Hello everyone, here we are again with a new chapter. I'm a bit unsure about this one, to be honest, because I was experimenting a little and I'm afraid that it ended up a confusing mess with all the different POVs. Hope you still enjoy it, though :)
And as always, thank you all so much for reading, reviewing and fav'ing this story. You guys are awesome!
The next day began far too early. Dawn had only just brightened into pale morning when the officers briefed their platoon sergeants and squad leaders on the plan of attack. Maxine squatted beside Guarnere, peering over Buck's shoulder at his map as she listened to the lieutenant outlining their strategy.
"We don't know what they've got", Compton said, finger tracing over the map. "The intel's unclear. We may be attacking a weaker force. Maybe more paratroopers." He looked up to meet their eyes and continued: "Fire and manoeuvre, that's the strategy. Mortars are already set up on the slope there, Fields" – he fixed the woman in question with his bright gaze – "find a position on the ridge."
The sniper nodded, mumbling a confirmation.
"That's it, ladies and gentlemen", Buck finished, folding the map and pocketing it, "Dog and Fox are moving with us on our left flank. Any questions?"
A murmur of negatives went through their small cluster and the lieutenant nodded. "Alright, let's move."
Their little circle broke up as the NCOs returned to their squads. Louise gave Maxine a pat on the shoulder and was just about to say something, when a by now familiar whining whistle rang out.
"Mortar!", somebody shouted a few feet to their left.
"Down, everyone into a hole, take cover!", Maxine yelled, plastering herself against the soil as the first artillery shell hit, blowing up a fountain of dirt.
Louise scrambled to her feet and ran towards her assigned post, shoulders pulled up and knees bent to stay as low as possible.
"Find your targets!", Maxine hollered over the racket, trying to pick out muzzle flashes on the other side of the field. "C'mon, get your asses in gear!"
Louise let out a scream of frustrated anger as she flattened herself into the grass, the ground beneath her shaking with the explosions of enemy mortar fire. How am I supposed to hit anything when the bloody Earth's rattling like that?, she asked herself, flinging herself down and setting up her rifle. Her heart was pumping rapidly, her pulse thumping in her ears. Deep breath.
Slipping into the sniper breathing mode, the Brit felt and heard her heart rate slow down.
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Machine gun fire erupted as the men from the OP rushed back to the line, diving headfirst over the dykes to cover.
"Look for silhouettes on the horizon!", Lieutenant Winters' voice could be heard yelling over the chaos of the gun battle. He was hurrying down the line, spurring the soldiers into motion. "Find your targets!"
The sergeants were echoing their CO's orders, bellowing directions and encouragements to their platoons and squads. "Keep low! Pour it on them! Keep them pinned!"
Jessica, lying flat on her stomach and relatively sheltered by the small rise in the ground that they had incorporated into their fortified position, cursed under her breath as she was showered in leaves and twigs from the enemy MG fire perforating the foliage.
"Didn't anyone tell those guys that dropping trees on people is rude?!", she shouted over to Dukeman, dropping another Kraut.
"Wouldn't know!", he replied without even taking his eyes off his sights.
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"Medic!"
Sliding down so the little dyke covered her, Jessica fished out a new clip or seven to reload. She spied Mia nearby, tending to a wounded soldier – she didn't know who it was, the medic's thin body hiding the man's face from her line of sight.
Just then, a particularly heavy branch smacked her across the back, making her yelp. "Ow!", she cried more in annoyance than in pain. "Hey Doc, wanna tell your pals over there to stop shooting at trees?! It's making it damn hard to fire!"
The helmet with the red cross swivelled around and Jessica received an unimpressed glare. So she does have another setting than 'blank-faced', she thought involuntarily.
"What, would you prefer that they are shooting at people?", Mia shot back, grunting and throwing herself over her patient as another mortar shell blew up mere feet away. Blood-stained hands pressed down onto a field dressing.
"Oh wait!", she continued, feigning sudden realisation while anger and disbelief coloured her tone. "They are!"
