Tragedy
Disclaimer/Author's Note: This was inspired by Everywhere, by Carmine to a large extent and is indirectly a tribute to those who died on September 11th, 2001. I do not own Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, nor do I own Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henry V.
~ ~ ~ ~
January 2142, the New Year dawns as I step out onto the airfield. The supply depot provides me with rations and water as well as ammunition. I poke around the depot, looking for the nearest truck. The driver agrees to take me to the 15th Light Infantry's positions and tells me I'll have to find my unit for myself.
I garner a little sleep in this drive across the sandy dunes. When I finally reach my company area, Kat, Wiersbowski and Fressan are on hand to welcome me. They fill me in on the news of the next few months of fighting. We have become one of the flying divisions; wherever we are most needed we go into battle, reinforcing sectors of our line where the fighting is most intense. The enemy is making a desperate stance to keep us from reaching Mersa Matruh with constant artillery barrages followed by mass infantry charges.
The front has become static again, partially due to flooding from the rainy season and a shortage of supplies. We are again reinforced by another complement of new recruits. The fighting is as savage and intense as it has been before. My first night returning to my company I am awakened by a flak battery. I know to take cover because an air attack has come. Tracers from the quad barreled flak guns Andi and I saw on my leave home streak across the skies. I see a wasp fall from the skies, falling gracelessly to the desert floor, struck by 20mm cannon shells.
Once again my animal instincts return, those same primal instincts that kept our ancestors alive in savage times. Kat asks me, "How did it go?"
"All but the last day felt like pure bliss." I reply.
Fressan and Wiersbowski clean their weapons on their cots. I attempt to sleep yet again only to be awakened by bursts of shell fire as an artillery duel is being fought. Huddled in a trench I look up, it is an awesome, terrifying sight to see shells exploding, flares flying, and explosions sounding. It would be the ultimate light show if it wasn't so dangerous.
My helmet falls from my head and Andi's smiling face, illuminated by a purple Verey light exploding over my head, stares directly at me for a few seconds. Almost as soon as it begins, the barrage ends.
I am assigned guard duty soon after the barrage and as I walk the moonless night, rifle ready, my pistol with a round chambered and the safety on, I regard the eerie new silent stillness all around me. Only the occasional rifle shot, or staccato machinegun burst breaks the silence of my watch. We are still close enough to the front lines to hear the sounds of war as I nibble on a crust of bread from a stale ration loaf.
Barely a few hours after a moment of sleep I steal after my relief shows up I feel Sergeant McCron waking me up. The company is being sent to reinforce a sector being attacked by intensive artillery and infantry assaults. Troops from the 115th Libyan Infantry Division are barely holding on.
Almost at the instant that the next barrage begins I dive into the nearest trench. The Libyan soldier beside me takes a direct hit from an energy orb that explodes at his feet, sending blood and body parts in an arc of wet destruction. I am struck full in the face by a stream of the red liquid.
The barrage ceases, we are tense in our holes, I hear Kat cocking the machinegun to my left. We hear moans and shouts breaking the temporary silence of the post barrage. A swarm of zombies and ogres swarm towards the position. "Fire!" Sergeant McCron's New York accent booms.
We all open fire on our attackers, Kat's machinegun is ripping swaths into their ranks as are Wiersbowski's rounds. I pull a grenade from my web gear, pull the pin, time it and throw it into a group of zombies. The grenade explodes as it arcs into the face of one of them. It is a good throw that sprays shrapnel into the heads and torsos of three zombies. Fressan adds more rifle fire as I reload my own rifle, shooting my pistol one handed as I do so.
The sun climbs over the horizon and the shooting wanes and begins to cease. As the assault breaks, we calm down. I shakily pull the crust of bread I was nibbling on a few hours ago. Rations have been lowered because of supply problems, our offensive is being slowed by its own momentum, our supply lines are badly stretched, and many times our troops are fighting with hardly anything in our stomachs. Try as I might to stretch my supplies out, my stomach complains incessantly, for the month I spent at home and at the refresher course have accustomed it to being well fed on cue. It is almost near starvation on the frontlines and the seconds drag on inexorably. I tear a small piece off of my last fist sized ration loaf. It is hard, black bread, almost like overcooked pumpernickel with a small tin of olive oil issued with it. The olive oil may soften the ration loaf, but I don't care much for its taste. But still it is sustenance. There are two cans of chicken broth in my pack for daily rations but even on the frontlines before I went home I was used to four. I am also used to around five ration loaves per day instead of two.
