Chapter 172: Prague Spring
The next day, on an armored vehicle belonging to the Street Fighting Blood Wolves Infantry Division, Sitora sat with his rifle across his knees.
The vehicle rumbled over broken pavement, its steel body shaking with every crater and loose stone. Around him, the men swayed with the motion, their helmets knocking softly against the metal walls. The air smelled of oil, sweat, gunpowder, and old tobacco.
Sitora lowered his head and calmly cleaned his rifle. He worked gun oil into the mechanism with slow, practiced movements, as if he were polishing a church ornament rather than preparing an instrument of death.
Across from him, Pippen was as noisy as ever.
The broad shouldered fool had already loaded his weapon and was now proudly showing off a small bundle wrapped in paper.
"Try it," Pippen said, grinning. "Good tobacco. Imported from Mexico. Much stronger than the stuff we usually smoke."
John, the tall machine gunner, merely laughed and shook his head.
Beside John sat the newly assigned assistant machine gunner, a thin and short young man who looked unimpressive at first glance. Yet everyone in the squad already knew he was surprisingly strong. He spoke Russian, knew how to paint his face like a circus clown, and somehow managed to get along with everyone despite barely talking.
He did not refuse Pippen's invitation.
He took the rolled cigarette, placed it between his lips, and drew in several deep breaths.
Only after the smoke entered his throat did he realize something was wrong.
This was not ordinary tobacco.
The irritation was harsher, heavier, and far closer to a plant from the hemp family.
Pippen watched his face carefully, looking like a merchant waiting for praise.
"How is it? Strong, isn't it?"
The young assistant machine gunner coughed twice, his eyes watering.
Pippen laughed loudly.
But his question was destined to go unanswered.
The armored vehicle suddenly slowed, then stopped in front of a church that had been converted into a military command post inside the city.
A sergeant's voice rang out from outside.
"Get out!"
The rear door was kicked open, and cold morning air rushed in.
The soldiers jumped down one after another.
Beside the church, several tanks waited in the open square for repairs and refueling. Their armor was scarred by bullets and fragments, and mechanics crawled over them like ants over wounded beasts. Fuel drums were stacked nearby. Engineers shouted orders. Field telephones rang without pause.
Pippen looked at the tanks with unconcealed curiosity.
If he had passed his assessment back then, he would have become a tank technician in the Third Armored Division. He might have been one of the men now tightening bolts, checking tracks, and arguing with officers over fuel consumption.
Unfortunately, the armored corps had not suited him.
Or rather, he had not suited the armored corps.
Before Pippen could sink into nostalgia, the commander of First Company stepped forward and stood before the assembled platoons.
His uniform was dusty, his face expressionless, and his eyes were cold enough to silence every whisper.
"Soldiers."
The men straightened.
"I know you are not used to being shaken half to death in armored vehicles. I know some of you have not slept properly. But time waits for no one. Every second we delay for your comfort is another second the enemy uses to strengthen his defenses."
His gaze swept across them.
"Wenceslas Square is the cultural and commercial center of Prague. It is also the key hub through which the western district's arms supply is being dismantled and redistributed."
He pointed toward the city center, where smoke drifted above ruined rooftops.
"Our comrades from the Third Armored Division have encountered difficulties there. They bled there. They were stopped there. Now they demand that we avenge them and finish the work they began."
His voice sharpened.
"Can you do it?"
"Yes!"
The answer came like a single blow.
None of the soldiers who had survived Danzig's street fighting were weak willed men.
Most had rolled through the blood and mud of the Great War. Many had once hidden among the ruins of Danzig, stalking enemy soldiers through shattered buildings and smoke filled cellars. They understood artillery. They understood rubble. They understood the peculiar intimacy of killing a man close enough to see fear in his eyes.
What they were best at was pure violence, disciplined and directed.
Germany's orders were their direction.
The Blood Wolves only had to nod and follow, even if that direction led straight into hell.
"Very good," the company commander said. "Before dawn, I want to see the dome of the Czech National Museum with Germany's flag flying above it."
He raised his hand and pointed into the distance.
Through gaps between buildings, the tattered flag of Czechoslovakia could still be seen hanging in the evening light. Smoke and bullets had torn its edges, yet it still fluttered stubbornly in the wind.
Sitora looked at it for a moment.
Then he lowered his gaze, took the silver cross hanging from his neck, and placed it into a storage box.
He drew a deep breath.
