First steps to Fame. (Tristan)

[Deleted]

The roar of radial engines filled the sky as several Messerschmitt’s soared overhead. It had only been a few days since a small town had been liberated from the allies and the German war machine was continuing its push into France. This town had been taken with such speed and ease that the officers didn’t see the need to hold up and resupply. Instead most of the main force continued to push its way through the country, leaving a small mixed force behind to secure and search the town. Men from several Divisions had been ordered to stay back, either as a way of resting from the front line or because they were just too useless as front line troops that they would get in the way more then anything if they’d continued on.

With most of the houses searched and the civilians either detained, shipped out or kept under watch already, there wasn’t much more to do other then send out small patrols and set up checkpoints. The sun was lowering lazily in the sky as Jace Rosewic stepped out into the warm summer air. The barracks door behind him closed quickly, muffling the laughter and noise from the men inside who were quite happy to sit around at a checkpoint or walk up and down a few streets on the look out for enemy soldiers that more then likely didn’t exist. Jace hadn’t been involved with the laughter though, being on guard duty was not his idea of fun otherwise he would have stayed on as a camp guard. But that was not for him, life was boring as a guard of a camp that was hidden from the enemy, especially when all the prisoners did was lay about, their will to fight or escape beaten out of them. That was not Jace’s idea of fighting for the Fatherland.

He tightened the strap of his helmet and straightened his uniform, then unslung his weapon and checked that it was loaded and ready. The Mauser Karabiner 98k was a comfortable weight in his hands, as was the belt of additional clips hanging at his side. With his equipment in order Jace pulled a crumpled packed of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and removed one of the white sticks, he lit his smoke and inhaled deeply before coughing and spluttering. He had only just began smoking after a close encounter with an enemy soldier had nearly cost him his life. Even with the coughing and choking, the cigarette helped calm him down. He took another drag on the smoke before flicking it over his shoulder. He never seemed to be able to finish a whole smoke. Either way he had someplace to be, and he didn’t want to be late. Even if it was just a patrol it was better then sitting around with the idiots in the barracks pretending to be interested in what they were talking about, at least on the patrol if Jace didn’t like the guy he was paired up with, he could just tell him to be quite for security reasons and thusly get himself some quite time.

The checkpoint where Jace was meant to meet his partner was one of the smaller ones that had been set up on a side road. As he approached he pulled out his smokes and waved them at the men sitting around the machine gun nest.
”Hey boys, care for a smoke?” The men seemed quite happy to smoke someone else’s cigarettes and save their own, after all it was hard to get good German cigarettes on the front line, for a while they had been putting up with the French crap they had found. Jace didn’t join in the conversation that was going with the machine gunners, instead he just sat down on an ammo box to wait for the other half of the patrol.

[Tristan Herman]

When a soldier of the Waffen SS partakes in the dabbling of a "lowly" Wehrmacht enlistee, there is a distinct change of pace in the conversation. Not merely because they are the elite, or because of their courage in battle. Nor because of their renown and specialty. The young Stabsgefreiter amongst the men, "Smiles"*, knew it well though; the reason that is.

When you are part of a group specifically trained for massacre---not war, killing, fighting, or defending, but wholesale slaughter---you gain a certain reputation. The enemy will fear you, there is no doubt. The bodies of his countrymen will pile so high that he may climb to the top and find his home. The price of this (the reputation aforementioned) is the fear you instill amongst your compatriots.

Tristan had only been in the army so long now. The Wehrmacht had yielded, for him, little in the way of horrors, but just enough so that he was able to appropriately discern the amount of blood the average Stormtrooper bathed in on a daily basis.

Thus, when the Strumann made himself present among the grenadiers, there was a shift in dialogue and tone. Any accounts of combat were suddenly a haze, and quickly attributed to fatigue before a new topic was suggested. Men cleaning rifles or checking equipment suddenly found themselves performing such tasks in a manner they had not practiced since basic training.

Granted, they do their best to appear at ease; no need to make a fuss out of what is only an uncomfortable situation. Still, the fear is palpable from man to man.

Tristan had a more uncommon feeling felt around the SS by Wehrmacht troops, however. Not reverence, fear, or distance. Tristan felt a very distinct, vivid level of disgust toward the sturmtruppen. His emotions had originally been nudged this direction by passing murmurs, idle chatter, and rumor. But what had done it for him was something he had seen only a few weeks prior...


---


In the west of France, there is a small town known as Wormhoudt; a small, quaint place, typical of the more agrarian French countryside. Vibrant green grass separated by short cobbled walls and dirt roads as far as the eyes can see. Every here and there an orchard of apples or peaches. Even a vineyard, many generations old. It was one of the few towns to go fairly untouched by the war. Little was destroyed, and the inhabitants unscathed (mostly).

