The Fight For Freedom

[vovan]

Good stuff, Chris. It is great to see you delivering goods on a regular basis once more.

[Lord Zalzabad]

Great Story so far! hope to read more soon.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Thank you for your kind words vovan and Lord Z, and all the other super dooper friendly chaps here have taken the time to post their responses. to you all


Part 6 continued,


Throughout the morning the enemy had sent several smaller detatchments of men ahead to try and capture the sporadic groups of rebels, who continually harrased the main group, that were moving slowly towards Two Hills. Each time getting stung once again with more wounded or killed men from an unseen foe, in ambush after ambush. Although nothing as successful as the earlier stampede Liams men suffered no real casualties during this phase of the operation. They were simply too fit and agile for the communist conscripts to catch.

Jefferson and his men had successfully stopped the expected messengers from getting through to call in reinforcements, and as the enemy pressed on towards the village, his men brought up the rear to the scene of the battle already fought. His men assisted the Japanese caravaners to load all the equipment they could salvage, onto seemingly hundreds of packhorses and mules, nothing was wasted not even the many sides of beef.

There was indeed enough beef lying around to feed an army for months, and nothing was left to waste.

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"Comrade, I think we should stop sending men ahead and stick together. If we continue to send out small groups we will continue to lose more men. I think they are hoping we continue to do just that as I believe there only to be about 200 of them, and so."

"Nonsense you fool there must be more of them than that! look how many of us they have killed!! 200 men could not inflict over 500 casualties so easily!" Said Seargeant Gunnarson angrily to his Corporal comrade Mc Fee.

"You may be right Sir but I still think they want us to keep spliiting up, Im sure if we keep the men together we will be able to crush this resistance!" retorted comrade McFee.

"Tell the men to form up and await my orders, well what are you waiting for you insolent dog, I SAID NOW!!" yelled Gunnarson knowing full well in his own mind that McFee was right. "The next time you question my command Ill have you shot! do you understand me McFee?"

"Yes comrade," McFee said as he saluted and clicked his heels turning to go about his duties.

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Meanwhile sensing a change in his enemies tactics from his observation point, Liam ordered his officers to move all the men out imediately and head directly to Two Hills. He knew an all out assault against this force in the open would spell disaster for his men.

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Some time later on top of one of the hills over looking the village.

"Sir the rebels have all fled to the village, our scouts have estimated their actual number to be around 300 to 350 men armed with some rifles but mostly bows." Reported McFee.

"Comrade Sir I suggest we dig in here and wait for Artillery and reinforcements to arrive before we go in." Said comrade Wilson assessing the situation.

"Nonsense you fool we will attack imediately, prepare the men for an assault on the village NOW!!" Yelled Gunnarson.

"But Sir, shouldnt we at least wait until its dark for cover?" asked McFee.

Gunnarson swung around and punched comrade McFee square in the face," you dirty yellow coward!! you disgust me. You will go in the first wave." He yelled, spitting his words out with venom, "There's only 300 or so of them down there, it will be a walk in the park."

"Yes Sir comrade Sir please forgive me, I will go and prepare my men."

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The "Free Celtica" fighters were very relieved to to find that Scratch and his Elite Samurai's had arrived in good time for the coming attack.

The Communists had split into three groups of around 400 men each, and proceeded to attack the village from three sides. This was yet another fatal mistake by Gunnarson, yet again he had split up his forces. As they charged it became impossible in the ensuing chaos of battle for the three groups to stay in contact with each other.

Liams men aided by some of the villagers tackled the group attacking the northern perimeter of the village, and managed to hold them there for a while. Scratch split his force in two to tackle the other two groups attacking from the south and east roads into the village.

The hardened Japanese troops were crackshot marksmen and felled a great many of their prey when they unleashed their hail of lead. This initial exchange of fire cost the conscripts dearly, but on they charged and steadily pushed their way into the village. The fighting intensified quickly becoming hand to hand as all three groups converged on the centre of the village. The Japanese discarded their rifles and unsheathed their ancient ceremonial two handed Samurai swords, they began meticulously slicing their opponents into smaller pieces, Liam could not believe what he was witnessing.

"Thank the gods were not at war with these boys" he thought to himself, distracted for just a moment as he was he had not noticed the young conscript charging with his bayonet at his back. Whoosh came a sound straight past his left ear with a bright flash of steel, as he turned to see scratch split open his would be attackers stomach with a huge gaping slice of his sword.

"YAGGHH" cried Scratch as turned on his heels spinning his sword overhead in a full circle severing his foes head clean from his body.

"Thank you Brother!! you have just saved my life!!" panted Liam as he gathered himself from the moment.

"A pleasure to be of service my friend," said Scratch.

It was soon over as the remaining conscripts, around 700 men threw down their weapons and surrendered to their superior assailants. Comrade Gunnarson lay in a pool of his own blood missing his right forearm, lost amongst the littered body parts on the blood soaked ground.

The prisoners were rounded up and secured by the Japanese.

"Men of Celtica, why have you come to your Brothers homes and murdered our kin? Are we not all of the same nation? We have brought this fight to you because we could no longer stand back and watch while your superiors murdered our clansfolk!" Liam said to the prisoners. "we have decided to stand and fight the evil communist regime, there shall be no more unanswered crimes against our kin!! Your officers are all dead! I offer to those of you who have a conscience and a heart a chance to fight with us your Brothers, a chance to redeem yourselves before your gods for your sins against your Brothers!! To fight against this evil regime and its evil leader, Chairmen McGregor!!"

