Spending time in base

Today is a splendid day, it is sunny, it is not cold at all, the wind is not blowing and it seems that there will be no precipitation of any kind until at least next week. A pity that I have to stay here without being able to move from the place during all this precious week.

The team prepares to leave, Haase's punishment of exploring the front line ahead of the lines still stands and as it applied to both my Gruppe and me, they still have to do it.

Eugene says goodbye to me. I wish you all luck, from today you will have to manage with one less member in the group for a whole week.

All my Gruppe climb up Eber, starts up and leaves with the characteristic rattle of half-tracks.

In a short time, everything is calm and silent and the pain of loneliness gradually takes hold of me.

I'm all alone. It is the first time since I came into this world except for my time at the Hozzel family home that I am completely alone.

I had been waiting for a moment like this to analyze my host's memories, mine and try to unite both 'lives' in an attempt to prevent the life of one from engulfing the other. A solution that could help both parties and try to avoid the memory loss of one of the two or at least minimize the damage.

So I went back to the tent, lay down on my sleeping bag; still hot; And I closed my eyes

Let's review facts and memories. Apart from Erik's memories, which seem to be intact; the memories 'mine' do not seem to have more detail than that which had nothing to do closely with my personality, with my old way of being.

I know that the day I "disappeared", that I was transported, the day I arrived in this world I was in an interior and closed space together with other people, all with the same tastes, or at least similar.

I don't remember what those tastes were, I don't remember why I wanted to go to that building. I don't remember the theme of the presentations at the convention that I went to visit.

Presentations ... I didn't know that before, I'm getting results.

It was a convention, with many people. What kind of people? Why would I want to go there? I remember that I had been waiting for that day for a long, long time. But why?

It's all so diffuse and difficult ...

It was more difficult for me to concentrate to try to access these memories than to attempt a matrix optimization exercise with four variables and four constraints.

Why do I remember the horrible algebra lessons they gave me to the point of sweating blood and I can't remember my own tastes before this unexpected 'trip'?

If Mutter were here… According to Vater, Mutter was able to solve any worldly problem with ease without losing her hair. Vater had Mutter very idealized, or maybe it was love.

Mutter was or is, a witch. Witches can do things that 'normal' people cannot; destroy aircraft carriers or hives…

Wait, that ... where did that come from?

My head is starting to hurt. I need you to give me air. I open my eyes and get up from my makeshift bed.

I leave my store to find a natural setting surrounded by trees of different shades of green.

The gentle and pleasant breeze caresses my face. It makes you want to go for a walk, but I don't think my superiors like the idea of having me out there sightseeing, keeping me here is supposed to be a punishment.

The idea is that this week is something like penance. It was then that I realized that I had offered to review the Gruppe's weapons.

I start with the weapons here; my Kar98, an MP40 that must belong to Kurt and an MG-42 that I honestly don't know why they haven't taken.

The disassembling of the Kar98 is easy, since it is my weapon; Erik received enough training and knowledge to fully understand the weapon. Which I use right now to completely disassemble it, then and to avoid mixing the different parts of the different weapons I begin to clean and calibrate each of the parts of my rifle, after the process I reassemble it completely.

What I miss the most is listening to music while doing something. But my music, not classical music. Classical music is fine for a little while, but not for life. I miss my long sessions of makina ... That ... Well, it seems that I just need quiet time to remember my previous life, perfect because I will have a whole week of tranquility to settle all of Erik's memories and try to rediscover mine.

When finishing the rifle I start with the submachine gun, it's easy, apparently it has a much simpler mechanism than my rifle. I disassemble it in a few seconds, clean each of its parts in minutes, and reassemble it in almost the same amount of time that disassembly took me.

Now comes the challenge, the MG42, this weapon is a piece of engineering, its design is still used in the German army; with some improvements and under the name MG3. Here are more memories ...

The machine gun has many parts but everything fits perfectly, it has a more complex mechanism than that of my own rifle but at the same time similar.

