There we go, it only took ten chapters for a war-themed fic to get into the actual fighting.

"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable." -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Beta: ThiccBuddha

Chapter 10

"We have another one here!"

"Just stay still, it'll be alright!"

"Pass me the forceps, please."

The French field hospital had turned from a hibernating beehive into a hornet's nest on fire in less than an hour. Doctors, medics and aides hurried through the corridors, some of them carrying or dragging wounded soldiers with them. The whole building was buzzing with activity, the orders of the doctors, acknowledgments of the medics and cries of the wounded filling every floor.

Velvet's mind was nothing but a chain of orders, instructions and hazy pictures of her hands working on faceless patients. With machine-like efficiency, she finished stitching a wound shut, muttered some words of encouragement to the man lying in front of her, and moved on to the next stretcher. A woman clutching her side, two holes in her hip. She dug up her forceps and scissors before even kneeling down next to the soldier.

"Shh, it's alright, nothing to worry about" she tried in her best soothing voice as she examined the wounds. It was actually the exact opposite, but knowing that wouldn't be very likely to calm the woman down. Staying silent and perfectly still would improve her odds of survival far more than thrashing around in panic would.

The soldier hissed through clenched teeth as she touched the area around the wound. Nothing vital was hit at least, that was good. She picked up the scissors and brought the blades next to the line where the soldier's uniform turned from blue to red. With careful movements, she began to cut the fabric.

"It doesn't look like any vital organs are hit, so a couple of stitches should be enough," she said as she worked. As painful as the wounds likely were, she was lucky the bullets hadn't reached any major blood vessels or organs. Had that been the case, there was very little she could have done to help her.

"You're… not just saying that… are you?" the soldier's voice was pained and shaky.

"No no, you're actually very lucky, even if it might not feel like it at the moment," she dared to smile a little. "A few weeks and you're as good as new. Had the German aimed a little more to the left, we might not be talking right now."

"I guess I… really dodged a bullet, then," the woman let out a hoarse laugh, but grimaced and shut her mouth a second later. "Figuratively speaking."

"Indeed you did," Velvet replied as she removed the red-stained piece of the uniform.

"Honestly… this is not how things… were supposed to go," her patient continued. "There were supposed to be… just a few boches taking… potshots at our night guards. Just a… small skirmish, you know?"

A shiver went down Velvet's spine. She had no idea what was going on outside, other than that it involved a lot of wounded French soldiers. She was not an expert tactician by any stretch of the imagination, but now that she thought about it that was not something a small-scale skirmish between night patrols should cause. "How bad are things, then?" she asked, already fearing the answer.

"It's a... clusterfuck of the highest magnitude," her patient ground her teeth together as she brought out the needle. "There were supposed to be… just a few boches out there. A platoon at max. Turned out to be a… bit more than that. Our intel guys… have no idea how… to do their jobs, apparently."

Velvet gulped, not even sure she wanted to know more. "That bad?"

"No, worse. So much fucking worse," the woman spat. "We were prepared for… a few dozens. A platoon or two." Her bloodshot eyes were staring directly into Velvet's. "But there were hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds."

"Get down!"

Sky did not even stop to make sure the warning was directed at him and dived down on the muddy ground as soon as his brain registered the words. A second later a burst of machine gun fire tore open the trunk of a tree behind him, the rounds hitting exactly where he had been standing.

He should have felt something at that. Shock or panic because of the near-death experience, relief for the fact that the bullets had missed him, or gratefulness to whoever had saved his bacon. Instead, the only thing he felt was an overwhelming need to get back up and send some hot steel flying back at the boches. Reaching for his rifle, he checked no mud had made it inside the weapon. Not finding anything that would jam the gun, he began to crawl to a small impact crater left by a mortar shell. Theirs or the Germans', he had no idea.

The suffocating darkness that had been the bane of their existence while on guard duty was no more, the sun slowly starting to peek from behind the horizon to shed some light into the woods. Two hours earlier he'd have been thrilled at the thought of not having to check his footing every three seconds, but right now he felt that the burning ball of gas was working for the enemy. As difficult as the darkness had made life at times, it at least discouraged any overly aggressive maneuvers from both sides. Now that the shadowy curtain was gone, it was finally possible to see the enemy properly.

Unfortunately, that worked both ways.

He flinched as a round whizzed over his head, but kept on going. "Get something solid between you and the boches, then figure out what to do," he repeated to himself for the hundredth time, trying to ignore the chaos raging all around him. He saw a group of six blue uniforms sprinting through the gunfire not far in front of him, making their way to a machine gun nest silenced by the German artillery some time ago. Only four of them made it to their destination.

"Assume platoon strength my ass," he silently growled as he finally reached the crater. "Apparently German platoons are a little bit bigger than ours."

And speaking of platoons, he had no idea where the rest of the threes were. When shit had hit the fan there hadn't really been time to carefully assess the situation and before he knew it, he was standing alone against a squad of charging Germans. A hastily thrown hand grenade had bought him enough time to leg it and hide, but now all he had left was his rifle and bayonet. He dearly hoped he wouldn't have to use the latter one.

