That was perhaps the worst night of my life. My dreams were haunted, mostly by a ghostly visage of Miles, though Keith and even Davey made a few appearances. Towards the end of the nightmare I saw ten faceless silhouettes, each of them wearing one of those damned watches and glaring at me accusingly. Then I was in the water again, watching as a young man, a comrade whose name I would never know, was struck down before he could even surface. The scene jumped to the nameless Sergeant laying on the beach and his outstretched hand, the other held against his neck in a vain attempt to stifle a torrent of blood. Then to Davey, facedown and dead in a pool of his own blood. Finally the scene shifted to the middle aged French mother who had died to save my life, her throat cut and staring at me as we bled out together. As the light in her eyes faded, the whole scene faded to black.
My eyes shot open as I awoke in a cold sweat. I found myself still lying in a field, just as the sun began to peak above the horizon. I sat up and put my head in my hands, taking several deep breaths and trying to calm myself down. Eventually I sighed and leaned back against the cold ground. I just stared up at the sunrise, the picturesque scene of beauty not reflecting my thoughts at all. I covered my eyes and tried to get back to sleep, but all too soon Sergeant Horvath made the rounds to get everyone up. We ate a subdued breakfast, packed up, and moved out. My legs were finally getting sore from the days of constant movement, but there wasn’t much I could do about it then.
“We’re gonna run out of food if we don’t find him by tomorrow, Captain,” Reiben complained from the front of the group a couple of hours into the day’s march.
“We’re getting close,” Captain Miller replied confidently. “We should be in Ramelle by noon. If Ryan’s alive, he’ll be there.” Reiben just shrugged at that and we continued along, conversing among ourselves. Miller had Reiben on point so I just stuck in the back with Zach and Cora again, not much happening for the next hour or so.
“Did you hear that?” Cora asked, cutting into the silence that had settled in among the three of us.
“What?” I asked back. “I didn’t hear… What the hell?” I heard a rumbling noise off in the distance. Its volume increased, whatever it was steadily approaching us. “Captain?” I called out nervously.
“It’s a half-track! Cover!” I didn’t know what a half-track was, but I dove down just like all the others. We were lucky to once again be in the middle of a field of tall grass. Though the vehicle was somewhat obscured by the grass as it wheeled down the road, it looked like someone had welded the front of a jeep onto a tank. It had no cannon, but there was a pair of wheels in the front with tank treads just behind them. But it didn’t matter much what it looked like anyway, because someone tried to blow it up before it could pass us!
“Who’s doing the shooting?!” Sergeant Horvath called out, before the German vehicle was hit again. This time there was a real explosion, and the front half went up in flames. Apparently it was some kind of troop transport, because several German soldiers popped out of the back and tried to go over the sides. I opened fire on them when they went over, as did a few of the others. We got most of them there, but I definitely saw some of them make it out on the other side.
Miller and Reiben went around the front, and he sent me and Horvath to flank around the back. We checked the ones we’d taken out on the way around, but they were all dead. We heard more gunfire so we hustled up, but it turned out we weren’t really needed. The few enemies that had made it out of the vehicle had been gunned down by Miller and Reiben by the time we got around, so there wasn’t much left to do but check the inside. Jackson and I climbed onto the thing, but they had all either died inside the transport or just outside of it.
“All clear! Drivers burned up, Sir,” Jackson called down to the captain while I hopped off the ruined half-track. As I landed, three paratroopers popped up out of a small ditch a dozen feet away, just on the other side of the road. The one in the middle held a bazooka, but the one on the right began to speak.
“That was a recon element, second SS. We’ve been expecting a probe, that must have been it,” the man, a corporal by the looks of his uniform, stated tiredly. The captain nodded and introduced himself.
“Captain Miller, Charlie Company, 2nd Rangers.” The paratroopers introduced themselves as Corporal Henderson, Private Ryan and PFC Toynbe. We all stared at the self-proclaimed Ryan, the guy in the middle with the bazooka. “James Francis Ryan?” Miller asked incredulously.
“Yes, Sir,” Ryan replied with a nervous smile. “How’d you guess that?”
