Teufelslied: Italia

Chapter 10: Breathe! For Today You Breathe Your Last!

22nd September, 1965: Near Castelnau-le-Lez, RSSR

It was raining. Anto's Grandfather had told him stories of how, during the Great War, the weather seemed to reflect the mood in the trenches, when it wasn't making the fight against the Austro-Hungarians a living hell. He had heard the fight had been even worse for the Germans at the Somme. How it wasn't an uncommon experience for men to be cut down by bullets and water alike. Anto peered at the ground above the trench line. No tanks were getting past here..
"In fact...", Anto thought out loud, peering behind him. As he suspected, multiple Panthers were practically drowning in the mud.
           Anto walked towards the miners. They had carved out tunnels half their size to run under the enemy trench for reconnaissance purposes. Looking  at them now, he recalled a book that had been released in 1960, published by the current Führer, Werner Von Kaisertum, it was titled,"Memorien der Bestatteten". It was the World War I memories of Wilhelm Von Kaisertum, his father. The British dug tunnels under the German lines, and detonated explosives. It was the origin of the term "landmine". He walked into the tunnel, hearing the sound of the shovel against dirt.
          "Shültmeister!", Anto shouted, and a shirtless, dirty, and sweating man with unkept, greasy hair and an Italian Liberation Front tunic around his waist with a shovel in hand turned to face him. "Herr Leutnant?", he answered. "Follow me!", Anto replied,"I can't call too many of you to do this favor. It would alert the enemy."
         "Yes sir.", Shültmeister said. He was lead out of the trench. "Get your tunic on, Gefreiter. You won't blend into the dirt like that.", and Shültmeister followed his order. They walked out of the trench, and five to prone. They crawled to a tank, and then into it. "Verdammt!", Anto exclaimed, searching the tank frantically. "Where are the munitions?" Shültmeister grabbed a box of AP shells,"These, Herr Leutnant?"
      "Nein, Landser.", Anto replied. "High Explosive shells. Crates of them." Shültmeister smiled, and chuckled mischievously at the suggestion that he had just been ordered to plant explosive shells under the enemy. "I love your train of thought, sir.", he said, digging through a stash of broken wrenches and tools. Finally, he grabbed a large wooden crate with the top removed. Exactly what was needed. He grabbed several others, and they were sadly empty.
      Exposed like this, the boxes took up most of the main hull. Though, that was to be expected. Tanks were not supposed to be comfortable. Though the Landkreuzer was a special exception. They exited the tank, crouched, some sniper fire flew at them, falling short by a few meters. "That sentry would flunk algebra class.", Anto said, laughing at his joke. Shültmeister stared at Anto with a blank face. "You've never been in a sniping position before?"
  Schültmeister started to get it, he laughed, and moved under the shroud of night, appreciating how far they had advanced. In spite of that, he nearly lost his stomach at the sight of black vultures picking at the fallen, their bodies infested with maggots and flies. They were half way to the second tank, and Anto held up his hand. "Don't put your foot down!", he whispered, moving back towards Alois Schültmeister. Schültmeister had moved slightly inconsistently to his superior, and was at risk of smacking his steel-tipped boot into the fuse of an artillery shell. Anto moved the shell out of the way. The bottom read Stahlhowitzer 1950. Had Alois' foot hit the charge, the shards of steel would've ripped him into shreds like a blender, and destroyed the next two tanks. "Let's move.", Anto said, crawling over the chassis of the next tank and slipping into the turret.
               "Jackpot!", Anto's words in the inside of the tank. 6 wooden crates of explosive shells were stacked against the farthest wall of the Jaguar. Anto crawled up to the Commander's seat, and peered out the periscope. "The sun is rising. Those sentries will be tired now. Let's head back to the trenches."
         As Alois returned to his mine and Anto to his barracks, Anto saw something that struck him as suspicious. His comrades were heading to the hind part of the trench to carve out a doorway. "What's gonna be there?", Anto aske. "An extension of the trench. Command hasn't told us yet.", the soldier didn't make eye contact.
            "Fair enough.", Anto said. On his way back to the 1st Infantry barracks, he was approached by a senior officer. "That time of day again, Castillo. Rifle loaded?", Anto shivered. "Yes sir.."
         "Good. Squadrons form up!", the Colonel called. In ten minutes, they were crammed together, bombs raining down from above. Ready to charge into a killing field. Anto put his Leibenstahl 60 mask on. A shell exploded overhead, spraying them with chunks of steel and dirt. "30 SECONDS!", the Colonel shouted. Anto looked down at his uniform. He wasn't cut.
             "Alright men. Breathe! If for one more time! For today! It will be your last!", a huff of breathe was followed by a war cry. "CHAAARGE!", the Colonel shouted, and Anto went over the top, immediately diving behind a mound of dirt. The R.R.A troops were beginning to spread out of the ash and mud that buried the French soil. Now was his time to fire. He calculated the distance, then fired a few rounds into the enemy ranks. Several of them hit the ground. He maintained fire on an enemy squadron. A few bullets flew past him, as screams of the dying filled the air. Drowned out by the explosions of howitzer shells throwing dismembered bodies into the air. A machine gunner in the mud Sentryhausen was rapidly gunning down enemy soldiers.
      Anto reloaded his gun, and fired. He got off a few bursts of his assault rifle, only one of which found it's target before being suppressed by machine gun fire..from...above him?