Tristan's unit was pulling the rear, searching for stragglers, securing pockets of British and French resistance. All general, run-of-the-mill grunt work. Consequentially, they had just come from Dunkirk, where there was no room to breathe practically from the influx of troops. Wormhoudt was just a short ways from the city, in the commune of Esquelbecq in northern France.

It was toward the afternoon, around perhaps three or four, as they were passing through the vast array of beautiful farmland, that the Company commander ordered the men to stop. Stabsgefreiter Herman, being more of a loner when out of combat, decided to take a stroll of the area while the company took a few hours downtime.

Hindsight will tell "Smiles" that this short stroll was a mistake he would never stop waking from...

After walking for about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, Tristan came upon a barn of relatively small size. Surrounding it was a company of Sturmtrupp; the 1st SS Liebstandarte, more commonly known as Hitler's Bodyguard. Of course, the young man had not known this immediately. All he observed were the insignias reminiscent of stormbolts, well known to be the callling-card of the Schutzstaffel.

Curious, yet still cautious, the young Tristan stepped precariously into the grassy field surrounding the barn, catching a few sneering, unkind glances from his nigh alienated countrymen, but paying them little attention in turn; the boy's sights were set on the barn that the company had practically encircled. It was a little odd, in his opinion, that they would commandeer such a small building for little more than perhaps a small ammunition or fuel dump. Even then, the necessity of it so close to the home land was just short of ridiculous. Thus his curiosity.


"Hey, boy! The Hell are you doing?" Tristan turned to the voice's source. It was an equally young man, perhaps even younger than he, barking such demands. In fact, this was coming from a Schutze. In a separate branch.

"I would suggest you consider who you-"

"I know what I am talking to, grunt. I get to ask the questions here." Conveniently enough, his comrades seemed to concur with this choice of action that, were any officer here to see, would likely be met with immediate counteraction.

Sternly, he replied to the insolent little elitist:"I was going to find out what it is you are all doing holed up at this barn. It's just about meaningless looking."The Schutze rolled his eyes, and Tristan's patience was tested further.

"We've got some Tommies rounded up in there. We're supposed to wait for a relief unit to take them to the rear lines,"the Schutze answered.

"How man-"Before Tristan could initiate any further questioning, the was a sudden chatter of British voices, followed by terrified screams. And, truly, you have not heard a man really scream until he is in fear of death. The difference between a scream of endearment or emanating from a slight scare, and one that marks a cry of raw, unbridled terror is of great significance. The cry is of such a graspable closeness, not in distance but personality, that you cannot help but feel shaken by it. The sound is something that remains with you the stretch of your life. You will remember it at the least expected times, and when you least want to.

This was the first time Tristan ever heard a man scream in such fear. Specifically, ninety-five men. Ninety-five men of the 2nd Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Cheshire Regiment, and assorted members of the Royal Artillery.

Their cries were in response to a weapon, when thought of, most foul: the grenade. Five, to be exact. And as the shrapnel exploded into the crowd of disoriented and already wounded men, it reduced many a human to a meaty, disfigured, and bloody cloth wrap. Not a facial feature left intact enough to identify him as someone's brother or father or husband. Just enough to determine that he was very unfortunate to have ended up a pig in the slaughter.

Horrifed. This was his first emotion. Horrified that they, the German Empire, were acting like the bad guys. They weren't supposed to act like this. They were bringing everyone something glorious and good. Plenty of food, endless resources, clean water, plumbing, electricity, culture, a new standard of living and hope for a better world. Not slaughtering them like cowards. They didn't even have a chance. Not one, short of hoping the man aside them took most of the shrapnel.

Thirty seconds, perhaps even less, passed before a detail of the troops marched to the barn doors, and flung them open as though they were kings entering a hall. It almost seemed as though they were smiling, to be frank. They just stepped on the writhing sacks of British flesh on the blood-pasted hay. Even from the distance, "Smiles" could hear their bones snapping as the heavy boots pressed down on their rib-cages, popping and cracking, spurting blood as they pierced the flesh on occasion.

Shadow slowly swallowed them as the pushed into the rear of the structure, looking for God knows what. Over a minute, there were a few shouts, ordering someone "up, up, on your feet". Sure enough, they exited the barn with five Brits, badly wounded; one was dragged along by two others, as his feet were little more than meaty looking little white sticks. The SS ordered them onward, further into a field adjacent the barn, standing some distance away themselves. They were allowed to run a short distance.

