In A Lonely Place

The telegraph wire pulled taught as the seven bodies moved and swayed in the evening breeze. Shadows played across the faces of the perpetrators as the early evening sun set in the western skies. The seven victims only crime was that Russian blood had once pumped through their veins. Lieutenant Deitar Schnitzler looked on as his comrades laughed as they took photographs of the hanging corpses for their war albums.
The utter darkness of war had overtaken the frivolity, the freedom, and happiness of Schnitzler’s soul. He was already tired of the savage heart that beat in the chest of modern man. He was apart from the wanton destruction and the ruthlessness of the Wermachts finest. Where and when would this war end?
He slowly walked away from the execution grounds and made his way towards a bombed out Taverna that served as his units command post within the devastated city. During his journey through the skeletal remains of obliterated concrete buildings and bomb scarred roads he came across a young girl of no more than six years of age, she carried upon her back a sack of flour. He watched as she struggled to keep the weighted package above her small and feeble frame. He dropped his MP35 to the floor and relieved the child of her heavy burden. She turned around and faced her saviour and muttered a nervous reply in Russian "Spasseebo." Schnitzler smiled back at the child as she directed him towards her destination. As he carried the sack the girl stared back at him as she played with her platted hair with grubby fingers. He was taken aback with her youthful beauty and innocence. He started to feel a streak of benevolence strike his sunken soul, a feeling of warmth and compassion, a feeling he had not felt since leaving his wife and unborn child in Stuttgart. Stuttgart he thought, to be back in her warm embrace, to watch the boats and small barges upon the calm waters of the River Neckar, to be wrapped in the arms of his adoring wife – The images and memories of home played across his battle scarred mind as he followed the graceful child across Stalingrad.
After about half an hour the child stopped outside a low, single story building, candlelight burned in a few small sill windows. She turned towards Schnitzler and gestured for him to lower the flour on to the dusty earth. "Spassebo." She said again, "Menya zovoot Margu Felicia Vatuin. Kak vas zavoot?"
Schnitzler dropped the sack to floor, he understood a little Russian and replied with his name. "Menya zovoot, Dietar Wilhelm Schnitzler."
She grinned back at him, kissed his unshaven face and uttered a few parting words "Veer boyd rusiek." He understood her words as clearly as if they where spoken in his native Germanic tongue. He walked away from the pretty young girl, the first smile visible on his sullen face since entering the abominable city of Stalingrad. He placed a cigarette into his welcoming lips and uttered her words to himself "You are my friend." We will not win this war, he thought as he walked back to his command post a more assured and enlightened soldier.

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