Piano keys were her childhood, but the grasp of a pistol was her reality. Polish SOE Agent, Natia Filipska, has lurked among the rubble and the shadows of her occupied-Warsaw for years, ever since the war started and ripped her from the life that ha...
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War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving." - Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless
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September 26th, 1944
Uden, Holland
1800
1 day after Operation Market-Garden has ended
It was raining again, the foxholes becoming muddied with a murky dirt and water mixture, running down onto their boots, over the grey ponchos and helmets looped on their heads. The rain had caused sleepless nights among other things, but then there was the constant gunfire, the occasional distant bomb, the dysentery that followed a few soldiers, or the flow of bugs like gnats and mosquitoes picking at your skin under the hot sun all day, and then the whispers of cold air, an onset of fall, late in the night.
Almost daily, bridges and paths were blocked, resulting in the division having to turn and move along in the other direction, before settling for foxholes that night instead - and the cycle was exhausting, more exhausting than not, and numbing to the mind.
Day in and day out, when Natia wasn't firing the newly delivered American Thompson - something Lieutenant Welsh had hesitantly offered her, resulting in her finally having to drop the Polish weapon that had run out of proper ammo - she was sitting with the radio on by her side, a discarded K-ration propped up along her muddy boot, and slumped shoulders as she sat in wait for the radio to crackle to life, for a simple sound other than the voices of the Americans at the Command Post, to follow.
It was never the case though, and she felt it never would be at this point. The men watched her almost pitifully, walking through bullets and gunfire like she were invincible, and then going back and sitting alone in her foxhole as she awaited a radio signal. It seemed every night it occurred - and she barely spoke to a soul.
George was her only companion it seemed and even then the bonds of slight trust in one another that had been there upon first meeting seemed detached. She was falling into her old ways again, she knew she was. And the persistent gazes of the men were of absolutely no help.
Veghel had not been forgiving upon the end of Operation Market-Garden. For as long as they had fought, the Germans had retreated and by that point it was time to retreat back to Uden - a long tiring march in the pouring rain, as boots met mud, moral dropped to a shattering low, and voices were silenced by the dripping of the rain on their helmets.
The offensive against the Nazi division had been a tough one, heavily fought for on both sides, but with the news of defeat weighing on their shoulders, it was diminishing in enthusiasm and a will to fight for almost everyone.