There was barely enough blood left in their bodies to be seen ejected from the wounds as they were shot in the back...

They repeated this action twice more. Leading five men into the field, letting them run, and then shooting them. This wasn't a war. It wasn't a fight. It wasn't even a challenge. A man would have a harder time trying to piss straight than hitting the Tommies as they tried their best to flee. And every time they did, Tristan watched, only to do nothing, and feel another small part of him whither away and die, unheard and unseen to the world.

He left without consequence from the scene, shuffling his way back to the town over the period of about an hour. "Smiles" couldn't even feel anymore. He couldn't consider himself alive, let alone a human being, after that. He shared so much in common with those men. Not just the SS, but the Tommies too. The only thing separating them was a language and the North Sea. That was it. And the SS? They could have been his neighbors at one point. They could have been his newspaper salesman, his barber, his classmate. Now? They were murderers. They were all murderers.

So what did that make him?

---


As the Schutzstaffel passed around cigarettes to first squad, "Smiles" could only view a murderer. It didn't matter how many kids he had, how nice he was, where he lived, what he believed in, or which way he put his pants on. He was a murderer, through and through to Tristan. That opinion showed itself in his expression. Only so slightly, but it was still visible, that disdain.

He turned back to his Kar98; it required much attention, it seemed, for a bolt action. Or perhaps he was just too paranoid, as usual. Perhaps worried it would misfire when he needed it most. Regardless, he paid the Strumann little heed as he cleansed the weapon. Deliberately so.









*"Smiles" in German, for those who make their characters speak in the language and do not personally know it, can be closely translated as "Lächeln", for future reference.

[Deleted]

Jace had noticed the change in the men as he had approached, he was not use to working with regular army men so he put it down to the quite murmurs and shift looks that a group of people give a new comer. He had noticed one of the men in particular had given him a strange look, almost one of disgust. But Jace had only seen the man out the corner of his eye and when he turned to look directly at him he was busy servicing his weapon. Indecently this particular man had not accepted a cigarette from Jace, judging by his uniform he was a Stabsgefreiter, yet he had a new look about him. Either way Jace payed the man a little more attention then the rest as he shifted uncomfortably on the ammo box.

Looking at his watch and getting to his feet Jace started to pace around, he had been told to wait here to go on a patrol with a Wehrmacht soldier, something that Jace wasn’t particularly happy about. He would have preferred to be on the front, pushing through a line of enemy soldiers and breaking the back of the enemy. It was what he was good at, what he was trained for, infiltration and close assault was his specialty so why was he here waiting for some regular army brat to show up so he could walk around in a few circles? Many things didn’t make sense to Jace, and this was just another one of them. At least when he was in the Ustashi things where simpler, there were no patrols, only raids, no defence, only attack. But that had all changed when Germany started expanding.

Now he was a part of something larger, originally considered nothing more then a terrorist before Germany began its conquest, he became a solider in the Ustaše Army before enlisting in the Waffen-SS in order to help purge the world of filthy people on a much larger scale. As a part of the Ustashi he had been restricted to only one small area, but now, as part of the German War Machine, he found himself able to help purify more of the world then just his little Independent State of Croatia. But this meant that he had to play by someone else’s rules, and it meant that he had to go on patrol with soldiers who didn’t share his views, training or experience. He hadn’t joined the SS alone, but had come over with several hundred like-minded men. All of them had become Strumann, and it was rare that they were separated. Not because they were all friends, but because there were even those in the SS who found the Ustashi methods too brutal to witness.

But there would be none of that today as far as Jace knew, there would only be boring circle work, walking the same path over and over again until the next patrol came to relieve them. He was still pacing when he decided to speak to the men again.
”Is there anyone else who is meant to be joining us? We should be starting our patrol.” He was clearly impatient to get this over with, his own 98k swinging from his shoulder on its strap as if trying to free itself and go on a rampage.

[Tristan Herman]

“No,”Tristan replied after a short silence amongst the group, “We were just waiting for you. Strumman.”Tristan locked the bolt on the Karabiner. His words were icy and stoic; he made it a point to remind the Schuztstaffel they were not of the same race as far as he was concerned. He rose briskly from his seat on a short cobblestone wall, pulling the sling up his arm and over the shoulder, and brought his hand to his lips. He produced a stinging and sharp whistle, followed by the still fresh call of ”on your feet”.

Tristan's charges gathered around him. There were a few mutters among the boys:”Smiles, who am I with?”, “Which road am I taking?”, “Who is the new guy?”.Tristan hushed them quickly with a wave of his hand; like a teacher in a classroom almost. He wouldn't lie to himself, he still knew very little about field command and the like. There was a great way to go. Especially when it came to remembering everyone's names.

