Easter and an Extract.

We are being spoiled with a five day break for Easter. Normally there is a four day holiday at Easter with Good Friday and the Monday after being Public Holidays. This year ANZAC day (25 April) falls on Easter Monday so in an Oz tradition there is another public holiday awarded to make up for the overlap.

Now the homeless program I run operates 365 days but my staff usually like to work Public Holidays because they get bonus pay. So I get to take 5 days off straight. Sweet!

Today we went for a family picnic at the same spot as last week. The little pond was doing an even better job of being a mirror. I just had to share.This evening Deb and I went to have a look at the flying foxes I posted about a couple of weeks ago. Specifically we went to watch them set off for their nights foraging for fruit and nectar. Watching thousands of these beautiful creatures streaming over head was awe inspiring.

I did try to get some shots, but my camera isn’t up to shooting moving targets in the dark. This was about the best I could do. With the new camera I am getting in a couple of weeks I think I should be able to get clear shots of these beauties even in the dark.

Now as is my wont an extract from my WIP Veiled in Storms.
After the ordeal last week Valentina and Penelope escape through the woods looking for safety. Valentina faces an uncertain future…


Valentina Meshcova
Berlin 1948
The guard was a big man in British Army khaki and the red cap of their military police, a huge pistol in a canvas holster on his belt.
I sat half slumped on a mattress against a ply-wood partition wall. We were in a small room at the back of a huge aircraft hanger. Natasha absolutely tired out, lay sprawled along the mattress with her head on my lap.

By now it must have been the early hours of the morning, I was bone weary as well but far too much was racing through my head to allow me any sleep.
I was still dusty from the events of the afternoon.

What an afternoon.
I must have been verging on shock because the rest of the afternoon played like a series of disjointed images in my memory.

The terror of Stepan’s ruse, followed by an unnerving walk through the woods.
Penelope and I taking it in turns to sob nervous tears of relief. Holding to each other and Natasha as we pushed our way through the trees.

Past the trees was open farmland with the houses of an outer suburb in the distance. Crossing those fields felt as terrifying as being under fire. I shook the whole way at the thought of a Red Army patrol coming past. Stepan had said we were walking into the American sector. But for all I knew he was still playing some terrible game with us.

Relief at finding a working phone box near the first group of houses we came to. More anxious minutes as Penelope struggled to get through on the phone.

Not knowing what else to do we hid, waiting behind a hedge until we heard a car coming. I peered through a gap in the hedge as I watched the car, a grey hump backed Volkswagen, slowly approaching. Then as it got near I could see Ronnie was driving. Fred crouched on the passenger seat, clad in army uniform, a machine-gun across his lap.

What a moment, joy and tears and laughter all round. All except Fred who stood with the gun tucked under his arm, scanning the hedgerows for movement.

Finally, a claustrophobic ride across the city with Penelope, Natasha and I squashed together. Hiding again, this time under a blanket in the back of the Volkswagen.

We drove straight into a hanger. They brought us into this little room at the back.
Penelope took Natasha by the hand and led her away; how it tore my heart to see her go. I faced a barrage of questions from both Ronnie and a uniformed officer; Fred standing outside with the gun.

After what seemed like hours they relented. The strange officer stepped out. Ronnie, gave me a half hug, but he seemed distracted, distant, 'I’m going to have to leave you for a bit. I've a hell of a lot to organise, then we'll get you on a plane.'
'What's going to happen to me?'
'It's alright Val, we'll sort it all out. But really I have to go, it's going to be a bun fight to organise a special flight.'

Then he was gone, leaving the guard in his place.

My head spun, I was as powerless now as I had been that afternoon. I had no choice but do as I was told.

How uncertainty for the future undermines a person.

My anxiety eased just a little as Natasha came back in with Penelope. Penelope, looked at my expression, measuring me. A warm sympathetic smile. She pulled me close, 'It will be alright Val. I've always said it will all be fine in the end.’
She brushed futilely at her filthy dusty clothes, ‘Now on a more practical note I am going to get a change, I'll bring you back something clean as well.'

