"All wars are fought dirty, both figuratively and literally."

Anonymous

VII

BAIT AND SWITCH

The Panzer 38(t), supported by the two armored cars, was again on the offensive.

They had stopped while the situation with the American tanks was resolved, not due to any apprehension regarding that skirmish, Anja had the same faith in Maria as her crewmates, but mostly because the Americans were putting a very stiff resistance.

As was usually the case with many desperate plans, this one had been made with several hopes in mind. One of them was that the flanks of the advance towards Leipzig were formed by relatively green troops brought directly from the booths camps of North America, with the veterans being used in the main offensive against the city proper. Unfortunately for the Panzergrenadiers, there were few to no green American troops in the theater anymore, so the men they were facing knew quite well what they were doing.

But that didn't mean the plan was a bust. The Germans still had the rain and the element of surprise on their side, as well as large numbers of infantry, spread across the field to lessen their vulnerability to the enemy fire. Furthermore, the threat of the American armor had been eliminated for the immediate future.

So, the attack moved onward, in the faint hope of causing enough damage to draw in all the American troops they could. Anja could only hope it would be worth it. The few hours she'd managed to sleep had been mercifully blank, just a moment of darkness before she woke up to the cruel reality she'd gotten herself into. Her waking moments, though, were equal parts of questioning what she was actually doing and remembering the trembling body of Noemi in her arms, her gurgling as she tried and failed to say something, and the quietness of her last breath.

When that happened she stopped thinking for a while, and tried to find something to do. But then everything started happening so quickly. She could barely remember the point at which she ended up inside a small light tank surrounded by exploding mortar shells, zipping bullets that ricocheted against the armor, and young men being thrown into the ground in a mess of pouring blood and agonizing screams.

It was a mess. She tried to liberate those fleeting emotions by firing the machine gun at the Americans hiding in their foxholes, forcing them to abandon them and their dead to retreat to the next defensive line. Above her, in the turret, Monica fired alternately with the main gun and the machine gun, making no effort to spare ammo. To her right, Ursel drove into the general direction Anja had given her, but the fact remained that there was little coordination.

That would be their undoing.

While they moved forward, Anja caught something in the com. channel. Simone, speaking in Maria's place, was asking Captain Fokker to pull out and go directly to phase two, the luring stage of the plan.

"Negative," Fokker had an almost disdainful tone in his voice, probably thinking the girl was being a coward and just wanted to run away, "proceed with the original plan."

"I'm sorry for insisting," Simone replied, "but Führerin Nitzschmann fears we might get encircled if we stay here for much longer."

She wasn't wrong. There were already reports about a stagnation in the left flank, where Second Company was now pinned down under the fire from the American defenders. Anja hoped to see something regarding that problem when she glanced through her visor. What she saw was the nearest line of foxholes, and a couple of men kneeling in the tank's path, one them holding a large metal tube in his shoulder, while the other finished getting something ready in the back of the strange-looking artifact.

Anja's mind made the connection a heartbeat later. Without even thinking the words, she yelled at Ursel.

"Turn left!" The poor girl didn't understand what her point was but was also too scared to think for herself. So she turned. And the American bazooka opened fire.

The rocket hit the small Czech tank directly in the right drive sprocket, the explosion making it jump out of the socket amid a shower of shattered track links and twisted pieces of the mudguard. The engine coughed in agony and came to a halt as the whole vehicle wobbled forward and dug the right wheels into the mud.

Anja coughed, and glanced around. Something inside the tank was starting to pour smoke.

"Is everyone all right?"

"I think I am…" Ursel was the first to respond, her voice barely audible. Monica replied with a burst of machinegun fire, moving the MG37 around its ball mounting, for now ignoring the main gun completely.

"Go away!" She screamed, her voice cracking as she neared panic. That was as good as a cue as Anja needed. She started opening her hatch.

"All right, girls, abandon vehicle!"

The armored cars had moved ahead, halting a few meters from the wrecked tank, spewing autocannon and machine gun fire over the nearby American positions. Some of closest Panzergrenadiers had already formed a perimeter around the vehicle, too. Anja and Ursel were outside in just a few seconds, but Monica kept firing, unwavering even when she dug a trench near the front wheels of one of the supporting armored cars.

Realizing the girl was in shock, Anja climbed to the back of the tank and leaned over the closed commander's hatch. She yelled to the girl still inside, trying to get heard over the sound of the MG37. Around them the battle went on, machinegun fire raging between the hills and trees, mortar shells exploding all around, while the German infantry attempted to use any cover they could find, and the supporting fire of their half-tracks, to overrun the American positions. Anja could hear Ursel yelping as a trooper pulled her to a nearby Hanomag. But she couldn't leave Monica, nor could she really repudiate the young man taking Ursel to relative security.

"What are you doing?" One of the Panzergrenadiers safeguarding the Panzer yelled. "We're sitting ducks out here!"

Distracted from her immediate objective, Anja glared at the young man, finding herself looking at the grey eyes of Eren Jäger. What was he doing there, of all people? Was he tasked with escorting the girls or something?

