Fallen Angels
By
Lil Boy Blue
Prologue
Soldiers rushed out into the ruined courtyard like droves of tattered dominos ready to fall. German MG 42 tracers seem to burst out before the muzzles even flashed from the machine gun nests, and like clockwork, the conscripts began to fall one by one. Shrieks of pain and anguish are muted only by the deafening roar of artillery strikes and air support, along with the intermittent sounds of pistol fire from superior officers shooting deserters. Walls seem to shatter like panes of glass as M5A1 Stuart tanks fired at enemy troops. Medics rushing to the fallen soldiers, trying to tend the bloody wounds as gunfire roared over their heads. Fire lighting up the night sky as distant AA guns fired at the Allied planes.
One soldier lied unconsious in the middle of the battlefield, breathing deeply. His M1 Garand rifle still gripped in his hand, finger still on the trigger. His helmet laid a few feet away from his head, shrapnel and small bits of gravel inside. A medic kneeled over him, his uniform torn and bloody. His name tag reads "Tansley."
"SOLDIER! ARE YOU ALRIGHT!", Tansley yelled over the explosions and gunfire.
The soldier popped his eyes open and took another deep breath, then violently coughed up the mucus lining his throat. He spit and stared at the medic with amazement, his eyes glassed over as if he was crying.
"QUIT STARING AND GET YOUR ASS UP! WE GOT A WAR TO FIGHT!", Tansley yelled again, holding out his hand to the lone soldier.
The soldier took the Tansley's hand and pulled himself up, readying his rifle. They both ran to near cover behind a fallen tree in the courtyard. Rounds pinged off the tree and splinters flew everywhere. Tansley and the soldier ducked down, breathing heavily.
"Wha-what's happened?", the soldier asked, checking himself for any bullet wounds.
Tansley leaned in close to the soldier and grabbed his uniform, wiped off the dust and read the name tag.
"Well SGT. Dalby, it seems that you were right beside a grenade when it went off. The blast must've knocked you out.", Tansley said. "You are lucky you didn't lose an arm."
Like the battle was put on mute, Dalby and Tansley heard one of the most dreaded words to come out of a panzer grenadier's mouth.
"GRANATE!", a panzer grenadier yelled as he tossed a stielhandgranate to their position.
The "potato mashers", as most Allied troops called them, landed right in the middle of the two tired soldiers. Tansley fearfully scurried away, and kicked the stick grenade right beside Dalby's foot. Tansley stood and ran for cover behind an Allied tank, but quickly gets shot down by a German sniper sitting on a far rooftop. He fell to the ground as if he were in slow motion, everything unreal.
Dalby stared at the stick grenade and kicked it away, only to be caught in the blast of it. Dalby got thrown away from the precious cover of the tree and landed in a small shrub, the sticks poking and prodding his wounds. He cried out like a baby would cry out to his mother. As his vision blurred and everything rolled into one, he asked the one fatal question that befalls every fallen soldier.
"Why…?"