WW2

Chapter 13: Lare

"I would like to apologise," The Man said personally, "I'm sorry for calling you in earlier than you were supposed to."

"Ah, no worries. I'm happy to help plan," Doriph smiled, "I hope I'll be able to fly soon once this leg heals up."

"Soon," They shook hands before parting. Doriph walked over to Anker, who was lavishing in his steak; Luca, Oliver, and Ruth sat at the same table sipping their beer.

"The myth, the man, the legend," Doriph greeted Anker who smiled ear to ear, "It was one Hell of an operation to bring you back."

"The Germans are shitting themselves now," He laughed, reaching for his glass of milk, "Where's the other son-of-bitch, Juels?"

Luca explained, "He's informing John that he'll be transferred to a standard SOE position, kicked out basically."

"Who's this John?"

"A kid," Oliver explained, "He was with us but Juels didn't like his performance at Saumur."

"What room again?" Anker got up, wiping his face with a napkin, "The one left of us." Anker thanked him before leaving his precious meal half-eaten and his milk half empty.

Anker objected to Jules' proposition; John looked a bit confused. Despite outranking him, Juels allowed his friend to interrupt a serious conversation with an immediate objection. He tried explaining to Anker how he explained to The Man about his heavy-weight decision.

"...I needed firepower, and it was more time better to use John and Oliver rather than find new people. At Saumur, to no fault of his own... he is not cut for this. Oliver is barely."

"We can train him you know," Anker suggested.

"On a time constraint? You know why the standards exist. The whole point is highly skilled men who can get the job done better than any SOE. I've put in the word for him to transfer to one such group."

"Remember Lare?"

Juels nodded slowly as his eyebrows flustered and his lips contracted at the thought of the past, "He fought with me in Denmark, despite his  questionable performance, he dam well kept my squadron alive for a couple hours, enough to outlast the invasion."

He pointed at John briefly who looked back and forth at the two men with a straight face, and twitching hand; he looked down at them anxiously. Anker noticed this out of the corner of his eye, "John," He looked up.

"Do you want to kill Nazis?"

"N-no, I don't want to kill anyone, the prospect of such a thing... uh, yeah."

Anker looked at Juels who chuckled, "You point..."

"Your" John muttered, Anker smiled.

"... is that he doesn't want to kill."

"You, do you want to kill Nazis?"

"If I have to, or if they are SS."

"Great! So similar to me, a more neutral stance," He rushed out of the room and yelled for the rest, "Ruth was it? Do you want to kill Nazis?"

"Fuck yeah, I'll burn'em any bloody day." 

Doriph chuckled at agreed, Luca, whilst less enthusiastic, also agreed. The eyes were on Oliver, who glanced at John before looking back up at Anker, "If I have to. I don't want to kill anyone but if it needs to be done."

Juels put his hands on his hips and looked at the group, "Where are you going with this?"

"Oliver is like us, more neutral. These psychos," He pointed whilst smiling, "They want to murder, commit war crimes possibly, kill civilians maybe."

They crossed their eyebrows and were taken aback by the statement, fully intrigued by what was to come next.

"They are negative, and granted, war is negative. But every group needs a moral compass, if they don't have one, they will be no better than the Nazis when we step foot in Germany. And when push comes to shove, John will act like a psycho with a bit of training. But when it doesn't..."

Juels finished, "He would be a Lare."

"He'll be a Lare."

The room was embraced in silence before Ruth broke it, "Okay what the fuck is going on?"