A/N: Let's get back to Sveta and check out The Netherlands. Thanks for all the support!
...the gun against my head...
Svetlana | Silmarilz1701
17 September 1944 | Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Chaos always bred danger. Sveta had learned that early in her military career. Chaos was not inherently bad. Chaos was just an opportunity. Depending on who could pull the strings behind the chaos, it meant a strength or a weakness for her. And unfortunately in Eindhoven, the chaos did not belong to the Allies.
A terrible cacophony of disjointed voices filled the town. Men and women who had lived under Nazi occupation for almost half a decade took to the streets with drink and flags as the Americans moved through the town that had become theirs with suspiciously minimal effort. Hot breath filled every inch of space as she tried to work her way towards any sort of island in the chaos. The jump had felt like freedom again. But this, this chaos felt like drowning.
Her heart pounded. Sveta could feel the fear in her own body causing the sweat to pool under the heavy clothes and near her hair. Each breath became harder to take as the swarms of men and women descended on her. In the center of the raging crowd, she felt like little more than a small doll that could get stuffed into a dark chest, locked away, and never pulled into the sun again.
She couldn't understand them. She'd never learned Dutch, and her knowledge of French did nothing to help. Tears sprung to her eyes as they jostled her again and she felt a hand brush against her chest. She had to get out.
Sveta shoved with all her strength. The crowd gave way, parting so she could leave. Sveta raised her arms to shield her face as she drove a wedge between soldier and civilian, man and woman. As she reached a wall, she rubbed her palms on her waist. The solid mass behind her soothed her nerves.
It worked until she saw the dark, partially open windows in the upper stories. All of her rifle training kicked in. Those dark windows gave perfect cover. A smart sniper could sit in the shadows, cover his rifle with a dark cloth, and allow for only a muzzle to peep into the sun. He could take out dozens. They wouldn't even know what hit them.
And each window could hold a sniper. Instinct kicked in. Sveta turned her collar up and inward; hide the Captain's bars. A sniper would love to take out an officer. She grimaced as she saw no way to take the massive American flag patch off her uniform. The red, white, and blue would paint a bullseye for any Nazi looking. She could've picked off the Americans one by one from any of those upper windows.
She readjusted her helmet and her grip on the Mosin-Nagant. The crowds, barely accommodating the British tanks rolling through the street, had to be navigated. She took a deep breath. She tried to calm her nerves. Just a crowd.
Sveta made her way towards a chanting group amidst the sea of Dutch. Their words meant nothing, but the anger behind every spoken syllable didn't need a translator. She shoved Alley and Liebgott out of the way. But as she reached the circle, Sveta almost wished she hadn't.
Her breathing stopped. Two men held three women to the ground, pulled up by their hair. Sobs racked their bodies nearly in unison as the crowd screamed and spat at them. Their blood, red against their pale skin and the grey cobbles, trickled in lines from the rough use of scissors against their hair.
Sveta could not speak. Even as one stumbled away bald, nearly falling as her ankles bent in her heels against the cobbles, Sveta couldn't speak. In their eyes, she saw her own. They bled the same red as she would, if Beria could ever prove her treasonous thoughts. That would be her.
Or, that would be her if she got lucky. There were other options of course. Firing squad in an alley. Execution by hanging; Sveta knew the Germans liked that one. She could be sent to rot in the Gulag, or abandoned in Siberia. And if they didn't want her dead, Beria would be waiting, ready to call her Svetochka as he did whenever they'd minced words at parties. He'd be ready with his roses.
Someone gripped her arm. Sveta spun, twisting to smack the arm away as her adrenaline spiked. Fear controlled her movements. Just as she angled the man's arm away, she froze. It wasn't Beria. It wasn't even a Russian in front of her. Just Winters, who couldn't seem able to decide between showing the pain his arm must've been in at her move or confusion at her actions. Sveta let go as he grimaced against the pain.
