Betwixt Oder and Vistula [MT][PPC Maintence Thread]

[Polish Prussian Commonwealth]

OOC: This is restricted to me and specific nations I approve only.

Betwixt Oder and Vistula
Current Year: 2021
Now Playing: The Voice in My Heart - Violet Evergarden OST

A quaint little Central-European federal constitutional monarchy marked mostly by plains, old-growth deciduous forests, and ubquitous military bases, with the Carpathian mountains to the South. Boasting a population of around 50 million, with 45 million in the Kingdom of Poland and 5 million in the Kingdom of Prussia, the Commonwealth of the Kingdoms has been ruled with a fair hand by the House of Hohenzollern-Jagiellon since the Uprising of 1992. With a rapidly growing economy, strong military, and it's allies close at hand, the Commonwealth has much reason to celebrate.

However, not all is well. The Aureumterran Lion boasts and blathers to the North, but his words are backed by claws. Cassadia and Palmyrion extend their tendrils further into Prussia-Poland's society and government by the day, and there are those who would listen to their poisonous whispers; to throw away the her hard-own independence and the moderate course charted painstakingly by Reichswehr, Church, and King, and to reduce the Commonwealth into a mere pawn and appendage of foreign masters and ideologues once more.

Still; no matter how great the trials to come, today, Prussia-Poland is the master of her fate and the captain of her soul. She is free, and her people will, despite the ravings of madmen and all the bombs and bullets in the world, continue to keep her free.

[Polish Prussian Commonwealth]

And war is like a cruel lottery,
And we were all eager to go home, serving there
But now when I look at the photos, my heart skips a beat
I wish I could go back to those places
But now when I look at the photos, my heart skips a beat
I wish I could go back to Afghanistan

- Rostov - Lottery

June 1st - 2021

“We’re leaving.”
Such joyous words. Sweet, joyous words, to Berengar’s ears. He would see Heidi again, he would see father, and he would see Ida once again.

The sentiment was the same throughout the whole platoon. Everyone had had enough of Afghanistan; the dirty children who swarmed around their vehicles, IEDs, and ‘allies’ who were worse than the insurgents they fought. It was time to go home.

---

Combat Outpost Cascade is a joint Prussian-Polish and American installation, located in the Zana Khan District of Ghazni Province, consisting of a pair of concrete buildings, surrounded by HESCO barriers topped by razor wire. It has at its disposal two Rosomak IFVs and several M1114s, armed with heavy weapons, 30 cavalrymen of the Guards Cuirassiers’ Lancer Battalion, and 30 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade...

“All of that firepower.” Berengar remarked, as tore up the description and threw it off the side of his Humvee. “And we spent ten years here?” He looked around the plains surrounding COP Cascade’s roadside checkpoint. “A full decade?”

His dismounted counterpart, Corporal Czarniak, shrugged. “Fuck if I know, Berengar. Keep your eyes on the perimeter.”

Berengar sighed and peered through his heavy machine gun’s sight again, waiting for an attack that would never come. “So, Czarniak.” he started up again. “...How’re the kids?”

“...Wife took ‘em. I got the word yesterday. Ex-wife, I should say. Fuck ‘er anyway, once I go back I’ll fight that damned hag for all I’m worth.”

“Hope it works out.”

Czarniak nodded. “I hope so too…Say, did that broad, from...Teressieren, she ever work out? Her name’s Ida, right?”

Berengar flushed. “Don’t call her that.”

“I take that as a yes.”

“...Yeah. I hope to spend more time with her once we leave.”

“‘If’, not ‘once’.” Czarniak replied. “Until I’m on the ground in Warsaw it’s an ‘if’. Better yet, don’t say that shit at all. It’s how all the redshirts in those shitty stories and movies die anyway, they talk about their girl at home and then splat, their brains are all over the camera.”

“Well, we’re not in some shitty war story, right?”

