In love and war.

Three weeks of war. Of those three, two at the front. Training, digging, eh... relieving stress, training, digging and a few moments of arse-opening terror.

My section was coming nicely together. Some of them literally nice, literally together and literally coming. The new ugly one, Didier, was becoming friends with Kate’s brother Tim. Becoming brothers in arms. Well, having to share one gun does something to men, I guess. Not sure how Tim thinks of me, after having Kate in my hole with Kylie. But whatever his thoughts, not one mention of it, I heard. And they must have heard quite a bit of noise, coming out of my pit. Kylie screaming, Kate something in between, don’t know how to name it, never heard anything the like. Not that I had vast experience in it, far from it.

Sure, I received some looks from the new girls. Strange looks. Like I was doing something forbidden, but yet they didn’t seem angry about it. Sara and Cindy came together from another decimated section, probably still adapting to my kind of leadership. Such as it was. Whatever they thought about it, they seemed to be too shy to talk to me about it. Or was it business as usual in sections ruled by men?

Kylie and Kate made sure they felt welcome, and were soon talking to each other as they were long lost girlfriends from kindergarten. After that rather active night, Kylie and Kate were remarkably calm, as if finally content with their stress levels.

They kept their teasing to a minimum and I finally got in touch with the other platoon leaders. I didn’t want to stick my nose into their internal affairs, so I didn’t ask about it. I visited their reinforcements and admired the work they had put into it. I did however have a talk with the leader of the sixth. Poor guy, I started getting pity with him. His ‘underlings’ didn’t want to listen to him, all alpha males put together, just a few females, that were complaining about everyone and anything.

“Have you gone to leadership with it,” I asked him.

“Multiple times,” he answered.

They wouldn’t do anything about it, they had enough work on their hands. I felt for him, truly, but as long as I wasn’t involved, not much I could do about it.

That noon at the circle - we placed some stones in a circle to gather around when we ate or talked - Sara came sitting next to me. She hesitated several times, as if thinking how to put her request into words.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” I asked gently.

“You may not know, but we came from section twelve. Only three of us survived.”

“I am truly sorry to hear that.” I offered my sympathy.

“We were tight, and we trained with the AT-launcher. Cindy and I transferred to this section and we like it here very much. Hard work, yes, but you seem fair and decent. And the other guys in here listen to you, like you are a God. And for some reason the entire platoon hangs on every word you say. Even onto your stupid jokes. They seem to respect you very much.”

“Thank you. It is always nice to be treated with respect.”

“But in my previous section, that was not the case at all. The section leaders barely cared for what happened in the other sections. And the section leaders were the worst. They didn’t seem to care if you lived or died. It was as if we were children, and obedience was the first and last word.”

“You can’t make people listen to you, if you don’t care for them.”

“Exactly!” She exclaimed. “And at the Regen, you cared for all of your platoon, you came to visit the crews, listened to their complaints, tried to put them on ease, we know because we asked your platoon members.”

“As I remember, I was acting like an obsessed lunatic that wanted the anti-thermal screens perfect, making stupid jokes with the other sections to have at least someone laughing, even if it was at me.”

“Hmm, as they remember, you were there for them.”

“How much I like you sticking more feathers in my ass, I am sure there was something else you wanted to talk about, please forgive my usual bluntness?”

“Yes, very much so, actually.”

“Please continue.” I softly said.

“From the start we said to the team that Cindy and I were lesbians, and were not planning on fucking anyone anytime soon. That stopped their never ceasing advances once and for all. Not their insults though.”

“Hmm... how disrespectful.”

“It was tough for us to keep doing our job. After all we enlisted together, we didn’t have kids, but we did have a loving family with lots of young nieces we didn’t want to be ****, if we wouldn’t win this war. And then we were in a section that didn’t even care if we lived or died. It was all a power play for the men.”

“But now you are here.”

“We are, but our third friend is still over there. In the sixth.”

“Oh... With the alpha males.”

“Yes. All alone. She was extravert at the beginning of the training, but with the continued unwanted advances and the insults, she caved in.”

“Okay, I can’t have that either.” I felt some nausea coming up. It had been some time since I had some nausea, and I knew where it came from. An image flashed in my mind, Kemal groping Kylie. Oh no, here we go again. This time I wouldn’t kill the guy responsible though. But I would act without remorse.

Here’s what you are going to do, Sara. You bring that woman to my section, here, without packing. You don’t say a word to the section leader, not to anyone. Make it so, that it seemed like she suddenly disappeared. I know it is quite a distance from here to the sixth. So better start walking now. If anyone asks, say you have a job to do for me, a message to bring to the fifth, and just there to briefly catch up with... what’s her name?”

“Jenna.”

“Just there to briefly catch up with Jenna. You don’t stop talking to Jenna, while walking all the way back here. Do you think you can do that?”

“Oh yes. That is easy. But what if they want her back and I make trouble for you?”

“Don’t worry about that. All you have to say, is that you left her at the seventh, and came back alone. I handle things from here. Off course, don’t pass the seventh, make a detour around the seventh, eighth, ninth and then come here. It will be quite a walk, I warn you. But you seem to be in good shape, a good run won’t hurt you.”

I stood up and said: ”Off you go.” And with that, she started to run.

My entire section was there listening in to the conversation. They never interrupted. Some with their mouths agape even. As if I did something truly extraordinary. I sent a young woman to fetch another woman, all on her own, without any back-up. That wasn’t extraordinary, that was impulsive.

“Look, I know what you are thinking, our dear leader has one of his moments again, impulsive, dangerous, crazy even, he must be buckling under the stress, poor man, no, don’t say a word, but if or when she arrives with Jenna, can we agree on something? That Jenna is not here. That Jenna isn’t Jenna, but just a young woman we adopted some time ago. A mere civilian we picked up, that sadly lost the will to talk. Yes, I know she looks just like Jenna, but she really isn’t. As she couldn’t talk from trauma, we named her Kara. It will not be Jenna we adopted, because we can’t steal members from other platoons, but we can adopt civilians and teach them warfare. And so we did with Kara.”

Their mouths still agape, they mulled over my words, and after a while they all nodded, but still looking up to me as if I was a monkey in a suit, jumping up and down.

“Don’t look at me like that, don’t you have something to do, dig some extra foxholes or so? Who knows how long we will be here, adopting people left and right.”