The Great War

[Ricobirch]

Hi all, I've been lurking here for a while and have been inspired to write my own short story based on a Civ 3 game I've been playing. So without further adu (sp?) here it is:

The Great War-Northern Front

Chapter 1
“The tactics of the Indian army in the first world war are baffling. Why after almost a year of stalemate they kept on throwing wave after wave of cavalry at American machine guns is beyond any military historians comprehension.”
-Military Tactics of the 20th Century


American Troops Marching to face the Indians

November 11th, 1908
50 miles north of Cambridge
Joe surveyed no-mans land, a barren moonscape filled with craters and corpses from the last Indian cavalry charge. The morning sun was casting a harsh light onto the horrific scene. Smoke rose up into the air and twisted into spirals that danced around each other before wandering away into nothingness. Far off to the southwest there was the sound of American artillery booming away, sending their screaming cargo on their mission of destruction. A breeze howled through the endless rows of barbed wire shaking several bodies that were hung up on it. The stench of burning flesh and death hugged the ground like a FNG when encountering his first barrage. No matter how long you fought you never did get used to that smell. It was always there; it permeated your clothes and dug into the deepest parts of your soul.
Joe shook his head and took his last drag from his cigarette; the bitter taste of filter filled his mouth. He drew the smoke into his lungs and held on to it for dear life. This was the last smoke he had and supplies were scarce since the Indian navy had severed the railroad lines back home. You tend to learn these things after a decade in the army.
“Joe you know those thing will kill you right?”
Joe exhaled, coughed and chuckled, “If Indians cavalry, English artillery, and Persian bullets haven’t gotten me yet then what the hell is a little smoke going to do?”
Sam shot Joe a disapproving look, “All right it’s not my job to talk people out of killing themselves.”
“Nope you job is to commit suicide when I tell you to, Private.”
“Yes sir, Sergeant, over the top and into your ancestors arms.”
“You know I’m beginning to wish that my ancestors had wiped yours off the map instead of conquering them. That way I would have to hear that damn Chinese saying a million times a day.”
“Well if that happened then who would have shown you that Iroquois “entertainment” house back in Grand River?”
“Hum, you may have a good point there. What was that girl’s name again?”
“Dances with GI’s”
The two comrades in arms laughed at the crude joke.
Sam went back to cleaning the machine gun that he and Joe operated. He contemplated their situation, normally a sergeant and a private would not be operating a machine gun together, but after the Coventry campaign in ‘07 and Cambridge earlier this year the unit was a little stretched for resources. It didn’t help that the Indians seemed to have an endless supply of cavalry to throw at them either. But that is why the government had given most of their boys some new toys to play with before the war started. Sam patted the machine gun and smiled, he would have loved to see the looks on the Indian’s general’s faces when their troops ran into these babies for the first time. Guess their Persian allies weren’t the most technically advanced nation after all.
