On the Loss of Courage in the Elderly

On the Loss of Courage in the Elderly

Fiction
Edward W Pritchard-Draft 1

Germany Circa October 1935

The old postman blushed to himself as he hid in a crouch in the weeds and bushes as the railway cars thudded to a stop about 400 feet away, and with the noise of the railway for cover the old man risked a few slaps at the clouds of mosquitoes feasting on himself. This old postman had been shot at point blank range in the face by the pistol of a French officer in the Franco-Prussian war and later had been wounded three times, again by the French in the trenches in WWI. Never before had he been afraid and the blush was partially in shame for he had been raised a good Prussian and as a youth was a devout Hegelian and knew he was defying his government and forsaking his Country's philosophy by hiding from his duty. But, the blush was also partly from confusion for in truth the old soldier now the village postman had never felt this type of fear and he didn't know how to proceed.

He couldn't remove the bodies from the train again. Glancing toward the west, toward the elevated train track, along the river he noticed there were nearly twice as many shining new metal cars, most of which he surmised were full of German citizens, the ill, infirm, but mostly mentally ill; who were being secretly shipped to be executed in special camps. He and the other town's people in this obscure mountain village were for the third week in a row being rounded up by young soldiers to remove the dead from the cars, dead who had died prematurely on route to the their planned deaths, and dead who the townspeople would carry their bodies from the cars, to the dried up canal next to the river, and place the corpses in the canal bed and throw a couple of feet of dirt and shrubs and debris to cover them with the expensive new metal shovels supplied by the soldiers.
The job must be done thoroughly, it was understood so no one else in Germany would hear of the culling of the German genetic stock, at least there was to be no evidence, for this occurrence would be unbelievable if retold second hand without direct proof.

The old postman's brother, a party member, when the postman told him what had happened the last two weeks, had assured him the program would stop soon, because it was unpopular, even among party members, and besides some things shouldn't be done, not even in Germany.

The young soldier nudged the shaking old man, as a professional courtesy, gently with his rifle, because he remembered the old man from last week, and remembered the telltale soldier's scar of a bullet wound across the left side of the old man's face, and marched him almost politely toward the smell, toward the new high metal cars. The old man who knew everyone in the village from his postal work, done since WW1, kept his eyes toward the ground meekly and began to sob as he fell in line walking toward the railway cars.