Hours on the front turn into days in short order, and the rumor that we are reinforcing the Libyan flank for our assault on Mersa Matruh is spreading through the ranks. Later Sergeant McCron confirms these rumors. We do not know when we will attack just yet. But we know when we see three green flares at night or hear a whistle during the day that is our signal to go over the top following the tanks of the Egyptian 3rd Armored Division that the Libyans, reinforced by us, are supporting.
The Libyans sector of the front had been taking the most fierce of the offensives, the poor bastards have been fighting for better than a month to keep the creatures from widening a gap between the Sicilians to the south of us and the Egyptians to the north. They are haggard, with scraggly growths of beard and eyes that stare off into the distance. That is the look of almost all of our men on the frontlines. Again I am becoming an automaton, my instinct keen once more. Intellectually I am no better than a savage bushman, living an artificial aboriginal life brought about by crashing shells and many forms of death.
I hear the tank motors firing up. My heart skips a beat. Several times the Egyptians fire up their tank motors to confuse the enemy into thinking our killing blow at Mersa Matruh is imminent, but they do not attack. Then I hear Predator gunships flying off in the distance, shooting rockets into the enemy positions, and then the artillery fires off a barrage of shells. The Egyptians' tank motors act like a chorus in a great orchestra of death and destruction. The whistles sound and the Egyptian tanks begin to advance with their mechanized grenadiers and infantry following behind. We climb from the trenches and follow their movements on half tracks or on foot. Once we reach the outskirts of Mersa Matruh, the Egyptians begin to fire their tank shells into the city as we dismount the vehicles and follow them, making sure enemy anti-tank squads do not get near their prey.
Once more into the breach we go. Almost like an automaton my body moves, following instincts long since ingrained, but there is an undisputable agony within me. That agony is not the physical agony of a wound, nor the emotional agony of seeing a friend die. It is a longing agony, the sort of agony that can only come from the soul of a man condemned to the abyss who has had a taste of paradise.
Each explosion, each gunshot, each scream and battle cry brings to me the horrifying realization as to where I am. Man does not belong in this vision of Dante's inner circle of Hell; human beings were destined to live peaceful and fulfilling lives. I am but nineteen and know nothing but devastation, death, loss and bravery. A light, but a small fissure in a dark cave peeks through my wretched, hungry state and tells me otherwise. I see Andi's face, brightly angelic; the faces of my brothers, my family also begin to appear, wanting to lift me from this abyss but unable to do so.
"C'mon, keep moving! Keep moving!" Sergeant McCron shouts, prodding me from behind, pushing me forward. An ogre comes towards me, intent on ending my life, two rounds from my rifle into its chest and another two to it's head see that this is not so.
The savage battle wages all day, I notice as dusk begins to creep over the desert yet the gunfire does not cease. I pull my pistol from my web gear, reloading my rifle with the other hand as we take a massive assault by zombies into our flanks. I see Kat firing his machinegun, not in the usual short controlled bursts he normally fires, but firing almost nonstop, his machinegun sweeping in a 180 degree arc. The barrel starts to glow, white- hot and Fressan goes to help Kat change out his barrels. Wiersbowski adds his fire, a volley of 20mm rounds chewing a group of zombies into bits. I fire my pistol almost nonstop as several crimson heads begin to appear. As this savage counterattack is absorbed, I find myself firing both my weapons nonstop. I see the corpse of a dead Egyptian at my side. Going through his web gear I pull a bandolier of magazines from his corpse and add two more rifle magazines to my web gear. We have broken the assault and advance again into Mersa Matruh.
All I know is brief and stolen snatches of sleep constantly interrupted by assaults and counterattacks by the creatures desperate to drive us from Mersa Matruh. Fluttery dreams of a warm hearth and idyllic village and of my beloved all enter my mind. I awake and stare through sunken and glassy eyes at Andi's picture folded inside my helmet. These dreams are a delicate gossamer web that keeps me from falling into despair as I hope simply to survive from day to day.
Almost as soon as I place my helmet back on my head I hear a tremendous rumble. Overhead I see our fighters dueling with several wasps and our Predator gunships and artillery firing round after round toward an enemy charging towards our positions with all that he has. "Man your positions! Now!" Sergeant McCron shouts through our group.
I duck into a foxhole that was part of a roadside ditch where Kat puts up his machinegun; Wiersbowski takes up another position with Fressan to my right. We see the first line of ogres, Gollums, and crimson heads that survived the shelling and the missiles from the Predator gunships charging forth, almost like the great army of orcs from the pages of Tolkein himself. Kat starts to fire, forgetting entirely about conserving ammunition as both he and Wiersbowski hose the enemy number down with bullets. The enemy line sprouts holes as their numbers begin to fall but like a horrific flood the enemy charges back over the corpses of their dead, as I throw another grenade into their ranks I cannot help but again be reminded of a simpler time.