“Goeler?”

“No, I'm Lieber.”

“Oh, Lieber, go with Krauss.”

“That's Koenig; Krauss is taking a piss.”

“Then, Koenig.” The Stabsgefreiter rubbed his chin. He could feel a very light stubble protruding from his face in little black hairs.

“What about Schoelerman, Smiles?”

“Schoelerman go with Laif.”

“Who's Laif? You mean Lanf?”

“I-I mean Lanf. Yes. Go with Lanf.”

“But Lanf can't shoot for scheisse...” Tristan's brow furrowed in embarrassment while the group laughed, at him and at Lanf's poor accuracy. He brought his free hand to his forehead, cupping it within his palm. Until he snapped.

“Shut up,” Herman hollered. There was a sudden dead silence. “Pick someone to traipse through the fields with! I don't care who, or how badly they can shoot! You pick someone, and you go!” There were a few glances shot between the men before Tristan reasserted himself.

”Now!”Every grenadier paired up with another, and they huddled around Tristan, who drew a map of the locale from his breast pocket, unfolding it before the men. His direction of orders quickly became (if not truly) a little more confident sounding. Each pairing received very strict, brief, and to the point instructions of which routes to take, who to meet with, where to report in, and what time they should return to camp by; it was a blue milk run patrol, so nothing complex would come to pass.

The instant Tristan was confident his men had come to terms and understood what they were to perform, Tristan diverted his attention to the Strumann standing adjacent to him. The man seemed, well, normal enough. Time for an introduction, naturally; Smiles extended his hand to the man.

“I am Stabsgefreiter Herman of the 21st Panzer Korps,” Tristan announced.“The group of clowns you just observed are my squad. We will be stuck with them for the time being.” A pause in his speech.”If it is all the same to you, Strumann, you will be accompanying me.”

[Deleted]

“We were just waiting for you. Strumman.”

So it was Jace who was late, if they had been waiting on him then why hadn't they said anything before? Why had they continued to wait around as if expecting someone else. Clearly a measure of disipline was lacking here. Jace was just about to ask why they where all standing around when the man who spoke got to his feet and called his men over with a whistle. Perhaps now they would be able to get something done.

His hopes where dashed as he witnessed the childish antics of the men when being assigned a patrol rout and partner. Not only that but the Stabsgefreiter seemed to have no grip on commanding these men, I looked like they where fooling with him, playing him along. Jace was just about to step in and enforce some SS disipline when the Stabsgefreiter finnaly snapped and brought the men into line. Could have done that from the start, but at least they where listening now. Jace walked forward and looked over the shoulders of the men as the Stabsgefreiter issued out the patrol orders. At last the man seemed to have a grip on things.

Jace smiled at the Stabsgefreiter's introduction,
"Strumman Rosewic, 3rd SS Division, Totenkopf. I have no objection to accompanying you on this patrol." He found himself wondering if all of the Wehrmacht was run like this, in any case things where in motion, Jace took his cigarette and flicked it away before heading toward the start of his patrol rout.
"How long have you held rank?" he asked after a moment, conversation always made the menial tasks of patrolling go quicker.

Little did Jace know that his cigarette had flown into a clump of dry grass next to one of the buildings.

[Tristan Herman]

"How long have you held rank,” the Strumman inquired. Tristan's boots shuffled alongside the Schutzstaffel. He glanced at the man, just long enough to get a good run-down of his features. Not particularly a terrifying man; a funny thing you learn about the military soon after joining it is that very few men look particularly terrifying. All the stories and pictures you get back home describing giant men with gruff beards who shrug off injuries aren't exactly accurate. About the only reason it occurred to Tristan is that it seemed like, with the SS, it should be true. But, by and large, it never was.

“I've only been in command about a week now. And they aren't really my my men even. Just waiting for a replacement non-com to fill the boots of our old squad leader. Bullets are bullets. Even if they do come from the French,”some inner part of Tristan laughed at the thought of the French actually ever killing someone. Only a few weeks in to the invasion of the country, and it was blatant that the French hadn't done anything useful to prepare for a conflict with anyone, save for a series of stationary paper-targets. Their armor was laughably inefficient and archaic, their infantry were trained about as well as a mentally-challenged doberman, and they essentially didn't have an air force. Call it stupidity that the French genuinely thought a piece of paper would shield them from invasion.