Smoke still lingered in the air. Dust and ash scratched his throat. Somewhere far away, artillery thundered like an approaching storm.
Yet Sitora felt strangely calm.
The urban battlefield made him feel more at home than the quiet apartments in the suburbs of Berlin. Out there, the silence had been suffocating. Here, among broken stone, shattered glass, and waiting enemies, the world finally made sense again.
He patted Pippen on the shoulder while the man was binding grenades together with practiced hands.
"Big fool," Sitora said with a faint smile, "we're home."
Wenceslas Square.
Three elite companies of the Czech First Garrison Division held the buildings around the square with grim determination.
Twilight had passed, and night had fallen.
The city's power system had long since been destroyed. Darkness covered the streets, broken only by occasional fires, muzzle flashes, and the weak glow of lanterns hidden behind curtains.
The Czech soldiers had been fighting for days.
Seeing the motionless streets, many finally let out long breaths. They wiped dust and soot from their faces, then chewed flattened bread and drank cold water with the desperate hunger of men who no longer remembered what a proper meal tasted like.
"There shouldn't be an attack tonight," one company commander muttered while holding a pair of binoculars.
His eyes scanned the streets below.
"We've laid another ring of anti tank mines around the square. Their soldiers are excellent, no question about that, but they rely too much on tanks. Their street fighting and close quarters skill isn't especially high."
Another officer leaned against the wall, his helmet resting beside him.
"So you think we can hold until the armies on the left and right wings return to reinforce us?"
The company commander looked toward the statue of Saint Wenceslas.
The bronze figure of the saintly king was riddled with bullet marks. Nearby, the Czech flag was barely visible in the gloom, its torn fabric moving weakly in the night wind.
After a long silence, the commander nodded.
"Perhaps."
It was a fragile answer.
But in that moment, fragile hope was still hope.
Just as the Czech defenders lowered their guard, Sitora's squad had already silently approached the entrances of the residential buildings along the square.
Sitora raised a clenched fist.
Everyone stopped.
He lowered his body and studied the entrance.
Wooden planks had been placed near the doorway. Beneath them, the faint outline of mines could be seen. In the stairwell beyond, a machine gun position covered the approach.
Sitora pressed his hand downward, then pointed toward the side.
Go around.
The men moved without speaking.
Soon, Pippen crouched beneath a first floor window. The frame was already half shattered from shelling, and the glass trembled faintly in the cold air.
He took out a trench shovel and carefully pried at the weakened wooden frame.
Click.
The faint sound was almost swallowed by the night.
Almost.
Inside the stairwell, a Czech machine gunner suddenly stiffened.
Tat tat tat!
The ZB 26 light machine gun spat fire. Bullets tore through the wooden door and punched into the street outside, kicking up dust and fragments of stone.
Sitora, lying in a blind spot beneath the wall, felt dust drift across his nose. For a moment, he almost sneezed.
The firing stopped.
The Czech machine gunner waited, breathing hard.
No one appeared.
After several seconds, another voice cursed from above.
"What happened?"
"Accidental discharge!" the machine gunner shouted back, trying to sound calm.
At that same moment, Pippen removed the loosened window frame.
He slipped inside first.
His boot came down on broken glass.
Crunch.
The two machine gunners in the stairwell froze.
Perhaps it was a stray dog. Perhaps a piece of the frame had fallen. Perhaps exhaustion was making them imagine things.
Gripping their pistols, they descended the stairs to conduct a second search.
Pippen stood against the wall near the machine gun position, silent as a butcher waiting behind a door.
He reversed his grip on the trench shovel.
With a small movement of his thumb, the sharp spike at the back sprang free.
The first Czech machine gunner rounded the corner.
Pippen saw his arm first.
He reached out with his left hand and yanked hard.
The Czech soldier was pulled off balance before he could understand what had happened. His pistol slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
There was no time for him to scream.
The spike drove up beneath his chin.
Blood burst out, hot and sudden.
The second machine gunner tried to raise his weapon.
Sitora appeared in the doorway.
Bang.
The first bullet pierced the man's arm.
Bang.
The second shattered his knee.
He collapsed with a strangled cry.
This time, there was no excuse of accidental discharge.
On the third floor, the Czech squad realized something was wrong.
Boots pounded against the floorboards. Men shouted. Rifles were snatched up. Soldiers rushed toward the stairs.
Sitora heard the footsteps and moved quickly.
He had already dismantled the mines at the entrance. Now, with cold efficiency, he prepared a far crueler gift for the squad rushing down from above.