Jessica just laughed and got back into position to pour another salve onto the enemy. "Ha! I knew you had a sense of humour!" Grinning at Dukeman, she repeated: "I knew she had a sense of humour!"
"Less talking, more shooting, Helak!", Toye snapped at her over bursts of his semi-automatic rifle.
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"Sergeants reverse!", Guarnere yelled, signalling as he spoke to alert those out of hearing range. "Cover the crest of that hill!"
The order was repeated, travelling up and down the line at lightning speed with the help of their radio operators and the sergeants' strong vocal organs.
Two female voices were among the shouts and barks of the NCOs. Theresa's voice pitched high to be heard over the infernal noise as she led her men and the clear, unyielding snap of Maxine's orders was filled with enough authority that it could put a three-star general to shame.
Muzzle flashes lit up all over in the opposing hedgerows, spitting out seemingly never-ending strings of bullets. The booms of detonating mortar shells rang through the field, shouts hanging in the air.
Then, a deeper, metallic rumble joined the noise.
"Oooh, shit", Louise muttered from her vantage point up on the ridge. Several more emphatic and inventive expletives followed as several German tanks rolled through, no scratch that, over the trees, infantry accompanying the heavily armoured machines.
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Welsh shouted: "Where the hell did they come from?!"
Catherine, who had been busy keeping a badly wounded soldier alive, briefly raised her head and immediately regretted it. Tanks! Her stomach hit the floor and terror gripped her throat. Dear Lord, we're dead.
Then, her momentary panic disappeared, leaving her with only a stubborn, cool sense of absolute determination. She had a job to do and she'd be damned if she let an unspecified number of tanks stop her.
Screaming of a different kind reached her ears as she hurried down the line to respond to another call for a medic. It wasn't one of the men trying to make himself heard over the blasted ruckus or even a wounded man giving utterance to his pain. It was just continuous, wordless screaming and Catherine couldn't for the life of her tell where or who it came from.
The ground bucked and shook as the tanks advanced. In spite of the cover the massive vehicles provided, several Krauts were felled by bullets from American machine guns, M1 carbines and Louise's sniper rifle.
Ana María could barely hear the squawks of her radio over the incessant rattle and rumble, the cracks of gunshots and the yells for medics. She saw Pepping hurdling right over a foxhole in his rush to get to a patient.
A shower of dirt went down on her as a tank shell blew up about two feet away from their line. She ducked, grimacing against the earth, then listened to Luz' voice coming over the radio in between bursts of static, telling her that they had lost their left flank.
The man next to her, Parker, fell to the ground, a cry of agony tearing from his throat.
In between shouting for a medic and trying to ignore the ever advancing tanks looming on the other side of the field, she relayed the loss of their flank to Sergeant Grant.
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Frances had to quickly shift her fire when suddenly Welsh burst out into the open with McGrath on his heels, carrying a bazooka.
"What the hell are they doing?!", she cried, watching in horror as the two lone soldiers took up position in the field, seemingly unbothered by the bullets whizzing past and burying in the ground around them.
Theresa allowed herself a brief moment of wondering if their officers were going to make a habit of insanely reckless stunts like these (everyone had heard about Winters capturing and disabling those gun batteries at Brécourt Manor) before refocusing onto the battle.
"Covering fire!", she instructed her squad, hand signals reinforcing her message over the noise. "Watch their backs!"
She heard her orders echoed by Martin and Guarnere on either side of her and finished reloading.
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The first round of the bazooka hits its target, but the tank steadily continues up the small mound, the caterpillar tracks clicking inexorably as they dug gouges into the soil beneath them.
"You're gonna get me killed, lieutenant!", McGrath said, young face twisted in a mask of fearful worry. "I knew you'd get me killed!" But he didn't move, instead waited for Welsh to load the next – second, only remaining – round.
One eye on the two figures dark against the field's backdrop, Frances hoped devoutly that the lieutenant's plan payed off because otherwise? Best not think about that. She shook her head, physically forcing away the thoughts even as she squeezed off another shot, felling another Kraut.
The tank fired, the shell flying right towards Welsh and McGrath, who plastered themselves against the ground. It shredded a tree, flinging branches and javelin-like pieces of wood and bark towards the machine gunners' position in its path.
