A video posted on YouTube, simply titled 'Saunders combat 5th June', has gained an incredible amount of attention around the world in a very short time. Imposingly, the words 'Restricted Content. +18 only' appear on screen. If one clicked past, they would find a video of a pair of girls from Saunders seated in a trench, taking what appeared to be a much needed rest, on the fourth day of the conflict. They chat idly as a few more student soldiers pass by, picking through their rations. The sounds of combat are all around them. Gunfire cracking in the distance, planes flying overhead, and anti-aircraft fire streaking into the cloudy and rainy sky. The tiny camera is hooked to the helmet of one girl, and she looks around at her comrades for a moment before continuing the conversation.
"How long you think we'll hold out?" She asks, fixing her poncho.
"End of the week?" Her friend answers. "Maybe sooner." She takes a swig from a canteen and passes it to the camera girl. "I mean… it's nice to have those Rangers here, but twenty girls aren't going to do much against… that." She gestures to the battlefield. Camera girl takes a long drink before stowing the canteen, taking another look around. A soldier with bright orange hair approaches them, carrying a large wooden box.
"Ammo? Take what you need." She offers. The camera girl takes three M1 Carbine magazines and a grenade, nodding in thanks. "Well, it is thanks to them that the artillery stopped." The ammo carrier points out.
"So I heard. Yet here we are." Colette replies bitterly. She reaches into the box when a mortar round shrieks overhead and detonates not far away.
"MORTAR FIRE!" Somebody cries. "COVER!"
"Take cover!"
"My point exactly."
"Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?!"
"Not when my ass is on the line. No."
The three girls scramble. The orange haired one sets down the box, takes out a pair of machine gun belts and drapes them around her neck before scampering off. The other two quickly stow their half finished meals and ready their weapons, clutching their helmets as another pair of shells land nearby. The camera girl looks off to the right to see the orange girl run up alongside her machine gunner friend. The gunner loads a belt into her M1919 with quick robotic movements, ignoring the incoming mortars and shouting of her comrades. Finishing, she murmurs a few words to her assistant and gestures into the distance, pointing out the likely approach of any attackers.
"Maria!" Somebody shouts.
"Yeah?!" Responds the cammer.
"Where's that ammo at?!"
"Right here! What do ya need?!"
"Whatever ya got!"
"Aight! Comin'!"
Maria stands and sets her rifle down, picking up the box and jogging towards another group. Among them are a girl with a red sash around her neck, one wearing a German officer's cap, and one with cracked half rim glasses that were falling off of her nose. They and the girls around them reach for the box as it passes, taking whatever they can get their hands on.
"Now it's less like the Battle of Seelow and more like the Siege of the Reichstag." The capped girl observes, setting a pair of grenades on the parapet in front of her. Remnants of what appeared to be paint pools into watery smudges on her face, changing her complexion to that of a coal miner.
"You're not helping, Erwin." Scolded her bespectacled friend, pushing her glasses up. She takes a handful of M1 Garand clips and hooks them to her pack straps, loading the last one into her rifle. Everyone flinches when another mortar shell lands, raining down dirt, mud and water on their green helmets and uniforms.
The girl called Erwin begins to make a rebuttal when a mortar lands directly behind the one wearing the glasses, throwing dirt, sandbags, and wood splinters everywhere and sending the girl sailing through the air and into Maria. The camera footage cuts out for a brief moment before returning. It was knocked off of its mount on Maria's helmet and landed in the dirt not far away. The girls are scattered everywhere, with the cammer on her back underneath the one who landed on her. She blinks her eyes and shakes her head, before Erwin sits up and tries to rouse her friend.
"Oryou?... Oryou!" Erwin pulls herself out of the dirt and grabs Oryou's shoulder. "Nogami-chan!"
A third girl in the group, with a red band on her head, sits up next. Her left eye is closed, as it was earlier, however there is now a trickle of blood coming from it. After a moment, she sluggishly reaches up to inspect her injury, flinching when she finds over a dozen splinters poking out of her eye and cheek.