We were left with our guard. He was friendly enough but still a guard. Over all a degree of uncertainty. I was not sure if he was there to protect me, or to prevent me from leaving.

Now sitting against the partition with Natasha close I shut my eyes. I must have dozed for a time because I started awake as the door opened.

Penelope bustled in, she was transformed back to her usual self, clean and elegant. You would never guess she had been through such an ordeal just a few hours before. In one hand she held a dress on a hanger, a summery floral print and in the other a small leather case. 'Sergeant, in the car outside there is a wash bowl and a can of warm water, could you be a dear and fetch them in. Oh and there's a pile of clean towels, don't drop them.'

He placed a large wash bowl on a bench at one end and half filled it with steaming water before stepping out and closing the door behind him. 'Now get out of those filthy rags and I'll help you get cleaned up.'

I climbed out of my filthy blouse and skirt. Dropping my pitiful rags on the floor it hit me, I was a refugee, a displaced person like so many others. My few possessions were still in my apartment in the Russian Sector.
Nothing of monetary value, but some of it irreplaceable. The only photographs I had of my parents, my brother. All dead, all gone now I had nothing to remember them by.

She must have seen my face, 'All a bit much isn't it?'
I held back tears, Russian soldiers do not cry, 'Yes.'
Penelope looked around the room and frowned, 'Well it's not the Ritz salon, but we'll make do somehow. Grab that chair and bring it over here. We'll start with your hair. It's not ideal but we won't hurt this floor with a bit of water.'

It was the first time anyone else had ever washed my hair.
It was just what I needed. A lot of my anxiety washed away with the grime. In maybe twenty minutes I was clean. Penelope patted me dry with large cotton towels.
'I’ve never felt such soft towels.'
'Ah,’ she smiled knowingly, ‘that’s one of the bonuses I get for being a decadent capitalist.'
I slipped on the dress Penelope had brought me. 'It's one of mine I'm afraid. No chance to buy you anything, but it's nearly new. It will be a little long but otherwise I don't think it will be too bad a fit.'
'It's lovely.'
And it was, I had never felt fabric like it. I reflected that this one dress she was passing on to me had probably cost more than my whole wardrobe.

Fitzroy Gardens and Valentina

Yesterday started grey and gloomy but the afternoon showed promise of being sunny. So Deb and I packed ourselves a picnic lunch and headed to Fitzroy Gardens in the heart of Melbourne. We were starving by the time we arrived so we parked ourselves in this classically inspired pavilion to picnic. I snapped this avenue of elms from my seat. Autumn has yet to really bite and most have not yet begun to turn.Looking into the park you would forget you’re in the middle of Melbourne.

Down between the tree trunks we could see another classical folly.After eating we went for a stroll along a profusion of tree lined paths.If you lift your head you get a reminder of the city that surrounds you.Near the bottom of the garden is “Captain Cook’s Cottage” The cottage was constructed in 1755 in the English village of Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, by the parents of Captain James Cook. Cook had been in the Merchant Navy for years by that point and joined the Royal Navy that year, but almost certainly he visited his parents at the house.
The cottage was brought to Melbourne and rebuilt in the 1930s in a fit of Oz (and Empire) patriotism.
I find it very odd. Cook never got nearer to Melbourne than Tasmania and he died 56 years before Melbourne was settled.
Ah well it gives the tourists from overseas something to be photographed in front of.

I thought this cottage built in 1866 and used as the head gardener’s residence until 1990 is much more interesting. By the way the banana trees in this piccie indicate that Melbourne is not so very far from the tropics. Remind me of that when I am grumbling about the cold this winter.

Just in case you don’t believe in fairies, quite a number live in Melbourne.

Heading back up the hill we came on a familiar sight. We’d finished our circuit of the park.

