“All right, listen up,” Captain Caddell snapped. Shepherd gave him his full attention; the captain wasn’t a bad sort, even if he was pulling the responsibilities of a colonel. “The Germans have dug themselves into a position blocking the main road; our task is to hit them from the rear.”
“Ah, can’t bombs do that?” Private Buckman asked. Behind him, Sergeant Pike glared at him. Buckman wasn’t exactly a shirker or a coward, but with a rape charge hanging over his head, his enthusiasm for the war was none-existent. “They can paste it from the air, no bother.”
“We have hit it twice, I believe,” Captain Caddell snapped. Shepherd smiled; it was one of the good things about Captain Caddell that he didn’t explode when his orders were questioned, outside combat. “They’re still alive. It’s going to be hit again before we get there, so we might not have anything to do.”
“We’ll be lucky,” Private Manlito muttered. The swarthy Italian-American frowned. “They’re getting better at digging in.”
“We killed the ones that weren’t,” Shepherd muttered back, as Captain Caddell ordered them to board the helicopters. “Almost makes you wish we hadn’t done such a good job.”
The helicopters lifted off and headed out over the sea, before swinging around to follow the coast of Sweden. It looked remarkably tranquil from their distance; no one would have guessed that nearly three million soldiers of four different nations were struggling for supremacy. Shepherd shuddered; he’d seen enough burnt-out towns to know just how badly the war was costing the natives.
“We have enemy fighters attempting to intercept,” the pilot said calmly. “CAP will handle them.”
Shepherd felt fear trickling down the back of his spine. He knew how to fight Germans on the ground; they were tough and cunning bastards, even without orders, but they could be beaten. In the air… they were dependent upon the pilot.
An explosion flickered somewhere in the distance towards Denmark. “The CAP got them,” the pilot said. “Four Germans down, the rest in retreat.”
“Good,” Captain Caddell said. His voice was impressively calm. “How long until we reach the drop zone?”
The pilot consulted his display. “Five minutes,” he said. “The strikes going in now.”
Another explosion, much larger, flickered out as they came to land on a meadow. Westwards, a towering column of smoke arose from the German position. It was chilling; soldiers who hadn’t even known that they were under attack had been struck without ever knowing what had hit them.
“Go, go, go,” Captain Caddell bellowed. Sergeant Pike kicked any soldier not moving fast enough to suit him. They piled out of the helicopter – having learnt from experience how dangerous a landed helicopter could be when the Germans saw it – and ran down towards the German position.
“Form up, advance,” Captain Caddell snapped. The Marines had practised the manoeuvre thousands of times, on dozens of different practice fields. The British virtual reality systems had been awesome for practicing. They spread out, covering each other, and advanced as fast as they dared on the German position.
“Perhaps we got them all,” Manlito suggested. A burst of German machine gun fire proved him wrong; the Germans clearly had had scouts out as well. The Marines fired together, launching RPGs at the Germans, and moving forward. A Marine fell, shot through the head, and then Shepherd staggered as a German bullet hit his bullet-proof vest.
“Die, you bastards,” he yelled at them, firing madly. The entire German position disintegrated; he saw the guns – those that remained – trying to swing around to target the Marines. It was too late; the Germans fought like mad bastards, but they no longer had a chance.
“The road to Goteborg lies open,” Captain Caddell said, as the Marines rounded up the handful of prisoners. Shepherd, who was examining his chest, shuddered; it was all black and blue.
“If that had happened a year ago, you would have been killed,” Manlito observed. Shepherd glared at him. “It’s true.”
“I know its true,” Shepherd said, feeling the damage carefully. The pain was fading even as he felt it; the shock of the impact was fading. “These things are pretty impressive, what?”
“What’s what?” Manlito asked, as Captain Caddell began issuing new orders. The Marines spread out again, recovering the German guns and examining the position. It was a tough one; the guns had been half-buried in trenches and well-hidden from the air.
“Dear God,” Shepherd breathed, as the full extent of the German position revealed itself. “If we’d known that all of this was here…”
Captain Michael Michelin had the unenviable job of coordinating – or trying to coordinate – the attacks that were going in as part of the offensive, and of reporting to Patton. That wasn’t easy; the General would have quite happily have led the charge against the Germans himself, despite the direct orders to keep himself out of danger.
“How can I lead my men if I stay out of danger?” Patton had asked, and President Truman hadn’t been able to reply.
The rows of massive guns thundered as Michelin made his way to where Patton was standing, arguing with the artillery commander. Both men were waving maps around, gesturing wildly, with only one word in three being heard over the guns. Michelin came up to them, saluted, and tried to shout his message. It wasn’t heard.
Patton beckoned him into the British command vehicle, which was mercifully soundproof. “What’s up?” He asked. “Is it important?”
“Sir, the 1st Marine Division, the airmobile one, reports that they have secured the second enemy position five miles east and are requesting orders.”
“Excellent,” Patton said. He examined the map; one position had been decreed too dangerous for airmobile assaults, and that was the target of their shells. Hundreds of guns, thousands of shells, pouring fire onto the German position. “What were their losses?”
“Ten men,” Michelin said. “It would have been worse if they hadn’t been equipped with body armour.”
“That bastard Admiral King wants them back for something,” Patton muttered. “The bastard even wants their helicopters, ordering me to have them flown onto the Enterprise.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Michelin said, who wasn’t entirely privy to the long arguments about the new tactics. All he knew was that his commanding officer was getting slighted. “You need them, sir!”
“Yes, but they need a rest as well,” Patton said. His concern for his men made him a good commander as well. The ground shook as yet another volley was discharged into the German positions. “We need to hammer our way into Goteborg, and then further down, cutting the Germans off from reinforcement.” He grinned. “We might manage to jump across to the Danish islands; at the very least we could shoot hell out of them.”
He tapped the map. “Hell, we could march to Berlin that way,” he said. “I’ll mention it to Ike.”
Michelin nodded at the mention of the SHAFE commander, General Eisenhower. “I thought that Russia was the priority,” he said.
Patton shrugged. “It hardly matters,” he said. “The point is to defeat the enemy. Once we have one of the enemy forces out of the battle, we can concentrate against the other.” He grinned. “Grand strategy is the President’s job, advised by the Chiefs of Staff; mine is winning battles.”
“Yes, sir,” Michelin said. “Do you want to pull the Marines out or send reinforcements?”
Patton studied the map. “I think we can start an advance with the AFVs,” he said. “If the Germans have had enough – and their ears must be bleeding with the battering we’re giving them – we might be able to punch our way through and rendezvous with the Marines. The road to Goteborg lies open!”