But the old saying proved to be true; the shortest kept secrets are military ones. It was barely over a year before the Persies started to show up at the prom with a little spiked punch of their own. Although the Indians were still coming at us with revolvers and muzzle loading rifles. Guess their alliance wasn’t as sound as their propaganda would lead us to believe.
A messenger came running down the muddy trench with an old beat up leather bag strung around his shoulder.
“Hey Louie, you got anything interesting in that magic bag of yours?” Sam yelled.
“Just an order from New York authorizing our withdrawal from English territory and then our immediate surrender to Persian authorities.” Replied Louie.
The smart-ass response didn’t phase Sam one bit, “Hot damn, does that mean I can finally go back home to Beijing and think about living past 25?”
“Not if the Persies turn you over to the Indians, for some reason they are still mad about us burning down 5 of their cities in the last war.”
“Sore losers” Sam muttered to himself as the messenger hurried along his way to the field command building.
Sam leaned back against some sandbags, “Joe you were in the last war against the Indians weren’t you?”
“Yep I was 4 months out of boot when the shooting started, my first post was in Nagano to help watch the new frontier with the Indians. The place was complete chaos, after the fall of Tokyo and the ensuing surrender of the Japanese Kingdom refugees were pouring over the border. Thousands of them, all telling stories atrocities committed by Indian occupation troops, real bone-chilling stuff.”
“Well after 150 years of off and on warfare that is not surprising, there was some deep seeded hatred between the Japanese Kingdom and the Indian Empire”
“Well someone paid attention in his high school history class didn’t they? Anyway back to the story, after about 2 weeks of this Indian occupation troops arrived at the border and sealed it. Anybody who tried to cross was shot on sight, didn’t stop them from trying though.”
“You just sat there at watched it, you didn’t intervene?”
“We were specifically ordered not to do anything, we were in no position to repeal an Indian attack at the time. Of course some people disobeyed and helped sneak refugees over, but if they were caught they would be transferred out of there immediately.”
“Just a transfer, no court marshals?”
“Nope, cause the government had already decided that war was inevitable, you see with the fall of the Japanese there was a shift in the balance of power on our continent. Without the Japs around to check their growth the Indians could now pose a direct military threat to us. A decision was made to send two armies north right along the old Indian-Japanese border to cut off the Indians from their new conquests. They just needed a reason to declare war, that’s where the refugees stepped in.”
“You mean you think that the stories of atrocities were just propaganda so the population would support the war?”
“No the atrocities were real, but that was not the main reason for the operation. We needed to slow down Indian growth to buy time to get a technological edge so we could then remove them by force.” Joe pointed to the machine gun, “That right there is the reason for the so called Rescue war.”
“Did you stay in Nagano, or did you go with one of the Generals?”
“A week before war was declared I was transferred to an infantry division in Jackson’s army. We were there to provide protection for the two cavalry divisions.” Joe stopped talking and looked up at Sam.
“Well are you going to tell me about your experiences in the war or are you just going to leave me hanging?”
“Depends on if you give me half of that chocolate bar you have in your pack. A man gets mighty hungry when recollecting.”


