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                               (mini) Chapter One

It was a bitter cold Winter night in Stalingrad, 1942. The sky was filled with clouds, or it
might have been smoke. Amraava couldn't tell, the air reaked of burning oil. He was marching
with hundreds of other Red army soldiers towards Stalingrad. They had long heard the explosions
and heavy gunfire coming from the city, but now they could hear it in full force. Before the
men marched briskly, hearts full of patriotism, wanting to make their familys back home proud,
they talked and joked, a few men even had music instruments and were playing before. But since
they first heard those far off muffled explosions the mood turned much more somber. Amraava
took his revolver out of his pocket and started rubbing his thumb up and down the cold barrel
of the gun. He hoped it wouldn't get coated in frost as the night grew on, it hurt his bare
skin to touch it already.

 He hoped he could obtain a better weapon once he got into the city, all he had was his
revolver. There was a weapons shortage when he was to be issued his rifle and he never got
his hands on one. Even before he was supposed to be issued one there we're shortages. The
officers in the military training grounds mostly taught the basic troops hand to hand
fighting. Only the men who already had experience using guns, or had a very keen eye were
given any time to fire a weapon, what little ammunition the rural training camps had was used
to train these soldiers. The normal soldiers were at least taught how to hold a rifle
properly using a wooden rifle stock. "At least" the officers were known to think, "if one
soldier with a rifle dies there will be three more to pick it up and hold it right."

Amraava put his revolver back into his pocket and counted his extra bullets. He'd be able to
reload only three times after he emptied his revolver. After hearing symphony of death coming
from the front he wished he had bought more. He looked over to his friend Josiph, a tall
mountain of a man. The 19 year old soldier was 6"6 and built like an ammunition truck. He had
on a mismatch of ill fitting Red army issue uniform and plain citizen's clothes. Due to his
unusual size he rarely found any clothes that fit so he wore what ever he could find. Josiph
hadn't been lucky enough or a good enough shot to be issued a rifle, luckily his father owned
a shop in Nevograd and bought a shotgun for him. The shotgun had been his prized possession
in training camp, but he soon discovered that the army had no ammo for his type of shotgun so
he had to use the 100 rounds he had sparingly. This didn't deter him from brining it along,
and rightly so, to Stalingrad.

A covered flatbed truck drove past them as they came over a small hill. At the foot of the
hill were numerous tents and trucks full of supplies, further on were ammunition boxes stacked
neatly and officers handing out some type of ammunition, Amraava couldn't tell from this far
away. Further on from that the soldiers were loading onto transport boats headed to the other
side of a wide river. The sound of gunfire was impossible to ignore now. Most of the men in
Amraava's group were frozen in a mix of awe and fear. Amraava's commanding officer stood up
on a large wooden crate and yelled "Quiet! Time to receive orders!" even though most of the
men were deathly silent.

 "You are to rest from the martch here, in two hours time you must gather together there" he
pointed to an area another group of soldiers were standing in, being directed by their own
commander. "In the mean time service your equipment and get ready for battle, the enemy is
only four kilometers to the west. Beware, death can come from anywhere." It was as if god was
listening and thought it a good time to reinforce the officer's point, because right after
the officer said those words a troop transport boat half way across the river exploded in a
huge ball of fire. The men jumped at this, the officer looked to the boat then looked back.
He cursed under his breath and said much more quietly "They took out mortar squad 4.." he
straightened his back and bellowed "Dismissed!"