“The idiots I command never were fond of me to begin with, so it makes it hard to lead them at times. I'm not sure how you boys in the SS do it, but in the Wehrmacht there is an awful fondness for doing things by the book at times. Meaning I only have so much reach over men that aren't technically mine. That, and most of them are fresh out of school, so they think they are still the big kids on the block.” Tristan sighed. His sentences were drawn out, not slowly, but very deliberately. There was such a timing and distance between words and sentences so that they sounded very exact and finite. Not the point of being nuisance for most people, but just enough that his words sounded crisp and affirming, without seeming stern or condescending.

”To be honest, I am just waiting for the new non-com to take the reins as soon as he arrives, and let me fall back in line with the rest right now. I want to command, but I don't want to command idiots who hate me already.”He rolled his shoulder, adjusting the sling on his weapon to a more comfortable position in the process. He was still wary of the Strumman, but the man, rather, Rocewic's demeanor had convinced him of some leniency for the time being. This patrol did not need to be any more unpleasant.

[Deleted]

A week? One week? Everyone has to start somewhere, but Jace had not been expecting that answer. Although it made sense now why the other soldiers had acted with such a lack of discipline, a week was too short of time for someone to make an impression, unless that person was ruthless and commanded with an Iron Fist. But the Stabsgefreiter seemed to lack that metal, hell most of the men in the Heer seemed to lack that metal, they seemed to be made of a weaker alloy, easy to bend when the heat got turned up. Or maybe Jace was just too use to how the SS functioned. In any case he had a quick laugh at the French comment.
“Yes, bullets are bullets, but to be killed by a French bullet. Either the old non-com was a fool or the French resistance are getting better. In either case its not a good thing.” He would have a laugh properly when he got back to his barracks and was surrounded by men who thought as he did.

He continued listening to the Stabsgefreiter’s words, conversation was good, as much as Jace didn’t want to be here, talking with this man would make the time go quicker, plus, he would be able to glean information about him, how he thought and if he would be reliable should something happen. Judging by his story though, he was an outsider amongst his own men, and seemed to be unable to control them effectively.
“Ha, just out of school. Listen, the way its done in the SS is simple, you do as your told when your told or you get a boot up your ass and a rifle butt in the gut. I may not be a pure blooded German like you Heer boys but I do the stuff most of you aren’t willing to do. For that you need to be firm, you don’t need to worry about people liking you to get them to obey you, just let them know who’s boss.”
He paused for a moment, “and as for the school kids, show them their not the biggest kids on the block anymore. If you like, I can do that for you.” Jace hated disobedient soldiers; men who dared to call themselves soldiers but then disobey orders deserve a good beating. “True soldiers obey the orders of their commanders, they follow the chain of command.”

Jace had spent many years being a True Soldier, and some of those orders he had followed had challenged his resolve and willpower. But he obeyed them, as a solider should, he shared the dream of a cleaner world, devoid of scum and human waist, and he would play his part in bringing it to life. The first time he had been given an order to execute someone had been the hardest order to obey. His unit had raided a small French village and had found a family that had American items in their possession, wrappers from chocolate bars and cooking utensils. It had been decided that the family had been assisting the Americans and as punishment, they would be executed. Jace had the horror of executing the child. He couldn’t see the little girls face anymore, and it had stopped bothering him in his sleep, but he still remembered that moment of doubt just before he pulled the trigger. The thought that once he pulled the trigger he would no longer be the same person he was before. He had killed children before, and women, but that was when he was in the Ustashi, most of the time when he was committing those killings he was drunk or high. But he had proved to everyone that he was a good solider, time and time again, he proved it still.

“You should be able to command those idiots weather they hate you or not. Don’t give them any other option. Do you believe you would make a good commander?” Jace knew that it was hard to take control straight away, and being only a week this poor Stabsgefreiter wouldn’t even be stretching in the boots yet. But time would tell.

[Tristan Herman]

”Do you believe you would make a good Commander?”A question that perplexed him for some reason. Would he? He wanted to join the military in the hopes of making something of himself. Maybe even something his father would be proud of, finally. Something that, at the very least, he would be able to look back on and smile about.

But Command? Why had the precedent escaped his mind? It was a notion that had not truly, until now, occurred to him. Sure, he was directing the local circus around the captive French countryside, but command as in sending squads upon squads of men forth into battle. Perhaps even companies, or battalions, or regiments, or, lord forbid, divisions of troops! Is this what Tristan wanted in life? To become a Field Marshall. That would certainly be enough to leave a mark upon history. Millions upon millions would know of him and his actions centuries from now.

As Tristan finally ceased orbiting the Earth with his own illusions of grandeur and fame, he turned to the Strumman.

