Finally got back to writing this stuff. Sorry about the long wait. The last thing I wanted was to be "that writer" who starts a story and then leaves it unfinished for years. I just have a lot on my plate at the moment. Any ways, hope you like the chapter, and, as a bonus feature, from this chapter on, every chapter will feature a "personnel file" on a member of Deathwish Squad.
"Keep running, you sad sacks! Three more laps!" The members of Deathwish Squad pounded around the dirt running track, accompanied by the loud and harsh tones of the squad sergeant with the scarred head. Valour had heard him referred to as "Bull", although the sergeant was intimidating enough to probably make a real wild, rampaging bull run off screaming.
"You too, Easy! Pick up the pace, you slacker!" Bull yelled. Lieutenant Coburn ran up beside Valour and held position, his pace matching hers. Teeth gritted, the lieutenant was muttering something in between breaths. Whatever it was, it sounded explosive. Obviously, Bull thought so too, as the sergeant hollered again. "I can hear you, Easy! You may be the lieutenant, but on the training field, I am God! Do an extra two laps, and unless you want to keep running around the track for the rest of the war, I suggest you keep your gob shut!"
At length, the training session ended and Bull fixed the squad with a hostile eye. "Well, you're all still a horrible bunch of wets, weirdos and fatties. Still, you put in some good effort today, and at least you don't make me sick to look at you anymore. Dismissed!" Valour sat down heavily on the grass bank fringing the training grounds, trying to open her water canteen with shaking hands.
"So, how y'all feeling?" A female voice with a heavy accent asked from above Valour. Valour looked up to see a skinny, lanky and angular redhead grinning at her. "I feel like all four of my limbs have turned into Deventer mineral water." Valour answered honestly. The redhead laughed. "A typical response to the Bull Heinlein 'treatment.' Don't worry, sugar. It gets easier. Not much, but it gets easier." The redhead stuck her hand out to shake. "Annamarie Dusude." she identified herself.
Valour took the prooffered hand. "Valour. What about your friend?" Valour indicated the blond man with thin features and a scar on his left cheek standing behind Annamarie. The blond man bowed slightly. "My name is Reinhardt Von Kaltzdorf, fraulein. Before you ask, yes, I am an Imperial by birth. Certain…conditions in the empire which I would rather not discuss led me to seek asylum in Gallia. I am an Imperial by birth, but my heart belongs to Gallia. I hope my heritage does not lead you to hate me because of your heritage, fraulein Valour." Valour blinked in surprise, struggling for an answer for a second, then hopefully extended the hand of friendship. "I've had a lot of hate thrown my way just for being a Darcsen. If you can be big enough to ignore that, I guess I can be big enough to ignore your roots." She replied shyly. Reinhardt jerked the surprised Valour to her feet and crushed her in a bear hug. "Wunderbar! Welcome to the family!"
Valour looked over Reinhardt's shoulder, mouthing "help" to Annamarie. With a smile, the redhead tapped Reinhardt's shoulder. "Reckon y'all should let her breathe, sugar. Your down-home charm needs reigning in a bit." Reinhardt stepped back, releasing Valour from his death-grip and scratching his head sheepishly. "Heh…sorry, fraulein." He chuckled, embarrassed. Valour was about to reply when the sound of a mournful siren echoed across the base. She looked up in surprise. "What…?" she began asking, but Annamarie cut her off. "It's time, sugar. You see, in a way, y'all were damn lucky to get assigned to this squad. We already had a full strength without y'all volunteering, and the only way in is 'dead man's boots.' Fortunately for you, we lost one of our scouts the same day your application came through. And that's the signal that the ceremony is about to start. Come on!" Annamarie took off at high speed towards a long, low building seemingly thrown onto the end of the barracks as an afterthought.
"Who was he?" asked Valour sadly, looking down at the table containing the corpse, a pair of lighted candles at both ends of the table. Lieutenant Coburn raised his glass slightly. "Albert Bigot." Coburn drawled, identifying the dead man. "Deathwish Squad scout, rank private, cause of death, Imp shock trooper machine gun to the chest. The imp missed with every shot, apart from the one that ricocheted off a boulder and hit Al's chest at just the right angle to sever his aorta." Coburn raised his glass to a toast position. "Here's to you, Al, wherever you are." he sighed. "You could be a grumpy old cuss sometimes, and I probably still owe you at least one good ass-kicking, but you sure were a good scout." Coburn drained his glass, threw it on the ground and stomped on it in the traditional Gallian way.
