Tales of Mundance lives

Pride and Bravery

Somewhere in 1970s.

...

That's a bullet that grazed by my ear. I touch my ear to see if it bleeding. And my hand came painted red from my blood, but not concerning about scraps of wounds, I hide behind whatever shade I can find from barrage of bullets. The smell is heavy everywhere I look. The smell of dirt, sweat, blood, piss, innards of humans. But there are also other smells mixed in too, which a normal person can not sense. The smell of desperation, fear, bravery and death. I can hear wailing, shouting, blasts and shrieks. The clouds are over our head, painted grey. If not for these clouds it would have been sunny. This open land once filled with grass is now filled with gorges, craters and burns of blasts, and with bodies. The red from these bodies is now part of this land. Bodies so mangled up, even thinking that they were once human is difficult to imagine. I only have this rifle with me. I lost my hand g*n and knife while running. All the people in my squad are disarrayed. But we have to do it. It's for the sake of ending this m******e that has envloped this whole world for past decade. It's the g*n in our hand, that will shoot the bullet which is going to end this.

...

We have under constant fire from enemy for last 13 hours. Sometimes it did get less intense, but a bullet is all you need to get killed. I can ask my soldiers to move out just because I think it's less intense. We have to hold out untill reinforcements arrive. But, the moral of the troops have been low all-over. They haven't had time to eat, to drink and just lying in those holes while hiding from bullets have made them depressed. The only thing that's holding them is no one of them is coward, or foolish to just die by jumping the guns. I hope reinforcements arrive at time.

...

"COME IN!! COME IN!! THIS IS ALPHA. WE ARE UNDER HEAVY FIRE AND EAGLE HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT. WE HAVE A MOLE. I REPEAT WE HAVE A MOLE. AND WE NEED REINFORCEMENTS. WE ARE 412B."  The platoon commander is constantly sending the signal every hour. He still believes that we can get a reinforcements. But we all know, acter knowing that we have a mole, it's probable that even reinforcements might get intercepted. They don't need to come and save a single squad. Let alone a patrol unit. My thoughts have been much clear after I bandaged my ear with whatever I could find. After the pain subsided, I came to this realisation. I don't know why we are holding up, we are just sitting ducks. For a orphan like me, I don't have anyone to turn back and call home. The orphanage  in which I stayed my whole life is basically my home. My regret would be after me dying they would again have problems with food and money. But, if we run away here, there are going to be more orphans than now. Even us sitting ducks are the fences that stops those walking over us if we weren't here. That's what we are, we are the line that makes the other side think 10 times before being bold enough to waltz in here. I think some more and reach out to commander to relay my thought. He first looks at me and then pinching his temple says, "I am not doing this because I think reinforcements will come. I am doing this to give us all a sliver of hope that we are going to be saved. Everything is going to be okay. To let all us be sane even in this insanity."

"I understand. But I think we should fight back, even little now rather than just defending. Rather than dying of exhaustion, I would rather taste a bullet."

"I am not going to take responsibility of deaths of my soldiers if there is even a small chance of reinforcements. Untill the message comes we are not going to do anything. And you will follow my command. If not I will shoot you here."

...

It's been 5 days since first fire by them. We are still under attack. We got a good information that reinforcements are on their way. But, 5 minutes before news came that reinforcements were caught with heavy attack. There have been an environment of morbidity since then. We are only 25 people left who can shoot a bullet. There were 80 of us but we have lost over 40 people. We are essentially waiting for our deaths to come in. We have now decided to fight back, not for glory. But for pride. We are going to shoot untill every bullet we have is spent and every soldier either here or there becomes a corpse. We are going to continue.