”I don't see why I couldn't be. Of course, it requires that...” Tristan stopped a moment, as he heard something, while not uncommon in the current theater, was too close to be of any good fortune: the crackle of fire. He whipped his head around, mid-step, to observe the lawn of the house they had just passed on fire, raging, and quickly spreading to to structure itself.He would've simply shrugged and carried on, were it not for the sudden howl of terror from the voice of a younger woman inside as the fire leaped from the ground to the building.

Before he could register the fact that fire had a tendency to kill people who habitually ran toward it, Tirstan bolted for the home, shouting as he ran to Jace:

”Come on!”

[Deleted]

Why he couldn't be. There could be several responses that Jace could use and as they walked along he considered what one to use. In the end he didn't say anything and waited for the younger soldier to continue. Of course it was easy to ask the question to someone else. Jace had spent a few years working his way through the Ustashi ranks, but had never been given true command over a force. He had lead a few raids and been the first to fire a round at the enemy, but could that be considered commanding? Doubtful.

He knew he wasn't tactically minded, he found looking at maps and pages of information boring. No, Jace knew that he could never command, he would never leave the ranks of the NCO's. Hell he may never leave the tank rank of Sturmann. He could catch a bullet charging a bunker and never even have the chance to be promoted, and if he was honest to himself that was how he would prefer to go out. He'd rather be one of the nameless hundreds who died and formed the base for a new world to be built on. That would be a good death, a pure one, one that would mean something.

A smell wafted through the air and without thinking he paied it no attention, it was an aroma he was use too. The smell of fire. Scanning one side of the track he piped up to get Tristan to continue what he was saying.
"So what does it require then?"

When a scream came by way of reply Jace turned too see the young Stabsgefreiter sprinting towards a building that had just caught fire and was beckoning Jace to follow. With a hearty laugh he jogged after Tristan, "I didn't know you one of those Save the damsel in distress kinda guys."
As he got closer the flames took holds firmer hold on the building, the dry wood and dead grass giving the flames more fuel to spread quicker. This was not the kind of fire Jace was use to running towards.

[Tristan Herman]

This post will feature some more mature content, not advised for those under the age of sixteen.(Just adherring to forum rules.)


The heat screaming off of the house was palpable; ever single last sensory facet on his person was registering it: the smell of the quickly burning, dried up wood; the taste of the smoke entering his mouth with every open breath, encouraging him to vommit; his skin tightened, and sent shivers down his spine at the intense heat; his eyes unblinking to the intensity and chaotic beauty of the flame's embrace.

From within the structure, more cries began to stir up, belonging to children presumably (otherwise, some very precarious gentlemen). It was becoming increasingly obvious that time was more of a factor than he wanted to accept.

The lawn was ablaze, and quickly encircling the property's parched grass. Tristan shot his gaze toward Jace as he came to a quick halt.

"Let's try the back,"he suggested in a more instructive tone, "If we don't get them out quickly, the building will crush them when it collapses!" His tone and motions were slowly becoming hurried as adrenaline pumped from his glands, through his blood. It was still an unfamiliar rush, to be honest, but all the same, it was starting to feel like a close acquaintance rather than a stranger now. Perhaps that is how a soldier is supposed to function?

It was absurd, in a sense, that he was doing this. Before he had joined the military, his life had been, while climactic, rebellious, and exciting all at the same time, fairly hushed and run-of-the-mill. Not to imply that he was ungrateful to be alive; not at all. But Tristan Herman, the boy who grown up working in a factory, running away from home, beatings by his father? This was not him now. Not the boy who would submit every time he felt as though the odds were stacked against him. This was someone else.

Apexes are usually tackled at hallmarks in one's age. When you turn thirteen, you hit puberty. When you become seventeen, you are officially an adult. When you're thirty, you have children. And so on. So when does one tackle the apex---or metaphorical hill, as it were---that is to be reached to obtain true, unthinking courage? He had often been told by his father, a war veteran himself, that a hero was...

"Some idiot who gets other people killed!"The boy hacked a cough of blood, as his left molar popped out on his tongue, and nonchalantly tumbled onto the wooden floor. That was one of the few clocks that he would remember into adulthood. His father's "demonstrations" were commonplace by the time he was twelve. This one was for trying to intervene in an assult on his own mother.
"You want to play hero, you little f***ing homo?"Tristan couldn't muster a response. He began to feel ashamed, as tears welled in the back of his eyes.
"If you ever raise a hand to me again you little shit, I will make you swallow your own filth," His father paused to wipe a bead of sweat from his soon to be bruising brow, where Tristan had struck him with a full wine bottle, now laying shattered and wet upon the floor.

