We Were Soldiers

129. Sideways

Every sense Bucky possessed was strained for danger as he moved in a low crouch following the line of the hedgerow. Concern for his missing teammates made him want to break out in a run and sprint straight towards the downed plane. Concern for his current teammates made him move with more caution than concerned-Bucky would've liked. But it was like Morita had said; every Kraut in the area could see that plume of smoke just as well as they could, and might already be there looking for survivors. If there was one saving grace, it was that theirs wasn't the only plane to have gone down during the second wave of airborne attack. Several other smoke plumes marked the grave of others that had hit the ground in the area. Maybe too many for the Krauts to investigate all at once.

He let Morita lead the way. No point bringing an Army Ranger along and then not lettin' him do his job, no matter how much it rankled that the guy made them circle around the plume of smoke, rather than heading straight to it. Morita knew what he was doing, this sort of thing was exactly what he'd trained for. So Bucky sucked it up and followed a dozen paces behind, his SSR-03 carried across his chest and ready for firing if they came under heat. Jacques brought up the rear another dozen paces behind him, his hands full of assault rifle and his backpack full of explosives.

"Tank!" Morita hissed back to him.

All three of them stopped moving and hit the deck, pressing themselves as close to the ground as possible. This was the third tank to come down the road in the last ten minutes, which wasn't a good sign. His team had avoided being spotted by the first two by doing exactly as they were doing now, relying on the low but dense hedge to keep them hidden from view. Maybe it helped that they were only three people. The Krauts were probably on the lookout for larger troop movements. They'd already checked out the barn where Bucky and his friends had taken brief shelter, but seemed not to care about the shrubbery lining the road.

Maybe they're looking for Steve.

Joke was on them, if they were. Steve was miles away from here.

He held his breath as the Panzer rolled past, the weight of it rumbling the ground beneath him. He'd fought tanks before, in Como, with the SSR; they were most vulnerable underneath, so the best way to take 'em out was to roll a grenade under as they went past. But this wasn't Como, and if they engaged this tank, they would only draw attention to themselves. Much as it galled him, he had to let it continue without giving away his location. Monty and Captain Stone still needed him. Shootin' Krauts would have to wait.

Morita waited until the tank was fully out of sight before pushing himself up and continuing his low, crouching advance towards the still-rising plume of smoke. It was getting closer, but this was still taking more time than Bucky liked. As he walked, he tried to use his rifle's scope to get a better view of the area ahead, but it was too difficult to use the rifle in his awkward leant-over position, and he swiftly gave up trying to save himself from back pain.

A couple of hundred metres out from the plane, which had come down in a sparse woodland, Morita raised his fist. Bucky sank to one knee, and Dernier joined him. They'd reached the end of the hedge line and could go no further under cover.

"It's too dangerous for us to advance together," Morita said. His eyes skimmed the landscape around them as he spoke. "We don't know if the enemy has sharpshooters waiting to pick off anyone coming in for the rescue. Or whether a platoon of Krauts are already waiting up ahead. So, I'll go on alone. Barnes, you can cover me. And if someone takes a shot at me and you can't find their location, just get out and get to that rendezvous point."

"Non, I should go on," said Jacques, right before Bucky could open his mouth to say the exact same thing.

"Your skills are gonna be needed for the attack against Caen," Morita told him. "And Barnes, you're the only sharpshooter we got."

"I wasn't gonna say anythin'," he lied. "Seriously though, we need our Ranger, too. You're not expendable."

"Of course I'm not." A grin split Morita's face. "I'm just the most qualified to go on ahead and check the situation out. If there are no Krauts, I'll come back and give you a wave. If there are Krauts… well, I expect the sound of gunfire will give it away."

He hated that Morita was right, but nodded in agreement. You couldn't always be the one to take the risks. Sergeant Weiss had tried to tell him that a long time ago, and he was only just starting to understand it now. It still rankled a little, though. When you grew up the eldest of four kids, you got used to taking the risks and making the sacrifices. That was just the way the world worked.

"Alright," he agreed, lifting his rifle to its firing position. "Really wish I had a higher vantage point to watch from, though." The area was flat as a pancake. Not ideal terrain for a sharpshooter. On the other hand, that meant it wasn't the best terrain for German sharpshooters, either. So it kinda balanced out.

