Barry Cole

The Letter Barry Cole

Safe from the horrors of war a German soldier makes the ultimate sacrifice

Having survived the hell of Stalingrad and two years of bitter fighting on the Eastern Front, Sergeant Franz Mayer found he was now a deserter. Not by choice but a reality nevertheless. Faced with the prospect of an SS firing squad, convinced that the war was in its final death throes his only hope lay in returning home. If fate had condemned him it now came to his rescue and aided by an elderly couple who had lost their only son in the war, he was able to return to his family. But fate hadn't finished with him just yet.

Although it was purely by chance that the convoy of lorries' passed through the village it changed everything, and plagued by his conscience Franz knew he must return to the war. But before leaving he writes a letter to the old couple who had saved his life, instructing his wife to post it should he not return. A letter that would ultimately unite the two families and give them the strength to face the hardships which lay ahead in a country ravaged by war.