Tanks and thanks

In the bus to another waypoint I tried to get some sleep. I failed miserably. Every time I closed my eyes the image of Kemal’s back would intrude in my mind, followed swiftly by another image of his corpse lying in the dirt. Another image of his blood on my hands. There was no stopping those dreadful intrusions. To make matters worse, Kylie decided for some reason to sit close by. It was as if she was determined to let me see the error of my ways, no matter the high degree of psychopathy she must have sensed in me. She gazed upon me with sort of a pained and accusing look whenever I dared to look at my platoon members. It pained me every time I looked in her general direction. Being confronted with her gaze meant being confronted with my constant feeling of self-disgust and guilt. At one point I couldn’t stand it anymore and left to sit somewhere else on my own.

Had I worried about my platoon before, it was nothing compared to what I went through afterwards. I had compromised my leadership even before the first tactical operation. I had killed one of my own, and seriously traumatized one of the others, then made her a silent accomplice in the cover-up of my capital crime.

Still the members counted on me for my leadership, unaware of my misdeeds. I still had a promise to keep to the mother of the two siblings in my team. I had known them for several years, barely reaching their adulthood in these horrifying times. The sister looked like a mess. She too must have had minimal sleep, the brother was not looking much better. They weren’t the exception. Upon closer inspection, it seemed none of the platoon members was fully rested up. God, they must be getting more exhausted and stressed the closer we came to our destination. It would be a small camp where we would receive additional training and advanced equipment. Then off to the front.

The Russians were not taking any prisoners, didn’t bother with conquering or installing martial law in the cities they passed. It was a blitzkrieg, racing their tanks and troop carriers from one point to the other, all the while wreaking havoc upon defending soldiers and citizens alike. They were now almost at the border of the Czech Republic, hindered by ever retreating Hungarian and Slovakian soldiers and militia try to buy time for their respective fleeing citizens.

Austria was now in the process of systematically blowing up every bridge across the Danube and the Inn, refugees or not, part of Austria or not. Every tunnel was collapsed and every border access was heavily guarded. As it wasn’t part of NATO, they deduced that with the scarce resources they would be last in line. Not wanting to risk invasion as well, being part of the EU, they simply tried to deny access to the Russians.

No matter how friendly the Czech president was with Russia in the past, he was planning to put up a fight, not wanting his country again to be part of a new Soviet-Union.

Sadly, Germany’s military power was a joke, and not even a funny one. Being responsible for two world wars, they permanently lost the will to organize a more established army for protection of the EU. It seemed the whole of Germany was on the run. Those living east of the Rhine fled to west of it. Those at the North-Sea fled to England, Denmark and Sweden. And those enlisted rushed to either west of the Rhine, or south to the diverse mountain regions.

The French prepared a frontline in the Black Forest and at the Rhine as well. When the Russians would come close, they would follow the example of Austria and blow up every bridge across that mighty river.

For our last waypoint before battle, we were stationed at the French border to Germany, near Saarbrücken. Depending on the progress of the Russians it would be decided later where they would drop us off for our first combat experiences.

The additional equipment and training we received was all about the antitank gear. We got the French version of the famous Javelins, good enough for the job. Normally a formal training would cost us two weeks, but again, it was reduced to one day. We just had to know how to recognize a target, safely load and shoot it. Due to the Russian tanks having countermeasures against it, we would need to get either close, or shoot simultaneously multiple missiles at one tank. The peacetime cost of the damn thing was an arm and a leg, but France delivered them nonetheless to every platoon. France had in rapid time nationalized the factories and production was in full swing. If our platoon encountered a lone T-90 tank, we would at least have a chance of surviving it.

Only a few of the platoon members could operate it at the end of the day. I didn’t bother to ask Michael and Dieter to join the lessons. They quickly volunteered to prepare the camp. Kate had the chance to follow more lessons about being a combat medic and I sent Kylie along with her. I sent Tom to extra sniper practice with his soccer mates after the ATG lessons. Everyone else had to practice shooting at targets.

Keeping myself busy was one way of dealing with my insurmountable stress and exhaustion. But as the night set in, I still could barely sleep. Multiple times in the night I woke up from a nightmare, reliving every detail of my deed in my dreams. And every time Kylie was there to look at me. In my dreams and upon my awakening. Couldn’t she neither get any sleep? It was simply unbearable. As well as I could, I turned my back to her and renewed my effort to get some sleep.

The next day we were transported by helicopter, a medium transport of the French military which had the unenviable task of moving all incoming platoons from my entire county to the Bohemian forest.

As the military leadership did not know which directions the Russians would take after they took the Czech Republic, current forward operating areas were all about encircling the north border of that country, from Deggendorf behind the Danube in the south-west to Bautzen, east of Dresden behind the Spree in the north-east.

I had a rough idea, but I doubted very much the military leadership would have liked to hear about Bavarian prophecies. As I saw it, we would be there only for a short time, then retreating every time behind a new river until we came upon the French border or the Rhine. Not a whole lot of bridges would survive after we were finished with the Russians. You see, because of my belief in the prophecies I had hope we would win. The problem was that I also believed not many people would be left to tell the tale.

We were dropped off in Regen, with a river named... the Regen. The US soldiers that were stationed in Bavaria would help in the Czech Republic first but then retreat to the German border and help the German soldiers and then retreat to us. More and more soldiers would eventually retreat until no retreat was possible anymore. Behind the Rhine. If the Rhine falls, Europe falls.

We headed off with fifty platoons in the area, and set up camps, made recon patrols, studied the maps, and prepared locations where we would encounter Russian tanks and troop transports. We dug our first foxholes, reinforced here and there with dirt ramps, sandbags and camouflaged everything. With some chainsaws from the village we carried logs above our foxholes, just to give us a safer feeling. Air patrols were frequently seen above our heads. Jet fighters, bombers, gunships. Lots of noise. We started digging with the engineering corps for the inevitable retreating soldiers after they blew every bridge they could find. Making them feel at home when they arrived.

A foxhole had to be dug for two persons only, all according the tactical handbook at the most optimal places. And yes, Kylie stayed by my side and dug with me. I still pained me to look at her. After the long days at work in the area I was more than tired and finally had a dreamless sleep. Yet I awoke too early and it was still dark. I listened closely, all was silent. Perfect. Finally some peace.

I looked at Kylie but with the feeling of a sudden unpleasant surprise I noticed she was looking straight at me, very much awake. To my surprise she started to talk to me in a **** tone:

”I don’t know how to make it up to you, please tell me what I can do to make it right. Anything you ask. I can’t bear it anymore.”

“Huh?”