Page 449 - The Book Thief

As I made my way through the fallen souls, one of the men was saying, My

stomach is itchy. He said it many times over. Despite his shock, he crawled up
ahead, to a dark, disfigured figure who sat streaming on the ground. When the
soldier with the wounded stomach arrived, he could see that it was Robert
Holtzapfel. His hands were caked in blood and he was heaping snow onto the
area just above his shins, where his legs had been chopped off by the last
explosion. There were hot hands and a red scream.

Steam rose from the ground. The sight and smell of rotting snow.

Its me, the soldier said to him. Its Pieter. He dragged himself a few inches closer.

Pieter? Robert asked, a vanishing voice. He must have felt me nearby.

A second time. Pieter?

For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to.

Perhaps its so they can die being right.

The voices suddenly all sounded the same.

Robert Holtzapfel collapsed to his right, onto the cold and steamy ground.

Im sure he expected to meet me there and then.

He didnt.

Unfortunately for the young German, I did not take him that afternoon. I stepped
over him with the other poor souls in my arms and made my way back to the
Russians.

Back and forth, I traveled.

Disassembled men.

It was no ski trip, I can tell you.

As Michael told his mother, it was three very long days later that I finally came
for the soldier who left his feet behind in Stalingrad. I showed up very much