The survivor

(Found on the body of a partisan)

My Dearest M—,

As you are no doubt aware, on the 12th day of this month the invading army, after an extended siege, was able to breach the inner ring of our defenses at several points on the eastern side of the city, leaving our forces in an untenable position. Amid the general evacuation that ensued, our unit was among several assigned to hinder the enemy’s advance and thus gain time to permit our army to retreat in an orderly manner and to remove or destroy any remaining matériel. After several days of ferocious fighting, during which we were repeatedly forced to abandon our positions while sustaining severe losses (I am happy to say that we inflicted much of the same in kind on the invaders), several of us, now detached from the other members of our unit, fell back to a textile mill along the L— River, from the upper story of which we had a commanding view of one of the two main bridges leading to the western outskirts of the city through which our army was evacuating. Here we stationed our machine gun at a window and for the time being were able to prevent the advance guard of the enemy from securing the bridge and crossing the river. In the meantime other units, still fighting block to block in the center of the city, were able to prevent the enemy’s main column from reaching the waterfront and putting our position within ready range of their artillery…

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