The Seeds Will Grow

To Glimpse a Tank

Jozef flicked his fingers and toppled the small pile of dirt and the sticks he had propped up behind it.

"Boom!" he thundered, as he pushed his small wooden tank over the spot of the pretend carnage. His prized toy had won yet another of his staged battles, the stick soldiers did not have a chance against the firepower of his toy tank. Mama beckoned him to come inside for dinner, the conflict would have to resume after supper.

"We will leave tomorrow," Jozef heard Papa say in a hushed tone as he entered the house. "My mother's family lives near Lvov, it will be safer there."

The little boy pretended not to hear the conversation, as Papa stopped abruptly when Jozef entered the room. Mama and Papa seemed worried more often than not over the past several days. Jozef wasn't sure why, but rarely gave it much thought. Such things did not trouble a six-year-old boy for long, and Jozef was no exception to this.

After hurriedly eating his dinner, the boy bolted for the door, the small wooden tank carved for him by his father in tow, intent on finishing the battle before bedtime. His father smiled weakly, his mother leaned forward as if to say something, but stopped herself.

They waited for the child to scurry outside before resuming their conversation from earlier.

"You're certain?" his mother finally asked his father after both were certain Jozef was no longer within earshot of the conversation. "They mean to invade?"

"Looks that way," the man replied. "It was foolish to think they would stop with Czechoslovakia. Their arrival seems to grow nearer each day."

"But surely not here," the woman answered, unable to believe that her country might soon be overrun.

"Perhaps not," the father said. "But I do not want to stay to find out. It will be safer at my relatives' home, there will be no fighting there."

"But the house, our things," the mother protested, almost instantly realizing the folly of worrying about possessions. The father was not moved by the plea.

"We will leave by 8 a.m. tomorrow," he explained. "That will give us plenty of time to catch the train."

There was no verbal agreement from the mother, she only looked at him, studying his face for clues as to how concerned she should be at leaving their home. He sat stoically, buried in thought about what the future might hold.

As Jozef lay in bed that night, he heard his parents talking again, but missed parts of the conversation as he was drifting in and out of sleep, the wooden tank clasped in his hands.

He vaguely knew the places father mentioned: West Prussia and Danzig. They seemed close by, but he wasn't sure.

His parents lay in their room, the flight from their home consumed them and forbade any sleep. Jozef's father turned and faced his wife, both knew the other was filled with concern about the rising tensions in their country.

"Bring only what we can carry for now," his father said, after a long pause where he simply stared at his wife. "I will come back for the rest, once everyone is safe."

For an instant, the child wondered what Papa meant by this, but dozed off into a deep slumber before he could ponder it any further.

Jozef was the first to hear the rumbling the next morning. It was distant; he peered out his window to see what could be making the noise. The sun had just begun to rise, streaks of orange and red painted the trees in the distance.

The little boy crept out of bed and eased open the front door, hoping to get a better view of whatever was making the sound. Finally, he spotted a small cloud of dust and several vehicles off in the distance. Without thinking of waking his mother or father, he sprinted across the field, closing the gap between himself and the vehicles, intent on getting a closer look to satisfy his curiosity. His squinting eyes widened and a look of pure joy leaped across his face, as he saw a familiar outline among the vehicles.

"A real tank!" he said aloud, dashing toward the road with reckless abandon. Jozef clung onto his wooden tank tightly as he sped across the uneven terrain between himself and the real tank. He couldn't believe one was actually coming past his house.

Jozef ambled up to the top of a small embankment, perhaps 50 yards from the road, to get a better view of the tank. He saw trucks and soldiers, including one on top of the tank. He jumped up and down, waving his arms frantically to get the attention of the soldier.

"Over here!" he shouted, bounding about with unbridled excitement, hoping the tank would stop and he could climb aboard. "Over here!"

The soldier turned, noticing something moving off to his left. He wheeled the gun in front of him in that direction and fired a short burst at the small embankment. He saw the movement cease, and only casually glanced to notice that it was person who had been moving.

Jozef's father was awoken by the sound of gunfire not far from their home, and recognized the dull roar of the vehicles. He shook his wife violently to wake her.

"The Germans have come," he said breathlessly. "We have to get out of here!"

Both of them leaped from the bed and began to get dressed.

"Jozef!" his mother yelled. There was no answer.

"Jozef!" she repeated, much more frantically and forcefully. Still, the boy's room remained silent. She burst from her own room into the child's room. The bed was unmade, he was not there.

"Jozef!" his mother screamed in desperation, begging for a reply. No reply came.

She continued wailing the child's name, her screams only interrupted by the sound of his father's boots thundering across the floor. He did not say a word, muted by the dread at the realization that the missing boy might somehow be connected to the gunshots he had heard moments before.

His mother did not realize that her husband had left. She stopped calling for the child when she heard another burst of gunfire. All at once, the thought of the terrible fate of her child swept over her, knocking her from her feet and choking all of the breath from her. She collapsed in a heap on the floor.

At the crest of the embankment lay a man, his arms outstretched toward a fallen boy. He had only glimpsed his son before he too was killed.

Jozef lay on his back, as if he were gazing at the clouds or taking a nap. Between his fingers was a blood-stained block of wood, splintered from the impact of a bullet, and yet still resembling a tank. His face still bore the remnants of the broad smile that he had greeted the soldiers with as they drove by, the look of joy at seeing a real tank.