In other words it's late and I'm tired of writing, If you guys want it I'll type up the rest of Joe's story tommorow.

[steelehc]

Sounds like fun. I like WW1 style writing (look at my story). Based on Civ3, thats all the better. Keep at it.

Steele

[Ricobirch]

I edited the story and added a lot of background, if there is intrest I will continue.

[Verto]

please continue!

Please continue. I like the way you've told the story so far. A bit more history into the war and causes of it, etc., would be great, but thats just me. Keep Writing!

[Ricobirch]

Wow 225 views but only 1 response, oh well never tell me I didn't do anything for the little guy.

Chapter 2

“America of the late 1800’s was the Elephant of the world. Large, intelligent, and dangerous, but not the most aggressive beast, all that changed with the fall of Japan in 1896.”
- America Rise of a Superpower


Japanese Refugees

Sam sighed, got up and went over to his pack. He took out the chocolate bar broke it in half and tossed the smaller part to Joe, “Here you greedy bastard hope you choke on it. This thing cost me 2 packs of smokes.”
Joe caught the precious bar and bit off a small piece, “You got screwed, this is the worst piece of chocolate I’ve ever had. Now where was I, oh yea General Jackson’s march to the sea. I arrived in Grand River just in time to move north, my unit was one of the last ones to assemble. There were three armies in Grand Rapids, one under Jackson, another under Washington, and the last under Sherman. The day before the declaration we moved out marching north toward the border. Once we got there we were briefed on our general objectives. Our army was supposed to march north until we got to the North Sea, evacuating Japanese nationals on the way. Once we got to the sea we were to retreat back to America, burning everything behind us. General Jackson put it this way; “From the North Sea, to the Nagano range we will burn a line in the Earth visible from the stars themselves.”
“And while you were doing that Washington and Sherman were to go to Bombay to cap…”
Joe cut-off Sam in mid sentence; “No, no, no they were diversions, they were ordered to strike as deep into the Indian homeland as they could.”
“You mean their ultimate objective wasn’t to march into Bombay and seize those responsible for the atrocities?”
Joe let out a chuckle; “You were what 9 when this war started?”
“I was 10, but what does that have to do with anything?” Sam replied smugly.
“Well my young friend, as you figured out earlier there was a lot of propaganda put out by the government during this war. The papers said the goal of Washington and Sherman was arrest those in charge, but that was never feasible. Sure if by some miracle our forces made it to Bombay they would have captured those responsible. But it was never a goal of the operation. Their objective was to cut supply lines and keep Indian attention away from Jackson. But I digress; after the decleration was issued we traversed the Naganos and made our way across the Nagoyan desert. We met no resistance until we reached the outskirts of Hiroshima. I had just woken up and was making some coffee when a private ran through the camp yelling “To your stations, Indians approaching from the West!” I threw the coffee pot on the ground and grabbed my rifle. My unit formed on the first line of defense. We hadn’t been there for more then a day so our defenses consisted of some very basic earthworks and a couple of foxholes. I took position in one of these holes with a few other grunts. We stood there for about 15 minutes waiting for the Indians. Then we saw movement in the morning mist and they appeared.”
“Were you scared when you saw them Joe?”
“While we were waiting I was terrified, but when they came out of the mist our line burst into laughter.”
“Laughter, why in God’s name would you laugh at a time like that?”
“Cause the Indian’s that were marching toward us were armed with, and you better sit down for this, bows and arrows.”
Sam’s jaw hit the trench floor, as he let out a laugh that drew the attention of several nearby soldiers. “You’re kidding me, BOWS and ARROWS? What the hell were they thinking?”
“Apparently they were a bunch of old army veterans re-enacting an ancient battle between the Indians and the Zulus. They heard that we were approaching and decided to try and stop us”
“You guys didn’t open fire did you, that would have just been plain wrong.”
“No we didn’t, the word was passed back to the General, and 5 minutes later he sent out a Captain under a white flag. He met the Indian in charge and they talked for about 3 minutes before returning to their respective lines. I don’t know what was exchanged but suddenly the Indians started to string their bows. We didn’t know what to do and General Sherman looked completely dumbfounded. He ordered a volley of warning shots to be fired over the heads of the archers. So we did, but they had no effect. While we were reloading the Indians fired. I have to admit the sight of several hundreds of arrows sailing over a field is a pretty awe-inspiring thing. Until you see them start their downward arch that is. The entire unit hit the dirt and tried to find anything to cover themselves with. The effect of the barrage was minimal but a guy 5 feet from me got hit in the leg. His scream punctured what had been pretty close to dead silence. We finished reloading and the order was given to fire. What followed cannot under any stretch of the imagination be described as a battle. The Indians got of 3 more volleys before it was all over. Out of what had to have been 700 archers we took 23 prisoners, all of those severely wounded. To this day I still am shocked at the dedication and bravery of those men.”
“Wow, what happened next?”
“Well we packed up camp and headed to our first target the small city of Hiroshima”


Ok I’m tired again, up next the battle of Hiroshima and the march to the sea. As always questions and comments are welcomed.

[Verto]

very good

I await the march to the sea. You have a skill for this. Your stories aren't superficial, you have found the right degree of detail.

If you have the time, I'd like you to read my story, titled "German Empire" and give me some feedback on it. Thanks!

[Ricobirch]

Ok hot of my hard drive here is the third instalment, enjoy!