It was the time Andi and I were watching Henry V while I was still an ACME detective after a case I had took me close to Boston. We were at her house watching the video as I held her close to me. This was the scene at the battle of Agincourt. Like the besieged warriors of Henry V, we fight with savage desperation despite the onslaught.
My rifle goes empty again and I barely pull my pistol and fire two rounds, killing a pair of ogres that had gotten into the roadside ditch we are defending before the enemy line crashes against our positions. The battle is becoming a hand to hand melee. With my pistol and several grenades I manage to kill several ogres and Gollums before they reach our positions. Wiersbowski fires his Wraith cannon like a fire hose into their ranks, sending blood, bone fragments and pieces of heads, limbs, and torsos flying about. My rifle is slung at my side as I reload my pistol yet again, shooting wildly into the enemy ranks, watching with horrified fascination as a Gollum I wounded is trampled by several of its fellows behind it as they single mindedly seek to swarm our positions.
Several mortar rounds detonate into their midst and machine gunners in other positions as well as several tanks add their fire into the enemy flanks. I see seven ogres gang up upon a young lieutenant, fighting valiantly like a lion in this rising evil tide, his electric gun firing in bursts and his pistol picking up the pace when it runs dry. They close with him and stab him relentlessly again and again. He drops his pistol, hanging from a lanyard from his web gear. He weakly fires a burst of electricity, killing one of his attackers. Blood spurts from his wounds and as he opens his mouth, shouting a silent cry into the heavens, blood gushes between cracked teeth. He weakly shoots off two rounds into an ogre and the other six keep stabbing at him and then leave him for dead on his knees. Pilgrim donates them a grenade at their feet that blasts them into body fragments.
They are getting so close that I am using my rifle as a club and shooting them at point blank range with my pistol. I throw my last grenade into a crowd of zombies mobbing Kat and Fressan at the machinegun where Kat is calmly and coolly changing out his barrel. I keep firing round after round from both my weapons, killing several creatures that come too close.
This constant wave of assaults seems to go on forever. I see Predator gunships firing rockets and 30mm cannon shells into crowds of zombies, using their guided missiles to blow scorpions to pieces, and turning the no man's land into a deadly killing field. I measure time by the pile of empty casings from our fired weapons at the bottom of the ditch; they reach nearly half way up my knee now.
Finally the assault breaks, we see the enemy retreating. It is just as well for their last assault used up the last of my ammunition. Had they mustered enough forces to attack again we would have been finished. Again Henry V comes to my mind, this time the scene at the end of the battle of Agincourt.
"Non nobis domine, domine," the tune begins to escape from my parched lips, my thick tongue tasting a mixture of spittle, dust, blood, and gun smoke, "Non nobis domine. Sed nomini, sed nomini, tuo da gloriam."
Fressan and Wiersbowski join in as well, "Non nobis domine, domine, Non nobis domine. Sed nomini, sed nomini, tuo da gloriam."
We walk across the killing ground, the enemy is too far to pursue, but our gunships keep hounding their retreat. We poke enemy bodies with rifle barrels, any that move are quickly executed with a single round. I pick up the slain corpse of the dead lieutenant I had seen die valiantly earlier. I lift his body over my shoulder; he was our new platoon commander, as courageous a fellow as any officer I have seen. I watch as Kat and Wiersbowski throw several dead zombies into a pile and light them ablaze with a can of petrol from a nearby jeep.
Hoarsely I keep singing the old Latin Psalm, relieved that I am still alive and whole, though dirty, ragged, tired and smeared with blood and dust. "Non nobis domine, domine."
The song catches on with several of the more literate ones in our ranks and they sing along or improvise the tune. I can almost hear a full choir as in the end of Henry V. For once the front is silent, still, and we have driven them back all the way to El Alamein, the site of a major battle between the British and the Germans in 1942. Strange, almost 200 years later we are fighting on this same ground.
We set up temporary billets yet again, we are resting, regrouping and being reinforced as best we can with replacements from Greece and Crete being integrated into the ranks. I sit upon my cot, cleaning my weapons, my desert fatigues faded to a whitish yellow hue stained with filth, dirt, and blood from the battle. We have now been at Mersa Matruh for almost two weeks while the reinforcements are being trained and integrated into our units.
