[Backstory] Pasha's Journey to the North
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[Backstory] Pasha's Journey to the North
Whilst the Liberation of Mittlere Stadt proceeded in the customary fashion, albeit with the greater part of the force assigned to its capture actually bypassing it to continue the march north, Gyeneraloberst Goltz had overcome whatever residual irritation he had felt regarding the usurpation of his right to receive a settlements surrender by a mere desk jockey from GHQ and had relaxed sufficiently to bear hearing from Pasha the details of his journey to the front.
What he got was a bit more than what he bargained for.
The drive north in a Shoymer-Teyl Obkuwagen been one of bone jolting tedium along tramway maintenance tracks. The state of repair of the country was shocking to Pasha. It seemed as though the Amokolians had achieved their vaunted carbon-neutral society purely by remaining trapped in a state of abject primitivism, with a few tramways and poxy airfields to hold the country together. Pasha had at first thought that the front commanders were exaggerating the logistical difficulties of moving their forces forward. When II Corps reported there were no roads to the north, Pasha had naturally assumed that Allenby and co were merely being fussy about trying to locate a metalled road with a dual carriageway. But now Pasha could see for his own eyes that there were literally no roads, just tramways, maintenance tracks, paths and animal trails. The whole situation was ridiculous – the reconstruction teams would need to have their names changed. After all, how could they reconstruct something that never existed in the first place?
Pasha had set out from Benaciastadt on his northward odyssey five days previously, on the Monday not long after Pachad had set himself to the task of smoothing over a bout of insanity affecting the II Corps command hierarchy. Pasha had been accompanied by three other men in the cramped Obku, a couple of Feldwebels, and a Babki from Bandar-e Rozenkhan who had come along in the nebulous capacity of ‘fixer’, fixer of what went unspecified but Babkhans had a reputation effective, if usually unethical, solutions to most of lives little problems. The Babki, who for some inexplicable reason insisted on being called Smith, had at least brought some tolerable coffee along with him for the journey, and this, brewed up at every stopover and shared around the party along with some rather foul North Babkhan Tobacco cigarettes, the sort you tap on the table and all the tobacco falls out, sustained Pasha in the absence of any foodstuff in Amokolia that did not seemingly derive from the unclean carcasses of a thousand myriads of pigs. The “road†out of Benaciastadt was even more atrocious than elsewhere in the country – the salient linking Benaciastadt to the rest of Amokolia had been cut in the first hours of the war – unnecessarily as it turned out – by a devastating and vicious cross-border artillery barrage, and now… now… lets just say the potholes going north were somewhat larger than what is usually the norm.
It would have been so much easier if a helicopter had been available, but they were not. The reason for this was not immediately clear, and Pasha had sought an answer to this very question when his Obku had passed through the forward base at Vena on the Tuesday. The commander of the "Malekhamoves" had been apologetic, or at least as apologetic as somebody who plainly doesn't give a shit could have been, but of the fifteen Chinooks assigned to the Pansershturem Fliik-Teyl, ten were on logistical support duties, two were set aside as medivac helicopters, one was undergoing scheduled maintenance, one was assigned for ferrying Gyeneral Allenby back to the front, and another had been appropriated (or "fucking stolen" as the commander had delicately phrased it) on the same Monday that Pasha had set out from Benaciastadt, by some jumped up Hauptmann and his gang of heavies who had jumped off a supply blimp the previous day. Pasha agreed diplomatically that junior officers these days were a disgrace and passed over the fact that Herr Rozhkov was merely acting on his orders and hurrying on to his own necessary and politic death.
Options for rapid progress now thwarted, Pasha had bedded down in a requisitioned peasants cottage on the edge of Vena before resuming the journey north. The Feldwebels had passed the cottager’s wife around amongst themselves whilst Herr “Smith†had contented himself with the cottager, since neither of the Feldwebels had been interested in doing a swap. It was all rather vulgar and distasteful so Pasha, seeking to retain some semblance of dignity, had retired into the loft to write some speculative reports whereupon he was rewarded by the discovery of some cheese, hidden under a rafter which he had dislodged when irritation at the excessive noise emanating from downstairs had led him to kick the supporting beam – the consequence being that the cottager’s secret cloth wrapped hoard fell neatly onto Pasha’s lap. He considered it to be a sign of some higher providence.
The cottage mysteriously burnt down the next day, tragically the peasant couple who called it home also perished in the conflagration. It was radioed in by Pasha to the closest Shoymer-Teyl, still the 102 in Benaciastadt, as suspected partisan-bandit activity. A thorough but inconclusive investigation would doubtless ensue and compensation would be paid to any identifiable next of kin, but such are the tragedies of that singular folly that is human conflict.
