The day after the last shots, Prague awoke to the German trucks.
Yet as the city's clocks struck seven, the baker opened his shop.
The trams ran.
At the newsstand, people queued in silence for papers printed in two languages.
Order the German broadcasts promised it on every radio frequency had arrived.
But in every heart, something restless turned.
Captain Veselý moved through Prague's side streets with a limp, one arm in a rough sling.
The night before, he'd watched half his company die at the western approaches, fighting until the barrels of their rifles melted, then falling back by alley and canal, scattering into the city like sparks from a dying fire.
Now, all that remained was a dozen men scraped, burned, hungry, half in civilian dress.
He ducked into a boarded-up bar, a hand on his pistol.
The password was exchanged quietly three knocks, then two.
Inside, the fugitive survivors of the 3rd Regiment waited in the shadows.
