It was my turn to give pause.
“I’ve no fucking idea,” I finally said.
“Good,“ Richard replied. “Plane lands at nine tonight. Pack light.”
About the Author:
I'm a 30-something blogger, writer, and gamer living in Boston. I've got a degree in Film and a minor in Classical Studies, which has come in real handy when I watch and write about movies, but otherwise hasn't done a lot to support my current career in higher education technology management.
Since those awkward grade school years, when all the other kids are reading Where The Red Fern Grows and Charlotte's Web and I was reading Able Team, Phoenix Force, and Vietnam War memoirs, I've had a love of the genre I've come to call "Post Modern Pulp Fiction". This genre has influenced my writing for over 20 years. I tend to believe there's a lot more going on behind the scenes of this genre than a lot of people believe. This novel is an attempt to tap into some of those themes and conventions and write something I hope you enjoyed.
I'm also something of a military history and technology dork. Growing up in the wilds of Alaska during the Cold War, you had to be able to tell if those were F-15s or Su-27s flying over your town, right? You also got pretty familiar with guns, knives, snares and traps, gutting your own wild game kills, and a lot of other disturbing childhood anecdotes that explain a lot, some twenty-five years later.
My blog, Post Modern Pulp: http://www.postmodernpulp.com
You can find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jack
.badelaire
You can also find me on Twitter: @jbadelaire
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming World War II adventure novel COMMANDO: Operation Arrowhead, available for the Kindle in July, 2012.
ONE
Arras, France
May 21st, 1940
The Battle of Arras was slowly coming apart, like a ragdoll in the hands of an angry child. Major General Franklyn’s counter-attacking force had bloodied the German advance that day, but the British forces had clearly bitten off more than they could chew, and now they were paying for that folly.
Lance-Corporal Thomas Lynch, of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, knelt at the top of a low hill and watched the deaths of British tankers. Off in the distance, he could see the trundling forms of Matilda tanks falling back towards the British lines and dying, one by one. 88 and 105 millimeter field pieces had been pressed into service by the Germans as anti-tank weapons, and they handily accomplished the grim business that lighter 37mm anti-tank guns and the cannons of Rommel’s panzers had failed to perform. Columns of oily black smoke marked where German guns had shattered British armor, and a new column was added to the horizon every few minutes as another tank crew met a horrible, incendiary fate.
It was time to run, to fall back as they had done time and time again for the last two weeks. With the British advance halted, the Germans were counter-attacking in force, and Lynch could see panzers and troop transports for the German panzershutzen - mechanized infantry - closing in fast along the flanks. The infantry would be sweeping ahead, hunting for British anti-tank teams and rear-guard parties screening the retreat. Although the RIF hadn’t been part of the attack, they had been put in place to defend Arras and guard the flanks of the attacking force; now that the British spearhead was bent and blunted, the Germans would attempt to drive British flanking battalions inward and encircle the whole of Franklyn’s forces.
The RIF First Battalion began falling back by companies, leapfrogging each other and moving in two hundred meter increments. While the battalion was making good progress, every man began to feel fear coiling in his belly as the Germans grew ever closer, and within a few hours, companies holding the line began to engage the advancing enemy skirmishers with long range rifle and Bren fire, the enemy answering with mortars, tank guns, bursts of machine gun bullets, and most dreaded of all, flights of Stuka dive-bombers called in to deliver precision air strikes and strafing runs.
Throughout it all, Lynch gritted his teeth and soldiered on. For the most part, he didn’t waste his ammunition firing at the tiny figures in field-grey uniforms scuttling forward. He knew they were too far away to score a reliable hit, and any casualties inflicted on the Germans would simply invite a furious retribution. The only targets Lynch did fire on were the Stukas; any time one of the dive-bombers came within a thousand feet, Lynch took a potshot. He knew the odds of bringing down one of the aircraft with his Lee Enfield were a million to one, but at least the act made him feel less helpless, and he wasn’t the only one; every Stuka that attacked the battalion received a ragged volley of rifle and Bren fire, to no discernible effect.
Lynch’s company had just finished holding the line, the German skirmishers unnervingly close and the enemy armor not much further away. The better marksmen in the company, Lynch included, had fired on the skirmishers in an attempt to pin them down, but for every man in field-grey who crumpled to the ground, a dozen seemed to take his place.
Captain Rourke, Lynch’s company commander, blew his whistle to signal the company retreat. Lynch pushed a charging clip of five rounds into the magazine well of his rifle, closed the bolt, and began to fall back as Mauser fire cut through the air around them, punctuated by the occasional burst of MG-34 bullets scything across the ground as the machine-gunners attempted to find the correct range. Lynch scurried towards the rear in a crouch, spine itching with the dreaded anticipation of being struck in the back by an enemy bullet.
