THE MARCHING DEAD,
by Andrew DarlingtonThe dawn that was not meant to be, happened anyway. But the Wehrmacht sprung their trap before we’d got halfway there. Thrusting warily through the woods, crunching frozen twigs and frost-brittle bracken under big boots. Even amid the tall trees my husband Kraster seems unusually huge, and he moves with an ominous hunch to his wide shoulders. I feel dwarfed beside him. There are no tracks in the wood, but we progress unerringly. His nerves are armour-plated. Shocks just sharpen his reactions. So when he froze, his hand going for his knife, I tense… but it’s only a wolf that scurries away into the thicket. I relax. And the StG44 assault rifle rips the dawn.
Three of them in field-green uniform and helmets, rushing us in their jerky lumbering corpse-g
