Thursday, June 15, 2006

War is just another game...

It is cold here. Had been snowing. Why did they have to select this terrain to fight? Even a desert would have been better. And why am I thinking about the weather? Maybe it is to divert my mind from other things. The numb bodies lying near. The numb dead bodies. A few minutes ago, they breathed, shouted, Lived!! Now a wrangled mass of flesh and blood. Lot of blood around. Just around the mound, the Englishmen are waiting.

The Major had not expected such a large battery of tanks here. In this difficult terrain. But they had been ready. Even though we had the advantage of an ambush, somehow, they had sensed it. Perhaps there was a spy, a traitor amongst us. Or perhaps they had caught one of our men who had got into one of their centers. But no it did not matter anymore. Maybe just maybe, the Tiger tanks would come up and attack them from the south. But maybe that's just wishful thinking.

I can see their airport control tower above the mound. If I could somehow convey to the base camp that there is danger here...More men might be coming. And they were in danger, grave one. We should never have attempted to take up this city without proper tanks and air backup in the first place. What can an infantry division with 30 machine gunners and 5 tanks do to such a large division. The Major had even declined the Luftwaffe backup. How arrogant and stupid.

The war! Won't it ever come to an end? We've been killing, moving, killing, conquering. And just when we think there has been a breakthrough, capturing a city, there comes the news that they have captured one of ours. We just don’t seem to have enough of steel and oil to do anything. Nor food. And the guys doing research on bombs are getting nowhere..There have been talks of a new powerful one that the Americans are developing that can wipe out cities in seconds..God save us then..But some of our scientists have been working on a missile shield that just might protect us from annihilation..

But why am I thinking all this? I can almost smell the death around, and hear it in the rat-a-tat of the machine guns.. Every time an air raid siren goes off..Maybe I should retreat and warn the others..Or maybe I should wait for some more time..

There is a slight movement around the mound..It's another tank..They dont know that I am still here, waiting..A kind of a suicidal mission..Should I shoot it down and expose myself? or wait for backup? Or wait patiently?

The gunner turned slightly, and somehow caught a glimpse of me. Or had he? The tank slowly began to turn. Yes, he had.

I slowly raised my anti tank bazooka onto my shoulder and took aim. And fired. Poof.

It all went black!!

"DAMN!!" I cursed. Just as I was about to launch an all out attack on the English troops from the south and help that guy firing at the tank there, Karnataka Electricity Board has given up on me!!

Eh?!!

Well, so are the lures of "Rise of Nations"!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

good lord, man! Goddammit, to think that it was goin somewhere! Who the f. are you? O. F. Henry???

Madhavan said...

hehehe...does that mean that the writing is improving??