"Hast du hört dass?" A soldier whispered and everyone dropped down immediately making themselves scarce to listen.
Every single one of their eyes were slowing scanning the surrounding area, trying to see what could be seen. Even Sammy's body language told Otto that something was near, especially due to the low growls emitting from his throat too.
"Safety off, prepare for contact with the enemy... Fix bayonets." Kristin softly said, not exactly wanting to whisper since it'd just be a pain for others to hear.
Once Kristin's squad was spread out and in cover, they brought their weapons to bare on the last known location of where the sound came from. Since they're mainly going off of where Sam's looking and growling at.
*
"Private, slowly lower yourself to the ground!" Harris whispered as he too, just like everyone else immediately got low.
The slow, steady walk was going smoothly until the private accidentally stepped on a few twigs, causing the inevitable snap that was destined to follow.
Worst yet, another private had spotted an enemy patrol to his left and the way that the enemy had scattered into cover wasn't too reassuring that the Private's mistake went unnoticed.
"Shit.... They heard that, we can't engage them and expect to get out of it alive..." Jack whispered as he started to look around for a solution or anything to help him and his men out with.
"Sir! The kraut's are splitting up into two fire teams.... One's going right, the other left with three manning the center!" Someone whispered, calling out the new immediate threat.
"Orders sir!" A desperate whisper sounded from Jack's right side.
Jack was looking around now in a hurry, trying to think of what they could do in order to survive this and get out alive.
Because if they were spotted and actively engaged, the Germans will surround them within seconds and mercilessly destroy them.
As the two fire teams closed in on Jack and his men, Jack finally thought of something and issued his own order to his fire team.
"Hide, make use of the buses and shrubs, I don't care how you do it, but disappear!" He whispered, and Harris's expression became a frown at the order.
'Christ, he wants us to lay down and hope we're not seen.' He said to himself, but it was the only thing they could truly do as of right now. That's if they want to get out alive.
*
As Kristin had his men split off into the two fire teams, he kept Leutnant Kittel and Sam with him and held position. Leaving it up to his two Unteroffzier's, Otto and Oslo to lead their teams in a pincher movement to flush the enemy out.
Sam's soft growling has ceased once Kristin's gentle command sounded for him to be quiet, and the three watched on, eagerly waiting while they covered the middle.
Otto had his new STG 44 at the ready, some of these new rifles had replaced the MP40 itself. Their Hauptmann was a damn good diplomat and bargainer, he managed to convince the Oberst about getting them updated equipment and weapons that were desperately needed.
The Hauptmannes company is part of the front lines of the sector, so through said thorough convincing, there was a decent resupply and munitions delivered to the company with new weapons.
Carefully Otto stepped over a tree root as he neared the spot from where they've presumably heard the noise.
Twenty yards in front of Otto stood Oslo and his men, as they were too standing there and scanning the area ahead of them before moving in.
Then, once both teams have made a positive contact with each other to prevent friendly fire, they moved in sync towards each other. Bayonets fixed, and weapons at the ready to light up the area in front of them if need be.
They were all on edge, and the safety was truly off, there wasn't even a cricket singing his nightly tunes here and because of that. It had thrown the area into maddening silence, were Otto could hear his own rapid heart beat from within his chest that shook his frame.
It was from the nervous adrenaline rush that coursed through his veins that had made his arms shake a little. Plus, he could even hear everyone's light footsteps or the shallow breathing from his comrades beside him.
*
Jack was laying on his side with his lower back pressed up against one of the trees. He had successfully concealed himself from the enemy, but his heart was thundering inside of his chest.
The Germans are right there, and the closest one's within arms reach from Jack, he could literally reach out and tap the man's knee if he wanted to. And that fact made Jack especially on edge, to the point he was becoming parodied that they'd hear him breathe. He even went to the lengths of covering his mouth with his hand to muffle his exhales.
The teams were slowly walking around and there were too many points in time where one of Jack's men almost got found.
Jack's eyes darted around the dark, following the movement of the shadows but his eyes froze once he saw one of the German's making his way over towards him.
"Start checking the bushes everyone, I'll start over here." Oslo said over his shoulder before turning back to the bush in front of him and reached out.
Grabbing onto the branch, he was about to pull it aside when a angered hiss rose up from one of the other bushes.
Immediately all twelve flashlights were quickly flicked on and shined on the source of the sound, and they all followed the angry raccoon that made his escape up one of the trees.
"Falsch alarm, es war eine nur Waschbär... Komm, zurück zu die Oberfeldwebel menschen." Otto breathed and the twelve men began to make their way back all except for one.
"Gunter, du bist kommen oder nicht?" Someone called out and the man who had stopped in front of a bush waved him off.
Jack barely caught what he had said, but involved something about leaving him the hell alone.
The next thing everyone heard was the German unzipped his pants after he had swung his rifle to rest against his back.
Then there's was an audible sound of him relieving himself on the bushes, it felt like a long drawn out minute before he finally finished what he needed to do and zip himself up.
Then, he turned around to face his friend and quickly rushed over calling to him "I haven't gone since lunch, sheesh, your nagging's worse than mum you know that?" He said while he made his way over.
Jack felt like a lot of pressure was taken off of his chest once he had sighed in relief.
