"War does not determine who is right – only who is left."

Bertrand Russell

X

THE COMPANY OF HEROES

The combat was now dragging for far too long for Eren's taste. After the initial shock, the Americans had acted as the veteran soldiers they were and spread around the field, forcing the Germans to lower their heads. One of the Shermans even managed to blow a hole in the house dominating the road.

That tank was now standing idly alongside the road, its hull pierced by the Char B1's 47mm high-velocity gun. The other one, though, was still active, and pursued the French behemoth, in a strange slow-motion game of cat and mouse around the village. Meanwhile, the remaining American infantry was still pinned down near the damaged vehicles, under heavy German fire. The M8 armored car was parked between the trees, providing some fire support, but unwilling to come any closer for fear of the Panzerfausts.

"We can't stay like this for much longer." Armin told Eren, while they ducked behind the ditch to reload. "We should take a small team through the fences to the right, put a hole in that armored car, and flank the bastards!"

It made sense. And it was Armin, so it had to be a good plan. Eren turned to Captain Fokker, who was now personally leading the action.

"Captain," he had to yell to be heard over the crackle of gunfire, "why don't we flank them?"

The captain thought about it for about two seconds.

"And who will lead? You?" The way he said that made a shiver run down Eren's spine, rendering him silent. Fokker assumed that was a confirmation. "Very well, take these four men over here and two Panzerfausts."

Adjusting his helmet, Eren turned to his impromptu fire team, all of them teenagers as old as he was, and looking terribly scared as stray American bullets scrapped the edge of the ditch and threw mud over their faces. At least Armin was among them. That had to be worth something.

So, he collected all the courage he could muster, and started issuing orders. One hundred meters behind him, the Char B1 was now moving on reverse, going round the ditch, trying to gain some distance from the Americans, now that the surviving Sherman had hidden among the buildings. Both tanks had managed to place a few shots on each other, but they all ricocheted as they hit the strongest points on each other's armor. Assuming he wouldn't destroy that tank so soon, Master Sergeant Aschenbrenner decided to pull out for now and deal with the infantry.

The French tank's 75mm howitzer opened fire, hitting one of the buildings, puffing dust into the air and rubble down over the road. The huge explosion also caught one unfortunate American GI, throwing him into the air, minus a leg. Still moving backwards, the Char B1 turned the turret, in search of more targets.

Suddenly the right side of the tank exploded, shattered metal flying all around. The Grenadiers cowered, some of them yelling when hit by overheated splinters. With a dreadful growl and the whining of trembling tracks, the Char B1 kept rolling backwards for a few more meters before coming to a halt.

Eren felt the explosion where he was, or at least he believed so, as it left his hears ringing. He looked back to check the tank, now on fire, and then looked westwards, his breathing accelerating immediately. Two Shermans were rolling over the farmland, bouncing gracelessly due to the mud. At least one of them sported the hefty muzzle of a high-velocity 76mm main gun. The terrible weapons Fräulein Ackerman had warned against earlier that day.

On the other side of the road more American units were entering the battle: more Shermans, a couple armored cars, which charged over the mortar positions, and even a few M3 half-tracks carrying troops and machinegun mountings. In the middle of all of that apparatus was also a small Jeep.

He turned back to the captain, but didn't need to say anything. The man was already giving the only orders he could, brandishing his Luger like some old-fashioned hero.

"We're pulling back!" He yelled, standing maybe a little too high so the troops could hear his voice. Then he grabbed the radio-operator by the shoulder. "Tell the oberst to order a rocket strike on our-"

Fokker jerked back as two rounds tore a pair of crimson craters over his chest. He immediately fell into the ditch. Eren wasn't the closest grenadier, but even in his state of near-panic he managed to act and move to grab the captain, holding him over his lap. The man was a mess, his uniform already covered in red, and blood trickling from his mouth.

It was surprisingly quick, Fokker tried to say something, but the only thing he managed to produce was a gargling sound Eren couldn't ever comprehend. He quivered and convulsed, and then he stopped moving altogether, his glassy eyes aiming somewhere above the clouds. Eren stood there, looking at that lifeless face, before someone pulled him by the shoulder, telling him to get out of there. His mind wondered if it was Kirstein, the voice did sound like him. But then his eyes found the Luger in the captain's hand.

By that point Eren already knew the surprising fixation the enemy had on those pistols, which weren't all that good to start with. Something inside him revolted with the idea of some Americans gushing over retrieving the weapon from his dead comrade's hands. So, with a quick gesture, he took the pistol and nabbed it in his own belt, before turning to follow his fellow Grenadiers to the other side of the farmland, using the nearby fences as a cover.

Meanwhile, other troopers were dragging Master Sergeant Aschenbrenner away from the burning Char B1. The man was huge and powerful, and he struggled, yelling that he couldn't leave his boys like that. He could see one of them laying face-down beside the ruined vehicle, too close to the flames for the others to retrieve him.