When you assemble the pieces it is as if you were assembling a puzzle, everything has a single position and when you assemble it in that place and in a specific order, everything makes sense and works perfectly.

After disassembling the huge machine gun, I clean it and reassemble. Like the previous times.

I feel the urge to know the time, if it is more than ten o'clock they will no longer serve breakfast, but when I put my hand in my pocket I discover that my mobile is not there. Where is my cell phone? Where have I put it? It's huge, it's not something you can easily lose. It can't have fallen ...

Wait, what is a cell phone? Is it another memory of my previous life? The time is looked at on the clock. Of course not. In the left pocket of my shirt is my watch, I have to wind it every night so that it does not stop marking the time. I take it out and check the time; there's still time. I have thirteen minutes to go, have breakfast, and come back. The only bad thing is that I have finished with everything 'useful' that I could do while the detention lasted and I still have the whole day ahead.

I leave the rest space assigned to my Gruppe and go to the dining room. There I meet some commanders, it seems they are going to say something but when they look at my face they make a face; almost everyone does the same; and then they just swallow their words. Members of the artillery units are also in the dining room. These people are the ones who transform the attack coordinates in degrees up or down and right or left in their respective artillery pieces.

As soon as I get to the dining room and realize there is no one from thirty-three, I let out a long sigh of despair and boredom.

There is no one I can talk to, a long or short period of confinement and isolation should not be hard at all; not while you have the internet, not after you have passed the quarantine and the state of alarm of the covid crisis. Shit, there go again disconnected memories ...

I go to the portable kitchen, pick up a plate and wait in the short line for him to touch me, when the man in charge of giving the food arrives he looks at me with a face of bad excuse. The man is Unteroffizier.

"Sorry boy, there isn't much food left." Says the provisioning Unteroffizier.
"It's okay Herr Unteroffizier, they have given me a punishment of half rations for a week. I guess breakfast will count too."
"Ohh… I see, you are very responsible. So, are you the boy who stayed behind to defend the withdrawal of the two Gruppen from yesterday's skirmishes?" Asks the man raising his voice in the last part of the question.
"Yes sir. But you don't have to yell it out. I was supposed to disobey an order."

The man just smiles and now I can see how everyone looks at me. Even those furthest from the portable kitchen turn their gazes at me.

"Now that the presentations are done, go sit there, I don't think there is someone who does not want to sit with you."

I nod and take the plate of food, then go to one of the tables, an empty one. I sit down and start eating in silence.

Not ten seconds passed when someone sits next to me. I turn to see who would want to sit with me; apart from my comrades from the thirty-third Panzergrenadier.

It was a fair-skinned blond Obersoldat with gray eyes and a conscript smile that couldn't beat him. I also noticed that his badges were surrounded by a red frame, the boy must have belonged to an artillery unit.

"Are you the Gefreiter Hozzel?" I nod without saying a word. "The same one that destroyed an enemy formation yesterday?" The boy made it seem like an inhuman feat, nothing could be further from the truth. He should get rid of his doubts. I understand that for someone used to just loading shells into a cannon the stories from the front might sound super epic but I can't let you be fooled this way.
"I don't know what you mean by formation, they were a few light ground troops. Training sounds very ostentatious. It sounds like a large number. And I did not do it alone."
"Maybe not but it is said that you destroyed most of them yourself." The excited young man replied.
"With them being one more than half, they are already considered the majority, it is not so bad. It is the amount that my Gruppe destroys on average per day."
"That's a lot too. Anyone in my unit thinks you are a hero."
"Well, stop thinking about that. My father was a hero, he and his unit; they stayed with their FLAK acht-acht cannon in the front, keeping the line so that the enemies did not exceed the defense cordon of the evacuation. Or my mother, who came back with her squad when I was five years old and I never heard from her again." I feel something hot sliding down my cheek, my host's emotions overtook me again and now I'm crying while yelling at a boy unknown. "I'm sorry." I apologize to the boy and his unit who were waiting behind him. It's not their fault that Erik's life is a fucking disaster. "I needed to explode. It was going to happen sooner or later and it was your turn. I'm sorry Obersoldat."
"Nothing happens, we are all human. If you feel better you could tell me about your parents." The boy is understanding or just curious.

