Forever Torn

C1: Whatever will be, will be (2/3)

How history and events led Orcik and Solly on a boat ride to England.

The Eastern Front: 1917.

Dovid Gilevic was not the sort of man to let a small matter of two missing fingers stop him. This was war and Dovid and his friend and fellow Jewish soldier in the 'Glorious Russian Army', Avram, had been fighting on the front lines for years now. Fighting and surviving, despite the best efforts of the filthy Frits AND the incompetence of their own Russian Generals.

The year was 1917, several months after the failed Kerensky Offensive and the 'Glorious Armies of Mother Russia' was holding the line. This did not mean that occasional small attacks were not ordered by ambitious officers sat safe in their behind the lines trenches. One such attack had taken place hours before and the two friends were out in no man's land on their own.

Around them lay the dead and dying, German and Rus alike, shrouded in mist and fog which was occasionally backlit by the flashes of the bombs exploding intermittently around the foxhole where the Lithuanian Dovid and his Russian friend sheltered. Avram was busy binding Dovid's wound with one of the last of the filthy bandages he still carried.

Dovid grunted, gritting his teeth against the pain, prompting a curse from Avram. 'Hold still, damn you Dovid Gilevich. Do you want to bleed to death?'

'Not particularly,' Dovid retorted as he attempted to ignore the pain, 'Got any of that vodka left? I think this is what they call, medicinal purposes, da?'

Avram unslung his pack and produced the three quarter empty bottle of Rodnik they had taken from the body of a dead officer just that morning. Dovid took it in his uninjured right hand.

'At least Dovid Gilevich, the Frits bomb left you your drinking hand.'

Dovid took a large slug of vodka. 'Next Frits I meet, I take FOUR of his fingers. Two to pay for those I lost, one for interest and the last because I don't like Germans!'

Avram finished the binding and smiled grimly. 'There, good as new ... almost.'

Dovid struggled to his feet and shrugged as he took another belt of Rodnik. 'So I'm missing two fingers, I still have three left,' he said with true Russian fatalism, picked up from years of army service and Avram, had always suspected, a good dose of his own morose but wry character.

Avram was starting to reply good humorously when he noticed his friend's dark eyes widen, the nose above the grimy moustache tighten as it characteristically did with anger ... and then he was sprawling sideways into the mud, knocked effortlessly off his feet by the enormous strength of Dovid.

Rolling to a halt in a slight incline, Avram's senses told him to take no more than a moments breath and so he looked up to see Dovid Gilevic grappling with a German soldier while a second of the Frits lay at their feet, his face a bloody mask and the glassy remains of the vodka bottle laying next to him.

As Avram took in the scene he noticed what must have been the first German's rifle stuck in the mud wall of the foxhole and he realized the attached bayonet had been meant for his back!

No more time for thought; more Germans were jumping down and Avram's rifle was raised and firing into their midst.

A few feet away, Dovid lifted up his attacker by the throat, one handed and roared in anger until he felt the crack of the man's windpipe. Given a moment's respite and the close quarters of that part of the foxhole, he had time to throw the body aside and draw the knife from his belt while the next Frits was still trying to find room to raise his rifle. The gun spat but the bullet found only mud to rest in, while the knife plunged into the attacker's belly.

Dovid turned waving the red stained blade at the pair of surviving German soldiers. 'Come on you bastards!' he roared, 'You owe me for my hand.'

Seeking the better part of valor, the Germans turned to scrabble up the side of the hole rather than face the pair of mud and grime covered madmen before them. One escaped; the second was too slow and died where he stood with Dovid's cold steel buried in his back.

Once the fighting was done, Avram shouldered his rifle and walked over. 'Thank you Dovid Gilevich.'

The Lithuanian shrugged. 'Feh, for what?' His dark eyes turned mournful, 'No more vodka.'

Avram clapped Dovid's shoulder. 'This one was an officer. Maybe he carried something in his pack.'

'Maybe, I think after our day we are due some good fortune and a good drink.'

Avram straightened up. 'Wine. It will do until we reach our lines. Petrov owes me and HE always can find vodka!'

Dovid nodded. 'Let us go then Avram Aaronovitch.'

The bombing having died away, the two exhausted men walked back to their unit where along with vodka they received news. REVOLUTION. The Bolsheviks had taken power!

'I wonder what this will mean for the war and the future?' mused Avram.

Dovid shrugged and took a belt of Stolichnaya. 'We will know soon enough.'

***

Thanks for reading, this is a story that is really close to my heart. I'd love to hear what you think! Comments and votes are always welcome.