I watched as my allies faded in the distance, the unnamed paratrooper driving forward into the heart of the enemy’s position. I gave one last salute, then turned my head towards the Germans’ supposed position. We heard them a bit before they came into view, the obnoxious engines of their tanks drowning out any other noise. The driver turned the rabbit towards them and did a quick U-turn just after we came into their view, and I opened fire. Jackson had been right; with just a brief glance I was sure there were at least fifty infantry marching alongside their tanks. More than twice the number of men we had, even if you exclude the tank crews. Even though I couldn’t line up a good shot from the moving vehicle, we had the Germans enfiladed perfectly, so I didn’t really have to. I was able to drop at least two of the infantrymen right at the start, before they really knew we were there. They seemed split on what to do; some of them took cover behind their tanks, while others stood their ground and fired back. The paratrooper began swerving once he heard the gunfire. The evasive maneuver kept us fairly safe, somehow, with only a few bullets reaching the vehicle, but it also ruined my chances of taking down many more of them. I’m pretty sure I only got one more of them on the way out. But, that didn’t really matter. We were just bait anyway.

We sped away from them, hoping to lead them straight into our allies’ waiting hands. I stopped firing and put my head down, pretending to reload and giving the barrel a chance to cool off. We quickly made it back to the others, the paratrooper dropping me off by a crater that had been blasted into the street. Captain Miller, Ryan, Reiben, Maxley and a couple of Airborne troops were in the pit, so I joined them right away, dropping down between Ryan and Maxley.

“At least fifty, like you said, Captain,” I told him, catching my breath.

“They take the bait?” Miller asked back, peeking out of the foxhole.

“I don’t know, Sir.” I just shrugged and joined him, watching the street. All was still for several seconds, but soon enough a pair of the tanks rolled by, the Panzers, I think. The next was another half-track, carrying half a dozen troops and accompanied by another fifteen or so. They passed us by, just like the Panzers.

The Tiger tanks, however, were a different story altogether. The leading Tiger stopped in the middle of the street and turned, heading down the street and straight for us, the very ground beginning to shake as the monstrosity closed in. A couple dozen German infantry followed close behind, unknowingly marching right into the jaws of death.

Someone detonated all of our handful of mines as the infantry passed them, the explosion taking out half a dozen or so of the enemy but, more importantly, sewing confusion into their ranks. Our two machine gunners fired on their scattering ranks, killing several more. The captain yelled for Henderson and Mellish to displace and find a new position, while a paratrooper ran out from one of the buildings along the street, one of our sticky bombs in hand. He ran unimpeded to the tank, but he’d lit the fuse too early and he couldn’t place it fast enough. The bomb went off in his hands, blowing him to smithereens and raining dust and body parts down on the Tiger tank, which was unfortunately undamaged.

“Holy shit!” I called out, trembling as the dead soldier’s bloody helmet rolled off of the tank and to the ground. Miller grimaced and turned away, ordering the other two paratroopers to try their hand at the tank with their own sticky bombs. I had planned to volunteer to go for the tank, but I just couldn’t do it after that; I wanted nothing to do with the damned sticky bombs.

“Thirty infantry on the right flank!” The captain called out, presumably getting more signals from Jackson up in the tower. He ordered the ground machine gun team, Henderson and Mellish, to displace again. They got out just in time, too; the Tiger tank fired a shell straight into their vacated position, blasting the ground apart. In the aftermath of the explosion, dust and debris rained down on Cora, who I noticed for the first time since I’d gotten back. She had remained several yards behind the machine gunners, and was safeguarding most of their extra ammo. She dashed out before the smoke could clear, carrying an ammo box in each hand and what looked like two machine gun belts wrapped around her neck, and ran to follow Mellish into a building across the street. I tried to cover her, firing a few shots before and after she passed through my line of fire. She made into the building just fine.

I kept firing as a few more enemy soldiers came into sight, and the tank continued to advance. The paratrooper duo crawled out of the foxhole and crept towards the nearby tank, their bombs’ fuses already lit. They slapped them onto the thing’s wheels and rushed back to the relative safety of our little crater.

“Get down! Get! Down!” Miller barked, pushing Ryan down as the rest of us went prone and held down on our helmets. My ears rang for a few seconds after the detonation, but the Tiger was finally immobilized, the treads on our side breaking off. A half-track tried to roll up behind it, but someone dropped a couple of molotov cocktails right into it, presumably torching everyone inside. Several enemy infantry poured out of it, burning up and wailing. The others ignored them, but I shot three that had run in my direction. The others had to worry about conserving their ammo, but I certainly didn’t!

