Chapter 201:

Words : 1314 Updated : Sep 23rd, 2025

Chapter 201: "FRANCE HAS FALLEN AGAIN!"Next day was same repeat of Military Life. Troops awake to Sergeant Chalon’s voice. "WAKE UP, YOU SACKS OF TURNIPS! IF I SEE ONE MAN STILL IN HIS COT IN TEN SECONDS, I’LL PERSONALLY FLIP THIS BARRACKS!" Inside, men flailed. Blankets went flying. Boots hit the floor like grenades. Private Faure hit the floor literally again. "Mon dieu, is he possessed?" Rousseau, still pulling his trousers up, muttered, "If Satan had a sergeant, it’d be Chalon." Faure coughed, scrambling to his locker. "You think he sleeps?" "Sleep? That man probably drinks diesel and screams at clouds." Outside, the freezing wind did nothing to hide the sharp stink of soldiers who hadn’t bathed in three days. Chalon paced before the lineup, arms crossed like a disappointed mother, mustache twitching with disdain. "You smell like goat piss and socialist ideals. Get your shit in gear. Today we run, we fire, we climb, and if I catch anyone lagging, I swear on Napoleon’s bald spot, I will make you dig a new Maginot Line with your teeth." "Isn’t the Maginot Line underground?" someone whispered. Chalon stopped. "WHO SAID THAT?" No one moved. "WHO’S THE PHILOSOPHER? Step forward, Voltaire." Silence. He walked the line like a vulture sniffing for cowardice. Then. "Fine. Everyone run three kilometers for being collectively stupid. NOW." Faure leaned toward Delcourt. "My legs hate me." Delcourt grunted, breath clouding. "Your legs hate France." Later, during shooting drills, Corporal Lemaitre supervised. "Remember PAP burst control. You’re not painting abstract art on the wall. Short, controlled. Save ammo. Unless you like being empty-handed in a gunfight." Private Benoit fired, missed everything, and shouted, "Malfunction!" "You’re malfunctioning," muttered Faure, firing a perfect burst into the center target. Marcelle walked by with a clipboard. "Faure, decent grouping. Delcourt low. Rousseau too wide. Girard what in hell is that?" Girard grinned sheepishly. "Creative targeting?" "You shot the grass. Congratulations. You’re now qualified to kill landscaping." Rousseau slapped Girard’s helmet. "Next time shoot up, genius!" Girard shrugged. "I was recalibrating." Chalon appeared, arms behind his back. "Recalibrating your aim or your brain, Girard?" "Sir, both?" By midday, after climbing walls, crawling through trenches, and falling into two separate pits full of stagnant water (Delcourt both times), the men staggered toward the mess tent. "Soup again?" Faure asked, staring at his bowl like it had insulted his mother. "No," said Rousseau. "Soup adjacent." Girard sniffed. "Tastes like sadness." They sat on crates, shivering and devouring their rations like wolves. Nearby, two recruits tried to open a can with a bayonet and nearly took off a finger. Sёarᴄh the NôvelFire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Marcelle walked past. "Still no dedicated can opener?" "No, but this bayonet’s earning combat pay." After lunch came "unit cohesion" drills, which the men had begun to realize were just an excuse to yell at each other under the illusion of discipline. "Obstacle course relay!" Lemaitre barked. "You fall, your whole squad restarts. Teamwork or death, boys!" "Can’t we choose death?" muttered Benoit. "DEATH’S A PRIVILEGE," Chalon bellowed from across the yard. The first group sprinted forward. Delcourt hit the climbing rope and immediately slipped. Rousseau screamed, "I SWEAR TO GOD, DELCOURT...." Faure, halfway up the timber wall, yelled down, "Just pretend there’s a German with a baguette on the other side!" Delcourt grunted, "Why would a German have a baguette?" "I don’t know, IT’S MOTIVATIONAL!" They finally finished, collapsing in a pile of sweat, bruises, and mutual hatred. "Teamwork," Girard gasped. "Built on pain and cursing." After a brief water brea one canteen per four men, because apparently the army believed in both scarcity and suffering, the squads moved to "stealth practice." It went about as well as expected. "You’re all louder than a marching band in wooden shoes!" Lemaitre yelled. "Move like ghosts!" Faure crawled under some brush and immediately snapped