Spoils of War (Nikita, Zack)

[Mac Bargett]

“Well, the Brits took their fine time getting here, didn‘t they,” Pvt. Fox commented to his comrades as he watched the Lend Lease GMC truck roll past the shed the squad were resting in. “They probably had to finish their tea first.” Billy Nan tried to joke, but his heart just wasn’t in it, and no one felt like laughing either. Merely an hour or two before, they had lost two of their brothers. And they died for nothing more than a piece of cheap real estate the squad would probably never see again, and a few more dead Germans. At least those krauts won’t be able to kill anymore. “I wouldn’t put it past them,” Baker quipped, and that was the end of the conversation. It had been the most anyone had spoken since the Kraut halftrack fled back the way it came, a few Germans lighter then when it entered the farm.

“Alright guys, start packing up your gear, we’re getting off the line, the limeys will take it from here.” Sgt. Mac Bargett barked with unusual gruff as his entered the farm shed, carrying a length of rope, and followed by Pvt. James, the Cajun radioman. As Kage and the other privates stuffed their ammo and other supplies back into their packs, Mac continued, “Our Russian comrade and I just gave the situation to the Captain on the squawk box. He said that we did a good job and there may be a promotion or two in the works, so we should get back to the base as soon as possible.” Mac didn’t add that what he had done afterwards, as he wander alone into the forest, where Queen and his murderers laid, forever asleep.

-

It was just too much for him, in a matter of minutes, one of his men was killed, and then Mac, who couldn’t even hunt white-tailed deer with his father back in Pennsylvania, became the killer of Queen’s murderer. This battle had been his fiery baptism, and the war finally made him break one of his core values, You shall not kill. He had became just as bad as the Germans, and should just lie down in his filth and die, become the same as Queen, and the Germans around him, and Yoke to face his everlasting punishment. But as he emptied his stomach onto the forest floor, the faces of the living members of his squad filled his head. Those men were naïve, innocent. They did not murder as much as follow Mac’s order to kill. If he just gave up on life, who would lead them, who would protect them? Mac could not just give up, he had to stay strong for his men like he had always been. He must be a leader, show the squad the proper way to live, the proper way to fight.

Quickly, Mac wiped the vomit from his mouth and pulled out his shovel. Slowly he piled dirt over the evidence, hiding his breakdown.

-

Mac felt like that moment of weakness had happened to another man a lifetime ago as he stood in the farm shed, swinging the loop of rope between his hands as he waited for his men to get ready to leave. Once the five men had their packs on their backs and their guns on their shoulders, Mac gave them their orders “Ok I’m going to talk with that Brit Staff Sergeant about getting Queen and Yoke a ride back home. While I distract him, I want you to get into that fence and get this rope around that cow’s neck. It’s coming with us.’’

“The cow? Why, sarge?” came the response from the squad.

“Because I’m not going to let Queen and Yoke die in vain. I don’t know how we are going to do it, or how long it’s going to take, but we are going to take that starving, sickly beast back to the base, fatten her up, and serve the choicest steaks in their honor. Now get going, I don‘t want to spend all day at this graveyard.” As he finished the short speech, Mac handed the rope to Pvt. James before exiting the shed to look for the British NCO.

[w0lverine123]

Zack sat shoulder top shoulder with Luis Burton and an expressionless corporal. The man was white as a ghost and staring straight ahead, as if that could change what lay around the next bend in the road. But it wouldn't do much. Two dead Americans were lying somewhere up ahead, and it was the job of both Luis and this frightened corporal to drag them into the truck. Zack's job was to go along and help, but it was a job that the staff sergeant turned up his nose at. So he'd brought Luis Burton along. The private's job was to haul some soldier called Queen, while it was the cowardly corporal's job to haul off the other dead guy. His name had to do with eggs. Not that their names, or anything else for that matter, was worth much where they were headed. An American graveyard, Zack was guessing. Dirty place, America. Tons of smog in the air. They said the same about Britain, but Zack didn't much care. Americans were on the lookout for a German air raid that they seemed to think was about to be launched. The idiots. British pilots were already handling the bulk of the Nazi's airborne forces.

