The city of Bautzen was a graveyard of vertical lines. Chimneys stood like broken fingers; telephone poles leaned like drunkards; the spires of churches were truncated stumps.
Peter Polemos dragged Hanke through this geometry of ruin.
It was a slow, agonizing process. Hanke's legs had stopped working miles ago. The sepsis from his hands had poisoned his blood, and the cold had seized his muscles. Peter had his arm around Hanke's waist, taking the full weight of the corporal with every step.
Step. Drag. Gasp.
"Leave me," Hanke mumbled. It was a loop he had been repeating for an hour. "Peter, leave me."
"Shut up," Peter grunted. His own vision was tunneling. The world was reduced to the grey pavement, the white snow, and the black boots of the man he wouldn't let go of.
"You can't... carry me... to the lines," Hanke wheezed. His head lollied on his neck, his helmet banging against Peter's shoulder.
"I am not carrying you," Peter lied. "We are walking. We are strolling."
They reached a residential street. The facades of the houses had been sheared off by artillery, revealing the intimate cross-sections of lives interrupted: a bedroom with a made bed, a kitchen with a table set for breakfast, hanging precariously over the abyss.
"In here," Peter said.
He dragged Hanke into the hallway of a townhouse that was missing its upper floors. He kicked open a door to a cellar stairs.
"Down."
They tumbled more than walked down the wooden steps. Peter lost his footing, and they crashed onto the coal-dusted floor of the basement in a tangle of limbs and gear.
Peter lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling beams. He listened.
Artillery in the distance. The low rumble of engines. But nearby? Silence.
He sat up and crawled over to Hanke. He turned his flashlight on, shielding the lens with his fingers to cast a dim red glow.
Hanke looked like a corpse that hadn't yet been informed of its status. His skin was grey, waxy, and translucent. His eyes were sunken into dark craters. But the worst were his hands. The bandages were frozen stiff with pus and blood.
"Water," Hanke croaked.
Peter unclipped his canteen. It was empty. He grabbed a handful of snow from the bottom of the stairs, packed it into the canteen cup, and held it against his own chest to melt it.
"Wait," Peter said. "I'm melting it."
Hanke nodded weakly. He looked at Peter with a terrifying clarity. The fever seemed to have burned away the delirium, leaving only a cold, hard logic.
"Peter," Hanke said. "Show me the map."
"Drink first."
"The map."
Peter sighed. He pulled the soggy map case from his tunic. He unfolded it on the floor.
"We are here," Peter pointed. "Northern sector. The Grossdeutschland lines are supposed to be at the railyard. Two kilometers."
"Two kilometers," Hanke repeated. "In deep snow. With patrols."
"We can make it."
"You can make it," Hanke corrected. "I can't walk, Peter. My legs are gone."
"I will carry you."
"And we will both get caught," Hanke said. "You are moving at half-speed. You are noisy. You leave a trail a blind man could follow."
"I am not leaving you."
"Why?" Hanke asked. It wasn't a challenge; it was a genuine question. "Why are you keeping me? I have no gun. I have no hands. I am just meat, Peter. Heavy meat."
"Because you are the last one," Peter whispered. The truth hung in the air, fragile and sharp. "If I leave you, then I am alone. And if I am alone, I am just... I am just a ghost."
Hanke smiled. His teeth were stained with blood.
"You are not a ghost, Peter. You are a courier."
Hanke tried to move his hand, flinching at the pain. He gestured to Peter's chest pocket.
"The letters," Hanke said. "Read me the destination again."
"Verona," Peter said.
"Verona," Hanke sighed. "Warm. Sun. Peaches." He looked at the ceiling. "If you die here carrying me, the letters rot in this cellar. Dolce never knows. She waits forever. Is that fair?"
"Hanke..."
"Is that fair?" Hanke's voice rose, cracking. "Did Klein die so you could freeze to death two kilometers from the line? Did Muller blow himself up so you could play nursemaid?"
Peter looked away. He knew Hanke was right. He hated him for it.
"I can't just walk away," Peter said. "I can't just leave you in the dark."
"You don't have to," Hanke said. "I have a job to do."
"You can't hold a rifle."
"I don't need a rifle." Hanke nodded toward the stairs. "The door at the top. It has a bolt?"
"Yes."
"And the window?" Hanke gestured to a high, narrow coal chute window near the ceiling. It was street level.
"It opens to the alley," Peter said.
"You go out the window," Hanke said. "I bolt the door."
"Hanke..."
"Listen!" Hanke hissed. "They are coming."
Peter froze. He heard it. The crunch of boots. Heavy steps. Not a patrol passing by—a search team. They were kicking in doors up the street. Thud. Crash.
"They are clearing the houses," Peter whispered.
"They will be here in two minutes," Hanke said. "If we are both here, we die. If you go now, you live."
Hanke struggled to sit up. He winced, his face twisting in agony, but he forced himself upright against a crate.
"Help me up," Hanke commanded. "Get me to the door."
Peter stood up. He felt numb. He grabbed Hanke and hauled him to his feet. Hanke screamed, a stifled sound of pure pain as his dead legs took weight, but he locked his knees.
They shuffled to the bottom of the stairs.
"Go," Hanke said. "Climb the coal chute. Run to the railyard."
"Hanke..."
"Give me your pistol," Hanke said.
"You can't shoot."
"I can jam it," Hanke said. "I can wedge it in the latch. Or I can just sit there and look like a soldier."
Peter pulled the Luger from his holster. He racked the slide, chambering a round. He put the safety off. He placed it gently in Hanke's ruined hands. Hanke couldn't grip it; he cradled it against his chest like a holy relic.
"Go, Sergeant," Hanke said. "That is an order."
Peter looked at the man who had bandaged his wounds, shared his bread, and marched into hell with him. He wanted to say something profound. He wanted to apologize.
But there were no words left. The letters had taken them all.
Peter turned. He grabbed the crates stacked beneath the coal chute. He climbed.
He reached the window. It was rusted shut. He smashed the latch with the butt of his MP40. It gave way. Cold air and snow poured in.
He pulled himself up. He looked back down into the cellar.
Hanke was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, facing the door. He had the pistol resting on his knees. He looked very small in the gloom.
"Hanke," Peter whispered.
Hanke didn't look up. "Verona, Peter. Go to Verona."
Peter squeezed through the window. He rolled out into the alleyway, landing in a snowdrift.
He lay there for a second, catching his breath.
Then he heard the front door of the house being kicked in. CRASH.
Heavy boots on the floorboards above. Shouts in Russian.
Then, the sound of the cellar door opening.
Peter scrambled to his feet and ran. He sprinted down the alley, his boots slipping on the ice.
He heard a voice from the cellar. It was Hanke. He was screaming. Not in pain, not in fear. He was screaming a song. The Westerwald song.
"Oh, du schöner Westerwald..."
The singing was loud, defiant, echoing up from the earth.
Then, a burst of automatic fire. Brrrrt.
The singing stopped mid-note.
Peter didn't stop running. He ran until his lungs burned, until the air tasted like blood. He ran toward the railyard, toward the rumor of salvation.
He was alone.
The weight was gone. The anchor was cut.
He reached into his tunic and touched the paper. It was the only thing left. The squad was gone. The war was lost.
He was just a postman now. A postman with a dead man's pistol and a pocket full of ghosts.