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The Forgotten Few
By Matthew Hayden
A/N - The following story is gonna seem a little odd, being as it is in fact based on the exploits of six infantryman units, though I decided for the sake of the story to cut down the actual number of invaders which the first of those units represented for the sake of drama.
***
All is dark, black as pitch, as night awaits the torch-bearer of morning,
To drive away all cold and fear and pain.
***
Private Alberto Sanchez leaned back against the dusty wall of his rudimentery dug out, the ever present fear of death stayed for a time by near boredom.
Sanchez felt numb from the cold, astonished that such freezing temperatures and icy cold winds could occur in the desert, a place he had always associated with dying of thirst or heat exhuastion, not freezing to death unable to feel your fingers or toes.
He was a tough man in his own right, but simply not the fighting type. He had enlisted in the U.S Army eight months ago, when he was a young, idealistic little soldier desperate to prove himself to his commanders.
Drill Instructor N.T Jackson had taught him a thing or two about making the right choice, and he now regretted his last wrong choice.
He liked to feel he had grown up in his time in the Army, that all this had taught him something, he'd have liked to have believed it had, but all he now knew over what he had known before joining the Army was that terrible, recurring thought; 'I shouldn't be here, this is a hero's job'. Not the whole career, just this mission, the one mission he would happily have missed, even if he'd have to watch the funeral proccesions of his comrades, and know that he hadn't been there for them, McCallister, Santiago, Quinn and Amos would all be acceptable, though grievous losses.
He felt guilty that he could ever think that way about his own nearest and dearest.
Sanchez thought about the upcoming attack, which would almost certainly cost more lives than the beach assault three weeks ago, in which half of his squad had been destroyed.
Besides the new platoon sarge and Corporal Johannes there were no heroic or even particularly brave types in the squad.
Sanchez was absolutely exhausted and he could feel ice forming on the walls around him and on his own body.
He could feel sleep coming over him, urging him towards its warm embrace.
Anything to get me away from this damned noise he thought.
However, he knew as sleep claimed him that he would dream that same recurring dream that had haunted him since they hit the beach.
*
It was oh-six-hundred-hours on the 22nd of april when Sanchez' squad, and two other squads, all of them approximately six men strong, attacked at the supposedly weakest point in the German coastal defences. This was supposed to be the only point at which a team of only nineteen men -including Leiutenant Lawson- could successfully penetrate the enemy's line of defences along the coast, and they had simply drafted half the 385th, two medics from the 121st, and four regulars from the 293rd to pull it off, not even one whole platoon, and yet they were being segregated into only three teams. Surely the higher ups must realize that a lot of smaller teams would find it easier to evade any bogies encountered at the immediate insertion point, though Sanchez knew and acknowledged that trying to actually open up a route for reinforcements would be almost impossible without greater hitting power. 'So why not just send in the Fortresses', said a voice in Sanchez' head rather sarcastically. 'They did *******', was his responce. 'And the damned things couldn't find their targets!' The voice in his head just laughed at his feeble and desperate reasoning. He was trying to make excuses to his own subconcious just to try and cement his belief in what they had been told back at Veii airfield, where they had been given the shadiest and vaguest briefing, just barely telling them what they were doing, but not why they were doing it, or even where they were going.
Sanchez tried to stop thinking about that and just concentrate on the mission ahead. He would be going into battle with first squad, all of his close friends apart from McAllister were with third squad, McAllister was with second.
He didn't know anyone in first squad apart from Drake and Scott, and he wasn't close to either of them.
Anyway, the mission wasn't going to be easy. According to the recon boys in the fighters the god-damned artillery had missed the beachside house that the team were to secure for use as a staging point.
This house was presently in use as a lookout post for the enemy, and as such, it's destruction would cause a total collapse of their coastal anti-aircraft capability across a one-mile sector for at least the few precious hours needed by an invasion force.