“Hey, Zack, there's a group of men up ahead, near a fenced in cow. I think we've arrived, sir,” Luis said, motioning to the driver to stop. Zack had lost track of the time while imprisoned in his own thoughts. Oh well. Hopefully those men were the Americans they were looking for, and not Nazis. Stinking German scum, lurking behind every rock, hiding in the trees, just waiting for some unsuspecting staff sergeant to find them. Zack hoped he would be the one.

“So we have, private,” Zack replied, hoisting his rifle into a more comfortable position as he prepared for a dramatic entrance. The staff sergeant opened the door a crack and leaped from the van, attempting to roll and strike a pose at the last second. He jumped, he swore under his breath, and he started spinning. At least he managed to hold on to his gun and pull up to his feet. It could have been worse. Luis dashed after his semi-insane friend and helped him to his feet. The corporal came over and started to help Zack walk, receiving a whack to the forehead from Zack's rifle for his trouble. Zack got up, dusting himself off, and hefted the rifle into a better position, in the cradle of his arm. Luis Burton followed suit, both men walking towards the group of Americans.

“Staff Sergeant de Caldicot, are you alright, sir?” asked Luis Burton quietly, making his voice low enough so only Zack could hear well enough to comprehend the words.

“Ya, I'm fine. Drama is overrated, anyways. But that doesn't stop me from hoping nobody saw much of that little... Stunt,” Zack whispered back. The staff sergeant made the blood to drain from his face, returning it to an even shade of tan, almost light enough to be pale. Forcing a small smile, the soldier continued in the same low voice, “Let's keep this to ourselves, okay, private?”

“Yes sir,” Luis said.

Zack surveyed the area. A few standing planks of wood marked where a barn must have been, the area covered in rubbish. At first guess Zack would say a grenade, but it would take several grenades to cause this much damage. It was more likely that someone had decided to fire away using artillery and missed their target. Strangely enough, the fence wasn't much damaged, and still enclosed it's skeleton of a cow. Scrawny animal, the poor thing. Zack walked over and patted the sad beast on the area between it's nose and eyes, where Zack assumed he would make it feel better. Suddenly, an American sergeant came walking from someplace nearby. Zack hadn't seen him. But the man seemed to be coming for him, so the soldier did a quick salute.

“We're here to survey this rubbish heap of a battlefield and get rid if the dead guys. Poor idiots, to get themselves killed, but not much we can do about it,” Zack said, cracking a smile. “Anyways, should we bring 'em home with us or send 'em to some garbage heap in your own country?”

[Nikolai Feliksovich Alkeav]

Even hours after the fire had been put out, the smell of burning petrol and wood permeated the air. It was almost a pleasant aroma with a breeze from the south taking most of the edge off. Were it not for the corpses, skeletal trees, and flattened barn, this place might have been a very nice place.

Nikita sat by himself away from the Americans. It wasn't that he didn't like them, he merely thought it best to leave them to grieve for their dead with the presence of an outsider. To that end, he had taken a chair from a near by shack and set himself up in the middle of the barn's remains. The barn had been destroyed on Nikita's command and he believed that exposure to the consequences of his actions was good for the soul. It kept a person sober and grounded.

Such a calm day... better to die on such a nice day in a beautiful place. Nikita leaned back in his chair taking in the Sun's warmth against his face. That was one thing that never changed no matter where he went, it was nice to have a little bit of home with him keeping him sane in a strange foreign land. He missed that soft warmth from the sun from above while the cold Russian wind bit at him from below. The perfect analogy for the Russian existence.

Those thoughts of home were pushed from Nikita's mind by a rise in the voices of the Americans over by the cow that had somehow come out of the firefight unharmed. Nikita turned in time to see some fool jump out of the back of a van barreling down the road and smacking some other poor fool in the jaw in the process. They didn't seem to be the relief that the Americans were waiting for, instead it just looked like a clean up crew. The vultures had arrived to pick through the dead.

