Soldiers and Slaves

Chapter One

The Devil Quotes Scripture

A heavily padlocked steel door, topped by a barred vent, swings open, and from the depths of the tunnel a current of cold air is released into the summer haze. All is quiet. The White Elster River flows lazily, flies hovering at its eddying surface. On the far bank, visible through the trees, lies the small eastern German town of Berga. The tranquillity seems real. But it is an illusion.

Germany must be seen in space and in time. To see what is there, it is necessary to see what is hidden. At this spot, the tunnel extends about 150 feet into the tree-covered hillside. Water drips, some of it close by, some deep in the bluff. A few boulders and scattered rocks lie around small pools of water. The shaft, with its jagged walls of black slate, is still and damp.

But beyond the peace lies something else. The sound wells from the depths of the tunnel, advancing across the years. A sound of rending and blasting, of screeching and booming, of screams and pandemonium fills this confined space. The tunnel, perhaps twenty feet high and fifteen feet wide, is peopled now with bedraggled men, their faces blackened with dust, drilling and shoveling and ... read full excerpt from Soldiers and Slaves ebook