Chapter 2
XXX
The 2nd machine gun company were slowly making their way back to Ross after that unexpected encounter with Siren bombers. Well, they should have expected something like that to happen. The Sirens were a cunning enemy.
Sanders was in the front of the line leading the men. He was pondering about what he been told earlier. "Kansen, in other words ship-girls". Ship-girls? What was a ship-girl? Well those girls were ship-girls no doubt, after all they had told him that.
"Sanders, who were those girls? I heard Taylor say that he heard that they were from Kansas." Said one private who had sped up to walk next to him.
Sanders turned to look at the private. He looked young, barely 20, maybe even younger. He still had that spark in the corner of his eyes.
"I don't think they are from Kansas. I was told that they were Kansen or something like that." answered Sanders with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"what do you know about them?" questioned the young private.
"Not much… Ross will probably fill us in about them." Answered Sanders now little annoyed
"uhm, what do you think about them?"
XXX
"What do I think? Hmm… well that Helena-girl ain't very chatty… But she does have some devilish firepower..." Brown responded to Taylor who was with him at the rear guard.
"Ye-Yeah no kidding! I thought we were done for when the bombers started to dive!" Said Taylor.
They walked without anyone saying anything for a good five minutes, but then someone's angry yelling broke the silence
"Get the fuck up you lousy no-good son of a bitch! I swear to god I'll shoot you if you don't man up!"
Brown yelled "Let the man be, Cooper!"
The man called Cooper turned around and shouted, "Mind your own damn business, Brown!". But still, he left the man he had been kicking alone, but only after taking his backpack to carry it himself. Some privates went and helped the 'no-good son of a bitch' up.
"Damn Cooper…" Grunted Brown.
Again, silence fell on them as they made their way slowly forward. Brown stared to hum something to pass the time. After a while Taylor interrupted Brown's humming by asking "Uh… What do you think about the Sirens?"
That question caught Brown off guard, and he said "What do I think?... Well… They have bigger cannons than we have."
"No… No, I meant like: you think they have consciousness? That they have feelings." said Taylor a bit timidly.
"No… Ah, well I don't know. I don't think about those things. I just do what has to be done."
Taylor wasn't satisfied with that answer but decided not to push it further.
About halfway from the clearance to Ross, it started to rain. It rained heavily. Taylor had grown silent after a while and sped his pace to catch up with some of his other comrades leaving Brown alone and now, he was enjoying the rain. Their clothes glued to their bodies and those of them who had helmets, had to endure the sound of rain hitting their helmets.
"Every time it rains, it rains - Pennies from heaven~" Brown hummed by himself quietly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Helena who had been walking maybe 15 meters to his right shiver. Brown, as some sort of a gentleman decided to help the poor girl. He headed towards her and walked besides her before asking "You cold?". Helena looked up at brown with suspicion and nodded.
Brown took something out of his backpack and handed it to Helena. A spare jacket that he had been carrying around. Helena took the jacket and looked at it for a bit before putting it on. It was way too big on her. Well, Brown was a big man so it would be expected.
"Thanks." Said Helena with a small smile.
Brown blew air out of his nose with a smile. "Don't mention it. You just looked cold and I wanted to help."
They walked a bit without saying anything until Helena opened her mouth and asked: "Hey… I didn't catch your name earlier."
"Edward Brown. But call me Ned, so has everybody done and so do I."
"Okay!... Ned…"
The Ned in question just smiled broadly. Helena watched that man and it looked like he was growing younger every passing second. Not that Brown was a senior, no, he in fact was a couple of years younger than Sanders, but a long time without a proper rest tends to make people look older.
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A few hours later they arrived at Ross' command post, well it was more like a camp. They had just piled into a large crowd after handing the wounded to the medics at the medical tents. Everyone was queued and waiting to get food into their bowls. The food was beef soup… Well technically at least. They had named the soup 'beef juice' because the meat in that soup was scarce. It mostly consisted of carrots and potatoes with just the taste of beef.