"I won't leave her." She told him.

"Then get her out of there!" He replied, evidently unwilling to try to enter the frontal hatches and face that hysterical turret-mounted machinegun as much as any of his comrades. When the said weapon went silent right after he'd said those words, Eren became as surprised as Anja.

The turret hatch made a metallic 'clang', and opened to reveal Monica, who had her face covered with tears.

"I'm out of ammo…" She whispered, sobbing as the adrenaline started to abandon her system, leaving behind only the empty darkness of fear. With a sigh of relief, Anja took a hand to her friends' face.

"It's all right. We have to go now."

Anja held Monica by the shoulders and helped her getting out of the tank. Then they jumped to the ground, with Eren and some of his comrades offering their help. Occupied as they were with that, none of them could notice how the southern flank of the attack was now coming under heavy fire from a renewed American counter-attack. Young men tried their very best to stand their ground, but the mortar fire became too intense to withstand, and the machinegun emplacements made impossible to press on. The only choice was to pull back some hundred meters, and try to find a way around.

But that wouldn't happen. Suddenly the whole company started to ran away from the front, several troopers falling flat on her faces when they go hit. And then one of the armored cars exploded, hurling twisted metal all around and a huge fireball up into the clouded sky.

Having almost reached the nearby Hanomag, Anja, Monica and Eren turned back right in time to see the pair of Shermans coming from behind the valley between two nearby hills, one sporting the stubby barrel of a 105mm howitzer, the other the long and slender muzzle of a 76mm anti-tank gun. It was enough to make adrenaline rush through everyone's veins all over again. The whole group rushed to the half-track while the newly-arrived Shermans fired once again.

The howitzer opened a crater in the middle of a group of troopers, making bodies fly around. The bulky M4A3A8, on its turn, attempted to hit the second armored car, but the nimble vehicle managed to maneuver around quickly enough to make it miss. Around the battlefield the German troops started deploying smoke grenades do conceal their escape. They wouldn't stand for long with that rain, but should be enough to protect them from those murderous guns.

Meanwhile Monica and some Panzergrenadiers rushed into the cabin of the Hanomag, Anja and Eren staying for last. The later could applaud the girl's leadership, but damn her if Anja thought he would allow her to be the last one aboard.

"Go!" He yelled at her, while they started running to keep pace with the half-track, the frightened driver already stepping on the pedal to escape the advancing tanks. In the back of the cabin two troopers were extending their arms to catch the stragglers.

"Swallow your pride and jump!" Anja replied, before leaping to the back of the vehicle, holding to one of the soldiers. Eren was quick enough to follow her example, barely on time as the Hanomag was now starting to accelerate out of the hills as fast as it could.

"I guess… Führerin Nitzschmann was right." After catching her breath Anja realized she was holding to the soldier who caught her a little too tightly. The young man, little older than she was, was comprehensibly embarrassed, so she leaned back and held to the top of the cabin, looking back at the battlefield.

The black cover smoke was now hiding most of the area, fortunately, but she could still see the tiny and lonely Panzer 38(t) they'd left behind. She felt a void in her stomach as the tank got smaller and smaller, and eventually disappeared behind a hill when the Hanomag turned around it. It felt like abandoning a beloved comrade . But at least her crew was safe.

On the northern flank of the German attack an American lieutenant called Michael Mignogna could see the remaining enemy armor pulling back into the woodland from where they'd spearheaded their attack. They were badly beaten now, and Lieutenant Mignogna had heard reports about them even leaving tanks behind. He thought it suited them well, as Mignogna's company already lost three armored vehicles that morning, as well as few good men.

But still, it made his blood boil to see the goddamned Krauts escaping like that. For the whole advance through Germany he'd seen the enemy making ambushes and localized strikes all across the American flank, killing the men under his command one by one. Mignogna had only arrived at the theater in January and actually thought things would be easy now that the enemy was in full retreat.

But that fantasy hadn't come to pass. The Germans were dastardly guaranteeing the Allies would pay dearly for each centimeter of ground they gained. And now there they were, doing it all over again. But, on the other hand, Mignogna knew he could still intercept them and demolish their remaining armor. Although he was in no position to open fire immediately, he could still move his men around the woodland and offer the Jerry some of his own medicine. He'd seen such daring moves work in the past, and now felt it was his time to avenge his comrades.

Unfortunately for him, the company's commander was still unreachable, and Mignogna was starting to suspect the worst. Be he felt he was about to lose an opportunity there if he simply stood idle.

"We can take them." He told the first-sergeant standing beside his Sherman.

"Sir?" The slightly older man asked, unsure about what he'd just said.

"We can intercept those bastards, sergeant." He pointed at the distance. "If we follow the trail to the left we can meet them in a village up ahead. Finish them before they get the chance to do this crap ever again."

Then Mignogna sighed and looked up the clouded sky, trying to see any sign that the weather would clear soon. There was none to be found, making him grimace involuntarily.

"Rally the men," he told the sergeant, "I'll inform the major."