He was no hero. He never even ventured the thought. He just wanted his father to be proud of him for once. That was why he was in the Wehrmacht in the first place. He just wanted his own Dad to care. Was that really so much? Would saving an innocent French family be enough to accomplish that?

Hardly.

[Deleted]

It was a beautiful thing to watch how the flames spread so quickly. Almost as if something was guiding it, pushing it further up the walls and across the lawn. Like a hungry tiger set loose into a petting zoo the flames would consume everything. Jace enjoyed watching fires, their distructive beauty never failed to captivate him. Standing back and detached from the situation Jace was able to find a little humor in the way the Stabsgefreiter ran about, with heat and the flames behind him it almost looked like the soldier was dancing.

Jace was pulled out of his daydreams as the Stabsgefreiter called out to him about check the back of the house and further stated the obvious about the house collapsing. He seemed to not have noticed Jace's lack of urgency, even as the screams of children issued from inside the structure. Jace personally couldn't care either way if the family live or died, they were french scum, to weak to even try and defend their homes from the Getman war machine. However the Stabsgefreiter had seniority, Jace was only here because he had been ordered too.

Still, rather then letting the young Stabsgefreiter charge into a burning house alone, he followed the adrenaline fueled soldier around the back of the house. The fire hadn't spread this far yet but through the windows He could see a mass amount of smoke filling the rooms.
"You really want to go in there...?" He shouted after the Stabsgefreiter. What was his name again? Herman? That sounded right. "Herman!"

[Tristan Herman]

Ignoring the Strumman's cries of seeming disbelief, Tristan scurried around back, haphazardly dodging the flames that seemed to spreading at a now impossible rate. There was a waist high cobble-stone wall that he cleared with much ease, vaulting it and again hop-scotching his way across the blazing grass. There was a doorway, as he had expected, at the home's rear. Locked, as natural, against the German invaders; everyone seems to have trouble acknowledging the good-natured efforts of men with guns; the German army in particular, it seemed.

Realizing that entering the building would require that he surpass the door somehow, and that he not die of smoke inhalation, Tristan fumbled for his standard-issue gas-mask; chances were that if they could withstand mustard gas, they could tolerate smoke fairly well. Having faith that the Schutzstaffel was still at his side, Tristan half-turned his head as his body faced the door.
"I'm going to break it down! Get your mask on, and spot me,” Tristan half-asked, half-commanded. Whether he knew it or not, the leader within him, the one Jace had spurred him to question the existence of, had somehow broken free, and was batting away any instances of fear or worry or timidity. He was leading the charge. More so, a charge consisting of mainly his own person, but a charge to be led nonetheless; you can't lead an army if you can't even lead yourself. Another lesson of his father.

”Dammit, boy,” Geoffrey Herman spat. His son had gotten a hand caught inside a textile-press, and a few lines of fabric had been woven into his flesh. The howling fourteen-year-old boy was begging for someone to help him incoherently. In truth, it was because of Geoffrey's carelessness in not explaining that every time a roll of fabric went through the press finished, the machine reset the carriage, and clamped down on (presumably) the next textile sheet to enter the machine. Geoffrey believed his son should be able to observe by sight exactly how the machine worked, whilst listening to detailed instructions on what to do when they arrived back at their home that evening; one cannot perform both and expect not to receive a beating from Geoffrey Herman.
”What has happened,” one of the supervisors demanded. Tristan continued to wail.
”My incompetent son let his hand get caught in the press! I stopped it before too much damage was done to the textile, but I imagine he has ruined it nonetheless!” There was a brief conversation with the supervisor on how to safely remove Tristan's hand from the machine without causing the boy further harm, but Geoffrey insisted that the boy needed to learn to deal with his own problems, and learn how to survive without the help of others. So, against the supervisor's whim, Geoffrey gave a sobbing, agonized Tristan a pair of shears, and instructed him to remove himself from the textile, and then go home. His father told him to then remove the damaged textile from from the press, and not to return home, until this was accomplished, and the machine cleaned. It took Tristan nearly an hour to remove his skin from the cloth, and another three to remove the sheet. He did so in little light, and with no aid from anyone, only concerned stares from the other workers as his Father worked on the adjacent press.
”Learn to help yourself, boy! You will never accomplish anything asking for help like a coward! This will make you strong. Learn to help yourself!”

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As reluctant as Jace was to go charging into a burning building, he stuck close to the Stabsgefreiter thinking that even if the family inside died, then he could at least keep this wannabe hero from suffocating. Following the Stabsgefreiter's lead Jace vaulted the the low wall and danced across the burning lawn. He was looking at the back yard trying to decide where would be the best spot to place the Stabsgefreiter once he had succumb to the smoke and flame when he received an order.