     Anto moved just his eyes above cover, he could see what appeared to be the walls of a fortress, lined with muzzle flashes from machine guns. He moved from cover as a shell plummeted towards him, making a decent-sized fox hole in the rain. Anto dove to the ground as to not be killed by the Stahlhowitzer shells. He dashed to his foxhole, and jumped in, as another shell exploded above him.
         It dazed Anto's vision, and he'd laid there for a moment, making little more than muttering sounds. What sounded like a psychological teapot came to a boil, as another shell went off close by, making Anto come to his senses and sending one of his comrades flying, with no head and arms. Anto stuck his head out of his foxhole, and the buzz of machine gun fire flew around him, the bullets barely missing his head. "SHIT!", he exclaimed, returning fire on the machine gunner. 5 of Anto's bullet smashed into the man's intestines. The blood flowing into his foxhole, the man was screaming," Mother! Mother! Please! Let me fulfill your wishes! God! Don't let me die here!". As Anto crawled out of his foxhole, he could see the enemy soldier was young. "How young are you...lad?", Anto asked, moving his mask up. "S...seven...t..teen.", he said, as he went limp and died from the increasing blood loss. Anto's eyes filled with regret. Nonetheless, he had a job to do. He pulled his steel mask back down, attempting to hide his guilt.
            A shell went off in front of him, and barbed wire flew from the ground. Then, Anto realized, the crater had several Italian soldiers rising from it. They were the Assault Engineers. They cried their cries of war, and fired on the enemy machine gun nests and the R.R.A soldiers in the opposing trench. "Hey watch your fire!", Anto had to say, as the engineers were firing in every direction. "Sorry sir!", one of them said, and the wall of gunfire turned into a crest that faced the enemy.
               Anto assisted in their suppression of the opposing forces, and after their first magazine was emptied, a second row of Italian soldiers rose from the crater, and fired, Anto mimicked the action, seeing how effective it was. If they made it into the opposition's trench, Anto wouldn't be surprised to see a line of fallen ladders and bodies. The engineer crew then scaled the hole, bayonets fixed when they had emptied their ammunition, screaming,"URRRAAAAAAAAAH!", and an R.R.A machine gunner saw his chance.
             The machine gunner turned his fire on the engineers, and they fell. One. By. One. One soldier, Anto couldn't get a clear look at him, impaled his bayonet into the gunner's shoulder, his body took the full force of the enemy's gun fire, 30 holes appearing in his torso in under a second, his body plummeted into the enemy trench. Anto could only watch in horror as they were slaughtered. He then saw the face of Alois Schützmuller charge, firing what little remained of his ammunition, the terrified enemy gunner's bullets pierced Alois' leg, and he exploded. "ALOIS!", Anto shouted, running to his friend's side to comfort him in his final moments.
              He dived down as MG fire flew overhead, and lifted Schützmuller's helmet, only to see he was already dead. As the enemy's trench was pelted by bombs from the Luftwaffe, also raining down on the fortress, Anto retreated an abandoned mud Sentryhausen. He heard a roar as the enemy scaled their trenches. And another as MG60's cut them down where they stood. Anto retrieved the MG60 from it's fixed position, and attached a regular bipod to the muzzle, deploying the weapon, he opened fire. The belt fed version always had lower recoil due to it's reduced weight. Field guns rolled into position, and the enemy retreated, while the remaining R.R.A were gunned down and blasted to pieces. A field gun on top of the fortress' single tower turned to face the Italian line, and the field guns that had been brought to the front were blown to pieces.
        Several more shells followed suit. Followed by another charge, this time, the Italians. The R.R.A fixed their artillery on the advancing soldiers, and they blazed to life, smashing thousands of Anto's comrades to pieces. The Italians were spread out among the dead, somewhat evenly, and the artillery battery had stopped firing. Anto turned his MG60 on the tower, and fired. He left his machine gun their, and charged, his bayonet impaling the head of an R.R.A soldier.
             It was a sound he would never forget. Somewhere between a slurp and the crack of a human skull against the steel bayonet. As he withdrew his rifle, which took more effort than he had hoped, chunks of brain fell out. They also were scattered in smaller pieces among the red blood of the bayonet. Anto pulled out his spade, and whacked it against the skull of an enemy soldier, who crumpled like dust or paper, his jaw half unhinged and bleeding. Anto dived as artillery roared overhead in a makeshift, and likely accidental, moat-like structure. He took a quick pick at the position of his enemy, and blind fired, he looked up, and he had injured two enemy soldiers, with another dead from 3 bullets lodged in his gut, and another which had penetrated his eye.
          "The human intestine is a fickle thing, dog!", Anto shouted, with an expression somewhere between grief and maniac happiness on his face. He let out a laugh like a madman. "YOU R.R.A DOGS ARE NOTHING BUT SCUM ON THE HEEL OF MY SHOE!", he said. He didn't notice that the shells had stopped falling, and that bullets were done firing. "Oberleutnant!", a soldier said, who he recognized as Oberschutze Hans Einitti. "Oberleutnant...the fighting is over."
   "No, Oberschutze. It is not over. Until one side pushed hard enough..to break through the fog of war.", Anto sat down, relieved. "Gather the dead. Watch for unexploded shells."