Occupation

CHAPTER 7

Occupation

The sand hit like a whip during the night. It was the direct result of a storm, where millions of particles were thrown like projectiles, hitting whatever stood in their way. All the doors and windows were closed, waiting for everything to pass. Everyone knew that a wooden door or window wasn’t enough to stop musket fire, and even less a cannonball; but having them closed gave them a small pinch of faith as if they were in another world as if the walls could not be penetrated by the horrendous screams and noises of combat. The first nights were hell, no one could close their eyes for the sole fear of not opening them again; however, with time this became part of the daily routine. What else could they do? They were completely impotent, part of a decaying nation whose ambition surpassed their capacity. The roars that were heard in the distance, like a group of musicians madly hitting drums, was followed by a whistle that terribly approached with an increase in its intensity.

“BOOM!”

Then it was the moment to relax, breathe out and in again. Pity on the idiot that could not make it, that found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sound of the sea was contrasting, giving a relaxing effect that made reality forgettable, at least for a pair of seconds, until the next roar. It was hard to assimilate that from that direction where the waves rhythmically hit against the sand, was where such frightening sounds originated. The rest of the night stayed the same until the sky took a purple colour that later turned orange and finally blue.

During the first hours of the day, different platoons belonging to the eleventh company of his majesty’s army marched directly into the small city; which was majoritarily in ruins. It was a joint operation with a part of the second fleet of Kholodfiorde, which had a major naval presence than Lilisburg, but in land, campaigns were lacking. Both nations complemented each other perfectly. Centuries of cold silence between both countries had ceased due to the king’s audacity, who saw the potential of such an alliance.

With a war considerably more visceral than the previous ones, they could guarantee a quick and devastating victory with which they could subdue the common enemy once and for all: Kashkestan. There had been centuries of resentment being manifested by the young souls that had lost something or someone because of the wars, razing without mercy over village after village. For every victory they claimed, they would leave behind mountains of corpses which they preferred to ignore as if they did not exist. Nobody wanted to deal with the widows that desperately sobbed on her knees, and even less with the children that would never see their fathers again.

With the passage of approximately eight months, Kashkestan had given much of its land, it would be a matter of time to get to the headquarters of Kashkestan’s army. In the east of the capital, they had subdued the neighbouring village, only the north part remained; which was the main port of Kashkestan, in contact with the north ocean where the three nations connected. After a few hours, the infantry had secured the perimeter; another city had fallen to the alliance.

Two weeks after the capture of the port city of Karkas the Infantry lieutenant in charge of the third platoon of the eleventh company, was taking a walk on the captured land. He had time to take a touristic tour around the city before the grand strike. The week-and-a-half preparations left all the soldiers with a knot on their guts, knowing that this would be the most fierce battle up to this point. They wouldn’t count on Kholodfiorde’s naval-artillery support and, despite that, the Kashkes were cornered, as every cornered beast; they would fight with all they’ve had. Things weren’t going to be as easy as they had been up to that moment.

The lieutenant dressed in his desert-campaign khaki uniform wore his kepi covering his brown hair, curiously observing all the few buildings that were still up, and the shops that opened again once the zone was declared secure. Despite hating the idea of being occupied by foreign forces, they had to make a living somehow. The lieutenant walked towards the entrance of what appeared to be a small cafe, with iron-made chairs and tables in the outside area, protected by a white and green vertical-striped tent. He sat in one of the chairs and took off his kepi. Soon after, a girl clumsily came to serve him, putting what appeared to be a written menu on his hand. The lieutenant didn’t know how to read their language, so he decided to ask what they had for sale. Turning to see her, he noticed how the girl with long black hair and golden skin looked at him, playing nervously with both her hands at the height of her abdomen. The nervousness in her eyes was beyond what a rookie feels when attending its first client. It was fear. The lieutenant knew what she felt and why better than her. He smiled at her and in the most gentle and calmed way talked to her.

“What do you serve?”

The girl was about to have a panic attack as soon as she was talked to, but after taking a small breath she realised that he wasn’t as bad as she had estimated. The calmed way in which the lieutenant talked wasn’t intimidating at all.