I take a break to finish breakfast, today I have nothing else to do so it is not a bad plan to stay here and tell a boy from my same division who is just trying to socialize.

I sniff my snot a little, clear my throat, and take a ready breath to begin.

"Let's see. My father belonged to a reserve battalion, to an anti aircraft unit more specifically. That, together with my mother's position, allowed the family to live well and quietly. My father went to Hispania to receive additional training as I recall considering whether he wanted to switch to a heavier unit like the acht-acht. That was the last time according to Vater he saw Mom. They met at the end of the 'Great War.' I don't know what they saw of each other but they fell in love and in a few years my mother; Paula Vera Hozzel asked for time to start a family. They gave her permission and after I don't know what problems my father had with her family, they bought a house and started a life together. My father renounced his surname and took my mother's, that's why I surname myself as my mother and not as my father; he always laughed because he said that he had managed to get rid of his last name but he always dragged his four names. He never told me the other three ." I take a breath to continue and I realize that everyone is waiting for my little story. Doesn't anyone have anything better to do? Anyway…
"A few years later a conflict breaks out in Hispania and Mutter goes with her Stuka girls there. A few years later Vater is advised to go to Hispania. That year I spent at the home of the Koll, my neighbors. By the end of the year Vater was back and I spent the rest of my life with him until Operation Bifrost began and waited for Mutter to come home one day. The only thing I managed to find out is that it was deployed to the Baltic around 1940 and Vater was deployed to the eastern lines as part of the defense force for the evacuation. As soon as I enrolled in the Panzergrenadier Schule, I received a letter in which they reported that both my father and the rest of his unit had fallen in combat defending the evacuation." I take a deep breath to try not to scream and cry. When my pulse recovers, I continue with the narration. "Later I found out that the situation in the Baltic is not exactly good and that we lost some ships. And after all this chain of misfortunes, here I am on the Eastern front to continue with the family tradition.- I pause again.- And now with all this new information, are you still thinking the same, Obersoldat? Do you still think the same about me, that I destroyed twenty-five of those black and red cocoons, knowing that my father must have destroyed dozens more than me just in the first few hours and that God knows how many he would have sent to heaven from the neuroi my mother in her hundreds of outings?"
"Wow. Your family is amazing, no wonder you are like that. Still, they told me there were fifteen and not twenty-five. Which is more than what a Gruppe can take alone."
"And what do you want me to say?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to meet you. Artillery doesn't feel as cool as being up front with the panzers".
"Artillery is better than Aufklärungs, You can do damage and a lot; but without exposing yourself to an enemy shot."
"Aufklärungs? They told me it was from the 33rd Panzergrenadier but they didn't tell me anything about the specific unit. Sorry but I don't know what your unit does. Would you mind telling me?"

Technically this is learned in the academy but in this division everyone must act in a fatherly or fraternal way and it is never wrong to instruct the 'fresh' troops.

"Let's see… Aufklärungs is a branch of the Panzergrenadier that has Gruppen smaller than the usual Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier Gruppen. We are a recon unit, we are even ahead of the Panzers; that's the reason why I haven't seen many."
"But then your unit is even cooler. They are not in the lines, but behind. Groups of intrepid soldiers. I wish they hadn't marked me as unfit for the Panzergrenadier Schule."
"That is not so either, Obersoldat." We all fulfilled our role in the division, if we all occupied the same tasks, time would cause us to have been overwhelmed by the enemy. Artillery is essential, when we find something at the front that not even the PAK cannons we carry can kill it, we call in artillery. And it is units like yours that destroy enemies with which not even the Panzers at the front could, so be proud of your unit, Obersoldat."
The boy shows an expression as if a revelation had come to him. "Ahh… Yes." Yes sir. You are right.- The boy begins to withdraw to his place of placement when I make a sign that I am going to continue talking to him. "Yes, sir?"
"We have almost the same rank, don't call me sir. You make me feel old and we must be the same age, more or less." The boy nods and leaves with his unit mates, who had been waiting for the boy; whose name I did not ask; until I finished telling the story of my family, well Erik's.