Brown was sitting with Helena and Taylor on top of a trunk, after getting his portion of the 'beef juice'. Sanders was strolling around and walked up to them. "You found yourselves food? Good..."
"Sir, have you talked with Ross yet?" Asked Taylor from Sanders.
"No… I have not yet. I'm trying to postpone it for later…" Said Sanders while scratching his nose.
"Well it looks like your plan is an unsuccessful one." Said Brown as she pointed towards a road with his spoon, to the right of Sanders. There he was. Colonel Ross striding around trying to find the guilty. In this case it was Sanders.
"Oh well." Said Sanders and started to dawdle his way towards Ross.
XXX
There was a clear difference between the two men. The colonel's face was clean-shaved and dust or dirt on his uniform would have looked out of place… and then there was Sanders. A stubble on his face and his clothes ragged and dirty. Saying that Ross was mad would be like saying; 'getting hit by a semi is not particularly great experience', it's not a lie but it ain't the full truth either. Ross was furious with Sanders. He wasn't letting Sanders to finish a full sentence without interrupting him. Men were staring at the scene. Brown was muttering to himself "Come on Sanders… Punch him… Knock him out…"
Brown's wish did not come true. Sanders having caught the anger point-blank range had just spoken out of his duty. He did not care about the colonel's words at all. All he wanted to do was rest.
With a heavy sigh the colonel paused and then continued "With your poor decision making we have lost the best defensive position on this FUCKING ISLAND!"
Sanders just looked at the colonel and every now and then turned his gaze past him. "You have to take into consideration that I could not have led the troops into an attack. With no reserve troops in hand we could not have defended our sides. Besides, we had suffered huge casualties and the men were paralyzed by defeat."
"YOU don't need to tell me what I SHOULD and SHOULD NOT take into consideration! I know the situation and need no excuses. You will take the command of the 2nd MG-company and deploy the machine guns over there." Said Ross as he pointed towards a small hill back the way they came from.
Without missing a beat and with that blank expression he wore so well, Sanders said "I told the men to get rid of all of the machine guns to carry the wounded back."
Ross' jaw dropped. The veins in his forehead started to pop out as he stuttered "T-t-the machine g-g-guns… R-rid of… NO, NO WHAT THE FUCK!? THIS IS TREASON! WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"
XXX
Brown, Taylor, and Helena couldn't hear what Sanders had said but heard loud and clear the Colonel's freak out. No one wanted to interfere, and they couldn't have. Because if they would have done that would have ended up poorly for them, besides, they knew that Sanders could take it, besides he was the commanding officer and it wasn't their business to intervene. "Geez, what did he do to make the colonel so mad?" asked somebody behind them. They turned around to look at the asker and to their surprise it was Cleveland and with her the two other girls. The 3rd infantry company under the leadership of Captain D. Allen had arrived just a few minutes ago with the girls
"Hey, Cleveland. Good to see you all." Helena smiled while looking at the trio. She was still wearing that jacket of Brown's.
"We were going to go to report back to the colonel, but I think we should wait at least a little before doing that." Said Phoenix as she looked Ross, who was still unleashing his anger.
"Give him like 30 minutes after he's done with Sanders, then you can pretty safely talk to him." Brown said while frowning. He knew that the colonel could become agitated quickly after he had already been angry a while ago. They turned to look towards where the colonels voice had been coming from, because it had stopped. The colonel was now talking to Allen with considerably passively. Sanders was walking back towards them. He walked up to them, sat on a tussock with one knee up and the other leg straight and took out a cigarette again.
They looked at Sanders for a moment while he tried to light up the cigarette with his wet matches, clearly unsuccessfully. Nobody said anything until Taylor opened his mouth "So… How did it go sir?"
Sanders without looking back at Taylor said, "You saw it, you tell me…". Taylor, realizing his foolish question fell silent.
"I hope for your sake your men didn't do anything to Helena!" Now it was Atlanta's turn to open her mouth.