The rifle wasn't the best weapon to cover somebody with. Its narrow field of vision didn't allow for a wide viewing angle from which to look for targets. So as Bucky tracked Morita's progress, he had Jacques keep his eyes peeled on the landscape around them. Maybe they'd finally gotten lucky; all was quiet as Morita disappeared into the forest, and a quiet sigh of relief escaped Bucky's lips. He didn't have to wait long for a signal from their Ranger; a few minutes after heading into the woods, Morita stepped out and lowered his gun, gesturing for them to join him.

"What's the situation?" Bucky asked, as the two of them jogged over and Morita led them into tree cover.

"See for yourself." He led them on, through a general path of destruction that told the story of the plane coming down at a shallow angle and taking a load of trees with it. Surprisingly, the plane itself was relatively unscathed; the fuselage was on fire, but the cockpit was intact, its door fully open.

"Stone must have ejected right before it hit," Bucky mused.

"Nah. Crazy son of a bitch actually landed it in one piece," said Morita. "Look." He gestured to the churned up grass and soil in the general vicinity of the cockpit. "Tracks. He definitely walked away."

Bucky examined the grass and soil. There was no doubt about it: this was definitely grass. And soil. "Are you sure? I'm not seeing any footprints."

"Footprints and tracks aren't the same thing."

"Jacques?"

The Frenchman shrugged. "Do not look at me. I tail a man through a city for you, no problems. But this… eh, this is just grass and soil to me."

"Trust me," Morita said. "We should follow him, see if we can pick him up before the Krauts do. I'm not seeing any blood, but that doesn't mean he's uninjured."

Bucky tightened his grip on his rifle. "Right. But then we gotta start looking around for signs of Monty. I didn't see him jump, and if he was in the plane when the fuselage went up…" Fiery death. It's not my fault. Monty was… is… Steve's second in command. And he's a paratrooper. It was on him to make sure we all got away safely. He pushed me out. There was nothing I could'a done to save him.

But his mind was already looking for ways in which he'd failed the man. Could'a pulled him outta the plane. Could'a pushed him first. Could'a insisted on being the last to go. His brain was gettin' real good at pointing out the many ways in which he'd failed to save his friends.

So they followed the tracks. A twist here. A turn there. Morita made them go slow. Slower than Bucky would've liked. To keep his impatience from bubbling over, he asked, "Where'd you learn how to track people?"

"The Army." Morita didn't shift his gaze from the ground, but after a moment he added, "And before that, from my dad. You ever been to California, Barnes?" Bucky shook his head, then realised Morita was still focused on the ground, and added a 'No.' "You should go, some day. It has some of the most breathtaking scenery you will ever see in your life. Sweeping plateaus, gushing rapids, blue skies that go on forever. Don't get me wrong, Italy was nice, but it doesn't compare to the Sierra Nevada. When I was a kid, every Sunday my dad would drive us up to Huntington Lake, just me and him. We'd camp out overnight. Catch our own fish, build our own fire, sometimes even hunt our own game. There's an art to following a trail, reading the subtle signs of activity in the ground and vegetation around you, turning that into a picture that tells a story. Come visit me after the war, and I'll take you out there some time. Show you how it's done. You too, Jacques. You'll always be welcome in California. Just maybe leave the cheese at home."

"I would be honoured to visit," said Dernier. "And no cheese, I promise."

Bucky opened his mouth to agree to a visit too, but a scream of pain cut him off before he could get his first word out. Heart pounding in his chest, he stopped and gripped his rifle more closely. Morita finally lifted his gaze from the ground. "Guess we don't need to follow the trail anymore. Just follow the screamin', now."

Together they rushed forward, and Bucky slowed his pace to allow the others to advance first. His rifle would be all but useless at this range, but their weapons stood a much better chance of hitting something—so long as he wasn't blocking their shots.

Less than fifty metres on, they found Captain Stone. He was applying bandages and pressure to Monty's leg; Monty himself sat with his back against a tree, a long tree branch sticking out of the top of his thigh. Blood was pouring out from below it, and the Major's face was a shade of deathly white. Probably shock.

"Captain Stone! Monty! What happened?" he asked, dashing forward and setting his SSR-03 aside to help the pilot stem the bleeding. "Jacques, bring your first aid kit here, quickly."

"I'm afraid I had a rather bad landing," said Monty, his voice a series of pained gasps. "Hit a tree or two. Or three. Maybe hit all of them, actually. I took a branch to the leg, then my chute caught in the tree above us, as you can see." There was indeed the remains of a chute in the tree. "Captain Stone found me and cut me down, and was just starting to take a look at my leg when you arrived."