“Coffee and… sandwiches… it is good…” words were coming out of her mouth with difficulty, she clearly did not dominate the language and her accent made it even more notorious.

“Coffee and sandwiches… All right, I’ll start with a cup of coffee. I’m waiting for someone, but I suppose he’ll ask for one, too. Bring them once he gets here, please.”

The girl nodded and went back inside the building. The lieutenant dropped his head backwards; the heat of the desert had been suffocating him for hours. The tent gave him enough cover from the sun rays and the wind refreshed his sweaty forehead. He closed his eyes and let himself be taken by his senses, his ears occupied by the whisper that the travelling wind gave, his nose exploring the coffee scent that flooded the shop. In what appeared to be various minutes–but in reality had been less than five, he heard the noise of the chair in front moving. He raised his head and opened his eyes: his partner had arrived. It was a man around his same age that was also wearing a uniform; however, his’s had a black coat with white pants and shoes, and instead of a kepi he wore a white plate-shaped navy hat with a black peak. On top of the visor and under the plate cover, was the black emblem that had the coat-of-arms of Kholodfiorde’s navy. On the coat’s shoulders, he wore black shoulder boards with a thick gold bar that had a star on the opposite end to the neck. Equally, the cuffs of the coat had the same golden bar in each arm, with the golden star on top of it. Those were the insignia of a sub-lieutenant, the equivalent of a lieutenant on both armies.

“So.. this is where we are going to eat? I like it, it is stylish.

The lieutenant realised that he hadn’t dedicated to observe his surroundings until his partner made the comment. On every table, there was a small flower vase made of clay with red dahlias on them, of a very dark tone that obviously wasn’t originary of that zone. On top of each table, there was a small tablecloth of white and red stripes, the most generic ones that a place like that could have. The cafe had a sign with its name, but since it was written in kashke, the lieutenant didn’t make any effort to read it.

“Honestly it was the first place that I found, but it isn’t any bad, I guess.”

The man in the coat looked at him and then exploded in laughter.

“Really, what kind of Lilisburg’s officer are you? Blimey, buddy, I can already hear the murmurs of your fancy-pants mates: “You guys won’t believe where I saw that idiot Roderick Smirnov. He was eating in a cheap-ass cafe. Giving his money to those savages.” and then another one with a high-pitched voice, as if his balls are being squeezed will answer him “I’m not surprised of that half-brute, he was with another brute.”

Brute was what the people of Lilisburg called Kholodfiorde’s.

“Right, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened. That’s how they are, they care a lot about such stupid things. I only try to live my life without the restrictions of prejudice. I only want to live in peace, I suppose.”

The girl briefly interrupted them, bringing a cup of coffee to each. She vowed and returned inside.

“Ha! Surely once the war is over you’ll retire to the most remote and furthest place possible. You have the stare that you’ve had enough of this lifestyle”

“That’s right, in fact, I’ve been looking at various properties and there’s a place near to a small village and has a view to a lake. I suppose I’m easy to read. What are you going to do once this is all over? Are you going to stay in the navy?”

“I don’t know, I like sailing, but I think that once this is over there’ll be not much to do besides office work. Perhaps I will get a ship and crew to turn into merchant sailing. You know, travelling around the continent with merchandise from the three countries. Although, don’t you think that it’d be a waste to only serve for six years? I mean, it would have been better for us to enlist: you as an infantryman and myself as a sailor. Having a professional military career to drop-it-out soon after graduating is undoubtedly a wasted opportunity.”

“Maybe many people see it that way, but I don’t. During the almost three years that I have in service after graduating, I’ve seen a lot of things, even more in the war. I’ve done things that I’d rather forget. And I know I won’t be able to… no matter how hard I try.” The face of Lieutenant Roderick wrinkled in disgust. “I already made up my mind. Besides, as you say, I don’t think there’ll be much to do once we finish this business of the last war. The war that will close this chapter of violence once and for all.” Roderick said the last phrase with a sarcastic tone, imitating the “greatness” with which the generals in Corolla gave their speeches to the troops, before sending them to march into Kashkestan.

“Oh, yeah? Then, why did you join the army in the first place? You surely had an idea of the sort of thing you were going to do or see. The chance of taking action in another war.”

