Ancient Furies by Anastasia V. Saporito & Donald L. Saporito

Author:Anastasia V. Saporito & Donald L. Saporito
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Published: 2014-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Farewell, My Belgrade

The streets through which we were racing were all dark. It must have been about midnight. The ruins looked even more menacing with small fires burning throughout the city. The boom and flash of artillery in the distance made the scene even more frightening.

I could hear the crack of rifle fire. I guessed it was Serbs, firing wildly at the Germans finally retreating from Belgrade. I could not recognize the streets we were driving through. The only familiar sight was my last look at the silhouette of Kalamegdon. The old fortress looked majestic lit by the flash of explosions, either bombs or artillery.

Since the beginning of Rat Week on September 1, Soviet forces and Yugoslav Partisans had pushed toward Belgrade. They passed Mt. Avala and were within ten miles of Belgrade by October 1. The artillery and rifle fire I heard as we were rushing to Zemun may have heralded the arrival of their advance units entering the city.

“Colonel, where are we going?”

“We are going through Hungary, and if we’re lucky we shall reach Vienna in just a few days. There is a military train waiting for us. At least it should be waiting. We will board here in Belgrade, and the train will stop on the other side of the river to load equipment and troops.”

The night air was chilly, and a cold drizzle was falling when the truck stopped beside a train. The Colonel jumped out, hurried me along to the waiting train, and helped me up to reach the step. I followed him into a passenger car occupied by only a few soldiers. The train lurched forward immediately, clearly waiting only for the Colonel to board. It took just a few minutes to reach the next stop, Zemun.

“All right, Miss Popova,” the Colonel said as the train began pulling to a stop. “We will be here for some time loading men and equipment, and there should be hot coffee on the platform. If we get separated, we should meet at the coffee station. Take your things with you because we may be on a different car when we get back on.”

“Yes, Colonel. Thank you.”

The Colonel helped me down from the step, into the same cold drizzle that had been falling when we boarded. The whole area was a mass of confusion. A table under the eaves of the tiny station house held a large open kettle filled with steaming hot coffee, a dipper hooked at the side of the kettle. I walked toward the table with the Colonel, confused and a bit frightened, and poured a dipper of coffee into one of the mugs, holding it with both hands, grateful for the warmth it offered. The faces around me were all soldiers, looking haggard and bewildered, as though they were no more sure of what was ahead than I.

Trucks, tanks, and field guns were strung along the other side of the tracks waiting to be loaded onto flatcars. Freight cars stood empty beyond the flatcars, the whole, chaotic scene lit by floodlights.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.