Jace spun about and looked at Herman with mild surprise and interest. That sounded like a clear cut order. He had heard that that high stress situations brought out what was really under peoples skin and most men Jace knew turned into Savage, barbaric brutes more likely to kill the family then save them. The look of surprise was soon covered with his gas mask, after he pulled the straps tight he unslung his rifle and lent it against the door frame. He doubted he'd be needing the weapon in the house, but his P38 was still sitting snugly in its holster.

Now he was determined to complete the rescue mission. That order had triggered a reaction that had been drilled into him by hard training and discipline. Obey the chain of command and do not ask questions. He took the standard position for breaching a door, if Herman was going to be the breaker, then Jace should be the first one through the door. But this wasn't a standard breach mission, and he found himself wondering if the Stabsgefreiter knew how to do it. He didn't think it would be a regular thing for the Wehrmacht but Jace had plenty of experience. He knew the correct place to apply force to break the lock. But the door didn't look too strong, why did these families even bother locking the door. It wouldn't stop anything.

In either case Herman seemed to have his heart set on breaking the door down, so Jace would obey and wait. Once the door was open and the Stabsgefreiter was through Jace would follow, keeping a little behind in order to "spot" him.

[Tristan Herman]

Wood exploded inward in small shivers, like a naturally occurring grenade, as Stabsgefreiter Herman slammed his black leather boots into the door. As per his compatriot’s assessment, the lock shattered under the pressure, and the mass of pine wood flew in the opposite direction, off its hinges, and onto the floorboards with a blast of energy. Sparks and belches of fire erupted into the air, and Herman rushed in, ignoring any kind of breaching procedure; the likelihood that there would be anyone trying to kill them wasn’t exactly high in this instance.

His epinephrine was palpably high to any observer; this was not a chore in his eyes, or a waste of time, this mattered to him. Why, in hindsight, would eventually prove to be perplexing to him as it was just a couple of French citizens. No one had exactly made a concerted effort to not clip a few when they invaded. But people were people, in his eyes. And those not fighting had not signed on any dotted line that they had ascribed to a promised fate of death. Few could ever make such a conscious decision.

The walls, evidently composed of some rudimentary cement-like mixture, were interlaced with boards glowing red with heat. Were it not for his instinctive drive and excitement, he would have felt the scalding heat upon his skin. He listened again, though through the constrained form of his gas-mask, for any cries of help; they emanated from the top floor. Tristan turned his head to Jace, and motioned the Strumman forward, knowing intelligible speech would be next to impossible through the mask and commotion of the scene. He clambered onward to a landing before the front door, draped in a small inferno, and observed why the family had made no attempt to escape as of yet: the stairwell was practically a volcanic eruption, leading to the second floor. Time was of the essence, and quickly fleeting. The duo would need to concoct a solution before it was too late.

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If Herman felt the heat he didn't seem to show it. Jace on the other hand felt like he had just stepped into an oven the moment he passed through the door frame. He had given the Stabsgefreiter a head start of a few seconds before following and the ball tightening in his gut told him that he should have waited longer. Like maybe a few hours longer till the house had burnt down and the fire had exhausted itself. In truth Jace was amazed at how quickly the fire was spreading, it seemed like the house had been just waiting for a chance to burst into flames and now that it had it was wasting little time in spreading those flames.

Selfish house, could have at least waited till the family was outside so Jace and Herman could enjoy watching the place burn rather then being inside it. As the smoke bellowed out of the open door he could feel the heat intensify. They had unknowingly given the fire more oxygen by opening the door and the flames would feed even more fiercely now. Jace scanned the smokey kitchen they had entered and thankfully noted the flames hadn't yet spread this far, they seemed to be quite happy consuming the front of the house and the backyard.

Herman grabbed his attention with a hand signal to advance down the hallway. Steeling himself he moved forward until the blazing staircase came into view. Faint screams worked their way through his mask and Jace felt coldly detached from them. He felt no need to save them, for all he knew they had started the fire that was now consuming their home. Upon seeing the inferno Jace was witnessing what the extra oxygen was doing for the fire, he couldn't see a way up. If they went back outside maybe they could catch the people as they jumped out of the window?
He looked at Herman and shook his head with a shrug, he couldn't see a path up the burning steps and even if there had of been a clear path, there would be no guarantee it would be there when they tried to come back. At least the mask was keeping the smoke at bay, he tried shouting through it.
"What do you think Hero?"
Jace was hoping hoping Herman would give up his attempts and they could bail out of the burning building before it came down on them.