Contact [OPEN]

[William Luther]

If there was one thing Luther could appreciate, it was the fact they had fallen in to a very good ambush, and that the Commonwealth troops had very good intelligence. Sat in with Battalion Headquarters, he had a good view as A and B Companies ahead of them passed safely through the kill zone, drawing the Headquarters Company to advance forwards before the ambush began.

Advancing on foot, Luther hadn’t been one of the primary targets, and as soon as the firing kicked off, he began moving, looking for a sturdy piece of cover. The problem was, there were buildings both sides of them, filled with enemy soldiers presenting an almost perfect alleyway of fire. The burnt out shell of a vehicle looked to provide his best choice of cover. What had once been an armoured car was now a blackened and gently smouldering hull, but more importantly it was next to a pile of rubble, which should prevent gunfire from both sides. Grasping his MP40 tightly, Luther sprinted, before sliding slightly, aided by spilt oil in to the cover, indicating with his hands for others to follow him.

There wasn’t much room behind the rocks, but soon six soldiers had joined Luther, crouching down as machine gun fire raked the convoy. Luther could hear the repeated fire of the automatic cannons from the armoured cars that had been escaping the infantry convoy. Deep explosions from the Commonwealth buildings suggested that several Boy’s anti-tank rifles had been brought to bear on the SS column, the powerful .55 inch rounds would tear through man and machine with no problem. The Germans couldn’t do much as they were spread out and forced in to cover. They had two rifle companies flanking them, but Luther had no idea if they were being engaged or not, and he couldn’t count on them for support. He had no idea what had happened to any other members of the HQ, and Luther paused for a moment, allowing the situation to dawn on him.

He didn’t have much, six men to attempt to retake an entire square, but it was a start. First things first, they needed to move to a better location. Carefully, Luther crawled forwards on his stomach, the field grey of his blouse quickly picking up a layer of crap from the ground. But he saw what he wanted. The buildings either side of Luther were about five storeys tall. But the bottom corner of one had a large hole blown in to the side, more than large enough for several men to charge through. By now, the men in his piece of cover had returned to their senses, beginning to return fire towards one of the buildings. Luther dragged himself back in to cover, and his fingers found the smoke grenade on his webbing. Over the sound of gunfire, Luther made his plan clear to the squad around him. “We need to advance in to the building, start to drive them out. I’ll deploy smoke, keep firing until we have a thick cloud, and then we’ll advance. I’ll need cover now to get the grenade out.”

After various forms of affirmation, Luther let his MP40 collapse on its sling he pulled out the smoke grenade, holding the arm down, and pulling the pin. He judged the distance he would need to throw, a good fifteen metres. Nodding to himself, he shouted out, “covering fire!”
As every rifle and sub-machine gun in cover opened up, Luther stood up, took half a pace forward, and swung the smoke grenade in an over-arm motion, before ducking back below cover. In the open, the grenade sparked before beginning to pump out smoke. Luther took up a firing position prone on the rubble as he waited for the cloud to thicken. Machine gun fire raked low overhead, kicking up dust and stone chips from the ground. Luther fired a few bursts back, but it wasn’t overly effective.

As the smoke thickened, aid came in the form of an armoured car, turning its cannon on to the machine gun in question and pummelling the window until fire stopped. Luther took his chance, scooping his gear up and shouting out “move, move, move!” Sprinting through the smoke, he heard the whizzing of bullets raking through, trying to find targets. To Luther’s right, a large explosion rang out, followed by a few more all around, as mortar fire rained down from above. He quickened his pace, boots slapping the ground violently as he cleared the last few metres of uneven ground, bringing up his MP40 as he reached the doorway.

He span in, weapon in shoulder, searching for targets, but the room was empty, save for a Bren gun flung in the corner, next to the parts of what looked like three Australian soldiers. Luther stopped, dropping to one knee to cover the room as more Germans poured in, many had taken the smoke as a chance and what looked like half a platoon was running in, full of mixed ranks and mixed weaponry.

[Christopher J. D'Dario]

(OOC: Hope you don't mind a little Italian support.)

It was bad enough that they had been pulled out of their warm barracks and packed into small, uncomfortable trucks and driven for hours. It was also bad enough to be working directly under the Germans again, following their orders and listening to their arrogant voices as they told each other how great they were. It was also pretty bad that the company was meant to be on RnR from the frontlines but instead found themselves marching along the flank of an SS Division, but what made it almost unbearable, intolerable and down right maddening, was the constant complaining of Etzio Talani. The young Soldat was new to Pelican Company, was new to the army, and in the short time he had been with them he had made it clear that this was not how he had pictured it.

Etzio had believed that they would spend every day fighting the invaders, charging down their fortifications and burning them to the ground. The boy wanted to be a hero, he wanted glory and fame and loot, and he was quite vocal about his disappointment and disapproval in their current mission. For the past half an hour he had not stopped complaining, moving up and down the lines bitching to anyone who would listen. Eventually he mad his way back up towards D’Dario, who took the opportunity to give him a quick left hook in the mouth.
“Shut up! No more complaining! Any more words out of you that aren’t important will get you another smack, understood?”
Etzio held a hand to his bloody lip but couldn’t meet his Sergente’s eyes.
“Now fall back in line and keep your eyes open.”
The boy got to his feet and rushed back to his place followed by the quite laughter of everyone around him. They had all wanted to smack him, and they were glad that it had been D’Dario to do it.

The street they were patrolling looked empty and boring. Conversation was to be kept to a minimum, another reason why Etzio had received a smack. The building on their left would give an enemy force the perfect stage for an ambush if they had gunners in all five stories, on their right however was a car park, but the buildings on the other side would be a nice spot for snipers to nest. D’Dario sent a few men forward as scouts and point walkers, he was about to order the rest of the company forward when an explosion rocked the ground followed by a mass of gunfire in the next street over. D’Dario was about to order his men into the building when a shot echoed through the car park and one of the scouts fell with a burst of red mist around him. All of a sudden hell seemed to break loose on his street as well. The scouts were caught out in the open and the gun fire from several windows would easily rip them apart.

Pelican Company returned fire on the windows of the building while Ulissie snuck around a corner to fight it out with the sniper. Machinegunner Liesuno opened up with his weapon and raked the windows with fire as D’Dario led two squads into the lower level. Kicking through a door he burst into an empty room and swung his weapon about searching for targets. More of his own men charged inside and spread out before moving to the nest room that had two men manning a machinegun. The Italians gunned down the Commonwealth gunners and continued clearing the room before moving onto the next one while outside Ulissie had picked off the sniper and was giving support from a higher vantage point.