a branch. Delcourt fell into another hole. Girard tried to roll silently and smacked into a crate. From the tree line, Chalon’s voice drifted out. "YOU SOUND LIKE A FARMER’S WEDDING!" Faure hissed, "What does that even mean?!" "Less talking, more creeping!" "Creeping is Rousseau’s specialty!" "I am not a creep. I am... tactically intimate." Everyone groaned. That night, the barracks were a full with laughter and exhaustion. Delcourt held up his bandaged ankle. "Third fall this week." "Stop making love to every hole you see," Rousseau teased. "I thought the army trained you to avoid holes," Faure added. "Your mother’s hole..." "Ah ah ah!" Lemaitre barked from his bunk. "One more joke and you’re all on latrine duty till Vichy becomes a democracy." Silence. Later, during unofficial "recon," Faure and Rousseau found Private Benoit crouched behind a shed, puffing a cigarette like it was his last earthly pleasure. "You’re gonna get caught." Benoit shrugged. "Worth it." "You know smoking’s banned outside designated zones." Benoit inhaled deeply. "So’s sanity." From behind them: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THREE DOING?!" Chalon. The cigarette went flying. They bolted like rabbits. "RUN!" They tore down the gravel path, Chalon right behind them, coat flapping like the Grim Reaper’s cape. "THREE KILOMETERS!" he roared. "YOU’RE RUNNING TILL THE SUN DIES!" They dodged tents, swerved past a tank, leapt over logs. "I CAN SMELL YOU, BEN....OIT!" "I REGRET EVERYTHING!" Benoit cried. Rousseau turned his head mid-sprint. "This is what guilt smells like!" Faure wheezed. "Guilt and Gauloises!" By the time they limped back, Chalon had finally given up the chase, probably too disgusted to continue. Delcourt met them near the mess. "What did you do this time?" "Smoked," Faure gasped. "Ran for it." "Why not just hide?" "Chalon smells fear. He can track it." Next day, the men were herded into lecture tents for "tactical briefings." The blackboard was blank. Major Moreau himself walked in. The chatter died. He lit a cigarette. Silent. Deadly. "You are not special," he said finally. "You are soldiers. You are pieces on a board. But if every piece moves right, thinks fast, and shoots straight, the enemy dies." No one breathed. Moreau turned, drew a diagram on the board. Fast strokes. A tank. A trench. Arrows. "Tanks are not shields. They are weapons. Infantry must move with them. If you’re behind, you die. If you’re ahead, you die. Only with." He looked at the room like a man daring anyone to argue. "Any questions?" Rousseau raised a hand slowly. "If we move with the tank, and it stops..." "You push it." Rousseau blinked. "Sir?" Moreau stared. "You push the tank." Faure leaned in to Delcourt. "He’s not joking." After the lecture, they returned to the field. New gear was issued parade packs that weighed more than heartbreak. "Ten kilometers with full kit!" Lemaitre shouted. "You fall out, I drag you!" Rousseau stared at the pack. "This bag is half my weight." "It’s half your worth," Faure quipped. The march began. Halfway through, Benoit slipped, tumbling downhill like a sad potato. "BENOIT DOWN!" Rousseau cried. "Medic!" "I’M NOT DEAD," Benoit groaned. "I’m just... horizontal." "You’re a disgrace to potatoes," muttered Delcourt. Chalon appeared from behind a tree. "Nobody rests until someone vomits!" Twenty minutes later, someone did. "Mission accomplished," muttered Faure. That night, the barracks were filled with men in every state of disrepair bandaged, limping, sore, and laughing through their agony. Faure wrote in a notebook. "What’re you doing?" Delcourt asked. "Writing my memoir." "Title?" ’Through Mud and Madness: How I Survived Fort Simserhof Without Killing Rousseau." "Bestseller." Girard snored so loudly his bedframe vibrated. Someone threw a sock. "I swear he’s part artillery." Lemaitre, from his corner bunk, grunted, "If he wakes me one more time, I’m putting sandbags on his chest." Someone farted again. "STOP! WHOEVER...." "FRANCE HAS FALLEN AGAIN!" Everyone groaned. "Goodnight, connards." "Bonne nuit, bâtards." "See you in hell." "Already there."

Chapter 201:

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