A column of trucks drove past the towns and villages of glorious Davia. Every time they saw the passing of trucks, the people waved at them with all smiles and cheers. On their way, they saw more and more trucks joining them. Now the whole convoy was an endless column of trucks.

Due to the dust flying off from the front cars, those at the rear could no longer recognise each other. They were all covered in dust.

After they drove nearly a hundred kilometres, they crossed a river that marked the border between the two nations through a makeshift bridge. Near it, they saw another bridge, parts of it collapsed into the river making it no longer passable. The poor bridge must have witnessed the horror of war, Vicka imagined.

It was the same for others. If a big concrete structure could be broken into pieces what would have happened if it were them? The troubling thought put fear in their hearts. They went silent.

Soon they reached the land of Goli, the land of the enemy where they had to kill another man to see the another day, to keep the promise they gave to their loved one.

After several kilometres in, they heard the sound of a big horn from their rear right. Everyone on the truck turned their heads to it.

It was a greeting from their side, a train loaded with deadly cannons and the latest war machines they called tanks. The looks of those steel behemoths were menacing. How to fight it if they were to face one, Vicka could not imagine.

The soldiers from the train shouted cheers at them along with the big horn. So they returned their cheers.

"Hey!!" Dickson shouted. So did everyone. They waved and shouted at each other. Greeting from their fellow Davian soldiers did cheer them up a lot. Smiles and laughter filled the air when the road got closer to the track and went parallel to it.

It was only a while until they parted ways again as the road turned to the left. But it was enough to lift the spirits and built comradeship. They would not miss them for they knew they all going the same frontline.

The truck reached the crossroad between a Goli town and a small village. Their trucks turned to the left where the village was.

"The train must be stopping in that Goli town," Dickson stated the obvious.

After a long boring and exhausting fifteen hours ride, the column of trucks stopped near a small Goli village. The moment they saw the khaki trucks coming to them, the villagers shook their heads in despise. It was clear that they hated Davian coming to their village. The glare in their eyes showed unwelcome.

Dickson found it eerie that no young people were found in the village. Clooney made fun of him that since a Davian woman broke his heart, was he aiming for a Goli woman now. "Screw you." Dickson bushed out.

Through a huge signboard that said 'camp victoria', they entered their frontline camp on foot. It was a huge camp made up of nearly hundreds of tents. They marched into an open field in front of the commander's camp where a big white flag with blue and red stripes waved proudly over the Goli land.

Now that they were finally here, the frontline where the real actions happened, they were thrilled and excited. It was their turn to make their names on the paper.

"Welcome to the new Goli frontline, my fellow brave soldiers of Davia. I am Colonel Mckanthy."

A man addressed himself to the new privates. He was in his mid fifty. His short blonde hair was mixed with grey. But his handsome jawline made him look tough. He whiffed a puff from his pipe before he handed it over to Sir Winslate to put it down.

He continued, "this is the very important frontline and I expect you to do your duty loyally and properly. Because this could very well decide the fate of our glorious nation."

The moment they heard the fate of their country lay on their shoulders, it excited their crazy-war heroes-dream hearts.

"This front will be very brutal. More so than you imagined, more so than you had trained for. So braced yourselves. One month. You will serve here for one month. After that, you will be able to get out of this hell front as heroes and laid back in your home until your next deployment. Understood? So I expect you all to fulfil your duties and followed orders precisely in this one month. I won't take a 'no'. And I do not tolerate desertion. Now break up and get to your position. The enemy won't wait for you to be ready."

The tough briefing pumped them up. The flying bullets, the bombs, the explosions, the tanks and the planes; all those things they heard only on paper would be in front of their eyes now.

However, when they reached the frontline, it was nothing but a gloomy quiet grass plain where some of their fellow soldiers were sporadically digging holes here and there. There were no explosions, no flying bullets and no enemies.

An old Goli woman was cursing at some of the soldiers for digging out the tombs where her ancestors were buried. "You Davian orcs! You invaded our land and now you destroy my land where my father rests!? Do you have no conscience, no respect for the dead!? I pray you all die like pigs and your remains are eaten by dogs and then burn in hell eternally!!"

The Goli grandma cursed them explicitly but the Davian officer with a petty moustache seemed to be not affected. He picked his ear in boredom and signalled a soldier to take her away by force. Then he saw Vicka and 19 other recruits joining his squad.

"The heck are you standing idle there? Drop your shits and start digging there," yelled the officer. He seemed to not like them for no reason. 

"For godsakes, look at those boys. They don't even seem to be cut-off milk. What the heck is wrong with this nation lately? Soon they will send off babies to fight for them."

Frustrated the officer spit on the ground near the tombs and complained to his fellow officer.

Without anyone telling them what to do exactly, Vicka and the boys looked at each other. Since the officer seemed to be in a bad mood, they decided to do exactly what he just told. They dropped their bags and started digging around with their shovels. They felt out of space and confused.

The officer saw them and yelled again, "The heck are you guys digging there!? A toilet? Look around at what the others are doing. Where is the sergeant in charge!? Hell. Look at this mess. I guess we will all die in this shitty place. Seargent! Seargent Hammond! Shit. Laurice! You take those boys with your team for now and tell them what to do. When their sergeant arrives, tell him to see me first. Understand?"

"Yes sir!!"

"That bastard Hammond. Did he go for a piss again? He should check his prostate."

The officer left the place while mumbling something quietly. After meeting their CO, Vicka and the other had concurred that it was gonna be a very long month.

A sergeant came to Vicka's group and asked who was the private first class. Clooney lifted his hand. Sergeant Laurice took out a blueprint from his pocket and showed them what they were supposed to build.

It amazed them. What they were building was a mega fortress, not on the ground but 'in' the ground that spanned across the entire region.

And they must build it in a week.