The Letter: A bittersweet story of survival and sacrifice - WW2 fiction by Barry Cole

Author:Barry Cole [Cole, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael Terence Publishing
Published: 2021-02-22T06:00:00+00:00

Five

Regrouping Area

West of Rozan – NE Poland

Early November 1944

A T FIRST, THEY began emerging from the forest in ones and twos. Then in small groups. Then larger groups. All eventually merging like strands of hair being plaited into a braid. A trickle of weary men their haggard faces etched with despair. The trickle becoming a stream. The stream turning into a river. A river of retreating German soldiers flowing westward. A defensive front two hundred miles wide had collapsed. Overrun by an unstoppable Russian offensive and this was the result. Regiments reduced to a dozen men. Divisions decimated. The remnants of an army in full retreat. Tanks and vehicles starved of fuel for their engines abandoned. A narrow strip of land, a corridor of hope clogged by exhausted, demoralised men and the few machines of war which they had managed to salvage. Its rain sodden surface, churned up by the tracks of the panzers quickly turned into a muddy morass by the seemingly endless procession of overloaded vehicles and the boots of footslogging soldiers. But this wasn’t just mud. Mud was something which you got on your boots when you were gardening. Mud was something naughty children made pies with. No this was a veritable quagmire created by the tramping of countless feet and the hooves of horses. The constant churning of tyres and metal tracks. A living entity that dragged the weak to their knees and sucked the wheels of the trucks ever deeper into the mire.

Mayer had got lucky. In a show of comradeship, two panzer grenadiers had hauled him up onto the running board of the Blitz truck they had been sharing. It was a precarious perch for the three of them on the narrow strip of metal but it was better than walking. Later that day as they were driving through a large village its burned-out houses abandoned except for a few stray dogs, they passed a shrine housing a statue of the crucified Christ. Hanging around the figure’s neck was a crude placard with the words Gott Hilf Uns (God help us) crudely painted on it. Ever the cynic Mayer smiled to himself. Given that it had been soldiers like themselves who had nailed his only son to the cross in the first place, pushing a spear into his side for good measure. It seemed highly unlikely that any help would be coming from that quarter. Even a merciful God was not that forgiving. After driving for an hour, up ahead of them things appeared to be becoming more organised. Dejected crowds of soldiers were being herded together into a single column and vehicles marshalled into designated areas. Not long afterwards, Mayer saw why. Parked by the side of the road were six Zundapp-Russland sidecars each of them looking like they had been dipped in a bath of chocolate. Their owners, recognisable by the distinctive gorgets worn around their necks, were a dozen MPs. Each of them exercising his authority with a blast on his whistle and a gesturing arm.

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