The Forum's Scriptorium

[Yastreb]

SACRIFICE

Private Lovett!
He was the albatross around my neck. The cross I was forced to bear. My personal Jonah. All of those burdens summed up in that name.
But in the end...

He came into my platoon just after we’d landed at Salerno. I was the youngest and the greenest of the Second Lieutenants in Able Company, and most of the men were as green as I was. I didn’t get the best of them either. I was lucky to have a competent Sergeant, and two Corporals and maybe ten privates likewise. But the rest were either straight out of boot camp, or the ones no-one else wanted. And in the second category was Private Lovett. I didn’t know his first name until I read it off his dog tag that day... But I’m getting ahead of myself.
He was nineteen, from Brooklyn. He had to be, with that accent. The kind that says “first” as “foist”. He had a juvenile record, and was a bit of a goof-off; but that could be said about a lot of the men. What set him apart was the inevitable foul-ups. Broken shovels, badly pitched tents, spilled saucepans on KP... the list went on. I wondered how he’d made it out of boot camp when I heard the stories about how he’d fumbled throwing grenades.
My platoon consisted of thirty-six men, including the NCOs; four squads of eight men, each led by a Corporal, and the little group with me. Sergeant Rearden, a radio man, a sniper... and Private Lovett; the man no squad wanted.
He’d been hazed and bullied, I knew, but he never talked about it. He accepted it like it was his lot in life. I thought of asking him about it, but I held back. I didn’t want to have to write men up for it. My authority over the platoon wasn’t strong. I was still working on it.

We landed just before the breakout. The Germans were falling back, retreating towards what later got called the Gothic Line. Booby-traps, mines and booby-traps, stay-behind parties ready to fight to the last man... it was a slow hard slog as we moved north towards Naples. By September 22nd we were down nine men; three killed  and six wounded and evacuated. That was the day we reached San Michele. A small village like so many others.
The people were looking from their doors and windows, and they looked afraid. We were jumpy too. We’d heard stories about Germans, especially SS, using civilians as cover.
I’d learned some Italian. I said, “Ciao, siamo americani. Non aver paura.” Don’t be afraid... sounds stupid now. But it seemed to work. Slowly they began to come out to greet us; old folks, women and kids. I asked where the menfolk were. An old man said, “Si nascondono, quindi non saranno scambiati per lavoro da schiavi.”
I managed to work out what he meant. They didn’t want to be taken for forced labor. I said, “Non devono avere paura. I tedeschi se ne sono andati per sempre.”
There were cheers, and my men were smiling and ready to give candy to the children. You could never stop them doing that. I said, “First squad, set up to the north...”
I’d told the villagers the Germans were gone forever. I’d spoken too soon.
He was waiting for us to drop our guard, and the villagers to gather, so he could do the most damage to us and the people of San Michele.

I saw the stick grenade arc towards us, a perfect throw, just as I heard the bark of a BAR and two Garands as First squad gunned down the SS man.
It landed in the middle of the crowd, just six feet from me, and a woman holding a baby...
My first thought was; shove the woman and child behind me...
Someone leaped past me, towards the grenade, and he screamed, “Oh my God!” as he landed on top of it...
It was Lovett.
And I screamed, “Oh, no!”
When it exploded, it killed only him.

I wrote the citation for the Medal of Honor, and it was duly awarded.
What makes a man sacrifice his life for men who despised him, or people he didn’t know? I’ve asked myself that question many times, and I don’t have an answer. I never will.

Spoiler: show

This was inspired by a war comic I read many years ago, back in my childhood. It stuck in my mind, and I decided to do my own version.

[dmeck7755]

Yastreb
A sorrowful story on so many levels.  Very good tho'

[Buteo]

Yastreb, your version of the story is good.

The exchanges in Italian with the villagers sound so human, so comforting, lowering the tension for this reader as they did for the people in the story. Even knowing that something like the grenade had to be coming, I relaxed a bit, even got into the "nice, learning a bit about these strangers" mood.

Then the grenade arrived, and the shock of the climactic self-sacrifice.

And so much is gone. There is no more story to tell about Private Lovett, no more life for him to live, no reason for the viewpoint character to tell us any more about what happened before or afterward. Nor is there any reason to delve into Lovett's background, why he was so unpopular and so clumsy; not even a reason to tell us his first name.

I really do admire your short stories.

[Róisín]

Yastreb, well made!

[Jitter]

I don’t know where to out this but this thread isn’t too wrong.