"Don't know, probably not." Answered Sanders thoughtlessly lighting his cigarette with the matches he borrowed from a private who happened to be walking by.
"Listen here y-… "Atlanta's sentence was cut short when Helena cut in "Stop it. I'm fine."
"Fine!"
The girls sat beside Helena and they started talking together. A good quarter of an hour passed by and then Allen walked up to them. Brown glanced at Allen "God damn, Allen. You look like shit, man!" Allen frowned at Brown for a moment and then they both grinned "Yeah? Fuck you too, man. Have you recently looked into a mirror yourself?"
"Pardon me oh captain sir" Brown jokingly mocked the captain "But I haven't seen many mirrors here. If you see one may I use it for a moment?"
"Yeah, sure. Try not to cause too much trouble." Said Allen as he turned to the girls "And thank you for your support. We really needed it."
"Happy to help, sir! Besides, it was an order from the colonel." pronounced Phoenix.
"Well… still thanks for it." Allen made his way presumably towards his company. Sanders stood up and started walking towards the forest where they had come from, probably to go to inspect the hill they had been assigned to. Not long after that Cleveland, Atlanta, Phoenix and Helena decided it was time to report back to the colonel, so they left to find the colonel.
They just sat where they were and enjoyed their free time. It was nice. Brown looked at the men walking around until one group caught his eye. "God damn, It's Hubbard! And Wood!" He stood up and walked up to meet the men. Sergeant C. Wood, and private T. Hubbard had gotten 3 weeks holiday before the operation on the island started, so they were sent with other reinforcements now.
"God damn, Brown! Still looking uhm… well I was going to say good, but I can't lie to you" Said the taller of the two, Thomas Hubbard.
"Is it that bad? Allen implied the same a while ago." Inquired Brown
"I mean, I guess you've been worse. But holy hell what has gotten into Ross? He looked and acted like someone's pissed in his soup." Asked Hubbard.
Brown filled them in about the details and how the attack had not gone the way Ross would have liked it to have. Hubbard laughed hard when he heard that Sanders had told Ross about the machine guns. "Aw shit! Of course, I would miss something like that! But how long have you been here? 16 days? 17 days?"
"22 days and counting. But don't you worry it has been just a long picnic for us." Answered Brown.
"So that would make at least 26 days without screwing anyone if not even more." Hubbard counted
"Maybe but you had to take the long route here so it would mean at least 9 days for you too." Fired Brown back. Hubbard had a deadpan face at first but then it turned into a grin.
"Sorry to burst your bubble but it's been like 3 hours since for me, man!" victoriously said Hubbard
"Oh? I didn't think that you would come out of the closet."
"Naw, man! There was some female sailor on that boat that took us here… Her name was Linda or something like that." Hubbard swing his hand towards the shore where they had come from. "Ah… but you should hurry, shouldn't keep Sanders waiting." He added to Wood who had kept quiet until now. "Yeah… I-I guess you're right. Should check on him. See ya around, Brown."
XXX
They were sitting at their positions on the hill, next to a small path. Trees had been felled to the ground to block the movement of the Siren's tanks. They had no anti-tank cannons even though Ross had promised to get some. Some grenades and a few mines that's it. They had dug foxholes because it was clear, from those faraway sounds that the Sirens were using artillery to weaken their lines, still those shells landed far away from them. At least they had gotten a machine gun for themselves.
Hubbard was sitting, dangling his legs in his foxhole. "Soon they will be here. Let's see if they take my life this time.". Someone on his right said "We are fucked! I wish I would have at least died when it was dry." "Ah don't say it like that. It hurts the same regardless the weather." Said Hubbard.
Sanders was wandering along the positions and giving instructions to those who had not been in a real battle before. "Target the chest and stomach, it does the trick. They will fall from bullets as easily as we do."
Someone yelled "Siren tanks in sight!" everybody got ready as they looked towards the direction the man had been pointing. Tanks with siren infantry troops made their way to their position. This time they had to fight to the end, there was nowhere to retreat now.
