August in Paradise

"Hun! Hun! Hun! Hun!"

Two small, bare, tanned feet ran as fast as they could, but the haunting choir of chants still got closer and closer down the dry, dusty road. Augie Kruger's 8-year-old strides were no match for those of the older boys from the schoolhouse, which already had faded away more than a mile down the road behind them. "Hun! Hun! Hun! Hun!"

The words grew louder, now vibrating in Augie's eardrums. The voices grew shriller and meaner. Augie's heart thumped heavily within his chest, his little body became covered with sweat, streams of sweat soaked his shirt and trousers. His pumping legs ached and finally refused to obey his mental command to keep up their earlier torrid pace.

"Hun! Hun! Hun! Hun!"

Augie collapsed into an exhausted heap in the middle of Page Avenue. His entire body heaved in pain and fear as his downcast eyes caught glimpses of pairs of bare feet encircling him.

"Git up, ya dirty Hun!"

Augie knew the voice from school. He knew all the voices. Voices that had once been friendly voices. This particular voice he recognized as that of Hank, a husky 14-year-old son of a local banker. "Git up, ya dirty Hun!" Hank's voice had a tone of growing impatience.

"Stinkin' Hun!" A foot dug into Augie's aching back. Sims laughed and unleashed another kick. He was 15 and fatherless since Mr. Sims got killed in a battle somewhere in northern France just a month after he had landed in Europe with the American Expeditionary Force. "Stinkin' Hun!" Sims' laughter had quickly changed to weeping wails.

"Huns are shit -- that's what ya are!" Bobby screamed, throwing a handful of dirt into Augie's long, blond hair, which then became cemented in pools of sweat on his forehead and neck. Bobby, 12, also had his father fighting somewhere on the western front. "Let's kill him!" Freddie yelled. "Let's kill the little son of a bitch!" Freddie, 18, would graduate in May of 1917 - if Miss Carlson didn't hold him back for constantly failing his arithmetic tests. His father owned a mercantile store in town. Freddie planned to join the family in working there. He was always bragging that some day he would "own the whole damn town."

Freddie's large hand reached down, grabbed Augie by the shirt collar and jerked the smaller lad to his feet. Augie's spindly legs wobbled. His thin body trembled. His head shook weakly from side to side. "I -- I -- I ain't no Hun," Augie protested in almost a whisper. He wiped beads of dirty sweat from his eyebrows. "I ain't no hun," he repeated as forcefully as his parched throat could muster.

"Hear that, guys? He ain't no Hun!" Hank mocked as he slammed his right fist into his left palm. "The little bastard is a liar, too."

"I ain't lyin'," Augie argued feeblely.

Freddie yanked Augie by the arm and spun him around and around like a toy top. "I say we hang the son of a bitch right here and now," pointing to an ancient elm beside the road which had several lower branches within his reach. He let go of Augie, who staggered and fell back down on his face.

"Ain't got no rope," Hank said as he stood over Augie's crumpled form. He lifted Augie's chin with his bare right foot. "Smell that toe jam, boy," he ordered. All the group giggled with him for a few moments.

"I think this Hun ought to have his balls cut off," Sims barked, drawing a jack-knife from his pants pocket. He flipped out a long, thick blade that glistened in the late afternoon sun. "Then the worm won't be able to produce any more filthy Huns."

"Please don't," Augie begged as he rose slowly to his knees, not yet really sure what those things were for, but he was sure he didn't want any part of his body cut off.

"Might as well slice off his peter, too, while we're at it," Freddie contributed. "That ain't gonna do him much good without any balls."

A roar of laughter was accompanied by stomping of feet in the dust. Augie began to cough as the dust penetrated his nostrils.

"Shad up, Hun!" Sims ordered waving his knife under Augie's nose. "Ya want me to cut yer nose off, too?"

"I wanna go home," Augie whimpered, "Please let me go home. I got chores to do."

"Listen to that, fellas," Sims said , "The kid wants to go home. Sure go home, kid. How ya gonna git to Hunland?"

"Hunland?"

"Yeah, ya know, yer home -- over there with the damn Kaiser -- over in Germany -- where our soldiers are gonna blow up the whole damn place. Ya wanna go there, Hun?" Augie shook his head, and then pointed up the road. "I live there. I wanna go there. My pa is waitin' for me. I gotta git home."

"Yer makin' bombs to blow us up right?" Sims stuck his knife's blade against Augie's cheek. "Ain't 'nough you Germans has killed my pa. Now yer makin' bombs to kill me and my ma, too. If I cut yer gizzard out, they'd give me a parade down Main Street. One less Hun to worry about. I'd be the town hero. The Kaiser ain't gonna save ya, kid. He's gittin' his pants beat off over there. Don't think the Kaiser's gonna save ya."

"I don't know no Kaiser," Augie gurgled as tears welled up in his eyes. "Please don't cut my gizzard out."

Freddie sat down on a large roadside rock and pulled a sack of tobacco from his overalls. He began to roll a cigarette, being careful not to spill any tobacco from the thin paper. When filled, he evened out the tobacco, rolled his creation delicately and placed the paper's edge against his tongue to complete the production. He pulled a match from a small box and scratched it into a flame against the box's side. He lifted the flame to the tip of the cigarette, which hung precariously from his lower lip. After a couple of deep drags, the cigarette burned brightly and Freddie was releasing streams of smoke through his nostrils.