THE FRONT: PART 12 (Last Part)
It was time, the raid was upon them, and Scott felt fear run through him even though he wasn't even going. He could only imagine what the participants were feeling. Wynter patted him on the shoulder and smiled.
"Don't miss me, just try to survive." He said, and with a quick hand gesture,determined where a ladder was to be placed. The four anthros would climb up the ladder, and being careful to stay close to the ground would advance towards the German lines.
Scott saw one of the anthros, a silver fox, check a locket. That little intimate sight made Scott feel a new surge of sadness. But he didn't have time to linger over that, the men needed to be ready for battle in case the Germans launched a counterattack. If they did, then Scott would have to place his men well because hand to hand fighting would again decide the fight, as it had before.
Scott felt a shiver go down his spine, just thinking of that nightmarish battle and fervently that the raid wouldn't elicit any type of response from the enemy.
The ladder was positioned and Scott tipped his helmet at the four men, it would unlikely that he would see any of them again. The night was deathly quiet and Scott watched as the four anthros lined up at the base of the ladder, the silver fox taking the lead.
He reached the top of the ladder, turned to help his comrade up, then a gunshot split the night and the fox was hurled from the top of the trench, a hole the size of a saucer in his side. Blood bubbled from his side, then something small dropped down among the gathered anthros and the world exploded.
The world returned in small shreds, a boot here, a bloodied bit of uniform here. And a fiery pain in his stomach. Scott tried to sit up, but something hit him in the head and he cried out weakly as he heard anthros speaking in some foreign language.
"Bastards, let me out!" Scott tried to yell, but his voice cracked and whoever it had been who had hit him just laughed. He said something else and then Scott felt himself being carried to a chair. He opened his eyes fully and saw a mouse sitting in front of him, fully bedecked in a German colonel's uniform.
"Let me go." Scott said, the pain in his stomach was fierce and he could see a mass of bloody bandages covering his torso. The colonel merely laughed and offered Scott a thin German cigarette. Scott just continued staring at him with abject hatred, sot he colonel put it away and began to speak.
"I am Colonel Maus, and my men captured you during a raid on your trench, according to your pack and your stripes, you are Sergeant Scott Godfrey, am I correct?" Scott nodded, the pain was twisting and turning within him and he could feel blood dripping through the bandages onto his thighs and feet.
"You were wounded by shrapnel from a grenade, but you were still obviously alive, so my men carried you back to our trenches, stitched your wounds and kept you from dying, I'd appreciate a thank you." Scott looked at the mouse incredulously, the man had ordered a raid that had likely destroyed his entire squad, he was now a prisoner God knows where, and gravely injured as well.
"No, you killed my squad and gave me a belly full of shrapnel, I will not thank you, you Kraut bastard!" Colonel Maus made a hand gesture and a soldier behind Scott grabbed his arms, securing him to the chair.
"Sergeant Godfrey," said Colonel Maus, his fur bristling with anger, "four of my men died transporting you here, my battalion is now at half strength as a result, and if you continue being ungrateful I will undo your stitches and spill your innards onto the floor, do you understand?" Scott felt a flash of fear fun through him, he didn't want to die, he was only eighteen, barely out of childhood.
"Yes Colonel." Said Scott, the pain was getting worse, but he didn't complain, that might count as being ungrateful to the Colonel, and he had no doubt that the Colonel really would disembowel him on the spot if he proved to be trouble.
"So, now that we have that out of the way, I need to know a few things from you, Sergeant." The German soldier holding Scott's arms tightened his grip and Scott found that he couldn't move as much as an inch in any direction. Colonel Maus leaned close to Scott, his breath smelled faintly of mint cigarettes and Scott wrinkled his nose, he didn't like smoking.
"How many men did you have in your squad, Sergeant?" Scott looked back at Colonel Maus, the pain made him wince for a moment, then he found his voice and answered.
"When I was first promoted I had thirteen, then one died from a sniper attack, so when you attacked I had twelve." Colonel Maus nodded, satisfied that his prisoner was cooperating.
"How many men were in your platoon, Sergeant?" Scott, exhausted from pain and weak from blood loss, told him. Colonel Maus lit a cigarette and minty smoke filled the air, Scott wrinkled his nose, but the Colonel kept smoking. He looked at the soldier holding Scott and motioned for him to loosen his grip.
Without the soldier's support, scott slid halfway out of his chair, the movement eliciting a new wave of pain from his mangled stomach.
"Thank you Sergeant, you have been most helpful, now lets get you to bed and see if we can't find a little morphine for your pain, think of it as a reward." A nurse rebandaged his wounds, but Scott kept his eyes shut during it, he had no desire to see his cut up stomach. It was mid morning at that point, but Scott still slept, his dreams punctuated by nightmares of the trenches of Passchendaele.
SPRING 1959
A wolf walked along the defoliated field that he had fought in so long ago, wondering if he had truely ever left it. He was dressed in an old uniform and was accompanied by dozens of other aging anthros, all here to remember when they had been soldiers, fighting in the mud and blood. Then he stopped and knelt on the ground, there in front of him was the site where the front line trench had been, where he had walked and hid and killed so long ago. And there he knelt and took from his pocket a set of rusted Sergeant's stripes. He buried them in the soft loam, not minding the pebbles and pieces of shrapnel that scraped against his fur.
"Thank you Wynter." He said quietly and continued walking.
THE END