He was halfway across an open field when he looked back over his shoulder and saw a struggling figure lying on the ground. Glancing left and right at the other men, he realized that Captain Rourke wasn’t among them. There had been a heavy burst of machine gun fire moments after Rourke had signalled the retreat, and the Captain made sure he was always the last man off of the line; no doubt he had been wounded, and with the rest of the company falling back, no one had noticed him fall.
Lynch turned to the man nearest him, a green young rifleman named Edwards.
“The Captain’s back there wounded! Give me a hand, we’ve got to go and bring him up with us.”
Edwards shook his head and kept moving. “Cor, you’re daft mate! The Captain’s had it. We need to get out of here before those Jerry tanks roll right over us!”
Lynch thrust a finger at his lance corporal insignia. “That’s not a request boyo, that’s an order. We’re going back to get Captain Rourke.”
By now, several soldiers nearby stopped when they heard Lynch, and he quickly organized a small band of three other men to go with him. The four men ran back across the field, mindful of the rapidly closing tanks and scuttling infantry.
When they were only a few dozen feet away from Captain Rourke, Lynch spotted movement in the trees beyond their wounded commander. Advancing Germans were moving through the trees and brush on the other side of the field, skirmishers looking to catch British troops who hadn’t fallen back fast enough. A group of five men emerged at the edge of the field, spotting Lynch and his party at the same moment they were seen themselves.
The German panzerschutzen reacted first, raising their Mauser rifles and unleashing a volley. Two of the men with Lynch were gunned down instantly, shot through and through. The remaining man, young private Edwards, fired his Lee-Enfield, toppling one of the Germans and causing the others to duck. But there were four other Germans and only two Englishmen still on their feet.
Lynch had slung his rifle across his back when they set out to make grabbing and dragging Rourke away that much faster. Unable to reach it quickly, he reached into his jacket pocket and drew a little Colt automatic instead. Almost a year ago, in the summer of 1939, Lynch had been informed his battalion would be part of the British Expeditionary Force assembled to go overseas and halt the German advance. As much as Lynch loved his trusty Lee Enfield, visions of being stuck with an empty rifle while waves of bloodthirsty Huns advanced with fixed bayonets caused him to go out and purchase a small sidearm to carry with him as a last-
ditch defense. The little Colt wasn’t regulation, and he kept the pistol hidden away in one of his jacket pockets, worried that a sergeant or an officer might see it and confiscate it. He had never even taken the pistol out of his pocket among the other men, but now he racked the slide, chambering a round.
Lynch ducked another volley by the Germans, then brought the pistol up and fired two aimed shots at the nearest German, some fifty feet away. Astonishingly the little gun aimed true, and the man crumpled to the ground, holding his gut. Another panzerschutzen was flung back by a shot from Edwards, who seemed to discover within himself a sterner backbone than Lynch had first imagined.
By now, Lynch could see the German armor getting closer, and soon there would be no escape. Each of them could only fight or save Rourke, but not both at the same time.
“Grab the Captain and fall back! I’ll keep them covered!” Lynch shouted.
Edwards looked at him as if he had cracked, but nodded and scurried forward towards the Captain while Lynch took careful aim with his Colt and squeezed off three more shots. He saw one of the Germans jerk as if wounded, and the other man ducked after a bullet missed his head by mere inches. The pistol half empty, Lynch dropped it in his pocket, pulled a Mills Bomb from his webbing, armed the grenade and threw it as hard as he could just over the heads of the Germans.
The two skirmishers threw themselves to the ground just as the grenade exploded behind them. Before the debris had even settled Lynch rushed forward, pistol in hand. Dashing past Edwards as he crouched over the Captain, Lynch ran up to within twenty feet of the Germans. Both skirmishers were picking themselves up off the ground, only to discover one of the British had covered more than half the distance between them.
Lynch raised the Colt and fired twice at each of the Jerries. The first man died with a bullet through his brain, the shot striking him right below the rim of his helmet. The second man fired his rifle, the bullet snapping past Lynch’s face, but before the German could work the bolt, Lynch emptied the last of his ammunition into the soldier’s chest, knocking him over.
Their immediate danger gone for the moment, Lynch ran back to help Edwards drag the Captain away. As they moved back up the field, Lynch looked back at the bodies of the other two riflemen who volunteered to go with them; the men would have to be left where they lay.
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