Chapter 3
“The battle of Nagasaki would decide the Rescue War, if the Americans won then the road to the North Sea would be wide open…”
Excerpt from TV series “Military Blunders”


American infantry reinforcing the line during the Battle of Nagasaki

“After the slaughter at Hiroshima fields we marched on the city itself. There was an under strength unit of riflemen guarding the town. Some elements of our infantry division made a frontal assault while both cavalry units hit em from the flanks. They were not enough defenders to cover both their flanks and they surrendered after an hour or 2. We marched into what was once a large city. But it had been on the front lines of the last Indo-Jap war and had taken a beating. The city was in complete ruin; no building over 2 stories remained. The streets were littered with the charred corpses of the poor bastards that didn’t make it out before the city fell. We found several fresh mass graves, half the men including me were violently ill for our entire stay. Barley 10,000 people still resided there. This was the first city to fall to the Indians and their troops took out a century’s worth of frustration on it.”
“What did you do with the surviving defenders?”
“Well first the General made them clear the streets of the bodies and dig them all their own separate graves. After that he convened a meeting with the few remaining civilian leaders and left their fate up to them.”
“Did they take their revenge?”
“You could say that, piece of advice kid never, and I mean NEVER rape a Japanese city. The lower level foot soldiers were the lucky ones; they just got a bullet in the head. The middle and higher-ranking officials, man words can’t begin to describe the hell they went through. Several of our officers went to the Japanese and pleaded that they just shoot them but our pleas fell on deaf ears. Their screams echoing through the city streets still to this day haunt me.”
“We didn’t hear about that back home.”
“No I bet you didn’t, but that’s war my friend it brings out the worst our species has to offer. You only need to raise your head above this trench line to have that confirmed.”
Sam nodded in agreement, he had only been in the army for a year but he had seen the carnage of Cambridge. “So what did you do with the refugees?”
“Well we informed them that they better head on south to Nagano and Grand River cause we were going to be moving on in a week.”
“You guys were not worried that the Japanese would re-capture them?”
“No Washington and Sherman had our flank covered they would be safe on the road back. So they packed up and left, and a few days later so did we. This pattern was repeated in the next 3 cities we encountered.”
“You mean you killed every Indian that surrendered to you?”
“No every time a unit or a garrison surrendered we let the local civilians decide their fate. Every time except Hiroshima that decision was to let the rank-and file go back to India proper and take the leaders back to America for trial by the Japanese government in exile.”
“I remember those trials, they are still all in prison right?
“Last I heard they were, so anyway after 3 months we reached our halfway point Nagasaki. Now we had wondered why we had not faced significant opposition on our campaign. The answer was they were all waiting for us at Nagasaki. No less then 6 divisions of riflemen and were waiting for us. The city itself was pretty much intact so a direct assault would have been suicide. Thankfully general Jackson realized this, and decided to try and draw the defenders out into the open. We started to cut all roads and rails into the city, and sure enough the next day they came marching out ready for a fight. As I’m sure you know from history class the ensuing battle was a bloodbath. They threw everything they had right at our center. Chandra’s charge they called it, and what a magnificent sight it was. 18,000 Indians marching right at us, our line was frozen with terror. That is until we heard a familiar bugle call and our cavalry charged past us and toward the enemy. We cheered as they went by; surely they would inflict enough damage to force them to retreat. And they did inflict damage; the Indians took horrible casualties as our cavalry ripped through their flanks. But the holes in their line were filled and they kept on coming, slowly making they’re way across the field. A human wave about to come crashing down upon our heads.”
“If their casualties were so high why didn’t they retreat?”
“Nobody knows for sure, but the leading theory is that the Indian general had some family serving in Hiroshima and all he had on his mind was revenge. Regardless of his reasons the infantry marched into our rifle range and we opened fire. Volley after volley was poured into the oncoming mass until it was on top of our heads. Have you ever been in hand-to hand combat Sam?”
“No my only experience was in the closing days of Cambridge, mostly cleaning up small pockets of English resistance. And of course my highly enjoyable time here in this trench with you but no Indians have made it across no-mans land yet.”
“Well pray that they never do, because that hand-to-hand fight was the worst experience of my life. Our line quickly dissolved into a sea of turmoil. Everywhere I turned there was someone charging at me with a bayonet. And while I was dealing with him a second or third man attacks me at the same time. I was stabbed in the shoulder and gashed along my right arm.” Joe took off his shirt; “See here are the scars right here. I dropped to my knees and tried to stop the bleeding but there was too much going on around me. An Indian took a swing at me with the butt of his rifle but I managed to dodge it. He kicked me in the chest instead and I went down listening to 2 of my ribs crack. What a god-awful sound that was. I lay there screaming for a minute until someone started to drag me away. I blacked out from the pain and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital wagon retreating south.”
“You missed out on the rest of the battle?”
“Not only the battle, the war was over for me. Sure eventually I healed up perfectly, but by the time that happened the war was over. I followed the news of the defeat at Nagasaki, the destruction of Sherman’s army, Washington’s run to New Delhi, and the ensuing burnt earth retreat from a hospital bed in Nagano.”
“I’ve heard stories that many of those wounded early in the war became depressed while recuperating.”
“Yea I saw a few people lose it in the hospital, not me though I was just happy say I survived Nagasaki not may people can say that.”
“That’s true, but I got a question for ya Joe, you could have retired from the army with full honors and pension why did you stay in?”
“Oh simple kid, I knew we were going to go after the Indians again and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to be allowed a chance to finish what I had started.”


