"Is there nothing the Nazis wouldn't do to people?"
Nath raised an eyebrow at Marc meaningfully. "You tell me. Is it really such a long way to go from the 'experiments' they were conducting at the concentration camps to this kind of horror?"
"Well, no…"
"They didn't exactly see other people as being equal to them; why shouldn't they use them as experimental test subjects?" Nath scoffed, shaking his head. "Considering that their stated aim was genocide, I would be shocked if they hadn't resorted to this kind of thing, just to get rid of the people they didn't like that much sooner!"
Marc's eyes widened nervously. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. "I get it – I do!" he added, holding a hand up. "I just… until we started working on this book, I only knew World War II and the Holocaust and all of it from History class, as something that happened in the past. I knew that your Opa experienced it, but he was… well… old. It didn't feel quite so… 'real' then as it does now, after doing all the research and talking to more people who lived through it. And then to hear about even more of the Nazis' war crimes…" He shuddered. "It's… it's almost too much."
Nath hummed humorlessly. "The only question I have on this, is why the Nazis would have risked it with people who weren't 'Aryan'. What if it had succeeded?"
Marc quirked an eyebrow. "I suppose it's a good thing the Allies were there to stop them, regardless."
Tragliata, Italy, September, 1943
Bucktooth Bill crouched low, just inside the tree line 100 meters from the barbed wire fence surrounding the German facility. Outside of the city, with tall watchtowers on all sides, a single primary entrance guarded by barbed wire and gates. According to the briefing, no less than two German companies were dug in here for security. Over a month the Allies had been engaged in Italy, liberating Sicily before staging the landings up and down the mainland. They had almost succeeded in capturing Rome – now most of the enemies they were facing were the Germans, the Italians having given up and all but capitulated. But then this assignment had come up.
"What do you make of it, Valley Forge?" Bucktooth Bill asked into his handheld radio, shading his eyes with his other hand and scanning the facility's grounds carefully.
The response came back promptly. "I see a dozen soldiers in and around the field," Valley Forge reported. "Two men and one machine gun in a watchtower; two watchtowers on each side. We'll only have to worry about the ones on our wall once we get close enough, though. I don't think they have that great of a firing arc – they can cover maybe 180, but probably less." He paused for a moment. "This doesn't feel like a POW facility."
"What do you mean?"
Valley Forge let out a breath. "Why would they have vehicles parked in the exercise yard? Are the prisoners just kept inside all the time?"
"You read the same mission brief I did," Bucktooth Bill pointed out.
"These prisoners had better be here," muttered the Grenadier, crouching further down the line of Army Rangers.
"Agreed."
Kneeling beside Bucktooth Bill, Mad Jack Churchill grinned, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword. "You ready to take them, Yank?"
Bucktooth Bill furrowed his brows in thought, examining the clear space before them with a frown. "Not much cover between here and the fence," he warned. "If we're not fast enough, you'll be cut down before we make it halfway."
"Ye worry too much, Yank," called Saltire, a Scotsman in a light blue bodysuit with a white X emblazoned across his chest. He hefted his cudgel, smacking it against the ground. "Me, Ah'm just here for a good fight!"
"Hopefully they will oblige us," Mad Jack responded, raising an eyebrow at him.
Sighing, Bucktooth Bill tapped the call button on his radio three times in quick succession. "Gentlemen," he said gravely, glancing to either side of him at Mad Jack and Saltire, "it's been an honor."
"Likewise, I'm sure." Rising to his feet, Mad Jack lifted his bagpipes and blew, stepping out into the open as two gunshots rang out in quick succession from spots further down the line of trees. Two of the Germans in the watchtowers collapsed, even before the first notes of "Caber Feidh" had sounded. With a roar, the British Commandos charged out of the tree cover to Bucktooth Bill's left, the Army Rangers on his right, pouring around Mad Jack in a wild charge straight toward the fence line.