Now to an extract of my WIP for the week.
Last week Valentina caught up with Stepan an old and dear friend. This week Penelope is back on the scene…


Valentina Meshcova
Berlin 1948
By the weekend I was feeling well enough to give in to Natasha's pestering and take her to the lake. It was not really warm enough, but I relented because autumn was around the corner and that would mean months mostly confined inside.

I also needed to get out. I didn't know what I would do after my personal disaster with Ronnie. But whatever lay ahead I was not going to be despondent. If grief was what faced me I would cry for a time and then heal. Natasha showed me again and again that what matters is enjoying the moment, not dwelling on what might have been.

In that spirit I promised myself I would enjoy the day. So, I sat on the sand and watched Natasha frolic at the water’s edge.

'Hello.'
My insides turned over, 'I was not expecting you.'
Penelope knealt down on the sand beside me, 'I wanted to apologise for my part in the cock up last week.'
My resolution of moments before vanished, 'Apologise? What a bourgeois notion. Do you think a few words will mend my opinion of you?'
She flushed red, she looked even more like Ronnie when she was angry. 'I don't know. Before you were frightened I thought a great deal of you. Enough to continue taking this risk. Enough to make debasing myself seem worthwhile. Now I don't know!'
'Before?'
'Before you got frightened. But frightened of what?'
'The NKVD...'
'NKVD, NKVD I have heard enough of that. With Ronnie you could have had a future away from that. For that matter even without Ronnie. You can walk away. Walk straight into the American or British sector and you would be welcomed as a defector.'
'I am Russian...'
'Yes you are Russian. But the tyrant who drives all the terror is not. And you can't believe that he is a Communist with the people at heart. Walk away, there is nothing stopping you. No wall imprisoning you except in your head!'
'What would I do over there?'
'That is fear speaking. You would do anything you chose to do. And what of Natasha?'
'Natasha?'
'Do you want her to grow up in a society where she has to watch what she says, what she thinks? A place where she is always looking over her shoulder?'
'You are trying to manipulate me.'
She laughed, a harsh sound with no hint of humour. 'Yes I am. In spite of everything I think of you as my friend. I give more than a fig for what happens to you. And there is Ronnie.'
'What about Ronnie?'
Her anger faded away, spent, gone.

A sigh from deep within her, and a single tear trickled down her cheek. 'I grieve everyday for my husband. His name was Danny, did I ever tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘For six years I have grieved, never whole, never serene.’
She scooped a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. I watched it fall through a mist of tears. ‘Ronnie has grieved for you. For years now. What ever happens I will always carry my loss. My darling boy lies in a grave, he will never come back to me.’
Her grey eyes transfixed me, ‘I can't bear to think of Ronnie going through what I have any longer. The only thing that prevents his happiness, and yours for that matter, is your fear.'

I could not entirely hide my tears from Natasha as we packed our beach things. 'What's wrong Valentina?'
'Nothing.'
'Why are you crying?'
'Penelope said something that reminded me about someone I lost in the war.'
‘Penelope?’
‘She was here, she’s gone.’
Natasha wrapped her wet little body around me and patted my shoulder, 'It's alright, I'll look after you.'

I took her hand, as we left the beach 'You know I think we might have some bratwurst at home, just for a certain person.'
'Yummy!'

As we walked home I tried very hard to recapture the hint of optimism I had felt only a few hours before. The cold grey streets of Berlin did not help.
A city block from our apartment with racing motors two big black cars pulled up beside us.
Two uniformed men jumped out of the front car and blocked our path. 'Hello Tina.'
I spun to face the voice, Stepan was not smiling this time.

Rambles, The Moon in June, (er March) and more WIP.

Last night was a full moon and the first ‘super moon’ in 18 years.

Alas I missed its rise, but I caught it a few minutes later.
I’ve never had much luck photographing the moon before, but I decided to have a go again anyway.

This is the result of my efforts. Not brilliant but my best effort so far, and given the limits of my current camera as good as I can expect.

