Fourth draft: Chapter 1
1.
Aries sat next to a private who hugged the wall of the pockmarked building. “How’s it going?” he asked casually.
The private stared at him, his eyes wide, gripping his rifle like it was a lifeline. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
“That good?”
“Sir?”
“I’m just a sergeant,” Aries said comfortingly. “You don’t have to ‘sir’ me to death. Look, kid, you survived the beach. You’re in the 1st division, I’m in the 29th. We’re here together right now, so we might as well make the best of it.” He pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes and offered one to the private, who shook his head.
“What are we waiting for?” asked Aries, glancing over the kid’s shoulder.
“Waiting for the Jerries,” he said. “They’re right down the street.”
“Do they see you?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“How long have you been waiting here?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Aries knew, because he had sent someone to scout near Saint Lo, and they hadn’t come back yet. The colonel was getting twitchy, and when he got twitchy, he started shouting things down. Shit rolls downhill, and Aries got tasked with finding what happened to the ranger party. So, as he always did, instead of delegating it to someone else to do, he did it himself.
“Three hours, son. You’ve been sitting here for three hours, shitting your pants. The Jerries might be gone by now.”
Aries took up his own rifle and walked around the kid. He squeezed between the kid and the corner, and fed his rifle around it. He squeezed the trigger and shot randomly, then pulled back, waiting for return fire.
There wasn’t any.
Aries slowly crept his way around the corner of the building. He soon stood out in full view of anyone who wanted to take a shot at him, from far down the street.
“See, kid? You scared them off.”
A couple of shots rang out, and Aries felt them hit his back. They were far enough away that they didn’t throw him into the wall, but they still penetrated his uniform, embedding below the skin.
“Dammit,” he spat, and turned around. He saw someone in a uniform run across the street, easily within range. He raised the rifle to his cheek, taking aim. Like shooting birds, he thought to himself, tracking the man and firing off a shot just seconds before he leapt behind a broken-down truck.
“Shit! You rat!” He bolted down the street, into the square, heading straight for that truck.
The man behind the truck rose up, gun in hand, but at seeing the large red-haired American come rushing toward him, he dropped the gun and yelled “Bitte!”
Aries didn’t stop, but switched the gun around so that its butt was aaiming at the man, and he slammed it into the man’s head. It clanged against metal, and the German fell sideways, dazed. Aries grabbed the man by the collar of his jacket, yanking him up straight.
“I’ll give you Bitte!” He swung his rifle like a club, ringing the German’s skull again. Aries pulled him out from behind the truck, and literally dragged him by his collar back to the teenager, who stood at the corner of the building, his rifle slack in his hands.
“Cover me, you ass!” Aries kept walking, pulling the German behind him. He dropped the German at the boy’s feet. “Rope,” said Aries, panting.
The boy looked like a deer in headlights, confused.
“ROPE! Find. Some. Rope!”
The kid jumped and went around the corner. He came back a little while later with some thick hemp rope, the kind used to tie up horses. It would have to do.
Making a sailor’s knot, he tied the German’s hands together and pulled him to his feet. “Congratulations, kid, you just got your first prisoner of war. Now go back and bring this guy with you.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be a few kilometers behind you.”
(And I think we have a winnah!)