Chapter 209: There Is No Justice in War
The orders were relayed to the front line without a single word changed.
Inside a factory building, Sitora leaned against the second floor wall and watched the street corner below.
Between his fingers was a cigarette confiscated from the pocket of a Polish soldier. Smoke curled from its tip, drifting slowly through the cracked window. His eagle like gaze swept over the intersection again and again, cold, patient, and alert.
The members of his squad had changed several times.
Only he and Pippen were still alive.
Ever since Blood Wolf received its badge, most of the soldiers sent into the division were elites drawn from various infantry units. They were men who had already tasted blood, men who knew that urban warfare was not about heroic charges, but about corners, windows, basements, stairwells, tripwires, and the sound of breathing behind a wall.
But this time, for reasons no one understood, an accident had happened.
It must have been some mistake made by a civilian officer in the operations office. Right before the urban assault, they had actually assigned a newcomer who had only completed basic military training to Sitora's squad.
"Hey, what's your name?"
Sitora cut a slice from a can of frozen meat. The thing tasted like jelly and had almost no texture, but he still deftly placed it into his mouth with the tip of his knife.
"Kenner Daly. From Nuremberg."
Daly was still not used to the battlefield. He held his StG 44 assault rifle with both hands, his fingers stiff around the weapon as if afraid it might suddenly come alive.
"Oh."
Sitora answered casually, as though he had only asked for the sake of asking.
The silence that followed made Daly uncomfortable.
His eyes soon landed on Sitora's Mauser rifle, and after a moment of hesitation, he forced himself to find a topic.
"Squad leader, aren't you going to switch to a G43 semiautomatic rifle?"
Sitora swallowed the canned food mixed with ice water in two gulps and shook his head.
"I'm not used to new guns."
He wiped his knife against his sleeve.
"I'm not the sort of man who falls in love with every new thing he sees. My loyalty to my rifles is the same as my loyalty to my wife."
The instant he finished speaking, a figure appeared near the wall by the factory gate.
Sitora's expression changed at once.
He raised his hand to signal silence, then lifted his binoculars and confirmed that several Polish soldiers were lingering near the entrance.
His breathing steadied.
He pulled away the tattered cloth covering his scope and slowly raised the muzzle, following the enemy soldier's exposed hand upward.
Just as the Polish soldier turned sideways, Sitora pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet pierced the man's neck.
Blood burst outward like a fountain.
The one who had been hit was likely a commanding officer. The Polish squad instantly fell into disorder. But instead of fleeing, they charged straight toward the factory.
Daly noticed something at once.
Many of the men in that squad were not wearing proper military uniforms.
A few were clearly underage. They stood among the others with rifles in their hands, staring blankly at the blood soaked ground as though they had only just understood what death looked like.
"Suppressive fire! Suppressive fire!"
Sitora glanced back and saw Daly frozen in place.
"What the hell are you doing?"
A rain of bullets shredded the windowsill. Glass fragments sprayed across Daly's face and uniform.
Sitora grabbed him by the collar and yanked him down.
Only then did Daly realize that he had nearly died. He still tried to raise his rifle and fight back, but Sitora held him firmly against the floor and hissed into his ear.
"Are you insane? You're pinned down and you still want to lift your head?"
Daly opened his mouth, wanting to explain.
Sitora had no patience for it.
He exchanged a glance with Pippen and the machine gun team stationed near the stairwell, then dragged Daly toward another exit.
The Polish squad, frightened by the possibility of booby traps, carefully bypassed the tripwire at the entrance.
The leading soldier had barely shown a trace of relief before an antipersonnel mine was triggered.
Boom!
A living man was torn apart in front of several temporarily recruited civilians. Blood, shredded cloth, and sticky intestinal fluid splattered across the ground, making them retch and stagger.
And at that moment, Sitora had already led Daly behind the squad.
Tat tat tat!
The machine gun roared from the stairwell.
Sitora drew his pistol.
Several young soldiers who should still have been sitting in classrooms, some not even wearing military uniforms, fell beneath his gun after three sharp shots.
Seeing their companions killed, the remaining soldiers were driven mad by blood and terror. They howled and charged toward Sitora, desperate to drag him down with them.
"Shoot!"
Daly still hesitated.
Unable to bear it any longer, Sitora slapped him hard across the face.
In that emergency, Daly's finger finally clenched.
The rifle fired.
The bullet struck the charging enemy and killed him without suspense.
"What the hell were you hesitating for?" Sitora roared. "Do you understand that you were almost dead? Almost! And I was almost dead with you!"
He tore the weapon from Daly's hands and shoved him to the floor.
"I saw they weren't wearing military uniforms," Daly said, his voice trembling. "What if they were civilians? Headquarters said we couldn't shoot civilians. This... this is against the rules."
Sitora stared at him.
Then he sneered.
"As long as he's holding a gun, he's a soldier."
Daly's face went pale.
"Looking for rules on the battlefield? Looking for justice on the battlefield?"
Sitora's voice turned cold.
"There is no damn justice on the battlefield. This is war. People die here. We are all trying to kill the other side before they kill us."
He pointed toward the bodies near the entrance.
"Even if it's a child, if he's holding a rifle, you pull the trigger. Because if you don't, you'll get your comrades killed."
Seeing Daly still dazed, Sitora shook his head in disgust.
"Get out of here. As soon as the siege is over, leave Blood Wolf immediately. The Army does not need this foolish sense of justice."
As soon as he finished speaking, Pippen, who had been watching the scene, walked over.
He had just received orders from the company. He pulled Daly up from the ground and spoke in a tone that was far gentler than Sitora's.
"Sorry, kid. Your squad leader is a ruthless bastard, but he was right about one thing. You really aren't suited for the battlefield."
Then Pippen turned to Sitora.
"We need to move. This factory district is too close to the residential area. A messenger just came through. The Air Force is going to bomb the districts still controlled by the Polish Army. If we stay here, we might get hit by our own bombs."
Sitora nodded.
He picked up Daly's StG 44 and tossed it to Pippen.
"Don't give him any weapon."
Then he looked down at Daly.
"Kid, this bombing is going to kill countless civilians like the ones you talked about."
His voice was rough, but not mocking.
"Remember this. This is goddamn war."
He turned toward the stairs.
"This is goddamn hell."
The moment his words fell, the first Stuka bombers arrived over the city.
Their sirens began to scream.
And Warsaw heard the opening notes of the symphony of death.
.....
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