War changes men. It rips them apart from the inside. It tears the flesh of the soul away, strip by strip. It's not just fear that grows. Hatred grows too. Hatred for the enemy. Hatred for any flag that isn't yours. Hatred for anyone who isn't cursing the same mud by your side. War doesn't teach you how to survive. It teaches you how to hate. And when hatred ferments, reason rots. It poisons kindness, blows it to bits — bits so tiny that not even a god could piece them back together. Only time —and not always— can lead a man back to the path he strayed from when he first marched into war. If there's anything left of him to walk it.
They fled east. Now they're in Poland. A cold land, soaked with mud and resentment. They stumble upon a modest farm in the middle of nowhere: a crooked house, a rotting fence, a little smoke leaking from the chimney like a tired sigh. They are starving. They are filthy. And all four of them feel like they're just one step away from becoming carrion.
"We need to get in there and find something to eat, sergeant," Kurt says, his voice wrecked.
Tony spits into the mud.
"I'm not your sergeant anymore," he says. "We're deserters now. Deserters don't have ranks. I'm just Tony. And you're just Kurt. Two men. Two slabs of meat hanging onto life by a thread. And yeah, we need to eat. Because if we don't feed these shitty bodies, we'll be dead before we see another fucking sunrise."
Emil, huddled up, mumbles:
"What if they don't want to help us? What if they turn us in?"
Tony smiles — a joyless, cold smile.
"Who the hell are they gonna turn us in to, kid? The fucking foxes? We're stuck in a forest that's just as hungry as we are."
At that moment, the door of the house creaks open. Two girls step outside. Each one carries a bucket in her hands. They head toward the well. They're not beautiful. They're not ugly either. They're peasants. Strong women. Both of them blond. They laugh together — a short, honest laugh, as if there were still something clean left in the world. Mud splashes their worn-out boots as they walk toward the well, oblivious to the four starving men watching them from the edge of the forest. And for a moment —a single, fleeting moment— the scene looks normal. Innocent. As if the war couldn't reach this far. As if it would leave them untouched. But it will reach them. Of course it will.
The four soldiers feel it—that wave of desire crawling through their bodies like an old disease. A hunger that doesn't need a name. You can see it in their eyes. You can smell it in the air. A smell that's anything but clean. Who can feel hunger and lust at the same time? Who, if not the broken men, the damned, the ones who no longer know what side of existence they're walking on? The world is a madhouse. And they are its bastard sons.
The soldiers follow the girls in silence. They slip behind them like feral dogs stalking prey, keeping just enough distance not to be seen.
The girls reach the well. They drop the buckets onto the ground with a dry thud. One of them kneels down to grab the rope; the other, still standing, brushes a lock of hair away from her mouth, sticky from the wind. Her hair is dirty, wild—and yet it still shines, faintly, under the faded afternoon light. Their skirts stretch tight across their thighs, thighs hard as young tree trunks. Their hands —rough, but quick— pull the rope with a steady, mechanical strength, the kind you only get after a thousand repetitions.
The girls don't laugh now. They don't speak. They just work. And in every tense curve of their arms, in every damp fold of fabric clinging to their skin, there's a promise. A brutal, primitive promise. The soldiers feel it piercing through their rags, lighting up a different kind of fire—one that smolders beneath the skin, raw and filthy. Right there, just a few meters away, the girls sweat life, sweat flesh, sweat a heat the four wretches behind the bushes haven't felt in a long, long time.
The water rises, glinting like a filthy mirror inside the bucket.
And the soldiers... They don't see the water. They see something else.
When the girls go back inside the house, Rolf says:
"Filthy little Polish pigs. They're all the same. Dirty farm girls. And not just the country ones. The city girls too. Nothing but trash, all of them."
Tony stays silent for a moment. He looks down at the ground, sighs. Then he lifts his head and says:
"We're going into that house, and we're taking everything. I don't like Poles either."
Kurt smiles — a crooked, filthy smile.
"Yeah," he says. "We deserve a little fun."
Emil, swallowing hard, mutters:
"I don't want to hurt those people, sergeant."
Tony looks at him, eyes hard as stone:
"They're not people. They're Poles. And stop calling me sergeant, for fuck's sake."
Rolf lets out a bitter, dry laugh:
"What's the matter, boy? Don't you like girls? Didn't you tell us you wanted to find a pretty one to marry?"
Emil drops his head.
"Yeah... but to marry, Rolf."
Rolf slaps him on the back — a slap more like a blow.