On the Wednesday they made good progress, perhaps invigorated by the events of the night before and eager to get away, they reached Jeanezville, and found that Kampfgruppe Goltz had already departed on the Monday for some rendezvous with Kampfgruppe Megiddo, but at least a destination was mentioned. In accordance with their standing orders, which Pasha himself had had a hand in drafting; KG Goltz was heading for East Mishalan Muse – whose name bears no relation to its actual geographic locale. Jeanezville was, in comparison to Vena, a metropolis, so there was no need to burn a peasant hovel for amusement this time. Instead they checked into a beer cellar which some enterprising OYVEY operative had confiscated and converted into a “Forces Hostelry†renamed, somewhat inauspiciously, as the "Ayin Hara", which is essentially to say a beer cellar with mattresses and sleeping bags thrown about on the floor. Producing an ANA Forces ID Card on the door entitled Pasha and each of travelling his companions to a litre stein of helles, a plate of Wiener Schnitzel, a loaf of Roggenmischbrot between the four, cheese, and a 25% discount voucher off the cost of a catamite in an adjacent establishment. The latter offer had no takers from the party but “Smith†successfully captured the market for trading vouchers for cheese with the other “gentlemen†frequenting the establishment, if only for the one night. Not for the first time Pasha had found himself wondering at the morality of OYVEY, conveniently forgetting of course what he himself had been party to only the night before.
For Frühstück on the next day the native barmaids came around with trays of poached gefilte fish and bagels, together with steaming cups of strong black coffee. It was a somewhat eccentric breakfast that spoke volumes about the continued disruption to the supply chain occasioned by the war and the difficulties experienced in sourcing kosher produce in this most goyish of lands. The only other noteworthy occurrence that morning occurred when “Smith†found himself on the receiving end of a savage beating from a ladle wielding frau who had taken umbrage at the fact that, evidently, “Smith†was a morning person and not shy of sharing the fact. The two Feldwebels had laughed themselves hoarse at the Babkhan’s predicament before Pasha wearily gestured to them to extricate their “fixer†from the fix he had found himself in. Two blows from their nightsticks were sufficient to resolve matters, the next four were merely somewhat uncalled for, the remaining six purely excessive brutality. Pasha had to call them off, and when they ignored him, he un-holstered his 9mm pistol and fired two rounds into the vaulted cellar ceiling. The two goons relented in their vicious assault and backed away, dragging “Smith†along with them. The Amokolian woman was sprawled out on the floor, battered bruised and bleeding, quietly sobbing. Now for the first time Pasha glanced around the cellar, making eye contact with each of the customers, almost to a man, his fellow officers, regulars from the ANA either on their way to the front or heading back on leave, and to a man their eyes spoke menacingly of powerful mixture of anger, contempt and dismay. The crowd was evidently united against him and his companions. For a moment Pasha wondered why they did not surge forward and attempt to overpower and detail him and his companions, but then he remembered the pistol in his right hand and more importantly the effect it had on the calculations going on behind those hostile faces.
The barmaid, still sobbing bitterly from the pain of the assault, was being helped to her feet by a co-worker and one of the guests and Pasha suddenly felt so small, insignificant and wretched next to the enormity of what he had allowed to occur, what he had in effect ordered, for he could have been under no doubt, not after the events of the Tuesday past, what the two Feldwebels were capable of once they were let off the leash.
‘Smith, you piece of shit. This is your fault.’ Pasha growled to his dazed Babkhan colleague.
‘Effendi…’ the Babkhan murmured, still attempting to collect and gather back together the semblance of what passed for his wits.
‘Pay the woman.’
‘Sahib?’
‘Do you think she’d be like that if we hadn’t have had to save your miserable hide, damned nebbishy momser.’
‘Your men hit her. Not me. I not even get chance to touch her. Make them pay.’ The Babkhan, money at stake, was becoming truculent, to the point of making appeals to natural justice.
‘Now, “Smithy†you fucking sleazy little wanker, either you pay her, as recompense for the harm that you’ve caused…’
‘Or?’ A stupid question to ask.
‘Or I leave you here to face a charge if you’re lucky, that’s if you still have a face by that stage.’
The Babkhan, beginning to see things from the perspective of his boss, reluctantly fumbled his wallet from out of his trouser pockets and eased out a fifty shekel note.
‘That’s good Smithy, four of those will do nicely.’
‘Four? But…’
‘Four, yes, that’s two hundred shekels. Hashem be praised, our fixer can fucking well count. It’s a miracle. Now pay her.’