“Son of a bitch,” Reiben muttered, as Miller suggested we move along and delaying any questions. We made quick time back to Ramelle; apparently we were already on the outskirts of the village. The place had been devastated; not a single building was fully intact, though several remained standing even with missing walls or collapsed roofs. Most of them simply lay in ruin, reduced whilly to rubble. Anyone from the village had long since evacuated or been killed, apparently, as the group of fifteen or so paratroopers were the only ones remaining.
I followed along at the back with my fellow Players, until we reached the bridge and the sandbag bunkers on our side of it. I was out of earshot of the Captain and Corporal Henderson until then, so the first part of the conversation I heard was Miller saying, “We’re here for him- Ryan.” He pointed out Ryan, who had rejoined his buddies and was taking a swig from his canteen . He had also removed his helmet, and was clearly recognizable at that point- he looked just like Matt Damon, as expected.
“Me, Sir?” Ryan called, and Miller just waved him forward.
“This should be good,” Reiben deadpanned, rolling his eyes. We walked onto the bridge while Miller took Ryan off to the side.
“Your brothers were killed in combat,” Miller stated simply, after Ryan asked him what was going on.
“Which-Which ones?” Ryan asked, with a few trembles in his face.
“All of them,” Miller replied, and Ryan just stood there, looking lost.
“On- On the level?” He asked after a few seconds of silence.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Miller replied with a grimace. “Uh, you might want to take some time with this…”
“You, uh… You came all the way out here to tell me that?”
“Well, you’re- You’re going home,” Miller said with a pained smile. “Our orders are to bring you back.”
“Bring me back?” Ryan muttered weakly. Miller stepped away and tried to converse with Corporal Henderson, but Ryan interrupted them. “I have my orders too, Sir. And they don’t include abandoning my post.”
I understand that, but this… changes things,” Miller replied, trying once again to end the conversation there.
“I don’t see that it does, Sir,” Ryan shot back.
“Sir, our orders are to hold this bridge at all cost,” Corporal Henderson argued, taking Ryan’s side. “This is one of only two intact bridges on the Merderet. Frankly, Captain, if we lose it we’re fucked.”
“Private, if your outfit wants to stay, that’s one thing. But your party’s over here.”
“Sir, I can’t leave until at least reinforcements-”
“Hey, asshole!” Reiben interjected. “Four of our guys already died looking for you, alright?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Sir?” Ryan asked the captain, in disbelief.
“That’s right,” Miller admitted, nodding. Ryan approached us after that.
“What were… What were their names?”
“Irwin Wade and Adrian Caparzo,” Mellish stated, then motioned for me to finish the list.
“Keith Norton and Miles Porter,” I added, with a wince.
“Norton, Porter, Wade and…”
“Caparzo.” Ryan walked a few steps away, shaking his head.
“It doesn’t make any sense…” He mumbled, then said it again louder. “It doesn’t make any sense, Sir. Why? Why do I deserve to go?” The private was in full-on rant mode at that point. "Why not any of these guys,“ Ryan continued, pointing out his fellow paratroopers, gathered on the bridge. “They all fought just as hard as me!” I took a moment then to glance around at his stone-faced comrades. He had a point, really.
“Is that what they’re supposed to tell your mother? When they send her another folded American flag?” Miller asked, staring Ryan down.
“Tell her that when you found me, I was here, and I was with the only brothers that I have left,” Ryan said passionately. “And that there’s no way I was gonna desert them. I think she’ll understand that. There’s no way I’m leaving this bridge,” Ryan finished, stomping off to rejoin his comrades. We all just stared at him, some of us with expressions closer to a glare, as he sat down with some of his guys. They tried to comfort him, at least.
“What the hell do we do now?” Jackson asked, but Miller just walked across the bridge, Sergeant Horvath on his heels.
“I don’t want to have come all this way for nothing,” I stated, my eyes flashing between each of my own comrades. “If he won’t leave, maybe… Maybe we should stay?” I suggested. Reiben did not like the sound of that.
“Stay? So more of us can die for this prick?”
“Quinn’s right, Reiben,” Maxley spoke up. “Maybe this is why we’re here- to defend this bridge.”
“Our orders are to save Private Ryan, Maxley,” Reiben shot back.
“The captain said it yesterday, right? ‘Our objective is to win the war.’ I believe God brought us here, Reiben. It’s fate.” Jackson seemed to like the sound of that, though the rest of us remained unconvinced.
