The Willow Wren by Philipp Schott (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📕

red background, but with the minor innovation of a white horizontal stripe across the middle. Felix turned around to face us and walked backwards, waving the flag as he exhorted us to push on and push on hard in the names of the martyred 11th Hitler Youth Anti-Aircraft Battalion, the Führer and the Fatherland. He then turned back to face forwards and began walking very fast indeed, taking comically large strides, flagpole jauntily set at an angle against his right shoulder. I remember wishing he would slip and fall in the mud as the trail was becoming boggy, but this did not happen. His khaki uniform shirt was soaked through to the skin and his arms were pink with a combination of exertion and cold. The rest of us struggled to keep up, often slipping, sometimes falling. Then the rain turned to wet snow.

From that point on the march became a debacle. It was far worse than the time we were late for supper because we were too slow. This time we were as fast as we possibly could be under the circumstances because we all knew what was at stake. We all knew the story from the previous fall when thirty Hitler Youth in the Black Forest ended up in hospital with hypothermia and pneumonia after being caught out in similar weather. Two of them died. There still was the option to leave the trail and seek shelter in a village or farm, but Felix was determined to press on with the plan. He still did not put on his coat. Even the weakest of us kept pace, but this was at least in part because Felix’s own pace began to gradually, at first imperceptibly, slacken. He was not a machine after all, but I had the idea firmly implanted in my mind that he would rather die than admit an error or in any way betray the perverse standard he had set for himself. This was the first time I had seen that sort of potentially lethal fanaticism, but it would not be the last.

The only thing that prevented a Black Forest type of disaster, or worse, was another change in the weather. March is notorious for this spinning of the meteorological roulette wheel every few hours. Perhaps that is what the gods actually do. Why not? It is no less plausible than any other explanation once one is willing to accept the idea that all-powerful, but curiously invisible, beings are in control of major events. The sun came out so suddenly and so unexpectedly that we all stopped, even Felix, and some of us audibly gasped. There were several minutes of snow and sun at the same time, which I appreciated was beautiful even though I felt miserable, and then the clouds dissipated entirely. The sun was warm enough that the snow and water began to quickly evaporate off our coats in little tendrils of vapour that glowed in the sunshine. We became a column of boys threading through the forest like a steaming snake.

We arrived late back into camp, but only three boys needed to be taken to see the nurse, and there were no fatalities. Felix looked triumphant. He and his henchmen sang those blasted Nazi marching songs all through dinner, but thankfully did not seem to notice or care that most of us did not join in.

After dinner Jolf sidled up to me and whispered, “Psst, Ludwig, want to hear another one?”

No one was close enough to overhear us, so I nodded.

“One labourer says to another, ‘Did you hear what the Führer said in his latest speech? He proclaimed that no one should be allowed to go hungry or suffer from the cold!’ His co-worker sighs and replies, ‘So now we’re not even allowed to do that.’”

I could have had the first of my nightmares that night, but I am not sure. To be truthful, I am not even sure it was that year. Perhaps it was earlier. My memory is excellent for the real, but less so for the unreal. I will place it here as it is as good a time as any and it does not really matter. I had this nightmare many times through the latter part of the war and for years afterwards. In it I am crouched in the middle of a vast field. The field is completely flat and featureless and extends to the horizon in all directions. I am unsure of my size because there is nothing to compare against. I look for blades of grass, but there are none. The ground is a solid green-coloured material like an endless slab of painted wood or cement. The sky is cloudless blue. I am nervous, but at first I do not know why. Then I know. I begin to hear a rumbling. It is faint and very far away, but it steadily becomes louder. As it becomes louder the ground begins to shake. Soon it is so loud that I cannot stand it and I put my hands over my ears. I am still crouched in a tight ball on the ground. I squeeze my eyes shut because I know what is coming, even though I cannot put it into words, and I do not want to see it. The sound and the shaking are overwhelming. Against my will, as if torn open by an external force, my eyes open. I am surrounded by stampeding soldiers. Millions of soldiers are running past me, paying me no heed. I am tiny, much tinier than a boy, like a little insect. Their boots land heavily to either side of me, again and again and again. I close my eyes again and the overwhelming sound and the shaking continue, but I am not squashed. Once more I open my eyes and now I am enormous and they are the size of insects, like ants swarming past, parting around me as they would around a tree. Still they make