Though the jeep following behind the van brought a smirk to Nikita's lips. The driver's uniform was of the expected variety but the passenger wore an officer's cap with that glorious red band and star. It was a familiar face as well, fellow Leitenant Borya Ostaltsov. The man sprung out of the jeep making his way toward Nikita.

"Лейтенант Алкиев! Я очень радостен увидеть что вы живы! Мы пробовали обнаружить местонахождение где вы были когда мы подслушали звонок для артиллерии," Borya carefully picked his way through the wreckage and pulled Nikita further away from the Americans and British, "Я принимаю что вы знает почему я здесь," Nikita nodded, he had hoped that this would happen before he'd had to do any fighting but fate had decided otherwise. "Вы посылаетесь назад домой. Немцы начинали главную оффензиву в юге и нам нужна вся сила человека мы можем muster для того чтобы остановить их. Хотя, бит хороших новостей, я слышит что вам дают вашу собственную компанию."

"Какое славное утешение…" Nikita muttered it more to himself than to Borya. Despite his outward display of pain, Nikita was actually extremely grateful for the order to return. Fighting the Germans here helped the war effort but it did nothing to directly help the people of his homeland. To be back in the Motherland, defending her people and crushing the invaders was more rewarding than anything he could imagine doing here. "Позвольте мне моменту сообщить Sergeant этого изменения." Borya nodded as well and started back to the jeep while Nikita made a bee line toward Sergeant Bargett.

-------------
"Лейтенант Алкиев! Я очень радостен увидеть что вы живы! Мы пробовали обнаружить местонахождение где вы были когда мы подслушали звонок для артиллерии,"
- "Lieutenant Alkeav! I am very glad to see that you are alive! We were trying to locate where you were when we overheard the call for artillery,"

"Я принимаю что вы знает почему я здесь,"
- "I assume you know why I am here,"

"Вы посылаетесь назад домой. Немцы начинали главную оффензиву в юге и нам нужна вся сила человека мы можем muster для того чтобы остановить их. Хотя, бит хороших новостей, я слышит что вам дают вашу собственную компанию."
- "You are being sent back home. The Germans have begun a major offensive in the south and we need all manpower we can muster to stop them. Though, a bit of good news, I hear that you are being given your own company."

"Какое славное утешение…"
- "What a nice consolation..."

"Позвольте мне моменту сообщить Sergeant этого изменения."
- "Allow me a moment to inform the Sergeant of this change."

[Mac Bargett]

The privates all suddenly stopped and stared as a figured tumbled out of the British truck. “The hell’s that?” George Fox was the first to comment from inside the cow pen. “Unless those chevrons lie, that’s my superior,” Mac responded with distaste from his side of the fence With the English follies finished and the Staff Sergeant being helped up by one of his privates, the Americans returned to the matter at hand. But they only just got the loop of rope around the thin neck of the cow before the British NCO was back on his feet and walking over. Mac stepped out from behind the fence and into the pen to exchange salutes with his bovine petting opposite.

“We're here to survey this rubbish heap of a battlefield and get rid if the dead guys,” reported the Staff Sergeant. “Poor idiots, to get themselves killed, but not much we can do about it.”
Mac found the Staff Sergeants smile to be unsettling as he talked about men who died in service of the free world. The American was pretty sure that the man one pay grade above him had never seen combat, and had probably planned to sit out the entire war at the wheel of his meat wagon.

“Anyways, should we bring 'em home with us or send 'em to some garbage heap in your own country?” Mac didn’t know much about England, most of his time there he spent training with the SAS, or waiting in his base to be redeployed in France, but he was sure the Limeys didn’t just throw out their dead with the trash.

“Well I wouldn’t know, sarge. I’m not the one assigned to funeral duty. Although, I’m pretty sure, either way, the men are supposed to be treated with respect and given a proper Christian burial.”

[w0lverine123]

Zack watched the sergeant's face screw itself up slightly in disgust as he talked. The man seemed to be, well, not exactly angry, but unnerved at his superior's rude behavior and curious as to the strange things Zack talked about doing to the dead. After he'd finished speaking, Zack took a few seconds to look the sergeant facing him up and down, but during those few seconds of examination, he took in quite a bit. The first thing he noticed were the eyes. Staff Sergeant Zack de Caldicot in charge of acting like an idiot, and Private Luis Burton following orders like a trained dog, that's what the man probably saw. Name was Mac something or other. Burger, was it? Eh, didn't matter much, the man seemed to look at Zack with faked respect, and genuine disgust. Or, so Zack thought.

