she hear ‘I’ll try’ in his voice if that were not the case.

I’ll try. The words echo down the halls of Elfriede’s mind.

I’ll try.