"I've seen worse," Stone said. "Just a bit of a stick. You'll survive."

"Jacques, pass me the morphine tartrate from the kit," said Bucky.

Monty reached out to grab the front of his jacket in a surprisingly firm grip. "No morphine. We need to get moving fast; I'm sure a German patrol will be along to look for survivors from our crash."

"Technically," Stone butted in, "it wasn't a crash. I landed the plane and I would've been able to patch it up and take off again if that last round of flak hadn't gone through a fuel pipe and started a fire."

"Really not the time to argue semantics," Morita grumbled.

"My point is, I need to be conscious and able to move under my own steam. If you inject me with morphine I'll be good for nothing. Just patch me up. Pretend I'm Captain Stone's plane, if that helps."

Bucky sighed. The first time he'd had to do something like this, he'd only kept his head together because Wells was there to bully him through it. Since then, he'd done a lot more patching up of wounded soldiers. He was by no means a suitable alternative for an actual medical professional, but he knew enough to improve a guy's chances of surviving dramatically.

"Alright. Morita, I really need to know where we are, which direction we need to go, and how long it's gonna take us to reach our rendezous point. Jacques, get over here with some bandages."

"Ehh… my stomach is not so good around blood, mon ami." He held his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

"My stomach is fine," said Captain Stone. "I'll help you with the Major. Perhaps Mr Dernier could see about salvaging some of the chute material, in case we have to make a stretcher to carry him."

"I don't need a stretcher," Monty insisted. "Just get me back on my feet."

"Right," Bucky agreed. "Jacques, you handle salvaging the chute. Morita, location sitrep ASAP. Stone, grab the bandages."

It was hard to examine the injury without causing Monty more pain, but Bucky tried to be as careful as possible as he examined the Major's leg and the stick embedded in it. The bleeding seemed to have slowed a little on its own, which was good. Too much blood loss meant a tourniquet, and that would be the end of Monty's career. It seemed the stick was lodged deeply in the outer thigh muscles, which was also good. All the major arteries were on the inside of the leg, so as long as the stick wasn't moved too much, it shouldn't cause any serious damage.

"I think we need to leave it in," he said at last. "It's stemming the flow of blood. If we remove it, you're gonna start losing it too fast."

"Sergeant, I can't travel across Nazi-infested France with this bloody thing sticking out of my leg!" The very thought of it put a little colour back into Falsworth's cheeks.

"I know. We'll cut it down as close as we can to the muscle. Dose the entire area with sulf. Pack wadding around it, and then bandage over it. Hope that will keep it still, and that the sulf will prevent it getting infected. And you'll take some morphine before we start, because I can't have you screamin' in agony while we do this. We'll make a stretcher and carry you until it gets dark, then find somewhere to rest up for the night. In the morning, if you're up to it, you can walk. We'll see about finding some wood to make basic crutches."

"One crutch," said Monty. "I'll need one hand free for my weapon."

"This is not a negotiation, Monty. You're injured, which means I'm in charge now. That's how the chain of command works."

"Technically, I'm a Captain." Stone pointed to the rank patch on his shoulder.

"Technically, you're not supposed to be here," Bucky told him. "In cases like this, Infantry trumps Air."

"I believe you're thinking of the game rock, paper, scissors, in which rock trumps scissors," Stone said airily. "But it's fine, you're in command. I have no desire to lead troops in battle. Why do you think I joined the Air Force?"

"Glad we're in agreement. Right, let's do this."

He grabbed the syrette of morphine and gave Monty a shot of it before he could object again. In less than thirty seconds, the major was floating in a pleasant morphine haze. Bucky worked quickly, using his knife to saw through the wood just above the leg, while Stone held it as still as possible with wads of bandages. More blood trickled out from the wound, but at least it wasn't pouring, like it had done with Stoller.

Monty whimpered as Bucky worked; even morphine couldn't dull the pain entirely. When he'd cut through it enough, he snapped the bulk of it off, which made the Major twitch violently. But the worst of it was over. He used his canteen to run a little water over the wound, then sprinkled a packet of sulfanilamide over it to help ward off infection. That done, he grabbed several bandages and began wrapping them over both the end of the stick, and the wadding Stone had formed around it. He tied each one off carefully, making sure they weren't tight enough to cut off the blood supply. Then he sat back and surveyed his handiwork. It wasn't neat, or pretty, but it was functional. No blood was seeping through the bandages, and the wound was as clean as it could be, given the situation.

