Chapter 29:

Chapter 29:

Chapter 29

Nikolai’s company marched and camped repeatedly.

They were often overtaken by the motorized infantry on trucks or the tank desant on the wobbling light tanks.

Nikolai waved his hand to them every time.

“Isn’t this really, like, we have nothing to do?”

“Maybe. But keep your mouth shut, you never know when they’ll catch us deserting...”

The platoon leader suddenly seemed to receive something on the radio and announced it to the platoon members.

They were ordered to search the nearby nameless villages for any possible Partisan rebels hiding there.

The company had decided to dispatch each platoon to the scattered villages around them.

Sergeant Bolozha slapped Nikolai on the back of his head.

It’s because you blabbered that we got something to do, right?

Nikolai wanted to retort that he’d rather go to the village and pretend to search while flirting with the local girls, but he just kept his mouth shut.

It was better than walking until blisters formed on his feet in the chilly weather.

His feet were sore with three blisters each.

How nice would it be to sleep in a warm hut?

Now that it was harvest season and winter was coming, each village should have enough food from the collective farms.

They could exchange some of the sweet chocolate or candy distributed by the military, or maybe some of the drugs that the medics had, for a decent meal.

Nikolai suddenly craved for the wood strawberry pie that his mother used to make for his father’s birthday.

Would there be any wood strawberries in the village?

The fields around them were fluttering with golden wheat in the wind.

Of course, most of them were either broken by gunfire or crushed under the tracks of tanks.

There was no sign of anyone in the village.

The platoon leader immediately radioed the company headquarters.

No one was there.

It seemed that no one had touched them for quite a long time, as weeds grew lushly in the yards of the huts.

Even the livestock that they had raised were gone somewhere, and the barns were empty.

Nikolai gave up on his hope for wood strawberry pie.

“It looks like they’ve been abandoned for at least a couple of months...?”

Sergeant Bolozha loosened his grip on the grenade in his hand.

Nikolai also slowly took his finger off the trigger of his machine gun.

Where did they all go? Only a strange, pungent smell lingered in the village like a ghost.

Nikolai and Bolozha paired up and opened the doors of the houses, looking for anything that could explain what had happened.

Actually, Nikolai was more interested in finding something to eat. Soldiers were always hungry.

“Everyone, assemble! Assemble!”

Someone shouted from somewhere.

The two who were rummaging through every corner of the hut hurriedly grabbed their weapons and ran out.

The platoon leader was gathering everyone at what seemed to be the village hall.

Political Commissar Semol looked at the hall with a blank expression.

Like many other platoon members.

Nikolai then noticed something strange.

There were many bullet holes on the wall of the hall that were not on other houses.

A rotten smell pierced his nose from the open door of the hall.

“Those filthy Partisan pigs...!”

As they spat out the worst curses they knew, corpses were carried out of the hall.

They were eaten by maggots and mutilated beyond recognition.

Seeing them, Private Misha, who was the youngest in the platoon, couldn’t hold back his nausea and ran away somewhere.

Semol calmly waited for him.

He was very calm for a young communist who was in his twenties.

Nikolai felt like he was being scolded by his big brother, but he spilled out what was on his mind.

“Why did the Partisans do that... thing? I mean, why did they kill the villagers so brutally... What did they...”

Semol patted his shoulder that was trembling with words.

He couldn’t say anything more as something welled up inside him. Semol gave him a cup of hot tea.

The tea was strong and sweet.

Drink and listen. Semol said.

“There are many reasons why people kill people. They can do it for profit, or for justice. What do you think the fascist soldiers killed people for?”

“For profit?”

Nikolai answered in a small voice.

Semol looked at his almost empty cup of tea and offered him another one, but Nikolai shook his head no.

A normal political commissar would have scolded him for that, but Semol didn’t care about such things.

“No, for justice. Of course, that justice is not a true justice, but a justice that the fascist regime in Germany has taught their people.”

He pronounced the word fascist regime with deep anger and hatred in every syllable.

Nikolai had never seen him so angry before.

“The generals and arms capitalists of the fascists want opportunities to advance themselves, and to sell their weapons that they have made. So their representatives, the politicians, whisper sweet words to their people.

“Our country’s glory, our nation’s glory, and the prosperous lives of our people within it. So those foolish and pitiful young men of the working class who believe them sincerely go to the battlefield and... slaughter the people of the enemy countries like this.”

He remembered the horrible scene he saw today at noon.

Even slaughtering animals was not that cruel.

He had killed animals several times to eat them while living on a farm, but he couldn’t imagine that people could do that to other people.

“That bastard Hitler who leads them says that this vast motherland’s land exists only for their nation and that these people who have lived here for hundreds of years must disappear.

“Words that are blown into the ears of frustrated people are so powerful. Maybe those who committed this massacre would be young men like you, Nikolai, who are sensitive and compassionate when they go home.”

The corpses that became rotten meat flashed before his eyes again.

“But who are dying in this war? They are the sons of the working class. What have you and I and those soldiers over there gained from this dirty war that they made to fill their bellies?”

Semol’s voice rose gradually.

“I wonder if the lives of the poorest Germans would improve if they took away the vast land and resources of the Soviet Union. They would still have to work hard and be exploited by the capitalists. To them, workers are nothing but parts.

“That’s why we fight to liberate them and build a free workers’ country, the Soviet Union. Do you understand?”

By the end, Semel sounded almost like he was giving a speech.

Long live the proletarian revolution!

Long live Comrade Stalin!

The old men on the farm always shouted like that when they heard such stories.

Nikolai nodded his head. Semel offered him another cup of black tea, but he refused that too.

When he returned to his tent, Sergeant Bolozha glanced at him as if to ask where he had been, but he didn’t seem very interested.

Nikolai lay down quietly and saw that Bolozha’s face was still pale and stiff.

“Sir... Sergeant?”

“...”

Bolozha just looked at Nikolai briefly.

Even with his dull eyes, Nikolai could tell that Bolozha was trying to act calm.

He wished he would hit him in the back of the head instead.

Nikolai slumped down on his blanket as he saw Bolozha lie down weakly.

He felt sorry for the dead people.

How much they must have wanted to live... But he also felt sorry for the German soldiers.

Some of them ranted about how devilish and cruel Hitler’s followers were.

But were they really born as devils?

The German soldiers also called for their mothers when they were shot and killed.

He felt the heavy touch of a gun on his side.