Summary: The last quarter of Montebourg, still through Anon's eyes. Man this place took a WHILE. Chapter Text Fang and Trish followed behind me at a low crawl, as Reed remained with the tanks and infantry towards the rear. We were re-assessing the German Field HQ I'd stumbled upon, now that we'd pulled a successful defense of our own HQ area out of our asses at the last second. The three of us crept up to where I'd stopped a while ago, and wedged ourselves into the hedgerows as Trish dug a small notepad out of her uniform. “Okay.” Fang muttered, as the two of us began to look over the headquarters. “I see an AT gun by the far entrance there. Looks like there might be a second one outside of the stone wall.” “Looks like it.” I nodded, pointing forwards. “I count one mortar too, and at least two machine guns. One there, in the barn, and another over behind those sandbags in the middle.” “I see ‘em.” Fang nodded. “Looks like maybe a third up on the top floor of the manor house?” I swept my gaze up to the manor's third floor, and gave it a look-over. Yep. “Yeah, definitely. Second window from the left. Got a count on infantry yet?” “I'd hazard a platoon still. Doesn't look like they have any tanks left.” “Thank fucking God.” I sighed. “We'll be generous and say thirty or so for good measure?” “Makes sense to me.” Trish nodded, rubbing her forehead in annoyance. “Let's get outta here, these dumb bushes are scratchy as hell.” I held in my sarcastic comments; I'd just made temporary peace. The two of us shitting on each other could wait until we were out of this Godforsaken French village. “After you two.” I finally decided on saying, diplomatically. The three of us crept back through the bushes and back to Reed, who was waiting patiently with Trish's tanks and Fang's infantry platoon. We stood around the shermans for a minute, standing in the abandoned manor that Dog Company had originally been ambushed in. Wrecks and German bodies still littered the area, since it'd only really been an hour or so max since all of this shit went down. “OK.” Trish began, looking back over her shorthand notes. Ha. Short. “So we're guessing thirty or so German infantry. Three machine guns. A mortar. Two AT guns. Did I miss anything?” Fang shook her head. “No, that should be all of it. Let's talk about cracking the walnut, then. There's a couple entryways, but I don't think either of them are particularly good. ” “We could break down the stone wall with our tanks, that'd give us a bit more breathing room, yo.” Reed hummed, as Fang used her boot to draw a facsimile of the manor HQ. “Of course, that'd also put us directly in front of the AT guns, which is not particularly ideal.” “Makes me wish we had some artillery of our own.” I sighed, shaking my head. “Yeah.” Reed grunted, then shrugged. “The tanks can probably take a hit or two from the AT guns, but those MGs will definitely shred you guys if you're not careful.” “Yeah, I would definitely rather not deal with that again.” I frowned, tapping a finger against my cheek. “Do we have any mortars of our own, maybe?” “Sure, back at the rally point.” Fang shrugged. “Wouldn't hurt to bring them up here I don't think.” She turned to her platoon, and pointed out six of the men. “You six, go ahead and bring up a couple tubes and ammo.” “On it, Sarge.” the Rifleman nodded, as he and the other five moved off and back down the road towards the rally point. “Ok. We'll give them a couple minutes to catch up, and then get started. I think what'll be best will be to hit the AT guns with the mortars, then roll the tanks in and use them to body-block for the infantry.” Fang continued, as we sketched out the manor in a more thorough manner. We marked out the AT gun and MG positions, the mortar pit, and the general areas that the German infantry were sitting around in. “We could probably hit them from the front and the side, I think.” I added, pointing out the two AT gun positions. “Once these are dealt with, anyways. We took care of their armored support, so once those guns are gone we can just stroll the tanks in and call it a day.” “Pretty much.” Reed nodded, standing back up and clambering up towards his Sherman tank. From there, it was just waiting for the mortars to show back up. They arrived a few minutes into our wait, lugging with them the wonderfully useful m2 60mm mortar tubes we needed. I hope the krauts liked being on the receiving end of the artillery this time, the fuckers. Fang and I split the platoon in half - each of us taking one of the mortar crews - and got into position with the tanks to