Impossible Odds

back.
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    Jessica:
    The gunfire slowed. I noticed that I wasn’t dead and felt astounded to be drawing breath. There was no time to see anything. It struck me none of the men seemed to need a flashlight. Still in pitch blackness, I felt myself picked up and thrown in a fireman carry position by a guy who took off running with me as if I were a student backpack. We were quickly away from the campsite. He put me down in a small clearing. The quiet was thick, pocked by isolated shots from that direction.
    The same guy who carried me asked if I had shoes. “Uh, yes. But I can’t remember where they are.” Of course they had to be back by my sleeping mat, but my brain had no candlepower at all.
    “Did you leave them at your blanket?”
    “I must have. They’re actually sandals, but at least they cover my—”
    He was already up and running. I could hear his footsteps recede. In moments he returned with my sandals.
    “Did you just go back for my—”
    “Yes. Is there anything else you need?”
    “What? From back there ?”
    “Yes. If there’s anything, tell us now. We’re getting out of here.”
    “My little black bag with my medicine in it is right there at the blanket, but don’t risk going back again just for—”
    His footsteps sprinted away and he was gone one more time. I lay back and tried to get my breathing under control. Someonehanded me a bottle of water, I drank, then the bottle was gone again.
    The soldier made it back quickly, and I noticed the gunfire had completely died out. I don’t recall just when it stopped; it seemed to be over as suddenly as it had begun. But I felt amazed and grateful that a soldier would make two trips back into that place just to get my things for me. He had to do it without knowing whether somebody else was lying in wait for him, ready to shoot as soon as he got within range. And yet there he was, back with my things like a guy just returning from the store.
    Even though one of them had specifically told me they were there to rescue us, my brain couldn’t process the information. I’d lived in my head so much of the past few weeks that I was having trouble getting a fix on reality.
    “You’re Americans?” I asked. “Americans? You’re Americans?” I must have sounded like a drunk.
    “Just wait here,” one told me.
    Wait here? Why would he want me to wait there? Why weren’t we running for our lives? We were still in grave danger. We had to be. Was it possible these guys didn’t understand that? I knew the darkness could explode with rocket fire and blow us up at any second. Fear and shock made me shiver so hard my teeth chattered.
    “No! Don’t leave us here!” I tried to cry out, but my voice was tiny. “We have to get out of here! They’ll be coming! Where’s Poul? Did you get him?”
    Someone took my hand and extended my arm. I touched Poul, who was already there next to me in the darkness. He was fine, but clearly just as stunned as I was. I moved close enough to see that at least he had managed to get out with his pants and shoes on. We couldn’t talk there, but we had discussed a possible escape often enough that we both knew without talking about it: If our captors had the smallest ability to retaliate, they would certainly be doing it any second now.
    While we huddled on the ground in the dark, some of the soldiers tried to comfort me with normal conversation. That may be something they do under such circumstances to help rescued people adjust, but at the time the ability to converse was way beyond me. My memory wasn’t working well, either. I couldn’t get anything to stick.
    The soldier who went back for my things amid the gunfire did much more than just carry me out of that camp; he took me all the way back out through the looking glass. And now, just like that, here we were again on the normal side. After months in the company of captors whose sensibilities seemed to leave their humanity largely unused, right there was a knight in armor who made two trips back into a hot shooting zone, just to retrieve things I might need if we got out of there alive. After spending those months having to ask permission just to pee at night, the thought of someone assuming such risks simply to make me more comfortable or safe was astounding. It added itself to the list of things that were leaving me speechless.
    Still, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough as far as I was concerned. I’ll bet the feeling is known to anyone