Three Men in the Woods

It was night when they first heard the cannons on the right.  Several branches fell.

The shots landed to their left and exploded at the edge of the woods. 

The three men got up and dusted themselves off.  They had already removed any insignia, rank, unit and, even army identification.  They were deserters.  They hoped to surrender to the Yanks or the Brits while avoiding the Germans.

Finding they were alive the men continued their hike.

                                              MAX

Max was the first to hear the rustling in the woods to his left.  He thought, “dried leaves or fallen branches”.  As Max and the other two kept walking, the sound pace with them.  When the men stopped it stopped.  It reminded him for some reason of this Alsatian back at the camp.  Max and the dog camp were camp guards.  When they expected new prisoners, Max didn’t feed the dog for a couple of days.  When the train doors were opened, he had to keep a tight hold on the lease as the dog jumped and snarled at the Jews who were frightened to death (well maybe not yet).  Occasionally, as a joke, he would let the dog go.  He would spring off the platform where the guards stood watching the vermin pass and attack a prisoner ripping him to pieces before Max could pull the dog off him.

“Do you hear that?” Max asked his companions.

“What?” answered Otto.

“That rustling in the woods on the left.  I’ve been hearing it for an hour.  Someone’s tracking us.”

“I’ve heard nothing.  Let’s get going.”  Wolfgang said reverting to his sergeant attitude.

A half an hour later, Max couldn’t take the fear anymore.  He drew his knife and ran into the woods, jumping the mound at the side of the dirt road they had been following.

Wolfgang and Otto heard shouting, barking and growling.   And then silence.

They gathered up their courage and went look.  They found Max’s body cut up as if by an animal.

                                                            OTTO

Otto heard a crack in the woods to his right.  It sounded like a rifle shot but a long way off.  He had been an infantry man in Poland during the Blitzkrieg.  He had been assigned to a high priority mission.  Otto had nightmares about it.

He would step up to the back of a Polish officer who was knelling at the lip of a pit.  Otto would be ordered to put his revolver to the base of the man’s neck and fire.  The man would fall forward into the pit.  Then Otto would wake up sweating and crying.  He would remember walking down the line of soldiers with their weapons raised to do what he had done.

Otto and Wolfgang continued their walk though the woods. Hearing another crack, Otto began to run down the path into the darkness.  Then there was a third crack and Otto fell over.

When Wolfgang got to him, he found him face to the ground.  Otto had a bullet hole at the base of his skull.

                                              Wolfgang

Wolfgang was now terrified.  There was someone out there hunting them.  He ran as fast as he could for as long as he could.  Finally, he collapsed with his back to a tree.  He hadn’t heard another crack or any rustling.  Maybe he had outrun their enemies, he thought (or hoped).

He heard yelling down the road.  It reminded him of the time he had hung the soldier he had caught deserting.

Otto had recovered his breath and his nerve and continued down the road.  He saw a mob ahead of him.  They were shouting, “Traditor!  Deserter!” at him.  Where to go. Into the woods to his right? No, the monster that had killed Max was there. To the left?  No, whoever had killed Otto was there.  Back down the road? Who knew what was there.

The mob quickly caught the terrified Otto.  He couldn’t see their faces but he could smell them and hear their taunts so much like his own when lynched the young soldier.  He felt the rope around his neck as it was pulled up by unseen hands.  He couldn’t breathe but he could kick until he couldn’t anymore. A sign was hung around his neck.  It said, “Traitor and Deserter”.

Once Otto stopped moving, the forest returned to its darkness and silence.