assault the HQ. As planned, the mortars opened up first, the steady twump of their tubes launching shells filling the air around us. We gave them about half a minute - waited until the thud of the shells coming back in, followed promptly by the explosive detonations of the short barrage of shells - before the tanks turned their engines over. With the shermans pushing through the stone walls surrounding the manor HQ, I led my group of infantry in behind them, as the panicked shout of angry Germans filled the cramped manor square. Fang's squad was doing the same on their end of the manor, as we all advanced under the cover of Trish's Sherman Squadron. No anti-tank gun fire rose to meet us, meaning our mortar crews’ efforts had been successful. That didn't mean we could be lazy, however, as bullets from German MGs rattled and snapped around us, ricochets flying everywhere as they bounced off the shermans with a loud clattering of metal on metal. The shermans, for their part, began blasting away at the krauts with machine guns and cannons, as we did our best ourselves to return fire towards the surviving Germans. The machine guns fell silent as our two groups began to converge on the center of the manor, and within a minute or two, we'd cleared the manor itself out, with only minor casualties. A far cry from earlier in the morning. Fang and I stood around the center of the square, and shared a smoke, as Trish and Reed hopped out of their Sherman to join us. Trish declined a cigarette herself, but Reed took Fang up on their offer, and lit it with a match as we surveyed our handiwork. “Not fuckin’ half bad.” Trish grinned, planting her hands firmly on her hips. “Fuck these fascist cocksuckers.” She continued, as the rest of the platoon took a short breather and counted out ammunition. “Yeah.” I began, then paused, as I blew smoke out my mouth gently. “But now we gotta go take the road past town.” “Ugh. Don't remind me, sk-jerk.” I shrugged. I'd take Jerk over skinnie any day of the week. “Unfortunately, we still gotta do it.” “Yeah.” Fang sighed, shaking their head. “I'm gonna give Mckay a heads up, tell him that the HQ is dealt with and that we can get everyone moving on up the road again.” I gave the ptero a nod, and returned to my cigarette as she walked off to use her radio set. Reed slid in next to me, as Trish just watched Fang go, then nodded and moved back towards her Sherman, clambering up into it without a look back. Yeah. Didn't think we were making any progress, but that just confirmed it. Whatever. “Yo.” Reed greeted, with a thumbs up. I shrugged, and returned one of my own. “Yo. How's driving a tank going?” “Pretty chill.” Reed nodded, watching Trish's Sherman with some sort of cool glint in his eye. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and after taking a deep breath, flexed it back and forth between his fingers, threatening to snap it between the sharp claws. “Kinda already over this whole video game crap, but it's what it is. Fang mentioned they'd talked to some sort of benefactor guy, you know anything about that?” He locked eyes with me. Suddenly I remembered that, for all his friendly kind stoner boy exterior, Reed was, in fact, a velociraptor. I did not like that look, no fucking sir. I blinked. “Yeah uh, we both did.” He nodded, and stuck the cigarette back in his mouth. His eyes softened back up, and he gestured for me to continue. What the hell had that been about? “We're all apparently stuck here until we ‘reach the end of the story’, or some shit.” I paraphrased, complete with complementary air quotes. “I'm guessing that means the end of whatever game we're in.” “Right. Word.” Reed nodded, then sighed. “This being an RTS lookin’ place, I bet it's gonna be a long haul. How long have you two been here so far?” “About a week I think? ” I replied, with some confusion. “We started out on Omaha Beach, then got sent off to the airborne landings the night before that.” I began, as the pink raptor cocked his head in interest. “Yeah it was weird as shit. Jumping out of planes a couple times because we kept dying was uh.” I stopped. “Well.” I stopped again. “Let's just say I was glad our pants were turd brown, and leave it at that.” “Yikes. And after that?” He snickered, as I rolled my eyes in good humor. He was being earnest, I could respect that. “We met up with some other airborne dudes like Lieutenant Taggart and Corporal Carota - they're over in Dog Company right now, you rescued them earlier today. After that, we spiked some AA guns, shot up a German convoy, and called it a