Somewhere far right from their position a machine gun started to shoot bursts. The enemy artillery started to fire upon them. For a second, they had hoped that the shells wouldn't land on their position but the first shells hitting the ground proved that to be false. Everyone jumped into their foxholes and some covered their ears. The ground shook, the air howled as the shells mercilessly rained upon them. Men were shaking in their holes trying to press themselves against the bottom of the holes they were in, their hearts pounded like they would burst. They were scared. Everybody feared. Feared that, that one bullet or a shell would hit them. Nails dug deep into the dirt. The bombardment that felt like it had lasted for an hour stopped and men crawled back to their positions. The enemy's tanks had made their way way too close. Their own machine gun, that they had gotten from Allen opened fire. It tried desperately to suppress the oncoming wave of Sirens. Now others opened fire with their rifles and submachine guns, shooting everything that moved in front of them.
Brown was laying left to their machine gun and observed the situation. Not good. The tanks had gotten way too close during that artillery strike. There were three tanks covering each other in a spearhead formation. The closest tank was endangering the men who were down in the frontlines. One of them tried to crouch-sprint towards the tanks with an anti-tank grenade but a volley of fire cut him in half before he could even take five steps. Siren troopers were taking cover behind the tank and made sure no one got too close to the tank. Panic would soon take hold of the first ones and after that all the others if nothing was done about those tanks. "Damn it, where are the ship-girls when you need them?" Ross had decided only to use the girls only as a last resort, as inhumane as it might have sound, men could be replaced, Ship-girls could not. Even when Allen and Sanders both implored him, he denied their requests.
"God damn it, that tank must be destroyed!" Hubbard yelled over the gunfire. His face tense from stress.
Brown looked to his right and saw the concentrated faces of the men beside him. Men got shot, some screamed "I'm hit!" while holding the wound, some didn't even get to scream.
"I will go."
"You sure?"
"Yes, but when I go you must suppress them like your life depended on it, because it probably will."
"Yeah, we can do that..."
Brown was sweating nervously and his face pale as he took the anti-tank grenade that Hubbard handed to him. He nodded, took his hat, and threw it down. Making his way down the left side of the hill that had some cover on it, he really didn't think. He understood that if the tanks were not stopped, they would run over their line and in the process mess him up. He collapsed behind a tree, next to the line that the men down the hill were holding. He could still back off from this, but he did not. Maybe it was out of duty that he started to crawl fast towards the next tree that could cover him. His target, the tank, was about 30 meters away.
His breathing was some weird huffing and puffing, sticks whirled in at feet. From tree to tree, from cover to cover he made his way towards the tank. as he turned and pressed himself against a tree and peeked, he realized that there was a clearing the size of two parking lots, but after that there was a boulder. The tank was still too far away for him to throw the load. He would have to cross that clearing. He peeked again, pulled his head back fast as saw that the Sirens were shooting from behind the tank. There was no way for him to cross the distance without getting shot. Just then their machine gun turned to fire at the tank, he saw Hubbard yelling at the machine gunner and pointing towards the tank. As Brown got ready for his sprint, the machine gun fire stopped. Brown quickly fell behind the tree again and tried to find the reason for the suppressing fires interruption. A bullet had entered through the machine gunner's forehead and exited from the back of his neck. Luckily Hubbard had already grabbed the machine gun and started to fire with it, he hadn't even moved the poor machine gunner's body out of the way. Brown got up and ran like the devil was chasing him. Halfway through the clearing he threw himself at the boulder like it had done something nasty to him. His face pale like he had seen a ghost and his forehead dripping with sweat.
"Now I can reach it."
Brown got up to crouch, pulled the primer and underhand threw the grenade. The throw was beautiful like tossing a ball, but in this case the ball was 4 kilograms of explosives. The grenade hit the turret and bounced down on top of the track cover. The track snapped and from the force of the explosion the tank turned almost completely sideways. Brown had taken cover as soon as the explosive left his hand. He would have heard the beating of his heart in his ears, but it was muffled by the ringing of his ears. His heart felt like it would rip out from his chest at any moment.