“Whatever,” Reiben muttered, shrugging. “Let’s see what the captain has to say about that theory of yours,” he finished, as Miller and Horvath returned. They both had determined looks on their faces as they approached our little cluster.
“We’re staying,” Captain Miller stated with finality. Horvath just nodded while Reiben grimaced. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” Miller said with a glance to Corporal Henderson, taking command. Apparently I’d missed the first declaration, but Corporal Henderson was the highest ranking paratrooper left in the village; their only officer had died in the strikes that destroyed the buildings. “Take us to your armory.”
“Yes, Sir,” Henderson replied, then lead us onwards. The ‘armory’ was really just a pile of weapons and ammo boxes on a table at the bottom of a partially-ruined bell tower, but it was a hell of a lot more than we had. Two machine guns, two bazookas, a handful of grenades and small mines, and some extra rifles and handguns. The captain just stared at the table for a few minutes, thinking the situation over. Planning out our strategy, maybe.
“Alright, here’s what we can do. The Germans will probably bring tanks, right? Don’t answer that, of course they will. We need to split them up- And if we get some of them to come down this main road, the rubble makes a bit of a bottleneck,” Miller declared.
“And if we stop the lead tank right here,” I realized, pointing out the thinnest stretch of the road. “We can pick ‘em off while they’re stuck behind it! Put the mines there too, actually.”
“Exactly,” Miller said, looking at the two and three story buildings on either side of the road, some of them still mostly intact. “Just put them under the rubble, no need to bury anything. Set up a few guys in the higher floors of some of these, rain hell on any infantry following that tank.”
“Okay, Sir, but how the hell do we disable a tank? And what if there’re more?” Reiben asked. It was a good question, really. “We may as well be hitting them with spitwads, for all the good what we’ve got can do against tanks.”
“Well, we could try a sticky bomb,” Miller suggested, starting a round of muffled laughter.
“Sticky bomb, Sir?” Ryan asked, with a smirk.
“Sir, are you making that up?” Henderson asked, matching Ryan’s smirk.
“No, it’s in the field manual! You can check it out if you want to,” Miller shot back confidently.
“We seem to be out of field manuals, Sir. Perhaps you can enlighten us,” Ryan replied.
“You guys have some demolition, right? Some TNT or Composition B?”
“That’s the one thing we’ve got plenty of, Sir,” a paratrooper said, evidently their demo guy. “I got that bridge wired with enough Composition B to blow it twice.”
“Good. You can spare some, then,” Miller said, satisfied. He walked over to the bridge, and sent a couple of guys down in a little boat to reclaim some of the explosives. “To make a sticky bomb, you take a standard issue GI sock, cram it with as much Comp B as it can hold, rig up a simple fuse, then you coat the whole thing with axle grease. So when you throw it, it should stick. It’s a bomb that sticks, the sticky bomb.”
“This is good,’ Reiben started. “Now we gotta surrender our socks.” Once the Comp B had been recovered, I joined in, offering up my own socks and loading them up myself. Miller had some of the paratroopers take them after that, though; apparently I was needed elsewhere.
“Any other ideas?” Miller asked, after gathering up our original squad, plus Corporal Henderson and Ryan.
“One machine gun on the move, falling back as they advance, and another one up high somewhere,” Horvath suggested.
“Jackson and… Michaels, up in that bell tower,” Captain Miller ordered.
“Parker, you too,” Henderson added, calling in one of his men. “Parker’s our machine gun guy, Captain. I’ll take the one on the ground.”
“Alright. Mellish, you stick with Corporal Henderson. Siskou will stay back and hang on to the ammo for Mellish and Henderson. Reiben, Mike, you’re with me. Quinn, Maxley… You two are fast on your feet. Stay with me to start with, but redeploy wherever it seems necessary. Maxley, follow Quinn’s lead.”
“Yes, Sir,” Maxley saluted, looking back to me.
“Henderson, your guys will be with me or in the buildings. Your choice who goes where.” Henderson agreed and went to distribute his men to their positions. “Quinn, you’re gonna draw their attention, try and lure some of them through the chokepoint.”
“Uh, how, Sir?” I asked, nervously. He didn’t expect me to outrun them, did he?