The satellite phone in the middle of our tent rings and I pick it up. "Ivy?" I ask.
"Hey Martin, Andi tried to call you earlier but you weren't available, she wanted me to tell you that if you want to talk to her she'll be at my house tomorrow." Ivy replies, "We're just going to do some touristy things, hang out, that sort of thing. When and if she gets tired of playing tourist I'll see if she can't call you."
"That'll be grand." I reply, a little glimmer of excitement, much less than such news usually would bring about, breaks through my hard shell of exhaustion and fatigue.
"She hasn't left for the airport yet, you might be able to catch her for a quick hello." Ivy replies.
"Okay, thanks." I reply with a lot of enthusiasm breaking through that hard shell of exhaustion.
I hang up and punch in a number I know by heart. The phone rings, and rings again and continues to ring until the fifth time and the answering machine picks up. "Andi, it's me, Martin. If you're there, please pick up, I really want to hear your voice right now."
She doesn't answer, but the traces of my inner destitution and desperation will be left like a fossil imprint in a rock formation, a little piece of the hell I am enduring. Apparently she is already at the airport.
There is a small satellite television set in our billet that the Division Headquarters Company whom we are billeted with right now share with us. There usually is nothing but the occasional film, news broadcast, which I detested at home but will watch at the front, and the BBC. I switch to the BBC news network, which we usually do when we get the TV, keeping it on that channel as we go to bed.
I see a Predator gunship firing off a vicious rocket salvo and see tanks and infantry advancing on foot from the gun camera of an SH-6 Little Bird observation skimmer. The broadcaster is describing a battle I had just fought a few short hours before. I see another shocking sight. It is a soldier, carrying a dead comrade across his shoulders, the crest of the 15th Light Infantry Division barely visible through the coat of dust and blood on his uniform. His lips are moving, a familiar tune on them. I know at the first instant that the soldier is me and the dead lieutenant I carry over my shoulders was the one who's last desperate moments I witnessed from my trench as I fought off an assault.
It is the next morning where I sink into the depths of the abyss, crushed like an automaton beyond all thinking.
"Holy hell! Wake up lads!" shouts Sergeant Burton, weapons platoon.
This awakens me from a deep slumber. "What is it?" I ask, walking from my cot.
It is then that I see the burning remains of a building very familiar to me. In almost a déjà vu of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks I read about in my history books as a child I see the building collapse in upon itself. "Oh my God! It can't be."
"The Tower of London has been attacked." Burton replies. I see footage of an aircraft crashing into the Tower over the Thames River. In that background I hear the phone ringing.
"Gallatin!" Kat shouts, shoving it into my hand.
It is Ivy, "Martin! Holy God did you just hear."
"Yes! I did!" I shout back, "That's my bloody back yard for God's sake!"
"No, there have been about three other attacks, two in America!" Ivy shouts back to me.
Almost numb and dull with shock I can barely think. Then I immediately begin to worry, Andi was supposed to be traveling today. That is when we both hear a voice on the three way circuit.
"Hello?" I hear Ivy's voice, tinny on the conference line that her parents installed into the house.
"Ivy?"
"Andi? Are you alright?" Ivy asks.
I feel relief, Andi, she's still alive. It quickly evaporates when I hear her words. There is terror in her voice between half choked sobs.
"Ivy, please listen. My flight's been taken over by those creatures, those Gollum things Martin's been fighting in Africa. I borrowed someone's cell phone and want to tell you that some of the people on board are planning to attack the creatures." Andi says between sobs and hiccups.
Later that day I hear news of a plane crash in the Colorado Rockies. I refuse to believe it, I am numb with shock. Maybe it wasn't Andi's plane, maybe the passengers succeeded in fighting those creatures off. Part of me knows this isn't true, I have seen armed soldiers try to fight Gollums and die. However part of me just refuses to believe it.
The denial lasts up until mail call the next day. "Gallatin."
I receive not one but two letters. I open the first, from home, it tells me my brother David was killed at the Tower of London yesterday when his class was visiting it on a field trip. This additional anguish tears through the cynical and weary façade that is inherent to a soldier on the frontlines. I open the second letter. It is from her brother Gavin.
I read the contents, "Dear Martin, I don't know how to tell you this but Andi is dead. She was killed yesterday.I'm joining the Army today to get those things for what they did to my sister."
I go numb inside, I am now a true automaton. Two people very close to me, innocent civilians, are dead. And like a severed string my last tenuous hold to the civilized world snaps. I want revenge, nothing more, nothing less.