I had gone over this battle with Keith several times, and on my own many more times after his death, so I knew exactly what was coming next.

The immobilized Tiger turned its cannon towards us, ready to fire one last shot, even as the others jumped out of the pit to capture the tank. Miller ordered Ryan to stay, and led everyone else out of the pit.

“Hey, Maxley, this way,” I said, tapping my redheaded squadmate’s shoulder, just as he began to climb out.  He looked at me curiously but followed me back into the foxhole. “Hurry!” I shouted back, lifting Ryan to his feet.

I pushed Ryan forward, to what would have been our right flank had we stayed in the foxhole. We moved him past the buildings on our side of the street and I pushed him to the ground like Miller had done moments earlier.

“Maxley, get down!” I called, before pressing my helmet down once again. Maxley followed my command, copying my movement.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Ryan demanded beneath me, before the tank fired. “Shit!” He shouted then, closing his eyes.

“Ryan, Maxley, get up!” I ordered, pulling the young paratrooper to his feet. “I saw a flak gun coming- 20-mil!”

“Where?!” Ryan shouted back, as we leaned against the nearby building’s wall.

“I didn’t see it, Quinn,” Maxley reported, looking back to the street and the tank. I followed his gaze and watched as Captain Miller jammed his Thompson into a slit on the front of the tank and opened fire. I watched until the paratroopers climbed aboard, then turned back to Maxley and Ryan, knowing we needed to move fast.

“It’s coming from the right side- We go through this building, we can get a good flank off! Got it?” They agreed, so we ran into the building, finding that an exit had been blasted into the opposite side. I checked outside and it was mostly clear, so I slipped through the hole and helped Ryan and Maxley through. “You stay low, just follow me!” I called back to them, as we ran across a street then took cover behind a pile of rubble, the ruins of an old house. I told Ryan to stay prone and I knelt behind a chunk of the roof, watching as four enemy soldiers wheeled a massive flak cannon right past us. It was a fucking anti-aircraft gun, but they intended to shoot our paratroopers as they stormed the tank. We weren’t going to let that happen.

Once they had their backs to me I simply popped up, drawing out one of my two remaining grenades. I pulled the pin and threw it into their midst but opened fire before it could land. Maxley followed suit, firing until we heard the familiar PING! of his M1 Garand. First I shot the one to my right; he looked like he might have been an officer. Half a dozen rounds pierced into his back and he collapsed immediately, the others shouting and trying to turn around. Maxley had elected to shoot the one furthest to our left, dropping him as well.  Before either of the remaining two could even draw a weapon the grenade detonated, and I fired into the smoke before it could clear. They were all dead by the time it cleared, so shooting might not have been necessary. Oh well.

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“Can we use it?!” Ryan asked me, peeking over the rubble.

“I think so! Let’s spin it around so we can shoot anyone else that comes from there!” I pointed towards the street the gunners had pushed it down. As far as I knew, there should be thirty or so infantry and another tank coming soon. We could just ditch the thing when the tank showed up. The three of us bounded over the wall and sprinted for the flak gun, staying as low as we could. We were able to reach it with no further complications and got it turned around easily enough. The thing was damn heavy, but at least nobody was shooting at us while we did it.

“Now what?” Ryan asked, looking ahead of us.

“Ryan, go back to the Captain! Through the building again, like before. Maxley, take him there and come back. We’ll man the gun for a bit.”

“Sure thing, Quinn,” Maxley acknowledged, herding a disgruntled Ryan back through the hole in the wall we’d climbed out of. I tried to familiarize myself with the weapon while he was away. I couldn’t find a trigger, though I was suspicious of a pair of pedals at the bottom of the cannon. I still wasn’t sure exactly how to reload the thing. Maxley returned soon enough.

“The Captain’s pissed, but he was glad to hear about this thing,” Maxley admitted. “Could have ripped our guys to shreds. Good eyes, Quinn.” I just smiled weakly at that, then readied myself.

“I’ll shoot. You know how to reload this thing?” I inquired, still unsure how to actually do it.