The other two tanks had stopped as soon as their comrade had been blown up. They were probably hesitating whether to retreat or not. They didn't have to think for long as a 6-inch shell pierced through the nearer tank's right side and blew the Sirens behind it to smithereens. The tank's turret flew out of its place and landed near the hull. The tank was completely engulfed in flames. The other Siren troops noticed this and started to retreat hastily back where they came from. After the sirens were out of sight the gunfire slowly died down, Brown scrambled up and stood up on the boulder as he yelled "Yeah! That's what you'll fucking get!", "Fucking go back where you came from you sons of b-" He didn't get to finish as a shell flew from the Sirens direction towards him. The shell pierced a tree just next to brown and send splinters all over. Brown let out a scream of agony as he crashed down from atop of the boulder.
XXX
Sanders had seen Brown's mocking and how he fell. He and Hubbard were the first ones that ran to Brown and started to drag him back to the lines, which proved to be easier said than done because Brown still was a pretty big man. After Brown was behind the lines Sanders started to direct the men to get ready for a possible second attack. He ordered Wood to look after the men and started make his way towards the medical tents where Brown had been hurried to. He thought that he had seen that Brown had lost his eyes, but he couldn't be sure.
Brown had a bandage around his head and was just waking up as Sanders walked into the tent. Brown moved his hands and touched the bandage and mumbled "Wha-What happened?"
A medic took his hand from the bandage and Sanders said, "Don't worry, just try not to move too much."
"Sanders?"
"Yeah, it's me. Just keep calm. You got hit by some splinters."
Sanders turned to the medics and pointed to his eyes questioningly. One medic shook his head and Sanders now tapped on his nose bridge and the medics nodded. Sanders asked without words "anywhere else?" and the medics indicated Brown's chest and left arm.
"Ah, it hurt's like hell! What were those splinters made of? Wood?"
Sanders chuckled; "Something like that, you didn't lose your eyes and other wounds aren't life threatening."
Brown sighed in relief "That's good…" as Hubbard burst into the tent and asked, "How is he?!"
"Well, considering I didn't lose my eyes, I should be in a pretty great condition."
"Good to see that that shell didn't take your sense of humor with it."
Slowly started Brown's sense of feeling to come back and for a long time he held the pain by curling his hands into fists. Augh, fucking hell it hurts!"
"Do you want some water? I'll get Ross to order a troop transport ship and get you out of here."
"No… Where are the boys?"
"At the line."
"Are we still there?"
"No, we are in one of the medical tents."
"Who shot that other tank in front of us back there?"
"Uh… I think it was the red-haired ship-girl, whose name I already forgot."
Brown tried to push himself up with his arms but let out a small cry as he fell back down.
"Who else is here?"
"Just me and Hubbard… and those medics."
Sanders turned towards Hubbard and said "This fooling around around must stop. Go tell Ross that I want us off this island today." Hubbard nodded and was just about to turn around when he said to Brown:
"Man, have you thought about losing some weight? You weigh like a cow!"
"Hmm… Have you considered that you just might be weak?"
"Haha! You got me there! Well, I'll come to see later."
XXX
To everyone's surprise Ross agreed to leave the island, probably because the 3rd infantry company's defense was weak. Still you couldn't blame only Allen for that. He had been dealt a hand worse than bad and he made the best of it. The men were loaded on the transport ships and left the Island. Sanders was sitting with Allen at the rear of the ship and looking towards the island that was shrinking in the distance. They heard footsteps behind them and then a voice spoke.
"You both are expected to report in at the NY headquarters."
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A/N: Well I managed to write another chapter. Let's see if I can do it again (probably) and include the ship-girls into the story more. By writing this I have found a new kind of respect to those who write.
Like before you are welcomed to drop a review and I'll see you next time!
PS: Shinano looks pretty darn cool. Rest in peace my cubes. I wish y'all have better luck with your pulls than I have.