Finish our day of punishment

The squad groggily stands around, picks and shovels in our hands, our weapons leaned against each other in tripods. We are a bit behind our outermost defenses. Dadonov paces in front of us.

“We’re supposed to start a trench line running from here,” He says, putting the nose of his shovel in the snow. “To here.” He drags his shovel along the ground, drawing a line.

“Not straight, either.” He says. “It has to have some corners to break it up.”

“Digging in winter?” Smirnov asks. “This is bullshit! “How the fuck are we even supposed to do this?”

“That’s what the picks are for.” He says. “Somebody breaks pieces loose, the other scoops them out. Work in layers.”

Nobody says anything.

“Look, I know this sucks.” Dadonov says. “But it will get easier once we break through the permafrost.”

We begrudgingly pair up. Artyom and I end up together. I use my shovel to clear the snow away from the frozen ground, the only easy part. Artyom takes his pick and starts swinging. He’s big and strong but every impact seems to do very little. Once he’s broken up a small area, he steps back to let me in. I swing my shovel along the ground into the parts where he chopped, and it is stopped cold as soon as it hits the frozen chunks.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I mutter. I have to use my hips to push underneath. To say that this is hard is an understatement.

Once I painstakingly clear as much as I can, I look up at Artyom, who has shed his coat already. I can’t help but look him up and down when he goes back to swinging. I can’t help but stare at the way his shirt clings to his muscles. The animalistic grunts he makes with every swing remind me of our moment of passion earlier.

It’s a lot of work breaking through the top layer, but we are rewarded by reaching sloppy, wet mud that sticks to our tools. It seems like we spend more time scraping the mud off than we actually spend digging. The work is exhausting. The sun sets. After spending the whole afternoon and working into the evening, we’ve only made abysmal progress. Dadonov rounds us up for a cold meal before we gather our weapons and make for the site of the air drop.

This happens from time to time, as it is one of the few ways we can be resupplied reliably. However, instead of doing the fun part of signaling and collecting our prize, my squad gets to spend the evening on watch in the cold, dark forest. We watch for the enemy, but thankfully, nothing happens this time. By the time all is said and done, and it is time to head in, we are all completely miserable.