"Medic!", Liebgott hollered, seeing that Smokey and More had taken the brunt of that explosion.
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Welsh and McGrath timed the next shot perfectly. Just as the tank crossed the crest of the mound, leaving its underbelly exposed, McGrath fired. The bazooka round hit the weak underside of the tank, effectively destroying the otherwise heavily armoured vehicle.
The two soldiers high-tailed it back to their line, not keen on making targets of themselves exposed as they were.
Up on the hill, Louise covered their retreat, grumbling under her breath about "bloody nutters" and Welsh being "off his damn trolley".
Angry at the loss of one of their tanks and possibly also at the brazenness of those two Allied soldiers, the Germans took up position up on the slight mound, staying low as they poured a hail of gunfire onto Easy. Machine gunners were lying flat, only the muzzle flashes betraying them, while the infantrymen knelt, offering as small a target area as possible while also improving their stability.
Cries for a medic were ringing out all over the place as bullets and shells rained down onto Easy's position.
They retaliated, giving as good as they got, but with the Krauts having the benefit of the higher ground, they were literally fighting an uphill battle. Screams of wounded mixed with the noise of gunfire and explosions. The NCOs and officers were shouting themselves hoarse as they relocated their men, squads shifting to close gaps in the line.
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Jessica picked up a soldier that had fallen due to his leg being shot out from under him. She hauled him up and helped him hobble forward to the closest cover. The whistle of another artillery shell pierced the air.
"Down!", she called, giving him a shove. He dropped behind the wall of dirt that fortified the position, crying out in pain.
The shockwave of the explosion knocked her forward and she landed hard on her back. All the air was pushed from her lungs and black stars briefly danced in front of her eyes.
A string of Spanish profanities came from somewhere to her right.
Rolling over and getting onto all fours, Jessica blinked and shook her head before scrambling over to where the soldier lay. Luckily, the fall didn't seem to have made his wound any worse, though understandably, he was in a considerable amount of pain since the bullet had shattered his shin before exiting through his calf.
She called for a medic, impressed when Roe popped up out of nowhere almost instantly to take care of the man. Knowing that he was in good hands, Jessica reclaimed her rifle that she had lost in her tumble and returned to firing at the Krauts.
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The tide turned when suddenly, fountains of dirt blew up on the German side as well, blasts taking out tanks and men alike.
"What was that?", More wondered, sharing a look with an equally puzzled Smokey.
A few moments later, they had their answer. "Shermans!"
Reinforcements had arrived in the form of the 2nd Armoured Division, Sherman tanks rolling in. They bowled over anything in their way, nothing stopping their advance. Their mounted MGs barked as they fired salve after salve.
Cheers went up on the Allied line and they returned fire with renewed vigour.
"Ha!", Jessica crowed, pulling a fresh magazine from her musette bag and watching as a German tank was blown to pieces. "You better run, you sorry bastards!"
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Up on the hill, Louise let out a whoop, thinking to herself that this was a serious contender for the most gorgeous sight she'd ever beheld.
Redirecting her gaze to peer through her scope again, she found her next target. Inhale, half-exhale. Hold.
Crack!
The recoil pushed the stock into her shoulder. The gun sling was coarse where it was wrapped around her hand. Exhale.
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Theresa didn't bother hiding a smile at Welsh's heartfelt "Oh, you beautiful babies, you!"
She turned to her squad and bellowed: "Alright, guys, let's finish this!"
Outgunned and outmanned now, the Germans were put to rout.
Some decided to try and fire a few last shots, maybe get in a last kill or two before they had to retreat. Many of them soon regretted that decision as they were killed by a gunshot or caught in a tank blast.
The Shermans took up pursuit, driving the Germans away from the battered company.
And then, the battle was over.
Cheering and laughing, still high on the combat buzz, they patted each other on the back and pulled out cigarettes.
While the medics checked on the men and began organising triage and evacs to the nearest aid station, the rest of the men and women lay back, thanked God for surviving and revelled in the feeling of being alive and having won another fight.