Disclaimer/Author's Note: This was inspired by Everywhere, by Carmine to a large extent and is indirectly a tribute to those who died on September 11th, 2001. I do not own Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, nor do I own Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henry V.
~ ~ ~ ~
January 2142, the New Year dawns as I step out onto the airfield. The supply depot provides me with rations and water as well as ammunition. I poke around the depot, looking for the nearest truck. The driver agrees to take me to the 15th Light Infantry's positions and tells me I'll have to find my unit for myself.
I garner a little sleep in this drive across the sandy dunes. When I finally reach my company area, Kat, Wiersbowski and Fressan are on hand to welcome me. They fill me in on the news of the next few months of fighting. We have become one of the flying divisions; wherever we are most needed we go into battle, reinforcing sectors of our line where the fighting is most intense. The enemy is making a desperate stance to keep us from reaching Mersa Matruh with constant artillery barrages followed by mass infantry charges.
The front has become static again, partially due to flooding from the rainy season and a shortage of supplies. We are again reinforced by another complement of new recruits. The fighting is as savage and intense as it has been before. My first night returning to my company I am awakened by a flak battery. I know to take cover because an air attack has come. Tracers from the quad barreled flak guns Andi and I saw on my leave home streak across the skies. I see a wasp fall from the skies, falling gracelessly to the desert floor, struck by 20mm cannon shells.
Once again my animal instincts return, those same primal instincts that kept our ancestors alive in savage times. Kat asks me, "How did it go?"
"All but the last day felt like pure bliss." I reply.
Fressan and Wiersbowski clean their weapons on their cots. I attempt to sleep yet again only to be awakened by bursts of shell fire as an artillery duel is being fought. Huddled in a trench I look up, it is an awesome, terrifying sight to see shells exploding, flares flying, and explosions sounding. It would be the ultimate light show if it wasn't so dangerous.
My helmet falls from my head and Andi's smiling face, illuminated by a purple Verey light exploding over my head, stares directly at me for a few seconds. Almost as soon as it begins, the barrage ends.
I am assigned guard duty soon after the barrage and as I walk the moonless night, rifle ready, my pistol with a round chambered and the safety on, I regard the eerie new silent stillness all around me. Only the occasional rifle shot, or staccato machinegun burst breaks the silence of my watch. We are still close enough to the front lines to hear the sounds of war as I nibble on a crust of bread from a stale ration loaf.
Barely a few hours after a moment of sleep I steal after my relief shows up I feel Sergeant McCron waking me up. The company is being sent to reinforce a sector being attacked by intensive artillery and infantry assaults. Troops from the 115th Libyan Infantry Division are barely holding on.
Almost at the instant that the next barrage begins I dive into the nearest trench. The Libyan soldier beside me takes a direct hit from an energy orb that explodes at his feet, sending blood and body parts in an arc of wet destruction. I am struck full in the face by a stream of the red liquid.
The barrage ceases, we are tense in our holes, I hear Kat cocking the machinegun to my left. We hear moans and shouts breaking the temporary silence of the post barrage. A swarm of zombies and ogres swarm towards the position. "Fire!" Sergeant McCron's New York accent booms.
We all open fire on our attackers, Kat's machinegun is ripping swaths into their ranks as are Wiersbowski's rounds. I pull a grenade from my web gear, pull the pin, time it and throw it into a group of zombies. The grenade explodes as it arcs into the face of one of them. It is a good throw that sprays shrapnel into the heads and torsos of three zombies. Fressan adds more rifle fire as I reload my own rifle, shooting my pistol one handed as I do so.
The sun climbs over the horizon and the shooting wanes and begins to cease. As the assault breaks, we calm down. I shakily pull the crust of bread I was nibbling on a few hours ago. Rations have been lowered because of supply problems, our offensive is being slowed by its own momentum, our supply lines are badly stretched, and many times our troops are fighting with hardly anything in our stomachs. Try as I might to stretch my supplies out, my stomach complains incessantly, for the month I spent at home and at the refresher course have accustomed it to being well fed on cue. It is almost near starvation on the frontlines and the seconds drag on inexorably. I tear a small piece off of my last fist sized ration loaf. It is hard, black bread, almost like overcooked pumpernickel with a small tin of olive oil issued with it. The olive oil may soften the ration loaf, but I don't care much for its taste. But still it is sustenance. There are two cans of chicken broth in my pack for daily rations but even on the frontlines before I went home I was used to four. I am also used to around five ration loaves per day instead of two.
