Orders
by
Nigel Spriggs
Email: Nigelspriggs@aol.com
We are in a valley
The sun is warm
The grass is wet from recent rain
Raindrops drip from the mud-flaps of
our truck
We share rationed bread
We talk of women we have had
I read letters written by my mother's
mother
Sunlight glints off windows in the
village far below
Finally lunch is over
We stand up, stretch
I put the letters in my tunic pocket
There is the sound of engines coming
up the hill
We exchange glances
No one smiles or talks, we smoke
Trucks cross the field and halt around
us
The villagers are herded out and given
spades
We climb into our truck
The engine starts, the tail-gate drops
The villagers dig until their graves
are deep
I sit behind my machine gun and start
to shoot
Some of them are running
I wonder why, where can they go?
Bullets run faster than shoeless people
Shoeless people fall down in dark wet
mud
Before long it is over
They are dead, we watch them covered
up
Jews, Gypsies, Lesbians, Gays, mothers,
children, husbands
God knows what we have done