We were like gods once... [The Battle Continues]
Branches whip by his face; terrain and grey sky flash in a jerking montage of movement, half-glimpsed.
The huff… huff… huff… of his breathing and the hammering of his own heart fills his ears; the shock of his feet pounding rapidly into the turf is barely a counterpoint to the terror clawing at his pounding chest.
The distant thump of fire, men yelling, and the popping and ripping of small arms comes softly to Hank, half-smothered under the blanket of dread he is cloaked in as he sprints for his life.
Trees and hedges in front of him light up in stark relief and his shadow leaps out in front of him black as night; he has a split-second to wonder about the brilliance of the flash before the hand of God reaches down and tears the ground away from his feet with a resounding SLAP and he hears nothing, sees nothing but the flashing of sky-ground-fire-trees-sky, over and over.
…….
The building continues to increase glowing in amber intensity, and Moose wonders for a moment why it seems like the edges of it are bending away from the center.
Must be fumes or da fire or somethin’ dere, he dismisses the phenomena in his mind as more pressing concerns take over his attention.
Concerns like the infantry spilling out of the second building and also across the yard in front of the Tiger, whose MG mounts are tearing through the hedgerows and the men taking cover around them.
The Sherman BOOMS behind him and the ground erupts next to the Panther as it tries to maneuver around the building; the immobilized American tank has managed to shear away a large piece of the Panther’s track. A second report, from the surviving Cromwell, comes from closer near him as he realizes it is maneuvering around the disabled tanks in the road to try to get a better shot. The Brit’s shot hits the Panther square on and seems to do some damage; the Panther’s MGs stop firing and go silent as smoke rises from the side.
The Tiger suddenly compresses downwards and explodes out, sending the turrent into a crazy lean and scattering nearby infantry with shrapnel. The sound of the P-51 that fired the rockets comes to Moose as it climbs sharply out of the shallow dive, a couple Messerschmidts right on his tail. He spares it a glance as the BF-109’s chew into it, and he is dimly aware of an explosion as he brings his BAR to bear on the stunned infantry recovering from the shot.
He squeezes the trigger and watches in grim satisfaction as several Nazi’s fall under the withering fire, then kneels to reload the emptied weapon.
There is a tremendous noise, the ground jumps, and hard push from behind sends his helmet flying. Sprawling over his weapon, Moose realizes that something big has hit behind him and hazards a glance back.
The entire command section is a burning, cratered mass of wreckage back down the road, the trucks and jeeps scattered like children’s toys and burning merrily around the still bodies and body parts of men. Trees are sheared off, huge splinters and gigantic handfuls of earth are spread around like a colossal child’s sandbox. The report of the explosions are still fading away like distant, ominous thunder.
Moose recovers his BAR, and turns back to the front. The Cromwell has just passed him now, and on the other side of the road from him G.I.s are entering the hedgerows near the second building with grenades at the ready.
The men suddenly yell in surprise and are near instantly cut down by a hail of fire as a group of camouflage-clad Germans rise up from hiding and tear into them; one of the fallshirmjagers leans forward from a hidden break in the hedgerow and fires his Panzerfaust directly at the side of the last Cromwell, cleanly holing it and setting off it’s magazine as pieces blow off in the ensuing explosions. The british crew, jubilant as they were aiming their turrent towards the Panzer Mk IV struggling towards them through the hedgerows off to their right, never saw what hit them as the interior of the tank became a swirling maelstrom of deadly fire, shrapnel, and molten metal.
A SdKfz 251/1 Halftrack pulls from a position just around the front of the hedgerow near the second building, and the gun mounted behind the driver ignites a large gout of flame that leaps across the road, covering the Sherman in a bright blanket of sticky, fiery death.
Men around Moose begin to panic and run. “Well iddint that just swell”, Moose swears as he fights the urge to do the same.
More Germans are pouring out of the second building and across the yard, cheering and yelling as they advance behind a virtual storm front of small weapons fire; the fallshirmjagers have them partially flanked and men are getting cut down as they leave cover to flee.
Moose jacks the slide on his BAR, turns, and lays down suppression fire first on the fallshirmjagers, then at the Germans in the yard. He takes a few steps back, quickly reloading as he goes, bullets ricocheting around him, and repeats the move again. More G.I.’s turn to flee under his damnably accurate cover fire and manage to make the woods. Moose reaches for another magazine, but the bandolier is empty and his ammo carrier is nowhere to be seen.
He decides that now would probably be a good time to run also, and he takes off lumbering towards the edge of the road intending to jump into the ditch and try to work his way back towards where the men are fleeing.
There are several sharp, hornet-stinging impacts on Moose’s back, and he pitches forward hard onto his hands and knees. I didn’t know dey had hornets over here, comes the shocked thought.
He struggles to get up, wondering why his nose is running so badly. Moose suddenly feels tired, terribly tired, and looks at the hand he just wiped his running nose with, a confused expression on his large baby-face as it comes away covered in red.