“I don’t know, man. Sometimes I wonder if some edgy American teenager’s pounding away at his cheap Lenovo laptop, trying to figure out how to fuck us over next.”

“...Let’s hope he has at least some semblance of competency, if that’s the case.”

“Aye. Say, Ida, she’s the reason you came back with a giant box of choccy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. That’s a keeper, if I say so myself. Treat her well.”

“I will.”

Berengar peered through the sight once again, and saw a few men armed with M4s and dressed in grey camouflage uniforms moving through the streets up towards them.

“Oi, Czarnik, the Yanks are back.” Berengar said. “Be a sport and don’t shoot at ‘em like you did last time, aye?”

“Fuck you, Berengar, that was once.”

---

Normally, the return of an American patrol was a loud affair. Americans are chatty, Prussian-Poles are silent and stoic; that was supposed to be how it went.

But not today. The Americans were silent, and as they entered again through the gates, they dispersed quietly.

One of them approached Berengar and Czarniak. He lit up a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, before flopping down in front of the HESCO wall and shutting his eyes.

“Ey.” Berengar called. “Elias. How’s it out there?”

“Still shit.” Elias muttered. “Kids smell like shit, men smell like shit. Once I get home I’m gonna take a giant fucking shower.”

He yawned and rubbed his face. “We finally managed to trick the kids into saying ‘Fuck Afghanistan’ though. Shit was surreal. If you want a copy of the tape ask Zacharias.”

Czarniak smirked. “Pft. I’ll be sure to do that...hang on.”

He leaned in slightly, and narrowed his eyes. “Ey, Elias. You’re missing a mag.”

Elias nodded. “Aye, and?”

“Where did it go?”

“We were cleaning up some dirty laundry. Nothing that’ll matter in the long run.”

“...I’m sorry, what?” Berengar asked, after a pause.

“Elias.” Czarniak said. “I’m not fucking around. What did you do?”


Elias closed his eyes and rubbed them, and remained silent for a long while.

“...You remember that guy? Head honcho of the local border cop garrison?”

“Tarzi?” Berengar asked. “Him? That bastard?”

Czarniak nodded. “Did you…”

A long silence passed, before Elias finally opened his eyes and wiped them with the back of his hand, before nodding. “There was a body in the house. Some kid.” Elias croaked. “Wasn’t much older than 10. Bastard. Should’ve done this earlier.”

“But his gang,” Czarniak objected. “Won’t they be after us now? They’re big on... what do you call it, uh, bacha bazi-”

“Let them.” Elias muttered. “I’ll shoot every son of a bitch who tries. It’ll take awhile for them to figure out who did it, anyways. We’ll be long gone by then.”

Berengar glanced around from his Humvee’s turrent nervously, before looking back down at Elias. “What about his deputy? And...your...your CID? Aren’t they going to investigate?”

“The CID?” Elias shook his head. “They withdrew already. All that’s left is the local police, and they couldn’t investigate their way out of a United Airlines vomit bag. We planned this whole thing, start to finish. And I don’t give a damn if this gets me arrested either. I don’t think anyone else gives a damn. And his deputy...the last joint patrol, when you provided overwatch for us? We did him in that time.”

The revelation stunned the Poles into a long silence.

“Couldn’t you have reported him?” Berengar asked, after awhile.

“The last guys tried two years ago.” Elias shot back. “We tried again six months ago. Things like these are out of ISAF’s jurisdiction so the case got passed on to the locals both times. He’s still receiving aid. Well, was still receiving aid. Whatever. What’s done is done. He’s dead now. Tell whoever you want.”
Elias stood and walked further into the encampment, leaving the two Prussian-Poles behind to digest what they had heard.

---

To Ida;

I’m coming home. I’ll see you soon. At least, I hope.