"Hey," Morita said. He had his map and compass in his hands. "I've figured out where we are. We're actually closer to the rendezvous point than I thought. It'd be a day's march in ideal conditions."

"But we're carrying Monty and dodging Krauts the whole way there," he finished.

"Yeah. Three days, best case."

"Three days," he agreed. It would have to do. "C'mon, Jacques, let's finish that stretcher quickly. We've got a long walk ahead of us."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Steve's head pounded as another artillery shell exploded a half-dozen feet away, and he closed his eyes against the rain of sand that came pouring down. Goggles. It was going to be his first suggestion to Stark, when he saw the guy again. Sand-resistant goggles, so that he could actually see worth a damn when the shells exploded around him and sent up sand-spray.

He felt more than saw when he reached shelter; an impact crater had formed, maybe by a shell hitting the ground, maybe by a mine blowing the ground outward. But Steve fell into it and automatically executed a perfect rolling break-fall, coming to a crouch just inside the lip of the crater. Here, he could catch his breath for a moment. His metaphorical breath. He wasn't winded, but he needed to get the lay of the land.

Behind him, Dugan and Jones had taken cover behind anti-tank spikes the Germans had put out to protect the beach from incoming mechanised support, and further behind them, Private Parker was attempting to keep Freddie's head down as the guy continued to film the advancement. In all honesty, the advancement was not advancing very far.

A group of three soldiers rushed past his position, and a second later machine gun fire sprayed across them, flinging up sand and blood in equal measures. The men screamed, and Steve dared to peep over the edge of his shelter. Two of the soldiers were down, their heads mangled beyond recognition. The third had fallen backwards and was crying out in pain as blood poured out from a bullet hole in his leg. He was injured, but he could still be saved.

Steve moved without thinking. Holstered his gun, held his shield up in front of him, and leapt over the lip of the crater. It was a swift twenty-metre sprint to the downed man, but the Germans were faster than he thought; or maybe they had more than one gun emplacement. A second volley rained down on him and he hunkered to the ground, angling the shield up to cover himself. The'ping ping ping' of bullets ricocheting off the vibranium seemed a counterpoint to his own heartbeat. As soon as the hail of death stopped, he lifted his shield and crouched down to take hold of the soldier's arms. It was too late. The man's eyes, already glazing over, stared sightlessly at the sky. He'd taken three bullets straight to the chest.

A flicker of anger ignited inside his heart. So much death. So much stupid, pointless death. Everywhere, all over the world, men, women and children were dying from illnesses that could not be cured, begging doctors to give them just one more day with their loved ones, and over here, men were riddling each other with bullets.

He reached down and pulled his gun from its holster. From now on, he was not gonna be part of the problem. America wanted him to be its shield? Fine. He could do that. But he would not be its gun as well. He would save lives, not take them. Without a second thought, he unloaded his clip, then tossed his gun away. Good riddance.

Another hail of bullets fell down around him in celebration of his decision. Once more he hunkered down, but this time he tensed his entire body like a coiled spring storing energy. The Germans had the high ground, but they were about to have it taken from them.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Bucky stared long and hard at the house set back from the road. Its windows held no glass, and its roof had been half blown off, leaving one wall slightly collapsed around the top. It had clearly been struck by a shell from the recent RAF bombing run, but it had an abandoned air to it that seemed older than that. A few weeds had taken hold in the plaster around its base, and a couple of wooden water vats were well on their way to rotting down to nothing. It seemed like the sort of place that would be safe to rest for a few hours.

It also seemed like the sort of place that might be crawling with Krauts, and there was no way for him to know how safe it was without a visual inspection. He was running out of time to make a decision. He'd pushed their pace hard throughout the day, sending Morita on ahead to trailblaze while Jacques and Captain Stone carried Monty on the stretcher, and he himself guarded their six. Several times they'd had to stop and hide from passing German patrols, and although they'd seen another small group of Allied paratroopers in the distance, it had been too risky to call out their position to them. Now, the sun was setting, and in another hour they would lose too much daylight to be able to see patrols coming. They had to find somewhere to bunk down for the night.

"Morita," he said quietly, and the team's ranger popped up beside him. "I need to know if that house is safe to shelter in tonight."

"On it."

