Freiburg, Germany – 28 April 1915

Maria sat on a sunny bench in the hospital garden, and as she ate her lunch, her mind filled more and more with thoughts from the lectures. I must talk with Mama about this. She's told me so much about me, about my body, but never about men. Told me to ask as soon as I became curious.

She shook her head and laughed to herself. Funny, she asked me again last month if I needed to know more. I didn't then, but I certainly do now. I'll ask her tomorrow at breakfast.

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Nearly a quarter past noon, David thought as he glanced at his watch after locking his room door. He took off his shoes, wiggled his toes and then massaged his feet. The new shoes were still rather stiff, and he had a red area on the back of his left heel. Not yet a blister, but looking as though it soon would be. Have to be more careful; I'm going to need my feet rather seriously for the next while.

On his train trip away from the Front, he had seen many wounded German soldiers, apparently heading home on sick leave like him. Others – those missing feet, hands, legs, or arms, some missing more than one – he hoped were going home on discharge. He was thankful he still had all his parts, most of them still working very well. Need to keep them that way.

He wondered how many had made it back from the line that night outside Saint-Julien. He had seen so many fall, so many others taken prisoner. If captured by the enemy, your duty is to escape. He repeated to himself the words of the Prisoner-of-War lecture from his initial training. But I'm not captured by the enemy, and that's another thing I want to keep as it is.

David laid out all his possessions on the narrow bed, unloading his pack of freshly acquired items and unpacking the larger rucksack. The Fritz uniform has worked superbly until now, and it still has some days of life, but after next Tuesday it becomes a liability.

He turned it in his hands and examined it. If this uniform fails to show up in the field hospital in Roeselare on the 4th of May, questions will begin. This is Wednesday afternoon; it still has just under six days of life remaining. Do I still need it for anything? Can it take me anywhere useful from here?

Instead of answering his question, he unfolded and laid out the topographic maps of southern Baden and the Schwarzwald, quilting them together on the floor to give him a sense of the region. It was crisscrossed with hiking trails, most of them interlinked into circuits or through-routes. He cross-referenced the maps to the pages in the guidebook, studied the terrain away from the trails and looked at the dozens of small communities scattered throughout the area.

He took his sick leave order from his pocket and examined it. "I need some black ink and a pen," he mumbled to himself. "One with a broad nib."

Pulling out his scissors, he snipped the stitching that held the sleeves to the shoulders of the greatcoat, then cut the seams and rolled out the cloth. After severing the shoulder seams of the coat, he laid out the flattened pieces of heavy felted wool. He played with their placement until he had assembled a shape that, with very little cutting, was roughly rectangular. It measured a little under two yards by nearly a yard and a half. He spent over two and a half hours stitching it together with the darning needle and heavy linen thread.

Shortly before three o'clock, he took a break to have lunch. He pulled the soft interior from the bread loaf, sliced pieces off his cheese and washed these down with nearly half of his litre flask of beer. There was a sign in his bathroom warning that the water was not safe to drink.

Spending millions of dollars trying to take over Europe, and they can't even supply safe drinking water to their own people. Need to quench my thirst, but the bottled water is more expensive than the beer. The alcohol addles my mind – maybe that's what's wrong with Fritz.

Eating was a little less painful than he had expected, and he was pleased with the progress of his healing. He went back to work, separating the tunic and trousers into their panels and assembling another puzzle. Then he stitched together a second large rectangle.

Need some smaller buttons, he thought as he started stitching a large buttonhole in the wool sheet from the uniform. He hadn't finished it when he muttered to himself, "Why am I doing it the hard way? Tie tabs will hold the pieces together more easily." He cut strips from the tunic lining, folded and stitched them into ties, and attached them around the edges of the two large cloth panels.

After assembling his bedroll, he tested it. A heavy felted wool outer and a lighter wool liner. Wonderful how wool stays warm even when wet.

With the bedroll bundled, he stuffed it into the bottom of the larger rucksack; then, he gathered the brass regimental buttons, flashes, badges, pins and the few unused scraps of cloth from the uniform. He removed the brass badge, buckles and top spike from the stiff, moulded felt helmet and stomped on it to flatten. All of these he wrapped in the piece of brown paper which had bundled his guidebook and maps.

Other than the bundle and the bedroll, his Fritz uniform was reduced to a shirt and a pair of boots. I think I'll keep both.

Shortly after seven, he went down to the dining room and took a seat in a back corner. He quickly devoured a bowl of soup and a stein of beer while waiting to see what might come from the kitchen. He had explained to the fräulein serving him that he couldn't eat anything hard, and she had said she would bring some soft things for him. 

David had finished his soup and beer shortly before the beautiful young woman returned with a plate of spätzle and a piece of braised pork so tender he could mash it with his fork. He ordered another stein of beer.

He enjoyed watching her gracefulness as she approached his table. He loved the way her breasts moved above the top of her bodice as she walked. As she bent to place the second stein on the table, he caught sight of a nipple – then both. Oh, God! So close. Must tell her she's beautiful.

