Junior Remy Haring continues with his fourth installment of his serial fiction inspired by The New Order–a mod for Hearts of Iron IV. If you recall, Remy visits an alternate dark history here, where, in WWII, the Axis powers have won.
Somewhere in Chita, the Russian Far East, January 26, 1962
Last morning a letter appeared at my doorstep. It was a faded beige color with the stamp depicting the Double Eagle. After Rodzaevsky’s speech, I knew what it was about: I was going to be conscripted into the army and forced on to the Chita front. I was ordered to report to the army office or face death by hanging.
The next day, I was sitting on the back of a military truck wearing a fur hat one size too small and a snow camo suit. My dog tag read Alexander Titov. Sitting across from me was a gangly young man-couldn’t have been older than 19. His entire body was shaking, and he was wearing an oversized military helmet that had “Don’t tell mother I’m in Chita” painted on it. He could barely hold the rifle he was given. He was smoking cigarette after cigarette. I really didn’t know what to say or do to calm him down.
The sun was almost completely blocked out by the trees. Only little flecks pierced down like golden arrows. The only things I could hear were the humming of the engine and the tires crunching against the snow. Every snap of a twig, every sound in the darkness could be an ambush. I was too high on adrenaline to even think of sleeping. God knows what might happen if I woke up to an ambush. Behind me was another truck. The driver gestured to me to look ahead. I don’t know how long the boy and I had been sitting there, but neither of us dared to speak. The forest seemed to just keep going and going until the truck stopped.
The driver ordered us to leave the truck; it was time. The boy was now a wreck: hands trembling, helmet knocked askew. He could barely stand on his thin legs. Poor sod looked like he hadn’t eaten anything for days. The place we stopped was a small Chita camp in a forest clearing. There were tents dotting the forest floor, and in the center there were three soldiers around a fire. The one in the middle was playing the guitar, and they were drunkenly singing soldier’s songs from the Russian Civil War. It was almost serene until the first shot was fired.
I took cover behind a log and propped up my rifle. All I could see was smoke from the now burning tents and the silhouettes of my fellow men, writhing and screaming under the cloak of embers. I didn’t know what to do. My hand was too shaky to aim at anything properly, and, even if I could, I could very well have shot the boy mistakenly. All of this raced through my head until I heard a single, solitary pop and the thud of a body.
Behind me was the lifeless body of the boy who less than an hour ago was sitting with me. Standing above him was a Blackshirt with a smoking pistol. He looked me dead in the eyes, pointed the gun at me and simply said, “Your life or the life of the enemy: choose one. Your order is to advance on to the enemy position.” I turned back and began advancing alone towards the torched camp. Smoke clouded my vision and filled my lungs. I was a good fifty yards ahead of the Blackshirt. I finally broke. I ran. I didn’t care where. I just couldn’t do this. I hunted plenty of small game. I laid plenty of traps. But I couldn’t take the life of another man. I stumbled over many things on the ground. I didn’t know what they were, and I did not care. I ran like a wounded animal off into the Siberian Hinterland.
*War
I Loved reading this. I felt the adrenaline of fear .. forced to be in a war without any choice. Thanks for writing this.
Thank you! Interesting fact, the detail of “Don’t tell mother i’m In Chita” written on the kid’s helmet is a reference to a Russian anti-war song from the Chechen War called “Don’t tell mother i’m in Chechnya”