Sarge

There was blood on the deck of the battleship. Not a lot, but enough to cover the rising sun on the turret, the torso of the rocket ship pilot, and the laser he fired. It might have been the Fifty-seven’s gunner’s blood. The Tiger’s cannon had obliterated the light anti-tank gun, and a three-finger thick shard from the gun’s shield now protruded from the gunner’s eye, but he didn’t care. He was dead.

It might have been Fatman’s; the MG-34 had chewed his arm up good. And Fatman did care. He cared so much that Staff Sergeant John Jay Stauffer could still hear him screaming through the din of the firefight, and Doc had him three buildings back. Either way, it didn’t matter. There was blood on the deck, right below the “Amazing Stories” logo.

Sergeant Stauffer loved the science fiction magazine. Hell, he loved any fiction that took him away from a reality of buzzing bullets, exploding bombs, and crushing responsibility. He scooped up the magazine from where it had fallen, and stuffed it into his back pocket.

“What now, Sarge?” Beside him, crouching in the rubble of the Italian building, Private Migliore screamed to be heard. Stauffer didn’t know how he did that with a cigarette in his mouth, but do it he did. Next door the squad’s—his squad’s— BAR hammered, its target the German MG-34 up the street. But who the hell cared about an MG-34? That wasn’t the problem.

Migs banged off the last two rounds from his Garand, and the clip popped with a load ping. He flipped to his back to reload, and once again the MG-34 tore into their position, its 7.92mm bullets chipping stone, and sparking off the brick road in front of their position. But that wasn’t the problem.

Thunder cracked, and the BAR’s firing position disintegrated. Stauffer raised an inch above the rubble, hoping the smoke and dust from the explosion would hide his curiosity, hoping someone from the BAR’s position had survived.

They hadn’t.

To his right, seventy meters distant, a Sherman flamed furiously. That had been the Company Commander’s solution to the problem. To his left, no more that than the length of a soccer pitch away, sat a German Tiger. A disabled Tiger, Fatman—before he got his arm shredded— and Hillbilly had made sure of that, but a Tiger nonetheless.  That was the problem.

“Sarge?” It was Migs again, always questioning.

Stauffer nodded. “Shut up and let me think, Migs.”

There wasn’t much to think. The Fifty-seven was kaput, the Bazooka team down, the Sherman in flames. Stauffer’s eyes scanned the rubbled room—two wounded at the back, Smitty and Hollywood, Migs with his M-1, and Hillbilly with a bent Bazooka launcher. Not much. His gaze swept to Migs’ feet, beside them lay the last satchel charge. Waiting. Stauffer couldn’t risk anymore of his men. Couldn’t live with that.

He grabbed the satchel and rose to a crouch. “Cover me,” he yelled.  

[Picture courtesy Vadim Makarenko]

[Written for Collins Epic Wargames]