Spinning his oar, Bucktooth Bill barreled out from behind the trees, sprinting across the open field as fast as his miraculous-enhanced speed would allow. The soldiers on their side of the compound started to turn toward them, and gunshots rang out. The machine gun to Bucktooth Bill's right opened fire, spraying across the front of the Rangers. Gritting his teeth, Bucktooth Bill veered in that direction, leaped over his men, and landed in front of them, spinning his oar as a shield to block as much of the incoming fire as he could. On the other side, the second watchtower fired on the Brits, hitting Saltire in the shoulder and knocking him down to one knee, less than halfway to the fence. Checking the Brits out of the corner of his eye, Bucktooth Bill clenched his jaw. "Forward!" he shouted to the men behind him. "We can't stop here!"
A bullet from the machine gun flew over the oar-shield, and one of the men behind Bucktooth Bill yelled, falling over. To Bucktooth Bill's right, the Grenadier scanned the prison yard carefully before hurling a trio of grenades. One missed the watchtower by less than a foot and rolled up against one of the supports. The other two dropped on the other side of the gate and burst apart, sending the Germans diving for cover. On the left side of the line, a dozen of the Brits had fallen behind, several of them down with wounds.
"We need to regroup, Billy Boy!" Mad Jack yelled over to him, over the sound of his pipes.
Growling in frustration, still spinning his oar one-handed, Bucktooth Bill sprinted ahead until he was less than 60 feet from the fence. He leapt into the air, threw his arms out in either direction as he landed, and shouted, "Maca-Dam!" The earth rumbled around him, rippling in opposite directions outward from his feet, and a pair of enormous berms emerged from the ground with a roar, rising to half the height of the watchtowers and stretching about thirty meters in length. Two of the Brits grabbed Saltire and dragged him beside the berm on their side of the field, as the rest of the soldiers took up positions on the edges of the berm, firing at the men inside the facility. Standing in the no-man's land between the two protective berms, Bucktooth Bill spun his oar in a tight circle, keeping it between himself and both machine gunners.
"Give him some suppressive fire!" bellowed Mad Jack, lunging out from behind the berm, drawing back his longbow, and firing into the watchtower in front of him. The arrow lodged in the roof of the watchtower, and a bullet whizzed past Mad Jack's head as he ducked back behind the relative safety of the berm. Gunfire poured from the soldiers to either side of Bucktooth Bill, perching just below the top of the berm to fire over it, even as the facility's garrison moved rolling barricades forward behind which to shelter.
"Take out that tower!" Bucktooth Bill ordered, glancing toward the Grenadier, who nodded firmly. With unerring accuracy, he threw a grenade into the watchtower directly in front of the Americans which exploded as it landed, silencing that machine gun. Pulling out two more grenades, the Grenadier lobbed one over the fence, over the barricades. He had just pulled the pin on his second one when he fell to the ground with a cry of pain, blood pouring from a gunshot through his chest.
"Cover!" bellowed Sergeant Smith, his eyes going wide as the live grenade rolled out of the Grenadier's hand. The Grenadier tried to push himself up, fumbling for the grenade, blood trickling out of the side of his mouth and staining his uniform. Sergeant Smith dove for his legs, but the Grenadier rolled away from him, on top of the grenade, moments before it went off.
"Donnie!" shouted Valley Forge, his eyes going wide in shock.
Bucktooth Bill flinched with the explosion, his spinning oar slowing a fraction. He had lost men in battle before, of course. Dozens of men who had followed him onto the beaches of Sicily and Italy had given their lives for the cause. When he had chosen to answer the call, to fight for America, he had understood this as a possibility. And yet, something about this one hit differently. The Grenadier had given up a promising baseball career to serve in the Army. And then, he could have served as a regular soldier, but his skill had made him stand out. Instead, he had joined Bucktooth Bill and Valley Forge, to be symbols to encourage the troops. And now he was dead… Bucktooth Bill gritted his teeth, steeling his nerves. The Rangers turned to stare at him, shock on their faces.
"He gave his life for yours!" Bucktooth Bill shouted to the soldiers around him, his mouth set in a thin line. "We will honor him with ours. Forward!"