There was a short and heartfelt silence. "So…do we bury him now?" Valour asked quietly. "Not just yet, hon." Coburn led her into another, larger room behind the makeshift morgue, filled with the members of Deathwish Squad. "We have a kind of tradition in Deathwish Squad." Coburn grinned as he indicated the large crates in the corner. One had been opened and several bottles of alcohol were visible inside. More bottles were standing on a trestle table at the back of the room. "First we have the wake, then we have the funeral." Coburn clarified.
Bull Heinlein popped up from behind the trestle table. "Alright, slime, listen up! The wake is now in session! The bar's open and Al is buying! You all know the tradition! No-one leaves until it's dawn and everyone's so drunk they can't even remember how to crawl!" Cheers rose from the crowd, and there was a kind of orderly stampede towards the makeshift bar. A woman in her early thirties, with mid-length black hair with white badger stripes through it separated from the scrum and approached Valour. "Gotta take a drink at these things, honey. It's tradition." She handed Valour a shot glass filled with a dubious looking brown liquid. Valour blinked, confused. "Isn't alcohol on ration? And I thought regulations said you couldn't distill your own, so where did all this…" The woman laughed heartily. "I used to think that way myself. Just like I used to be almost as much of a looker as you are." She tapped the eyepatch covering her right eye knowingly and downed her shot glass in one. "Drink up, honey." She said, walking back off into the crowd. "Good looks and big ideals never last long in this squad."
Valour tentatively took a mouthful of the drink, which instantly sent her stomach into convulsions. Dashing to the door, she vomited into the drainage trench outside and instantly vowed to stay away from Deathwish Squad's highly potent and no doubt illegal hooch for the rest of the evening. Stepping back into the room on slightly shaky legs, a large man with a big nose, greasy black hair pulled back into a tight knot and reeking of hair oil and cheap cologne slimed his way up beside Valour. "Hey, it looks like Coburn's finally got this squad a bit of glamour." the greasy man leered. His hand, uninvited, snaked round towards the direction of Valour's rear. However, even in their very short acquaintance, Valour had learned a few things from watching Coburn. She spun on her heel and delivered a textbook up-and-under that could have come straight off the rugby field. There was a short, stunned silence as the greasy man finished screaming and fell over, and then the other members of the squad started bellowing with laughter and cheering.
Annamarie walked over to Valour, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Ah had my doubts about y'all, sugar, but it looks like you'll fit in alright." Valour shot a sideways glance at her victim, curled up on the floor and moaning. Annamarie followed her gaze and smiled. "Don't y'all worry 'bout Juan. He flirts with anything that moves, and it ain't the first time one of us girls has kicked him like a bronco. The one y'all really gotta look out for is Weasel." Annamarie pointed to the dapper-looking blond man with the thin moustache and the slicked-down hair that had aided in Valour's rescue just days before. "We've sort of met. He seemed nice enough to me."said Valour thoughtfully. Annamarie's smile grew even wider. "He sure gives that impression, don't he? He used to be a pickpocket in the slums of Fouzen, though, and a darn good one. You let your guard down within three feet of him, and he'll have your scanties off your body and into his pocket without y'all even noticing."
Valour flushed bright red, much to Annamarie's amusement. "Any other advice you can give me?" Valour squeaked. Annamarie struck a slightly comical thinker's pose. "Ah guess the best advice ah can give is to say: never pick a fight with Smiley." Annamarie indicated a slim, thin-featured man with dark hair and eyes and a thin moustache toying with the hilt of a dagger slipped into his belt. "Shock trooper by trade, but also has sniper training. Expert knife fighter and knife thrower. Skilled in about six different methods of killing people. Black belt minimum."
Valour pondered Annamarie's rundown of Smiley's skills. "Black belt in what?" she finally asked. Annamarie grinned. "Anything y'all care to name. Ah'd also say, never mention Sonja's eye." Annamarie indicated the badger-haired woman who had given Valour the glass of strong liquor. "The eyepatch…?" Valour ventured. Annamarie nodded. "From what ah gather, she sat up all night in a snowdrift in the depths of winter in EW1 because intelligence said an Imp general would be passing that way. The temperature dipped well below freezing. She popped the general, but the cold froze the sights of her rifle to her skin. When she took the rifle from her eye, half her face came with it. It healed up well enough, but she's a bit touchy about the ring of scar tissue that's left. Wouldn't y'all be?"
"I…guess I would." offered Valour hesitantly. She discreetly pointed at a dour-looking, craggy faced man sitting on his own in a quiet corner "What about him?" Annamarie glanced over in the direction Valour was indicating, and gave her answer. "Leo Graves, known to all as 'Open.' Most of the time it's a real accurate nickname, seeing as how he looks like something y'all'd find in an open grave." Annamarie noticed an alarmed expression returning to Valour's face and laughed. "Don't worry yerself, sugar. Sure, he's a bit tightly wound, but sooner or later, he's gonna drink one glass too many, and then he's gonna start showing his scars to anyone who takes an interest!"
