Julia's Diary - Chapter 3

7th of October, 2010

From theory to practice

It's the first day after our first raid since our return. Janek wandered through the forest for like an hour, before coming back to us. Bartek told him of his actions with the new computer, and how now we could decode native messages - Janek praised him for that sign of initiative, not aware of Fahad's earlier rant over Bartek's ridiculous answer to his question. Still, Janek's increased sadness did not leave him completely - But You would have to know him better, in order to see that.

Janek told us we have to continue with our plan - to do so, this night we will raid one of the fortresses located in the realm we have landed - the School for Fairies. Our mission - to cripple native support by eliminating most of the school's senior staff, and force 'the heroines' to get better normally than normally. That second part will be done by Janek, who like I said before received a gift of being a spellcaster - although he does not like the idea too much.
Janek told us to try take a sleep throughout the afternoon, so that we would be awake and on alert while making our moves. If only this was that easy - we all were used to this kind of circumstances, when every minute of sleep or rest had to be counted, but it has been so long we had to learn back from square one.

So here I am, sitting silently in my coffin-like bed - I know this is how astronauts sleep in space, but... cut me a break - with a dim-light  from my torch, trying to continue my diary. At least one thing that is somewhat satisfying in this situation. I do not know what the others do, my guess is some have already fallen asleep, others are doing things like reading books, some sketches and so on. They do not know yet that I am writing down this diary - But they will learn of it, sooner or later.

But as for You, I suppose You want to know how it started in the first, how we came to be soldiers, albeit not formally. Well, this is how it went. When it turned out we are trapped in Janek's own mind, and his imagination, we were given no other choice but to follow it's choices. I said 'It's', because it was clear Janek had no control over where we would go or what we were about to witness. Thus, we had the chance to see his past, though perhaps only what he wanted to show up, and not in full detail.

We have learnt he didn't fit in his surrounding, he was a perfect target for bullies - and teachers literally did nothing to stop that - and he had very few friends, who he stopped trusting pretty fast, his home was his only sanctuary, even though it was not perfect, which explained us one of his quotes - 'Do You have any idea what it is like, living in someone's shadow? And being constantly reminded of that?' Yes, his parents did try to help him and support him, he never suffered poverty, but the problem was their personalities - When we saw them, it was hard to believe they had survived together for all these years.  One of their modus operanti was repeating Janek about their or his siblings' achievements in the past, which seemed to put a lot of stress on him - and they never realized what they were doing. I suppose that explained, among other things, why Janek thought that 'Parents are Idiots', even though he never allowed anybody say anything bad about his family.
During these sessions, we were invisible ghosts, hovering throught the scenes, being able to see and hear everything, but unable to influence the action. This however changed after we have seen vision of the family's past during the Galitian Rabation - I believe it was the only time Janek's mind used imagination to recreate these events. As soon as that part ended, we theorized We were supposed to see theory, and the mind has decided it has been time for practice.

We came from Galatian Rabation in 1846 to... Occupied Poland in 1944. We have landed inside a loaded truck, whose German driver and his companion has decided to take a short break in the forest. We heard them go deeper into the woods, but after a while we heard shoots and two Germans' screams of agony - They must have been ambushed by some Resistance fighters. Janek decided not to wait - He first touched the closest object to him, to see if it was another vision or not. When he managed to cock the MP-40 submachine gun, it became clear this time we have been part of that Universe.

GRAB YOUR WEAPONS! WE MIGHT BE FORCED TO DEFEND OURSELVES! FAHAD, START THAT TRUCK AND GET GOING! - Those were Janek's first words as soon as we heard gunfire. Fahad quickly jumped off the lorry, got into the driver's cabin, started the engine and took out of there. When Beata asked Fahad how he knew how to start that truck, Fahad said his uncle in Thailand had similar one on his plantation. 'Talk about being lucky' He added.

Fahad drove the truck for some time, before Janek asked him to stop, so that we could see what was carried by it. Like Fahad said, we were lucky indeed - the truck was not only carrying weapons and ammunition to them, but also fresh uniforms and equipment needed by every soldier. Documents found inside driver's cabin explained everything - the truck was loaded with delivery to some Waffen-SS unit stationed near Warsaw, to replace items damaged during battles with the Soviets. Well, some of that delivery at least - Documents spoke of ten trucks carrying the cargo. That meant unless the rest of the convoy had been ambushed by Resistance, the Germans would have certainly searched for that truck. After a moment of thinking, Janek made a dedicion - Each one of us dressed up as SS-mann, took one pistol, one bolt-action rifle and one submachine gun plus ammunition to them and as many supplies as possible, then the truck was set on fire, before we vanished into the darkness of the forest.

