No one is home ?

August 15, 1942 10:00 hours

Filipp was a good soldier- a bit quiet, perhaps, but well-liked by the company. Seeing him lying dead by the side of the road in an endless field of sunflowers after they were all strafed by German planes effected the company in a bad, bad way.

Its not that they were not unused to death and destruction. They had seen the detrius of war long before this- long lines of broken bodies, moaning and screaming unattended on the rail platform they were debarking onto. Rumors, too, that all too common "soldiers news" of massive destruction at the hands of the invaders, were prevalent amongst them all. Neither were they unfamiliar with the harangues of the unit's commisar, whom afterward would leave them and move onto the next truck loaded with canon-fodder as they headed toward the front.

Even the death and destuction of the whole column around them amidst a horrific crashing of bombs and tortured metal, amongst which even now moans and cries of help emanated, was not a deciding factor in their decision.

It was the death of a common soldier, a good luck talisman that made up their minds for them. Before the commander and his handlers could try to regain control of his men, they were slipping away, one by one, into the tall sunflowers, leaving behind only a few living men amidst a larger group of those dying or destined to die.