However to stay on the safe side, he waited until their footsteps faded from ear shot before calling the all clear.
"All clear, everyone alright?" Jack asked as he carefully dragged himself out from the foliage and shrubs that had sheltered him.
Everyone said their replies to Jack's question, all except for Harris.
He emerged from the bushes that the German pissed on, soaked and pissed off, quite literally.
There was silence for a moment before what happened to the Sarge clicked with everyone, and one of the Private's nearly bursted out into laughter as he tried to contain himself. And his contagious, muffled laughter was starting to spread amongst the others rather rapidly.
"You got too friendly there with a German sausage, huh Sarge?" Someone teased and the muffled laughter grew in some volume as the nerve racking tension began to melt once the jokes were cracked.
"Jesus, they were right there! Right fucking there sarge, I could hardly breathe." Another private said as he pointed out his hiding spot in the nearby bushes.
Someone was starting to make another joke about Harris and his encounter before he was immediately cut off.
"Shut it before I PT your ass so fucking hard, you'll be puking up your innards private!" Harris snapped, causing everyone to shut up about the incident.
But everyone excluding Jack, who was just relieved to still be alive, were beginning to chuckle again even though Harris stated his warning.
"Alright everyone, bring it in and shut up..." Jack said, getting everyone's attention.
"So then gentlemen, tell me what you just saw here." Jack said as he dug into his pocket and removed his notepad, getting ready to write.
"Well sir," Someone chuckled, "Sarge got pissed on by a Kraut."
"Answer the damn question Private, and you now owe me push ups until you drop." Harris said, he was truly unhappy about what just happened and ball busting was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now.
"I saw armed hostiles, and almost all of them had medals or these crosses suspended from their necks..." A private answered, deciding to take this seriously in order to avoid the Sargents wraith.
"Good, that means we're dealing with veteran front line troops. Experienced, battle hardened som' bitches everyone." Jack said as he began to write down what he said and what the private had also said.
"Okay, they also had those new kraut weapons we've recently seen too... So I think we're dealing with elite Panzergrenadiers here, right Sergeant?" Jack asked, wanting to confirm this and was pleased to see the First Sarge nod his head once in confirmation of it.
Proceeding to write down a quick summary of what they've seen, Jack closed his notes up and stuffed them back into his pockets.
"It's going to be around 1 am by the time we get back fellas, we got what we came for, I'm sure all of you would like to get some sleep just as much as I do." Jack said while he stood up and heard voices of agreement sound from his tired men.
Jack and his men reformed their wedge formation before they finally got on the move to reach safety that's waiting for them.
**
One hour later, 24:52, Carentan.
Jack and his men regrouped back at the square later that morning, and thankfully the only injury was someone tripping over a root.
"Alright fellas, can it! It's pretty late and I'd like to get some sleep just as much as the next guy here, so I'll make this quick and I'll only be saying this once. So listen up!" Jack called out, reigning in his conversing platoon.
As he rubbed at his eye, Jack held his hand out and said "Squad leaders, your reports please?" He had asked while fighting back a yawn that threatened to surface.
Just as he opened his one eye, he already felt some notes pressed into his hand from his Sergeants.
'Shit, these bastards are more exhausted than I'll ever be.' Jack noted to himself while he said his thanks to each one of his squad leaders.
Quickly reading over their notes, a lot of the hand writing was quite sloppy, but hell, so was his during the time.
Reading what he could, Jack was slightly nodding his head in approval as he looked up, "Good work fellas, these are some hard, solid notes that are written on here. And with that being said here's what we've found." He said while flipping through the notes and he began to read them.
"Heavy German armor spotted along the north eastern sector that's accompanied by shock troops. All are at combined arms strength to form two infantry battalions with a heavy armored company...." Jack said as he read through the first part of the notes.
From there, he continued on through his debriefing with the men, which went quickly in roughly five minutes before he was finished.
They were exhausted, and the signs of sleep deprivation was more noticeable once he had finished, so he organized his gathered notes and said "Ok guys, go get cleaned up if you need it and if not, then hit the hay. Get some sleep, you all deserve some rest, dismissed!"
Everyone saluted their Lieutenant before the gathered men started to break away, a good night's sleep was what everyone truly wanted, especially Jack. But first he had to get his report in before he could do such a thing.
There was a sigh that escaped his lips before he made his way down the streets towards Cole's temporary office.
Once he head entered the building, Jack took more caution to where he stepped in order to avoid the sleeping soldiers scattered around the floor. There simply wasn't enough beds and hotel rooms for everyone to sleep on, so the soldiers made do with what they had.
Thus, they ended up sleeping anywhere they could find, which they did quite easily since no one was picky about where they had slept.
**
That's the end of this chapter update folks, hope you enjoyed it!
This week's a special catch up week since I was unable to post on Friday, so this Friday will have the normal update as well!
*Translations*
Hast du hört dass? – Did you hear that?
Falsch alarm, es war eine nur Waschbär... Komm, zurück zu die Oberfeldwebel menschen. – False alarm, it was only a raccoon... Come, back to the Master Sergant men.
Gunter, bist du kommen oder nicht? – Gunther, you coming or not?
**
As always don't forget to comment, as well as bayoneting that vote button!
I'll see you all on Friday!!