The General of the Dead Army by Ismaíl Kadaré, Derek Coltman

a group from the co-operative, they made their way there, and having cleared the animals away from the presumed burial areas they began digging. The calves gazed at the intruders with their beautiful, tranquil eyes, and the pleasant smell of hay hung in the shed.
    Before nightfall the remains of the pilot and the two soldiers had been recovered. Those of the pilot had been found without difficulty, but before unearthing those of the two soldiers they had been obliged to open up trench after trench, and when the general finally departed the floor of the calf shed looked as though it had been under heavy shellfire.
    The workmen filled in the trenches without hurrying; they were going to sleep in the village. The general, the priest, and the expert, however, had decided to spend the night in a small town about thirty kilometres away.
    It was already dark when they set out. Their car started off slowly, avoiding the ruts, its headlights sometimes lighting up the poplars lining the road, sometimes a cart coming in from the field or a farmyard with its fence of tall reeds.
    “Stop!” the priest cried suddenly, just as they were driving back past the part of the cemetery where their own soldiers were buried.
    The driver braked.
    “What’s up?” asked the expert.
    The priest pointed out to the general an inscription on the little wall bounding the cemetery.
    As soon as the car was stationary he got out. The general followed, slamming the car door violently behind him. The expert also climbed out.
    “What is the meaning of that?” the general cried, pointing at the low wall.
    Scrawled in charcoal, in big, badly formed capitals, were the words:
Such is the fate of our enemies!
    The expert shrugged.
    “It was done this afternoon,” he said. “There was nothing there this morning.”
    “We are aware of that,” the general said. “What we should like to know is what the purpose of your government is in inciting its people to shameful provocations of this kind.”
    “I can’t see anything shameful in it,” the expert said calmly.
    The priest had pulled out his notebook, apparently in order to copy down the words written on the wall.
    “Nothing shameful?” the general exploded. “Words like that scrawled on the wall around our dead! I shall report the matter. It is a serious provocation, a contemptible insult.”
    The expert turned back angrily to face him.
    “Twenty years ago you scrawled your Fascist slogans on our comrades’ chests before you hanged them, and now you pretend to be appalled by a few simple words like that, probably put there by a schoolchild.”
    “We are not talking about what happened twenty years ago,” the general interrupted him.
    “It still applies, nevertheless.”
    “It’s got nothing to do with what happened twenty years ago!”
    “You are always talking about the Greeks and the Trojans. Why shouldn’t we talk about what happened twenty years ago?”
    “Talk like this will get us nowhere,” the general concluded. “This is not the place for it”
    All three walked quickly back to the car. The doors slammed furiously behind them, one after another, like guns firing, and the driver set off again. But in less than five minutes they were forced to stop again.
    Outside the village, just over a wooden bridge, the road was blocked by a cart that had just shed a wheel. Two peasants were at work on it.
    Without breaking off his struggle to get the wheel back on, the villager asked the expert:
    “Where are you from?”
    The expert told him.
    “This morning we were told why you’re here,” the man said. “All the women in the village are talking about nothing else. They started the moment they saw your car and lorry driving in.”
    “Push, can’t you, damn it!” the other peasant grunted as he strained on his side to get the wheel back on.
    “They said you’re going to get all the foreign soldiers up out of their graves and take them back to their own country,” the first peasant