Chapter 16

Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein
und das heißt
Erika
Heiß von hunderttausend kleinen Bienelein
wird umschwärmt
Erika

“Not that damn tune again!” Malcolm rolled his eyes, “that’s a fucking Nazi song, written by a fucking Nazi composer, and them being Nazis, they play that damn song a lot!”

“Herms Niel ... yeah, he was an actual Nazi. Joined the party in 1934. Still, it’s remarkably stupid of them to announce their arrival like that, wouldn’t you say? I guess that they want us to know that they’re coming. Well, message heard loud and clear, Herr Morton. Now time for a message of our own,” Lavelle smirked as he brandished his flaming sword, ready to smite the enemy.

“Ready, boy and girls?” I snickered as I trained my favorite rifle, a Carcano, the very same rifle used by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 (not that I believed that lone gunman nonsense).

“Snipers gonna snipe, I guess. Are you sure that you went to the right branch of service for you? Navy’s not the best place for sharpshooters, you know,” Obadiah chuckled now as I picked off a Nazi who held some kind of rank ... it wasn’t clear what kind.

“See those chevrons? That’s a Scharfuhrer that you just shot. An SS NCO. Damn, they really modeled their whole force on the historical Schutzstaffel, Hitler’s bodyguard that morphed into a massive state within a state. Clever of them in a sort of low animal cunning fashion, I suppose,” Ismail sneered as he took down an SS corporal.

“Let’s just keep sniping until they are close enough for our BARs. Pretty neat that you found three workable Browning Automatic Rifles, by the way. And the magazines for them. In more recent years, they might be obsolete, but not in the present, with every kind of gun having its utility. Every kind of weapon, in fact,” I observed, just as I saw some of the Nazis putting on gas masks.

“Holy shit, they’re about to gas us, the motherfuckers ... that’s a chemical attack coming!” Xavier shouted, getting everyone’s attention.

“Stand back ... I am immune to their fucking gas!” Lavelle declared as he flew down to the SS ranks and began smiting them ruthlessly, much to their shock.

When Lavelle destroyed their cache of what turned out to be mustard gas, we all took full advantage and came out of our prepared positions to charge into the disoriented and demoralized foe. I fired several more shots at the enemy with my rifle before I switched to my field knife and stabbed a few of them. We were now at close range, doing hand-to-hand combat against these bastards. I watched as their troops pulled further back, trying to find a place to stand their ground.

“We’ve killed fifty-seven of them today between the two engagements and the first skirmish, not a large number, but a high percentage out of eight hundred sixty-five men, Almost no walking wounded, though, on either side. Must be because they didn’t have a chance to treat their injured men. They’ll be licking their wounds for a while.