LINES OF COURAGE – Meet  Dimitri

Today, you will meet the fourth character from LINES OF COURAGE. But first, I hope you have pre-registered for the launch party on Wed, May 18th at 6 pm Mtn / 8 pm ET. If you haven’t signed up yet, it is FREE, and you can sign up HERE!

Dimitri is far too young for war, but the Tsar sent him there anyway. Like many other Russian soldiers, Dimitri and his friend, Igor, were never given weapons. If they want one, they need to find one for themselves. That is their task now…

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“Let’s go find some weapons,” Igor said, following Dimitri up the ladder.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as they climbed to the top, revealing a soft mist hovering only centimeters above the ground. This land might have been beautiful before the war tore it apart. Now it was simply . . . haunted. Dimitri flattened himself to belly crawl over ice and snow and frozen patches of mud. The mist may have offered some protection from the enemy, but it also gave the enemy protection to sneak closer, unseen. Dimitri fully expected, at any moment, a German soldier would leap out directly in front of him, and there he’d be on his belly, with no way of defending himself.

Dimitri heard a sound to his left and startled, then noticed it was another man from his company. That man raised a finger to his lips, then pointed ahead. He had seen the rifle he wanted.

He crouched low to get to it faster. Dimitri shook his head, motioning for the man to get down, but he continued forward, disappearing into the fog.

Seconds later, a machine gun fired from the enemy lines, and Dimitri heard a body fall. He laid even flatter on the ground, covering his head with his hands, then heard Igor whisper, “Without a weapon, we’re all as good as dead anyway. Come with me.”

That was it. No mourning for the man who had fallen, no time to think about who he had been, who he had left behind. Up here, there was only the base instinct to survive.

Which would be more difficult now. The Germans knew they were here.

Dimitri nodded back at Igor, held his breath, then kept his body as low as possible to belly crawl beside Igor. Any available weapons were somewhere past the barbed wire fence that ran along the trench line. Once they crossed it, they’d be even more exposed.

Igor pointed ahead. “See that mound of earth? That’s where we’re going. Follow me.”

Moving no more than he had to, Dimitri glanced out past the mound. Even if he tried to look beyond the fog, there was still nothing ahead. Sixty meters from where they lay was the German trench. It was quiet there, too quiet. They were watching.

“I see two rifles,” Igor said. “One is closer to you, the other is straight ahead of me. This is our chance.”

They shook on the agreement, then each crawled out from their sides of the mound. The idea was to move fast and be unpredictable, but Dimitri had no sooner left his side when he knew something was terribly wrong. The ground was vibrating. He knew what that meant.

Hundreds of Germans had gone over the top and were now racing toward the Russian trenches. Toward them.

Now reaching that weapon was not just an order from his commander; it was a matter of life or death.

Dimitri leapt to his feet and began running, but he had taken no more than five steps before a meaty German crossed directly in his path. Dimitri twisted to avoid him but the German raised the butt of his rifle and crashed it down on Dimitri’s head. Colored stars filled his vision. Dimitri fell to the ground and everything faded to darkness.

The last thing he remembered was the pounding boots of soldiers around him. German boots. Russian boots. Then nothing.

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