If he could just catch his breath, he could catch up to the guys, but he feels so tired, and his legs won’t work right, and those damn hornets are stinging him again…
……
Hank, eyes rolling wildly, realizes through the haze in his mind that he is on his hands and knees, a long line of drool connecting his stunned mouth with the torn ground beneath him.
He shakes his head to clear it, and some sound is starting to come back to him as he glances back towards the American column.
Or what is left of it.
The trucks, halftracks, and jeeps jammed up behind the tanks are scattered everywhere, and he can’t see the Captain’s M20 anywhere. The ground around, and behind it is a masticated mess; chewed and slashed and burning everywhere.
Ding-dangit, I tried to tell ‘em ‘bout them danged ole rockets, Hank thinks as his eyes sting. He brings up the radio, but as he takes the receiver to his ear the frayed wire just swings freely, back and forth in front of him. Looking dumbly at the radio, he sees a large chunk of smoking shrapnel jammed into the side.
He grabs his binoculars in shaking hands, has to close one eye because the left glass is shattered, and sees the fallshirmjagers spring their ambush.
Oh, dammit, it’s danged ole LONG past time to git up an’ go. He stands and sprints towards the shattered column, spotting a jeep that may be serviceable enough to get him the hell out of here.
……
Smitty cycles the bolt on his Springfield and fires. Cycle, fire. Reload, cycle, fire. Cycle, fire.
Germans fall wherever he points his rifle, and he barely registers anything else as his scope fills with moving, firing targets.
He almost, almost, feels sorry for the Germans as he strikes them down, unaware, one by one like a bolt from the heavens.
Lord, CRACK! they just wont… CRACK! stop… CRACK! coming…
Just then the rockets hit behind his position and he is thrown violently as the tree he is hiding behind EXPLODES outwards in a shower of splinters and flame; he looks up from the ground to see a jeep, trailing flame, cartwheel over his head off of the raised road, the driver screaming as he keeps a death-grip on the wheel.
He looks back at the tree, sees where the shrapnel pieces as large as dinner platters sheared through it, and silently thanks Dad for passing on his good reflexes.
Smitty surveys the destruction around him and glances through the scope again. He sees how badly the battle is going up ahead, and remembers what his Dad told him on some of their South American and African expeditions together.
Never be afraid, boy, to pack it up and go home if it gets too rough, no matter how bad you want the hunt or what you have in it; a lion’s skin does you no good if 30 pissed off tribesmen stick you in a pot for it.
“Yep, Dad, you are damn well right about that”, Smitty remarks as he spots Hank fiddling with a jeep that was tossed off to the side of the road. He grabs up his Springfield and runs, praying that good old Hank has got it started when he gets there.
……
John Brighton realizes that he is, indeed, alive.
Nothing could possibly hurt this bad if you were dead.
Wow. That’s two now. For chrissakes, how many times do I have to do this?
He opens his eyes and sees the ground under the remains of his canopy, and realizes that he is upside down. He can smell the fire on his plane, and feel the pain of broken bones and the cold pressure of blood loss. The sound of the battle carries to him pretty well, and he realizes that his plane must have dropped very close to the action on the ground. Blood runs from a nasty cut on his forehead and elsewhere, but he is just glad to be alive. Only gonna stay alive if I get out of this wreck. NOW.
As hastily as he can, he pushes, claws, and squirms his way out from under the wreckage and crawls painfully a few feet, collapsing onto the ground.
He opens his eyes and sees the tire to a jeep. And two pairs of polished, black boots.
“Hande hoche! Hande hoche! Schnell!”, rings out from the owner of the boots.
“Kommen sie bitte mit uns!”, the second pair adds.
John glances up. Not a jeep. A Kubelwagon. And it brought 2 fellas with schmeissers.
Boy oh Boy, this just isn’t one of my better days, he thinks, shaking his head as he clasps his hands behind his aching neck.
……
“Dammit Hank, come on! Get ‘er moving”, Smitty nervously exclaims.
Hanks voice is muffled from having his head stuck under the steering column. “Dingdang ole thang is busted to tarnation n’ back, Smitty, gimme a danged ole second thar”.
Hank has a hand full of severed wires, in a state of near-panic, and feels his way around for the right combination to fire the ignition. They seem to almost squirm in his hand as he rapidly twists them together, the Jeeps engine turning over in protest as the ignition fires.
Smitty looks ahead, sees Germans advancing from everywhere up the road, shooting wildly at fleeing G.I.s, and takes aim at the occasional German soldier, hoping to give the boys a little more time to get away. “Hurry up NOW Hank!”
Vrroooomm, the jeep roars to life as Hank bangs his head on the steering column, emerging with a cheer and a goofy smile while rubbing his head and slams the jeep into reverse.
“’Bout time, Hank…”, Smitty starts, as the ominous buzzing roar of an aircraft in a dive reaches their ears...
