Sam Willetts

On the Smolensk Road

The Stukas, finished with the men and tanks, turned back for the civilians – the mile-after-mile of refugees scuffing and trundling behind the Russian retreat

and bottlenecked before a bridge over the Dnieper. The cocked gull-wings were sighted, the panic warning yelled along the line, and everybody ran,

cowering, hands on heads into the roadside fields. One woman...