day. Night. Whatever.” “That time between night and not-night.” Reed chuckled, as I shared a grin. We paused to take respective drags on our slowly waning cigarettes, tapping ash out onto the ground below us. I guess Mckay had something else for Fang to do because that radio call was taking a long ass time - not that I minded, a bit of dude to dude chat was almost never a bad thing. “Yeah, that. A few hours later we were marching onto Carentan. That fight cost us a couple resets because the Germans dug in pretty good, but we powered through it. It was… actually pretty nice, working with Fang. They're pretty good at this whole soldier thing. Not sure they're enjoying it, but, y'know.” “Yeah. And then we came up a couple hours later, and bailed you out. Cool.” Reed finished summing up, as Fang finally began to walk back towards us, having hung up the radio and her chat with Mckay. “Yeah, thanks for that by the way. It was pretty touch and go and that was good fuckin’ timing.” “Hey, it's what we do, yo.” Reed gave me one last thumbs up, as we tossed our dead cigarettes, and looked to Fang. Trish took a minute to re-open the hatch to her tank, as Fang waved at her, and gave us the details. “Ok, I spoke to Mckay. The Red Ball Express is gonna start rolling up behind us, but he's tasking Third and Fourth platoon to keep an eye on the flanks. We'll take first and link up with the second platoon in Montebourg proper, then start moving down the road. Mckay took some time to call up a couple minesweepers because the second platoon ran into mines on the road, so we’ll have to give them all covering fire as we advance.” “Ahh, that's why you were on the phone for a while.” I snarked politely, which Fang nodded in reply to. “Yeah, Mac-man wasn't too happy with second platoon. But hey, we'll get it done.” For once today, I was actually feeling reasonably confident that we could. --- I ducked behind Trish and Reed’s Sherman with a curse on my lips, shakily reloading my Springfield Rifle as the tank rocked with a cannon shot it'd sent out at a German AT gun. We were crawling up the road - slowly - as the combat engineers worked under heavy fire to clear the kraut mines out of the roadway. Next to me, Fang finished re-loading her BAR and stood with it shouldered. Planting the body of the rifle against the top of the Sherman, she used the tank as a makeshift firing position to dump more accurate shots down-range. About halfway through their magazine, Fang ducked back down behind the tank next to me, wincing as rifle fire pinged off the side of the armored box we were cowering behind. “Fuck me they do not want us to have this road.” They swore, as I snorted in agreement. To our side, a Squad of infantry bounded across the crossroad we'd reached, one of their ten taking a bullet square to the jaw as he went - and leaving him a lifeless pile in the middle of the road. This was starting to get really bloody, and our numbers weren't going to be great at keeping this up, if the Germans continued to stay dug in this heavily. Nothing for it, though. “Yeah well, fuck them, it's our road, they can suck my dick over it.” I bitched, drawing a flush of red from the ptero, who nearly doubled over in laughter immediately after. “Holy fuck, Anon, you need to warn people before you do that. Fuckin’ hell, telling the nazis to go suck your dick over a road was not on the bucket list for today.” She snarked, as we both rose to fire a couple shots at the krauts again. Reed began to roll his and Trish's tank forwards, so Fang turned back and waved their troops forwards as we followed along behind it, firing on the Germans as we moved. “Yeah well, they're pissing me off.” I answered matter of factly. “I'm getting really sick of this road, honestly.” And I was, too. We'd cleared the HQ about half an hour ago, meaning we were now about two fucking hours into this reset. God fucking help me if one of us keels over and dies before we complete the objectives, I'm suck-starting my .45 just to take a break for a few fucking minutes before we have to fight our way across the entire French countryside again. It was kinda depressing to think so cavalierly about shooting myself. Scratch that, it was really depressing to be cavalier about shooting myself, but holy shit was I sick of this portion of France. If I ever got myself out of this hellscape, I was buying a flight to France specifically to go piss on someone's grave over here. Fuck. This. We continued forcing our way up the road, inch by fucking inch, as tank shells and machine gun rounds flew all over the damned place. The