The night wore on, and although Valour drank very little through the night, so many things went on that she was still unable to remember much that happened. True to Annamarie's words, "Open" Graves had spent a good fifteen minutes showing off his war wounds, including a long scar that he proudly proclaimed was "shrapnel from a land mine I didn't see. Forty-two stitches. I couldn't ride my motorbike for two months!"
Another memory was of dancing the tango with Benny Fenman, the huge man nicknamed "Tank" that Valour had previously encountered pushing a corrupt Military Policeman into a dustbin. Despite resembling some kind of half-man, half-mastodon, Tank was surprisingly light on his feet, and a reasonable dance partner despite the fact that Valour's feet barely touched the ground.
At some point, to Valour's alarm, an old air rifle made an appearance, and Coburn gleefully called for a round of "target practice." An empty bottle was produced and placed on the head of the comatose form of Juan, who was slumped against the wall in a drunken daze. An enthusiastic soldier with foxy-red hair and only three fingers on his right hand snatched up the air gun to take the first go. Loading the breech with a small pellet, he confidently proclaimed that "I nailed an Imp scout once. Hell of a shot. Fast-moving target at over four hundred metres." His shot proceeded to miss the bottle completely and chip a piece of wall five feet away from the target. "Of course, that was back when I was still shooting right-handed." he admitted amid jeering and laughter. "Give over, Art. You couldn't hit an elephant at ten paces. That's why they call you 'Try Again' Fargo from here to Ghirlandaio." smirked Smiley. "Your turn, Coburn." Smiley took the air rifle from Fargo and handed it to Coburn. "I've got a bet on with Bull that you miss. A hundred ducats, plus an extra fifty if you miss and hit the greasy git by mistake."
Coburn took the rifle and turned his back on the target, looking into the cracked mirror hanging on the opposite wall. "You're on. Ricochet." Coburn raised the rifle, considered for a moment, and fired. The pellet pinged off a piece of pipework and flew back over Coburn's head, knocking the bottle off Juan's head. Bull sidled up to Smiley, grinning wickedly. "Pay up."
As the first light of dawn rose over the camp, the door to the blockhouse opened and a procession emerged. Coburn led the group, followed by Tank, Bull, Smiley and Juan as pallbearers. Annamarie, Sonja, Weasel, Fargo, Graves and Reinhardt followed, carrying rifles. The pallbearers set the remains of Albert Bigot on a pile of firewood, while the six rifle bearers lined up beside the pile.
Coburn walked up to the makeshift funeral pyre carrying a Mags machine gun with an FF flamethrower attached to the barrel. He started speaking, and the other troops echoed his words. "Go into the light in confidence, Scout Trooper Albert Bigot…and all the rest of that ceremonial crap." The honour guard fired into the air, and Coburn sent a jet of fire from the flamethrower into the pyre.
Coburn stepped up to beside Valour. "I've done twelve of these ceremonies so far, but they never get any easier. That's one thing that I always say about this unit. You may think you've joined a military unit, but in many ways you haven't. We're family. And with the conclusion of this burial party, you've just been officially adopted, little sister."
BONUS FEATURE: DEATHWISH SQUAD PERSONNEL FILES
NO.1: Lt. Coburn
Name: Janus Coburn
Nickname: "Easy" (short for 'easy rider')
Rank: Lieutenant
Specialisation: Squad Leader/Armour Commander
Likes: Cigarettes. His vintage motorcycle. Cussing.
Dislikes: Bullies. Regulations. The "Fat F*****" (General Damon)
Talents/abilities: Unorthodox tactics. Excellent shot. Wide knowledge of swear words.
Summary: The maverick leader of the 2nd Gallian Interdictory Strike Unit, AKA "Deathwish Squad," Coburn is an unorthodox but inspiring leader who has repeatedly led his squad of misfits on the most dangerous and dirty missions imaginable and still come out on top. He is rumoured to have been shuttled off to the command of Deathwish Squad as punishment for headbutting a colonel who had ordered him on a suicidal attack.
Claim to fame: Most talented at spitting wads of chewing tobacco.
Something that didn't occur to me until after I'd finished the chapter was when Coburn gave his whole spiel on "family"...well, this squad now has a lieutenant with an unmilitary demeanour and a flair for unusual tactics, and a Darcsen girl that the lieutenant sees as a younger sister. There's something that seems sort of familiar about that...! Also, just to say, Southern US accents are really difficult to portray in writing! If I offended anyone from Dixie with my efforts, I apologise! Next time, Deathwish Squad's R&R is over, and it's time to get back to dangerous missions. See you there!