The ground shakes.
Downtown, the first shots of the Battle of Baradina land. The huge, man-sized artillery shells level entire buildings, and plumes of smoke begin to rise into the air. You nervously lick your lips, put the tin whistle to your mouth, and blow a single, shrill note. A cry goes up along the line as your men dig themselves out of the ditch, charging the suburban houses ahead.
The hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers charging all along the line, in their yellow-tannish uniform, give an observing officer on a nearby hill the impression of a "bayonetted wheat field." And, like any wheat field, it must be reaped. At 50 yards, an enemy machine-gun, hidden in the attic of one of those cookie-cutter houses, opens fire. The bullets rip through the men around you, throwing them to the ground, mangled and bleeding. Through some miracle, the stream of lead parts around you, and you make it through the kill-zone.
You head straight for the house that contains the machine-gun, ducking your head and praying under your breath that you make it. Slamming into the outside wall, you pull a stick-grenade off of your belt, pull the fuse-string and toss it through the window. As you drop to the ground, a piece of shrapnel whizzes through the space your head occupied. The rest of the metal fragments are stopped by the body of an enemy soldier on the opposite side. The screams turn your stomach, but you rise to your feet, kick down the front door, and scan the room. The poor soldier next to the door is riddled with shrapnel, clearly dead, but his friend in the corner is still moving. You put a slug from your revolver into his chest, before moving upstairs.
The two men manning the machine-gun upstairs clearly didn't hear the altercation downstairs, too busy mowing down your comrades. Tiptoeing towards them, you raise your revolver, deliberately pulling the hammer back, and aim at the gunner's head. The thought of mercy doesn't even enter your mind as you mechanically pull the trigger, slam the hammer back, and end the loader as well. The machine-gun finally goes silent, and you glance out the attic window at your comrades. A few of them have reached other houses, beginning to clear them, but most lay out in the field, dead, wounded, or too cowardly to stay standing.
After a few seconds, the men in your section begin to realize that, if they were reloading, the gunners would've started firing again. They slowly regain control of themselves, streaming into the house and reporting to you. Of your 20-man platoon, only 8 are still in fighting condition. You have orders to advance two blocks further into the suburbs, to a small school that could make a good command post. The question is whether you have enough men to take the objective.
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Topic: The Battle of Baradina (Read 898 times)