In game terms the war was a partial succses. I razed about 7 Indian cities and cut them off from thier only oil source. But the bulk of thier new Japanese cities remained connected to thier capital. As for my armies, I had a string of horrible luck. Sherman's was wiped off the face of the Earth, and Jackson was down to his last bar before I decided to cut my losses. Washington on the other hand made it into the Inidan homeland and manged to raze a size 6 city. And all the "refugees" that I aquired helped to finish upgrading my massive trasportation system in 4 turns. And after the war some strange things happended but that wil have to wait for my next update.

[Ricobirch]

I'm going to write up chapter 4 sometime this week, but first you need to know what happened between the wars.
As you may recall I had just finished burning down some Indian cities and the northern part of my contenent had a big empty hole in it. The race was on, but there was only one snag. The Persians and the English transported colonists from accross the ocean and settled most of the empty land. I only got one city established, but that city happened to include the oil source(And later I would find out an aluminum). So in a realativly small piece of land you had American, Persian , English, and Indian cities. All of these cities were usless for production (The closest capital was India's and it was about 15-20 hexes away.)
During the next severl turns 2 alliances were formed. The first being Me, Egyptians(They were directly north of the Persians on the other contenint), and the Russians(The were the other civ on my contenent just east of what had been Japan) and the other consited of everybody else. The Indians, Persians(Technologicly equal to me but all thier production was accros the ocean),English(Located south of the Perisans this becomes important later) and the French (small backwards civ located on a large Isand in the ocean esast of me.) I saw what was coming and stared to crank out infantry, and artillery as fast as I could. Then one day in 1907 India attacked Russia and it was on.

[civman2000]

wait...how did you know about aluminum before oil???

[Ricobirch]

Woops did I get those 2 mixed up, *Flips through manuel* yes I did. Thanks for the catch.

[Ricobirch]

Ok added some pics for atmoshphere hope you enjoy. The next update will be sometime tonight, recounting both Sam, and Joes experiences in the current war.