Speaking of cameras I have actually put a new Canon 60D SLR on lay-by. Normally, a camera like that retails down this way for about AUD$2,400 (including a basic lens).
But the Aussie dollar has been recently equal or slightly better than the US$. This means they are currently retailing for $1,600. A saving I couldn’t miss.
I can’t afford to shell out $1,600 at the moment but lay-by means I can lock the good price in.
I’m going Canon by the way because I like them and my current lenses are compatible.

I’ll go from an 8 megapixel to a 18 megapixel in one jump. And a far more capable camera all round.

I can’t wait!

Today was something of an ordeal. Poor E our eldest woke us in the early hours with terrible tooth ache.
To start, it was just a matter of giving her pain killers and waiting til morning.

Come this morning it was finding a dentist who could/would do something on a Sunday. Deb and I had to take her into the city and then there was a lot of waiting around until the poor dear could be seen. Once she finally got in there was another hour wait.

Unfortunately, the tooth and surrounding area was so inflamed that they couldn’t do anything today. So she has been prescribed heavy duty pain killers, anti-inflammatories and anti-biotics. She has to go back about Wednesday.

The only silver lining was I took my computer and managed to get a little work done on my WIP.

Speaking of my WIP here is another extract. This, unlike the others isn’t quite a first draft. I have struggled with getting this scene something like the way I want it. Bear in mind it is still far from an edited final piece.

To place it in context, in Berlin by 1948 almost no rebuilding had happened. As it was to remain until 1990 Berlin was an occupied city. It was different to later though, the Berlin Wall that forms so much a part of 20th century history was still thirteen years in the future.

The NKVD was the Soviet security service/secret police. It was the forerunner to the KGB. Valentina’s fears are very real, having any more than casual contact with foreigners could literally be deadly to Russians during Stalin’s rule.

For those of you have been following Valentina here is the next episode of her adventures.
Last time she came off second best…



Valentina Meshcova
Berlin 1948
Penelope’s voice screaming as if from far away, ‘Fred enough!’
His weight came off me, I was sure he would kick me as he stood up. I needed to roll aside, had to move, but I simply couldn’t.
I was certain I was lying on the hard floor, but the room was spinning, tilting. I spiralled into blackness.

A cool hand on my cheek. Something to fix on, to hold, an anchor to slow the spinning. Penelope kneeling by my side.
‘Valentina?’
Her voice urgent, frightened, ‘You’ve hurt her! Fred help me!’

Blackness

Where am I? A terrible feeling of uncertainty.
I sit propped in a corner of an old couch. A long narrow room that looks like a cross between an office and a canteen. It's all old and scruffy, the furniture falling to pieces like so much of Berlin. Maybe it was the room behind the garage? But how had I got there?

Penelope, on her knees peering into my face. ‘Valentina? Can you hear me?’
Her expression one of such anxiety seemingly so concerned that I would almost have believed her lies again.
‘I can hear.’ I wanted to spit in her face, but all the fight had been driven out of me.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you who was following, or I wouldn’t have run.’
‘You are a dirty liar.’
No response, how does a person respond to raw hatred?

I couldn’t see properly, the room blurred, swam before my eyes. I focused on my anger, something constant. ‘Everything about you is a lie. You told me you were German, pretended to be my friend.’
She held my gaze, 'I am your friend, if you just trust me for a moment.'
‘You must let me go.’
‘Go then,’ frustration in her voice, ‘you’re not a prisoner.’
I lurched to my feet, a single step and I was toppling. My balance was hopeless.

Concussed, I must be concussed.

If Penelope hadn’t caught me I would have fallen. ‘Sit down, you’re in no fit state…’
‘I have to go.’ But in spite of myself I was lowered back into the couch.
‘There’s no rush. We'll get you a doctor.’
‘No! I can’t stay, can’t talk to you. I know what you are, you are death to me.’
Spinning, falling, black.