After that I just got up from my place, put my plate next to the portable kitchen where the Unteroffizier from before was waiting; he picked up my plate with a smile. After reminiscing about Erik's painful memories, I didn't feel like locking myself in the tent again so I went for a walk around the division camp.

Walking for a while I get to what looks like showers, or the toilet place of the bulk of the division. Someone has hung recruiting posters on the poles that carry the weight of the huge tent.

As if we needed a claim for recruitment when we were already recruited, in fact we are already at the front but hey; I guess it's part of the pop culture of the moment.

One of the posters catches my attention, it is an image of a witch with huge aerial strikers. The witch wears a black suit that covers her body as if it were a tunic.

Wait I know this witch, I don't know her personally but I know who she is.

"Lent…"

She is a night witch from Karlsland, she was the one who tested the detection antennas used by night witches today ... Another memory from before? No… Wait, yes. Although I don't know why it is related to this world. I need more encouragement.

I get out of the showers and head toward the radio station. According to Uwe, there are the most fanatical witches. If an image has been sufficient stimulus to evoke part of my "past" memories then I have to go with those who have more images and information. I may thus be able to unlock my memories instead of letting Erik's memories bury mine.

I arrive at the store that occupies the radio and the broadcasting center. On the pretext of finding any news about my missing mother, I am going to try to get her collection shown to me.

"Hi." Every good conversation begins with a greeting. People at their radio stations turn to look at me. There is no one with a higher rank than Gefreiter so I won't have to face stupid or uncomfortable questions.
"Do you need something?" Asks one of the boys with whom I share rank.
"Yes. I would like to know if you have information about other fronts." Introduction. Now the bait and the hook will go. "I was talking to some artillery guys in the dining room and they reminded me of some things." I let my voice shake to give the scene realism. I could have already had these skills in my old life, they would have come in handy. "I would like to know if you have any information about the status of the Baltic fleet." That is the bait.
"What exactly are you looking for? We can help you get in touch with a family member or find information about that person but only if it does not exceed our obligations."
"Yes. I get it. Could you see if you have any information about the witches of the Baltic?" I notice how everyone's eyes light up. The bait is there, the hook has just fallen into the water, now I have to drop fishing line if I want them to trust them.
"Why do you need that information? Anyone close to you?" Asks the boy with more self-interest than really helping.
"My… My mother served in a squad of Stukas over there. Then I heard that the fleet had to withdraw and since I haven't received any letters from her for a long time" more or less since I was five years old "I wanted to know about her by other means. Can you help me?"
The boy was now glowing up to his face. He takes me by the shoulders."Don't worry, we'll help you. What's your mother's name? Name and surname if possible"
"Sure. Paula Vera Hozzel. I think he commanded the unit. But I don't really know what she did in the unit." Totally true, since she left when Erik was five years old she never again established contact with anyone other than her father. So Erik had no idea what his mother did when she went into combat. He knew what the Stukas and the Witches did and therefore he could imagine his mother's actions but he never heard her say it from her lips.
"Hozzel? It doesn't sound familiar to me." The boy answers. The light in the eyes of the rest diminishes a little in intensity and in some it even turns off. "Don't worry, I'll move a couple of strings and we'll find out your mother's position." The boy answered with resolution.
"It does not seem that you know of her" I answered discouraged. "If you have a photo or image I could try to identify some of my mother's companions." The light in the boys' glances resurfaces.
"Hans. Go to the back with the Gefreiter, since you have the most extensive collection you will serve as a first contact. We will cover you."

