SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

Again Giovanni thought of his son’s long walk home from school. Some of it was through rural lanes and secondary streets, but he should be safe if he walked straight home without any distractions. Unfortunately, Franco was the kind of boy for whom everything was a distraction. If not for this damnable, senseless war – and its resulting occupation by the goddamned Germans – his son would have been at the top of his class in studies. But the school slowdown had stunted the book learning, and Giovanni was beginning to fear his boy was getting too much of a street education. He spent half his days running in the streets.

But it was the thought of extra food, especially eggs and meat and oil, all of which he could almost taste – though he suspected that soon the Germans would begin to run out of oil as well, if the rumors of their losses in the South were true – that distracted Giovanni from his single-minded route home.

And distracted him from two very important things.

One was the approaching command car, which was crawling along scouting the streets ahead of its “collection” squad.

The other was the exact moment at which dusk would become evening.

Giovanni turned the corner and found himself facing the command car, which swerved toward him with a squeal of tires. Two burly German soldiers leapt from the rear before the vehicle had even come to a full stop.

Taken by surprise, Giovanni shrank back against the wall behind him, having forgotten it was there. He lost precious time trying to decide whether he should pull his lead-heavy hand from his pocket and fight, or flee the way he’d come. Unfortunately, the momentary indecision tied up both options, for his weighted hand caught in his clothes and at the same time he couldn’t reorient his legs and feet in order to allow for a sprint away from the uniformed thugs who were upon him.

Merda!

His fist was trapped.

His feet tripped over themselves and he went down sideways even as the two Germans caught him and yanked him off the sidewalk as if he were a child, their guttural orders and commands just a jagged jumble of sounds in his ears.

Oh no, Maria! This wasn’t what I wanted!

He struggled in their grasp. The two were larger than average, two bruisers who knew the ropes. They suspected his hand held a weapon and made sure it couldn’t clear his damned pocket, and by keeping his feet off the ground he was off-balance as well and found it impossible to gather enough leverage for a kick.

“Nooooo!” he shouted in frustration. Tears wet the corners of his eyes.

The two uniformed goons manhandled him, their faces grim with determination and single-minded purpose. Perhaps their well-being in the barracks depended on how they performed their duty.

He struggled in their iron grip even as they dragged him, sweating and screaming, past the waiting command car to where a covered truck was just now pulling up.

His legs swinging empty kicks at his attackers’ shins, his mouth keeping up a steady stream of curses that would have made his wife blush, he found himself being tossed face-first like a sack of spongy rotten potatoes over the rear gate and into the back of the truck.

His face stopped its painful slide on the rough planks by smashing into the muddy boots of another German soldier who thrust the muzzle of his submachine gun into Giovanni’s skull.

He couldn’t look up, but what was in his range of vision deflated his spirit and took the fight out of him. Boots all around him, and at the front of the truck bed, scuffed shoes and even bare feet – other conscripted unfortunates.

A stream of guttural syllables followed him onto the truck bed. One of the two burly thugs telling the other troopers he was probably armed.

Hands reached out for his arms on both sides and dug his fist out of his pocket as the gun muzzle threatened to burrow straight through his skull and into his brain. Rivulets of blood seeped down his forehead and into his eyes as he felt the gun metal scraping his cranium like a crowbar. His fist was forcibly removed from his pocket, the fabric tearing loudly, and the lead weight was pried from his fingers with inexorable strength.

My Maria! My son!

Beyond the pain in his head, the only thought he had was of his family and the fact that he would never see them again.

And almost exactly the next moment, the Allied bombers came.