Pitschen ma en gamba - Small, but powerful [A Band of Brothers Story]

Landsberg

A/N: This chapter and the next deal with some pretty dark and sensitive topics, so please please proceed with caution.

It took them less than ten minutes to get everyone loaded back on the trucks. Ella was sitting in the passenger seat of the officer's jeep, teeth worrying her lip. She navigated the convoy with few words, her voice quiet and almost inflectionless. Dread was twisting her insides in knots, transforming them into a clump of lead.

The smell hit them before the trees cleared sufficiently for them to see. The young girl had experience with unpleasant odours, but this stench was overwhelming. She clenched her jaw and forced the rising bile back down, telling herself that her sense of smell would soon get used to it and block it out.

Then, the branches lightened and all she could do was mutely point to what their patrol had stumbled across.

Two lines of barbed wire fences, at least two men high, stretched between guard towers that were facing the compound instead of the surrounding area. Fog concealed everything behind the double fence, but there were people standing there, leaning against the fence. Even from the distance, their shapes didn't really resemble men. They resembled stick-figures hung with rags.

When the jeep stopped, Ella slid out and surveyed the eerie construction. The men's thin, spindly fingers grasped the meshes for support. They were more like skeletons, their yellow, sickly skin stretched across sharply protruding bone, their scalps shaved bald. Their expressions were full with fear and sorrow, the sunken eyes sitting over hollow cheeks screaming of pain, torture and despair.

They were clothed in threadbare one-size pants and shirts, the yellow star sown onto the chest providing the only blotch of colour, a meagre contrast to the dark grey and dirty white stripes. The clothes hung off their emaciated frames, making them appear even smaller.

She heard gagging and retching from the arriving men. The stench of decay and death was unimaginable. Gene came to stand beside her, touching her elbow, needing to anchor himself, struggling to believe that this was real.

The brunette looked at him, saw the horror and shock she was feeling reflected on his pale features. She opened her mouth and after a beat, closed it again. There was nothing she could say.

Nixon tugged her sleeve to gain her attention, lowering his voice so only she could hear him. "I'm getting Medical Corps here on the double. Do what you can", he murmured.

Ella wasn't sure if she had given any response. After her next blink, Nix was gone.

Was wenn mr nix tua kön?, she wondered, a flash of anxiety shooting through her mind. Was denn?

Chains rattled as Perconte and Christenson opened the first gate, the bolt cutter biting through the links. The prisoners – because that's what these shadows of men were – watched them, fear, apprehension and a tiny, faint spark of hope warring on their features.

"Open it up", Winters ordered, nodding at the second gate.

Christenson muttered a "Sir". The giant tool cut through the lock, Perconte flinging the offensive thing away like it was responsible for the nightmarish scene.

The brunette got her feet to obey her commands and she moved forward, gently instructing the gathered prisoners to step back so that they could open the gates, keeping her voice light and soft. The German words easily slid from her lips and she could see some of the men raise their heads a fraction at her soothing tone.