I follow the aforementioned Hans to the back of the store, there is a 'secret gap' between the store, the generator and the huge antenna. Enough for three people to sit on the floor. There is a wooden box there that they will use as a bedside table.

Hans carries a metal box, the size of a lunch box, with him. He wears it as if it were the most precious thing he had in life. It probably is for him.

At the 'secret gap' the boy, Hans, put the lunch box on the box and then sat on the floor with his legs crossed. I knelt in front of the box, right in front of Hans. Hans opened his box and took out a huge block of sheets of paper, there were sheets of different types of paper, of different colors, of different thicknesses. You must have been doing this for a long, long time. The collection is absurdly large. If none of the images is repeated here there could easily be around a thousand witches.

"Okay, here's my collection. Which one would you like to start with?" Asks the restless boy, it seems that he does not like to show his collection to 'pagans' but on the other hand, being the family of a witch, he must have mixed feelings right now.
"Tell me about it you. I only know my mother and her friends. But they might not be witches."
"Okay, we'll start with the night witches that are less."

Hans gives me an image of Lent, clearly it is the same witch but the image is different. I nod and he passes me another. She is a girl dressed in dark clothes but she is not from my country. I don't recognize it. I nod and he passes me another image. This time it is a witch with clothes similar to Lent's. I recognize this witch. It is…

"Prinzessin… "
"Aha. It is well known. And pretty"
"And gullible... "

At the last comment Hans does not look at me so well. Another image passes me. It is a recruitment poster in English, there is a witch that I do not recognize at all, but he must be famous in his country if it is used as a recruitment claim.

Little by little I start to see more and more witches until an image catches my attention.

"Sanya… " Wait, I know this witch. My head starts to hurt again but I try to hold it, my host's body tries to mark a route for me to follow and every time I get out of it it makes my headache. But I need to know."Sanya. It is five hundred and one."
"Incorrect. She's from the Orussia Air Force. It is said that they will send her to that squadron but it has not happened yet." Hans corrects me.

Hans keeps passing me more and more images and eventually we finish the collection of night witches.

"Since you mentioned it before, I'm going to pass you the joint wing squad collection. We will start with the one named above; the five hundred and one 'strike witches' ." Hans announces.
"Ok." Hans stops taking chips from the lunch box and looks at me with a certain strange face. Sure, I just used an American way of speaking in a context that we could call German, and on top of that, it's a term that didn't appear until the Vietnam War. Why do I only remember bullshit and not what I really want to know? "I mean, it's fine" Hans nods and starts the tile and picture dance again.

We start with the witches that the name seems to be from here, by here I mean my new country. Little by little my head goes from hurting as if it were going to burst to feeling a deep rest. My thoughts begin to emerge from my trapped old life and to fit into the new brain. Each image evokes new memories, still disconnected, so I decide that I have to finish the collection before letting the avalanche of thoughts approach me.

As soon as the collection is done I try to keep my overflowing thoughts under control.

"My mother was from a Stukas squad, don't you have any pictures of any witch Stuka out there?" This process was taking too long. Something in the back of my head tells me that my old self would have invested the time it took to see each and every one of those witches. Unfortunately or fortunately I was neither Erik nor the person of my previous life. Now I was focused on becoming a mixture of both to try not to lose any memory of either part.

Hans starts looking through his collection, it must be a specific type which should not be very easy to find.

"Aha. Here. I only have one. The Stuka witches were never very high in the media and they never really liked the press. Fortunately, a reporter managed to get close to this specific witch, took photos of her and even did a detailed interview. That's all I have."

Hans then passes me an image, it is cut out of a newspaper.

In this photo there is a woman not as young as the ones seen in the other images. In constitution she resembles Lent. She wears a gray uniform, or of a color somewhat lighter than our uniforms, the witch wears an officer's cap but on both sides of the hat the ears of her family member stand out; As the photo is in black and white, I cannot tell what color her hair is, her eyes or the fur of her family member or the uniform itself.