He seemed like a standard sergeant; hard eyes, that looked like they were meant for such a position. Uniform almost perfect, but dirty from a hard fought and hard won battle or two. Muscles bulging, but not to a comic extent. The only thing missing from those stupid American stereotype sergeants was red cheeks and a wide open mouth, screaming at a couple of useless corporals. Typical American stupidity. Ah well. Nothing to do about that.

“Well I wouldn't know, sarge,” he said. Zack almost laughed out loud. 'Staff sarge' to you, soldier. But he didn't, instead confining himself to a small, amused smile. “I'm not the one assigned to funeral duty.” Funeral duty? Ha! Zack was just going to watch the event!

But still, that last line had revealed the sergeant's true feelings about Zack and Luis. Zack was the leading clown and circus master of a traveling fool convention. Luis was probably his right hand man, helping him repair himself when some idiotic stunt went wrong and doing all the 'real' work. And the corporal, well, he was just a cowardly corporal, no matter how you looked at it. To this, Zack allowed himself a small chuckle. That thought was a real riot.

“Although I'm pretty sure, either way, the men are supposed to be treated with respect and given a proper Christian burial,” the sergeant continued. Zack smirked.

“Whatever you say, private. Or, whatever you are,” Zack said. “What are you anyways? No, don't tell me. I really don't care.” Then he turned to his ghost faced corporal. “You there! The one with the ugly face! Go drag the zombies to the van.” Smiling, he turned back to Mac. “Excuse me, eh... Private Burger. I meant to say, soon-to-be zombies, eh?”

With that, Zack turned on his heel, farted loudly (and probably very deadly, despite the volume) and strode towards the trees in search of a place to pee.

[Nikolai Feliksovich Alkeav]

Nikita made his way out of the rubble just as the conversion between the two sergeants ended, but he'd still overheard the entire exchange. He quietly took place at Bargett's side unslinging his rifle for dramatic effect. Nikita liked a good bit a drama to spruce up life.

"In my homeland, such disrespect for comrades and the dead would be punished with death." Nikita grinned with his lips as if to cover it up as a joke, but he knew that the truth would be seen in his eyes. "I am not here to decide the fates of your allies however. It seems I am to be sent back home and I felt it only proper to thank you and congratulate you on your successful skirmish. I have a word with your commander before I leave the country. I wish you luck." He would need it if they ever crossed paths again as odds were if that happened they'd be on opposing sides the next time around. It would be a shame to kill someone as respectable as this man, but if it came down to the serving the Soviet Union or saving his life, the choice would be clear.

Nikita shook Bargett's hand and turned away heading back to Ostaltsov and his jeep, passing the pitiful cow on the way. It's tiny brain must be so confused and scared after surviving a gunfight and giant metal beasts roving all over the place. A perfect metaphor for the system that was the West. A simple cows dragged through war and surviving only to be hauled back to the slaughter house afterward all the while proclaiming the greatness of the whole affair. Poor fools.

"Вы связывали вверх все свободные концы, Алкиев?" [Have you tied up all the loose ends, Alkeav?] asked Borya as Nikita approached.

"Не довольно. Мне нужно увидеть если я могу получить тому человеку промотирование."[Not quite. I need to see if I can get that man a promotion.] With that the two officers mounted the jeep. Borya tapped the driver on the shoulder and ordered him to drive to the 3rd Infantry Division's nearest headquaters. Nikita sat silently and didn't look back as the jeep sped off past the remnants of battle.

