Tommy Guns

“Ruedi, you look like death. Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“You’re not fine. What happened?”

“They’re dead. All of them, every last one.”

“Dead? Who?”

“Berger, Haas, everyone. They wiped out the camp at Karlshorst. Ground attack. Didn’t even see them coming.”

“You went to school with Haas, didn’t you? Christ, I’m sorry Rueds.”

“It’s okay. We weren’t really friends.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Okay, what if we’re next? What if they come kill us in our sleep?”

“They won’t. We won’t be.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“You’re in shock, you’re not thinking straight. They wouldn’t try and get us. We’re too many.”

“They’re too many. They’re systematically wiping us out, Felix. You take a group of twenty out to the front lines with you and come back with half as many. We’re going to lose this war.”

“Don’t say things like that. You’re being dramatic; we’ll be fine.”

“Okay, well what if you don’t come back next time? We won’t be fine then. I won’t be fine.”

“I won’t let that happen, Rueds. You know that.”

“You can’t promise that. Face it, Felix, we have nothing left.”

“We have hope. Hold onto that; if you can hold onto that then we’re going to be just fine.”

“Hope?”

“Hope. If we have that, we can’t go wrong.”

“Hope doesn’t stop bullets from tearing you apart.”