Blood on the Floor (Tristan)

[Deleted]

France 1940
2100 hours
Cold with scattered clouds



The soft crackle of a campfire filled the night, it's warm glow casting long shadows on the ground and in the trees before being swallowed up by the darkness. Large silhouettes of men huddled under blankets surrounded the small flames, their breaths fogging in the chilled air. Like living stone sentinels they sat, trying to stay warm, any form of movement would ruin the protective blanket cocoon they all had and let in an unwanted breath of cold air.

The advance through France was going well, the French army had left the gates open and the only real resistance was from partisans, not all the civilians had come round to the German way of thinking. But in truth it wouldn't take long to stomp them out. The expansion through Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg had been almost easy, and now France was putting up so little of a fight, it seemed almost destined that Germany would rule Europe.

A cough broke the silence and some men murmured their disapproval. It was rare for the men of the SS to find a moments silence and most wanted to enjoy it. Tomorrow they would roll into a small town that had been been captured by the Wehrmacht and was in need of cleansing. It would be easy enough, the small population would be separated and sorted, the filth removed and loaded into trucks to be processed or used as labour.

Boots crunched through the dry, cold grass and a shadowy figure emerged from the darkness. The flickering light danced over the thick grey uniform and the SS-Strumann insignia. Jace made his way closer to the fire and knelt down between two of the cocooned soldiers without a word.

Eventually, someone broke the silence.
"I wonder if there'll be much resistance this time."
It was hard to tell who was talking, the responce came slowly.
"There's always resistance, always some old fool who won't give up his home or some hero trying to save everyone."
"Yeah but that's happening less and less."
"It won't stop completely."

The conversation pettered out, but it seemed like one of them was determined to talk.
"Hey, remember at the last town, in one of the farms we took and we found the old farmer on the Toilet."
A few men chuckled and another picked up the story.
"Yeah, he didn't even try and pull up his pants and he tried to make a run for it."
"I was outside and all I heard was shouting and then he burst out the side door and tried hopping off into the field."
The chuckling became laughter.
"And when he got tackled! He was so angry!"

Jace couldn't help but join in the laughter. It was a funny story.
"I don't think we'll have something like that again, but you never know."
Still chuckling Jace got back to his feet and walked off to continue his partol, the laughter following him into the shadows. It wasn't hard to spot the rest of the platoon, each squad had their own fires and were all huddled around them. Lucky the front line was so far away, otherwise they'd all make good targets.

He walked around the side of a truck and inspected it, of course there was nothing wrong with it but he did his patrol properly. Just because they had nothing to fear from the front lines didn't mean they could become careless.
With his patrol complete he climbed up into the bed of a truck and tapped the next soldier to begin his patrol. After he had climbed down and his footsteps had receded into silence Jace layer back and closed his eyes.

(I'm thinking you can start off in the town.)

[Tristan Herman]

First light was never a welcome sight. Especially when you're in a bed that belongs to someone else. Add to the fact that there is a distinct possibility it is infested with bugs, and that the sheets haven't been washed in two months, and it's enough to make your skin crawl. And then, in the case of our friend Smiles, it was not the bed of a beautiful woman, and she was certainly not laying next to him. To be frank, she was in all likelihood being passed around second squad right about now. Whether she was actually enjoying it, was up for debate; the Stabsgefreiter had no real intention of finding out either.

Upon rising from the captured mattress, Herman placed his bare feet firmly on the wooden floor, wiggling his toes, and stretching his arms wide out, refusing to yawn. Hair wild, and face unshaven, Tristan rose to his feet, and took a few shuffles forward, the sun lighting up his body. To his left was a mirror and, for the first time in several weeks, he got a good, honest look at himself.

Disregarding the ruffled, filthy black hair, he felt as though he had somehow aged. Matured. Not because he actually, had, naturally, but perhaps because of who he was becoming as a soldier. The war was beginning to take a physical toll, in addition to a mental one, upon him. Were it any other morning in Koenigsburg and he may have been frightened. But he was all of nineteen now, and a soldier to boot. Granted, it didn't make him feel any less like that shriveled, pale little factory-working child from only a year or so prior. But it certainly made him feel...different, to say the least.