[Mac Bargett]

As the Americans moved to the other side of the cow to escape the limey’s “assault,” neither Sgt. Bargett, nor the rest of his squad had any idea how to reply to the Staff Sergeant, they were all too shocked at his crazed rantings. But, as the Privates restarted to try and get the cow to move, their Russian Comrade did have something to say to the Brit, "In my homeland, such disrespect for comrades and the dead would be punished with death.” The Soviet then turned his attention to Mac, “I am not here to decide the fates of your allies however. It seems I am to be sent back home and I felt it only proper to thank you and congratulate you on your successful skirmish. I have a word with your commander before I leave the country. I wish you luck."
“Alright, good luck to you too, Lieutenant,” replied Mac as he shook the Russian’s hand, “It certainly wouldn’t have been as successful without you, it‘s obvious you‘re more then an observer. With us here and you going home, the only way the krauts could win now is if they had only had declared war on England. And, if your side gets to Berlin first, give Hitler a piece of lead from me, alright, sir?”

Sgt. Bargett stiffened up and saluted as the Russian walked away, towards a jeep with his fellow comrades. Mac thought on his belief of Russia, and the communists. It was only 4 or so years ago, an entirely different lifetime, when the big news was that was with the communists was evitable. But the Fascists decided to try and enslave the world first, and now the Capitalists and Communists were allies. But would the Soviets stopped their war machine at Germany? Or would they charge straight through to France, and the West? Mac hoped that if it did happen, it was when him and his ‘comrades’ were back home across the sea, America didn’t need another European war. And maybe Communism wasn‘t that bad, it wasn’t like they had the holocaust.

“Alright now,” Mac’s attention moved to his other “ally” but the staff sergeant hat disappeared. That’s was alright with Mac, he’d just get the boy’s name when they got back to base. He got to know some Tommies during his time in the British Special Air Service, and hopefully they would be able to teach him to respect his allies.

Mac returned to his squad to help as they tugged and pushed the bovine, trying to no avail to get it to stop munching it’s cud and move. But nothing they tried worked, and Pvt. King resorted to slapping it and shouting obscenities. All that got the sickly animal to do was to flop down onto the muddy ground. Mac got the private to stop as he thought of what to do. Then he got an idea.

“Kommen Sie auf! Ich werde Sie verdammen Tier bewegen!” Mac shouting German got the cow’s attention, and before he could finish “verdammen” The cow was up and Pvt. Fox was leading it out of the fence.

--
Kommen Sie auf! Sie verdammen Tier bewegen
Get up! Move you damn animal!

[w0lverine123]

Zack finished with his business in the bushes and turned to walk back to the Americans, but something stopped him. In the clearing right before him, literally right in the middle, was a splattering of dark yellow goo. The staff sergeant picked up a stick and swirled it a bit. As the smell wafted on up, he flinched, threw the stick down, and jumped back. It smelled gross, like week old cow poop, and Zack knew what it was. Fresh puke. The Brit smiled, then laughed out loud. It looked like the American sergeant didn't have the stomach for war. At least that's what Zack assumed, since he'd seen the man emerging from the woods near here. “Hahaha, you Yanks can't even handle a little scuffle!” he roared, not caring in the least who heard him.

After a few seconds of recovery, Zack strolled right on out of the woods and up top the American sergeant. “Well, well, sir. I always thought you were a natural born soldier, Private Burger. Oh yes, since I first laid eyes on you,” he said, before lowering his voice, “But I guess you ended that fight with a splat, if you know what I mean?”

Luis walked over. “The corporal's finished hauling the dead guys, and he's annoying the hell out of me. Let's send these boys home and get out of here.”

“Right, private. I'll just be another moment,” Zack assured his comrade. As Luis got into the jeep, Zack continued in a soft voice. “Killing is hard. But you'll get used to it. I sure did. But a word of advice, before I go. If you can kill a man in one shot, you're good. And if you can win the battle without ever firing a shot... Than you're even better. Remember that.”

Zack wasn't acting real serious. In fact, he was still acting casual as he finished talking and went over to the jeep.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Zack called back. “Good work, Sergeant Bargett. Good work, if it means much to you.”

[Daniel Brennan]

Mod Post

I loved this thread!

CP:
Sergeant Bargett: 7CP
- A cow

Lieutenant Alkaev: 7CP

Staff Sergeant de Caldicot: You are... so... *Twitches* ... Irritating. 7CP


~Dan