Chapter 1

As a cool, gray mist broke over shining steel, the bayonets of Charlie Company, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division retreated like the tide. Men of flesh and blood scrabbled over mountains of twisted steel and concrete, the shattered remnants of the city called Chicago. 

The anguished, piercing cry of the mortally wounded rent the air like a sword, chilling the hearts of the survivors, Allied and Soviet. For that's what they were. Survivors. There were no victors. Only survivors. Broken. Fearful. And so human. Russian sobs and English cries filled the atmosphere, a stifling, brooding cloud over the hideous battlefield. 

Pfc. James McDonald lay in his own blood, dreaming of the farmland in his beloved Iowa. That's where he belonged. Not out here amid the dead and the dying. Not underneath a hail of merciless lead and screaming shrapnel. At home, with his older brothers and sisters, celebrating Christmas. 

That's right. It was Christmas Eve, wasn't it? A buzzing noise filled McDonalds's head and he felt strangely at peace amidst the detritus of war. A profound sadness filled his heart, sadness for the mindless, savage death that took so many of his friends. And for what, he asked himself. President Truman said that they were fighting to keep the home fires burning, to keep their loved ones safe, to make the world safe for democracy. But McDonald was far from any of that. He saw simply the dead. 

Efrejtor (Pfc.) Sergei Kharkov gazed wistfully at his shattered leg. He recalled vaguely the Allied artillery shell which had landed nearly on top of he and his comrades. Then the blackness. 

He felt strangely removed from it all. The Politburo's officer had exhorted them about their mission. Bringing glory to the Soviet Union no longer seemed important to Kharkov. He blinked back hot, salty tears as he recalled his childhood, the simple pleasures he had reveled in. The warm bread, the hot beef, and the twinkling fires amid the driving snow of his hometown outside Leningrad. Only six years ago he had been that boy. Now he was a man, a man with a bitter, hollow look and a shattered leg. He was dying. He thought. Yet there was not pain. 

Glancing into the darkness, McDonald thought he saw movement. Was it a figment of his imagination? He peered closer, half expecting to see a Soviet regiment flitting towards him like a wraith out of a nightmarish legend. But it was just a hand. A feebly waving hand, and from it, a voice. 

Water. Please. Water. Help me. 

The voice was Russian. 

McDonald's heart jumped within his chest. Another survivor. No longer an enemy to be shot and killed, but a young boy like himself. In a terrifying war that neither understood fully. He crawled slowly over to the source of the pitiful sobbing. A young, brown-haired man lay with his leg bent at an impossible angle. He was crying. Not out of pain, but the sharp, harsh, barking sob of a lost and lonely man about to die. 

He pulled himself painfully towards the Russian. The Russian looked up, and feebly tried to ward him off. 

Kharkov looked fearfully at the American. With death so close, Kharkov felt ready to die, but with an enemy present, somehow he desperately wanted to live. 

A sad smile broke across the American's face. 

Here. Water. Life. Drink. 

Kharkov greedily gulped from the proffered canteen. It had holes in it, and the bare metal was showing in several cases. But the plain, lukewarm water was like nectar. 

Suddenly, McDonald's face clouded over and he fell. Lying next to the Russian, he felt the clammy hands of death coming over him. 

Moving hesitantly towards his newfound friend, Kharkov grasped the Americans limp hand and cried, stroking the dying hand which had brought him life. 

The two men's thoughts mingled. We are not so different, you and I. It is profoundly sad that we are enemies. On another day, we might have laughed and sang together. On another day, our families might have played together. Another day. Another day. Why? Why are we here? What have we done to deserve our fate? 

As the two men's souls drifted skyward, their bodies stiffened in death. And for a moment, their eyes were not the bitter, harsh, empty eyes of a soldier. The clouds poured forth rain and God cried with them. And for a moment, the eyes, blue and green, Soviet and American, looked not at the warring factions of earth. The expressions on the dead faces were simply those of two young boys gazing in wonder at the stars.

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