Moments of thought.

[James Stone]

Location: Allied camp, somewhere in France.
Time: 1100 hrs.
Weather:Mild yet cloudy.

James sat at the edge of his bed, breathing out grey smoke as
field-stripped his rifle. The box of smokes was a fetching gift in his opinion, he needed something to keep his mind occupied at times: he had seen many things he didn't want his mind dabbling on. He took a deep breath out as he began to clean each part of the gun with an oily cloth. He looked around the large tent serving as the barracks while he did his daily routine, some of troops were writing in journals, playing cards or doing the same as James; a quiet day indeed, but from James's knowing, some of the soldiers had already been sent into action and already there was casualties.... a grim prospect to have in mind when you could be next to go to the frontlines.

He rubbed his eyes once he had finished cleaning his rifle and putting it back together. He sighed for a moment and lead across his bunk, dark hopes he would be next to go out and see some action. He closed his eyes and lulled his daydream thoughts, today was a slow day but he had a slight thought of it becoming more busy once an officer decides to get them out and training, but he didn't see why, the had already pushed their way through any Axis resistance and claimed this bit of land for a HQ. He shook his head and stretched lazily.

OOC: sorry for the shortness, potential replier, my muse at this current time is quite low but who knows, if it gets interesting I might getting my mojo going.

[Leon Farchester]

Ah, it was great to be on R&R, away from the hellish heat out in Africa. The amount of mental stress that was put on Leon has been uplifted, rummaging through his pocket with rather eager vigor, taking out a white carton that had a golden-yellow trim around the edges. It wasn't anything fancy, but for Leon as long as the cigarette tasted like the usual, quite smokey and tobaccoish, then he couldn't careless as he puffed out small gray rings that expanded as they moved further away from him. Then, using his thumb to lightly tap the end of the cigarette while he held it between his index and middle finger, it would quickly rise up then go back into its neutral position, dropping the accumulated ash in the process.

Leon was going on for a short transfer to the Allied camp that was behind the front-lines of the French Front, given the mission to just check how the place was going in terms of organization and such, and look for soldiers who might be capable enough to serve under Leon in the Desert Rats. They always valued new members, well, only the competent ones anyway. Leon chuckled to himself as he took one more smoke before throwing the cigarette on the ground and then stomping on it while moving his foot left and right, so that it would be put out. No fire needed.

He made his way to the barracks, Leon heard that supposedly there was a new batch of soldiers that came in. They were quite green as far as he knew, but some were more logical about this war. More, willing per say. Leon couldn't really explain it himself, but he was more of a joking fellow, didn't take most soldiers seriously unless they were the higher ranked CO's who were next to all work no play. Dull people in his own opinion, Leon was rather outspoken when it was needed while he gave credit when credit was due. On point when punctuality is of importance and modest when modesty would benefit him. Most people say conceited, but Leon considers himself unique with a laughing side.

Walking past two privates who looked a bit nervous, Leon simply nodded to both of them with a faint smile before walking into the barracks that was rather large for an allied camp, he went up to one of the Staff Sergeants who didn't look like a retard. He saluted to him in a laid-back kind of way as Leon spoke, "Good to see you today, Harry. Tell me, from the recruits who has the most experience as far as you have read from the reports?"

Scratching the back of his head a bit before he walked to a desk, opening the bottom cabinet that had folders with numerous papers in it, he flipped through them before he took out two pieces of paper and handing them off to Leon. More of a man of action than words, which was always good considering they usually never disobeyed orders. Usually anyway.

"James Stone eh? Lead a group of PVTs effectively despite being a PVT himself, but as he was green he failed to keep most of them alive. Thus, promoted only to Lance-Corporal..." said Leon, as he read to himself in a low tone. It was interesting to see such a soldier, he had much room for improvement and he would only get better by being on the battlefield. He looked near the bottom of the paper to see that he was in room C34, so Leon put the paper back onto the desk and began to traverse the small corridors of the barracks before ending up at room C34.

He opened the door, randomly shouting, "TIME FOR DRILLS!" as to make James shit a brickhouse. Afterwards, he would chuckle endlessly before stopping the funny business.

"Sergeant Leon Farchester, I am here to talk to you James, get to know you if thats alright?"

[James Stone]

James's eyes darted open as though his queries had came to life, his heart made a few jumps due to the loud shout from this strange man. He turned his head and watched blankly as the man approached him, a sergeant from what he could tell. "Aye sir, but why talk to little old me though," he replied lightly, though he seemed quiet as he spoke. It seemed strange as this officer was a little different from others, he wasn't a miserable prick or loud one, James smirked at this thought and sat up for the sarge.

He smiled politely before gesturing Leon to sit at the chair by the small bedside table. "To my knowledge, there isn't a desert in these parts, why so far away from your division sir?" he asked, pointing at the 'desert rats' insignia on the Leon's shoulder. He grabbed his rifle that was resting against the table and placed it on the bed, out of the way of the conversation. It looked almost new, apart from the scratches and other superficial damage it recieved during the fight but none the less was clean thoroughly and seemingly in good shape, James took pride in that. He placed his tin of cigarettes on the table and opened it, as if to offer the sergeant them. He rubbed his eyes again, he felt stressed due to his last taste of action: he lost alot of people that day, he felt a great weight deep inside of him and he couldn't shake it off.