To answer your question. Afghanistan’s still horrid. 200 years and all of the Great Powers of the world haven’t learned a damned thing.
I was listening to the long-wave radio a few days ago, as usual, with a couple of other people. The translator was there as well. Some ANA troops in charge of a border outpost in the province over from us surrendered to the Taliban last night. Not a single shot was fired.

Halfway through our translator started crying and couldn’t go on.

The US State Department denied his visa request the day before that. He tried to get my help an hour before we left; said that if he couldn’t get his family out, they were dead. I believe him.

I couldn’t do a damned thing. One of the guys passed him a pistol. As we were going through the gates I heard a gunshot. Word’s coming in from other units in the area too. This is happening everywhere. They’re leaving the translators for dead.

He saved my life once, on patrol. Pulled my head down right before an MG would’ve cut it off. He was a funny man too, always ready to smile and crack stupid jokes that we laughed at anyway. Once he started a betting pool on which vehicle would blow up first.

You would’ve liked him, I think, if you met him.

Enclosed should be a package with precisely six packets of American MRE desserts, to be precise 3 apple-flavored pound cakes and 3 carrot pound cakes. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did the chocolate you sent over. How are your sisters? How's the job going? And how’s your grandmother?

Hugs;
Berengar.

[Polish Prussian Commonwealth]

ORP 'Rota'

---

Gdynia, 1938

A young boy, perhaps fifteen, maybe sixteen, leaned forward on the sea-wall as he gazed across Gdynia’s harbor. In one hand he had a copy of ‘Jane’s Fighting Ships’, 1937 edition – in the other, a pair of binoculars.

A few passersby glanced at him as they passed him by. Was he a spy? Some intelligence agent, perhaps, of greater powers?

Far from it. Shipwatching was, as far as he was concerned, a respectable art and hobby, one that his parents encouraged in hopes of keeping him out of trouble.

He had been at it for five years, and knew the harbor, and ships that passed in and out of that harbor, like the back of his hand: the tramp-steamer Ibis left on a coal run at 1500 hours on Thursdays and returned from Kiel a week later, while the submarine Sęp and the destroyer Burza would leave for training patrols approximately twice a month. A dozen little fishing-boats left, generally between the hours of 0500 and 0700, and returned by the time the sun set – 1700 hours in winter, 2200 hours in summer. Once a year on 10 February there would be soldiers and sailors, reviews of both men on land and ships at sea, and some Major or Colonel would ride into the surf on his horse and throw a ring as far as he could into the Baltic. The seasons and tides, the harbor’s reasons and rhymes – these, the boy all knew.

Which made it all the more apparent to him that today, something special was occurring. Banners festooned the streets, the passersby seemed quieter. Even the waves, normally raging at this time of year, seemed to calm themselves, as if in reverence to something – or someone.
Then he spotted the soldiers and sailors. First his eyes fell on the Naval Infantry, pulled straight from Gdansk, with dark green uniforms and the sun glinting off their polished bayonets and heavy rifles. Behind them men in white uniforms and white caps stood ready – an admiral or two, captains, chief petty officers, and seamen. Further beyond them – a graying old man, in a dull-green uniform, his chest festooned with medals.


The King.

Besides and behind him, as if there were mere shadows, stood a few minor functionaries and Gdynia’s mayor.

The boy pondered on this. Local functionaries and Naval Infantry meant a dignitary, and admirals meant one of great military renown. But if the King himself deigned to come down...

A loud foghorn attracted his attention, and he turned, peering down his binoculars as he tried to make out the arriving ship. She was a clipper-bowed, graceful warship – larger, and more heavily armed than the destroyers or minelayers that made up most of the warships he had seen.


He flipped open his copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships and began to leaf through, finally stopping at one of the newer entries.

She was the ORP ‘Rota’, Rota-class light cruiser. Prussia-Poland’s newest warship, fresh from some British shipyard on the Thames. Soon, evidently, she would be formally commissioned into the Navy, and volunteers were being sought out to fit and man her…and the minimum age was 15.