[Ricobirch]

Another day another chapter

Chapter 4
“The rumble started as a low drone, coming out of the south-east. Like artillery but instead of short bursts it was constant. We thought it was a cavalry charge, a large one. So we dug in and waited for the horses, after several minutes I looked up to the sky and screamed.”
-An Indian soldier’s recount of the first combat use of the airplane

[IMG]ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/history/WWI/thiepval.jpg[/IMG]
Cambridge after the final English retreat

Sam had a very puzzled look on his face, “Ok so you thought you had a score to settle but if I got wounded and taken away from this hell I would never put myself into a position to come back. I don’t understand why you did.”
“Well Sam that’s because this (Joe waved his hand in the air) is not what the last one was like. There was no stalemate; you were never in the same place more then a week or two. You didn’t fight for food with rats the size of cats. You didn’t sleep in a hole with 3 dead people because disease has made everyone so week they could lift more then 50lbs. The Rescue War wasn’t fun but it was a fu^&ing vacation compared to this place.”
“So if you survive this you’re going to retire from the army?”
“Without hesitation, after the cease-fire is signed I’ll be on the first train back to Denver.”
“And I’ll be riding your ass like a hemroid”
Joe smiled, “Ah yea Denver, home. Haven’t been back there since my transfer to this unit 3 years ago.”
“You got a wife back there, Joe?” Sam asked
“Na after I got out of the hospital I was to busy living it up to think about getting married. Then I got stuck with a recruiting job. I couldn’t stand it, sitting behind a desk telling recruits lies so they would sign up. Yes absolutely you can pick whatever station you want, and what job you want. Can’t believe I was able to spew that BS while keeping a straight face.”
“Why didn’t you retire then?”
“After 6 years I was seriously thinking about it, but then tensions started to rise, the Persians and English entered the picture. I requested a transfer to this unit, and with it looking like war coming I got it. So I was back where I started; Nagano. Played boarder guard there for a year, then the unit was moved back to New York for re-training.” Joe shot a glance over to the machine gun.
“Wow New York, never been they’re myself but I’ve heard stories.”
“Well kid believe every word of them, New York just brings out your wild side. I remember I was at a bar drinking and I started to talk to this guy from Cleveland. Turns out him and his brother where in town to show a new contraption of theirs to the army command. Told me it was a flying machine, now by that time we were all highly intoxicated so I thought he was joking. I told him only a fool would believe that you could make a machine that would fly. He said only a small-minded idiot would doubt something before he saw it. One thing led to another…”
Sam interrupted, “Hold on Joe you’re telling me that you took a swing at one of the Wright brothers!”
“No, the son of a ***** took a swing at me! Connected too, damn near broke my jaw. So I grabbed a beer bottle and broke it on the counter. But his brother and a few of my friends broke the fight u.”
“I can’t believe this, you do realize the irony of you almost killing one of the Wright brothers?”
“Yes I do my life has been saved countless times by air strikes on the Indians, and if my buddies hadn’t of stopped me we might be fighting at Grand River not New Delhi. But that’s what I’m saying about New York it makes you do strange things.”
“I can’t believe you weren’t court-marshaled.”
“They started to think about it, but then decided that a worse punishment would be sending me up to the front. So I went with this unit to guard the English border. I was there when the Indians attacked Minsk and this mess started.”
“Ah yes the beginning of the war, everybody back home was excited to have another go with the Indians, thought that with our new weapons it would be a cakewalk.”
“Yep we vets had the same feelings, and at first it was. You said you were at Cambridge?”
Sam nodded, “I signed up and 4 months later I was shooting at limeys in Cambridge.”
“Well the first battles were not even as bad as Cambridge, we would approach the enemy, they would charge and we would open fire with our machine guns at it would be over. Cities would be pounded with artillery then we would overwhelm whoever was left. Then came Coventry, and those damn Persian “advisors” showed up. I’m telling you thank god most of their forces are dealing with the Egyptians, or we would be in deep trouble over here. They know how to fight a modern war, not like the Indians or English who are stuck in the 19th century.”
“Or the French, who are stuck in the 17th.”
Joe let out a deep belly laugh, “The FRENCH oh kid you’re killing me they just stopped using round musket balls for the love of god!”
“Yea I know, I mean the audacity of them actually declare war on us. They have a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“The only thing that’s keeping us out of Paris is the Atlantic. We can’t spare the resources to build an invasion fleet. We need every able bodied man to hold the line here. Cambridge proved that.”
“Yea I was on the front lines the day they counter-attacked. Almost my entire unit was wiped out. Would have had to abandon the town if wasn’t for the air core. We had to go back to Grand River where we were folded into this unit.”
“And that’s when you had the distinct pleasure of meeting me.” Joe paused for a second, “You remember the march up here?”
“Yea, all the wounded guys coming back from the front warning us about this.” Sam waved his wand around.
“Yep and I told you, don’t worry kid I’ve been in the Army for a decade and I aint never seen anything like that.”
Sam snorted, “If only we believed em, we could have saved ourselves a hell of a lot of pain.”
Joe was about to agree when he a rather large boom came out of the north. “S*&t barrage, everyone into the shelter!”