The day commanded he not tarry, however. The world, and especially, the war, would not wait for him, and the szhutzstaffel were just outside town, ready to do what they did best. Hell raising, that is. But that was not nearly the reason Tristan was so driven to rise from bed. Nay, it was more akin to the possibility of meeting once more with the favorable Strumman Rocewic. Their brief encounter with a burning building and a bewildered family of French countrymen had done something to seal an odd relationship between the two. Smiles thinking he would never befriend a cold-blooded killer, and Jace looking at Tristan as something of a softie in the branch that was commonly looked upon as the schutzstaffel's less capable and mildly retarded younger brother. Forty years later, and the two might have made for an amusing television show.

Hastily, the young Smiles shaved with the former occupant's razor in the same mirror, and went about trimming up his hair. Always sure to make the top significantly longer than the sides. If there was one thing he was vain and overly-concerned about in relation to his own appearance, it had to be his hair. He felt that, in some ways, it defined him. It defined anyone. A man with a shaved head generally tries to fill the role of a big tough guy. Someone with slicked back, greased hair is going after the Italian mobster look. Many of the guys walking around with tacky bowl-cuts were from the east, and anyone with messy, unkempt hair (in normal society) was probably a low-life deadbeat, or an artist. And anyone with hair combed and parted to the right obviously kept a picture of the Fuhrer right next to their tissue paper. Hair defined a person. It was a depiction of who they were. And Tristan, be he the goody-two-shoes soldier that he was, had no intention of letting the military take that from him, at the very least.

Smiles hurried outside, rifle shouldered and helmet on. It was still a tad cold outside from the night before. Odd juxtaposition for the Wehrmacht to be living indoors while the SS were out in the cold all night. They'd probably brag and say how much tougher it made them. At the end of the day, though, one soldier was cold, and the other was awfully comfortable in the relative warmth of a house.

He took a few steps into the courtyard, and found that the normal morning stir was only just beginning. The usual first salvos of artillery were firing off to wake up the French and the Limeys some ways ahead of their position. Just an average day in a generic European village really. Minus the war and all.

As he had been hoping, the sound of Opel's down the road could already be heard. The SS troops were quite ready to occupy the town. The cold had certainly gotten to them.

[Deleted]

With a squeal of breaks the trucks slid to a halt in the street. Men jumped down onto the cold hard ground and began to spread out. Not in a diciplined defensive formation but in small groups of men who wanted to stretch their legs and await orders. The officers were converging on the lead truck to discuss what to do next and that left the men to look around.
"I don't get what all the talk is about. It always comes down to us kicking in doors and checking papers." a disgruntled private said to the few men around him.
"Don't forget the round up." Another said.
It was true, every man here knew what was expected of him.
Jace looked around the street In a bored manner. There would be nothing new today and the inhabitants of this town would be treated exactly the same as the others. He began scanning the civilians that had come forward to look at their new enemy. Jace held no delusions when it came to the inhabitants of a town, no matter how friendly they seemed, they were all hostile and he was their enemy.

In his scanning he spotted a few of the Wehrmacht soldiers. Most would be patrolling the perimeter of the town or the streets. If the civilians had wanted to overthrow the occupying German forces their best bet would have been shortly after the Wehrmacht had taken the town. Now they had a firm grip and with the arival of the SS their last chance to take back the town themselves was gone.

Of course there would still be a few that would struggle, but all they would achieve would be pain and death. One of the faces in the crowd seemed familiar and he backtracked too the face, studying the features for a second before an image of flames crossed through his mind.
"Tristan." He said to himself with a smile as he made his way towards his friend.
"Trietan you old hellhound!" Jace called out as he got closer, pushing people out of his way.

[Tristan Herman]

“Tristan, you old hellhound! Hellhound? Now that was a new one on Smiles. The voice was familiar though: Strumman Rocewic, and the rest of the Schutzstaffel, has filed from the Opels almost on cue with his awakening it seemed. And he was delighted enough to meet with his acquaintance once more. The short venture into the blazing home was, while not worthy of military merit or honor, memorable in its entirety. Truthfully, it had been close to the top on his list of “things to avoid doing”.

