Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 754: Commendation
Chapter 754: Commendation
The forward operating base smelled of diesel and antiseptic and the thin, metallic tang of old blood.
Dawn had leeched the jungle’s red into a grey wash; the airfield’s dust lay in the seams of boots and the folds of uniforms like an accusation.
Erich rode in the back of his command vehicle as it entered through the gates, the hull rattling, the engine coughing.
Men clambered down with the sort of automatic slowness that comes when a body has been made to do terrible things and must do them again tomorrow.
They were mud and soot, ash and oil; faces streaked with the night’s fire so that even their mothers might not have recognized them.
Weapons hung from tired shoulders or were slung, still warm with use. The radio nets blinked alive in the distance; engineers already fussed over antennae and the newly repaired repeater sites.
The northern airfields in Luzon, seized intact on the first morning of the drops, hummed now with life.
Cargo birds rolled on the tarmac, dropping pallets of ammunition and boxed rations; medevac rotors stuttered and lifted with wounded strapped to stretchers.
For the first time since they had landed, Erich could see logistics as a thing that could reach them rather than a rumor bandied between patrols.
He walked through the compound like a man still remembering how to use his feet. Boots leaving footprints of mud on concrete.
Men parted to let him pass. A corporal touched the brim of his helmet in a private salute. Erich did not nod. He felt too heavy for gestures.
The brigade command tent, half field canvas, half ostentatious fabric to please invited dignitaries, was an island of order.
Inside it, the brigade commander sat at a folding table, collar crisp, medals gleaming faintly despite the humidity.
The man’s uniform had been ironed that morning; his posture had not wavered since the last briefing.
He watched Erich approach with the kind of inspection reserved for recruits and for men who might yet be offered graves.
“Oberstleutnant von Zehntner,” the colonel said without rise of voice. “You look as if the jungle spat you back out.”
Erich’s rifle hung across his chest, safety on, sling loosened; soot stitched the fabric of his tunic black. He set his hands flat on the table, boots planted, and let the colonel have his look.
“We were in the thick of it,” Erich said. The words came flat, rehearsed by midnight. “Ambush. IEDs took our lead and broke our comms. We pursued. We cleared the cell. We recovered caches.”
The colonel’s eyes narrowed. He had read the after-action reports long enough to know the grammar of excuses.
He could see, as plainly as Erich could see, that the story they’d been fed. The idea of their communications being taken out by an IED was an elegant fiction.
But so were many things in war. Discipline, honor, the neatness of a parade ground. They both understood the currency of lie and truth here.
“You’re very lucky, Lieutenant,” the commander said finally, a thin sourness undercutting the civility.
“Command sent orders for punitive raids not twenty minutes after your net went quiet. Had Headquarters not signaled that window, had they delayed, your silence would have been judged as willful disobedience. Court-martial is the kind of formal language people like to use when they intend to make an example.
“You understand the calculus, don’t you? Timing is mercy.” He reached to the side and produced a bottle wrapped in a coarse cloth, something with the kind of label that spoke of cellars and the sort of men who rewarded men and covered their sins with glass.
The colonel uncapped it deftly and poured two measures into tin cups. He pushed one toward Erich.
Erich took it without watching the liquid settle. His hands were steady; his face gave nothing away. The heat of the drink crawled down his throat, a small, private warmth.
“So,” the colonel continued, voice brightening on the surface, “given your ’circumstances,’ I suppose I ought to recommend you for a commendation. Heroic action under duress. Exemplary conduct during an ambush, words like that look good on paper.”
Erich said nothing. There was no gratitude in him for this manufactured favor. Medals wouldn’t bring the men back that he lost. Nor would they make him feel any better about the things he had done to avenge them.
The colonel cursed softly, then gave a weary shrug. “I’ll recommend it. When you rotate out, if you rotate out, you’ll find the paperwork waiting. For now, you get resupply, medevac, and reinforcement.”
The words landed with a weight Erich could taste. Reinforcements. Resupply. The bureaucracy that kept men breathing.
“And then?” Erich asked. His voice was small where he meant it to be large.
The colonel’s jaw tightened. He set his cup down and looked at Erich like a man settling a bet. “You’ll be resupplied in the morning. You’ll be refitted. You’ll get three days to rest and reconstitute what’s been broken. Then you go back to the sky.”
“Manila?” Erich’s single-word question was a blade.
“Exactly,” the colonel said. He let the word sit. “Our Brigade has once more been chosen for honor to act as the vanguard. And your Battalion in particular has a knock for pulling off the impossible.”
Erich stared at the colonel. Beyond the tent, a strategic airlift rolled down the strip and lifted like an indifferent god, tray lights blinking.
The silence lasted for all of five seconds before the Colonel spoke once more.
“We’ll be dropping directly into the city, a ballsy move if I’ve ever heard one. One that is certain to result in heavy casualties. So, if you survive, then you’ll see a new medal pinned to your chest. Maybe two if you end up creating another miracle.”
“Manila it is,” Erich said at last. The words were simple. The kind of agreement that binds a man to fate.
The colonel stood and clapped him once on the shoulder, half praise, half benediction.
“Oh, and one last thing before I dismiss you, you don’t need to worry about pacifying the villages. There are plenty of men in the German Army better suited towards such a role than an airborne brigade. I hear they may have even called for some specialists to deal with the task for us.”
Erich silently nodded his head before he turned and walked out of the tent. The sun had climbed higher and burned off the thin smoke that still clung to the runway.
His reflection in a puddle was a stranger, mud-streaked, eyes raw, a man who had seen too much and worn it like a second skin.
He simply looked away and continued towards the barracks to clean himself from the filth that marred his flesh.
All so that he could prepare for another fight, in another city, in another part of the world he had no business being in.