He watched as the short man made his way alongside what little cover was available and around the back of the house. It was getting easier to let him go check out the potentially dangerous situations. He'd realised something, these past few hours. Bucky Barnes was not always the best person for the job. His dad had raised him to take the risks and protect others, but that sort of thinking did not work well in army life. The risks had to be shared. The best men had to be selected for the jobs, even if it made Bucky's entire skin itch to think of others taking risks when he could be taking them himself.

Morita reappeared after a couple of minutes and waved them on in, but he added a hand signal—a twist of the fist—that meant caution. Bucky passed the warning on to the others, and they crept slowly forward.

When they'd rejoined their scout, he didn't explain the situation. Instead, he took them to it, and it was enough to make Bucky's head spin. An eight-strong German patrol were on the floor in the first room of the house, dead in a very visceral way. A couple had been shot, liberally peppered with bullets. The others… it looked like someone had simply gone from man to man, stabbing and slashing with a bayonet. One's throat had been sliced clean across. Another had deep puncture wounds to his neck and chest. The others bore slashes across their torsos; one had been fatally stabbed several times on the inside of his leg.

"Must'a been one hell of a battle," Bucky. "You think the unit that did this is still nearby?"

Morita shook his head. "Took a look outside the door. Ground's littered with German-issue boot treads. And one set of tracks that isn't. Nine came in, one went out."

"You're saying one man did this?"

"Yep." Morita glanced around. "Really hope he's on our side. See this?" He pointed to a pile of spent bullet casings. "Krauts were shootin' at something. They were shooting a lot."

"Who the hell could take on a team of eight Germans firing guns, and walk away after?"

"I've heard that Captain Rogers is fairly handy in a tight spot," Captain Stone spoke up.

Bucky looked around at the bodies. "This isn't Steve. Sure, he could go up against eight Krauts and, with his fancy shield, walk away without a scratch. But this… this is carnage. He's not capable of doing something like this." Hell, Bucky himself wasn't even capable of it. Or… was he? Hadn't he and Wells once snuck into a HYDRA bunker and slit the throats of men sleeping soundly? But… that wasn't the same. That had been for the greater good of the mission. To save lives. A fast and efficient way of killing. This… it looked like somebody had had fun. Like a cat who'd found a nest full of baby mice, and decided it was play time. "How long ago do you think this happened, Morita?"

The guy lifted one of the German's arms up and waved it around a bit. "Not even remotely stiff yet. Probably no longer than an hour."

"We should move on."

"Then you should take a turn carrying Major Falsworth," said Stone, knuckling his back. "He's heavy, and I didn't sign up for lifting and carrying. That's why I became a pilot."

"I don't think we've got the luxury of moving on, Barnes," said Morita. "It's getting dark out, and I can't guarantee I can find us somewhere safe before we lose light. Besides, whoever did this is now out there. He probably doesn't have any reason to come back. Right? Maybe after a solid night of rest, Monty can walk a little tomorrow."

"Fine. But I'm keeping watch tonight."

"Mon ami, you cannot do this alone," said Jacques. "We should take shifts, non?"

"No. It's fine. I'm not tired." And that was the truth. He'd marched all day and still had plenty of energy left. The others were wearier from carrying Monty, or scouting ahead. Morita had probably done twice the distance the rest of them had. "I'm in charge, remember? I order you all to eat food and get some rest. Take Monty into one of the back rooms, where there are no bodies, and have some shut eye. I'll keep watch from here."

They offered a few feeble objections—Captain Stones' more feeble than the others—but quickly gave up after he insisted. He was in charge now, after all.

Once they were settled in the back, Bucky brought out one of the high-protein ration bars Stark had cooked up for him and ate it quickly. Then he settled down with his rifle in his arms, and trained his eyes on the outside world, ignoring the cold bodies behind him. This was gonna be a long night.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

The rain of gunfire continued as the sun began to sink towards the horizon. Taking a deep breath and letting his body relax for a moment, Steve quickly took stock of their situation. Progress up the beach had been slow. He himself had managed to reach the base of the cliff several times, but the Germans had resorted to dropping grenades from above, and every time they did, he was forced to retreat back. His shield could withstand a grenade, no problem, but in order to protect himself, he had to deflect the weapon in another direction, and currently all directions were filled with American troops. After the first he'd deflected narrowly missed one of the infantry units, he'd been more careful in his approach.

