The Uvalde Raider by Ben English (great books for teens TXT) 📕

part of Germany and were already west of Dresden. Whether the rumor was true or not did not really matter, no German desired to be under Bolshevik occupation. The stories of wholesale rape, plunder and outright murder of civilians by the Soviets were all real enough, and only grew in number and savagery as these accounts were repeated. Those who could move did, fleeing as quickly as they could in the direction of Patton’s rapidly advancing Third Army.

On that second day, Max had crossed a small vehicular bridge choked with an endless flow of refugees heading toward Fulda. Tired and foot sore from the journey, he found a rickety chair under the overhang of a boarded-up café to sit upon. Resting there for a minute, he surveyed the heart wrenching spectacle of scared, lost and broken people.

While doing so Max also noted a small contingent of German soldiers arriving on the scene, led by an obersturmführer of the Schutzstaffel, or SS. The obersturmführer was dressed in his dreaded black livery, replete with the polished skull and crossbones insignia centered squarely above the brim of his hat.

He was a sallow faced man with a vicious, weasel-like appearance and matching demeanor, and yelled continually in a loud, high pitched voice at both the soldiers as well as the refugees. To accentuate his present authority, he waved about with a Luger Parabellum pistol tightly clinched in his right hand.

The men under his command were dressed in the common gray uniform of the Wehrmacht Heer. But once Max looked past those uniforms, he saw that they were nothing much more than young boys and old men. They carried their weapons in an unfamiliar, haphazard fashion, and the fear and uncertainty in their eyes was just as evident as in those of the refugees around them.

However, there was one, an unterfeldwebel or senior sergeant, who caught Max’s attention while standing in front of the others. He had a seasoned, competent look to him, and carried both himself and his bolt action Mauser in an experienced, confident manner. The Luftwaffe hauptmann sized up the unterfeldwebel almost immediately as a professional fighting man.

Unnoticed by the newly arrived group, Max turned his attention to his aching feet and the growing holes in the bottom of both of his boot soles. He had placed some sheets from a newspaper inside his boots earlier in an attempt to protect them, but they were already worn through again. He looked around, trying to find some sort of material more resilient than mere paper. Tar shingles, perhaps? he thought to himself, his eyes searching along the edges of the overhang.

Suddenly, pandemonium broke out on the western approach to the bridge as the soldiers shut down passage across it. Those already on the span were being physically forced back against the following stream of other refugees behind them.  As the civilians closest to the soldiers attempted to do so, some were knocked down and frantically scrambled about to regain their feet. In the increasing confusion, one man was pushed completely off the structure and into the freezing water below. The action taken by the soldiers had been unexpected, and a sense of growing panic swept through the unwieldy mass of tired, anxious people.

The long stream of human destitution wavered, and then was pressed forward again by those still pushing in from the rear. The SS officer screamed out an order and leveled his Luger at the crowd. Reluctantly, those under his command raised their rifles, pointing in the general direction of the hapless civilians. The sergeant Max had noticed earlier cast a questioning side glance at the SS officer, and kept the barrel of his weapon pointed into the air.

A deep, frothing hole formed fast in Max’s gut and he knew he had to do something quickly. Bringing himself back to his feet, he knocked the dust from his uniform and the once polished black leather boots. Reaching into his pocket, he carefully pulled out a handkerchief and removed his Knight’s Cross from within its folds. Max draped the medal and attending ribbon around his neck, checked its position by feel and stepped smartly from under the café overhang.

Meanwhile, the situation on the bridge was deteriorating rapidly. The SS obersturmführer was not only losing control of what was happening around him, but of himself. He screeched out another order and the soldiers slowly, reluctantly worked the bolts on their Mauser 98Ks. With the unmistakable metallic sound of rounds being chambered, an eerie hush fell over most of the crowd. Somewhere in their midst was the rising wail of a hungry infant.

Max squared his shoulders and picked up the pace. Mustering all of the military bearing that he had ever possessed, he marched toward the armed knot of men standing at the opening to the bridge.

In a powerful voice that carried above everything else Max addressed the SS man. “Obersturmführer, what is the meaning of this?” His words were in the structure of a question, but spoken as an obvious order requiring an immediate response.

The authority in Max’s tone startled the SS officer, who spun on his heels to face the rapidly approaching Luftwaffe hauptmann. Instinctively, the black clad obersturmführer snapped to attention and gave a well-rehearsed Nazi Party arm gesture. Max responded with the older hand salute of the pre-Nazi German military, while simultaneously speaking to the soldiers.

“You men, put down those rifles!” Max commanded them. Instantly the soldiers did so, relief oozing from their every pore. Max redirected his attention to the obersturmführer, who had opened his mouth to argue with the interloping hauptmann’s order. But the Luftwaffe ace was quicker in speaking again.

“Well, Obersturmführer, I am waiting. Who are you and why are you pointing German weapons at citizens of the Fatherland?” He stood before the SS man, hands clasped behind him and leaning ever so slightly forward, scowling. Max was working hard to keep the