I’ve joined a moss group on Facebook a while ago, and recently also started following a page about things gothic. So I’ve been thinking about bog witches and moss. Here’s a bog witch song:

Deep in the shadows
Of thorn and of thicket
I sing with the sparrow
I sing with the cricket

Deep in the shadows
I weep of greatest loss
I sing my weird songs
I build friends with moss

Deep in the shadows
Of pines and of birch
I work my bog magic
In darkness I search

Deep in the shadows
Of branches entwined
I seek for some purpose
Peat and bones I find

Deep in the shadows
Lies the pond I must cross
I wishper to fishes
I gather more moss

[Róisín]

Pretty and scary. Subtle. I like it. What are those things called in your culture?

[Jitter]

I don’t know of specific names for various types of witches so it would just be ”noita”. “Tietäjä” (lit. the one who knows, the knowing one) could be used for a person who is highly respected or even revered but this particular bog witch doesn’t really strike me as one of those

I had the phrase ” I build friends with moss” in my mind so had to make up something to put it in. So this doesn’t reflect any actual tradition, Finnish or otherwise. The friends of moss are something a little like the stick people used in horror to indicate American (Southern??) witchcraft. But the moss friends are actually alive. I think. At least they ma6 respond, when spoken to…

[Yastreb]

The writing group I belonged to many years ago (the one that got me back into writing after a long hiatus) had the occasional challenge involving creating a story one sentence or paragraph at a time, with everyone allowed to join in and take the story wherever they wanted it to go (almost).
I've saved a few examples of what came out of such challenges; most of them had twists that would leave writers of thrillers suitably gobsmacked...

This one has no title. Any suggestions?

"I don't want to kill you, James, you have been a true friend all my life, but I will not be denied what is rightfully mine."
James bit back the first response that came to mind and replied in what he hoped were suitably urbane tones, "Then perhaps you could explain what you're claiming, Peter, as I'm no mind reader."
"Playing the fool insults us both. Hand it to me before I become truly enraged!" Peter spat in reply as his mood was taking a clear turn for the worse.
At least, that's the way the exchange would have gone, had the participants not both been goats. But I could see it in their eyes after Peter sheepishly looked in his brother's direction standing between the favoured nanny and his now rival.
"You have been the leader for too long and it is time I challenged you for the position," bleated James gruffly.

Emily, who had two legs and not four, sat on the gate watching as this altercation that was taking place in the front paddock, a little sad as she had hand raised these two goats from birth when abandoned by their mother. She pushed forward on her front legs, the awkward trolley that the vet had fashioned to support her withered haunches tinkled as the spokes cycled past the edges of the gate she'd been resting her grey hide against, distracting her two adopted billies from their incipient quarrel.
"Tell you what, Peter," mocked James, "the loser gets to hang out with Mum."

Kirk, the Concierge, shook his head at the display in the lobby of 'his' hotel – it was bad enough that the owner had been so desperate for cash that he'd let these 'people' with their strange costumes hold their convention here, but now these two in the matching costumes were acting out their animal alter-egos in his lobby in front of the other guests.
With a furtive glance around to make sure that he wasn't being observed, he pressed the button under the counter.
Downstairs in the cold depths of the basement, Big Sven was awakened from his slumbers by the annoying little buzzer on the wall, and moved to obey. He pressed the intercom button and said, "There'd better be a good reason for me to open the Gate this time!"

"While at first glance it might appear to be about goat skin used to make bagpipes and the annoying sound of a buzzer resembling a sour note from a bagpipe (although there is a school of thought which claims that ALL bagpipe notes are sour, I don't agree with that), it is actually a translation from the review in the Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið of the very little-known Zen musical collaboration between Captain Beefheart and Philip Glass entitled "The sound of one hand stitching", which, during the course of the first performance in Reykjavik an inferior brand of goat thread was used, resulting in a noticeably sour note being obtained, as the stitches leaking was actually a mistake in translation and should have read ‘the stitches failed’".

Sven glared at the intercom. "If I wanted a lecture in post-modernism I'd go to Madam Mim's!"
Then, realising that the words were inside his skull, Sven shook his shaggy head to stop the stream of bag-pipe trivia that had erupted into his consciousness and started towards the Gate, his vast bulk scraping against the rough hewn stone walls of the tunnel leading down from the basement.
"Sven," the voice called, proving that cold, alcohol, and one sentence stories can make the mind function at levels hitherto unknown to contemporary science, but correctly identified by the medicos on Star Trek, and exemplified by Sgt Detritus of the Ankh-Morpork Guard.
"Oh dear God!" he cried, "the Morporkian Mercenaries are invading my mind again, how can I get rid of them?"
"Sven," the voice called again, and this time he realised it wasn't just inside his cold and hung-over skull, now he could hear the same words echoing out from the far end of the tunnel…

Meanwhile, high on a Himalayan cliff-face, our intrepid hero clung to a tuft of grass and wondered, "How did it ever come to this?"
After a moment's thought, he came to the obvious conclusion that accepting a double-or-quits dare at Mary-Ann Ravenswood-Jones' shebeen was the answer.
He closed his eyes and could almost see the New York office as it was two weeks ago, and his first meeting with those bloody goats…

[Róisín]

Yastreb, that story has potential!