Only after we made a stopover and lighted a bonfire, we saw what we took, which in the end turned out about our roles - Beata took all medkits, while revealing she had medical education, Kathy took all the food, and Fahad took one MG-34 machine gun and tools needed to take care of it. I had to wait for my scoped rifle for a while, though I still told of my experience in shooting birds with my uncle.  As for Janek, our new situation meant he had to become teacher to us - Which meant his interest in military finally proved useful. Whenever we took a break, he used that time to teach us what he remembered about most needed knowledge for infantrymen, including hand signals for communication. And so it went for us - we marched through the forest, avoiding contact with anybody as long as possible, and learning all the things Janek - and Fahad too after so time - had learnt via Militaristic hobby. Our objective: Occupied Warsaw.

Why there? Documents captured at the truck with date indicating Warsaw Uprising was soon to start. Janek decided we should help the Home Army via incursions behind enemy lines as much as we could.  But we had to get there first, and that was not easy - equipment was heavy, some of us, including me, were not used to such a burden, and even Janek started regretting we had burned the truck instead of using it to get to the city faster. But then, luck had interfered, once again - While wandering through the field, we have encountered a Waffen-SS unit, preparing a mass execution of some captured civilians. Soldiers posittioned themselves so that we had them from behind. Janek made a quick decision - He opened fire on the commanding officer, and we followed, trying not to hit any of the captured civilians. And we succeeded - Germans were all dead before anybody could figure out what was wrong. After that short skirmish, Janek told all the civilians to get out of sight, while we gathered ammunition from German corpses. One SS-mann turned to be still alive - but Janek cut his throat with a dagger, much to our horror. His reply:

'We can't let him go, or he will alarm the rest and kill more innocent civilians. Neither we can take him as a prisoner, or he will be a nuisance we can't afford. Besides, once the Uprising starts, Germans will be ordered to kill every civilian, wounded or surrendering - despite shortage of ammo. It's best to make him go to Hell where he belongs.There's more - When talking to civilians, I realized they know our faces. If we are to make our incurssions, no one must how we look like.Bring that in Your heads: No Prisoners! No Survivors!'.

This statement left us in shock at first, but very soon we recorded from our History lessons all the documented stories of German atrocities in occupied regions, including the Wola Massacre during Warsaw Uprising - and it left our minds. So much we even forgot our Baptism of Fire was a success thanks to those short session we had on range, while they were still sponsored by the State - in fact, if I recall correctly, we were the last generation to ever had such lessions as part of Self-Defence Education, before they were withdrawn from schools.

After telling us first de facto order for battle, Janek asked Bartek to check out the car the SS executioner have left behind. Inside was a map pointing out the road to Warsaw, and all the road check-points, meaning we could easily avoid them if we had to. But just as we were to leave, some of the rescued civilians came back - with a Batallion of Polish Home Army. Turned out some of the SS hostages were local informants or members of the Polish Resistance, captured by the Germans. They wanted to thank us for rescue, and at the same time learn whose side we were on - given the fact Polish Resistance was splitted into different factions, competing with each other. This was probably the first time Janek had coined our Introduction, and name of our group:
'We are the Outcasts. Soldiers of the Republic of Poland, Second to None, Heroes of our People, Betrayed by our Brothers for not supporting their ridiculous ideas. Forsaken by our Country, we have No Home, No Friends, and No Leaders. We Do Whatever We decide is Right. Do not attempt to become our enemies!'

That introduction must have had shocked the Resistance members, because they had no idea what to think of it, based on their faces. And since we were all inside the Horch car, one of many the executioner have left behind, Janek chose not to wait for their answer - One, single hand signal to Fahad, and we drove away, leaving the Resistance fighters behind. Our target: Warsaw, just days before the Uprising...

Well, wouldn't You know, I actually fell asleep while writing down my own words. I wonder if my diary would have had the same effect on You, by now. It wasn't until Janek woke us up that I regained my senses. It was time to go for our next raid - we prepared ourselves, our equipment and went on foot, in order to avoid being detected. Luckily, the natives are too lazy to do anything during the night, which gave us a great advantage - Especially since in Warsaw we got used to these kind of actions.

Like I said, our objective was to cripple the school by eliminating it's most senior staff, and we did - I was to kill headmistress' right hand, second only to her. Unfortunately I did not manage to kill her quietly - She must have been having a bad dream, because she has awakened as I was coming closer to her bed. I had to be fast, so I grabbed a silenced pistol and put two bullet in her forehead. After she fell on her pillow, I slit her throat, just in case - I felt somewhat shocked while doing it, not because I was doing it, but more because I am not used too much to killing up this close. I am a sniper after all. But that's a different story for another night. We must prepare ourselves to proceed with Janek's... Our battleplan.