The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan (best manga ereader txt) 📕

week into the ordeal, the trek was maintaining a ten-to-fifteen-kilometer gap between them and the Wehrmacht rear guard trying to hold back the forces of the Soviet First and Second Ukrainian Fronts. But the fear of being overtaken was constant. The Soviet tanks could come from another direction. Or the Red fighter planes might return.

“We’re trapped between two armies,” Emil said to Adeline late the seventh night.

They were camped by a bridge abutment west of the Moldovan town of Hincesti. The boys were already asleep, and Emil’s stomach was the fullest it had been since they’d fled. He’d dug a horizontal hole in the dirt bank a good meter from the base of the concrete abutment. The boys had gathered wood, and he built a fire before feeding the glowing coals into the makeshift oven. From their precious stock of flour and yeast, Adeline and her mother made dough, which they put in pans and slid on top of the coals.

The freshly baked bread, even with the burned crust, had tasted so wonderful, Emil had been content for a good twenty minutes. But then his fear of the tanks and the planes returned.

“Didn’t you hear me?” he whispered louder to Adeline, who was about to get under the blankets by the still-warm oven. “We’re trapped between two armies. Hitler’s crippled men in front of us with a few able men behind us trying to stop all of Stalin’s soldiers.”

He felt breathless. “When I really think about where we are and what we’re doing and what could happen to us in the days ahead, it’s like my thoughts speed up, Adeline. They run and repeat in circles, like a storm in my head.”

Adeline came over and hugged him. “Everyone feels like that now and then. I remind myself what Mrs. Kantor told me once: ‘There is a safe place in the eye of every storm.’”

“I’ve rarely found it,” Emil said.

“You did when those tanks started shooting last week. You’ve gotten us all this far safely, haven’t you?”

For some reason, Emil could not embrace that the way Adeline did. “We’ve got a long way to go before I’ll feel like I’ve got you all safe.”

“Then come get some sleep. Dawn will be here soon enough.”

Emil wanted to climb under the blankets, close his eyes, and take a rest from all of it. But then he heard voices, men’s voices singing and laughing up the bank not far off from his horses and wagon. He felt drawn to them.

“Emil?” Adeline called softly.

“I want to check the horses,” he said, and with his lantern climbed up the bank to the road and the bridge.

Thor and Oden were tied and hobbled where he’d left them. The wagon appeared untouched. But the singing and the laughing had only gotten louder and more raucous. They were singing an old German drinking song. He had not heard the song in years but recognized it from his days working in a brewery in Pervomaisk, the town where the boys were born.

Emil began to walk toward the singing. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was just to be near and hear other men trying to survive the same predicament. His father aside, he often felt like the only people he had to talk to were women. The closer he got, the more he heard alcohol in their song. Emil was not a big drinker, but he always enjoyed making wine and beer. And, on occasion, he enjoyed the easiness brought on by a glass or two or three.

The singing died off into rough laughter about the time he stepped into a clearing on the other side of the road. A fire burned before a half circle of wagons like his own. Four men he did not recognize were drinking from tin mugs. The biggest of them, a tall, rangy fellow in his early forties, saw Emil approaching and stopped talking. Then they all did.

Emil held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he said in German. “I heard the singing. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve heard men singing over drink.”

The rangy one said, “Sounds like your wife’s got control of your drink.”

The other men laughed, and so did Emil, who said, “It came down to a small cask of homemade wine going with us or a small wagon I made for my sons last Christmas. The wagon won on a three-to-one vote.”

The rangy one smiled and beckoned Emil closer. “Come, have a drink. I am Nikolas. What is your name, friend? Where are you from? And how old are your sons?”

Emil told them. Nikolas introduced the other men in rapid fashion, so he caught few of their names. But up close, in the firelight, he noticed the quality of their clothes. They were all wearing newer wool coats, pants, and hats. A mug of red wine was handed to him. He drank from it and felt like he’d been given a short reprieve from the fear of the Soviets.

He learned that Nikolas and his friends were all refugees as well, running from Stalin under the protection of the SS. They were from the town of Rastadt, west of the Bug River. Emil told them he had lived in Pervomaisk, north of Rastadt, for several years before returning to the family farm in Friedenstal.

“Ever been to Bogdanovka?” Nikolas asked. “It’s not far south of Pervomaisk.”

“I remember a collective farm from that area,” Emil said. “We bought barley from them when I worked at the brewery in Pervomaisk.”

“What did you do there?”

“Most of the physical work. Hauling grain. Pouring grain. Mixing.”

“How did you get on the trek?” Nikolas asked.

Emil looked at him, puzzled. “Uh, German officers came to our village and told us the Soviets were coming and if we did not wish to die, we had two days to pack.”

“No, I mean, what qualified you? Were you Selbstschutz?”

Emil knew what he meant, and it made him uneasy. Nikolas was asking him if he’d