‘What happened?’
A voice in the dark, Ronnie it was Ronnie. Joy and grief.
I lie still. Penelope answering, ‘She followed me. I didn’t handle it well.’
‘But why this?’
‘She was wild, she had a gun. I was sure for a moment she was going to shoot me.’’
‘So Fred bashed her?’
‘He was protecting me, you shouldn't be hard on him.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I’ve sent him to find a doctor.’
‘That’s something at least.’
A warm hand on my cheek. ‘Val can you hear me?’
‘Val? Please God, Val can you hear?’
I didn’t want to open my eyes. What would I see? Love? Or the rage I saw when we met at the airport?

With an effort I came back into the room. Two faces: Penelope worried, almost frightened sick; and Ronnie, my Ronnie.

How stupid I had been. How had I not seen straight away? They were peas in a pod.
‘She's your sister.’
She gave me a warm friendly smile, as if she was still my friend. ‘You’re a duffer, too clever for your own good, but not clever enough to work it out.’
Tears from him, he stroked my wounded cheek, 'Oh Val, what have you been through?'
'I'll leave this to the two of you.' Penelope withdrew to the far end of the room. Incongruously she busied herself with the domestic task of filling a kettle and setting it on a kerosene burner .

Ronnie stayed by my side stroking my cheek then my hair.
I swallowed my own tears, I couldn't force more than a whisper, 'Why are you doing this to me?'
'I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to happen like this.'
'You must hate me so much.'
'Why would you say that?'
'The airport and these games you play. You will bring the NKVD to my door.'
'I'm not playing games. The NKVD is why I've had Pen watching you. I needed to make sure you were safe before I tried to contact you.'
'What for, why do you do this?'
He sat open mouthed, as if he was struggling to understand. ‘I love you.’
‘Then leave me alone. Let me be.’

Silence for a moment. He sighed with exasperation. 'I came back you know, to your little bombed out house in Murmansk.'
Choking on tears I forced out the words. 'I waited for you, the NKVD...'
'The NKVD came for you, I know. They picked me up when I came back. A man... he was your friend?'
'Stepan.'
'That's the one Stepan. He warned me off.'
'Stepan saved me, him and Svetlana's father... but he is dead now, he cannot help me now. When they come for me next time I cannot say “My boyfriend is an ally”. You are the enemy now.'
'I’m not your enemy.'
'That is not how it is. If you are not Russian, you are enemy.'
'Oh tosh. I love you, I lost you once, I'm not going to let you go again.'
'You have to forget me. You must stop with this foolishness. Do you want me dead?'
'Of course not, I love you.’
‘You love me.’
‘Yes damn it! I want to take you home to England. Like I said years ago, I want to marry you.'
'You...'
'I want to marry you.'

I had dreamt so many times of a moment like this. With him, with Ronnie. But, I felt none of the elation I had imagined.
I was tired and sick, empty, ‘I’m not the sweet girl that you enchanted with stories of Paris and London.’
Apprehension on his face ‘What do you mean?’
‘I was a child then, a romantic child. I have seen so much blood, so much death. I am a broken thing.’
He was quiet for a moment, a muscle twitched in his cheek, ‘Perhaps we are all a bit broken…’
‘I can’t run away with you Ronnie. I spend my time running an orphanage, what would those children do without me?’
‘They would be looked after.’
Penelope piped up, ‘Natasha could come with you. No one would expect you to abandon your little darling.’
I ignored her. ‘And what about me? What would I do? I cannot just sit, just be a hausfrau. I would go mad.’
‘You should do whatever you wish.’
‘No Ronnie, it was a dream a lovely dream, but it’s impossible. I am awake now.’

WIP, Struggles of different kinds

It seems I can’t help myself.
I am following my Valentina distraction in my WIP again.
She isn’t quite the only force in my writing at the moment though.

I have also been rewriting and shifting the perspective of a large chunk of what I have already written.
In my novel (as in the last) I write using multiple narrators. A fair portion is seen through the eyes of a woman who spends years living intimately with another. One has always been silent in terms of narration, the other verbally effusive. Now a change in plot (partly driven by Valentina) means I have to shift the speaker from one to the other.
It can be surprisingly hard to rewrite scenes from another viewpoint. I always want to stay true to the original, after all a character shared her story with me.
But no two witnesses ever see an event quite the same way so of course things come together differently.
It remains hard to draw the silent one in a partnership out.

