Arrival of the special forces

I pitied them, they seemed so roughed up, always the last to leave the battle and first to arrive to the next. They suffered terrible losses lately, but still their moral was high enough to continue the fight. The Reds had advanced rapidly despite the fierce resistance. They were getting close all right, and my people were getting really anxious. Hopefully the arrival of the special forces would boost their confidence and hope a bit.

Despite their rugged appearances they were very friendly with us being rookies greener than fresh ivy leaves in an early spring morning. I liked their demeanor, being straightforward, always saying what they thought and working hard to get perfect results. They fit well in our similar culture. They were grateful for our preparations and only had to minimally adjust to their surroundings.

The reality of the upcoming battle was starting to sink into all of us. Nervous, frantic training, everything we were doing had a certain edge to it. Some of us were saying their goodbyes to each other, depressing as that was. In reality, chances were high that after our first battle, we could have a seriously reduced platoon, if not all of us were dead by then. We kept trying to boost moral by keeping the tone of conversations light, trying to distract ourselves by telling each other happy memories.

The last day before the battle we received a real shock. Even literally. Suddenly the earth trembled very lightly, as if a small earth quake was happening far below our feet. In Northern Europe we are not used to earth quakes, so we realized something terribly bad must have happened.

News came fast that the Russians had indeed done the unthinkable, and launched a tactical ICBM against Prague. An entire city wiped from the earth. All those brave citizens murdered, just because the Russians wanted to eliminate the resistance in their race to conquer Europe faster. Old, young, men, women, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, parents and children: all gone.

An immense sadness overtook us, but then also an incredible anger emerged inside us. We could not translate it in words, but now our actions were more determined and spoke of a strange will to inflict as much damage to the Reds as we could before we died too.

With using a tactical nuke the Russians had lost all humanity in them. There would be no more compassion in us for their soldiers, little as there was in the first place. It burned away all consideration for Russian citizens, rationalizing it was their fault too. They barely stood up against their leadership, their apathy and refusal to topple their own government caused all of this.

I expected that from that moment on, no mercy would be given and cruelty would become the norm in dealing with Russians. If somehow we survived, if we won this war, I foresaw a future where a vengeance, by the likes the world had never seen, would come upon the Russians, without any discrimination whatsoever. That is, if we could survive in the first place...

In the night before the battle we went to sleep determined, the playful mood was shifted. Kylie, Kate and I huddled together in our foxhole as if our bodies being so close gave us solace and strength for what was going to happen.

The fleeing troops were in a hurry, at a very hard pace, they crossed the bridges, or even jumped into the rivers to get across. It had started at night, we could barely sleep as we heard the vehicles of the retreating remaining Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Hungarian and Czech soldiers, militia and citizens moved hastily through the village of Regen and all across the river Regen. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers, beaten, bloodied, ****, crying or silent moved past our positions. We couldn’t and didn’t betray our positions, however we wished there was another way to comfort them than letting them see us, to convey the message the fight was not yet over.

Only half an hour after the last refugees came across the river we heard the rumblings of the enemy tanks driving nearer. There must have been hundreds of tanks coming towards us, as rumblings were so persistently loud and crept coming closer.

Silently we moved into our positions and waited.