06/22/00 – Thursday
If you someday find this report on my body in a wrecked out car crash there is a good chance it’s because we let Brook fucking Drive again. Seriously if you ever come across a Kyle Brookheimer of the 5th Infantry Division never let him near the wheel of anything you want to keep roadworthy!
With the doc stable we set off on the morning towards the road bridge shown on the map that will get us across the river (one day at a time).By lunchtime I don’t know how but the fucker had somehow driven in a circle and then gone over a Tree stump so roughly the fucking front axle completely snapped! The Humvee was going nowhere fast and what's more it had opened up Doc Robinson's wound again! So yeah. Brook is off driving duty.
While Doc looked at her wound we noticed smoke about a klick away and me and Brook hoofed it up to investigate. Moving faster when we heard weapons fire. When we got there we found a dead polish family and two GI’s claiming a Russian patrol had killed them and then driven off. One, A Private Clayton Brooks (He’s going to be “Clay” from now on as that’s too many fucking syllables and we’ve already got a Brook) looks so wet behind the ears I expected him to fucking Quack. Pretty sure he’s so young he could get away in basic shaving once a fortnight.
The other guy “Mr Smith” ain’t no soldier. I’ve done my share of SSO’s (Spook Support Ops) to know one when I see one but if he wants to be a “Mr” so be it. The farmhouse was burning but there were a few outhouses intact and one contained a Tractor. Brook thought he might be able to repair the Humvee with the axle from it so while I left him playing with that I took Clay back and updated Doc. Doc gave me his Radio figuring the one in the Humvee could work with it (a fucking fantastic Idea I should have thought of, I’m slipping). I then went out hunting and managed to bag a Boar so we’ve plenty of meat for the road (Brook also got some berry's and mushrooms so we can get a bit of variety and save our MREs for emergency rations). The farm also had a well so we took the chance to fill our canteens etc.
By the time I got back Brook had made progress but wasn’t quite done. I radioed Doc and he and Cap Robinson (who he had plugged up for the second time) came down to the farm to bivouac for the night. I stayed on guard with the NVG’s figuring, if he can finish getting the axle off tomorrow, I can sleep on the road and I’d rather the tech heads like him have a clear head (and frankly I don’t yet trust Mr Smith or the newbie Clay, for very different reasons).
After a tiring but uneventful night I did some scrounging around the farm while Doc worked on the tractor. Found myself a nice raincoat that will come in handy when the weather turns. Doc did awesome and got it off in record time and even managed to cannibalise a few spares but reckoned it was going to take him a chunk of the afternoon to hump it back to the Humvee and fit it then he could drive over and pick us all up. As such, with nothing to do but wait, I decided to get my head down (so did brook, he slept last night he’s just a lazy fucker) while Clay was on guard and Mr Smith went out foraging.
Not long later I’m getting kicked awake by Clay who tells us he can see 4 Commies walking down the path to the farm. I get on one side of the door frame while Brook takes the other, Clay, showing he remembered at least SOME of basic, tries to start flanking them. I’ve got the range on them with my M24 so line up and try to get the drop on them. They must have seen the flash of a barrel or got a funny feeling or something at the last second as they started to shift but didn’t matter I plugged one anyway.
From what he says Doc and “Mr Smith” heard the ruckus and made their way back (doc in the Humvee which he’d just finished fixing) but by the time they were near me, Brook and Clay had handled it (although I need to have a word with Messrs Spray and pray about ammo conservation).
In training they’d always hammer the mantra “keep moving. Movement gives you options, being still just gets you surrounded and narrows them” and here we are having moved less than 5 klicks in 48 hours ( a distance I could run in 20 fucking minutes). Hopefully once we’ve picked what we can off these commies bodies we can hopefully drive for a few hours at least before setting down for the night once more.
