$3.99 Ebook
Available through these popular eBook retailers & more!
(Click to follow link)
$15.99 Ebook
EXCERPT
Copyright 2014 © Lee Carver
Karl
struck out for yet another green grocer or meat market. So the cook was
correct about all the nearby ones. There used to be a fresh market a
kilometer away. Probably down Kugelstrasse. He turned right and picked
up his pace.
Shopkeepers told
him the way, begrudging more than volunteering information. Queuing on
the cobblestone sidewalk, he realized how much his awareness of
Germany’s condition had changed this morning. Instead of the deference
he had come to expect, citizens who didn’t want to share the food
remaining in the city growled at him. His family’s money and profession
mattered little to those who had no money, no provisions, and certainly
no investments.
The roar of two
German Army trucks startled Karl from his thoughts. They pulled in front
of the store, bracing the customers right and left. Soldiers waved
their Mauser 98 rifles and dismounted from the cabs and canvas-covered
backs before the tires stopped rolling.
There goes the food. He stepped out of line, the urgency to escape spiking his heart rate. These men were dangerous.
“Halt! Get back here. Where do you think you’re going?”
A soldier with several stripes on his uniform grabbed Karl’s shoulder and shoved him toward the end of one of the trucks.
“Show me your Ausweispapier.”
Karl
handed over his ID paper. The fellow glanced once and slammed it on the
clipboard of the other soldier. That man copied the details then pushed
Karl against the truck.
Stumbling, he
braced on the high floor and found men staring out from benches along
the inside walls. The reality of forced conscription stabbed his lungs.
They would take him away without a word to his family and send him off
to die in a war against his mother’s people and his father’s politics.
“Wait. I have a deferment. Von Steuben Investments manages Reichland funds—”
The
kick half-missed its target as Karl turned to explain, to beg, whatever
necessary to return home with or without food. His rear end throbbed
with pain.
The soldier’s laugh broke from a crack in hell. “Yeah, and my son’s a lawyer but he’s serving. Get in. Now.”
An
arm jerked him upward off the street, yanking his shoulder joint hard.
Dangling, he scrambled for a foothold, scraping his shins on a metal
edge, until he fell into the truck on his stomach at the boots of
another soldier. His rifle barrel motioned for Karl to sit with the
others. Its bore, aimed at his head, killed any idea of escape.
A man, fifty or sixty years old, climbed up at gunpoint.
“That’s all. Let’s go.” The soldiers with the uniform stripes swung into the truck as it lurched.
Shadowed
occupants around Karl had to be too young, too old, or too sickly to
fight, while his own prime condition made him a sure target. But nabbing
him off the street was wrong, just plain wrong.
The older man
stared out the back with haunted eyes, his mouth open as if in a silent
scream. He slapped a hand over his heart, showing a thin wedding band. A
family man. With him gone, they might not have food either.
A boy too young to shave sobbed, tears and slobber running down his face.
Karl held back the sting in his eyes, blinking hard.
I. Will. Not. Cry.
He
gripped the bare wooden bench as the streets of Munich passed beyond
the truck’s open back. Bumping over the rough cobblestones, his bruised
rear took further beating. Three times the truck stopped to nab more men
and boys. Three times his heart pounded with the challenge to make a
dash for it, but the guard assumed a strong stance with his Mauser
assault rifle at the ready and a dare in his eye.
Would
they tell his family? Could his father find out where they took him and
appeal his abduction? Most of all, he hurt for Mother, who would wring
her hands and walk the floor crying. He had thought himself impervious
to conscription.
Hours later, the captive recruits passed through a security checkpoint and into a barebones camp. Was this a prison camp?
Had they found out about Mother?
www.prismbookgroup.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.