The soldier moved his hand down to hold his forehead, as if he had a bad headache. ‘We had no choice. Certain death is the penalty for disobeying orders. Our own friends would be forced to shoot us. I believe they practise this in your army too, ruling men with fear, killing their own soldiers for suspected cowardice?’
If it was a proper question, nobody answered it. He took a deep breath and continued, ‘The mothers were forced to hand the babies over to brothers and sisters, or else, if it was an only child, they laid them gently on the ground. The husbands had the tough job of dragging their wives away from the children, telling them it would be okay, that they would be back soon.’
Tears formed, but he rubbed them away, not allowing himself to show any weakness in exchange for pity. ‘Some of the littlest ones who could walk were maybe three years old and naturally they began to follow us. We were told to ignore them and keep the enemy – the parents – in front of us as we herded them deep into the woods.’
He stopped for a few seconds, remembering a detail he had forgotten up to now. ‘It was the most beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, just that perfect blue, the kind you can’t find in paintings. Bird song surrounded us until silenced by the few minutes of gunfire. That’s how long it took, before all the men and women were lying on the forest floor.’
Sarah bowed her head while the sergeant kept talking. ‘Everything changed in that moment. From then on I couldn’t – I can’t remember why I was so excited and proud to join the army and be sent out of Germany to try to conquer the world.’ Gesturing at his friends, he confessed, ‘They don’t know this but when we were ordered to shoot the parents, I fired over their heads.’ He waited for a reaction to this.
Isabella smiled sadly so he asked her, ‘I should have done something more?’
She answered him with a question that might never go away, ‘Could you have done something more?’
He shook his head, ‘No… no. At least I don’t think so.’
Taking another deep breath, he said, ‘When the adults were dead, the children began to wail. The gunfire had frightened them. They were all so young. Most of them were just toddlers and couldn’t understand why their parents wouldn’t stand up or talk to them.
Nearby, there was an empty building, old and rundown. Someone told me it used to be an orphanage, but I thought they were just pulling my leg. It was too much of a coincidence that we had created all these little orphans and that an actual orphanage, without any staff, mind, was sitting there waiting to house them. Anyway, we were told to lock the children in there. Then we set up camp for the night in and around those wooden shacks that were now empty – of people, at least. Some of the others checked them for food, and whatever else they could find. Most of us didn’t wish to talk about what we had done, but pretty quickly we discovered that if we didn’t talk or make noise, we would be forced to listen to those babies and children crying, over and over again for their Mamas.’
His cousin took up their cry, his voice cracking over the word, ‘Mama, Mama…’
The sergeant put a finger to his lips and when his cousin fell silent, he continued, ‘Rumours began to fly around that we would have to shoot the children, but I refused to believe them. After all, we were Germans, a proud and glorious nation, and what kind of nation needs to kill infants?’
Yuri stole a glance at Sarah and was suddenly terrified when he saw her eyes were closed.
‘I sought out my lieutenant again and told him about the ridiculous rumours, waiting for him to scoff at them, but he didn’t. Instead, he confided in me that his superior, a mad man, thought the easiest solution was to kill them. However, he disagreed and contacted Head Quarters in Berlin, explaining the situation, saying that he couldn’t ask his men to massacre children. I thanked him for telling me this and for sparing us from such a horrible act.
When I went to sleep, all I could see was the terrified faces of those children I had led into that dark, cold building. I dreamt about them all night. Some of us had to carry the babies inside because there was nobody else to. I carried a boy, he was just eight or nine months old, but old enough to tremble with fear in my arms. I think he was scared of the dark too; his little fingers gripped me when I set him down on the stone floor, I had to peel them off me, one by one. Who knows if any of the children slept; more than likely they were awake all night afraid.
‘Early the next morning we packed up and prepared to march on. We shouted greetings at one another as we worked, trying to block out the crying that hadn’t stopped. I couldn’t wait to leave the village behind, none of us could. It was going to be another gorgeous day, a chance to start over again, and I convinced myself that the children were going to be looked after.’
Shrugging at us, he said, ‘I don’t know who I thought would do the looking after. Maybe I believed that they would be sent to another village, or there would be nurses brought in… or something like that. I couldn’t find my lieutenant, but I received an order to get the men together and move out. Fortunately our path was on the other side of the village, away from the orphanage. I had been dreading having to pass it. I called my men, gave the order and we began to march.’
Staring at the ground, he admitted, ‘A couple of days ago we heard that Berlin agreed with killing the children, but because they knew we might refuse, they brought in different soldiers from the Ukraine to do the job.’
Looking utterly wretched, he added, ‘I don’t know what else to say. I really don’t.’
Isabella inhaled sharply, startling the two boys beside her, ‘Why did you tell us this?’
The sergeant was confused. ‘What? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.’
The old woman showed no mercy or interest in his apology, ‘You stupid, ignorant people!’
Silence followed this statement, during which she stood up abruptly and strode over to cut the remains of the loaf in half. Wrapping it quickly in a paper bag, and not bothering to wipe the tears from her face, she handed it to the sergeant while grabbing the bag of meat from him. Her expression was one of perfect fury. ‘Your soldiers killed my seventy-eight year old sister and now you stand here and talk about shooting babies?’
The soldier concentrated on the bag in his hand.
Isabella appeared to swell in size as she spoke, ‘You wear the uniform of a killer of children and old women. It was you, your friends, your family, who voted for Hitler. You waved flags at him, cheered his speeches of hate and then went out to kill in his name.’
She looked like she might go on, but Sarah pleaded with her, ‘Hush now, Isabella. You have said enough.’
Sarah turned to the men and advised them to be on their way, ‘You got what you came for.’
The soldier nodded heavily. ‘Thank you for the bread.’ Unwilling to leave it there, he tried again with Isabella, ‘We just want to go home, forget about this war and go back to our normal lives.’
Isabella sniffed loudly, ‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’
Nobody said a word so she added, ‘Do you really believe that you’ll be able to forget about all this?’
IN STALINGRAD AT LAST
Anton was giving orders again or, at least, he was trying to. Leo kept butting in and asking questions like, ‘Why?’, ‘How do you know?’ and ‘Who put you in charge?’ To his credit, Anton did not lose his temper. Instead, he spoke calmly, as if to a stubborn child, ‘We should do this for Misha’s sake, so he won’t have died for nothing.’