So we are finally back to were we started, and I want to know what do you think? Good, bad, ugly? This is my first major piece of writing and would love some opinions.

[Journier]

very detailed, very good

keep it up.

[Ricobirch]

All right people gather round for the next thrilling instalment.

Chapter 5
“The screams of the wounded filled the air, blood curdling screams. The soldiers in the trench looked at each other knowing they could do nothing, several broke down crying…”
-Opening lines from All Quiet on the Northern Front


The wasteland known as no-mans-land

Joe, Sam and about a dozen other GI’s sat huddled in one of the trenches shelters. Outside the Persian artillery was raining down, a shell impacting every 4 or 5 seconds. With every explosion the ground rattled, and dust fell from the ceiling of the crude bunker. This unit had been on the front lines for a while, there were no newbies curled up in the fetal position in this group. Only battle hardened veterans that knew if the shelter were destroyed they wouldn’t feel it.
Sam turned to Joe and said, “This has been going on for several hours, a big attack must be on its way.”
“Or they want us to think that and commit our forces to this sector so they can hit us somewhere else.”
There was a slight pause then Joe and Sam both shook their heads, “Na, we aint that lucky.”
A shell hit rather close to the shelter, causing a plume of dust to rush in through the doorway. The small covered hole in the ground went black, the coughs of the soldiers resonated through the shelter. As the dust settled light slowly sneaked into the room, revealing a group of hungry dust covered men.
An eerie silence filled the air, but the men did not run out from under their protective cover. The Persians had tried to draw out the troops before only to begin the barrage again and catch some out in the open. But months of experience had taught the soldiers the sound they should listen for.
“Wait for it, wait for it.” Joe’s ears seemed to perk up like a fox.
It came drifting over no-mans land, the high shrill piercing scream of a single whistle.
“GO, GO, GO! To your stations, now!” Joe screamed as loud as he could.
The men around him had already sprung into action the second they heard the whistle. They were back to their machine guns and rifle positions within seconds. The roar of the charging mob overtook the sound of the whistle as the Indian and English infantry climbed up out of their trenches.
“Fire!”
The machine guns and Springfields roared to life, and the roars of the infantry quickly turned to screams. The first troops out of the trenches had gotten 15 yards before the bullets started to cut them down. The skilled American riflemen quickly took out the few that made it out of their own barbed wire and into open ground.
“Reload Sam!”
Sam took a new belt of bullets and reloaded the machine gun, “Joe over to the right they are making headway!”
He was right; about 15 yards down the line the mass of infantry had suffered surprisingly little casualties.
“****, the barrage must have gotten one of our machine gunners down there.” Joe quickly surveyed the situation. “They are not hitting us to the north as hard. Johnson, run over there and tell Peterson to relocate NOW!”
A nearby private sprung into action running down the line as fast as he could. Joe kept on firing the gun and keeping tabs on the chaotic situation to his right. He had gone through another belt, when two men ran behind him carrying a machine gun.
Joe glanced to his right again, the enemy was only 50 yards away. He glanced to his left to see if he could spare anyone else when an incredible roar was heard overhead. 4 F-2 “Broncos” dove out of the sky and strafed the horde. With each pass of the fighters 4 lines of infantry fell to the ground. After another run the steady rhythm of a machine gun could be heard.
The Indians started to fall en masse but it was too late, the mob had reached the American barbed wire.
Joe looked to his left the English had been stopped. “Johnson, tell half the squads to fix bayonets and reinforce the line to our right. Then run back to local command and scream for reinforcements” Johnson ran off again yelling “FIX BAYONETS!”