As Sanchez began to see the coast presenting itself before him, he thought he could almost see his opponents hiding in their coastal forts, watching the little boats approaching slowly. Thirty seconds before landfall, First Squad's boat came under fire from a machinegun placed near the house. Remarkably, the bullets were literally hitting the water in a ring around the boat! Sanchez knew, as the rest of his squad did, that this was simply because of the workings of the weapon being fired at them, but in this minute fraction of a second all of them realised and fully appreciated the lack of training which must lead to someone firing the machinegun in the manner in which they were. The gun was a support weapon, designed to be constantly adjusted since its bullets would go just about anywhere but within the target reticle. Evidently, however, the gunner firing upon Sanchez' squad was somewhat uninitiated in the ways of war, to put it mildly, since he persisted in firing his weapon directly at them.
Sanchez knew there was no point trying to fire back from the boat, and now he and all the squad were ducking as low as the small landing craft would allow, whilst Drake had the controls at the rear, and Scott began prepping his fuses for
the landing which lay now only ten seconds ahead.
The boat drew closer and closer, and just before the water's edge disappeared under the bow of the little vessel Drake killed the engine and both he and one of the two members of the squad Sanchez didn't know -an un-helmetted Texan with thick, sunny-blond hair- leapt out of the boat into the water as Sanchez, Scott and the other unknown quantity leapt onto the land, Scott holding one fused thermite charge in each hand, Sanchez and the other unknown brandishing their rifles, butts to shoulders, as they advanced up the short stretch of pebbled slope, until they reached the first crescent, still unopposed.
"Sanchez", said Scott in a rushed whisper so that his voice was almost inaudible,
"you think you could advance fifty meters to the right? I think I saw movement ahead." There was no more explanation, Sanchez knew exactly why he was running out this way. Scott wanted Sanchez on his right flank to catch any defenders they might bash into in a crossfire.
Sanchez stopped when the trees got too thick to advance any further, took a ninety-degree turn left, and just as he was about to move out, he stopped dead and felt his blood run cold. Sanchez could see through the branches a huddle of German soldiers wearing black Third Reich caps. Only one German force still wore black uniforms, the Panzer troops. This changed everything, the operation was now quite thouroughly kaput!
Sanchez now had no idea what to do, he had advanced to this point in complete ignorance of this threat, but watching them, he saw how relaxed and secure they were. Obviously no American invasions today. He counted seven krauts, then dived to the ground, and began to crawl on his belly towards them, his rifle held by the insides of his elbows as he dragged himself silently along. Every time he snapped any considerable twig, or rustled any leaves, Sanchez would stop completely, and wait at least thirty seconds before moving again. It got to the point where he had done this no less than eleven times before he felt he was close enough. Now he began, slowly, to rise up, but the German soldiers seemed reluctant to admit that an American was now kneeling only twenty feet away with rifle levelled at them. Finally, one of the men, whilst turning his head in some instinctive movement when laughing, caught momentary sight of Sanchez, but did not seem to react at first. He just looked away, then turned pale before he even looked again, and yelled out to his compatriots to warn them of the threat so near at hand. The yell was stifled in his throat by one of Sanchez' bullets, and the huddle of men immediately began scrambling for their weapons, but Sanchez' Garand found at least four more throats before the last two men got their weapons up and levelled at Sanchez. But still he had not got enough of them, for in the barest fraction of a second, just then, Sanchez thought that whichever of these men he didn't hit would finish him good and quick, and dance on his broken corpse. But the man didn't fire, for as Sanchez loosed his sixth round into the man on the right, a gaping black hole appeared upon the other man's face.
As the two men crumpled dead upon the floor, Sanchez turned rather casually, though with no greatly stifled relief, to see Scott rising from a prone position, rifle in hand, and blood stains on his fatigues.
"Nice work, kid," he said, "There'll be more where they came from."
They stood in silence for a moment, then "D'you see the uniforms?" asked Sanchez, his body finally admitting to being quite breathless.
"Panzer troops, obviously here to rest and refit," Scott grinned grimly."Come on, Barret's gonna need a hand with that machinegun."