"We can't stay here!" One of the young men dragging Aschenbrenner away said. At this point the sergeant hissed, noticing his right forearm was twisted in an unnatural angle. A nearby explosion threw two Grenadiers into the air. This forced the huge man to finally give up, and he followed the other troopers.

The Hanomags were waiting to take them to the next defensive position, where, he hoped, they would manage to hold the line.

After his own tank had its track destroyed, during the opening shots of the ambush, Lieutenant Mignogna ordered the evacuation of the tank and joined the infantry fighting the Germans. By the point the relief column arrived at the spot, he had already spent all the rounds for his Grease Gun, and he was down to the last magazine for his Colt pistol.

When the fighting subsided and the lead tank of the reinforcements joined his troops in the village's perimeter, he immediately went to meet its commander. David walked to join them, with Freeman and Alisa by his side.

"You took your sweet time!" Mignogna said to Tatum.

"I had to organize my people, you know?" The other lieutenant replied, looking down from his command hatch.

"What is going on over here?" David asked, crossing his arms and glaring at Mignogna. The latter eyed him top to bottom, barely believing what he was seeing.

"You had to fight a cougar to get here?" Evidently that David wasn't looking his best, not with his shredded uniform and his face covered in dried blood and sooth.

"In a way," David shrugged, "I'm so very sorry for leaving you and your chaps having fun with the Huns all by yourselves, but we had our orders. But we're here now."

"That doesn't excuse the fact that you were the one who decided to go after them!" Tatum mentioned, pointing at the ruined village.

"And do what instead? Wait for them to come back at us? Weren't you back there when they burned through our tanks?"

While the two American officers bickered, David gave a quick glance around, his mind thinking about what he already knew about the enemy formation. Honestly, it was the irregular tank squadron that was worrying him at the moment. He knew they'd lost a vehicle in their encounter with Alvin and his men, a few nights ago, and again another one earlier that morning. The Char B1, now engulfed in flames and with sparks gushing out of its command hatch every time a shell burst inside, was new.

He couldn't know if there were other tanks out there that his friend hadn't seen, but at least a few of them were still unaccounted for.

The shrieking brought him out of his foray. It started dim, but was quickly gaining vigor. He didn't even think, so used he was to it.

"Get down!" Mignogna was still distracted by his discussion with Tatum, so David intuitively jumped over him, pinning him to the ground.

The first round exploded against one the houses in the village, disintegrating masonry with a loud rumble. More fell around the road, one hitting the Sherman with the cracked track directly, instantly opening it apart. Fortunately no one was inside. There was yelling, and everyone threw themselves onto the ground, searching for cover in ditches, craters and abandoned foxholes. The vehicle crews simply sunk inside the hulls and hoped for the best.

In just a few seconds it was all over. Slowly, the troops started to get up again, or peeking through the vehicles' hatches. Mignonga pushed David aside and got to his feet, looking at the darkened sky, enraged with the course that day was taking.

Without giving it much thought, David allowed him to yell and vent his frustration, and turned to Freeman, who was still crouched.

"Are you okay, private?"

"Thanks to the Good Lord above," he replied, holding to his helmet and barely avoiding finishing the sentence with a 'not you'. It was the soldier's duty to fight the enemy, but Freeman had managed to avoid the fighting by performing other, and also essential, tasks for the command staff. But the day had turned sour and he decided that his opinion about combat hadn't changed even a bit.

"So, what now?" Tatum asked David.

The British officer looked up at the Easy Eight.

"As much as you might disagree with Mignogna, we do have to put some pressure on the Jerry. If they keep attacking our flank, the colonel might be forced to divert troops that would be better employed fighting the SS up north. We'll have to bring the fight to them." He glanced around. "At least they didn't attack us with rockets. This was normal artillery."

"That means the strike teams did their jobs."

"Aye," David nodded, "let's just wait for-"

There was a loud blast, down the road. The shell barely missed the M8 patrolling the rear of the American company. Rolling backwards to make itself an harder target, the armored car started firing with its main gun and co-axial machinegun at the StuG III which used the artillery strike to approach the Americans and make its ambush. Now that it had been discovered, the squat assault vehicle started to roll away, using the fences and scattered buildings as cover.

Shortly afterwards another blast echoed on the opposite side of the village. The M4 which survived the initial ambush was patrolling that area, and now its right flank had been torn asunder, fire spewing from the hole, the surviving crew desperately trying to abandon the vehicle, among flames and smoke. Other troops ran to help them, while the surviving tanks moved forward to search for the assailant.

"Holy shit…" Freeman's tone was almost reverential.

"As you see, we cannot stay idle." David told the men around him. Tatum immediately turned towards him.

"So, what's the plan, sir?"

Assuming his command face, David took the map from his breast pocket and started issuing orders.