German Front: The Laws of War

The air was heavy with smoke and cordite as the final remnants of the battle drifted through the clustered trees. Explosions had ripped huge craters in the sandy German dirt, while trees and splintered and shattered under the strain of barrages. Smoke drifted from scorchmarks in the dirt, while bodies were scattered a plenty across the hill's low rise, accompanied by the few hulks of destroyed or damaged vehicles.

With a loud metallic clank, Fredrick threw down the last of the Gauss weapons atop the pile, before wiping the dirt and blood from his soiled hands. The stag gave a tired sigh as he surveyed over the collected weapons he had taken from the enemy fallen, alongside the black powder and chemical laser weapons of his own dead. His nostrils twitched at the overpowering stench of death and fire, before turning around and staggering off, feeling wet blood soak through his shirt. All around him, infantrymen of the WFFA sat in slumped groups, gasping and panting as they recovered from the short but ferocious battle they had just fought. He watched a feline medic desperately try and bandage dressings around a male human's leg, a light machine gun crew huddled together and staring blankly into space, a weeping serval being comforted by a bloodied doe. It tore him apart to see his friends and comrades in such a state, but it was better than them lying under a thin layer of earth as so many now did.


It had been a patrol in force: Three platoons had left the firebase to scout through the contested zone. Two hours in, and they had crossed paths with a EKP patrol of similar size. Each side a taken up positions at either side of a wooded valley and simply hurled fire at each other. Fredrick's old rifle had claimed at least four or five of the enemy from his position behind a fallen log. The skirmish had lasted almost five minutes before the WFFA managed to push the enemy back through explosives and light mortars. In response, the EKP had fled, their APCs spraying the attackers with machinegun fire before one was destroyed and the other immobilised by anti-tank weapons.


At a small mound of shredded birch saplings, he found his captain. Kathae stood with two of her sergeants, talking furtively to one another. Fredrick approached her and snapped out the best salute he could, as dirtied as he was. The she-wolf turned around to acknowledge the cervine, her muscular body framed hellishly by a flaming bush. She may have been over forty years old, but none would dare say she did not look every bit the warrior queen, even with filthy fatigues and a wet stain of blood running down her calf.
"Lieutenant" she nodded "Good to see you're still in one piece..." she saw the massive patches of blood across his front and raised her eyebrow quizzically.
"Private Brunnet" he explain wearily "She has grenade fragments in her lower body and lodged against her spine. We got her stable but unconscious, paralysis is likely"
"Terrible. We've got less than two platoons now. That makes around fourteen serious injuries with more minor cases to go. How is ammunition?"
"Most have around two to three magazines or batteries left. Not much to be combat effective"

The captain nodded and turned away towards the screaming sound of sparks flying. An engineer had gotten his blowtorch out and began to weld plates of metal over the ragged RPG hole torn in the side of the mostly intact APC. The second simply burned, creating a searing tomb for the crew inside.
"We're getting the hell out of here" she said after a few seconds "Before their Panzers and MTs show up"
"Of course ma'am" Fredrick nodded, glad to be getting out of the blasted, smoke-drenched wasteland. "Shall I order the wounded to be loaded and the men get ready to march"
The wolf held up her clawed hand. "Not quite yet lieutenant. We have a very pressing concern to deal with" she waved him forwards and marched smartly over to a clump of tattered birch and pine trees, her lieutenant following doggedly behind.



What she lead him to was a large ragged hole, most likely left from some months old bombardment. Sitting within them there were twelve EKP soldiers. All battered, bruised and irate. Each one was a predator: wolves, dogs, bears, cats and reptiles, snarling and jabbering at the the WFFA men guarding them. Some sat at the back, clutching bleeding wounds and staring with vacant eyes as they watched their colleagues rage and yell, too broken to join in

"POWs?" Fredrick asked, a little confused "what about them? We shackle them up and pull them back, then ship them off to the west"
Kathae sighed and shook her head. "I'm afraid it's not that simple lieutenant. You know the situation back home. Unless we get another shipment through from command, our little firebase with be on worse than half rations. Do you think Brunnett or Gunter would survive on that little food, weak as they are? Or would they even make it back, with this lot deliberately slowing us all down?"