He seized the severely wounded Czech assistant machine gunner, who was still wailing on the floor, and dragged him into the stairwell. Then he pressed the man down onto a modified mine and withdrew into cover.
The wounded soldier screamed.
Moments later, the Czech squad reached the stairwell and saw their comrade lying there.
They remained wary. Their rifles swept the shadows. But the sight of a wounded brother in arms was not something ordinary men could ignore.
Two soldiers stepped forward and tried to drag him back for treatment.
The moment they pulled him.
Bang!
The mine detonated.
The explosion swallowed the stairwell.
The Czech squad was torn apart in an instant. Smoke, dust, splinters, and blood filled the narrow space. Only the squad leader survived, his leg severed, his face pale with agony.
He clawed his way up the stairs inch by inch with both hands.
Even then, he did not stop fighting.
He raised his pistol and fired at every shape he could see through the smoke.
What answered him was a stick grenade.
Pippen threw it with too much strength.
The grenade bounced past the intended target and detonated just beyond him. The remaining force did not kill the Czech squad leader outright, leaving him barely alive amid the shattered steps.
Upstairs, footsteps multiplied.
More Czech soldiers were coming.
Sitora's voice cut through the chaos.
"William, take control of the firing points. Pippen, take the explosives and climb out through the window. The rest of you, with me. Move, move, move!"
His squad obeyed immediately.
Then Sitora looked down.
The Czech squad leader at his feet was still alive.
The man's eyes were open. His breathing was ragged. His fingers still twitched around his pistol.
Sitora pulled out his sidearm, pressed the barrel against the man's head, and lowered his voice.
"Sorry, friend."
A brief pause.
"This is war."
Bang.
The gunfire inside Wenceslas Square grew chaotic.
That night, Prague did not sleep.
But it was not the sleeplessness of bars, dance halls, and casinos.
It was the sleeplessness of men hiding behind shattered walls with rifles in their hands. It was the sleeplessness of grenades rolling across wooden floors, of boots kicking through doors, of screams vanishing beneath machine gun fire. It was the sleeplessness forged by blood and bullets.
After tonight, only the soldiers of one country would still stand in Wenceslas Square.
The warriors of the other would remain there forever.
When the first rays of morning sunlight pierced through the dust, the Czech National Museum had become a gallery of war.
Bodies lay everywhere.
Some were Czech defenders who had died beside paintings and display cases. Others were German soldiers who, even while pretending to be dead, had dragged one final enemy with them to hell the moment he stepped too close.
In front of a medieval war painting, a Czech soldier sat slumped against the wall, the blood on his chest already dried dark.
Near a landscape painting of a quiet farmhouse, the sons of farmers from different countries lay piled together, their uniforms mingled in death as if the earth had reclaimed them without caring which flag they had carried.
Sitora walked past them in silence.
His face was covered in blood, and one of his fingers was missing. A strip of cloth had been wrapped around the wound, already soaked through. Around him, the surviving Blood Wolves moved with the dull exhaustion of men who had spent the night too close to death to feel victory properly.
Sitora stopped.
He made the sign of the cross in silence.
Then he climbed to the rooftop.
The morning wind struck his face.
Below him, Wenceslas Square lay in ruins. Smoke drifted among shattered buildings. German soldiers moved through the streets, securing prisoners, tending the wounded, and marking cleared structures. The statue of Saint Wenceslas still stood, scarred but upright, gazing over a square that no longer belonged to the men who had defended it.
Sitora unfolded the black, white, and red flag of Germany.
With the help of another soldier, he fixed it in place.
The flag rose above the Czech National Museum.
All of it was recorded by the accompanying war correspondent. The camera flashed. The photographer adjusted his plate. The reporter stepped closer, notebook in hand, eyes bright with the hunger of a man who understood that history was most valuable when it was still bleeding.
"Mr. Soldier," the reporter asked, "do you have anything to say?"
Sitora looked down at the city below.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
What was the meaning of all this?
He did not know.
He had no grand words for history, no speech for newspapers, no noble sentence that could make the dead rise or make the living clean again.
At that moment, Pippen stepped beside him and handed him one of those strong Mexican cigarettes.
It was stained with blood.
Sitora glanced at it, then took it between his lips.
He inhaled.
The smoke burned through his throat like fire.
Only then did he finally understand one thing with certainty.
Pippen had not been bragging.
Sitora exhaled slowly and muttered, "This damn cigarette... it really is amazing."
.....
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