He peeked over the side of the crater, careful not to expose any more of his head than what was necessary. The woodlands in front of him were still relatively intact, with only a couple unlucky trees blown to splinters by artillery fire. Lifting his rifle over the edge, he assumed as firm a firing position as the dirthole allowed him to and took aim at a group of three Germans closing in on the newly manned machine gun position. Just as one of them brought his arm back to throw a grenade, Sky fired.

Even if he was only the second-best rifleman in their squad, that wasn't exactly an insult when compared to May. The first time their section had been at a firing range he had hit all five of his shots, each of them at least eight points out of ten. And those had been from one hundred and fifty meters. These boches were well within that distance.

The would-be grenade thrower cried out and jerked backward, a small hole bleeding red on his uniform decorating his chest. The other two continued forward, determined to silence the machine gun, either not noticing or caring about their wounded comrade. Sky worked the bolt and squeezed the trigger, the German closest to the nest dropping his submachine gun and grabbing his right arm, but not slowing down. His third shot went wide, flying just past the head of the now unarmed submachine gunner.

Sky sneered and worked the bolt again, sending a fourth bullet flying toward the Germans. It struck the crippled submachine gunner in his thigh, finally bringing him down as his leg gave in. Loading the clip's fifth and final round, he took aim on the final German.

Sky's blood ran cold as he noticed the grenade, the German's arm already moving in a vertical arc. With no time to aim properly, he pulled the trigger all the way down.

The German stumbled, letting go of the grenade just as the bullet scratched his shoulder. Sky could only watch as the club-shaped explosive spun through the air in slow motion, flying over a low wall of dirt hastily built to protect the French position. Reaching its peak height the grenade spun one final time before it ran out of momentum and began to fall.

Right on top of the machine gun nest.

The grenade went off mid-air, but still close enough for the blast to hit. The machine gun fell silent, being the only invitation needed for the dozen nearby Germans to break cover. With shaky hands, Sky fished a new clip from his belt and began to reload his rifle.

"I'm going to find the man who created hand grenades and break his arms," Cardin growled as he sat up, holding his head. "Then he won't be able to throw grenades anymore. He'll be left without a job, and his wife will dump him for the guy who invented rifle grenades. It will be poetic justice." His head spun and with a grimace he stood up, the feeling of nausea hitting him instantly.

"And apparently I have a concussion, fucking perfect," he ground his teeth together as he felt bile rising to his throat.

Stallion and Ni had gone down when they made their charge for the machine gun. Porfirio, Zedong, and Bronzewing weren't anywhere in sight either, so it was safe to assume they had managed to get out of the way of the grenade. Whether or not something else had killed them was another matter entirely, one he had no time to worry about right now.

"This piece of junk better still work," he muttered as he grabbed the handles of the Maxim gun the Germans so desperately wanted to take out. The damn thing was barely holding together even before a grenade had went off right on top of it, but its firing mechanism seemed to be intact. Doing his best to ignore the vertigo running loose inside his head, he aimed the weapon at the Germans closing in on him and opened fire.

The boche closest to him fell as a spray of bullets tore open his upper torso, the rest of them scattering in surprise. The Maxim was creaking dangerously, threatening to tear itself off of its tripod entirely, but Cardin kept the stream of lead going. Even if the fire was inaccurate it would still suppress the Germans, giving someone else a chance to flank them. If there was someone left to flank them.

Grinning like a maniac at the sight of the boches flattening themselves against the ground, Cardin aimed a little lower. The bullets kicked up dirt and mud as they impacted in front of the Germans, some of whom were starting to return fire with their rifles and submachine guns. Cardin fixed his aim a bit, targeting one of the submachine gunners who quickly brought his head down under the barrage. Considering he was taking on a whole German squad on his own, things were going relatively well.

Just as he finished the thought, the Maxim fell silent.

A brief moment passed where Cardin and the Germans simply stared at each other, the battle around them forgotten. Then one of the Germans began to crawl forward. Then a second. And a third.

"Fucking butter churn, don't you dare quit on me now!" Cardin yelled in a mixture of rage and panic, repeatedly mashing the trigger. Empty clicks were the only response given by the weapon, and it took him almost full five seconds to realize the true reason for the malfunction: the ammo belt was empty, trigger discipline having gone completely forgotten by him in his firing frenzy.

Where were the extra belts? None of his squad had had any, seeing how they weren't issued with the automatic guns. None of the bodies surrounding the nest seemed to have any either, meaning the antiquated weapon was little more than an oversized paperweight now.

Realizing the implications of the situation, Cardin reached for his bayonet. One should never bring a knife to a gunfight, but a knife was still leagues better than bare fists. Pulling the blade out of its sheath he kneeled next to the temperamental Maxim, waiting for the first boche to jump over the modest dirt barrier in front of the weapon.

"Just a little bit closer, you damn sausage-muncher," he growled under his breath. "Corporal Cardin Winchester's about to give you a proper French welcome."

Corny one-liner is corny.

Also, I haven't written a lot of fighting scenes, and that probably shows. Well, no better way to improve than by writing them.