By Matthew Hayden
A/N - The following story is gonna seem a little odd, being as it is in fact based on the exploits of six infantryman units, though I decided for the sake of the story to cut down the actual number of invaders which the first of those units represented for the sake of drama.
***
All is dark, black as pitch, as night awaits the torch-bearer of morning,
To drive away all cold and fear and pain.
***
Private Alberto Sanchez leaned back against the dusty wall of his rudimentery dug out, the ever present fear of death stayed for a time by near boredom.
Sanchez felt numb from the cold, astonished that such freezing temperatures and icy cold winds could occur in the desert, a place he had always associated with dying of thirst or heat exhuastion, not freezing to death unable to feel your fingers or toes.
He was a tough man in his own right, but simply not the fighting type. He had enlisted in the U.S Army eight months ago, when he was a young, idealistic little soldier desperate to prove himself to his commanders.
Drill Instructor N.T Jackson had taught him a thing or two about making the right choice, and he now regretted his last wrong choice.
He liked to feel he had grown up in his time in the Army, that all this had taught him something, he'd have liked to have believed it had, but all he now knew over what he had known before joining the Army was that terrible, recurring thought; 'I shouldn't be here, this is a hero's job'. Not the whole career, just this mission, the one mission he would happily have missed, even if he'd have to watch the funeral proccesions of his comrades, and know that he hadn't been there for them, McCallister, Santiago, Quinn and Amos would all be acceptable, though grievous losses.
He felt guilty that he could ever think that way about his own nearest and dearest.
Sanchez thought about the upcoming attack, which would almost certainly cost more lives than the beach assault three weeks ago, in which half of his squad had been destroyed.
Besides the new platoon sarge and Corporal Johannes there were no heroic or even particularly brave types in the squad.
Sanchez was absolutely exhausted and he could feel ice forming on the walls around him and on his own body.
He could feel sleep coming over him, urging him towards its warm embrace.
Anything to get me away from this damned noise he thought.
However, he knew as sleep claimed him that he would dream that same recurring dream that had haunted him since they hit the beach.
*
It was oh-six-hundred-hours on the 22nd of april when Sanchez' squad, and two other squads, all of them approximately six men strong, attacked at the supposedly weakest point in the German coastal defences. This was supposed to be the only point at which a team of only nineteen men -including Leiutenant Lawson- could successfully penetrate the enemy's line of defences along the coast, and they had simply drafted half the 385th, two medics from the 121st, and four regulars from the 293rd to pull it off, not even one whole platoon, and yet they were being segregated into only three teams. Surely the higher ups must realize that a lot of smaller teams would find it easier to evade any bogies encountered at the immediate insertion point, though Sanchez knew and acknowledged that trying to actually open up a route for reinforcements would be almost impossible without greater hitting power. 'So why not just send in the Fortresses', said a voice in Sanchez' head rather sarcastically. 'They did *******', was his responce. 'And the damned things couldn't find their targets!' The voice in his head just laughed at his feeble and desperate reasoning. He was trying to make excuses to his own subconcious just to try and cement his belief in what they had been told back at Veii airfield, where they had been given the shadiest and vaguest briefing, just barely telling them what they were doing, but not why they were doing it, or even where they were going.
Sanchez tried to stop thinking about that and just concentrate on the mission ahead. He would be going into battle with first squad, all of his close friends apart from McAllister were with third squad, McAllister was with second.
He didn't know anyone in first squad apart from Drake and Scott, and he wasn't close to either of them.
Anyway, the mission wasn't going to be easy. According to the recon boys in the fighters the god-damned artillery had missed the beachside house that the team were to secure for use as a staging point.
This house was presently in use as a lookout post for the enemy, and as such, it's destruction would cause a total collapse of their coastal anti-aircraft capability across a one-mile sector for at least the few precious hours needed by an invasion force.