Anyway today I have been following Valentina again. Three years have gone by since the end of the war and her rescue of the little girl in the ruins of Berlin. The Berlin Airlift is in full swing. Still in the Red Army, and with the Berlin wall still thirteen years in the future, Valentina plays tourist in West Berlin.

Once again this is a rough first draft.

Valentina Meshcova
Berlin 1948
The odds must have been vanishingly small.
I went to a UNICEF meeting in the American sector, as usual it was a near total waste of my time none of the proposals put forward were anything I could accept.
As I came out an airplane roared low overhead, for weeks now the whole city had shaken almost continuously with the sound of aircraft engines. The Berlin Airlift was in full swing.
A sudden desire seized me, I would take advantage of the remaining daylight and have a look at what must be a historical moment.

Stalin had decided to starve the city to force the Capitalists out. All of Berlin would be his.
The Americans in their usual way had refused to give in without a struggle.
American military security at the airport would not let me on to the airfield. I didn't argue although technically there was almost nowhere they were entitled to prevent a Soviet soldier going under the Four-Power Agreement that ruled the city.

Turned away from the field I went to the passenger terminal.
My aide remained in the Jeep, while my driver checked something under the hood.
It was one of life’s little ironies, half of the vehicles we were using in Berlin were American lend/lease vehicles left over from the war, while the British army was mostly using German Volkswagens.
Of course the Americans had plenty of their own to spare.

The terminal was crowded, a sea of military uniforms with the occasional civilian suit. My Red Army dress uniform attracted a lot of stares, most of them hostile. I ignored them, after all little is frightening after spending years under fire, or battling Soviet bureaucracy.

I stood in a large picture window at the front of the terminal and watched a continuous stream of transport aircraft landing and taxiing.
It was amazing. The capitalists' capacity was absolutely amazing. However this episode ended it would be remembered. No wonder they were largely able to shake off the effects of our blockade.

'Can we help you at all major?' The phrase from behind was in Russian, accented but good enough to impart sarcasm. I half turned toward the speaker, 'Bloody hell… Val.'
Only one person ever called me Val.
'Ronnie.'
He stood with his hand over his mouth, shocked, uncomprehending.
He was as handsome as ever, maybe even more so.
When we had been lovers he had been drawn and tired, now he was fit and healthy. Incongruously he was in an army uniform, although when I knew him he had been in the navy.

I stood frozen, I had drowned and buried Ronnie a thousand times in my mind, anything to make being so hopelessly parted from him more meaningful.
Then, finally, with the work at the orphanage I had almost stopped thinking of him. I had not forgotten him, I could never forget him, but he no longer haunted every dream.

How I still longed for him, and here he was, flesh and blood, in front of me.
His hand brushed a wisp of hair from my cheek, and he gently, ever so gently cupped my scarred cheek in his hand.
I closed my eyes and placed my hand over his nuzzling into his touch kissing his palm. I didn’t believe in heaven but this must be what it would be like.
‘Val…’

His eyes overflowing, he looked so tentative, as if I might turn to smoke and blow away.
‘Val, how… what?’
A wave of terror hit me. An agony of fear, he was my death.

My love and my death.

‘No, Ronnie, I can’t.'
I twisted and ducked under his hand.
I didn’t dare glance back, I couldn’t have kept going if I had seen his face. I pushed through the crowd. His voice plaintive behind me, ‘Val, wait, Valentina!’

My driver still had his head under the Jeep’s hood. As I clambered into the vehicle I shouted, ‘Get it going! We have to go!’
Alarmed, he dropped the hood. Ronnie appeared at my side while he was staring the engine. ‘Valentina what is happening? Val look at me…’
His face streaked with tears, crumbling, I trembled at his anguish. He reached for me, I fought his hands off. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Val…’
The jeep’s engine roared into life, ‘Get off me!’ I hissed, ‘Leave me alone, you will get me shot! SMERSH are everywhere!’