The witch does have a very relevant characteristic, she has a kind of rather terrifying scar that crosses a certain part of her face just above the bridge of her nose.

I can't imagine how painful the wound that caused that scar must have been.

"Rudel ... I know her ... But I'm not sure I've seen her with Mutter …" I remember seeing her on my computer screen or on my mobile phone thousands of times, but according to Erik's memories they had never crossed paths before.
"It's the only witch Stuka I have. I'm sorry but I have no more."
"It doesn't matter Hans. Thank you very much for your assistance. Now I have to go back to my tent, I'm supposed to serve punishment."
"So, are you the guy that is talked about today?"
"I do not know. For me it is just another day on the eastern front."

After this I thanked the other members of the communications team and went back to my store. There was still time until lunch, but I could try to get some sleep to try and settle all the memories I rescued from the bottom today.

I walked with a contrite face trying to keep my composure in the face of the overflowing amount of memories that were emerging inside my head at this moment and the pain that it caused me to try to force them out.

I arrived at my store again with little difficulty, since it seems that everyone was doing their chores and I did not have the misfortune of meeting anyone.

I go into my tent, take off my jacket and hang it on the rope that runs through it, then I lean back in my jacket and close my eyes. It scares me a little because I don't know what will come next; As soon as I close my eyes and let the memories flow out I don't really know what will happen.

As soon as I close my eyes, nothing happens. But just seconds later, the images of the witches that I have seen today and the memories they evoked in me begin to connect with each other. Every time I try to "catch" a single piece of information before finishing the connection process a flurry of pain much like something between a migraine and a hangover headache shoots up in my head and I have to "drop" the memory.

Now to make the process less painful, because it already causes a slight migraine, I have to let the memories interconnect themselves and bring more and more memories from the bottom with them.

After what seems like a few hours I begin to have the complete image, although I still do not have all the information I think I am well screwed.

I think I have lost the desire to eat. It also appears that the interconnection process has not yet completed.

It still continues this annoying process whereby I am prevented from doing anything but annoying enough and with intermittent and irregular peaks intense enough that you cannot get used to it or sleep.

Ugh ... I don't know what time it is, I feel dizzy and nauseous ... I'm going to ... I get up quickly from the sleeping bag and rush out of the store. I run to some trees away from the store, where I hope I can drop the load. I hold myself with one hand against the trunk of one of the trees and rest the other on my knee as I bend to face the ground, open my mouth, and begin to vomit.

Shit when was the last time I threw up like this, was it at town holidays or during college parties?

Damn, for the vomiting I have thrown I would say that I should have several degrees of alcohol in the blood and yet I know that I have not drunk because in the Wehrmacht they do not give us alcohol.

Drugs yes, but no alcohol. I guess they are not yet aware of all the damage they can cause.

Ahh, fuck. I thought that when I got back to my old self it would be a lot easier, but no, this is far from okay.

Now I know how hard life will be here. On the one hand it is fine because he probably will not have the trauma of ever killing another person, on the other hand that trauma will be replaced by the vision of soulless monsters that hunt us wherever we go.

The worst of all is that now I will have to see the guys at the radio station again without any excuse to try to get Hans to let me have another look at his collection; there were witches that I don't remember being in the index.

Now I also have in mind to ask for a little class change. Right now I am Gefreiter, when my sentence is over I will be Obergefreiter, that rank was reserved for the uncle of the MG42 and my squad, I mean my Gruppe, he has no MG among the troops. I want to fill that gap.

I just vomited and put my hand in my pocket, I was moving my hand for a while until I realized that I came "empty" to this world. I don't have my cell phone. How I miss it. With your watch, your agenda and all the functions. You may not have a signal here and you could never reconnect but it would be quite useful. It would have the sharpest and most accurate optics in the entire military or the world.