Hours on the front turn into days in short order, and the rumor that we are reinforcing the Libyan flank for our assault on Mersa Matruh is spreading through the ranks. Later Sergeant McCron confirms these rumors. We do not know when we will attack just yet. But we know when we see three green flares at night or hear a whistle during the day that is our signal to go over the top following the tanks of the Egyptian 3rd Armored Division that the Libyans, reinforced by us, are supporting.
The Libyans sector of the front had been taking the most fierce of the offensives, the poor bastards have been fighting for better than a month to keep the creatures from widening a gap between the Sicilians to the south of us and the Egyptians to the north. They are haggard, with scraggly growths of beard and eyes that stare off into the distance. That is the look of almost all of our men on the frontlines. Again I am becoming an automaton, my instinct keen once more. Intellectually I am no better than a savage bushman, living an artificial aboriginal life brought about by crashing shells and many forms of death.
I hear the tank motors firing up. My heart skips a beat. Several times the Egyptians fire up their tank motors to confuse the enemy into thinking our killing blow at Mersa Matruh is imminent, but they do not attack. Then I hear Predator gunships flying off in the distance, shooting rockets into the enemy positions, and then the artillery fires off a barrage of shells. The Egyptians' tank motors act like a chorus in a great orchestra of death and destruction. The whistles sound and the Egyptian tanks begin to advance with their mechanized grenadiers and infantry following behind. We climb from the trenches and follow their movements on half tracks or on foot. Once we reach the outskirts of Mersa Matruh, the Egyptians begin to fire their tank shells into the city as we dismount the vehicles and follow them, making sure enemy anti-tank squads do not get near their prey.
Once more into the breach we go. Almost like an automaton my body moves, following instincts long since ingrained, but there is an undisputable agony within me. That agony is not the physical agony of a wound, nor the emotional agony of seeing a friend die. It is a longing agony, the sort of agony that can only come from the soul of a man condemned to the abyss who has had a taste of paradise.
Each explosion, each gunshot, each scream and battle cry brings to me the horrifying realization as to where I am. Man does not belong in this vision of Dante's inner circle of Hell; human beings were destined to live peaceful and fulfilling lives. I am but nineteen and know nothing but devastation, death, loss and bravery. A light, but a small fissure in a dark cave peeks through my wretched, hungry state and tells me otherwise. I see Andi's face, brightly angelic; the faces of my brothers, my family also begin to appear, wanting to lift me from this abyss but unable to do so.
"C'mon, keep moving! Keep moving!" Sergeant McCron shouts, prodding me from behind, pushing me forward. An ogre comes towards me, intent on ending my life, two rounds from my rifle into its chest and another two to it's head see that this is not so.
The savage battle wages all day, I notice as dusk begins to creep over the desert yet the gunfire does not cease. I pull my pistol from my web gear, reloading my rifle with the other hand as we take a massive assault by zombies into our flanks. I see Kat firing his machinegun, not in the usual short controlled bursts he normally fires, but firing almost nonstop, his machinegun sweeping in a 180 degree arc. The barrel starts to glow, white- hot and Fressan goes to help Kat change out his barrels. Wiersbowski adds his fire, a volley of 20mm rounds chewing a group of zombies into bits. I fire my pistol almost nonstop as several crimson heads begin to appear. As this savage counterattack is absorbed, I find myself firing both my weapons nonstop. I see the corpse of a dead Egyptian at my side. Going through his web gear I pull a bandolier of magazines from his corpse and add two more rifle magazines to my web gear. We have broken the assault and advance again into Mersa Matruh.
All I know is brief and stolen snatches of sleep constantly interrupted by assaults and counterattacks by the creatures desperate to drive us from Mersa Matruh. Fluttery dreams of a warm hearth and idyllic village and of my beloved all enter my mind. I awake and stare through sunken and glassy eyes at Andi's picture folded inside my helmet. These dreams are a delicate gossamer web that keeps me from falling into despair as I hope simply to survive from day to day.
Almost as soon as I place my helmet back on my head I hear a tremendous rumble. Overhead I see our fighters dueling with several wasps and our Predator gunships and artillery firing round after round toward an enemy charging towards our positions with all that he has. "Man your positions! Now!" Sergeant McCron shouts through our group.
I duck into a foxhole that was part of a roadside ditch where Kat puts up his machinegun; Wiersbowski takes up another position with Fressan to my right. We see the first line of ogres, Gollums, and crimson heads that survived the shelling and the missiles from the Predator gunships charging forth, almost like the great army of orcs from the pages of Tolkein himself. Kat starts to fire, forgetting entirely about conserving ammunition as both he and Wiersbowski hose the enemy number down with bullets. The enemy line sprouts holes as their numbers begin to fall but like a horrific flood the enemy charges back over the corpses of their dead, as I throw another grenade into their ranks I cannot help but again be reminded of a simpler time.