“Sure. These boxes,” he started, indicating a pair of ammo boxes one of the soldiers must have carried. He opened one up and continued. “Yeah, these are full of mags. Should be twenty rounds each. You slot them in on the sides, here,” he showed me, loading the cannons. The thing had four barrels, two stacked up on each side, and each one had to be loaded individually. We got it ready just in time, as a whole squad of Nazi soldiers turned a corner and came into view. I stepped onto the right pedal, and the two barrels on the right began to shoot.

Several of the bewildered Nazis were torn apart in the first wave, but the cannon ate through the ammo in seconds. I moved my foot back and tried the other pedal, continuing to rain havoc on the enemy before us. Some of them tried to fire back while a few tried to run, but their bullets ricocheted off the thing harmlessly, while I mowed them down. None of them were even able to escape; after only two sets of mags for each barrel, at least twenty Nazis lay dead before us.

“This thing is nuts,” Maxley astutely observed, as he reloaded it again. “Quinn, we’re just about out of-” He was interrupted by the tremble of the ground in front of us. “Shit! Another tank!”

“We’re leaving, now!” I commanded. Maxley had no arguments, so we ran back to the original building as the tank rounded the corner. They fired once, blasting the flak cannon to bits. Presumably they hadn’t realized it was abandoned; the idiots blew up their own heavy weapon.

“We’re back, Captain!” I called out, once we found Miller, Reiben, Horvath, Ryan and the bevy of paratroopers. They were starting to fall back, as the Germans’ superior numbers threatened to overwhelm them. I was happy to see that they had taken out the tank without any casualties; going for the flak gun had really paid off.

“Quinn! Fall back, now!” Captain Miller shouted back, from the other side of the street. We’d have to go right through the enemy’s line of fire to rejoin them, so we stayed on our side and moved back. The remaining tank rolled into the street soon, another batch of soldiers close behind it. The Captain and his group halted and found cover again, firing on the Nazi soldiers as they took cover of their own. Maxley and I entered another building and found a window, the glass long-since shattered, from which we could shoot. We held our fire, though, as the tank was the only target we had sight of. As Reiben had so eloquently stated earlier, our weapons may as well have been spitwads against that thing.

“What now?” Maxley asked, exasperated. I didn’t think there was much we could do at the moment, and I was about to tell him that, when the tank’s cannon began to move. I froze at that, my eyes wide. The tank wasn’t aiming at us; the cannon was pointed upwards at about forty five degrees. Right at the bell tower!

“Zach!” I shouted, then bolted through the window.

“Where the hell are you going?!” Maxley implored from the rear. “Quinn?!”

I charged for the tank as fast as I could; fortunately the tank itself gave me complete defilade from the rest of the Nazis. I climbed onto the side and reached for the hatch, but I was too late. The tank fired on the bell tower, wrecking the top floor of the tower, parts of the roof collapsing. I was too close to the cannon, as well; my left eardrum ruptured and I was dazed for several seconds, simply leaning on the tank and holding my left hand to the ruined ear.

“Quinn!” Maxley broke me out of my reverie, shaking me by the shoulder. He had joined me on the tank at some point, apparently.

“Fuck! Maxley, open the hatch!” I demanded, my voice unintentionally raised to compensate for my half-deaf state. He didn’t argue, climbing up the tank and pulling it open just like I’d asked. He held it open while I shoved my BAR into it, firing wildly inside the vehicle for several seconds. Then I drew the rifle back and took at my final grenade, pulled the pin, and dropped it in. “Close it! Run!” Maxley complied, and we ran back, jumping through the window again.

We stayed down as the grenade exploded, then cautiously checked out the window. Smoke billowed out of the tank and Maxley said he didn’t hear anyone moving inside, so we were ready to move on.

“What happens next?” I thought out loud, holding a hand over my ear again. “Uh… Shit! Mellish! Maxley, come on!” I led Maxley back outside, and headed toward the last building Corporal Henderson and Private Mellish had occupied. It was just on the other side of the ruined tank, actually. Outside it we found Cora Siskou, trembling and holding her handgun and a box of ammo.

“Lee!” She called out fearfully as we approached, and pointed towards a staircase. “Five men went up!” I just nodded and told her and Maxley to stay downstairs. I handed her my rifle and drew my own handgun, switched off the safety, then charged up the staircase. I could hear Mellish wailing for help, my name and Reiben’s both coming up frequently, and the two men were constantly yelling. I leaped over the bodies of four Nazi soldiers just outside the room, then burst in. There I found both Mellish and the fifth Nazi soldier, along with Henderson’s corpse. Mellish was on his back with the Nazi on top of him, slowly lowering a bayonet towards his chest. I quickly put the gun to the man’s head and pulled the trigger, then kicked him before he collapsed. I fired a few shots into the soldier’s chest, just to be sure, then knelt down next to Mellish, both of us totally out of breath.