There seemed to be many of the prisoners mumbling to one another, many of these young men had been forced to join the army, and did not agree with what they had been forced to do.

"You will be taken from here to our secret base where any of you who are found to have taken part in the mass murder of the elderly and sick at the villages you attacked, will be executed. It would do well for those of you who have a conscience and are innocent of these crimes to hand over those responsible to us now, our leader will look more favourably on the rest of you I promise you!!" continued Liam.

The majority of the prisoners needed no second thought on this, and gladly handed over the guilty ones.

"Many of us were sickened by this and refused to have a part in the evil work of the C.S.G." said corporal McFee to Liam O'Brien.

"Good!! Good thank you my Brothers," the fifty or so men were handed over and marched out of the village by the Japanese to be shot by firing squad. "The rest of you are invited to join us, we will train you in the arts of guerilla warfare, and you will join "Free Celtica", ARE YOU WITH ME? WILL YOU RISE UP WITH ME? RISE UP AND FREE CELTICA!!!"

A huge cheer went up from all the men in the village, all the survivors of the conscript force agreed and took the oath.

"We swear, on our honour, before our brethren and our gods, that we will give our lives to "Free Celtica"!!"

"RISE UP!! RISE UP!!" Shouted Liam, working the men into a frenzy.



Comments and opinions will be greatly appreciated.

[SKILORD]

Very nice, yes, it shall do. except:

"Hmm, okay lets give it a shot, get the word out and tell the men to form up and await my orders."

This particular line strikes me as totally.... well it feels wrong. The Hmmm in front exhaberates (WOTD) this feeling.

Rareley will people surrender their ground in such a way, well no, they never do, it comes as a bit of a cop out from doing it right (I can't tell you what right is, you seem to have a good feel for dialouge other than this).

It is very good otherwise, but that line sticks out like a sore thumb.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Well I may consider changing that line after some thought and thank you for pointing that out to me

I was trying to emphasize the point that these inexperienced officers had no real idea of tactics and Gunnarson was unable to hear the wisdom shown by young McFee most of the time. I wrote the second line from McFee in that exchange to show his anger at Gunnarson's arogance and then tried to show Gunnarson's weakness in his command, does this help explain my choice of dialogue at all. Please consider this and tell me what you think.

[SKILORD]

I understand why the exchange was there, i understand each part of it, but:

Gunnarson goes from "Nonsense fool" to "Hmmmm.... OK" (btw: have you ever seen the movie Kung Pow? they spoof Martial Arts films, and have a couple of places where such sudden altercations occur)

I can understand that though, as McFee's argument is solid and passes the acid test of arguments in that situation.

I don't understand where the "Hmmm... OK" comes from tho, it makes the dialouge seem weak, unrealistic, you rareley hear someone **** their head and say "Hmmm... OK", people generally aren't so rational about being disagreed with, and if they are they will probably say something along different lines than the afforementioned phrase. it gives the dialouge a tear there, a bit of total artificialness, Either dialouge flows naturally or the author's hand is apparent in the plot, which is not a good thing. It's something akin to potters leaving fingerprints on their peices by mistake, their are better ways to show it is yours than by leading it by the hand to where you want it to go, personnally i eliminated this problem by never knowing myself where my characters would go next.

It was exceptional other than that single line, my compliments to the author.

[SKILORD]

it starred out by the way, another word for rooster or male organ which i used to refer to a tilting of one's head. With censorship like that soon they'll be taking out head.....

[ChrisiusMaximus]

the censorship is getting quite ridiculous, I will ponder your remarks this afternoon while I take my wife shopping and thanks for coming back to me

[vovan]

Yeah, that's a good installment. And I can see exactly what SKI means there, that part of the dialogue seems a little awkward. Yet, if you don't mind let me suggest a way to revise.

Make it so he says something to the extent of:

"Order the men to form up and wait for my orders... What are you staring at? NOW!"

Coupled with the second little piece of dialoge that would make sense, because you show this Sergeant as quite emotional to say the least. Such a man would never openly acknowledge that he was wrong, and say, "Oh, well, let's try it your way." He will rather do it that, but not give any credit to the fact that this was not his idea, and he was wrong.

Also, he is higher in rank than the comrades, it seems, correct? If that is the case, then the whole conversation seems a little too casual. After all, you would never say to your commander that he "might be right" especially such an impulsive one. Maybe McFee desereves a hit in the stomach for that? That would explain the cruel phrase I suggested: "Go tell the men <...> What are you standing there for? I said NOW!" while the poor guy is there bent over from the hit.

But that's 'nuff of criticism. Overall, a worthy installment.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Right then SKILORD and vovan if you check you will see that I have changed the dialogue in question, upon reflection I think you were right SKI and thanks vovan for the suggestion of how to put it better. Anyway I now feel comfortable with the way it is and will leave it so but I thank you for pointing this out and I hope you think its an improvement.

[vovan]

Great. I am glad our feedback could be helpful in improving your story further.

[SKILORD]

Much better, the patch is wonderful.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Thanks SKILORD and Vovan there will be more posted in a few days time.

Has any body else read the last few parts ?

[Lord Zalzabad]

I don't worry about gramical errors, (as I proberly have many in my storys), and it is good so far.

[vovan]

I was just wondering if you were cooking up some more goods to come our way in your spare time Chrisius. Don't want to rush you or anything - just checking on the progress. This is one of the stories that I watch eagerly for a new installment every time I visit 'Poly.