“I have no idea. My father was a captain in Kholodfiorde, just as my grandfather was an admiral, and his father too. I suppose I wanted to follow the family tradition, besides probing my acquaintances that I could be a true patriot of Lilisburg, the place where I was born.”

“I see. So you were the desperado that despite being born in Lilisburg was never accepted.” The man in the coat chuckled. “You were certainly the punching bag as a kid, the one who everyone made fun of.”

“Something like that. Anyway, I could get past those times, I can also pass these ones. Retiring from the army as a war veteran will have its own benefits too, I want to think so. Why did you join the navy, Ziya?”

“Well… when I was little I was poor…” Ziya’s eyes were looking firmly at the table, he didn’t have any expression on his face. “We didn’t have anything. My father loved the sea, he would always tell me his stories of his glory days during the wars.” There was a small smile on his face that afterwards got erased. “But after losing his legs he was forcefully retired from the service and our government only gave us a small settlement that the old man spent on drinking.” Ziya was holding his plate-shaped hat, gripping it with both his hands, which moved desperately on the hat’s outline. “My mother suffered because of that and…” He stopped moving his hands and started squeezing the hat. “I did, too. I could not stand it. Every time my mother used to burst into tears and father hit her, I felt as if someone opened me split-open and ripped my guts like a chicken’s. I wanted to leave that place as soon as possible.” Ziya turned to face Roderick. “Then, I was old enough to enter the Naval Academy. I swore I was never going to be like that again. Sometimes I had to steal so I could eat.”

Roderick did not say anything and took a big sip of his coffee cup, he was shocked by the story. He did not expect it to be something so personal and sinister. He expected even less that Ziya would tell it like that, without any kind of auto-censor or attempt to dissimulate it. What could he say to such a confession? He had asked and got his answer. Then, what should he do? Act saying “Well, yeah, but I suffered even more”? Was it about that, a competition to see who had the most miserable childhood? Roderick answered with a warm smile and a hand on his shoulder, at least he knew that he trusted him enough to tell him such a thing. In the twelve months that they have known each other, this was the first time they shared an intimate moment to confess their sorrows.

“Buddy, things will be better. Now things are up on our hands.”

Ziya’s serious stare changed. He was trying to hold off his laughter until he couldn’t.

“We fulfilled our job here, we’ll wait for you guys here in Karkas. Now you have to go and fight in Almanta.” His smile turned back to a serious stare. “Please don’t make me tell stories at sea of my buddy, the double-patriot that died aged twenty-one because he was a crappy lieutenant. “

“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try to at least prevent anyone from dying under my command. I guess that includes me, too.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting. I can see it in history books the next ten or twenty years: “His majesty’s invincible platoon”. Clearly your name will be important.” He chuckled.

“Ha! Yes, we’ve been lucky. Up to this point my platoon is complete, we’ve only had one injured two months ago. Right now we don’t have any problems and we are ready to deploy. My boys trust me, I can’t fail them.”

Ziya nodded with his head. He looked at the watch that he carried in his coat’s left pocket; it looked like he had exceeded his time. With a single gulp, he finished his cup and let it fall with his hand on the table. Typical attitude of someone born in Kholodfiorde. He put on his plate-shaped hat and with a single move he stood up.

“Okay, I’m running late, I should’ve returned to deck five minutes ago. Perhaps I can not see you until all of this is over. Remember what I told you, survive. We have to conquer the world once this war is over.” Ziya made a gesture raising his fist while he was finishing that sentence with an ironic smile.

He turned and with a raised hand he walked away. Roderick looked at him thoughtfully. How is it that he had become a friend of that sailor from another country? It was his last name, that’s what familiarised them so much. The people from Kholodfiorde are very close among themselves. Almost like an unbreakable brotherhood. After recognizing Roderick’s last name as something alien from Lilisburg, he immediately felt curiosity for the man bearing it. They spent an afternoon talking with beer and without realising it, they established a friendship due to the number of things that they shared in common. Smirnov. That last name had caused him so many problems in his childhood and now it had made him a new friend. Roderick laughed at the irony, taking a sip of his coffee.