krauts still had a Stug III or two lurking about that were giving our tanks trouble, but most of our issues were coming from MG nests and AT positions. We had a good rhythm though, finally. Trish and Reed would crawl forwards a few feet until they took contact. If it was a machine gun, they'd deal with it using their Sherman. If it was an AT gun, we'd push Fang's platoon forwards, and have them clear the site. If it was a mixture of both - sometimes supported by infantry - we'd work in tandem, and also try and direct mortar shots into the hard points. We had the damned things, we might as well make use of them. Slowly, but surely, we worked to clear the road, as our second platoon did the same, parallel to us on the other end of town. The krauts would shoot at us, we'd shoot back at them, it was just about the most frustrating thing in the world. But eventually, we stopped taking contact. The engineers stopped finding mines. The road was secure. Mckay called the company to a halt a couple miles past Montebourg, and ordered us to plant pickets for the day, before settling down to rest. Apparently another friendly unit past us, from the other beach, had cleared the way for the Red Ball up to the next town of note: Cherbourg. The four of us not quite friends sat down atop Trish's pockmarked Sherman - it'd need some repairs before we next saw any serious combat - and watched the Red Ball Express as it trundled past us up the road. Apparently the Red Ball Express meant priority freight - and tons of it - in the form of ammo, tank shells, food, clothing… anything and everything that could be used by an army. It was an unending convoy of trucks that apparently stretched from the Normandy Beaches, past us, and now all the way to the gates of the port city of Cherbourg. Watching the sunset over the French hedgerows, as the unending line of trucks continued on into the late evening, we all realized that Cherbourg was likely where we were headed next. If Mckay was having us stop for long enough to rest up, he was expecting a hell of a fight ahead of us. After Montebourg… I didn't know if I could do it all over again. Not like that. That fight had been… exhausting. Was this what being a soldier was like back then? Just one firefight after another? What about back home, in the modern day? All the more reason to go to college. All the more reason I'd studied my ass off to avoid all this. Trish and Reed called it quits for the evening. Fang and I sat atop the tank, keeping our voices low as we just… talked for a bit. Fang talked to me about their band, Wurm Drama. Not about how cruddy their music was, but just… how it got started, about a year and a half back when everyone was afraid about a meteor strike hitting the earth and killing… everything. About how that hadn't ended up happening, obviously, but they'd enjoyed playing their music together and so they'd kept at it, even if people laughed, and jeered, and told them they were shitty musicians. I talked about my own background a bit, in turn. Nothing super drastic, but that I'd left Rock Bottom High because of how harshly I'd been bullied, myself. I didn't budge on telling them why I'd been bullied, but… it felt good, honestly, just talking things through with a non judgemental ear. Maybe I'd been wrong about these guys. Fang eventually turned in themselves, leaving me to my thoughts as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. I'd gotten off onto the wrong foot with Trish pretty immediately, but… Honestly, I'd been as much to blame for that as she had. Shit. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, and with a sigh, hopped off the Sherman to find myself a spot to unfurl my rucksack's sleeping bag. Fang had just sort of listened, as I unloaded some of my own frustrations onto her. Didn't jeer, didn't bitch. Just… listened. I thought back to Carentan. I owed her an apology. I'd tried being helpful, and maybe I had, but… what I'd said was rude, and I hadn't even so much as said ‘sorry’ about it. Just told her that my opinion didn't matter, and that she should just ignore my opinion. But that wasn't an apology, and that wasn't fair to Fang or her band. So… An apology. And maybe a request to start over and try being friends, or something. Not the worst idea I've had. [NOTES] Finally, we are DONE with the Red Ball Express. I ended up cutting a couple scenes - action and dialogue out so that I wouldn't have to stay in Montebourg for ANOTHER 3000 words. I think it works better without them, personally, but hey, let me know what you guys think. Cheers, TOGN