“With that. The rabbit,” Captain Miller replied, pointing to what I could only describe as a travesty of engineering. It was another half-track, but it was more like a bench combined with a motorcycle, but with tank treads behind the front wheel. “One of the Airborne guys will drive, you’ll sit on the back and fire. He’ll make it look like you’re on patrol, go in and out real quick. Think you can handle it?”
“Yes, Sir,” I replied, clutching my rifle a little harder than normal.
“Where am I during all this, Sir?” Ryan asked, everyone else accounted for.
“Never more than two feet away from me.” We spread out after that, getting our positions ready. Jackson and Parker took a rope and a little over half of the 30 cal ammo up the bell tower, then dangled the roped down outside.
“Hey, Zach,” I started, while the two of us tied one of the machine guns up with the rope. Jackson hoisted it up once after I testes the knots and gave a thumbs up. “You remember what happens here, right?” I asked, glancing at the tower.
“Yeah. I’ll watch out for the tank. Try and get them out too if I can,” he suggested, looking back to Jackson and Parker.
“Alright,” I sighed. “I’ll try to take out the tank. Don’t count on me stopping it, just- just stay alive, okay?”
“Got it,” Zach nodded, the teenager wearing a nervous grin. “I’ll see you on the other side of the war, yeah?” I agreed, and he headed up the stairs inside the tower. Cora was helping Mellish and Henderson pick their initial location, as well as a few options for when they had to fall back. I took one last look at the top of the tower and waved, Jackson and Zach waving back. I went to look for Captain Miller, not sure what I was supposed to do next.
“And this position right here,” the captain was saying, when I found him with Maxley, Ryan, and the demo guy, “This is the Alamo. We get pushed back this far, last man alive blows the bridge.” I passed by the captain with a nod, Maxley tagging along with me, and we found Mellish, Reiben and Sergeant Horvath sitting around and smoking on the front steps of one of the buildings. They even had a phonograph going, the record player outdated even by the standards of 1944.
“Hey, isn’t that... Edith Piaf?” Maxley asked, as we approached. Once he mentioned it, I recognized the voice. The song, even.
“Tu Es Partout,” I said, nodding. My grandfather had been a huge fan of hers, much to my grandmother’s chagrin. He’d lost all of his old records at some point, but he still played her songs often enough that I knew most of them.
“What?” Mellish asked, glancing at the record player, then to me.
“It’s the name of the song. Means ‘you are everywhere’,” I replied, then started humming along.
“Hey, you know what this song reminds me of?” Reiben asked out of the blue, while I was humming along.
“What’s that?” Maxley asked him.
“It reminds me of Mrs. Rachel Troubowitz, and what she said to me the day I left for basic,” Reiben started, but Mellish interjected before he could continue.
“What, don’t touch me?
“No, you see, Mrs. Rachel Troubowitz was our super's wife. She comes into my mom's shop to try on a few things, all right? And she's easily like a uh, a 44 double E. These things are massive.” He held his hands out in front of his chest, to leave no confusion on just what was so massive. I stopped humming and watched, interested to see where he was going with it. “And I've got her convinced that she's like a 42D. So we're in the dressing room, she's trying to squeeze into this side cut, silk ribboned, triple panel girdle with the uh, shelf-lift brassiere and it's beautiful because she's just pouring outta this thing, you know?” He did the thing with his hands again before he continued. “It's beautiful. And she sees me and she can tell I got a hard on the size of the statue of liberty, all right? And she says to me, "Richard, calm down." And she says, "Now when you're over there, if you see anything that upsets you, if you're ever scared, I want you to close your eyes… and think of these. You understand?" So I said, "Yes, ma'am." That’s about how it went, yeah.” We’d all thrown in a few comments throughout the story, and had a good laugh at the end. Our fun was cut short soon after though, as the captain called everyone to him.
“Jackson saw two Tigers, two Panzers and fifty plus infantry, less than a mile from here” Captain Miller stated, as we assembled. Four tanks, as expected. “Everyone to your positions. Quinn, hop on the rabbit and get going.” I nodded and clenched my teeth as the driver pulled up, and hopped into the rear seat, my back to the driver’s. Miller gave a few last orders to the others while I readied my BAR.
“Good luck, Quinn!” Sergeant Horvath called out, before he took cover with the others.
“Thanks, Sarge,” I muttered. I took a deep breath and, ready as I’d ever be, I tapped twice on the side of the vehicle and said, “Let’s go!”