"Medic!" Somebody cries over another shell explosion. "Medic!"
In a daze, as Oryou is rolled off of her, Maria looks around for her camera, reaching out for it and plucking it out of the mud. She quickly cleans it off and snaps it back into place. Around the same time, Oryou is roused and promptly begins gasping and crying out in pain and confusion.
"Takeko-chan!" Erwin shouts at her. "It's okay! You're fine! Hey get that medic up here! You're going to be okay, Oryou. Just keep looking at me. OVER HERE! I NEED A TOURNIQUET!" The rain and wind begin to pick up, creating large puddles and turning the trench into a muddy and bloody bog.
"Saemonza?" Another girl asks. "What's in your eye?"
"I don't… I… I don't know, Caesar." The girl responds, almost drunkenly. "It… it really hurts… Where's Taeko…?" Erwin reaches out and pulls the headband off of her head, quickly tying it around Oryou's bloodied leg.
As she speaks, more shouting can be heard from other parts of the trench, and the alert bell begins ringing. Maria looks up to see a group of girls in Pravda uniforms running towards them. The machine gun lights up and several fall, but more continue advancing towards the injured girls. They quickly overwhelm the forward-most positions, turning Third Platoon's foxholes into graves.
"Oh shit…" Maria claws around for a weapon, finding the one Oryou had been holding just moments earlier. "Pravda! Here they come!" She raises the burnt, mud-caked rifle and fires, but not before several rounds strike some of the girls around her.
"Caesar! No!" Erwin cries as her friend falls. "Hey! SANI! MEDIC!"
Maria ducks down in time to see the orange girl again, this time carrying a field radio and helping her injured machine gunner friend. The gunner shrugs her off and picks up her Browning 1919, setting it on its bipod and mostly ignoring her bandaged injuries.
"Where the fuck is that girl going?" Someone off screen asks.
"Who? Wait, Rosehip?! What are you doing? Get back here!"
Before either girl gets a response, an explosion can be heard from somewhere up ahead. "ROSEHIP! Fucking… CHRIST!"
"I got her!"
"No! Isobe, get back here!"
"Mad Dog!" The radio girl cries. "This is Queen One! We're under attack, and about to be overrun! Multiple casualties! We cannot hold this position any longer!" Rhonda the medic, with a few of her colleagues, rush past to see if they can help any of the wounded. One reaches Saemonza and inspects her eye, while another lifts Caesar up and takes out a serrated knife. Somebody fleeing the Red Tide suddenly stops in her tracks and screams, falling down to reveal a Pravda soldier with a bloodied bayonet. She raises her rifle, but is instead shot down by the orange Radio Girl's M1911. So overwhelmed with the situation, it takes someone pointing it out for Maria to notice the helicopter hovering over the landing pad not far away. In the darkness, several people could be made out jumping out and running for the trench, but something suddenly hits Maria and she falls before they get any closer.
"Mad Dog copies, Queen. Support is coming. Just hold tight! Mad Dog to Steel Rain: Requesting fire mission. Repeat of target number Alpha Tango 372, over."
"Jay! HELP ME!" Rhonda screams over the chaos of battle. "I NEED MORE BANDAGES!"
"Hold the line! Nobody gets past us!"
"Steel Rain copies. Repeat fire mission Alpha Tango 372. Stand by."
The video ends with Maria being rolled onto her back by Rhonda, before another mortar round strikes near the trench and buries the girls in a shower of dirt.
A/N: Short, dramatic and bloody. Just like how the battle ended.
With this small chapter, I hope to shine a bit more light on what happened in the final moments of the Battle of Saunders. A very brief chapter, I know. The one accompanying it might get posted a bit earlier than usual, then it'll be back to normal.
Brace yourselves for some family troubles in Chapter 36: Bittersweet
Thanks to everybody for reading, and be well.