Devil's Brigade
A Lily By Any Other Name
Diclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
Anzio, Italy
February 2nd, 1944
3:08 AM
The nauseating scent of boot polish filled the still night air. A tin of the stuff was silently passed around from hand to hand. Quietly—as to not disturb the underbrush he lay in— Alfred dipped two fingers in the black paste; he smeared it blindly on his face, beneath his cheekbones, then wiped his hands off on his pants that would soon be stained with blood and dirt. Next to him, his brother, Mattie, unsheathed his knife. The short silver blade glinted like a lost, wayward star in the pale moonlight. Alfred's hands itched for his own knife—that crooked dagger concealed in his belt—but he refrained from withdrawing it. Not here, not now.
Not until the true party started.
Alfred motioned for his platoon to rise. The dim lights of a German camp lay straight ahead, about a mile away, like a homing beacon that cut through the Italian night. Quietly, as if on tiptoe, the platoon crept towards the confines like vultures circling their next meal. He felt almost mischievous sneaking around like this—as if he was still a stupid teen sneaking out of the house after curfew. It almost didn't feel like they were treading cautiously into Axis territory. Almost. The loaded MK strapped to his back was a reminder that they were no longer kids at play, but men at war—a real war with real guns, and real tanks, and real mortars, and shells, and what-have-you. The real enemy was death. Not the bullet, not the front lines. Soldiers didn't charge at the enemy on the other side, but at Death himself in this hell.
But the devil—with Death as his agent—ruled over his hell as if it were perfect.
So still. So, so still. Quiet. Alfred swore the only sound he could hear was the pounding of his heart and Mattie's soft breathing next to him as they split up in pairs. His hands yet again twitched for his knife as they prowled around like creatures of the night, but he held them still at his side. Mattie pulled him behind a stationed tank as a Nazi grunt patrolled by a couple yards away. Alfred saw his breath come out in crystalized little puffs. Who knew Italy could be so cold?
They crouched behind the tank for a seemingly endless amount of time. Alfred was stuck staring at the red swastika insignia painted on the vehicle till he felt it was branded on the back of his eyelids. Reaching into Mattie's back pocket with his newly-instilled stealth, he pulled out the tin of boot polish. Dipping his hand in it once more, he smeared a glob of the stuff on the Reich red swastika in front of him, turning the whole thing black as the night around them. Mattie grinned when he nudged him in order to show off his masterpiece. He too covered his fingers in the polish. Alfred tried to discern what he was writing on the tank's side—next to the vandalized swastika—but the moonlight didn't make for a good reading lamp. The Germans would just have to find out in the morning.
A small, swaying light drew closer to them. A lantern. The brothers shimmied around the parked vehicle. There was nowhere else to hide out in the sandy, open field. If they got caught…
To hell with it. If they got caught, they got caught. Not like they couldn't fight their way out. This was hell.
This was the turf of the Devil's Brigade.
"Schwarzer Teufel."
Black devils.
The whisper sounded more like a shout, that then turned into a murmur, and that then became little more than a croak. Copper filled the air as blood gushed from the gorge in the throat of a German soldier; Alfred bet it felt warm against Mattie's now-soaked fingers. The latter grinned as he kicked the spluttering Nazi down to the cold, hard ground before cleaning off his knife on his pants. A card dropped down from Mattie's blood-stained finger tips and onto the body of the dying man before them. Bright, Roosevelt red letters printed on the side of the card read: Das dicke Ende Kommt noch!—The worst is yet to come.
The playground was beginning to come alive as idle hands of German soldiers reached for their weapons. Shots, shouts, and cards fluttered in the air like the cries of the damned in the Fields of Punishment. Alfred's hands no longer lusted for his knife; the V-42 flew into the night with a swing of his arm, hopefully lodging itself in the throat or eye of a passing enemy. The almost painful firing of a machine gun—one of their machine guns, thanks—became a rhythmic lull akin to that of waves crashing softly upon a beach; the pounding of running feet became the metronome keeping time. This wonderful, hellish symphony played by the devil's drums and snares was his cadence in combat; cards fell from his hand as if they were nothing with each kill.
By the end of the night, the camp was trampled, worn, beat, and bloody. Bodies and little white cards littered the forlorn ground; the sun began to turn the remnants to gold as it peeked above the flat horizon of Anzio. Alfred spied the tank—the one he and Mattie had hid behind countless hours ago—a few feet to his left. It wasn't where they had found it to begin with; someone had tried to futilely escape.
Written In big, black, smeared letters was the mantra they'd all trained to live by: Das dicke Ende Kommt noch.
And, oh, indeed it was.
Historical Notes: The Devil's Brigade (1st Special Service Force) was an elite American-Canadian commando unit in WWII. These guys were hella hardcore- they were trained to fight in cold, mountainous weather and were thoroughly versed in hand-to-hand combat techniques such as martial arts and knife combat. This unit was formed in 1942 and fought in the Aleutian Islands, Italy, and southern France till its disbandment in 1944. They were supposedly dubbed The Devil's Brigade after a German soldier whispered "black devils" when he saw them coming. This same soldier allegedly got his throat slit later by one of the men in the Brigade. The Brigade earned itself this infamy during the Battle of Anzio (1942) where their task was to hold the beachhead and raid German camps. This unit was so notorious and feared by the German troops that they were considered "treacherous, merciless, and clever". A ten day furlough would be granted to any German soldier that captured a member of the brigade. The Brigade's notoriety was partially due to the form of psychological warfare they ensued; each soldier would carry a card with the slogan "das dicke ende kommt noch (English: the worst is yet to come) printed on it. These cards would then be left on the bodies of fallen German soldiers for their allies to later find.
A/N: I really wanted to write America and Canada as part of the Devil's Brigade after seeing fanart of them in Brigade gear on Deviantart. I don't think there's enough on Canadian efforts during WWII, either, so... Here you have both Al and Mattie in context.