Timeline 31

19 April 1917
Outside Hermosillo, Sonora, Empire of Mexico
(Content warning: Blood/gore, graphic violence, some language)

Felix Anzures staggered into the tent with a cloth wrapped around his hand. "I need bandages! Flak got my fingers!" He collapsed into a chair as the medic immediately grabbed a roll of gauze and began to wrap it around his hand.

"This isn't good. You may need them amputated."

"Then cut them off and get me wrapped up! I need to keep fighting!"

The medic stared at the man, who had fire burning in his eyes. "Sir...you need the ring and little finger on your left hand removed. That's not trivial."

"I am here to fight and lead my soldiers. If you keep me here for long-"

A soldier burst into the tent. "Sergeant! The enemy is approaching from the west, they're trying to flank us!"

Felix jumped back to his feet and grabbed his gun. "Then fight back, damn it! Shoot them all!" The medic grabbed at his shoulder, trying to keep him from leaving.

"Sergeant Anzures, if you don't get attention on those fingers now, you will need them amputated!"

"Two fingers for my team, a worthy sacrifice." He stormed out, alongside the other units where General Cumberland was busy barking orders. From the west, the Mexican soldiers had lept up over their trenches and begun charging toward them, while the machine guns made short work of tearing through their lines and sending just as many to the ground. And yet, some still made it to their trenches, where Felix kept shooting at everyone that moved. Were his bullets the one sending them to the ground, or were they someone else's? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that they died.

A sharp yell from right in front of him brought his attention to the imperial soldier about to descend on him with a bayonet. Reacting quickly, he pulled his gun up and fired the last charge into the man, who fell to the ground with a new yell, this time of pain. He fell into the trench, writhing and screaming in a banshee shriek that pierced through Felix down to his very soul. Red was flooding the floor of the trench. Evidently he'd managed a gut shot, and the man would take quite some time to die.

The man looked up at him, with fire and pain in his eyes. And it was at that moment that Felix stopped for a moment. The man was Hispanic, like him. His age, too. In fact, they looked similar enough to be brothers. Maybe they would have been brothers in another life, a life where a line in the sand hadn't separated them.

And then, the man spoke in Spanish, bringing him back down to Earth. "Shoot me."

Reflexively, he responded in Spanish as well. "What?"

"Shoot me! Hijo de puta, are you going to just stand there with your thumb up your ass and watch me die!? Kill me! Shoot me dead!"

There was a colossal bang, and all at once a blue-black hole appeared in the man's forehead while the rear of his head simply exploded, sending shattered fragments of brain and bone alike scattering across the trench. He went limp at once, and it was only then that he realized that he had raised his gun and fired it at the man. Elsewhere, the Mexican soldiers were melting back, turned back by the assault and retreating to their trenches. Felix took a moment to collect himself, then turned back to the enemy lines. He'd seen worse. Once, a shell had taken a man's head clean off, and another time a man had bifurcated himself on a set of barbed wire he hadn't seen in time.

Another soldier, an Anglo man a few years younger than Felix, took a position next to him, stepping over the corpse and letting out a long, low whistle as he looked at it. "Poor bastard. Least he's out of his misery. You do that to him?"

"Yep. He asked me to."

The man just chuckled darkly. "Ain't war hell? Musta been difficult for you."

"I shoot and kill men almost every day. Why would it be difficult?"

"Well, he's Mexican like you are."

Felix suddenly turned and aimed the gun at the man. "How dare you. How dare you question my loyalty!"

The man raised his hands and backed away. "Woah, woah! I'm not questioning nothing! I'm just saying, I'd have a hard time shooting an Irishman too!"

"I'm no more Mexican than you are Irish." He turned his gun back toward the Mexican lines, and took a potshot at something that looked vaguely like a soldier. "I was born in California. I speak English. I use Californian money, I vote in Californian elections. I may have brown skin, but above everything I'm Californian, and don't you damn well forget it." He held up his hand, looking at the fingers. They'd started going blue, evidently the blood flow was worse to them. "Damn it. I need to get these cut off."

As he walked away, the man stared after him, then turned back to the lines. As he left, Felix could hear him say "That's one hell of a man."