Damn, I don't know if I'll survive without a computer and / or internet for a week, plus there's no alcohol or books, they don't even have a cinema; a decent one. How am I going to miss the two thousand ...

What am I going to do with the time I have left here for punishment? I think it will be even harder now than before.

The only good thing about the situation is that my Gruppe has not returned yet and my head no longer hurts.

I wipe the corner of my mouth with a cloth handkerchief and go back to the store. Now I have the feeling that tomorrow will not be a better day but with nothing better to do and without that annoying headache I can finally sleep.

Someone shakes me gently, my Gruppe is back. I do not know what time it will be but if they have already returned or it is night and they return for dinner and sleep or it is the next day and they return for breakfast. In any case I am happy because this loneliness is killing me.

I open my eyes to clear my doubts and there is my 'childhood friend' Eugen.

"Wake up sleepyhead." Eugen says with the softness that precedes him and a smile. It is covered with dirt.
"What happened to you? Did you have a raid?"
"Ahh. This? Just a shot from a turtle hit the ground near me and covered me with dirt." He responds in a conciliatory tone.

Eugen pulls away and I get up, grab my jacket and walk out of the store followed by Eugen. Once outside, I put on my jacket and paint myself; waving to Kurt coming towards me.

"At ease. How was the day outside the Gefreiter front?"
"Horribly long, Herr Unteroffizier." I finished cleaning the weapons I had at my disposal ahead of schedule and I couldn't sleep until lunchtime either.
"I see. I'll tell Herr Haase to give you an assignment while you're serving your sentence."
"Thanks Herr Unteroffizier. Another thing."
"Yes Gefreiter?"
"Now that I'm going to be an Obergefreiter, don't you think I should take my position as operator of the MG-42?"
Kurt smiles, as if he already had foreseen this situation. "Of course Gefreiter, in fact, I was waiting for you to occupy that position. As the second highest ranking person in the Gruppe you should already be occupying that position, and I am glad that you have finally decided to fulfill the obligations of your rank. I will add training and guidance for the use of the MG in combat to the assignments."
"Thanks again Herr Unteroffizier." I turn to the rest of the Gruppe. "And now, who would like to have the gun cleaned first?"
"Me!" Uwe answers before anyone else, it's as if he had been waiting for this moment.

I smile and take Uwe's rifle, then I just sit on the ground, Uwe hands me the disassembly tools and I begin to disassemble the weapon leaving the pieces on a piece of cloth that Uwe has put so that none of the parts of his precious rifle is stained with dirt from the ground.

With the rifle completely disassembled into pieces, I take the pieces one by one and in a process of picking up, cleaning, oiling and assembling, I piece together Uwe's rifle.

When I finish the process, I hand him back his rifle. Uwe takes it in his hands and slings it over his shoulder to check the accuracy of the sight. He seems satisfied.

I repeat the process with Eugen's rifle, then Johann's, and finally Kurt's MP-40.

All my colleagues seem satisfied with my work. It is not a big deal either, they are supposed to train all of us to be able to do it ourselves.

At dinner time I go with my Gruppe to the dining room, on our turn the whole Aufklärungs squad is present.

As soon as we sit down with our plates Kurt goes over to Haase's table and sits down with him.

They talk about something, Haase seems surprised, Kurt says something else to him and Haase suddenly exclaims:

"At last!"

After that he is calmed down by Kurt who tries to silence the other Gruppen's comments and avoid the stares.

Haase gives me a look I can't decipher.

After dinner Kurt walks over to me before we go to sleep.

"I have already spoken with Herr Feldwebel Haase, he is glad that you finally want to take on the role of MG operator, he has also given me ideas of what you could do while you are serving your sentence." At this last comment I feel a chill run down my spine when He gives me a crooked smile.
"Thank you Herr Unteroffizier." What else can I say? It is too late to retract.

After that we go to sleep, finally.