War    -   Marie Hutchinson

 “Leave them!” barked the commandant. “They’ll be good fodder for the crows and the foxes,” he added, laughing. Anton looked down at the three pathetic slim bodies lying at his feet.  “What fools!  What utter fools,” he thought. “What age are they?  Fourteen? Fifteen at the most.  And these useless rifles! They must have belonged to their grandfathers.  What did they think they were doing?”

“Let’s go, comrades!  We have at least another 10 kilometres to walk before we get to the next village where I am sure there will be one or two nice girls who won’t need much persuasion to make us very happy.” The commandant laughed another of his lurid laughs that Anton couldn’t stand.  The eight of them, all that was left of their original platoon, gathered their weapons, threw their stolen cigarettes down and without another glance set off in a single file through the fir forest.  They were all exhausted, starved of food and sleep, too weak of mind and body to stand up to their commandant, a brutish bully of a man who had made them rape young girls, pillage farms, burn houses and kill innocent villagers for the last four years. Their initial idealism for a better world had long been replaced by madness, brutality and cynicism.

 Anton was bringing up the rear. They walked silently and carefully, looking down so as not to stumble or step on a dead branch.  Any noise could alert the enemy.   Bolsheviks, Reds, Whites, Partisans, Anton could not even remember to which of these groups he belonged.  The survival instinct was all that remained in him.

 “I shan’t stay with them,” he thought, “I’d rather shoot myself.  I shan’t kill one more human being.”  The images of the three thin bodies left spread eagle on the pine needles began to haunt him.  He walked on like an automaton, desperately weary.

 A bird started to sing.  Anton stopped dead.  He looked up, but his tired eyes couldn’t catch a glimpse of the bird.  It was far too high in the tree.  It kept on singing. He closed his eyes. Suddenly, he smelt the wood burning fire and his mother’s food gently cooking on the stove.  He could hear the chains of their two cows rattling as they pulled on their hay in the barn.  He could even see his beloved Dvina flowing nearby.  He dropped his gun and sat down holding his head in his hands.  “My bird, it’s my bird.”  The same bird that on the summer evenings sang sitting on the silver birch outside their farm.  A hiccough shook his body, followed by another and another.  He stayed prostrated for a very long time.  When he looked up, his comrades had all disappeared and the bird had flown away.  Very slowly, Anton got up to his feet, and walked back to where an hour ago, they had left the three bodies.

 “Prashuprascheniya,” he murmured, touching the shoulder of each boy.  “Prasteete, sorry,” was all he could say.  He dug a shallow grave with the butt of his gun.  When he had finished, he placed the three boys in it, side by side.  He couldn’t bear to look at the young and fresh faces. He kept thinking of their mothers.  He picked up two straight bits of wood and tied them together with what was left of his shirt, placing the makeshift cross at the head of the mound. He spread his coat as blanket over it and dropped his gun on top.  The gun fell with a mute thud.  He stared at the grave and made the sign of the cross.

 “A deserter,” he thought, “I am now a deserter.” Strangely, he felt lighter and rested. Head held high and with a bare chest, he walked back towards the village where he knew the German guns were waiting.