It was the time Andi and I were watching Henry V while I was still an ACME detective after a case I had took me close to Boston. We were at her house watching the video as I held her close to me. This was the scene at the battle of Agincourt. Like the besieged warriors of Henry V, we fight with savage desperation despite the onslaught.
My rifle goes empty again and I barely pull my pistol and fire two rounds, killing a pair of ogres that had gotten into the roadside ditch we are defending before the enemy line crashes against our positions. The battle is becoming a hand to hand melee. With my pistol and several grenades I manage to kill several ogres and Gollums before they reach our positions. Wiersbowski fires his Wraith cannon like a fire hose into their ranks, sending blood, bone fragments and pieces of heads, limbs, and torsos flying about. My rifle is slung at my side as I reload my pistol yet again, shooting wildly into the enemy ranks, watching with horrified fascination as a Gollum I wounded is trampled by several of its fellows behind it as they single mindedly seek to swarm our positions.
Several mortar rounds detonate into their midst and machine gunners in other positions as well as several tanks add their fire into the enemy flanks. I see seven ogres gang up upon a young lieutenant, fighting valiantly like a lion in this rising evil tide, his electric gun firing in bursts and his pistol picking up the pace when it runs dry. They close with him and stab him relentlessly again and again. He drops his pistol, hanging from a lanyard from his web gear. He weakly fires a burst of electricity, killing one of his attackers. Blood spurts from his wounds and as he opens his mouth, shouting a silent cry into the heavens, blood gushes between cracked teeth. He weakly shoots off two rounds into an ogre and the other six keep stabbing at him and then leave him for dead on his knees. Pilgrim donates them a grenade at their feet that blasts them into body fragments.
They are getting so close that I am using my rifle as a club and shooting them at point blank range with my pistol. I throw my last grenade into a crowd of zombies mobbing Kat and Fressan at the machinegun where Kat is calmly and coolly changing out his barrel. I keep firing round after round from both my weapons, killing several creatures that come too close.
This constant wave of assaults seems to go on forever. I see Predator gunships firing rockets and 30mm cannon shells into crowds of zombies, using their guided missiles to blow scorpions to pieces, and turning the no man's land into a deadly killing field. I measure time by the pile of empty casings from our fired weapons at the bottom of the ditch; they reach nearly half way up my knee now.
Finally the assault breaks, we see the enemy retreating. It is just as well for their last assault used up the last of my ammunition. Had they mustered enough forces to attack again we would have been finished. Again Henry V comes to my mind, this time the scene at the end of the battle of Agincourt.
"Non nobis domine, domine," the tune begins to escape from my parched lips, my thick tongue tasting a mixture of spittle, dust, blood, and gun smoke, "Non nobis domine. Sed nomini, sed nomini, tuo da gloriam."
Fressan and Wiersbowski join in as well, "Non nobis domine, domine, Non nobis domine. Sed nomini, sed nomini, tuo da gloriam."
We walk across the killing ground, the enemy is too far to pursue, but our gunships keep hounding their retreat. We poke enemy bodies with rifle barrels, any that move are quickly executed with a single round. I pick up the slain corpse of the dead lieutenant I had seen die valiantly earlier. I lift his body over my shoulder; he was our new platoon commander, as courageous a fellow as any officer I have seen. I watch as Kat and Wiersbowski throw several dead zombies into a pile and light them ablaze with a can of petrol from a nearby jeep.
Hoarsely I keep singing the old Latin Psalm, relieved that I am still alive and whole, though dirty, ragged, tired and smeared with blood and dust. "Non nobis domine, domine."
The song catches on with several of the more literate ones in our ranks and they sing along or improvise the tune. I can almost hear a full choir as in the end of Henry V. For once the front is silent, still, and we have driven them back all the way to El Alamein, the site of a major battle between the British and the Germans in 1942. Strange, almost 200 years later we are fighting on this same ground.
We set up temporary billets yet again, we are resting, regrouping and being reinforced as best we can with replacements from Greece and Crete being integrated into the ranks. I sit upon my cot, cleaning my weapons, my desert fatigues faded to a whitish yellow hue stained with filth, dirt, and blood from the battle. We have now been at Mersa Matruh for almost two weeks while the reinforcements are being trained and integrated into our units.