As Sanchez began to see the coast presenting itself before him, he thought he could almost see his opponents hiding in their coastal forts, watching the little boats approaching slowly. Thirty seconds before landfall, First Squad's boat came under fire from a machinegun placed near the house. Remarkably, the bullets were literally hitting the water in a ring around the boat! Sanchez knew, as the rest of his squad did, that this was simply because of the workings of the weapon being fired at them, but in this minute fraction of a second all of them realised and fully appreciated the lack of training which must lead to someone firing the machinegun in the manner in which they were. The gun was a support weapon, designed to be constantly adjusted since its bullets would go just about anywhere but within the target reticle. Evidently, however, the gunner firing upon Sanchez' squad was somewhat uninitiated in the ways of war, to put it mildly, since he persisted in firing his weapon directly at them.
Sanchez knew there was no point trying to fire back from the boat, and now he and all the squad were ducking as low as the small landing craft would allow, whilst Drake had the controls at the rear, and Scott began prepping his fuses for
the landing which lay now only ten seconds ahead.
The boat drew closer and closer, and just before the water's edge disappeared under the bow of the little vessel Drake killed the engine and both he and one of the two members of the squad Sanchez didn't know -an un-helmetted Texan with thick, sunny-blond hair- leapt out of the boat into the water as Sanchez, Scott and the other unknown quantity leapt onto the land, Scott holding one fused thermite charge in each hand, Sanchez and the other unknown brandishing their rifles, butts to shoulders, as they advanced up the short stretch of pebbled slope, until they reached the first crescent, still unopposed.
"Sanchez", said Scott in a rushed whisper so that his voice was almost inaudible,
"you think you could advance fifty meters to the right? I think I saw movement ahead." There was no more explanation, Sanchez knew exactly why he was running out this way. Scott wanted Sanchez on his right flank to catch any defenders they might bash into in a crossfire.
Sanchez stopped when the trees got too thick to advance any further, took a ninety-degree turn left, and just as he was about to move out, he stopped dead and felt his blood run cold. Sanchez could see through the branches a huddle of German soldiers wearing black Third Reich caps. Only one German force still wore black uniforms, the Panzer troops. This changed everything, the operation was now quite thouroughly kaput!
Sanchez now had no idea what to do, he had advanced to this point in complete ignorance of this threat, but watching them, he saw how relaxed and secure they were. Obviously no American invasions today. He counted seven krauts, then dived to the ground, and began to crawl on his belly towards them, his rifle held by the insides of his elbows as he dragged himself silently along. Every time he snapped any considerable twig, or rustled any leaves, Sanchez would stop completely, and wait at least thirty seconds before moving again. It got to the point where he had done this no less than eleven times before he felt he was close enough. Now he began, slowly, to rise up, but the German soldiers seemed reluctant to admit that an American was now kneeling only twenty feet away with rifle levelled at them. Finally, one of the men, whilst turning his head in some instinctive movement when laughing, caught momentary sight of Sanchez, but did not seem to react at first. He just looked away, then turned pale before he even looked again, and yelled out to his compatriots to warn them of the threat so near at hand. The yell was stifled in his throat by one of Sanchez' bullets, and the huddle of men immediately began scrambling for their weapons, but Sanchez' Garand found at least four more throats before the last two men got their weapons up and levelled at Sanchez. But still he had not got enough of them, for in the barest fraction of a second, just then, Sanchez thought that whichever of these men he didn't hit would finish him good and quick, and dance on his broken corpse. But the man didn't fire, for as Sanchez loosed his sixth round into the man on the right, a gaping black hole appeared upon the other man's face.
As the two men crumpled dead upon the floor, Sanchez turned rather casually, though with no greatly stifled relief, to see Scott rising from a prone position, rifle in hand, and blood stains on his fatigues.
"Nice work, kid," he said, "There'll be more where they came from."
They stood in silence for a moment, then "D'you see the uniforms?" asked Sanchez, his body finally admitting to being quite breathless.
"Panzer troops, obviously here to rest and refit," Scott grinned grimly."Come on, Barret's gonna need a hand with that machinegun."
GET!
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