“Ok Sam lets move this gun to where it can be useful.”
Joe and Sam picked the gun up and started off to their right, as the cracks of Indian guns started to fill the air. They were quickly joined by many of their comrades.
Joe stopped and grabbed a periscope; he looked over the trench line. The barbed wire was doing its job; the Indians were having a tough time getting through. That would at least buy Joe some time to reinforce the line.
He and Sam reached a new firing position and set down the bi-pod as the Broncos pulled up from another strafing run. Sam pulled the trigger and started adding to the carnage. Before long so many Indian bodies were hung up on the wire that most of the shots were not getting through.
“Grenades, we can’t let them cut through the wire!”
Several of the riflemen put down their rifles and threw their grenades over the barbed wire. The resulting explosions ripped holes in the Indian mass, but a few fell short and blew open holes in the wire. The Indians quickly took advantage of this to make their way closer to the trench. This however exposed them to Joe and Peterson’s guns. More Indians fell but a few made it to the trench.
The first that jumped into the trench were impaled on the bayonets of the defenders. Their momentum however knocked those defenders onto the ground. Others came to fill the space but the second group of Indians had jumped down.
Brutal hand-to-hand combat followed as the dozen or so Indians that made it fought to make a beachhead.
“We have to stop them before they raise their marker flag.” Joe yelled
He set down the machine gun and picked up his rifle. There was a loud “CLICK” as he snapped on his bayonet. Sam and many others around them quickly followed suit and they ran off toward the melee. They got there as the last original defender fell. Sam raised his rifle and fired the shot hit an Indian busy re-loading his own musket. Joe and the others did also then charged the Indians. Ahead of them they saw several puffs of smoke and musket bullets flew by. But they kept on running, when they reached the Indians it was over fairly quickly. The Indians mainly used green troops for these charges, so when they got into close quarters many didn’t know what they were doing. Only a couple realized it was hopeless and surrendered.
As the new prisoners were lead away, Joe turned to Sam and pointed to his right arm, “You’re hit Sam.”
Sam look at his arm, a bullet had tore a hole in his shirt. The wound itself amounted to only a minor cut and one hell of a scrape. “Eh, I’ve cut myself worse shaving, don’t think they will be sending me home for it.”
“No probably not, but you better throw some whisky on it so it’s doesn’t get infected.”
Sam grimaced at the thought but knew he had to do it.
Johnson ran up to Joe and Sam with several dozen men in tow, he tried to talk but collapsed sucking in air like a vacuum. A Sergeant stepped out of the group and approached Joe, “Sergeant Miller, here to reinforce.”
“Sergeant Birchfield, glad to see you deploy your men along the trench.” Joe said.
The new Sergeant barked out orders to his men and they ran to take over the positions. He then turned back to Joe, “Got orders here from regional, you and your men are to head back for a little R&R.”
“When?”
“As soon as the current situation was resolved, and looks like it has been.”
Joe nodded, “We’ll take our wounded back to the field tents first.”
Joe informed the men and they started to make stretchers and loaded up the wounded. The battle weary unit shuffled off to the south. After dropping off the wounded at a medical station the continued south to Coventry. Along the way they passed a group of GI’s fresh out of boot.
One of them asked “How is it up there?”
Sam shook his head and replied “You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya.”

Ok next chapter Joe and Sam get some rest and we get to find out what's going on in the other theaters of war.

[Tarquinius]

Good story, you have a nice writing style
I voted for you in the story nominations poll