With a roar, the men around him charged out from behind the protective berms, as Bucktooth Bill raced straight at the gate, shifting the angle of his oar to block the machine gun fire from his left. A dozen paces from the fence, swinging his oar around like an axe, he built the momentum on its end, bringing his hands together on the handle as he leapt into the air, slashing at the barbed wire and bending it entirely out of place. A Scottish claymore hacked through half the wire strands beside him before Bucktooth Bill grabbed onto the remaining fence and rolled it down and out of the way. Still at least two dozen German soldiers stood in front of them, rifles pointed at the Americans and Brits. But their captain held one hand up, and they held their fire.
Bracing himself up on his cudgel, Saltire glared at the Germans. "What? Do ye no have any fight left in ye?"
Suddenly, the facility door behind the Germans creaked partway open. Bucktooth Bill cocked his head, his brows furrowed suspiciously. A groaning howl echoed through the opening. Several of the Germans jumped, their grip slackening on their rifles. Sergeant Smith tightened his grip on his pistol, pointing it back and forth between the Germans and the facility doors behind them.
"You wish to see this facility?" the German captain sneered in heavily accented English. "Then observe, the true scientific might of the German Reich!"
With a bellowing roar, the facility door slammed off of its hinges and was thrown into the courtyard as, from within, a quartet of massive, deformed figures stepped out. One, with a pair of too-small wings limply fluttering on his shoulders, jumped into the air only to fall back to the ground and stumble forward. Another, seeming to have two heads on its shoulders, with a pair of enormous scythes surgically attached in place of its forearms, screamed in a rage, barreling forward and swinging one of its scythes through the back rank of the German soldiers.
Bucktooth Bill turned to glare at the German captain. "Where are the prisoners? What did you do to these people?"
The German's eyes flashed in amusement. "No progress comes without sacrifice."
"Bloody hell," Mad Jack muttered, taking a two-handed grip on his claymore as the winged monstrosity finally jumped off the calf of the largest monstrosity and took to the sky, its wings pumping far too quickly.
"Fuck!" A gunshot rang out from the tree line, and the German captain collapsed dead, spattering blood across Bucktooth Bill's face. Valley Forge let out a growl. "These bastards are maniacs!"
"No arguments here…" Bucktooth Bill growled, as two of the monstrosities barreled through the German ranks, scattering them in all directions, and beelined straight toward Bucktooth Bill and Mad Jack.
"Come on, then!" shouted Mad Jack, ducking the scythed monstrosity, narrowly avoiding the swinging blades, hacking at the creature's heels as he rolled back to his feet. A second monstrosity, smaller and lither, threw itself at Mad Jack's exposed back, knocking him down to one knee before trying to sink its teeth into his shoulder. Dropping his claymore, Mad Jack reached up and grabbed the monstrosity by the back of the head, trying to pull it off of his back.
"Finally, a threat worthy of me!" Saltire's eyes lit up with exhilaration, and he stumbled forward, gaining steam with every step, and raised his cudgel with a roar. Sidestepping around the scythed monstrosity, he brought his cudgel down on the lithe one's head with a sickening crunch.
Mad Jack stumbled under the weight and nearly fell over. He turned on Saltire with a glare. "Were you aiming for him, or me?"
With a shriek the flying monstrosity dove toward them from above. Sliding between the scythed one's legs, Bucktooth Bill kicked it in the back of the leg, knocking it down to its knees, clambered up its back, and leapt into the air, swinging his oar at the flying one's head and batting it down into the ground. In a hail of gunfire, the Commandos and Rangers cut down the final monstrosity, as the surviving German soldiers meekly threw down their rifles.
Sighing, Mad Jack kicked the lithe one aside and picked up his claymore. "Remember this, Billy," he told Bucktooth Bill, wiping the blade on the grass. "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."
"Or his oar, presumably?" Bucktooth Bill answered, arching an eyebrow and hefting his oar onto his shoulder.
Mad Jack hummed. "You Yanks are an odd lot."
"Coming from you, that means a lot!" Bucktooth Bill chuckled wryly, though his face fell almost immediately. "Well, shall we see to our prisoners?"
"So long as they're no like these," Saltire answered him, kicking one of the monstrous, unmoving forms in distaste.