Entropy

Source

MacIlroy sat there as the sky darkened, night was falling and he had no idea what to do next. He felt detached from it all, as if he were outside his body watching as events unfolded.

Ferguson nudged him, "Mac, we need a plan."

MacIlroy looked up as Ginn and Jackson came stumbling back to join the others. They were dragging something, MacIlroy looked hard to see what it was.

It was Biscayne's corpse.

"Shit."

With that one word, MacIlroy began to tremble. Tears were running down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Norm. I'm sorry I got you killed."

Ferguson threw a look at the others, he gestured with his head for them to fall back on the BAR team. Ginn looked at him with a question on his face.

"Yeah, take Norm."

Ferguson considered his options, MacIlroy was out of it. He sat on the ground, hugging himself and rocking back and forth, his body racked with sobs.

He grabbed MacIlroy by his sleeve, "Come on Mac, let's get you out of here."

Kirche stared into the gathering dark, "I think they quit."

"And why would they do that, Junge?" Streicher asked.

Before Kirche could answer, Hartstein fired a short burst in the direction of the opening to the field. If the Amis had been unsure of their position, there would be no doubt now. The string of tracers pointed right back at them.

"Are you insane?" Streicher grabbed Hartstein's arm. The corporal shook him off.

"Listen."

From the direction of where he'd fired, a man was screaming in agony.

The stream of tracers had lit them all up as if someone had turned on a light. The men froze, the Germans had to be firing blind, but ...

The two men dragging Biscayne's body were both hit. Jackson went down hard, the burst had caught him full in the torso. Ginn was also hit, but not as badly.

MacIlroy screamed, threw his rifle into the dark, then starting running.

"Mac! What the hell?" Ferguson screamed after his fleeing squad leader.

Ginn got to his feet, he was hit, but it didn't seem too bad. Jackson, on the other hand, wasn't moving, what Ginn could see of him in the twilight wasn't good, there was blood everywhere.

Ferguson realized it was him in charge now, Mac had broken, completely.

All of them were new to combat, their outfit had come ashore on D + 4. From what he could see, it was down to him and four other men, one of whom, Ginn, was wounded.

"Alright, everybody down and stay down. Ted, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so, I think a piece of Jackson's gear hit me when he was hit. It just kinda flew off of him, he's all messed up."

Ferguson checked, Jackson had no pulse, in fact, he had no left arm either. The burst from the German machine gun had literally torn Jackson apart.

McCoy listened, he had heard the German gun open up, heard screaming, then nothing. There had been no return fire that he could tell. He had rejoined with Johansen.

"I think I got one of them." Johansen said.

McCoy doubted it, but said, "Well, you fired off an entire magazine, maybe one out of those rounds hit something. Man, you've got to control your fire, don't keep jerking the trigger until the clip comes out. Didn't you learn anything on the range?"

Before Johansen could answer, McCoy heard something. Someone was moaning, not that far away either.

Schimmelpfennig was rolling back and forth on the ground, clutching his abdomen.

"Make me better, Hans, it hurts like hell."

A round had hit Schimmelpfennig in the small of the back, dropping him like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Möller pulled out his lamp, he always had the red lens rotated in as he didn't really need the light in the day and at night the red didn't show much at a distance. Unfortunately, he couldn't really see blood with it unless there was a lot of it.

He could see that Schimmelpfennig was bleeding badly.

Handing the lamp to Oster, he said, "Father, please hold this."

As Oster held the light for Möller, he could see that the wounded man had almost no chance at all. The bullet had gone in leaving a small hole, it had hit something inside Schimmelpfennig's body and fragmented, there were numerous exit wounds, all bleeding profusely, in the man's belly. He didn't have long.

Schimmelpfennig reached out and grabbed Oster's hand, "Pray for me, Father."

"I am son. Do you believe in God?"

"I don't know, I never really thought about it."

"If you accept Christ as your Savior, then you need not worry, Horst."

Schimmelpfennig coughed, Oster saw blood on his lips, "Isn't it too late for that, Father? I grew up under Hitler, we never went to church ... I ... I ..."

A shiver went through Schimmelpfennig's body and he gasped in pain, "Jesus, Hans, are you trying to tear my guts out?"

Oster glanced at the medic, he couldn't stop the bleeding, as hard as he tried,  Schimmelpfennig was just hurt too bad.

"There isn't much time, my son. Would you like to confess your sins to me?"

"Yes, yes, I've killed many men Father, I've never been to church ... Oh man, I don't want to die ..."

"Easy my son, do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, do you renounce Satan and all his works?"

"Yes, Father, please, I don't want to ..."

Möller sat back and began to cry as Oster gave Schimmelpfennig the Last Rites.

Oster crossed himself and looked at Möller, "You did all you could, Hans, he was hurt too badly for you to save his body."

"Did you save his soul, Father? Was that enough?"

Before Oster could answer a voice cried out, "Hands up you f**king Nazi bastards. Don't f**king move."

McCoy and Johansen had found the medic and the priest.