The satellite phone in the middle of our tent rings and I pick it up. "Ivy?" I ask.
"Hey Martin, Andi tried to call you earlier but you weren't available, she wanted me to tell you that if you want to talk to her she'll be at my house tomorrow." Ivy replies, "We're just going to do some touristy things, hang out, that sort of thing. When and if she gets tired of playing tourist I'll see if she can't call you."
"That'll be grand." I reply, a little glimmer of excitement, much less than such news usually would bring about, breaks through my hard shell of exhaustion and fatigue.
"She hasn't left for the airport yet, you might be able to catch her for a quick hello." Ivy replies.
"Okay, thanks." I reply with a lot of enthusiasm breaking through that hard shell of exhaustion.
I hang up and punch in a number I know by heart. The phone rings, and rings again and continues to ring until the fifth time and the answering machine picks up. "Andi, it's me, Martin. If you're there, please pick up, I really want to hear your voice right now."
She doesn't answer, but the traces of my inner destitution and desperation will be left like a fossil imprint in a rock formation, a little piece of the hell I am enduring. Apparently she is already at the airport.
There is a small satellite television set in our billet that the Division Headquarters Company whom we are billeted with right now share with us. There usually is nothing but the occasional film, news broadcast, which I detested at home but will watch at the front, and the BBC. I switch to the BBC news network, which we usually do when we get the TV, keeping it on that channel as we go to bed.
I see a Predator gunship firing off a vicious rocket salvo and see tanks and infantry advancing on foot from the gun camera of an SH-6 Little Bird observation skimmer. The broadcaster is describing a battle I had just fought a few short hours before. I see another shocking sight. It is a soldier, carrying a dead comrade across his shoulders, the crest of the 15th Light Infantry Division barely visible through the coat of dust and blood on his uniform. His lips are moving, a familiar tune on them. I know at the first instant that the soldier is me and the dead lieutenant I carry over my shoulders was the one who's last desperate moments I witnessed from my trench as I fought off an assault.
It is the next morning where I sink into the depths of the abyss, crushed like an automaton beyond all thinking.
"Holy hell! Wake up lads!" shouts Sergeant Burton, weapons platoon.
This awakens me from a deep slumber. "What is it?" I ask, walking from my cot.
It is then that I see the burning remains of a building very familiar to me. In almost a déjà vu of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks I read about in my history books as a child I see the building collapse in upon itself. "Oh my God! It can't be."
"The Tower of London has been attacked." Burton replies. I see footage of an aircraft crashing into the Tower over the Thames River. In that background I hear the phone ringing.
"Gallatin!" Kat shouts, shoving it into my hand.
It is Ivy, "Martin! Holy God did you just hear."
"Yes! I did!" I shout back, "That's my bloody back yard for God's sake!"
"No, there have been about three other attacks, two in America!" Ivy shouts back to me.
Almost numb and dull with shock I can barely think. Then I immediately begin to worry, Andi was supposed to be traveling today. That is when we both hear a voice on the three way circuit.
"Hello?" I hear Ivy's voice, tinny on the conference line that her parents installed into the house.
"Ivy?"
"Andi? Are you alright?" Ivy asks.
I feel relief, Andi, she's still alive. It quickly evaporates when I hear her words. There is terror in her voice between half choked sobs.
"Ivy, please listen. My flight's been taken over by those creatures, those Gollum things Martin's been fighting in Africa. I borrowed someone's cell phone and want to tell you that some of the people on board are planning to attack the creatures." Andi says between sobs and hiccups.
Later that day I hear news of a plane crash in the Colorado Rockies. I refuse to believe it, I am numb with shock. Maybe it wasn't Andi's plane, maybe the passengers succeeded in fighting those creatures off. Part of me knows this isn't true, I have seen armed soldiers try to fight Gollums and die. However part of me just refuses to believe it.
The denial lasts up until mail call the next day. "Gallatin."
I receive not one but two letters. I open the first, from home, it tells me my brother David was killed at the Tower of London yesterday when his class was visiting it on a field trip. This additional anguish tears through the cynical and weary façade that is inherent to a soldier on the frontlines. I open the second letter. It is from her brother Gavin.
I read the contents, "Dear Martin, I don't know how to tell you this but Andi is dead. She was killed yesterday.I'm joining the Army today to get those things for what they did to my sister."
I go numb inside, I am now a true automaton. Two people very close to me, innocent civilians, are dead. And like a severed string my last tenuous hold to the civilized world snaps. I want revenge, nothing more, nothing less.