Badge of the Death Game

Chapter 025

"This is as far as we go on foot," Soren said.

The column had halted at the edge of Tullane Township's outer approach, close enough to make out individual windows in the nearest buildings. The fog was still thick, but it was thinning at the edges, the first grey light of pre-dawn beginning to bleed through the cloud cover.

"Not a single sign of fighting anywhere on the approaches," Thomas murmured, scanning the ground ahead. He swallowed. "You were right. They've taken it back."

Having heard Soren's account of the interrogation, Thomas was now reading threat into everything he saw, which was exactly the right instinct for this situation.

Caleb was less composed. The anxiety on his face had been building for the last hour, and it was close to the surface now. "If they recognize us before we're close enough, this whole thing falls apart."

"They won't," Soren said. "Not before we fire the first shot. That's all the time we need." He looked back at the column, at the men in borrowed French coats and mismatched caps, at the genuine wounded being supported between them, and decided it was going to have to be good enough. "Is everyone ready?"

A low, collective affirmation moved through the ranks.

Caleb straightened his cap, turned to face the column, and his voice dropped to a firm, carrying murmur. "Move out."

The column surged forward. The men carrying the wounded pushed to the front, making the approach look exactly like what Caleb was about to claim it was. Behind them, a dozen soldiers had already unslung their weapons, crouching low behind the cover of the crowd, fingers near triggers, waiting.

At thirty meters from the town's edge, Caleb filled his lungs and shouted in French, loud enough to carry across the square. "Medic! We need a medic! Men down, urgent casualties!"

The volume was impressive. Soren resisted the urge to cover his ear.

Inside the town, the reaction was visible almost immediately. A French lieutenant emerged from between two buildings, three soldiers at his back, squinting at the approaching column with an expression caught between concern and suspicion. He called something back over his shoulder, then turned to face them.

Twenty meters.

"Medic!" Caleb called again. "These men need immediate attention, we took fire from a German patrol!"

The lieutenant's eyes were moving across the column, reading details that didn't quite add up. The coats were wrong. The spacing was wrong. He raised a hand. "Hold your position! Call out your unit designation!"

His other hand was already moving toward the pistol at his hip.

"First Squad, down!"

Soren's voice cut across everything.

The front of the column dropped flat in a single coordinated movement, and the firing line behind them came up with rifles leveled. The volley was tight and almost simultaneous, a single sharp c***k that rolled across the square and left eight men on the ground, the French lieutenant among them.

"Second Squad, advance!"

Soren moved with the line, the Chauchat M1915 up and firing in short, controlled bursts at the windows of the buildings directly ahead. The automatic fire was doing its job, keeping heads down, buying the advancing soldiers the seconds they needed to close the distance. Beside him, the rest of the assault element pushed forward past the prone First Squad, crossing the open ground at a run.

As soon as they were clear, First Squad was back on its feet. The lightly wounded took the more seriously injured and moved them fast toward the nearest wall, using the building faces as cover. The unwounded men were already pulling M1915 stick grenades from their bags, unscrewing the base caps, pulling the cords.

Sixteen grenades went through windows across four buildings in the span of about four seconds.

The explosions overlapped into a single continuous roar. By the time the smoke was still rising, the Greyline Army soldiers were already through the doors.

The Ivory Army had been caught completely flat-footed. They'd been watching the approaches for a frontal assault, not a disguised column walking in through the front gate. By the time the surviving defenders had processed what was happening and started organizing a response, German soldiers were already inside the perimeter and moving between buildings.

In the confined streets of Tullane Township, the numerical advantage the French had held out in the open was suddenly worth considerably less. Narrow alleys and blind corners were the great equalizer.

Soren left a holding element at the outer buildings to keep the Ivory Army from pushing back in, then kicked open the nearest door and went through it with two soldiers behind him, sweeping the ground floor in seconds. Empty. He pointed upward, sent the two men up the stairs to clear the second floor, and used the time to swap out the Chauchat's half-empty magazine while he had a moment to do it cleanly.