“Holy shit! Are- Are you alright?” I asked, as he just stared at the ceiling and breathed.

“Yeah. I’m- Fuck! I’m alright.” He sat up and stared at the soldier who almost killed him - who indeed did kill him, in the movie - and pried the bayonet out of the dead man’s hands, sliding it back onto his belt. “Henderson… Shit,” Mellish sighed, the Airborne corporal dead on the floor. He’d been shot in the neck, and his hands lay at his sides, covered in blood.

“Let’s go!” I finally decided, once we’d fully caught our breaths. “Maxley and Siskou are downstairs!” Mellish agreed and we got out of there, stepping right past the soldiers he and Henderson had killed before I arrived. I switched the safety back on and re-holstered my weapon once I saw that the coast was clear. Once we got down I reclaimed the BAR, then before I could say anything Sergeant Horvath hobbled over to us; he’d been shot through the leg.

“Come on! We’re going to the Alamo!” Horvath ordered, so we all followed him. Apparently the Germans had still managed to push forward, even with all the work I’d put into the battle. We ran for the bridge as the Germans opened fire on us, though Maxley and I turned to shoot back a few times. We naturally fell to the back of the group, and the others made it back in good time. Before we could get to the bridge, though, I heard Maxley yell something from my left side.

“What?!” I hollered back, unable to hear him clearly.

“Run! Panzer!” He shouted again, looking back. I looked as well, just in time to see a tank’s cannon zeroing in on us.

“Fuck!” We both shrieked, when the cannon’s motion ceased. Then it fired.

We tried to spread out, but the shell hit the ground just beneath Maxley’s feet. Shane Maxley’s lower body was annihilated by the blast, killing him almost instantly. I wasn’t quite in its radius, but the force of the explosion still knocked me backwards off my feet and I rolled into a ditch on the side of the road. My BAR clatter to the ground next to me and my helmet flew off.

“Fuck! Fuck!” I shouted, shakily rolling over. I’d landed hard on my left side, probably breaking a few of my ribs again. I quickly reclaimed the rifle and the helmet, then crawled my way up the side of the ditch, staying as low to the ground as possible. I poked my head out, only to find a dozen or so Germans lined up right in front of me, using our own sandbag bunkers on my side of the bridge as cover against the other American soldiers on their side. The way they had lined up, though, was just too easy.

I set up my BAR in front of me and stayed prone, then opened fire on their line. I ducked my head down but held the rifle steady and squeezed down on the trigger for a solid thirty seconds, turning it blindly. I finally released the trigger and slid back down a few feet. I took shallow, ragged breaths as I stared up into the sky, hoping that the battle would end faster. I heard someone shouting in German, then Nazi soldiers appeared at the top of the ditch. I shakily raised my rifle once again and perforated one of them, but the other fired three shots at me before I could turn my weapon to him. I still managed to hit him, and he fell into the ditch with me, the other one stumbling backwards. Two of his shots hit true, one piercing my right shoulder and the other penetrating my abdomen.

He actually fell right onto me, his elbow jabbing right into my already fractured ribs. I coughed up blood at that, the pain shooting through my entire body, but I saw him struggling to get up. Groaning, I grabbed the knife off of his belt with my left hand and jabbed it into his side over and over again, until he finally went still. I struggled to push him off of me, then stretched out my arm to grab my BAR. I held the rifle against my chest, heaving and fighting for whatever breath I could, staring into the sky and waiting.

It was less than a minute later that it finally happened; I heard another explosion, then several planes flew by overhead. P-51s. Our planes. I breathed a sigh of relief, but blood continued to pool in my mouth. I couldn’t even move my right arm anymore, much less stand up, so I just waited, fighting for every breath I took.

After several minutes of my seemingly-futile struggle to cling onto my life, the watch started beeping. Or, the beeping had finally grown loud enough that I could hear it with only one working ear. I turned my left wrist, revealing the screen. It simply read:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

RETURN TO ISLAND NOW

YES / NO

I laughed, regretted it immediately, then moved the watch to my face, and pressed the YES button with my chin. The pain disappeared immediately, along with the din of battle. I smiled and laughed, not entirely sure whether I was dying or being transported to the mysterious Island. Then everything faded to black.