Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 767: Blood and Honor
Chapter 767: Blood and Honor
The tropical storm had broken hours before Bruno’s arrival, leaving the airfield slick with rain and diesel, the ground shining beneath floodlights like a sheet of black glass.
Tyrolean guards stood rigid at attention despite the humidity, their greatcoats perfectly pressed, boots immaculate, uniforms immaculate in a place where nothing else was.
The men waiting on the tarmac, Erich’s brigade, had done their best to square away their appearance in what was essentially the smoldering ruins of what had been an active combat zone just a few months prior.
They stood in formation because they refused not to. They were airborne, and they had been the knife that dealt the fatal wound to Manila when no one else could.
They would stand before the Reichsmarschall or die trying.
The engines of the arriving aircraft thundered as a great, its wheels kissed the runway with a low screech, rolling to a controlled halt.
As the ramp lowered, a silence fell, not fear, but reverence. Even exhaustion could not dull it.
Bruno von Zehntner emerged like a storm given flesh.
He wore the full dress uniform of the Reichsmarschall: field grey coat trimmed in red and gold, decorations gleaming dully beneath the airfield lights, boots polished to a mirror.
His scars, the lines on his face, the cold clarity in his eyes, they were carved by wars that had tried and failed to kill him.
And tonight, he walked with purpose.
At his side came a small retinue of aides and officers, but none stepped ahead of him. This was his moment alone.
The Brigade Commander, newly promoted, still wearing the insignia he had been given only hours before, marched forward to greet him.
But Bruno lifted a hand.
“Not yet,” he said quietly.
His eyes were already locked on Erich.
The battalions parted as the Reichsmarschall approached, not because they were ordered to, but because something older than discipline compelled them.
Bruno walked through the corridor of exhausted paratroopers, boots splashing through puddles tinged with fuel and blood.
He stopped three feet from his grandson.
Erich stood at attention, battered, pale, gaunt from sleepless nights and the weight of command. His uniform was torn, his collar burned, his left sleeve patched where a bullet had grazed him.
He looked nothing like a prince.
He looked like a soldier who had lived through hell.
Bruno did not speak immediately. For several long seconds, he said nothing, only studied the face of a man he had raised, trained, and prepared for war, yet had never wished to see broken by it.
Finally, his voice cut through the humid air.
“Stand easy, Oberst.”
Erich obeyed, though the stiffness in his limbs betrayed his exhaustion.
Bruno did not offer comfort. Not here, not in front of the men. Instead, he turned, addressing the entire brigade.
“Men of the Fallschirm-Panzergrenadiere,” he began, his voice carrying with a control that felt almost unnatural.
“You pierced through the iron heart of Manila where no other force could manage. You fought armored forces with little armor of your own. You bled to carve a path for the Fifth Division. And because of you, the Americans fled Luzon before dawn.”
Several paratroopers straightened, pride mixing with grief.
“You did the impossible,” Bruno continued. “Not because of orders. Not because of doctrine. But because you refused to let the man next to you fall alone.”
He paused, letting the silence settle.
“Your Kaiser knows your names tonight. And so does the world.”
He signaled to an aide, who stepped forward carrying a Tyrolean velvet case and a bundle of silver-trimmed documents.
Bruno took the case with his own hands.
“Step forward, Oberst Erich von Zehntner.”
Erich moved, boots steady despite his exhaustion. For a moment, the two stood eye to eye.
Bruno opened the case.
Inside lay the Order of Saint Michael the Archangel, Knight’s Cross, with Swords, Tyrol’s highest battlefield honor below the Pour le Mérite. Its golden wings and crimson enamel gleamed like a shard of night sky.
“By the authority vested in me as Grand Prince of Tyrol, and Marshal of the Reich” Bruno said, “and with the consent of His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm II, I present you this honor, for valor in command under catastrophic conditions, for the preservation of German airborne integrity, and for actions decisively enabling the liberation of Manila.”
He pinned the honor to Erich’s uniform. The medal’s cold weight settled against his chest like a brand.
But Bruno did not step back.
He pinned a second insignia on Erich’s collar.
“…and by order of High Command, you are hereby confirmed as Oberst of the 3rd Airborne Brigade.”
The brigade erupted in applause, exhausted, ragged, emotional. Some shouted Erich’s call-sign. Others simply bowed their heads in silent respect.
Erich himself swallowed hard. The medal meant less to him than the trust implied by the rank.
Bruno wasn’t finished.
He turned toward the Thai detachment standing at the far end of the formation. Their commander, a young captain wearing the armband of a fallen superior, stepped forward nervously.
Bruno addressed them with a solemn nod.
“Your brothers fought beside ours in the heaviest quarter of the storm,” he said. “Without them, Manila would not have been taken. Their courage is written into the streets of this city.”
He gestured for an aide, who presented a different case, smaller, darker.
Bruno opened it and revealed a row of Iron Crosses.
“For valor in arms, the German Reich recognizes your fallen. These honors will be delivered to their families. Their names will not be forgotten.”
The Thai captain bowed deeply, voice trembling as he accepted the medals.
Bruno clasped his forearm in solidarity.
The ceremony continued, awards, commendations, promotions. But to the men who stood there, soaked in tropical rain and battlefield grime, the world felt strangely quiet.
A wedge of calm carved through weeks of chaos.
When it was done, Bruno dismissed the parade with a single command.
“Fall out. Rest. You have earned it.”
The men dispersed slowly, limping away in groups, laughing weakly, crying quietly, or simply collapsing onto crates and sandbags.
But Erich remained.
Bruno waited until the last soldier departed before finally speaking to his grandson in a tone stripped of rank, ceremony, and steel.
“You should have died in those streets,” he said softly.
Erich didn’t deny it.
Bruno placed a hand on his shoulder, heavy, solid, grounding.
“You didn’t,” he continued. “And now you are responsible for every life in this brigade. Not because I wish it… but because you proved yourself worthy of it.”
Erich met his gaze. There was no fear in it. Only acceptance.
“Then I won’t fail them,” he said.
Bruno nodded.
“No. You won’t.”
For a moment, just a moment, the mask slipped from the Reichsmarschall’s face.
Pride.
Not the loud pride of parades or propaganda.
But the quiet pride of a man who saw the future of his nation standing before him, bloodied but unbroken.
“Come,” Bruno said. “Walk with me. We have much to discuss, and little time before the Americans test us again.”
Together, grandfather and grandson stepped into the rain and the dim glow of the floodlights, two lions striding back toward a war that had only begun.