[Leon Farchester]

The atmosphere in the room was the usual, a random NCO coming into another soldier's room unannounced to just ask a few questions and get to know them. He eyed the Lance-Corporal who surprisingly wasn't as scared or frightened as Leon would had hoped, but he simply shook his head while chuckling to himself more as he crossed his legs while leaning on the wall, not wanting to sit next to James for personal reasons and to exert a kind of intimidating presence as he looked at the Lance-Corporal with a rather heartless glare in everyway way of the phrase. He had a serious side, this was one of those moments.

Leon's thoughts were somewhere else at the moment, thinking of what to eat for lunch or how to approach James with his questions. In his mind, the Lance-Corporal didn't look any impressive even though he did have room for improvement. But Leon couldn't just ignore the fact that the other men he was leading had died under his command, whether it was due to incompetence to make decisions under fire or simply his teammates fault, he had yet to know. He simply stroked his chin as it had a little hair sticking out, guess he didn't trim it enough. Leon made note to buy a new razor when he made his way into another town.

Slowly coming off the wall, Leon simply raised one eye-brow towards the question about him talking to him for what it seemed no reason, as if he wasn't special, which was true as he was nothing spectacular, nothing out of the ordinary about a soldier being exceptional in the beginning till their battle record goes down hill like rainfall. He couldn't argue with that, so Leon simply thought of something on the spot, being more blunt than he originally intended to, but he continued to ignore the questions until they were both comfortable in the situation. Then again, Leon would tell it to him straight up whether they were both comfortable or not.

"Oh, this little old thing? I'm just on a short transfer from Africa to this allied camp. I just wear it to wear it, despite it somewhat flaunting off my credentials if you can even call it that," remarked Leon as a smile slipped across his face, with it leaving faster than the wind. Continuing with his glare that suggested that it was time for seriousness. The Sergeant moved towards the Lance-Corporal as he shifted his weight to the left before turning around so that he could sit down comfortably on a chair that was next to the soldier's bed. He took a look at the opened cigarette box carton, swiftly moving his hand to grab one as he took out a lighter. A flame sprouted out, burning the tip of the cigarette as a dark gray river of smoke began to slither its way into the air.

"So, explain to me how D-Day was. Certainly couldn't be pleasant, I can imagine," asked Leon while puffing out a bit of smoke, observing the Lance-Corporal with extreme concentration. He didn't want to miss on any subtle movements that could help him perceive how the soldier was feeling. Body language was an important thing to look at, plenty of things could be fount out when you could normally ask questions.

[James Stone]

James felt a stern vibe coming from the man but he still seemed different, maybe the african campaign treated people differently. He closed the carton and shrugged, seeing as the officer prefered to stand rather than site. Leon gave a sarcastic yet charming feel to his personality which was rare to see for James. "Well, we all got to wear something with pride sir, nothing wrong with that," he replied as the sergeant explained the insignia with slight modesty to it, James smiled slightly but was still wondering why someone from Africa was at his room with the desire to ask him questions.

The first question. How was D-day? Not pleasant? "No it wasn't sir, wet, cold and bullets... Sword beach wasn't the best place to be at the time, though we seemed to had it pretty easy compared to Omaha beach, heard it was hell on Earth... God help their souls," he looked down thoughtfully at the shear thought.

The ocean air stroked across James's face as he stood with a group soldiers in the cramped metal boat. Bullets whistled through the air as they got closer to the beach, it seemed easy getting to land which worried James, what was on the actual beach? -Vrrrrrr- The door dropped and bullets ricoshayed from the interior, catching unfortunate soldiers in their limbs and bodies. James ducked as soon as the clanging noise of bullets had sounded, he crawled out of the boat along with his fellow soldiers as they charged out into the unknown. One soldier managed to quite far up the beach before flying back in a bloody mess as the sand dove out to punch him in the air. "Mines! Get them tanks to the minefield! Yelled a sergeant hitting the back of a tank as he took cover. Bullets were like rain drops to water, the sand made little splashes as lead projectiles hit the earth. Soldiers were being gunned down with little cover, only relying on the tanks that were heading towards the minefield. The tanks were different though, they had large rolling pins at the front of them with chains, these began to spin and caused the metal whips to slap the earth, destroying any mines in it's path.

Soldiers were relieved as they huddled behind the tanks for cover as the metal guardians created pathways through the dead land...


James snapped out of the flashback,"good people died on that day..." he looked up at the sarge. "Why you ask sir?" he asked, though inclined to move on from the subject, a battle that required men to run up a beach towards gunfire was a horrific experience to go through. Why did the officer ask him this question, getting up the beach was fine in the grande scheme of things... it was what happened after seemed to be like hell. He buried his fist into his palm as he felt slight anxiety from the thoughts his comrades dying under his command, it was a hard concept and so was him being promoted at there expense: he didn't feel fit to lead a small firing team, was he good enough? All he knew was sneaking when he could and shooting the enemy down or make them run wildly for cover.

[Edward"Butcher"McMillan]

Moderation Post:

The following CP has been issued:

Stone - 4CP

Farchester - 4CP

-JT