Preparing for the Return

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"Damn it, Gentile, you gotta get lower than that!"

Flavio Gentile grimaced, he didn't think he could get any lower, but damn it, he'd try. As he crawled, lower still, he could hear the zip and whiz of the machine gun rounds whipping by above his head.

The point of the training was two-fold, first it was to induce stress in the men, get them as used to being shot at without actually endangering them. Secondly, assess their agility and ability to function under fire. Again, without actually being under fire.

Some armies trained with live ammunition, he'd been told. Every hundredth round was live, so he'd been told. Recruits actually died in those armies during training, shot by their own during field exercises.

Just as he was reaching the end of the low crawl course, a nearby explosion made him freeze in place. Another recruit, not thinking, jumped up to get away from the blast.

"Cease fire! Cease fire! Goddammit, cease fire!" A number of the drill instructors were screaming at the machine gun team, who had tried to cease firing as soon as they'd seen the recruit jump up. Far too late for the recruit in question.

"Geez Stephen, what are we going to do when we meet the enemy, march around in formation and impress them with our snap?"

Hernandez chuckled, "From what I understand, Juan, it's meant to instill discipline in us and teach us to respond instantly to orders. Even the Germans and the Japanese march around in training, every army worth its salt does it."

The two men had survived the march back from the field problem, now they were drilling not far from the barracks. Left, right, left, platoon halt, platoon march, column left, column right, it was getting so that Hernandez could march in his sleep and stay in formation. It was becoming second nature to him.

"Hernandez! Your other left! Wake the f**k up, recruit!"

Well, almost second nature.

Oskar Olson, late of the Royal Norwegian Army, now a member of Number 5 Troop of Number 10 Commando, was a happy man. After all the screening and investigating of the British which followed after he'd escaped from Norway, they had actually found a Norwegian officer who could positively identify Olson and vouch for him.

The commando training was brutal. Upon arrival at the train station, somewhere in Scotland, Olson wasn't sure where, the recruits had been marched eleven kilometers to where they would begin their training.

It rained a lot and the training was intense. Calisthenics, field problems, learning to read maps and terrain, training on all sorts of weapons, it never seemed to stop. Officers and men trained together, side by side, the instructors treated them all the same, with no mercy.

"Mercy will get you killed you fat Norwegian bastard!" Olson recalled a sergeant screaming at him when he had stopped to help another recruit over a difficult obstacle. "Move, move, move, if the bastard can't keep up, we don't bloody want him in the commandos!"

They even used live ammunition in training exercises, move wrong, stop paying attention, and you could wind up very dead.

But Olson revelled in the training. He couldn't wait to get back to Norway and kill Germans.

Von Lüttwitz stirred, he had been sleeping very deeply, had been dreaming of home, when one of his men started shaking him.

"Wha .. what is it?"

"The Ivans, Sir, they're attacking. Major Hassel wants us in the line!"

Von Lüttwitz dressed, grabbed his gear, and got his wits about him. "Alright lads, don't panic, get your gear and fall out in the trench. Anyone seen Oberleutnant Busch?"

A head poked into the dugout, "Come on Jürgen, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation from Stalin?" Busch looked exhausted. At least that answered the question of where the company commander was.

Von Lüttwitz gasped as he stepped out of the dugout, when the cold air hit his lungs it actually hurt. He tugged his muffler up over his face and breathed shallowly until the air around his nose and mouth warmed up.

Artillery explosions in the near distance made him realize, this was a serious Russian attack. Where had Ivan gotten the ammunition for this?

"Jürgen, take your boys to the left, set up your machine guns to sweep the ground in front of the burned out T-34. Let's go!"

The 5th company commander was already moving. Von Lüttwitz had his men moving as well. Why did the bastards always attack in the dead of night when it was so damned cold?