They drove on, through the villages of Jarmen and Demmin and the town of Gustrow. They saw few people, mostly straggling refugees who, like them, were escaping the oncoming Russian army. One group tried to stop them but Mitzer kept his foot down and almost ran them over. They skirted Gustrow and followed the road to Schwerin.
The sounds of war were far behind them now, but visions of defeat became clear as dawn broke. The isolated groups of refugees they had passed in the dark swelled as the morning light flooded the countryside. These people had slept in the hedges and ditches for protection against the night's cold and were now striking out for the last leg towards the safety of the western allies. The country roads were filled with an army of homeless people, a sad pitiful line of Germans moving west. Many pulled handcarts piled high with their belongings, but most carried whatever they felt was worthwhile on their backs. It was a pathetic sight, a people beaten into submission, now trying to salvage whatever they could from the days when they had arrogantly set out to conquer the world. There were children everywhere, many struggling to keep up with their parents, many crying for food. A shabby, shuffling line stretching to the horizon.
The truck had slowed to a crawl. Mitzer kept his hand on the horn, but it had little effect on the fleeing mass. He edged the vehicle forward, making slow progress through the crowds.
The abandoned farms and houses were being looted by small gangs of armed soldiers who had deserted their units to escape to the west. Others who had decided to remain behind and take their chances with the Russians had boarded up their homes as a defence against the looters. Some had even taken their livestock into their houses and now guarded their properties with guns and pitchforks. There were occasional flurries of shooting between these groups, but no serious attempts were made on the fortified dwellings as the main concern of all the deserters was to escape the oncoming Red Army.
A few individuals tried to jump on the back of the truck, and some succeeded. As they progressed along the route over twenty people climbed onto the rear. It caused Mitzer little concern as they were on a hard asphalt road and the vehicle could cope with the extra load. What he didn't want to do was open the doors and invite an attack on them. In this case discretion was definitely the better part of valour.
The sights they witnessed were a constant reminder of their own vulnerability. Images of greed and despair, of fear and degradation: the man with his middle fingers cut off on both hands, sliced off by a fellow traveller who had wanted his gold rings; the old woman who had died in the cold of night bundled up against the hedge, naked after she had been stripped of all her clothing by others intent on keeping warm; the children, crying and hungry; the parents who could do nothing about it; two men fighting over the carcass of a dead pet dog, hardly able to lift their arms and strike each other in their weakness; the eighteen year old mother by the side of the road trying to feed her baby from breasts in which the milk had long dried up, her baby already been dead through the cold of the night. They saw the eyes of a lost nation; and in their fear they saw themselves, and realised how lost they had all become.
This was Germany turning on herself, cutting her own throat in the face of oncoming defeat.
They were on the outskirts of the village of Crivitz, some 50 kilometres from what was to become the border between a divided East and West Germany when things started to go horribly wrong.
The sixteen year old girl had already been raped when they saw her.
She was crawling into the hedgerow, trying to hide her shame from the passers-by, most of whom showed no interest in her plight. The thorns and thick branches of the hedge cut into her flesh, but she felt nothing except the need to go to ground and safe haven. Her clothes had been torn from her body and now lay scattered between the road and the hedge. A woman had already picked up her coat and run away, another was now darting in to grab her shoes before the girl could recover.
The men, five foot soldiers wearing Wermacht uniforms, were sitting nearby, the effort of their exertions taking its toll on their strength. They were unshaven, unwashed, desperate men. Life had become cheap on the Russian front and, hardened veterans that they were, they had decided to take whatever they wanted in their anger and frustration against those who had led them to war.
The girl, beautiful and fulsome in her youth, had simply been something they decided they wanted.
They had walked up to her, dragged her away from her father and pulled her to the ground by the side of the road in front of everyone.
The eldest soldier, a sergeant, had knocked the father to the ground with his rifle-butt when he tried to stop them attacking his daughter. When he rose to his feet again and stumbled forward to help her as she screamed, the sergeant pulled back his rifle and bayoneted him through his stomach.
The girl stopped screaming as she watched her father fall, saw the bayonet slip out of his flesh as easily as a knife comes out of butter.
She shut her eyes and let the men claw at her, one by one.
When they had finished, and only when she felt they had finally lost interest in her, did she pull herself up on her elbows and drag herself backwards into the protection of the hedge.
That was the moment the truck came down the road.
'For God's sake!' shouted Albert Goodenache. 'That poor girl. I just don't believe it.'
'There's nothing we can do,' replied Mitzer. 'Nothing.'
'You've got to stop!'
'No.'
'We can't just ignore what's going on around us. Stop, for God's sake!'
'No. We're only three. We can't save the whole of Germany. Shit we're having enough trouble saving ourselves.'
'Fuck you, Grob. You must stop. Tell him, Heinrich.'
The other scientist said nothing, kept his head lowered. He just wanted to get home.
'Grob, for Christ's sake. Stop and help.' Albert Goodenache turned back to Mitzer.
'Shit, Albert,' shouted Mitzer, slamming his foot on the brake and pulling the truck up sharply. 'Shit, man, you're always trying to save the fucking world.'
'Well?' asked Albert Goodenache. 'Well?'
'Go on, get her in here. Quick. Hurry up.'
Goodenache unlocked his door, swung it open and jumped out.
'Close that door!' Mitzer shouted at Spiedal. 'We don't want anyone else getting in.'
Heinrich leant over and pulled the door shut as Goodenache reached the girl. They watched him talk to the girl and try to bring her out from the hedge.
The girl, in too great a state of shock to understand that Goodenache's good intentions, fought against him and, started to scream. The harder he pulled her, the louder she screamed.
One of the soldiers, attracted by the commotion, shouted at Goodenache, 'Leave her, bastard. Find your own tarts.'
'Come on, Albert,' yelled Mitzer. 'Leave her.'
But Goodenache persevered. He shouted back at the soldier, but his words were lost in the loudness of her screams.
The soldier stood up, pointed his rifle at Goodenache and shot him in the left knee.
'Shit, shit!' cursed Mitzer as he watched Goodenache roll away from the girl clutching his shattered knee and screaming in pain. He put the truck into gear.
'No!' shouted Heinrich Spiedal.
'They'll kill us. They'll kill us all. It's too late.'
The other soldiers had now all come to their feet. Before the truck could gather momentum, the sergeant had run across the road and jumped on the running board, his rifle pointed through the closed window at Mitzer.