Bewilderment, then understanding lit his face, followed by burning hate. He dropped my arms like I was on fire.
With a crash of gears the jeep roared forward. I looked once over my shoulder at his blazing eyes. Then I doubled up and did what no true Soviet Major would ever do, I sobbed uncontrollably.

Mutiny in the Ranks!

Another quick post tonight.
I am still feverishly working on my WIP, doing a good couple of hours most work days. Words are flowing freely and I am enjoying it immensely.

But there is a problem. I have posted extracts featuring Valentina before, and she is meant to be a secondary character. But she is well and truly demanding to be heard. I have written nothing other than about her for the past two weeks. I don’t know if she will win in the end, but if she does it will be at the expense of some of my other characters and leave my outline in tatters.
I am planning to post more chapters of my completed novel Veiled in Shadows but I have to work out where. Blogger has a limit on the number of pages I can have up on Tabs.
Hmmm maybe a secondary blog just for posting sections of book? What do you think?

Now an extract of my WIP Veiled in Storms because Valentina won’t be quiet any longer.
This was typed today on my way home, so it is once again entirely unedited…

Last time Valentina was quivering under-fire. This time her problems are (at least partly) more personal.


Valentina Meshcova Berlin 1945
It was children who saved me. Children in the ruins.
We were near Hoppegarten outside Berlin when the surrender came. The jubilation in the army had to be felt to be understood. All the terror lifted, the lid taken off years of pent up emotion.
But for several days we were kept working nearly as hard. Though now the women medics like me had to have an escort. The rape and pillage that had been a feature of our advance into Germany exploded as soldiers consumed the city's stocks of alcohol. Being in a Red army uniform was usually enough, but a few of the girls in our regiment were raped. A drunken army with little discipline in place is a frightening thing.

For the next days we continued recovering the wounded from the stinking ruins of Berlin. The mix changed, fewer Russians, a lot of German civilians and even German soldiers came through our hospital. Only days before German wounded would have been shot out of hand, even civilians would more than likely have been turned away.

Then, suddenly, within twenty four hours, most of my work was gone. Yes the hospital continued working, but now the panic of battle was gone it was the sick we were treating.
Our commander organised some tour groups into the heart of the city. We had the privilege of entering as conquerors. After all we had been through it was delicious to stand in the ruins of the Chancellery and the Reichstag. Revenge was sweet.

But then anti-climax, the emptiness I had dreaded. Not enough hours filled with anything meaningful and an empty futile future stretching in front of me.
I sat one night cleaning and re-cleaning my carbine.

Luckily no one offered me vodka that night, If they had I would have found the courage to do what I wanted and put the barrel in my mouth and squeeze the trigger.
There were a surprising number of suicides in those first weeks after victory; I was not the only one who did not know how to go on.

Then one day I rode one of our big American trucks to take a number of wounded to the station. A little girl sitting on a pile of rubble alongside the road caught my eye. I don't know why I noticed her, perhaps her blond hair stood out against the mountains of debris. I didn't think much of it, but as we drove back she was still there. I wondered about her all the way back.

When I finished my duty I took my carbine and strolled back. It was already a lot safer for a Russian woman on her own. Discipline was being re-established, some of the worst offenders had been shot and the officers were bringing the army back in line.
But you never knew and the gun was just in case.

She was still there, a tiny thing maybe four years old, sitting almost motionless on a pile of broken bricks. Her eyes flicked up at me as I came closer and then fell again.
I stood for a long time and watched her, she was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that were warm enough but had obviously been cast-down innumerable times. A child of the war.

I slung my gun over my shoulder and held out my arms.
Her stick arms came up. I lifted her and held her to my chest. Her little arms wrapped themselves very tightly around my neck.