Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 770: A Generation Forged in Fire

Bruno had remained at the air base outside Manila for several days after his visit began. Most considered his presence a great boon to the war effort, a symbol of iron resolve descending upon the Pacific front.

Bruno, however, found it a relief, a welcome escape from the stuffy office in his Tyrolean palace, or God forbid, the suffocating walls of the Reichschancellery in Berlin.

Erich followed him everywhere, attending to him more like an adjutant than a brigade commander.

During these days Bruno inspected the airfield with meticulous care, ensuring every weapon was accounted for and properly maintained, not out of bureaucratic instinct, but out of genuine concern for the readiness of his soldiers.

Helicopters and cargo planes took off hourly, launching Thai airborne infantry deep into the jungles of Mindanao and the Visayas. The war machine churned without pause.

Today, though, Bruno allowed himself a moment of stillness.

He sat inside the officers’ club, dressed in a field uniform stripped of all markings. Erich sat beside him, along with several senior officers stationed at the base.

They drank beer and whiskey while Bruno, strangely enough, appeared to be in an uncharacteristically good mood.

The officers traded confused glances. What in God’s name could put the infamous old Lion of Tyrol in such spirits, especially here, sitting on the rear lines of an active warzone?

Bruno wiped the foam from his beard, exhaled deeply, and finally clarified the mystery.

“You boys smell that?”

Erich looked around, as did the others, unsure what he meant, until Bruno continued.

“That is the smell of gunpowder and napalm, the smell of victory. It makes me feel twenty years younger.”

He paused, swirling his drink, eyes drifting somewhere far beyond the club walls.

“Back when I still felt…”

He cut himself off, shaking his head. “No use reminiscing. Isn’t that how the old saying goes? ’Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.’”

Erich studied his grandfather quietly. Bruno had always been a cold, controlled man, steel wrapped in flesh. But seeing him now, nostalgic rather than bitter, was… strange.

And Bruno noticed the look.

He chuckled, taking another sip.

“Believe me, when you reach my age, you’ll wish you were young enough to storm trenches again instead of watching the world pass you by, knowing your best years are behind you.”

He drank the last of his beer and stood.

“But enough brooding. There’s a war to win, and no time for me to linger in this pleasant little club of yours. Oberst von Zehntner, if you would follow. Your unit still needs training on those new turrets, and we’ve been absent from the field long enough.”

The officers all stood at once, saluting sharply as Bruno walked out with Erich in tow. Only when the door shut behind them did the silence crack.

“So that’s the old lion of Tyrol?” one officer whispered. “I never thought I’d see him in person.”

Another leaned in.

“All the photographs show him with a stone face. And even Erich speaks of him as if he’s carved from granite. Yet he talks of gunpowder and napalm as if they were cinnamon and honey.”

A third finished his beer and added:

“I suppose men like him were necessary to win the Great War. Hard men. Not like us, born in an era of peace and prosperity that they bought with their blood.”

A lieutenant at the far end of the table snorted softly into his drink.

“Peace and prosperity,” he muttered. “Funny how we were raised to think those were permanent. Now look at us, sweating in the tropics while the old lions stroll through fire as if they never left it.”

A younger officer, barely twenty-five, swallowed hard.

“I used to think men like Bruno were myths. Something the propaganda office polished to inspire us. But listening to him talk about gunpowder like it’s perfume…” He exhaled.\

“Makes me wonder what it cost to become someone like that.”

Silence settled over them, heavier than the humid air.

One captain summed it up quietly:

“The world doesn’t make men like him anymore. And I’m not sure if that’s a blessing… or a warning.”

The thought lingered as they reflected quietly.

Bruno von Zehntner may well be the last of a generation forged in fire, men who bore the weight of nations on their backs and refused to break.

—

Erich struggled to match his grandfather’s pace. For a sixty-year-old man, Bruno moved like someone half his age.

They crossed the base quickly, boots splashing through shallow puddles of cooling rain, until they approached the airfield hangars.

Only then did Bruno speak again, offering information Erich had no access to.

“Your cousin, Bruno, was in Sicily. He earned an Iron Cross Second Class at the beachhead. But those lines were pierced, and his unit was rotated off the field months ago.”

Erich let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Many members of his family fought in this war, scattered across distant fronts. He couldn’t protect them, and that worry never left him.

Yet one name still troubled him.

“What about Heinrich?”

Bruno stopped just outside the hangar and gave Erich a sly look.

“Which one? My Heinrich, or your Heinrich?”

Erich stared at him flatly.

“My little brother, obviously.”

Bruno glanced westward, toward the training centers where the young man was likely earning his wings.

“Your father wanted me to forbid it. God forbid something happen to both of his eldest sons. But I couldn’t tell him no. That boy should finish flight school any week now. Then it’s off to Sicily, to support your cousin once his unit returns to the line.”

Erich went quiet. Too quiet.

The tension in his shoulders eased into something resolute.

“Good,” he said softly. “I hope he becomes an ace. Our family could use an honor like that.”

Bruno didn’t respond with words, he didn’t need to, his smirk said enough. Together they stepped into the hangar, where Erich’s men were already waiting.