"We're moving out," he told her. Even though he raised his voice to be heard over the still shouting crowd, he almost couldn't cut through their vitriol. "Come on."
Sveta nodded. Wasting no more time, Sveta pushed after him where she saw Harry, Compton, and Nixon. The foremost looked at her in confusion. He must've seen her reaction. Sveta bit her lip. But as she reached Harry, he said nothing.
"The Dutch resistance got some intel from an outside source in addition to their runners," Winters said. He pointed towards a doorway where a group of six stood. "I don't know who they are, but Strayer said we can trust them."
Sveta narrowed her eyes. They looked familiar. Three men, three women. Two were blonde, one had red hair, and the last three had dark hair. But she couldn't place them. It bothered her to not know where their sources came from, but Winters left them no time to debate as he moved forward. She followed.
"We need to reach the next bridge ASAP," Winters continued. "Harry, Buck, find the other officers and Lipton. Make sure they get the men organized outside the city limits immediately."
Sveta spared them barely a glance as Harry and Compton split. Where Compton had gone, Zhanna probably would end up. The man who had decided he had more right to protect the woman's Soviet rifle than her Soviet friend. Sveta clenched her fists. But she had to move on. So instead she just let her gaze linger on the empty windows.
"Samsonova!"
She flinched at Winters' stern voice. Shoving down her fear as she realized he and Nixon were scrutinizing her every move, Sveta nodded for him to lead the way again. It didn't take too much longer for them to reach the city limits. They found Dog Company already assembling off to the left. With the crowd behind them, Sveta breathed a bit easier.
"Are you alright?" Winters' mouth set in a thin line as he watched her.
Nixon stood sipping at his flask. But he did much the same, watching her every movement. He raised an eyebrow. "You're extra jumpy today."
Her fists clenched as anger surged through her. They didn't know. They couldn't know, they couldn't understand. They could never grasp what it had been like to live near a man who shadowed her every move, who prowled the halls of Stalin's estates waiting to catch her alone, catch her with her guard down. They couldn't understand, and the two men in front of her were not on her list of people she wanted to explain it to. No one was on that list. Not even Zhanna.
"I'm fine. Your concern is duly noted, but unfounded," Sveta insisted. "Let's get moving. We aren't here to stand gawking at the girls in pretty dresses."
"Dick, she's fine, didn't you know? Sounds just like her usual cheerful self," Nixon said. He smiled, as if making a joke, but the sarcasm dripping from his voice reflected the hardness of his dark eyes.
She could feel her jaw clench. She could feel her fists balling up, wanting to hit something, anything. Fight, not flight. She had learned to fight after August 1940. "Shut your mouth, Captain, before I shut it for you."
"Both of you stop. Now," Winters insisted. "Samsonova, go check with Dog Company, check with their CO and then report back here within ten minutes. I want to be gone no later than that."
Sveta nodded once, then stalked off. She could hear Nixon snickering behind his flask as even as her back turned. Some days, she could almost tolerate him. Not like him, but tolerate him. Other days she wanted to shoot him. And apparently, today was one of those days.
"Lieutenant Kelly!" She called over to the Platoon Leader for Third Platoon. The man turned, grimacing a bit when he saw her but straightening up and offering a salute she returned. "Where's Lieutenant McMillan?"
"He's with Second Platoon, ma'am." Kelly pointed some meters down the line, behind himself. "Is Easy moving out?"
"Yes. In no more than ten minutes." She paused. "Tell McMillan to follow us out. I need to locate Captain Winters and Major Strayer."
"Yes, ma'am."
With a final nod, she turned to look over his gathered troops. As usual, they regarded her with a mix of cold disgust and total indifference. She preferred the latter. Sveta didn't mind Dog, not anymore. She didn't like them, but they were competent. Much more than Fox Company and even Sveta had to admit that McMillan was an excellent leader. He deserved the promotion to Commanding Officer.