"So.....what are you suggesting?"
"Take off the excess weight" she said, before pointing her finger and making a "bang" noise.
"Execution?"
"What else?"

The stag looked from the faces of his prisoners to that of his commander with disbelief. "You can't be serious. The WFFA doesn't murder prisoners"
In response, the She-Wolf gave an irritated sigh "My God Lieutenant, this isn't a game. If the tables were turned, we would be executed in a heartbeat. Their prisoners are shipped off to death camps, but when we capture them, they get proper food and beds, all the protection and pampering the bastards need"
"It makes us better than them!" He shot back "We can't just murder those who have surrendered!"
"You're too idealistic lieutenant" she snapped back "This is war for survival. There is to be no quarter"
"Who declares that?" Fredrick hissed, as loudly as he could "This will make us sink to their level! To degrade us into monsters! We don't have to fall that far!" The anger in his voice shifted and he began to plead, while slowly walking about to place himself in between the two.

"How long have you been in service lieutenant?"
"Around six months now"
"Exactly. You're in from Belgium lieutenant. You've seen nothing of what this fucking...evil....things can do"

"Then why be like them?" He shot back, shifting uncomfortably. He could see some of the prisoners jeering and snarling, most were silent, a few were outright weeping and pleading with their captors. "Come on Captain! Show them some mercy!"

Kathae's eyes narrowed in rage and she stepped forwards, lips pulled back to show off her cainine fangs before yelling at her subordinate "Mercy? Where was their mercy when they shot my father and grandfather in front of me? Where was it when they crippled my mother and burned our house down?! I was seven when these monsters came and now I'm back, and none of these freaks are going to leave this valley!"

She moved forwards, hand on his chest holster, drooling with sheer rage. When Fredrick stepped in front of her, her eyes seemed to go almost red.
"Get..out...of...my..way....lieutenant" she said, with slow malice.
"Ma'am" Fredrick gulped, his antlers shaking while sweat dropped down his brow. "I can't let you.....please...calm down!"
"This is your last warning"
"Ma'am listen to me-"


Gunfire blasted through the shellhole. Fredrick whipped around in time to see the last of the prisoners double over in sprays of blood and gore, their bodies shaking and convulsing like rag dolls as the rounds tore them into bloody chunks. He screamed as he saw the guards, their faces blank masks of hate, sweeping their rifles back and forth on fully automatic. None stopped until every single body had been shot apart, killing the few that had tried to play dead. The stench of gun smoke and blood filled Fredrick's nostrils. He felt sick, his stomach churning and threatening to vomit his stodgy breakfast onto the dirt.

In a daze, he turned around, to be greeted by the chromed barrel of a pistol pointed at his temple.
"I really should pull this trigger" His captain told him, her voice flat and unemotional. "I really want to blow your dumb brains out and dump you with your fascist friends"
The deer tried to speak, but his salvia was like glue and his mind was blank. Nothing came out.
"However, some little part of me tells me I shouldn't kill my own side, no matter how much they deserve it"
Fredrick managed to nod.
"So, you're going to get out of my sight, you pathetic little shit, load up the wounded and once you're back at base, I'm sending you off to live out your little REMF fantasies behind a desk"
The barrel pressed into his neck. "Now do it"

Fredrick nodded, looking into its black void of the weapon. He stepped back, hands shaking as the weapon was kept trained on him. He was no weakling. Though he may have been on the front line for six months, he had seen his fair share of combat. But what he saw in the captains eyes made him want to run as far from this mad wasteland as fast as he could. This was no war, this was a utter mad slaughter. Away he stumbled, as the bodies were stripped of valuables and left in a ragged pile of dirt, past the onlooking troops and towards the bodies of the injured.
He was no longer welcome, but as the lieutenant felt pairs of eyes boring into his back, he knew one thing. From the look in his captain's eyes, he was lucky to still be alive.