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"You have what?" Krafft was still half asleep and wasn't sure what he'd just heard from his second in command.

"Wolf and Johannes went out before sunrise, they brought back two Ivans," Unteroffizier Lang explained, "down by that little stream we've been following, seems that the two saw something odd when they went to fill canteens late yesterday afternoon."

"Odd?" Krafft asked, rubbing his eyes to get the sleep out of them.

"Ja, footprints, boot prints to be more precise. The sole impressions led them to believe that the prints were left by Ivan. Filling canteens like them, or so they figured." Lang finished his story.

"What made them think ... Oh, never mind, where are these fine Communists now?" Krafft got up, grabbing his StG 44 and helmet.

"Right this way, Chef.¹"

Krafft looked at the two men, boys really, which his two men, boys as well, had brought in. They looked terrified. Krafft supposed that they had good reason to be. They were deep inside Germany, they'd probably been told that the Germans were defeated, then they'd been jumped and captured. Something Stalin wasn't fond of, his men getting bagged.

Lang spoke, "Poor bastards, their commissars have no doubt put the fear of God into them about getting taken."

"Fear of Stalin more like. Does either of these speak any German?"

One of the German kids, Wolf he thought, prodded the older of the two Russian boys with the barrel of his rifle and said, "This one does."

Krafft cocked an eyebrow at the kid, "How do you know that?"

"When Johannes and I grabbed them, one of them started to squirm and Johannes said, 'Just shoot the bugger.' and this one said, in German, 'Please don't kill me.'"

"I see." Looking at the Soviet soldier, Krafft asked him, "So you speak German?"

The Russian said nothing at first, then Lang brought his MP 40 around and leveled it at the Russian, "We're wasting time, Dieter. What do we need these bastards for?"

The Russian brought his hands up, palms outward, "Yes, yes, I speak German. I was at university when the war broke out."

"What were you studying, Ivan?" Lang leaned in, letting the muzzle of his weapon press into the man's back.

"Economics, Marxist economics, I learned German so I could read all of Marx' and Engels' work in their native tongue."

Lang listened, then spat into the dirt next to the Russian, "F**king commissar, that's what this bugger is. A damned for real Communist. Let's just shoot him."

The Russian went white with fear at that remark, his fear deepened when Krafft said, "Too noisy."

Lang drew his fighting knife.

"I'm not a commissar, just a student who was drafted to fight the invader." The Russian, in fear for his life, let some desperation creep into his voice.

"The invader? That would be us, ja?" Krafft said with a smirk. He held his hand out to restrain Lang, for the moment.

"What are you going to do with those two Russians?" Liesl asked as if she suspected what Krafft's answer would be.

"I don't know. I can't very well let them go but it would be insane to keep them with us. Lord knows what mischief they might get up to. I can't very well justify killing them, they are prisoners of war after all."

Liesl nodded, "There is that, but when have the Russians respected that sort of thing?"

"We don't know that ..."

"Goebbels claims that German prisoners are shot out of hand or are sent to Siberia to be used as slave labor."

"And you believe the Reich Propaganda Minister?" Krafft just looked at her, he was somewhat amazed that she would cite Goebbels, of all people. Liesl hated the Nazis.

"Of course not, but I've heard that it's true, from other sources."

"Do you know what we do with Russian prisoners?" Krafft's voice had turned harsh and cold.

She sat up, "No, I mean, I've heard stories ..."

"We let them starve. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands we captured in '41 and '42? There's no way we could take care of that many. Some were sent back to the Reich for use as laborers, most were penned up in large camps near the front and forgotten. They were guarded, but most died of neglect. Starvation, the elements, we had orders."

"Are you saying all that justifies killing these two boys? Simply because they wear a different uniform?" Liesl sounded indignant.

"Of course not, but ..."

"Herr Stabsfeldwebel! We've made contact!" Gefreiter Ernst Heffenbach interrupted their conversation, he was breathless as if he'd been running hard.

"Contact? With whom?"

"Ninth Army!"

"Um Gottes willen,² are you sure?" Krafft was already on his feet, following Heffenbach.

He saw Lang chatting with a small group of soldiers, unfamiliar faces.

"Where are you boys from?" Krafft asked, confused.

"9th Army, or what's left of it. You?"

"3rd Panzer, though we lost track of them over a month ago. We got separated from the army east of Küstrin, linked up long enough to see the Seelow Heights get overrun and we've been making our way west ever since."

"Heh, tank boys, eh?"

"Nein, 26th Infantry. We walk into battle, like our grandfathers did."

"Care to keep walking?"

Krafft turned at the new voice, the man looked battle hardened and a no nonsense kind of fellow. For all that he couldn't have been much taller than one meter seventy.³

"Ja, I'm not much to look at, Hauptmann Gerd Oster at your service," the man extended his hand.

Krafft took it, "Krafft, Dieter, Stabsfeldwebel."

"Ready to move out?"

"Where to?"

"West, to the Elbe. I do not intend to surrender to those eastern barbarians."

"What of our prisoners, we have ..."

"Two, yes. I had them blindfolded, gagged and hog tied. We left them in the road on the other side of that wood." He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder.

"You didn't ..."

"Why waste bullets? If Ivan's Panzers don't run them over, they'll be none the worse for wear. Oster doesn't execute prisoners."

Krafft looked puzzled at first. He had yet to learn of this little captain's habit of referring to himself in the third person. But he would.

He and his men, all twenty five of them remaining, fell in with Oster and his three hundred. Krafft felt, for a little while, as if he was back in the real army and not on the run.

They moved out as soon as it got dark.

Headed west, to the Elbe, and ...

The end of the war.

He hoped.

¹ Chief or boss.

² For God's sake.

³ Roughly five foot six.