"Hey, Cookie, rustle me up some extra grub here, will ya? Boy here says his daddy could use some!"
Scooter shifted the M-1 carbine on his slim shoulder as he stood in front of the chow line for the 90th US Infantry Division, Patton's very own "Battle Babies". Beside him was a small boy, so small and young that he barely came to Scooter's chest, and Scooter was not a tall man.
It was late 1944, and the Allied forces that had just entered Germany were encountering the first trickle of what would soon be a flood of persons fleeing westward, away from the Soviet arm of the great Allied pincer. Many of these were Wehrmacht soldiers preferring the mercy of the Americans, English and Canadians to that of the Russians; some were civilians, who likewise had reason to prefer life outside of the Stalinist zone of control.
And some were a little harder to categorize, the young boy and his father among them.
As the camp cook loaded up their plates, Scooter studied the boy out the corner of his eye. Kid looked old, he thought. Not so much old in terms of the body, but old in terms of the ways of the world. Something tells me he's seen things, real bad things, things no kid his age should ever have to see.
Likewise, the boy was studying Scooter.
The boy's eyes had a faint reddish tinge to them as they scanned Scooter's face. He looked as if he was searching for a sign of some kind. A signal. Something that would show the boy he could tell this strange, friendly American soldier his secret.
They made their way to a quiet table so they could eat their portions before delivering the rest to the boy's father. Scooter was about to stick a fork in his rations when the little boy grabbed his arm.
"Wait," he said, in oddly-accented yet remarkably fluent English. "I must tell you the truth."
"Truth? About what?"
The boy paused, as if gathering up courage, or just possibly looking for the right words in a language not his own.
"The man who calls himself my father," he said, his maroon eyes burning into Scooter's sky-blue ones, "is not my father. He is a German deserter named Klaus Gramm. He and other German deserters took my family captive during the winter."
Scooter looked at the little boy and knew he spoke truth. He had wondered why the boy's daddy didn't look at all like the boy -- or why the boy kept flinching whenever his "daddy" tried to hug him. Suddenly, it all made sense.
"What happened to your family?" Scooter asked, though he had a feeling he knew.
"They were killed by the deserters," the boy said. He paused to rummage through his pockets. Finally finding what he wanted, he set them on the table in front of Scooter.
"My younger sister," he said. "This is what was left of her when they finished with her." His eyes burrowed into Scooter like twin lances. "It was winter, and there was no food. I was too thin. She was still plump. They took her.... and then I saw these, her teeth, in their stools... in the outhouse..."
A red rage glazed over Scooter's eyes, the way a fast-moving forest fire consumes the land. He did not speak for several minutes.
Then, still meeting the boy gaze for gaze, he said: "Let's eat this up now and pretend that's everything's normal, and that we didn't just have this little conversation. But around midnight, I want you to be awake and ready to help me out when I give you the word. Understand?"
The boy nodded. "Yes, I understand."
The two of them set to eating.
==========
Klaus Gramm was fast asleep, floating between dreams and nightmares involving small deer with children's heads turning to bite him as he tried to kill them with axes.
Then, suddenly, spinning blackness.
When he regained consciousness, he was aware of two things: his head hurt tremendously, and he was unable to move or speak.
Next he was aware of the fact that he was lying on his side, next to a recently-abandoned camp latrine pit that had been filled in, and was now being reopened by two persons.
One of those two persons being a very small person indeed.
Scooter paused in his digging to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief his momma sent him, with his initials monogrammed on it. He had had a hard time living down the smart remarks his buddies made, but once he broke a couple of their jaws they simmered down a bit. He noticed Klaus' furtive strugglings and pointed them out to his companion.
"You ready?" he said.
The small boy nodded. His eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight.
Scooter stood up straight, shaking loose dirt from his trousers. He pulled out a knife from inside his shirt. It was an old Barlow knife, the one his daddy gave him when he was not much older than this boy in front of him was right now. It was old and beat-up, and the tip of the blade was broken off square, but he had never let anyone else touch it.
Never, until now.
Scooter knew what he would want done if he were in that little boy's situation, and he did it.
"Here," he said, handing the knife to the boy. "You make the first cut."
Gravely, the boy took the knife from him. "Thank you," he whispered.
==========
The Red Cross trucks arrived the next day, ready to take the displaced persons off of the 90th's hands. The refugees would be taken westward, to new lives that could not but be better than what they had just left behind.
Scooter and the boy walked together to the trucks. Then Scooter, his muscles still sore from his all-night job of covert gravedigging, hoisted the boy onto the cleanest truck he could find.
"You take care of yourself, son, you hear?" Scooter said.
The boy nodded. "I hear." Then, just as the truck's engines roared to life, he suddenly said: "My real name is not the one Gramm told you. It is Hannibal Lecter."
"Proud to meet you, Hannibal Lecter." Scooter smiled. "Back home, they call me Corporal John Starling."
"John Starling. John Starling." Young Hannibal repeated the name, the better to fix it in the halls of his memory palace. "I will remember you, Corporal John Starling."
Scooter, also known as Lance Corporal John Starling of Morgantown, West Virginia, stood and waved as the truck lumbered off down the rutted dirt road, westward and to safety.