"Well, no one's gonna marry you if you don't get some practice first. And since we're nowhere near one of those fine brothels back in good old Hamburg, we'll have to make do with these filthy Polish girls."
Tony—the ex-sergeant—loved his wife. Loved his little daughter more than his own life. That was true. But it was also true that the suffering of others meant shit to him now. He'd spent years taking orders. Stupid orders. Pointless orders. Orders that filled graveyards and served no one. He had never done anything because he wanted to. Always because some asshole higher up told him to. And now he was done. Done with orders. Done with discipline. Done with bowing his head. To hell with all that crap.
He was hungry. And his body was falling apart. He was going to walk into that house and take whatever he wanted. The food. And yes, one of those girls too. Who was going to punish him? Who? They were just Poles. And in that godforsaken Polish forest, who the hell was going to enforce the law? God? The Devil? Tony didn't believe in any of those fairy tales for cowards anymore. God. The Devil. The Fatherland. All of it made up to keep the weak in line.
Tony was sick of all that shit. This time, he was going to do whatever the hell he wanted. Because he deserved it. Because even if it was a lie, he needed to believe he deserved it — at least once in his fucking life.
Tony bangs on the door. Once. Twice. Hard. On the other side, footsteps. A voice, nervous, asking something in Polish. The door cracks open. And that's where it all ends.
Tony rams the door open with his shoulder, and the house swallows them like a bottomless pit. They burst in like a filthy cyclone, stinking of mud, gunpowder, and rage. A cyclone bringing nothing but pain.
Inside, the world shatters into screams. Screams in a language they don't understand. Screams they don't want to understand.
There's a boy, maybe twelve years old, eyes wide with terror. The two girls from the well are trembling. The three of them—the boy and the girls—are siblings. There's an old man, the father—gray-bearded, broken-eyed, in his late fifties. And a woman—the mother—somewhere in her early forties, suddenly collapsing into sobs. Everything is horror. Everything is a plea that goes nowhere.
Emil hesitates. He lowers his rifle slightly, unable to aim it at them. And then the father—desperate, suicidal—lunges at him. Bony, clumsy hands grab at the strap like a man pulling the rope of his own gallows.
Tony doesn't hesitate. He fires point-blank. A dry explosion. A thunderclap inside a wooden box. The old man crumples to the ground like a split sack of flour. The boy screams. The mother screams. The girls scream too. A chorus of horror rises.
Rolf laughs — a sharp, bitter bark. Kurt slams the butt of his rifle against the wall, making the whole house tremble.
"Shut up!" he shouts.
And fear does its work. The screaming stops.
Rolf steps up to Emil, almost sneering:
"You need to grow the hell up, kid," he spits in his face.
Emil bows his head, ashamed. Tony steps in front of him, serious as a firing squad:
"Listen carefully, boy. We're in this together now. All of it. You understand? All of it, goddammit. The good and the bad."
The entire house seems to shrink under those words.
Tony turns to Rolf and Kurt:
"Stay here with the women."
Kurt nods. Rolf grins — a crooked, filthy grin.
Tony doesn't waste time. He crosses the room and grabs the Polish boy by the neck, like picking up a chicken for slaughter. The kid barely makes a sound. Frozen with fear. He doesn't understand—but he understands everything.
"Come with me," Tony says to Emil.
Emil obeys.
Tony drags the Polish boy toward the door. He yanks him outside, with Emil stumbling behind him.
The mother runs after them, crying, screaming something in Polish—"Please, please." She doesn't get far. Kurt silences her with a brutal blow to the head from his rifle butt. She drops to the floor. And doesn't get up.
Outside the house, Tony stands in front of Emil. There's no expression on his face. Only a naked order:
"Kill him."
Emil swallows. He looks at the boy. Looks at Tony. Doesn't move.
Tony raises his rifle. But he doesn't aim at the Polish boy. He aims at Emil.
"You with us, or are you the fucking enemy too?"
Emil trembles. His legs barely holding him up.
"I'm with you, Tony. I'm with you and the others. I'll always stand with my brothers."
Tony nods.
"Then let's get on with it."
The forest around them waits. Still. Eternal. Emil lifts his weapon. The boy doesn't cry. He just stares at him. Eyes too big for such a small face. And then —the shot. A crack. The birds burst from the trees. The branches shudder. The echo of the shot rolls through the forest, bouncing off trunks, sinking into the wet earth. And then, once again, silence.
And there you have it. The first little adventure of our deserters. A family smashed like an old rag doll. And now what? What comes next? I ask myself the same question. And I have a feeling none of the answers are good.