"I'm really sorry, Captain Rogers," said Private Parker, crouched next to him in the narrow trench. "I only took my eyes off him for a moment. But then there was sand everywhere, and I couldn't see, and when I turned back there were a bunch of other soldiers around us, and they just swept me along with them."

"Don't worry about it, Private. I'm sure Freddie is fine. I'll bet you anything he's with Dugan right now."

It was at least the tenth time Parker had apologised for losing their cameraman a couple of hours earlier, and it truly wasn't his fault. The beach was chaos. Steve had briefly lost sight of all his teammates in the confusion of battle. Jones, he'd discovered, was about two-hundred metres off to his left, hunkering down with a group of black servicemen who were starting to fly the anti-aircraft balloons that would keep their troops safe from the Luftwaffe. Where Dugan was, he had no idea, but hopefully Freddie was with him. Even if he wasn't, Steve couldn't abandon his post to go looking for him. There was still too much at stake.

"How are we looking, fellas?" he asked the men hard at work with their entrenching tools. They were remarkably fast at digging in, though the bullets flying from above were a considerable incentive to work quickly.

One of them stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow and offer a sitrep. "We've got another six or seven feet to go, Captain. Then we'll be ready to make another push."

Steve nodded. "Just let me know when everyone's in place and you're ready to go."

He'd been able to identify three barriers to their storming of the beach. First, the gunfire from above. Second, the anti-tank spikes that effectively prevented Allied tanks and jeeps from offering artillery support to the advancing troops. Third, the anti-personnel mines that had been liberally buried under the sand. Given enough time and a secure position, the combat engineers could handle points two and three, and had already made a start on clearing the beach of obstruction. What prevented them from working quickly was point one, and that was what Steve and the two-dozen men he'd collected around him were working on with all haste.

They had a system, and so far it was working. First, they'd dug themselves a nice trench, six feet deep by two feet wide, that ran about twelve feet parallel to the shore. Then, they dug a tunnel several feet below the surface, heading straight towards the cliffs. Into the tunnel they tossed a grenade, and used it to blow out the start of the next trench-line. Once the grenade had gone off, Steve jumped out of the trench, drew the fire from above, while a couple of men hopped over and into the next trench and the rest continued expanding the tunnel. In the meantime, the combat engineers quickly disabled the surrounding defences, and cleared the way for their artillery support to advance. Slowly but surely they were creating a trenched path that was taking them ever-closer to the cliff. Any of their tanks that were disabled on the beach, the men stripped down and used the armour plating as shields to protect them from fire from above, not unlike the heavily-fortified defensive testudo formation employed by Roman infantry in times long past. A thousand years or more of social progress, and yet they were still throwing sticks and stones at each other. It was just that the sticks and stones had become more deadly.

Not everybody was taking the cautious trench approach. Men still stormed the beach for as far as the eye could see. Many were cut down. But not all of the. Already, a unit had taken control of a small fortification around a German machine gun emplacement. The Nazis had retreated because the gun had run out of ammo, but the area made a safe stopping point for the men advancing. Air support had already stopped; the pilots couldn't risk hitting the men as they closed in on the Germans. That meant getting the tanks up the beach was a priority. Without tanks, the infantry were sitting ducks, and travelling by trench was taking too long.

"Captain," said the soldier who'd spoken briefly. He was a corporal, and couldn't have been a day over twenty. But his eyes were old. They said he'd seen things he would never unsee. Like everyone there, his face was smeared with dirt and sand, which trickles of sweat had made tracks through. He looked exhausted; all the men did. It wasn't just the physical toil of running and fighting and digging; it was the mental strain of doing it all under the pressure of impending death, and of seeing friends die. They'd been at this for nearly fifteen hours already, but it would be some time before they could rest. "We only have three grenades left. We estimate that'll leave us thirty feet short of the cliffs."

Steve peered over the top of the trench, holding his shield above his head as the Germans started firing down at him again. You'd think after so many failed attempt, they'd learn that didn't work. But at least they were wasting their ammunition. They had to run out sooner or later.

In the failing light, he could see a path up to the cliff above. It wasn't a wide path, or an even path. More of a trail through the dunes, really. But if he could make it up there, he could take out the unit directly above them and allow the men to advance to safety. It was worth the risk.

"Don't worry about it," he said, popping back down. "Just get as close as you can. I'll take care of the rest."

The corporal nodded and got back to digging. Just a couple more hours, and then he'd make one final push. A couple more hours, and these men could rest.