He moved his eyes to her face, smiling as she straightened up, and he said, "Du bist sehr schön." She smiled and winked, blushing as she thanked him before heading toward a waving arm across the room.

Her blond hair, touched with a hint of red, was twisted into a loose tail bound with thin pink and red ribbons. He smiled as he watched it. Sometimes, it trailed down her back, and other times, she wore it draped over a shoulder to tease the top of her breasts as she moved. I would love to be that close.

He shuddered lightly and continued to watch her. She seems interested in me. Her movements, her air. Daren't do anything to risk compromising my precarious position.

It was a tough decision, particularly with the second stein of beer. He hadn't been with a woman since the week before he had left the Salisbury Plains in early February. Perhaps she's only sympathetic about my wounds. But her movements, and that wink, tell me it's more than that. Could be that I'm the only young man left in town. Young men are scarce. If they're fit and healthy, they're off to the Front. My God! She's so beautiful.

After rearranging himself under the table, he got up, thanked her and went back up the stairs to his room, catching her watching him as he climbed. Then he undressed, lay on the bed, and did something he had not had the privacy to do in a very long while. Relieved and relaxed, he cleaned up and fell asleep.

He slept comfortably – in a real bed for the first time since the end of his short leave in January. In the morning, he soaked in the bathtub, another luxury he had missed. He swelled at the thought of the fräulein and enjoyed himself again. Living in cramped tents with dozens of others leaves no opportunity to do this. God, she's gorgeous.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and several cups of coffee, he took his small pack and went out walking, trying to break in the heel of his left shoe. He had rubbed linseed oil into it and placed an oil-soaked remnant of cloth on it overnight. It was a bit softer, but he thought his own heel still needed more. In a tuchladen, he bought some remnants. One, a very soft piece labelled Flanell, and another slippery one labelled Seidenatlas, which reminded him of one of his mother's silk-satin dresses.

Farther along the street, in the Badischer Wanderungen Ausrüster just off the Hauptstraße, he found a pair of heavy wool trousers with a placard indicating they had been made of the same weave of wool that Roald Amundsen had worn to the South Pole in 1911 and that Ernest Shackleton had taken to the Antarctic in 1914.

He looked for a long time at a carbide lamp and a metal box of crystals, but in the end, he opted for a folding candle lamp and a paper bundle of seven squat beeswax candles.

At Freiberger Schreibwarenladen, he was pleased to find a broad-nibbed Waterman pen identical to the one he used at university. After adding a bottle of black ink and a small notebook to his purchase, he headed out to find lunch.

In Münsterplatz, he paused to admire the intricately carved red sandstone of the Gothic cathedral. The street market was winding down, and wagons were being loaded. Seeing a few empty patio tables in front of a gasthaus, he decided to have lunch.

He sat and enjoyed the scene and ordered a stein of beer. His jaw felt a little less tender, and he could open his mouth a bit wider without too much pain. He described his difficulty eating to the frau when she arrived with the beer, and she said the Oberländer is tender and knöpfel need little chewing.

The sausages were delicious, and he taught himself some new ways to eat without causing too much pain. These knöpfel are similar to the squiggly pasta the beautiful blond had called spätsle last night. He felt himself stirring. My God, she's so gorgeous.

Picturing her in his mind, he let the swelling grow beneath the table, enjoying the feel of the cloth against him as he slowly moved his leg side to side. What a captivating essence she exudes.

He enjoyed the sun and his thoughts, and although the food was very tender, he took a long time eating and had a second stein of beer to help quench another of his thirsts.

The church bell struck two shortly before he arrived back at the gasthaus. Upstairs in his room, he pulled out his new pen and ink and loaded the reservoir with the eyedropper.

Inside the front cover of his new notebook was a calendar for 1915. He underlined 25 April, the Sunday evening he had left the trench. He stroked out the days which had passed using his memories of their nights. Sunday night unconscious in no-man's-land, Monday night on a hard train station bench, Tuesday night on a hillside above the Swiss border, Wednesday night in a proper bed.

Today's Thursday, 29 April. One more comfortable sleep, then ... He started writing a diary – cryptic notes written in truncated and abbreviated German, with no need for grammar or even spelling.

Satisfied with how the pen wrote, he changed the end date on his sick leave chit from 3 May to 13, giving him an additional ten days. He couldn't see any easy way to change the date on his orders to report to the field hospital in Roeselare on the 4th. There wasn't enough space in front of the four, so he tore the paper into tiny pieces and tucked them into the bundle with the remnants from the uniform.

Now he had an altered sick leave chit in someone else's name. That person was due back in Belgium on the 4th. He had no identification papers, but he did have the hundemarke to match the regimental number on the chit. So funny they call them dog marks. Looks like we're not the only ones who think they're curs. Have to hope anyone who stops me for identification is stupid.

He looked again at the chit. But this whole war is stupid. What's it about? Why are we maiming and killing each other? So incredibly stupid.