The boy imagined himself going down to the recruiting office, signing his name on a paper and being fitted out for a uniform. His parents would be livid, but who gave a damn? Certainly, not him!

After a few month’s training he would be sent aboard, a sailor or ensign learning the ropes. Perhaps he would be assigned to a gunnery-crew servicing one of the triple-six-inch turrets, or maybe he would be a member of the bridge staff, setting courses and executing orders. He would be with her as she sailed around the world and back again, showing Prussia-Poland’s flag on distant shores – the port of Sinope, the Free Land’s meadows, or New Columbia and San Francisco Bay.

And then that fateful summons would sound – war at home. It would be a glorious affair – the beginning of a vacation, but with danger, shot, steel, the adrenaline rising as one battled alongside one's fellows and a cause greater than himself. Perhaps they would be in homeport and fight their way out of the Baltic in a blaze of glory, but more likely, they would be abroad, the declaration of war reaching them in the middle of shore-leaves, balls with the local elite, whereupon the whole body of officers and men would at once excuse themselves and sail for France. France would fall to German boots, most likely; but the Rota would be a blaze of action even as Paris burned, guarding French troop-convoys as they fled for America and hounding any German, submarine or surface-ship, she found. And then the Americans – would they not see the value in a fine, gallant ship and crew as the Rota too? Would they not run her alongside their Brooklyns, their South Dakotas and Alaskas, all peerless fighting-machines of men and steel? Of course they would, and Rota would rise to the task. She – and he on board – would carry Prussia-Poland’s banner into the Pacific as well, fighting against the Japanese on a thousand far-flung islands. Leyte Gulf, Samar, the Philippines, the Marshalls – all those islands turned into Japanese fortresses, guarded by gallant men in some of the best ships the world could offer. Would it not take an equally-worthy ship – like the Rota – to wrest them from the Oriental despot’s grasp?

And their battlefield victories would translate into political victories, too. Surely the Americans would honor their word. Surely they would take heed of Prussia-Poland’s sovereignty, of the gallant service of her sons in the war to come. Surely they would restore her to her former borders, as was before the war. The American people were a just, honest, and upright folk, valiant in war and magnanimous in peace. Surely their politicians knew better than to anger their own people by short-changing their war-time allies.

And at war’s end, the Rota would return home, to a Prussia-Poland free and fair. Her journey run and her time come, her time as a warship would end to make way for newer, more modern vessels. She would be preserved in Gdynia’s harbor for all eternity, a shrine to the men who crewed her and a school for future generations. Time and time again he would return to her; five, ten, perhaps fifteen or fifty years down the line. She would be a constant companion through his life even as the war became a distant memory – a stately witness to every step he would take through his life.

With that, the boy resolved himself, and made his way over to the naval recruiting office some distance down. Just as he imagined it, a quick stroke of the pen and he was a sailor.

A month later, an aged sailor watched as the boy ran along in his new uniform, arm in arm with a dark-haired young woman, and grimaced.

“Another pair of young fools off to war.” he murmured sorrowfully, shaking his head. He turned to his companion – a middle-aged woman. “What do you think the odds are of ‘em coming home?”


She shook her head. “You put too little faith in him. He’ll live, fool that he is, and she will too. I’m sure of it.”

“Pah. Don’t lie to me, Lothringen. You said that to all of us and look how well the last war went for the lot of us.”

“I said it to you, Stortebeker, and you seemed to have survived.”

“Not all of me. And not all of you.”

“You’re still yapping, aren’t you?” Lothringen shot back, narrowing her eyes. “That tells me you’re fine.”
Stortebeker seemed stung, and Lothringen’s expression softened. “Besides. You made it home.”
“I suppose so…” The sailor grew quiet, watching the younger couple disappear into the crowd. “And I hope what you said holds true for them too.”
“It will.” Lothringen replied, though the sailor thought heard the faintest strain in her voice. “It will.”