"Get all the wounded in here!" he called through the doorway.

The battle was accelerating, and a moving fight couldn't afford to drag its casualties with it. Concentrating the wounded in a single secured building was the only way to free the rest of the force to push.

Caleb came through the door at a low run, straightening up once he was inside. He looked at Soren, then at the room, then back at Soren with the expression of a man who was beginning to understand the gap between giving orders and knowing what to do.

"Sir," Soren said, keeping his tone even, "it might be best if you coordinate from here. Manage the wounded, keep the building secure, maintain communication between elements. I'll handle the push."

Caleb drew himself up, placed a hand on Soren's shoulder, and nodded with the gravity of someone conferring a significant honor. "You're an exceptional soldier, Snyder. I'll see that the General hears about your conduct today."

"Thank you, sir." Soren came to attention and saluted, holding it for exactly the right length of time. He didn't care about the commendation. What he cared about was that Caleb was now going to stay in this building and leave the tactical decisions to him, which was the only outcome that mattered.

He walked back out into the street.

The Ivory Army had reorganized faster than he'd expected. A charge was already forming at the far end of the main street, soldiers moving up along both sides of the road in a coordinated push. But the four buildings the Greyline Army now held formed a natural T-intersection defense, and Soren had already positioned the machine g*n teams to cover it.

"Machine gunners, hold that intersection. Keep them pinned." He found Thomas in the group behind him. "Take three men, go around the right side of the town. Wait for my signal."

Thomas didn't ask for clarification. He picked his men and moved.

The flanking route around the eastern edge of Tullane Township was unguarded. The Ivory Army's attention and firepower were concentrated on the crossroads and the T-intersection, and the outer perimeter had been left almost entirely open. Soren moved his assault team along the building faces, staying in the shadows, keeping the clock tower in his peripheral vision.

"Stay close to the walls," he said quietly. "There's a sniper in that tower. Don't give him a clean angle."

They came around to the eastern side of the crossroads and stopped. To the north, two sandbag emplacements were positioned at either side of the street, both mounting machine guns, both pouring fire southward into the T-intersection where the Greyline Army was pinned. The volume of fire was heavy enough that the defenders were struggling to hold their ground.

Thomas didn't wait to be told. He pulled a M1915 stick grenade, gauged the distance, and threw. The aim was slightly off, the grenade detonating just outside the eastern sandbag emplacement rather than inside it, but the blast was close enough to stagger the crew and interrupt their fire for a critical few seconds.

Soren was already moving. He went straight at the emplacement with the Chauchat firing from the hip, his team right behind him. The g*n crew hadn't recovered from the concussion. The position was cleared in under two seconds, every defender down.

The western sandbag emplacement swung its barrel toward them immediately, the crew reacting to the sudden silence from their right flank. But the machine g*n team at the T-intersection had been watching for exactly this moment. They came forward under covering fire from the rear, closed the distance fast, and the western crew, caught between two threats with no room to maneuver, made the decision to abandon the position and fall back.

With both machine guns silenced, the main Greyline Army force surged up the street. The remaining Ivory Army soldiers who had been using the buildings as cover were cleared room by room, and within minutes the T-intersection and the surrounding streets were fully under German control.

Then the flanking move came from outside. A section of Ivory Army soldiers had broken off and was circling around the town's perimeter, trying to split the German force in two. It was the same tactic Soren had used to get inside, turned back against him.

The difference was that Soren now had two machine guns.

Both sandbag emplacements swiveled outward, laying down overlapping fire across the open ground. The flanking force scattered, unable to advance against the combined weight of fire.

A single shot rang out from somewhere above the rooftops.

One of the Greyline Army soldiers who had just taken control of the eastern sandbag emplacement dropped, the side of his head gone before the sound of the shot reached the street.

Soren's eyes went straight to the clock tower.

"There you are," he said quietly.