Sveta found Winters and Harry by a tank. They were chatting with one of the British officers, pointing down the road. By the time she reached them, they'd finished up and moved off. Winters nodded to her. "Nixon and I are taking a jeep if you want to join. Otherwise the men are hitching rides on the tanks."
"I'll take the tank," Sveta told him. Then she turned to Harry, "Have you seen Casmirovna?"
"She and Buck were checking on Second Platoon," Harry said. "I'm heading up to First, if you want shotgun."
"Shotgun?"
He chuckled. "Never mind. Must be an American thing."
They moved off towards the front of the Armored caravan. Men swarmed the tanks like ants on a honeyed treat. She saw Muck and Penkala climbing as far up as they could on the third one, and on the first, Martin, Bull, and their squads.
Harry and Sveta climbed onto the second one. She accepted his grip as he hauled her up, plopping down near the barrel of the gun. Next to her sat Alley, and on his right, Sisk. Liebgott jumped on just before the machine roared to life.
While Harry turned to chat with Luz and Perconte on his right, Sveta sat silent. She watched out at the countryside, green and lush as she had always heard the Netherlands were like. It reminded her a bit of home, or what she wished home could be. Beautiful, calm. Alive.
"Hey, Captain, you ever been here?"
Sveta turned. Alley had spoken to her, but Liebgott and Sisk leaned closer to hear her answer. She still didn't speak much to the enlisted. Zhanna got along with them much better. They had accepted her. But Sveta was a Russian with ties to the elite, and though they didn't know that elite was the NKVD, they seemed to sense the danger of associating too close.
"The Netherlands?" When he nodded, she shook her head. "No. Besides Russia, I have been to Finland, and Austria once, as a child. Britain, France, and America now," she reminded him. "But not here."
"How cold is Russia?" Sisk asked her.
Sveta grinned. She shook her head, looking away for a moment. The ever-popular question. It seemed that Russia and Siberia were one and the same to anyone not from there. Or at least, any American. "Not everywhere, no. In Stalingrad, where I grew up, it gets as warm as many of the places we trained in America."
"Really? Fuck. Why do people get so scared of the Eastern Front then?"
Sveta's smile fell. "Because some of Russia is bitterly cold, Liebgott. And the Krauts were not prepared when they invaded, not like my people." The tiniest hint of a smirk broke her frown. "They found out the hard way that the Motherland will never fall."
"Shit. Crazy stuff," Alley said. He nodded. "So you like it there?"
Sveta hesitated. But before she had to answer, Sergeant More pointed to their left. Sveta looked out beyond the men on her tank. Sisk stood up to try to get a better view, but she could see just fine. She could see the bleeding, broken woman cradling a child to her chest in her ripped clothes.
She didn't even cry. Her dead eyes reminded Sveta of the women who she'd seen around Beria. The woman's brown eyes looked towards the men. She saw Sveta, and for the briefest moment, she considered getting down. But then she remembered the thousand eyes that would be drawn to her and realized she couldn't.
In the same way she couldn't help the women with Beria, the best she could offer her was a tiny smile and a nod. When the tank moved past, she sighed. The world would spin on. The woman would be forgotten. It never changed.
"I mean, yeah, I feel bad for the broad but she slept with the Krauts," Liebgott argued to Alley. She had missed what had prompted it, but Liebgott continued on and she felt the blood drain from her heart. "Anyone who associates with the Nazis is a collaborator, far as I'm concerned."
"Ain't that the truth," More agreed. "Nazis fucks."
Alley shrugged. "Yeah, guess so." He dug through his pocket and pulled out a handful of cigarettes. Liebgott, More, and Sisk accepted them gladly. Then he turned to her. "Captain?"
Words caught in her throat. But she nodded and took one. They didn't understand. She couldn't let them understand. They could never know about the NKVD and Gestapo. They could never know that it had been her father to bring them together. They could never know because they could never understand.