With a certain amount of trepidation, certainly with hands visibly trembling, “Smith†stepped back towards the barmaid and proffered her the crisp new notes. In an instant the woman’s demeanour changed unrecognisably, from sorrowful and whimpering, her face once more became one of almost snarling fury as she snatched the money from the Babkhan’s quaking hands and before his very eyes tore two hundred shekels into shreds which she cast disdainfully onto the floor before spitting on them and grinding the spittle and the paper fragments under the soles of her shoes. For good measure the Babkhan earned a further slap as began to beat a hasty retreat. Almost everyone present would have cheered, had the circumstances allowed.
‘We’ve outstayed our welcome chaps. Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
The Babkhan, naturally, led the retreat – followed by the two Feldwebels. Pasha was last, covering the room by tracing an arc back and forth across it with his pistol. Walking backwards he reached the door, and now he felt compelled to address his fellow officers in the cellar.
‘Mein froyndn, what happened just now was every bit as distasteful and regrettable for me as it was for you, and on any other occasion I would gladly be amongst you watching them hang for this. But I have my duty as a soldier, and my duty is to follow those orders that will lead us to victory in this war, and it is therefore my duty – I am afraid – to follow those orders even when they stand in opposition to law and justice itself. You have my apologies and my farewell.’
And with that Pasha rushed out of the room and up the first flight of stairs and round the corner where he ran straight into the back of one of the Feldwebels and came to an abrupt and actually quite painful halt.
‘What the fuck are you three schmucks playing at? Stop standing around like shades waiting for a piss in Sheol, we’ve got to fucking run!’
It was then that Pasha noticed that their hands were raised up in the air.
‘All right, now who’s this wise guy?’
The voice was that of a tall slim gentleman standing at the top of the second flight of stairs, wearing a black, short brimmed trilby hat, a well tailored pinstripe suit, immaculately polished shoes, a gold chain watch, and sporting a very neatly done small blonde moustache. The interlocutor was turned out to stunning effect, but more stunning to Pasha was the 10mm SMG that the gentleman had pointed at the group bunched at the bottom of the flight of stairs.
‘Do I take it from the gun my good sir that you are the proprietor of this establishment?’ Pasha shouted almost amiably from the back, peering round from behind the shoulder of one of the Feldwebels.
‘And do I take it, “my good sirâ€, that you are the dumb klutz who thought it’d be a good idea to shoot a couple of holes in the ceiling downstairs?’ the gentleman spiv replied, voice tinged with sarcasm and the invitation to attend a massacre.
‘I can assure you my good man, it was necessary under the circumstances…’
‘â€Necessary under the circumstancesâ€â€¦ I know the fucking circumstances you dumb fucking moron.’ The most disconcerting thing was that his voice was absolutely calm as he spoke.
‘Fucking ears, fucking eyes, and fucking CCTV, that’s all the fucking circumstances I need.’
Even Pasha, who was, as has been evidenced already, no blushing violet, had to struggle to stifle the urge to ask this new character to tone down his language.
‘I think you’ll find there’s a little more to it than that.’ replied Pasha, who was attempting to sound soothing and conciliatory as he spoke.
‘Balls there is.’ answered the gentleman. ‘Your little brown man there thought he’d try and show his good luck charm to one of my gals. Except she weren’t having it, so then your goons wade in beat the crap out of her, and then you fire off a couple of rounds just to demonstrate who’s boss.’
‘She hit me with ladle.’ The Babkhan fixer moaned. His was timing so inept that Pasha was half beginning to wonder how he got into the business of fixing things at all.
‘And if you don’t shut the fuck up she’ll be serving you up with a ladle, diced into small meaty chunks.’
[...]
'Well?'
'What do you mean well?'
'Well, quite aside from you narrating in the third person, which clearly suggests that you are in some way deranged, and quite aside from the fact that all that you have just said is tantamount to a confession of war crimes, I mean well how does this damned story of yours end?'
'Well. Pour me another G&T and I'll probably tell you.'
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Re: [Backstory] Pasha's Journey to the North
You can indeed:
That way they're actually useful ...V.F. Gold stars are awarded by the Judge or by any other people who he or the belligerent parties by mutual agreement empower to award them. They are given as a reward for literary and strategic merit, and each one increases the power of the unit wearing it by 50% of base. Gold stars should be awarded during the war they are to be used in, or not at all.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
Re: [Backstory] Pasha's Journey to the North
Excellent backstory Pachad! Brimming with your usual dose of eloquence and wry wit!
However, I must demand, Kommander, that you control your men. +I corps has never taken liberties with the native Amokolian populace in such a manner...
However, I must demand, Kommander, that you control your men. +I corps has never taken liberties with the native Amokolian populace in such a manner...