They arrived at their destination about a day later, before the Americans or any other Allied Forces.
Once there, they were met by a few SS fanatics and integrated into them. The SS men made her skin crawl, turning their noses up at the other, ordinary soldiers and keeping a keen eye on Emilie, possibly the only woman any of them had seen in quite a while. But, at that particular moment, she carried an aura that said 'don't try anything unless you want a black eye' and they more-or-less let her be. Her CO took control of the entire group, as he was the highest ranking officer there, and, surprisingly, no one from the SS complained.
"Quite a place to die, hm?" Kuhn commented dryly as he jumped off of the cart. He turned to Emilie and offered her a hand as she prepared to follow him down, but she waved him away and dropped lightly onto the ground. She had never been particularly great at accepting help, however minor.
Looking around, she saw that they were ensconced by tall, sheer cliffs that formed the base of the Swiss Alps, towering above them like witnesses to their final stand. They also made escape pretty much out of the question; they were cornered. This was a one-way ticket. She felt her heart plummet. As much as she was hating life and herself at the moment, she wasn't sure she wanted to die just yet, and especially not in such a pointless exercise. The sweet relief of death was tempting, but she needed to stay with her men. If they all perished, then she might be open to reconsideration.
A few hundred metres in front of them was a deep ravine, the only way to cross it a stone bridge. She knew what that meant.
"We are going to detonate that bridge," her CO's voice boomed, as though reading her mind. He marched in front of the soldiers, who looked tired and like they just wanted to go home. "Auschwitz, Underlingk, plant the explosives while the rest of us cross over to the other side and set up our defences."
The two soldiers whose names had been called exchanged a glance before beginning to trudge over to the bridge, carrying the explosives. "Hurry up, we haven't got all day," the commanding officer barked at them, and they hurried along, "And we do not want to be caught off guard."
"We're screwed anyway," Emilie muttered under her breath in English, ever the pessimist.
Kuhn glanced at her; he couldn't understand what she had just said, but she suspected that he caught the general gist of it by the tone of her voice.
"Well," her CO continued when no one else moved, "Don't just stand around here. Move!"
She had learned that the more stressed he got, the snappier and more impatient he became. She almost pitied him, being the one blamed for everything when he clearly wasn't too keen on what he was doing, either. Oh, she was becoming rather the softie in her ancient age of 21. That reminded her. Her birthday was fast approaching, on the 23rd of May. It was currently April. She had always hated celebrating her birthday, and so had, as soon as her brother could walk, instead opted to take Tobias and run away into the woods for the day to avoid her parents, and they would spend the day alone, simply exploring and playing various games and enjoying a picnic of the fruit they nicked from trees in people's gardens that overlooked the woods. That had been the best gift.
The soldiers quickly made their way over to the bridge and crossed; a few looked over the edge warily, sticking close to their friends to avoid being accidentally pushed over. Emilie had never been a big fan of heights and crossed hurriedly, fearful the bridge should collapse under their collective weight. Here was the brave medic, who had risked her life countless times running through the crossfire, afraid of heights. It was ironic.
As soon as they were on the south side of the ravine and a sensible distance from the bridge, Auschwitz and Underlingk lit the bombs, which had a thirty second time delay, and bolted away, kicking up dust in their mad sprint to get out of the blast zone. Mere seconds after they re-joined their comrades, the bridge exploded, a great fireball engulfing it. Rubble rained down, and just a few metres from Emilie, a large shard of stone landed heavily and she jumped back, crashing into the soldiers behind her. Billowing black smoke was sent up into the air, along with clouds of grit that blocked their view of the northern side.
Immediately the men began setting up their mortars and automatic weapons, wasting no time. The enemy could arrive at any minute, and they were going to be prepared.
