The action takes place during the Second World War.
Elizabeth is a recent medical school graduate from Boston who hopes to find her dream job, find a man she loves, have children and live a peaceful life. But her dreams are shattered the moment she...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
I covered my face with my hands and curled up into an embryo, as if it would help me protect myself from the explosive projectiles that suddenly started shooting and bombarding us from all sides again. I understood only one thing, everything that happened in the canteen was just a distraction.
The Germans did not even think of calming down. All this time they were setting up an ambush, and our spy-soldiers did not manage to find out everything completely. Only once again did I realize that the death of Private James was meaningless.
The Germans attacked us in revenge not only for Americans defending the British, but also for allying ourselves with the French. And also for the fact that a few days ago our battalion commander, being a complete fool, sent a few of his privates into their territory to carry out some secret mission. Probably the privates sent by our commander killed several German soldiers during that secret mission and now the enemies have come to apologize.
I'm angry on a platoon leader who is so stupid that he doesn't understand anything about military operations. I didn't understand either, but I wouldn't send any of my soldiers on such stupid missions. These mistakes can cost us dearly.
I am looking at the leadership of our army, because after all, the leader had only graduated from the military academy and had never once held a weapon in his hands, never once had he aimed at the enemy, just as no one had ever aimed a weapon at him. He had never been in a war. All he did during the war was hide in bunkers because he was afraid someone would kill him.
But we all fear death. And still we are at war day by day.
Since the day I became an army medic, I have tried to bring down the commander of this unit, to report him to higher authorities for giving wrong orders to his soldiers and causing more soldiers to die every day than should be killed. I wanted to replace him with a really experienced commander who had been in the war or was in the war, who could make rational decisions and try not only to protect himself, but not to try to lose more and more soldiers by sending them on stupid and ill-advised missions.
It hurt me that infantryman James died so senselessly. And every minute more and more soldiers are dying more senselessly than senselessly.
If the soldiers fighting on land two months ago were all seven hundred (including the British, of course), now there are only four hundred and fifty-five of them.
Again there was the deafening thunder, the exploding bombs, the sounds of firearms. I began to cough from an even bigger cloud of dust, but the next second I was dragged back into the canteen building, the east side of which was crumbling.
I saw before my eyes the same German who was going to drag me out of here and kidnap me, but now, for reasons known only to him, he decided not to let me perish. He helped me hide in the darkest, remaining healthy corner of the dining room and wrapped his strong arms around me as if trying to protect me from the world.