[Yastreb]

THE SEEDS OF DEFEAT

“Where are the flowers?” Yuri Kosyrev said, looking around the empty street. “A warm welcome, they said. Not here!”
Andrei Peskaryov could only shrug. “Just our bad luck. No hugs for us!”
They had arrived in Kamyantsiy just minutes before. There had been no resistance. That meshed with what they had been told to expect.
But the inhabitants had retreated inside their homes, and there were signs that many had fled the town ahead of the column’s arrival. That did not mesh with what the senior officers had said; they will welcome you as liberators, with flowers and hugs.
So Andrei and the rest of the squad stood by their BTR and kept watch over empty streets, as did most of the company as their officers conferred.

Then Yuri said, “Andryusha, you can get the hug!” and gestured at the small white-haired woman in a winter coat approaching. She looked old, but walked steadily, and she was glaring at them.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Tell her to **** off,” Corporal Kudrinsky said.
Andrei stepped forward to confront the woman, raising one hand. “We are on an exercise. Please go home."
She stopped just outside arm’s reach. “Are you Russians?”
“Well... yes.” He pointed to the flag on his sleeve.
"So what the **** are you doing here?”
Andrei shot a glance at Yuri, who seemed lost for words.
“Calm down, grandma,” he said. “Just go home...”
“It’s a special military operation,” said Corporal Kudrinsky. “Nothing for you to see. Go on, get the **** out of here!”
Her face hardened, and suddenly she jabbed a finger at them. “You are occupiers! Fascists! What the **** are you doing on my land with your guns and your tanks?” She raised her other hand and abruptly slammed it into the corporal’s chest. “Here! Take these seeds! Put them in your pockets, so that sunflowers will grow where you die!”
Kudrinsky said nothing. He was staring blankly at the hand as seeds spilled from it.
“Go on, put the seeds in your pockets! You will die here, and sunflowers will bloom above your graves!” Her dark eyes swept across the squad. “You come to my land with guns and tanks. You are occupiers. You are enemies. And you will die on my land! Remember!”
Andrei could only stare as a strange coldness passed through him. He could feel sweat beading on his face. The rifle slung across his chest was suddenly a dead weight.
He was afraid...
“Remember!” the woman said again, then turned and slowly walked away.
They watched her until she turned down a side street and was lost from sight.

She stepped into the garden of an abandoned home and sighed.
“Poor young fools,” she said. “As always. Pawns of dark souls.”
She took off the winter coat and placed it carefully against the garden wall, and as she straightened up, her appearance seemed to blur and change...
She was small, buxom, and ruddy-faced, in plain brown blouse and skirt under a green cloak edged with falcon feathers. Her flowing hair was rust-red, confined by an unadorned silver circlet, and her eyes were bright blue, with patches of grey. Her broad, pleasant features had the unblemished fairness of youth.
There was a vivid green flash, and she was gone.

A falcon soared above Kamyantsiy, and turned to fly north.
Baba Yaga had more seeds to give.

Spoiler: show

This is based on a true story. If you google for "Place sunflower seeds in your pockets", you'll find the reports from the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And you may find the tweet that asked "Was that Baba Yaga?" (or words to that effect).
Also; this iteration of Baba Yaga is the one from my Dragonhost Saga, so she travels in falcon form, rather than by using a cauldron and broom.

[dmeck7755]

Yastreb
 WOW!!

[wavewright62]

Still gobsmacked about the goat story twists.  Just, huh. 

Also, I am willing to bet you penned the crone with the sunflower seeds, and modelled Baba Yaga after our own dear Róisín, eh?

[Yastreb]

The crone with the sunflower seeds is a real person who confronted Russian soldiers on the first day of the invasion with very similar words to the ones I wrote. A recording of the exchange wer viral, and prompted someone to tweet some time after, as Russian casualties mounted and the offensive stalled, "I think we found Baba Yaga!"

And yes, the Baba Yaga in this tale is modelled on our own dear Róisín; in fact that description is taken from Earthfire, the intended first vvolume of my Dragonhost Saga.

[Róisín]

I am touched! But although I do know falconry and sometimes help out the falconers at Mediæval Fairs or help with wild bird rescues, I am myself quite stubbornly human shaped and not at all shapestrong! Though I am a small sturdy woman of ruddy colouring.
And the touch of telling the Russian soldiers to fill their pockets with sunflower seeds so flowers grow where they die is I think something that an elderly Ukrainian woman did actually do, back in the early days of the invasion.

[dmeck7755]

Here is one of the videos Yastreb speaks of :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L17Bi7zBJHI