His stoic features did not betray his enjoyment in seeing Jace once again, however. The young man continued with his lack of expression, and sauntered to his counterpart. Jace, looking as brazen as before, was eagerly approaching. Herman extended a hand in greeting, but could not help but notice something off about Jace's own unit; the men within it seemed to be off. More than usual.

Granted, Tristan was not exactly experienced in the intricacies of cross-branch operations, and perhaps it could be something to do with the fact that it was simply stupid-o-clock in the morning still, and they were all liable to be exhausted from the persistent advance along the front. Yet, at the same time, one must consider the simple fact that it was, naturally, the Schutzstaffel. Given his past experiences, he was unsure what to expect of them. Surely there were others of the same mindset as Jace, and the Wehrmacht had thus far not made a wonderful name for itself as far as the Geneva convention was concerned.

Besides, it was the French? Why would anyone want to actually hurt the French?

[[As you can see, I am a bit out of touch today too. xD]]

[Deleted]

(Don't worry dude. Neither of us are writing as we usually do. I'm thinking you could get ordered to escort Jace's squad to a list of houses to be cleared.)

A mere five steps away from Tristan Jace heard the commanding shouts of the officers caused him to stop dead in his tracks. He spun around and spotted the officers spreading out and calling out for their men to gather around. Without looking back at Herman, Jace strode back to his unit and joined the rest of his men gathering around the Sturmscharfuhrer at the back of a truck.

"Listen close boys. We've got fifteen families to round up, a total of seventy-three people. Twenty-eight adults, twenty-two teenagers and twenty-three children under twelve."
A few of the newer men physically tensed but the majority were seasoned, they had done all this before so cramming children into the back of a truck to be shipped off was just another day on the job.
"The Wehrmacht have the town secure and are keeping a tight hold on the roads, so for once we won't have to worry about runaways."
A few people smirked. Jace took a quick look around and spotted Gelis Pringer, who use to be a track runner and had competed in the Berlin Olympics before the war started. Everyone in the unit knew he loved the chase.

The Sturmscharfuhrer looked over at Jace and the other Strumann. "The Strumann are going to go with some Wehrmacht officers who are going to escort you to the fifteen families. Standard round up, put them in the truck and send them off. Everyone else will search the other homes and buildings. Once again all standard operations. Find any weapons or contraband, confiscate it and round up anyone suspicious."

The Sturmscharfuhrer waved the men away dismissively and jumped down form the truck. He pushed his way through the men and made his way over to the Wehrmacht command post.

[Tristan Herman]

“Clockwork” would be too insignificant and belittling a comparison to how the Germany army worked. Despite the intricate, minor divisions of faith and friendship between either branch, they had been trained to execute the will of the brass with efficiency and professionalism. Every other military on Earth did this, of course. But, well, it's the German army; it's clearly the most concise and efficient among the lot of them. Nothing could quite hold a candle to the precision and prestige of the fatherland's might and pride that was the military.

Nonetheless, Tristan felt transgressed when his reunion with Jace was interrupted. It was something you simply did not do, whether it were on purpose, accidentally, or otherwise, you did not intrude upon introduction or meeting. It was another “thank you, Dad” moment, to be truthful. Another one of the various mannerisms or rules of life drilled into him by his father.

The Schutzstaffel filed off, and Tristan fanned out, as per the procedure explained to him the day prior. The company commander had made it very clear:“Noncoms will escort the strummans from building to building. First and second platoon NCO's west side, third and fourth will take the east.”Very run-of-the-mill, no-questions-asked drills. Cross-branch coordination would inevitably make things awkward, and would doubtlessly make for a day filled with a couple bloated, elitist egos. Nothing particularly exciting, Tristan believed.

As the strumann were randomly selecting which noncom to pair up with, Tristan hatched his early-morning bright idea.

“Strumann Rocewic! Up in front!”


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